random pictures

This post actually covers the last two weeks because I didn't include two weeks ago in last weeks post (mostly because it was a boring week).

Mira took this selfie. Isn't she gorgeous? :)

Last Saturday, Mira, Cecily and Jules piled on the bed with me while I fed Harrison. I hadn't opened the blinds yet, so it was kinda dark.

Last Sunday, I made the kids help me make dinner. Mira and Emilia chopped vegetables without chopping off a finger! That info will come in handy in the future. :) Mira took this picture because she thought her arrangement of the vegetables was pretty.

I bought this puzzle at DI for a couple of dollars and me and Mira and Cecily put it together one weekday.

I discovered a park this week that's near our house and has a bunch of fun slides for little little people. We went there 3 times this last week because Jules needs to not watch more TV and it's finally getting nice out.

Harrison's feet and legs just looked so squishy and cute in this outfit, I had to take a picture.

I thought of some more Jules-isms, which is the main reason I was motivated to make this post. First off, this picture is typical of Jules. Steve and I often find her toys in our shoes.

Also, this is a common sight these days. I walk into the bathroom to find that Jules has been "cleaning" our toilet. At least she stopped trying to use it to clean the carpet.

One Jules-ism that I can't believe I forgot last week is her use of "I can't." She is in the stage of terrible twos where if it's not her idea it's a bad idea. I could ask her if she wants chocolate and she would say no just because I had the gaul to suggest it. But the way she tells us no is hilarious. She says, "I can't like it!" instead of "I don't like it." 

So, I'll say, "Jules, do you want a banana?" and she'll respond on the verge of tears, "I can't like it!"
"But you like bananas," I'll respond.
Now she'll have big alligator tears. "NO! I can't like it!"
Sometimes she'll concede the point that at one point, she did like it by adding "anymore" at the end. "I can't like it anymore!"

Haha. She continues to be such a character.

The other one I remembered is "noise-sound." Instead of saying, "What's that noise?" she'll say, "What that noise sound, Mom?" And she'll say it all the time. When a loud car drives by our house, when the dogs next door bark, when a plane flies overhead, when the dishwasher starts rinsing, when a big construction truck drives by our van on the highway. She's a very curious kid.

She needed some attention one day this week, so I got out the duplos and we built together. Cecily and Mira were very impressed with the castle I made when they got home from school, so a picture was taken before we tore it apart.

Just a cute picture of the little man in jeans. He's been a fussy guy since birth, but we're finally figuring out most of the things that upset his tummy in my breast milk. Right now, we're at wheat, dairy, chocolate, fresh garlic, beans, broccoli, and cauliflower. Pretty much anything that gives me gas, gives him gas, too. It's getting ridiculous. I will probably stop breastfeeding soon just because I can't cook any meals that I can eat and he seems to do well on colic-sensitive formula. It's been good that I've been able to breast feed though because I think going to formula exclusively earlier would have plugged him up good. He would go three to five days without pooping for about the first month, and it would be worse when we had to supplement formula more. But he's progressively getting more regular, so I'm more confident he'll be able to handle moving to just formula.

I don't know if y'all remember my saga a few years back about losing a lot of hair. I went to regular doctors, a dermatologist, and an expensive naturopath to find out nobody had any idea why I was losing my hair. It fell out for almost 2 years after having Jules and I think the only reason it stopped was because I got pregnant with Harrison. But it fell out even while I was pregnant until the 3rd trimester.

About a month ago, I bought some expensive supplements that were supposed to increase milk supply and quality that I wasn't sure I should purchase because I wasn't sure how long I was going to be able to breast feed. But I prayed about it and felt like they would be beneficial enough to be worth the investment. Well, if I stop breastfeeding, I won't use them all up. The hidden benefit I've found, though, is that they've made my hair stop falling out! They are worth the money just for that!

Jules is still fascinated with glasses. She found an old pair I still haven't taken to someplace that takes them (because I don't know where one of those places is).

And a picture proving that Steve changes poopy diapers, even in his church clothes. :D

Hope y'all have a wonderful week!

Easter, Spring Break, Jules-isms, and newborn photos

Oy. It's been like a month since I did a post. I guess having a newborn is time-consuming. :) I was going to post last week, but decided I should process the newborn photos of Harrison that I took weeks ago and that took up all of my free time.

I really doubt I'm going to remember many details from 4 weeks ago. So I'll just explain the pictures this week. :)

Megan and her family came the week after Harrison was born. They came here for a couple of the days and went to my mom's for a couple of the days. We hosted the Sunday family dinner so we wouldn't have to haul all the stuff somewhere else. Babies require a lot of baggage!

Ben and Haylee's baby, Owen is about 6 months old and a bit of a chubby guy. It was funny to see him and Harrison next to each other.

We got a cousins picture since we hadn't gotten one in a couple of years. The oldest is holding the youngest here. Fourteen in total.

I took this picture to show my writing group how little Harrison was. He's grown a ton since then. From his 2 week appointment to when I took him in for the doctor to look at a rash 2 weeks later, he gained over 2 pounds.

I think part of the rapid weight gain was due to his tummy troubles. He would just fuss and fuss and fuss all day, sleeping only 30 minutes every couple of hours. He was gassy and spitting up and gagging and wheezing and arching his back every time he ate. But he wanted to eat every 1-2 hours, I think because it temporarily made his stomach feel better. It was exhausting. He also got a rash and all the hair on the top of his head fell out. Hence the trip to the doctor's office--which was totally unhelpful. They said it was cradle cap and baby acne. Since when does baby acne travel down the torso and onto the arm, legs, hands and feet? *sigh*

I stopped eating milk and chocolate and completely cut out wheat (I was already mostly gluten-free, but would cheat once a week or so). We also put him on a different, anti-colic formula. His rash is getting better and he's sleeping a lot more. But his hair is only barely starting to grow back. You can see how much he lost in this picture. *sad face*

Harrison's Nana and aunts and cousins were only too happy to help him sleep.

My mom helped the girls make sock bunnies. They all turned out cute and it was so interesting to see how they each put their own flair on the idea.

This was Mira's birthday list she made for her Nana. I thought it was cute. (Sorry it's upside down).

Jules found the dress up necklaces and decided to put them all on at once the other day. When she tried to take them off, she was pulling different necklaces in opposite directions, so of course they wouldn't go over her head. With a very concerned voice/face, she exclaimed, "Oh dear! I stuck!"

Not as skinny as when he was first born.

She likes crawling into our collapsible laundry baskets.

One Saturday morning, Mira buried Cecily in the sand box in our yard that hasn't been used since we moved in. Except maybe by the cat. So gross. They got showers as soon as they came inside.

I thought it was funny that he fell asleep like this. Sitting up in my lap with his elbow up by his ear.

One day it was ridiculously windy--like 25 mile-an-hour winds. The line of houses across the street to the north backs up to open fields and our house backs up to the community greenway. Since the mountains around here are covered in sage, it dries up, rolls into the fields, and on this particular day, got blown through the houses across the street and through the greenway in our back yard. It was like a tumbleweed stampede. But there was one house that the winds kind of whipped around instead of whipping through. It took the tumble weeds and piled them up on their front porch. They were like six feet high all along the front of their house. Steve and Mira and Emilia were good neighbors and went to help them unbury themselves.

I caught a rare picture of the solitary creature called Emilia. She's reading and petting her cat.

This was from the doctor's office. Cecily and Jules and now Harrison all made/make this face when attempting to poop. We call it the "poop face" and it cracks me up.

The kids had Spring Break two weeks ago and we decided to spend the first part of it in St. George with Grandma and Grandpa. Cindy and Joe and their kids decided to join us and we all slept in the same house! It was quite a party.

General Conference was that weekend, so we watched that on Saturday and the kids swam during the second session. That night Wilda sponsored an Easter egg hunt for the kids, since the next day was also Easter. Emilia and Haley decided to opt out of hunting and instead hid the eggs. There was only one that was never found. :) Jules thought it was all great fun and there was LOTS of candy eaten by all.

Sunday we watched Conference again. The Coombs' went to the other side of the family's Easter festivities, and swimming was not allowed, so it was a much quieter day. Cecily got Grandpa to play a ton of games with her and she was in heaven.

I had to laugh. Grandpa taught Cecily how to play foosball because he has a table in his family room. She played one game with him and "won." She then asked her daddy if he would come play. Steve said, "Oh, you want me to come be on your team?" and she replied, "No, Grandpa needs you on his team." Haha. I love kids.

Wilda went all out and made homemade spaghetti noodles for our dinner one night. We even got gluten free ones to work.

It was a wonderful weekend all around. I'm glad we got to go, because the next week, they found out that they officially get to go to their mission at the beginning of May. (They had been serving their mission as best they could remotely until they were able to get vaccines.) Jules skipped her nap on Tuesday to get a little more swimming in and I had to make a head sling for her out of one of her blankies on our drive home so she didn't have a 3-hour crick in her neck.

I wanted to record some Jules-isms before I forget them as well.

She is just as stubborn as always. Now she's taken to saying, "No, GO WAY!" and then running the other direction when she doesn't want to listen to us. It's not always the logical response either which makes it funnier. For example, she may say it after we say, "It's time to shut off your show now." But she's also just as likely to say it when we ask, "Do you want grapes or a banana with your lunch?"

She tells people regularly that it was "20 minutes ago." Like she'll ask to call Nana and as soon as Nana answers, Jules will say, "Nana! Twenty minutes ago!" She can never tell us what happened 20 minutes ago though. She just likes saying it.

She says "mine" instead of "my." So, "That's mine blankie." Or, "Mom, look at mine hat!" She says it so often that we often respond with "yourn" because our brains have started translating it as normal speech. "It is yourn hat!"

She makes this noise whenever she exerts any minimal amount of physical effort. Like when she jumps or climbs onto a chair or puts something on the table. So like 100 times a day. It sounds kind of like, "Huh!" if you're saying it with a karate chop.

Harrison is "Baby Bruddah." She thinks he's great, which I'm surprised about. She tries to take care of him and shares her blankie with him when he's crying. If he's sleeping in the other room and then starts crying, she often jumps up from what she's doing and cries, "Oh no! Baby bruddah!" and runs to give him his binkie (which she calls a pinkie).

That's all I can think of for now.

I will leave you with a link to the newborn photos of Harrison. Grandmas, they should be high quality enough to print if you want to download any of them. For the record, my favorite are teh squishy-faced ones. He makes that face a lot. :)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17ywloCUJknzNFHi33uKH1iU7kMV5nh4D