Baby Girl Update :) 5 months!

The little misses of the house is getting bigger and cuter everyday.  Some cool things that she's done as of late... She rolled over for the first time at four months old.  She has done it maybe a total of three times this past month.  So it hasn't taken off, but she's done it.  She can also sit up on her own for quite awhile.   She's not to where I can just leave her in a room sitting up, but she can sit up pretty good with me close by to catch her after she's tired.  She has been introduced to oatmeal and rice cereal, but still does not do too well with the spoon.  Hopefully soon she will get a better hang of it, especially because she gets to start veggies and fruits in less than a month. :)
Makenna is such a nice, calm, pleasant baby.  She is soo easy.  She is content and hardly ever cries.  As long as she is not tired or hungry she is as happy as they come.  She has the biggest, brightest smile and when she gets excited she does what we have termed the "chicken dance."  She moves her head and body back and forth with excitement and smiles.  She has laughed a couple times, but mostly just smiles.  She has also started to baby talk a lot more.  Mostly to herself, like if she wakes up in the middle of the night or she is being left alone during the day (which does not happen often with her hands-on big brother!) but if she is alone she will talk away.  She doesn't talk much to any of us yet though!  She is such a good girl and we all love her so much.
Four month shot:

Her doctor was on vacation for the holidays so we were not able to get her in for her four month check up until she was just a few days away from 5 months.  At her appointment she weighed 14 pounds 4 ounces and was 23 1/2 inches long.  This put her in the 50th percentile for both height and weight.  So she is a nice average baby!
Here is her five month shot:

The poor baby caught her first cold.  Noah was never sick until he was like 19 months old, but she's already been sick.  It was sad to hear her all congested especially at night.  She is starting to get better though.  We had our first taste of "family" sickness.  All four of us had some kind of cold and felt yucky.  Luckily we are on the mend.  I love my baby girl so much...and her brother too, of course! :)

Noah Update

Just a quick update on the little man of the house.  First, I can't believe he will be three years old in less than three months.  WOW!  That just blows my mind that he is growing up so fast.  He is still super smart and talking more and learning more everyday.  He is now starting to learn his letter sounds and can count to 20.  He has a weird fascination with watching youtube videos of people and kids showing their "Cars" toys collections.  He is seriously obsessed with the movie Cars.  Disneyland's California Adventure is opening a "Car's Land" May of this year and I think we will have to save and take him soon!
Here are my three loves...watching a previously mentioned youtube video before bedtime! ha ha

Here is a picture of him yesterday, super sick...can't hardly tell huh? :)  He had to have his blanket and Bear Bear with him pretty much all day.

He had many fevers, which caused him to deliriously fall asleep in my arms three days in a row and in the DAY time nonetheless...which is VERY weird for Noah because he doesn't require much sleep ever...and he never falls asleep in my arms anymore.  He's way too busy for that!  So it was a sure sign he is not well right now.   He has been congested, runny nose, watery eyes, AND after taking him to the doctor discovered he has his very first ear infection.  Poor guy.  At the doctor we found out he weighed a whopping 26 pounds.  He is such a skinny little guy! And he was 33 1/2 inches long.   At least that is what I think the nurse said, because he was crying very loudly the entire time they were trying to get his measurements.  He was in pain and didn't feel good and was making sure everyone at the doctor's office knew it. :)
This past Sunday night, He FINALLY went potty in the toilet for the first time.  After many, many, MANY failed attempts which consisted of him sitting on or standing next to the toilet for minutes and then as soon as we gave up trying, he'd run and go pee on the floor in the living room... he finally had his first success.  The little stinker.  He had been "randomly" asking for a few days if he could please go to "Cabellas."  Yes, he is all boy.  I kept telling him, "no not today, not today, not today" for a few days straight.  Well he asked again one night before bed and I said, "Noah if you go potty in the potty I will take you to Cabellas."  So then after being totally against the potty and stubborn with potty training he said, "Okay, I want to go in the potty."  It still took a couple of minutes, but finally SUCCESS!! The sound of pee hitting the toilet water, never sounded so sweet! :)  So hopefully we can get him potty trained soon.  Of course he has been super sick and has not made it to his victorious Cabella's trip, but I will take him as soon as he is better.
Also a couple weeks ago...Noah was able to meet up with his friend's Charli and Ella (the daughters of a couple of my friends from college) at the park and to feed the ducks for the very first time! He loved it and has asked to go back many times since!

It is so different hanging out with little girls than little boys.  Noah is mostly around boys his age and they are always so rough and tough with each other.  It was nice to hang with calm, soft, little girls for a change!
I sure love this kid!

Some Favorite Noah moments:

• After saying it a few times to Noah (and in proper English because I am a teacher and can't help myself because the movie says "you is", instead of "you are").  Noah constantly repeats the following lines from the movie The Help: "You are kind" "You are smart" "You are important"  He tells Tommy and I this almost everyday!
• He is constantly telling Tommy and I that he, "sure loves us."  He says, "I love you," all the time.  In fact Tommy had taken him to Lowes one Saturday and in the check out line he said very loudly for everyone to hear, "Daddy, I sure love you." Then of course everyone around doted on him. :)
• He recently told my brother Jeffrey, "Jeff, Grandma Timmons is mommy's mom."
• My mom was talking to Tommy and called him by his name.  Noah corrected her by saying, "No, grandma don't call daddy, Tommy."   She responded, "Well what should I call him then?"  He said, "Daddy." :)

Thanksgiving and Christmas!

This past Thanksgiving we were able to spend in Tucson with Tommy's family.  Tommy's mom made a delicious dinner and we had a great time visiting with family.  Noah was able to play with his cousin Morgan and we had a great time.  I am sad to say I didn't get any pictures! Especially since it was Makenna's first Thanksgiving.  She looked super cute that day too! Darn it!
For Christmas we stayed home.  My mom and step dad always go to Colorado for Christmas.  Both sets of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and even my Dad live there.  So it's definitely fun to be there for the holidays, but with two small children it is much easier to stay home.  We had a Christmas get together with my mom the week before Christmas and exchanged gifts with our draw name person, we ordered pizza, watched some Christmas shows, and ate Christmas goodies.  It was a good time and we had some good laughs.  The Starits' family drew my little brother Jeffrey.  We gave him a Perry the Platypus t-shirt and an i-tunes gift card. He loved the shirt.  He happened to draw our family too.  He gave Noah a tin of popcorn decorated with the movie Car's.  Noah was soo excited.  It also came with a little puzzle that turned into a little track for a wind up Lightning McQueen car.  He could not stop playing with it the rest of the night.  He wouldn't even stop long enough to open other presents! Which is pretty much how his Christmas was.  He loved every Cars related toy he got and just wanted to play with them and not finish the rest of his presents. Tom and I received movie tickets and we are excited to use them.
This is what Makenna looked like that night:

I take the kid's to our town's Library Storytime at least once a week.  Before Christmas they planned to have Santa come, crafts, and cookies.  It was fun.  Noah would not sit on his lap with Makenna...but then warmed up enough to go on his own.  He was still pretty weary of him the whole time.  Have to love the nice Buckeye Library's Santa! ha ha

We hosted Christmas Eve dinner at our house for Tom's family.  It was a fun time! We ate lunch, exchanged many awesome gifts, and ate some more Christmas goodies.  It was a very nice visit.
We usually open a gift Christmas Eve, but Noah was having so much fun with his gifts from Tommy's family we decided it wasn't necessary!  I would like to set up opening a traditional gift on Christmas Eve, but have not decided quite yet what I want that to be.  Noah and I set out cookies and milk for Santa and then went to bed.  I was hoping Noah would be more excited for Santa this year that he was a bit older, but I don't think he still really grasped the concept. lol  Hopefully next year.  In fact on Christmas morning when he woke up to see all the new presents under the tree and the cookies and milk gone....he was completely unbelieving.  He is two years old and was not fooled.  We are in trouble.  This is how his Christmas morning conversation went down with Daddy.
Daddy: "Noah! Look, look under the tree, Santa brought you presents!"
Noah: "Nooo, that was mommy."
Daddy:  "No, no it wasn't it was Santa!"
Noah:  "Noo, it was mommy, daddy.
Daddy: "No it was Santa.  Look he drank the milk you left and ate the cookies!"
Noah:  "No, mommy ate them."
LOL!  He was SOUND asleep when Santa put the presents under the tree, so I am not sure what to think about it.  He is too young to not believe!  We really reiterated all day that certain gifts were from Santa and I think he finally started to believe us.  I am telling you, this kid is way to smart for his age!
Christmas was on a Sunday so we attended church for a wonderful one hour program of the choir putting on a beautiful Christmas program with beautiful music.  It was very nice...even the part where I had to take Noah out in the hall because he was being loud and not listening to his mommy. ha ha  You have to love two year olds!
Here is the only picture I could snag of Noah that morning.  He was just too excited with his new toys!

Makenna's First Christmas Morning!

It was a wonderful Christmas.  Money was extra tight this Christmas so Tommy and I opted to not get each other gifts and just the kids.  However, we received awesome gifts from his parents and grandparents, and my Dad!  Then, my mom surprised us with many awesome gifts to put under the tree and even ones from Santa so that Tom and I could have a "Christmas morning" as well.  Which is why you should never tell your mom you are struggling around Christmas!  They can't help, but step in and make it better, even when you are grown up and married! :)  It was a wonderful surprise and helped make our Christmas more special.
Also, my mom's mom, "Grandma Morgan" has always given us a handmade Christmas gift every year from when we were a new born baby and still today.  Never a store bought gift from her, just one homemade gift, and I have always loved it.  She never went out and spent tons of money, but instead gave a gift made with her hands and crafted with love.  I have received things from homemade play-dough, quillows, pot holder car emergency kits, embroidered pillow cases, Christmas ornaments, flannel board stories, and the list goes on.  I am 26 years old and have received a special homemade gift every year.  And this is no simple feat.  My grandma has 25 grandkids, 2 great grandkids, 12 kids including spouses, and then 2 grandkid  in laws, and she makes EVERY one a homemade gift.  What a special lady.  Even now that she has lupus, recovering from breast cancer, and getting older she still does this.  I would take her homemade gifts over tons of expensive gifts anytime.  This year she made me a binder full of  "Grandma's Favorite Recipes"  I LOVED it!!!  I will cherish that and her many other gifts forever and I am happy to have them to always remember her by.  Needless to say we had an amazing Christmas 2011.
Family Christmas Picture

Baby Update!

Makenna is getting bigger and bigger.  At her 2 month check up she was 12 pounds 4 ounces and 21 1/2 inches.  This put her in the 75th percentile! The highest Noah ever was...was the 25th percentile! lol.  She is still a pretty good baby.  I feel bad because she always seems to be gassy.  Hopefully as she gets older her stomach will get stronger and she will be able to handle milk better.  Her 2nd month was spent just getting bigger.  She did smile a lot more and laughed a couple of times.  At two months Daddy was the first to make her laugh.  There was something that happened ONCE and then never again, but was pretty cool.  My mom and brother Jeff were talking to her and they kept saying "Hiii,"  "Hii,"  to her....well sure enough if she did not say "Hiiii" right back.  I am not joking at two months old! lol  If I did not have them as witnesses I don't think anybody would have believed me.  Of course she has never even come close to doing something like that again, but I think she said her first word at two months old! lol She also started wanting to be standing on her feet a bit more.

At three months she started reaching for toys and trying to put toys and her blankets in her mouth. :)  She is always sucking on her hands and is already a slobber bucket just like her brother was.  She is a joy! Here's her three month shot and then one of her helping daddy with homework.

 Noah is doing good too.  He helps me with his sister by playing with her and talking to her.  He thinks in order to talk to Makenna he has to be as close to her face as possible though.  And he is often pulling on her arms and hands a bit rougher than I would like.  But she is a trooper and tries to get him back...take a look. She is already holding her own! :) ha ha

Noah is learning more every day and talking even more too.  The other day he told me, "Mom I love you so much."  It warmed my heart.  He has recently learned what the words man, woman, boy, and girl mean.  And he is such a trickster.  With a mischievous smile he says mom, you are a man and daddy's a woman.  Then he laughs because he knows he got it wrong. He jokes with things like that all of the time.  He is a sweet kid who loves to joke around.

It is soo hard trying to get pictures of them both looking at the camera and smiling.  Hopefully for Christmas cards we will be able to get at least one!  I love my children sooo much!

Tithing and Gratitude

As of late our family has been blessed tremendously!  Tommy and I have so much to be thankful for and we have a wonderful story of the blessings of tithing that happened to us recently.   I really feel that I should be home with my kiddos.  I want to be home with them and I feel that Heavenly Father wants me to be home with them too.  Especially from when they are babies until they go off to school.  I figure I won't ever get that time back and I want to enjoy it while it is here.  I can always go back to work in the future and definitely plan to when my youngest goes off to school!  However, and of course, the decision for me to stay home also meant that I would be decreasing our income from two people bringing in money to just one.  However, we made our decision and noticed that we were blessed in many ways and things worked out very well for us the first year or so that I've been home.  Tommy was making good commission and I was able to substitute teach here and there and I was tutoring.  This little extra bit helped and we were doing pretty well.  Well suddenly we had some extra expenses, Tommy was not making very good commission, and I had a baby and could not substitute teach.  So we were definitely stretched.  Well at the beginning of the year Tommy and I made the decision that we would pay a FULL and honest tithe.  We have always tried to be full tithe payers, but had missed tithing on a few pay checks here and there in the past.  It was mostly due to forgetfulness, but nevertheless. Well we resolved to not let that happen ever again.  So even on weeks where we forgot and had to double up the next pay check's tithing with the one before, we still made sure that we paid it.  It was hard at times, but we immediately began to see blessings...especially in those of having enough money for me to continue to stay home.  Things were going great from January to October.  However, in October we really started to struggle.  Money was getting tighter and tighter and I was stressing out.  I had even applied to work nights from home with U-Haul.  We had to continue to dip into our savings and our savings was slowly starting to deplete.  I was very worried and could not help, but feel freaked out.  Tommy and I were both praying that we would be okay.  One time I was feeling extra stressed and was trying hard not to grumble.  I got on my knees and as I was praying the lyrics to a church hymn came to my mind.  The hymn is Because I Have Been Given Much.  This part of the song came to mind during my prayer:

"Because I have been given much, I too must give.  Because of Thy great bounty Lord each day I live.  My glowing fire, my loaf of bread, my roof's safe shelter over head..." 

 I immediately felt repentant for grumbling.  I had food to eat, warm clothes, and a beautiful house to live in.  I resolved to put faith in God and to be thankful for the MANY things I had been given in my life.  Soon after that, Tommy got paid and even though it would completely WIPE out his pay check and then some, we still paid tithing.  I had to keep telling myself, "faith proceeds the miracle, faith proceeds the miracle." LOL  :)   Well a couple days after we paid it Tommy received a call from one of the higher ups of Chase Bank, where he works.  She said that she had an opening for a position and for some reason could just not get him out of her head.  She said that he had the particular skills that she needed and asked if he was interested.  This job would GREATLY increase our income.  Tommy was thrilled and said he was very interested.  A week later he was hired!  What a blessing!!!!  And we feel it is a particular blessing of paying a full tithe.  We will now have MORE than enough money.  I will just need to remember that other part to the hymn..."Because I have been given much, I TOO MUST GIVE!"  And that is definitely the plan.
Needless to say this Thanksgiving we had even more than usual to be thankful for.  We are so thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who is watching over us.  He blesses us everyday in more ways then we can imagine and this is just one of those BIG HUGE blessings too.  We are indeed a thankful family!

Because I Have Been Given Much

Fun in Tucson!

The last weekend of October was a lot of fun for our family.  Tommy's sister Heather and her family came all the way down from Montana to visit.  Noah had a BLAST with his cousin Sawyer who is just 8 months older than him.  They played all day and had a great time!  Sawyer has a real sweet smile and both boys were definitely smiling most of the time they played together.

Sawyer tried to show Noah how to use the potty like a big boy, but nevertheless my son although slightly more intrigued still has no interest in being potty trained.  Hopefully soon! We went to Tucson with them and the first night celebrated our niece Baylee's 14th birthday.  I met this girl when she was 5 years old and can't believe she is 14 already.  What a sweet, beautiful girl she is and always has been.  Time definitely flies by.
Here she is with Makenna!

At the party Tommy's brother Johnny and his family came over and Noah was able to play with his cousin Morgan as well.  She is around 22 months old and a sweet little cutie too. Look at her precious smile. I definitely have some good looking nieces and nephew! :)

Then that Saturday we celebrated the 60th Anniversary of Tommy's Grandparents.  I love his Grandparents, they are such great people.  And I especially love how they are still very much in love, flirt with each other, and tease each other after so many years of marriage.  I love it and hope to be the same way in 60 years with my hubby! See what I mean...

We all had a really great time and were sad for all of the fun to end! ;)  We were able to get a few other great pictures from the day.  Including just Tommy's parent's grandkids and all of the Starits' family.

Plus look at the super cute shot of my little man! He is so handsome.

I also love this one with Makenna and her great Grandma Mehringer.  So sweet!  It was a great weekend for sure!

Happy Halloween 2011!

We had a low key Halloween this year.  We were unable to attend our ward's Trunk or Treat this year because of some other family things going on so all we did was trick or treat on the 31st.  Tommy was feeling pretty sick and so I took the kids over to my moms.  Grandma and Makenna walked down her street with Noah and I and then Noah and I did a few more blocks on our own.  He was super cute.  He said, "Trick or Treat" and "Thank you" to every person.  It was funny because at first he was not sure what was going on and when the first person we went to, opened their front door he proceeded to let himself in.  I had to grab him real quick!  After that he caught on pretty quick to the trick or treating gig.  He loved looking at all of the other kids around and said hi to most of the people that crossed our path.  He was given many compliments about how beautiful, cute, and charming he was...he was one cute, scary pirate! :)  We decided to have him be a pirate this year because as you can tell from the picture below he can put on a dang good pirate face, "Arrr!"  After each house he would say, "Let's go to another persons house now."  It was cute.  Also, even though his candy bucket was getting heavy, he refused to let me hold it.  I think he was afraid I would eat some of his candy!  Which I already have of course! ;)

Makenna was cute in her ghost Halloween onesie and bow.  She had fun passing out candy with Grandma and Papa Timmons.  Or at least she was "passed out" while they passed out candy! I think she enjoyed her first Halloween. :)

I love my two little cuties!