Naomi is potty-trained!!!

We were finally successful in potty training Naomi!  She's been potty trained for about a month now, but I'm behind on blogging as usual.  Anyway, I'd tried two or three times before this last attempt, but I never even lasted a full day before giving up.  This last time, I was determined, and Naomi finally seemed ready.  The first day sucked, and half of the second sucked, but by about noon on the second day, she had it!  We used a sticker chart to motivate Naomi, and it was all that was needed--that girl LOVES stickers!!

I made it myself... it's so pretty, right???

She was pretty much potty trained in a day and a half--I think she had maybe one accident the third day, and that was it.  It took a few more days to fill her sticker chart, and then I took her on the carousel at the mall as her prize.  Another thing Naomi LOVES is riding the carousel.

Naomi has stopped being good at posing for pictures... she won't smile anymore.  She will usually say "Cheese", but then the pictures turn out like this. haha

I didn't have my camera along, so a blurry phone pic will have to do!

Yay, Naomi!!  And hooray that we don't have to deal with potty training & accidents after we move into our place in St. Louis with its brand new floors & carpets...until we potty train Aleta, that is!

Naomi's Birthday Party

We had Naomi's birthday party this weekend at Jacob's parents' house.  Naomi was SO excited for her party.  She'd been talking all week about her birthday party, and birthday balloons, and birthday cake... and she loved it all, of course!  Especially being the center of attention.  We did an Easter egg hunt for the kids--Aleta loved being outside but didn't care at all about the eggs.  But Naomi loved gathering the eggs and putting them in her basket.

Naomi got some boas and dress-up shoes for her dress-up center, a Disney Princess stamp set, and a bunch of new clothes that my parents sent from Pennsylvania.  Thanks everybody!!

I didn't get a ton of pictures, but here are a few!

 

My lame decorations... haha

 

 

And a video or two...

3 years ago...

Three years ago, I became a mother.  I loved my tiny 5 pound, 11 ounce baby!

I can't believe Naomi is 3 years old today.  I still think of her as my little baby, but when I look at these pictures, she looks so grown up.

Naomi talks ALL the time.  I took her out for a little birthday outing today to pick out cupcakes and run a few errands, and Naomi was talking constantly when we were out.  Driving in the car, this is what I heard from the backseat, "Look!  Trees!  More trees!  Lots of trees!  Look!  Cars!  Lots of cars!  Look!  A truck!  It's a bus?  A yellow bus!  Where's Daddy?  I miss Daddy.  Let's go home and see Daddy and Aleta.  We're getting cupcakes?  Yummy cupcakes!  Birthday pancakes? (that is what she calls birthday cake/cupcakes) *yawn* I'm really tired.  Omi is really tired.  Ouch! (as we go over a tiny bump)  That hurt Omi!  Are we going to the store?  I'm hungry!  I want a yummy dinner!  Look!  Trees!  Oh, the trees are gone.  We need to buy some more!"  ("buy some more" is her solution for every problem.)

Naomi knows all of her capital letters.  She can count to 14 or so and recognizes some of the numbers.  She knows most of the basic colors.  She knows circles and triangles and can draw circles but needs help drawing triangles.  She LOVES puzzles.  And bubbles.  And building towers with her blocks, or cans of food, or boxes, or anything else that she can stack.  She also loves throwing/catching a ball, kicking her soccer ball, coloring, slides & swings, having dance parties, playing baseball & tennis on the Wii, reading (sometimes), and singing songs.  Oh, and she loves watching tv and movies, but we are trying to steer her away from that!  She is still a terrible eater most of the time, but she does love pizza, spaghetti, her Granddaddy's spanish rice, chocolate, cookies, chips, & ice cream.  And lately, green beans.  She ate an entire can by herself for lunch the other day.  So, if it is a food she likes AND is in the mood for, she'll eat really well.  Otherwise, forget it!  She's not touching it.

Naomi playing baseball on the Wii.  (She dressed herself on this particular day, in case you were wondering about her outfit!)

Naomi has a very specific bedtime routine, and if we forget even one little thing and put her to bed without it, she will stand by her bedroom door crying until we come back in and do the thing we forgot.  Her routine goes something like this:  We change her diaper & get her into pajamas.  We brush her teeth, and wash her hands, and she points to the red & green food coloring in the bathroom cabinet. (We use it to make bathtime a little more fun!)  Then we go in her room and put together her alphabet puzzle and sometimes her number puzzle (but half of the pieces are missing, so we just do as much as we can).  Then we read books (she becomes very attached to library books for this part of her routine.  When we have to take her books back, she chooses a few of the new library books as her "bedtime books").  Then we sing songs, in this order:  Popcorn Popping, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Once There Was a Snowman.  Then we say prayers, lay down to snuggle, and she spells her name while pointing to the wooden letters on her wall.  When she's had enough snuggling, she gives us kisses and hugs, and we cover her with her blankie (making sure she also has her hippo and her little mermaid magnet), and she will finally go to bed.

Naomi treats her hippo like her baby... this was after she changed his "stinky diaper". 

Naomi is such a good big sister.  She loves "Tah-ee" SO much.  She has recently started sometimes calling Aleta something that sounds a lot more like "Aleta" instead of "Tah-ee", and it makes me a little sad.  I think it's cute hearing Naomi's little nickname for Aleta.  Naomi and Aleta play together all the time, running around and laughing and chasing each other.  (The video is from November, but it's still cute!)

Naomi is such a fun little girl.  She is incredibly energetic and always has to be busy doing something and running around, which is why she doesn't always love reading--she just doesn't want to sit still long enough to read a story.  I love that she is old enough now to have conversations with me.  She makes me laugh all the time.

I love you, my beautiful Naomi-girl!!

 

Busy, Busy, Busy!

That's what I would tell you if you asked me how we have been lately... we have been SO busy!!  I have been working two part-time babysitting jobs, one during the day and one in the evening (and the daytime job has somehow turned into full-time lately), and it has made my life a thousand times crazier.  Three weeks ago, I worked 53 hours and went two full days without seeing my girls (oh my, that was so hard!!), and last week, I worked 47 hours.  It has made cooking and cleaning and laundry pretty much impossible, so Jacob has taken over a lot of the cleaning for me.  Luckily, he had a 3-week break from school and has been able to help me out a ton.  But he went back to school on Monday of this week, so I don't know how we are going to survive now!  Stay tuned, because I'm sure it will be interesting. :)

Last week, our friend Angela came to visit for a few days!  She is one of my old roommates from BYU (and also Jacob's ex-girlfriend... but that's a story for another day!).  We had a lot of fun, even though she was only here for 3 days.  We tried out the lake/beach area at Stephen's Lake Park here in Columbia.  Somehow, we even got Naomi to get into the lake and play in the water a little bit!  I think I've mentioned that she has an awful fear of water when it's in a lake, or a pool, or a splash park, or pretty much anywhere other than a bathtub or sink.  So we were shocked that we were successful in coaxing her into the water!  She had a moment when she fell face-first into the water and I was afraid it was going to ruin our progress, but it ended up being ok.

Aleta, in her cute HUGE hat.  (I couldn't find the baby hat!)

 

Naomi, nervously eyeing the water.

I don't know what Naomi is doing here, but it made me laugh. :)

At least Naomi smiled for this one, even if she didn't look at the camera!

Angela's first experience with Steak 'n Shake!

Smiling at Daddy

Me & Ang, about to leave for the airport.

Jacob & I went to his 10-year high school reunion a couple weekends ago, which was a major letdown for him.  First, they held it in a bar, which is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard.  That's just trashy.  I get that they're all from some small hick town in Missouri, but come on!  Couldn't they have even tried to make it a little more classy?  The bar smelled SO badly like cigarette smoke that I felt like I needed a shower as soon as I got home to wash the stink off of me.  And it was so loud that Jacob and I had to literally scream at each other to be heard, even though we were sitting right beside each other.  That's not exactly the atmosphere I would think people would want at a reunion, when they are trying to catch up with friends they haven't seen in years. And there wasn't even close to enough room for everyone who came--they didn't rent out the bar, so it wasn't just reunion people there.  They had maybe 12 tables reserved, which filled up quickly.  By the time Jacob & I left, our table was surrounded by people who were standing because there wasn't anywhere left to sit.  And once it got crowded, we never saw our waitress again, so it took us close to 45 minutes to track her down so we could pay for our 2 sodas and leave.  It was awful.  I'd never been to a bar before, and from what I saw, I don't think I have been missing anything!  We wanted to make the most of our night out (since it's the first date night we've had in a long time) so we stopped at IHOP on the way home to have a delicious dinner.  I had chocolate chip pancakes (made with chocolate batter), and Jacob had stuffed French toast.  Yum!!

I think Jacob jabbed me in the side or tickled me or something.

About to leave for the reunion.

Last Friday, we attended a Convocation Ceremony for Jacob at Mizzou, where the people entering his major (nuclear medicine) and a few other majors in the health professions got a pin & recited some oath.  It wasn't the most exciting thing in the world, but Jacob has had to work EXTREMELY hard to get to this point, and I'm really glad we went to the ceremony.  It was an excuse for me to wear a dress & get all dolled up, and I was proud to see Jacob walk across the stage, even if it was just for a silly pin.  I'm so proud of Jacob and the way that he has handled certain experiences that he has unfortunately had to go through in the past year.  Let's be honest--the world can suck a lot of the time, and things are unfair, but Jacob handles all of the crappiness like a pro.  My husband is awesome!  (pictures from the ceremony to come in a future post)

Naomi has been busy being a typical 2-year-old... she enjoys throwing thirty tantrums a day, refusing to eat anything but snacks, and waking up Aleta when I have FINALLY gotten her down for her nap.  She is beautiful and funny, and she has been talking more and more.  She loves to give hugs... she will randomly jump up from where she is sitting, yell "HUG!!", and throw her arms around me.  Or Jacob.  Or Aleta.  Or even Hippo.  She jumped up from her chair in the living room one day, yelled "Hug!", and ran right past both Jacob and me before picking Hippo up from where he was laying on the floor and giving him a big hug.   She can match up colors, and she counts to 8... after 8, she just starts repeating "one" or "two" over & over.  She is definitely a cutie!

For some reason, Naomi squints & kinda scrunches up her face when she says, "Cheese!".

Trying to steal the camera from me... those are chip crumbs all over her face, in case you were wondering!

Aleta has been crawling around for a few weeks now.  She army crawls mostly, or scoots backwards, but she can pretty much get around to anywhere she wants to go.  She is still a really happy baby, and she is usually content to play on the floor and entertain herself.  Naomi was never that way, so I am loving it!  She still eats like a pro--she downs everything I give her.  She hasn't been sleeping so great for me lately, but I guess she has to have one flaw... haha.

Before she could really crawl forward much, she was playing on the floor one day and crawled/scooted backward across the living room until she had backed herself into this spot!  She got stuck between the couch and the wall and couldn't get out!

 

8-month photos

Happy girl!!

As for me, I've been working pretty much nonstop, like I said earlier.  I am not used to being a mother and a wife and working full-time hours, and I am having a rough time finding a balance!  The baby I watch during the day has been very needy lately... and she has the worst separation anxiety I've ever seen.  She screams bloody murder if I leave the room or even walk too far from her (basically, if I get farther than a few feet away, she screams) and doesn't stop until I come back and pick her up to soothe her.  When she screams, it upsets Aleta (who is usually so happy!), so then I have two screaming babies.  It makes it impossible to get anything done while I am watching her, which as I said, has been every day lately.  And then I'm gone in the evenings for my other job, so the housework has definitely suffered.  Hopefully I can find a balance soon so my life & our home can be less of a mess!

Jacob & I had a Brazilian-themed date night at home last weekend, which was fun!  I got the idea from this website, which has AMAZING date ideas & ideas of other ways to keep the romance alive in your marriage.  Anyway, they have a bunch of date night ideas where all of the activities are themed around a country, so you can have a night in Italy, or Mexico, etc. But they didn't have a night for Brazil.  So I planned my own!  I was planning on decorating the kitchen with a big Brazil flag & streamers & other things in the colors from the flag.  Then I had planned on making a yummy Brazilian dinner, which we would eat while listening to Brazilian music, and then we were going to make Brigadeiros together for dessert.  Finally, we would watch Rio, which neither of us had seen yet.  But that's not exactly how the night went down.  I was exhausted from working 47 hours that week, and I had no time to do anything to prep for the date, and our kids were awful and wouldn't go to bed until later than I had hoped, so we only had the time and energy to make Brigadeiros and then watch Rio.  *sigh*  Oh well... I guess we'll just have to visit Brazil for date night again soon, and I can do all the other things I had planned!

This is how I informed Jacob of our date night... you can make your own plane tickets here.  How fun is that?

Our Brigadeiros!  They were delicious!

P.S.  I forgot to mention that Jacob served his mission for our church in Brazil, so he lived there for 2 years and speaks Portuguese.  That's why I chose Brazil for our date night... I thought it would be fun for him to "revisit".  haha :)

Happy Birthday, Naomi!

On Thursday, my beautiful girl turned 2 years old! I can't believe how big she is! She looks more like a little girl and less like my baby... it makes me happy & sad at the same time.

We went to visit Jacob's parents for the weekend and had a birthday party for Naomi on Saturday. Everyone in the family who lives in Missouri was able to come! We brought bubbles for the kids, and they had fun playing with them outside for a while. Bubbles are pretty much Naomi's favorite thing in the world, so she loved it. She's not very good at blowing bubbles on her own, though, so her cousin Zo tried to help her--it was pretty adorable!





This picture I took of Naomi's cousin Adelyn is one of my favorites from the day:

Naomi got some pretty awesome presents, but she wasn't interested in opening them. She loves cameras--probably even a little more than she loves bubbles--so anytime someone is using a camera or video camera, she cares about nothing else. And of course I wanted a video and some photos of her opening her gifts, but as soon as she saw the cameras, she stopped caring about her presents. It's very frustrating... I try to video tape her and take her picture when she is doing cute things, but she stops doing everything as soon as she sees me. Her cousins were more than happy to help her open her presents, though!

She got a lot of clothes for the spring and summer, which she desperately needed, and some toys including a hula hoop and an awesome tea set which I am ridiculously excited about. We're going to have some pretty fun tea parties when we get home!

We left our main presents for her at home because they were pretty big. Jacob & I got her a little tikes table & chair set and a little tikes art easel (with a chalkboard on one side), both for way cheap off of craigslist. I was so excited... I gave her the table early, because she was awake when it was dropped off, and she has been having a lot of fun using it for coloring and other things.

For the rest of her party on Saturday we ate cake and ice cream and just hung out with the family. Naomi had a blast playing with her cousins. She loves playing with other kids, so she always has a great time when we get to see her cousins.




Aleta slept through the entire party--I'm not sure whether it's teething or something else, but for some reason she wasn't feeling well. She finally woke up and made an appearance around dinnertime. Even when she isn't feeling well, she is a cutie pie!