It can't be!

My baby is 8 months!

I'll make this quick and get to her precious, kissable face but she has many new tricks!

The two biggest being, right after she turned 7 months we made the leap to FINALLY sleeping through the night! Also right before that she learned to FINALLY roll over consistently all directions.

Its my fault, she hated tummy time and so I just never forced it. She was either being held or in something (bouncer, etc) and just never practiced rolling around.

So when she figured it out we thought it was time to let her go at night now that she could roll.

So I laid a rainbow of pacifiers around her and left her. She fuss/cried for about an hour and half once and then another time for about 15 minutes, but ever since that one rough night she goes 7-7:30pm to 7-7:30am! I'm so thankful that we finally did it. It had literally been a year since I slept through the night!!

Other than that she is rolling and inching everywhere. She doesn't mind tummy time anymore. My once immobile baby, is no longer. We will soon be a gated household. :)

She blubbers, blows raspberries, and growls constantly.

Loves saying Dada, grrrr.

She's eating chunkier food. She had lasagna with us the other night!

Now to her sweet cheeks. :)

Wordless Wednesday- Be still my heart

(okay not so wordless. :) I know I'm her mother but I'm just so impressed! Just turned 5 and such a little artist, takes after her daddy!)

Randomness....

I'm so frustrated with how my day disappears. Almost everyday I sit down to post and something or other pulls me away. Sigh. And now I'm so far behind, I'm too overwhelmed to even begin to start posting. Such a vicious cycle. :) This evening I'm finally sitting down with a clean house but I literally was picking up ALL day after the girls. Not sure its worth the hassle....

Anyway, we are still alive and doing well. Everyone is healthy again and praying it stays that way. If warm weather ever gets here, hopefully we can say goodbye to cold and flu season for good. We have had SO much rain. Hoping to dry out soon!

Brooklyn is officially 8 months now! One of the many posts I need to catch up on. She has many exciting new tricks. :)

Bella and Brynn are currently obsessed with Tangled. They spend most of their day "doing the Rapunzel play" and acting out the movie. Poor Brynn usually ends up being Flynn and Mother Gothel. Bella has her ways of convincing her. :) I need to just go out and buy the movie, we've rented it so many times I've almost payed for it! Bella told me today she wants to meet Rapunzel in real life. :)

Sorry for the boring post, just wanted to jump on real quick! Now I'm hitting the sack!

Oh and for good measure and for grandmas. :)

I'm in trouble....

Bella's Newest Favorite Thing

Obviously we have the rule that she can not carry or lift her without adult permission and someone close by! :)

My current assignment....

God calls us to serve.

What ever His calling to do might be.

I often feel the urge to serve more in some capacity, it's just the stage that I am in right now.

With three little ones time and energy is lacking.

Because of that I often say, right now my girls are my ministry.

I'm just trying to serve them as the Lord would want me to.

But I still struggle, wondering if I'm doing enough.

I started following this one blog, called Breezy Acres, while they had a little one born very early. I was praying for them and following their journey. Since then I have been SO encouraged, challenged, and uplifted by the author of this blog.

And I wanted to quote her today.

She wrote today about how I SO often feel and God just spoke to me through her words.

In return I thought maybe it could bless one of you. :)

"I had big plans this week around my house. My to-do list included things like sorting through the catch-all room upstairs, organizing for a garage sale, and deep cleaning my living room (our couch is disgusting!).

Guess what? It's already Thursday afternoon and none of those things are crossed off my list.

I want to get worked up and blame this little person . . .

She will not play by herself for more than a few minutes (not like her at all!).
She begs to be held, but just wiggles all around in my arms (or bites me--you should see the mark she left on my arm!).
If I put her down, she wants back up.
Repeat. All.day.long.

She wore me out yesterday, and I had a bad attitude. Just ask Ian if you don't believe me.

Today I was reminded of some things our pastor shared on Sunday (talking about David's training as a king in 1 Samuel 16). Before David was anointed, he spent his days watching after his father's sheep. It was a solitary, monotonous job most of the time; yet, he was faithful with his daily tasks and built a deep and personal relationship with God because he had little to distract him.

I want to be faithful with my daily tasks too. Even when they involve cuddling (or trying to cuddle, in Calla's case) a teething, whining baby and nothing else.

I want to do the little, monotonous things well during my day because how I complete those things is a reflection of who I am becoming. (And last night, that person was not pretty! Good thing God is still working in me.)

I want to work on my heart right now so that when God calls me to do something more (adoption, foster care, something with preemies . . . or something not even on my radar), I am ready. I want to be able to say "yes" because during these monotonous days of mothering two small children, I have cultivated a relationship with Christ.

These days do matter.

This little girl needs her mommy this week, and I want to love her well with a happy and contented heart.
That is my current assignment."

SHE ALSO POSTS AWESOME ACTIVITIES FOR LITTLE ONES FROM TIME TO TIME!

Master Manipulator....

Some how Bella can talk Brynn in to anything. :)

Meet her puppy.

Wordless Wednesday- Daddy's Little Princess

Under the Weather...

Well we have been blessed with an amazingly healthy winter but we are welcoming spring with a bang! :)

Bella started things off and quickly was on the mend. But no matter how hard we tried we could not keep her away from her baby sister. She just loves her too much! :)

Sweet Petey eyes

(when my parent were missionaries in Eastern Europe they had fake names and my dad's was Pete. Whenever my dad is truly, really sick you can tell in his eyes he doesn't feel well, so when ever we were really sick growing up my mom would say we had Petey eyes. Sorry long explanation! :) )

And this is what happens every time she sneezes!!

I have never seen so much snot come out of a little baby!

Thankfully this cold has not effected her precious personality!

The big girls....

Couple days ago an incident happened that just made me smile. This incident perfectly depicted my two big girls' personalities.

It was spring break, and in an effort to fill our days with fun I took the girls to a play that our park district was holding. It was The Enchanted Sleeping Beauty so I knew they'd love it.

I was right. They ate up every minute. It was almost two hours long so I was a little worried that they'd be able to sit that long, but with a small snack in the middle, they sat the entire time!

I just love seeing their eyes light up with excitement.

Fun times.

Here are the pics:

Dressed and ready with our tickets :)

Went with some girlfriends from Bella's preschool





Afterwards we had to get everyone's autograph of course. Brynn shocked me by asking for the evil fairy, Evilina's, autograph. Even though she was evil she was quite hilarious!
Aurora was of course the biggest hit. :)

As for the incident, as we were leaving the play the girls went running out the door ahead of me. I yelled to them to not go in the road and wait for me. As I watched Bella stopped short of the road by about 10-15 feet. Now Brynn, she stopped, but she literally kissed the road with her toes before stopping. Ha. That about sums them up. Bella is SO compliant and wanting to do what's right , she'll play it safe. And then there's Brynn, also very well behaved, but she'll push the boundaries to see just how far she can go. :)

Gotta love 'em!

Learning to Relax....

One (of many) of my short comings is I'm guilty of being controlling.

I'm guilty of not letting or giving the girls a chance to do things on their own.

I just know I can do it better and faster.

I know, mother of the year.

So anyway, Bella is always asking to feed Brooke and I usually say no.

It would just take forever and be a massive mess.

The other night she happen to ask me again, and I decided to lighten up!

So that evening I let go of my controlling tendencies.

And said, sure.

Sure you can feed her.

And what did I get in return?

Yes I got one messy baby...

And yes it took way longer than it would have taken me.....

But...

I had a chance to work on dinner for the rest of the fam.....

I had a happy, full baby...

And I had a very happy 5 year old, who ran to me when she was done and said.....

I love you mom. :)

Bella, Brynn, and Brooke....

Sorry my posts are a bit random and sporadic. I'm working on the girls' birthday post and its taking me FOREVER!

3 much more important things keep pulling me away!

:)

Wanted to give a little shout out to Braylabee's!!

I came across her site a few weeks back and every Friday she has a fun special and they're great deals.

Several weeks ago she had a special for these shirts for $10!

I am obsessed with personalized things but never purchase them for the girls since its not really economically smart (we're all about passing our clothes down to our little sisters) but with these being $10 each I couldn't pass it up!

(Braylabee's did not ask me to say something, just wanted to share a good deal!)