Two cute girls

Sophie getting her teddy bear ready for church - I know she' s on the bathroom floor in this picture but I think she looks super cute in it! (She fell and hit her eye on our futon- ouch!)

Nora loves to do whatever Sophie is doing of course. Here she is helping Sophie with the important task of what hair things to put on the teddy bear for church

I love my girls. They are so much fun to be with every day. Because Nora doesn't take naps (and hasn't since before she was two) I have finally decided to have a designated "quiet time" every day for an hour. I've always tried to have the girls do some form of quiet time during the day but have never been diligent at it. So I now put them in their beds in their room with books, turn on a CD of stories (thanks Emily Ann!) and set my kitchen timer for an hour. It has been the best thing EVER! They actually enjoy it! Most days they stay in their room and after the stories are over they just play together. Of course some days are rough, but MOST of the time they even end up getting involved with what they are doing and stay in there longer. Hooray! It has made a huge difference for everyone. The girls don't ask for TV in the afternoons, I have more fun playing with them because I know I'll get at least an hour to myself and if Brian is home he knows he can have some extra study time. I couldn't ask for anything more! (Except maybe a baby coming early!)

The Mommy Survey

Here we are with Sophie in 2003!

Here we are with Nora in 2005 - Sophie was still asleep at home with grandpa john!


Some of my friends in Michigan have been filling out this survey so I decided to do it, too! Thanks guys!

1. Age(s)? 4 1/2 and 2 1/2
2. Name(s)? Sophie Alexis and Nora Grace
3. Birthdays? 7/28 and 8/18
4. Time(s) of birth? 10:19am and 7:20 am
5. How long did labor last? No labor for Sophie (I had to have a c-section because she was breach), about 27 hours with Nora (counting from my first real contraction to delivery)
6. Who was in the room when baby was born? Brian and lots of doctors with Sophie, and Brian, my mom, the doc, and some nurses with Nora
7. How long did you push? No pushing with Sophie, only about 10-15 minutes with Nora
8. Weight? 7lbs 7 oz. and 7lbs 13 oz.
9. Length? 19 1/2 inches and 20 1/2 inches
10. Any hair? just a little peach fuzz on both of them!
11. Who does baby look like? It depends on who you ask!
12. Be honest...how much weight did you gain while pregnant? 25 pounds with Sophie and 35 with Nora
13. Was baby early or late? Sophie was 3 days early because it was scheduled, Nora was 3 days late
14. Who drove you home from the hospital? Brian
15. How many baby showers did you have? 2 with Sophie, 0 with Nora
16. When did baby start sleeping through the night? Sophie was almost 2 - seriously! Nora was around 9 months. I still consider it a miracle when I wake up at 7 and realize I slept all night!
17. Did you breastfeed? both for 11 months
18. Who takes care of your baby/kids the most? I do because Brian is in school. When he's not busy with school it's pretty equal.
19. When do you want to have another one? Hopefully within the next 4 weeks! :)
20. How did you pick the name(s)? We just liked them (Sophie's middle name is after me obviously) We wanted Nora's middle name to be after someone but nothing sounded quite right with Nora so we just picked Grace.
21. How did you know when it was time to go to the hospital? We had an appointment with Sophie and with Nora I'd been having contraction since 4am and by 10pm they were 2 minutes apart.
22. Anyone spend the night with you the first night home? I don't remember exactly, I don't think so, if so it would have been my mom.
23. Did you cry the first time you held your baby? No - I was just happy! But now I cry when I see pictures of them in the hospital as newborns - they grow too fast!
24. Where was the baby born? Sophie in Logan, Utah and Nora in SLC, Utah
25. Did you video tape the birth? They wouldn't let us tape Sophie and with Nora we were taping in the delivery room - but not the ACTUAL birth. :)

36 weeks down and 4 to go!

My family has been bugging me to post something on the blog - though it's only been 4 days - and not a lot is going on but doctor appointments, eating, hanging out with the kids and me getting bigger! I am due 4 weeks from tomorrow so I am rapidly running out of room to breathe, motivation to bend over and pick things up, and energy to take both the kids out of the house (we do make it to story time at the library twice a week!) Overall things are going well. I feel pretty good and have been sleeping great - really gonna miss that- so I can't complain. The girls have been playing well together and can't wait to meet their new little brother or sister. Although the other day Sophie said she's SURE it's a boy - or a girl! So here is the only recent picture I've taken - and it just happens to be of my large belly at 35 weeks!

Sledding fun!

During Christmas break we did a little "sledding" in our back yard. We have a small hill and Brian pulled the girls up and down it, over and over again! The girls loved it but Nora was very upset when she fell off! And although we had quite a bit of snow at the first of January we now have NONE! This past week has been warmer (one day was 62 degrees!) and all our snow melted. I'm sure we will get more but it's been kind of a nice break for now!

Laundry day!!

The girls were playing downstairs today, and when I went to check on them this is what I found. Not the safest place to be but they were sure having fun, at least they couldn't reach the knobs to turn the machine on! Silly girls.

A little talk about Satan

Yesterday we had a little talk with Sophie about Satan. Nothing too dramatic or detailed, but she has been talking about him non-stop! I listened at her door as she said her prayers last night and it went like this....... "please help me to not do the bad things that Satan wants me to do, but I don't want to do. Because I don't want to make him happy, I want to make You happy." It was so sweet and innocent it brought tears to my eyes. Then today everything she does is "Satan isn't happy I'm doing this..... " if she's being nice or, "Satan would want me to hit Nora, but I won't" or "Satan would be happy if I knocked this picture off the wall, but if I did it on accident it would be okay, we would just hang it back up" my favorite one was, "Remember when you ran over my leg with the golf cart (as if she'd let me forget!)? Satan was glad about that!" Of course I reminded her it was an accident and if I had done it on purpose then Satan would have been glad! She's also been bombarding me with questions about Satan, "Do you think he likes the color purple? I don't think so." and "Does Satan eat? Does he have a body? Where does he live? Is he dead?" etc, etc, etc. I think I know what our family night lesson will be on tonight!

Back to life... back to reality!

Nora on a ride at Caesarland

Doing a game together at Caesarland

Daddy even got in on the fun - the girls look thrilled don't they?

We had fun reading the names of the cows on their ear tags

Mama and Nora enjoying our Root Beer on New Years Eve

It's Brian's job to pop the corn when we make caramel popcorn!

A cute picture of Sophie and dad on New Year's Eve

Sophie won't drink soda at all - Nora seems to have no problem!

It has been so much fun having Brian home for the past 3 weeks! I thought I'd be ready to have him go back to school and get back into the "daily routine" with the kids - but I'm not! He has let me sleep in quite a bit, cleaned almost every day, fixed some things around the house, made a bunch of phone calls that needed to be made - which I absolutely do not like to do, and numerous other things his pesky pregnant wife asked him to do! The girls have loved having him at their beck and call and I am dreading the adjustment it will be to have him gone for most of the day again. But it was fun while it lasted. We did some fun things together as a family: built a cool snow fort complete with a cave, a slide, stairs and a tunnel - sorry, no pictures of that - but trust me, it was awesome! We went on a self guided tour of the MSU dairy which was basically cold and stinky, but the girls liked it! We also painted the girls room and went to Caesarland with our neighbors- which is like a smaller, cheaper Chuck E. Cheese. Our New Years Eve was pretty low-key. We watched the Barbie Island Princess movie with the girls while we ate dinner on a blanket and had caramel pop-corn and soda. Brian and I even went to bed at 10:30!! He was planning on getting up early to study and I'm pregnant so it worked for us. Overall we've had a great vacation! The only reason I'm ready for it to end is because that means I'm a little closer to having the baby! Yipee!!