She's 2 months already...

and I so can't believe it! Here is what's going on now...

*last week you were sick and we had to visit the dr., you weigh 9 lb. 5 oz. you had this horrible cough where you would cough for so long and so hard it would completely wear you out. You would usually throw up after so long, and sometimes choke on whatever was coming up. We got a pass to go to the bronchiolitis clinic at the hospital where they suctioned your nose. I didn't really see the benefit of it, but they say it works. We took you 4 times and they never really got very much so I quit taking you. 2 days later you were fine.

*I think you are going to be blessed to have your dad's skin color. Your face is darker than the rest of your body, but if it stays that way, you'll love it. Oh, and I think you're going to have dark blue eyes.

*you still have your birthmark on your forehead. It is getting lighter, but it's still there. And it gets dark when you cry hard. I don't care what anyone says, I think it's adorable. You'll hate it if it stays, but I secretly hope it never goes totally away.

*you pretty much sleep through the night waking up only once to eat and it's usually around 5:00 a.m. (you go to sleep between 8:00 & 9:00)

*I don't have a picture of it, but Cutler loves to 'hold you' as he puts it. But really, he loves to carry you. Twice now we've walked in on him 'holding' you. Once he got you out of the vibrating chair and was just standing there. The other time he got you off my bed and carried you around it over to the chair he watches movies in. Both times he scared me to death but I was afraid to react, for fear that he might drop you because he thought he would be in trouble. So I calmly tell him to "Hold her tight" until I can get to you and save you. We try really hard to never leave you alone in a room where he can pick you up.

*Your nicknames so far are... little girl, missy, little miss, sis, sister, and my favorite lulu (or just lu). And Cutler calls you Letsie.

*THIS is how you fall asleep at night...

and you both love it!

*the day you turned 6 weeks old (Feb. 7) you started doing THIS...

*you still do a lot of THIS...

*at least once a day we see THIS...

*and we love seeing THIS...

THIS is our 2 month old. She is pretty chill. I keep saying the Lord knew I needed a calm child, and so he sent her. I'm pretty sure she's very well aware of the craziness around her all day every day, therefore she just hangs out. Seriously the only time she really cries is when she's hungry, really tired, or just wants to be held. I can handle that.

Lexie, you are such a blessing to our family. Your brothers can't get enough of you, your dad absolutely adores you, and I, well I love having this beautiful little girl to take care of. Please stop growing. Or at least slow down.

Cutler's speech

(this really is for me)
After doing the post you will read next, I decided I needed to post about this. And I also remembered that I never did a post on it back when we were worried about it.
For what felt like forever Cutler didn't say much, other than 'na', and the usual baby jibber jabber. When I took him to the dr. for his 2 yr. check up he asked me how his speech was. I told him he said about 10-15 words. The dr. told me he should be saying about 50 words and putting 2-3 words together. He gave me a referral to have some speech therapy done. I went home and talked to Colby about it. After hearing the dr. tell me that I realized Cutler was way behind and it started to really worry me. Later that week I called and set up a speech therapist to come to the house and 'test' him. Literally the next week, before she came, Cutler started saying about 10 new understandable words. I thought about cancelling the therapy but decided that since it was free we would still do it just to see what they said. The whole time she was here I kept thinking the things she were doing were pointless. And she kept telling me to quit asking him questions, but to tell him what he wanted. For example, I would ask him what he wanted to drink, milk or juice? He would say 'na' and point. She told me to say, you want juice to drink. And get him the juice. That way he can say yes or no. But I was frustrated because he could tell me yes or no, I wanted him to say milk or juice.
So needless to say I didn't take her up on any more sessions. I didn't like her way of teaching.

Now Cutler is a little jabber-mouth. And we love it! He cracks me up every day. And it's not really the words he says, but the way he says them that just makes us all laugh. He really has a funny personality. Here are some of the things he says that crack us up: (don't forget he has a lisp)

after a burp - "uuuuuh, wha ya say? xuse me."
he calls noah and himself 'beday' - (buddy)
When you say his name he used to answer - yes? Now he just says - what!? what mama? (remember it's how he says things that is so funny)
he sings (tries) the songs to all the cartoons he watches.

Ok, so now that I'm writing this I realize I can't really remember all the things he says, and what I did write you'll all think are so stupid. I'm going to have to be better about writing them down. But the part that I love the most is that he tries to say words. Before if you asked him to say something and he didn't know how he wouldn't even try. Or he would just say 'na'.

So keep in mind when you read my next post, the things he says are a major milestone for us. All of our family will tell you he has come such a long way and can talk really well compared to 3 months ago.

Potty training

Just an update on potty training. For those of you who are care...it is NOT coming along. I try my hardest to take him every 20-30 minutes, but with a baby it's hard to do that sometimes. He goes every time we put him on the potty, sometimes it's a fight, but he'll go. He gets super excited when he's done. He doesn't require a treat, just a high five, a hug, a kiss, a "Yeah", and a "ta-da". Pretty easy. I ask him about every 5 minutes if he pottied in his pants. He'll answer "Nope mama. Dry. See?" ('see' is his new favorite word/question) But when he has an accident it doesn't really bother him. And he'll even answer "Yup, wet. Yuck. Wet mama." or "pooped mama. all done, poop" And after about the 3rd accident I go back to a diaper. I get so frustrated and tired of cleaning up messes. And by that time he'll say he wants a diaper on. I'm pretty sure he's not ready, but I am. I don't love changing 2 bums all day, and I definitely don't love changing his stinky poop! I'm afraid to stop because then we start completely over later on, but I hate that he's not interested. If you have some good advice, please share. But trust me, I feel like I've made as good of an effort as I did with Noah. I'm not doing anything different. I just wonder if one day he'll wake up and tell me he doesn't want a diaper and he'll potty on the toilet. Does that really happen?

Noah and basketball

Any parent who has a child that plays sports knows how funny it is to watch these kids! Noah has been playing basketball these past couple of months. At his first game we just laughed at all of the kids. Our team is young and some of them don't know much about the sport, Noah being one of those. We decided he needed a basketball so that he could learn how to dribble and pass and shoot. I forget that you don't just know how to do this stuff. You have to learn it sometime. We made it a family affair for his first game and quickly learned that Cutler is too hard to take. Go figure! So I got to stay home and Colby took him to all of his games. At his game last week Colby got a picture of him as he was shooting the ball...and he made it!! Wahoo!! He was so excited and proud. I was sad I missed it.

I think today was his last game, and I was able to go watch him. It was so fun to see how much he has improved from the first game.

Now on to soccer...

"This is 911 dispatch...

We just received a hang-up phone call from your number. Is everything o.k.?"

"Yes, I'm sorry. I was in the other room and my little boy climbed up on the counter. He must have been playing with the phone."

"Are you sure everything's ok? Can you speak for yourself?"

"Yes. I was just feeding my baby and didn't know he had the phone."

"O.k. Just try not to let your child call 911."

about 10 minutes later...

doorbell rings. I had just got out of the shower. Dressed in shorts - no shirt! Just got done feeding the baby. Maybe I can answer the door. After all I am holding her, with a blanket. No, I should be covered. I need to get a shirt on.

about a minute later I hear pounding. Which I really thought was my washer on the spin cycle. Seriously. Maybe it's the cops coming to check on us. I rush to the door in case they try to break it down. Towel still on my head, I answer the door...

"Is everything ok? Are you Tiffany?"

"Yes, everything's fine. I really was just in the other room feeding my baby and my little boy must have been playing with the phone."

"Are you sure you're fine?"

"Yes. I'm sorry about this."

I seriously can not believe this happened to me, today. I was completely embarrassed because my son called 911, the cops came, I was barely dressed, hair in towel, no make up. I know that when they saw me they knew we were ok. They were smiling so much, almost laughing, but keeping it in. You know?

Today I realized that we have to make sure Sarge doesn't play with the phone anymore. And we must teach our kids when and why we call 911.

The announcement

Lexie's Blessing Day

As always, Colby gave an amazing blessing. We are so lucky to have so much family close by, and so many of them there to be a part of this special day. Sherie was nice enough to offer her house for the luncheon, there's no way we all would have fit in my home. And as usual, she had the table decorated super cute - Just for Lexie! We didn't really get a picture of everything before the food had been dug into, so this will have to do.

Thank you to everyone who came, to all who helped with food, and especially to all the men who stood in the circle and helped with the blessing.

We are so blessed to have this little girl in our family, and love her so much.

Blessing dress pictures

Yes, Sherie took these too. What would I do without her? Pay an awful lot of money to Kiddie Kandids I guess. Good thing she loves to take pictures!

Lexie knows when it's time for pictures, she absolutely hates it. We start out with her asleep, but it doesn't last long. There's usually a melt down, a feeding, and it still ends with tears. I hope this is just a phase. And hopefully she's over it in a couple of months so we can take 3 month pictures.

Some of my favorites

You're probably sick of the 'my favorites' posts, but there will probably be more. So get used to it! Sherie did another photo shoot of our little (but growing) family, and let's just say it was NOT the most pleasant experience. We did get a few good ones, and here are my favorites.

There's nothing like a mother and her daughter

I just can't get over the way all of the boys look at this little girl...

...and how much they love her

I love the way Cutler looks in this picture, but I'm saying "say cheese" and you can tell. So I ruined this one.

And I love this one, except Noah is not looking where he was suppose to be looking.

What do your kids do while you're on the computer?

This is what mine does...