Life Through the Phone

 I was going through my pictures on my phone and I had to upload them before I delete them from my phone! I love seeing the sibling relationship that is forming between these two. Crew loves playing with her, and chasing her around the apartment. I think that sibling relationships are so neat to watch no matter the age distance between the two.
Bath time is becoming extra crazy around here, and extra wet! Twice as wet to be exact. Laney is now in the stage where she wants to crawl around the entire bath or stand up in the tub. They get in little splashing wars that leaves me nearly drenched! I wish I could snag a picture of them at this age in the bath, but I can't get a second to leave them alone. (plus I wouldn't dare let go of Laney in the bath with Crew.)
One day we went to Target out of boredom. Which can be so dangerous for me because for some reason during the summers, I get the major itch to buy everything! (luckily I haven't shopped a ton yet) We just went inside and I let Crew and Laney play in the aisles. Somedays you just have to do that! The germaphobe inside me was dying, but the kids were having a blast. Crew didn't make a noise the whole time. He just walked briskly from one toy or aisle to the next. Laney crawled as fast as she could to the next toy too or to go follow Crew. It was an hour well spent...and Crew's birthday list grew a lot that day. (and I didn't buy a single thing! yay!)
I am beyond excited for him to turn 3! Three years old just seems so big to me. Probably because I remember my fourth birthday so well, and random moments at preschool before that. So I know Crew will probably remember snippets of his life during this next year.

Mother's Day 2015

We had to go pick up one of Alex's guys at the airport in Nashville yesterday-so we decided to make a day of it. Last year on Mother's day we went to Chicago--so I wonder where we will spend it next year! Mother's Day was good this year. Started out a little rocky...everyday does over here. We have two kids oozing with personality and high demands :) I love them though. 

She kept hamming it up for people. 

In my dream kitchen one day I'll have giant white washed slabs of wood on the floors, white or neutral cabinets, navy blue cabinets too, and then shelves of these succulents. For now I'll just take pictures of them and frame them. 

We can't get enough of this kid. He talks so well now and it's honestly so fun to have a little person to talk to during the day.

My computer crashed hard. The disk drive kept being so full even when I made a conscious effort to not keep anything on my hard drive. I have been backing up and deleting every single thing. There are no fonts kept on here--if I want one, I have to go to my hard drive-download it-and then delete it again. We searched the computer and found a giant virus or something taking up 50GB of space. That's almost my entire computer! It all made sense. Well we deleted that little sucker and it basically deleted the entire operating system, and hard drive...but now it won't work, or restart properly. I hate computers! I wish that I could just take the pictures and send them somewhere else to be worked on. Luckily my husband's computer holds larger files and is basically empty. So I dubbed it mine now.

Sunday's are our only days as a family and I love it. The primary sang the cutest little songs yesterday. Next Mother's Day...Crew will be up there! Oh my goodness that's crazy! He goes around the house singing the sunbeam song too, so he is already preparing well :)

I'm super bummed that the blurb website can't slurp blog posts right now. Something is broken but they don't know how soon they can fix it. There goes my summer project! I really do want my blog in books for the kiddos to read. I'm not sure what the internet will be like in the coming years-so I want it printed.

LANEY IS NINE MONTHS OLD TODAY. So dang crazy.

Park

I feel that I blog about the same things all the time! Yesterday we went to a park that was kind of far from us, so today I found one that is 7 minutes away from us. 

Crew is so funny when we are getting ready to leave to go somewhere. All of the sudden he becomes very helpful, asks a million questions and randomly laughs because he is so excited to leave. Poor kid! I promise we do get out of the house at least once a day. Crew loves the park so much though. 

This bridge was wiggly and Crew was saying, "oh scary" the whole time he would walk across. He is at such a funny age. The other day in the car he said, "Oh my dosh mom! The sky is Blue!" haha I laughed hard for a good minute. We try to get him to say "goodness" but we lost that little battle. Plus he says the ending of "goSH" so it doesn't sound too bad. 

I love that Laney is old enough to play on the playgrounds now. She loves exploring and always has such a serious or curious look on her face. She observes all the kiddos running around and probably wishes she could play with them too. 

Her little body is just so cute to me. I love this age. 

I love how she sucks in her bottom lip. Her chin is 100% her dads, and I love it. 

Crew met a little boy at the park and of course followed him everywhere. 

I can't believe how fast these two are growing. 

That bottom lip again. 

We had fun. 

Somedays I wish there was more "depth" to my blog. I don't read fashion blogs because they lack serious depth. I know that's how they are supposed to be, but I love reading blogs because I can learn from people, and their experiences. I love the real moments and honestly I could careless about what they are wearing, or what their home looks like. It's all about the writing to me and catching up on their life! 

I feel that sometimes I don't want to be too real on here or "vulnerable" because it might be too personal or maybe a bit negative--but it's my journal, and it's a great venting tool for me! 

Lately it has been rough stuff at our house. Al works all day and trains his guys in the morning before the meeting--so we don't see much of him. It makes me wonder why we even came out, but I know that we are a great support to him during this tough job. Crew isn't taking that too well lately. He constantly asks to go on an airplane to Arizona or a long drive to Utah. He will come up to me randomly throughout the day and list all of our family members by name and ask to go to their house. I just kneel down at his eyes and tell him that this is temporary and we will be in Arizona soon. He just doesn't have a concept of time yet. Obviously. There are days where I am super positive about this lifestyle and days where you do not even want to be around me, or even ask about it. Trust me. I have been hustling to finish my institute makeup work and that's been taking up my days a lot. So of course Crew is watching Netflix most of the day. 

I swore to myself before I had kids that I wouldn't raise my voice or have contention in my home. Well that's been a huge fail. Crew has been acting out by being so mean to Laney and making her cry a lot. So there are lots of time-outs at our house. And crying....by all of us! 

When I truly think about our life though--I feel terrible for even having any of these thoughts. We live in a military town and so many wives have to say bye to their husbands for months or years at a time. They are single moms for that long and barely have good communication with their husbands...and I sit here and complain about moving WITH my spouse 4 months out of the year. Then during the year we get to see him often, and he is able to not feel pressure to go out a find another job until the next summer. This job doesn't sit well with a lot of people-and I know that, but it could always be worse. The grass is never greener on the other side. (that took me a while to grasp) With any job there are always sacrifices and curve balls thrown into the mix. I am just always so grateful that I don't have to go out and get a job, that doesn't mean I don't want to, but I'm lucky to stay home with the kids. 

 I'm grateful I have such supportive parents though through all of this. They know when to kick me in the rear and tell me how it is. They weren't too fond of complainers growing up. (I have a pretty awesome hubs too)

Things will pick up once the pool opens up. Cannot wait for that! 

Do The Best You Can

So I decided to take a little break from blogging a while back and now I can't access my other blog. I guess it got deleted off of blogger because I hadn't logged on in X amount of days. So...Im starting over? Good and bad I guess!

Ask me why I took a break? I don't even know. It felt nice though.

Mothers Day was a couple days ago and Im just now getting a chance to think about it. It was a nice day, Alex and Crew spoiled me...with a new pillow. We went downtown to Chicago and walked around, and then it started pouring rain...so we ran back to the train station to find out we took the wrong train and missed the right one. So we were stuck...but we were with good company so it was ok! Crew was hard that day, not hard, just a handful I guess. He loved getting outside and seeing all of the people and traffic. That stimulation is good for him...but Im not sure if we will get to the city that often.

I really do love being a mom. It is the most rewarding calling I will ever have. Recently I have been bogged down a little (ok a lot) with my role and calling as a mother though. I look around me and see so many women who are accomplished at their age. Im 20 with 1.5 kids...plugging through school, sometimes don't wear makeup, sit in pjs all day, maybe run a few errands, and hardly make dinner. Yeah...you could say I didn't feel the best about myself until I brought up my feelings to the hubs. He said some things that reassured me of this calling in life. Lately I look down at my growing belly and then see the toddler whining and clinging to my legs. I think "what did I get myself into" haha That sounds pretty bad. Im just amazed that at my young age I have almost 2 KIDS! That's crazy! I was a stellar babysitter...so I thought I had this motherhood thing in the bag. My mom made it look so easy dealing with us and mothering us...so obviously I could do it. Boy was I wrong! I already feel so helpless somedays when Crew is literally whining all day, and my body is in pain from carrying a little human inside. She isn't even born yet and Im already feeling this way.

I am so overwhelmed with how much I need to teach my children. I can only hope and pray that they love and listen to me...but not only me, their Heavenly Father. Crew has FINALLY started to say "please" when we ask him to. It might not seem like a big deal but it is to us. We have a tiny window to teach kids manners from a young age...so when he would just yell "NO!" when we asked him, I was devastated. Great. I already failed at something and he isn't even 2. Im just so glad that we stuck to our guns and made him say please, because now he says it in the sweetest little voice. He really is good natured and a sweet little boy. I just get so overwhelmed with how much energy he has.

After feeling so down about some things and trying to get over it...Crew would not go to sleep last night. Great. I was so looking forward to a bath, my book and bed after a long long day. Selfish I know! There was a loud thunderstorm so he was pretty scared. He kept asking for "pop" which is the popcorn song that he loves and a few other books. He was so cuddly and sweet with me. I felt so much love for my calling in that moment. How lucky am I to be the one to console my children when they need it most? How lucky am I to be the one to sing their favorite song to them? How lucky am I to be able to kiss their "owies" and they magically go away? This calling is truly a blessing in my life. I have always known that this is what I was meant to do. Im just a young mom who needs to be reminded sometimes of that.

I am aware that harder times will come...especially after the baby is born. My children will be little for only a short time, so I just need to laugh during the hard times, order take-out when dinner just isn't happening, and start over the next day with a better attitude! I am so grateful that I can do this with my sweet husband by my side too. He is my biggest fan and always gives me the best compliments, and encouragement.

"Do the best you can through these years, but whatever else you do, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones."-Elder Holland

That quote came from one of my most favorite talks ever given...of course by Elder Holland. I know that this time in our lives will end so quickly. I will be in my clean house one day just wishing that I had little handprints all over the appliances, toys strewn throughout the house, and snacks left out for me to step on and smash. (ok maybe not the snack part) 

xoxo