little blue ball

Jens happens to be over this little phase, but it was so weird and hilarious that it needs to be remembered. One of Jenson's favorite pastimes is to play in my closet. One day she found an air freshener in the shape of a little blue ball that is used to freshen shoes. She did not put the ball down for 3 whole weeks. She took it to school. She took it to church. She bathed with it. She ate with it. She slept with it. It got a little confusing up in here when she would cry for her "BAAAAA!" Because her second favorite thing, her pacifier, is called "Ba Ba" (no idea where that came from.) 

And then, just like that, she forgot all about it. I found it the other day when we were moving furniture around for the Christmas tree. She saw it and didn't even bat an eye. She's so weird. 

 In the garage with her ball.

 Playing with her friends with her ball. 

 Taking a bath with her ball. 

 Eating breakfast with her ball. 

 Hanging out in the closet with her ball. 

Having a snack with her ball. 

I'm still pregnant, btw. This poor boy has no name, no nursery, no blog posts written about him, no belly pictures taken. But we love him a lot. And we're all pretty pumped for March 14th. 

We're having a baby!

I took a test in a McDonald's bathroom on the way to the river to spend the weekend with my family. I didn't look at the test, but just brought it out to Ben who was pumping gas and Jens who was screaming her head off, because she wanted out of her car seat. Ignoring Jenson, we looked at the test together. We were having a baby!

It didn't hit me just how crazy it really is, until I was on the phone with my OB trying to set up an appointment. The nurse said, how about July 19th? I replied with, "Oh, that day won't work. We're having my daughter's first birthday party!" And the nurse started laughing.

Ben and I are so excited. And I'm sure Jenson would be too, if she understood even a tiny bit of what was going on.

Like with Jens, this little bundle of joy has been making me sick. We've been getting by, counting down the weeks until the nausea should stop. We've only had one minor mishap - when Jens swallowed an Ibuprofen while my head was over the toilet. Just a little call to poison control, and all was good.

I've been eating lots of candy corn, and Taco Bell, and McDonad's sausage biscuits. I'm not sure if they're really cravings, or if I'm just using my pregnancy as an excuse to eat all of my favorite things. Pretty sure they're cravings. Yes, that must be it. 

I can't believe, that on or around March 14th, this will be us again. Except this time with a wonderful little 20 month old crawling all over the bed with us.

Happy Birthday, Jensie Girl!

12 months

She's 13 months old now, okay? Phew, I just had to get that off of my chest.

She is just the sweetest little thing. Ben and I are just almost absolutely positive we will never be able to love another peanut as much as we love her. 

1. She's now exclusively walking. 

2. She is obsessed, I mean OBSESSED with books. We've been going to the library to stock up, because Ben and I began to absolutely hate every single book we owned - after reading them 1,000 times. 

3. Her favorite foods are fruit of any kind and macaroni and cheese. We've been pretty blessed so far that she isn't too picky. She'll eat pretty much anything we put in front of her. She did spit out the bite of my tuna sandwich I gave her the other day though.

4. She unfortunately and fortunately loves tv. 

5. She says: hi, bye, Dada, Mama, please, thank you, Blue (my parents' dog), book, drink, KiKi, PaPa, Chief, Sass, Jensie, and will try to repeat a lot of things we say. 

6. She's a tad bit naughty. And is very sensitive when she gets in trouble. 

7. She's been asking for her "dada" when I get her up from her naps. I still love/hate it. 

8. My big girl drinks ice cold, whole milk from a sippy cup. I figured since I'm pregnant and she's now old enough to ask for it, it was time to let go of our special nursing times.
9. She loves playing outside, and running wild. She's not too keen on being held.
10. After many many months of inconsistent sleeping patterns, she now sleeps 10-12 hours a night and takes two 2-hour naps a day. Which is just so great for this 1st trimester symptomatic mama.

 She's funny. And beautiful. And sweet. And ugh, we're still just as obsessed with her as we were 13 months ago.

Being her mom has stretched me and challenged me and taught me to love in ways I never thought possible. It is so fun.

11.

I'm not even going to apologize for being over 2 weeks late with this, because I know you all expect nothing less. My baby. Oh my baby, my sweet little 11 month old baby. WAHHHHHHH - this is how I feel about her turning a year old. I'm going to get all of my complaining and woe-is-me-ness out on this post. Then I can be super okay when I post later this month about my big, bad 1-year-old. So later when I post about her being one, I won't complain about how she no longer lets me rock her, or how she's trying to walk, or how her 1-year-old attitude stinks sometimes, or how the past year went by waaaay tooooo fast. Okay, done.

11 months.

She says: mama, dada, bye, hi, boo

She eats: everything. seriously. her favorites are anything dipped in hummus (weird, I know), ham, cheese, peas, carrots, watermelon, peaches, etc, etc,

She loves: baths, her crib, her dad, books - obsessed with books, being outside, the pool - sometimes

She hates: napping at sonshine school, when Mom won't share her food, getting her diaper changed, the pool - sometimes

She takes a few steps at a time!
She still loves nursing and her paci - 2 things that make her still feel like my little baby

We're still pretty obsessed with her.

The best weekend

A few great things happened this weekend.

Ben was off, which automatically makes it a great 2 days. Saturday was spent cuddling with the babe, pool party with great friends, and a real date! Well, kinda. We went to an End of Year Party for Ben's work. But it involved dressing up and a babysitter, so it totally counted as a date.

Only 4 more short years for this big guy.

AND THEN, we stayed in a hotel! Yes, in Oklahoma City. But if you knew us before Jens, (and I'm sure there is no one reading this that didn't know us before Jens) you know that we love to sleep. Sleeping in. Something that hasn't been done for 11 whole months. Of course, we woke up before 8 but we forced ourselves to go back to sleep until 9:30. It was awesome. We also forced ourselves to stay away long enough to eat breakfast and do a little shopping, and then we rushed home to the girly. I bet you can guess who Jenson reached for when we got home. Yep, I'm chopped liver.

After we got home, we were hanging out in the backyard, when this happened. After months of trying to get her to stand up on her own, Jenson decides to start standing like it's her job. 

And lastly, Ben decided it would be funny to slick her hair back with baby lotion. Right before church. 

I promise that I took these a long time ago.

10 whole months

If I'm being completely honest, I must say that this has been the hardest month for me thus far as a parent. Jens was a pretty easy infant. Although I really had no right to be, I was confident in myself as a mother - as far as bathing, feeding, holding, nursing, and waking up with a tiny human being. I could pretty much get by on babycenter.com and my overwhelming love for my new baby. Sure it wasn't always easy, but it was so new and exciting and honestly just completely enjoyable. Then Jenson turned 9 months old. She had an opinion about things, and she was moody, and she was crawling everywhere, and she started throwing fits. There were a couple weeks where I pretty much had to hand her over to Ben when he got home, because I just didn't feel strong enough and patient enough to deal with it anymore. Disciplining your kid is just a whole other ballgame. I get so overwhelmed thinking about whether I'm doing the best thing for her, or just completely screwing everything up. It was just so much easier before she got all of this personality...but not nearly as fun.

That being said, Jens and I have finally got our groove going, and things are better than ever. She is just the most amazing little thing. She is funny. And she is super cute, if I do say so myself. She still looks exactly like her father. Speaking of her father, she is still completely obsessed with him.. and it's not nearly as cute as it used to be. But it's still pretty sweet.

Her favorite foods are macaroni and cheese (which her health conscience dad doesn't like me to give her), blueberries, yogurt, peas, and carrots.

She says Mama, Dada, and bye. She is a speedy crawler and walks while holding on to something.

I cannot even begin to put into words just how much we love her, and just how much she has blessed our life.

Pics to come soon - probably when she's 10.5 months.

The girl loves her dad.

I was on the phone with my mom today and told her two quick Jens stories and she said, "That is the stuff you should be writing down! You'll want to remember that!"

So... Two days ago Jens and I were at Ace Hardware picking up some flowers for the backyard. I was holding her on my hip and busy talking to the cashier and not paying attention to her at all. She was patting my back and grunting and trying to get my attention, and I didn't even realize until she weaseled her way up my chest, grabbed my face, and kissed me right on the lips. How is she old enough to do that?

And... Today, for the first time ever, she cried when her dad left for work. It was the sweetest/saddest thing. She wanted nothing to do with me. I had to pry her away from him and we watched him walk out the door and get in his car, while she was reaching out for him the entire time.

Time, just stop.

Sick.

We have been sick up in here. It started with Jens on Friday night. We were sharing a few night time snuggles before she hit the hay, and before I knew it, she was sharing her vomit all over both us. Sorry, that's sounds really gross. But motherhood is really gross sometimes. And if you didn't remember - she eats real food now; so it wasn't sweet baby spit-up.

I'll spare you all the gory details. But the night included: 3 baths for the baby, 2 showers for the momma, 3 crib sheet changes, 4 dirty towels, 3 pairs of pajamas, and one Dad who had some medical exam boards the next morning.

She was such a little trooper. This picture was taken after her 3rd bath.

Then the next day, Ben got it. And then in the middle of the night, when I was bringing a vomiting Ben some water; I got it. We were not a pretty sight.

I spent today washing every single thing in this house that would fit in my washing machine.

Nine months

My baby is 9 whole months old. Just tonight, the three of us were sitting at the table eating pizza (yes, the baby was eating pizza) and Ben and I could just not believe how BIG she seemed. How old she seemed. Picking up pieces of bread and cheese and eating like she had been starved, taking a quick break to throw her head back and get a swig of water from her sippy cup, making faces and cracking up with her dad from across the table. It was all just a little to much for my heart to handle.

Tuesday she had her 9 month check-up. The girl is in the 50% for weight, height and even head circumference. We have a perfectly average kid. She actually loved Dr. Krause this visit and passed the 9 month milestone checklist.

Says "mama" and "dada" - check
Pulls up and "cruises" around furniture - check
Uses her fingers to pick up food - check
Starting to throw tantrums - check

Jens loves food. The only thing that she hasn't seemed to like was a taste of oatmeal and a green olive. (Her dad gave her the green olive, just to be clear.) Her favorite foods at the moment are yogurt with blueberries, turkey, and beans of any kind. She is still nursing 4 or 5 times a day and eating 3 meals a day with us.

She goes to bed, in her crib, anywhere from 7:30 to 8:00 (or more like 10:00 or 11:00 when her grandparents are in town) and wakes around 5:00 or 6:00 to eat. She usually falls back asleep in our bed for a couple of hours.

She is into everything. And she's really fast.

She absolutely loves being outside. She sits in the grass while I water the flowers. And I wear her in the sling when I mow the grass. I didn't realize how weird people might think that is, until I caught one of my neighbors taking a picture of us with her iPhone.

We had Ben's cousins and their boyfriends over for dinner and they got her to wave all night. I haven't been able to get her to do it again. So I don't think she can claim that skill yet.

She loves to give kisses. I remember telling Ben when she was born that I wanted that to be one of the first things she learned. So I started from the beginning, saying "kiss" whenever I would give her  asmooch. Now she doesn't even need to hear the word, if you are anywhere near her face; she will kiss you. It never gets old. My favorite is when she is crying her little head off and her dad will say "kiss", she will stop crying, give him a kiss, and then start wailing again. It's a tad bit ridiculous.

**I wrote this post and took these pictures a couple of weeks ago. Oops.