Cabin Fever

Hello from Antarctica...I mean Denver. It has been frigid here this week y'all. We have been dumped with snow and more snow, and the high today was 24! Brrrr! 

Now, just for the record, I LOVE living in Denver! I especially love the weather because in between these freezing cold days in the winter, we get these amazing 65 degree days BUT being cooped up in the house for days on end with two little ones can make ya go a little stir crazy! 

I have done some baking with all this time indoors which has been fun for me, but not so much for my waistline, whoops. I tried getting Lucy to bake with me, but she just has not been interested in it at all. She does, however, partake in all the eating of the baked goods ;) Poor girl just wants to go play in the snow but it is way, wayyyy too cold for that. 

We have watched entirely too much Mickey-- cue the Hot Dog song!  We have had Christmas music dance parties in the kitchen, colored our little hearts out, played with Play doh, played a game of chase Daisy around the house, & endless stickers that can now be found all over the house. I even managed to make vacuuming a fun activity for all of us!

But all that fun had to come to an end and we had to bust out of the four walls today!

I had a doctor's appointment to get to, so we bundled up and headed out. Since we were out, I decided to stop at Wal-Mart to get a couple of crafting items for stuff to do with Lucy...big mistake! Of course Wal-Mart was packed, so I had to park about a football field away and try to steer the stroller across the icy parking lot, ay-yi-yi.

So I did all that complaining about being stuck inside, then I go out, and all I wanted to do was run back home. 

Go figure.

On a totally unrelated note, Lucy made my stomach hurt from laughing so much tonight. She finally learned daddy's real name and I was cracking up over it. Her and I were reading books before bedtime and Ben was leaving to run to the store for more diapers. I called his name so I could tell him one more thing about the diapers to get. After he left the room again, she yelled "Ben!" And she kept yelling it and yelling it, and I lost it! At one point, she looked at me and asked, "where Ben go?" Ahhhh kids are too funny!

Happy almost Friday! ;)

Lindsey

'Tis the Season

I can't believe Christmas is right around the corner! Thanksgiving came and went with a quickness. We opted to stay home this year, and although we missed our family, we had a glorious 4 day retreat filled with snow, PJ's, naps for momma, and endless fires.

We have a tradition of going and cutting down our Christmas tree after Thanksgiving with some of our sweet friends. There are a bunch of designated areas to go cut down a tree, and when you are in beautiful Colorado, that's just what you do :)

We have always gone to Winter Park to cut ours down, and I gotta tell y'all, it is an event! People get there early and bring food and drinks and basically have a giant party all morning and afternoon. We have never been able to stay and hang out too long because the kiddos just get too cold, but there is some serious merriment in the air! I look forward to the kids getting a little older so we can stay and make a day of it!

We went this past weekend, and made the hour and a half drive up to Winter Park with our friends. I wasn't sure how things would go this year because we knew the weather was supposed to be REALLY cold, and that can make things tricky with two little ones, but we bundled everyone up and went into it very optimistic!

Lucy was a trooper, trudging through the snow for a good 5-10 minutes then Ben carried her in the back pack the rest of the way, and I bundled Michael up in the Ergo. The snow was up to my knees in some places...a little scary at times with carrying a little one. Michael actually did better than I expected. He lasted about 10 minutes and then he and I headed back to the car to hang out. My happy fella...

Not too long after Michael and I got back to the car, I saw Ben and Lucy coming with a tree. Thankfully Ben found a good one not too far off the path, and he even managed to cut it down and carry it back with Lucy on his back the whole time. That's my man! ;) Lucy loved it, and never complained once about being cold.

All in all, such a successful day! Happy kiddos, great friends, good looking trees, and a partridge in a pear tree! :)

Happy Holidays!

Lindsey

Michael - 5 Months

My big guy!

Another month gone by! I can't believe Michael is 5 months old already! My sweet little blue eyed, fair skinned happy boy! 

At 5 months old, you continue to be the happiest little fella, and a big time momma's boy! 

You learned how to roll over back to belly a couple weeks ago so you are starting to really get around with all your rolling. This has also brought about the always scary the first time around, belly sleeping. Last week you hardly slept because you kept getting your arm stuck under you while you rolled in the night. Now that you can roll over onto your belly though, I definitely think you prefer sleeping on your belly. It's usually no more than 5 minutes after I've put you down that you have rolled right over on to your belly. 

You just adore your big sis! You love to watch her, and you try really hard to reach out and touch her...only problem is she isn't too fond of you touching her ha! Today at the park, you were smiling and cooing at her watching her in the swing. It will be so fun to watch the two of you grow up together!

Cuddling is still your jam! Some of your best naps are still in the wrap, which is awesome! 

Oh how I love those sweet, pudgy, baby fingers!

You are having major teething symptoms!!! Lots of drooling and fussing lately. You are still trying to chew on your toes all the time, or mommy's fingers.

And those giggles...I could listen to them all.day.long.

We love you oh so much sweet, little Michael Benjamin!!

Snow Day!

We had such a fun snow day today! If I had to guess I'd say we ended up with around 7 or so inches of snow. I was pretty excited to get Lucy out in it to play. We got to test out all her oversized, new snow gear, and it held up very well.

She was so excited!

I tell ya, it brings so much joy when your kids are having a blast! My heart was exploding watching her play around! We played in the snow for an hour and then came inside for lunch, and she was not happy about having to come inside. But after lunch and naps, she got to go back out and play in it with her Grammy!

While Lucy and Grammy played outside, I got busy baking some amazing lactation cookies! Recipe can be found here. 

These cookies are amazing!! Honestly, I'm not even struggling with my milk supply right now, but I totally justify eating them because I just say that I'm breastfeeding and trying to "take care of" my supply. Judge me hard! ;)

This particular batch of cookies had a little extra something in them...obviously, I need to pay extra attention to detail ;)

A little extra Vitamin D anyone?

And my sweet little helper while I baked :)

Lindsey

Weekend Wrap Up + Bunkering Down

Happy Monday everyone!

I am watching the snow fall curled up under lots of layers over here as I write this. We are expected to get 8-12 inches of snow overnight. The weather app on my phone said Blizzard Warning for our area. I'm not sure how I feel about that buuuut I'm hoping for enough snow that Lucy can get out and play in it and build a snowman!

Our weekend was quite interesting. I know I mentioned that Lucy has been going through a possible sleep regression lately and we have been trying to figure all that out. Well, Ben and I woke up Saturday morning around 2am to Lucy awake and she basically threw a temper tantrum in her bed because she couldn't get up. Girlfriend decided she was going to jump up and down in her bed as she screamed, and she got so worked up that she jumped/threw herself out of her bed!! It was crazy! I still don't know how exactly she flew out but the second I looked away from the baby monitor I heard a loud thud! I flew out of the bed so fast that both my feet went out from under me and I caught myself on the edge of the bed and kept running. Lucy's room is right across from ours and I got in there and she was standing up right next to her bed, and looked at me and said, "Lucy fall out bed". I was thanking Jesus that she was not hurt because I know it could have been terrible, and Lucy wasn't as shaken up by it as I expected. My guess is she was just as curious how she ended up out of the bed as I was. Anyways, after that happened I was scared to put her back in the crib because I didn't want a repeat of that ever again. So even though I was not ready at all, we took her side rail down from the crib and decided to go ahead and transition her to the toddler bed that night. This story could go on and on, but to sum things up, Lucy was in and out of her bed from 7:30pm (her normal bedtime) to 1am. At 1am, Ben looked at the exhaustion on my face and asked if I wanted him to put the side rail back up and the look I gave him was a "heck yes!" I was more than ready to accept defeat and get some SLEEP!! I tell ya, I knew transitioning her to a toddler bed wasn't going to be all rainbows and butterflies but wowzers, that was rough. I will take any help on this that I can get and the plan is to watch her like a hawk for now and transition her next month when Ben is home for a long weekend or something so we can tag team and take care of business. We gotta get pumped up for this!!

Now on to some less scary, more adorable stuff ;)

This happy little fella is obsessed with his feet!! Such a cutie!

Caught red handed!

Nom nom!

My mom is in town now and since we are raising our white flag on bed transitions, we are moving right along to the next thing...potty training!

We got this one in the bag y'all! ;)

I'm excited to bunker down tomorrow, make some soups perfect for our "blizzard" weather and get some warm snuggles from those precious babies! 

Lindsey

Friday Rambling

Happy happy Friday!!

We have had some serious sleepless nights around here over the past couple of weeks due to what I'm guessing is 2 year sleep regression so I haven't had my ducks in a row to get a post completed lately. So instead, with my second cup o' joe for the day in hand, I have some rambling thoughts from the week, so here we go...

1. We had our first snow of the season this week. We only got a few inches and it melted before we could get out and play in it, but there will be plenty of other opportunities for that over the next few months! This weekend we're supposed to have lots of sunshine and cool, crisp temperatures perfect for fall!

2. Not all of us have been affected by this sleep regression ;)

3. I was having some TERRIBLE neck pain that lasted about a week and was getting a lot worse (think crying 30 year old and throbbing headaches all day). I got a massage which sadly helped very little, then decided to go see the chiropractor. I hadn't gone to the chiropractor since we moved to Colorado...and I only wished I had gone sooner! I feel like a new woman! I'm still going fairly regularly since the doc thinks the pain is all from breastfeeding (y'all know the awesome posture associated with that) Ay-yi-yi. Anyways...thank goodness for the chiropractor!

4. Daisy turned 10 last week and I may have shed a tear thinking about how fast she has grown up.

5. Last weekend we had to go buy Lucy some winter outerwear since we knew there was snow in the forecast. We went to Target because I couldn't find anything in her size at the local consignment shop and we had really good luck with her winter coat from Target last year. Ben and I were looking through the coats, ski bibs, and boots because we are hoping to actually get her out on the slopes closer to the end of the season. I was 2 when I first skied (in between my dad's legs going down the bunny slope). Fun fun memories! What I didn't realize was how much all that stuff adds up! The boots were about $30!! I usually don't even spend that much on shoes for myself! So, in order to get the most bang for our buck, we decided to buy up a size or two for her stuff! I wish I would have taken pictures while we were having her try on the stuff in the middle of the kid section at Target! The boots were about a size and a half too big, but she walked great in them and I figure we can put some nice thick socks on ;) And her coat is 2 sizes too big. Think long parka on a 2 year old, but hey, those babies will last at least 2 years! Or, so they better, ha!

6. Lucy has been anti-stroller lately which I am slowly coming to terms with. Then I remembered after a mom from my MOPS group mentioned it, we bought this glider that connects to the stroller so your kid can just cruise right in front of you! We put it on and it has been a huge hit for Lucy! She is now asking to ride on it :) Win!

7. I am still doing barre classes a few times per week and I am definitely seeing results, but this week I had to come to terms with the fact that I'm now 30 and I'm pretty sure my metabolism just ain't the same because I think I might actually have to try and cut back on beer and dessert becaaauuse it just might help with the whole getting my pre-baby body back (sigh).

8. My mom is coming in town this week and I am so excited!! My mom is awesome because she remembers so well what it was like to raise kids hundreds of miles from family and not get too many breaks soooo she is making me get out and go hang with friends, massages, shopping, etc. I love my babies but I am looking forward to some "me" time to refuel :) Thanks mom!

9. Someone is teething!! I'll take the snuggles though.

Hope y'all have a wonderful weekend!

Lindsey