Best BirthMonth EVER!

This whole month has been a whirlwind of gifts and blessing swarming into my house. I have two of the cutest and best behaved little girls in the whole world. Don't get me wrong we have our moments, Eliza is learning more and more each day that there are some boundaries that are just NOT worth crossing. And that tantrums really don't get you what you want instead they just make mom really annoyed with you and unwilling to give you anything. That said she also is learning just the right things to say to melt my gooey little heart and cause me to give into almost anything she desires! Darn those kids and their quick ability to learn!

But back to what I was saying before... this whole month has been insanity and I'm sure that everything went perfectly because it's my birthmonth... right? The world still revolves around me and my life is 100% perfect all the time.

This week in particular has been incredible. Monday was normal Tuesday was also normal the girls played at Grandma Merritt's house and I got the house clean. So normal. The weather has been very agreeable and you can feel fall in the air which has been incredible! I love the cool mornings and days that are so comfortable for playing outside. Wednesday we went to Loveland and slaved I mean played with Grandma Waite all day. We baked pie and made soup and ran errands it was a lot of going and going and going. Wore out doesn't even begin to describe how I felt at the end of the day! Thursday was excellent as well... Ok so it was mostly excellent. The morning was miserable. Alayna decided to have a total melt down over cloths that morning so she did not get to go to playgroup instead we went home and worked on potty training all day while Eliza played at the Mott's house all morning. Much to my surprise Alayna went almost all day without a single accident. She even pooped on the toilet! (this is a big deal someday you will all understand if you don't already!). That afternoon we went to Grandma's to get Eliza (grandma saved me and did the pick up since Alayna was still asleep!) and do some cutting I needed for some receiving blankets. Friday was my birthday!! Happy birthday to me! Ben surprised me by taking the day off to give me the day off too! He took the girls shopping and to the park and I got to go to quilt-a-fair and roam around for a while on my own! The crowds were insane I was glad the girls weren't there for me to worry about! Then after lunch and naps we took them to the Merritt's while Ben and I went out to dinner and then for a short walk on Pearl St. in Boulder. It was honestly the perfect day! I could not have ask for anything more!!
Saturday was busy with projects around the house and lots of soup making in the kitchen for the RS broadcast that evening. The broadcast was wonderful if you missed it you should absolutely look up Brother Uchtdorf's talk it was fantastic! Today has been good I am looking forward to our triple birthday celebration in Loveland later tonight!

Eliza-isms
Eliza has been saying some of the funniest stuff these days! I have to record them somewhere and Here seemed like a good place! I wish I would always remember to write them down but here are two from this week!
1. Eliza was playing in the play kitchen with Grandma while I was cutting my fabric on Thursday. They were playing dolls and house and such and Eliza found herself a little baby doll that she was cooking with. By cooking with I mean to say that she put the baby into the pot and explained to grandma that she was going to cook the baby into a baby bruder (brother) for her. She puts the baby in the oven and continues playing... When checking on the baby she pulls it out and peeks in the lid, promptly closing the lid and putting it back into the oven, apparently the baby came out as a sister so she put it back to cook into a brother.

2. *When talking about Lindsay getting married:
               Eliza "BUT Mom! I want to get married too!"
               Mom: " really!?" (confusion over the conversation just a day or two before about how she never wants to get married)
               Eliza: "Yes!"
              Mom: "Ok but who do you want to marry?"
              Eliza: "how about I marry my baby bruder when he gets big enough to get out of your tummy"
              Mom: trying to control uncontrollable laughter "No you can't marry your brother, it's not allowed"

Ahh to be 3 and so innocent once again!

Bread Baking... Who Knew!?

Monday: that was a good day... I usually like Monday's it gets me back into my routine and sets the precidence for what all will be accomplished in the week... I can't remember a single thing we did that day... and that is what consists of most of the week!

Tuesday on the other hand was a fun adventure! In my ward at church there is this fantastic woman who does a free Boot Camp class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for an hour of self inflicted pain. I decided that I would give it a try because I haven't been too sick and I figured worst case senerio my body would whine enough that I wouldn't go back until after this baby gets here! Thankfully the whole time I was working out everything was great. The sad news was that the aftermath is still up in the air of if I want to attempt it again this upcoming Tuesday. I was SUPER sore for days afterward and therefore extra grumpy which the girls didn't really appriciate! Not to mention the hip pain from over doing it a bit! The girls on the other hand had a great time and have spent the rest of the week asking when we could do it again. They crack me up because they come and do as many of the exercises that they can with us!
Wednesday was a day of soreness, tylenol, and too much partying! I took the girls to the park to play in the morning the weather was very cool and rainy all day long. I was actually very happy with the weather because all I really wanted to do that day was sit very very still and try not to feel the pain in every part of my body from the day before! Abby was awesome and came over that afternoon with gifts for me (mmm pumpkin spice starbucks!) AND a haircut/ eyebrow wax after I got Alayna down for a nap that day! The evening was just as amazing! Hailey was in town for a business meeting with her dad so we had a family dinner before Ben had to go over to the youth activity that night. Then the girls and I stayed and enjoyed some time just talking with all three of Ben's sisters! I was yet again reminded that I really did get SUPER lucky when I married into the Merritt family, they are all amazing wonderful people that I am happy to call family!
Thursday was interesting. We were planning on having friends over to play that day but then they were sick so we found ourselves incredibly busy with many other things. I successfully made some of the BEST homemade bread ever that day! I have been trying annually to make bread since Ben and I got married but have never succeeded until this day! It was yummy and I will be making more again soon! I would love to say that it was a very productive day but I definently did not get everything done that I needed to! oh well such is life
Friday was probably the best feeling day of the week. As much as I love visiting with family, visiting Renae (my favorite massage/MAT therapist) was likely the highlight of the week! I have never met someone who makes me feel so fantastic. She worked her magic on my shoulders and my hips and then she even worked some magic on my belly which has been fighting against the possibility of a baby taking over in there even though I did not know that she could do anything for the stomach pain but sure enough she did some stuff to my back and it promptly fixed the stomach pain! Now all I need to do is fix the digestive issues this baby is causing! Other than that we played with Grandma went shopping and picked up a Little Mermaid (tail not dress) costume that she got heart set on at the local thrift store. Best $5 spent for the play we've already gotten out of it! It was not as fun to convince her she really couldn't wear it to church this week!
Saturday was fabulous! I went to the farmers market first thing then went to the stake center to run a booth at the Prepardness Fair that the church put on for the public. It was very neat/ educational and well attended. After running my shift there I came home made lunch fed/dressed the girls napped Alayna, cleaned the house and then we really got to have an adventure! Ben took all of us girls to the Flatirons Mall! We just walked around and broused the shops until I was wore to the bone when we stopped for dinner a little play time at the park and then came home to crash on the couch!
Sunday, today has been good. We had great lessons and got two new councelors in the Bishopric both are going to do a fantastic job they are great men! The lessons were good and now we are just enjoying a quiet evening at home as a family. That has been the week! I hope that yours was as exciting as ours!

Growing by Two Feet!

Guess what! If you haven't already heard through the other million resources that it seems to be coming from,
Our family is growing by two feet by April! (I am due April 14th)

For those of you who don't know what you are looking at: Dark spot on right side = uterus, light spot on bottom inside of the dark = baby peanut!

reading books and playing in the tent!

This week was a good and busy week for us. Monday was filled with activities for the girls and I including cleaning and lots and lots and lots of laundry. Did you know that when you put off laundry for two weeks the mass amount of laundry you are then faced with makes me incredibly tempted to fork out the cash and hit up a laundry mat so that I could get it all done in a matter of a few hours rather than a few days of uninterrupted effort in my own house.
Tuesday was an extra fun day. The girls and I went for a nice long walk that morning! We are really getting some good fall weather including temperatures that are no longer in the 90's which is the best part of fall coming. I could really do without the allergies that come with the changing seasons because we are a mucus mad house currently including two very loud snoring children thanks to the inability to breath well! BUT back to Tuesday. The girls and I walked to the park and played and had a picnic until Alayna's nap time when we went to Grandma Merritt's house for nap and then the girls got to hang out there while I went to my first baby appointment! I also got to steal a little nap on Grandma's couch before going to the doc. The baby appointment went really well. There is one healthy little peanut growing in there! I am measuring 'suprisingly large' (according to the doctor) for how early I still am in the pregnancy. I was thrilled to have an ultrasound to see baby and hear a good strong little heartbeat. I am always amazed at what a sweet sound that actually is!
Wednesday we went to Loveland to play with Grandma for the day. We went and did a little bit of shopping... ok we really did a lot of shopping because after Ben cleaned the fridge out last weekend we realized that we really were completely out of food and I HAD to get to the store soon or we wouldn't be eating anything but rice and canned vegi's! So we did some shopping and I was again reminded how much easier it is to shop with little ones when you have another set of calm hands to cope with the toddler who is screaming in the store because you wont cave in and give back that pacifier that she is begging for. (We are working, and succeeding mostly, at weaning Alayna off the pacifier during the day!)
Thursday was great! The girls went and played at a friends house in the morning for a little while I got a ton of cleaning done. The house is getting bad. I need to purge very badly, that and I need to reorganize the toy cabinet in the living room and rotate some new toys in for a while. The struggle is finding the motivation to do that stuff when all I really want to do is sleep, puke, and eat! That evening we had an adventure with the girls! Eliza keeps asking if we can go camping again (she loves to camp!) and I told her no but we could let her have a camp out in her room if she wanted. She was very excited by this so I set up a cool makeshift tent in their room and both girls got to camp out in their tent. Alayna didn't make it through the night without getting moved to her bed (kept waking up) but Eliza did and I think I might have cured them of wanting to have another camp out for a while she doesn't really care to sleep on the floor apparently. They have still had fun playing in the tent otherwise though!
Friday was an adventure! I got the girls up and ready for the day. My visiting teachers came... the girls had a sucker party downstairs... and by sucker party I mean that three of the four little girls that were here sat in the basement and consumed somewhere near 20-30 dumdum suckers in less than an hour. I had not realized that they had access to them so I was shocked when I went down to discover so many freshly finished sucker sticks all over my floor. After that I took the girls to the store for some shoe shopping for Miss Eliza. Her feet got huge over the summer! I realized as I was searching through my collection of shoes for her to grow into that there is not a single pair of size 9 shoes in the group so we went and got her some "running shoes" as she calls them! She is very excited about them. They are silver with hot pink soles... they were her 'favorite!' I paid too much for them but at least she's got some shoes to get her through the winter now!
Saturday Ben went wake boarding with his family super early that morning. I was not getting up that early to not get in the lake so I enjoyed sleeping in a little with the girls! We went to a birthday party that afternoon for our friend Jackson. He had a little petting zoo at his party and the girls both had a great time looking at the animals and petting them... as long as they were on the other side of the gate. Ben took Alayna into the petting area and she totally lost it. Eliza refused to go in at all but they both loved on the animals from the safety of the other side of the gate. After the party we finished up the things we needed to that day and I promptly crashed when we got home. I hate how exhausting normal life is when I am in the first trimester!
Sunday was good. Much less dramatic than last week... no one 'breaking up' with the church this week was great. We had some great talks and lessons and then a fantastic dinner with the Merritt's. Now it is time to move into our next week and have some more adventures!

It's about Time!

Wow! Can you believe how long it has been since I posted anything on this! You would think that being a stay at home mom means that I should have time/ make more time for things like blogging. But apparently I haven't been doing very well at having or making time for all kinds of things. I have to admit that my time for blogging has recently become dedicated to sleeping. Sunday naps have been taking priority over most everything.
The past few weeks have been spent doing all the usual stuff. School started for the local schools around here, You would think that because my kids aren't in school yet that it wouldn't mean much for school to start but I have to admit that it is kind of nice to have the stores so quiet during the day. The disadvantage is that it means that some of our favorite outdoor pools are also officially closed now!
Eliza has been busy with being her little smiling and giggling self! She has recently discovered that Alayna is a fantastic playmate after all! This has been wonderful for me while I have not been feeling very well they have mostly entertained each other. Eliza has been really into watching this "Angelina Ballerina" movie that has some sections of teaching you how to dance and it has been very cute to watch her prance all around the house 'practicing' all of her dance moves!  I need to get a short video clip to post either here or just for future reference!
Alayna is starting to talk a lot more these days! We are working at getting rid of the pacifier during the day. Since she is trying to talk more we are also trying to understand what she says therefore a constant thing in her mouth isn't helping the cause. Not to mention the apparent speech impediment that is starting to carry over even when there isn't anything in her mouth! She is also getting somewhat opinionated in some of her play. Like when Eliza full body tackles her she doesn't just take it anymore she starts screaming like it is the end of her life! She has also quit letting other kids take toys from here without a fight. And when I say fight I really mean she puts up a GOOD fight! Alayna has also graduated to a big kid bed... I am not sure if I posted about that yet. But we put her into a big kid bed with no issues at all! She loves it and thinks the only thing that could make it better would be if she could manage to get up onto the top bunk by herself!
Ben has been busy with work! I don't know how I could ever show enough gratitude for how well he supports our family and how he is always looking for ways to improve that as well! He is so awesome! Early this week he got to go golfing with his Dad and Evan. They all had a good time and Ben played a pretty good game (according to him!). Friday Ben worked a half day so that we could go to the funeral of one of his Bosses wife. It was a very nice service and it is always sad to see someone as young as 60 pass away from things like cancer. But before he got to come home from work Ben managed to sprain his ankle while going down some stairs carrying about 80 extra lbs. Poor guy. He spent Saturday relaxing and icing it so that hopefully he will be able to wake board on Monday!
I have been doing well! Sleepy is the best word for how I feel most of the time! The girls are running me ragged and you can tell that the weather is starting to change because their moods and motivation seems to change right along with the weather! I don't know what I am going to do when I can't just send them out the door or take them to the park to run off some of that excessive energy! I have had a great week visiting with the Merritt clan a lot this week. We did corn (shuck, boil, cut, freeze) on Monday. Dinner of Tuesday and the girls went on Friday while we went to the funeral. The girls thought this was great! Eliza particularly loved that Grandma Lael was there to play with!! Eliza was very cute at church today and ask why Lael wasn't there and ask when she was coming back because "she loved to play with her and wants her to come back!" it was very sweet! It's nice to know that she loves her family so much!!
I think that about covers us for the last week or so! I hope everyone is doing well!!

I got a New Kitchen!!

This week I got a new kitchen. I know this sounds crazy but I got really motivated a few weeks ago to paint the cupboards in the upstairs bathrooms. Once I started on those is was like something terrible took over my body and convinced me it would be a good idea to take on the kitchen. I don't know what I was thinking. Especailly thinking I should try to do this on my own with two very cute little helpers under my feet. I sucessfully did the main floor bathroom and one set of the cupboards in the kitchen before having a total melt down. It was not working well I had decided to glaze (aka antique) the cabinets with a dark brown glaze only to get it on a discover that I really couldn't stand how it looked and proceeded to wipe it off. In that process much to my dismay my paint also wiped right off. I was very upset but eventually discovered that paint needs more like 14 days to cure than 3 before washing it! So I got to repaint all the kitchen stuff I had done.

Thankfully in this process Diane was kind enough to take Eliza one of those days (I think it was Tuesday if I remember correctly!) and she kept her out from under my feet while Alayna napped and I worked like a crazy person to put my kitchen back into something that was at least halfway presentable for when the Missionaries came over for dinner. Alayna and I had fun with the little bit of time that was just the two of us and it reminded me how much easier it is to be a mom with just one toddler running around asking for your attention! It always amazes me how much fun it is to take that one on one time with your kids, reminded me of the times growing up when my own mom would sit and play a board game with just one of us. No one else just you and mom... they are sweet memories!!

Wednesday we went to loveland to play and then on Thursday we got to pick up Grandma Waite after the girls had some Grandma Merritt time in the morning. We played at our house with Grandma Waite and then I took her to the airport for her trip to UT to visit with Rachel, Bruce, and Hailey. Speaking of Grandma Waite... Just for documentation purposes... Grandma Waite wrecked on her bike two weeks ago... rode the extra 8 miles home after that (stuborn pride) and was told she has skier's thumb. Well this week she had a follow up appt and found out that her thumb is in fact broken and will definently need surgery. So she will enjoy that adventure when she comes back from her trip. 10 weeks in a cast and then therapy after that... (now grandma if I was wrong about that let me know!)
Thursday Ben was also my hero for providing a fantasic solution for the need of a grill we had for our stake family carnival that I have been working on for the past few months! He called and offered it and everyone was very excited about the easy solution that he was able to provide!
Friday was kind of a chill day. I had a ton I should have done but the weather enticed me and the girls outside. We went to Boulder to the rocketship park and enjoyed a few hours of real play and a picnic lunch before heading home for a lazy afternoon.
Saturday was murder. Ben is fantastic. Did I mention that I married an amazing, heroic, incredible man?! Because I did. We got up early and got started on the kitchen. After a proper melt down on Tuesday of washing off paint that I didn't want to he agreed to jump in an help. And boy when he jumps in to help he really jumps in to help!! I went from having a half done kitchen to a fully complete kitchen doors attached and handles replaced! I couldn't have ever done it all without him and I owe him big time for this crazy venture! That said the kitchen looks fantastic and now we are talking about the possiblity of painting the little bit of wall space in the kitchen to help add some color to the room because it is currently really WHITE! Ben ended up being up until 11PM finishing putting doors on after I had gone to bed but it really looks fantastic! By the end of the night we had had the doors and windows open a good portion of the day for the smell and there are now 3 very runny noses that sneeze a lot. It is apparently allergy season in the Merritt household!
Sunday, we woke up (barely for some of us) and went to church I really enjoyed not teaching the sunbeams this week. They are a lot of fun but a ton of work as well. I recieved a great compliment from one of the sunbeam moms this morning when she told me that Will came home from church last week saying that I was his favorite teacher! It sure made me feel good but I still don't think I want that calling! All of us girls are still sneezing, snoting, watery eyed allergy messes! I am seriously wishing that there was some kind of seasonal allergy cure for my kids under 6! but we made it nicely through church and have enjoyed a quiet evening at home!