Rowan 4.5

Man, this boy is a sweet one. The other day, I was telling Lyra she was sweet and she said "No! Rowan is sweet" (She has yet to consent in any form that she is sweet despite certainly being so). 

He is just so tender and loving. It almost makes me cry when I think about how much I love his wonderful little self. 

He says at least ten times a day how much he loves me or Sel or Lyra. He loves to proclaim it at random times and random places. Occasionally, Rowan uses it as a tactic to delay bedtime knowing it's hard to get upset at a little boy who "just needed to say I love you one more time". 

Rowan is a perfect little square for his size. 42 pounds and 42 inches (85% for weight and height). It seems appropriate since Rowan is very particular about having things match and be in their proper order. He's pretty thrilled that another boy will be joining the family so he can "match boys". He is growing so much physically. I can hardly keep shoes on the kid and it bothers him so much. Rowan likes a certain order to his life (like most of us) and hates when shoes that he wears everyday all of a sudden don't fit. I have to secretly hide the ones he's outgrown or he loses his mind and tries to stuff those monstrous feet of his into his old shoes. 

Things Rowan loves: eating his packed lunch at school and finishing it before his best friend, video games of all kinds, chocolate, water books, mazes and puzzles, I-spy books, Hidden Pictures, and Where's Waldo (we have to read one every single night), bell peppers (he recently told me this is his favorite vegetable because it has crispy water in it), being obedient and praised for it, helping with things and feeling helpful. I am impressed daily with how obedient he is. He has his days where he is extra tired, hungry or whatever and struggles, but for the most part, he is a really good listener. Rowan talks in extensive detail about things which can make it hard for him to get everything out that he wants to or makes it hard for people to stay focused enough to get to the end of his drawn out explanation. WOW! The imagination on this kid too. He could go on endlessly about made-up fights and battles and all sorts of made-up creatures who are "bad guys". He loves his teacher, his friends at school, and board games. Rowan loves spiking his hair recently because a girl in his class told him it was cool. Rowan is a snow addict. He could play out there until he got frostbite and not care at all. He's always been an outside lover and the cold weather hasn't changed that for him. He's really into writing his own name lately, figuring out addition, and what words rhyme. Rowan still astounds me with his physical abilities and is a natural born athlete. He has transitioned beautifully to the Come, Follow Me program. His favorite part of the day is "FHE" because we try to do a little something for it everyday. I think he just really thrives on the family togetherness time, the spirit it brings, and the promise of an activity together each time we do it. He has memorized a few scriptures so far this year and is SO ready to tell them to you. We try and learn some on the way to preschool every morning and he only ever wants to say the ones he already has memorized instead of learning new ones. 

Things Rowan Hates: He says he doesn't like going to school, but is happy pretty much everyday after school, he hates when Lyra grabs pieces of a board game he is playing, he despises being sticky, wet or messy. He refuses to eat soup because it makes him too messy (sigh, it's only the favorite meal of 1/2 of our family), losing games, having to wash his hands, being bad at anything. If he can't master it the first time, it's really hard to convince him he might still like it with practice. He played basketball this last season and didn't want to go back after his first game because he couldn't dribble very well. Luckily, he got talked in to going back and improved like we told him he would. 

The thing most special to me about Rowan is how inherently good he is. I haven't had to do much to teach him how to share, how to be gentle and sweet with his sister, how to be as incredibly thoughtful as he is, or how to be so discerning of other people's emotions. He just came as this incredible little person who I want to be like. He captures for me what Christ meant when he said "be ye like a little child".

He loves matching his dad

Leading his sister in breakfast shenanigans 

Hiking with Papa

He loved climbing to THE very top of all this jungle gyms by my parents house

Rowan told me I was a liar when I took them to frozen yogurt  because he said it was ice-cream 

The boy who could live outside 

Lyra 2.5

Lyra at two and a half is best described as an adorable wild animal. She is hysterical! I find it so hard to not laugh when I should be disciplining because she disobeys in such a comedic way. The other day, I watched her dig in my diaper bag, grab out a snack and then scurry quickly to the back of the van so I couldn't snatch it away from her. She loves to find hiding places to watch everyone from.

She's a light little thing. Picking her up is not hard. I distinctly remember how hard it was to heft Rowan while pregnant, but she's luckily not. I was a little surprised at her most recent wellness check that she was in the 25% for weight. Both of my kids started so high in the percentiles as babies and then slowly dropped each appointment. She was in the 70% for height which is just slightly down from what she was at her 2-year-old appointment. She's officially potty-trained! We did a very slow transition to it. Lyra has such an opposite personality to Rowan in regards to potty-training. Rowan decided he wasn't going to wear diapers anymore a little after his 2nd birthday and would LOSE it if he ever had an accident. Lyra, however, would pee or poop in her underwear and care 0%. She'd say "I peed Mommy!" and throw her dirty pants on the ground and walk away. She would do amazing for awhile and then have three days in a row of accidents. We traveled for the holidays and she just 100% figured it out. I haven't done really much at all in the way of training with either of them. I just sort of let them figure it out themselves which is probably why it was ineffective with Lyra. I'm just grateful she figured it out before the new baby comes. She even wipes efficiently all by herself and loves to wash her hands.

Her favorite things: getting chased, tackling/teasing/attacking Rowan (who responds so amazingly to it and almost seems to like her poking him 24/7), eating straight butter and sugar, peas, green apples, cheese, bananas (but only as a delay to bedtime tactic), frozen berries, green smoothies, avocados anything pink or purple, purses, dolls, ponies, MAKE-UP. Gahhh. She is so obsessed with make-up. She has destroyed countless things of lipstick, blush and eyeshadow. She has an innate sense of fashion and accessorizing. It's always funny to me because I really don't wear much jewelry, never wear heels, don't have a purse, or wear much more than mascara. Yet, my daughter has a full knowledge of what it means to put on the Ritz. I'm not sure how she learned it all, (Probably Sel ;) ) but I love it. It's so fun to see her find such joy in being a girly girl. She loves to help in the kitchen and is quite the sous chef. I love when she drags her stool over to the counter and asks to help making food. Rowan used to love this too and has since lost interest. She swooped in to fill his gap. Playdough! Oh how she loves playdough. Lyra is most content when drawing, painting, coloring, etc. She just loves to sit there and create things. It makes her so easy to entertain. At least it does, until she demands I am the one who should draw every member of her extended family with the appropriate accessories. She also always wants me to make crazy things with playdough that my artistically lacking self never could. Lyra's favorite show is...watching people open presents on YouTube. It's so dumb and I hate that I let her watch it. Her favorite is one where this guy opens playdough. She's learning so much (eye roll). She adores taking long, hot showers after swimming at the gym. She often takes a 15-20 minute shower before I cut her off. Lyra calls going to the gym her "school" and refers to all the childcare workers as teacher. She's SO eager to go to school. I luckily got her into one that starts in the Fall and I can hardly wait to watch her zoom out of the car with her backpack. Rowan, on the other hand, has informed me he would like to not go to school anymore after this year. He was pretty overwhelmed at the idea that his dad just finished going to school less than two years ago and that he would spend the majority of the next two decades going to school.

Things she hates: being told she can't stick her hand down my shirt, sleeping in her own bed the whole night, soda, keeping things in their proper place, not being able to go to pre-school with Rowan,

Cute things she says/does: 'Yesserday" means anything in the past tense, when she first wakes up she'll give me a kiss and say " I love you mom! You're my best friend. And daddy is my best friend. And Mimi is my best friend and Papa is my best friend, etc" It's adorbs. She'll grab my face and go "you cute, cute cute mommy" in this high-pitched voice. She'll say something is cute if it's tiny. We've been watching Pokemon lately and she loves to say "PIIIKKAAAA CHOOOOO". She loves to sing still and does a surprisingly good job remembering lyrics and getting the right tune. Lyra loves hair and doing other people's hair. Her favorite is to pretend she's the evil mother from Tangled and, while brushing my hair, tell me it's too dangerous to go outside. She is an ACTRESS. Born for the stage. We did a nativity pageant with my extended family over Christmas and she took it SO seriously. People were laughing at one point and she said "Stop! Issnot funny!" while making her most regal, serious face in her portrayal of Mary.

I love parenting Lyra. She's incredibly sweet, the funniest girl on the block, and beautiful in absolutely every sense of the word. We are pretty lucky that she's our girl

Wearing her new dress-up dress and coloring 

She made playdough earrings at church one day and did her nails with playdough too 

Wasn't our photographer AMAZING?! She managed to catch so much of who are kids are in such a short amount of time. AND it was freezing cold and they were not cooperative for a giant chunk of it. 

We stayed home today from pre-school and "gym" school. The kids wanted to be ninja turtles so I painted their faces and Lyra was so funny looking at her face on the camera 

Her personality in a nutshell. All the accessories, high heels, a princess dress, toys stuffed in a purse and playing with dollies

Being cute and goofy with her aunt 

Baby #3 30 Weeks

Here we are a few weeks in to the third trimester and about 3-million-years from having another baby. The weeks are flying by, but I know how loooong it gets over the next few months. 

I have been extraordinarily blessed to have very easy pregnancies. That being said, pregnancy is not easy. You have to learn to cope with a daily dose of feeling generally uncomfortable/ not yourself. Bending over is already starting to feel a bit like a chore and my forever pregnancy plague of pants not fitting is happening this time around too. I just want my pants to not slide down to my knees 24/7. You'd think pants falling off would be a sign of slimness, but nay, it is a sign of a rounding belly pushing pant material down with absolutely no resistance from my behind. Belly bands are helpful, but not 100% reliable.

I do feel pretty great at this current stage. I've been able to keep a higher level of fitness than my previous pregnancies, but I've started to get pretty sore in my back if I run too hard. I want to keep running throughout the next 10 weeks since it's such an endorphin high, but I probably need to get realistic about what amount of pain I want to deal with afterward.  The gym has been such a blessing. Being active during pregnancy has never been an issue. If anything, I've been more motivated during it than other times in my life. Now knowing that I have a clotting disorder, I attribute that inner push I"ve had. The post-partum period is really where it hits me hard. I'm so tired, sneaking in working out around a newborn sleeping/other kids schedules (and choosing not to nap instead) is nearly impossible, my body feels awful, my brain is broken...Pregnancy is a good time, but the post-partum is not nearly as nice to me.

Rowan and Lyra have been really sweet to baby bruva. Rowan talks plenty about all the games he will be playing with his brother and Lyra talks a lot about giving him milky and changing his yucky bum. I'm so excited to see them be siblings to this new baby! They both fought over who got to read him a book this morning.

This boy is calm and quiet. I only feel him really at nighttime. He's not super active which always makes me a little nervous. I'm hopeful it will be an indicator of his personality being a peaceful one (instead of someone who only wants to be awake at night).