January

January was pretty awesome. This month of pregnancy has been kicking my butt. Everything hurts and the heart burn is the worst! Between leg cramps and needing to go to the bathroom sleeping at night is a joke. Let just say we are so excited to get this baby girl here!! But I am still running 3ish times a week between 2 and 3.5 miles per run. Its not easy! I keep getting slower, and slower but I'm still out there! I exercise everyday about a half hour. Very,very modified but it feels good to move. This pregnancy has been so different from Jane's. With Jane I felt so good! I was always moving and hardly gained any weight. Although my weight gain hasn't been crazy this time, its not as awesome as it was. This time I just hurt all the time. And I am tired. So so tired. 

Wow that was a really bummer start to this post!! It really was a great month. It was full of some big changed and lots of really sweet moments as a family. These girls fill our lives with so much joy! 

The month started out with goal setting and with team brown eyes getting the stomach flu. Luckily for Juliet and Jane it was short lived. Less than 24 hours, but lots of throw up. It hit me super hard! Being pregnant and getting the stomach flu is rough. It took me a solid week to get back on my feet. But we survived it and I am just so grateful that Kyle and Abby didn't get it. 

I was able to go to Utah for a photography conference with my mom! It was so much fun! It was amazing and very eye opening for me. We did an actual photoshoot with our favorite photographer Jean Smith. There were only 5 other ladies there with us. For the first hour and half she just taught us her process which was so fun! Then we got twitch her move through an actual photoshoot and second shoot. It was amazing! We learned so much. I am super excited to apply these skills. Photography is such an outlet for me. In my ideal world I would start shooting in home photography and try and capture the real moments between moms and their kids. And all the different family dynamics. To capture families as they really are, in their space. How special would that be?! So I have lots of goals! 

Kyle and Kelly were awesome to hold down the fort while I was gone. I was so grateful that Kyle was so supportive of me going and taking this time for myself. He is so amazing and so sweet to me. 

We also started potty training Jane!! She has been more than ready so I thought we might as well try before the baby comes. We set our expectations pretty low though. But she has been killing it! The first few days were really back and forth. I wasn't sure how it was going to go. Then she got a bad rash on her little bum (sorry future Jane for putting this out there, but I need to remember these things!) and that made it miserable for her to go to the bathroom. But I put some medicine on it and then the next day went a lot better. So its been less than a week now and today she was awesome! So I have a lot of hope that she will be totally solid by the time baby sister comes. One of the worst parts of potty training her was Sunday night. We started Saturday morning with potty training and the first night went great! Sunday we stayed out too late and she was beyond exhausted by the time we got home and she would not go to the bathroom. So we put her to bed knowing she was going to need to go that night. She woke up at 12:30 bawling because she wet the bed. She woke everyone up. And then for the next 3 hours no one would go back to sleep. They were all just talking and giggling. For hours!! That was a rough night for all of us and the next day was really rough too because of it. 

Jane has grown so much this month! I hear about a million times a day "I do it". It cracks me up. She gets herself dressed and undressed and is getting really good at buckling herself in her carseat. She'll have it down by the time the baby comes, which will be awesome! Our favorite thing that she does right now is her jokes. She is so funny. My favorite joke is when she just says something random and then adds "poops" at the end. Then she laughs and laughs at herself. It is hilarious. 

At the beginning of the month Abby was really struggling getting back into the groove of school. She would throw the biggest fits every. single. morning. It was awful. Then after we picked her up from school it was totally miserable trying to get her to do her homework. So much crying and fighting. It was exhausting. Trying to handle those situations in a healthy way, and model correct and healthy behavior is exhausting. Trying to understand her and help her understand and work through all these feelings is SOOO hard. I love her so much and she has so many strengths that blow me away. I am so grateful that I get to go on this ride of life with her, and I just pray that I can lead her the right way. Luckily with lots of persistence and a lot of patience, by the end of the month things were going much better. I started waking her up earlier so that our mornings weren't so crazy. And that helped big time. She has more time to play and they started wanting to watch disneyland videos while they eat breakfast. That was a big motivator for her to get ready and do her spelling words so that she can watch them. She is just the best! 

Juliet lost her first tooth!! That is the first lost tooth for our family! It was so exciting and came out of nowhere. She was so brave and wanted Kyle to pull it. I think it was so good that Juliet did it first so that Abby could see it was just no big deal. 

Other than those things January was just full of small moments of happiness. Life is so good. The girls play so well together. They love our backyard and play out there for hours. The weather has been amazing. We'll started playing a lot more games together as a family and it is so fun! 

This was our family home evening setting goals. That was really fun. It was entertaining to hear what they came up with. 

Kyle set up the dresser and nightstand for the baby's room. I love it! 

Bahama bucks with family that was visiting! 

I saw this on Facebook and cracked up. This is so my parents. 

We went to cracker barrel for my Grammee's birthday. 

Birthday hats from Grammee's party

We got the girls a bunk bed!! They love it! All three girls sleep in there together now. Its so much fun. Abby and jules sleep in the top and Jane is the queen on the bottom. 

We got the bunk bed delivered on a Saturday and the girls were so excited. A few days later we picked Abby up from school and on the way home Jules started telling me she didn't feel good. She had been saying that for over a week since Jane started throwing up. So I just dismissed it and told her she could go lay down if she wanted. Jane had fallen asleep on the way home and was asleep on the couch. Abby and I headed to the spare room to try and focus on her homework. When we were done with homework we come out of the room and Abby walks into their room and goes "Jules what happened?" Jules says "don't tell mom". So I run in there and there is throw up all over the top bunk. All over Jules and all over the stairs coming down the bunkbed. So I get Jules in the tub and head back to clean up the bunkbed. 7 months pregnant on the top bunk of a bunkbed trying to get the sheets off and get everything cleaned up. It was one of the situations that my only option was to laugh. Luckily Abby was right there with me, with disinfectant wipes helping wipe everything down and get it cleaned up. I don't know what I would do without that girl. We've been parents now for nearly 7 years and that was only the SECOND time anyone has thrown up in a bed. And it had to be just days after we got a bunk bed. Ha Ha!! 

She is the sweetest girl. The amount of times she says "I love you Mom" is amazing. It melts me every single time. 

I love this picture of Jane snuggling with her dad. He is such a patient dad! 

This girl will not nap. Unless we are in the car and she falls asleep. There have been a handful of times that she has transferred and it has been amazing! Usually as soon as the car turns off her eyes pop right open. 

Abby and I went on a little date together to Lacee's game. She took this selfie and it cracked me up! 

They love to get the mail together. Abby leads the way and divides the mail up between everyone so that everyone gets to carry something back to the house. 

Car napping. 

It rained one night, so a couple days later we brought all of our sandcastle stuff to the park and built some awesome castles. It was really fun! 

We went to a new park on MLK day. It was so fun to have an extra long weekend with Abby. 

Sodalicious! 

Spa night for mutual. It was so fun. 

Some of the amazing food we had in Utah. It was such a good weekend. 

One of the pictures I took during the photoshoot. I just loved this shot. I feel like I really captured a moment. And I love it! 

We went to this place called "Chip" in provo. They only sell these massive chocolate chip cookies and they were heavenly! 

Jane has been drawing the cutest "people". This is a drawing of herself. I loved it! 

We went out for a family ice cream date. Over the holidays someone had dropped off a nice card and a gift card to cold stone for our girls. We have no idea who it was, but it really was the nicest thing. The girls had so much fun, we hadn't gone there in years and it was supper yummy! 

One of the only ways to get Abby motivated in the morning was to watch disneyland videos on youtube. 

We had a little bit of time to kill between errands one day so we went and walked around discovery park. It was so much fun. Juliet was cracking me up. She ran all over the place climbing the "mountains". And Jane doing her hops on the hopscotch was the best ever. 

We were really trying hard to keep everyone entertained while we stayed home on Saturday while we potty trained Jane. They colored and colored and colored. They could do this for hours and hours. 

I don't know what I would do without Kyle. He is the most hands on dad. We are always a team and I'm so grateful I can count on him for things like this. 

Playing lots of guess who. 

Lost tooth! 

It was so tiny. I about started crying. I can't believe my kids are loosing teeth. Stop growing! 

They all love their dad. 

Family home evening treat at McDonalds. 

These two play so well together. Its so cute sneaking in on them and listening to them talk and play together. 

Kyle took Abby to the driving range. She wore the hat she got from golf lessons and she looked so legit. She did awesome too. Kyle said everyone around them kept commenting on how well she was doing. 

Its the same face! 

Kyle took the girls to "Old McDonalds" while I was gone. I love Jane's outfit. Part of her new getting herself dressed is that she insists on picking out her own clothes too. So thats been fun. 

Seriously. The same face. I can't get enough of these pictures! 

Ha ha! And Juliet has my face so it doesn't work quite as well. 

We've gone on lots and lots of walks to the park. I love that we have parks in walking distance now. Although the girls never want to leave our backyard now. 

And that was pretty much January. We are so excited to get the house ready for baby sister! Just a few more weeks and she could be here!