Fighting

Wow. Today was one for the record books. Our staying-home-all-week-long caught up to us today. Elizabeth and Natalie did not stop fighting all day. Well, maybe not all day but it sure felt like it.

What I am tired of most is the endless, endless comparisons and the need to make the other one feel bad about something. It usually goes something like this:

Sister A: My {shirt/cup/game-piece/pillow/headband/sandwich/etc.} is {better/prettier} because it {is softer/is bigger/has a bow/has a speck of some shade of pink or red/is sort of heart-shaped/is sparkly} and yours isn't.

Sister B: (Glares at Sister A.)

Sister A: (Starts fake crying) Mo-om, {Sister B} is frowning at me!

That scenario plays out about 20 times a day in our house. Literally. I guess I should count my blessings that for the most part they don't hit or kick each other (they do do that occasionally). Part of me almost would prefer that, though. Maybe if they got kicked they would learn faster not to say those kinds of things.

Here are two examples from today.

I was at my wits end already by about 11am so I decided they were healthy enough to at least make a Costco run just to get out of the house. They were excited because they love Costco and I told them we could eat lunch there. Less than a minute into the trip, Natalie has discovered a plastic toy key on the floor of the car and proclaims to Lizzie, "I have a toy and you don't." The usual frowning and crying follows thereafter. I threaten that we'll go back home if they fight. (I should have never made this threat since I was unwilling to follow through with it.) They fight more but I change the threat to they won't get to eat lunch there if they fight. That works some and they are actually OK for the most part at Costco. The fighting continues on the way home.

I got out the paints, in an attempt to turn around a difficult day. They love this and it occupies them for awhile. Elizabeth for some reason feels compelled to say to Natalie, "You're not a good painter because you mixed your colors." Later she tells her the rainbow she painted isn't pretty. Grrrr....

I think referee-ing the endless fighting is one of the hardest things about being a parent. It really wears on you.

I highly doubt anyone finished this post. I don't know that I even care to re-read it. Just being honest for posterity, I guess. Here's hoping they'll still be friends by the time they grow out of all of this. :)

Some more cuteness...

We are having some sick days at our house right now. The girls both have pretty bad coughs/colds with occasional fevers. Last night was kind of rough (mostly on Joe--what a saint he is to help the kids in the middle of the night). Elizabeth just gets into these delirious coughing fits, when she's tired especially, and it can be near impossible to soothe her. They are both napping right now. All 3 are asleep actually. So far, Nate has been fine and I hope he doesn't catch it. Anyway, I thought it would be a good time catch up on some happenings.

Just today, Natalie called me over to come look at something:

"Look! It's Idaho!" she said.

She has done this before with different states but it doesn't always have much of a resemblance. This one really does look like Idaho! (For the record, that is a piece of cheese that she stuck to the fridge for some reason. She promptly popped it in her mouth afterward.) This incident reminded me of this post, the last picture. It's crazy that Natalie is now the 3 year old.

She and I were playing marbles the other day just the two of us and I had to take a picture.
She is just too beautiful.

The other night, Nate was doing this hilarious thing where he would look at me until I smiled at him and then he'd hide his face in the ground and stick his bum in the air. It was adorable.

Here's the best attempt at capturing it:

Joe went on a golfing trip last week with my two brothers in CA and my dad. I decided that we would try and be girly while he was gone and talked the girls into letting me tie their hair in curls. I did it the old-fashioned way (you know--Jane Austen style) and just tried tying these strips of fabrics in their hair. I had no idea what I was doing and it was way harder than I thought it would be. It didn't really work, either. It might have helped if their hair had been wet and if I had done more curls. Oh well... It was fun and Elizabeth for some reason decided to call the curls "brittanies," like "How many brittanies are you going to do, Mom?" etc.

Before:

After:
(The curls are the result of a curling iron :)

(You also might notice Natalie's new fake smile in those pictures)

One day Elizabeth told me she had a surprise for me:

She had cleaned up their room and made Natalie's bed all by herself without me saying anything. What a sweet girl.

I also wanted to record one more thing. On Valentine's day night, the girls and I sang a song to Joe (the "I'm so glad when Daddy comes home..." song). After we finished, Elizabeth started whispering to Natalie and they said they had a song for us. They sat on that bottom bunk pictured above and sang "A Child's Prayer" perfectly to us as we sat in front of them. They were even linking their legs together while they were singing. Of course I was crying like a baby. It was one of those times when I knew right in the moment that I would always remember it and would long for it when they are 23 and 25 instead of 3 and 5.

Getting Too Big

Our little Nathaniel is getting too big too fast. He turned 5 months on Valentine's Day. Very soon after I posted about him rolling over, he began rolling around the room.

He started out on that blanket in the background....

Now I need to start baby-proofing again.

He is also a really good eater of solids now. He went through all the vegetables and seemed to like them. I just gave him his first fruit yesterday and he loved it. Today I started on two solid feedings a day. He is a hungry, growing boy.

He can hold on to his toys now. He tries to grab at anything within his little arm-span and get it in his mouth.

We went to the beach for President's Day with friends and he loved it. He hasn't been outside much so he loves it when he gets a chance. He was so happy just lying on a blanket on the sand.

I love this boy.

My Valentines

I had a great Valentine's day. I got to spend the day with these three:

This one lets me snuggle him and will sometimes snuggle back:

Oh and most of all I got to be with this handsome guy:

(An oldie from when we were engaged)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love Our Bodies Week

OK, so my friend Tiffany has officially named this week "Love Our Bodies Week" and I think it's a great idea. You can read about it on her blog here. She also posted a list of 5 things she loves about her body. I have decided to continue that and encourage/tag anyone reading this to do the same!

It is sad that making this list was actually harder than I thought it would be. It was a healthy exercise, though. This whole thing is timely for me since I've been struggling with this lately. Having a baby is hard on your body and on your body-image at times. But, it also helps you see the amazing things the human body is capable of. Anyway, here is my list:

5 things I love about my body:

1. My hair: I have a love/hate relationship with my hair but I am grateful for it. It is probably the most unique thing about me, at least.
2. My back. I like my back.
3. My neck. I think I have a nice neck.
4. My arms. They are strong and I'm grateful for them.
5. My smile. I guess thanks for this go to my parents for paying for braces :).

Elizabeth is here by me and she made a list, too. Here it is:

1. eyes
2. ears
3. belly (love this!!)
4. legs
5. face
(And she wants me to add: 6. teeth)

Maybe I'll add Natalie's list if she wants to do this when she wakes up.

Here's Natalie's list:
I helped her draw the last two. She wanted me to draw the shirt she is wearing today :).

New Things

OK, so I found that piece of paper with her name written so nicely (see last post). Here it is:

And, just the other day, the girls were coloring pictures for Joe and Natalie wrote this on the back of hers all by herself (with spelling help from Lizzie):
It says "For Dad", with an extra O in there. She hadn't ever written an F or an R before. I was very impressed. (She also decided that her D looked like a door so she drew a doorknob on it :)

Nate officially rolled over all by himself the other day.

He really enjoys rolling over about this far:

Then, he normally decides that it's about far enough and just hangs out like that.

One night he went all the way over:

I thought he was going to be mad....

...nope! Happy as can be!

Here's some more cute/funny things to remember:

-We were battling ants for quite awhile and finally triumphed, thank goodness. During that time, the girls suddenly decided that they wanted an ant for a pet and decided to name one of them New Hampshire (no idea where that came from). I informed them that ants must die when they are inside our house and squished it (this was in the heat of the battle, mind you, so I didn't have time to be sentimental). Don't worry, they weren't broken up about it. But, forever after, whenever they'd find an ant they'd say, "New Hampshire! It's you!" And then I would go squish it. :)

-Because of the princess obsession in our house, we have talked a lot about the fact that some countries have kings, queens and princesses, but in our country we have a president. I have even gone so far as to say that we, as Americans, believe having a president is best since we can just get someone else to be president if he's mean or doesn't do a good job. One day we were talking about something along these lines when Elizabeth mentioned how "King Junior was a good king, though." I had no idea what she was talking about until I finally figured it out--Martin Luther King, Jr. We had an FHE lesson on him on the holiday. I guess they didn't quite understand what we were telling them. :)

-One day, Natalie suddenly announced at dinner: "Well, there's only one thing to say....no." When we asked what she was saying no to she said, "I will never find my hula girl. No never."

Just for the record, she did find it.

My Five Year-Old

Elizabeth is 5. Those 5 years sure flew by. I look back and think, "Wow, a lot has happened since that day she was born" but it still doesn't seem like that long ago.

I was such a kid when I had her. My family is probably laughing at that because I'm still a kid to them, and I am in a lot of ways. But still, I really didn't know much back then. I had no idea what it would mean to be a mother. What would be required of me. What I would be capable of doing. The person that I would become by doing those things day after day.

I didn't even really understand that things don't always go how we have planned. Elizabeth's birth helped me to learn that lesson powerfully. Of course, I still have to re-learn that lesson over and over again.

Sorry, I re-post this picture all of the time but it's good for me to remember:

I especially had no concept of the unbelievable joy that can come from being a mother. I say "can come" because it's not always automatic. Motherhood is made up of so many mundane tasks, and so little credit is given for the completion of those tasks that it can feel downright frustrating and, to be completely honest, joy-less at times. It's at those times when I'm stretched the most. Am I going to humble myself and pray for help and an understanding of what I need to do, or am I going to wallow in self-pity? Whenever I have chosen the first option, the comfort and blessings I receive are automatic. I know that this scripture is true:

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (Revelations 3:20)

So, the challenge is hearing His voice through the Spirit and obeying, even if it's hard or if it means letting go of our own pride to do so. Being a mother has taught me this and so much more. Yet, I can recognize how little I know even now.

Wow, I got off on a tangent :). My daughter is 5 and what an amazing 5-year-old she is. Here are some updates on her:

-She loves to learn. She asks all sorts of questions and really wants to know the answers. She is an amazing reader and I think can read pretty much anything. She does get intimidated at times, though, and wants me to help her. She can spell and write really well. For a long time she pretty much refused to try and write lowercase letters. Just lately, she sat down and worked hard practicing the ones she has a hard time with and wrote out her name in lowercase letters perfectly. I was going to scan it in but we lost it somehow. She is very excited, and a teensy bit nervous, about starting kindergarten in the fall.

-She is still such a happy girl with an infectious laugh. As proof of this, just the other night she got Nathaniel to laugh more than he ever has before. It was real, sustained laughter. She was just smiling at him to get him to smile back and then he would break out into a big grin. She thought that was so funny so she would burst out laughing and then he would start laughing, too. It was really cute. They went on this way for probably 15 minutes. It makes me smile just thinking about it. Elizabeth brings so much joy and laughter to our home.

Here she is with the boy:

-She can be quite stubborn. As proof of this, I will show you where she is as I write this:

It's probably hard to tell, but she is asleep in our coat closet. That's my winter coat that she's using as a blanket. For some reason, she decided that she wanted to have her quiet time in a closet today. We've used this as a threat in the past when the girls just keep coming out of their room at night or won't go to sleep. We said we'd make the offending child a bed in one of the closets. So much for that threat now, I guess. I kept asking her if she was sure she wanted to. I told her it was dark and probably scary in there but nope, she walked right in and I shut the door. I thought for sure she would be out in 5 minutes at the most. Then, about 15 minutes later I checked on her and found her like that. She hasn't taken a nap in who knows how long but I guess she was tired today...and looking for a nice dark place to sleep :).

-She is so social and loves to talk, especially to her friends. Last night we learned she can be quite the phone talker, too. She was on the phone with her Grandpa Tom to say happy birthday and ended up talking to him for a long time. It was really cute to watch her. She ended up on the floor behind the chairs balancing the phone on her ear while she talked. I couldn't help but picture her doing the same thing as a teenager.

I love this girl so much. What a blessing it is to be her mom.