“Do you need help Timmy”
“No mom I do it”

*he calls me mom now like he’s big 😔

There’s a home video of my sister Jessica asking me if I need help getting dressed and I tell her no I do it myself.

I used to be such a dog person, you know the kind that had their dogs in matching t-shirts at the dog park. Now if I saw that person I would gag. If you walked in my house 3 years ago you would have found at least 5+ foster dogs living with us and on weekends I would be at adoption events and administering free pet vaccines.

You could say things have changed {drastically}. Nothing ruins my day more than the sound of a dog barking when there is a napping baby. Or my favorite, the whiff of dog pee as you’re trying to play in the backyard.

I really feel like the added chaos of dogs is too much for me to handle with 2 babies.

Today I was fighting Denver over being outside. Yes our yellow lab is afraid of the outdoors, among other things like the sound of the washing machine, grass, rain, thunder, fire works, car doors, motorcycles…. Anyway we were in a standoff and the next thing I know they escaped the backyard. A {not so} secret part of me was jumping up for joy. And then Madison knocks at the front door as if to say nice try mom.

So I go looking for Denver and he’s playing with the neighbors pit bull. I yell for him to come in and he looks me straight in the eye and walks away. And you know what, I let that dog go. Sure enough when he heard me open and shut the front door he came running.

Timmy and Grace adore the dogs, especially Madison. Me and Denver have never been friends but Madison is my first baby so she can stay. Meanwhile if you know someone looking to adopt a mature lab that doesn’t like to go outside or doesn’t let you ever do laundry Denver is all yours! {I think this is where I’m suppose to say just kidding}

I told Timmy that I wasn’t feeling well. My sweet little boy brought me a mama snake and a baby snake to cuddle then kissed me and said, “All better mommy?”

I bought ice pop molds last summer but never got around to using them. This morning I was puréeing some mango for Grace and had so much left over. Then I remember those ice pop molds!!

To make them sweet I added half a banana, a little honey and a little agave nectar. Timmy looooved them!

Brought back some great childhood memories and got Timmy to eat mango.

I’m reminded by people {my mother mostly} that these are the best days of my life; the midnight wake-ups, the diapers, the tantrums. Well I found it hard to find the joy in it all today. By noon the children had declared victory and I was waving a white flag.

Between potty training and timeouts this boy has me running on empty. I feel like the only words coming out of my mouth are, “do you have to go peepee?” and “NOooooo!”

I constantly struggle with the concept of spanking. I just don’t know if these timeouts are actually working. The very idea of spanking Timmy can bring me to tears but I turn around and there he is toy hammering Grace’s head!

Folding laundry is a family affair. They both think they are being very helpful.

He tells me he’s folding the clothes as he very carefully rolls them into a ball and piles them on the table. If Timmy is doing something, there’s Grace right behind him.

Me and Timmy were in a stand off over food today. His choice of foods he will actually eat has narrowed down to peanut butter on a spoon and gummy bears. It’s very frustrating. I’m pretty sure my Dad is laughing at me when he hears me struggling over his food issues. He says I was the same way and that all kids are the same. Timmy skipped breakfast all together because the waffles and strawberries were “yucky” and so was his water?! Lunch he took a bite of his grilled cheese and spit it out but did eat the strawberries from breakfast. By dinner time he was starving so he ate allllll of his fish sticks and even asked for more “chicken” 🙂

Nap time is a nightmare. He kicks and screams so much that I’m afraid he’s going to hurt himself. I’ve tried going without naps but he ends up passing out around 5:30 and then he’s wide awake at 3am. Today he actually kicked down his gate but didn’t dare come out of his room. I guess he could sense that I was on the edge. Smart move. He eventually fell asleep and for 3 hours.

Terrible twos are no joke and it really makes you question your parenting skills, but by the end of the day I felt accomplished. We had a lot of fun in the sprinkler, the laundry did eventually get folded, the house was mostly in order and everyone was fed and bathed.

Being mom to these two busy babies is an honor and a privilege but it is not without it’s hardwork and challenges. It’s giving of your whole self, the whole time. And when you get a moment alone, you sit and wonder if you’re doing it right.

I hope I am.

Happiness is watching these two play together.

Timmy’s latest sentence is, “Mommy I want to show you.” Then he will show exactly where I should sit by say “chair” and point.

So much happened today:

There were cowboy and cowgirl sheriffs.

Timmy said I looked pretty with the hat on.

Sweetest was when he was trying to put the hat on Grace.

Then there was a tea party.

Perfecting the flute {cover your ears}.

There was a little off-roading.

Snack break! She would eat them if Timmy ate them.

And then you catch the sweetest moment of Timmy just standing by Grace’s side patting her head. She would sit and watch him play and every so often he would come over give her a kiss and pat her head.

Nothing like it. Sibling love.

This age is hitting me hard. All of a sudden my baby isn’t so babyish anymore. She’s crawling around like she owns the place. Standing up like it’s no big deal and even letting go and standing on her own.

She’s like a piranha with these 6 teeth! She’s still biting me when she nurses and it’s so painful. When I yell at her she laughs.

She holds her own with Timmy, if anything the tables have turned and she’s the one beating him up. She’s very quick to turn around and slap you in the face.

Her hair is starting to really come in and she’s thinned out so much since she started crawling. When you look in her eyes it’s like looking at Tim, they have the exact same eyes.

She still loves bathtime and she is the ultimate mamas girl although I think that she’s getting better about that in the last few days. There were times when I couldn’t even walk out of the room without her screaming and no one else could hold her. It was all mommy, all the time. Just yesterday though when Tim came home from work she started wiggling to get down and she crawled all the way to the front door to give him a kiss just like Timmy does. Soooo sweet. That’s her newest trick giving kisses with all puckered up lips.

She loves truck and trains {I wonder why} and she looks at books like she really reading them.

Food has been a real struggle to the point where I was starting to get nervous. This week has been so different though. She suddenly is very interested in whatever you are eating. Tonight Tim was eating jello and she was twisting her neck around to look at it instead of nursing. She loves blueberries and sweet peas but hates anything banana. It’s so gross to her that she shivers when it gets near her.

Her facial expressions are so classic. She has the pouty lip down pat and she uses it to her advantage. It’s so sad and so funny at the same time. When she laughs it is the absolute best sound, she has such a girly giggle. Her tongue is out ALL the time like a mini Miley.

“Mama” “Dada” and “byebye” are what she’s talking about. Pretty sure that’s all Timmy’s doing. First thing he asks me when he wakes up is if we are going byebye.

Biggest milestone has to be the crib. It is official that she is napping in her crib everyday as of 3 days ago lol but still a huge deal in this house. She also is going to bed the same time as Timmy in her crib. Last night she did not make a peep about being put to bed. However she’s waking up every night at midnight to eat and then I let her stay in our bed. Even those 3 hours of alone time for me are a gift and I’ll take it. I spend most of those 3 hours staring at the monitor…

I guess it’s time to start planning her first birthday. It makes me very sad. It really does feel like yesterday I was dressing her in her little pink bear outfit to come home from the hospital.

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Enough pictures? See what I’m saying about being present? I have to out this camera down!

I love how pictures can really freeze memories but I struggle with being truly present or being the one behind the camera all the time.

I really should have just been soaking in the simple fun of hanging out in the yard and playing in the sprinkler but on the other hand I got some awesome pictures! :)))

We bought Timmy an old school sprinkler but he didn’t quite understand that he was suppose to run through it so Daddy had to show him….

To me these pictures scream Best Dad Award. Timmy was hysterical laughing. He now totally loves this sprinkler just as we did when we were kids. Best $4 we have spent.

Grace on the other hand, not a fan. The girl screamed bloody murder when the water hit her. I even turned it down really low and she was not that interested.

So for my little diva I put out a plastic shower curtain and wet it down and me and her played there and watched Timmy and Daddy get all wet.

“Mommy, Mommy! Where’s my hat?”

Apparently you need a cowboy hat to ride a horse.

“Gracie you want to pet my cow?”

“Come on cow, EAT!”

A boy and his {cow}.