I'm feeling random cuz it was a long day, so here's some of my thoughts...

No nap turns Libby into a little stinker butt. But I still love her more than anything (well maybe it's a tie between her and Elliot and Richard, I can't choose favorites).

I cannot get used to the smells that come out of this adorable little boy.

Elliot hasn't pooped all week and I am scared for when he does. Maybe I should put him in his green jammies, he loves to have blowouts in those ones.

I love doing taxes. Why on Earth did I study psychology? I should've become an accountant like my mom. I love math and data entry. I'm pretty darn nerdy and I'm totally okay with that. (I do love psychology books though, so I guess that's why, even though it's practically useless unless I get a masters which I have no intention of doing) I also love seeing the amount increase on my tax return as I input more information. So glad we don't owe anything this year, i think :)

I think we will use our tax return money to go to Texas for Orson's graduation. I've never been to Texas so I'm excited. It will be interesting traveling w/ 2 kids though and hopefully not too miserable and hopefully we can work it out with Richard's school schedule...

I am sick of moving. Our apartment is full of stuff I don't know where to put. Why do we have so much stuff and why is it so hard to throw things away? I am afraid we won't get our other apartment as clean as I'd like to b/c we only have a couple hours each evening and only one of us can go at a time so the other can stay with the kids, unless we get a babysitter which isn't as easy as it sounds.

Why is it so hard to ask for help? I know if I turn the situation around, I'd be happy to help someone else, but it's still hard to ask. I don't know why.

I hate it when people brag about how wonderful their lives are. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but I really don't feel super happy all the time. I feel tired and grumpy and I'm sure other people feel that way, but sometimes people's status updates make me feel like they have these perfect lives and I am doing something wrong if I ever get annoyed at my husband or children.

Is it bad that I really wanted to punch this girl who told me her 1 year old takes 3 long naps everyday and sleeps from 7 pm to 9 am every night? I can barely remember Libby taking 2 naps. Did she ever take 3 naps? I guess when she was a baby. I can't believe she'll be 2 in less than a month, but at the same time I feel like she is so smart she should already be 2 or 3.

I love that I usually only have to get up 1 time in the night with Elliot. I make sure he's nice and full around 11 when I go to bed and don't have to get up till 5ish and then he goes back to sleep for another 2-3 hours. I am still pretty grumpy about getting out of bed though, I am thankful for his sleeping habits though. I don't think I could make it through the day if he woke up much more than that.

I love chocolate so much. I don't think I could ever cut it out of my diet. I feel like my day is wasted if I don't eat any. Someday I am afraid I will become really fat. I hope it doesn't happen, but since I don't believe in dieting, it probably will. I believe in exercise though, so maybe I will be safe.

The weather is being really weird. Usually there is a few feet of snow piled up, but there is only a couple inches. Unfortunately I still feel it's too cold to go on a walk with Elliot, so I feel confined to the apartment. I think I may go insane soon.

Our shower is leaky and our floors are squeaky. I need to fill out a maintainance request for the shower, but I'm too lazy to bundle the kids up to go get a form.

Today Liberty sang me some songs, it was happy. She also discovered that it's really funny to blow her hair out of her face. I love hearing her giggle.

Last week I had to go to nursery with Liberty and the teachers were telling me how smart Libby was and how much they will miss her when we go to our new ward. It made me happy to hear that, I am sometimes afraid I am biased when I talk about how smart and adorable she is, so I'm glad others feel the same way. I think Libby will miss her nursery buddy, Jace. I am also worried the new teachers won't be as good, I can tell the current ones are really doing a great job. I should write them a thank you note or something.

Baby smiles are my favorite thing to look at.

THE END.

Elliot's smile

Libby Photo Shoot

I took Libby to Sears for a photo shoot cuz I had a good coupon and we haven't had professional ones done of her since she was 9 months old. We got the rights to 1 picture (part of the coupon), so we can print as many as we want of this one. You can take a look at rest of them here.

http://www.SearsPhotos.com/ViewSharedAlbum.aspx?ShareID=3ee9bf68-783d-4c0e-a88d-c7024337ae8d

She got scared part way through b/c one of the backdrops was electric and she did not like it rolling up and down on it's own, so it was hard to get some good ones after that. The yellow background ones are my favorites (1st ones they took), we got some prints of the close up yellow background one.

Yesterday was pretty fun. We took Richard to work and then Julie babysat Elliot while Libby and I went on a "Mommy Libby date". We took pictures, went shopping and got a pretzel and smoothie. Then we went and played with Julie and baby Zach all afternoon. When Richard got off work Julie and I left the 3 kids and walked the mall dressed up in crazy clothes. A teenage boy told us we were beautiful. He probably would be surprised to find out we had husbands and children. In his defense I'm pretty sure we looked like we were in High school. Another person behind us in line at walmart tried to be sneaky and take a picture with his phone, so if you see us on Facebook, let me know. We looked pretty ridiculous. Julie, you'll have to email me the picture of our outfits.

Another fun thing last night was Elliot smiling at me and Richard for probably 10 minutes. He does that for me a lot, but Richard is gone at work so much he hasn't seen it quite as much as me. He's such a happy baby, I love his sweet smiles. All you have to do is talk and smile at him and he smiles back with his adorable gummy grin (granted he is fed and rested of course).  My kids are so cute.

Life savers

Swaddle blankets and binkies are amazing inventions. Elliot slept like 8 hours straight last night and most nights averages about 5-6, which is way better than Libby who refused both things slept until she was probably 9 months old. I also love the way he looks in this picture, a little blue baby burrito

Funny Things Libby says

Liberty talks pretty much nonstop now. It's very adorable (except when she's shoving her cup in your face yelling "mommy juice" while you are nursing...that gets old very fast) and usually quite comical. It's especially fun to listen to her when she's in her bed (supposed to be sleeping) or when she is drawing on her magnadoodle thing. Here are some things I've heard lately:

"look Libby is-a hat!" (she was drawing pictures for herself)

"mommy draw cookie cutter?" (she loves gingerbread men and asks me to draw them about 100 times a day, maybe more)

"Eww, gross elliot." (not sure why she said this, she just walked up to him and said it this morning)

"duper why" (super why--one of her favorite shows, even though we never watch it anymore)

"baby elliot boppy chair" (she says this when she wants me to stop holding Elliot)

"baby elliot poop" (I asked Libby if she was poopy or if I was smelling Elliot....she is already blaming him for foul smells, poor kid. It was in fact Libby who was stinky)

"Hey Maya, hey Elmo" (She frequently has conversations with these two during naptime. Maya is her beloved monkey/best friend.)

"Group hug!" (She gives group hugs to people and animals. I heard her talking to her animals during naptime and she said it.)

"Yesssh" (Everything used to be "yeah", but now its "yessh" and really cute)

"Sank you Mommy" (Thank you--I really love it when she says this. Sometimes she reminds me to say it to her when she does something nice too, it's kind of funny)

"oval" (I don't know why, but I love it when she points out the oval in her shapes, it's her favorite shape)

"curly hair, daddy" (we tried to teach her the difference between curly hair and straight hair are; we're not sure she understands, but she likes to point it out and also makes sure we draw curly hair on all the people in her pictures. )

"baby elliot blue binky" (she loves to find him binkies....and tries to shove them in his mouth.)

"maya sleeping, maya cry" (then I tell her she needs to rock her and sing her a song and she runs back and sings twinkle twinkle to her)

"I lub you daddy, bye-bye daddy" (while this sounds very sweet, she actually was shoving daddy out of her room when she said it)

"mmm, yum yum!" (really cute and usually if she thinks she is getting a treat, but sometimes about random thinsg like corn)

"libby eat the oatmeal" (oatmeal is her favorite food and lately she's had me draw pictures of her eating it)

Libby prounces Elliot like "Ell-we-weet". Very cute. She sure loves that baby.

CHRISTMAS Spoils 2011

Daddy got Libby an Elmo Potty chair. She loved it. She also loved brushing her little dolls hair, which she named Tangled after her favorite movie.

Richard :)

Mr. Elliot with all his spoils. He got very excited when we told him he had a present and started smiling and cooing. It was really adorable.

Me and Richard posed almost exactly like on our first Christmas together. Can't believe it's our 4th this year.

awesome dolls from Tomi Ann. I love them, especially baby Elliot

Libby modeling the shirt from Grandma Sue. Also notice the candy in her hand I had to bribe her with to sit for a picture.

Probably my favorite present :) thanks Orson!

We really got spoiled this year. Especially Liberty. She loved everything, even the wrapping paper. She also got play food/dishes and a little stroller to push her dolls in and a kid laptop thing from Grandma Sue/Grandpa Coplan. I honestly can't tell you what her favorite thing was, she loves it all. Richard also surprised me with using his b-day money to buy us a Wii. We have been having lots of fun with that. Richard is trying to get good enough to beat Penny at Tennis. It was a pretty fun Christmas. We are thankful that since we weren't able to be with our families that we could skype with a lot of them. It was fun to start our own traditions this year as well. You may have noticed our matching pajamas in some of the pictures. I maybe didn't wait till Christmas to use the sewing machine....I made us all pajama pants, even Elliot, but he spit up on them before we got a picture of him in them. Another tradition type thing we did was wrap up 25 books and let Liberty open one up at bedtime every night starting Dec 1st to count down to Christmas (most were books we already had, plus a few new Christmasy ones). It was kind of cool to have church on Christmas too, a good reminder of what the season is about. We all went together, since it was just sacrament meeting. Liberty was amazingly good too. Probably helped that she got to bring along her new little "tangled" doll and Ernie toy.

2 months

Elliot is 2 months old today. He had to get a bunch of shots at his appointment today. NOT FUN. He was so mad. Then he has been so sleepy the rest of today. Poor little guy. He is growing very well though. He gained 2 lbs in 3 weeks! They still want us to give him high calorie formula 2x a day until he is 4 months, then after that he should be fine with just breastfeeding or regular formula. The doctors office gave me this huge bag of formula too, which was pretty exciting cuz that stuff is expensive. I actually love that he can have formula. Libby refused a bottle no matter what was in it. I tried 3 or 4 different kinds of bottles with her. Now during the night if I am feeling particularly exhausted I can make Richard get up and feed Elliot a bottle. It is wonderful, even if Richard doesn't agree. It's also nice when we have company over; I don't have to try to feed him under a blanket (which can be very difficult sometimes) or go hide for half an hour. We can also have a babysitter and not worry so much about being back in time for a feeding. We are spoiled with this little guy. I guess he's making up for the trouble he gave me by coming so early.

Height: 21 1/4 inches
Weight: 8 lbs 1 oz

Fun things about Elliot:
loves getting his cheeks kissed--big smiles
loves his binky
has the stinkiest farts (probably from the formula)
loves showers with mommy
loves his swing (he hardly ever sleeps in his bed, just like Libby)
Usually really awake and wanting to play around 8-11 am and pm.
Usually sleeps around 5 hrs straight a night! (amazing)
Tries to grab things to put in his mouth
Very happy unless he is hungry or farting.

Just realized I should do a christmas blog....coming soon I guess.