Everyday Musings

Nothing too exciting has been happening down here in Arizona, but I am still enjoying every day with my family. Each milestone and age just keeps getting better, and for every moment when it gets tougher (tantrums, sleepless nights, mischievousness--nothing too big to complain about...) there are about a hundred little moments that are near perfect.



Isaac has been fully crawling for a little over a month now. For about 4 months he was content with army crawling everywhere. I thought he was fast then...it's nothing to how speedy he is on all fours. He is into everything that doesn't include his toys. The dishwasher (I swear he has a radar on that thing. The moment it opens up, he's right there), the outlets, pulling out cords, anything Aliyah is playing with, Sony's cat food, Sony, the bathroom, my car keys, my wallet...all places and things that I would prefer he stay away. Almost everything goes into his mouth immediately. I call to him and say, "Isaaaaaac, no." And what does he do? He looks back at me and flashes his signature grin. Stern mom protocol disengaged.







He's eating solid foods like a champ, as well as still taking in lots of formula. I thought his milk intake would taper off some after introducing more solid meals, but it hasn't at all. I stopped breastfeeding at 8 months. I was hoping to make it a year, but this kid eats like, well, a boy. That added with traveling a lot for work and his bad habit of biting me, I decided to throw in the towel. I would have liked to have gone longer, but I made it three months more than with Aliyah, and I will admit, not being tied down to nurse or pump is somewhat freeing.)

I'm finally starting to make some mom friends out here in Arizona. It only took me three years! In all seriousness, having some mom friends that I felt really comfortable with and wanted to hang out with is something I longed for, but I also know myself. I'm not overly social or extroverted with people I don't know well, so in the back of my mind, I just kept telling myself to be patient and friends will eventually come. The past few months, my neighbor two doors down who is single, but has a group of friends, many of whom are moms, has included me in their "card" night. (I put "card" in quotations because in the three times I've been invited, they have never played cards. One of the women's husbands told her they should change it to carb night for the lack of cards and abundance of snacks.) The first time I went, I enjoyed everyone immediately. Each time the get together was held at my neighbor's house I was invited. I think I might just be part of the group now since this last time it was held at someone else's house and I was still invited.

Just this past weekend, I met up with one of the mom's to get our girls together to play at a park for an hour. We ended up having a great time and the girls played well and even found some other girls to play with. The love of Frozen brought this group of random girls together and it was pretty cute. From what Aliyah was telling me, they were building a castle for Elsa and Anna.



I left Isaac home with Sebastian that morning and decided to spend the rest of the morning with just Aliyah. So rarely do I do that with her, and while I know it's important, I was really able to experience how much it made a difference. Not one tantrum the entire morning and she and I just enjoyed one another's company to the fullest. That day we went to the park, split some coffee shop breakfast, went to church, grabbed a jamba juice and then made our way back home. At the end of the morning, I realized I need to carve out some time every couple of weeks (or more as she gets older) and do this with her. I remember my Mom used to always make time for me, whether it was a lunch out, a movie, a little bit of shopping or the library. Those moments count. Like any young kid and teenager, I didn't appreciate it nearly as much as I should have at the time, but I do remember having fun during those outings and I am so grateful for those memories.

This past weekend hit about 98 degrees so Sebastian and Aliyah tried out the pool for the first time this season. Sebastian said it was a little cool still, but Aliyah could have cared less. She loved being in the water and even sang, "I'm a turtle! I'm a turtle! And I'm as happy as can be!"








Aliyah is at the age where anytime I tell her to smile, she immediately flashes some crazy face. Sigh. I often resort to bribery in order to get a normal smile out of her.





The weather has cooled down again this week to normal temps, so we're having some nice laid-back evenings in the backyard and enjoying the perfect Arizona weather for the moment.

A few last photos, which I'm sure Sebastian is thrilled that I'm posting. Three out of the four of us got sick with some weird stomach bug. (Aliyah has not gotten it...fingers crossed it stays that way.) We rarely get sick, which I am grateful for and this was a quick one, lasting about 24 hours for each of us, so I can't complain. It could be much worse.

When you're sick, Sony is sure to make you feel better by cuddling and licking you. Gotta love that cat. He knows all the right ways to make us love him even more.



That's about it for now. I would say it feels good to catch up, but who am I kidding? I have so many photos to blog I could write for days. For now, this will do.

A Girl, A Boy, and Their Dad

Not many things in life have been sweeter than watching Sebastian grow from friend to boyfriend to husband to dad. When Aliyah was born, it was amazing—and yes, surprising even—to see how Sebastian naturally fell into the role of being a caring father. To him, it was an important life challenge to accept and take seriously, but not without losing the sense of fun that he brings to everything he does.

When Aliyah was about two months old, he let me sleep in one weekend. He took it upon himself to dress her (most likely the first time he had fully dressed a baby), so he rummaged through her clothes and put her in a pair of orange shorts, a onsie with a tiger on it that said, “Wild Thing” and grabbed a safari hat off of a teddy bear nearby. When I woke up, they were both waiting for me, and I couldn’t help but shake my head and smile.




What I love most about how Sebastian goes about parenting is his honesty. He will be the first to tell you that in the first couple of months after both of our kids were born, he was at a loss at what to do with them after about twenty minutes, because as he says, "What else can you do with a newborn?". He’ll let you know that he thinks spit up is gross, or that his three year old daughter can be a difficult to handle at times. He’ll also let you know how incredibly in love he is with both of his kids, and that despite his awareness that he is bias, he still thinks they are hands down the coolest daughter and son around.  And our kids feel this. They both light up when Daddy comes home or when he talks directly to them. They both can be heard laughing because of some funny antic that only Sebastian can pull off.  And they both listen when Daddy disciplines them with love (well, maybe not Isaac just yet.)  As they grow I see that the bonds from father to daughter and father to son are only growing stronger.

A close second to what I love about Sebastian’s parenting is that he believes in me as a mother and he tells me this often. Not a day goes by where I don’t feel his support through either words or actions. In addition to being a manager and mentor in the professional world, as well as taking on hobbies with fervor (writing, golf and exercising to name a few), the amount of energy he puts into taking care of our children and being present in their life is incredible.

I know I’m not the only person out there who feels this way about their significant other, and I love to read or hear about others who appreciate their partners.  I’m not trying to brag or to show-off. (In fact, when I started this post, I thought it was going to be about Sebastian and Isaac’s relationship. Instead this turned out to be an act of gratitude for all Sebastian does as a husband and father.) Our family is lucky to have him. This one’s for you, Bastian. xoxo

Kids Valentine Cards

Sometime early last week, I decided that I should try to be crafty and make Aliyah's valentine cards. Most likely she won't always want homemade cards to give out to her friends, so I might as well take the chance when she's young (and when there's only 10 kids in her class.)

It ended up being a really fun activity to do with her. I garnered inspiration from her horse obsession, sketched out a few ideas and then went to work creating two different versions of cards. I grabbed the horse and horse shoe graphics off of the web, and created everything else in Adobe Illustrator.

At first I thought I would have her color in the images for her classmates as sort of a personal touch, but when I thought about it, I imagined her getting tired of coloring the same image repeatedly. Instead, I added in her name in caps with a hand-written font so she could trace her name on each card. (At the time she didn't know how to write her name. On Friday--Valentine's Day--she came home with some papers she had completed at daycare and her name was written on them. I didn't notice them until Saturday since I had missed out on Valentine's Day with the family since I was up in California for work. I saw the papers on Sebastian's desk and asked her who wrote them and she said she did. I think I yelped with excitement. I had no idea I would be so excited and proud of her for learning to write her name, but I really was. Such a neat experience as a parent.)

We stuck two sheets of stickers in each envelope for each of her classmates, and a Starbucks giftcard for a couple of her teachers. Aliyah was very particular about the entire thing. She wanted to make sure that Daddy remembered everything on Friday, and as hard as I tried to not bring candy, she was set on bringing mini-cupcakes for her class as a treat. Sebastian, as I've said many times before, is an amazing dad, but since he doesn't drop the kids off on a regular basis (he usually does pick-up), he sometimes forgets what to bring. I wrote out a list for him just before I left, and I think it helped because everything that needed to go to daycare made it!

Afterwards, when I got back from California, I asked her about how it all went. It was pretty fun listening to her talk about the party they had, how they passed out cards and just the overall excitement of it. It's fun to get a new perspective on holidays--even the little ones. Makes those days all the more sweeter.

Little Moments

A smorgasbord of what has been lingering on my camera for the past couple of weeks. When I look at these photos I smile. My next goal is to step it up this year and finally get photos printed. I'm glad they are at least on my blog, but there is still something to holding a photograph in your hand or flipping through the pages of an album. When I was young, some nights I would sit in the room with all of our photo albums and look through them for hours. My mom was so good at printing photos all throughout our youth and she has even gifted me with photo albums of my younger years, which I cherish. I want to make sure that I do the same for Aliyah and Isaac.





This little guy amazes me with his coordination skills. He is a determined baby and will army crawl to get where and what he wants. It's neat to see how much patience he has when trying to grab something. Rarely does he get frustrated. Clearly, it's too early to tell, but I hope this is a characteristic he keeps.

Aliyah's Godmother recently sent her a bunch of ribbons that she used to use in her hair when she was in high school, and I think that may have played a part in Aliyah finally allowing me to actually style her hair in more ways than one. (Also note the yogurt mustache that she is sporting here--a common occurrence after breakfast each morning.)



I really enjoy fresh flowers in the house. For awhile I would buy the five dollar clearance flowers at our local grocery store each week, but stopped. I remembered to grab some last week when my parents were in town, since I know my Mom also loves seeing fresh flowers. I think I'll keep on buying some every one or two weeks. It's a sure way to add a little extra punch of happiness.




I've been wanting to get Aliyah a playhouse for the backyard for some time now. We found the perfect wooden one at Costco a few weeks back, but since there was no "occasion" (ie: birthday or Christmas) and we don't buy Aliyah large gifts on a whim, we decided now was a good time to introduce Aliyah to the art of "earning it." Her goal is 30 coins and we try not to "make" her do things too often, but rather try to catch her doing things. The cutest part of it all? Every time she earns a coin she has to dump them all out, sort them by size and count them to make sure the number of coins matches up to the amount on the jar outside that she's colored in.

Aliyah invited her first friend to come over to our house for a few hours. It was a success and incredibly cute to watch and hear two, three-year old girls giggle and run around. At one point Isaac was taking a long nap, the girls were happily playing and the mid-afternoon weather was beautiful so Sebastian and I grabbed Scrabble and a glass of wine and enjoyed the moment.

Picnic Lunch

Being a part-time employee is (sadly) coming to and end. Next week at this time I will be back full time at my job. I'm so grateful for the fact that I was able to take three months off and four months part-time, but no matter the length, it never seems like enough time with my kids. (Except when they are driving me nuts...) So this week I am enjoying every little moment of extra time I have with them.

One of my favorite places to take the kids is a little lunch shop called The Lunch Bag. This place is awesome. It's this tiny little soup, salad and sandwich place that is run by a mother and daughter and the food there is fairly simple, but absolutely delicious. What really got me into this place though was the owners. They know their "regulars" and they treat them well. Always taking time to stop and ask about Aliyah and Isaac and talking to them. I love places like that.

We stopped by today, (the last time in awhile that I'll be there with my kids...sniff, sniff...oh but wait, I'll get to go there by myself, so it's not all bad.) took our food home and went to the back yard to have a picnic.

If Aliyah could eat outside for every meal, I think she would choose to do so. Her brother is following in her interests and loves to be outside as well so every moment we spend outdoors usually equates to two happy kids. I love the green grass and the sun on my face, which means we're all in good moods.

Nothing is safe from this kid now that he can army crawl at top speeds.

Princess Aliyah of Carden House

Anyone watch Game of Thrones? The hubs and I are obsessed. (And looking forward to Season 4 this spring!) It's pretty much the only reason I thought of the title for this post (and not because we would even dare think to let Aliyah see any part of that show. Adults only for that one...ha.)

But back to the real cutie. Aliyah. This past year, Aliyah has just started to show her "girly" side. It doesn't come out very often, but when it does it sure is cute. Most days she'd rather be playing with her horse toys (obsessed with horses right now), or with her trains or tractors or out riding bike or kicking the soccer ball. This is completely different from what I used to do when I was younger. I could have played house and with my dolls all day, every day. Had it not been for my older brother who loved sports, I'm not sure I would have ever known I could be athletic.

So when Aliyah put on her crown and asked me to clip on her blanket as a dress, I was all in. She is at the perfect age right now when her imagination is completely free and uninhibited. She's not yet embarrassed to go in full make-believe mode, and the sky is the limit for what she decides to be. This day it was a princess. Yesterday is was a super hero who found missing things around the house.

Yep...the year three is full of some hard days (think: tantrums, whining...all that good stuff), but it's also filled to the brim with some pretty sweet things as well, like imagination, witty conversations and lots of hugs and kisses. Can't say it enough. Love this little girl with all my heart and soul.

Life with Two

I thought I would post this. I was writing another post, but saw that I had this one in a draft mode and never published it. Kind of fun to look back and read what I was thinking a few months ago.

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One of the most common topics of conversation I had while pregnant was how going from one to two kids would be one of the biggest challenges in my life.  I won't lie, transitioning from a three to four person household does change things up quite a bit--it takes longer to get everyone in the car, sleep is once again measured in three to four hour periods, I'm on call around the clock as a personal feeding machine and so on. Even so, the change doesn't seem quite as abrupt as I envisioned while pregnant. Perhaps, I was envisioning the worst possible scenarios, but so far I've been pretty blessed in many areas. Isaac sleeps well, Sebastian was able to stay home for two weeks on paternity leave, we've had a great support from family and friends near and far, and Aliyah has adjusted to the big sister role fairly well. She still has her 3 year old moments, but for the most part, we've been pleasantly surprised at how she's taking the fact that the attention isn't all on her.

Three weeks into being a mother of two and this here are some random things I've observed.

1. He looks like his big sister did as a newborn. Sebastian didn't see the resemblance until I pulled out a newborn photo of Aliyah. It will be interesting to see if they end up looking similar to one another as they get older. 
2. He eats...constantly! Especially in the first two weeks, I felt like I was nursing non-stop. 
3. Nursing was not any easier the second time around. Two weeks of intense, searing pain. But I think because I knew what to expect this time, I was able to get through it and know that it would get better, and it has. 
4. With Aliyah, I was able to nurse for 5 months, which was much less than I thought I would do so, but going back to work put a damper on my supply. This time around, my hope is to nurse longer than the 5 month mark, but I will also not stress out about it if it doesn't happen again. 
5. Boys (or maybe just Isaac) poop and pee a lot. I seriously do not remember Aliyah going through as many diapers as he did. More than once, I've used two or three diapers at a time because he will pee all over a diaper while I'm putting  a new one on. 
6. He loves to be held. I'm pretty sure this is a common thing for most newborns since I remember Aliyah loved to be held and would sleep best during the day in my arms. Isaac is the same. 
7. Swaddling is once again the magical sleep potion. There are times when Isaac will get done eating, Sebastian will swaddle him (because he is the master swaddler in this house. I can do it, but Sebastian does it better) and Isaac falls asleep in mid-swaddle. 
8. He's a big boy. One person told me he looked like a three month old already, another told me he's looks huge when I'm holding him and I keep thinking he's already lost his newborn looks. But he is so incredibly cute. 
9. Balancing my time between two young kids is my biggest challenge so far. Especially in these early weeks when Isaac needs so much attention, I find myself with the common worry of whether I'm giving Aliyah enough attention. We decided that we would keep her in daycare part-time while I'm on maternity leave, so she still goes three days a week. I love my days with two kids, but I often feel bad when I'm holding Isaac trying to get him down for a nap, or nursing him because it definitely limits the activities I can do with Aliyah. Also, engaging a three year old all day is quite the challenge when the Arizona heat limits outdoor time, so I am constantly on the look-out for educational things to do with her. So far, online printables, workbooks from Targets dollar aisle, trips to the library and Brain Quest have been my go-to activities. 
10. Aliyah is taking on her big sister role with flying colors. If Isaac cries and I'm not in the room, she'll talk to him sweetly. She loves to hold his hand and give him kisses. 

Around Here

Hard to believe that little Isaac's been here for almost four weeks. Some parts of life have changed quite a bit, while others have stayed the same, but I think this weekend was the first time where things felt more settled and normal. Sebastian and I are slowly getting into our groove with things like sleeping, breastfeeding, entertaining both kids and taking time for ourselves. I even managed to leave the house by myself to go the gym and Target since Isaac took a bottle from Sebastian. This is amazing, since I remember we waited a few months to introduce bottles to Aliyah and she refused for quite a few weeks. I'm still nursing him most of the time, but the fact that other people can now feed him helps to know that I can step away for a little bit if needed.

I am loving being on maternity leave and allowing myself the time to enjoy both of my kids without the stress of work. We're keeping Aliyah in daycare three times a week, and so far it's been a good transition for her. I enjoy my time with both her and Isaac and am glad she's home for at least two days a during the week with me. It's fun to be able to play with her and work with her on math, writing and crafts. Though I will admit, since newborns rule the nest, I do find myself worrying whether I'm giving her enough of my time. I never want her to feel as if I am putting her second. Balancing the needs of Isaac with her needs and wants is something I'm slowly figuring out, and each week gets a little bit better. At the same time I'm also happy that I get to spend some precious one-on-one, newborn time with Isaac while Aliyah is having fun with her friends at "school". 

Here's a few snapshots of what we've been doing these past three or four weeks. 

I think it's a given, I could stare at Isaac all day. He's huge compared to Aliyah at almost four weeks, but he is so incredibly adorable. 

Sebastian was able to take paternity leave for two weeks. This was a huge help since it made the transition of going from a family of three to four much easier. I also attribute Aliyah's ability to welcome Isaac with no jealousy to the fact that Sebastian was home and could give her some much needed attention those first two weeks. Even though he said he wasn't going to work, he did clock in some time from home. What a guy. :)

Adorable father and son moments. I'm always amazed at how well Sebastian falls into the father role, no matter what age our kids are. He changes diapers, he swaddles Isaac, he showers Aliyah with attention and he disciplines. It's great to have him by my side. 

Candy Land is a new favorite around here. Often times Sony Baby has to play with us. This makes the game about 10 times longer than necessary, but it's Sony Baby. He can never be left out. 

As I mentioned before, Aliyah has taken to being a big sister with flying colors. Most of the time she doesn't pay too much attention to her little brother, but she is quick to tell us we need to be quiet when he's sleeping, and if he cries she'll rock and shush him--and then come running to me letting me know that she's done so. She loves to hold his hand and give him kisses. I'm so grateful that she's been so good at sharing the spotlight. Especially when this little girl has received a huge amount of attention from Mom and Dad for the past three years. 

Aliyah also celebrated her 3rd birthday earlier this month. I have a three year old? How can that be? One of her gifts was a package of about a hundred temporary tattoos and she was in love. If I would have let her, she would have tried to put all of them on at once. 

And last, but certainly not least. We can't forget out "first son", Sony. This is pretty much how he feels about Isaac. No big deal, as long as he has a comfy spot to sleep. Interesting story: When Aliyah was born, Sony disappeared for three days. We thought he was gone forever, and that would have been terrible, because this cat probably means more to us and a cat should--but then again, he's a pretty cool and awesome cat. This time, Sony decided he didn't need to be so dramatic and stayed put at the house. Now if only I could get him to stop bringing tiny lizards into the house....