Maizy's Blessing

We blessed Maizy August 5, 2012.  We were so thankful to all the friends and family that came.  It was a beautiful blessing and a perfect day!

I had to get some pictures of just Maizy and her dress, and all the little details.

She wasn't too happy about it.

Love that little grin!

The bow just perfected the whole dress.  I was so in love with it!  My Mom did an amazing job!

My Mom made this blessing quilt when Croix was born

All she had to do was add Maizy's name and birth date.

The adorable little shoes she didn't even wear, they were too big!  I tried, I stuffed tissue in the toes to see if I could get them to stay on, but alas they just kept falling off.

A bow to match the ribbon on the dress, and the button is the same as the buttons on her dress.

Grandma Maldonado

Me and my Uncle Forrest.

My brother Trenton, Me, Sister Chelsea, Cousin Shawna

There were more guests, but I didn't get the camera pulled out right away since I was nursing Maizy and serving food.

Our little family.  What's going on with Croix's face?  I sure don't know but it's the same in all the pictures! And yes Maizy is screaming.  What's  up with my kids?  At least Brent and I look good!

Maizy and Mommy

We had matching bows. 

Oh how I love our sweet little girl.  So blessed to have her in our family!

Bowling

Last Friday we got some pretty stressful news regarding our short sale.  So rather then sitting around being stressed all day Saturday I decided we needed to go out.  Bowling sounded like fun.  It had been years since Brent and I have been bowling and Croix had never been.

This is how Maizy enjoyed bowling.  She did really well sleeping through all the bowling balls hitting the ground and thumping, through all the people talking, and Croix pestering her.  She's a good little baby!

Rocking with my foot.

We put up the bumpers for Croix, but I'm not going to lie, they were certainly nice to have, helped my score!

Croix also used the little ramp thing.  It worked great for him.

He would send the ball on down and with great intensity watch it oh so slowly roll down the lane.

I thought he was going to loose a finger or two because after his first "throw" he'd run over to the balls and try to get another one.  We had some very close calls with his fingers and the incoming balls.

We were all hungry, so I fed Maizy, and Croix and I ate a yummy snack of french fries. 

Brent was a trouper and bowled double while I fed Maizy.

Croix thoroughly enjoyed the keypad thing where you enter in all your information.

He also found some footprints he had to "match"

I was the only one who didn't get a strike!  Croix had a higher score than me our first game.  I'm pretty sure the only reason my score was higher than his the second was Brent bowled half my game!

 

It was a really fun family activity and the perfect distraction from all our short sale woes.

Angry Birds

Croix is a big fan of Angry Birds.  He loves to play it on my phone.  The other day we were getting on the freeway and Croix says, it's like Angry Birds.  I glance to my right and see this.







I busted up because it really does look like Angry Birds.  Such an observant little boy!

Stress

I feel like I'm at my max stress limit today.  My house is beyond a disaster.  Because I took naps (yes multiple) this weekend.  I had every intention of doing some major cleaning but alas sleep won, and then won again, and again.  Although I'm feeling more refreshed I can't go anywhere in my house with our facing a major mess.  I feel  a little overwhelmed and like I don't even know where to start.  The dishes that are over flowing?  Or the 10 loads of laundry that are all in some stage of needing done, some need washed, others folded, other just need put away, but they are all mounted together against me.  The dinning room table has a weekends worth of food smeared all over and the floor beneath has enough crumbs to create a small "sand box".  The living room has just about every toy out.  All this needs done, plus more.  I had made plans to meet friends at the library this morning since I had things on hold needing picked up and books that were due.  But instead of being able to clean up a little this morning and then go I was on the phone or computer all morning working on things for our short sale.  Stressfull things!  It took much longer to get everything done I needed too.  The realtor took longer to respond then I anticipated.  What I thought would take a quick 30ish minutes took nearly two hours.  I felt horrible as we didn't make it to the library before our friends left (thankfully other friends met us there).  I hate when people are flaky and there I was flaky! And of course It's been days and days and days since Croix has taken a nap so he was grumpy and crying and fighting me all morning long.  Maizy cried half the time we were at the library.  Croix made more of a mess with his lunch than he ate.  Sigh.  So now that both children are sleeping I'm taking a moment to breathe.  I read my scriptures, prayed (which I had yet to do today) and now a little blogging.  I needed to recharge before facing the house and kids when they wake up.  I might regret this at 10 pm when I'm still working on cleaning up the house (Because I'm not going to bed today with out everything done!) but for right now it's what I need to do!

PS  Have I mentioned it's a lot more fun to buy a home then to short sale!  Especially when the bank changes the rules on you and you have to scramble to try and figure out how to make this work!  But we scrambled over the weekend, I scrambled this morning, IT'S GOING TO WORK!

AC

Air conditioning is essential round these parts. There is no way around that. This summer has been the tine for us to really realize this. We have fixed the AC in both our cars and had someone here three times for our home AC.  We resisted and held off as long as possible on our home's AC since we are in the middle of trying to sell our home.  I figured if we could just hold out till the home and AC unit are no longer ours we'd be doing good!!!  Well as true as that may have been it was not possible.  We've spent a good deal of money on all these stupid repairs.  Makes the thought of renting and not being responsible for such things a little more appealing.

Monsoon

We've had a great monsoon season this year.  Lots of rain, or at least lots of days with rain.  Croix has enjoyed playing in the rain.

How much do you love his "Alfalfa"!  It's pretty loveable, even drenched from the rain it stands strong.

He was cold and showing me he cold face.

Snuggled

The other day Brent was holding Maizy while I was working on dinner.  She was being fussy so I told him, "she likes to be snuggled up right to your chest."  He replied to me, "Maybe YOUR chest".  Sure enough he tried it and it did not have the same effect as when I hold her close to my chest.  After a while of her not calming down I went and took over, did basically the same thing he was doing but she calmed right down.  Brent asked what I was doing different, because that was exactly what he was trying.  I told him, "I don't know, I'm just Mommy".  This made me both happy and sad.  It's nice that there is something special about being Mommy.  That she finds a special kind of comfort being snuggled close to me.  That I can have a "magic touch" with her.  But at the same time it's a little frustrating that she needs me.  It would be nice if she could respond as well to Brent.  Funny how one thing can conjure such conflicting emotions.

Maizy's favorite place in the world.

 (Don't mind the smeared mascara and ragged look upon my face)

On a somewhat related note I have figured out how to get Maizy to sleep with out being held, or in a wrap or sling.  For the longest time she just refused to sleep unless in some way attached to me.  This included night time.  I would lay her down and with in 10 minutes she was awake crying.  At night if I had her sleep in her bassinet she would only go 2 hours between feedings, if I put her in bed with me, I'd get up to 7!  For about a week I was too paranoid about SIDS to put in her bed with me but finally pure exhaustion won and she joined our bed.  I am not a fan of a baby in my bed.  Not something I really want, but it worked and we all got some more rest.  Although I certainly did not sleep as well with her in bed next to me.  This did not solve our day time sleep issues.  Getting anyting done was a challenge.  I could rock her and hold her until she was sound asleep and then a few moments longer, lay her down and she's wake right back up.  As handy as wraps and slings are and as much as I love them when we're out and about, I did not want to be wearing my baby in one all day long.  A friend suggested putting her on her tummy to sleep.  Again I resisted paranoid about SIDS but finally gave in and tried it.  What do you know my baby sleeps great!  She'll sleep in her bassinet all night and all day!  I can get some things done.  It took me about a week to not check on her constantly worrying about SIDS but she's fine.  And the more people I've told, the more I hear that other people break the rules too and put their babies to sleep on their tummies.

The fact that she is sleeping in her bassinet at night, and not on me all day long has produced a few days of me thinking/feeling like I'm starting to get the hang of this.  I'm definitely still trying to get my feet under me but there are a few days where I feel like I've done a good job being gentle and kind and interactive with my children and things around the house have gotten done.  Those days are usually followed by an awful day but hey, at least they are in there.  I know eventually, and hopefully soon the good days will out number the ones where I feel like I've failed.  We're getting there.

Tummy Time

Croix is a big fan of tummy time, Maizy usually just tolerates it.  I do think having her big brother around during tummy time is a duel edged sword.  He helps entertain her, but he also smothers her (a problem we have been working on over here).  The other day he literally just rolled over her, he was laying on one side of her, rolled over her to the other.  Sigh that child. 

 Oh how I adore this photo

 He "gently" touches her face and talks to her.

 She's trying to eat her hand

 BOTH of them with their hands in their mouths!  (Not staged at all, candid shot)

 Look how strong she is!

 Did I mention he likes to smother  her.

 Showing her puzzle piece.

 She's my happy girl!

Science Expirment

Brent did a science experiment with Croix the other day.

Brent saw online baking soda and vinegar in mountain dew will glow in the dark.

roix was very interested in what would happen.

It was a hoax!  So they abandoned the mountain dew and just stuck with the baking soda and vinegar.

Croix thought it was pretty awesome and wanted to do it again.

And again with some blue food coloring

We might have a little scientist on our hands.