Jaedyn has always been my little fishy, from day 1. I would bring her to the pool almost daily her first summer in the world we live in. She still is my little fishy. Now Hallee on the other hand, she will sit in it if the water is only 1inch deep of water. Ya she doesn't care for it and if it's the slightest bit cool that's not even ok.
I went to the store when the pool opened and got Jaedyn a bunch of toys. Rings, buckets, balls, squishy things...She has to have her basket of toys every time we go. She's lost a few but it's ok but she's so smart she always remembers the things she lost and asks about it.
'Miss Hallee Poo' (ya I'm sure she'll appreciate that nickname one day...lol) She's soo sensitive she didn't want to be in the water so I'm bouncing her on my legs. Look how super cute she is, in that floppy hat!
Every time we go to the pool I try to feed her right before we go, but make sure it's at nap time so when we're there I can put her in the stroller and Jaedyn and I can play in the water with the stroller right there while she sleeps. This was her waking up. Since this summer has been SUPER hot, like 100's most days I constantly will put water on her head and face so she doesn't overheat while she's sleeping, luckily she doesn't wake up from it, it must be relaxing for her.
Our pool is a super nice pool. It has big slides, kiddie slides, jungle gym in the water for the kids volleyball net, diving boards, lilly pads to balance on, and a lazy river. My sister watched Hallee so I could take Jaedyn on the lazy river. Jae thinks it's pretty cool especially since she can kick and float. Good thing she starts swim lessons next week...She's gonna love it!
Jaedyn's great aunt, Aunt Donna from Luther's side (there's a great Aunt Donna on both Luther and my side) came to visit from Utah and she brought presents for the kids. One of the things Jaedyn got was a apron. Which I was excited about because I've been wanting to get Jaedyn a apron. Not just any apron but a super cute one so buying the aprons at hobby lobby are just plain so that would require me to make one and when I sew I have long battles with my sewing machine so I haven't done it because it would make me to mad and it probably wouldn't even turn out that cute so when Aunt Donna brought this darling apron for Jaedyn it took just another thing off the list of me eventually getting.
The first thing we made with Jaedyn's apron on was jello jigglers. Did you know you could make jello jigglers really easily. You know the kind of jello that you can pick up and it won't fall apart in your hands. Ya that's pretty cool! All it is, is 4 small packages of jello with 2.5 C boiling water. You DON'T add cold water then you put it in a 9x13 put it in the refrigerator let it set up then put the bottom of the dish under hot water for 15 sec to soften the bottom then you cut it in squares or if you want to be a super cool mom/grandma you use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. (Wasn't planning on writing the recipe but it just kinda happened so your welcome if you didn't know how to do that :))
It was super fun doing this and she loved it! It was really the first time I let her help me with cooking food, now she helps me all the time and always have to have her apron on.
Thank You Aunt Donna!
Can I just say how hard it is to get/give gifts to Luther. He is so picky and when it comes to gift giving for him he just wants something that he needs. Ya that's great! But the problem is he gets everything he needs and wants so when it comes to gift giving it's almost impossible. So I've seen these DAD photos going around pinterest a lot and I thought that was perfect for him especially since he has been wanting a picture of his girls for his desk at work.
So when I went to Hobby Lobby to get the letters and there was a problem... everybody and their mom is doing the exact same project. So all the unfinished wooden letters D and A were gone so I had to buy the finished ones. (That's fine it was just more expensive) But that's ok :)
So I took my girls to my parents house and got them all done up with their super cute matching outfits and tried to take pictures. Let me just say what should've taken 5 minutes took an hour. Jaedyn 'gets her picture done' when she wants it done. SO there was a lot of bribing involved.
Here are some pictures that ended up being taken:
This picture is convincing Jaedyn to hold Hallee, and Hallee was screaming and Jaedyn was yelling...
"She's FALLING! SHE'S FALLING! SHE'S FAAAALLLIIINNNNGGG!!!
HA that was pretty funny!
This picture was trying to get them to lay in the vinery. Let me just say the vinery is very soft but as you can tell neither one wanted or liked it.
This picture is trying them to hold the letters and since Hallee is barely 3 months and probably the chunkiest baby ever she can't sit up not even partially so we're trying to hold the back of her up by her outfit...Nope she didn't like that either...even if we could get her to sit up Jaedyn's not looking and you can't even see the letters so this one was a failure too.
In this picture we were doing the same technique with them sitting on a flower well at my parents because it's pretty but the background didn't even look as good as I had envisioned and AGAIN Hallee didn't like it.
And out of the million pictures we took we chose this one because it was the best one. Jaedyn is half smiling and Hallee is sorta looking at the camera. BUT guess what...This was the very first picture taken...DANG! I went through a hour of headache for nothing but on the bright side he LOVED it and it is on his desk!
Jaedyn has had her fair share of corn but This was her very first corn on the cob that she ate by herself and she LOVED it!
Doesn't she look like a pro?
Her cheesy smile :)
Oh my heck! Hallee is getting soo big. She's 3 months but yet it seems like she's always been here but at the same time it feels like I was just in the hospital. Time flies by so fast but yet the days can be long. Hallee has really bad allergies so I have to keep her inside with the air conditioning. If she's outside her allergies act up really bad and she has trouble breathing and miserable. She's also what I believe to be colic. She cries a lot but it definetley teaches me patience between a baby that cries all the time and chasing a very active 2 year old. But it's a lot of fun. I love every stage kids have so far because there a lot of fun in there own way BUT can my babies just stay little?!?
Jaedyn wanted to bring her baby doll stroller down stairs and I thought it would be cute if I put Hallee in the the stroller. She literally looked like a baby doll. Jaedyn started pushing her around. Made me a bit nervous but she was super careful! She's in 2 different outfits because she loved it. Hallee is a people watcher and loves to sit up but she's WAY to chunky to hold herself up and still too little so we put her in there and she's happy.
Doesn't she look like a baby doll?!?!
So when Jaedyn was born I made a tradition. When my girls turn 6 weeks old we celebrate by getting their ears pierced! Well, Hallee turned 6 weeks and we did it! She got her ears pierced! I know there's controversy with babies getting their ears pierced. For example::
My dad says you didn't give her the choice to get her ears pierced and I have 2 responses to that.
1-Do you ask boys if they want to be circumcised because they could always get that done when they're older because they could make that decision of being circumcised or not which kinda leads to response number 2
2-What boy doesn't want to be circumcise just like... What girl doesn't want their ears pierced. The ones that don't have it done want them but are too scared to do it.
Another controversial thing I've come across is
1-People at church get frustrated when they see my girls with pierced ears. Because their daughters want their ears pierced and the parents tell them they are too young and when their girls see my girls have them they begin to wonder because my girls are much younger.
So when I was 5 years old I wanted my ears pierced soo bad and I still remember going to go get them done in the mall and I have no pain tolerance whatsoever. And I remember screaming so loud that probably everybody in the mall heard me. Well, I didn't let my mom clean my ears. I remember my mom having to pin me down to just clean them and twist them so they wouldn't get infected. Well guess what?!
My ears got infected and my mom got tired of always fighting me to clean my ears, so she took them out and my ears were no longer pierced. When I turned 13, I wanted my ears pierced again and I got them done and I did take care of them and I still have them. But the reason I'm saying this story is because....Because I got my girls ears pierced at 6 weeks old and I took care of them during the healing period and I still do...They have no idea at all that they are even there and I will never have to fight them with it. And when they get older we can change them out.
They cry for a maximum of 15 seconds...Just the initial piercing of the ear and they stop crying.
Plus they are Darling :)
It's the first time this year we've gone to the park. With me being carless, Super pregnant, and a new mom of 2, I finally took the girls to the park. I don't know if Jaedyn really remembers going last year but now she loves it and asks all the time to go to the park.
She also LOVED the teeter totter...She will sit on my legs and want me to lift her up and down with my legs and say teeter totter - teeter totter! Love her :)
Best Letter Came in the Mail about a week after our anniversary and guess what it was?!?!
It was the letter saying Luther and his ex-wife Rachael are no longer sealed!!!
YES!!! It's official!!
BEST LETTER EVER!!
Congragulations to Rachael and getting sealed to her new husband! We wish you the best of luck!
We're actually getting ready to start the process of us getting sealed together and to our 2 beautiful girls. Hopefully we will be doing this the end of the summer beginning fall!
People say the hardest year of marriage is the 1st year then it gets easier. I always thought no it'll be easy, I'll be with the person I love how hard could it really be?! Well the truth of it is...Marriage wasn't really easy until the end of the 2nd year. It's definetley had great, and amazing times and I wouldn't trade my hubby for another hubby, but it is hard work. Getting to know each other for their faults, their habits, their lifestyle, and getting to know who they really are (not that they hide it but because you get to know the true person by living with them.) And I will be the first to admit, I'm not always the easiest person to live with. So I'm so grateful Luther is super patient with me.
In April we celebrated our 3 year anniversary! YAY for us :) I love my hubby so much and I appreciate all his hard work for us! Even though our anniversary is on the 18th we ended up celebrating on the 13th since our anniversary landed on a Wednesday. So we celebrated the weekend before. Luther took off work that Friday and we had a good time. My parents watched Jaedyn which was nice but we did have Hallee since I nurse her and she couldn't be away from me more than and hour or two.
In January I sold my Durango to Luther's sister, which put me carless for about 4 months and let me tell ya, It's not easy being stranded at home with 2 kids and carless, luckily my mom lives like 5 minutes away so it wasn't horrible but not exactly the funnest so for our anniversary we bought me a 2011 Chevrolet Traverse! MAN - DO I LOVE IT!!
We spent the weekend shopping and enjoying each others company since Luther is SuPeR busy with his 2 jobs. (His full time and his own company) So he works about 60-80 hours a week. But this weekend was no working at all! YAY!
On our actual anniversary the 18th we were just going to sit home and hang out since we celebrated the weekend before but Luther put his name in a drawing at work for free tickets to the Royals game and guess what....It is our lucky day! We went to the Royals game. It was fun! We took Hallee with us since like I said before, I do nurse. I wanted to get her a Royals outfit but I didn't have much time so I went to Walmart hoping they would have something but they didn't so I quickly put together this tutu and I already had her bow made from Jaedyn so this is Hallee sporting the Royals. Isn't she cute?!
These tickets were pretty amazing! They were practically front row seats right behind the dugout. We were maybe 6 or 7 rows up on the lowest level. These were GREAT seats!
This is us! I hate this picture of me but I had to put a picture of us up since we celebrate our anniversary! Ya Luther is wearing a KU shirt and I'm just wearing a baseball shirt. We don't have any Royals clothes so we atleast wore there colors ;)
I can't wait to spend many more years with this man! I'm pretty lucky :)
On Monday, April 9th Hallee turned 1 month old and went in for her 1 month check up. Since Hallee was born in this short month she gained 4 pounds! Holy Smokes..So I looked in Jaedyn's baby book and Jaedyn only gained 1.5 lbs. Yep, let's just say Hallee is a Mega-Chunk!
We were at Nana's h0use and Jaedyn disappeared...So we went to find her and she made her way upstairs into Aunt Shelby's room and decided to put on Aunt Shelby's make-up.
I first wanted to say, How grateful I am to know that my Savior died for me and atoned for my sins and to know that He Lives! I'm grateful to know he is there for me still and is my friend and loves me and my family so much that he was resurrected for us so we can be an eternal family one day.
Something that is exciting news! Luther and I started our 1st temple class today. What better day to start than on Easter! We're so close and I can't wait to be an eternal family!
Now on to our Easter Day! I wanted my girls to have matching dresses and let's just say I went everywhere! I kept running into the problem that there is matching dresses from 0-24 mo and there's matching dresses for 2t and up. The sizes I needed was 3 mo and 2t. So I went to JcPenny's, Target, Walmart, Carters, Children's Place, Gymboree, Macy's Dillards, Crazy 8 and I'm sure I'm forgetting some places but I finally found something at Burlington Coat Factory and the thing is, this was the ONLY dress in those sizes that matched. But after all the searching, I am happy with my purchase.
Aren't they SUPER CUTE!?!?!
Jaedyn totally cheesing it up
My Chunka-Chunk!
Dada and his Girls <3
Momma and her babies
Went to Nana and Pappy's house for Easter dinner and the egg hunt. Last year when we had the egg hunt we had to help Jaedyn a lot she was barely 1 but this year it was like Jaedyn was a pro and had been doing this on a regular basis. We didn't even have to tell her what to do, she just took off collecting her eggs putting them in her basket. She was so dang cute! She's growing up WAY to fast..(several tears coming down momma's face)
Getting her Easter Baskets
Jaedyn LOVES her little sister!
One day I was making dinner and turned around for 2 seconds and in the corner of my eye I saw Jaedyn running with Hallee in her hands across the room. Can I say heart attack of a life time! Now I try to keep a REAL close eye on her because she knows when and how to be sneaky. Let's just say that's not the last time she's tried to pick Hallee up. She is still even sometimes successful. AAHH! But at least Jaedyn loves her baby sister. Jaedyn loves giving her kisses, getting sister's diapers, tries to share her food with her (which is SCARY), and always holding her.
Jaedyn loves it so much she is a "momma" t0 her babies. So cute! She get's wipes to change her babies diapers, feed her bottles, dress them, wrap them in blankets and do what momma's do.
The picture of Jaedyn and Hallee is mid-kiss! Love them!
On Thursday night I was scheduled to go to the hospital to do a cervadill so that Friday morning I could be induced to have our baby.
Friday - March 9 2012 at 5:19 pm
Hallee Ann Hargrove was born
7lbs 2 oz and 19 in long.
(Hallee is pronounced with a short 'a' so it's not Haley it's Hallee - hope that makes since)
She's been such a joy to our family. And she's beautiful and we can't imagine life without her.
We've been asked a lot if Jaedyn had as much hair as Hallee has and the answer is
Yes - She did have as much hair and just as dark the only difference is Hallee's hair is more thick than Jaedyn's hair was/is.
It's weird how having 2 kids seems so natural. Yes, getting everyone ready is a lot of work maybe more time consuming but at the same time it seems like I've been doing it forever.
It's kind of funny how we always thought Jaedyn was so little and our baby but you forget how small newborns are. When we came home and saw Jaedyn and Hallee both Luther and I were like wow Jaedyn is a toddler. She's so big. She instantly looked differently in our eyes as far as features goes.
Jaedyn has been doing pretty good with Hallee. She was so excited when we got home and there was a baby! She quickly realized that having a baby takes a lot of time and attention so Jaedyn has gotten a little jealous where she doesn't want to 'share her blankets' anymore and she has started to act like a baby. She's funny! Luther has taken off work this whole week. So we're trying to give Jaedyn is getting a lot of extra attention so Jaedyn doesn't feel replaced or abandoned. That's the last thing I want - is for her to feel those things. Luckily this week is in the 70's and 80's so we're playing outside a lot.
I was telling Luther how natural it feels and how I feel much older than I am. 2 kids at 22. I don't feel young. I feel like a more mature family. I don't know how to really describe this feeling but I love the feeling. I love my family and I can't wait to continue to mother my children and to do it with my best friend, my love, my companion, my husband!
Some pics of our Hallee:
Right after delivery
Weighing 7lbs 2 oz
Our whole family
Jaedyn meeting Hallee for the first time
Hallee Ann Hargrove
So Jaedyn has started this demanding yelling NOW. And when she demands NOW I try to correct her with what she is asking by replacing the NOW with a please. Here's a few examples...
- Jaedyn is taking a bath and the bubbles has disappeared because she was in there for a while and she runs out of the bathtub and covers herself and I said 'are you done Jaedyn' she said 'no' then I said 'what are you doing' she replies with 'MORE BUBBLES NOW!'
- DORA NOW!
- BUBBLES NOW!
- PINK MILK NOW!
- And we joke around with her calling her a turd when she's onery (which I now regret) So she asked me to do something (don't remember what) and she yells, 'NOW TURD!'
So even though I don't want her saying NOW and I always correct her and explain how that's not nice and we don't talk like that, it is and can be secretly funny!
I'll do a quick update on everything that's happened but then I would like to start being more current and up to date with everything. I'm really bad at keeping a journal but Jaedyn is just so funny and there's things I want to remember so I'm going to start putting stories, pictures, and reminders for my self and maybe one day I'll go back and record everything down or turn my blog into a book. But this post will be just an update on where life has been the last several months.
Well Jaedyn is growing like crazy! She is now 2. Oh man how time flies by: Here's a picture update :)
Johnson County Fair riding the Merry Go Round and she loved it! She was 19 mo.
She loves to help Pappy (grandpa) fix up his house
She's in the big girl bed
One of her favorite things to do is to color
For Halloween she was a cowgirl..Wasn't too crazy about the hat
Decorating the tree
Making our yearly gingerbread house
Sitting on Santa's lap. She HATES guys so that's why she was upset
For Jaedyn's birthday Dada and Mama took Jaedyn to Monkey Buizness and she LOVED it. It was her first time ever going and she threw the biggest fit of a life time when we left
This was a picture of Jaedyn at her birthday party. She LOVES Dora so it was a Dora themed party. She's wearing 'Dora's outfit'
We also did Family Pics
As you can see I'm very pregnant. We're about to welcome baby #2. Actually she's coming this next Friday. I'm going to the hospital on Thursday night and starting the induction. We're pretty excited we're having another girl!
Luther has been super busy with work. He has his full time business and in November he started his own business and it has been blowing up. We had no idea it would be so successful so fast! He's doing internet marketing for other businesses. He expected about 2 clients a month but just in January he got 9 new clients. He's got about 16 clients now and still getting calls like crazy. I'm so proud of him and his dedication to providing for our family.
He is also such an amazing dad and husband. With this pregnancy he has really stepped up and helped out with Jaedyn and house responsibilities. (I have really rough pregnancies)
So that's just a small update on our family! I'm going to try really hard to be better at updating! Mainly for myself so I can hold on tight to these memories and stories that are just too funny/cute/memorable :)
