Jude at 3 Years Old

Jude will be 3 in a week! I feel like it was JUST his second birthday. We are so excited to celebrate another year with our little man who weighs a mere 30 pounds :)
Jude is really into helping, fixing, taking apart and trying to put back together ANYTHING. We were at Disneyland last month and we turned around and he had taken apart a sprinkler in a planter at downtown disney. He took my electric hot chocolate stirrer and took it apart to get the batteries out. He has this little set of tools that he carries everywhere. He sleeps with them. His "hammer, schrewdwiver, wench, webel" are his most prized possessions. In the morning he comes out of his room with them either in his toolbox or his Mickey car all ready for the day. He loves wearing basketball clothes, or anything that looks like it has something to do with a sport. He has a soccer shirt from Mexico and basketball shorts and baseball pajamas. He's kind of over footie pajamas now that he knows he can sleep in his basketball shorts and it makes me a little sad :(
Jude is a great swimmer and is almost independent in the pool. He can jump in and swim to me without any help. He loves it. He is also into the beach and jumping over waves for hours.
Jude still loves to eat meat-chicken, turkey, salami. He really loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He asks for toast with butter and jelly every day, or oatmeal because I let him put sprinkles in it one time and now he knows he can get sprinkles for breakfast. He still doesn't really like eggs but will try them from time to time. He's really good about trying things. He gagged trying a big piece of broccoli and I couldn't help but laugh. He also gagged on butternut squash soup multiple times. I am proud of him for trying more than once! His favorite veggie is cucumbers and he likes to munch on a whole carrot. He's also into helping me bake zucchini bread. He also likes macaroni and cheese now. Pasta and sausage is probably his favorite. Or pizza. And mcdonalds or in n out hamburgers.
Bed time has become more of a struggle now that he can get out of bed. We do bath, read a couple books, brush teeth and get in bed. He milks every part of it as long as he can. And he often gets up a few times after we've put him to bed. I got an alarm clock that turns green in the morning when he can get up, but I don't think it's made a huge difference. I hope he grows out of the getting out of bed stage soon :)
Jude is such a good boy. We are so proud of everything he does. He makes us so happy and makes us laugh. He 's a really good big brother and really loves his sister. He's so smart and works hard to learn new things.

Willa at 7 Months

Willa turned 7 months old and within a week started sitting up perfectly and cut her first two teeth! She's content to just sit and play, at least for a while. She still prefers her mama to hold her :)
She wakes up 1-2 times a night. I haven't been super vigilant with her sleep training because we're rarely getting her down at the same time every night. She takes 2-3 naps a day- usually one in the morning about an hour after she wakes up and then another around 12 or 1 with Jude. That nap is normally 2 hours or more. If there's time she'll take a quick nap before dinner so she can last til 730 for bed.
Willa loves baths and absolutely loves swimming in the pool.
She smiles at Jude whenever he smiles at her.
Even after covering her in sunscreen she's managed to get a pretty nice tan.
She loves her pacifier and uses it to sleep.
She loves real food and stares at us whenever we eat.
She's tried most vegetables and fruits now as well as beans, oats and yogurt.
She needs about 3 hours between naps now and pretty much refuses to nap in my arms at church.
She's pretty ticklish but it takes a lot of work to get her to laugh hard.
She's started taking toys out of a basket and has a lot of fun with that process.
She loves to pull hair.
It's so different having a baby that is so attached to me. I thought I would not like it very much since Jude was so easy going and went to anyone and was content for long periods of time. Willa will go to anyone but is always scanning the room for me. I have to say that I actually don't mind her attachment to me. Sometimes it's a little draining but I love that she loves me so much. She also still won't take a bottle so if we get the opportunity for a date we wait til she's in bed to go. Willa has definitely taught us patience and that we have so much love to share with both her and Jude.

Jude at 2 years, 10 months

Jude is officially potty trained! Since September we've been talking about the potty and getting rid of diapers and he showed NO interest. We tried bribing, begging, reasoning, but he would NOT sit on the potty long enough to go. Finally last week he was in the bath and started saying he had to pee so we got him out and he actually peed for the first time in his little frog potty. Since then he's had only a few accidents and even took to pooping pretty dang quick. He got a new bike to celebrate.
He also did swimming lessons with my mom for two weeks during this same time and can swim pretty well. I think by the end of the summer he'll be swimming completely on his own.
Some of Judes favorite things are:
 tools
 watching tv
books
riding his bike
 going for walks (especially to the trash with dad)
stuffed animals
cleaning his table and vacuuming
having mom or dad play with him in his room
kissing willa
hitting willa
pushing the little shopping cart at trader joes


He says a few funny things too. Instead of "vanilla" he says "nil-a-va". And David saw a coyote right near our house the other day and Jude keeps talking about the "hi-cote-EE".
His favorite foods right now are sandwiches- turkey sandwiches or peanut butter and jelly. He still loves meat and fruit, especially salami and grapes.  He has to eat his meals at the table, but every once in a while I let him have a non-messy snack on the couch while watching a show. He likes to say, "can I have a snack on the couch?" He's a really big helper and a pretty good listener, most of the time. He tries to "fix" or put together every thing in our house.
David took him to the movies two months ago for only the second time and he LOVED it. He sat the whole time and was great.
Since transitioning him to a toddler bed he likes to get up and try to come out of his room every couple of nights. It's exhausting. We lock the door from the outside, and he knows that, but he still tries to come out and ends up crying or knocking on the door so loud that we have to go put him back to bed. I don't even know what he wants- usually I think he just can't fall back asleep.
Jude is growing SO fast and is so fun and cute. I can't believe how big he is. He learns new things every single day and it's so fun to watch him discover everything the world has for him. It's hard for me to watch him learn lessons the hard way or get hurt, but I guess it's just a part of life. I am trying really hard to think of what we can teach him so he's happy and healthy. We love our Jujube.

March 2015

The first few months with a newborn always seem to be kind of a blur. I'm so tired from not sleeping and chasing a toddler around. We spend a lot of time at the park and with grandparents. Jude is growing so fast. It's so fun that we can now have full on conversations with him. And he has a memory about what we do and see. 

Right now Jude is into basketballs, still. Any ball really.

We're going to sign him up for a little soccer class through parks & rec and he talks about it all the time.

He loves nursery at church. They have an outside area with cars and a basketball hoop so he's in heaven.

He falls and hurts himself almost every day. He's always running around and being crazy. 

He still loves fruit snacks and candy of any kind.

He's started trying more things food-wise which make me happy. He used to love vegetables and then decided he didn't love them, but in the past month he's been trying things and liking them. He ate a bunch of broccoli the other night and he still loves cucumbers and carrots. 

He eats a ton of applesauce. He also loves butter.

He still loves meat- chicken, steak, salami, turkey and ham.

He doesn't like potatoes still, but usually will try them.

He wants nothing to do with potty training. I can't even get him to sit on the potty. He likes the idea of wearing big boy undies though.

Last month we moved him into his toddler bed so Willa could take his crib over. The first few days were tough, but once we didn't put him back in the crib he figured it out. Sometimes he'll get up in the middle of the night (which scares the crap out of me) but he's learning to stay in bed. I think it's time to shorten his nap so he's able to sleep better at night.

Jude loves stuffed animals, cars, animals, puzzles, books and his lawn mower.

He's good at matching things together and cleaning up after himself. He LOVES vacuuming.

He loves watching videos of himself.

He can shoot and make baskets in my parent's big basketball hoop when it's lowered to about 6 feet.

He is in a pajama wearing phase and wants to wear them all day long.

He likes to say 'That's mise' as in , That's mine. I think he learned it from nursery...

He also says things that we say to him like, "remember this?" and will hold something random up.

Or, "I know, it's hard" when he can't do something he wants.

He loves the move Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Turbo, Curious George and Handy Manny.

He doesn't like when we sing. The other night we were having Family Night and David and I sang "As I Have Loved You" and he just started crying. He gets embarrassed with attention.

Jude wears a baseball hat pretty much every day.

He loves Willa and likes to make her smile. He kisses her every morning when she wakes up and says "good morning Willa-baby"

We love Jude more than ever!

Willa turned 4 months old on March 14. She was waking up OFTEN at night and between 2-7 every hour and a half. We finally moved her to the crib in a different room and it helped. Then we started sleep training. I'm not ready to make her go all night without eating- waiting til about 5 months which  is when I did all night with Jude. Sometimes she still wakes up a lot and sometimes only once or twice. She's over 13 pounds and 24 inches long. She's actually really similar to Jude in a lot of ways, but I don't think she's as smiley and content. She really likes and needs to be entertained. 

She can roll from back to tummy pretty good now.

She likes the pacifier and uses it for sleep.

She's laughed about 8 times.

Her hair is still pretty dark but a lot thinner than when she was born. 

She doesn't like riding in the car but is getting better.

She naps every 2ish hours and the naps are usually about 60 minutes long. (3-4 a day)

We love having Willa as part of our family! She makes us so happy.

At the ER with Dad (they were there til after midnight) for a hurt arm/wrist

His little sling. It ended up being fine, but he had multiple x-rays and doctor visits.

David made himself a dart board for his bday.

David turned 35 on March 4. He went to Vegas with fam/friends.

She loves bath time, but not AFTER bath time.

David came home with a new red, white and blue hat. The next day at Target Jude saw this hat and wanted it. I didn't realize til I got home and saw David's that they were almost exactly the same.

At the car wash with dad on Saturday morning

I have to say that I absolutely LOVE dressing Willa for church.

Jude falls asleep in sacrament a lot because it's at 1130. One sunday he slept through sacrament and most of gospel doctrine with David. When he woke up and david took him to nursery he didnt want to go in, but wanted to peek in, so he pulled the chair over himself and spied on everyone.

Sunday walk on the trail

The day she didn't want to sleep without me holding her

THE cutest!

January

On December 30 David received a job offer for his first job as an attorney after interviewing at only 2 firms! We were so excited. We didn't really imagine that we'd be able to stay in southern california so easily. The job is in Orange and he really loves it. He started the next Tuesday after receiving the offer. We moved a week later to Yorba Linda.

Big bear celebrating Cori's 30th!

We blessed Willa on January 4 in Corona

Willa's Birth Day

Willa was due November 14, 2015 which also ended up being her true birth day. I felt all along that she would come early. I'd had contractions for a few months leading up to her birth. I was dilated to a 2 about two weeks before her due date. At one point I thought maybe my fluid was leaking so I went to the doctor to get checked. I wasn't leaking but I was almost a 3 at that point. Monday before my due date I woke up with uncomfortable contractions that lasted most of the next morning as well. I was worried that this was it- excited, but worried. I was pretty uncomfortable at the end of the pregnancy, just like I was with Jude's. I had horrible acid reflux even though I was taking medication for it. I also just felt so heavy and had a hard time turning over in bed.
Eventually the contractions subsided, even after a lot of walking. Nothing really happened after that until Thursday night/Friday morning. I woke up around 1AM with contractions. They weren't horrible, but they were real. They were about every 15 minutes apart so after a bit of tracking them I decided to get in the shower. It was happening just like it had with Jude! We couldn't believe it. Both of us had no sleep just like we did with Jude, too. Ha. After my shower the contractions slowed down, but we wanted to be safe so we decided to head to the hospital anyway.
On the car ride there the contractions just stopped. But the hospital was 20 minutes away so we just kept driving. They checked me in and had me change into a gown. They checked me and I was at a 4, so even though my contractions had stopped, I got to stay.  By that time it was almost 4am. My doctor said that if contractions didn't start back up by 7am they'd start me on pitocin. I hadn't planned on pitocin, but I wanted to have the baby, so I agreed. At 730 they started pitocin and I reminded my nurse that I wanted an epidural. She said it would take an hour or so for the pitocin to start working and that she'd get the anesthesiologist to come when I was in pain. Also at some point the doctor came in to break my water. Within a half hour my contractions started and were STRONG. I was having to breathe really hard to get through them already. They were 5 minutes or less apart immediately. After an hour or so they were super close together. Sometimes they'd peak and then go even higher before coming back down. I have never felt pain like that before. After a while I was just yelling. I think david thought I was crazy, but it was bad. Suddenly they were less than a minute apart. I kept saying, where is the anesthesiologist?! Then I started thinking that there was no way I was going to be able to hold still for him to give me the epidural because the contractions were so horrible that I had to move around. I also started to feel pressure in my tailbone with each contraction and I remembered hearing that that mean you were ready to push. I told the nurse and she asked if I wanted her to check me or if I wanted the epidural. I said to not check me because I didn't want her to say that it was too late for the epidural.
The anesthesiologist came in right as I was saying, "How is he going to be able to do this?" As in, I can't hold still enough for him to put a needle in my back. I think he thought I meant that he wouldn't know how to do it or something, so he said "Luckily I just watched a youtube video on how to do this and it said to just work through it." He and David laughed. I didn't.
I tried to sit up but the contractions were worse. SOMEHOW they ended up subsiding a tiny bit while he worked. I have no idea how or why. Almost immediately I felt relief. It was the most amazing feeling in the world. I kept telling David, "I feel SO good." My legs were warm. The doctor checked me and I was at a 9! But then I started shaking almost uncontrollably. The nurse brought me some warm blankets and I laid down and closed my eyes. I totally could have taken a nap. But 15 minutes later the nurse came back in and checked me. I was at a 10. I couldn't believe that I had gone from a 4 to a 10 in about 4 hours.
The nurse had me do a test push and said "Stop. The doctor will be mad if this baby comes before he's here." I could still feel my legs and but I wasn't in pain. It was so different than last time. I couldn't feel my legs at all last time, and I couldn't push well and it took over an hour to deliver Jude. The doctor came in and about 4 pushes later she was here!
She had tons of hair and looked a lot like Jude. She started nursing great. She weighed 7lb 14oz. Since she was born in the morning we had the whole day to enjoy her together. Everyone came to meet her, too. We ended up going home the next afternoon so it was a quick hospital stay.