Happy Update!

I'm not sure what happened, but these last couple days Phoebe has been AMAZING! I've done nothing differently yet, but she's been so good and playing so well, I feel like crying now. She's playing with Gwen, getting into things, being so good! I think Friday night may have helped. Logan and I went to Lindsay's work program. Collin Raye was performing (it was awesome!) so we asked Logan's brother and his wife to babysit our kids. This is no easy task for anyone. Gwen is so hyper and Phoebe is so clinging, that you feel like your watching 10 children. Phoebe screamed and cried for the last hour we were gone, but I think allowing someone else to watch her, helped her relieve her anxiety. I came back! She trusts that I won't just disappear. Hopefully, I'm not jinxing this. It's only been two days. Still, today and yesterday were great days, and I thought I should post that.

AnXiEtY

Phoebe has always been a momma's girl. She was never very comfortable in anybody's arms but mine even when she was only a few days old. For some reason, she is only ever content when she is snuggled up against my chest, watching the world from the safety of my arms. Ten months later, this is getting very stressful! This morning, she cried and screamed whenever I put her down to make breakfast, get ready for the day, change diapers... everything. It's like this every day! I have to convince Phoebe to play on the floor, and it takes several attempts and a couple hours of deep cleansing breaths to achieve this. Gwen was the exact opposite. When Gwen started moving, she rarely came back! Phoebe's been crawling for a while now, and instead of going off to find trouble with Gwen, she chases after me. It's hard to get anything done when I only have one hand to do things with. I'm not sure what to do. Is this normal? Does she have trust issues? Okay, so she does sleep in our bed still. And they say babies that sleep in their parents' bed tend to suffer the most from separation anxiety (not Gwen, though.) But that just brings up another list of issues! How do you get a baby who suffers from separation anxiety - even in her sleep - to sleep in her own bed? I'm not sure.

Oh, but she's just fine if I'm not home! She doesn't scream for Logan when I'm out shopping. It's when she knows I'm home and available for cuddling that she needs to follow me around until I can pick her up and carry her around.

But I must admit that Phoebe is very good at cuddling and she sure is adorable, even when she's crying.

Sorry for the rant. It's part of my self therapy program to prevent premature baldness. If I didn't rant, I'd pull my hair out.

Fun Pictures

Phoebe's bed head. She looks a lot like Logan in this pic.

Too cute. She needs a haircut so badly though.

The girls love to get into the cabinets. I can't wait to give them their own kitchen for Christmas.

It's almost nap time. The girls are making their escape.

Phoebe loves Gwennie's car. She gets so proud of herself when she's on this thing. She hasn't figured out how to make it go forward yet. It doesn't matter to her though. I think she likes being taller.

Gwennie put her coat on upside down and insisted that we zip it up (down?) for her and she refused to let us fix it. I think she looks kind of like a duck.

Gwennie made the mess and let Phoebe take the blame. I had to clean it up, though.

Not fair.

Some Thanksgiving Memories

We spent Thanksgiving in Soda Springs. We all had a great time talking with each other, playing disc golf, and  cracking up (or pulling our hair out) over something the girls were doing. I realize I didn't get very many pictures this time. I took one picture on Thanksgiving (which has a bad pic of me in it, so I won't be sharing :p) and the rest of the pics are of the girls playing. 

Here's Phoebe playing with toy peas. I think it's appropriate because Gwen calls her PP. I hope that nickname doesn't stick though.

Phoebe couldn't get enough of the bird. She'd pull herself to standing and try to poke it. I caught her trying to look innocent.

I can't get a good picture of Gwen anymore. She doesn't like having her picture taken, and when I pull the camera out, she wants to look at the pictures on it. This is Gwen running to help me with the camera.

Gotta love 'em!

Sammy's Coming!

My sister Samantha is planning on coming to visit us in Idaho in the next couple of months. I'm so excited to have her here. The last time she was here was when Gwen was born, but I was a bit preoccupied at the time. This time I won't be pregnant or recovering from surgery, so we're going to have a blast. Because I'm so excited, I decided to create a post dedicated to her and share with everyone who she is!

Samantha Lyn is 19 years old. We used to fight like cats and dogs when we were kids and were as different as night and day. She's dabbled in a lot of activities in her life: piano (she's great), singing (again, awesome. So not like me), and horseback riding. She's extremely bubbly and quite goofy. When we're together, we're always making fun of something, quoting ancient movies that we watched as kids ("So don't you try to go 'oink oink oink!' when you can only go 'weee weee weeee!'"), laughing hysterically, or fighting. Good times. So I'm thrilled to have her visit!

This picture was taken in July when we visited the family in New Jersey. Don't you love Phoebe's patriotism? Oh, and don't you just love the deodorant stick in the focal point of the picture?

Moving On

I think Phoebe's getting sick of breast milk. I turned around after getting Gwen some juice, and found Phoebe flirting with the fridge. Surprisingly, I'm not that jealous. In three more months, we'll be done, and since Phoebe is cutting teeth, I can't wait.

She'll be nine months in two days!

Halloween!

We had a very fun Halloween this year! Logan and I were brave and actually went trick-or-treating door to door in the neighborhood around the corner. Our comfort zone usually makes us wait to hear word about a trunk-or-treat, because we are pretty shy people. Seriously, knocking on a stranger's door and demanding candy is scary for us, even though we're supposed to. But we wanted Gwen to get the full Halloween experience, so we bit the bullet and did it! It was a lot of fun and Gwen had a blast! She came home and chowed down immediately on a couple candy bars. She was in heaven.

The night before Halloween, Logan and I carved our pumpkin. It was our first time ever carving a pumpkin and we were quite proud of the results.
Do you see it? It's a scary face peeking out through blinds. Very startling.
Gwennie loved her cowgirl costume. She wore it all day on the 30th and on Halloween. She even let me do her hair in pigtails. She usually hates for me to do anything with her hair, but I told her that cowgirls wear pigtails, so she let me.
And our Phoebe was an elephant! She laughed and laughed when I put it on her. She must have felt silly, but she was the cutest elephant ever!
Here's us checking the mail before trick-or-treating. Once we turned the corner, Phoebe was sound asleep.
It was a beautiful night. Gwen got extra candy for being so cute. After a half an hour, we returned home and made cinnamon hot chocolate, ate some candy, and convinced Gwennie that she needed to go to bed. I had to wrestle her out of her costume. She looked so confused the entire night, but I knew she had a lot of fun.