Exciting!

Before I forget, Haven took 5 steps on Wednesday!  I am very excited!  I can't wait for her to stop crawling and start walking- she is relentless in eating every speck on the floor and I'm hoping being up off the ground will help her out!  She's like a little baby vacuum!

"Mama" has also become her favorite word over the last few days!  She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES her Mama! ♥

AND I got a new camera today!  I wanted a new camera 2 years ago and Jason got me a huge, clunky thing that I couldn't take pictures outside with or they wouldn't work.  So I've been using that and my old, old 7.1mp camera for a year and a half now.  Well, he sold my newer one so I was able to buy the one I REALLY wanted!  I'M SO EXCITED!!!  It's 14mp and cute and tiny and takes GREAT videos that I can zoom in and out during and it was a GREAT deal!  I bought it for LESS than I sold my other camera for!  LOL, I know people usually get excited about buying nice, expensive cameras but I'm just so happy to have a nice, cheap camera that works well and I can bring with me everywhere I go! :)

(p.s. I had to stop mid writing to go take a leaf speck out of Haven's mouth and put her BACK on the other side of the living room AGAIN, haha!... And now she crawled over and is pulling up on me saying "Mama, Mama!"  Guess I better go!) :)

We can't wait for Chocolate Fest this weekend!!!!!  Venily is so excited to go see her Daddy doing sound and watching the parade and petting the animals at the petting zoo part... and eating lots of chocolate of course! :)

Oh Venily...

I came out of the bathroom this morning and Venily says "smell my breathe."  And I'm like "What?!" and then I look at her face and she had obviously just eaten some chocolate candy and was trying to tell on herself, lol.  So I put her in a time out because she's not allowed to touch anything on the counters without asking.  And when she came out of her time out she says, "Mommy, I ate some chocolate off the counter and it was DEEE-LICIOUS!!!  And it was chewy and it had chocolate on it and chewy stuff inside.  And it was sooo, soooo good.  I loved it!"  :)  Ahhhh, she makes me laugh!  ♥

Constipated...

So, ever since I started giving Haven Poli-vi-sol with Iron, she's been getting constipated.  I've never had to deal with this before since Venily had the exact opposite problem from like 6m-19m.  Haven gets iron in her cereal as well, so maybe she is getting too much iron?  There has been a whole day that will go by sometimes where she doesn't poop.  And when she does, she cries and only goes a little bit at a time.  And this may be WAY too much info, but today she was screaming so bad while I was changing her and I could see she was still trying to go and then it hurt so bad, she'd stop herself so I literally pulled it out with my bare hands, which helped tremendously because I got a lot out!  (LOL, I totally remember reading about a mom doing that in my AP English class (Sula by Toni Morrison) and I thought it was the stupidest book ever and now I can finally appreciate what the woman did!).

Any suggestions?  I'm going to stop giving her the Poli-vi-Sol with Iron for a while and maybe just buy the regular kind and hope that helps.  She already eats a lot of fruits and vegetables but I'll probably buy prunes I guess?  And I know juice is supposed to help, but I think I've only given her juice once and that was a LONG time ago, so I'll have to get some of that as well.   And then I'll ask her pediatrician about it next month when she goes in for her checkup.  I might even have her write me a prescription for vitamins anyway since I want her to have one with fluoride and I can only get that by prescription and see is she still wants me to give her one with iron in it as well!                   

♥ Haven Araya is 8 months old! ♥

I'm in complete denial right now.  8?  Did we skip some somewhere?!  Ahhhh!  That puts her at 2/3 of a year!  Only 4 more months until it's first birthday time!!!!!!!  I'm pretty sure we're going to combine the girls' parties for the next few years to save on money (their birth dates are only 17 days apart).  Then they can have their own when they start to invite their friends from school.

Here are her 8 month stats:

Weight: about 21 lbs (weighed her myself.  She was 20lbs, 14oz at 7m- she'll be weighed again by the doctor at her 9 month check up)  ***Venily was 20 lbs at 7m and stayed that weight for a LONG time.... she was only 21lbs, 6oz at 15m!  I'm curious to see if Haven is similar!


Length: 30.5 inches

(Venily was about 20lbs and 29in at 8m!)


Haven's updated growth charts:

Clothes size: 12m & 18m still.  Now that we are wearing summery clothes and she's thinning out, she can even wear some 6-9m again, LOL!  We don't need to worry about sleeves or pants being too short in the summer! :)

Diaper size: 3

Shoe size: 3 or 4 (had to get rid of a bunch of her 3's she outgrew!)  She has LONG, skinny feet!

SLEEPING: Waking up once a night again.  Sometimes even twice.  I think it's because she keeps learning new skills (which can cause night-wakings).  Usually takes a couple of attempts to put her down for the night as well.  Still prefers to sleep on her stomach, with her 2 right hand middle fingers in her mouth! :)

Usually 2 naps a day.

EATING: Still breastfeeding throughout the day.  Still eating 3 solid food meals and some snacks.  She is much more receptive to baby food than she was before, though she still likes real food better (Venily HATED baby food and only wanted to feed herself).  I usually give Haven baby food for breakfast w/ Cheerios (or baby cereal and Cheerios) and baby food for lunch and a "real food" meal for dinner (usually whatever we're eating).  She usually eats an entire jar of 2nd baby food for her meals or half to a whole jar of 3rd food!  She never leaves a speck of "real food" left on her tray and always wants more, lol!  And she eats finger food snacks twice a day.  

I'm not sure whether I'm going to try to phase out the baby food yet since she tolerates it... it's easier to clean up after, but I feel like transitioning to all "real food" would be better for her because she's ready for it!  Hmmm.... maybe we'll start doing 2 "real food" meals a day now!

PLAYING: Really loves all of her toys where she can stand and play! She can "walk" with her rolling toys, but the wheels move a little too fast for her.  I want to try them outside to see if she'd like that better!  If only we had grass in our yard... hopefully within the next month!!

She also has an increased interest in cars and anything with wheels.  She'll take her Little People car and drive it back and forth on the floor.


Another new "game" she likes to play is intentionally throwing toys on the ground while I'm holding her and then pointing at them until I pick them back up for her! haha!  And then throwing them back down and pointing at them again! :)  Silly, silly girl!

APPEARANCE: Everyone in the stores and stuff keeps telling me her hair is red, though I'm sure it'll change, it's dark in the back!  She is definitely thinning out more, though she still has neck rolls and a double chin and chunky thighs! :)  Her eyes are still blue though and her cheeks are still big w/ dimples! :)  Everyone ALWAYS tells me that she looks like me! :)


TEETH: 2 still!  Not sure when the next ones will pop through!


SPEECH: Says lots of words now "Dada", "Mama" ♥ !, "ball", "hi", "eat", "duck", "teeth" and she is always attempting to say words I tell her to say!!  Dada is still her favorite word!

-signs: "eat", waves, claps, does "so big", gives high fives, puts her hands up to be picked up, points at EVERYTHING now, just like Venily did!  It's really funny.  If she wants something or someone she'll point at them or if you ask her where something is, she'll point at it!  And she likes to play a game where if I'm holding her she'll point at someone else to hold her and as soon as she gets in their arms, she'll point back at me and so on and so on! :)  She's really enjoying the fact that she can communicate with us and we will respond to her!

MOVEMENT: Crawls now!!  Oh boy, I'm chasing after her all day now, taking things out of her hands and mouth!!  It's crazy how she didn't know how to a week ago and now she's all over the place, lol!  She can crawl up on all fours, but often drops down and army crawls too, haha!  She can also walk up to 3 steps towards me!  She wants to walk BADLY and thinks she can just take off, lol!  She cruises on furniture and pulls up on me.  And she can stand for 2 minutes all by herself (though she's usually trying to get somewhere so won't stand that long unless she's really interested in something!  Still hasn't fallen or gotten hurt yet.  I am DREADING the day she gets her first big bump... thinking about buying 1,000 pillows and foam for my whole house! :(

OTHER:  
I think both her and Venily have seasonal allergies.  Jason does and as soon as he started getting a runny nose and sneezing, both the girls did too and it hasn't stopped! :( 


Both girls also have really bad heat rash!  Haven got sun-burned the other day even though I had SPF 70 on her and only kept her in the shade.  We're going to have to be super-extra careful this summer!!!

P.S.  I LOVE Havens more than anything else in the world!!!  She's such a fantastic little sweetheart, I couldn't imagine life without her!  ♥

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AT 8 MONTHS...

Haven's LIKES:

* Smiling and waving, of course!

* Being in the water


*Standing

*Her BIG sister!!!

*Pointing!

* Eating any little thing she can get her hands on!

* Animals!

Haven's DISLIKES:
* Getting her face or nose wiped! (still her #1 annoyance)

HAVEN/ VENILY COMPARISON: (Venily's 8 month Update)



Pics: Venily at 8 months!

Haven crawling

I love it!  I love watching her finally figure something out that she's been working on for a while!  She now knows that yelling and bobbing up and down do nothing, she is no closer to the toy she wanted than when she started.  But..... if she gets up on her hands and knees and pushes off a little, she can get it! :)  So now she does!!  She is still a little unsure of herself and will get mad if a toy is too far away because 'Come on, Mom, I can't go THAT far!', but if it's close enough now, she goes for it!  She makes her way across the room like this when she's determined.  But whenever I take out the camera, she stops.  It actually took me a while to find something that she wanted badly enough to make her crawl for it on video, haha.... toys, cells phones, remotes, ALL didn't work, she'd just roll her way over to something else! :)

Don't get me wrong, I'm still not ready for it.  I stayed up in bed last night with so much anxiety about how I'm going to keep all of Venily's little rings, toys, game pieces, hair clips, etc. out of Haven's reach when she has the whole house to roam.... Haven has an intense desire to put little things in her mouth (as did Venily) and I'm so scared she's going to choke on something!!  How am I going to fit more cleaning into my schedule?  Am I going to need to lock Venily's bedroom door during the day?  Where am I going to put Haven while I'm in the basement?  Should I just get rid of EVERYTHING small.... is that fair to Venily?  How do I watch a mobile baby AND a toddler at the beach in the summer?... LOL!  I know, I had so many anxieties while I was pregnant with Haven and NONE of them were ever even an issue, but it's in my nature to always worry!!  I think this is one of the times when there age difference is coming into play.  Venily is old enough to KNOW that Haven can't have certain things, but she doesn't quite understand WHY and she is likely to forget often.  Also, she is currently in a 'not-liking to clean up after herself' stage! 

We're getting somewhere!

Yesterday Haven showed marked improvement in the "moving in the forward direction" department.  I don't think I'd classify it as crawling though, lol, Jason called it "very unorthodox crawling," haha.  I'm curious to see if she continues to do it today, she's still sleeping right now!  She still really prefers to stand though.  And will often spit up (really the only time she does anymore) while trying to crawl.  Any time she's near me, she is constantly pulling up on me to stand, and is instantly so much happier.  We have our rummage sale today and it's been raining and is supposed to rain all day, so she may not get much of a chance to crawl around!


Oh, and another Haven thing I forgot to write about!  She is waking up EVERY SINGLE NIGHT lately!  It's driving me nuts!  I just nurse her and she falls right back to sleep, but it still makes me so much more tired in the mornings, she usually gets up around 1am and is back to sleep 15-20 minutes later, uhhhh!  I know I shouldn't get her in the habit of eating in the night, but I'm just WAY too tired to try anything else!  I hope it stops soon! (Usually just by writing it down, it miraculously changes, so that's what I'm hoping! :)  )

P.S.  If there is any way to freeze her in time at 7 months old, please tell me!  I'm not ready for 8 months!!!!

I feel like we are moving 100mph!

I wish it'd slow down!  Haven, Venily, the whole thing!  Growing up way too darn fast!

I asked Haven where Venily was today, she turned and pointed right at her.  We were reading books (Haven LOVES books right now) and I asked Haven where the kitty was and she pointed to the kitty and tried to say "kitty".  Later we were playing on the floor and I gave her a little toy duck and asked her where the duck was, she turned around and pointed across the room.  I didn't know what she was doing so I'm like "no, the duck is right here" and I showed it to her again.  She determinately kept pointing somewhere else.  When I followed her little finger with my eyes, I saw that she was in fact pointing to her FAVORITE duck, lol!

She also cruised along the entire side of the couch today by herself and is up to independently standing for a minute at a time, sometimes even longer if she's focused and not distracted!

And because this was too cute not to document somehow, Jason and I were sitting on the couch watching t.v. while Venily was sleeping and Haven was playing on the floor.  And Jason says "She's seriously the most beautiful baby I've ever seen."  And I smile and get teary-eyed because he catches me off guard when he says things like that and then he goes on to say "the other day I was looking at her and she was so beautiful, she didn't even look real.  I couldn't even believe she was actually our daughter.  She looks like a vampire baby or something.  She's just so perfect.  Just look at her...."  It's hard for me not to cry when he says things like that!  He's always going on and on about how beautiful and perfect and smart both the girls are!  There's nothing sexier than a guy who loves and adores his children!  ♥ I love it!  And then of course I try to steer his thoughts to 'hey, we have 2 beautiful, smart, perfect children, wouldn't you want to have another?'  Unfortunately it never works! :(  LOL!



I have some updates on Venily as well that I've been meaning to put up!  She now recognizes all her uppercase AND lowercase letters (though sometimes gets like "b and d" or "p and q" mixed up).  She knows a lot of the sounds they make and can draw a few of them.  She can count to 10 in Spanish and is always counting things in English AND Spanish! haha.  She is back on a baby-kick that had taken a break for a few months.  She got some new clothes for Baby Vecky so now that's her favorite baby!!  She is also back to CONSISTENTLY taking an afternoon nap every single day and has done so for a while now.  I feel so lucky, she was definitely trying to phase it out for a while there, but now she'll sometimes take up to a 3.5 hour nap!  However, we are still putting her to bed at 7:30pm but she won't actually fall asleep until closer to 8:30pm and is still waking up between 5:30am- 6:30am every single morning!  She continues to be shy at first and then super outgoing at the park.  The other day she was there and made friends with a 10 year old girl that she had doing all sorts of things with her!  She'd be like "Hey girl, come down the slide with me again!"  And they played together for a long time, it was so cute!!  She seems to really like older girls!  Hmmm... will have to do more updates later, little Haven-lilies is awake from her nap! :)

Videos

Here's one of her taking some steps.  I will probably have a better video within a couple of days.  I only have so much time to take videos, I have to have Venily sleeping and Haven awake, lol!



And here is one of her signing "eat"

Haven randoms

I noticed that when Haven points, her pointer fingers are all crooked just like her Aunt Lisa's!!  LOL!

We moved Haven into a big girl car seat this last week.  She loves it!!  We gave her Venily's carseat and we are now using Venily's spare car seat for her.  We are still on the lookout for a new carseat for either of the girls though!

I remember now when I actually WANTED Venily to start crawling and I have hit that point with Haven now.  She is getting very frustrated that she can't crawl and gets mad.  She can schooch or roll her way over to something after a while but knows there has to be an easier way so she gets frustrated and starts yelling about it!

However, she has been TAKING STEPS towards me while standing the last few days!!!  Before she'd take one and now she's up to about 3 steps toward me!  I have to get it on video!  She very well may walk before she crawls, haha!

Camping!

We went camping at Bong this weekend with the girls and the rest of our family.  It was a lot of fun!  Beautiful weather during the day so we were able to hike, bike, fish, and sit around the campfire and cook Veggie Dogs and S'mores!  We tried out our new huge tent for the first time and I LOVE it, it was like we had our own cabin, lol!  We fit a queen sized mattress, a toddler sized mattress, a pack and play, all our stuff and still had a huge area left over!  Venily had so much fun running all around, shes a good camper for sure, even drops her pants to pee in the grass without a second thought, haha!


Last night was COLD though so when we went to bed  (Venily was out within seconds since she didn't nap during the day) I was up for quite some time trying to figure out what I was going to do.  Jason forgot my sleeping bag, so all I had was a thin blanket that I had brought for Venily, in addition to a few other blankets I brought for her.  Jason told me 50 times that he'd run back and grab it, but I had Haven sleeping on my chest to keep her warm and she was fidgety and sniffly from a slight cold that she had woken up with, so I just decided to take her home for the night.  We got home around 11pm, and it was SOOO nice to be in our nice, warm beds, lol!  I grew up camping all the time in a big camper with my grandparents, so tent camping is not really so much my style! haha.  Someday we'll own a big camper....


 Haven and I woke up and returned back to our campsite in the morning for breakfast.  Jason said that Venily did AMAZING last night, I'm so proud of her!  The only major problem the whole time was that we found a TICK on Venily.  We had found a few throughout the day, but this one was actually latched on the back of her neck!  I honestly almost lost it!!!  It wasn't buried into her skin, but when Jason pulled it off, he actually had to pull it off!  Ahhhhh!  Luckily my MIL had read a sign up that said the different kinds of ticks and the only ones we'd have to really worry about are deer ticks and it wasn't a deer tick, in fact, they had never had a sighting of deer ticks at that park!!  Thank goodness!  Still... if Venily had had darker hair, we probably would never have seen it!  Gotta love Wisconsin!!


Jason has made up his mind that we are going to go camping every month for the rest of the summer/early fall and is already psyched up about camping next month!  I'm pretty sure he won't be picking anywhere that I can just drive home at night next time, so hopefully we get some warmer nights!  Or maybe I can convince him to let us borrow my grandparents' camper, which by the way has a separate bedroom, bathroom and the main area has 2 couches and a table that turn into beds AND one whole side move out to make it even bigger! :)  Now THAT is camping!


Update:  I just found a fricken tick in my ear!  I was feeling my ear and I felt something and I said to Jason "Oh F$#@!  There's a tick in my ear".  I just knew.  Sure enough, Jason pulled it off and it was!  I refused to look at it, but he looked it up online and it was for sure a wood tick.  He left a little bite mark on my ear as well!  DISGUSTING!!!!  How is it that I've been camping all my life and never had a tick before today?!   And Venily and I BOTH get one?!  Yuck, yuck, yuck!

Wouldn't You Know...

I wrote a couple of days ago that Haven doesn't point yet and then today she started pointing and has been pointing at people and things all day!! Probably because I've been making it a point to point at things more often now when telling her what they are!  Sometimes she has a little trouble holding the second finger down, lol, so it looks like she's giving "peace" signs and other times she has no problem! :)


Also I said she stopped saying "mama" and now she's been saying "mmmmm" a lot the last few days!  Hey, it's a start, I'll take it! :)  I also got her to say "teeth" this morning while she was playing with me teeth!  But then Daddy woke up and all she'd say is "Dada!  Dada! Dada!"  lol

***********

Also, today is my 26th birthday!  Which is cool because I'm not going to lie, I thought I was already 26 for quite a bit of last year, LOL!  Hey, I've got a lot going on, haha!  Jason is always asking me how old he is, so I'm not the only one!


I like to reflect on my birthday and make goals for the next year.  I have NOT done a thing with my New Year's resolutions, so I'll probably just re-evaluate them and actually try to follow through this time!


I am having an incredibly hard time with getting rid of the baby stuff.  My garage sale is next weekend and while I'm putting things together, I keep getting super-overwhelmed and have to leave it and go back to doing something else for a while.  It's really hard on me.  I hope I don't break down crying when someone tries to buy my things!  Hmmmm..... yeah, that's probably going to happen since I am getting emotional right now just thinking about it! :(  Jason is very cold and uncaring about the whole situation, which does not help matters out!  Seriously, I just want ONE more, that's it, is it really that bad?!


We are going camping this weekend!  It's rained ALL week and has been kind of cold, so I'm really hoping that it dries up and gets warm!!!  We went camping last year for my birthday as well (while 21 weeks prego) and though hiking was fun, the night was FREEZING!!!  Luckily it's not far at all from where we live so Haven and I can come home and sleep if necessary!  Oh my gosh, lol, I just looked at my post with pics from last year!  Venily was soooo little, haha!  And that HAIR!!  Oh so funny!

7.5 months

Haven is now 7 1/2 months old!!!  She's getting to be such a big girl!  What is she up to now?

Well, she has shown no real increase in crawling lately.  She has the crawl stance down and will move forward a couple of "steps" but then lays down on her stomach and gets mad if something is out of reach, lol!  She also likes to move forward by pushing her legs off of something behind her or grabbing onto something and pulling herself forward!  She'll get it sooner or later!  She much prefers standing though, she loves it!  She is up to about 30 seconds at a time, standing all by herself!  She pulls up on me to stand too.  She's got pretty good balance, but is oblivious to the danger of just letting go.  She tries to take steps towards me sometimes.  She walks when I hold her hands and loves to "walk" around after Venily as well! :)  I think that will be a big motivator when she's ready to walk, to chase after her big sister!  I am hoping we skip crawling and go right to walking, that would be nice!



She is teething really badly again!  She even bit her finger on Sunday and there was blood everywhere! :(  I wish I knew how to help.  She likes biting on toothbrushes and teething things, but that only works for so long.  I have to be careful because she'll just come up to me and bite my arms or legs now too and leave 2 little indents!  And she is still occasionally biting while nursing!  Her right bottom next to her other tooth is a little swollen, but I don't really see the teeth being all that close, so we might be in for a while of this! :(


She is a little dare-devil, thrill-seeker and LOVES to be put upside down and spun around and thrown up high in the air! :)  That's the Daddy in her!


Her favorite song right now is "If you're happy and you know it".  She gets really excited and starts clapping her hands (even when she's supposed to stomp her feet, or shout Hooray!) haha.  She claps her hands when she hears an audience on t.v. clapping as well! :)


She continues to say "Dada" a lot and hasn't said "Mama" in a while! :(  Venily did the same thing, it doesn't seem fair! She also LOVES to say "hi" and wave to anyone and everyone!  She is also still saying "ball" a lot and attempting to say other words too!


She has a new happy squeal now too!  Very cute!


She's been pulling my hair and scratching a lot more now too, especially when tired or nursing.  I have to cut her nails A LOT and file them as well or my whole chest and neck will have scratch marks all over it and it HURTS!!


She's been trying to pull up in her crib and whenever I go in there to get her, she has the bumper pulled down and is looking for me, haha!  She's been trying to pull up on other things as well.  So far she hasn't fallen or bumped her head... I remember I hated that when Venily was learning how to pull up on things/ stand/ walk! I know that is coming soon! :(  I need to get some pipe covers and duct tape to line around my tables b/c they are hard and metal!!


She is still obsessed with eating little things off the floor, EXACTLY how Venily was!  She can spot a crumb from across the room.  She also loves to eat pieces of my hair that are lying around, GROSS!  I have to vacuum almost every day, I'm so glad we don't have a dog or cat, haha!


Her newest favorite toys are BABY DOLLS!!!!  She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES them!!!  Especially the eyes (b/c they open and close)!  She is attempting to say "eye" as well.  She likes to give them kisses too!  I think I've passed my obsession with babies onto my kids, haha, I will be expecting a lot of grandchildren! :)

Oh!  And the spitting up is VERY minimal lately!  Like a few drops a day now!!!

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I was reading through Venily's posts from 7 months and she was starting to pull herself up on things right about now, saying "dada", "kitty", and "ball", pointing (which Haven doesn't do yet), a couple of days from now, she started crawling, eating mostly finger foods, and did all the same tricks Haven knows (clapping, waving and saying "hi", doing so big, etc.), but she wasn't standing independently yet or signing "eat" until about a month from now!

♥ Happy Mother's Day! ♥

Happy Mother's Day to all of the great mommies out there!!!!  I am so blessed to have spent this day with my 2 favorite people in this world!  This is my first official Mother's Day as a Mommy of 2 and I couldn't be happier!

So, how is life being a Mommy to 2 children at once?  Well, I LOVE it!  I really feel like this is what I was meant to do with my life!  I love my girls more than anything and it is not nearly as hard as I envisioned it was going to be!  How silly I was this time last year, so nervous about how I would handle it all!  I think the age difference between them couldn't be better, and their personalities complement each other perfectly.  Once Haven is mobile it will for sure get harder, but as of right now, it is pretty easy!  I try to imagine what it would be like to just have one of them!  

If I just had Venily, I know we'd do a lot more one-on-one things.  I probably would have more patience for her and she would probably get in trouble less.  However, I don't think it would be a whole lot easier than having both Venily and Haven.  If I just had Haven, I know it would for sure be easier!  She is very laid back and easy going as of right now!!  I would sleep-in in the mornings and wouldn't have to follow as strict of a schedule throughout the day as Venily needs right now.  But, I wouldn't change the dynamics of having two for anything!!!!   They entertain each other, crack each other up, and are each other's best friends!  I honestly didn't see that coming!  Haven is absolutely, hands-down, the best gift I've ever given Venily! :)  I love watching them together.  I love how Venily teaches Haven new things all of the time.  I love that they have each other in case anything were ever to happen to Jason and me.  I love how happy they make each other!  Who knows what it will be like years from now, but right now they have the best relationship ever!!!  ♥

And I do feel complete.  Like everything is exactly as it's supposed to be!  I have always done best under pressure, so the added responsibility of taking care of 2 children as opposed to 1 is actually better for me.  I have to utilize my time better and make each moment count more.  The amount of love I feel and receive has doubled for sure, but I do NOT feel like the work load has doubled at all!  Makes me seriously wonder how a third child would mix into our family!! ;)

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my girls to death!!  And I LOVE being a Mommy- best job in the universe!!  I really hope every mother feels that way!  What an amazing experience to watch something you created grow and learn and change and love you in return!!!  Just amazing!

Jason left last night on one of his cross-country adventures and won't be back until tomorrow so we celebrated Mother's Day on Friday!  We went out to eat, rented a movie, and he and the girls got me a card, some flowers, and a GPS system for my car!  It's really nice.  I can't drive any where without getting lost, so it is going to be very useful!  I just type in the address and it shows me exactly where I need to go, tells me when to turn, etc. It's a very Jason thing to get me, lol! :)  Then today the girls and I hung out and had dinner with my Mom!

I hope everyone else had an amazing Mother's Day as well!  HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

"Eat"

We went out to dinner last night and Haven was watching us eat and started signing "eat"!  Pretty exciting!  I've been slacking on all other signs though.  I find any that require two hands difficult to do every time I say the word, since I'm always holding something, usually her! :)

Dentist

Jason and I went to the dentist yesterday morning.  We both had appointments at the same time, but for some reason brought Haven and left Venily with my mom.  I don't know why, but I just can't bear to leave Haven.  I've only left her with Jason twice ever, and the longest of those two times was 3 hours!  She goes long periods of time between nursing so there is no reason why I couldn't leave her, but I just can't!

Haven was very good about 95% of the time!  She waved and smiled at every single person she saw, so everyone was cracking up at her!  There are a lot of things that Haven does that remind me so much of Venily, that is one of them! :)  I took Haven with me at first and she sat in her umbrella stroller playing with toys for a while.  Then she started crying and there wasn't much I could do since I was getting my teeth cleaned.  I knew she was tired.  Luckily Jason heard her from across the building and came in and took her.  I couldn't hear her, so I was really nervous the rest of the time, but the dentist assistant would go and check on her and report back to me every so often, lol.  I guess the dentist gave her a toothbrush and Jason said she spent the whole time with him happily brushing her teeth, haha!  When I finished getting my teeth cleaned and looked at by the dentist (NO CAVITIES even though I haven't gotten a cleaning in like 2 years!  Yay!), I took Haven back!

I spoke with the dental assistant about when I should have Venily in for her first cleaning.  She said around 3-4 years old so I'm going to attempt to bring her in around her 3rd birthday for a cleaning!  She knows about the dentist and what they do, so I'm hoping to keep talking to her about it for the next 6 months so she's not afraid, but I don't know!  Especially if it's a guy, she's going to be really shy!

DA-DA!!!

Haven has another new word!  She's liking d's right now!  She's been saying "dada" for a while now, but I can see now that she has definitely made the connection between the word and who it is referring to!  Jason woke up this morning and came into the living room where we were playing and I told her to "say hi to dada" like I always do and she got so excited, started waving to him and saying "Dada!  Dada!"  ♥

Jason also claims that when he got home from work last night at like 3am, she said "Mommy" clear as day and that when she first woke up this morning she said "where are the kitties", LOL, but I think he was probably sleep-deprived and delusional, haha!



I LOVE how she mimics the inflection I use the last time she says Dada!  ♥  She is so fricken cute!  She has been continuing to say "hi Dada" all day! :)