Two Year Old Sara

Oh little two year old... I just can't believe she's 2 already, but then she throws a fit about sitting in the chair for dinner or because she can't have the iPad and then I remember, yep... she's a two year old. haha She's like a Sour Patch Kid. First she's sour..... then she's sweet!

Here's some Sara Stats:

• Height: 34.6 inches.
• Weight: 28.4 pounds
• Clothes: Almost at the end of 2T, heading into 3T
• Still in diapers. We're waiting until after the holidays to really start potty training because of all the traveling.
• Teeth: She has all but her 2-year-old molars
• Shoe Size: 6

Favorites: 

Person in the whole world: Eugene from Tangled. ;) 

Color: Purple

TV Show: Paw Patrol 

Outfit: Anything with Monsters or Toy Story or Princesses

Sport: Probably her dance class

Song: She gets most excited about Anna and Prince Han's duet in Frozen.

Cereal: Dinosaur Oatmeal and Lucky Charms (thanks to Daddy....)

Friend: Zoey 

Book: At this moment in time, Baby Beluga 

Food: Mac and Cheese

Movie: This one is tough, but probably Monsters, Toy Story, Frozen, and Tangled. 

Phrases: "Amen! JORDYN!", "Cheers!", "NO", "Daddy get you?!" (or Mama or Jordyn)

Stuffed Animal: Mike Wasowski and her old elephant pacifier Elli (we cut the paci off

Things to do: Going to the library, art and crafts, brushing people's hair, iPad, pushing her cart around, puzzles, and flying like Buzz. 

She wants to be a space ranger when she grows up... or Woody; YEHAW (Thats exactly what she said)

Some Firsts

She got her first haircut. It was starting to turn into a party in the back! So Aunt Mitchi had the honor of cutting it for the first time. Sara cried. I'm not quite sure why, I guess just the unfamiliarity of it all. 

At Disneyland she rode her first roller-coaster this year. If you watch the video she looks terrified, but she keeps talking about it all the time. 

She's been sleeping in her toddler bed like a champ! She picked out her Monsters bed spread and just loves it. 

Dislikes

Spiders and bugs

Being told "no"

Not getting her way

Sitting at the table for meals

When Jordyn lays next to her and tickles her or tries to get her things. 

Pulling into church (sad... haha but when she gets into nursery she gets happy after a couple minutes)

Listening to Mama's requests at times. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

November 20, 2015

Since I am able to stay at home right now, I wanted to make her birthday fun and special, since I get to! 

First, she woke up to balloons all over her room.

 

Breakfast was a plate full of sprinkle pancakes, eggs, and raspberries. Oh and "Princess Milk", which was just pink milk. 

We opened some presents. 

Then we took a trip to her favorite part where she insisted on Jordyn swinging with her. 

Next up was a lunch date with Daddy at the bowling ally! They have new dinosaur bowling ball ramps so it was super cool! 

She helped me bake her birthday cupcakes. 

Then we made some of her favorite food. BBQ chicken legs, beans and corn! I guess it's those Ohio roots! haha 

Sad to say, our poor birthday girl ended up spending the evening of her birthday with a high fever. Poor girl. She went to bed early with a 103 degree temperature. So sad. This morning she is ready to go and can't wait for her Monster party tonight!!! 

Mama's Turn

As of lately, I feel like my life can be summed up in one thought:

Some days I feel like the best of mothers. Other days I feel like the greatest failures.

These past few months have been pretty hard on me. When people ask how I'm doing, I usually want to say "Do you REALLY want to know? Or do you just want me to say, 'I'm fine.'" just so you don't have to listen to me. ha So here's how I'm really doing.

Motherhood has thrown me for a loop. It's a hard job. If someone tried to explain this to me when I was working, I honestly probably would have laughed in their face, and now the jokes on me... It's so much more than just taking care of your children and your household chores. There's this underlying emotional struggle that I have to face every day. Maybe it's the hormones, sleep deprivation, or just me being a crazy person. There are so many times when I think about how I feel like I'm not impacting the world like I use to. Or, as I stated before, I just feel like a failure. Then I think about how I miss my old life sometimes, mostly my friends. My friends are just spread out all around the world, it makes me sad to not be in their lives all the time like I use to. I suppose I'm just trying to find my place as Mama and how to be the best version of this new person that I can.

Then there's the being completely exhausted from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep... oh and being a total "Mombie" throughout the whole night and not even being able to remember just how many times I got up to feed or stop Jordyn from crying or from putting Sara back into her big girl bed because she has fallen out haha. I thought Sara was a bad sleeper as a baby... HA I'm so tired I literally just forgot what I was going to write next. This morning I almost got into the car with no shoes... Lord help me!

I don't even really know where to go from here... I guess I've just hit a wall of... I don't know what I would call it. Sadness? It's been a huge change. Being a stay at home mom means this is a 24/7 job. I don't get to go escape to another job for 7 hours and come back to my kids. It's the same meals... the same arguments and problems... the same games and tv shows... the same playgrounds... the same tantrums... the same ways to make them laugh... the same errands... It's just something I've had to get use to. We were watching Inside Out and it made me cry with all the sadness. But one thing I took away from it is that sadness is okay and it's a part of life. Then it made me think of something I learned about God, that He cries with us and holds our sadness with Him. I don't have to be happy all the time! BUT I also can't dig myself into this sadness black hole that I have seemed to create for myself. That's just it, being at home it seems that I have more time to dwell on these little things and it makes these feeling worse!

Then there's the military life which has really been adding to my sadness. It's one thing for me to lose my friends to this life (as in... move away), but it's so sad to see Sara lose all her best buddies. She didn't sign up for this life and it breaks my heart to have to tell her that her friend isn't coming back to play with her. Then it makes me think of Inside Out again and the change that little girl went through because of her family's move. We're going to have to do that to our girls and I just hope and pray that they will be able to bounce back from it and pick up the pieces wherever we land. It's hard for me to make new friends in places, and I don't want my girls to have that issue.

I've been doing this bible study on the days where I can scrounge up the motivation to do it. It asks "Where do you most often turn to find joy or refreshment? As mothers, we need the revival, wisdom, and refreshment of God's Word." It brings me joy being in God's Word. It makes me remember that I am His and despite my emotional state of being, He is there for me and loves me even when I fail. That, yeah, I'm staying at home and not touching the lives of a classroom of kids, but I am touching the lives of two precious little girls. It's also the small things that bring me joy. Sara's random hugs and hearing her say "thank you Mama" at just the right time, Jordyn's giggles, watching the two of them play with each other. I get to be here for all of that. The biggest thing I've really learn from my studies is that I need to take care of me to be a good Mama. And taking care of Me, means making sure I'm finding joy and refreshment in Jesus. If I want to teach them to be compassionate and loving, then I have to practice that myself.

Jordyn's Room

The moment you've all been waiting for!...

Yeah right, I'm sure you've gotten by without seeing Jordyn's room. She's been in her own room for about a month now, and I have finally finished up the little details that I wanted to. So here it is! It makes me happy, and it's the coolest (temperature wise) room with most comfy chair! She doesn't know how good she has it! ;)

 

Disneyland!

It would seem that our family has been bitten by the Disney bug. It's just too much fun and we cannot stay away. I know the kids are small and they may not remember being at Disneyland, but honestly, I feel like it's a wonderful memory for Jason and I to have in our minds more than anything. I love seeing Sara at Disneyland. She's just so happy and adorable. It's awesome watching her face light up  when she sees Monsters or Mickey, and I love hearing her yell with excitement "More!" when we finish a fun ride.

 

  

 

This past trip we went on was with Jason's family. It was their first time there along with little Jordyn. It was very hot... and very busy, but the "magic" was still there. Really I just wanted to share a bunch of pictures, which I actually didn't even take very many of (Shocking... I know!) Sara wasn't really into picture taking this time around, so she looks pretty grumpy in most of them. I assure you though, she had a blast.

 

Jordyn pretty much slept the whole trip. Probably because she was just too stinking hot! I must give a shout out to the awesome "Baby Care Centers" that they have at both parks. Not many people know about them and they're fantastic! You can take your kids in there and they have changing tables, places to nurse, and you can buy snacks or other baby things you might need. The best part was they pretty much freeze the building they use for this so it's a nice refuge from the heat. These centers were a life saver! If you have a baby and you're reading this... USE THEM!

 

 

Sara... LOVES... Monsters Inc. So we were super excited to take her on the Monsters ride. She was scaring people in the line while we waited. It was pretty awesome. The only problem was, she was pretty small and I don't know how much of the ride she actually got to see. haha She also loved dancing in the streets at Radiator Springs. It was so stinking cute.

 

 

 Lucky for us, we had built in baby sitters so that Jason and I could go on our favorite ride "California Screamin". Since I had been pregnant last time we had gone... I was trilled to be able to get on a roller coaster again! I love it... it was a good day to not be pregnant. ha Jason's favorite ride is the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Sara, unfortunately, does not share the same love for the ride. She spent the entire time with her hands glued over her eyes...poor little one.

 

We've decided that Disneyland has subliminal messages directed straight to our children. Before the trip, Sara could care less about Frozen. We tried... but she just didn't care, so we let it go (whoop there it is). NOW, all Sara wants to do is watch Frozen. Not only that... but Let it Go came on while we were listening to Pandora and she ran over to the computer and started dancing around yelling "Elsa! Elsa!" I was floored! Thank you Disney! haha

 It's safe to say that Sara wore herself out with how awesome of a time she had. We bought an air mattress to use for Sara to sleep in. I was a little worried it would be a major fail becuase she's still in a crib and I was worried she'd get out of bed and roam around the room and we'd get no sleep. But that girl was out cold... AND she stayed in that bed all the way through the morning until I peaked my head over and said good morning. It was great. 

 My favorite part was the night time light parade and the firework show. Maybe it was the hormones... but they brought tears to my eyes. It just brought back my love for Disney and I guess all the childhood memories. Plus, it was all just so creative and beautiful. I know it's sappy... but I really was just so magical! Money well spent Disney. We still have two days left on our passes so we're headed back in October!!! We've already started planning things that we really want to do this next time around while we're there. They've hooked us! :)