What did you want to eat?

For the last couple of days Ada has been requesting what she wants to eat for breakfast... including chocolate, cake and arms... She asked Jer for arms and it took a minute to figure out that she wanted the Lucky Charms cereal.

Babies

Ada's newest thing is babies... she's had my old baby dolls for ages... but only recently has she liked to play with them. She sleeps with at least two every night, puts them in the high chair, rocks them and covers them with blankets. My favorite though is when she imitates whatever you're doing to Samuel. If I burp him, she sits next to me and burps her baby. One day she didn't have any of her dolls available... so she wrapped a rock in a hot pad holder and patted it to sleep.

Don't think she got the point...

Ada got in trouble for thowing food on the floor. I took her food away and asked if she was going to do it again... reaching for the food with tears in her eyes she says, "Yes!"

Blessing day

Today we blessed Samuel at church. It was a very neat experience. For my fast, my main thing that I was asking was that Jer would be inspired in the blessing that Samuel would receive. We got to church and so many wonderful people came to support us. There were a lot of people willing to stand in the circle, then Jer gave the most beautiful blessing. He told him why we named him what we did, asked that he would develop as a sweet, generous, sensitive boy that would serve the Lord. Talked about having an eternal perspective... and Samuel just grinned at him most of the time. Even the bishop commented on his cute little grin after the blessing. Then we came back to our house for the big family fast dinner that we have once a month... it was our turn to host it. I loved it! It was fun to see everyone enjoying themselves (even though all our toys were downstairs and I wasn't letting anyone down there because we still haven't put the carpet back after our water heater broke and flooded the basement last Thursday.) It was an enjoyable and joy filled day!

Proud mama! I love my boy!

My cute Sammy boy!

This the Wilcox side... everyone that came except for Beth, Son, Tiff and Elisha... we didn't get a chance to take a picture of the Robertson side... but the Morrisses, Clarys, John and Diane, Grandma and Grandpa, Jay, Alan and Rachelle, and Amy and Jon came. In this picture is Janelle, Sharon, Moana and Ada, Roger, Jer and Samuel, me, Grandma Wilcox, and Brad.

I had to add one more

Just one more post for tonight... Ada NEVER lets me do more that just comb her hair. Yesterday she let me put pigtales in... they didn't last more than a couple of minutes, but they were in and look at how cute she looked!

The last couple of days

So here are the exciting things that have been going on... Margaret had her baby today! YAY! Her name is Maisy. That means that all of the 5 cousins that were due this summer are here. Good luck Grandma keeping them all straight... and I guess good luck to the parents keeping them all out of trouble! Today was also James' birthday. We got to go bowling with them and hung out a little after... as well as celebrating Jay's birthday not too long ago. We also went to the Discovery park with John and Diane's family. That's the only one I have pictures for... so here are some cute kids running around like crazy.

Here's a group picture... hard to see everyone, but it's a fun idea anyway...

This one is of everyone playing tag... look at how close John and Jer were to catching them!

And there they go!

Diane entertaining Ada and Anya while taking care of Joseph.

I'm not a decorator...

I'm not a decorator, but I was pretty proud of this one... My sister made a set of letters spelling Ada's name when Ada was born... so I decided to do something for Samuel... the stuffed animals are the Classic Pooh ones that I've been collecting for a couple of years.

PCOS

It's official... I have PCOS. Don't worry, it's not a big deal... it's no different than someone having a predisposition for this that or the other... There are different levels of severity too, and mine is not very prominent... I probably would never have known about it if my sister hadn't had a more severe case. It is Poly cystic Ovarian Syndrome. It is mostly a hormone imbalance and an insulin resistance. My sister has more of the hormone imbalance... and I have more of the insulin resistance. What that means for me is that I only ovulate every other month, I'm 45% more likely to miscarry, I have a larger possibility of having multiples, my body doesn't create milk for any kids that I have, I'm probably going to be diabetic later, and it's extremely hard to lose weight. Everyone that I've talked to has said that if I eat like a diabetic and exercise then it's less likely to affect me as much.

These are just some of the ways that it's affected me so far, none of them too weird but enough all together to make me notice...
(1) I weighed 200 lbs when I graduated high school... that is before women's bodies are finished forming, and that was despite the fact that at the time I was weight lifting 3 times a week, running 3 miles 5 times a week and biking anywhere from 12-45 miles a week. I went to the doctor to get checked for thyroid problems or anything else that would be keeping me from being able to lose weight.
(2) It took me 4 years to lose 20 lbs.
(3) Jer and I had a hard time getting pregnant for the first time... true that was not all the PCOS, but I bet it was a contributor. Jer had something going on that he had to have a surgery done for and we were pregnant 3 months later.
(4) I haven't been able to produce more than about 2 oz of breast milk at a time for either of my kids no matter what supplements I took and dried up completely within about a month both times.

I'm glad to finally understand what's going on in my body...

Two kids

Well, I think having two kids is definitely harder than one. I used to play with Ada in the morning, work while she napped and ran errands with her after work... then we'd hang out with Jer and family. Now it's... stay up at night with the baby, wake up with the baby, try to get Ada to play by herself while I get ready for the day... play with Ada, feed the hungry baby, load the dishwasher with one hand while Ada eats lunch... she takes a nap while I feed him again and try to get him to go to bed so that I can get some of my work done (I haven't gotten in trouble with my boss yet... thank goodness I work for my dad!), run errands just to get Ada and I out of the house, crash in front of the tv for a minute, feed a hungry baby, get Jer to help me clean up the messes that Ada made during the day before we put her to bed for the night, feed the baby and read with Jer before we go to bed. Somewhere in there we have to fit in changing 2 kids diapers a couple times a day, making dinner if I get around to it, trying to catch up on my piano students so I'm ready next time they come, do 3 callings for church, exercise, bathe the kids, finish all the projects I started a year ago, and sleep. Let's just say that I don't feel like the house has to be as clean as it once was or that I have as much time for friends. In fact the friends that I see the most are the ones that have kids Ada's age so that she can play with someone other than mom. Fun.

Vain Repetition

I usually like to write about my kids, but I just had a thought during our lesson at church about prayer. They were talking about avoiding vain repetition during prayers and they kept using examples of when you're tired or busy and say the same kind of unthinking prayer that you've said a million times... I think it could also mean those times when you pray and the answer is "no"... but you keep praying for it... I think that would also be a vain repetition.

It's just not fair...

It's Saturday and also the day that we try to get all the house work done. Our windows have been extremely filthy and I really haven't had time to do them... so I decided to make that my priority... take out all the screens and wash both them and the windows inside and out. And after all my hard work I woke up to find that I hadn't even started it yet! Dang it all!