smothered

With two adults, and a 5 year old that thinks she is an adult, this little baby girl gets smothered very often.  She is constantly being held, kissed, talked to.  She is the perfect baby for it because she loves talking to people.  She is a chatterbox.  And she loves giving kisses.  She gives wide open slobbery, french kisses.  And her favorite hugs are cheek to cheek.  

Dad snuggles with Wembley in the morning sometimes. Often Briz will jump into bed with them.  

Wembley loves her big sister.  She watches her like a hawk, but she has also become a bit weary of her.  She appreciated Brizzy's baby talk at first and then usually soon after cries or gives me a  look like the one above.  "Uh mom, please save me."

So happy to finally have matching jammies.  Thank you Grandpa Ainge and Grandma Pam!  

Holland's 3rd

We had a wonderful day celebrating Hollands third birthday.  Uncle Mark and Aunt Susie were kind enough to let us have a little gathering at their house with family and friends.  We had a bbq, swam, and let off balloons at 3:33.  I love the little tradition we have.  I love pausing, thinking about her, smiling, and looking up into the sky.  And perhaps above all, I love all of the people all over the world that join us in remembering our girl.  People sent up balloons in Oregon, California, Washington, Nevada, Utah, Alaska, Minnesota, New York, and even Spain.  Thanks for your sweet texts, emails, pictures, etc.  It makes our family feel loved and it is comforting to know that she isn't forgotten.

It was different to celebrate her birthday with another baby.  It changed the experience for me.  I felt much more relaxed celebrating, I think I felt less pressure in a way.  But at the same time, it makes my experience with Wembley bittersweet.  In the very moment that I am soaking up Wembley and loving having her, I am wondering what Holland would be like at this age, and what it would be like for her to be the age she would be.  It makes me miss her and even though our lives feel somewhat hectic and crazy, always makes me wish she were around.

Summer Fun Part II

I can pretty much wrap up all of our summer fun into two posts.  Sort of sad.  We had a long, hot summer here in Portland and anytime anyone complained about it, I gave them a hard time.  That is, until I ate my own words.  We took Ruby with us to Oaks Park one day and met some friends there.  And it was hot!  We were planning on staying for most of the day but only lasted three hours because we were all sweaty and wiped!

They started out as excited as could be.

And ran to every ride, laughing and jumping up and down.

I noticed signs of fatigue when Brizzy broke down on the carousel for not getting her favorite horse.

Wembley went on her first roller coaster when she went on the carousel.  She seemed to feel pretty neutral about it.

They didn't want to ride on the train but I made them so they could have a chance to rest in the shade.

I tried to buy them slurpees but they were all sold out.  So we left early, went to 711 and walked around in a little stream to cool off.

The second fun thing we did in the heat was run in our old ward's fun run.  Briz didn't seems enthused as she was last year, so I expected a lot of whining and walking.  I really saw her competitiveness come out though.  She's a little bit intense.  I thought I would need to jog with her, but she totally left me in the dust, and I felt very slow pushing wembley in the jogger.  I felt particularly awesome about myself barely crossing the finish line.  Since then, we have decided to help reinforce her love of running and have gone on some family jogs (again, I am left in the dust every time).

Glad we got to enjoy summer a little bit and can't wait until next year!

Wems

I end up calling her Wems most of the time.  Its usually that or Wembley Woo.  I feel like I have sort of neglected the updates with her, and all of a sudden she is over 3 months old!  I have yet to take any good pictures of her with my camera, so that is one of my most recent goals.    But in the meantime, here is some information about her.

She now drinks breastmilk from bottles.  I was nursing her once every other day to keep it up, but am now not allowed to because of her aspirating.  She loves eating and is extremely impatient.  She sounds like she is being tortured if she has to wait longer than 30 seconds to get her bottle. Before we figured out that she aspirates, she was a horrible eater.  She was constantly gagging, choking, spitting up, squirming, and puking.  But now she only does a little bit of that.  She is a super slow eater, but I don't mind.  I love the time with her just to sit and stare at her.  I was sad initially when I had to give up nursing because I love the special bonding time of nursing, but we have turned bottle feeds into special time.  And she grazes her hand on my chest and plays with my hair.  I love it.

She is the funniest little model.  Whenever I pull out my phone, she stares straight at it.  She has also caught onto her video monitor and stares straight at it all of the time.  

She loves being naked!  If she is upset I can pretty much guarantee she can be happy by doing one of three things: getting her naked, giving her a bath, or putting pressure on her belly.  She also is such a stretcher.  When I change her diapers, she loves to sit there and chat with me.  

When she smiles, it kind of looks like a pirate.

She uses her hands so much like her Dad.  She has really long fingers and is always moving them (also always moving her legs).  Her hands are almost always on her face somehow.  Lately, she likes to cover her eyes with her hands.

Considering all of her tummy issues, she is a happy little thing.  She is extremely extroverted.  She loves anytime anyone gives her attention and talks to her.  And she never wants to be left out.    I can't get enough of this cute smiley girl.  She is definitely not mellow, but she is my little pal.  I love seeing her grow and her personality develop.  

Make New Friends But Keep the Old Ones

Since moving, we have been a bit distracted with continuing to work on the house, however, we have loved our new ward and have made some great new friends.  However, it's a huge blessing to only 2.5 miles away from where we lived before because we have been able to still see some of our old friends (also, by moving a couple miles, we moved: cities, wards, school district, and stake)

We went to the beach with Piper, Wesley, and Megan.  I was hopeful that it would be sunnier and warmer than it actually was.  But I still loved it.  And as you can see, it didn't stop Briz and Piper from stripping into their swimsuits and playing in the water.

It's so fun watching these two.  They have known each other from the moment they were born and they often fight and love like sisters.

It was Wembley's first experience at the beach and I got to put my temporary bassinet to use.  

Briz always manages to find a way to draw.

Another day, we took a new friend, Emi to a nature hike at Tryon Creek park.  And we ran into our old friend Piper!  Love how little girl hold hands.

They learned all about flying squirrels.  

Love fun activities with friends.  And I'm kind of sad there's less time to do that now with kindergarten.

Summer Activities

The month of July and August were extremely chaotic trying to take care of Wembley, pack, move, and remodel.  I had moments where I was sad about missing out on summer.  Luckily I have some awesome friends that are flexible and willing to do crazy things with me, so we've been able to sneak in a few fun activities.

Piper and Briz went on a hike in a quasi-forest.  We found a cool natural play area, where there are all of these forts made out of trees.  Piper and Briz could have stayed there forever, building things for the animals.  

It ended up being quite an adventure when Briz walked straight into a pond of mud.  It got even more exciting when Briz decided she had to pee on the way home, so she squatted on the sidewalk in the middle of a neighborhood.

On another day, we went to a very cute Portland art shop for kids with Cordelia.  Briz was in heaven with all of the paper and art supplies.  We definitely need to return soon.

Ainge Cabin Time

Last year I started to get a little fed up with my family not getting together more often.  So I decided that we should have family reunions every year, and we would simply rotate who was in charge.  I decided to take the first year since it was my idea.  Wasn't the best year for me to be in charge :/ With pregnancy, moving, and having a baby, I didn't plan as well as I would have liked.  So, we opted to go to our family cabin, and everyone ended up helping out a ton.

We had so much fun.  I love seeing all of the cousins together, playing in the sand and water.  And surprisingly, everyone got along very well.  No fights or anything :)

Papa and Nona rented a boat for the weekend, which was awesome.  We all got to surf, wakeboard, and tube a ton.

Nick made Briz surf.  I was afraid he had traumatized her when he surprised her by jumping off the board.  She fell but forgot to let go of the rope.  She was such a little trooper though and tried again the next day.

We had a great set up with Wembley's little portable crib.  I was so excited that she finally fit into her smallest swimming suit.  Not that she needed it because the water is not warm, but she's got to look the part!

This was my first and only time at the cabin this summer, but I'm glad I was able to go at least once and spend some time with my family.  Next year's reunion . . . Hawaii!!!

And it begins

Briz has been very interested in taking pictures on my phone lately.  I felt like I did a good job postponing this for a while, but I knew it would inevitably come.  

It's her favorite thing to do while I'm feeding Wembley and/or pumping.

Nick gave her his old iPod and I put some Disney songs on it.  Oh man, that was my second biggest mistake allowing that to happen!  Before school, she puts her headphones on with her iPod and and then her backpack and walks around ignoring me and singing to herself.  

Tori

So I am playing some major catch up here with my posts.  

Once Wembley was about 6 weeks old, I was ready to hit up the town.  Okay, not exactly, but I wasn't going to miss Tori.  And neither was Wembley.

Tori was phenomenal.  Could not believe she sounded as good as she did.  It was tough because she has so many great songs and I wanted to play all of them.  

Wembley wasn't that impressed at first.

But once I started singing and clapping and cheering she became intrigued.  

It was a fun night out with Megan and some of Portland's strangest citizens. 

So long Summer

We have had amazing weather this summer in Oregon.  And I have been outside for about 4.6% of it.  

We managed to get in some swimming time, a few walks, a few less bike rides.  Normally I would be feeling pretty sorry for myself about this but ain't nobody got time for that!