Parenting........and its consequences

Once in a while I may have a thought that I was a fun mom or had a fun idea that my kids loved. Well lately I feel like some of the things I've done have caught up with me...and unfortunately they aren't that great!!

Molly has been a picky eater from the start it seems. Last summer I remember we were having a treat issue...she wanted them all the time and nothing else. Well I took them away and then that pretty much fixed her. But she still to this day only wants to eat a list of like 10 things, which is so frustrating!! We have finally decided to crack down and make her eat what we eat but it has been HARD! It is such a pain and she throws the biggest tantrums. So I guess what I've learned here is to make them eat everything from the start! And don't back down! I thought it would just go away and she would be willing to try new things as time went by, but that's not the case! She won't even try hardly anything!

We are doing better. Tonight I made some pasta and she ate it with saltines! It was a MIRACLE! I kid you not! So we're working on it, but I know it's a slow process!

The other thing we haven't been great at is brushing her teeth. She hated it and would cry every time we tried. So we weren't great at it. Well I decided she should go to the dentist, so we went. And she has a cavity! Of course she does!! (They are going to put her out at a surgical center to get it filled so she won't be traumatized for life!) I was afraid of that. The past two weeks we finally decided we were going to have her do it twice every day, and she finally is ok with it. We printed out a chart and cross it off and she thinks that's pretty fun. We've always bought a cool toothbrush she liked, but that never seemed to do the trick. She still doesn't love it, and she can still be tricky, but she's better.

I'm also getting rid of the juice! We gave it to her a lot, but now I'm limiting it to once a day, if that. I just give her the option of milk or water. And I'm getting rid of most sweets. I think here and there is fine, but I don't want this to be a common thing for her. And it will be better for all of us anyway!

So there you have it! I know you all thought I was a perfect mom (that was a joke!!) but I'm clearly not and I feel like I've gotten a slap on the hand so to speak!

So brush your kid's teeth even if they hate it and it's painful for everyone! Eventually they will have to deal with it! And make them eat everything you do from the beginning!

The end

PS, to make me feel better, please tell me some of your shaming parenting moments!!

The hunt and wait are over

The hunt--

So this morning I went looking with the girls to find another pair of zip up jammies for Alison, in a 9 month size. Wow, I had no clue it would be so hard! I went to the following stores:

Ross

TJ Maxx

Target

a friend checked Costco for me

Burlington Coat Factory

Children's Place

And I was finally victorious at Carter's!!! Can you believe I went to 7 places?! I live really close to all of them, so it's not like I was out for ten hours, but seriously!! I didn't even find jammies with zippers anywhere but the Children's Place (but of course they didn't have the right size) and Carter's! And Carter's only had 2 different designs, the rest were snaps! I realize it's not a super common size, but come on!! Ridiculous.

Side note: Here's what I worked on yesterday and today:

I found a tutorial here: Make It and Love It, although it is really simple. Just cut out different sized circles of a satiny fabric, burn the edges, then glue together and embellish however you want. I bought the fabric from JoAnn's last week and it was 30% off (just happened to be my luck!) and I got 1/8th of a yard of each color and paid like 35 cents for each cut! So it is a really cheap project! The beads that I put in the middle were on sale too.

I chose to glue a clip onto the back, but on the tutorial I saw, she put them on headbands and added leaves. It's whatever you want!

Ok, now "the wait"--

I have a black diaper bag that I really love. About two months ago, part of it came un-sewn :( and I was so bummed! It was such a weird spot and I haven't even owned the bag a year (and I don't use it every day...I may have a few other bags!!). So I read their return policy and thought it would probably fall under wear and tear, which there is no warranty for. But I swear I was never hard on it! And like I said, it was such a weird spot...plus the other side didn't have the same problem.

Well, I emailed the company and told them my story. 2 weeks later I got a reply, no joke. They said to send a picture and give them my contact number and a few numbers inside the bag. So I did. Well another 2 weeks went by (oh and in the email the lady did say that they were relocating their offices, so thanks for my patience).
Here's the damaged part. Isn't that such a weird place? What I think happened is they sewed the fabric too close to the edge, so when it was barely pulled on, it came apart. Does that make sense?

Well today I got a box and guess what was inside?!!

This new bag!! I couldn't believe it! They didn't even call or email and say it was coming or anything, it was just on my porch in a box! Mine was black and this is obviously gray, but hey, beggars can't be choosers, right?!

Now for those of you who think, well why didn't you just fix it yourself? It wouldn't have been that easy to fix. I could have done it, but it really would have been tricky. I asked my mom about sewing it and she wasn't really sure it would look like it did.

For anyone looking for a great diaper bag, I really do like this one. It has great pockets on the inside and I love the outside pocket at the top with the zipper. That's where I throw my keys and cell phone. The company is SkipHop. They were so good to me and I would definitely recommend them!

Thoughts from a 2 year old

When I'm big I will get married in the temple to a King! But I'm not big yet.

Baby dress

I was invited to a baby shower and knew just what I wanted to make! The Itty Bitty Baby Dress by Made By Rae.

I already had the fabric, so I just had to find some piping and bias tape. It ended up taking me longer than planned, but that's because I always try to find the easy way out and it takes me longer! But next time I'm sure I will be much quicker!

Isn't it sweet? She gives two sizes: newborn and 0-3 months.

I realized that I had a little crocheted flower and button that would be so perfect to make a matching bow.

Isn't it sweet?! Once baby is too big for it, use it on a doll! :)

Children's Museum

Yesterday we went to the children's museum at the gateway with my mom, sister and her kids. We had fun! This was our first time there.

I think it was a bit overwhelming for Molly. We weren't there very long and she said, "She wanted to go home." I was thinking, what?! There were a lot of kids there and we had just come back from being gone several days, and I'm sure she was tired. But we still managed to have a good time.
Playing in the house
Playing these xylophone type things that were notes and made music
Mitt in the construction area


Maj and Molly loving the grocery store
In the movie making area
Emery just hanging out
Ali doing the same
If you live close, you should definitely make a trip! But do what we did...find some coupons first!

Tautphaus Park Zoo

We headed to visit family this past weekend since Justin had some time off. We met up in Idaho Falls on Saturday and checked out Idaho Falls' zoo. I had never been and was pretty impressed with it! It wasn't huge or anything, but it had plenty of things to see for 2-3 hours!
Grandma and Molly checking out the monkeys.

I like to take pictures of the back of people's heads...don't you? Geez, I don't know what I was thinking!


Look at my cute hubby!

Uncle Brad
The lion was very, very cool! They also had a female lion...a lioness, right? We had a fun time!

Oh what do you do in the summer time?

Molly was getting bored today so I asked if she wanted to run through the sprinklers. She said, "yes!" of course. So we got into her swim diaper and suit and out we went. She wanted to put the sprinkler under the trampoline, so we then did that. I put her up and she changed her mind. She wasn't into it anymore! So silly.

So we turned off the sprinklers and she ran around and around while singing all the songs she knows.

Every once in a while she sat down to get grass/leaves/whatever off of her feet :)

I am loving her little messy bun! I was trying to get it up as fast as I could (she HATES me to do her hair!!) and this is the result. Too bad my hair isn't long enough for those anymore!

And she picked some leaves. She enjoyed herself. Even if the sprinklers weren't on!

Do you see the resemblance?

One of my favorite pictures of Molly as a baby is this one that we took for Easter in 2008. Yesterday we put Ali in the same dress. I had to take some pictures to see the similarities between the two. I believe Molly is 6 months in the dress and Ali is 7 months (tomorrow).

Molly

Ali

We didn't get quite the same great cheeser from Ali, but she still looked adorable in the dress! What do you think?!

Family Reunion

We had a family reunion last weekend with my mom's side of the family. It was very well organized and we had a fun time! We had a treasure hunt where we learned more about my great grandparents.

This is a house that they lived in. At each spot we went to, we were given a paper with information about a certain aspect of their lives, including a treat!

We had popsicles for this one! Each treat had meaning too.
Major and Molly were trying out each other's.

At the end of the treasure hunt, we met at the cemetery where they are buried. These special guests were representing them, Arthur and Andrea.

It wasn't only our side, but also my grandpa's siblings and their families who came. There were a lot of people and we had a great time learning more about our ancestors! This is the Andrea I was named for, so it was fun learning more about her!