Bragging RIghts.

I've had four birthdays since Ross and I have been together, each better than the last.

The first, I turned 19. We had only gotten engaged a few days before. I was still in school and he was working in California, but he had my roommate, who was majoring in horticulture, throw together a beautiful bouquet of flowers with a little note. He also sent me a t-shirt of his. (Honestly, what girl doesn't love walking around in your man's big comfy T?) But the sweetest surprise of all was a poem he had written for me.

The hardest thing I've ever done,

has also been the best.

Lots of missing, but lots of fun,

My heart throbs within my chest.

Words can NEVER portray,

the feelings I have for you.

You fill my thoughts, both night and day,

A love so very true!

Like a fat kid with his cake,

Maybe a model and her pills?

Anyone but you's a fake,

The thought give's me the chills.

Katie Ries, I love you so!!

More than I can say.

I should prob'ly let you go,

But Happy, Happy Birthday!!!

The next year was my first married birthday and we spent the weekend partying in Vegas. It was wonderful to get away and have fun in the sunshine.

Last year Ross surprised me with a weekend away sans child. He arranged for our friends to take Claire overnight while we whisked away to the beautiful Hines Mansion. It was really, really romantic.

This year, I told Ross I only wanted to go shopping for my birthday. I have dropped a few sizes and am officially the smallest I've ever been. I can't think of a better reward for all of the sweat and tears than a new wardrobe. We took off to Park City to head to the outlets. It was Memorial Day and there were some amazing sales going on. After Claire had gone to bed, Ross had another surprise for me. Another sweet poem!

There once was a queen so strong and so sweet,
She could go the whole night without sleeping a wink.
Her loyal king boldly fought off their foes, charging into the fray,
But both knew who really ruled the castle each day.

Pepper and Bells, Aoife and Claire,
The queen led her subjects with the greatest of care.
Her people loved her, they cheered at her sight,
For she was pretty and kind and her smile was so bright.

Oh, what joy she brought to the realm of Loveland,
The kingdom without her wouldn't be nearly so grand.
And so every year, the citizens gather and praise
Their beautiful queen on her special birthday!

And none was so happy, lucky, or blessed,
Than the king who without her, would sure be depressed!
Now on this day apart from routine,
We just want to shout, 'Long live the queen!'.

I loved the poem so much and just felt so special, I had to brag. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful, loving, creative husband who does so much to make me feel special. He even took Aoife a couple times the night before my birthday so I could catch a little extra sleep and let me nap as much as I wanted all weekend. It was the perfect weekend and I had so much fun spending time together as a family, sneaking in a date, and just having fun.

The Loveland Girls Are Tipping The Charts At Both Ends.

I am so grateful for irreplaceable doctors. The first couple weeks Aoife was home, she never cried. I thought I was so blessed to have such a content baby. It was short lived. Once Aoife learned how to cry, she never stopped. She loves to be held ALL the time and will wake up the second we set her down. I was getting anywhere from 1-3 hours of sleep a night and naps were nonexistent. This little gal is awake all the time and cries most of the time.

Yesterday I took both girls to the doctor for their well child visits. Claire is still a monster and coming in at the 99.98 percentiles. He said she's the size of a three year old and looks great. He is always impressed by her. Aoife is tipping the charts in the other direction. When we first brought her to the doctor, she was in the 0.15th percentile. Didn't even make it to a whole percent. She's been below 1% until this last check up where she came in at 7% Finally on the charts! She is 9 pounds 10 ounces and I was shocked to see she weighed that much! She's doing great and making wonderful progress, though still wearing newborn clothes.

Everyone tells me how tiny she is, though she seems huge to me. She's almost twice her birth weight now and I can't believe how quickly she's growing.

I love how the girls' doctor is not only concerned with the girls' health, but he always is sure to check on how I'm doing. My health is always just as important to him as my kids. About this point, Claire was sleeping in her own room and it was just a couple weeks until she was sleeping thirteen hours a night. Aoife is no where near that and it's overwhelming to realize I'm going to be a zombie for a few more months. After spending the weekend with Aoife, Ross completely understands why I spend the entire day on my rear and why the house is rarely clean when he gets home.

I was talking to Dr. Later about how fussy Aoife was and her sleeping habits. (Or rather, lack thereof.) He told me a story about a couple who showed up at his house in the middle of the night with their baby, saying they couldn't handle it anymore. And what did he do? He actually took the child for the night and took care of her. He monitored the baby to make sure nothing was actually wrong with her. At the end of every appointment he always tells me to call him immediately if I'm struggling or need help. He didn't seem alarmed or disturbed when I asked if I could start leaving Aoife in another room and ignoring her to get her to sleep or if I absolutely had to feed her every time she wanted it.

He determined that Aoife is probably having really bad heartburn and put her on some medication. He thinks she's probably crying all the time because she's uncomfortable and eating so often just to comfort feed, which actually makes it worse. She was a champ with her shots. With the help of some tylenol and the new medication, I only had to get up with Aoife twice last night. we're giving the medication ten days to see an improvement before we try something else, but so far I think it's helping.

I am so grateful to have two healthy girls, even with all of the crying and tantrums. I'm incredibly grateful to Ross who handles my breakdown when I'm feeling overwhelmed. And I'm so grateful for dedicated doctors who really care about their patients.

18 Months.

I know this is getting obnoxious, what with this being my third post of the morning. I haven't been able to stay on top of blogging and want to do better at recording our family happenings. Since Claire is in a time-out nap, I'm using all the time I can get without her banging on the keyboard.

Yesterday was Claire's 18 month birthday. Which means it was also her first day in nursery! Happy Mother's Day to MEEEE!! I actually took the camera to church to take pictures of my big girl. (Yes, I'm one of THOSE moms.) Ross and I both walked her down the hall to nursery and stayed with her just a couple minutes to show her the toys and friends. She didn't even see us leave.

She did wonderfully for the first half hour or so, but then I guess she freaked out when she noticed mom and dad had left. Ross got to spend the rest of church in nursery with her. (Honestly, I was a bit jealous. What could be funner than playing with toys and having snacks with your daughter?!)

I think it'll only take a couple weeks of us spending a few minutes with her in nursery before she'll be happy by herself.

My sweet little baby is now a full fledged toddler. She's learned how to say no, loves to get into everything, and has started throwing tantrums when she doesn't get to do what she wants. Recently she's also started hitting. I'm not really sure what to do about the tantrums, whining, and hitting yet. But she also loves to sing along to a few songs, play games, pop bubbles, chase the poor cat, and laugh. She is absolutely OBSESSED with Elmo and loves anything and everything Elmo.

In the morning we do a workout together and she actually does it with me. It's a lot more fun doing squats, jumping jacks, and push ups with her by my side. And it just cracks me up. She has a wonderful sense of humor and makes us laugh all the time.

The girls have a Dr. appointment this afternoon so we'll find out just how giant Claire is and how much of a pipsqueak Aoife is. Claire has always been off the charts and I'm amazed at how big she is. Right now she's in 3T/4T clothes. Mind blowing. I can't believe it's already been a year and a half. She's growing up so fast. Too fast. We absolutely adore our sweet Claire.

Our Newest Addition.

Saturday was my first full day back from Oregon. It was absolutely gorgeous so I decided to take the girls out on a run instead of going to the gym to run on a treadmill. -Ok. Running after being in Oregon was HARD. I feel like I was gasping for air the entire time and pansied out and walked quite a bit. On our way home as we were jogging through our neighborhood, I saw a free kittens sign. I ran past and texted Ross asking if he wanted another kitten. At first I was joking. After talking and thinking about it, I went back just to peek.

The couple at the door were so friendly and plopped an orange and white kitten in my arms. She was cute, but I wasn't sold on the idea of having two cats. I ended up taking it home anyway, planning on bringing it back in an hour or so. Claire started calling the kitten "dog" and we've had to explain may times that it isn't a dog, it's a cat. Now she just calls it Belle.

While we were in Oregon, Belle went back to her old naughty habits. When Ross would come home, she was so happy to see him, she wouldn't leave him alone. She really is a social cat and always has been. She gets pretty lonely during the day.

She took to the new kitten right away and they've been inseparable since. Belles thinks the kitten is her baby and carries the kitten around EVERYWHERE. We were shocked to see her leap with the kitten in her mouth into our tall laundry basket. We're not sure why, but Belles loves to put the kitten in the laundry basket. ALL the time.

The night I brought it home, I actually went to take it back, but they weren't home. We thought we'd see how the night went and maybe try to take her back again in the morning. She is so attached to Ross and Belles, we ended up keeping her.

Right now we're trying to teach Claire to pick the kitten up by the belly, instead of clasping her hands around the kitten's throat to carry her. Since it is Ross' kitten, he is in charge of naming her. It's been a couple of days and she still doesn't have a name. I'm sure he'd appreciate any suggestions.

The Summer of She-Woman.

The beginning of the month, I ventured up to good old Portland, Oregon with the girlies. I've been a little Oregon homesick, and really felt like I needed to go. We only have one car. Sweet, supportive Ross told me to go. He took the bus and walked and received a few rides from our gracious friends for ten days. I couldn't have a more wonderful husband.

The drive up was plenty eventful. What started out as a fun adventure later turned into a big disaster I never want to repeat. At first I thought it'd be a great idea to stop and get out of the car whenever Aoife needed to eat. I thought it would help Aoife sleep longer between feedings and Claire would be happier with the breaks. Our first stop was at a gas station a few miles from the Idaho boarder. Inside they had a lounge area for "professional drivers", outside there wasn't any sort of grassy area, just a bird poop covered table in the middle of a bunch of rocks. So I sat and fed Aoife while Claire had a wonderful 45 minutes throwing rocks.


In Boise I wanted to find a McDonalds with a play place for Claire to play while I fed. She made friends with an older girl who desperately wanted someone to play with. It was hilarious watching her grab Claire's and and try to pull her along to play.



By our next stop, Claire had had it, my plan of Aoife sleeping had miserably failed. With two screaming girls, my temper was running short. I brought along Ross' old laptop and the beloved Elmo DVD. I stuck in a movie and pulled back on the freeway. In the wrong direction. I was so wrapped up in helping the girls, I didn't realize it till I had gone well over 20 miles.

At eivery stop I discovered Claire had either pooped or peed through her clothes and for the last hour and a half of the drive, Claire was throwing up in her car seat. By the time we arrived at my parent's house, I was a stressed out, exhausted mess! We gave Claire a bath and watched the Elmo DVD again to calm her down before we went to bed.

We were able to spend a week at my parent's house and had a great time. Claire immediately took to the dog. She became fascinated with dogs and loved sharing food with her. The poor dog often wanted to go outside simply to get a break from my crazy toddler.



We had a wonderful shopping day with my grandmother and the girls each got a cute summer outfit. They enjoyed lots of snuggle time from adoring grandparents and played themselves silly!


After that week, we went to visit Ross' family. It's been a huge blessing to both be from the same place. Whenever we go visit, we get to see both families. Claire played and played with adoring aunts and uncles. And I was spoiled beyond belief. I was taken off of mom duty at night and enjoyed wonderful nights of much needed sleep. Our last night there I ended up getting a sassy makeover!

Unfortunately Ross was lonely so we cut our trip a day short to get home. We had a great time with the Lovelands, and Claire I'm sure misses having all of her aunts and uncles to play with. Luckily we'll get to see them again this weekend!

The drive home was a thousand times better than the first trip. After 15 hours in a car with what was supposed to only take 12, I decided to only stop for gas and bathroom breaks. I fed Aoife with my arm behind the seat while I drove and Claire seemed to be a lot happier that time. Towards the end everyone was tired and we ended up watching the Elmo DVD four times. In a row. Whatever it took to keep Claire from screaming to keep my sanity!

We made the trip in just a little over 12 hours and Claire couldn't have been happier to be back home with her Daddy. Though she was a little confused and kept calling the cat, "dog". It was great to have a couple days with Ross before Monday came back around and I had to get back to real life. We're taking off again Thursday for California and I have sworn off Elmo anything until that day when there is a moment of desperation.

After our road trip, I feel like she-woman. I started feeling that way before the trip, especially during my workouts, but now I definitely feel like she-woman. I'm really looking forward to all of the fun things Utah County has to offer this summer and am determined to have a great summer with the girls. Between Ross' job and internship, he's pulling 60 hour work weeks. During the day it really is just me and the girls. Rather than sit at home, we're going to be going to parades, the pool, maybe some hikes, and just find some fun things for us to do. Hello Summer!!