Morning Routine

It hit me the other day when we were going through old home videos that I may be missing recording some parts in our life that seem monotonous.  This is our routine every morning when we arrive to school.  Logan loves to hop on top of the stroller and reach over to hug Everly and chase her lips for a kiss.  She does not seem too keen on these lip kisses as her head thrashes side to side, but Logan gets a kick out of planting one on her.  One day she'll outsmart him, I think she forgot her spitting weapon!

The Way to Travel

This is Logan's favorite way to travel...

Crawler

We have a crawler, this is next to one of the first times she has crawled more than one hand over hand.  Love this as it is mixed with her long time army crawl.  NOTHING is safe!  It wasn't safe before, but man she's fast at getting to naughty things!!

Paint

We decided to start our baby steps prepping for Valentine's Day, not that we would ever do anything big.  It just takes an endeavor to even make a card for those we love.  Anyhow, Everly got her hand prints done, which is a baby joke.  The first thing that happens when paint reaches that hand is squish it, squish it, then reach out for anything and everything.  Jimmy decided to clean her by  putting her whole body in the sink, I know...smart man.  She's so cute!  Love her sweet face.

The Poor Neighbors

Everly is refusing pacifiers lately, her pacifier lately is being outside.  Jimmy has been now walking her around the complex to get her to go to sleep before bed.  In the middle of the day, I have her out on the patio.  Well, we are on the 2nd story and it's just a wood balcony.  Being a baby, she spit up and no blanket underneath.  Our neighbors were gifted a baby present to their cement below and I'm at a loss.  Knocking on their door and offering to clean it up seems weird, but leaving it seems bad.  Sneaking into their porch area seems worse.  So, I looked later and it's at least a dried up pile...can we blame the birds?  I told my mom, she said, "at least there weren't people below for the incoming pile of spit up."  There's always a bright side...haha.

On an alternative note, Everly is out of our room.  Super ready for the switch when one of many bad sleeping nights of her in our bed I found her head under the pillow and realized..."I'm gonna kill this baby if she stays with us."  Closet doors removed and some furniture switching and she's out!  She's OUT!!  And we are sleeping so good!  Like she's up only once in the night for the past 2 nights.

We lasted 3 weeks!

Our sugar free goal...we last 3 weeks.  The talk of missing hot chocolate chip cookies was just too much to bear any longer, so that is exactly what we gave in with at the same time.  And let's just be clear, we don't regret one chocolatey second giving in when we did.  Pretty good for 3 weeks, but we're so over it!  Aside from chocolate chip cookies it was hot cereal we missed as it is impossible to eat hot cereal or even have a desire without some sugar.  Not worth it!

This girl!  She can't quite crawl, just drags her sorry good for nothing legs behind her to get where she wants and that's exactly how she got to this outlet.  Her mission, to remove the covers and eat them!  Child proofing fail.

Other than that, we also gave in with a date day with Cheesecake Factory for just some slices of cheesecake.  We ordered the tried and true Godiva cheesecake which WAS good, but tried a new to us one...Reese's and now we have a new favorite!  Yum!!

I've been busy prepping Logan last week for Star Student which he definitely basked in the joy of being the center of attention.  Had some ups and downs.  One of the downs was this baby and sleeping.  I threw in the towel.  She has once again become welcomed to our bed for sleep when there were a few nights of being up with her every 1-2 hours and some of those stretches being awake for the whole hour.  She always starts out in her crib and every night I fantasize that maybe tonight is the night she will stay asleep, hah!  Not even an hour later I realize I still have the whole night ahead of us.  Good thing she is too darling to be up in arms about it all and let's face it there is a good part of me that enjoys the middle of the night cuddles.

The Good Life

The good weather in Arizona has arrived and we are loving it.  Park day everyday!!

Happy New Year!!  We started our "goal" a week before...we never take New Year's seriously, but this year "why not?"  We were ready after my marathon of baking new cookie recipes to be free from sugar for a month, to be exact February 1st.  This sugar free experiment for us means no added sugar to cereals (including hot cereal such as oatmeal, steel cut oats, or cream of wheat, no syrup, etc), the obvious no desserts, no soda, and no juice.  It includes some consulting with each other, but after a week we weighed in.  I lost 4 pounds, Jimmy lost 10 pounds.  Yes, our sugar intake is out of control, it made the resisting temptations sweeter (pun, haha) when we saw the benefits.  It still needs to end with maybe a less constricting restriction.  The reward is a competition.  If Jimmy loses (meaning he gives in and eats sugar) I get $50 to spend on what I want, if I lose Jimmy gets $50.  Well, if we both last all the way through we get to go out to eat at Serrano's, a restaurant we've had on our bucket list after getting a small taste of it at the Christmas parade we recently went to.   So then the challenge became 2 fold, no going out to eat until Serrano's, it'll be one delightful day.  

To distract us...we took Dad away from work to the park for some lunch and playground time.

Everly loves green smoothies (big bonus is a sweet with no sugar, win!), she keeps stealing our cups away and slathering her face in it.  We struggle with other solid foods, but she finds this green goo irresistable, hah!

Sometimes she looks like a squirrel when she feeds herself...

He may not openly admit it, but he seems to love his Christmas present.  Found him during his quiet time/nap time like this.

She's just a ball of fun!  She was so funny last night as I was crawling into bed, I could hear her tossing and turning some and then heard her spitting and fell back asleep again without any help on my end (later in the night unfortunately was not the same story).  Once she discovered her tongue can spray spit and make a great noise it needs to be discovered over and over again apparently even half asleep.