My own cheering section

Libby saw me cleaning the toilet today and starting clapping and said "good job Mommy!" Warmed my heart right up. I might clean more often if someone cheered for me every time I did it. :)

Then, she looked in the toilet bowl and saw the blue cleaning liquid and said, "Mommy, I eat jello?" (We made blue jello last week and I let her stir it...)

Oh man, having kids is so worth it. They crack me up.

What a difference a year makes

A few things Libby has said lately

[Lying in her crib at naptime, naming all her toys] "Mommy baby, blue baby, giraffe, Pooh bear, pink bear, white bear!" (I love that she calls her bigger baby "mommy baby.")

[Clapping for me, when I've done something super impressive, like found a matching shape] "Good ba, Mommy!" (good job)

[To Piper, when she's crying] "Be happy!" "You okay, you okay." "Oh Pi, I coming!"

[The most frequently heard phrase at the dinner table] "Oh no, Mommy! I spill some on mine shirt!"

Piper - 2 months

Stats
Birth: 7 lbs 12 oz, 20 inches long
2 Weeks: 8 lbs 5 oz, 21 inches long
2  Months: 11 pounds 5 oz, 24 inches long

Piper is now smiling, holding up her head when she's on her stomach, sleeping about 4-6 hours straight at night, nursing well, growing too fast, and generally filling our lives with joy.

We love our little Piper Daisy.

Meeting Santa

Libby's first time meeting Santa Claus...

...went about as well as I had expected. Which is to say, she was terrified. 

Piper, on the other hand, was unfazed.

Life Lately

The past couple months have been a whirlwind, but I want to try and catch up on blogging about our life lately. Let's try this bullet style.

• Jared's parents came to visit for a week. While his mom and I took care of the kids, Jared and his dad did a lot of work around the house, like cutting down a few overgrown trees that were too close to the house. I wish I had gotten a before picture, because our front yard looks so much different already. I so excited to do some landscaping and painting in the spring!

• We also visited a children's museum while they were here. Libby is...shall we say, resistant?...when it comes to brushing her teeth, but she didn't mind brushing this giant mouth.

•  Libby has been forming longer and longer sentences. It's so cool to hear what she has to say. Recently, Jared was watching a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen and Libby came into the room where I was and told me "Daddy sit down couch watch TV AIRPLANE!" I think that was her longest sentence to date. The funny thing is, she usually pauses slightly between each word, so it sounds a bit staccato, but it's adorable.
• Libby told her first fib. I asked Libby is she had a poopy diaper and she said "no" (she always says no, but I don't consider that fibbing; that's more of a refusal to get her diaper changed). Anyway, this time, she followed up by saying "I change." "Oh, you changed your diaper already?" "Daddy change." Actually, no. Daddy did not change it. Caught you!
• Piper is darling and growing so big so fast. I haven't weighed her since she was 2 weeks old, so I don't know how much she weighs, but she has outgrown her newborn diapers and several of her newborn outfits. She sleeps great at night, as long as she's curled up next to me. She'll often have a long stretch of 4-6 hours, so I'm definitely counting my blessings. (The longest she'll sleep in her crib, however, is exactly 20 minutes. Pretty much on the dot.) Daytime naps take place exclusively on my chest, which is very convenient if we're out and about, but not so much if I want to take a shower. She sure is cute all wrapped up, though! 

 

• I know babies don't stay small forever and don't want to cuddle forever, so I'm trying to enjoy every moment. If I ever feel frustrated about not having a few minutes to myself, I recite this poem in my head: 

Cooking and cleaning can wait till tomorrow, 

For babies grow up we've learned to our sorrow. 

So settle down dust, cob webs go to sleep;
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

 

And finally, a few more pictures from the past month:

 

We bought a house

As of October 25, we are homeowners! Just 9 days after Piper was born, Jared drove out to Iowa to close on our house. We waited a couple of weeks to actually move, which was definitely the way to go. I'm not sure which version of me is more useless: 9 months pregnant, or juggling a newborn. But I felt so much better not being pregnant, that if I had to do it over again, I would do it the same way. I cannot take any credit whatsoever for how smoothly it all went. Jared's sister, Rachel, flew out to help us and she is a machine. She and Jared loaded and unloaded the appliances, furniture, beds, everything. We could not have done it without her.

This move to Iowa has been at least 9 months in the making. We have been looking forward to it so much, and once we finally got approval from Jared's job in late August, we jumped on it. We drove out to look at houses in September and made an offer the next week.


Our house needs lots of small finishing touches (new bathroom floor, removing the cow wallpaper, etc) but we feel like we got a great deal and we are so excited to not be renting anymore. Hooray for getting to put holes in the walls and painting whatever color we want!

But most of all, hooray for not living (quite so much) in the middle of nowhere! I'm so excited to have a mall (mostly for the indoor playground), a selection of grocery stores, lots of parks, and an airport nearby.

I'll post pictures at some point. For now, while both babies are sleeping, the bathtub is begging to be cleaned.