Maylene: age 2.5

I haven't posted an update on our girl in a while. Here's a little bit about Miss MayMay right now...

-Maylene does not stop talking now! She will say Mommy 1000 times a day and I have to look at her and say "yes" so she knows I'm paying attention to her, otherwise she will never stop saying my name. She asks tons of questions and gets excited when she hears every single airplane that flies over our house throughout the day. 

-Favorite foods are CEREAL (she begs for cereal all day, but only gets it for breakfast), pretzels, sandwiches, strawberries, "noodles" = ramen, "treats" = peanut butter m&ms, donuts, milk in a "ba ba" (slippy cup), and cheese. 

-Favorite song is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, she will sing it over and over again. She is also pretty good at singing the ABCs, only mixing up a few letters. 

-Loves counting things and is trying to learn 11-20 right now, but says them all out of order. 

-Tells me her name is "Mayween" many times a day and that she's two. She asks me my name and age, and actually remembers now that I'm 25. She says, "You're not 2, Mommy's 25!"

-Favorite TV show is Little Einsteins, she calls it "Rocket" and begs for it constantly.  She also loves Thomas the Train, Jake and the Neverland Pirates & Daniel Tiger. For movies she still loves any and all Disney movies.

-Favorite Toys are Princesses, Woody, Teddy Bear, Baby Stoller

-She loves to help me put the clothes in the dryer and is good about cleaning up messes.

-Loves reading books! 

-For bed time every night Daddy reads her a story (her current favorite is 'Pout Pout Fish' that Erin gave her for Christmas). After the story we turn on her Princess night light and say prayer. She has been pretty goofy about prayers lately, but when she is good she can say most of her own prayer. When she says her own prayer it sounds something like this:

Heddy Fader, fank be for dis day. fank be for fangiwy (family), for daddy, for mommy, for Nannie, for Grandpa, for Grandma, for Kacie, for toys, for bed, for door. (then she will start saying "fank be for you, ....for you, ...for you" pointing at random objects in her room.) Please help be safe, sweep good. i wuve you. in the name, Christ amen. 

After prayer we give hugs and kisses & sing a song or wind up a music toy she likes. She sleeps with SO many stuffed animals, there's barely enough room for her in the bed!

-She loves being outside. She loves to ride her tricycle, go on walks in the stroller or ride in the bike trailer when we go on family bike rides. LOVES bubbles so so much. 

-She is normally happy to go play at the gym while I work out every day and gets excited to play with "friends" she makes there. 

- Her best friends are Aubrey, our next door neighbor who is 1 year older, Alice, Camdyn, Afton & AJ. She misses her friend Beckham who moved to South Carolina!

-Maylene loves princesses and dress up. She knows all of the Disney Princesses and loves to read her Princess books and dress up in princess dresses. She loves shoes, purses and "wip gwoss & chasticks" 

-She is finally pretty good in church. As long as we have fruit snacks and stickers it will hold her over for most of sacrament meeting. She loves nursery and is always excited to wear a dress and go to church with us. 

-She always makes sure we have our phones in our hands. If we leave our phone on the counter she will pick it up and give it back saying, "dat's Daddy's" or "here ya go Mommy, dat's Mommy's phone."

-The words she says wrong but I don't want to correct are "squalella" (Cinderella), "fisk it" (fix it), "Keep doing dat!" (Quit doing that), "cacorn" (popcorn), "nail" & "nop" (mail & mop).

-Wants to do EVERYTHING by herself with no help... "My turn" "MayMay do it" "MY do it!" are a few very common phrases. I have to take a lot of deep breaths every day....

We started potty training over a week ago. Things are going pretty good. She loved getting treats and stickers for going on the potty. And she LOVES panties, she wants to wear all of them at once or change them out every 10 minutes. She still has a couple accidents per day but hopefully she'll get the hang of it shortly. 

We love our smart and active girl! She is still very wild, determined and opinionated. But it is fun to see her learning and growing every day, and she keeps us laughing constantly. I want to put her in dance or gymnastics soon, I think she would love it. Though mom life is tough, I'm so glad she's ours. Love you MayMay. 

TWO

Maylene at age two. Whew! It's a pretty intense time. As we all know, Maylene has been curious and active since day 1... but after her first birthday, things have been especially chaotic. Motherhood is definitely more challenging than I ever anticipated. Maylene pushes me to the max, and she sure is stubborn. I have tried literally every type of parenting method you can think of to get this gal to listen and behave, but she is seriously the most curious cat. Maylene has GOT to do what she is itching to do, and she is willing to take any type of punishment to do it. In the moment it is hard to wrap my mind around. Everyone wants their kid to be polite, well-behaved with a sweet personality. (Although I know that is rarely the case) But, everyone says they will teach their child to listen, "OR ELSE!"... (Que in old stories of how their parents taught them to behave.)

I used to be one of those people. I remember working at the bank (a quiet business place where mostly adults enter.) Well, if a bratty kid would come in and throw a tantrum and demand a sucker / run from his/her parents, screaming like there's no tomorrow, us bank workers would talk. "Did you see that kid?" "I would never let my child act like that." "Someone needs to teach that kid respect" ... Que childhood stories about merely getting "the look" from mom or dad and instantly behaving out of fear.

Well, big time reality check over here. I have that kid. You know the one(s). I could tell countless stories of Maylene throwing extreme tantrums, running from me in the store, into the street, pretty much just running from me all day at home. Hitting me in public, breaking things, the list goes on. ....I know, I know, every mom of a two year old goes through this. I know that is true....to a point for some. Let me just say, if you haven't met Maylene yet, you should. You'll get to know her "spunky personality" quickly. ;) There are so many words that can be used to describe motherhood, but for right now I'll use humbling. Pretty much anything I thought I would do / not do, or be / not be as a mom has been thrown out the window. I really don't know what people think of me as a mother in public, (to the strangers who see my child screaming and hitting). And until a few months ago I used to care a lot. I used to leave the grocery store in tears every time we ran errands together. Don't get me wrong, I still care.  But I'm learning to embrace Maylene as she is. That doesn't mean I've given up on discipline, and it doesn't mean I am the goddess of patience. I'm just learning to take it a day at a time and not expect Maylene to be this "ideal" child I used to think I would/should have. Because I love her how she is. And everyone else loves her too.

It's been said a million times over, but being a mom is the greatest, best, most amazing, most difficult, most exhausting, most exasperating, most joyous thing you could do. Let's just say I've literally cried a river over the last two years. I've learned to give more than I knew possible. I learned to give all of every day time, and even some night time and nap time so that I could read parenting books and "Happiest Toddler on the Block." I've learned to plead for patience through prayer and learned to rely on God and His timing and His plan. He has a lot for me to learn, and I am definitely learning. I'm so thankful I'm no longer that naive girl in the bank making comments about the bratty kid. I'm even more thankful I'm a fellow mom with an understanding heart and an extra arm to help if needed.

Now this next part, I hope I read again and again. The thing that keeps me going -- keeps me loving -- and keeps my heart full, is how amazing Maylene really is. She is so smart. and SOO Happy! This girl lives for fun. And the biggest thing is, she never means to make me mad. She wants to figure the world out, and learn, and be like Mom & Dad. She wants to do what we do, and be as tall as we are (I'm assuming that's the reasoning behind climbing on the counter tops and table 6+ times a day). She wants to be outside all day long. She wants to do things by herself without help. And she never wants the fun to stop, ever. She laughs and smiles so much. She forgives me instantly when I get mad. I want her to be my little girl forever, but I am so excited to see this gal grow up. I just know she's going to be great. Probably an Olympian or the President or something. haha. Who knows. She'll be great at whatever she does. She is full of determination, and fun and a whole lot of love... and you can't go wrong with that.

Here's a little bit about our beautiful MayMay at age 2:
-She loves Sophia the First, Mickey Mouse, Toy Story & Cars.
-She can count 1-10!
- Knows most animals
-Obsessed with socks
-Learning to speak in sentences now.
-She knows all of her body parts and she likes to show you.
-She LOVES books.
-She has been saying prayers with help from Mom & Dad for a while. She knows when to say -"Jesus Christ, Amen" at the end. She is pretty good about keeping her arms folded. She will close her eyes sometimes but lots of peeking is going on.
- Loves swimming & being outside. Loves going anywhere in her stroller.
-OBSESSED with brushing her teeth. Holy smokes she will fight you to the death if you try to take her toothbrush away. And she calls toothpaste "pancakes." haha.
- Her favorite foods are PB & J sandwich, yogurt and popcorn. (pronounced "cacorn")
-She loves to look pretty & she loves wearing her Elsa princess dress & shoes Nannie got her for her birthday.
-She always asks for a song before bed and she tries to sing along. cutest thing ever.
-She prefers to be naked all the time! I started having her take naps / sleep at night in onesies because they are the only article of clothing that she will leave on. If I forget she will get butt naked and pee/poo on the floor in her room.
-Thinks she's the boss of our dog Olive.
-LOVES when daddy comes home from work! She runs to meet him at the door. They start playing together right away. Daddy knows how to make her laugh the most.


We love you MayMay. You are our greatest joy, and Mom & Dad are your biggest fans! We can't wait to see you get bigger & watch you learn and grow. We know you'll do great things, you already do! Thank you for choosing me to be your momma.

15 months

Maylene is one crazy chica. The past few weeks have definitely been difficult for me as I'm learning how to literally baby proof every inch of my house. Being a mom is just so exhausting! The past year and 3 months have flown by. I have had hard months and new stages, and I've had months I just LOVED where we got the hang of eating, playing, napping, and we both were happy campers. This crazy toddler-into-everything phase is a killer though. I have had some pretty rough days chasing this energizer bunny. I'm trying to take it day by day-- there are good days and bad days. But I will always love my fun and energetic gal! She definitely keeps things interesting around here. Here's a few things about miss May:

-She loves all of the Tinker Bell movies, Tangled and Frozen. We alternate those movies all. day. long.
-She loves being outside SO so much. She usually cries when I make her come back inside.
-She's an extreme climber. She climbs anything and EVERYTHING.
-She loves music and dancing
-The words she says the most are: Hi, Dada, Oh no, Uh Oh, yeeaahh!, YAY!, and I can't tell   lately if she's saying Ok! or Clay! but it sounds like cccwaay!
-I think her favorite food is cheese. She gobbles it up
-She likes drinking out of her new big girl sippy cup
-She laughs so hard when Daddy plays with her. She likes to play rough and she probably likes being upside down more than right side up
-She loves shoes and always wants hers on or to try on mine or Clay's shoes.
-She still loves Peek-a-boo
-She is obsessed with her blankey and a book called 'Ten Shiny Snails.' She carries both around with her everywhere
-She loves water: swimming, bath time or even taking showers, she loves it all! On crazy days at home where I can't stand chasing her-- I put her in the bath for fun.

We love ya crazy baby girl!

starting fresh

I have been slacking on my blog. I guess the world is switching from blogging to instagram so I rarely ever look at blogs anymore. BUT whenever I go through and read my old blog posts I remember why I want to keep mine up. So many moments I would have totally forgotten about if I had not written them down. So, I want to keep blogging for me, as my journal.

Today I updated my blog layout, and want to try to start fresh on blogging again. I am way behind and missed lots of big moments over the last year. I know the reason I quit posting is because I wanted to catch up and post all of the best moments over the last year, so I postponed and postponed. . . and now all of those moments are piling up! Today I decided I'm going to post whatever I want, whenever I want. I might post about today or yesterday, or I might post pictures from christmas last year.

I guess this will keep things interesting . . .

So today I'm posting a couple pictures of Maylene that I took right before her 1st birthday. I remember taking these photos was a very difficult task because little May is not known to stay still for even a split second. The picture on the right makes me laugh because it is so Maylene -- in action. She is smiling at me for the picture but still has somewhere she needs to get to.

She has grown so much hair since I took these photos! Maylene is such a silly, energetic gal. She definitely keeps me on my toes every waking moment. She's always getting into something she shouldn't and is just so interested in ...literally everything. Some days I I get frustrated and can't understand why she won't JUST SIT for a minute. But I know that she is just too smart and determined to learn new things to just sit. I love her huge personality and how fun and playful she is. Lately she says "Hi" to anyone or any new thing she sees. Or she runs around the house saying "Hi!" for no reason.

I love my sweet Maylene and can't wait to see who she becomes, because she's going to be something pretty great.

Blessing Day

 Our little May was blessed on August 4, 2013.

My mom made the most beautiful blessing dress ever for her. It is made from the same fabric as my wedding dress, and I absolutely love it. I'm so sad I didn't get a good picture of her in her dress. But it was perfect for her special day.

Clay did such a great job on her blessing. I know she is definitly one special girl & we are so blessed to be her parents. 

We had so many family members and friends who woke up at the crack of dawn to be there by 8am! We are so thankful for everyone who drove out to make it!

My grandma, mom, me & maylene. 4 generations!

 Here's the whole gang in the Larson's back yard. It was one crowded house! A big THANK YOU goes to Clay's parents for letting us use their home for lunch afterwords. It was crazy but we were so glad we could see and spend time with everyone. 

Maylene at 2 months

 Let's just say there was still a lot of ^^this going on^^

Haha, just kidding it wasn't all tears. By 8 weeks she started sleeping a tiny bit better! It was still pretty rough and the first 3 months of her life are sort of a blur to me. I remember sometimes I'd get lucky and she would sleep one 3 or 4 hour stretch at night. But usually I was still up most of the night with this cranky gal! 

By two months my favorite moments were staring into those eyes. She started focusing on your face and I could definitely tell she wanted to smile! haha. And by the end of the month she was smiling lots. Baby smiles are seriously the greatest thing in the entire universe for a momma! It made me love her even more. It was so fun to see her start showing her personality. So although there wasn't a whole lot of sleeping in our house, things were getting easier and more fun!

 

 

oh yes, and we learned that no matter how cranky she is, she will NEVER cry in the bath. It was and still is her favorite time of day!

Newborn Pictures

 Due to lack of time and funds, I ended up doing some newborn pictures of Maylene when she was 2 weeks old. Trying to take beautiful/peaceful pictures of a newborn is difficult and most of them turned out like the above photo haha. But she finally fell asleep and let me move her around a bit!

The Nursery: (almost) finished

Here's Maylene's almost finished Nursery. A few weeks after she was born I added a print to that empty frame. I still want to hang a few more things on the walls-- and a rug would be nice! But for now we still think it looks pretty good. My sister in law Niki surprised me on Mother's day with that gorgeous dresser! I bought it with her at an Antique Mall but never got around to painting it. She did it for me and I absolutely love it! It's definitely my favorite part of the room. The shelf and frames were from IKEA, and I made some prints to go in each of them.

I made an origami mobile. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but once I hung it, it fit in the room perfectly! Best 3 bucks I ever spent on supplies haha. 

My mom went in on the chair with me so I got a great deal. I love that chair. 

Ta-da! Hopefully I will actually finish the room completely. But hopefully usually means never, right? ;) 

My first month of Motherhood.

We came home from the hospital when Maylene was 3 days old. Driving home from the hospital was such an exciting time for us! We were so ecstatic to take our new baby home and start our life with her. My mom was at our house waiting for us to arrive and ready to help with whatever we needed!

I don't know what was wrong with me, but I didn't let her help me enough. I kept trying to do everything on my own, and when the baby would wake up and scream in the middle of the night I would get up every time and not let my mom just take her so I could sleep. I didn't realize what a mistake that was until she left the next week and I was totally on my own. My mom stayed with me 10 days which was amazing! But after she left I was like... waaaaitt! NOOOOoo. I can't do this by myself haha. Clay would help as much as he could when he was home from work, but that really was only for 4-5 hours a day at most. 

Don't get me wrong, Maylene was a sweet little baby. I loved her SO so much. But I had a lot of difficulty nursing, along with baby having her days and nights mixed up, and her stomach was SO sensitive, so she was always extremely gassy and fussy. She also had reflux. I loved my baby but there were a lot of days I really didn't understand how and why things were so hard. There were full days where I maybe got 2 hours of sleep. And it was always broken up.. 30 min here, 30 min there. I fell asleep nursing in a chair A LOT. and Maylene would fall asleep too so she would wake up every 20 - 30 minutes to eat again sometimes. 

I struggled with producing enough milk, and Maylene struggled with weight gain. This came with a lot of guilt and a lot of me thinking I was a terrible mom. At 2 weeks old she was a pound under her birth weight. I was told to nurse her, supplement her, pump after nursing and feed her every time she acted hungry. ...She acted hungry like every 45 minutes! And would nurse for an hour at times. I was also told to cut out all dairy, eggs, and later was told to cut out peanuts. I litterally felt like I was a cow and my only purpose was to feed a person.

I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I never knew why she was crying... I knew she was gassy and tired and probably hungry... but she also had the reflux which kept her awake a lot. I was lost and really at wits end. And my biggest mistake was that I didn't ask for help! I was embarrassed that I couldn't handle things on my own. I also was never thinking clearly because I literally never slept haha. Maylene really didn't sleep much either. I tried to "nap when she napped," but that isn't as easy as it sounds. Her naps were so short that I had to decide if I was going to either shower or eat that day. haha. 

Honestly her first month of life was one of the hardest months of mine. I loved my baby and knew this was what I wanted, but I was too hard on myself. Every time she cried I thought it was my fault because she wasn't on a schedule, and every night that she stayed awake ALL night long I blamed myself. I really didn't know how people have lots of children and take care of everyone. I could barely take care of one baby and myself. 

One night (actually morning, it was 5 am) I was nursing and had been up since 11pm... I felt like I was going to pass out. Like Maylene was literally sucking the life out of me hahha. I couldn't go any longer without sleep or Clay was going to find me passed out on the floor. So I asked Clay to call in from work and take care of her and go to the store for me. I felt so stupid that I couldn't handle things, but I didn't know what else to do! 

Now that this stage is over I really wish I could re-do my first month. Let's face it, I was a little out of my mind. I wish I could tell myself to:

- relax- this newborn phase really does not last long. your sweet tiny baby is going to be so big So soon.

-don't worry about doing any type of routine or schedule. If it's not working right now, it's not working. Things will fall into place in their own time.

- ask for help! get some sleep lady.

- don't compare yourself to other moms. This is your first baby. you are learning how to do everything for the first time, and learning how to sacrifice all of your time to one sweet little girl. 

- don't stress about nursing. if it's not working then just stop! If bottle feeding is easier and works better for you and baby, JUST DO IT. 

- it's okay if the baby cries sometimes. If you've done everything you possibly can, just let her cry and take a shower today. Or eat an actual meal other than wheat thins in your bed. haha.

Hopefully with my next baby I'll read this post and try to remember what a special time it is. And even through all of the hard times, it was still such a special time. Nothing brings you greater joy than rocking your precious baby to sleep and staring at such a sweet face knowing YOU MADE THIS HUMAN BEING! So even though there were a lot of hard days, and even though I watched the sun rise pretty much every morning, I always knew she was absolutely worth it.