We like to match!

Olivia loves it when we wrap up her baby. She loves it even more since Bianca came home with us. She will sit beside me holding her baby, sometimes patting it on the face while we watch TV. She especially thinks she is cool when she can use the boppy to hold her baby. There are some days, that between Bianca and Olivia's baby, I feel like I've been swaddling kids ALL DAY LONG. Whatever keeps her happy, keeps ME happy!

Today was...

... A GREAT DAY!

WHY??

I was able to:

A) Sleep REAL good last night. Bianca is making it a good 6 hour straight her first stretch of the night! Plus Marcus got up with Olivia and I slept in with the baby til 9:30!

B) LOTSA cleaning was accomplished. Fridge totally wiped out and detailed. 6 Loads of laundry folded and put away. Truck loaded up with trash for a dump run. Husbands hair cut (he was starting to look like a homeless man).

C) Had me some estrogen time at Jayme's house. Although it was kind of a zoo with all the kids running around (and Bianca deciding to NOT take any naps) it was so fun to hang out with the ladies (Jayme and Kaitlyn!) while the hubs all went to the Priesthood Session of Conference. Jayme was so kind to let me invite myself over! Come to think of it I tend to invite myself to a lot of things, oops!

D) During estrogen time I had Butterfinger ice cream for dessert~SO GOOD! (The Safeway brand kind) It is my favorite!!!

So all in all it was the perfect way to spend my Saturday!

Can I get some quiet PLEASE!?

My toddler really likes her TV. By TV I mean more specifically Sesame Street, or in Owaya speech "seesee". She loves it so much that when I do allow her to watch it she does NOT like to be distracted/interrupted.

Case in point:
Mom needs a shower so on goes "seesee". I come around the corner to a baby screaming because she is hungry with the toddler standing in front of her plugging her ears because all the crying is too distracting for her TV show. Sesame Street is SO mesmerizing to her that not even wailing will make her stop watching it. When she finally notices that I am taking pictures of this, Olivia mimes "please" and points to the baby. As in "PLEASE make this baby stop crying so I can finish my show!". I just about died I was laughing so hard!

Hello My Love

Dear Cradle Swing oh how I love thee! Let me count the ways...

~I can eat a meal with it still being at least warm

~Showers can now be taken wherewith ALL shampoo and/or conditioner gets rinsed out of my hair

~Quality time can happen with JUST me and my toddler

~Quality time can happen with my baby, because toddler is receiving her own time with mommy and won't throw a fit when mommy holds baby.

~Happiest baby ever because she is NOT sleep deprived

~Happiest Mommy ever because she is LESS sleep deprived then last week

~Toddler has not showed any signs of jealousy since my magical swing arrived. (I'm thinking because she is getting more time with Mommy to read books or cuddle)

~Mommy even has time to herself to read, clean, do laundry..... BLOG!!

Bianca is still receiving her fair share of Mommy time, it is the time I would have normally spent trying to rock her to go to sleep or just holding her so she will sleep that now gets spent on Olivia. Wanna hear the best part about my new love??? It only cost me $30.00!! I love Craigslist! I also love my BF Kaitlyn who helps me to negotiate such good deals (I am kind of a pansy about bargaining).

Owaya's Room

Olivia's BF Blaine calls Olivia "Owaya", I think it was easier for her to say when she first started talking and it has just stuck. It is one of Olivia's nicknames, we always joke (we meaning Holman's and Radder's) that the girls we be 13 and having slumber parties with Blaine still saying Owaya!

Anyway I am going to be playing some catch up over the next little bit, this post being one of them. At the end of July Marcus painted the front bedroom and transformed it from the storage and random stuff room to a girlie girl room. It turned out so great and Olivia loves it. We now have all of her books in that room and all the toys are now in the jungle room (her old room). The first week of her being in it was a little rough, she would forget where she was when she would wake up and it would scare her. Plus when we would say "go put this in your room" she would go to the jungle room and then we would have to clarify "no, your NEW room!". It has since become HER room and she loves to go in there, turn the lights off and on and pick out her favorite books to read.

I love the color of the paint. It's a pretty light lilac color with a dark purple band going around the top. Then we did white curtains on the windows. Marcus covered up the electrical panel with a cork board that has pictures of us on it. I still have other things that need to go on the wall, I blame the baby for that ;)

Just Hanging Out

Marcus took some pictures of the girls the other day. Olivia thinks when we say "cheese" that we are saying "teeth" so she always smiles and points to her teeth. It is almost impossible to get any pictures of her smiling without her pointing to her pearly whites!

I think Bianca looks more like me, or the Rose side of the family everyday. It looks like for sure she has inherited "the Rose Nose" as we call it in our family. Rose noses tend to be more on the... robust size. Don't worry, it is okay for me to call it this beings as I have the Rose nose myself. I like to think it allows me to have an incredible sense of smell, like a secret superpower or something. My only hope is that in addition to the shnoze she will also have my curly hair!

Olivia loves her more and more each day and I think my body is starting to figure out how to operate being sleep deprived. Bianca is getting better and better at sleeping which is awesome. Plus I totally scored a cheap cradle swing which she is in more often than not. Olivia is turning into a really big helper, throwing diapers in the trash, cleaning up her toys (when I sing the clean up song) and helping to burp baby sister.

Mostly we just hang out at the house, enjoying all the new shows that have started up again. I REALLY love my DVR!

Big Sister

I have to say that the first week of Marcus back at work went better than I expected. I really was bracing myself for the worst, not to say that there weren't a fair share of meltdowns (from all parties) but it was just less than I had anticipated. Olivia really loves Bianca, just as long as I am not holding her, which is slightly problematic as I am holding/feeding her quite a lot. We are working on that though! I'm sure it is not helping that Olivia is teething, so less sleep at night equals a fussy toddler at day.

As far as everything with the baby I feel awesome. I've done it before, I know the ropes and it has gone so smoothly. She sleeps pretty decent for being a newborn. She's on the gassier side (come on she is MY daughter after all!) but instead of crying about it she just grunts quietly to herself. She loves to cuddle and has already given me her version of hugs!

Instead I find myself more stressed with the toddler factor. I have not done the toddler thing before and as such it has been difficult for me to know if I am handling things as best as I should. I have been praying a lot to be a good mom to my babies and as such have been inspired A LOT as to how to handle different situations. I know that eventually I/we will get it all figured out and fall into a new routine. I just hope I still have my sanity when we reach that point!

PS~ I always find I am exhausted at like 6 or 7 and could totally pass out, but then once the girls are down I get a second wind and can't fall asleep until midnight! Does anyone else have this problem, if so how do you help yourself got to sleep earlier?