Storytime

I love watching Jeff read the girls a story at night... I love watching Jeff with the girls anytime, really.... these are my three favorite "peoples" in the world!!

Girls Trip to Myrtle Beach

Before you read this, I want to warn you of a possible TMI at the end of the post:)

Wendi, Steph, and I rode together, we were so excited to head to the beach!

All the girls at the beach on day two:

In the elevator after our walk on the beach:

Dinner at P.F. Changs:

Two cute girls getting some sun:

Day one on the beach:

So a good friend emailed me a few weeks ago and said she needed a break and wanted to plan a girls' trip to the beach. I thought it sounded like so much fun, so I talked to my sweet husband and he said he didn't mind at all. When we looked at what weekends worked, the only one was Father's Day because of basketball and Jeff didn't even mind! We were all talking on the trip about how lucky we were to have such great husbands. We took two cars and left Friday morning. We got there and checked into one hotel room for 7 girls. It had 4 beds though so there was even room for one more:) We changed into our suits and got some Hardees for lunch which was suprisingly really good, maybe because I was so hungry??? Anyway, we spent from about 3:30 til 7 on the beach Friday. It was overcast a lot of the time, but we still had fun eating snacks and boogie boarding. That night we went to PF Changs for dinner. I had the lettuce wraps as my meal which was AMAZING!! We had an hour wait so we just walked around and looked at little shops while we were waiting. I found this sign:

After dinner we walked on the beach and I highlighted my friend, Andrea's hair. We went to bed sometime in the wee hours of the morning. The next morning, Andrea and I got up around 9 to go for a little run on the beach which was, of course, beautiful! Then we laid out on the beach until around 3:30 when we headed home. It was a fun, quick trip.

TMI (too much info) starts now...

It would have been more fun if I hadn't have been so dumb.... remember how I am still nursing an 8 month old, like 3-5 times a day? Well, my pumps take up a lot of room, so I thought I could just hand express my milk when I got full. I have done it before, but I didn't know that it was pretty much impossible once you become engorged.... I was so uncomfortable starting the first night, after dinner at PF Changs we swung by WalMart to see if I could find a pump. In my mind I was thinking there would be one for $10-$20. Well, they only had one and it was $30. I had pumps at home and didn't need to get one besides the current situation, so I decided to just tough it out which was a definite mistake. The next morning after my run I started to feel sick and had the worst headache and I think it had a lot to do with my little predicament. It was so annoying, because all along my plan was to stay up late and then sleep on the beach all day, but I could not sleep at all and I couldn't even lie on my stomach. On the drive home, I couldn't take it anymore and we stopped by a different Wal-Mart. They had a pump for $20 and I bought it and it was the best relief in my life!! Andrea told me I needed to take a picture for Jeff, Since there are no boys that read my blog, I wanted to document just how insanely big my boobs were...

I had two other swimsuits with me and luckily I even brought this one because my boobs didn't fit into the other ones (they barely fit in this one). I pretty much looked like a stripper with a bad boob job because they were hard as a rock and all lumpy! I wish it wouldn't have been so painful, but I tried to enjoy it since I will be done nursing in about 4 months at which time they will completely disappear! Although, I think I prefer my usual small to normal boob size which do not get in the way at all and don't make me feel so revealing.

Even with my painful situation, it was a fun trip and I am so grateful to Jeff for letting me get away from responsibility for a couple days:)

Jets Plus Bubble Bath equals

two-year-old heaven!

Swimming with the Clantons

Audrey and Austin had to squeeze in the one seat left next to the car seats... yes, we are saving for a van and we are not having any more kids until we get one either.

Baby Micah. Such a cute little rolie polie boy!!

Me with my smokin' hubby:)

Berkeley and Daddy (notice Jeff's buff shoulders and arms!!):

All the cute kids (except Micah):

Berkeley is such a happy baby:

Cheyenne swam with just the water wings for the first time. She loved it, but I was nervous the whole time!

Berkeley and I on the steps:

A few Mondays ago, when the Blum kids were here, we went swimming at our friends' relatives' pool. It was so fun! I think we spent like at least two hours in the pool and then we went to Moe's afterwards because kids eat free! It was so delicious to have a good healthy meal after spending so long in the pool. We love the Clantons, they are so sweet and so fun!!

Favorite Peoples

One time Cheyenne said, "I like Peoples. Audrey is my favorite peoples." Audrey and Austin are her cousins who live in Florida (they also have a little sister named Ansley). Anyway, Audrey and Austin came to stay with us for a few days and Cheyenne was in heaven! They brought their ipad and Cheyenne thought that was just about the coolest thing ever! I didn't take any pictures, but every time Cheyenne and Berkeley took a nap, Audrey and Austin and I played board games. Audrey won apples to apples, then Austin won life, then we played Monopoly and Austin was killing Audrey and I, but he said he was tired of playing it and really wanted to go Bankrupt... He ended up quitting and we divided his assets... I took the railroads and Park Place (I already owned Boardwalk) and Audrey took everything else which gave her several monopolies... anyway I think I probably got the unfair advantage with the railroads, because I ended up winning... Audrey was okay with it since we each won one game:) It was a fun weekend and we will see them again next week when we head to their house in Florida for some much needed beach time!!

Austin and Cheyenne have always gotten along really well... here they are at the park:

Berkeley sitting with Mommy in the shade:

It looks like Austin is pulling Cheyenne's hair, but he was just gently playing with it, it was so cute:

Cheyenne and Audrey playing in the bubble bath:

Audrey, Austin and Cheyenne in the pool:

C&B

Cheyenne and Berkeley are starting to play together more and I love it!!

Berkey Turkey

Cheyenne doesn't really have many nicknames that involve her actual name, but Berkeley's name is much easier I guess. I recently discovered her name rhymes well with Turkey and it always comes to my mind! Berkey Turkey, Berk the Turk, Berk, Broccoli, B squared, and Berkeley Lynn (the two first name thing) are all nicknames frequently heard in our house. The other day, my niece, Audrey was talking about how she loved the name Jordyn and I said so did we. I told her that was almost Berkeley's name. When we were picking names, Jeff was apprehensive about that name because he has a boy cousin named Jordan so it made him think of a boy. However, when we were having this conversation, he was like, I really really like the name Jordyn. Maybe we should change Berkeley's name to Jordyn. I laughed told him that I loved Berkeley's name, and he said he didn't like how everyone was calling her "broccoli." Haha, so I guess I will have to cool it with the nicknames for a while... I thought Broccoli sounded cute. It brought me back to elementary school and my maiden name is Blum. Everyone would call me Stacey BUM or Stacey PLUM. I was soooo embarrassed when they would say that! Isn't it funny?

Anyway about Miss Berkeley Lynn... she is the sweetest thing ever. She is such a good baby and rarely cries. She is back to sucking her thumb all the time, she is great at taking a bottle if I need to leave pumped milk with Jeff or a babysitter. She is army crawling all over the place and fast! If there is something she sees that she wants, she works her butt off to get to it. She is very determined, but not stubborn. She is very ticklish and her tiny laugh is adorable. She loves Cheyenne and loves to play with her. She puts everything in her mouth which is very stressful for me. It is so funny to me how I used to be so worried about loving another baby, because I just love love love this girl to pieces. She makes me want to have 10 more!! Not that I would, but that is how much I love my girls! She is eating all the baby food and also loves cheerios, those rice mum mum things, and juice/water combo in a sippy cup. It is so funny how the second kid gets raised so differently. I NEVER gave Cheyenne juice until she was like 18 months and if I did it was only because we were somewhere there was no milk. I also read to Cheyenne all the time and I barely ever read to Berkeley. It is so sad, but Cheyenne needs constant entertainment, and Berkeley doesn't seem to interested, but I know I should be reading to her more. Anyway, I just wanted to do a little post on Berkeley and her progress and share how much I love this little peanut!!

Potty Trained!!

I started potty training this cute girl in May.

We tried to do the three day potty training thing. I fed her lots of salty snacks and drinks. I set the timer and took her to the potty every 30 minutes. It was a lot and we were both sick of it by the end of the three days, but she had made some progress and had gone both poop and pee on the potty. She rarely had accidents, but she would just hold it until I put the diaper on. She spent hours just sitting on the potty watching Dora (we told her the only way she could watch Dora was if she was sitting on the potty).
Once she wore panties for a while she began to remove her diaper when we would try to put it on her. One time I had put her down for a nap and she was crying (which is normal these days, she says she likes to be awake. She doesn't like to go to sleep, she gets that from me). Anyway, finally after about half an hour I decided to go back in there and calm her down. I came in the room and there was poop all over the floor and she was standing in it. It was horrible. My days of having a dog were relived! Anyway, that is the only poop accident she has ever had (knock on wood), so it hasn't been so bad. From then on, we just had panties on her all the time except naps and night time and tried to remind her when to go potty. She had lots of pee accidents, but she got better and better at remembering and realizing when she needed to go. We also put a goldfish in the potty and told her it really wanted to swim, so it needed her pee pee to make it swim. This was awesome, as she really loves fishies!!

(We decided to spare you a picture of the poop in the potty!)

There were two things that helped speed it along. First of all, we started out with marshmallows as treats every time she even tried. Then we moved on to getting popsicles and the tiny reeses peanut butter cups when she went (she called them yellow chocolate muffins). Also, she has been wanting a backpack for months now and I had been telling her that maybe if she was really good then Santa would bring her one at Christmas. I decided to make her a little chart one day and I told her when she filled the chart up with stickers and when she was all finished wearing diapers and only wore panties then she would get a backpack. This was a huge success! Who knew getting a sticker for her hand and one for her chart would be so motivating?

Also, when friends or cousins were over, everyone got a treat for her going on the potty, so that added some positive peer pressure! She was so proud of herself when she got to hand out treats to everyone and she loved picking which sticker to put on her chart and she really really wanted that backpack, so she would try extra hard. Also, the Dora panties were helpful, because I told her Dora hated to get wet and she really wanted Cheyenne to keep her dry. I am so excited to report that Cheyenne is about 90% potty trained!! She hasn't had an accident in at least a week. She always wears panties when we go out and has gone to the bathroom several times in public restrooms even without the dora seat. She was doing great for about a week at naps and night without a diaper, but she has had several wetting the bed incidents so we decided to go back to diapers at night for a while... we probably just need to do better at not giving her anything to drink late at night. So, once she gets the night time thing down she will be 100%! YAY Cheyenne!! Here she is with her Dora backpack!! She LOVES it. She keeps asking if she can take it to her cousins' Audrey and Austin's house to play.

Sunny Summer Days

These were from about a month ago when it wasn't so crazy hot out. We loved the 60-80 degree weather and enjoyed the fresh air each day. One day I was laying in our front lawn with Berkeley and Cheyenne on my feet playing airplane and the clouds were behind them and I was so grateful for my life, for my husband for working so hard so I could enjoy the quiet, simple moments with my adorable children. I love the beautiful weather and I love these girls!!