Ellie at 2 Years Old

I have been meaning to sit down and write an entire post about each of the girls and what they've been up to since we did just celebrate their birthdays.

So, first up Ellie.

Ellie cracks me up. She is so different than Brinley at age 2 and it scares me a bit. Brinley was so cautious and curious, but not destructive or wild. Ellie goes 100% all the time. She doesn't walk, she runs. She doesn't love tap my face, she smacks and hits at full force. She doesn't play nicely with hair, she purposely pulls. Sometimes I feel like I'm constantly playing referee with those two.

We have found Brinley screaming on more than one occasion (probably more like 20 times) because Ellie was sitting on her back pulling her hair with both hands. Brinley is just so sweet that she doesn't fight Ellie back. We've had to talk to Brinley about defending herself in a nice, sisterly way, but enough to get Ellie to stop whatever she's doing. Ellie knows exactly what buttons to push with Brinley.

Ellie is such a chatterbox. She makes sense most of the time, but she still has her Japanese moments where she is too excited and talks too fast and nothing she says makes sense. Her little lips are so adorable when she says things like "puzzle piece." She loves having conversations with Brinley and sometimes Brinley understands her better than I do! I'll ask Brin, Do you know what Ellie is talking about? and Brin will respond, "Mommy, she is asking for an orange!" Grateful for a good big sister who helps me understand the baby gibberish!

Ellie is still a great eater. She sometimes has big opinions about certain things, but for the most part, she is happy to eat almost everything I make for her. Her favorite things are the squeezy apple sauces, bananas, scrambled eggs, dum dum suckers, yogurt, apple slices, broccoli, spaghetti, any dinner that has rice or noodles, raisins, and goldfish. Always goldfish.

Ellie is scary good at navigating the iPad and my iPhone. She loves her learning apps. Her favorite is the Dinosaur Builder app and the Daniel Tiger pbs app.

I'm excited to see Ellie as a big sister because she is so cute with babies. Whenever we are in church and she hears a baby crying, she will immediately get her trademark furrowed brows and say, "Baby cying. Need binky." So cute huh!? It always makes me smile when I hear or see her be so gentle and loving towards babies.

We love Ellie. She is such a sweetie. Even though we are experiencing some trying times with the "terrible two" issues, she is still so cute. She loves to cuddle. When we get her from her crib either after bedtime or naps, she loves to have at least 15 minutes of cuddle time. I don't mind it! Ryan and I love that time because she is so go-go-go all the time. Ellie (thank goodness!!!) still takes a 2-3 hour nap every afternoon. She desperately needs it. She is a great sleeper and sleeps a consistent 7pm-7am every night.

I am gearing up to start talking about potty training. I'm guessing after Christmas is a good time. I would really really like to have her good to go before #3 comes in April. Brinley took to potty training pretty quickly, but she was 2 and a half. But Ellie already loves talking about potties and panties. We shall see!

All About That Baby, 'Bout that Baby

At the end of August, Ryan and I were watching Melissa and Joey on Netflix one night and in the episode, Melissa thought she might be pregnant so she took a test. We had been trying for a few months, and I definitely had pregnancy tests on hand, so I thought, wouldn't it be funny if I took a test and tricked Ryan? So in the bathroom I went, took a test, and those 2 pink lines popped up so quickly I could hardly believe my eyes! I took another, and BAM! 2 pink lines. I was completely shocked. I started laughing. and when I say laughing, I mean, crazy laughing. (See, with Ellie we didn't have a home pregnancy test experience). I walked out of the bathroom, connected eye contact with Ryan and I said, can you come in the bathroom and check something for me? and so, there you go. We laughed and hugged and couldn't believe it!

Because of my molar pregnancy history, I was pretty paranoid from the start. I called the doctors office and begged for an ultrasound. I told them I would pay whatever out of pocket, but I needed to know that it was a viable pregnancy as soon as possible. I went in for my ultrasound when I was about 7 weeks pregnant and everything looked good! They ruled out any possibility for a molar pregnancy (apparently a heart-beat has been found before in early molars) and I felt more and more comfortable with the whole idea of being pregnant again.

But the sickness kicked in right around 7 weeks, and it hasn't stopped. The morning sickness has been pretty non-stop during the day. Only a few throwing up fits, but man alive, it is unreal. Plus, I work a few nights during the week and that has been such a challenge. I've had to fake it a lot to my coworkers and people at church. I've had complain about headaches and migraines a lot just to not have anyone suspect anything. I'm just not one to share pregnancy early on. Some are totally fine letting people know whats up, but I would rather keep it quiet.

9 weeks, little pokey belly!

We decided to wait to tell Brinley and Ellie when we were ready to tell everyone. And I'm happy we did because the next day at school, Brinley told EVERYONE and when I went to pick her up, her teachers went right up to me and said, "Soooo, Brinley told us something interesting today!" haha that girl is so excited. Who knows what Ellie is registering, but she seems excited too! 

I am now finishing my 15th week and the pregnancy is finally moving along faster than before. Those early weeks are sloooooow moving. I hope I start feeling better and get some energy back. My work outs have been completely nonexistent, which I don't really care, but I am ready to at least start walking or lifting weights without wanting to bend over and die. I always laugh at the doctors office because they're always so quick to give the "things to do" and "things to avoid" list and make you feel super guilty, and in my head I'm thinking, well, working out isn't happening. Yes, I occasionally eat sandwich meat. No, my weight gain isn't caused by preeclampsia or diabetes, I just gain a LOT of baby weight! Leave me alone! This isn't my first rodeo and I'm fine just nodding my head and eating my occasional sub sandwich :-) 

And for the kicker, Ryan and I are committed to waiting until the delivery room to find out the baby's gender. I know, I know, I know. We are sooooo annoying. I've already heard it! Our reasoning is that this could possibly be our last baby, and we've always wanted to do a surprise reveal at delivery. With Brinley, I mean come on, hard to do with your first with all the preparations. And then with Ellie, after the molar, we were all pretty paranoid and concerned (but we did do a fun surprise reveal with the family at Topsail Island). And for this baby, we are more prepared to wait it out. Why not? We already have 2 girls and plenty of girl clothes, and I have 7 nephews to help clothe the baby if it's a boy! so I'm not worried. A boy? Can you even imagine!? 

can't hide this belly any longer!

I do have to say one last thing, with every pregnancy comes its concerns and problems. That is also why I'm thinking this is our last. My anxiety of it being another molar really surprised me this time around. With Ellie, I was so closely monitored from pretty much conception that we never really had a moment to worry or panic. This first trimester was extremely hard on my emotions. I found myself so emotional leading up to that ultrasound (and pretty much the entire first trimester) and I almost had a few panic attacks. And unfortunately, this pregnancy has already caused us lots of concern. The concern thankfully has gone down within the last week, but it will carry on throughout the entire pregnancy for precaution. It is extremely hard to be excited when there is so much cause for concern. I love my babies, but pregnancy is just really hard on me. So there you go. 

but if it is another girl, I can see us contemplating having a 4th to try for a boy. We shall see! Gotta get that Briggs name passed to the next generation! 

The baby's due date is April 27th, but since it will be another c-section, they will take me at 39 weeks. I'm sad it can't be sooner because my mom's birthday is April 19th and that would be so magical for the babe to share its birthday with Grandma! 

We are extremely thrilled. Adding a third really changes the game when it comes to parenting. It's a Zone Defense now, no more man-to-man. So grateful for my rockstar husband who has been so quick to attend my needs and has given me more back tickles to help me feel better than I can count. So yay! Baby Briggs #3 is on it's way! 

Brinley's Birthday and Halloween

I hope we get the birthday/Halloween balance right one of these years. But thankfully, she is still little and doesn't notice "mama going cray cray" too much! It has been an extremely busy month for us, and we're all ready to slow it down over the holidays. We are even taking a break from gymnastics. Brinley is excelling so quickly and they desperately want her to do 2 days a week, but with the expense and time over the next two months, that just sounds insane!

OK, back to Brinley's birthday. The girls woke up and we immediately opened presents of course! And per Brinley's request, we had scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. I was going to have her skip school and play with Ellie and I, but her preschool was having their Fall festival. Days later, I'm still getting information from Brinley of what they actually did, but it sounds like there were pony rides and games and lots of fun food! Her school is just fantastic. We've been so pleased.

a make-up kit (all wood, genius!!), clothes for her American Doll, Frozen Trouble game, new puzzles, a dog purse, and some new kitchen tools

After I picked up Brinley, we had fun quiet time while Ellie napped. We decided to do an early birthday dinner at our favorite Mulligan's. We always have such a wonderful time there! And the food is always amazing.

We raced home, got the girls into their costumes, did hair, make up, the works! and met our friends to do some trick or treating! The night of course was wonderful, but those girls were just exhausted when we got home. We should have brought a stroller for Ellie, heck, we should have brought the double jogger for BOTH of them. They both needed it for sure by the end of our trick or treating. The girls got lots of yummy treats and Ryan and I had a great time too. It was a beautiful night and we just get these moments sometimes like, WE are parents now! It is a funny thing to trick or treat with your own kids. I don't know if that makes any sense, but life is just fun and different at the same time since becoming parents.

easily the coolest house we saw! It is so inviting for kids, don't you think? haha

parent-tax! Yay!

The next night, we had our Ward Halloween party and it did NOT disappoint! They always put on an amazing show and we had such a fun time. This year, I had to go around with my Primary class to trick or treat, so Ryan stayed back in our designated room to hand out candy. I'm not exactly sure why we don't do a Trunk or Treat, but it sure is fun keeping everyone together inside the building. We also had a chili cook-off and Ryan and I were able to judge! It was so fun! The chili's that won were delicious and my one regret is not getting a bigger bowl of the winners after we tasted them. Unfortunately, we both had raging heart burn after the party!

Ryan and I decided to dress up too :-)

details coming soon :-)

Pumpkin Carving

I never know when its a good time to carve pumpkins because even having them sit inside (which stays around 75 degrees), the poor things wilt and cave over night. This week is a busy one for us. I work two nights. We have a friends birthday party gathering. and then BAM it's Friday and Halloween AND Brinley's birthday. We are packing in a bunch of stuff this week and there is no time for pumpkin carving! We actually ended up skipping pumpkins all together last year because we just had too much going on! I almost thought about doing that again this year, but I am so glad we pushed through the stress and planned it for FHE because the moment we started digging out the pumpkin guts, I got my first smell of pumpkins and I was in heaven! The girls hated the smell and wouldn't touch the insides, but they had a fun time anyways. 

so many good things going on in this picture!

ellie really tried to like the experience, but she just kept saying "mama, it's fooky!" (it's spooky)

sweet Brinny girl

Brin drew on her design but daddy helped the with the mouth and then carved it out.

ry gets serious about his pumpkin carving :-)

isn't Brinley's pumpkin adorable!? It turned out so cute and I love that she designed it.

and Ryan's pumpkin! So cool, huh!?

And the finished product! Ellie refused to have her pumpkin carved so I drew a ghost face on it. And again, she kept saying "ghost pumpkin is fooky!" (ghost pumpkin is spooky). She is so funny. 

I cleaned off the pumpkin seeds after the girls went to bed and we roasted them using olive oil and Lowry's seasoning. (bake at 350, and turn every 10 minutes for a total of 30 minutes). They turned out perfectly and we can't stop eating them! I am totally in the holiday spirit now and I want to eat and smell everything fall right now. I can't stop craving apple cider, pumpkin pie, chilis, spice candles, pumpkin cookies, roasted pumpkin seeds, etc! I want it all!