27

Twenty-seven was a transition year for me. I can't point to any other specific birthdays in my life where I felt a definite change, but I woke up on my twenty-seventh birthday this year, had the thought "wow, I have two kids and a mortgage" and suddenly I felt old. It's pretty hard to stay down when you've got two beautiful girls and a father-in-law who will get you a Snuggie for your birthday though.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving at Chris' sister's house. We had moved into our new house days earlier so we didn't contribute much to dinner, but were just happy to be upright and functioning. It was a happy and loud occasion, as most are with our family. We ate, played games, and just generally enjoyed each other's company. The highlight of the day for me was Elodie learning to roll over. I am sure everyone else was just as enthralled by it as I was.

How did this girl get so big. I feel like at any minute, she's going to be off with her fiends at the mall or something.

Name and Blessing

Elodie got a name and a blessing the Sunday after we moved. Two days later. I am not sure what I was thinking except that I didn't want to do it on Fast Sunday with the three other babies born in our ward right after her, and January seemed too far away. So I decided to have her blessed right before Thanksgiving and hoped and prayed her blessing dress wouldn't get lost in the move.

It was a beautiful blessing and made me so grateful all over again for my wonderful husband. I love being able to witness him using his priesthood and feel the love he has for our little girls. As much as I know he would love a boy, these girls have him wrapped around their little fingers.

House

Chris has been itching to buy a house from the minute he got the word that he would no longer be travelling, but would be working from home. He insisted that we get a king size bed and then a bigger house. I am sensing that perhaps he wants some distance from me...

I went for the bigger bed but was pretty reluctant about the house idea. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I have no great love for where we live. Simply put, I like sunshine. I don't like cold, wet things. The thought of buying a house terrified me mostly because I don't want to end up living here for the rest of my life. Don't get me wrong, I have met wonderful people here and I (usually) love being so close to family, but my body just craves vitamin D and warm sandy beaches. Doesn't every body?

So I held Chris off for a while and convinced myself that our two bedroom, one bathroom rental was plenty big for us, our baby on the way, and Chris's new need for a home office. Who needs an office, when you've got a dank unfinished basement. Am I right?

All of a sudden Elodie was born, Britta was potty training and I felt like the walls were closing in on us. Not to mention my parents were selling their house and moving in with us --and our ONE bathroom--in a few weeks. So, I caved. I reassured myself that people buy houses all the time and sell them just a few years later. I made Chris swear an oath in blood that we were going to move somewhere warm someday and I took a giant leap of faith.

We called our trusty realtor (my sister in law) and had her show us everything in our price range in the space of two weeks. We fully expected not to find anything until Spring, but found our house within the first few days of looking. There are a few funny things about this experience. First, this house was not one we were even interested in from the pictures online, but Haley convinced us to go look at it. Second, this house has a laundry list of projects I want/need to tackle and is not my dream home by any means but as soon as we saw it both Chris and I  felt really at peace that this was our home. The whole process was incredibly smooth and we moved in the week before Thanksgiving. I am itching to get things done but we have so much company coming for the Holidays that we have decided to hold off until the New Year. I have almost nothing decorated since we are changing flooring, painting, and have yet to buy new living room furniture.

We are excited and feel so blessed that we are able to own our own home. I'll post pictures as we complete projects. In the meantime, here are some pictures of features I LOVE about our house--my bathroom, our view, our backyard...

Halloween

Sometimes when you can't sleep you just have to wrap up in your Hello Kitty Snuggie and blog your little heart out. Let's catch up on the last three months, shall we?

This was the first Halloween since we've had kids that Chris has been home for the actual holiday. Things are so much better when we are all together. I love having him around to share in Britta's excitement over the magic of holidays now that she is beginning to be old enough to understand what is going on. I got lucky (read: cheap) with costumes again this year. Last year Britta sported a two dollar chicken costume from our local thrift store. This year, Elodie's costume was the thrift store gem and Britta wore a hand me down from her cousin. My Halloween total came out to exactly one dollar.

We coached Britta that if she said three magic little words "trick or treat" then people would just give her candy. When Halloween arrived she was so excited about it that she wanted to wear her costume as soon as she woke up from her nap; which was awesome until we were five minutes away from leaving to trick or treat and she was totally over the costume. I had to convince her that it was the only way she would get candy. It reminded me of the Jerry Seinfeld bit--"you mean, everyone we know is just giving out candy?! I can wear that." She got the script down pretty well and was well rewarded for it. We are still working our way through her loot.

Elodie was so adorable that I couldn't decide on just one outfit for her, She started her day out as a pumpkin, wore her teddy bear suit while we were out trick or treating, and was a pea pod for our ward Halloween party. I had her strapped to me while we were out trick or treating and one lady stopped me to ask if i was carrying a real baby or if that was my costume. She's that cute.

Utah

My parents moved to Utah after my freshman year at BYU. I remember being devastated that Californai would no loner be my home. I am a Californian at heart—anytime its below 50 degrees I die a little inside.  After so many years in Utah, however, I grew to really love that place. After I left , of course I wished my parents lived closer to us, but I secretly loved that they were still in Utah and I could back and visit all the people and places (Café Rio...cough…cough) as often as I wanted.  Sadly, and happily, my parents sold their house in Utah in October.

I knew I had to go out for one last visit before they left and since I was like 37 weeks pregnant when they got the offer on their house, I decided to wait until after Elle was born. So when she was three weeks old and I was basically a walking zombie I decided to brave my first flight with two kids. I strapped Elodie to my chest and she happily slept the whole flight. That child is a godsend. Britta was also uncharacteristically good. As she told me on the plane, "Mom, binkies are for night-nights AND planes." That girl can play me like a fiddle.

It was so nice to be home and see my parents and brother and we also had a blast visiting friends. We went to the Utah State Fair where Britta went down one of those huge slides with her uncle Tommy--I have never seen sheer terror like that before. Months later she will still not go anywhere near a slide.

We had girl’s nights and lots of dinner dates. My post-partum weight loss took a serious hit during this vacation, and has yet to recover. We had shopping days and lazy days, and enjoyed the last warm days of summer.  We took full advantage of my parent's garden and even squeezed a homemade, fresh picked raspberry pie out of the deal. And I took exactly two pictures of the whole ten day trip. 

I was welcomed home to freezing rain which was less than awesome. But it was great to see our main squeeze again.

MVI 6334 from Erika Herman on Vimeo.

Two Months

Now that my first "baby" is not much of a baby any longer, I relish the ridiculous volume of pictures, videos, and blog posts revolving around Britta's babyhood. For this reason I am trying with all my might to keep up with it this time around with Elodie as well. As trite as it sounds, it really does fly by way too fast. On one hand I wish I could freeze time and keep Elodie tiny forever, while on the other hand I woudln't mind fast forwarding through these very trying toddler years with Britta. I guess you can't have it all, right?

Elodie is such a good baby. I remember thinking Britta was a super easy baby, and then I had Elodie. I hope this is the pattern for all for my children--I might have a dozen if they get progressively easier. Elodie is super easy-going. She loves her binkie, but is spending more time without it as she is more aware of her surroundings and spends time looking around and taking in all of the craziness that is her big sister. She loves to lay on her playmat and look up at her toys and every now and then surprises herself by grabbing onto one of them. She eats small amounts in pretty frequent intervals (every two to two and a half hours) during the day but sleeps about a eight or nine hour stretch at night. In the past few weeks, I feel like she has grown a ton and when I get her undressed for a bath or to change her clothes I just spend some time nibbling her chunky little thighs. At her two month appointment, she weighed 10 lbs 15 oz, putting her in the 50th percentile for weight. Her head was in the 25th percentile--a large departure from Britta's which was always off the charts big. And her length was in the 75th percentile.

We love all of the little smiles and coos. She doesn't seem to talk as much as Britta, and I already feel guilty sometimes because she is so laid back that I feel like she gets neglected. The very best thing about this baby is that she only poops like once a week. And she has had exactly two blowouts in her entire life. I was happy if Britta only had two blowouts a day. The trade off to this poop schedule is that she has terribly stinky toots. Like grown man style. But she's all sugar and spice on the outside, so we let it slide.

Oh, and yes, her hair is as awesome as ever. See for yourself.

Newborns

I had the wonderful Kristin Rosenbusch capture some newborns of Miss Elodie when she was a wee eight days old. Kristin saved my behind when my original photographer bailed and I thought I was not going to get any pictures done of the sweet newborn stage. I called around and she set up a session the very next day--did I mention she was seven months pregnant with her third and her husband was days away from leaving for a deployment? A saint, this woman. She was even kind enough to get some pictures of Britta--which I love! Just days later, Britta had a nasty run in with some scissors and is sporting some unfortunate Farrah Fawcett bangs as a result. I am so glad we got these pictures before that tragic event.