Mother's Day

Aaron made a video for me for Mother's Day. It was of Emma singing "A Child's Prayer." It was adorable. So far we haven't figured out how to post video from our Cannon camera. This present is about as close as a human can get to turning water to wine seeing as we don't really have video editing software. Aaron earned his father status a million times over because he was up late two nights in a row making a video and then took care of the cooking and kids today. He wins an award for making a wonderful Mother's Day.

On another note I have been thinking about Motherhood. I have two sick kiddos right now. Last night was particularly rough with John. I would try and feed him and calm him down and he just cried and fussed. I finally got him to bed and he would wake up and scream every 20 minutes. After doing that for a while he woke up every 3 hours to eat. So I have been pondering about what it means to have someone (and most likely there are multiple people in our lives) that cuddle us and calm us down every 20 minutes when we are crying so to speak. I think that really Mother's Day is a celebration of those people in our lives that are happy to sacrifice their personal comfort to help us. I think that the role of mother lends itself (and father as well) to that description but it has given me pause to think about all of the people in my life that have done that for me. Certainly being a mom has made me think about all of the things that my mom has done for me throughout my life that I don't even remember and she doesn't remind me of. Like keeping her up in the night when I was sick.

Three Months

So John is 3 months old and I thought I should write something about his personality. John is the worlds smiliest baby. He will smile at you if you smile at him. I can tell how far he can see because if I am smiling at him, and he isn't smiling, then I know he can't see that far. He makes the world's cutest baby noises - the kind just like in the movies. It is easier to get John to sleep than Emma. You put him in his bed and swaddle him, stick a pacifier in his mouth and he is out. He is a social baby. He gets cranky if he is left by himself. He is instantly happy if he sees a face. Emma was happy to look at whatever was around her. I could leave the room and she wouldn't care. John hates being on his stomach. He is just beginning to look to the sides to see what is going on around him. Overall he is a very laid back baby as long as there aren't loud noises and there are people around him.

Emma has decided she likes John. She loves taking care of John. What that means is that she shoves his pacifier down his throat in an attempt to calm him down. John is a good sport about it and will be a tougher kid for having had to survive the love of his sister.

Father-Son Campout and Mother-Daughter Date

Aaron asked if he could take John on a the Stake Father-Son Camp out. I am very supportive of such an idea. That means 50% less work for me on an evening. And how cool is it that Aaron wanted to spend an evening with his son. This also meant that Emma and I could go on a mother-daughter date. So Aaron took John to his first camp out. Apparently it went well until Aaron tried to feed him a bottle, it didn't go so well and there was some screaming.... I think it was from only one party, but I can neither confirm nor deny it.

Emma and I had a better time getting ice cream. I went to get Emma out of the back seat of the car and found her looking like this:

She didn't want to leave the sunglasses in the car so she walked confidently into the ice cream shop with both pairs of sunglasses on her face and shoes on the wrong feet, a flowered shirt and a plaid headband. on her head. I let her choose her ice cream and she choose cake and chocolate ice cream with chocolate  and rainbow sprinkles and chocolate covered raisins on it. I choose cheesecake and strawberry and kiwi sorbet with berries on top. Emma looked at mine and hers and said she wanted mine. Since I can't eat a lot of chocolate right now (doesn't agree with John) I couldn't really switch with her. Fortunately Emma was willing to eat what she chose.

Surprisingly Emma didn't eat all of her ice cream. So when I told some people that I took Emma out for ice cream they were surprised that I would do such a thing. The irony of the matter is that apparently totally unbeknownst to me, it was a soy based frozen yogurt shop - called Tutti Fruitti. Essentially it was tofu masquerading as ice cream. Most people are grossed out when I tell them but it was good ice cream and if it weren't then they wouldn't be in business. Just sayin'.

Aaron came home from the camp out that night (it was planned that way). Aaron never intended to spend the night with John - nursing would have been a bit awkward. We put John to bed and called it a night after Aaron said he had been mentally assaulted by John. Three month olds pack a punch some times.

All By Herself

I woke Emma up from naps to find this:

Right after I got her up Aaron called me to tell me that the car was finished at the shop (a lady had rear ended me) and could I pick it up before it closed. Hmmm.... there was no time to fix such a do. So in walks Emma with a rats nest for hair, shorts, a shirt and rain boots on the wrong feet. Everything about her screamed "I am 2 years old!" After we got home, it took Aaron and I working together 30 minutes to comb it out to this:

And you might ask what was I doing during naps while all of this was going on. I tell you what I was doing - very important stuff. This:

For comparison sake, this is Emma at about the same age:

Blessing John Richard Russell

We had family come in town for John's blessing. It was an adventure. The Anderson side came in for pre-blessing weekend festivities and the Russells stayed for post weekend festivities. Grandpa Rich took Emma to the mall for a walk on Thursday. We got a phone call from him where he asked if two wrongs make a right. This meant there was a story behind that question. He related how he let Emma play on the playground at the mall. My Dad knows that I view that thing as full of germs. And I can get over it and let Emma play there but with John being so young, I don't want to bring anything I didn't pay for. My Dad tried to guarantee that nothing came home with them by using hand sanitizer at the entrance of the playground, but there wasn't any. Appropriately placed near the playground is a cookie cart. My Dad offered to buy a cookie from them if they let him use their hand sanitizer. The price of clean hands - a $2 snicker doodle. Then I recommended to my dad that he take her to the bathroom soon. Emma didn't want to use the potty so my dad bribed her with a carousel ride. Next he took her to see the puppies at the pet store. We got a text from my dad saying that they found a puppy to bring home. Fortunately those puppies were $300-500 so there wasn't much of a threat behind my dad's words.

 The next day my dad took Emma to the library and then he promised her that he would take her to a French restaurant where she likes the croissants with ham and cheese. These are not just any croissant sandwiches. These have mayonnaise, ham, cheese, and are just dripping with butter. Oddly enough Emma likes them. The problem was, that the restaurant was closed. He tried two more french restaurants and they were closed. By this time they were in a different county and several miles away from where they started. Emma was starting to ask when lunch was. You know she is hungry when she asks about food. She never wants to stop and eat. Finally they found a Mexican restaurant. Emma painted with her bean quesadilla.

My dad also took Emma to the hotel to check in. When they got there my dad asked Emma if she wanted a cookie. I should preface this with the fact that she had just woken up from a nap and had not quite come to. She turned down the cookie. Then they went to the room. Emma had a great time wheeling my dad's roller bag around in the closet. When he related the story to me I made a comment about, "Why not! That is about as fun as it gets." My dad's response was classic, "I bet some of the things that I do appear to be that random to God." It caused me to ponder on my own roller bag wheelies in the closet.

On Saturday we went to the Butterfly museum exhibit. We had a great time.

After we went out for lunch at Aladdins (it is Mediterranean food). It was yummy. At the restaurant Emma wanted to pour water back and forth between glasses. Grandpa Keith being wise, attempted to help Emma  so that she didn't spill. Emma was not ok with that. She held Keith's hand and poured with her other hand so that Keith couldn't interrupt her fun.

That night we visited and the Anderson girls painted their pigs (Anderson for toes). Emma had noticed that Grandmas' and Aunts' had their toes painted and inquired about it. She wanted her toes painted so we decided to paint our toes. Aunt Mary is the best at coloring within the lines so she did the honors for Emma.

For the blessing day, it was wonderful. I was sad to see family go. It was nice to have more adult hands than children hands. Our friends Stef and CallisterSchmutz-Parente and Joy and Dan Dernick came to the blessing.

John with both Grandpa that he is named after. You can't see it too well but his shirt says "Grandpa's little buddy." It was compliments of Aunt Mary.

For Post weekend festivities we had time with Grandma Marsha and Grandpa Keith. They went to the park with Emma and we enjoyed hanging out with them and playing game and having extra hands. Grandma Marsha has an iPad with a video of her ballet company doing a dance that she choreographed. Emma loved to watch that video. After Grandma Marsha left Emma would walk me through the dance routine. She didn't understand why I couldn't do the splits as well as the "Ladies Dancing" (that is what Emma calls the video). At one point Emma was having her stuffed dog named Puppy "eat" Grandpa Keith. Grandpa Keith decided to join in on the fun and attempted to tickle Emma. Emma looked at him and said, "I know you want to play now but it is time for Puppy to eat you." Grandpa Keith considered himself told and shaped up - no more playing!

Likes

Today Emma told me she "only likes bows and termites." Hopefully that list expands and perhaps leaves off the termites.

2 Months

Better late than never... This kid is a big one. Here are 2 month pictures of John and Emma. Sometimes I would wonder of Emma was switched at birth.... crazy I know, but she is so not anything like me that I thought surely, there would be something in her from me, or at least look like me... Well, comparing John's 2 month pictures with Emma's confirm that neither one was switched at birth and the Russell's have the dominant gene pool. It is actually best this way - everybody wins.

 John is the baby in red. The others are Emma. At 2 months, John weighs in at 13 lbs 5 oz and is just shy 24 inches. Most of his length is in his torso so he is in 6 month clothing.