Plans

Sometimes you plan for things in life and everything turns out pretty great.

Sometimes you don't plan for things and everything still turns our pretty okay.

And sometimes you plan for things and Heavenly Father says, "Nope. Sorry. I like my plan better."

And you end up with things like this:

In case it's not crystal clear, that's a baby. And it's not Sydney.

At the beginning of this year, I planned to lose 150 pounds. I planned on fitting into pre-pregnancy clothes. I planned to go to the beach this summer in a normal bathing suit. I planned to run some sort of race with my sister. I planned to start tanning again [don't judge me]. I planned on playing more sports. I planned on doing some awesome activities for Jericho's and my 30th birthday celebrations, to include paintballing, bouncy castles, and zip lines. I planned to backpack through Europe. I planned to go on a cross country roller coaster tour. [Maybe those last two weren't actual plans.]

But instead this year, I will be planning for baby #2, due September 17, 2012. A mere 14 months after baby #1.

So here we go. We are super excited. A little overwhelmed. But still excited. I asked Sydney if she was ready to be a big sister and she seemed pretty cool with it. I'm 11 weeks along and so far, it's been a bit of a bumpy ride. My pregnancy with Sydney was way easy. This one so far has been a little harder. Not much, but enough that I want to whine and complain a lot and have someone scratch my back and make me food that doesn't make me nauseous. And since I'm still playing the single mom thing, I whine and complain to Sydney which doesn't provide as effective results. She usually just looks up at me [since I tend to make weirdo noises when I cry. I am not a graceful crier] and smiles or blows raspberries. She still takes it pretty easy on me and that's enough.

I am currently in great awe of mothers who are pregnant while caring for multiple children. All I want to do is sleep and eat toast and ice cream but my agenda alone no longer matters. The beauty of it is that it helps keep my mind off the tough stuff. I get to play with my happy baby all day and marvel at how on earth I can have another child as cool as this one. Which I will, no doubt.

I'll be honest, I'm a little hesitant to tell people about this pregnancy, like it conveys a certain amount of irresponsibility. Who has babies 14 months apart!? Ya know who? Teen moms that haven't figured out birth control. [But at least my babies will have the same father...] And I feel like people are holding back jokes. Come on. Be inappropriate. I can take it. I need the laughs.

It'll be so cliche when Jericho comes home [date TBD]. I'll be hugging my military husband at the airport with one baby on my hip and a giant tummy evidence of the one on the way. Perhaps the new baby's initials should be R & R.

And just for fun, here is the video I sent to the family to announce the pregnancy.

Cinco (y Seis) de Sydney

Sydney turned five months while Jericho was here. This picture was maybe taken roughly around the five-month mark. She's clearly just as flummoxed as I am.

Now, my baby is six months old. Crazazee!

[she's getting harder to capture in chill-mode]

The following is info you may choose to read or not read. I understand that my child is not nearly as fascinating to you as she is to me. [Although she should be dangit.]

Favorite toys: hoodie drawstrings, mama's face, tags, her own socks, people's hands, her pacifier, a little orange monkey we named "monkey"
Favorite song: Intro to Bones or anything Beach Boys [I sort of make some of this stuff up]
Favorite activities: spitting, licking anything close to her face, squealing [and LOUDLY], yammering on and on about who knows what, making out with the inside of her carseat, picking her legs up and slamming them down on the couch/bed/crib [I can hear it downstairs when she's going to sleep]
New tricks: can kind of sit up on her own, is eating solid foods like a champ, takes our her pacifier and puts it back the right way and proclaims "Tada!"
Things that make her laugh: blowing raspberries on her tummy, tickling under her arms or her thighs, various other noises that mom does that will not be explained here b/c they are slightly embarrassing
Mom's new favorite thing: Sydney wakes up in the morning by squealing and blowing serious raspberries. Even if she's slightly fussing, the moment I walk over to her crib and say "hi" she breaks into wiggles and smiles. I'm encouraging Jericho to develop the same response.
Other continued favorite thing: she sleeps 11-12 hours straight every night. I continue to prance around in festive jubilation every morning.
Mom's least favorite new thing: Her preferred way to fall asleep is laying down instead of cradled by her mama. Sniff.
Other least favorite thing: she grunts/growls. Sometimes with enough gusto and volume that when out in public, people are surprised to see this strange noise is coming from a pretty little six-month-old girl and not a rabid beast that wandered into the local Target. 

And a few pictures so that Jericho doesn't think the thousands of pictures of our baby on the computer aren't for naught.

The first person in our family to cover herself and the floor AND the wall with sweet potatoes was in fact, NOT Sydney. [Also, my baby has a slightly wonky ear, her right one. You can see it in this photo. We thought she'd grow out of it but appears she isn't. I now dub it her Yoda ear.]

Can she be this chill all the time? Pretty please?

What We Were Up To

I sorta checked out from the Blogging/Internet world for the past couple of weeks. Why? Well. My husband was in town for two weeks. And it was glorious. We spent Christmas with both of our families at our house, blessed the baby on New Year's Day, dined with family and friends, had a date night, treated Jericho to much missed food luxuries from the States, and overall had the best lazy-days stay-cation ever. Jericho said this break was all about Sydney, which is what my life is all the time anyway, so it wasn't very tough to accommodate.

Forgive me, but I'm about to bust out some serious picture-ness. 

On the same scarf-buying Christmas present wavelength

I can't even tell you how precious it was to see her playing with Jericho. I have about five thousand pictures of just the two of them.

Helping daddy with taxes.

The girl loves her some TV. I think this one is while watching Top Gear. She likes the sounds the cars make. [So we say]

And some forced pretty ones...

#463

I think I have a problem

I really couldn't stop...

I used a borrowed camera for this and some others. I'm considering "forgetting" to give it back.

That hat may be the best $5 I ever spent. [H&M for those curious]

Christmas Movies

Oh how I love to watch Christmas movies. But I feel like I've been watching the same ones year after year. First, I would like to share with you some of my favorite parts of some of my favorite Christmas movies. Then, I would like to ask for suggestions on new Christmas movies. Or you can send them to me as presents. Whatever.
[Sorry some of the clips don't work on here but they do if you follow the link to Youtube.]



I want one of my family traditions to be having a dance party to this song every Christmas Eve.



And my other favorite part of Love Actually.



"I'M IN LOVE! I'M IN LOVE! AND I DON'T CARE WHO KNOWS IT!"


I love so many scenes in this movie. This isn't my favorite but those Youtube clips didn't have any audio.
Where's the Tylenol!?!?! 



This one is long. But the reason why the ending to this movie is one of my favorites is because I didn't see it for like 10 years of watching the movie. Our family tradition is to watch this movie on Christmas Eve, no matter what, so for years, I'd always fall asleep before we got to the end. Then one year, I finally saw it and the movie made SO much more sense.


Two favorite things about this movie: Kate Winslet. The music. How cool would it be to have Kate Winslet and Hans Zimmer teaming to give the background narration of your life?

Cruel Creches

When I said I was going to make a bunch of posts dedicated to Christmas, I bet you all thought I was going to share poems and heartwarming stories or something. After my last post, this is clearly not so. I don't even know if yall are enjoying this but I'm going to keep going until I find something to make someone smile as much as these make me smile.

Next on our list of Kelley's odd Christmas humor posts we have:

Awesomely Bad Nativity Scenes 

...and they presented gifts of gold, Frankenstein, myrrh and a lively Irish jig.

Why do people insist on using animals? Google it. There is a disturbing amount. I could have done a post just of animal nativities.

You lose points if you hit the baby Jesus.

My mom has one of these characters as an ornament on the tree and it has a little red heart that says "I burn for you." Ha! Get it!?

Talk about confusing your Christmas stories.

Never never never never have inflatables in the yard. Nativity inflatable? Soooo bad.

Not sure why this one's weird? Look again.

I actually love Veggie Tales. Probably not the best idea for a nativity scene but it's still kinda cute.

Don't know what this one is but $10 says it was made in Japan.

Shotgun shells. They probably sell this at my Wal-Mart.

I don't even know where to start....

There are about a thousand dog-themed nativity scenes out there. Maybe if I was a dog person I'd find them cute but I'm not so I don't.

Dragons! They're frikkin dragons!

Is that Joseph? Or Huckleberry Finn?

Look closely. They're wax museum statues. Joseph and Mary? David and Posh Spice Beckam.

If you can't afford a dog or dragon nativity, just use the random pork meats you have hanging out in the fridge. Good thing Jews don't celebrate Christmas.