all the single babies

Drew's family had a talent show when we went down to Arizona a few weeks ago. And since Drew is such an amazing dancer, we decided we needed to showcase his talent. We were going to do it live, but then Drew thought Marlee would get embarassed; so we decided to make a family dancing video collage.

I love Marlee's hips in this. It all started about 2 months ago when I turned on "Single Ladies." I started teaching Marlee some of the dance moves to it, and my parents and I started laughing. My dad started shaking his hips and told Marlee to "shake her bacon," and the rest is history. Now the proper term for shaking your hips at our house is actually "shaking your bacon."

Marlee lives in her undies, and she always has accessories on. And We filmed the majority of Marlee dancing during the time she was potty training; hence the reason for all her undie dances.

7 months

Monday was a big day for Sophie. It was the first time she has sat in a grocery cart without her car seat. It was the cutest thing to see her and Marlee sitting side-by-side. Right when I put Sophie in the cart Marlee started giggling then put her arm around her and said "my fend (friend)." It was such a precious moment. Totally melted my heart. I wish I could have gotten a picture, but of course the storage on my phone was full. 

Today Sophie decided to help herself to a strawberry. I sat her down in the Bumbo, and when I wasn't lookng, she reached over to a bowl of strawberries and totally demolished one. And now as I'm writing this, she grabbed another one and is aggressively attacking one.

Sophie can sit by herself for about a minute (maybe longer)

Supa powyas!!!

I think Marlee has worn her helmet for two days straight. I even let her wear it to the restaurant we went to Friday night, and I'm pretty sure everyone gave us weird looks. I had to hide it from her on Sunday so she wouldn't wear it to church. I hid it in her laundry basket, and she found it that night before she went to bed. So of course she wanted to put it on. She tried sleeping in it, but realized she couldn't lay her head down because the helmet was too big.

Mar mar has supa pow-yas. If you are lucky enough to possess these supa pow-yas it means you have to be completely naked besides Minnie Mouse undies and a princess helmet, and you can only wear one flip flop and one cowboy boot. There is one other catch... you have to wear this all day long. Not many people can possess these special powers. But marlee has somehow managed to go above and beyond.

When ever I tell her to smile lately she immediately does an underbite and sticks out her chin. She looks like she has issues. Ha, I can't get her to smile normally. 

Chip pity chop

This is the second time I have cut my hair, and man does it feel good. It feels so much easier with kids. No more wincing in pain every time I pick up Sophie because she has pulled a hand full of my hair out, or from Marlee repeatedly/vigorously combing her fingers through my un-brushed knotty hair to soothe herself before she falls asleep.

6 months for my Smoofy!!

Sophie is 6 months old!!! Wow I feel like she is still my little newborn. Time really goes even faster with your 2nd. Sophie is rolling (especially during diaper changes) and right when we put her down she rolls over on her belly, is eating solid foods, and is still as sweet and smiley as ever.  People always laugh when I'm walking away holding her, because she is usually looking over my shoulder with the biggest, silliest grin.

She has the most edible cheeks. I love kissing and gobbling them up. They are just the perfect amount of chunkiness. When she gets really excited, her arms start flapping and slapping her sides, or anything in their path. You can usually find her with her lips slightly open and her tongue poking out. (I have a picture of me doing the same thing as a baby.) It's so irresistable that I usually have to plant a big wet one right on her lips. She doesn't love my big slobbery kisses as a much as Marlee does for some reason.😘 She also chews on her pointer finger a lot.

Soph LOVES Mar Mar. I love the way she looks and laughs at Marlee. And I love the little friendship they are forming; it melts my heart seeing them play together. You can tell she just adores her. 

She loves her mommy of course😜( her daddy too), but Drew has the magic touch when it comes to getting Oph to fall asleep. He wraps her in his long arms, and she is out almost immediately. If I try to bounce her to sleep, she attacks my shoulder or face, and tries to gnaw it off with her toothless gums. 

I love her laugh. It is more of a deep belly cackle actually, and you can always get her to do it when you gobble her relief society arms, sides, belly, and legs. She'll also laugh when you kick her legs and sing the can can song or play peek-a-boo with her legs.

She's starting to move around on her belly and has been sitting all by herself for at least 10-15 seconds.

She is in the 20th percentile for height and weight and 65th for her head size.... So her head isn't big, it's just big for her body.😉

big changes

A whirlwind of changes have happened over these last 6 months. We've moved twice, gotten 2 new jobs, had a new baby, totalled donkey (Drew's Nissan Sentra) and joined the mini-van club, are building a house, and are potty training Marlee.

Right before Sophie was born we moved from our townhouse we were renting into a condo a couple of miles away. Right after Sophie was born, the Marketing Director position at Legacy House of Spanish Fork opened up, and Drew applied and got the job.

He had been in the job for about 2 months when the Executive Director position opened up in Bountiful. Drew called me right when he heard that the position opened, and we both got so excited. He ran home from work and sent his resume off to the HR Director as soon as he could update it.We didn't think much of it, but just thought we would give it a shot. With the help from many prayers on both our and our families parts, Drew went in for his first interview and totally rocked it. He felt so good about it. I think our mind-frame at that point was that if nothing came of it, at least he got an interview. Then Drew got the call that they had narrowed it down to 2 people, and HE WAS ONE OF THEM!!! We were totally shocked, and so grateful. Anxiety and doubt started to set in, and I couldn't wait till his 2nd interview. I think I had more anxiety and impatience the day of his 2nd interivew than Drew did. I knew it was a possibility that we could get the job, but I didn't want to get too excited just in case it didn't work out. They told him he would find out within the next day. That day felt like the longest day of my life. It was 4:00 and we were supposed to car-a-van with Pat and Amy at 5:00 or 5:30 to Disneyland, but we still hadn't heard anything. Finally Drew got a call from Cory Hafen telling him that he needed to talk to him in person and was just leaving from Taylorsville to come talk to Drew in Spanish Fork. I felt so nauseous. It seemed like good news because the other interviewee hadn't heard anytning from Cory yet and he was coming to talk to Drew first. But I didn't want to read too much into it.

Drew finally called me and told me he got the job. I couldn't believe it. It seemed way too good to be true. We had been struggling financially because Drew's base pay went down with the Marketing job, I wasn't working, and Spanish Fork Legacy was on a move-in freeze because of faulty fire sprinklers, so Drew couldn't get any money for moving people in. Our savings that we saved up for a house, etc. started declining at a fast rate because we weren't making enough to cover our basic expenses from month to month. But we had faith when I quit my job after Marlee was born that we would be blessed for making the decision for me to stay home with our kids. We didn't know how it would work out, but decided to step forward in faith because we knew it was an important thing for me to stay home.

We feel so grateful to our Heavenly Father for the many blessings he has given us, but I am excited that life has started to slow down. I was anxious for this busy period of time to be over because I didn't feel like I could spend the quality time I wanted with Marlee and Sophie. Ir felt like every minute was full of time-sensitive to do lists that seemed never-ending. This last week has felt so nice with potty-training because we have stayed home all week, and I have had lots of one-on-one time with both girls.

Marlee's loves

Here are some of the things Mar LOVES:

• scary monsters, pirates, DRAGONS, and princesses. You can often find her stomping and thundering around acting like a flying dragon, a mean scary pirate with her hooked finger, or twirling and frolicking like a pretty princess.
• Marlee loves to sing, and she loves to play the organ, and she loves to sing while playing the organ. Her voice is so painfully cute, it sounds a bit like wailing. My favorite is when she sings about her life. She loves to sing about mommy, ophie, daddy, mar mar, pa, ama, and throw random words in there like sandwich, scary monster, garbage, cheese, etc. She sings Let it go from Disney's "Frozen", and loves to let her voice shake as she sings the "go" part. She sings one song over and over, and I can't figure out if it's made up, or she got it from someone. One of the word sounds like siete (number seven in Spanish.)
• Loves to take sharp/blunt cooking utensils and try and dig my eyeballs out and pull out my hair. Ha no, that's only what it feels like. I think she's trying to be a doctor and check my eyes, ears and brush my hair. She loves to brush hair with the lime squeezer, (she tried brushing drew's hair with a pretty intense looking cheese grater yesterday), and check our eyes with a cookie scooper that has a hole in it.
• Loves to dance, and have Drew throw her up in the air like a birdie. I love how she says "fya birdie"
• Loves Mickey Mouse clubhouse. Her hairstyles are all styled after the characters. She calls a top bun/knot a "doofy hat (goofy hat), a pony tail "daisy hair, and two buns on a top of her head "Minnie ears." She loves wearing bows because I told her they are like Minnie's bows.

Funny things the bubbers says:

• I painted her fingernails about a week ago, and so some of the fingernail polish came off of her fingers. She looked down the other day in deep concern and said, "oh no! My fingernails! They blew away!"
• Sometimes when my mom and I are having a normal discussion, marlee always takes grandmas side and tells me to "be nice to grandma." 
• I can't remember what I was doing, but the other day Marlee told me i'm in big trouble and that I needed to go to timeout
• Marlee thinks she is a super hero. She punches her hand in the air and says "supa pow-ya! (super powers). Today she said she was "Supa Doofy" (super goofy) and the she said "I fy" (I fly) and spread her arms out and flew around the kitchen while her and Drew were playing soccer.
• Sometimes when I tell marlee no, she says "it'd be so fun," like she's trying to convince me to change my mind, and when I ask her if she wants something, she says "no, im fine."
• The other day I had my hair in a top knot bun, mar turned her head to look at me with a big cheeser smile and said,"I luf yo hair." (I love your hair)
• A couple nights ago while we were watching the LDS bible video where Christ walks on water and reaches out to save Peter when he lacks faith. Marlee immediately reached out and grabbed my arm and told me "I save you."
• I have caught mar multiple times sticking her finger in her mouth, swirling around in Her mouth and then she sticks it in Sophies mouth and says "chy (try)."
• Marlee pointed her finger at the man that said the opening prayer in general conference and said, "look he's like a pirate. Arrghhh"
• Marlee told me "daddy's a funny die (guy)"
• She grabbed Sophie's hand the other day and said,"good Ta meet ya."
• We went swimming for my birthday and she asked me, "mommy, are you a mermaid?" Then she giggled
• Whenever drew comes home she yells,"my daddy!" Then runs and jumps into his arms.
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Tbc