balance.

so, i didn't make it. nearly, but not quite enough.

the idea of a 365-day challenge was immense - i knew that going into it - but i really wanted to, well, challenge myself. mostly, i posted images from two to three weeks past at a time; rarely, was i able to post weekly. but, i was shooting, and i believe that was the point.



i do miss it. gave me {even more of} a reason to pick up my camera and snap away. these days though, i have people calling, requesting that i pick up my camera - which, is INCREDIBLE, but it doesn't leave much time for me-stuff. i miss that.

2014 was an eye-opener for business-related-stuff. i'm thankful and have enjoyed all the families and new friends i met along the way. i hope 2015 has more of that goodness!

but with all good and great things, there needs to be balance. so this puppy, this blog, got pushed to that ol' back burner, neglected, and that makes me rather sad. i miss writing. i miss the wee-late hours, one leg tucked beneath, other knee up to my chest, hunched over the keys, earbuds just barely turned up... balance. it's a must.

here are some highlights from the end of the year.

october

 jason mraz + raining jane at benaroya

 november in our backyard

 december ON reflections lake

going forward, here's to once a month blogs...

3 years and 8.5 months of pure cuteness

these are some of my favorite pictures; candid jb and dilly. jack usually does the most spontaneous gestures. i love when he smooches her on the head or gives her a boop! on the nose. and now that dylan is mobile, she's eager to share her slobbery slime. she's one of those babies that has to taste everything in finger's reach, leaving behind her trademark dribble. jack has come to expect this as the months have gone by, and he's quick to grab a tissue to clean her up. (but not before announcing "no, didi! shobberly!" i have only myself to blame for his neatness...)

it's really no act, seeing these two together. jack loves his little sister. there is the occasional swipe of a toy or mine! but his actions are almost always heartfelt. he is quick to tell her it's ok, didi when she is upset or rush to pick up a dropped toy from her high chair. he is forever blowing on her belly, sending her into fits of giggles. seeing my two loves together brings me immense joy. i can't express it enough.

like i said before, dylan is on the move. she does a combination of full-out crawling and army-style. she can still get around faster by pulling the carpet and pushing off with her monkey feet. like jack, she gets a determined face: where her lips pucker and the scowl forms on her forehead (also my fault). it's usually when she spots a toy she's not regularly given. (see: die-cast cars and/or trucks)

the top teeth are en route! i spotted the "white gums" earlier this afternoon, and you know they're close when they look like that. and of course, the drool is a good indication. she hasn't seemed as fussy with these just yet, but her bottom two gave her hell.

can you believe she's approaching nine months? nine months. we're gonna be cleaning birthday cake out of her hair before we know it!

jb is a total goofball. he surprised me earlier this week by trying on my jeans while i was in the other room. we have been working on putting on our own undies, sweatpants, etc. so he obviously was looking to practice some more. we are also close on the potty training business. we've been venturing out in big boy pants, and so far - no accidents! we make it a routine to go before we leave the house, then i ask him at the store or he holds it until we get home. his teachers at school are very supportive as well, so on thursday, we are going big boy pants. he loves his undies; he tells me he's proud when he wears them. however, he's still wet when he wakes from his 2.5 hour naps, so i can't go cold turkey on the pull-ups just yet. i feel he's ready to make this next step, and i've listened to him this entire process.

he is such a sweet boy. for all the negative times we've gone through together, he's now rewarding me with such charming behavior. my favorite jackie phrase of the moment: yes, mama, please. those countless hours of communicating manners are finally showing through. before he would just announce that i fawted, now he says scuse me, mama, please when i don't even know why he's excusing himself. he says scuse me as he's driving trucks over his sister's back, over my feet in the kitchen and his animals if they're laying about on the floor. quite the polite little dude.

wrinkle face! roar!

new business?

i'm not sure if this is an ok thing to say or not, but perhaps ben and i should go into the baby making business full time because these two babes are adorable! or maybe it's just because they're mine that i think that... whatever the case, here they are, loving on each other. if you happen to notice the three different outfits dylan is wearing, it's because she is a regular drool monster; 3 outfits in as many hours. jack was being extra sweet and extra attentive to dilly so i had to capture this rare moment. although, the older she gets, the more "involved" he wants to be. he mimics the way ben and i talk to her, using his own version of a baby voice when talking to her. "hiiiiiiii, didi!" it's too much.













and i made sure to save THE best for last...




did you ever see the friends where ross gets baby emma to laugh by singing the 90s classic baby got back? well, i got dylan to laugh by singing something equally inappropriate: tequila. i have to believe it was the combination of the do-do's and the de-de's that made her giggle. and then of course, i kept singing it over and over because how great are baby giggles?!

at dylan's 4 month check up, she weighed in at 15.12 pounds and measured 25 inches tall. she's a grower! (and a mover and shaker!) she now rolls over almost as soon as she's placed on her back. she blows raspberries incessantly, and loves to hold onto both feet. love that!

consignment

it's funny how much we change as we get older. through the latter part of high school and the early part of my twenties, i was an avid nordstrom shopper. like, to the point where they would call me at home to alert me of sales and early shopping (before the store opened) for their biggest spenders. this is not something i am proud of, and i'm happy to share that i now rarely (once or twice a year) shop at nordy's. i used to walk through the kid's department and think that one day i would be shopping there for my own kids at some point - how wrong i was!

i have discovered the wonderful world of consignment. there is a store in wasilla called tummies and tots and like most consignment stores, you can bring in your used clothing, equipment and even maternity wears and either get store credit or cash. this is a place i frequent every few weeks, and i never leave empty-handed. most of the clothing is $1.25-4.00. i seem to always have credit based on cleaning out the kiddos closet every few months. and i tell you what, there are few things that make me as happy as bringing in the old and getting (semi) new!

jack is getting old enough now that the selection of his size isn't the greatest; those boys just play too hard at this age for the clothes to withstand the test of the playground, dirty dirt and sandy sand! dylan on the otherhand... goodness, the clothes i get for her are practically new! i've noticed old navy's clothes are super cute, you can't go wrong with carter's and naturally, gymboree is always a hit. i usually walk out of there with 8-10 combinations of tops, pants or dresses, and i never owe a dime. love it.

the only downside is you have to search, you have to scour, and you have to visit frequently. often times, i'm searching through the same outfits that i've seen for months now. but in between the faded and pilled sweaters, there are gems. my latest hunt included a pair of white capris from gymboree with multicolored butterflies stitched on the legs, 3 dresses from old navy - which will be perfect for hawai'i - and a couple fuzzy carter's sleepers.

you may try finding your local consignment - you never know what is waiting for you!

comparison

this happens on a daily basis. of course. usually what dilly's actions are now compared to where jack was. but as far as the pictures, well, they are almost one in the same...






i just can't believe how similar they are!

it's only fair; let's keep things even

jack got his update, so here's dilly's...

on monday, she turned 3 months old. i'm now remembering how quickly the baby stages fly by! (unlike this current toddler stage...) dylan still has her red hair which i only state because that seems to be everyone's first question :) she is getting cuter and chubbier by the day, i swear. some mornings, i go into her room and bam! she's bigger! she has dimples in her elbows and rolls around her wrists. she has a glorious double chin (maybe triple) and really dimply thighs. she is sooo delicious! ben was devouring a cheek just moments ago. she has beautifully long, brown eyelashes and blonde eyebrows. she's constantly blowing bubbles and this really gets jack concerned. she loves her voice, cooing and squealing and sucking in air. she's graced us with teeny giggles here and there. can never get enough of that!

as cute as dylan is, she's equally disgusting. when she has her routine #2, it is shockingly loud. many times, i've gasped at how noisy she can be. she typically has three burps after a feeding and those too are disgustingly loud. and she always spits up at feedings. or there after. it's funny how i'm constantly comparing these two babes. jack spit up once when he was three weeks old. he was rarely farty and how unfortunate that our daughter is the "nasty little toad" as ben keeps calling her. it is quite shocking, but i'm obviously used to it by now.

her bestest friends (besides my you-know-whats) are her hands. some babies prefer pacifiers, my kiddos have thoroughly enjoyed the backs of their hands and their pointer fingers. she doesn't quite have a blister going just yet merely a little red mark. (jack had the same thing.) her hands are constantly slimy, stinky and cold from always sucking on them. which brings me to...

she is the hottest baby ever! but not in that way... no, you cannot dress this girl in footie jammies or socks or shoes or pants! most of the time, she's in onesies or dresses because otherwise she turns into a sweat ball. she's definitely her dada's girl. (ben, the guy who breaks into a sweat changing a light bulb!) i know it may be disturbing to see her barefoot, but please trust me that she's fine! i've learned my lesson plenty of times, leaving the house with her bundled up because of a slight breeze, only to have to pull the truck over and take off above mentioned items. in this case, this mama knows best.

i recently got out jackie's old play mat for dylan. you know, one of those mats that they lay on and there's toys dangling above them? she seems to enjoy her time. she also LOVES the fans throughout our house, usually falling asleep watching the blades turn. she likes to face outward when being held by others, but likes to be chest to chest with me. she also likes to be held so she can stand up. this was another of jack's favorite positions. oh, her biggest downfall - she hates hates hates the truck. it is the rare time she doesn't scream bloody murder until our destination. (and by this point, she's usually completely sweaty and if she screams long enough, she spits up on herself. poor girl.) but obviously all her positives outweigh the single negative.

most recent photos of my girl












while my mother was here, we completed the letters for dylan's room. so cute!

toddlers keep you on your toes.

it's been a while since i've done a run-down of all the new jackisms. and there are many! mr. miebs has always held his own on personality, but even more so these days. #1 in jack's life are his blankies. he has three blue blankies that are all the same texture and from early on, he would ever so gently rub the material against his lips. initially moving his lips against them to now moving the blanket itself. he NEEDS only this one specific blankie but preferably all three to go to bed, or rather, in his sight. i likely pick up blankies a hundred times a day. moving them to the sofa, to his bedroom, off the floor, out of the kitchen, just out of my way really and yet, they always seem to make their way back into the traffic pattern. he likes to run and fall onto them, roll around the floor, drape over his shoulders like a cape (calling it "tape"), he even likes to drag them all behind him like linus or ball them all up in his arms with his face smashed into their familiar, fragrant smell. you could say he's smitten. and forget about washing them. i usually have to sneak one away at a time. or grab them all while he's distracted with ben, away from the house 'cause if he sees them in the wash, oh goodness, he freaks out.

speaking of freak out... jack is a bit of a perfectionist. and i do take all the blame. i don't feel like i'm that bad, but maybe it gets worse by each generation. jack REALLY does not like things out of place. if there is trash sticking out of the garbage, it's "uh oh, uh oh..." and on and on until it can be tucked back down in there. toys on his shelf, maybe a truck is facing the wrong way, same thing. the dining rug is bunched up from one of the chairs; a child lock not latched tightly; the vacuum cord wrapped loosely around the handle; the list just goes on and on. and these are all things he has gotten worked up about until they are fixed. the latest one grandma diane got to experience was outside. she put him on his swing, facing the woods and "uh oh, uh oh..." until she realized he wanted to be facing the other way. i guess it's not a bad thing to have order and be organized, i personally LOVE organization but sometimes it's just plain silly what gets a reaction out of him.

food. i like to think it's a toddler thing. this finicky stage. one week he's all about yogurt and the next week he has a meltdown when he sees it. today at preschool, miss holly said she spied him reach into his lunch bag, pull out his mini carrots and run to the garbage to throw them away. she said it happened so fast she didn't have time to react. what a screwball. the biggest oddity is bananas. he likes them, used to spy them on the counter and practically scale the cupboards to get at them. now? he only eats one if he's in the bathtub. this started long ago when he had a stomach bug. i think he was on his 3rd or 4th bath of the day because he was so sore on his bottom. the doctor suggested i give him a banana to firm up his #2s. i gave it to him while he was soaking so now it's like bath equals banana in jack's strange little world.

tonight, i was searching the cupboards for dinner ideas and had a hankering for baked potatoes. i opened the pantry to find that i had used them all up. i said out loud, "uh oh, we're out of potatoes!" jack quickly darted from my side, only to return with his bucket of mr. potato head parts. tell me you didn't just spit out what you were drinking! how funny is that?

jack is either going to grow up to be one of those strongest man competitors or move furniture. this kid is unbelievable. we can't stop him from rearranging the furniture in his room. changing table, bed, toy box... we think he likes to move them to create small, cubbyhole areas, but damn, his bed is not light! he does his rearranging before bedtime and while it used to drive both of us mad, now it's quite funny to watch him do it. (we have one of those fancy-shmancy cameras in there.) initially, we had moved his bed over a floor vent because he kept taking the cover off and stuffing his assortment of balls down the vent. hazard much?! but damn, wouldn't you know, he started to move his bed back into place! he's so strong. today, he was laying on the floor, pushing his legs up against the coffee table and actually picked the table up. seriously, my guess is that the table weighs at least 70 pounds. just. plain. ridiculous.

the kid LOVES bugs; spiders, daddy long legs, lady bugs, bumblebees, caterpillars. i've yet to find a bug that he hasn't tried to pick up and hold. that's also his thing lately, he has to hold everything. and if he can hold it, he wants it in a bowl. but back to the bug fascination... it started with "the very hungry caterpillar." he absolutely loves that book. he can't quite say caterpillar, so instead he says pa. and it just so happened that at the very height of his love affair with pa's, we had to visit the doctor, where the dr. always gives out insects, and this time, you guessed it, the dr. gave jackie a pa. i wish i would have had a camera for the look on his face was of pure elation. the caterpillar was about two inches long, and mr. jack carried this everywhere. and when he wasn't carrying it, he was putting it into his pocket, which is another favorite thing these days. loves having pockets and finding pockets on us. the other night before crawling into bed, i found a juice lid in my back pocket that i had been looking for since dinner time. i ended up just finishing off the juice because what the heck, where did i put that lid?!

jackie's vocab is growing by the day. he still doesn't quite speak in sentences but man he has a lot of words. his newest one tonight was aluminum except it came out like eme-num-num. and then we couldn't get him to stop saying it. i often catch him at nap time, talking to himself in his room, sometimes sounding like a song. he has a leap frog toy that plays songs, letters to mimic back, counting and another seek and find-type game. this week, he's really started to repeat the letters. he likes the "y" letter because the y is for yawn and he thinks the yawn sound is quite hysterical. jack can count to ten but still thinks the zero is an "o." he finds numbers everywhere; grocery store, the clocks around the house, the radio in the truck, packages of food (like the barcodes), it's just insane. he's insane. he loves all shapes, especially triangles, hearts and moons. he can tell you any animal, as obscure as martens and wolverines to jellyfish and ostriches. he gets a monthly magazine called wild animal baby and he gets giddy by his own mail each month.

we've really struggled for months now (who am i kidding, going on a year, practically!) with jackie's terrible two's, but ben and i seem to think he may be coming out of it. he's been getting to preschool two days a week, and i think it's benefitting all of us. i get some me time, and he gets some much needed interaction with others. today, i received a red, white and blue star necklace that he made. i almost burst into tears. "mama? heeewer" as he hands me the necklace. sweet boy. he still has his meltdowns for no reason and isn't always that nice to his sister, but just having a few hours to myself during the week makes it all much easier to handle. and of course, the cuteness factor. he's so hard to stay mad at when he flashes you that squinty-eyed grin. love it. love him.



and yes, that is a sandwich in his hand.