Laylin, you make me melt

Sometimes I catch myself playing with Laylin and tears of happiness are floating in my eyes. She has brought so much joy to our lives and I truly feel like she is a miracle. 

She has the sweetest personality and is so loving. Lately, she holds onto me while I'm holding her. It's as if she is hugging me back. When her warm cheek presses up against mine, I just feel like I want to melt right into her. 

I love how squishy she is and how every inch of her is ticklish. She is so giggly now too which makes it tempting to tickle her every time we do a diaper change. Hearing her laugh makes all the troubles of the world melt away.

She's sitting up better now. For longer periods of time. She holds herself up very well. Her favorite thing is her feet. She loves to grab her toes and try to put them in her mouth. She is definitely teething, but we haven't seen any new teeth yet. She loves the water, her sissy and she has taken on a new interest in Bella.

I've been feeling a little guilty lately that I haven't documented as much for her as I did with big sis, but I've been fortunate to be able to spend even more time with her. Time that is so priceless and irreplaceable. I hope these sweet little moments we get to share on a daily basis will forever be in my memories. 

Isla Rae, I love you the purplest

Isla is bursting with personality at two years old. She is already telling people she is three and what she is going to do as a three-year-old and most importantly, what her party will be like.

Every day she asks me, "Mama, is it time to go to my party now?"

I say, "No, Isla, not yet. We have to wait until your birthday."

Her birthday is a long way off and we don't even have a party planned at this point. This little girl is expecting a big bash this year though. Good thing, she gets so excited over the simplest things in life.

She has been so much fun lately. She is talking so much and her vocabulary has grown a lot over the past six months. Now, she's in to telling stories, "reading" and singing. Her favorite song to sing is still, "Let It Go", but she also sings, "Jesus Loves The Little Children", a lot too.

Her favorite book right now is "I Love You The Purplest". Joel has been reading it to her every night and sometimes changes out the brothers names to be Isla and Laylin. It's about two boys' adventure with their mama and the boys trying to uncover who their mom loves the best. The mom always responds so beautifully explaining her love for them in colors. I love you the bluest, or I love you the reddest and then expanding on the differences each boys character has, but how she loves them the same. I love Isla's love for books and reading. Story time with her is my favorite time of the day. I love to hear Joel reading to her and making up silly voices to go along with the characters or those off nights when I get Laylin down early and can read to her myself. Her new thing is wanting to sit in our laps until the story is over, and then get in bed. I think its her last ditch effort to try to stay up as long as possible.

Since she is so in to books right now, we took her to get her very own library card today. She LOVED the library. She shed a few tears when it was time to go. She got to pick out four books to put into our rotation during story time everyday.

She's been going to a lot of birthday parties and celebrations lately too, which is probably the reason she is inquiring about her own birthday so much. We've been letting her pick out the gift for her friends/cousins celebrating a birthday. It's been so fun to watch what toy or item she selects. The most challenging thing has been trying to teach her she can't keep the gift. We did this for Christmas too. After we got Harleigh's gift, Isla fell in love with Barbies.

She would say, "Mama, I'll just hold it for one more minute", as I tried to explain to her we can't take it out of the box.

This week was Harleigh and Lawson's birthday week and we let Isla pick out the gifts again. She was so hilarious this time around. She got a Elsa shopping bag and was going through the store putting everything she could find Frozen related in the bag for Harleigh. As fast as she was putting it in, Joel and I were trying to take it out. We had to explain to her our limitations this time around and how mommy and daddy had to pay for everything she was putting in her bag. As she was frantically grabbing everything with Elsa's face on it, she was twisting her butt and exclaiming how much fun it was shopping. (uh-oh)

Lately, she has been so into princesses. To the point of wanting to wear a princess dress every single day. She's even shed some tears when I made her wear pants under her dress. We've been trying to reinforce true beauty with her and teaching her that her smile and attitude is what makes her pretty, not the clothes we wear.

Isla has such a sweet heart and its been the best two and a half years of my life watching her grow and develop. I just wish I could bottle some of her energy and use it myself! She's a firecracker and she makes our lives so much more fun everyday.

The Sweetest Tush!

Look at that little tushy and those beautiful blue eyes! Such a sweet sweet girl Laylin Jane is. She is growing so much.

I love using big sis as the growth meter for Laylin's infant months.

Happy 1/2 Birthday Laylin Jane!

Laylin Jane is 6 months old today!!! Sweet sweet peanut is growing so quickly.

Yesterday, she rolled over for the very first time and we managed to catch it on camera. Ironically, we were taking her 6 months growth chart pictures on my grandma's quilt when she did it. She saw the blocks we use to identify how many months old she is and she went for it. Just a few swings of her cute little chunky thighs and she was rolled over from back to belly! Isla was so excited that she did it, but she wanted to roll her back over.

Laylin is so sweet. I think that is the best word to describe her right now. She has the sweetest disposition about her. She loves face time, smiling, snuggling, being held, looking at her sister and when we make silly noise at her. She also LOVES to take baths.

At 6 months she is...

• Rolling over
• Sitting up
• Making lots of noises
• Laughing lots
• Smiling often
• Holding on to toys really well
• Teething

Feisty growing girls...

My two girls are such firecrackers... both in their own unique way. Isla Rae has so much energy, love and zeal every day. From sun rise to sunset she is raring to go, ready to face each day with a roar! My sweet Laylin Jane wakes up happy and calm, but don't let that foul you.... she's become so feisty.  She likes to yell and be heard and she likes for her momma to stay where she can see her!

Both girls are growing up so quickly.

Isla has become quiet the artist. She loves to do crafts. She has mastered drawing circles and just recently has started to draw "people" or "guys" as she calls them. Its so sweet to see her drawing. She is so invested in each little mark she makes and she wants every line to be perfect. I love to hear her say, "Mom, look! I made this for you!".... yes she calls me mom already at two.... so grown up.

Laylin has started sitting up on her own for longer periods of time. It won't be long until she's doing it for 5-10 minutes at a time. She loves to sit up too! She's also started to show interest in rolling over and we think she'll be rolling in another week or two. We know our lives are about to change in a whole new way once our little peanut becomes mobile.

Each day is fun, sweet and challenging, but I wouldn't change any of it for the world (well maybe a few things...). I've learned so much in the past two years and prayed more consistently than I have my entire life. These girls have made me grow, pushed me to my limits and shown me a love so deep it makes my heart feel like its going to burst.

Growing girls.... can't wait to see what the next month holds for these two feisty gals!

Laylin Jane's 5 months new...

My little sweetie hit the five months milestones over the weekend. Our little Lay-lion is sweet as can be, feisty, loving and such a cuddle-bug. She probably weighs close to 13lbs now. On our last check-up at four months, she weighed a little over 12lbs and was between 8-11 percentile on all her measurements. She is tiny, but she is still on the charts and her personal growing curve looks beautiful.

She is smiling a lot, ticklish and giggly, she's taken on a strong interest in toys in the past few weeks and she loves loves loves looking at her big sissy.

She is still having challenges with reflux and tummy pains so we are still on medicine. I can't always soothe her, but I hold her through the pain and try to help her best I can. She is such a fighter and we can see her sweet personality forming with every day.

Happy five months Laylin Jane. You are such a light to my world!!

Love you,
Mama

An update on my loves...

Laylin Jane is off of the monitor! We're so thrilled that she is growing and thriving. She is still such a peanut, only weighing in at 12lbs and 8oz at just over 4 months, but never the less, she is chunking up at her own rate. She's so tiny, but still has little rolls and its so cute to see her putting on weight. We had her 4 month check up last week. She did great with her shots, got a great report and stayed around the 10th percentile for all her measurements (8% for head circumference, 9% for weight and 11% for height).

She has taken on a new interest in toys lately. She reaches for objects now and is starting to hold on to them better too. We're still working on her reaching for me, but that will come soon enough. She is a mama's girl for sure, just like her big sister. She's not quiet rolling over yet, but I can tell that will come soon too as she is eager to roll over on her belly. She is drooling a lot and like to chew on everything she can get to her mouth. She's smiling a lot and laughing out loud. Look at these cute faces!!

Isla Rae is a ball of energy as always. One of her favorite things to do right now is play hide n seek, we play every night before bedtime. Its so funny to watch her "hide". She usually picks a spot in plain site and I have to pretend like I don't see her. She gets so excited. The funniest thing though is most of the time when Joel or I go to hide she will forget to come find us and we'll be hiding for several minutes or have to come out and find her...then she'll excitedly tell us to go hide again, lol. 

She also LOVES to sing. She recently had a school play and sang three songs in the play. She practiced for weeks at home and I taught her some other Christmas songs in addition to those. three. She has a lot of Christmas Spirit and loves to pretend like she is giving gifts. Such a sweet heart. She'll hand me one of her toys and say, "Here mommy, I made this for you. Merry Christmas." So sweet.

She also loves gymnastics, or "nastics" as she calls it, while wrinkling her nose up as she says it. She just started this month and is already doing really good tumbles! She's got great form. She loves to dance too so that will be the next activity to come... maybe when she is 3.

I've been having so much fun with these two and wallowing in this period in my life. Everyone tells me I will look back when I'm older and these will be the best years of my life. I believe that's true and I can already tell how precious each day we're gifted with really is. These girls are the light of my world. I'm so blessed they call me mama.