Chris and his babes

Chris loves being a father. I know most wives say that about their husbands when they become dads, but Chris was made to be a daddy. A major reason I say this is because Chris himself is still a kid. He loves to play with bugs and toys, climb trees, watch cartoons, kick and throw balls, and run around outside like a banshee. Josiah and Layla are lucky to have him.

Little Latin Layla

If you have children, you know that at 6 months babies still don't really do anything. She doesn't walk, talk or even sit up. But let me tell you, she is so sweet! So knows who her family is and smiles, giggles and coos when she sees us. She rolls from one corner of the house to the other. She loves grabbing her feet (this started about 2 weeks ago) and, of course, pulling on my hair. As well as Josiah's hair, but he doesn't like it one bit. She is learning to sit up on her own, and we just started giving her baby food. It is slow going, but hopefully she'll get the hang of it soon. She loves being outside and is happy to held by anybody. She naps well, and, for the most part, sleeps well. She's getting her bottom 2 teeth in, so the past few nights she has been waking up crying. Which, let me tell you, after you have had a hit of getting a full night's rest, it's really hard to go back.
Everyone tells me she looks like Chris's mom, Gay. She has beautiful big blue eyes and is very expressive. She's a tiny little thing weighing in at 14 pounds and 25''. She is a very happy baby, fussing only when she's tired, hungry, or has a dirty diaper. Chris and I are very blessed.

Josiah, my lover

I am thoroughly enjoying my little man right now. Right about the time he turned 2 (just over a month ago) he started putting words together. He started out with "what's that?" and "hold you" and now my favorite sayings of his are "I get you, mommy", which means he either wants to chase me or wants me to be near him, and "I see you, Layla". He loves his sister so very much. He wants to kiss her, hug her, lay in her crib with her, hold her and tickle her. He is never rough with her and is concerned when she's not around. I could not have prayed for the transition from one child to two go any smoother. The only hard part I've come across is being sick, like this week. All I've wanted to do is sleep, but sleep does not come because Josiah is very active and Layla needs my attention quite often. But that's really it. 

Being back home has been so great for Josiah. He LOVES his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins so much. He now runs up to them whenever he sees them. It's pretty amazing. I love that he knows who they are and wants to hang out with them. 

Don't get me wrong... he has his 2 year old moments, but the sweet, funny, playful moments are more frequent than the opposite. 

Life

Hello my dedicated 10 followers! Life has been so great these past 5 weeks that I've been absent from the blogging world. We successfully moved home and in with the in-laws, started both our new jobs, been on several fun play dates, caught up with dear friends (still haven't seen everyone yet!), gone to Canton twice, been to The Village every Sunday, started the parenting class The Village puts on, reconnected with our old home group, celebrated Josiah's second birthday, been on a few dates, and much much more. We finally feel settled and have Josiah adjusted to our new life here. In Nashville we had play dates every other week with my dear friend Jenn and her daughter Clara (if you're reading this I love you and miss you and Clara!!). Now we have about 2-3 play dates a week.
We also go out in the evenings to friends' houses and enjoy dinner and conversation with the kids running wild. Josiah is definitely not used to coming home after 8. I know that staying out past 8 and having play dates might seem like a normal thing for you all, but it wasn't for us. Nashville was so hard on us. We had a hard time meeting people and making friends we really wanted to invest in, and play dates were more or less out of the question because most people didn't want to drive the 30 minutes to our house, and I didn't think it was fair that they expected us to drive to them every week. I have so missed people actually wanting to spend time with us and not caring about the drive time. I could go on and on about how different life has been here and harp on all the horrible things about life in Nashville, but I won't. I'm just happy we're home now, enjoying time with family and friends and developing deep and meaningful relationships with people.

Here's a video of the day Josiah discovered hand puppets. Chris and I find hand puppets (or puppets in general) very creepy, but Josiah loves them!

When picturing my family's future, I cannot imagine it without a bunch of children running around. However, 4 months of being sleep deprived is finally getting to me. Why can't all my babies be as good as Josiah was and start sleeping 12 hours a night at 10 weeks old? Oh uninterrupted sleep, I miss you so.

The Paleo diet

I have successfully cut cheese, coffee (mainly the french vanilla creamer), soda, and all other sugary drinks out of my diet. Working on eliminating sugar for a while. I hear that once you do that, you will start to feel amazing... and not just because you're losing weight, but because your body is living off of healthy foods and nutrients. I'm thinking it will take a week or 2 more until I can completely eliminate sugar. I'm dreading it. If I seem angry for the first few weeks of February, you will know why. Btw... I just ate a twix bar, and while it tasted good going down, I feel pretty lousy now. Lesson learned.

We're MOVING HOME!!!!

I mentioned it on Facebook and have emailed a few people, but it's official, we're moving back to Dallas on the 28th of THIS month! We are beyond excited! Chris starts his new job on Feb. 1 and I start mine (temporary for 3 months) on the 8th. My work has childcare on site, so that is PRETTY STINKING AWESOME! As you can tell, I'm very happy about all the above! We have missed Dallas so much. Our family, our friends, our community, our church, the greatnessof living in a big city... I could go on and on.
These next 2 1/2 weeks are going to be CRAZY busy for us. We have so much to do to the house before we leave to put it on the market. Chris is working hard and fast to get the baseboards in the entire downstairs (he's doing amazing), and I am trying my fastest to pack everything. Until we sell our house, Chris's parents have graciously opened their home to us. All our furniture is staying in our house for staging purposes, so all we're taking to Dallas are our clothes, the kids toys, and a couple of miscellaneous items. You think packing would be easy, but it's really not. I want the house to look perfect so it sells fast, which means making sure everything we're leaving behind has a purpose and a space that is worth keeping to look beautiful. Mske sense? All that being said, my blogging will be taking a back seat until we're in Dallas. I have TONS of fantastic pictures from Christmas and many great stories about our wonderful children. We look forward to seeing everyone IN PERSON soon!!