Winter and The Beginning of Spring

** Warning- This is the longest post I have ever written, probably the longest post anyone has ever written!  It is extremely long! Most of it is just for me and for journaling purposes, so please don't feel obligated to read all or any of it. **

I decided instead of doing 50 million posts that I would just do one big, long post of the past several months to finally kind of catch up.  So this is like 10 posts in 1! :)

  It has been so fun to have two precious little girls at our house.  Kayley loves having a little sister and is so cute with Brinley.  She loves getting Brinley toys to play with, hand her or read her books, give her her blanket, stuffed animals or anything else that she wants/ or doesn't want. :)  She is very sweet and any time Brinley cries Kayley will say "Happy, happy", and want to give Brinley her beloved bear or bunny to make her feel better. She beams from ear to ear any time that she makes Brinley "happy" or makes her laugh or smile. It makes me so "happy" to see the special bond that my girls have and I hope that they will always be best friends throughout their lives.

Christmas Season

Four generation picture we took on Christmas Eve with my mom and sweet Grandma Hill

Kayley in her Christmas dress from Grandma Hall

Trevor's Birthday

We went to see Avatar in 3-D. Brinley thought it was pretty boring and slept through the whole thing. :)

Kayley Meisers and Brinley Jeansers (Nate's nicknames for the girls)

Brinley's Blessing

We blessed Brinley on February 7. ( "We" meaning Nate of course....usually when I say we, it means Nate.  "We" need to take the garbage out. "We" need to mow the lawn. We need to change Kayley's poopy diaper. Ect.) Nate gave Brinley a beautiful blessing.  He blessed her that her body would grow and develop properly and that a young age she would gain a love for the scriptures and a desire to develop a relationship with Heavenly Father through prayer.  He also blessed her with a desire to gain an education and a love for reading. If it be right, she was also blessed to serve a full time mission and always have a love and a desire to share the gospel throughout her life.  She was blessed to find a worthy priesthood holder to take her to the temple and there be sealed for time and all eternity and that she will always strive to keep the commandments so that she'll be worth to return to live with Heavenly Father.

I wish that I would have taken more pictures so that I actually had some good ones of Nate and me with the girls, Nate's parents with Brinley, my parents with Brinley and so on, but I was so worried about the luncheon afterwards and getting everything done for primary that I was lucky to at least get these pictures.

I couldn't decide which one I like better...

Brinley Jean

Brinley has been such a sweet, good baby.  I can 't believe she's already 5 months old.  It's gone by so fast! Brinley is our little chunkers! Kayley always was and still is pretty skinny and so it's kind of fun to have one of both.  Brinley was in the 75% for weight and length at her 4 month appointment and Kayley was in like the 10% for weight.  I loves her big chipmunk cheeks.  I could kiss them all day long.  She has been sleeping 12 hours through the night for several months now, which I have greatly appreciated and is all-around a happy girl.  She has the cutest, most contagious laugh.  I love when babies start laughing. She loves Kayley and is so content watching her play. I took the cutest video the other day of Brinley laughing at Kayley.  I'll have to upload it and post it soon. It was so stinkin cute!  She also loves her daddy and is always so happy any time she gets to see him.  She is a huge fan of her hand as well as you will see in the pictures below.  No need for a binkie or toys to suck on, she is very satisfied with her hand! :) The only thing that she really doesn't like is tummy time.  No matter what I do she basically just cries the entire time that I have her do it. There have been a few times that she's lasted a few minutes without crying, but usually she cries the second I lay her down. Sometimes I can only last a few minutes before I break and pick her up or turn her over.  She's pretty close to sitting up unsupported so I think she'll sit up before she ever rolls over. She is such a wonderful addition to our family and brings such a special spirit into our home.  I love my sweet Brinley Jeansers and am so grateful to be her mother!

My sweet friend Jessica who lives in Arizona made this adorable onesie for Brinley and so I told her I'd take some pictures of Brinley wearing it.  They turned out super cute!  Look at those rolls!

Once again I couldn't decide which one I liked better.

One of the few times she wasn't crying when I layed her down to do tummy time.  This only lasted about 2 minutes!

She loves those fingers!

Kayley Mei

I haven't been as good about writing in Kayley's journal after she turned one and my 1 year calendar was all used up so I've been making a list in my phone for a while now of some of the things that she has been doing for the past few months.  There are several more I could list, but here are some of them.

After her little sister was born, Kayley would walk around burping all of her babies, stuffed animals, Mr. Potato Head or anything else that she can hold and pretend is a baby.

She loves to give Brinley kisses and hold her and have her sit in her purple chairs in her room.

She is obsessed with throwing things away, putting things away and cleaning up.  Give her a cloth and she will spend 15 minutes or longer walking around the house cleaning the wall, the floor, the windows, the furniture, my pants, Brinley's face or anything else she thinks needs a good cleaning.  Also, if she gets anything on her hands, she will hold her hand out and say "hand, hand, cloth" and won't continue eating until I wipe her hands off. She is also funny about putting things away.  If I get the milk out to fill up her sippy cup and don't put it back in the fridge immediately she will start saying, "away, away" and won't stop saying it until I put it away.  (What have I done to my child? I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing.  Sometimes it's great and sometimes it drives me nuts!:)

She is my little helper and usually will help me with whatever I ask her to do. 

 In the middle of playing she will stop what she's doing run over and give me a hug and then go right back to playing. I love it!  She's so sweet.  The other day she ran up to me out of no where and gave me a big hug and said, "eye a" (I love you!)  I have been waiting for the day for a long time.  I love hearing her say I love you.

She plays really well on her own and for the last few weeks/months (I have no sense of time) will finally go in her room and play by herself while I clean up the kitchen or cook or fold laundry or whatever.

She loves talking on the phone. I can't quite figure out where she got that one from! :) She is constantly asking me to call Gaba (grandma) or Raw (Robb) or her daddy.

She loves looking at the family book of pictures we got for Christmas and can point to everyone and knows all of her cousins and aunts and uncles names.

She calls herself KayKay.

She is a little chatter box and just recently started forming little sentences.  She usually likes to feed herself, but this morning she looked at Nate and said, "Daddy feed KayKay." 

She is very smart and has an amazing memory, especially of association. Silly example, but Colby was at our house once forever ago and used the ranch dressing, and now every single time I pull it out or she sees it, she'll say, "ColCol".

She is a great eater and eats like a horse. She especially loves fruits and vegetables.  She started crying once because I offered her a brownie and she wanted corn instead. She definitely doesn't get that from me.  She obviously likes treats too though and if I offered them to her more often that's probably all she would eat.

She gets so excited when I tell her on Monday that it's family home evening night.  She always runs over to the closet and says, "book, book", and wants me to get the special FHE book we read with her out. When we read family scriptures together she always wants me to read to her the stories about Jesus.  She loves pointing to Him in all the pictures and telling me what He is doing. She also teaches her stuffed animals how to pray and fold their arms and loves when I let her hold them on her lap to join us for family prayer.  I love hearing her repeat her personal prayers ("KayKay prayer") and think that it's amazing that at 18 months she always remembers that we need to say them before she goes to bed.

She loves books and spends half the day having me read to her, looking at books on her own, reading them to her stuffed animals and managing to get every single book she owns spread across the floor of her room. Why can't she be more adamant about putting her books and toys away like she is in being so concerned about putting the milk away?

She can be super shy and cry if someone looks at her or if they try to hold her and she doesn't want them to and she can also be really outgoing and friendly and say hi to everyone. I'm never sure how she's going to act around people because it's never the same. Sometimes she's totally fine and couldn't care less if I'm there and other times she's extremely clingy.

She loves to point at everything that she knows how to say and tell us what it is. She especially likes to point to Brinley's eyes, nose, mouth and ears.  Brinley doesn't always enjoy it as much as Kayley does. :)

She's getting better with counting to 10 now and can say all of the numbers, but for a while the only numbers she would say were 2 and 8. No matter how hard I tried to get her to say 1,2,3, she just wouldn't do it.  She would only say 2. It was hilarious one day when she was playing with her doll, she said, "two, two twooo"(instead of one, two, threeee) and then threw her up in the air.

She is my precious friend and I love spending every day with her. She has the cutest little personality and is very entertaining.  I love her more and more every day and am so grateful to be her mommy!

This isn't the best picture because I took it with my phone, but this was the first time that she actually stopped and smiled at the camera when I asked her to. It was a miracle!

My little cleaner

Our New House

People keep asking me to post pictures of our house, but I kept thinking that I'd wait until we were finished with decorating it, hanging pictures, changing light fixtures, putting our fence up, etc. etc., but then I realized that our house will be a work in project most likely the whole time we live here so at that rate I will never post pictures of it.  Anyway, so here it is in it's current condition. :) 
For those of you who don't know, we bought a home in Lehi and moved in the beginning of March.  It was a model home and so we were able to buy the furniture with it which has been super nice.  We love having a home of our own and really like the ward and the neighborhood so far.  We've really missed our old ward in Orem though.  There are so many sweet, good people there and so many good memories.  I can't wait until I feel as comfortable and as "at home" in our new ward as I did in Orem. I put some before and after pictures just to show what it was like before we painted, added our furniture and decorations to the ones already here, got blinds and curtains and moved stuff around. Thanks again to my sweet mom for helping me so much with everything!

This is what the house used to look like.  I wish it still looked like this, but they changed it so that all the model homes don't look exactly the same.

This is what it looks like now. Eventually we'd like to paint, or add brick or stones or something...

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

(Brinley's Room) Before

After

(Kayley's Room) Before

After

(Can you tell which room is my favorite one in the house?)

Master Bedroom- Before

After

Loft-Before

After

BRINLEY JEAN HALL

BORN: NOVEMBER 22 @1:45 AM

WEIGHT: 6 LBS.

LENGTH: 17.5 INCHES

(More pictures and updates to come! :)

1st Birthday Princess

I can't believe that Kayley is already 1 year old! (She turned 1 on September 3rd.) She is so much fun and I love playing with her and getting to know her sweet little personality. She is so full of energy and excitement for everything in life and she's turning into a little girl before my very eyes. I know that as soon as we have our little baby girl in December, Kayley is going to seem so grown up. I love being her mother and have learned so much from her. She always brings a smile to my face and makes me feel better when I'm sad.

Here are some things about Kayley at 1 year:

*She is starting to talk a lot. She says dada, mama, duck, quack, cock (for cock-a-doodle-do), all done (a dun), hi, bunny (dunny), uh-oh, go, up, ball, dog, cat, cow, ball, hat, shoes (more of a "shs" sound, but we know what she's talking about), keys, clap and lots and lots of baby gibberish.
*Her "dunny" is her favorite thing in the world. It's a little stuffed animal I got her for Easter that she sleeps with. She would crawl around holding and kissing it all day long if we would let her. She gets so excited any time that she sees it or hears us say bunny or sees a picture of a bunny for that matter.
*She nods her head yes and shakes her head no.
*One of her favorite things to do is to go up and down the stairs. She will find them no matter where we are, especially at home and at both grandparents' houses. I used to follow closely behind her because I was scared that she was going to fall, but she is getting pretty proficient at it that if I am doing something at the moment and can't be right behind her, I don't worry about her falling.
*She pulls herself up on everything and has just started in the past couple of weeks to walk along things. She will walk holding onto a walker if we are helping her and sometimes will walk with us holding her hands, but she's still not super interested in walking. She is very content crawling and has turned into a speedy little crawler.
*She loves baths but just recently has decided that she's not a huge fan of getting her hair washed.
*She waves at everyone and everything, but only when she wants to and, as with everything else, won't do it on cue very often until the people are walking or driving away.
*She has just recently started clapping and loves the song, "When You're Happy and You Know It." That's one of the first ones I start singing when she is grumpy in the car and she stops being fussy almost immediately and starts clapping along.
*She gets so excited any time that she sees a little kid. She is so entertained by them and loves watching them play and run around.
*She used to give us kisses every time that we would ask her to, but I think that we kind of took advantage of the privilege and so now she only does it when she wants to. My favorite thing ever is when she turns to kiss us when we don't ask her to. It's so cute!
*She is hopefully starting to get out of this stage and things are getting a lot better, but for a while now it is so hard to change her diaper or her clothes because she is so squirmy and busy and won't sit still for anything.
*She is completely weaned now and does great with drinking whole milk. She is also a great eater and will eat almost anything that I give her. She hasn't eaten baby food for a while now. She is a huge fan of grapes, string cheese, bananas, oatmeal, corn, peas, carrots, whole wheat bread, watermelon..you get the point, basically everything! She loves to eat. She's definitely her mother's child! :)
*She loves books! Sometimes she will sit and let me read to her for 20-30 minutes at a time and other times she won't sit longer than half a book and she is squirming out of my lap on to her next project of destruction. (Nate calls her "Destructo" because she gets into everything and often finds a way to destroy everything.)
*She still only has 2 bottom teeth even though she has teethed soo many times now but those top teeth still haven't made their way out. She loves her toothbrush though and will sit and brush her two little teeth/suck and bite on her toothbrush forever. It has become one of her favorite toys.
*She loves her daddy and gets so excited any time she sees him or hears his voice. One of her favorite times of day is when daddy comes home for lunch.

Here are some pictures from her special day:

Her cake was a hit! She loved it and got it everywhere!

She enjoyed it so much that she wanted to share it with all of us! :)

Opening Presents

Elmo was probably her favorite gift of all.

The aftermath of opening presents.

We had her 1 year appointment on the 15th. This is how much she's grown.

Weight:18 lbs. 6 oz.(15%)

Length: 29 in. (50%)

Head: 45 cm. (50%)

It's a......

Most of you already know what we are having since we have known for over a month now, but just in case you don't, we are having another little GIRL. We are super excited and can't wait to meet our little princess. Kayley is going to love having a little sister and I'm sure that they will be best of friends.
I am going to try REALLY hard to get caught up on my blog during the next little while. Seeings how I am over 4 months behind, it seems like quite the overwhelming task and will probably take me forever, but I just need to start somewhere. Since I don't keep a journal, this is my only record, so I just have to make myself do it. Also, our sweet Kayley is going to be 1 year old a week from today. I can't believe it! The last year has just flown by so quickly.
These aren't the best pictures in the world because they were taken with our cell phones, but I always like posts with pictures and these are the most recent ones we have, so I thought that I'd throw them in here at the end.

This was up Provo Canyon at a family picnic.

Another 4 generation picture, my Grandma Hill, my mom, Kayley and me. This one shows my lovely fat, I mean pregnant, belly.

Eating for 3!

For those of you who have wondered what has happened to me for the past 2 months, I am here to tell you that I am still alive and sorry about not posting forever. I feel like I have a pretty good excuse though. My excuse is that I have been eating for 3! No, I am not pregnant with twins, but with nursing Kayley and Baby #2 on the way, my body has been pretty busy. It's kind of pathetic how exhausted I feel all the time. If I don't take a nap while Kayley's taking her morning nap, I usually have a pretty hard time getting through the rest of the day. We are really excited and feel very blessed to have another one of Heavenly Father's precious spirits sent to our family. The baby will be here mid-December and we can't wait to find out what we're having. And I can't wait to get out of the sick stage of pregnancy. I forgot how much I hate being pregnant! :) I can usually only accomplish the top 1 or 2 things on my to-do-list every day and blogging has sadly been towards the end of that list and so I never get around to it. My main focus has just been getting through each day and trying to still be a good mom and wife, both of which I often feel like I am failing at horribly. I am so grateful for a sweet, understanding husband who has had to pick up dinner on his way home from work on more than one occasion, and who is willing to help with anything that I ask him to do around the house. And for those of you who are curious, I am 13 weeks today!