All in God's time

My Aspen and Mia are so sweet. I love them so much. This morning I was watching the two of them play and laugh together and I can't think of a better sound on this planet. And so as I'm watching them I just started reflecting on just how blessed Malo and I are to have them in our lives. And how prayers are answered...and usually not according to MY personal timeline.

As you all know, Malo and I tried for 5 years to have babies. And then finally FINALLY finally we were blessed to come into contact with an amazing young woman who was pregnant and chose us, plain old normal boring me and Malo, to be the parents of her special little girl. And from the moment Aspen was born we knew she was meant to be our baby, our special daughter. It just had to be in God's time.

And then 4 months later, I found out I was pregnant with Mia. Heavenly Father listens to our prayers. He answers them. Just in his time, not mine. Mia came along and is such a sweet, sweet girl. Her and Aspen are perfect sisters. I can't imaging one without the other. Heavenly Father knows what He is doing. He knows these two little spirits were supposed to be sisters and the timing just needed to be right for it to happen. Again, all in God's time.

And now I am less than 11 weeks from having our 3rd child. A boy. My oldest child will still be 2 when he is born. All those years of praying for children and now we are going to have 3!!! Never in all those years of crying and heartache and longing for children would I ever have imagined I would be the mommy of 3 very small children very very close in age. But Heavenly Father knows all. I just needed to trust Him. And know that He has a plan. And know that if we put our trust in Him things will always work out how they are supposed to.

Of course, I am slightly (!!!) overwhelmed at the responsibility of having three very small children and only two arms and two hands, but I am so so so so so incredibly blessed and SO grateful for being entrusted with these little ones to raise and to love and to cherish. I am grateful for a husband who loves me and loves our children. He is such a wonderful daddy and the girls love him so much and I know our little baby balooga haysuess will love him. I am so so grateful that I am able to stay home and be the one to raise my babies. I get to see everything, their first steps, their daily struggles and triumphs, the way they just absorb information and the way they grow from day to day. In all those years of praying for babies, I am not disappointed. I am actually really grateful (now I can say this...) for that time we had to wait...because now I think I appreciate my kids more than I would have if they had just come easily for us. And I think I am able to relate to people who struggle with infertility and hopefully offer some love and support to them.

Anyway, this is becoming long winded. I just want to say that I know our prayers are heard and answered. and even if it seems like its taking forever or that we are being ignored, we absolutely are not. And there are blessings just waiting to be poured out on us all....its just all in God's time. :)

Dentist time!

I took the girls to the dentist today (Mia's first time!) and I was a little nervous about how Mia would do. She has a tendency to be....strong willed....but they both did awesome! I wished I would've brought my camera, or even my phone, in so I could take a picture of them. The hygienist at the new dentist we went to was AWESOME! She let both the girls sit in the big chair together and showed them how it moved up and down and back and up. She showed them all the tools they'd use and blew air on their arms and let them do fish-kisses on the little thing that sucks spit and water from your mouth. The girls were fascinated! And then she cleaned their teeth and did full exams and then the dentist came in and examined their teeth and put flouride on their teeth. I was so shocked that Mia actually let them do all of that, but she did. I knew Aspen would be fine. :) I was very very proud of them and they both picked a treasure from the treasure box (both my GIRLS picked CARS!!!) and each got a voucher for a free personal pan pizza from Pizza hut for being cavity free! Good job kids! :) Mia has 6 teeth - 2 front teeth on top and two on bottom, plus her two top molars. Weird kid. And Aspen has 20 healthy beautiful teeth. :)

And here are some random pictures not at all related to their dental visit.

Getting so big...

I have been totally slacking in keeping this thing up to date lately. I'm going to do better. :) Today I was realizing how big my Aspen is getting. I look at her sometimes and my sweet baby is not a baby. She is a kid. I don't understand how it happens so quickly! But she is definitely growing up - you can have real conversations with her, she is potty trained, she kind of sort of - when she feels like it - helps out with chores, she is protective of her little sister. She's just a sweet little girl. She loves to run around and be silly, of course, but she is just so big and so sweet. And so so so so loving. :) Anyway, here are some recent-ish pictures of her.

We have a new niece! :)

We have a new niece! Yay! :) Anna Sophia (Sophie) was born last Thursday, Nov 19th. Congrats to Leif, Lurlyn and Leify on their new and super adorable addition to the family!! :) We can't wait to meet her and give her lots of hugs and kisses. :)

Sweet

Can you see the absolute adoration Aspen has for her daddy? So sweet. Makes my heart happy.

Halloween!

Ok so this is late in posting, much like everything in my life right now is late. I blame it on everyone but me! Haha. Anyway, poor Aspen was her monkey again this year. My plan of having Mia be the monkey and not having to get two new costumes every year did not work out. Mia is barely in 9 month clothes and that costume was 18-24months. So it drowned Mia and was a bit too small for Aspen. But I was just too late in making a decision on costumes....by the time I went out costume shopping, there was nothing cute. And I had a ladybug costume that my cousin gave us last year that didn't fit either one of them, but it was fine for Mia this year. So Aspen was a monkey again and Mia was a ladybug. I'm probably the lamest mom around. But they were both pretty darn cute! And Aspen REALLY got the hang of trick or treating REALLY quickly. Here's Mia in the monkey - way too big!

So, we went to a trunk-or-treat Friday night and Aspen had a fantastic time with that. Mia was more interested in just walking around with her pumpkin than actually getting candy. I have no pictures of that night. Because I am a lame mom. Or maybe cuz Malo wasn't with us and I only have two arms. :)

Then Saturday night, Malo took the girls trick-or-treating on our street and I stayed home and passed out candy.

Well, they were only gone maybe 15 minutes - Malo said Aspen after a few houses just sat on the ground and wanted to eat her candy! She was done! So they came home and we all passed out candy to the TONS of trick or treaters! Apparently our new street gets the most trick or treaters in town. Aspen I think had just as much, if not more, fun passing out candy to the kids who came to our door. She's so funny. Everytime the bell rang she'd say "OH! Its the door!" and run as fast as she could to the door. And she'd comment on the costumes, "oh you kitty cat. meow!" "Oh you so pretty" to the princesses. And my favorite....this boy who was probably 9 or 10 had a mask on and she says "OH! You too scared!!!" And he looked at her and said "I'm not scared." to which she replied, "yeah, uh-huh. you too scared!" He was seriously offended! Ha! But really she was trying to tell him he's scary. She just says it scared. It still makes me laugh how defensive the poor kid was. I could've told him what she meant...but I didn't.

Anyway, I didn't get pictures of trick-or-treating either since I didn't go with them, and it was hard to get any of the girls together. But we had a fun time. And here is what I have....
Mia checking out her loot...
Aspen checking out Mia's goodies

The girls happily enjoying their candies....
...until Aspen steals Mia's sucker right out of her mouth....

And that's it. Sorry kiddos that mommy wasn't more on top of things this year. But hey...they still had fun. :)

Face

We got some REALLY good shots of baby on Friday...clearly and definitely a boy. And not a shy one. But I'm not posting those on the internet....just trust me! ;-) Anyway, here's a nice profile shot. I think we're going to have another little Malo look alike. What do you think?

And I'll post Halloween pictures soon. :)