Christmas Eve Party

We spent Christmas Eve at my sister's house with all of her husband's family and ours. It was mostly "open presents for Breanne" time because she got so many. It was a bit ridiculous if you ask me, but what the heck, now we don't have to buy her near as many clothes! This was my chance, so I thought, to get my long awaited family picture because I had the girls dressed up in the pretty christmas dresses and Breanne even let me curl her hair (which was ADORABLE). Baby Katie had a serisous melt down while we were there. When we're around places that are loud and there's a lot going on she tends to freak out and the only way to get her to calm down is to take her to a quite place. So needless to say she spent the majority of the time in a spare bedroom sleeping. I felt so bad for the little girl. I still wanted to try and get a photo but couldn't bear to wake Kaitlyn up so I thought that if we left room for her that we could just photo shop her in later. Come to find out, I don't know how to do that. Here's what we got anyway.

Winter Wonderland!

We did it. We went out and played in the snow this morning and Breanne had a blast. She just liked running around in it and throwing snowballs at Cameron and me. Baby Katie lasted a little while but she soon fell alseep so she headed into the house. Which was okay for me because then I could help build our snow "people". It's a woman on one side and a man on the other. We didn't do this on purpose but Cameron was nice enough to point out that the snowman looked well endowed on his back. I don't think you can tell this from the picture I took so just take my word for it. She was pretty well endowed...ooops.
It was fun to be out there running around (usually from Cameron trying to hit me with snowballs). Here's a video to prove that at times I was in serious danger!
We had a lot of fun together. It's days like today that make me glad that Cameron isn't currently working. We have a lot more fun when he's around to harass us :)
Kaitlyn is now able to sit in the high chair! Oh man! This is so great because now I don't have to hold her and try to make dinner at the same time. I really can't wait until she can sit up on her own. I know I say this now and before I know it she'll be crawling and getting into things, but I think she'll be so much happier when she can. I'll regret it later...I know Maggie....I know :)

What's so Attractive about Rain Boots? I'll Show Ya...

Breanne had just gotten out of the bathtub and just HAD to put on her rain boots. i don't know why kids love rain boots so much, but they do. When we found them at the store she wanted to wear them before we bought them. Nana, being a sucker, let her. We almost forgot to pay for them as we left.We decorated the Christmas tree, FINALLY. It's been up for a while, but we haven't found the time to put anything on it. Breanne was being a poop and wouldn't let me get a good picture of her in front of it so I told her to be a ballarina...that seemed to work.

I have negelected to put up pictures of Kaitlyn in the last few posts so I took some pictures of her in her cute little tights. They have snowflakes on them and the feet look like she's wearing ballet slippers. I just love em! Her Auntie May-may bought them for her. Only a buck at target! Can you believe that? I love the dollar section at target. I think that's where I got all the girls stocking stuffers.

Hope all of you who are traveling do so in safety. I don't know about you guys but we've gotten a little bit of snow here and it hasn't been above freezing for a few days now. Chilly! Have a fun holiday season and enjoy your time off of school for those of you who are still fighting the good fight :)

Oh Please Be a Job...Oh Please!

Cameron had a job interview yesterday up in Burlington, WA for Verizon Wireless. When he first applied for this job we thought it was just a simple minimum wage salemen job. It turns out that he gets a really decent base wage and great commision. He's also get medical and DENTAL starting day one. This is very exciting news seeing that neither of us has been to the dentist in about 5 years. So he went to the interview and I don't know what we were thinking, but we both got our hopes up to hear "okay, you got the job" or "your not quite what we're looking for". Of course we wanted to hear the latter, but all they could tell him was that there are other people they need to interview as well and they would let him know by mid to late next week. It was really anticlimatic when he called. We've just been waiting such a long time for him to get a job of ANY kind. Anyway, we hope to be able to write next week and say that we're moving up North for Cameron's new job. Think good thoughts for us!!

The Nutcracker

Cameron's mom was able to get a few free tickets to the Pacific Northwest Ballet production of "The Nutcracker" for Saturday so Cameron, Breanne and I were able to go. Breanne didn't want to take a nap on the way up to Seattle so I was almost positive that she would fall asleep during the show, but to my amazement she was totally into it the whole time. She loved all the dancing and the production had a bunch of little children in it so she liked to see all the little kids running around too. The first half was a lot of story telling and that kept things interesting. During the intermission we were able to go back stage and see the props and the dancers warming up for the second part. I thought this was pretty cool even as an adult! Breanne got a picture taken with some little mice. She's not really a big fan of people dressed in costumes, or mascots, or that type of thing so she looks a bit unsure in the picture but there were no tears, thank goodness. During the second part of the show it was mostly dancing, but I think Breanne almost enjoyed that more then the first part. Pretty soon her arms were moving all around like the dancers and then she tried to get her legs up too but the chair in front of her prevented that. There were a couple of little girls in the big poofy christmas dresses dancing in the isle way next to us during the show. It was pretty cute, the whole experience.

Just for Pictures

Kaitlyn caught the cold that all the rest of the Marley's are suffering from. She was so tired yesterday that she fell asleep while I was holding her. She's not the easiest child to put to sleep so we thought it was pretty sweet. Breanne's eyes are so green in this picture i don't know if you'll be able to see it but they sure are pretty. I just had to dought on my girls a bit.

Here we are...sickies. Cute, huh? Please, no comments necessary :)

Happy Turkey Day

I've been thinking about the Thanksgivings that I use to have as a kid and all the good memories of all my family together and being with my grandparents, my dad and grandpa watching whatever games were on that day. I looked forward to Thanksgiving. It was a special holiday back then. I still look forward to Thanksgiving, it's just not the same. This year it's just our little family, my parents, and my sister. Most of my grandparents have past on and the one that is still around isn't around. I miss having EVERYONE together. But in talking about this to Cameron he brought up a good point. The Thanksgivings we remember are over. Not from anything inperticular but that's just the way things go. We had great memories as children and now it's OUR children's time to build those memories about being with grandparents and aunts and uncles. This thought gave me a renewed love for this holiday, not for me but for my kids. I want them to have the same warm feelings about this day that I had as a kid so it is my goal throughout this holiday season to bring some traditions into our family.

I hope that all of you have a great Thanksgiving and may you be able to eat all that you want today!

Ranger? Or Professional Toilet Fixer

Kaitlyn is officially 2 months old as of yesterday, so Happy Birthday Baby Katie!
Cameron had an interview with Cama Beach State Park today. For some reason I thought that a Park Ranger would be something that he would really enjoy. As I come to find out, it sounds like, from the interview, that basically he's a glorified janitor. Most of the questions they asked him were about toilets and what he would do if one starting over flowing in the women's bathroom during an interpritive progam and it was all over the floor. Then they wanted him to trouble shoot about what was wrong with it! I don't know what to think. I knew that they fixed a lot of different things but they also wanted him to come up with an organizational system for their tp, paper towels, cleaning supplies, and soap. He needed to also come up a way to order all the necessary items as well. I really hope he gets a job, but I thought he's would have fun being outdoors and walking the trails and what not. Anyway, there's a freeze on the hiring process right now so he won't know ANYTHING until it's over. Who knows when that will be.
We also went up to Orcas Island because they're hiring there. It was beautiful! They don't know when they'll start the interviewing process but housing would be provided which is huge because housing is EXPENSIVE there. I've been looking and the only thing we could afford is a one bed/one bath. That obviously wouldn't work. That's all the more we know concerning the park ranger position. We're just waiting at this point because we have no idea where the Lord wants us.
Breanne tried on Baby Katie's bunny outfit. She started to get upset after this picture because she couldn't get her feet in. I couldn't convince her that she was too tall for the outfit...
She also dressed herself. So I didn't put together the yellow flowered shirt and the brown and pink striped pants.












Breanne wanted me to take a picture of her and baby Katie. She surprises me sometimes. I think she'll really start to enjoy her more when she can sit by herself and play a bit more.

Sleeping with the fishes?

This is one way to "sleep with the fishes", huh? She was being so good laying on her tummy and looking around and the next thing

I know she's asleep. I thought it was too cute to pass up a photo opportunity.

Cameron had his phone interview with the Parks Dept. yesterday. I had a doctors appointment that I was getting ready to leave for about the same time so I had planned to take the girls with me so they wouldn't be too loud during the whole thing. The phone rang about 10:05 and he was done by 10: 11. I thought it would take a bit longer then that. They only had 3 questions for him. One was concerning the theft that he said he had been involved in within the past year. He was a bit confused because as far as he knew he had never been involved in a theft. Turns out that he missed marked one of the 15 billion "yes/no" questions on the application and they understood. Still a very slow process even though he's almost through it. Now we just need to go up to the parks that he wants to be hired at and get them to know his name and face so they want to hire him!

So as I have been thinking about Cameron getting a job and getting a place of our own I've starting thinking that I really miss Rexburg. Don't misunderstand, I don't miss the cold weather or the wind, but I miss the people and the atmosphere there. I even looked at the idaho parks and the city parks in rexburg, IF, and pocatello. NONE of them are hiring. So I guess it's just not where we're suppose to be. Made me sad, but it's nice to be in WA after so many years too. We just miss the friends that we use to hang out with and the things that we use to do. Can't live a college student life forever. Well, I guess you can, but you'd soon die of top ramen poisoning (I'm sure if you lived off of it too long it would happen!).

A picture of my beautiful girls cuddling on the couch together. Breanne is such a good big sister.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN (past and present)

BOO!

I found some Halloween pictures from 4 years ago when I lived in Provo. They ARE kind of scary. We obviously couldn't come up with anything better then rock stars and a doctor. But we got to put on really cool fake nails.

I think that Halloween is so much more fun now that we have kids and get to dress them up. This is from last year. We were from characters Star Wars, Breanne was an Ewok.

This year she INSISTED on being a fairy princess and Kaitlyn is a cute little kitty. We didn't have any one that wanted to dress up with Cameron and me so we decided not to because we're lame and didn't want to feel like dorks all by ourselves. Where's Maggie and Chad when you need them?? Breanne didn't really get the hang of it all. She had it down before we went out but when they people would answer the door she'd just stare at them. We had to remind her what to say every time! She loved knocking on the doors though, I think even more then getting candy. I meant to get a video of her singing "trick-or-treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat". It was way cute, especially when she started singing it all by herself and said smell my toes. It was funny. Hope everyone had a great Halloween, we sure did.

Pumpkin Carving

We finally carved pumpkins on Monday for family night. Breanne was terrified of sticking her hand in the pumpkin and touching it's guts. I almost made her face her fears and stuck her hand in for her but the nice, understanding mother that I am...I didn't. She's so girlie it scares me sometimes. Now, I'm not always into getting down and dirty but I'm not petrified of getting my hands a bit dirty! Breanne saw a small mole on my sister's hand and wouldn't hold her hand because she insisted that her hand was dirty. Well, Cameron's got one more chance to get a little "tom boy" that will go camping and fishing with him.

Here's our finished products (from left to right: Breanne's, Nicole's, Cameron's)

I also took this picture of Cameron feeding Kaitlyn

And the girls first bath together...ahhhh...

Happy Halloween Baby Katie

I had to post some of these pictures because I thought it was really cute. Breanne was playing with those halloween window stickies and decided that baby Katie needed to be more festive. Here's how she decoreated:

Job Update

Cameron has finally heard back from the parks dept here in WA!! They've excepted his application and he's scheduled for his physical and psychological examines on the 30th of this month. The fitness part of it includes a mile and a half run, push ups, sit up, 300 meter sprint, vertical jump and agility run. That seems like an awful lot for just a park ranger position but apparently they want him in pretty good physical shape. He did a test run of all these events last weekend and past them all, but he's definitely not in the same shape he use to be. And lets be honest, I think that he actually gained a few sympathy pounds this last time (ITS ABOUT TIME!). I'm not quite sure what all the psychological examine includes, but lets hope he's psychologically sound. After all this is the polygraph test which is the most common to fail probably because they lied on the application about not being involved in criminal activities. All in all I think he has a great chance of getting this job. It is the state, lets keep that in mind, so it could take months or years for that matter for this whole process! Maybe I exaggerated a bit.

Pumpkin Patching

I appologize for the last post being so down hearted, we just had a couple of rough days, nothing that couldn't be over come.

Friday we took the girls to a pumpkin patch in Olympia with some friends. It was SO much fun. Let me paint the picture for you. It was the four of us, my friend and her 3 kids, 2 of her friends with their 2 boys and anothers 3 girls. The total count here is 6 kids ages 4 and under and 4 babies 5 months and under. Luckily there was an adult for every child that could walk and we only lost one kid the entire afternoon. She was the oldest child so it wasn't REALLY scary, but still. She wandered off into one of the three pumpkin patches and we couldn't find her for about 15 mins, but all turned out okay.

The kids got to feed goats, chickens, a pig, and ride horses :) Here is a picture of the horses that they were allowed to ride.

The goats were really hungry, like goats usually are, but if the kids weren't careful they would grab the brown paper bags that the food was in and eat the food AND the bag! Greedy goats! One of the boys got his bag stolen by these theifs but luckily Cameron was there to save the day! He snatched the bag out of the goats mouth and were all the kids hero.

So the whole point of going to the pumpkin patch was to pick out a pumpkin, right? Wrong. We walked around looking for a cute little one that Breanne could walk out with, but when we found the right one and tried to hand it to her she refused to touch it! I did my best to wipe the dirt and mud off the pumpkin but she was convinced that she would get her hands dirty. This is not my fault as many of you might believe. I've tried my best to make sure she's not a prissy little girl and worry about dirt and such, but obviously it hasn't worked. Needless to say we didn't get pumpkins that day, but it's still early. The best part is, though, that we had our first family portrait taken as a family of four.

There are a ton of pumpkin patches around here so we're thinking that we'll hit one every weekend until halloween! They're free, why not?

Venting and other thoughts

A Warning to those who might read this: Personal thoughts, Venting frustration

A few thoughts have been running through my head the last week or so. I don't know if it's the experience of being a new mom of two or if this is normal or maybe this is just the way things are going to be, but lately I've felt like I'm not cut out for this whole mom thing. Having just one is simple and I stick to my previous views that you're not truly a parent until you have at least two kids. I know it's only been about three weeks, but they have been a stressful three weeks. Breanne has become VERY whiny. She's started to throw more tantrums then usual and I know that it's probably just jealousy because I have to pay a lot more attention to Kaitlyn right now, but when Kaitlyn has been screaming constantly every time she's awake and deciding not to sleep for more then an hour at a time at night I'm tired and my patience is low. Because of this and the fact that Kaitlyn wants to eat ALL the TIME I quit breastfeeding. The guilt of that has been enough in itself and it seems that everyone I tell has a disappointed tone in their voice like I failed as a mother. If I could go back to breastfeeding I would, but not because I miss it. I'd go back just so I'd feel like a good mom. I'm sure I'm hormonal still, but all of these emotions are getting the best of me and I'm starting to feel bad for Breanne. I was irritable when I was pregnant and I was looking forward to Kaitlyn's birth because I thought that my mood would improve, but sadly to say it has not. It's probably gotten worse. I think of all the people I know who have kids and are stay at home moms. They do it so well and they seem like such happy, perfect moms. I love my kids, don't get me wrong, but I don't know if this comes as naturally to me as it should. What made me think I could raise children? Kids have never liked me and personally, I've never really liked them. These are just random firings of my frazzled brain. I'll end this posting with a cute story.

A few days ago I put Kaitlyn on the couch while I did something in the kitchen. She started to cry and I finished what I was doing in the kitchen, quickly, and started back to the couch. As I turned around the crying died down a bit and around the corner came Breanne holding her little sister! She was doing really well, not squishing her or holding her by her neck. She was holding her against her chest very carefully. However cute that was we had a nice talk about not picking up baby Katie (that's what Bre calls her) without mommy or daddy. She really does want to help. She always goes straight for the pacifier (or ball as she calls it) when she starts to fuss and tries to stick it in her mouth. Kaitlyn is slowly warming up to the pacifier. Key word, SLOWLY. She also likes to help feed her every once in awhile. Despite all the frustrations there's always some shining moments that will make you smile.

Oh, and Breanne got her Halloween costume and LOVES to put it on and "fly around".

She's Here! She's Finally Here!

Right on time! Already not like her mother. She was born right on schedule, September 18th at 1:31 AM. Oh so bright and early in the morning. If I was to sum up the whole experience in one word it would be "WONDERFUL". I'm not getting all mushy gushy on you. Seriously, it was great. With Breanne, for some CRAZY reason, I didn't get an epidural. I'm baffled at myself, really. This time....much different. We sat around and talked and laughed. I was having contractions at one point every minute and didn't even know it, we slept a bit. Wonderful! It started to wear off at about midnight but, again, perfect because when the big moment came it went quickly and I was up walking around about an hour after she was born. To all my pregnant friends out there, please for your own sake...TAKE THE EPIDURAL!

Okay, enough of my soap box. She came out with a full head of hair, as you can tell by the pictures. The doctor made a funny joke that she has more hair then her daddy. He laughed, but I know it hurt him deep. 7lbs 15oz, I was the winner of that bet with a guess of 7lbs 13oz. No prize money was awarded but I'll take my new baby girl as a prize, and of course the bragging rights. 19.5 inches, she's a beauty.

Breanne was a champ through the whole thing. She stayed with Papa the night Kaitlyn was born and didn't even cry for mommy when he laid her down for bed. She loves to help with her new little sis, this can be great or sometimes more trouble then it's worth, but she's doing great.

It's weird to be a mom of two now. I actually feel like a "mom". When it was just Bre we had all this free time and she entertained herself, but now I've got both of them demanding my attention, usually at the same time, when I'm trying to make lunch and talk on the phone to a relative, and trying to feed the baby. I feel like I'm doing a juggling act. Wow, and we're hardly a week into it. It's going to be fun and I'm sure stressful will be used to describe it as well.