life is hard sometimes.

well i'll start with the short(er) things before i get to the main point on this blog... let's see...
i've been really sick. thought i had the flu and was going to wait it out, but when my fever got to 103.5, my mom made me go to the dr. i found out that i have a really bad kidney infection- there is e. coli in my kidneys! so that's pretty scary and yes, i suppose my mom was right about making me go. you might never hear (or read) me say that again :)
i'm on some serious antibiotics and am feeling much better. i'll know on monday if the antibiotic i'm on will actually kill the infection that i have (that's when my dr will have the results from all his labwork). but for now i feel better- so if the medicine isn't working, something is.
lexi has kind of found her hands. she still hasn't seen them, but she can get them to her mouth. she loooooves to suck on her fingers. it's so cute- she'll talk and suck on her fingers and giggle and suck on them some more. she's such a sweet girl.
so, on monday, one of my parents' dogs died. she was 10 years old and had just suddenly gone way downhill (like the week before she died). of course that's a little sad for everyone (we got her when i was 14!) but all of the adults were just fine.
lincoln overheard me talking on the phone to my dad about it (even though i wasn't even in the same room he was in), and he came in and asked me, "did nana die?" i said, "no, baby! nana didn't die!" ......"mommy, did cricket die?" i thought for a minute about how the heck i was going to approach this subject. lincoln has never had to deal with death before and i knew this was going to be really difficult.... there was no way for me to sugar coat it. "yes. yes, baby. she did."
"NO! i want her to come back!". so i told him that she had been really sick and that she was in dog heaven now and that she's not in pain anymore and that it would be ok. well, that's not good enough for a 4-yr-old. he told me how much he wanted her to come back, speculated that maybe she had just run away and that she would come back, and told me that he was so very sad. i told him it was ok to be sad, and he just collapsed into my arms and bawled. it was awful.
later that day, we went out to my parents house because i had things that needed to be done out there (these plans had been made days before the dog died). when we got out there, he wanted my mom to show him where my dad had buried cricket, so they got on the golf cart and drove off to go look. i don't know exactly what was said (other than the fact that they discussed that she was buried in the dirt), but i know that when they got back, he was totally at peace with the whole thing. (one funny moment: he told my mom that when he gets old, that i will have to bury him. she told him that it was different for people and he said "good. people have a better choice!")
he tells me that he still misses her but that's ok for him to miss her. ...it was quite a tragic ordeal.
guess that's all for this go 'round.
ttfn

sweetness

i am better now, but Lexi is still sick. she's feeling better, but is still super snotty.
today, Lincoln was holding Lexi and he looked up at me and said, "when i didn't have a baby, my heart felt like i wanted to have a baby". sweet boy!
tomorrow Lexi will be 2 months old. i can't even get that into my head! she is such a beautiful, sweet girl and she's changed our lives so much in so little time. she smiles all the time (especially when daddy comes home- she LOOOVES her daddy [even though i would still say she's a mommy's girl- so far]) and she's starting to laugh more and more.
her newest discovery is how much she loves baths! she used to haaate them, but now she really enjoys just sitting in the warm water and having us pour it all over her. she actually bathing part, she's not a huge fan of- but the soaking part is great!
she hasn't found her hands yet, but i'm expecting her to any day. she can get them to her mouth pretty well, but she's never seen them (or at least focused on them). she did see her feet while she was taking a bath the other day, but i don't think she realized that they belong to her. she kept staring at them and watching them move like "what the heck are those things!?". it was quite adorable.
Lincoln has a new obsession with decay. haha, i know that sounds sooo weird but let me make sense of it for you. he loves playing games and watching videos on pbskids.org... there's a show called Sid the Science Kid (or something like that) and he talks about all sorts of cool stuff. in one video, he talks about how things decay and shows a decaying apple (and squishes it and it's gross). so, Lincoln suddenly became fascinated with it. while he was visiting Pops and Nana's house, he got to see some bananas that were starting to decay. then he went out into their garden and found a couple of veggies that were decaying. my mom then told him that our teeth decay if we don't brush them really well. that sort of freaked him out, but really got him to want to brush him teeth (thanks mom!). so now he's obsessed with decay and the fact that things don't just "get yucky", but that there's actually a reason they're gross.
i feel like there are a lot of new things going on but when i try to transfer them from my brain onto my blog, i can't think of anything...
i suppose they will come out eventually and result in new blog posts.

pass the kleenex. no, i'm not sad.

i'm officially sick. i've been fighting it off for a couple of days but have been unsuccessful. i'm not deathly ill, just obnoxiously so. stuffy nose that is also runny (why could it be one or the other??), cough, sore throat, painful swollen lymph nodes... fun. and as of yesterday, Lexi's got it. at least the stuffy nose with some nice green snot. so we're in for a pretty fun weekend.
last night wasn't as miserable as we had expected, however. Lexi only woke up once during the night, and that was because she was sleeping on her back in her bed and you all know that's not helpful when there's a stuffy nose involved. so i had to get up with her, suction out her nose (which is always fun!), and make space in our bedroom to bring in her swing. she spent the rest of the night sleeping very well in her swing, even if she did sound pretty snotty.
i can't say i'm exactly looking forward to the weekend. with both of us sick, sleep is something i won't be able to get enough of. even if she sleeps well, my body needs lots of sleep so i can get better. i have to rest a looot when i'm sick. seriously- my immune system sucks. i'm now praying that Lincoln won't get it. i'm hoping grandparents will keep him both nights this weekend (A) so he doesn't catch this crud and (B) so Lexi and i can get plenty of rest and work on getting better.

we got Lincoln's Halloween costume yesterday. he's going to be a bat. he really wanted to be the dragon that we saw, but it was mostly red and looked pretty much like the devil, so we had to go with the bat. he initially didn't like the idea of the bat, because he reeeally wanted to be the dragon- but when i told him that he could be like Batman, that was all he needed to hear. he tried it on in the store and proceeded to run and jump around the dressing rooms, flapping his arms and pretending to fly. pretty dang cute.

i had one of those fun mom moments the other day. Lexi and i were at a little lunch place waiting for our food (well, not Lexi's and mine, but Matt's, Candace's, and mine). i could tell she was going poop because of the lovely expression and red face. i didn't think anything of it- heck- babies poop all the dang time. but when i picked up her carrier off the chair it was sitting on, there was a PUDDLE IN THE SEAT! i was mortified. thankfully, noone saw and i was able to grab some paper napkins that were right by the table and soak it up. and, being the mom that i am, i always have anti-bacterial wipes in my purse- so i got it all cleaned up. now i'm wondering what kind of mess she's got going on inside that carrier. ...so i finally got my food, got out the door, and went to drop off M&C's food, thinking that instead of visiting with them for a while that i needed to rush home to bathe and change my child before the other child got out of school. thankfully, Candace offered to let me come in and bathe Lexi at their house (even though a realtor was coming over to look at their house very shortly). it was nice having Candace's help (thanks Candace!). i was glad to discover that most of the mess in the carseat was pee. her diaper was full of poop, and i think the pee just didn't have any place to soak into the diaper, so it just went all out the sides. (btw, we were then using some diapers that were a gift and are not too awesome) Lexi was soaked from her knees to halfway up her back and she only had a little leaky poop right by her butt. and of course it was the one day that i didn't have a change of clothes in her diaper bag, so i had to borrow a little blue outfit of Layton's (Lexi was very gender confused that day- as i made sure to put a bow on her before we went to pick up Lincoln from school so noone would mistake her for a boy). it was definitely one of those awesome mom moments.

i think Lexi has gone back to sleep finally, so i am going to go do the same thing.

time is going by way too quickly

i can't believe that it's already more than a week into September.
Lincoln is back in school and loves his new class and new teachers. He's in the pre-k class and is learning about math and science and all sorts of stuff. it's crazy that my boy is big enough to come home and tell me about what he learned about science. of course, it's simple stuff- but still. they also have a marble rewards system like we have at home so that's pretty awesome. it's nice that what we're working on at home is carrying over to school.
Lexi will be 8 weeks old in just 2 days. she has gotten so big. i bet she's 10 lbs now. she's quite rolly. she's smiling a lot and has even started laughing some. scott and i really enjoy our quiet time that we get with her after Lincoln goes to sleep. when he's awake, there's so much going on that Lexi can't seem to focus long enough to give us smiles and laughs. she does tolerate her brother well, though, which is nice since he's not always super gentle!
he looooooves her so much. more and more every day. whenever she's awake, he wants her on a blanket on the floor so he can get down to her level and get a few smiles out of her. she loves her brother, too! she always smiles at him.
i get so happy when she reaches new milestones, but then i instantly get sad when i think about the fact that every milestone she reaches means she's getting bigger and simply growing up too fast. WAH! especially since we're not planning on having any more kids- the little things seems sweeter this go 'round. i think i learned with Lincoln that time does indeed fly by entirely too fast so i'm trying to savor every tiny moment. i'm doing that with him, too. it won't be long before he's "too big" to snuggle with me or to kiss me (heaven forbid an older boy kiss his mommy!)
here are the newest pics of my beautiful children... the one of Lexi was taken just last Friday (9/5) and the one of Lincoln is from Tues (9/2)

he is so silly! he would not pose normally.

she is so beautiful in this picture. she looks so much like her brother, but much more feminine. i love that you can see her eyelashes. ...absolutely gorgeous.