TGIF!

Seriously. It has been a long week. We are dealing with so many adjustments at our house ... new baby, new job, Momma being back at work.

Mylie has had a rough week (can't you just tell from the look on her face?) She seems be suffering from seperation anxiety. Sunday they had to bring her to me from Primary (that has never happened) and on Monday, Alicia said that she cried (sobbed) for 20 minutes in the afternoon because she missed me (also has never happened). She woke up last night with a tummy ache and later threw up. This morning she seemed so much better, so we went to Daniel's birthday party as planned, did a little shopping at Target, and then when Daddy got home from work, we went went to Grandma and Grandpa Breach's for dinner. She was so happy to see them, to play, and then later to puke all over their floor. Poor baby. Can I just tell you how much I love Jeff's parents? They love Mylie so much. Mary called shortly after we'd gotten home from their house, just to make sure Mylie was ok. She sent Mylie home with a can of Sprite and a Dora paper cup so she could drink it tomorrow to feel better. Ya, Mylie thought that was pretty cool.

Blake is an easy baby, but newborn babies are a lot of work. He will take formula, but I am trying to nurse as much as I can when we are home. I told Jeff tonight that I feel like a milk cow. He just laughed.

Jeff's job is going awesome and he is really happy with it. It is nice to have him home at night, though he is pretty wiped out by the time he gets home. This man has so much dedication. He gets up at 5 a.m. so he can work out for an hour before he leaves for work. Everyday. Only screaming kids can get me out of bed at 5 a.m.

4 weeks was definitely not long enough of a maternity leave. I have now been back 4 weeks and it has been hard. Even though I only work part-time. Even though I can take the baby with me. I feel like I have only been able to accomplish surface tasks, or things that immediately need done, thus leaving a huge pile of other things that need to be done, things that are still very important, just not as urgent. Yesterday was a bad day with a significant problem on a case resulting in me crying, feeling like a failure at everything ... starting with work, then moving onto my skills as a mother, my housekeeping skills and basically as a woman in general. Thankfully everything looks better in the morning. Damn hormones.

Will my house ever stay clean? I try, I really do. The number one thing at our house that is annoying me is Mylie's soon to be bedroom ... still in limbo, clearing out, donating, consolidating and getting ready to paint. But it seems like such an overwhelming task that my motivation is low. The second thing annoying me is Jeff and I's room ... it just feels like we are bursting at the seams. I love this house and we intend to stay here for a few more years, until Mylie is close to starting school. It seemed so big 6 years ago ....

And very randomly ... I totally miss my Mom this week. Not that she is gone or that I haven't talked to her ... I just miss her. I think it is because although I have seen her recently and quite a few times in the last few months, every time has been so quick, maybe only a day. So while we have had a good quantity of visits, I just need a quality visit.

And honestly, I'm not complaining, just trying to capture how I feel right now. I hope I am not the only one that struggles. I love Mylie and Blake more than my own life, but being a mom is a hard job. It is definitely worth it though. So all I can say right now is thank goodness it is Friday, that we have absolutely nothing planned for the weekend, that neither Jeff or I have to work. Thank goodness for weekends when the 4 of us can relax and reconnect and recharge for the upcoming week.

I guess this makes me a soccer mom!

One of the drills they do at soccer involves alternately kicking over the yellow and orange cones. Here is Mylie in all her glory! (She is still working on not using her hands!)

This is her off on her own. Notice how she pauses to make sure Jeff and I are watching.

Spring things...

Happy Easter and Happy Spring! I love this shirt the Easter Bunny brought Blake that says "Just Hatched." We had a fun Easter Sunday. Here are the kids in their new Easter outfits.

Mylie came upstairs about 7 on Sunday morning. This is our conversation:
Mom: "Happy Easter Mylie."
Mylie: "Mom, the Easter Bunny came and hid eggs and I found them all."
Mom: "Mylie! We wanted to watch you find them and take pictures."
Mylie: "OK Mom. I'll go hide them and then find them again so you can take pictures!
Silly girl, here she is with her Easter basket (don't mind the ghetto hair).

This week also brought spring soccer season. Mylie was so excited all week knowing that Saturday was her first soccer game. For her age group they have a soccer academy where they have an hour on Saturdays and they different skill building drills the whole time. She did so awesome and I can see improvement in her coordination since fall. (I can't figure out how to get my video to load of soccer ... Courtney, can you help?)

Blake is doing so well and growing so fast. He is a happy little boy and has smiling and cooing down pat. Mylie likes to read him stories, it is so cute, she shows him all the pictures. Apparently he thought this book was quite funny. His smile is so cute, his cheeks are just so chunky and his face so round that it is about the cutest thing. He is still such a good baby. I took him to work with me today and I was there from 9-3:30 and he hardly fussed at all. Just napped and checked things out. As long as he isn't hungry he is Mr. Content!

This week is spring break for the schools around here so I don't have Court at all and have a pretty easy work week. Too bad the weather doesn't feel like spring break so we could actually enjoy it! Oh well.

6 weeks later ...

Blakey is six weeks old today which seems so crazy. On one hand it went so fast, on the other it seems like he has been a part of our family forever. He is such a little cutie and I just love him to pieces. Poor baby has a cold, which of course started the day we were leaving for Idaho Falls. He didn't sleep well at all while we were there (could have been Papa's snoring) and was a little grumpy in the car, but otherwise it was a good quick trip. Mylie had a lot of fun and was such a good girl while we were there. She had fun showing off her baby brother, playing in the snow and being the center of attention. She is such a special kid and I love her so much! She is very relisient which is a good thing ... she forgives me when I lack patience! She is also so darn funny. Last week we got girl scout cookies and so we have been snacking on them all week. This afternoon she came upstairs to tattle on Jeff. "Mom, Daddy won't let me have any girl stout cookies. He can't have girl stout cookies, he's a boy. He can only have boy stout cookies!" I love how she makes me literally laugh out loud everyday.

Jeff starts his new job tomorrow morning. He is excited and I am very excited for him. It will be a big change for our family. In all our years of marriage, we haven't ever had a regular schedule. I'm excited for him to be home at night, to have dinner together as a family every night. But it will be odd to have him back to work tomorrow. I thought about it and in the last 6 weeks, Jeff has worked a total of 8 days. Family medical leave is an awesome thing and I think it is so neat that dads can take advantage of it so they can be home when a new baby comes. I was telling my Grandpa Hammond about Jeff being able to take this leave and I think it just blew him away that something like that is available for fathers. Mylie, Blake and I will also be doing some adjusting this week too. Jeff is a huge help when he is home and we will miss him for sure! I have two days of Court this week and will probably be taking Blake to work with me in the day and then doing the baby swap with Jeff at 5 (Court doesn't start until 5:30). It will be so nice that our offices are in the same town, in fact only a couple blocks apart. Things just have a way of working out.

Just a couple pictures ...

Mylie working on her karate routine. Jeff is working on his Black Belt in Kenpo, so Mylie takes every opportunity to practice with him. She puts on her bathrobe and calls it her karate robe. What a nut!
Blake is getting bigger ... he is 5 weeks now. How time flies!
His first bathtub bath, he loved it. During the other picture that Jeff took, Blake peed straight up in the air. I decided to post this picture instead. LOL!

We are headed to Idaho Falls on Wednesday for a couple days. I have a meeting there on Thursday for work and since Jeff is still off we decided to make a little trip of it. I am excited for Grandpa Hammond and Grandpa Jack to see Blake. I am a little nervous for the drive, we haven't had any long trips and if the drive home from Target tonight is any indication, it could be a long four hours!

Things are good in our little family though. Blake is sleeping really good at night, about a 6-hour stretch, which means that I am sleeping really good at night. He is also starting to smile, which is about the cutest, to see his serious face break out into a grin. Mylie is doing good, just her silly, crazy self. She is doing random things lately, like putting rolls of toliet paper in the sink, dumping all of Blake's body wash into the tub, getting toothpaste all over the bathroom, plunging the toliet. Basically nothing good happens when she goes in the bathroom. I told her I was going to put a lock on the door and she just looks up at me with her big sweet innocent blue eyes and says, "But Mom, how will I go potty?" Jeff and I are praying for patience!

We made it

through my first day back to work yesterday and it went OK. I was able to do a lot from home in the morning and ended up being gone from about 3:30 - 9: 00 p.m. Jeff said that Blake did OK. Mylie was thrilled because she got to feed him a bottle. I think he missed his Momma though and I may have a Momma's boy on my hands, which is OK with me. I made it through Court without any problems. I remember that after I went back to work with Mylie I was so afraid I would start baby talking, because that is what I had been doing at home. But alas, everything was fine. I am so glad that I have a job that I love, that it is part-time, and that other than Court hearings, I have complete flexibilty on when I work. It makes being a working mom work for me. And, aside from Court, I can even take Blake with me to work. Mylie was my "assistant" for the first months of her life, looks like Blake will be taking over that role.

We are blessed!

Sunday was Blake's blessing day at church. It was such a nice day. Jeff gave him a wonderful blessing and we were glad to have Papa, Uncle Ben, Shane, Chad and our Bishop there to help. Blake was so good during church and didn't cry at all. Afterwards everyone came over to our house for lunch. We had a full house, but it was so much fun. We missed Papa Hammond and Papa Breach, but were so glad to have Papa and Grandma, Grandma Breach, Great-Grandma Breach, Ben and Holli and Devin there as well as Mel and Carey's families. Mylie holding Blake wearing his "handsome pants."
Our first family picture with all four of us.
Papa and Grandma and all the grandkids. I was counting the other night and Blake is the 34th great-grandkid on the Hammond side and the 6th great-grandkid on the Ritchie side. I'm not sure about the Breach side. I'll have to ask Jeff's grandma.
Ben and Holli and the kids were here for the whole weekend and it was so much fun. We absolutely love hanging out with them and I love watching all the kids play together. It was about 60 on Friday so we spent some time at the park that afternoon, the kids had so much fun and I think it was great for them to burn some energy. On Saturday we hung out all day and then that night we made tacos at our house and just hung out. I told Max we were having a party, and he corrected me and told me we were having a fiesta! What a funny kid. Mylie hated to see them leave, but luckily it is less than two weeks until we see them again.

I do feel quite blessed right now. I have two happy and healthy kids, a wonderful husband, we both have loving and supportive families and spring is just around the corner ... could it get any better? And then it did ... last week Jeff got offered a new job. He had not applied, but was recruited for it. He has been working for the Sheriff's office for the last year and a half. It was the job he was sure he wanted, but it just didn't turn out like either of us expected. Instead of staying on patrol, he was moved to the jail and for the last 9 months has been working the night shift 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. I had no idea what a toll this could take on all of us. He is so tired all the time, he worked 4 days on and days off, so his body never really adjusted to a schedule. We saw him maybe 2 hours a day and that was tough and it has been hard too with a new baby at nights and no help. But we were looking at the big picture figuring things would get better soon. They did. On Thursday he was offered the job as the supervisor over the Misdemeanor Probation Department in Canyon County. The pay is more, the hours are regular, his commute is cut in half, and I will never have to spend another Christmas alone while my husband is at work. We are so excited! His new office is about two blocks from my office, so we can even go to lunch together, LOL! Jeff will excel at this position. Probation is what his background is, he worked as a felony probation officer for 7 years prior to going to the Sheriff's office. It looks like he will have about 9 people working under him and that the department supervises about 1400 people on probation. He starts on March 17th, and what is perfect about that is that he is paternity leave right now (because I go back to work tomorrow), so for his two weeks notice, he is off. Like I said, we are blessed!