rayen!

I decided Saturday night that I was going to stop jumping up at every peep Rayen made to feed her during the night. She went from eating at 9pm, 3am, 6am, and 9am to eating at 9pm and then 6am on Saturday night and then 9pm and 7:30am this morning! Whew! It's funny how Mama always causes the problems. She's been ready to sleep through the night for a while, I think.
She loves to be bundled, swaddled, hugged, slung, and held. Ethan hated to be swaddled after about one week--it seems that Brett finally has someone who wants to cuddle as much as he does!
She loves watching Ethan. If I have her sitting on my lap, she'll turn her head to follow him as he moves all around the room. She smiles at him and keeps her eyes on him all the time. (Although I think part of the keeping her eyes on him is for defensive reasons. He can be pretty rough with his hugs and pats and when he helps put her pacifier into her mouth.)

Ethan loves her too. He tells her stories and sings songs and helps hand me things I need while I'm nursing. Such a sweetie.
We're not quite to any kind of real routine with her, but we are getting to have a good family rhythm with our new addition. Everyone is settling down and most importantly, I am much less hysterical and hormonal! I think that's the biggest reason why everyone is settling down.
PS. Ellie is now wearing 3-month-old clothes. What a fatty!

a few pictures

We were eating donuts for breakfast one morning and Ethan says, "Take a picture!" So I did. We have donuts a lot. So much that he calls Smiths "the donut store". Yum.
He loves to ride the train at the zoo.
Here's one of the sweet baby. She's getting so big!
I love the weird things they do before they can control their arms and hands.

back to work?

I did an hour and a half sub job at SLCC today. It was really nice. I enjoy working. However, I also enjoy staying home with my babies. I wish I could stay home AND work. And then as I was driving home after only 25 min because the job got done early to take a nap because both babies were asleep, I realized once more that I do have both. I have the perfect job that enables me to be an involved mom and a satisfied professional. I love it!

the farm

I've been feeling a little more like a human being (except just before mealtimes), so we've been doing fun outings. And look at me, already blogging about it.

We went down to visit my grandparents on The Farm yesterday. Mom and Amy came too. Ethan loved to see the cows and horses! He's been talking about the "giant bull, looking and turning" ever since.

Grandpa Esplin picked him up and Ethan got to pet Blaze. Very exciting!


And Ellie got to meet Grandma and Grandpa while we were there, too. Hopefully we'll get to go down again soon!

two too many children (and cats)

Rayen won't stop screaming unless she's latched onto me, Cordelia barfs up the 2 biggest hairballs I've ever seen, Ethan steps in the hairball barf in his last pair of clean socks. And all right at dinnertime when I am so hungry I can't cope with anything. It is so small and so big and all I can do is laugh because I'm too exhausted to cry.

-sigh- Tomorrow is another day with no mistakes in it yet.

ethan's birthday

Today is Ethan's second birthday! We asked him how old he was today and he said "Two! Almost three!"

one month old already!

I've wanted to blog and show off my beautiful baby, but it seems that 2 kids are twice as much as I can handle! It feels like I can barely take a breath. But actually now things are settling down. I'm getting used to it. It helps that Rayen has been sleeping 7 or 8 hours straight at night lately.

I was at my mom's house looking at old photos of me, since everyone says Ellie looks a lot like I did. And I agree, now that I've seen some pictures. She's more fair than I was; I had darker hair and skin.





Ethan has been really good with his new sister. He helps me throw diapers away and clean up toys. When she cries, he finds her pacifier and sticks it in her mouth. He cried for her to stay in his room and sleep last night when Rayen and I left for bed. When we go on family drives he tells her about everything he sees, "Look, Baby Ellie! There's a tunnel!" He's a good big brother.



Eeesh. This blog has taken much longer than it should have. I need to decrease my posting times. It's so easy to get distracted and look at photos for too long.

Rayen is here!

Check out my mom's blog for pictures.

update

My intelligent son counted to 9 spontaneously yesterday.

Rayen is still in my tummy.

the new boss

Ethan is as bossy as I am. I was going to say "is more bossy," but then I knew that Brett would give me that face like, "you're pretty damn bossy." Ha. Here are two beautiful and recent examples of Ethan's bossiness:

His food was too hot, so I told him he needed to wait for it to cool down. He said to his food, in a very commanding voice, "Cool down! Cool down!"

I said I needed to go to the bathroom so he stands up and runs in front of me, (same commanding voice) "Mama, go pee! Toilet!" And then proceeds to the bathroom and pats his hand on the toilet seat lid, "Mama, go bathroom!"

We spent a weekend in October down at Brett's parents' St George house. It was a lot of fun. (I do realize it's December now. I just haven't been taking pictures!)

We got Ethan some cute new jammies. He's so handsome! And big!
I asked him to smile for the camera and I got this. Funny boy. His camera smile has gotten more interesting over the past couple months. I'll have to post one of the latest ones.
They have cable at the house, including the Speed Channel, so we all watched the MotoGP races that weekend. If you look closely, you can see that they each have a little toy motorcycle clutched in their hands. Ethan is eating cereal, hence the funny face. But he sat there and watched the whole race!

bragging mother

Ethan can count!

Whenever I put a onesie on him, I always say "Ok, time for snaps! 1-2-3!" as I snap the bottom. Yesterday, he totally beat me to it. I said "Time for snaps!" And he said, "1-2-3!" He's a genius boy!

The real genius part is that he understands the concept. Brett found him counting 3 of his HotWheels cars after his nap today, "1-2-3!" over and over. And if I ask him to count, he'll say "1-2-3!"

I'm so proud.

update (with pictures!!)

Sheesh, just getting all the pictures off my camera and onto the computer takes forever (when I let it go for so long). Then I just procrastinate blogging even longer because it ends up taking me seventeen times longer than I think it will.

Let's see...Ethan news. His favorite (or only) number is 3. If I give him two crackers he looks at me and says "three!" and so I have to give him another one. When Ethan and Brett are practicing their drumming (we got Ethan junior sized drum sticks), Brett goes "one, two, three, four!" and starts drumming--Ethan goes "three, three, three, three!" If I ask him something with the word "too" at the end of the sentence, "Do you want to go, too?" He says, "Three!" (meaning "yes").

He's getting more and more independent and spontaneous. He knows more words than I think he does and he uses language in his own way, without me prompting him to say this or that. It's so fun that he is starting to really notice his world and to comment (constantly) on it.

What else. He's very interested in the new baby. He comes up to me frequently and lifts my shirt to poke my belly. He gets very excited when anyone says the word "girl" and shouts it over and over. He can say "Ellie" with a cute exaggerated L sound. I don't know what he's thinking about it all or if he understands what is going on, but I do think he understands much more than I would think for being 18 months.

This is back before we cut his hair. I can't believe it was so long!

Just before Ethan's very first haircut!
I think he felt a little like Samson.
We left the back long. Brett called it "Grandma in front, Daddy in back." I called it a mullet.
Ethan loves anything music. When he found out these little buds were making music, he carried them and the iPod around everywhere he went.
Beautiful baby.
Second haircut, made to match Daddy's.
We went up to Silver Lake to walk around the boardwalk. It was too much for me, he kept almost tripping into the water.
Yesterday, for Anabelle's birthday present, we took her to the Natural History Museum. We all had a lot of fun. Ethan ran through the whole museum, yelling all the labels he knew. "Dinosaur bone!" "Fish!" "Bug!" "Duck!"

we're having a baby girl!

We're naming her Rayen Elizabeth Kocherhans. She's due in February!

Cute profile

Little feet

Terminator face

Terminator arm and hand (There's just something about the way these ultrasound pictures turn out--reminds me of the Terminator!)

cute things

Ethan is getting so big! I'll post pictures soon, but here are a few stories:

Last night at dinner, he kept looking between Brett and me and his food and laughing, saying (and signing) "happy! happy!"

Today he came up to me and put his arm around my neck for a hug, saying "mma, mma, mma". I couldn't figure out what he was doing until he puckered his lips out for a kiss. Then I remembered that I had just given him a big hug and kisses all over his cheeks ("mwah! mwah! mwah!") He wanted more kisses!

He looked out his bedroom window recently and noticed our car was gone. So he said "Mama?" and Brett told him I was at work. So the rest of the afternoon he walked around saying "Mama" then he'd sign "work".

He's fascinated with keys and locks right now. I give him my car keys and a step stool and he'll stand at the door playing with the lock.

He's expanded our family since Jackie and Joel have moved back to Utah from Chicago. Now, when he walks around talking to himself, he'll say "Mama, Daddy, Joel, Blythe, Jackie, Mama, Daddy..." He's started talking in sentence form--still a lot of gibberish, but it flows like a sentence now.

We cleaned Brett's music space in our house, so he's started working on his guitars again. And so has Ethan, naturally. (He copies everything Brett does.) Brett sets a guitar out for Ethan to work on while Brett works on his. Brett got a great picture of this I'll have to post it.

Brett drove Ethan by the Ferrari shop recently. Ethan looked out his window and noticed the cars and turns to Brett, "Dada! Car! Car!" Good taste, baby.

Brett showed him how iPods and headphones work and Ethan walks around with a Nano tucked into his pocket, holding the earbuds into his ears and singing as he dances around the house.

As Brett says, everything Ethan does is super cute. Every day I am amazed at how smart and talented and fun he is. Every day I love him more and more!