Jackie Laughing

While she's still at the age where her laughing sounds a little like indistinct grunting, it is so fun that we can get Jackie to laugh now!  Even Violet was getting big laughs out of her today.  Here is a video I got of her tonight when we were all hanging out on the front porch:

Easter egg hunt and Easter Sunday!

So, I'm way behind on blogging, but rather than try to catch up, I'll just start with Easter!

We've been is CA for the past few Easters, but this year Easter happened during our break while we are in AZ!  (We're still here for another week and a half.)  My parents' neighborhood always has a giant Easter egg hunt, and it was so fun that Violet got to do it this year.  This egg hunt is supposed to be for 4 year olds and up, but Violet didn't want to do the little kid one, and I was so proud of how bravely she ran down the hill with all the big kids.  She mostly found only half eggs that had their candy taken already, but she she didn't mind.  (Total win-win.  All the fun of an Easter egg hunt, and she didn't even get any candy so I didn't have to worry about how much she ate!)

Violet eating her doughnut with verve:

With Grandpa:

Heart-warming daddy-daughter pic:

Easter Sunday was lovely, and we even managed to fit in a little photo shoot before church:

She's here!

If you didn't already know, our new little girl arrived 10 days ago!  And if you follow me on instagram, you've already been bombarded with pictures of her, so bear with me.  I have no plans for the post beyond posting glamour shot after glamour shot of this cute baby girl.  

Here she is!  

Jacqueline Leona LeSueur - born February 11th at 11:45 pm.  She was 7lbs 6 oz (so small!  I didn't think I would ever have a little baby!) and 20.5 inches long (exactly the same as Violet). She looks a lot like Violet did when she was a baby, and I think in a few years I won't be able to tell which girl it is from the baby pictures.  

She has been such a good baby.  I don't know if it just her personality or if it is because I'm not such a rookie at taking care of a baby, but she been lower maintenance than Violet ever was.  Speaking of Violet, she's been the best older sister you could ask for.  If she's been gone for a while, like at the park or museum with my mom or Glenn, the first thing she asks when she gets home is, "Where's my baby sister?" or "Where is Jacqueline?".  She is really gentle with her, and when I nurse Jackie, Violet brings me her book of fairy tales and asks me to read to her.  She seems pretty happy.  I was afraid she'd feel like we suddenly didn't give her any attention, but the truth is, Jacqueline sleeps so much that I've still been able to give Violet plenty of attention.  I'm glad newborns sleep so much at the beginning, because  I feel like it is easing Violet into our new life.  By the time Jacqueline takes more of my time, Violet will hopefully be used to her being here.  A few shots of the girls together:

(watching Dora together; why is this picture so funny to me?)

I should also mention that my mom came to stay with us for a week!  It was a huge blessing that she could take that much time off work, and I'm so grateful that she wanted to come here and work so hard for a week!  She almost never stopped cleaning when she was here, and every day she took Violet out to do something fun.  Also, we lucked out with the timing of her coming out here.  She has had her bags packed in the trunk of her car for weeks (Baby Jackie was 9 days late, in case you don't remember all my complaining a couple of weeks ago) so she could leave work whenever I called to say I was in labor.  Well, I started having contractions around 3 in the morning on Tuesday, but I was reluctant to tell me mom to come in case they stopped and it wasn't really labor.  I told her I was in labor around 1, and she left right away and got to our house by 7 that evening.  By 8 o'clock the contractions were pretty serious and Glenn and I left for the hospital.  The baby came pretty quickly after that!  

Here are some pics of Mom and Violet's time together:

At the park:

At the museum:

(same shirt as at the park, but a different day.  Vi got this shirt for Valentines' Day, and looooooves it.)

At the zoo:

And one last picture.  The two Jackies together!

Photo dump - the last days of 2013

You guys, I'm due in ONE week.  We are getting pretty excited, but I don't feel anywhere near having the baby.  But before this blog gets taken over by pictures of the new baby, I figured I'd post the last few I have of our trip to AZ, even though it was a while ago. 

Our LeSueur family pic!

Picking oranges:

at the park:

Snuggling with Grammy:

At the zoo:

Last, my mom made Violet some really creative snacks and lunches while we were there, so I took some pictures!  Believe it or not, it actually convinced Violet to eat a lot of things she normally wouldn't!  Aren't Grandma's the best?

(lady bug sandwich)

(reindeer pancakes)

(happy girl)

Maggie and Violet

I had so many good pictures of Maggie and Violet together, that I decided to dedicate a whole post to them!  Maggie is Violet's only cousin on my side of the family, and before this trip, they'd only met one other time, last Christmas, when Maggie was only a month old.  However, we facetime with them pretty regularly, and Violet recognized Maggie as soon as she saw her this year!  

We stayed at my parents' house at the same time as Kenny's family for about a week, so the girls had lots of time to become friends!  I think it was the beginning of what will be a life-long best-friendship!

The girls took their baths together:

They took a walks in the stroller, and the wagon several times, with Grammy:

They had matching Christmas dresses!

Violet taught Maggie how to throw coins in the fountain: 

(and also wore Maggie's clothes on more than one occasion, like this black skirt, for example.)

Also, Violet taught Maggie a lot about how to tease her dad!  Violet decided early on that Uncle Kenny was good to wrestle.

Last but not least, there was a toddler-sparkler-sword-fight that was, while closely monitored, as dangerous as it sounds.

Cousins forever!

Family Pictures - 2013

I still have a bunch of pictures of our vacation to post, but my mom just sent me the family pictures!  I decided I couldn't wait another day to share them.  I love how they turned out!  Violet smiled for almost every picture, and she even hugged and kissed Maggie on command.  Additionally, Glenn looks handsome every picture (of course) and my black shirt hid my pregnancy better than I expected!  So all in all, it was a family picture success!

We also got family pictures taken with Glenn's family and so I'll share those pictures when I see them!

Christmas 2013

We had such nice Christmas this year.  We spent Christmas Eve with Glenn's family, and Christmas morning with mine.  Glenn's family's tradition is to spend Christmas Eve at his Grandma Audree's house, and we always do a nativity with all the grandkids.  And Glenn always ends up participating too...

Violet was more aware this year that Christmas morning was exciting.  It was fun to watch her run out to see the tree and her presents!  Also, Violet and I had matching pajamas that morning, and matching outfits for the rest of Christmas day.  I loved it; I'm going to be hopeless when I have TWO little girls to dress up!

We went over to the LeSueurs' for part on Christmas morning and Christmas lunch.  I think Violet had everyone in the house read her this Frozen book at some point.

That evening we had dinner with my family, and we did a pinata, and sent off lanterns!  It was such a fun, festive end to Christmas day.  I'm sure I've mentioned that Violet is obsessed with Tangled (although recently that has taken a backseat to her obsession with Frozen) so she definitely recognized the floating lanterns and thought they were very cool.

Our Vacation - Pre Christmas

We did so much and took so many pictures over our vacation that I can't fit it all into one post!  Here's what we did in AZ before Christmas:

1.  The triathlon - We left for AZ on a Friday afternoon, and on Saturday morning, I did a triathlon with  my mom and Courtney!  We were a relay team, so we each did one leg.  Courtney was amazing at the swimming part, and my mom did really good at the biking, and I was able to run the whole way without stopping, which was my goal.  Also, I had the lofty goal of running faster than 30 minutes (it was a 5k), but I knew that would be tough because I'm so slow right now.  And then the second half of the course was uphill!  However, I was surprised to see that my time was around 30:30, which was faster than I felt like I was running!

2.  The trampoline - Can you tell what Violet's favorite thing to do at LeSueur Grandma and Grandpa's house was?

She wanted to jump all day long!  I actually loved it, because most of the time she just wanted us to come on the tramp with her, but hold perfectly still while she jumped.  I would just bring out a blanket and relax for half an hour while she tired her self out!

3.  Our anniversary - Five years together!  We went on a date and saw the movie Frozen (which we loved) and then to dinner at a new place in Mesa called Republica Empanada (which we loved even more!) 

4.  The park with cousins - One morning, we went over to Freestone Park for Violet to feed the ducks, and her Redd cousins met us there.  This ended up being one of my favorite days of our trip; the kids had so much fun playing together, and Glenn and I always love a chance to hang out with Cheeri and Dustin.

New Years' Resolutions - 2014!

I'm excited to post all the pictures from Christmas and NewYears', but I want to make sure I post about my resolutions before I forget!  I liked how last year I felt so accountable for my resolutions since I'd posted them here and you all knew about them!

In review, for 2013 I had two resolutions:  Write in my journal everyday, and read 50 books.  I did write in my journal almost everyday.  I think I probably missed about 5 days throughout the year, and those were all in the first part of the year.  I haven't missed a day in months.  So I think I can say that I have successfully developed that habit!  

My other resolution was also very close to being a success.  I read... 48 books.  I pretty much stayed on track all year.  The problem was, when it came to crunch time at the end of the year, we were here with our family and I never felt like shutting myself up in my room during nap time to read!  If you are interested, here are the 48 books I read:

Looking back over all of them, some of my favorites were anything by Jhumpa Lahiri and the new Lemony Snicket series.  My least favorites were probably Austenland and Night Circus.  If you have any recommendations for me, I love to hear them!  I'm always looking for books to read.  Also, I got the new Jhumpa Lahiri for Christmas and I'm so excited to start it!

Here are my new resolutions:

1.  Read my scriptures everyday (so far I'm 3 for 3!)

2.  Go to Goodwill once a month to donate stuff.

That last one is because I want to have a little stuff as possible to move in a year and half when Glenn is done with school, and I figured it would be good to start de-junking now.