I just... yeah

I have a blog post I am working on, but I keep stopping because I need to be in the right frame of mind. Then all these things keep happening that make me more mad and sad and I don't want to write something I don't mean. Although I must say far more good than bad is happening/has happened and I feel good about that. Since I use this as my journal I need to just get it all out before I forget. I will write it soon

but for now:

So... I am just curious... do/did boys wear hair bows back in the days? What in the heck am I talking about you ask? Well when Ireland was a tiny baby I had several (a little bit older) ladies ask if she was a boy or girl. Well anyone who knows me knows my girls always look very girly. Always. (well when I am in public :) ) So anyway i still remember once this lady asked to see Ireland- who had a pink bow glued in her hair, pink clothes and a pink blanket. This woman asks is she a boy or a girl. I pretend to fix her bow so she would see it. The lady looks right at the bow and says "Oh it has a pink bow on, it must be a girl!" so.... would a boy wear a blue bow? ha ha it just cracks me up. Even tonight Leighton had on a girly shirt ( I thought) a HUGE brown bow and pink socks and I still got asked if she was a boy or girl.

Anyway, I was just amused.

Oh and princess Leighton is now 6 months old. yes, really. It seems she should be a year since to me it is like she has been here for so long but then it seems I just had her. hmmm.

Well here are some Lei Lei facts:

*I can't go a day without someone commenting on how big she is. Even me and Dan! (well in her defense a lot of babies 6 months old are 18-20 lbs but they are also 25-27 inches long. no, little Lei is a whopping 24 inches-if she stretches. ha ha so she obviously will look EXTRA chubby) I love every single inch of her. I think chubby babies are the BEST!!!

* she is a squealer!

* she is SO DANG DRAMATIC. fake coughs, hysterical screams at random moments, she pouts, etc. so funny.

* She also is a super chill baby she just has to throw in little attention grabbers every now and then

* Since she has been sitting for a while, she advanced to the big bath tub.

* she also is in a bigger car seat. Especially because we are so sick of her car seat that you carry-ugh!

* She thinks her sister is the greatest thing ever. She just lights up and squeals and kicks her legs whenever Ireland is around.

* she loves to pull out her binky and keep putting it back in

* she jumps so much and so high in her jumperoo. How she gets so much air I will never know

*she loves green beans, carrots, sweet potatoes. basically everything I have tried. (huge change from ireland who still won't eat veggies) I also puree a lot of her food. My mother in law got us this cool baby food puree thingy and It is wonderful!!

*All the kids in primary love her and she knows it and tries to pull off all their faces :)

* She loves water and enjoys baths or showers.

* she gets on her hands and knees (and sometimes feet), and boy can she cruise!........ backwards!! ha ha just like Ireland did. she scoots around the wrong way!

* oh and she STILL won't roll over! she has ONCE. She just skipped right over it.

*she goes from sitting to tummy a lot lately

anyway, Leighton we sure do love you fancy face!

I can't believe how tiny she was! Here I am holding her and she couldn't be more than a week old here

now, my healthy and happy 6 month beauty:

oh hi. just sittin in a tent in the front room

come on in!

ha ha ha the vest looks massive on her! looks better when she isn't in the chair!
the end :)

Just For Fun!

I am in the middle of a serious post but needed to BREATHE and put up some fun pics! today was the sunday before Christmas, so the girls FINALLY got to wear their cute dresses!! (thank you to my mom and mom-in-law for the cute dresses and tights!) We were asked if we were having our family pictures done today and I just said that we were just dressed up for the "Christmas sunday" ha ha. anyway so a lady in my ward suggested we take pics by our tree so we did and they would have been better BEFORE church seems how we have the 1-4 time and of course the kids are grumpy as all heck after and we all looked messy and sleepy. Anyway.... here they are:

ps I looked back over this after I posted and noticed that A: Ireland's nose is runny- sorry. (she has been sick for....forever.) 

and B: Leighton is so stinkin chubby. I LOVE it so much. Also she is 19 lbs according to our scale!! ummmmm  ha ha ha ha. This dresses were bought in October and we got a 6-9 mo. for the baby because she will be 6 mo on Christmas Eve, well.... the undies under the dress are longer than the dress!! ha ha she was busting out of it and I barely got it OFF of her after church. LOL gotta love the chubbs

need ideas?

Oh my! Is christmas really this close? I love how people like me (especially me) freak at this time because I am not ready. um... I have known it was coming!! It isn't like Christmas was a big surprise with no warning. I don't even have my stinkin tree up for crying out loud! ha ha 

If you need some good gift ideas this cool chick --> Kristina has some AWESOME gift ideas that all her super talented friends have made and she posted links on her site. Just click on her name. I was very pleased to see she put ME on there! (thanks for thinking of me!)  If you want to order anything off of babyirelandbows  please remember you get a first time customer discount, also if you live in the Salt Lake Valley, there is NO shipping charge. Oh, and  there are binky chains I make for boys too. Just let me know colors, names, ideas. 

** NOTE: all my bracelets are marked wrong. The prices show for ONE bracelet and all the bracelets actually come in a set of 4!! That will be changed soon but keep that in mind. 

ALSO all bows and flowers can be put on a stretchy lace or nylon headband, any color!! 

ALSO I can do the socks in ANY size. 

My hubbs  controls my site is SUPER busy and will make the changes soon. 

--------------------------- NOW....

onto my family! 

Ireland is SUPER close to being 100% potty trained!! today was day 5 of wearing undies all day long, start to finish (minus bed time) and has only had TWO accidents! oh and one was right next to the potty bc she couldn't make it on time and the other was she needed to go but I was in there and when I came out she was holding herself saying "oh no!" OOPS. :)  She just goes in there by herself and hollers when she is done. She always tells us what a big girl she is! I am LOVING not changing diapers!!!!

That's my only announcement for now. Oh and Dan will start school on Jan 11th and he is beyond excited! I would be. I want to go to school so so so so so bad! I just need to find courses that I want to take but online. There is no way for me to leave my home for school right now. 

ugh I am too tired to think. I ramble muchly when I am sleepy. so... night!

Naughty and Chubster

can you guess which one is which??  ha ha. cute story after the pics :)

We had our ward Christmas party tonight. I didn't get pictures of us there but I had Dan take some when we got home. 

Leighton is so chubby. I LOOOOVE it!! So many rolls. ha ha ha. So stinkin adorable! Ireland is also very adorable but she has some attitude!! I had a whole list of naughtiness but I forgot most. here are some moments I remember: 

 mommy-Ireland, you are being naughty

Ireland- yep, I are.       

oh and when I was taking Child Development courses, they told us not to call the kids naughty. So I REALLY need to work on that because she really isn't. She is a 2 year old testing her bounds... and my patience. I usually call her it when she is acting up but I end up laughing because she is so cute and funny.

She purposely dumps food on the floor and throws her crayons all over so tonight she was dumping her gold fish on the floor. I said Ireland, if you throw those on the floor I will throw them away! So she grabs a handful and gently puts piles on the floor. I kid you not!

last one that I can remember:

me- Ireland PLEASE stop playing in your ketchup.

Ireland (talking to herself) you naughty, no I not naughty, I nice. I happy!

See why I can never stay mad at her!

update: I remembered 2 more.

She got a new big girl bed and LOVES to jump on it, especially at bed time. We told her so many times to stop that finally I said if you jump one more time you will go in time out. So she starts bending her knees and slightly bouncing and doing anything but actually jump. Like with the fish, she knows how to still do the wrong act just making sure she does it differently then you asked. um... she is 2!! 

the other one is- she was in time out (which she loves! ugh) and I pretended I wasn't watching her she started tip toeing out of the hall. She was so quiet and sneaking out. 

ha ha ha ha I love her!

99 balloons

words can not express how I feel right now, I am too emotional to speak and if you want to know why, watch this:

sensitive stuff

Wow, I am on a roll with blogs. sadly, I have family who reads this to see how we are doing and probably gets overwhelmed by my tons of posts. :) sorry Grandma and Lisa :) 

Leighton thinks it is play time, so I am up anyway and have this on my mind. My brother Mike moved  back to St. george where we grew up as kids for school and had to write a paper based on a movie they watched in class, then he tied in things that happened to us as kids, mostly me. I didn't ask him if I could use this and hope its ok.  Just a taste of the things I  went through growing up. everything he wrote about me or us is 100% true. This paper even made his teacher cry! Here it is: 

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

​​​​Bacheha-Ye aseman. We all once were. We all still are. Children of Heaven reminded me of the hell my sister and I went through. Growing up is rough and it certainly helps if you have good soles on your shoes. It was comforting to me to see Iranian children living life not all that unlike mine. I could not understand their spoken language but I did understand their hardships, heartaches, helping hands, and happiness. The film struck me with deep ponderings and stung with heavy emotions as great art tends to do. I left class with a sigh of satisfaction and a smile while thinking of my sister. She and I shared so much as struggling siblings in sunny St George.

​Mandi and I were one and two of four blonde tikes. I was born in the summer of ’82. She showed up in the spring up ’84. Being as close in age as we were made for an understanding of one another I didn’t get from Mekell and Matthew until they were much older. Those blasted teenage years tore us apart as we fought often for no real good reason. While even then though the bond was never broken. She was my sister and when push came to shove in the real world we stuck together.

​We had a community pool at our condo in Dixie Downs. I remember my dad would toss me up in the air then catch me in the water. I still remember it feeling like I was 30 feet in the air. I was 5 years old and skinny but still how did he throw me that high? Pops had sis this time but he was pushing her around like a boat in a rubber duck floater. I guess she wasn’t too keen on flying. I only have one memory of what happened next. I looked over to see Mandi being tended to on the side of the pool with people standing and kneeling over her. She had slipped under and out of sight somehow and was found face down. My dad performed CPR on her until an ambulance arrived. Hearing him retell the story to me tonight was hard for him. His memories are from the point of view of a terrified father scrambling to save his baby. He had an image stay with him of when she came to she kept trying to say daddy but her teeth were clenched too tight. He said it looked like she was looking through him with her blue eyes. My mom said I spotted her while I was jumping in and out of the pool. I just recall not being able to do anything but watch.

I was asleep in my room early evening when I awoke to a neighbor picking me up. I was taken by the hand to the porch where it was explained that my sister was hurt but going to be okay. I was six and she was four. We lived in Santa Clara next door to the Judds. I looked across the street to the Whitehead corner residence where a large gathering of people stood amidst flashing lights and wailing sirens. Everyone played at the Whiteheads but me maybe it was because of their big dog. I was scared of everything. I saw a paramedic carrying my sister in his arms with her face wrapped like a mummy. She had one big blood red spot on the top. That dog had gotten her. She got sixty stitches in her face but the eye was saved. You can’t tell looking at her now unless you look closely. From now on I was going to look after her more closely.

We were floating down the Portneuf River in big yellow rented tubes. I was 13 Mandi was 11 years old. The bickering was just getting started during these years. My little friend was now just a tattletale. Nevertheless we had a river to ride on this our annual family reunion to Lava Hot Springs Idaho. She was ahead as we came around this bend. This was the good one where the rapids pick up so time to hold on tight. I saw her hit one and flip out. She popped up just barely enough to scream. I jumped out of my tube and grabbed her. “Hold on you okay” I yelled. She grabbed me tight. “I’m stuck. My leg is stuck in the rocks,” is what I heard her say in between water crashing on top of her. “I’ve got you,” I reassured her. I was holding onto the tube which was our escape out of this death trap. Meanwhile hers had floated down and out of sight now. I had a decent footing considering the slippery rocks but the water was pounding me. I was not letting go of this tube and I sure as hell wasn’t letting go of her. She broke free and I pushed her into the tube then as it started to go I swam behind then climbed in with her. Her legs were bleeding from the rocks cutting her. She was crying I was catching my breath. We had no desire to finish the river so we got out at a shallow point and walked the rest of the way. She was worried about the tube because we would have to pay for it. I told her we’d be okay and put my arm around her. Not my sister, not today River, not on my watch.

We shared sweets and secrets but thankfully not smelly old shoes. The story of Children of Heaven really isn’t about those scuffed sneakers but rather the struggle and satisfaction we all share. Now while I and many others wanted to see those new shoes in the end I was happy knowing they were on their way. I was content watching those sore tired feet sit in cool water after a race hard fought and won. We knew those tears would fall but would soon be gone and replaced by a smile and warm embrace. Those feet would be comfy soon enough but for the time being let’s appreciate the journey they’re on.

​I loved this movie because it is life. It is hard and exhausting. It is beautiful and exhilarating. There will be a trove of treasures both lost and found. Your bike will crash into a tree, your shoes will get wet in the gutter, you will trip and fall down, and your heart will be broken. But there are bubbles to be blown, fists full of treats to eat, new friends to meet, and new shoes waiting for those blistered feet.

what a story huh? I remember every detail of all 3 stories he told. Yes, even the ones where I was 3 and 4. I really do. I put my poor parents (and I guess my brother too) through an awful lot. Ps I really wasn't a tattle tail, he made that up ;)  oh wait, yes I was! ha ha. 

anyway, don't know why this as on my mind. I sure am grateful to be alive. Hopefully I don't keep this up... I may be out of lives soon :)  ps this dog that mauled me left a scar on my eye lid that looks like a backwards "c" that my mom said it is a c that stands for cute. ha ha ha. maybe :)

Happy belated birthday!

to my blog. 2 years and 310 posts. yippee! I was looking back at old posts. it was a lot of fun going way back especially watching Ireland grow. I love seeing her so tiny and all her milestones. I love having documented so much and having all of it to remind me all the little things that I so easily would have forgotten (and did forget!) that's all. night!

Fishy face wants some mangoes

Romney happenings

Well Thanksgiving was awesome! The dinner at my mom's in her new home* was awesome and we had family pics done with Daniel's family in the afternoon.  My kids were cranky most of the evening and Leighton wouldn't sleep. Ireland woke up today coughing until she gagged. She has had a tummy and head ache for days but that seemed to be controlled for the most part with tylenol. Leighton has had a cough since birth so I was sort of concerned when it was a lot more frequent. Both girls have been cranky so I took them to their pediatrician. So Leighton has an ear infection. In both ears. UGH. It's like Ireland all over again!! What is up with my kid's ears?? I guess her throat is all red too. Also Ireland has strep! :(  I had no idea in the world she had strep. I guessed a cold. I feel bad since we were around a ton of family yesterday. I had no clue I also had thought her two year molars were bugging her. which is true too. So that is the sad part. 

* my mom is finally in her new home!! ok well it's not her new home but they are renting this amazing place until theirs can be built. Neither of the two homes they were hoping to get worked out, so they will build. They want something bigger with horse property. Can't wait to ride our horses!! Ireland will go nuts. So this  "new" house is so beautiful and we love to be there except it is close to an hour drive. each way! My sister will live there on weekends and still with us mon- thurs. for school since it takes her no more than 7 mins to get to school from my house.  My sister is using our extra room so Leighton and Ireland are sharing a room. I was hesitant at first because their sleep schedules are way off but we are getting it down and I LOOOOVE having them together! Ireland has her big girl bed and Lei has the crib. Luckily Ireland had a big room so It's not uncomfortable. And they have a huge closet to hold all their  clothes! I need to put up the pics of their room it's so fun! 

Oh so Ireland and Lei are already best friends! Leighton just turned 5 months on tuesday but it seems she is so much older because she just seems to get things! I had both girls laying on Ireland's bed a minute ago with a movie on. they didn't care about their show they were looking at each other and smiling and giggling. Ireland kept holding Lei's hand and Leighton would let her. I needed to do some stuff and didn't feel comfortable leaving the baby alone with a 2 year old and all those pillows and what not on this twin size bed. I picked up Lei and they both started crying! So sad but so cute. I did my stuff and brought the baby back in there and they both got the hugest grins! Lei reached out her hand and Ireland just held it. Ireland kept rubbing the babies head too and they just smile at each other. I love how much they love each other! Leighton can sit really well for a long time so she just sits and watches Ireland color or play and they have this amazing bond already. I hope they stay close forever like my sister and me!

yes I know this is long, but I want to print out my blog and keep it as my journal. So I want to keep track of everything!!

People keep asking how my training is going. well..... um... it would be a LOT better if I could be on a treadmill each day! I was doing the gym once a week on my mom's pass but that is used up and once a week will not cut it!  Another problem about training from home: I am not comfortable running alone outside. I have had offers for friends to come run with me. Let's do it!! I only have until spring to be ready to run a marathon. eek. spring!! that is just to prepare me for the insane one (so I have heard) in JULY! I have got to get going! I need a gym membership or a treadmill, neither of which is affordable right now. I am not giving up, no way! I WILL run the marathon in spring!! 

I have so so so many pictures I want to put up. I have so many things I want put on here before I get this blog printed for a book. I just never have time to sort that many pics and get them ready on my slow computer. I will do it very soon. Oh, also my phone is not able to text or call so if someone has been texting and I haven't been responding I am sorry. text me and I will text you back with my Baby Ireland Bows business phone number! thanks!

ok, kids screaming so this is the end of my forever long update!

The rest of our family pictures!

                                                           ROMNEY FAMILY 2009

fun right?? Ireland is such a natural. She LOVED having her pictures taken!! We would walk up to a tree and she would go to the tree, stand in front of it and smile. Every picture is her own posing and what not. Sometimes we would have to make her laugh but she loved the attention. Leighton didn't always look at the camera, but she never cried. Thank you very much JUSTIN & MALLORY! We love them!! We had over 50 pics on the disk and it was hard to choose which ones for this blog so I just selected about 15 of my top picks!

Sneak Peek!

we got our family pics back!! We had them done on halloween. I have a ton I want to put up, I am getting ready for a birthday party. I will post the rest tonight! HOORAY!

Fun right? 

also, did you see my Moab post?? It's after this one :)

happiest place on Earth

ha ha yay! I finally have a few minutes to post moab pictures! Seriously, seriously! Moab is the greatest place on Earth. people literally come from all over the world to see Utah's amazing scenery, trails, whatever else you may want. I have probably hundreds of pics of Moab between all of us that took them but I randomly chose a bunch. Sorry if some are blurry or random. I honestly just picked out some. I am so excited. This was the best trip ever and we already have our next one planned for April. Before I start I have to thank my mom for this. We would not have been able to go without her. thanks mom for the gas, food, hotel, snacks, stuff for the kids, love, whatever else!!! 

anyway here are a BUNCH of pics of our latest moab adventure

This is how we roll! notice 1, 2, 3 jeeps? notice the car? yeah, sadly MY jeep needs a new transmission and wouldn't have made the trip. So we are the only car in our group 

ha ha ha this is how I transport two kids across the entire hotel so I didn't have to carry them both.

this is what 2 year olds do until they are big enough to play pool with us

or heck, even let them play!

ha ha ha we tried

getting ready for the hot tub

foosball (is that even how you spell it??)

more entertainment for the kiddo while we played pool. Barney on youtube! She loved it and kept wanting more

Oh, Dan! Always trying to ride ON the jeeps

somewhere in this is me and my mom

We went on easy trails since we had the kids in the jeep. This next pic is Steele in his stock jeep. If his could do all the trails, mine will for sure!! 

hmmm. Where is dan? not in the jeep. again :)

The trails are so fun and so bumpy and some way scary. Ireland laughs so dang hard. then passes out before we are done

When they went on the crazy steep, scary trails, I stayed @ the hotel with the kids. next year they both get to go!

The hotel had a gym outside. It was pretty sweet. Ireland doing some crunches in this one. Or not, I don't know

Dan and I getting our buff on!

 

 and then the hotel's playground. 
I want to post more pics to have for later so I don't forget everything. These pics aren't even half of what we did. :( 

Ps GO TO MOAB!!!