6 Months...only a month overdue

These pictures are completely deceiving. From looking at the photos you would think my kids were happy and well behaved during this photo shoot, but I think my friend who took these is a magician or something because I swear we could not get either child to smile or hold still for a split second...and yet she still managed to get some amazing photos. My wonderful and incredibly talented neighbor, Kathryn Turley, took these photos a little over a month ago and I wish I had a video of the two of us trying to keep the kids happy so we could get a decent shot or two (though I wouldn't actually show it to you because I looked so ridiculous).


I can't believe how fast Hannah is growing up. She is steam rolling around the room, has 5 teeth (including 2 random K9s), loves playing with her older brother, has a giggle that melts your heart, and is a really good baby 90% of the time (and don't ask about the other 10% of the time...let's just say she is a typical girl and has some pretty extreme mood swings!). I wish I could say she was sleeping through the night but unfortunately we've done a little back tracking on that front. I can't even tell you how much I am looking forward to getting consistent sleep at night again someday. I think that will make a big difference in my sanity levels.


Some days motherhood pushes me to the max. But these little people are oh so worth it!

Where did August go?

I don't have many words right now, no exciting stories or adventures to recall, but I just have to say this has been one of the best (and hardest) months of my life. We've been a little preoccupied around here so for now this is my feeble attempt at updating my blog! :)

Picture hodgepodge

I've had this post sitting in blogger for a week waiting to find time to add some captions to the photos but of course time is a very limited commodity these days so I decided to just post it and you can try to figure out what we're doing!

Can you guess what happened after the following two pictures? After a few well-executed creek crossings Johnny decided a face-first plunge would be fun. Once his clothes were soaked with the still snowy lake water he realized it wasn't such a great idea! Thankfully he had a sweatshirt to hike out in! :)

Hannah talking

Sun Valley and summer fun

The entire Cannon crew (minus my brother Jon who's in Brazil on a mission) gathered in Sun Valley, ID for 3 days of family fun. I'm not even going to tell you about our drive (here's a hint: Hannah is not going on car rides longer than 10 minutes until she's 5...or at least until she learns that her car seat will not in fact kill her).

Whenever we're on vacations I seem to forget what a camera is so please excuse my lack of pictures to document all the fun things we did, but I did at least get a shot of most of the grandkids (sadly, Eric and Andrea's darling little Calvin is missing, but the other 6 are there!). With 3 kids under 1 I think there was at least 1 baby asleep the entire time we were there.

The other part I wasn't going to mention was the fact that this kid was sick again, this time for the entire trip! Doesn't he just look so thrilled to be bowling here:

(we finally got him into the instacare when we got back Sunday and it turns out he had strep throat, an ear infection, and herpes virus that was infected with strep all over his face...no wonder he was up screaming "it hurts" for hours each night!)

Yes, I did in fact bowl like this---and Hannah must be a lucky charm because I actually got a few strikes and spares for once!

We stopped at Shoshone falls on our way back and it was fun to see it in the spring when the water is really high.

And finally, here are a couple fun pics from fun at the zoo this week and Hannah melting my heart with her cute faces!

Johnny at 2 1/2

Where do I even start with this boy? First let me add a little disclaimer...kids develop so differently and so please don't compare your 2 or 3 year old to what I'm going to say about Johnny. Maybe next post I'll write about how he can barely even jump on a tramp with other kids his age because he just keeps falling over while other agile kids are practically doing back-flips. Or how he's so cautious he probably won't ride a bike or swim until he's 10. Or how he's not potty trained, still sleeps in his crib, and doesn't listen to me when I tell him what to do. Or what will really make you feel better is if I tell you about his little screaming issue.

Actually, I shouldn't use the word "little" in the same sentence that I'm talking about his screaming..."horrific" or "untamable" would probably be better word choices. The other day I decided to be brave and take both kids to church without John (since it was his turn to be home sick with the stomach flu) and even though we were in the very back of the overflow I'm pretty sure every person on the stand could hear Johnny scream "stop", "train", and "road" (it's a long story as to why he was screaming those specific words, but honestly it was the loudest, most angry screaming you've ever heard come from a little 2 year old body...quite embarrassing!). You can always tell when one of his major explosions is coming because he gets really quiet and serious looking, clenches his fists, and then takes a deep breath and says something like:

"...go...see...the......TRAIN!!!!!..... RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Those large words and exclamation points stand for a 150 decibel scream...I just looked it up and this is the range that falls under:

148 HUMAN VIBRATION VERY UNCOMFORTABLE AND SLIGHTLY

PAINFUL

149 HUMAN LUNGS AND BREATHING BEGINS VIBRATING TO

THE SOUND
150 ROCK CONCERT “THE WHO” TWO 10 STORY STACKS
150 ROCK CONCERT SPEAKER AT  1600 WATTS ON THE

ACTUAL VIBRATING SURFACE
150 HUMAN SENSATION OF BEING COMPRESSED AS IF

UNDERWATER IS OVERWHELMING
150 HUMAN SOUND EXPERIMENTS DOWN TO 1 TO 2 HERTZ
152 HUMAN VIBRATION IS PAINUL AND ALSO FELT IN

ALL JOINTS

No wonder my head feels like it's about to explode every time he does this!


But now let me do a little bragging. This boy is brilliant. It honestly scares me sometimes how intelligent he is! He has known all his letters and numbers for probably a year, he's moved past your normal shapes to now recognizing pentagons, hexagons, octagons, cubes, and even parallelograms and trapezoids (though he needs a hint with those ones), and the associations he comes up with just astound me. For instance, last week I was attempting to trim his little mullet while he ate a bowl of cereal (hair cuts are absolute TRAUMA for him. It's so impossible to get either scissors or a razor near his head that I think I may just let him grow his hair out like a girl). He loves fruit loops but as soon as I started snipping he would have nothing to do with them. I tried to bribe him by saying we could go to Costco and get a treat when we were done (gotta love those free samples!). Well, several days later he goes and gets the fruit loops out of the cupboard and has a very concerned expression on his face. He then says, "eat some cereal and get my hair cut" in a very sad voice, and then his expression changed and in an excited tone he said "then go to Costco and get a treat!".

He also notices so many details it's insane. The other day I told him we needed to go to Smith's to get some milk and he said, "go to Smith's with the big red S" (the sign at Smith's is red). I then asked him "what color is Walmart?" and he said "blue!", "what color is "Costco?", "red!", "what color is "toys r us?", and he looked really perplexed and said, "red and blue and yellow?". I have no idea what colors are really in the toys r us sign but just the fact that he knew it was multi-colored is pretty crazy (and we don't even go there that often either...I can't stand the temper tantrum when we try to leave).

He is also really into trying to read or spell words--some of the ones he is good at are john, hyrum, crofts, bubba, mom, dad, cat, hat, bat, sat, fat (no I did not teach him that word, thanks to the "word factory" dvd he started saying it a lot), dog, bus, ball, truck, train, car, zoo, boo, moo, choo, stop, go, on, off...I know there are others but I won't keep boring you. He'll read words in books, spell them with his foam letters in the tub, and find them in random places that I would never notice. He also has several books completely memorized (well at least I can tell what he's saying, someone else may think he's just talking gibberish) and I love being able to sit there while he reads to himself.

I think it's partially because this kid is so dang smart that he also pushes me to the limit (and sometimes beyond). It's like he needs constant stimulation and supervision...which I don't always have since Hannah seems to need a lot of that too. Some days between the two of them I feel like I'm going to lose my mind. That's why today I needed to write about some of the amazing parts of parenting and then I can come read my blog when I need to remind myself that the pro bono work of motherhood is worth it!

4 months!

Little miss Hannah banana (or Hansy pansy as we often call her around here) is now 4 months old! I can't believe how fast she is growing up. Here are some of her latest milestones and stats:

- At her 4 month checkup she weighed in at 13 1/4 lbs and is 24 1/4 inches long...not quite keeping up with her older brother's growth curve (especially her head size which is only in the 30th percentile whereas he was already off the 12 month charts when he was 4 months) but she's definitely growing well!

- She loves loves LOVES to be held. Like ALL the time. During the day it's really hard to get her to nap unless you rock her to sleep, but then the second you put her down she wakes right back up again. This is why we get nothing done around here...but at least she sleeps pretty well at night. For a while she was sleeping consistently from 9 pm to 4 am, but we've regressed a little and now she's getting up around 2 or 3 and then again at 5 or 6.

- She shocked us 2 weeks ago when her 2 bottom teeth popped through! I guess she's giving us a hint that she wants to start eating more than my tasty milk (sorry Hannah, based on the fact that you won't swallow tylenol or any other medicine I think we'll hold of for a month or two).

- Her cute little personality is really starting to come out. When she's happy she's SO happy, smiling and cooing and singing to herself. Lately she's discovered the joy of rattles, the toys on her bouncy seat, jumping like crazy in her jumperoo, and most of all cracking up at her big brother. There is no one that makes her laugh and giggle like Johnny and it's so cute to watch him entertain her.

- She's been on 2 successful 5+ hr road trips and we have another one coming up soon. She loves the water and did really well in the pool when we were down in Las Vegas (I'm so sad I didn't get any pictures, we were having too much fun to stop and grab the camera but she looked so cute in her tiny swimsuit).

- She is still a projectile spitter-upper and between changing both of our clothes multiple times a day (because she covers us both in her puke) we are going through mounds and mounds of laundry!

- We love this little girl so much and are so grateful to have her as part of our family!

Hannah's blessing day

Last Sunday, 5/1/11, we blessed Hannah Isabelle Crofts in church. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we were lucky to have lots of family come up from St. George to be there. I can't believe I didn't get any pictures of all the family and cousins at our house afterward, but I did manage to get some cute shots of baby H in her dress. Thanks Laura B for telling me about the Little Things Mean a Lot outlet down in American Fork...I found an awesome dress down there for 75% off just because the fabric had a little nick in it on the back hem (and personally I think the dress looked a lot better in person--my photography skills are pretty sub par).







It was such a great day, the only problem was that time flew by too fast and Johnny's cute cousins had to go back to St. George. He was so sad when he woke up from his nap and all the kids were gone.

I decided to make the transition a little easier by driving up to Boise with the kids and my brother Paul yesterday so we could spend a few days with my wonderful mission president parents who couldn't be there for the blessing. We almost didn't make it because little J woke up at 12:00 am Sunday night SO SO sick (he's got croup AGAIN!) and I was worried about making the drive with a sick kid. But I figured he'd be sick whether we went or not and that I'd rather have my mom around to help than be stuck at home by myself.

The kids handled the 5 1/2 hour drive like champs (Hannah did cry for an hour but at least she slept the other 4!) and we're having a great time hanging out with grandpa and grandpa. Johnny is in heaven--he has been able to play with mimi, papa, grandma, and grandpa (his 4 favorite people) all in the same week! And I'm loving having so many adults around during the day to help out...I even had a chance to go get my haircut today (funny story, when I called to make the appointment the hairdresser saw "President" on her caller ID and she thought she was getting a call from the President of the US because she recently sent him a letter promoting small businesses! I think she was a little disappointed it was just the daughter of a mission president :)).

Finally, anyone else as thrilled as I am that the sun has actually been shining this week?! Hallelujah!

Catch up time

Wow, once again I'm wondering where the time has gone! Today baby H is six weeks old!

But first, let's play a little catch up...

A couple weeks ago my sister Megan had her baby so my mom was able to go AWOL and come visit us for a few days. It was so great to see her and let's just put it nicely...I REALLY needed her help that week! (am I the only one that thinks postpartum is an insanely wild and sometimes a little-too-extreme-for-my-liking roller coaster? oh how i love my kids but sheesh, some days i feel drained to the max!)

Granny Glo drove up from St. George to join in the party!

The first time we brought Johnny to see baby Elliot (Megan and Jon's baby) he ran in their house and said "baby Hannah!", but then when I brought Hannah in and set her next to Elliot he looked up at me and said "two babies?" like it was the most confusing thing in the world. He's gotten used to the idea and now he loves to go visit Meggie and Elliot!


Our best attempt at a 4 generation photo:

Having 2 kids has given me a whole new level of appreciation for mothers out there...I honestly don't know how so many moms manage to have 4, 5, 6 kids and still survive in one piece! But like everyone says, I guess they do come one at a time!

Classic Hannah face: (she loves her kissy lips!)

This is what we do for fun when we're bored at home--dress Johnny up in his daddy's clothes. It think big J put at least 8 of his shirts on him and here he is looking like a little sumo:


More kissy lips:

Johnny has been such a good big brother lately (well, at least most of the time). He's always trying to share his trains and balls with Hannah and the other day while I was folding laundry I looked over to see him strategically placing balls around Hannah in the swing.

This little girl does NOT like having her diaper changed. She always screams at the top of her lungs when her clothes are off, but as soon as they're back on she's as good as new!

I'm not sure what's up with my kids, but Hannah is just like her big brother in that she likes CONSTANT motion. Thankfully she'll sleep in her crib at night, but during the day she'll wake up after minutes if she's not in the swing or baby bjorn. Thankfully she's still pretty little because I spend a lot time hauling her around like this:

And finally, the other day after I changed Hannah's diaper she was making cute faces so I put her on her tummy to take some pictures and this was what I got:



I don't think Johnny rolled over until he was 4 months (he had a lot of solid mass to move) so I was a little shocked to see little H tumble over at six weeks! Though I'm 99% sure it was one of those fluke things that probably won't happen again for a while.

Yes, life feels crazy right now. Yes, some days I wonder if I'll ever be able to get a solid nights sleep or catch up on the piles of laundry covered in spit-up and poop or have a quiet moment where someone isn't crying out for something. But thankfully between all the chaos are those tender (albeit much too brief) moments that remind me that all the blood, sweat, and tears are more than worth it.