Always going...

Things always seem to be going around here, probably doesn't have anything to do with having two toddlers around. lol, hard to imagine that my baby could be considered a toddler. She has been walking for a few months now, practically does everything on her own and she isn't even a year! Speaking of which, less than two months from now is her BIRTHDAY!! I can't believe how fast it has all gone by. She really is just the sweetest thing. THen a month after that, my first baby will be turning THREE! She is a talking machine, practically having whole conversations. It is amazing the difference I see in the two of them already, I really think that Sammy is going to be our outgoing one. Maisie was and still kinda is really quiet when we go out with people she isn't really familiar with, and Sam will smile at everyone. Sammy HATES WATER!! And I don't mean to drink, I mean, to get in it. Maisie has always been my water baby, she LOVES it always has, but Sammy refuses! Always screams when it is bath time. Sammy, believe it or not is not as picky about food, don't get me wrong, Maisie is a GREAT eater, but there were a few things she didn't care for and Sammy likes EVERYTHING!

Well, I didn't plan on cutting this one short but I have a hungry baby yelling at me, i better not ignore, until next time...

BLAH

That is how my week has been, BLAH! haha, the whole house seems to have caught the crud. Poor Sammy seems to think she has to teeth two teeth at a time. I started feeling my throat hurt on Monday by wednesday I felt really bad, I actually think I may have caught a cold, not just allergies. Bryan came down with the same thing, only difference is he got to come home and sleep on the couch while I ended up doing everything and feeling the same way...good thing I love my family :) Sammy had caught the sniffles, but I don't think she felt like we did because most of her complaints have been about her mouth. So if she caught a runny nose, it was probably because she was a little vulnerable from teething. What really gets me is all this "sickness" I guess around the house and our friend Angel's daughter Mimi was sick and over at the house, and Maisie didn't catch ANYTHING! That is my strong girl. I thank God and hope she stays strong. I am thinking it has everything to do with God first, then breastfeeding, eating a little dirt here and there and now the fact that we are going as much green in our products and whole foods as possible! Anyways, everyone else is on the upside of this now.

Sammy is walking ALL OVER THE PLACE, and she is so funny! She will hold her arms up in the air like she is Rocky, yelling and carrying on like she owns the place. Maisie has had a pretty good week over all, I am trying to stay positive, though lots of people make it difficult. I don't want to be nieve, I know kids are not easy, the terrible twos I think could have been a lot worse, and now I keep hearing people talk about the three's being worse! That is okay, I am a believer in staying positive, I know God has it all in control, and as long as I try my best to be a good parent, God will get us all through alive! haha. I am so thankful that she has a loving spirit, that she knows what she wants, is not afraid to try, and doesn't want anyone to get hurt, and that she eats...GOOD FOOD :) There are so many other great qualities, but I would be here all day. The other day she was sitting next to me on the couch and with a STRAIGHT face, looked at me and quoted a line from the new Winnie the Pooh...."send the pig" hahaha. It was CLASSIC, she is SOOOOOO like the rest of my family. She also started to quote part of the original WTP, the part when Pooh went to see rabbit and maybe have lunch with him, I heard Maisie say "nobody" and "somebody", it was so cute, love that kid. She has also been watching a lot of Veggietales lately, she loves them, and it was so cute because she told me that Jesus is on Veggietales, and I heard her quote "the Bible says..." because they always end on what the Bible says. LOVE IT!

Well, enough about the kiddos, they are great, we are great, hope you all are great too!

Lots of cuteness

I have been enjoying watching my kids grow, and seeing all the cuteness that comes with it. In the past week I have seen some new things in Maisie. Of course we all know she is talking up a STORM and sings all the time, which I LOVE! but for the first time this week I heard her say a small prayer for her food! It melted my heart. I was fixing lunch for the girls and I put Maisie's plate on the table and went back to finish Sammy's and I heard her ever so softly say, "thank you God, amen!" I was in shock! We always pray for our meals, but I hadn't officially been working on a particular prayer with her, so I was amazed and so thankful. That little girl just loves church and praying and singing about Jesus. Don't get me wrong, I know that most of it is superficial, she doesn't really understand yet what God and Jesus are really about, but I am praying that this is just giving her a firm foundation in what will become and everlasting relationship.

And of course, my little Sammy, she is officially taking steps and doing a wonderful job. She is also teething and I can now see one of her top middle teeth, maybe even the second one. She is not a fan of me looking so I have a hard time knowing for sure what I see. Sammy has been giving me a hard time at nap time though, she is great at night when it is time to go to bed, but for some reason she thinks that nap time is supposed to be with me, lol. Oh well, she will get the hint, though I hate when she is upset. She does one afternoon nap, just after lunch for about an hour and a half to two hours and she may or may not take a short nap around six pm. Doesn't seem like enough sleep for a little one, but her sister was the same way. At least she sleeps longer than her sister did at this age. I had to make sure Maisie didn't sleep until 10pm because she would wake up before 8am, though I think she usually got up around 730am anyways. I can put same down just after 9pm sometimes and she will still sleep until 9am. She gets up at 8am sometimes too, but it is still much better than Maisie.

We went to a squadron Mardi Gras parade this past weekend and Maisie was dressed up all cute in her tutu from Nana. She had a great time, and so did Sammy. Sammy actually got her picture taken for the Keesler News, hopefully I will get to see it on Thursday!

Well Bryan leaves for his mission trip this weekend so I will be by myself for a week. Not that I am afraid I can't handle the kids, I do everyday, but sometimes my patience can run thin and I hate being edgy with the girls so I hope it won't be too bad. On a great note, my parents are coming this weekend, not nearly for long enough, but I will take what I can get. Poor Bryan is jealous he will miss them. Oh well :)

I guess I better get off of here. We bought a new Kinect for the XBox and I started that workout game thing and it is kicking my butt! But I am trying to stay motivated! We shall see, so far so good. Until next time...

Long day...

Well, Bryan is working over 12 hours today, so I am in for the long haul by myself and the babies. At this very moment I hear Maisie getting into the babies snacks that she isn't supposed to have...geesh. Oh well, such is life. We are on day three of our good potty days. I cannot BELIEVE the regression I have seen with Maisie, it is unreal! She is potty trained, she has been for a few months, but all of a sudden she is acting as if she has no clue, or doesn't care. She has been peeing all over the house!! BUT, like I said, this is day three of good potty days so I am just praying and being as patient as I possibly can.

Sammy has been a little crabby the past week, I think she is teething something horrible, but all I see are swollen gums! I am ready for her to pop out a few more so she can get some relief! Maisie already had her top teeth I think by this age, I think Sammy's are going to come in all at once, yay...poor thing.

I love watching them play together and hearing them playing and laughing in Maisie's room, it is so sweet. I hope they keep being sweet to each other. I know they will have their moments growing up of arguing and fighting but at the end of the day I really want them to know how important they are to each other. Family is so important.

Anyways, we had a good weekend, ate a lot of good homemade food. Bryan had to work part of the day Saturday, but he was off in enough time to grill burgers and we ate them on the homemade buns I made! Then the rest of the leftover potato wedges and some homemade chili. Then at dinner we had some homemade bulgolgi that our neighbor made with some chow mein noodles and some homemade lumpia that my other neighbor made and froze for us...YUM! It was SO good! Then of course Sunday was great, we spent the day with our lovely friends, the Thomas Family after church, love them.

Not much else to report, better get back to the babies,

Starting over...

I thought maybe I could attempt to catch up on where I left off of here, but geesh!! it has been over a year!! I was pregnant with Samantha and now she is a whopping 7 1/2 mths old! So there is now way I could recap everything about this past year, and therefore I am just going to start from how things are going now. My kids are beautiful, smart and wonderful! Samantha is crawling and sitting and rolling over and walking along furniture. She has one walking toy that she will walk with if she ever stops dancing long enough to focus, lol. She dances way more than Maisie ever did. Speaking of Maisie, she is doing wonderful as well, although she has been slipping in the potty training area at home. Not sure what is going on, but there have been several times that she just pees where she is standing, no warning, nothing! It makes me so frustrated!! But we move on and hope she gets better, at least it isn't in public, so far she is great when we go out.

Maisie sure does get testy with her sister though, I know she loves her, but she seems to think she can treat her like her baby dolls. They will be playing in Maisie's room and then they will both come out, Maisie of course is in her panties, but then Sammy comes out behind her in just a diaper....and she was fully clothed before she enter the apparently clothing optional room. Of course Maisie insists that she can wear Sammy's clothes and struts around the house in very small apparel. This is all okay though, because they definitely keep each other entertained and therefore, I may have a few moments during the day to myself.

Maisie isn't napping anymore, she gave that up shortly after she turned 2, so I don't have a me time in the afternoon. Though Maisie and I have an agreement that is working out fairly well for the both of us. Sammy will take a nap in the afternoon anywhere from 1130 to 1pm and sleep for usually at least an hour, sometimes closer to two hours. Maisie, for those of you who may not know her, has a really hard time staying quiet so I take her into my bedroom and put something on the tv. Usually it is one of the feature films for families that my mom has sent us, and she will play with the iPod touch and/or watch the TV while I have a chance to workout on the elliptical that was given to me by a friend. I don't EVEN want to go into how out of shape I am, but I will say that I am working on being much more healthy. So Maisie is content during Sammy's nap and I get a semi-quiet time to do my thing. I will take it!

Speaking of being healthy, we have been making MAJOR changes to our eating, health and beauty, and cleaning lifestyle. I am making all of the soaps, cleaning supplies, shampoos, etc that is used for cleaning the house, and ourselves. I can't make my own make up so we are just going as "green" as possible on that front. As far as eating, there are several things that we have added to our 'diet' that we just can't live without anymore. The first was pure, unrefined coconut oil! This is almost a miracle product, not just for eating, but for health and beauty. I don't even buy lotion or chapstick anymore. You do the research, you will see how beneficial the coconut oil is for you inside and out. The second thing we have started is kefir! kefir is actually quite a big thing now depending on where you look. In a nutshell, it is like plain yogurt, but WAY more probiotic and SOOOOO much easier to make. It is also something that grows on its own, so you don't have to buy more once you have the grains. Anyways, do the research, another WONDERFUL healthy addition to our diet that we can't live without. We are starting to get off of the bleached flours and sugars and going all natural and pure. This is a little bit more difficult because apparently once flour is ground it loses all of its nutritional value in three days and since we can't grind our own wheat at the moment, we will have to be satisfied with the natural unbleached flour. As far as the sugar is concerned, we CAN buy, though a little more pricey, Sucanat which is way more nutritious than the extremely refined sugar that you buy in the store. We are trying to get off of the High Fructose Corn Syrup, do the research, it is bad! We are cooking MUCH more at home, trying to do whole foods, started canning, etc. We LOVE it! It is actually quite satisfying doing so much in the kitchen and making EVERYTHING, not to mention everything tastes SO good.

Anyways, this post is getting really long and kids are starting to go nuts, I better tend to them. It is almost time for Sammy's nap anyways. Hopefully I will have a few moments to keep up with what is going on in our house and not let the next post be a year from now! haha, we will see.

The McQuary Family