Owen Starts Solids

Our last doctors appointment with Owen showed that he wasn't gaining weight as fast as he once was. I knew something was up, and that I felt like I just wasn't able to keep up with him, nursing wise. The poor little guy is always hungry, so talking with my pediatrician, she told me to start him on rice cereal, prunes, and breast milk. Solids usually aren't started until 6 months but she said it would be ok, since I really wasn't wanting to give him formula and still wanting to nurse him as long as I could. So rice cereal twice a day was our solution.

We didn't do rice cereal with June. We went right into the fruits and veggies, so this is new for us. It's been a few days now, and OD is slowly starting to get better at eating it, instead of gagging it down. He is sleeping so much better at nights! 7 hour stretches!! That's so much better than the continued every 3 hours. I was getting exhausted. So things are looking up, and our boy is getting a full belly! Happy Mama over here!

IMG 3967 from Lesli Lancaster on Vimeo.

Pony Tail

Two kids means we are both super busy during bath time/bedtime. We are sticklers when it comes to routine and I think we have done a pretty fantastic job throwing another child into the mix. 

This means that Dan does June's hair at night pretty regularly to keep it out of her face. Dan has no sister's and really never grew up with girly things, so he has had to learn as we go. He has picked up on it quick and he was definitely meant to have a daughter. He does a pretty good job at ponytails, and having it stay in! You may think doing a pony tail is easy, but if you have never done it before, go on and try and then you will be giving Dan a round of applause. Braids are a work in progress and a bun is still not an option. HA! 

He is so incredible with learning all things girl! He's embraced the fact that he has  glitter on his lips from kisses that June gives him after she has put on a tube worth of glitter gloss, or that his shoes have permanent flower and butterfly stickers on them. I'm so excited for the makeup phase  and when June asks to give daddy makeovers, because he will take it knowing it's time well spent with his daughter, but not really knowing what he has gotten himself into. How I got him, I have no idea, but I am so grateful I did. 

Ward Split

     In our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints, we have what are called Wards, where we meet as a congregation on the Sabbath to learn more about the Gospel, but it's much more than that. You become family. You see, our Wards are based on where you live. You can't just pick and choose what congregation you go to. We are split into Wards, and there are several wards which are then apart of what is called a Stake. Ok, I am not the best at explaining this, but if you are interested in learning more, click HERE! This will explain it much better.
    Many times a ward becomes too big and we have to split wards to make them more manageable. It's awesome because it means the Church is continuing to grow, but well, to be honest its tough. I have been through many ward splits growing up in the church, but this past one seemed to be the hardest.
    Like I said before, your ward becomes your family. You get to know these people on such a close level, you make lasting friendships, and you are just comfortable. Then comes the news of a ward split. The speculation took place all week of who would be in the new ward, who would stay, who would go with who. I HATE the unknown and it was a long week. Then Sunday came and 4 wards joined together to learn what the new boundaries would be...
     I'm not going to sugar coat this. It was incredible saddening to learn the new boundaries. We were put into the new ward. Carrollton 4th. While the majority of our friends stayed in Carrollton 1st. Like 90%. We were joined with people from Carrollton 2nd Ward (A large part of this ward is now Carrollton 4th) and Dallas 6th. I went home and cried. I didn't want to leave my comfort zone, leave our church building, which we now drive a further distance to get to ours, and its a bit older and unfamiliar and I hate unfamiliar. It was a tough week. I don't know why. I just don't handle change well. And of course I jumped into irrational thinking and told Dan I wanted to move. Really Lesli?! I'm an idiot. Haha. No but really, thats how sad I was. Of course we aren't going to move yet. We love our house, and then this made us sit down and really realize that we really only have a couple to few years left in this house before we outgrow it, and of course that made me cry even more because I don't want to leave our house, and I don't want to leave Texas, but it's definitely a possibility....
       So then I decided to grow up just a bit and I have realized these past couple of weeks, that we have not lost our friends, they are just in a different ward. Which is funny because we have a bunch of friends that aren't in our ward to begin with. June's little friends are still there. We still have regular weekly playgroups with our same friends, and get together with the same friends. Life did not end because our Ward changed.
       A lot of speculation of how things were going to be ran in the Carrollton 4th ward spread like Wild fire and I believed them and really did not like what I heard. In fact I called Dan one day in tears and he took me to lunch to talk about it because of what I had heard. When in reality were not true. People talk, and sometimes it's nonsense. We now get to start from the ground up building a new ward and it's a bit exciting. Who will be called into which leadership position, and what is happening in the Carrollton 4th ward.
Dan and I both have been called into Relief Society and Elders Quorum. We laughed in the fact that it was a good week without any responsibilities or callings in a ward, and how long it didn't last. A small break was nice though. It will obviously take some time, more than just a couple weeks, or even a couple months. We have a lot to learn and I'm ready for the challenge. I think.

All in all, of course I would change it back to the way it was before. We dearly loved the Carrollton 1st ward, and who knows maybe someday we will be back in that Ward, but for now we are slowly, very slowly, getting used to the idea of Carrollton 4th. I think having callings in presidency's will help get to know people and really help and contribute our efforts to make the ward more unified.

It turns out The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints is true wherever you go or are. I'm thankful I am even able to express my religion so openly and grateful for a forgiving Heavenly Father for understanding a girls heavy heart with change that is so good.

If you are interested in learning more about the church, or any thing that I talked about today go to LDS.ORG all your questions and curiosity can be solved there!

Friday Photo dump, but doing it on Saturday!

I like the whole idea of taking pictures from the week and doing a "Friday photo dump" except yesterday, Friday, was extremely busy and I had not one second to sit down and blog! It was an awesome extremely busy day, but anyways....

It makes so much sense to do this every week, so that way I can get the pictures off my phone and onto the blog. Will I do this every friday?! I HIGHLY doubt it. Fridays are usually pretty full of awesomeness since Dan gets home by noon, but I totally seeing thing happening at least on one of the days during the weekend. 

So here is this week: 

Owen taking it like a man that he has to play in a girls toy. Get used to it sonny boy! 

No, but really, he loves this thing. He mostly just stares at the little toys while June tries to make him do things. Occasionally he will hit one of the twisty ones and get all excited. 

June's room is anything but dark. She has been really scared of "Shadows" lately, and she tells us that with the night lights on the shadows can't get her. We are teaching her about how shadows work, and that they are funny and nice. Nothing to be scared of, but for now she likes all her night lights on and plus fall asleep with her door open "Just a tiny, bitty, crack in the door" with the hall light on. It makes me sad to see how scared she gets, but we are helping her work through it the best we can and know how. 

June is getting really big into dress up and getting all "prettied". 

June and her best little buds, Ezrah and Hennessey, (Just missing Claire and Emma, then the fearsome five would be together) I love that June asks to see her friends. That she tells me who's house she wants to go to, or who she wants to invite over. 

Little OD loves his hands in his mouth. It's his pacifier, and since we have officially given up on giving him a pacifier, it helps knowing something helps keep him calm when we lay him down to bed, especially through the whole sleep training phase which we are in at this moment! 

He falls asleep with his hands in his mouth all the time...

We are so ready for summer, and so sick of it being cold! She would not take off these goggles all afternoon. They were so dirty and you could barely see out of them, but she loved having them on. She is the best!! 

Her imagination gets better and bigger every. single. day! It's always something new she comes up with to play, and I sometimes have no clue where it comes from, but it's still so much fun to play with her. With her cape on she was saving the world from alligators. Don't you worry, I was right next to her, cape and all, running around the house as her side kick, scaring away the alligators...

We had a few chunks of snow/ice in the backyard from our little ice storm we had this past weekend. I decided to fill a spray bottle full of hot color water, June's choice, and let her spray away all the ice and snow. It kept her busy for a good while, 

Bath time is a always a colorful one. With markers, water color tablets, and crayons, we have lots of fun in the bath. 

I taught June how to blow bubbles in her milk, and then pop them. She loved it and wouldn't stop. I maybe should have taught her after lunch so she would have eaten something, but I mean come on, what would you choose between blowing big bubbles with a straw or eating your peaches?!? ya... exactly... 

More or less, this was our  week. I love these babes, and all that comes with them from day to day. That even includes the cranky days and 4 hours of sleep. It's totally all worth it!

Owen at 4 Months

Weight: 16lb 3oz (69th percentile)

Height: 26.8 (93rd percentile)

Head Circ: 17in (69th percentile) 

4 shots today with a cold. Fever at 100.0 

*Note: Starting on rice cereal. I can't keep up with my little chub chub, so we will start rice cereal, and prunes (so there is no constipation) for more calories in his daily food intake. 

Her Singing

June is such a little singer and she is getting so good at knowing songs! She sings ALL THE TIME! and I mean she sings them all by herself! She just randomly will start belting songs out when you least expect it! That includes the Library and Church. We get a few laughs and a few dirty looks...
The songs that she knows include:

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
ABC'S
Rock a Bye Baby
I Love to See the Temple
Do You want to Build a SnowMan
I am a Child of God
Families are Forever

I am working on getting them on video, but as soon as I turn the camera on she becomes so silly, so I kind of have to catch it in a candid moment, as you will see the beginning of the video, but just watch! I promise she sings it!

So for now,  your viewing pleasure of June singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

(Those viewing this in Flipbook, or any other blog app, You have to click on "View original article" at the bottom in order to view video's) Just a heads up!


June singing from Lesli Lancaster on Vimeo.

Our Week

Many little things happened this week that I wanted to blog about, but really didn't want to do each individual blog post for each event, so it's getting all jumbled into one post. Really, nothing crazy happened this week. In fact, this week has been a bit off for me. I struggled this week, but I will post about that later... maybe.  

We played with friends a lot this week. I'm not really huge into getting together with friends every single day, or making playdates all the time. I truly enjoy my days spent with just me and the kids. I like that one on one bonding time I get with them, and I know their desire to spend time with me will slowly decrease, so I am sucking in as much as I can get, but we do love getting together with friends a few days a week, and I love June really starting to make her best little friends. I have come to the conclusion that June is such a little follower... I haven't decided if that's a good or a bad thing yet, but she will follow her little friends around and do whatever they do. Now typing it out, I'm worried this might be a bad thing. I guess only time will tell. But she loves her little friends, and I am so grateful that she loves playing so much with them!! 

it was such a weird week that I had no motivation to do anything, and that just is not like me. So nap time became snuggle time with OD all week long, which isn't a bad thing AT ALL!!! My house just remained messy and I did feel a little bad having Dan walk into a disaster of a home. I know he honestly doesn't care, but I do, and it bugs me just a little tiny bit.

June is all about helping me make dinner these past few weeks, so her helping includes bowls and play dough, making something delicious for dinner. It keeps her occupied and then I can have her help mix real food when the time comes. I do admit though, that I sure like the company while making dinner.

The best part of my week. We finally got a new Mac. Mine was on the fringe of death and I so desperately needed a new one. I also needed a pick me up from such a weird week, and I think Dan knew it too. Not that I need material things to make up for an un-delightful week, but I'll be honest, it helped! Hahaha 

 Dan woke me up one morning before leaving to work and said "Dear, would you like to go pick out a new Mac today?!" AH! I was so excited!!! It was so fantastic and I really am in love with it. Maybe in an unhealthy way too... Don't judge

Our weather has been absolutely CRAZY this week! The past two days we had 80 degree weather and then today it's 19 degrees with ice and snow covering the ground. We only went to about 20 minutes of church before they cancelled it. WEIRD! The days that it was warm we soaked in the sun ALL DAY LONG! We did everything we could to be outside and it was marvelous!! I truly can't wait for summer!

We hit up our city's annual book sale, which sells super duper cheap books! We load up every year and it's awesome! I even found some geology books for Dan this year. Ya, I'm a good wife.

Then on Saturday, we got  invited to a Stars hockey game with The Blake's. They have weekend season tickets with awesome seats so we were super excited to go. We left June behind for the afternoon to play with friends, since we doubted she would have liked sitting for 3 hours to watch a hockey game. It was kind of nice just having one babe to worry about and we had such a fun afternoon!

We received this picture half way through the game. I was so happy that she wore herself down enough to take a nap! and Speaking of naps June is wearing big girl panties now as she sleeps for her naps!! She has yet to have an accident since we stopped with her pull ups during nap time! She is such a little potty rock star! We are still using pull ups at night, but thats it! Slowly but surly getting there!

So really a pretty normal week, but still some fun things happened!! I love our small little adventures and they seem to just keep on coming and we will gladly keep on taking them!