Turn that frown upside down

Sorry folks. My last post was kind of sad and lame. Mostly lame because all I did was complain. I don't like to complain because then I end up feeling sorry for myself and where does that get me? No where folks. Happy stories are better. Like the fact that Lucy is pretty much potty trained. Yes, we have to run the shower to get her to do a number two, but hey that is better than dirty panties. And that my brother Peder is coming home from his two year mission TONIGHT! He is coming home to snow. May not be a culture shock, but it sure will be a temperature shock. I hear Cape Verde is quite toasty.

Plus I said I would talk about some other fun things. The first snow. Well, this should not be news to any of you on the east coast. We have got snow, and a decent amount of it. Lucy is much more capable of playing in the snow this year, though today was little difficult because a previous snowfall topped with today's snow made it a little deep for her. We went sledding. Every time we got to the bottom Lucy sang "can we do it AGAIN?" Did I mention she loved it?! And in case you are wondering, I did put gloves on her initially.

Also, we gave Sam his first solids. I waited a little longer than we did with Lucy. I wanted to go all the way to six months before introducing solids, but we are going to be a cruise and this kid was having a serious hunkering for a taste what we are eating.  Not that we fed him that. He got oatmeal with breast milk mixed in. He wasn't super impressed, but also not really resistant. I hope he is like Lucy and learns to love food, all food. I am glad we waited to almost six months, I feel like he is a little more willing. Lucy did okay early on, but it was not like it made her sleep any better. All it did was make her diaper more stinky.

And lastly, the grand finale of optimism, Jesus' cupcakes. To make sure that Lucy understood the meaning of Christmas Jimmy and I repeatedly told her that we are celebrating Jesus' birthday. Because we were talking birthdays she would quickly question "can we make him cupcakes?" Because that, my friends, is what we do for birthdays. And I was all for it. 

For a while she wanted to make pink cupcakes, but on the day I finally decided to make them right before she climbed in her bed for her nap she told me she wanted blue cupcakes instead. I had no problem with either color. So during her nap I made the cupcakes and the frosting and left the decorating to Lucy. She did a lovely job.

That evening we had the missionaries over for dinner. Lucy was so excited about the cupcakes that we finished the dinner with said cupcakes, one that had a candle with the number 1 (for 1 year older), and sang "happy birthday!" to Jesus. I felt like this was a good parenting moment for us. Now if you ask what we celebrate on Christmas Lucy so eagerly says "It's Jesus' birthday, and we are going to have cupcakes for him!" Maybe she is a little swayed by the potential of cupcakes, but hey, I give myself a high five anyways!

Well, that was much better. Just writing it made me feel a whole lot better. Here are some cute kid pictures: (the first one shows that Sam does in fact has some hair!)

Teething...bleh

Let's talk teeth shall we. Sam doesn't have any, but he sure wants them. It is enough that he doesn't really sleep at night. Okay, so he sleeps...a little. Like last night, he went to bed at 7 pm, woke up at 9:30 pm, screamed in daddy's arms until 11ish pm, slept until 2 am, didn't fall asleep until 2:30 am, woke up at 4 am, didn't go sleep until 4:50ish, slept until 6:30 am and was up. Yeah, there is some sleeping going on in there, I even felt like it was a better night. Sheesh...it is exhausting.  It makes me pretty grumpy actually. I am not mad at Sam, just at the process is all. Jimmy and I have tried a lot of things. Two naps instead of three, earlier bedtime, swaddling again (he is too strong for the swaddle). I even bought a wool diaper so he wouldn't soak his clothes every night (Jimmy doesn't really believe in that system). I know eventually it will get better, and someday when he is 20 I will sleep full 8 hour chunks, but for right now, I am exhausted.

For those of you that like to cuddle your baby all night long, that is awesome. I am impressed. I wish that I felt rested after doing that, but I don't. And then I am short with Lucy all day long. And it isn't her fault. That girl sleeps like a rock and wakes up full energy. She is quite an imp, but not really a malicious imp, so I feel bad being so grumpy with her.

So this is my plea to who ever controls the rate of teething, please oh please let Sam's teeth come through. And then let him sleep a little more soundly or at least fall back asleep more easily. Maybe Santa knows someone who could help a mom (and dad) out. Perhaps we should change the song to "all I want for Christmas is Sam's two bottom front teeth..."

For another time, the first REAL snow, oatmeal for breakfast and Jesus' blue cupcakes. I like to build up the anticipation....

Feeling Christmas spirit!

You know, even though Lucy was hitting me today and Sam is still not really sleeping very consistently during the night, I feel very blessed. Christmas is a good time of year!

Siblings? I think yes...

Here is the picture proof!

Lucy certainly has bluer eyes, but Sam still has the best cheeks!

Filling in the blanks

Let's fill in the blanks shall we. I have been wanting to sit down and write down some stories, but I have been tired and unmotivated. Sorry, sleep deprivation does that to you.

So, let's start with why I am so tired. Sam. We love him oh so much, but seriously this little kid is a mover, even when he is sleeping he is constantly moving. In fact he has decided that rolling from his back to his tummy is his favorite past time, but only the rolling part. Once he gets on his tummy he is unhappy. He wakes up and yells. This means that I am awake. Last week he was waking up every hour and I was living in the land of sleepiness. This week we decided that he was going to have to fall asleep on his own at least a few times during the night. I really don't feel good about weaning all his feedings, so we decided that we would only feed him twice. The rest of the time we would wait a few minutes to see if he will go back to sleep, which is usually what happens. Let me tell you that the first few nights we did this Jimmy had to hold me in bed. I hate hearing him yell. And it wasn't like he yelled for 30 minutes, it was just a few minutes. Still, heart-wrenching. Things are getting better, but not great. Between teething and sniffly nose he still wakes up 3-4 times, but at least there is a little more consistency. Tonight I went in to check on him and noticed him sleeping on his side. I think that might be his favorite way to sleep. It allows him to curl up a bit but he is not on his tummy. It is cute. He is cute....good thing, huh?!

Even though he certainly drains my energy he is doing a lot of really cute things during the day. He loves Lucy! If Lucy is willing, I ask her to talk to him, and he will smile and laugh as she babbles about whatever she thinking. It is adorable. Last night he was screaming and yelling right before bed as we were reading stories and Lucy got down on the floor and started talking to him. He quieted right down. Wouldn't it be awesome if when he started crawling that he followed Lucy around the house? It makes me laugh just thinking about it.

As we all know Lucy is energy upon energy. As the weather is getting colder I have realized that we need to find activities that cater to more indoor time. Before the weather was too cold we did a nature scavenger hunt. It was fun. Lucy found sticks and bark and leaves. Lately we have been doing crafts. Stamps out of sponges, moose heads traced with our hands and feet, making some baked good. Her attention span really only allows us to do said activity for 5 or so minutes, but it is worth it. Usually while we are doing something like this, or even just randomly Lucy will ask me to take a video of her. Even if we are doing nothing at all, "will you take a video of me..." He favorite thing to record is her singing the ABCs, though I did get a pretty special video of her walking. That girl has got some seriously awesome moves.

In other news, Jimmy got an internship. I guess I haven't written much about life besides the kids because it really has been in limbo (and still is) since Jimmy graduated. He took the bar, but decided (and this may have been a long time coming) that he didn't really want to be an attorney. But he loves working with people and loves solving problems so he thought that Human Resources would be a possible career. The unfortunate part is that all the entry level jobs still require experience. So he has been networking and talking to a lot of people, including people at the grocery store where he has been working part-time. Long story short they are transferring him to there HR department to do a internship for a month or so. It will provide him with some experience and allow him to see the inner working of HR. We are excited! So we are still here in Boxborough, but things are looking up. Now here's hoping he can find a job after that is more permanent. We have a lot of  good things on the horizon.

For now

For now I am just going to put up a few pictures. In the future I would like to write about a few things, such as: the scavenger hunt, and taking videos, and Sam rolling over during the night time. I think they are pretty awesome stories and I want you to remind me to write about them. But for now, here a few cute pictures.

A little this and that

My children are funny. I am glad that they are so cute because sometimes they just baffle me with their ridiculousness.

Lucy for instance, believes that pooping in her pants is okay because as she puts it "mommy will clean me up!" She has no problem peeing in the potty, and will now tell us when she needs to go the bathroom, but number 2 has only actually made it into the potty and not pants a few times. Today was one of those days. Jimmy promised her a Popsicle and bacon. Oh, she was living it up. Some days I am tempted to offer her our savings just so I don't have to clean up her dirty panties. But we making progress and that is what is important.

She is also very excited about Disney world and going "on a boat." She will ramble on for minutes about going on a plane and then getting on a boat and swimming and, and, and... They only one who seems to have the attention span to listen to her is Sam. He just smiles and stares at her. Warms my heart to see them bonding.

Sam, well Sam is adorable and he is quite a good napper. He takes a really stellar 2 hour nap in the morning and then 2 other naps during the day. The night however is not so much fun. He wakes up at LEAST 3 times (between 8 pm and 6:30 am). Lately, one of those times he wakes up, wide-eyed and squirmy. It usually takes an hour to get him back sleep. I feel blessed he is doing a little better this week. Last week he had some days he woke up 5-6 times a night. That gave me only 1.5 hour sleep breaks. It was exhausting. I am exhausted. But he is cute, remember? It is so hard for me to angry at him. He really doesn't know any better.

But he is doing a lot of awesome things these days. I already mentioned his rolling over tricks but he is also getting somewhat close to sitting without support. He is also becoming grabby. I can't hold him while I am eating and assume that he won't lunge towards the table. Just a little while longer before he will be eating solids and no plate of food will be safe.

Got to love cute kids, even if they drive you a little nuts.

Lucy, you are saying "cheese!" too loud!