James Speak

James: (to Matthias) What are you going to be when you grow up? (to me) I'm going to be something you don't want me to be. I'm gonna be a knight. Knights have to fight dragons.
Matthias: I'm be dragon.
James: You're going to have to be a farmer or a cowboy. You can't be a dragon. You can't be big and green.
Matthias: I be big and green.

4 Months!

Hannah is already four months old! We're so excited to be able to feed her because it's just SO fun!

Before

After

Weight 14 lbs 10 oz (75%)
Height 25 inches (75%)
Head...all I remember is it is 90% and Taylor still won't let her wear her 5 inch hair flowers...soon. Soon her head will be big enough. (the flower in Hannah's Space is just 3 inches, imagine the cuteness with 2 more inches of flower...)

Hannah's Space

We finally finished switching out the study into Hannah's bedroom. The walls were originally aqua blue so I asked to paint them. The landlord asked what color I wanted and I told him I was doing Hannah's room in pink and white. His response, "White is fine." So we picked an off white with a slight pink tint. I actually ended up really liking it more than I thought I would since I would have done a dark pink if it was my wall.

I always wanted to do pink/brown since I love that combo, but I realized I was just sad to be missing out on the whole pink/brown craze. I've been satisfied in the last four months and so I thought I would do pink/orange because that's a really cute combo and obviously I'm obsessed with orange. But in the end I just went pink/white because it's much simpler to find and match.

So I made bumpers, bought a rug, and curtains. Nothing too crazy, but I am happy with how it turned out and I love sitting in there and rocking Hannah surrounded by pink. When we move I can always do something more exciting if we choose.

James Speak

James: When Hannah grows up and Emma grows up...
Me: Emma? Who's Emma?
James: The one you want. The name you want for the next baby.


Is medium the hot in Colorado? (as in cold, medium, & hot are temperatures)


We should have stayed in our other house. We should not have come here. It's cold and I don't like being cold.

Hot Water

So our hot water went out last week in the whole house except the basement bathroom so Taylor and I were showering downstairs all week. I kept putting off showering the boys and then Thursday night when I went to fill Hannah's tub downstairs I couldn't even get hot water there. So I heated water on the stove for Hannah's bath and waited on the boys again.

That night our landlord sent a "plumber" who had no idea what was wrong. We were out of bottles and silverware so I had to boil water to wash dishes in. Friday morning a friend was kind enough to let us shower at her house. Within 15 minutes of returning home Matthias spooned milk into his hair...

Later Friday an actual plumber came and found a small plastic something in the pipe. (Not from us).

It's such a blessing to turn on the tap and have hot water flowing out. We are lucky to have wonderful and warm indoor plumbing.

Surround Sound

As most of you know we do not have a TV. Our rental home has surround sound in the family room which has mostly been an eye sore having speakers hanging on the wall for no reason. Well we moved the computer downstairs so Hannah could have the study as her bedroom. And since we don't have TV, but are internet junkies we thought it would be funny to hook the surround sound into our computer. And it is.

Happy Harvey Day!

Saturday was Happy Harvey Day. June 13 is the day we got engaged back in 2003 so this was our 6th Happy Harvey Day...I got this from my great friend Bec who grew up celebrating the day her parents were engaged.

We decided to go hiking and it was actually a lot of fun and a great hike. Taylor and Matthias were very tired at the end, but it was fairly easy but challenging enough for the boys to have a lot of fun climbing over rocks and crossing rivers, etc. The only downside was all the poison ivy...there was TONS. So Taylor carried Matthias most of the way and Taylor made James sufficiently paranoid that he walked with his arms stiff to his side for most of the time. So far so good. I haven't seen any outbreaks yet. Also it was super windy until we made it into the canyon as you can see by the first pic of my hair in my face.





After the hike we went to A&W for rootbeer floats. Then home to work on the making of Hannah's room. More later this week. We listened to some fun stuff on YouTube including the boys' new favorite song then dinner, cake, and ice cream. It was a great Happy Harvey Day!

Chonology of My Night

Hopefully yours went something like "went to bed at 10:30, woke up at 6:30". Mine usually does...it's just the early thing, but usually sleeping does take place until 5. Three night ago I went to bed at 9:30. Woke up at 5:30. Nothing eventful happened all night. It was a blissful night.

Due to our hot water being out since Tuesday and our landlord finally sending a "plumber" last night got started late...I still have no idea when Taylor actually made it to bed. Sometime before 12:19.

10:08 Get in bed.

12:19 Matthias got in my bed (He's been sick the last couple days and that's what sick kids do. At least mine anyway.) Notice Taylor is now in bed also. Rough sleep ensues.

1:04 Matthias decides to go back to his bed. I tuck him in.

2:42 Hannah wakes up. Um, no. Not going to happen. You are fully capable of sleeping through the night. Here's your binkie. Go back to sleep.

2:45 Hannah poops a big, runny, nasty poop. Ignore me now Mom. MmWhahaha.

2:57 I give in, Hannah gets a bottle (which Taylor kindly prepares)

3:09 Back to bed

3:47 James standing at the side of my bed, "Mom, I need to go potty." He then walks to the bathroom. Did I really need to know about that?

3:50 Hall light turns on. What is going on? I already peed in the bed. Yes, I did need to know. (James has wet the bed a total of about 8 times. 7 of them since we moved here.) Since you're so short we can just unfold the bottom of the bed and you can sleep at the foot. Remind me your sheets are wet in the morning.

3:57 Back in bed. At which point I begin composing this blog post.

4:13 I'm still awake?

4:37 Did I ever fall back asleep yet?

5:10 Chair scraping across the kitchen floor. (this is fairly standard as Matthias always gets himself a yogurt upon waking.)

5:35 Chair scraping again...totally waking me up from a dream where I am a high school girl again and just called a boy to ask him to a dance. But he wasn't home. Now I'll never know if he really wasn't home or if he was avoiding me...Apparently in the past twenty five minutes Taylor has already gotten Matthias twice. Put him on the recliner with a pillow and blanket and told him he has to wait until 6 to have a yogurt (what is 6 Dad?).

5:36 Matthias gets in bed with Taylor.

5:43 Matthias gets out of bed with Taylor.

5:44 At which point I throw in the towel and get up to let the man recovering from surgery and now a nasty, gross infection at the incision site to get some more rest. (I have to pack and change the bandaging in/on the infection. I am very bad with yucky things. They make me nauseous and light headed.)

Now if we glance back over this chronology we see two thing, first) I am a chronic clock checker (with a great memory in the middle of the night...these times are all accurate) and second) the first two hours (10:08 to 12:19) are the longest span of continuous sleep throughout the night. And that's not counting falling asleep time. Although honestly if I was in bed at 10:08 I was probably asleep at 10:09. It's just after 4 am that I have a hard time getting back to sleep...because I know that chair scrap is coming soon.

A few weeks ago my SIL pregnant with her first said, "I'm so tired. When does that stop?" I laughed. Welcome to Motherhood.

Bicycle

We decided since most five year old kids can ride without training wheels James better at least learn to peddle. So we finally bought our first bike. He has a hard time steering while peddling...takes a lot of coordination and he likes to watch his feet which doesn't make for very accurate steering. So he doesn't care for it too much. Which Taylor says is because he hasn't seen what a bike can do. Taylor took him over to the church to ride the other day and he started figuring it out better and enjoying it more.

When we went to Wal-mart to pick it up I also bought Matthias a little shark truck he pulled out of a $1 box. Turns out it cost $5. So I handed it to him when we got out to the car and said "Here's your expensive truck. I hope you enjoy it." To which James said, "You should have bought me a gun." Um, Hello. I just bought you a bike! Honestly. And then when we got home and I told this to Taylor he asked why I didn't just not buy it. Well because I was stopping Matthias from opening all the M&Ms by the register and coaxing James to put the 12 lip glosses in his hand back in the box. Amid all that I didn't notice my bill was $4 above what it should have been. Oh well.

The other day James said, "Half robot half person guys don't get tummy aches."

SHABBY APPLE Marseilles Dress GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!

Grosgrain: SHABBY APPLE Marseilles Dress GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!

Matthias Chatter

Me: Where did you get that big bruise?
Matthias: From the Garbage Man. Hit with with the garbage can.
Me: Really? When did this happen?
Matthias: Fight the Garbage Man off.
James: The Garbage Man is nice.
Matthias: No, naughty.


(after I gave James Ibuprofen for a fever)
Matthias: I need medicine.
Me: No, you're not sick.
Matthias: My heart is broken. I need a doctor.

Brian Regan

Brian Regan is so funny. We're on hold for his new dvd at the library. He'll be in Utah next March. Another funny one.

Chuckit

First, I just got up. 6 am! Hopefully this can continue. And Hannah has yet to make a peep. I feel so rested.

So yesterday the boys were in the kitchen and James was making a big commotion so I shouted from the other room.

Me: What are you doing?
James: Getting some juice you chuckit.
Matthias: You call mom chuckit. No way.
James: Don't say that. No way is a bad word.

My two favorite parts of this exchange are 1) that is probably the most articulate sentence I have ever heard Matthias utter and 2) no way is bad but calling your mom a chuckit (whatever that is) is okay? Hmmm. I just ignored the whole exchange after my initial question. Honestly.

Here's to a good night's rest

Thanks for all your ideas and advice! We have a couple we're going to implement and see what works. Hopefully Matthias will start letting everyone sleep.

James slept until 8 this morning when we moved him into our room after Matthias woke up at 4:20. Clearly James is not getting enough sleep and needs more. He doesn't nap and hasn't for about a year and a half. He goes to bed fine at 7 and would sleep until 7 if left alone. Matthias goes to bed and takes about 30 minutes to fall asleep...about 7:30. He does nap, but he needs it still. Plus every sleep book/article I have ever read says sleep begets sleep and taking away naps too early will just make night time sleep worse. And Matthias is still tired at night, he has no problems going to sleep and bed time is an easy process around here. He just gets up too early. (Taylor regularly takes 30 minutes to fall asleep too.) And later bed times don't work. We've tried for weeks at a time. No good.

I think the main problem was moving him to a bed too early (15 months), but he was leaping over the side of the crib. Very dangerous. We've tried locking him in, but it's no match for our little jail breaker. He's broken child proof handles and can unlock locked doors from the inside. Maybe we could install a deadbolt?

Hopefully we can get something to keep Matthias in bed until 6. We'll keep you posted!

Help!

Remember here when I said "we are actually slowing adjusting to the early wake up time"?? Remember that? That was a lie. An optimistic lie.

We're not adjusting and we're slowing falling apart. Taylor is trying to recover from major surgery, I'm trying to recover from caring for a newborn. We've had an endless stream of visitors interrupting our precarious sleep pattern. A word here meaning depending on the will or pleasure of another. And it's really wearing down on us. Some mornings I wake up crying because I have to wait at least 14 more hours before I can go back to bed and I'm exhausted!

I really just don't know what to do. Matthias is the main culprit, but when we remove James from the room he just unlocks the door and lets Matt out. Plus Matthias has recently taken to removing his own diaper. Taylor found him standing in front of the toilet this morning at 5:20 with his diaper around his ankles trying to pee. Unfortunately he was a bit too short...

But the kid will not potty train. I've tried. He's chosen to not be ready and I'm of the mindset of waiting until they're ready to avoid cleaning up urine all day. I have enough to keep me occupied without adding unnecessary extras.

So keeping him in his room is really not an option unless we want a big, unsanitary mess. I've thought about putting a clock in there and telling them they cannot exit until 6 am. But really how would I enforce that? I've found that I really have nothing on my children. They rarely play with toys and are fine without. So I can't threaten to take their toys away. All they do all day is run around pretending to be knights, jedis, pirates, etc. And props are nice, but not essential. What am I going to do, take away their imaginations?

We don't watch tv. James watches a dvd every couple days or so, but since he will go sometimes 3 or 4 days without watching anything that doesn't really seem an effective punishment. Four days after the offense I say, "oh you want to watch a movie? well remember last Thursday? you came out of your room at 5:40 so not going to happen." Riiight.

Um, we don't really play with friends. Maybe once or twice a week. I'm just not sure what I could effectively withhold. Outside of running around slaying bad guys, reading is our main source of entertainment. We read for an hour or more a day. But Taylor and I just don't see that as an option. Reading is like religion to us. It's like telling the boys they can't pray. Maybe we can find a lion's den? That should keep 'em in bed.

Any ideas for keeping them in bed until 6 am? I think I can do 6. That half hour really does make a difference.

(and with a whopping high temperature of 54 my day should really be complete)

The little one said roll over, roll over

Taylor is getting upset that I have not yet posted this video. He did an excellent job capturing the event! This was only the second roll ever.



May 24, 2009. 3 months, 4 days old.

Hannah never really got much tummy time thus far as she is held ALL the time. Which is my doing not hers. Because she's just so cute and cuddly. So I lug her with me everywhere I go. Because soon she'll want to run around and squirm away from me. So she gets held a lot.

Taylor finally put her down last week (Thursday?) to get her some tummy time. He showed her the basics and she started holding her head up like a champ. By Sunday she rolled for us.

She's pretty good now at laying next to the boys and she loves feeling like part of the action. She's getting big SO fast. I better run and pick her up again before she starts crawling away.