Sunday, June 6, 2010

Just The Two of Us



For Mothers day Rebecca made Me and Jackson matching Pajamas.....They are the cutest things ever so tonight before we got in bed I had Ryan take a few photos, I love them!

Rebecca Originals

 Rebecca is always making the cutest clothes for the kids.  The other day she made the kids matching fish shirts and we had to have a a little photo shoot.  All the kids were up for posing, and giving us their best shot :) Thanks Rebecca....We sure do love you

8 Months and Beyond


Another month has flown by....and Jackson has learned many new things.  He had many "firsts" during our St George visit including: sleeping on his tummy, a runny nose, standing at a table, he learned to give kisses, and got his top two teeth.  After we got home he learned to hold his own bottle, and put his Binky away in his crib.  Several days after he turned 8 months he learned to clap.  Cutest thing ever! He is moving all over, but rolling and scooting not crawling.  He thought he got stuck under the couch one day, it was so funny, he hasn't gone under there since.  I think we will have to start baby proofing this month, not looking forward to that, but can't wait for him to become more mobile.  Yes I know it is going to be difficult, but also I think it will be very enjoyable to see how curious they are and the excitement they get from discovering new things.  My friend Carrie and her son Caleb came over the other day, he is a few months older and I got a taste of what the crawling phase is all about.  It was really fun to watch him.  He climbed the stairs and to see the love in Carries face as she watched him accomplish something she had never seen before was really amazing to watch.  We will be buying a new car seat in the next few days, and that will be a challenge as I have gotten used to being able to carry a sleeping baby out of the car with out waking him up.  Also we have begun the weaning process on the Binky.  We are only giving it to him for naps and bedtime, and so far he is doing really well with that.  I felt like he wasn't asking for it as much and decided to follow his cues and not offer it.  We are also doing solids three times a day and working on a cup, he's not able to drink from it on his own yet and I need to offer it more often. He has gotten several new toys including his new Laptop, and his first Lego Blocks.  He loves to close the laptop, but then gets mad because it's closed and he can't figure out how to open it. It's almost as much fun as the pick up game :)  Anyway we're in for an interesting month, as Rebecca said the other day "I feel like their doing new things every hour."  We're hanging on for the ride



Thursday, June 3, 2010

St George

My sister got to go to Mexico for her 10 year Anniversary, they hadn't had a honeymoon before and had only been away from their kids for a long weekend and even that was six years ago.  So she asked if I would come stay for the week with her five kids while they were gone.  I was so scarred to fly alone with Jackson, but luckily we had taken a few flights before so I knew what to expect at an airport with a baby.  On the way to the airport at 4:30 a.m. I realized I had forgot to grab the Ergo.  I freaked out.  How would I get him through security and all the stuff while holding him.  Aagh...  But it was fine.  People were really friendly and offered to help and hold stuff, and push my things through, so it ended up being OK.  Nonetheless, Ryan felt awful about me not having the carrier and shipped it to me as soon as he got home.  (It really was so helpful during my stay and on the way back home, to have my hands free. Thanks Ryan :)
I got to Vegas at about 10:30a.m. and so my sister didn't have to make two trips, I had my friend Carly pick us up.  It was  so good to see her.  She hung out with us all day while we waited for Cathy and Scott to come down.  First we went to breakfast at the Cracked Egg. (just like old times, down to the waitress and sharing the delicious coffee cake) Then we went back to her place and I got to see Leo and Jackson got to play with him.  I loved it.  I really miss them so much and it was nice to just sit around and talk. 

When they arrived we went to dinner and then dropped them off at the hotel and I headed for St George.  This is where it got difficult.  Jackson had been so good for me all day and I guess he was just Done!  I don't blame him it was a long day, he had to wake up early, and we traveled for 5 1/2 hours on two different planes, but knowing how exhausted he was didn't make it any easier on me.  He cried from Vegas to Mesquite, I stopped four times to feed him, change him, move the car seat to the other side of the car, I tried everything I could think of.  Nothing worked, and it just made our 1 1/2 hour drive much longer.  I felt awful for him but finally he cried himself to sleep :(  We got to Cathy's around 10:30 p.m. everyone was still awake and waiting for us.  Grandpa DeMarcus was also there so he finally got to meet Jackson.  That was really special and made me really happy.  My Dad had also brought my Grandma up from San Diego so Jackson got to meet GG (Great Grandma) as well. So I put Jackson down and got the kids into bed.  Luckily Jackson slept fairly well that night.


The next few days were filled with a lot of excitement.  The kids were so excited to hang out and have some fun, we started out by going to the dollar store to get Ean a reward.  We got everyone toys and gum, it was the perfect start to our week.  The next few days were filled with playing games like Monopoly, Candy land, and Mexican Train, doing the girls hair, Baseball, playing in the sprinklers outside, Violin lessons, jumping on the tramp, Writing and Boy Scout classes, Dylan and Braeden playing X Box,  Braeden on the computer, riding wiggle cars, hanging out with their friends, Star and I got Pedicures,  hanging out with Cousins, staying up late and watching movies, and a lot of playing with Jackson.  It was so cute how many times I heard, "Can you wake your baby up?  I want to holds your baby." (Ean)  or a million other adorable things.  They loved him a lot.  I know people would think the five kids might be hard but the only difficult part was Jackson didn't sleep very well the whole time and as a result was fussy throughout the days.  I thought it was really bad allergy's due to the weather change.  He was so stuffed up and congested he couldn't breathe well at night (one night he actually didn't sleep at all, no joke! That next day was a hard one for me, I wasn't on my A game and Star missed her softball practice that morning, I felt really bad about it.) but then two days before we left his top two teeth broke though, so maybe that was the problem and the rest were just symptoms, who knows.

While the kids went to church with Grandma and Grandpa I went to visit my friend DeAnna and her family.  It was cute to watch our little ones play.  Back in the day we always said we would get pregnant at the same time and the funny thing is years later that actually happened we just lived so far from each other.  But now we have babies the same age and its so fun to have that connection.  Jackson also got to swing for the first time and that was really cute to see he loved it.



The last day Breaden asked if we could go to the water park so he could hang out with his friends, so we went and this time Jackson was in a better mood and got to go in the water.  Ean played with him and let him play with his spaceship too.  Everyone had a good time.  Later we had a really great family night, Star was babysitting so wasn't able to come but we went to the park with Grandma DeMarcus and Uncle Dave and Aunt Trish.  We packed a picnic dinner, and Trish had created a really neat scavenger hunt.  When it was time to search, Ean wasn't done with his dinner so Braeden and I waited with him, and then went on the hunt together.  It was actually really fun to be behind, and really focus on them.  Braeden did a great job finding a pine cone without any pine trees, we laughed about it a lot, and Ean said the cutest thing running across the lawn,"my tummy needs you to hold me."  so I picked him up and we found all of our treasures.  It was so cute.  Then we got to the meeting ground and saw the tiniest ducklings, and tadpoles.  The kids played on the toys until we left.  When we got home we stayed up late and watched Nancy Drew.  We had popcorn and licorice, it was the perfect way to spend my last day with the kids. I didn't get many photos as my hands we full most of the time, but it was amazing to spend so much time and get to know these kids again.  They had a blast, and I did too.  I didn't get to see Cath and Scott when they got home but It sounds like they had a ton of fun.  I'm so glad I could help them out.


Santa Cruz

Ryan was given an amazing opportunity to visit two offices in California and offer his opinion on their prosthetic patients that they were having trouble with.  We decided to tag along and made a mini vacation out of it.

   We traveled at night and this is what we woke up to the first morning.  Beautiful.  Jackson and I spent the next couple of days hanging out in the pool, and on the beach and took a lot of walks down the wharf. 


When Ryan was finished working we had two days to have a little fun.  We spent one day in Santa Cruz, on the beach, in the pool, and walking down the boardwalk, we even got our caricature picture drawn.
The next day we went to Monterey and visited The Fish hopper where on our 4th anniversary we had found the best clam chowder EVER.  Yes it was just as good as we remembered it.  Then we took Jackson to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  He had so much fun.  He loved looking at all the fish and the touch pools but especially loved the penguins.  After, we strolled the streets of cannery row.


It was an interesting vacation, the first as a new family, and it is defiantly different, not quite as relaxing as the last time we were there. But we had a great time, Ryan did an amazing job, and Jackson had a lot of fun, what more can you ask for.