MIA

*Warning: Extremely long post ahead*

I don't like getting behind on blogging because I feel like the more I get behind, the more I put it off because there's so much to blog about! But it's been almost 2 weeks, so it's time.

Last Monday my mom came in town. Our visit started off great and then Monday night I got the stomach flu/food poisoning or something and I "lost my lunch" among other things over 10 times between 10:30pm and 4:30 am. Yuck. So that completely wiped me out and I was a total dud all day Tuesday. My mom said when I came out Tuesday morning I looked like I had lost 10 pounds. And I probably did lose five. Not cool. Anyway, so it was good and bad that it happened when she was here. Bad because I wasn't much fun to be around and we couldn't really do anything on Tuesday, but good because she could take care of Eli for me while I slept most of the day and Jeremy was able to go to work (for most of the day).

So Tuesday evening my mom went down to Provo to hang out with Heidi and go to her last intermural (it says I'm spelling that wrong; oh well) game. So Wednesday was much better and I was able to keep some food down and feel more like a human again. So we went out to lunch and had fun chatting and then that afternoon Heidi came up and we had dinner and played some more. Then on Thursday, Amy and her 4 kids came! They were going to come Wednesday night but plans changed, so they got here about 12:30 on Thursday. Unfortunately it was a bit stormy on Thursday and Friday so we couldn't play outside, but the kids were great and they all had fun playing with Eli's toys and our digital piano. :)

These are the only pictures I managed to take all week. How lame am I?
Late Thursday afternoon we all headed over to my grandparent's house for dinner. It was nice for the kids to have a bigger play area and of course it was great to spend time with my grandparents. Then Friday we spent the first half of the day hanging around here and then went over to my aunt's house for the afternoon. Then we came back here for dinner and then my mom, Amy, Seth (Amy's oldest; 8-year-old), Jeremy and I headed down to Provo to go to Heidi's Singers Concert. My cousin Kori came and watched Eli and Amy's other 3 kids. The concert was FABULOUS! I love hearing that choir. :) Not only does it bring back so many memories, but they are just so stinkin' good! Their tone is amazing. The whole concert I kept thinking "Oh, listen to those tenors! And then, oh those sopranos are so good! etc., etc., etc." They are just so fine-tuned and unified and I love it!

It was their last concert of the year and Concert Choir also sang, and they did some songs together which was really fun. So we went to get ice cream after and then came home and stayed up way too late talking, but it was fun. :) Then everyone left Saturday morning and Jeremy and Eli and I took a nap and then got to work running errands, fixing our car, and cleaning our house. Saturday night I went to a shower for Jeremy's brother's fiancee that was put on by Jeremy's aunt and I. Luckily everything went well and she got a lot of great stuff!

Then on Sunday evening Jeremy's mission president and his wife came over. (You see why I haven't been blogging? Busy!) So we finally got the house put back in order and beautified just in time for them to come. They are the sweetest most wonderful people ever. This is the third time I've had the privilege of meeting with them and they are just so great. They asked all about us and then they told us of their adventures. So ten years ago they got called to be mission presidents in Greece (Jeremy's mission obviously) and so they sold their home in New York and they did that for 3 years and then they had a teeny break and then he got called to be the temple president of the Manhattan temple, so they did that for a few years and then had a little break and then they just finished their most recent assignment which sounded really interesting. They've been the church's representatives to the United Nations! So they've been living in Manhattan again and have been making friends with almost 200 ambassadors and trying to get them to want the church in their countries. So now they're enjoying a little break and we're wondering if they might be getting a new assignment this coming weekend. :) We'll see.

Anyway, so that's been our life lately! Busy busy! Now we can breathe though and we're really looking forward to watching General Conference this weekend and having some family and friends over for Easter on Sunday! Oh, and here's one more picture of my pretty spring-y flowers. Yea!
Thanks for reading! Sorry it was so long. :)

Sleep - I've missed you

The past few weeks have been a little crazy with our little guy. For some reason he all of a sudden decided to loathe going to bed. He used to be so easy to put down. Give him his pacifier - he starts playing with his hair - and zonk. He's out.

Well he started refusing his pacifier, which I at first thought was great because I didn't want him to have it forever anyway. But then a few days later he started with this bed-hating thing and that has been going on for quite some time now. We decided it was time to just let him cry it out. We've never really had to decide whether or not to let him cry it out because nap time and bed time had never been an issue before, but things changed and we knew he needed to learn to go to sleep and stay asleep by himself.

So...long story short, I've heard a LOT of crying in the past couple weeks but we're finally about there. The past 3-4 nights he's gone to bed at night with less than a minute or two of crying and he's stayed asleep until about 5 am, at which point I feed him and he goes back to bed until about 7 - 7:30. I don't think he's quite ready for all night yet, but we are making progress! We're still figuring out nap time, but we seem to be getting back on track there too - much less crying, much more sleeping.

It's just crazy how all of sudden he can change like that. Of course it always happens right as things are going well and stabilizing. I even took him to the doctor last week. We just didn't seem to be making any progress and I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong with him (I would've felt really bad about making him cry it out if he had an ear infection or something). But, nothing was wrong. I think it was just a combination of teething, growing, wanting our constant attention, and going through some new developments - crawling, standing, etc.

So anyway, this week has been much happier. He wakes up happy now and is much happier during the day too. Babies really do need their sleep and they get pretty miserable when the don't get it. (By the way - he hasn't ever had his pacifier again, so I guess that's good. Some days I miss it, especially at nap time, but I'm glad it's gone).

On another note, we've been enjoying some amazing weather! Eli and I have spent a lot of time outside and it has been wonderful. We go on walks, go to the playground nearby and watch the bigger kids play, sit on the lawn, and eat grass and dirt - oh wait, that's just Eli.

Anyway, he's a cutie. I bought him a new toy last week at Kid to Kid (have you ever been there? It's second hand stuff, but it's in great condition). Most of his toys are hand-me-downs (I think I've only ever bought him one other toy; poor kid) and he was getting pretty sick of them , so we picked up this cool "new" toy last week (along with a really cute pair of shoes). He really likes it and it holds his attention for more than 10 seconds. Woohoo!So that's probably why my blogging has suffered a bit lately. We've all been tired and cranky, but we're coming out of the fog now. Hooray! It sure feels good to sleep. It's been a long time since I've slept all night, so even though he's not making it all the way until 7, he's doing a lot better than he was, and I sure feel a difference. So that's what's new!

We have some exciting things coming up. Jeremy's brother is coming in town this weekend and he and his fiancee are coming for dinner on Saturday. Then my mom comes into town on Monday and my sister Amy and her 4 kids come into town on Wednesday! It'll be an adventure! We're excited.

Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day (whatever - not a holiday I get excited about) and sorry this is the longest post ever...

Thank you!

Thank you everyone for your comments/suggestions on car seats and food. It was very much appreciated and Eli is enjoying many new foods lately and is eating a TON (growth spurt? yes). We still need to find a car seat (we haven't really gone shopping yet) but I've been looking online at ones you have suggested, so thanks! I plan on blogging more and putting up pictures later today or tomorrow, but for now, that's all! Thanks again.

Picture Day

Calling all Moms

I know it's been awhile since I've blogged. Things have been a little crazy lately. More on that later.

Now, I have two questions for all you moms out there. Eli is turning 1 next month (how did that happen?!?) and so I need to start looking for a new car seat for him. I don't know much about the next size. I've heard things about 3-in-1 and booster-convertible or whatever, but I really know nothing. So, rather than researching like I should, I thought I would just ask:

1) What kind of a carseat do you recommend for a 1+ year-old?

I don't really want to spend a fortune, but at the same time, I know it will get used through the years, so I don't mind investing in something that will last.

Next, I need ideas on food. I seem to be a little stumped on what to feed Eli lately. I know there are probably lots of things I'm not thinking of. He LOVES to feed himself and is not so keen on the purees anymore (mostly because I have to feed him), but he only has 4 teeth, and he's not a year old yet, so there are things he can't eat yet, so I need ideas. His favorite things lately (finger foods) are avocados, bananas, crackers, cheerios, and peas. I'm still breastfeeding, so he gets a lot of his nutrition from me, but we are nearing the weaning phase, so I need to find more balanced things to give him. So, the next question:

2) What foods (finger foods mostly) do you recommend for a 10+ month-old?

Okay, I'm ready for the suggestions now. :) I've seen other people do things like this on their blog, and I'm always amazed at the awesome responses, so I'm counting on you! Any and all comments are welcome (even if you don't have children). Thank you! :)

2 New Teeth, Crawling, and Self-Pacifier-Weaning

How's that for a title?

Eli finally cut his 2 top front teeth this past week. They'd been bumps there forever and they finally made their way through. Can I tell you how hard it is to catch those two little teeth on camera though? Very hard. This is as close as I got:
And yes, Jeremy is holding him upside down so I could get this. Luckily Eli thought that was a blast. The left one came in first and a couple days later, the right one joined in. Very exciting. And it looks like there are several more also on their way. Fun fun!

Next up: crawling. Eli took his first few real forward crawls today (crawls? they're not steps; i don't know what you call them). He's been scooting, rolling, army crawling, getting on his hands and knees, going backward, and so forth, but today we saw the first glimpses of the real deal. He takes a few crawls (again, that sounds so weird) and then drops to his tummy again for the army crawl, but I'm sure he will be crawling the length of our house in no time. :) I managed to catch a bit of it on video (please ignore my encouraging sounds - I hate hearing myself on video, but I forget to shut my mouth when I press record; and it's really short because I ran out of memory).

And last but not least...no more pacifier! At least I think so. It seems like I got off way too easy, so I'm not sure if we've really seen the end of it here, but it appears so. I usually only would give Eli his pacifier when he went to sleep and when we were at church (they should call it a "muter"); oh, and sometimes when I teach lessons. Anyway, but lately he has refused it at bed time so I just stopped giving it to him and he hasn't seemed to miss it at all! I was planning on trying to wean him from it soon anyway, but I certainly didn't think it would be this easy. Here's hoping it's really over! I should just throw them away and then it really will be over...hmm. We'll see.

So that's the update! This boy's changing fast! He pulls himself up to stand a lot now too. It's so fun to see him growing up. He'll be running around by the time the warm summer weather gets here. Yea!!!

The Great Exchange

I recently started teaching piano lessons to a girl in our ward in exchange for one of the most valuable things these days: babysitting. It is amazing! Every week I give her a 1/2 hour piano lesson and every week she babysits for us. It is perfect. Her family can't afford lessons and we can really use a babysitter! The best part about it is that we both feel like we're getting a great deal. She only charges about $3/hr. for babysitting and I charge a lot more than that for piano, so monetarily, even though I teach for 1/2 hour and she babysits for 2-3 hours, she's still getting a great deal. But I feel like I'm getting the best deal ever! It is so nice to go on a date every week with my wonderful husband. We haven't done anything close to that in about, hmm, 10 months? :)

So we just had our second exchange this last weekend. Jeremy's boss gave him tickets to the Jazz game for Christmas and the game was on Saturday. They played the Rockets and they smoked them! The final score was 133-110. It was a really fun game and we had great seats.

Here we are at the game (these are phone pictures):(I look funny because I was focusing on taking the picture). And here was our view:
That night Heidi had a concert at the Conference Center Theater in Salt Lake (which I felt bad we couldn't go to; we were only a couple blocks away!) so after her concert, she and 2 of her roommates came over and spent the night. We stayed up way too late chatting Saturday night and then had a fun day going to church, visiting, and eating yummy food on Sunday. The girls all slept in late Sunday morning since our church isn't until 1:00. Their church is at 9:00 so they were happy to come to ours. :) Jeremy and I of course couldn't sleep in though with meetings and Eli waking up early, so went to bed at 8:45 last night to recover! Ha! We are so old. Oh well.
Anyway, that's what we did this weekend. It feels like we've been really busy since I last blogged but I don't know why exactly. I guess we've had something pretty much every night, so that makes it feel busier. I must say, even though I loved the Olympics, I'm glad they're over so we can start going to bed earlier again. I just couldn't bring myself to turn it off at night! It was pretty exciting. Oh, and on another note, I can't believe how uncharacteristically nice it has been this winter! We, unlike the east coast, have not had snow on the ground in at least a month and a half. Today it's supposed to be 50 degrees and sunny and tomorrow is supposed to be 53! I planted a bunch of daffodils last fall and they're already starting to come up, so I really hope it stays nice so they don't freeze and die. :( But it looks like March is starting out beautifully!