Blessing Day

We blessed Nathaniel in church on the 15th. Joe did such a good job with the blessing. It was a wonderful day spent with family. Joe's mom and his two oldest nieces drove out from ID. All of my CA family was there. Thank you for coming everyone! We missed those who couldn't make it.

Our not-so-little family

The whole crew

Nate with his cousin Hallie

Me and my sweet pea
(Thanks Matt & Melissa for the cute sleeper!)

More Pictures and Random Events

We've had a nice few days around here. We blessed Nathaniel in church on Sunday. I will post pictures from that later. I just wanted to post some new stuff before I forget it.

Taking care of little brother

Some recent Elizabeth events:

-She has been using a lot of big words lately and I'm always surprised to hear them come out of her mouth. For example, she was spinning around and around and said, "I can't stop rotating!". Also, one day I was in the kitchen with the dishwasher on and I asked her to go check and see if Nate was crying since I couldn't hear him. She came back and said, "I didn't hear him. All I heard was silence." I don't know where she gets this stuff. Probably PBS Kids--where she learns most everything. :)

-Her reading has really progressed lately. She has finally got a lot of words down by sight so it's not so tedious for her to read by herself. She likes to read a lot of the same books over and over again so when she's reading, I mostly think she just has it memorized. But, today she picked up a book we had never read before and just started reading at a really good pace. I couldn't believe it. She blows me away.

-We were cooped up last week when Natalie came down with a little fever and cold. She is basically over it now, luckily. It's always funny to see what sorts of activities the girls come up with to entertain themselves when we are at home a lot. One evening, Elizabeth gathered up a few rocks and leaves in a pile on our driveway. She then made a sign that said, "Free for you" and proceeded to try and sell her wares. Well, not sell I guess since they were free. It was funny though because she kept yelling "Free for sale!" This was about 5 o'clock at night so there were actually quite a few cars driving by but sadly no one stopped. If you know of any interested buyers, send them her way. :)

Natalie is as cute as ever although we have had some major difficulties with whining lately. A lot of it is because she has been sick or tired or both but a lot of it is because we have fallen into some bad habits. We are kind of trying to come out of the post-baby watching-way-too-much-TV phase. She is not happy about this. Her favorite activity is "watching a show" and she asks about a million times a day if we can, even if they've watched all morning. Her favorite show is Dinosaur Train on PBS and she likes it so much that I think it has even displaced princesses as what she would like featured on her birthday cake. Yes!

Her other favorite thing to whine about is treats. She wants a treat after every meal. Literally. She will frequently ask after finishing her breakfast. Pretty much every day when Joe comes home the first thing she asks him is if he has any candy. This is, of course, because we basically have had treats all day every day between having a baby, Halloween, and just our general love of baking.

I made chocolate chip cookies the other day and we had just finished them when we drew from our Thanksgiving jar (see a couple posts down) "I am thankful for my kitchen" and had to bake something again. So, we made some more cookies. We still have those around but Joe really wanted to try making something new last night and made some delicious cream puffs. Combine that with leftover Halloween candy and our standard tub of ice cream in the freezer and you get a whole heck of a lot of sugar. Not good for any of us. Anyway, so we are also trying to wean off of treats, although I don't think we'll have much luck with that with the holidays around the corner. Let's hope our teeth haven't all rotted out by January!

Little Nate is doing good. He had his 2-month old appointment last week and he is now 11 lb. 7 oz.! Hurray! He was average in height and weight and 75th percentile in head circumference.

He still has reflux issues but is doing a lot better. One evidence of just how much he arches his back all the time is the fact that he can roll over right away when you put him on his tummy with his arms under him like so:

Ta-da!

The girls actually love watching it. In fact, he even rolled over one time when I didn't put his arms under him. It is amazing to me since I don't think Elizabeth or Natalie rolled over at all until they were 5 months.

He loves his bouncer

Here are some more smiles from our happy guy:

Adventures in Negotiation

I wanted to remember this:

Elizabeth and Natalie both got suckers from their Halloween candy one day after lunch. Elizabeth was working hard on Natalie to give her a taste of her lollipop. She always does this and pretty much always wears Natalie down and ends up getting her way. I'm always telling Natalie she doesn't have to but she is very much a peacemaker in this way and I shouldn't fault her for it, I suppose. When Natalie finally relented this time, Elizabeth ended up biting a piece of her lollipop off instead just taking the lick. Natalie was upset of course and since this was the second time this had happened in a matter of days and she knew better, I told Elizabeth that she needed to make it up to Natalie somehow. I think she must have genuinely felt bad since she decided to switch lollipops with Natalie and take the broken one herself (all you germophobes out there are probably cringing over all the germ-swapping but hey--they're siblings).

Things were going fine from what I could tell until Elizabeth must have decided she regretted her decision and started trying to talk Natalie into switching back. I only heard bits and pieces here and there but I could tell Natalie wasn't going to give in easily. Finally, I looked over and they had indeed switched back. As soon as they were finished, we were getting ready for nap-time and Natalie said something about sleeping in Lizzie's bed (they have bunk beds and Elizabeth sleeps on top). Elizabeth started throwing a fit over this saying she didn't want the bottom bunk but then it came out that she had promised Natalie to switch beds if she traded her lollipop. We (well, I) decided that Natalie would indeed get at least one night on top but not immediately (since it takes about an hour to switch their piles and piles of stuffed animals and blankets and I just wanted her to go to sleep right then). She was upset about this and was crying about it.

Before going to sleep, she said to me, "You should have named me Elizabeth." I asked her why, wondering if she had suddenly decided she didn't like her name or something.

Then she said, "Because I really want that bed."

Gratitude

I've been kind of down lately. I'm sure it's just normal hormonal stuff but I've had a hard time shaking it. Do you ever get in a funk where you can feel that you're choosing to be negative and unhappy and you know you should just let go of it all but you can't let go? That's kind of how I've felt. I feel like when anyone asks me how I'm doing or how Nate is doing all I talk about is the hard stuff because that is what I am focusing on myself.

To try and get over this, I am trying to make a concerted effort to be more grateful, especially with Thanksgiving coming up. And, it has made a big difference for me.

The girls and I are doing this fun Thanksgiving jar. We love it so far. Not only does it help us be more thankful, but it forces us to do fun, productive things every day.

One blessing is that the little one slept six straight hours last night! Amazing. I'm trying not to expect anything like that tonight. In fact, I need to get this done quick and go to bed.

Another blessing as of late is that he is trying so hard to smile. He hasn't grinned or anything yet but we are loving his little half smiles at us. Here's the best we could catch on camera:

Don't you just want to eat up that neck chub? I know you do. :)

Here's some more pictures, just because:

I really love this outfit with the cute little track pants. I am loving dressing a boy!

And finally... Natalie posing for the camera, too:
I am very blessed.

Halloween fun

Our Halloween was pretty laid back this year. I thought it was kind of a dud but Joe thought it was the best one yet. We went to our ward's Trunk-or-Treat party Friday night and decided to just skip out on trick-or-treating Saturday (Joe talked them into staying home and watching a movie and eating candy--he's too good of a salesman :). It worked out well since we only got two trick-or-treaters the whole night! I guess no one goes out around our neighborhood. We didn't even carve pumpkins this year since I never got around to buying them. We did make some sugar cookies since I felt bad about the pumpkins (not that the kids even noticed).

Here they are:
Here's our little princesses (what else?)

I was kind of hoping they'd branch out and want to be something else but then I came to my senses. These required zero effort and money and definitely made them happy. And don't they look pretty? Natalie insisted on wearing the Tinkerbell crown, too :).

They were happy to see some of their friends, Audrey and Liberty, dressed exactly like them at the party.

What cute girls

(I love that my two have mouths full of Laffy Taffys)

Nathaniel ended up just sporting some Halloween gear his Grandma Allen got him. He didn't enjoy the photo shoot but I think he looks pretty darn cute.

I love that little face!

How the Girls are Adjusting

I think that for the most part, Elizabeth and Natalie have done really well dealing with life with a new baby. I am so glad they have each other because that has been what has saved us as we've been mostly cooped up in the house. They play together really well (they fight really well, too :) and that keeps them from getting too stir-crazy.

Here's a moment I caught on camera that I wanted to remember. It's a sample of the sorts of things they do together:

Putting on a play

They pulled a chair over to be the stage and Elizabeth would whisper Natalie's lines to her while she recited them. The funny part was listening to the lines. It was a cross between the Rumpelstiltskin story (the featured play in Berenstain Bears Get Stage Fright) and a talk in church.

Another way they spend their time is using up about 12 pieces of paper a day each in drawing pictures and writing things and giving cards to each other and to Joe and I. The paper scattered throughout the house is annoying and we are certainly not helping the environment but I don't want to discourage it since it is such good practice writing for Elizabeth. Natalie has also started writing some letters.

Last night was a particularly hard night for me with Nate and Joe ended up getting the girls cereal and putting a movie on before he left so I could sleep in a little bit. Elizabeth later gave me a piece of paper with this on one side:

And this on the other:
And she followed through on her word. She really was good today and very helpful. She's a good girl.

I had to post this for fun, too. Joe and I found this word in one of Elizabeth's many writings:

It took us a minute to figure out what she was writing and then we realized it was "drink".

Here she is in her soccer uniform at one of her games (edited for privacy):

Natalie has been so good during all of this. In fact I think we've had more behavioral issues with Elizabeth than with her since Nate was born. She hasn't gotten much attention lately but she is still so sweet. She has chosen a few ways to act out, though, including drawing on the walls (which she hadn't done since she was 18 months) and having accidents. We are having the hardest time ending the potty accidents. She will go days without an accident and then five or six days with an accident every day. I am trying to really reward her for staying dry and give her some more one-on-one time. We'll see if that helps. She stayed dry today at least!

Both girls love their new little brother and always want to hold him. They love to proclaim how cute he is and give him kisses. Neither one enjoys his fussy periods but they seem to handle it pretty well. Natalie gets upset at times but they both seem pretty good at blocking out his crying. And, blessing of blessings, neither one has ever woken up from his crying at night! They are deep sleepers, I guess. Joe and I can't really sleep with him screaming that loud but I guess they can.

I like this picture because of all of us I think Elizabeth has the most patience with his crying:

More than one time I have been helping Natalie with something and Nate has been screaming and I will find Elizabeth next to him saying calmly, "Don't worry, Mommy's coming back."

Here are some cute ones of Natalie with Nate. I think they look alike:

These girls love their brother!

One Month Old

I can't believe Nate is already a month old. The time really has gone fast. It will probably be Christmas before I know it, too. He is also changing so much and getting chubbier every day. It is fun to watch but it makes me sad, too.

I'll be honest--this has been a hard month. He has a lot of extended fussy periods that have made it hard and have really worn me down physically and emotionally. At first we were convinced it was just reflux and I still think a lot of it is that. He definitely has all the symptoms. In fact, on his 1 month birthday I took him in to the doctor to get some medicine for him. We haven't noticed much of a difference since then, but it has only been a few days. We'll see what happens. He has been napping in his car seat and sleeping in his crib with the mattress elevated which seems to help a little bit.

Still, I think sometimes that he may just be colicky. His hardest times are at night before going to bed. He just cries and cries and there's not much we can do to calm him down when he gets like that. Sometimes his binky works, most of the time not. Sometimes going outside helps, a lot of the time not. He likes to be held away from our bodies and bobbed up and down but I can only do that for so long before my arms get tired. It's making me realize how spoiled I was with the girls, at least as far as crying goes. I don't remember many inconsolable crying bouts.

Don't get me wrong. They had their own challenges. Elizabeth's reflux was mostly manifest in her spitting up at night through her nose and mouth. We would jump out of bed and find her bluish and barely able to breathe until we suctioned her. That was not fun and we are still paranoid to this day because of it.

Natalie's reflux consisted of lots of projectile vomiting. It was always right when I had just finished nursing her. So, of course a few minutes later she would be starving again and I'd wouldn't have much to give causing frustration for both of us. Also, not very fun.

I hope the medicine will help ease some of the pain for Nate. It's so hard to watch him scream and not be able to do anything about it. It also wears on Joe and I. It makes it so my evenings are completely taken up, hence the reason for this post taking me almost a week to finish.

I don't want to dwell on the negative, though, and I want to record some things that I love about my little Nathaniel right now:

I love...
-the way you grunt and stretch when I'm changing your diaper.
-when you sleep with your mouth wide open (like I do).
-your little double chin.
-your smiles; they remind me of Daddy's smiles. I can't wait until you smile at me.
-the look on your face when you hear a noise you're not sure about like the shower or the dishwasher.
-how you love your baths.
-the precious few times you snuggle on me when you're awake.

These black and white ones are more that my sister-in-law took. Thanks again Lisa!

Loving bath-time (I love that chubby arm)
I love his sideburns and receding hairline :)

I love how tiny he looks lying on our bed

Here are some Elizabeth took that she was proud of: