A Visit From My Mom

A few weeks ago, I made a comment to my dad that I was really missing family, and a few days later my mom called to say she would be coming to visit for a week! 

One thing that I love about my parents and that they are so willing to help their children.  Even though I am out on my own with a family of my own, they still are always so willing to help me.  I love them so much for that!  Living so far from my family is hard.  When we first moved out east I was terribly home sick, but with time I have gotten better.  It doesn't mean that I enjoy living so far from them, but it is just reality; I live 2000+ miles away from them.  Because I live so far, I feel disconnected from my family.  I am not a big fan of talking on the phone. I need a face to face connection.  

I love visiting family though because I feel reconnected with them and it gives me my family dose until the next time I see them. This visit from my mom was just what I needed.  My mom is not only my mom but one of my best friends.  We can laugh and have fun together.  I love that! Having her here brought back memories of my childhood and laughing together with my other siblings.  

My mom was so good to us while she was here too.  She went above and beyond anything that we expected, and we are so grateful for her generosity.  It was so fun to see her with the kids as well.  Deagan adores her, and so does Kayden.  It was funny because when we picked my mom up from the airport, Deagan was grinning from ear to ear and Kayden just stared at her.  He warmed up quickly though:)

A few of the things that we did while she was here:

-Visited the Zoo

-Went to the local children's science museum

-Stopped at a local pasta/bakery that makes the most amazing bread!

-Went to the library

-Celebrated St Patrick's Day by having very festive green food and the traditional Corn Beef and Cabbage meal (so yummy!).  My mom even made green macaroni and cheese for Deagan's school lunch, but that was just too much for him:) He said he only eats orange macaroni and cheese

-Kept my mom up all night every night she was here because of our sick boys...It made her trip seem longer since she hardly slept through any of it ;)

-She watched the boys while they were sleeping so we could go on a date

-Watched lots of March Madness games

-Celebrated Kayden's birthday

-Lots of shopping

-Just enjoyed being together!

My mom is the most amazing woman to me.  She is so patient and so fun! I love being around her because she is always positive.  

The day that she left was the only day that we got pictures together.  How sad is that! We will have to do better next time with that!

The next few photos were our attempt and getting pictures of her with the boys:

Kayden hates to be restrained...his actions do not reflect how he really feels about her:)

And Deagan seems totally unbothered by any of this

Isn't my mom so beautiful!! I was getting beauty tips from her while she was her.  I want her style and her beauty!

Everyone's looking!

He escaped!

Head butting grandma

She really is taller than me; bad angle:)

Thanks for coming to visit mom and for putting up with our sicknesses! We love you!!!

More Birthday Pictures

**I have more storage space now! What a relief!**

My sister sent the boys a package with two very cute shirts, and here are the boys showing off their new clothes!

 The next series of photos are random shots of Deagan posing for the camera.  He is such a ham for the camera! 

 The boys were both sick the end of last week; both had croup.  Not fun and kind of scary! Glad that is over.  But poor Kayden was not feeling well on his birthday which is why he looks grumpy and boogery in most of the pictures.

Picking on the little brother

Opening more presents

Deagan showing Kayden how to play with his new toy

A basketball for his birthday!

Throwing the ball

Blowing out the candles

He was so tired by the point of the day; everything was making him cry

His own cake!

The cake that the rest of us ate. (I did not make either of the cakes; my local grocery store did!)

Kayden's 1st Birthday!!

***As I was posting this, I filled my quota of photos for my blog.  I never knew that could happen.  I have a TON of pictures from the past week to post, but while I wait for more storage this will have to do.***  

It's hard to believe that my little Kayden is 1 now! This past year FLEW by.  Adjusting to life with 2 kids has been hard for me.  I have loved it, but I have struggled.  I think the baby blues stuck with me longer than normal; living in one of the snowiest cities in the countries doesn't help with that either.  Life is getting easier each day though, and I could not imagine my life with out my two little boys.  I love being their mom, and I love to hear them say "mommy," and "momma." It melts my heart:)

1 year stats for the birthday boy:

Weight: 19 lbs 5 oz 

Height: 29 1/2 inches

He is a little guy when you compare him to other one year olds, but he is following his own growth rate at a normal pace.  I think we will just have small kids. 

Things that he does now:

-Cruises a long furniture quite quickly

-Has taken a couple steps, but is still quite content on crawling at this point

-He is FINALLY able to fall asleep on his own.  This deserves a celebration!

-Because he is able to fall asleep on his own, he is napping MUCH better; 2 1-2 hour naps/day around 10 and 2. He is sleeping well at night, but still wants to nurse around 4-6; which is fine with me.  He goes to sleep around 7 and gets up around 7 most mornings.

-He LOVES to climb stairs.  He is pretty good at going up, but is still trying to master coming down.  If we would let him, he would go up and down our stairs all day.

-Says "momma" and "dadda."  It seems he is able to distinguish who is momma and who is dadda for the most part as well.

-He loves to head bang things for some reason.  It actually pretty cute, but he has a really hard head and I can see this turning into a destructive habit; he already uses his head to defend himself against Deagan.

-He ADORES Deagan.  To him, Deagan is the coolest thing to walk the earth.

-He has started to become attached to a huge monkey stuffed animal that we have.  It sleeps in his crib with him at night, and comforts him when he is sad.

-He likes milk! Deagan hates milk, and I was always so afraid that he wasn't going to be healthy because of that.  But this little one loves milk.  

-He has inherited the bad ears, and it looks like we will be getting tubes for him in May or so.  Poor guy!

I am sure there a ton of other things that he does, but these are the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

We love our little Kayden and love having him in our family!!

Pictures from his birthday!

Teaching Moment

This morning I had the chance to go to the temple, and Greg watched the boys while I was there.  He was able to get into the Stake Center that is right by the church ad let the play which is always nicer than playing outside when it is cold.

I got done, and met the boys up at the church.  When I got there, it was obviously that things did not go well because Deagan was just getting out of timeout.  Apparently he colored with PERMANENT marker all over the keys of a piano.  I mean ALL OVER! By the time I got there, Greg had gotten about half of the markings off, but I took over to finish it because Greg was clearly at his end.  Poor guy had to deal with this on top of a grumpy 1 year old.  We got off as much of the marker as we could, but you can still faintly tell that there was marking on it.

It was a hard moment because both of us were so mad, and it was hard to really not let our anger get in the way of trying to punish him.  Greg put him in time out, and we had him help us wipe it up until it was all gone.  The thing is is that he knows to not color on things besides paper.  We really don't let him use markers because he has a shady past with coloring all over things with markers, such as himself, chairs, tables, etc.  Where he got the permanent marker this time is beyond us since we clearly do not let him just carry one around.  He had a friend birthday party this afternoon, and part of us just wanted to not let him go.  But I kept thinking about advice I read in all my classes at school; the consequence needs to fit the "crime" to have it be effective.  Since the birthday party was unrelated to the incident, we cut it out of the equation, but still, not a good moment! His end consequence is that he lose his marker privileges for the week, and to be honest I am thinking about just throwing them away because they really are becoming a problem.

A woman in my home ward is a great example to me, and I thought of her today because her philosophy in parenting is that every moment is a teaching moment.  Today was definitely one of those moments.

It's almost Spring right?

I heard this morning that there are 10 more days until Spring.  Thats wonderful news don't you think?  I don't know about all of you, but I am WAY over winter.  It is no longer welcome.  But knowing the area that we live in, it will stick around longer than the calendar says it should.

Despite that, we have been trying to stay busy to keep sane.  We have done pretty good this winter at staying busy.  In fact, I am proud of how well we have done! 

Last week Greg had an afternoon free, so we took the boys to Chucky Cheese. We had some leftover game tokens from his 2nd birthday that we have been trying to use up, so it turned out to be a free trip! Can't beat that!

Kayden and Barney

This is the first time Deagan has willingly got on one of these things.  He is usually terrified  of these kind of things, so this is a big moment.  He doesn't seem really happy though does he.

Kayden is quite the climber and has to be wherever Deagan is.

The past couple of weeks, the temperatures have gotten a little better and the snow was pretty much gone.  But then Monday morning we woke up to a massive snow storm.  It is hard to tell in the pictures, but we had snow that went over our tires.

That same day we had to get to DC for some work stuff for Greg.  We explored the area while we were there, and we are very excited to move down there this summer!  One place we had to visit was the National Zoo because they have gorillas, and Deagan LOVES gorillas. 

This Zoo totally blows ours out of the water, and the best part is that it is free admission.  (With the catch that you have to pay for parking. They know how to get you!) We hope to go there a lot when we move there.

We also had to stop by the DC temple.  When we pulled up it almost felt like home.  I love that anywhere you go, the church is there.

Our family in front of the Christus

Looking up at Jesus

The boys in front of the temple

A Better Perspective and MORE Snow; Really?

Thanks to all you wonderful people out there who read my pathetic post and offered some really great advice.  I really appreciate all your kind words.  You are all the best!

I have to back up and and apologize for even writing that post.  I wrote it as Kayden was upstairs in his room crying.  Probably not the best to write what I am really feeling right in the middle of the situation.  Next time I will try to filter a little better:)

Yesterday morning did not go well because I let the situation get me down, and I couldn't get out of the funk I was in.  We went to church and of course that helped.  I felt 100x better after feeling the spirit.  I also gained a lot of perspective.  I realized that I was letting Kayden's sleep issues determine my happiness.  It is interested because I was talking to my mom last night, and she had the thought to share that same counsel with me.  We were both on the same wave length, and I don't count that as coincidence.  I know that is what Heavenly Father wanted me to hear.

I have been so preoccupied with Kayden and his sleep issues that I am afraid that I am not taking the time to enjoy this sweet little boy.  He is almost ONE!!! That is so crazy to me.  How did my sweet little baby grow up so fast?  I am still going to work on his sleep stuff, but I don't want it to cloud this precious time that we are in.

I have so many things to be grateful for; my little family being one of my greatest blessings. I know that I will have to work every single day at trying to keep this perspective, so pray for me ok?

**********************

On another note, we were hit with a massive snow storm last night.  Just when we thought the snow was over it comes back with a vengeance.  They have closed all the local schools and the daycare I work at is closed.  This would be great expect that we are suppose to be driving to DC this afternoon.  Hopefully the roads clear up so we can get out of here!

Greg was offered a PAID internship, and has to go down to DC to go through pre-employment stuff.  We are just tagging a long for the ride:)

This has been a hard winter it seems for the country, and I am sure I am not alone when I say I can't wait for Spring and for the snow to stop.  I guess that groundhog was wrong this year because spring has not come as quickly as he predicted.

Trying to Stay Calm

I am not a patient person by nature, and being a parent has tests this weaknesses of mine on a daily basis, multiple times a day.  I am getting better, but I have a long ways to go.

I have talked about this a lot lately, but we are really struggling with the sleep department in our house.  Every day it gets worse, and my patience gets thinner.  I don't know what I am doing wrong and how to fix this.  I feel like I have tried everything, but nothing is working.  Something has got to be up, but I just don't know what it is.

It is depressing waking up knowing I am going to fight with him over naps all day, and that he will be overly tired and cranky all day long because he won't nap.  And because he is overly tired, he won't sleep well at night and will want to nurse all night. It is a cycle we repeat everyday, and it is really wearing on me.

I am not an advocate of just letting kids cry themselves to sleep, but lately I feel like I will do anything.

I am trying to stay calm but it is not easy for me.  What am I doing wrong??????