And I thought yesterday was bad...

Olivia sucks at going to bed. Bedtime around here is a nightmare. It's frustrating because she was such a good sleeper for such a long time. Even when we first switched to the toddler bed she did great. Now she wants us to stay with her until she's asleep. This can take an hour. I'm sorry but I'm not willing to sit there for an hour every night until she's asleep! So we decided to try the Supernanny technique of just taking her by the hand and bringing her back to her bed without saying anything. We did this over 20 times last night, for almost an hour, and we gave up before she did. I know it eventually would have worked, but I couldn't see an end in sight. I decided to switch to Supernanny's other sleep technique of gradual seperation. Where I stand in her room without touching her or anything, just standing there until she falls asleep. It took 40 minutes of me standing in her room until she was asleep. This was starting to happen for the THIRD time last night when I finally just said we need to just lock her in her room. Doing that, she was asleep in 10 minutes. I think that's what we are going to do. She is safe in there. She has a night light. I think it's the only way she'll learn. She's been absolutely miserable during the days because she's been up so much at night.

Wanna know what else happened yesterday? Olivia got a peice of crayon stuck up her nose. WAY up her nose. Like I told Aaron we were going to have to go to urgent care to get it out, and he wanted to try his way first. He put his mouth over her nose and sucked as hard as he could. Several times. Made her blow her nose a few times. Sucked some more. And you know what... out popped the crayon. Later that day we found her trying to stick another crayon up her nose. We are done with crayons.

Getting back into the swing of things.

So just a quick post, mostly for me to vent, I think. But first I want to write down some quick stats.

Abigail started rolling over when we were in NJ. She now rolls both ways. Like from the left and the right. Not from her back to tummmy yet. She also giggled for the first time yesterday. BEST sound EVER! I haven't weighed her reccently but I would be surprised if she was under 15lbs. She is so heavy, my arms ache! Olivia is doing great with potty training. We have our accidents here and there, but usually it's because I forget to remind her. She will tell me a lot of the time, but I usually remind her and take her myself. She also knows most of her colors. She draws pictures and then tells me what it is. Like right now she just drew Abigail taking a bath in the sink. Of course it looks like scribbles to me, but it's so cute she totally knows what she's drawning. I have some pretty amazing kids if I do say so myself :).

Anyway on to my venting. Sleeping around here sucks lately. Olivia wakes up several times a night crying that she's scared. We got her a nightlight. I really don't think she's scared at all, I think she just wants me there and she knows that word will get me to stay. I just don't feel right locking her in her room all night if she's feeling scared. What can I say? I'm a sucker. So I want to try Supernanny's method of just taking her by the hand putting her back in bed without saying anything, over and over and over, until she finally gives up and stays there. But every night I don't think I have the patience for it, and so I just sit there with her in her room until she falls back to sleep. Then I sneak out. Then a couple hours later she's up again. And the hours she is sleeping, Abigail is waking up. My once wonderful night time sleeper is now waking several times a night. I nurse her back to sleep each time. With her it's not so bad. I usually fall asleep feeding her, so she winds up spending a lot of the night in our bed. We had a good night a few nights ago. Olivia didn't wake up once, and Abigail actually went 8 straight hours. I got 5 solid hours of sleep before being woken up. I got 3 more after a quick feeding! It was fabulous. I was a new woman. There is something to be said for consolidated sleep. Last night I never got more than 3 hours at a time. Ugh. The positives... Abigail goes down so easily for naps. Olivia has never done this in her life. I just swaddle Abigail, and lay her down when she looks tired, and she falls right to sleep all by herself. Just like it says in the books. Olivia absolutely never did that. I had to hold her until she was in a deep enough sleep then I would lay her down.

I can't seem to get on top of house work. Probably because I spend too much time doing stuff like this. Like right now... I have people coming over in an hour and the house is a mess, I should be cleaning, but of course had to update the blog real quick first right?? This Saturday we cleaned lots and lots and the house looked pretty good. Why can't I just stay on top of it?? And laundry... I am terrible at laundry. I want to learn to love it. But I just don't. When we have lots of money I am totally hiring a laundry service. I think I'd get that before I'd get cable.

And more venting. So far today I have unclogged a toilet, cleaned three big spills, and fished a pebble from Olivia's nose. It's 9:30am. I can only imagine where this day is going to go.

We're baaack.

I probably have less than ten minutes to blog. But I have lots to say. I want to blog more about Christmas. And New Year's. We went to the cabin. It was so much fun. Played in the snow. Played with cousins. Drank hot chocolate, had a fire, it was very relaxing and enjoyable. :) Then we were home for a few days, packed up and went to NJ for TWO WEEKS. I want to blog lots about that and include lots of super cute pictures of my babies with my family. Not sure I have time for that right now so just some highlights.

Nanny and Poppy and everyone got to meet Abigail. Of course they're all in love. She is really an amazing baby. Both girls got spoiled by everyone. Lots of fun new toys and beautiful clothes to take home. THANK YOU! :) We drove up to North Jersey and saw my dad's mom and sister also. Olivia had a blast with her great grandma Walton! She was dragging her all over the place, up and down stairs. We ate lots of good food. Too much. But I enjoyed every bit of it.

One of my favorite parts was the day in NYC with Aaron. We just had a lot of fun walking around. We saw a show. We found our special Italian resturant. Which we've now memorized is 44 SouthWest on the corner of 44th and 9th. SO good. Seriously the Penne Vodka was to die for. And their chicken parmagian is wonderful too... and their shrimp special... it's just the best Italian food I've ever eaten. We chatted with the owner who moved here from Italy, and started the resturant with her husband in the 70's. She was so sweet. We also got lunch at Gray's Papaya... which was okay, but not quite as good I remembered it being... but still fun. And the show we saw, The Fantasticks was super cute. I loved the music. It was really well done. It was just a great time.

It was so nice to see everyone. I miss everyone already. So does Olivia. She is already looking for all my family's pets. Tashi. Bohdi. Ziggy. Nevermind the people, it's the animals she's looking for, lol. I think she's starting to get that NJ is really far away. And it's a special time when we go there. So far, for her life we have really acted like 2,500 miles is nothing. She's never gone more than 3 months without seeing someone in my family, either we're there or they're here. And that streak isn't about to end, because we'll be back in NJ in May for my cousin's wedding. Where Olivia will be the flower girl! Although for that trip we're looking at flying... honestly I think I'd rather spend 3 days in the car than go through airport security with two babies under 2 again. But we'll see.

One for the record books...

Haven't updated in forever, sorry about that... and this post will be mostly whining. I'll update for real some time soon.

We are leaving for NJ in less than an hour. Last night Abigail fell asleep around 9, and Olivia kept waking up. Over and over, screaming at the top of her lungs. Around 11 realized she had a fever, and she was saying ow, that her throat hurt. Right now it's 4:25am, and the only way she has slept all night is if someone is right next to her. So Aaron slept on her floor. Abigail woke up at 2am. I slept from 11:30-2:00. I am about to take a shower. I can not even believe this. The plan was to be asleep by 9 last night and up at 4. Wake up babies at 5 right before we leave. I can't imagine getting a worse start to this trip. Poor Olivia. I can tell she just feels like crap. Going to be a fun 5 hours on a plane.

Tired.

Olivia was doing super in her bed... until about 4 days ago.

About the same time Abigail started SLEEPING ALL NIGHT. And I don't just mean 4-5 hours, I mean like, 9 or 10pm - 6am, or even yesterday until 7am!

Imagine the sleep I'd be getting if it wasn't for Olivia. She's now back to wanting to be held until she falls asleep. Then if she wakes up in the middle of the night, instead of just softly whining in her bed like she did the first week, she's out of her bed and in our room. Fortunately the past two nights she only did this once, and I took her back in her room, laid her in her bed and pat her back until she was back to sleep. And this only took 3, or 4 minutes both times. So guess that's okay, but still interupted my sleep. Last night was a doosey. I didn't get to bed until midnight. Olivia was in our room crying at 1am. Got her and myself back to sleep by 1:30. Then she was up again at 5:00. I tried to get her back to sleep. Even took her in our bed and hoped she'd fall asleep. NOPE. So here I am at 6:44am blogging about it. She's miserable. Blah. I guess I should be grateful at least I'm not getting up for feedings between Olivia wakings, but all I can think is the sleep I'm missing. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've gotten 6 uninterrupted hours of sleep? I know what I'd like for Christmas. S-l-e-e-p.

So making this costume, and wrapping 3 presents took me 3 hours. THREE HOURS. It involved tears all around and several time outs. All to cut a three holes in a pillow case, glue some garland, and some "wings". But we made it to the Opie nativity in one peice.

Santa was an entire 45 minutes late. This picture was taken at almost 9:00. For Olivia "Santa" is synonymous with "candy". When he did arrive she was dancing around saying, "Yay Santa! Candy! Yay Santa, Candy!" And although it's clear she's really uncomfortable and shy and nervous, she'll endure anything for refined sugar and corn syrup in colorful wrappers.

Feeling Blessed.

So I don't feel like uploading any pictures right now. I'll do that tomorrow. Maybe. But as Abigail is fussing in my lap I thought I'd take a minute and write what's in my heart. It just seems all around us people are struggling and sometimes I feel guilty we are SO blessed. Our kids will have a merry Christmas this year. We have family around us. We are going to be able to spend two weeks with family in NJ! Aaron and I are planning a trip to NYC. I want to see a show and eat dinner at this Italian resturant that we can never remember the name of or the exact location, but somehow wandering around we were able to find it twice! Anyway, I was just looking forward to that and realizing how lucky we are. Even little things like Olivia is in a toddler bed now, and has been for a week. And so far she hasn't tried to get out once! We put her to bed and she actually stays put. I was so sure she wouldn't, I made Aaron turn the door knob around because I was sure we'd have to lock her in so we could sleep. So far the only thing is she is waking up earlier and coming into my room and waking me up at 6. Often, I have just barely fallen back to sleep after feeding Abigail. Oh well, lack of sleep is worth it, most of the time. I love seeing how much Olivia is growing. She played so well with her cousins tonight. She's talking in little sentances. She's listening. She's helpful. Lately she's been cracking us up by singing "Ducktales woowoo!"
Abigail is growing. And smiling. And cooing. And sleeping. All I could ask for.
Aaron finished his application for pharmacy school. So now we wait. I think in 6 weeks or so we should get called for an interview. Then I think they said it was like 4 weeks from there to find out if he's accepted or not. If he gets in, he will start in June. I don't doubt that he'll get accepted.
As I think about these blessings my heart really is full with love for my Heavenly Father. I know all good things come from Him. I know it's because of our faithfulness that we have been so blessed. I am grateful to be married to a man that shares my beliefs. I love that Olivia says her own little prayers now. And if we forget to pray before a meal, or bed she will remind us. Makes me feel like I'm doing something right. Anyway, Abbi is asleep now, so I should be too. Goodnight!

Unrequited Love

Okay first this picture... Olivia asked to hold Abigail. Then she pulled down her shirt and said, "Eat baby? Baby eat?" And I cracked up realizing she was trying to nurse Olivia. What a crack up, I tell ya.

Now here... I'm convinced Abigail is going to wind up with brain damage, at the expense of me trying to get a good picture of these two together. Here Olivia was putting daddy's tie on Abigail's head and saying, "Pretty! Pretty!"
And this face pretty much sums it up.

I don't know about you but this is the most hilarious post ever, if you ask me.

We are blessing Abigail Sunday. Busy day tomorrow. Hopefully I will get some sleep tonight.