Meeting Alyssa

Over Memorial Day weekend we were able to have my brother and his fiance, Alyssa over for a visit from Utah.  It was SO much fun!  I had never met Alyssa before other than skype a couple of times, but she is awesome.  We have a lot in common I think :)  Brayden was so excited to have them come over that we ended up leaving for the airport 20 minutes early because I couldn't come up with any more excuses to delay.  In the car Brayden kept saying "go get Alyssa."  And I'd say "Yep, we'll go get Dan and Alyssa."  Brayden: "Yeah, go get Alyssa."  Haha. They got in Friday morning and I took them and the boys to Lake Ella for a little walk and it turned into a mini photo shoot for fun too.  When we got home both boys took a nap while we made lunch and played Qwirkle.   We had tuna melts that I totally dropped as I was pulling them out of the oven.  Luckily with Dan's help we were able to salvage all but one that slipped out of the oven.  Leave it to me to provide such adventures.  Dan got to watch Rio for the first time on Brayden's request while I made dinner.  Later that night for a family date night we went to Chuck E. Cheese and had some fun.  We got 20 free tokens for Zander's half birthday (I love birthday clubs!) to add to our little collection of tokens from almost a year ago.  We have only spent $15 on tokens and it seems like we always have a constant supply.  But I'm not complaining!!

Saturday we ate banana pancakes and then headed off to the beach at Alligator Point.  It was a blast!  I realized while we were there that we have lots of random hobbies.  I had my camera out a lot, we brought Preston's trick kite, we had our frisbee (which Preston and Dan are both very into ultimate), we played bocce ball, and just the fact that we like to travel to places like the beach.  Not to mention piano, guitar, singing, harp, crafts, and so much more.  But, the jack of all trades is the master of none.  So, I guess it's really not impressive.  Just something that occurred to me again.  Anyway, back to the beach.  We went swimming a lot, and played in the sand and ate pizza :)  It was great! And nice weather! Not too hot and perfect water!!

Sunday was a nice relaxing day of church, games and just hanging out together.   Plus we ate a roast, which is always yummy.

Monday was also fun, and very relaxed.  No plans and not a care in the world. :)  I wanted to take Alyssa to Country Dollar because I think it's a cute little store.  Unfortunately it's closed on Mondays.  Drat.  But, it's next door to T.J. Max, so why not stop there?  Alyssa found some cute jean capri's! And they secretly bought us a candle that makes our house smell like I'm baking sugar cookies.  Preston was slightly disappointed to find out it was only a candle the first time I burned it.  During Brayden's nap we played some more games and then we watched Newsies (which Dan had never seen!) before dinner.  Sadly we had to say goodbye to them at 6:40am (well, it ended up being 7 and they ended up missing that flight and having to leave an hour later).

It was a fun trip! I tried to take lots of pictures, but I did forget my camera at Chuck E Cheese.  Oops.  Hope you enjoy what I did manage to get though!!  Here's the happy little lovie doves.

I love this picture minus all the shadows on their faces. 

 

Brayden was immediately best buds with "Auntie Lyssa" and was not shy one bit.

Finding the turtles in the water

 

Brayden made new friends and started telling them all about the helicopter.  He started walking with them until I pulled him away to go back to Dan and Alyssa.

Just a great picture.  Brayden drinking and me making a face because I had just squirted B on accident.

My Friday night dinner from Pinterest. Broccoli Chicken Braid or something. Turned out amazing.

Eating pizza.  Not the greatest picture of them, I know. But, they still look good!

Burying uncle Dan's feet!

Brayden through a mini fit where he tosses himself on the ground.  His face got all sandy and I wanted a picture.  This was his face in response to my request to smile.

Zander in the Pea Pod.  Took a good little nap :)

Jumping over the waves.

busy dumping water in a hole.

Zander's formed a habit of getting laying down every time we get in the water.

Feeding the birds.  These birds would catch pieces of pizza in the air!!

The group before we left.

Playing with Auntie Lyssa

Memorial Day Bocce Ball. They crushed us.

I love Preston's tongue sticking out as he throws. Ha.

Dan and Alyssa not looking thrilled with the toss.  But they won.

Serious Sleeping Issues

I have happier things to blog about soon, but this is not a happy post.  My worst fear in having two children was messing up Brayden's sleep schedule and helping them both sleep in the same room alright.  Nap time has become no problem other than Zander fighting it, but I can hand that.  Bedtime, on the other hand, is just as bad as I had imagined it could be some nights and some nights are awesome.  Unfortunately the awesome nights are few and far between.  Zander is now on a pretty good bedtime schedule where he is ready and able to be put to sleep around 7 or 8.  He still wakes up most nights around 530, but sometimes makes it til 7.  Brayden on the other hand will not fall asleep until at least 930.  We try putting him to bed at 7 and he'll fight it for two hours.  And because they share a room, Zander usually gets woken up and so we struggle with getting both of them to go back to bed until about 930.  It's incredibly exhausting! I'm at a loss of what to do for Brayden!  He used to be pretty good, but ever since coming home from Utah in January he's been a bit off.  We got him back on track for a little bit, but not for long.

Last night we started bedtime about 7:15 and left their room about 7:45, maybe 8.  Zander was asleep and Brayden was in bed.  15 minutes later Brayden comes out saying he wants to play the guitar (we had just pulled ours out for the first time in a while).  After getting him back in bed he cryed and woke Zander up.  So Preston bounced Zander while I snuggled Brayden trying to keep him quiet and get him sleepy.  Failed attempt.  We decided to just leave them both in there and see if they'd fall asleep.  For an hour and a half they were both playing with each other.  It would have been cute if it weren't past bedtime.  We watched them on our video monitor the whole time and finally went in to get them in bed.  We locked the door when we left so that Brayden would go to sleep, but he stayed up for another hour just being crazy!  He runs around in his room, lays on his bed for a while, then gets off and throws a fit, etc.  It's just craziness.  I was trying to fall asleep at 11:15 watching Brayden on the monitor wondering how he has so much energy. I wanted to be asleep an hour before, but I just can't fall asleep until B does.  At least B was able to sleep through Zander's crying for 20 minutes this morning at 4:30, but for whatever reason, he woke up and came out at 5:45!  Brayden needs more sleep than that, but he couldn't find his binky and neither could I.  He actually went to sleep without it last night because he had tossed it somewhere during a fit and we didn't go in to get it.  Anyway, he was awake until 7.  Now what do I do?  Let him sleep in or just wake him up and start over?

 Preston was talking about how B might be ADHD or something, but we also have a couple other ideas.  We've decided to cut his juice consumption.  He has been getting way too much juice since my Mom gave him his first taste at 6 months.  The sugar is definitely not helping.  It will be a horrible couple of days as far as that goes, but he'll just have to get used to water or milk.  We also think that part of the problem is his iron level.  He's always low when he gets checked (which he must get from me) and that can make you very tired.  Because he's very tired, he sleeps for 3-4 hours during nap.  Sometimes he doesn't wake up until 5, so of course he's not ready for bed at 7.  I can't find a toddler iron supplement, but we'll at least try to get him to eat more meat and wake him up from nap at 230.  Hopefully that will help.

Even though it seems obvious, I've recently realized that this lack of post-bedtime time is causing personal and marital strife right now.  I find myself feeling so needy of personal time to do hobbies or blog or whatever that I have started wasting time on the computer to give a little relief to that need, but in the end it leaves me feeling worse because I'm not spending the time I should with the kids or on the house.  Preston and I aren't having big issues by any means, but it seems like we're just not quite on the same page all the time.  I think it's because we have no time to talk about things or make plans or share thoughts.   We don't have any alone time except for whatever nap overlap we get on Saturday and Sunday.  It's not good for our relationship.  I could tell something's been missing and getting worse, but couldn't put my finger on it until now.  This is really serious.  We need to fix it.  Now.  So, besides the diet, waking Brayden up from nap and cutting juice, please let me know if you have any tricks that have worked for you.  I feel slightly desperate.

Funny Moments

The other night we were eating oreos on our bed while trying to be quiet because Brayden was having a hard time falling asleep.  We had competitions to see who would get the cream side if we each pulled one end of the oreo and Preston won 4 times in a row!

Me: What?  You've won all of them!
Preston: I guess I'm just in a creamy mood.
Me: What exactly does a "creamy mood" mean?
Preston: Hmm. . . I don't know.
Me: Does it mean you feel like you're stuck between two cookies? :D
Preston: Gave me the weirdest look and then laughed so hard he shook his milk all over his lap.

It was just one of those times you had to be there. But, I wanted to remember Preston spilling his milk everywhere because it was pretty darn funny.

Here's some Grandma stories we just heard on Sunday and I really wanted to remember for some reason.  Preston's Grandma Cottrell has a great sense of humor.  She has been saying for years that she would die when she was 92 years old and now she's only 2 weeks away from turning 93.  That being said, these stories are hilarious! All within the last week and a half.

1) Uncle Court drove Grandma down to Vegas for a weekend and Grandma was having severe chest pain while they were there and Court was convinced it was a heart attack.  He took her to the emergency room of course.  It was just gas.  Yep, gas.  Haha.  I thought that was funny enough, but then over skype when we laughed Preston's dad said it can hurt alot if it's up in the heart area and that you really can't tell the difference.  Thanks to Mom I also learned that Dad had once been convinced of a heart attack himself and found it to be gas.  HAHAHA.  Of course Julianna remembered Dad being SO embarrassed that he is a doctor and can't tell the difference between a heart attack and gas.  Hehe.

2) Grandma apparently decided that if she wasn't going to die then she better get a new drivers license.  But that meant she needed to glasses to pass the test.  She was very stressed about the test, but passed barely.  Of course she doesn't really need to drive anywhere, but argued that it was important just to know that she could.

3) Grandma also told Court that if she was sticking around then she better get new hearing aids.  She LOVES her new hearing aids and can apparently hear a lot better.  My favorite story was Grandma saying that she flushed her toilet that night and it about scared her to death! Hahaha.  I can just picture that.

Evidently Grandma has no intention of dying now that she has new ears, new eyes and a valid drivers license.

Classic

Brayden wearing plaid shorts, pajama top, Dad dad's tie and slippers while talking to my mom on the phone.  Classic.

9 Months Already

Well, Zander has hit that mark in life - he's been out in the world as long as he was in my tummy.  And he just keeps getting cuter every day!  I fell in love with him the second I heard him cry in the hospital and my heart melts every time I get one of his squinty-eyed grins!  Lucky for me, they happen multiple times a day.  He's crawling around now and pulls himself up on everything.  He hasn't quite figured out what's stable and what's not, so he takes some tumbles, but nothing too bad yet.  Here' a picture from each month of his life so far:

5 days old

1 month (already smiling and laughing!)

2 months

3 months

4 months (Zander Claus)

5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months (1 day before 8 months actually)

9 months (2 days before)

And here's Zander showing you that he's "Soooooo  Big!"  Just like Brayden used to :)  He loves it.

this is yesterday, on his actual 9 month mark

Zander's already trying to talk a little.  In his own baby way.  He says "mum mum mum" and "dada," but he also said "ta" for "toss," which just happens to be his favorite game.  He tosses and we fetch.  Haha. Anyway, it's very cute. When he gets upset he throws things sometimes and I can quickly turn it into a game of toss.  He still eats a lot, but has really slowed down his growth.  He's now in the 55% for height and less than that for weight.  Remember when he was in the 80% for both?  He only gained half a pound in the last 3 months!  But, like I said, he eats lots.  And the doctor wasn't the least worried and neither am I.  He's still my mister chunks.  His thighs are the greatest! Haha.  I just love baby chunk.  Anyway, he's a happy, healthy (for about half his life at least), and growing boy.  We sure love him!

Mother's Day

Thank goodness for Mothers.  Especially Mothers who value motherhood and it's divine calling.  I'm starting to understand the importance, but I have a lot of learning to do.  I'm just grateful for the examples around me.  Today is an appreciation day for the hard work of Motherhood and I must say, there's a lot to be appreciated!  Motherhood is THE greatest and I love it.  Here's a little quote from the talk "Mothers Who Know" by Julie B. Beck:

"Home is where women have the most power and influence. . .  Nurturing mothers are knowledgeable, but all the education women attain will avail them nothing if they do not have the skill to make a home that creates a climate for spiritual growth."


Thanks for all you hard working mothers out there!! Including you, Mumsy!

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!

Disney Trip and Playground

The week after visiting St. Augustine and Jacksonville, we spent 3 nights in Orlando going to Universal Studios and Disney World then to the temple on Saturday.  It was fun as always.  It was really nice not having to worry about getting to every ride and all that because we knew we'd be back sometime.  We just did what we wanted and enjoyed being together.  I didn't even take any pictures at Universal and only a few at Disney - very unlike me.  But, we have so many from our other trips that it would just be more of the same.

Yesterday we had a neighborhood yard sale and ended up selling a few things giving us $64 to spend sometime.  Kinda nice :)  After the yard sale we fixed our garage so it's now in working condition (the gear got worn down and it wouldn't open automatically) and did a few chores and then went on a little family date.  We used a Groupon to Tropical Smoothie cafe and got some sandwiches and smoothies and then headed to the Governor's Square mall to let the boys play at the playground.  It was fun.  Nothing extravagant, but nice together time.

Feeding the duck.  Brayden fed him once, but was too scared to do it again.

Our little guy on the Pooh shelf.  He had his Pooh outfit on :)

Zander really wanted to Pooh, so I tried holding it out to get him to look.

Paddle boating

Our little swimmer

Ready to jump in to us

Splashin around

The temple - a place of love and beauty.

Olives on the finger - yum

Brayden loves ice, but when it got cold he just spit it back into the cup.

Zander gets so excited when we help him play
 on the slides and things.  He'd walk around squealing
while he chose where to go next.  We can let go of him
 on the slide and he loves it.