The time has come....

It's been about 40 hours since I last nursed Blaise. I didn't want to wean him in a "cold turkey" sort of way, but that's just sorta how it happened. The plan was to start nursing him less during the day to see if we could night wean him. But once I started refusing to nurse him and saw how easy it was to distract him, I wanted to go all the way. Lately nursing has become a huge chore and not enjoyable. Blaise nursed ALL night long and ALL day long but never really seemed to be comforted by it. He's getting his molars, so he's just all around miserable and using me as a teething ring wasn't working for either one of us. The first night went okay. He had about a two hour stretch where he was fussy (first with Roy for an hour and then with me for the second hour) He didn't really seem that angry or distraught, just unsure of how to fall asleep without nursing. I finally brought him to bed with me and just held him and sang to him and he fell asleep. I don't mind him sleeping with us, I just mind him being attached to me (literally) all night.

Last night went even better. He slept from 7-12:30 and then Roy got up with him and changed his diaper and then I got up and helped him fall back asleep (in our bed again) This time it only took an hour and he slept soundly till 6-ish (when Rae started making a racket!). Today he's doing pretty well. I haven't really felt any regrets (except that I'm in so much pain from engorgement - one downside of cold turkey!). It feels right and it feels so free and positive. I would have liked to nurse him longer, and maybe even after he starts sleeping better I might start letting him nurse a couple of times a day if he seems like he needs it. His appetite is way up and he eats everything we put in front of him!

I wonder if it's something about January that makes me feel like I'm suddenly trapped and NEED TO WEAN. Rae was weaned about this same exact time 2 years ago. All the rain and being stuck inside is taking a toll on me. And with Roy out of town last week all I could offer Blaise was to nurse to sleep and it didn't work out very well. And since he's going out of town again next weekend (and probably a few more after that) I really needed to have that freedom from nursing. I don't know how my sister nurses so long...was it easier because your kids just nursed a few times a day or were you just more determined than me? :) I can handle the all night nursing - it's the all day nursing I can't handle.

Anyway, what a long and random post. Just thought I'd keep ya updated. Oh, and to my sisters - now I know what it feels like to have huge boobs like you guys! LOL - can't wait for the milk to dry up!

The U

Snowy.

More pictures

We went to the "Dolphin Habitat" at the Mirage. The kids loved it!


Us on Christmas Eve

Rae and Blaise and their cousins

Some pictures

I wanted to write a bit last night, but Blaise was having trouble sleeping, so I just brought him to bed with me and went to bed early. I always have about 15 minutes in the morning when the kids play nicely before breakfast...so I'll post as many pictures as I can before they find me!




Rae loves her grandpa!




Rae wanted to take the boat out by herself.



Blaise was introduced to fire...and...guns...



No lectures please...it was just a BB Gun and Roy was just posing, not actually shooting something. :)

Updated links

I updated my sidebar links. Sorry Audra, I had been meaning to add your blog (and others) for a long time now but never got around to it. There ya go.

Jobhunting

A little rusty

I'll have to get back in the habit of blogging. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to back-track and update you on our past month. I started a draft all about Roy's birthday so maybe someday I'll finish that, but for now I'm just going to say that we had good birthdays in December and good vacations. We went to Vegas from the 18th-26th then Blythe from the 26th-Jan 2nd. We got a lot of awesome stuff for Christmas and enjoyed time with the family. I was going to post some pictures, but I'm using the laptop and can't find them anywhere- I think Roy deleted them when he put them on the desktop computer.

In other news:

Roy: Leaves on Thursday for an interview at University of Utah. (This is for a post-doc position.) Then he has an interview at BYU 2 weeks later. (Also a post-doc) He applied to something like 45 positions, so hopefully we'll be hearing from a lot more in the next few weeks. Right now he's a TA (for the same class he TAd last quarter) so other than a few hours a week for that he spends his time preparing for interviews and trying to come up with new ideas.

Ashley: Is sad that Roy leaves on Thursday! Ahhh! I've never been home alone before, so this should be interesting. I started Weight Watchers when we got back from vacation. I lost 3lbs my first week and I weigh in today and I think I've lost about 3 more pounds. If I ever manage to squeeze in some exercise I'm sure I'll do even better. But last week I had some back problems and now it's raining, so there is always an excuse. I'm seriously looking into joining a gym (one with babysitting) so I can just go in the middle of the afternoon without taking up Roy's time. But I'll have to see if that's going to fit into the budget!

Here are some photo examples of some goals of mine:



This is the skinniest I've been since having kids. This was when Rae was 8 months old (March 2005) and I was almost in, maybe even in the top of my "ideal weight range". Unfortunately this didn't last very long. I've got quite a bit to lose.




I also want to grow my hair this long. Right now it's to my shoulders and it's driving me crazy. I want to cut it but I'm holding back.


Rae: Is now officially potty-trained! She hasn't had a daytime accident in more than a month!!! A couple of weeks ago she asked if she could wear underwear to bed, so I let her and she went about a week without having an accident! But then she had a few accidents in a row, so we are back to pullups until she can show me that she can keep dry at night. She's in Sunbeams now (a class in church) and she likes it a lot. She loves to sing the primary songs even if she doesn't know the words. She'll sing just about anything and put her own words into it. For example (not a primary song) she likes to sing "John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt, That’s my name too" but she sings "Don jacob dingle pirate ship". She's so much fun!

Blaise: Is getting two molars! He has his four front top teeth and three bottom front teeth, and now he is skipping to his molars. We didn't even notice they were coming in, but now we know why he's been so IMPOSSIBLE lately! He went to the doctor for his 12 month checkup last week and he's a measly 21 lbs but he's 32 inches long. He's just so long and skinny. He just wants to nurse all day long and won't drink any whole milk, so it's going to be tricky to get some meat on his bones.

I think that's everything going on right now. I'll try to post pictures later today.

Happy Birthday Chad!

All day today I've been thinking to myself "Jan.20th, what the heck is happening on Jan.20th - why does that day seem fairly significant?" Then I check my sister Katie's blog and remembered that it's Chad's birthday!


Happy Birthday Chad!

Ugh

So, here's the deal - on Nov.20th the university shut down our internet. We had a virus on our PC and it's the second virus we have gotten since we've lived here, and therefore our "second offense". They told us to fix the problem and then wait for Student Judicial Affairs (SJA) to contact us (since it was our second offense). We fixed the problem and waited and waited. Finally Roy replied to the email (on Dec. 13th) and told them we had fixed the problem. They emailed back and said we needed to meet with SJA. Well, now it was winter break, so we decided to just wait till we got back from vacation. When we got back Roy went to the SJA office and asked them what the heck he was supposed to do. They set him up with an interview with like the top guy. He finally had that interview today and the guy pretty much said that it was ridiculous that we had to meet with him since our first offense was like 3 years ago and he's sorry that we got lost in the paperwork and that we'd get our internet back. He actually apologized a couple of times. Argh. Oh well. The good news is that we have internet now! Okay, technically we've had internet this whole time because we can pick up our neighbors wireless (and they are our friends, so they don't mind) but that wasn't always a reliable signal and it was only for the laptop and Roy needs the laptop at school and most of the time that he is home. And I just like the desktop better. I'm so happy to have it back!

And so, my fans, as soon as I figure out where I left off and where to begin, I will update you on our birthdays, Christmas, etc, etc, etc :)

Does Bobby read my blog?

I doubt it. But Happy Birthday to ya anyway! (Bobby is my oldest brother)

Friday's storm

(click for awesomeness)

We had winds up to 60 mph, and some parts of town lost power for a couple of days. I guess it was about as close to a hurricane as we'll ever see over here (news story).

Okay, Roy changed the link to "James Marsden" in the previous post. It's a small clip from the trailer. This is why he thinks of Chad when he sees the commercials for 27 Dresses.

What do you think?

I'm in a blogging rut. Don't feel like blogging. But here's a little something.

Everytime we see a preview for 27 Dresses, Roy talks about how much the lead guy looks like my brother-in-law.

Chad (bad picture - look at other ones on the blog for other poses) looks like James Marsden from 27 Dresses.


What do you think?

Om nom nom nom...

(click for awesomeness)

Slickdeal

I don't know if this will be interesting to anyone out there - but Fisher Price's nativity set is on sale. I want one of these but will probably wait till next year to get one. Here's the LINK

Freebie

I'm breaking my silence to tell you about a new freebie. We have had very limited internet the past two weeks (long story) and it's just not very fun to blog when you can't do it whenever you want and when the internet access you DO have is pretty slow. So, check out THIS FREEBIE It's pretty cool.


Oh, and we are all doing fine. Not too sick, not too busy but a little busy enough.

Just had to do it

Have you seen this? Fun stuff. http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9550719588

Some things I love about Rae

I feel like I've been writing about Blaise lot, so here's a post dedicated to Rae (with an update of Blaise at the end)

Here are some things about Rae that make me smile:

--When she takes her shoes and socks off (like at the playground) she always puts her socks in her shoes. I only had to tell her to do that like once and she started. That's my girl! I don't know why this is so delightful to me :)

--She likes to tell me that she'll take care of Blaise for me. Today I showered while they were both just hanging out watching cartoons (this is the first time I've tried and it worked okay!) and she let me know that she would watch him. (she's even mentioned before that she'd nurse him if I needed her to!)

--She wants to follow the rules. I like that she actually looks torn between following her friends and doing what is right. A lot of kids don't even hesitate. Hopefully as she gets older she'll really recognize the consequences of following your friends instead of your parents. I hope she becomes more of a leader.

--She has a very cute wave. I can't explain it, but it's adorable.

--She likes to read in bed after I turn off the lights.

--She sings along with songs even if she doesn't know the words. I do that too :)

Okay, I think that's enough now. She just lights up my world and makes my days more pleasant (and stressful, but I'll try to block that part out of my mind right now).

Blaise was quite a bit happier today. Still not completely normal, but really getting there. He went to sleep without any fight. (which is amazing, because Roy isn't at home tonight and I thought it was going to be impossible!)

I got to wear an orange vest and a hardhat and work on the highway today. We would drive along the shoulder and look for young trees that had been run over by highway workers and we would drive stakes into the ground and tie neon ribbon to the stake so that they don't get run over anymore. There were too many of us out there, so there was a lot of standing around and talking, so it was fun and felt good to help out a bit. Next month I'll be doing it again, and hopefully I'll actually get to plant some trees! (This time they needed people who had a car to go on the highway but next time it is just planting)

Anyway, all in all a good day and I am ready for bed!

Dairy overload

Blaise seems to be a lot happier today. He slept fairly well last night. I still feel a little tired, but I'll probably be able to take a nap later today (between going to get flu shots for the kids and then planting trees for 3 hours) Things are looking up.

I'm finally starting to notice a pattern with Rae's eating habits and her poop. Well, I've noticed it before, but today I know for sure. When she eats too much dairy her poops are explosive and messy. I woke up to the sound of her saying "Mama, I pooped. It's on my hands." Not something you like to hear before the lights are even on. It was all over her body, pajamas, bed, floor. Ugh. But it was a fairly easy clean up and Roy got up for a minute to hold Blaise and start some bath water for Rae. 15 minutes later it was like it had never happened.

But it has to be quite a bit of dairy to this to her. Yesterday she ate like 3 bowls of cereal, lots of cups of milk, probably 3 string cheeses, and almost a whole box of macaroni and cheese (that was her lunch and dinner). Makes me a bit sick to think about it. She loves milk and cheese. I, on the other hand, do not enjoy explosive poops. And I wish she'd stop pooping in her diaper before even getting out of bed!

Update

Blaise's fever went away. No other symptoms emerged. Teething maybe? I have no idea. He's now super cranky and is sleeping badly. He yells when anything goes wrong for him and when he doesn't get his way. He yells after I stop nursing him even if it's been 20 minutes. He was up for 2 hours last night just yelling. He wouldn't fall asleep nursing, in my arms, in Roy's arms, nothing worked. We finally just gave him some Tylenol and he fell asleep, but it was within 10 minutes of giving it to him, so I don't think it was the medicine that did it. Just now we were trying to get him to sleep and he just kept yelling and yelling so we put him in his crib and he fell asleep after about 10 minutes. I think he got so much holding and cuddling while he had his fever and now he's not ready to let that go. And I'm willing to cuddle and nurse him a little bit extra, but the way he yells and screams about it is just insane and there is just a limit of how many hours a day I can sit there nursing him. And he never seems sad when he is yelling -never any tears or anything -he's just really pissed. My heart doesn't ache like it does when he is really crying. It is actually kind of amusing.

Anyway, I can't even think clearly enough to write anything else. I am exhausted from our horrible night last night. And I've gotta go babysit for my friend. It was our turn to go out tonight but Roy has midterms to grade and we are all just so tired and just wanted to save our date for next week. Anyway, more later.