4am

So what's with my gigantic pictures when I use blogger on my phone? Sorry if you didn't want to see Henry's face in actual size.

Just thought I'd give a little update. Poor Stephen. His kid (kidding) has been getting up in the 4am hour. We don't know what the deal is. We have read a little on the wonderful world wide web and apparently we aren't alone. I wouldn't say it is normal, but more people than you think are suffering from their almost two year old waking up loooong before the sun comes up.

Here's the thing. Henry has really helped us accept the fact that our daughter is an early riser- no changing that. And as my dad always says, there are a lot better things to do than sleep- though I would beg to differ- the ONLY thing to do at 4am is sleep...
But anyway we are ok with early wake up calls. Like 6am. We can even get over ourselves and accept one somewhere in the 5am hour. Especially considering she goes to bed at 7:30. Thats pretty early. And if we can get our butts in bed by 9:30, 5am isn't nearly as painful. (I'll be honest- I am not getting up with her at 4- Stephen is, bless his heart) But here's the deal. She isn't getting enough sleep. A 21 month old should not be taking a morning nap at 7am. That means she didn't sleep enough. But it is such a viscous cycle. We say she can't take a morning nap because it is only contributing to the problem. Well by the time you have spent 3 hours with her and it is only 7am and she is begging for a nap you sort-of lose your willpower. Not to mention you need that morning nap just as much as she does.

So that's what we are dealing with right now. We have a list of things to try out but one thing we read was that we are probably in a phase that will take more than a week for her to snap out of. Bummer.

Here are some pictures for your enjoyment- sorry if they are huge! Anyone know how to change that??

3months

Henry is 3 months old!

He is "talking" allll the time and starting to drool a lot. I don't expect any teeth anytime soon though since Blakely drooled until she was 11months old before we saw any teeth.

He is such a happy baby. Unless he is tired or hungry he is smiling and just hanging out. Occasionally he likes to be held in the evenings. But usually he is just content to hang out!

He started laughing about a week ago. Stephen was throwing Blakely onto the bed over and over and she was cracking up and out of nowhere he started giggling about it. We have only been able to get him to laugh a couple times since then. It is precious though.

He still looooves to watch his big sister. He does get a little overwhelmed by her from time to time when she gets out of control with her volume level. He especially hates it when I get loud. Whether its talking too loud or laughing or squealing with Blakely, if there is too much noise he really gets his feelings hurt.

He goes to bed between 7 and 8 and sleeps 6 hours before eating and then doesn't sleep great after that and eats at least one more time before we get up. I think he is having reflux issues. He usually ends up in bed with me at some point. He is soooo snuggly and I love it. He gets up around 7ish.

He has gone downhill in nursing this past two weeks. He fusses a ton when I try to feed him and all of a sudden goes at least 4 hours before he will eat. It has been very frustrating. I also have to get him to sleep most of the time to get him to nurse at all. I am not sure what the deal is with that.

He stays awake for around an hour to an hour and a half at a time and then goes to sleep. He sleeps in his swing most of the time. I have great aspirations to try and break that habit but Blakely makes it pretty hard. He does a pretty good job going to sleep on his own at night. I have to give him his binky a few times.

We got out the jumper today but he was only in it for a minute thanks to his sister.

He hates his carseat and still never sleeps in it.

He weighs 14lbs 5oz. Wears 6+months clothes and is in size 2 diapers.

We love our chubby boy!

A night away...

We are so blessed to have an AWESOME job, that really prioritizes marriage and gives us free money each year to get away as a couple. For this entire calendar year (God willing...) I will have either been pregnant or nursing, so we pretty much figured we wouldn't get to use it this year. However, we have a good friend who got a free night in a nice hotel in Kansas City that she wasn't going to use, and she was sweet enough to give it to us. We figured since Henry is still little, we'd give it a shot and just bring him with us! It was a lot of fun, but definitely did not go as we planned...

My aunt offered to come and stay with Blakely- which was awesome. We left after we put her down for a nap yesterday. As of late, Henry has been having a hard time with nursing- maybe on a nursing strike or something. I never know if he will go 3 or 4+ hours between eating, and if I try to feed him before he's ready he has a major flip out and the only thing that calms him down is if I can manage to get him to sleep. So we left for Kansas city, and had to stop halfway there to feed Henry- no big deal. We checked into our hotel which was wonderful. We were on the 18th floor- which felt pretty fancy. We knew since we had Henry that we needed to have low expectations for the weekend... But we figured, a nice hotel, money for nice food, BEAUTIFUL weather, it was going to be fun no matter what. We were within walking distance of the Plaza- but long enough that we wanted to have the car nearby just in case. Well, due to the nice weather- it was hopping, so we really didn't get to park close anyway. We loaded Henry up in the stroller, went to a few stores, and then decided to eat on the patio at M&S grill. Henry was a little angel until our food came, and then he got fussy. Our food wasn't nearly as good as we wanted it to be, but we had fun just hanging out. Since Henry was crying we had them box our dessert up and we just planned to eat it at the hotel. As soon as they brought it out, Henry was asleep...figures. We then decided to walk back to the hotel since it was so nice, and I'd feed Henry, then we'd go back to the Plaza for some more shopping. Well, as soon as we were on our way, it started to rain. It rained on us on our whole walk back. :) We were about to get on the elevator and I got some rumblies in my tummy...and since we were on the 18th floor I wasn't feeling too confident in making it to our room so I used the lobby restroom. Let's just say I ended up being in there a while. I had some pretty bad stomach issues and felt like I was going to throw up- luckily I never did. After feeding Henry I felt like I was doing much better so we loaded him back up to go to the Plaza and get our car. About halfway there the tummy troubles hit me again, and I knew I needed to find a bathroom quick. I spent some more time in the firehouse subs bathroom... I knew it wasn't over so I told Stephen we needed to get to the car and get back to the hotel ASAP. So we walked briskly to our car only to discover that the battery was dead and it wouldn't start. I was up a creek. Henry was fussy and only wanted to be held and we were a pretty good ways away from our hotel. Luckily I made it back to the hotel room.... Then Henry had a rough couple of hours and Stephen ended up being on the phone with AAA for an hour due to a mixup with our membership. By the time I got Henry asleep and Stephen was off the phone with AAA it was 10:30. We considered ordering a movie- only to discover that it was TWENTY DOLLARS. Um, hello! You can BUY the movie for that much! We decided we needed to just go to sleep.

Luckily Henry only had one little freak out in the middle of the night, and we ALL ended up sleeping until 8am- that hasn't happened in a LONG time. Stephen got our car jumped and actually got it working fine- starting up and sounding good so we decided to go get some breakfast. We went to a GREAT breakfast place on the Plaza- and of course, Henry was awesome until our food arrived. We were planning to head back home after breakfast, however, once again our car wouldn't start. So we waited again for AAA to get there. We got it jumped again, and obviously knew we needed to just get home before we were personally keeping AAA in business. I had to ride in the backseat to keep Henry happy the whole way home.

Although NOTHING went as we had planned, we really did have so much fun just being together. We both got to focus on Henry and hang out with him and we got to have lots of good conversation that we don't normally get to have. We got to sleep a little extra in a really comfortable bed, we got to walk around outside in the beautiful weather, and we got to eat some really good food. And it was FREE!!! We are really looking forward to a getaway WITHOUT kids though. :)

I did take a few pics of me and Stephen but they are all on his phone!

New place and my 20 month old

Well, our Memphis trip was a huge success. Our babies were little angels on the plane ride there- the only thing that would have been better is if I didn't have to change two poopy diapers on my lap. Also, what's with planes being INSANELY hot?! Holy moly...do we not have air conditioning in 2012!? I was sweating profusely, and I can't imagine Stephen with a squirmy toddler on his lap.

Memphis was so fun with BB and grandad. We got to play with Lucy and aunt Anna a ton. Grandad was the resident sandbox partner as well as photographer. Because we had Lucy while Anna worked we all took turns and shared the load with three babies. Thank goodness grandad was off work all week! Henry got to meet his great grandma- and that was super sweet. Blakely missed her daddy terribly, and the look on her face when he got home couldn't have been sweeter.

We got back in town, spent the evening with Stephens aunt and uncle and two kids who were passing through Lawrence, and then began the move the next day. We had done little to nothing to prepare to move across town, and being productive with two under two is next to impossible. Luckily my dad came up and several students helped move us- otherwise I'm sure we'd still be working on it.

We moved a few miles away to a duplex. We really love it. Maybe it's just cause we were sick of the responsibility of being homeowners... But we love that this place is smaller and simpler. Our garage could currently star in an episode of Hoarders so we are having a garage sale this weekend.

Blakely turned 20 months old yesterday. Stephen likes to tell me how many months we have with our kids till they go to college- I get mad when he does. I don't want to know how fast it's going to go by!

She welcomed our new house by getting strep. It was pretty sad. She had a high fever for several days. We took her to a walk in clinic and they didn't do anything. Then a day later she broke out all over her body so we took her in again and they said it was a symptom of strep- I had no idea. So she is on antibiotics right now.

She weighs about 22lbs. She is still a skinny little thing. She loves to be outside still. She loves to dance. She loves to play with her babies and imitate whatever I do. She has a new obsession with her binkies- I think cause Henry has one. She ALWAYS asks for it. We try to only let her have it in her bed, so se frequently asks to get in her bed...
She is talking SO much. She says words that I know I never taught her. She says 2 and 3 word sentences. She can count to 10- but only cause she has it memorized. I don't think she gets numbers yet.
She still loves Henry. She loves it when she hears him wake up and she runs in to make sure he doesn't go back to sleep. We are constantly working on our inside voices.
She and daddy have a pretty special relationship right now. He has been spending lots of one on one time with her and he has quickly become her best friend. She has a very hard time when he leaves to work-she throws a fit, as well as when he closes the door to go to the bathroom. :)