3 months

Well the 10th of this month marked Andrew turning 3 months.  Crazy!  He is seriously the happiest baby alive.  All we have to do is look at him and he smiles at us.  For real.  I took some pictures of him on Tuesday and almost every single picture is of him smiling. 

 

A couple of things about him.  His eczema comes and goes.  I just use some Aquaphor on it when it comes and then it goes away.  He is sleeping now from about 10:30-5:30.  He is still sleeping in our room…I’m a little scared to make the transition to get him in his crib in the boy’s room.  His routine throughout the day is that he stays awake for about an hour and a half after eating and then takes a nap.  He is such a good eater, as you can tell from his chubby face :)  He loves his swing and whenever anyone pays him attention.  Love him!

Tyson is doing fantastic with the potty.  We haven’t had an accident in over 3 weeks.  So proud of him.  I thought the whole thing was going to be traumatic but it ended up being not that bad!  I got him signed up for swim lessons for June.  I think he’ll love it.  Two days ago he was running down the hall and I suppose tripped and hit his head on our bed.  He came to me screaming and he had such a big goose egg on his head.  I kept telling him it was okay and he kept repeating back to me, “No!  It is NOT okay!”  I hate head injuries.  They are so scary.  Yesterday at dinner we were eating stir fry and Tyson said, “I don’t want this.  It’s scary!”  So funny!  Whenever I am exercising he likes to come over for a minute and do “exercising” with me.  It’s so hilarious.  I usually end up stopping to watch him while he says, “Watch me mom.  I’m doing it!”  In a little over 2 weeks we get to take him to the Day Out with Thomas.  Oh man, I can’t wait!!!

Brian recently got promoted to a new position with in the company he works for.  So proud of him!  It is now in Salt Lake so it is a crappy commute but there is a raise and he no longer has to work on Sundays!!!  It’s wonderful.  He was able to give me an awesome Mother’s Day on Sunday.  He made me breakfast and let me sleep in.  It was divine.  He told me to buy myself a new diaper bag :) and took care of the boys the entire day.  I pretty much was only lifting my finger to get Andrew to feed him.  He is such an awesome husband and father.

I am currently on Day 25 of the 60 Day Slimdown program and I have officially lost 4 pounds.  I do measurements in 5 days so I’ll update then.  I was a little discouraged because that means I’ve only averaged a 1 pound loss a week until I decided to try on some pants.  Yeah, I totally dropped a size in my pants.  The pants that looked like it had 3 inches before I could zip and button them…yeah, they button now.  So it’s working and I am so happy.  Other than trying to make healthy meals, keep the house in order and not spend all of our money I’m doing well!

Tulip Festival

Never been.  I’ve lived here for 8 years and I’ve never been to the Tulip Festival.  Silly me.  I told Brian we were going go this year and with lots of things going on, it just wasn’t looking like it was going to happen.  Imagine my happiness when I found out that a bunch of friends were getting together to go as a play date.  We went yesterday and it was so fun to stroll through grounds looking at flowers and talking about all kinds of things.  I really believe that women need other women.  Plain and simple :)  Here are some lovely pictures from the day. 

Oh and thank you Ashley for some of these pictures that I stole from your blog.  They are just perfect :)

  

He just threw a penny into the fountain.  He kept asking for more “moneys”. 

You see that really big hill that goes for forever in this picture?  At the end of the trip I told him to roll down the hill 1 time.  I failed to mention where he had to stop so he kept going and going.  He made it all the way to the bottom by the stream.  I felt bad because I was yelling his name out so loud. I was at the very top with the stroller that contained a screaming Andrew. He finally came back up after some friends had to go down and get him and he was exhausted.  I think I’d be pretty tired too if I rolled down that hill and had to climb back up.

Here is the beginning of the rolling…He’s pretty fun to watch roll.  He doesn’t quite get how to do it, but he totally thinks he does.  Such joy on his little face.  I think I need to find more joy in the simple things of life.  Thanks Ty for reminding me to do that :)

I thought he’d stop where the side walk was but nope, he kept going and going and I kept panicking and panicking!

We had a great time and Tyson fell asleep in the car before I could even pull out of the parking lot!

Glad that I was feeling well enough to go yesterday despite recovering from getting mastitis 4 days before.  I honestly don’t think I have ever felt that sick.  At the time I thought to myself, “I’d seriously rather have another c-section recovery right now than this…”  But the antibiotics are already working miracles.  Thank you modern medicine.

so in love

I am so very much in love.  I was already in love with my boys but these pictures make me even more in love.

If you live in Utah and want a photographer see Nikki with Sweet Lilac Photograpy!

     

Buddies

My dad and two boys all became best buddies in a matter of days!  My dad wouldn’t put Andrew down the last day and he entertained Tyson all day long.  I’m pretty sure his trip down here was about seeing the grandkids but I like to think he was here for me too!  I was super sad to take him to the airport yesterday.  He’s hard to get a hold of on the phone because he works so much and because of the time difference in Qatar so it was nice to be able to chat all day long.  We miss him already.  Andrew was crying a ton yesterday (perhaps he knew something was up?) and Tyson kept asking where Grandpa went…at least my parents should be moving back to the states in a few months. 

Yesterday we were making a quick trip to Costco and Tyson noticed a real train on the tracks.  If it had just been me I would have said,”Wow, that’s neat” and drivin’ over there so he could get a look at it.  Well, my dad got out of the car and took him right up close to see it.  Ty was in heaven.  Well we went to lunch and actually saw the train move and Tyson got really sad.  My dad said he’d try to follow it.  We quickly finished our lunch and hopped back into the car.  Bless my dad, he drove through town following those tracks to try to find that train.  We ended up finding it near Wal-Mart and Tyson was sooooo happy.  What a great Grandpa.  I wouldn’t have ever tried to follow it even though Tyson was begging.  I think I should go with the swing of things a bit more often like my dad :)

Tyson’s eyes were glued to the train.  Getting him to look at the camera just wasn’t gonna happen ; )

And here are the boys with Grandpa before we left to take him to the airport!

Thanks for coming to visit dad and we all can’t wait to see you and mom again!

Easter Weekend

My father flew into town late Friday night so we drove up to my brother’s house for the weekend to spend some time with my family!  The Easter Bunny decided to stop by our house a little early this year for various reasons.  Here are the kiddos with their baskets at our house before we left! 

On Saturday afternoon we had the kids do an Easter egg hunt and I was super excited about it.  Ty totally lived it up and had a blast.  I love how much fun it is to see his face light up and get so excited over little things.  I thought being a kid and doing stuff like that was the best thing ever but now I’m thinking that being a parent and watching your kid do things like that is the best thing ever!

And the race begins…

“Look, ober there!  An egg!”  (His “v’s”  come out as “b’s”)

Andrew participated in the hunt with Grandpa by observing…

 

“Up there!  In the tree!”

All of the grandkids with Grandpa Murray!

And since I’m not in very many pictures these days I jumped in.

When you fly from another country like Qatar, the jet lag is brutal.  I found these two guys sleepin’ away in the afternoon.

Sunday morning we all went to church and then had a wonderful Easter dinner.  I am so glad that we go to church on Easter.  It is so easy to forget the whole purpose of the celebration and get caught up in all the other, unimportant things :)  Thanks Mike and Emily for being the hostesses. 

Happy Easter from Andrew!!!

and all of us!

Children’s Museum

Brian and I took the boys to the children’s museum on his day off last week.  Yeah, we went last week during Spring Break.  What in the world were we thinking?  Apparently we weren’t thinking at all!  Though it was super packed with obnoxious older kids that were playing in the little kid areas it was still fun to see Ty play and discover everything.  He loved the helicopter, the area with the cranes, the building blocks, filling up the car with gas and the tubes and ball section at the beginning.  He is certainly a boy, through and through.  It was interesting seeing him interact with other kids.  He mostly was off doing his own thing not really paying kids much attention.  The crane area was different though.  He would load up the crane and then a kid would wheel the crane up.  It was cute seeing him work together with other kids and was actually being nice.  It was a nice afternoon and we were all exhausted by the end of the day. 

         

Random story:  I hope no one hates me for sharing this but I thought it was ridiculous and sorry if I offend anyone.  There was a lady breastfeeding in the middle of the older kids play area.  I have no issues with breastfeeding in public because I do it myself, but she wasn’t covered up at all and she was very well endowed.  It was unbelievable to me.  Even if she did it not covered but was discreetly in the corner I wouldn’t have really thought too much of it but she was DEAD CENTER in the middle of the room.  Even if you weren’t in the room and you walked by looking into the room you would have totally seen her.  When Brian walked by you should have seen his face.  He asked me, “Is that what I think it is?!” and I was like “uh, yeah.”  Pretty sure some people complained because a worker went over and spoke with her.  I really don’t understand the women that think that is okay.  Yes it is a natural thing and it is great for the baby, yada, yada but come on.  No one needs to see your boob.  I mean seriously, how hard is it to throw a blanket over your shoulder.  Your baby isn’t going to be traumatized for not looking at you for 15 minutes.  I mean seriously there were 10-12 year old boys running around.  That’s just NOT okay. 

Potty Training

***I’m sorry if you have no interest in this but I have decided to actually turn my blog into a journal for our family so I really want to remember this***

I had been putting it off for quite awhile. I didn’t want to do it pregnant and feeling crappy, and then I’d heard if I do it too close to when Andrew is born he’ll regress back to accidents, etc. and I just didn’t think he seemed ready, at all.  But I think I was wrong!  My friend Erin started to potty train her 28 month old boy last week and he was doing great so I thought about how Ty is 3 and if Wes could do it than hopefully Ty could.  I was planning on doing it next month but just decided to give it a shot and get it over with.  Don’t even begin to ask me my system because in the course of a day I changed my game plan around 4 times.  Let’s just say the system consisted of lots of jelly beans, stickers and Thomas the Train.   The only thing I was consistent about and wouldn’t budge on was that I wouldn’t let him get into a diaper.  I told him those were gone, period.  He cried a few times through out the day about it but he understands now.  The day started off with 4 accidents.  And each time he profusely apologized.  I couldn’t get mad at that at all.  He was so sincere and sorry about it.  Then we had 4 successes!!!! He did have an issue with poop that ended up in an accident.  Even though the poop was an accident he seriously was so close to it not being.  I laid him down for his nap and 2 minutes later he comes out yelling that he has to go poop.  He sat on the potty for about 4 minutes and nothing came.  So he said he was done.  I took him back to his room and 2 minutes later he came out yelling again but it was too late.  I was just proud of him for realizing the feeling and being close.  Anyway, it is day number 2 and he’s already had 1 success and he did it all by himself.  I’m a proud mommy right now.  I would have done this 6 months ago if I had known how good he’d do!

I’ll spare you the picture of him sitting on the potty but I have a picture of him helping color his Thomas sticker chart and flexing his muscles at the end of (what I believe to be) a successful day!

Oh and yesterday Andrew woke up with crusty crap in his eye.  I was like oh gosh, please don’t be pink eye.  I can’t handle it today. I don’t think it is but I still called the pediatrician and got drops just in case.  They said it is probably a plugged tear duct but regardless they would treat it the same way.  Worrying about Tyson and the potty was enough and I couldn’t believe I had to think about Andrew’s eye as well.