Heading to Utah

Although the summer is winding down and school will be starting next week, I am finally going on vacation. Robert, Adam and Matt have gone on trips this summer but not me. I haven't gone anywhere for the past six months. That's a long time when you live in the middle of nowhere. We're leaving on our trip tomorrow. We're driving up to Cheyenne to see my folks and for Grandpa to do a bit of (free) dentalwork on the boys. Saturday morning we'll leave for Utah, specifically Snowbird. Adam and Matt are quite excited. Matt's been counting down the days, and every morning tells me how many days are left 'til we leave. This will be Gavin's first roadtrip. Hopefully, he'll sleep a lot. He's nearly 3 months old (next Tuesday). He's starting to play with toys--trying to grab them. Last night he laughed for the first time. Adam and Matt were jumping off the couch and Gavin thought that was quite funny. Since the boys will be missing the first two days of school, we went down there this morning to find out who their teachers are. Adam's second grade teacher will be Ms. Nelson. This reminds me of one of my favorite childhood books, "Miss Nelson Is Missing" , in which a 2nd grade teacher named Miss Nelson turns up "missing" because of the naughty behavior of her students. Matt's teacher is Mrs. Lightner. She and I are friends from PTO and her daughter was in Adam's class last year. I think she'll be a good fit with Matt. Today is being spent doing laundry, packing up food, cleaning the house, and hopefully not forgetting anything. It will be so nice to get out of town and see lots of family---and mountains.

Sleeping All Night

Gavin has finally reached the stage of sleeping through the night. And I don't just mean the technical definition--midnight to 5am--but all night. Hallelujah!! He's done it the past two nights. I nurse him at 9:30pm and he has slept until 6:30-7am. That's what I define 'sleeping through the night'. I had been keeping him up later, 10-10:30, but he would just fuss and fuss. So I thought I would try putting him to bed earlier and hoped he wouldn't wake up an hour earlier. It worked. Not only did we have less fussy but more sleep. I've been a bit more lax with teaching Gavin to sleep through the night. With Matt I pretty much enforced it once he hit 8 weeks. I've let Gavin set the pace a bit more, but I was starting to get a bit impatient, so I'm glad now that at 10 1/2 weeks he is now doing it on his own.

Matt's Honesty

Most of us encourage our kids to be honest and tell the truth. There are times, though, when sometimes it can make us cringe or be embarassing. Last night was one of those cases. We had the elders over dinner. While one of them was sharing a spiritual message, Matt had his hands over his ears and kept repeating, "This is boring. This is so dumb." Thankfully, the elders were good sports. I told them this was their first introduction into having kids and trying to enthuse them about church stuff. They just laughed.

Yesterday while nursing, Matt started slapping Gavin on the back and face. I told him to stop and that Gavin hadn't done anything to deserve that. He said, "Yes he did. He took you away from me."

Random Thoughts

Just some random thoughts. Nothing cohesive--just things I want to remember.

***I'm nine weeks past Gavin's birth and I've lost 29 lbs. Seven more to go. Yahoo! I did eat 12 Oreos today--oops! But they tasted soooo good. So I don't feel that bad.

***Matt and I have gotten hooked on the TV show "So You Think You Can Dance". I have the DVR record it and then he and I watch it the following day while I nurse. Matt just loves it. Anything physical he loves. He even has favorite contestants. We both think Robert is hilarious (for those that watch).

***Both Adam and Matt are in the middle of the 'summer blahs'. Of course they don't want to go back to school but they're definitely feeling bored. During the summer I give them 'TV tickets' that they can use for TV, the Wii, computer. I use them in order to limit their "screen time" so they don't end up being couch potatoes all summer. However, I'm getting a bit lax. It's just been so hot outside and they're getting tired of their toys. So, even though they say they don't want school to begin, I think they'll be glad to have something different to do.

***We had the missionaries over for dinner last night. We hadn't fed them for 3-4 months. Granted, I had a good reason, but I was beginning to feel a bit guilty because we have 10 missionaries here and only one ward and one branch to feed them. Adam and Matt always have fun when the elders come over. Even before I became a mother, and especially a mother to three boys, I felt a really strong desire to influence my children (boys or girls) to serve missions. My focus has always been geared toward first getting them to go on their missions, and then we'll focus on getting married in the temple. Simply because if they serve a worthy mission, they are much more likely to be married in the temple. I know in the past few years, the church has tightened up the requirements/standards in order to go on a mission. That makes me think that all of the young missionaries we have here in Garden City must have been good kids and kept the commandments. I'm grateful for their examples to my boys. And hope my three sons will do the same.

Two Months

Gavin is two months old today.

Weight: 11 lbs. 12 oz. (50th percentile)

Length: 22 inches (25th percentile)

(We caught the start of a smile)

We made it through another month. Probably because he is sleeping longer at nights. He typically sleeps from 10:30pm-5am, nurses, and then sleeps another 2-3 hours. He nurses 7 times a day and takes 4-5 naps a day. I've had to cut out all dairy products because he was getting bad stomachaches. I'm a big milk-drinker and yogurt-eater so this has been really tough. Yesterday the boys and I made homemade ice cream so I cheated and ate some (it had been a month since I'd had any) and I paid for it last night with a couple of blowouts and crying (Gavin's....not mine). Gavin has started smiling, cooing, and has discovered his hands. He enjoys lying on his playmat and sitting in the bouncy chair. The adjustment to three children has started to get easier. Preparing meals is the biggest challenge right now. I just don't have as much time to cook as I did before. It's hard to juggle everything. Typically Gavin is quite content and doesn't make much of a fuss.

A Night at the Movies

We saw Toy Story 3 yesterday. The boys really enjoyed it. (This was Matthew's doing.)

Big Brothers

The other day Matt climbed into the crib with Gavin and wanted me to take a picture of them. It reminded me of Adam wanting to do the same thing with his baby brother, Matthew. Here are the two similar photos. Adam(2 1/2 yrs) and Matthew (8 weeks)

Matthew (5 yrs.) and Gavin (7 weeks)