What an exciting weekend we had around here. Nikki, Kade, and their new tiny baby came down to tour the Draper temple with us. (Sadly, Mom and Dad didn't make it. We missed them!) It was an adventure from the beginning. Right after we got on the bus to take us to the temple, a car turned in front of the bus (I think that's what happened, anyway), the bus driver slammed on his brakes, and the tour guide who had been telling us all about the new temple, flew into the windshield and then fell down the stairs. We all just sat there with our mouths open, wondering what just happened. The poor guide got up after a moment (he said he was fine, but I noticed he was not our guide on the trip back), and the tour resumed as if nothing had happened. The tour of the temple was wonderful. If you haven't been, you should go!

The other big event of the week is that I've been trying to ween Little Man. I just decided one day last week that I was being selfish by continuing to nurse, because my milk had dropped off to the point where he wasn't getting enough. I realize now that I tried to stop too quickly. Within just a few days, I was down to once a day. He was finally getting full, but, holy cow, my hormones went berserk. I didn't even know that weening could wreak such havoc with the mom. So I've struggled emotionally, because all of the sudden my quality Little Man time has decreased significantly, and then, on top it all of, my hormones have been raging. Poor Jamesy thought he was going to have to admit me yesterday. I feel a little less volitile today, and Little Man seems to be adjusting quickly, too. And the good news for all of you, is that this means an end to all boob-related discussions. I promise.

One last thing: I'm so dang proud of Little Man tonight. Since we've been weening, I've been trying to get him to take the cup. I decided today that we needed to get serious. I tried post-poning lunch until he'd drink his formula from the cup, hoping that he'd get hungry enough to give in. After two hours, I was the one that finally gave in. Whenever I would pull out the cup, he'd scream and shake his head no. So while we were at Target today, I picked up some new cups (the super cheap, throw-away kind) and tried it at dinner. He picked it up with both hands, put his mouth on the spout, and tipped it back. He drank it all! I've been having visions of bottle-feeding a 3-year old, so I'm super proud! He's getting so big!
Little Man is also getting very good at walking with his push-toy. It won't be long before he's walking without it.



Hurray for new jammies!
All ready for bed!

Back to the Grind

I don't have much news to report, but I've been experiencing blog-guilt again, so I knew I'd better post something. Everyone is back to school and work now, which is good and bad. I'm glad to be back, mostly just so I can get it over with. I've been very overwhelmed with everything I have to get done at work the last few days, so I've been even less enthusiastic about work than normal. James is still looking for a job, but he is going to start giving guitar lessons and lined up his first student this weekend. Hopefully, it works out. Also this week, James tried out for the guitar program at Utah State and was accepted! Yea! He'll be able to earn his (2nd) degree and get a teaching license at the same time. The program has 100% placement, so he's guaranteed to have a job at the end of it, which is reassuring. So, if all goes according to plan, we'll be moving to Logan this summer.

Little Man continues to amaze and frustrate us. He has once again gotten into the bad habit of getting up in the middle of the night. And we've fallen into the bad habit of giving him a bottle in the middle of the night, not because he's hungry, but because it's an easy way to make him sleepy. We've got a game plan for tonight, though, so hopefully we can all get some sleep soon.

He's been learning to do so many cute things lately. He's cruising like a pro now and has started to play "chase" games with us. I spend a lot to time crawling after him on my hands and knees. The best, though, is when he'll chase me. This weekend he learned to clap his hands. I'd never even seen him try to do it before, but yesterday, he just did it like it was something he'd always known how to do. And at church today, he was waving at the family sitting behind us. I didn't know that he knew how to that either. He sure is a sweet little guy.





Here's Little Man looking sharp for church. He's had a haircut since this one was taken. I forgot what beautiful curls he had.Here he is climbing on James's guitars one morning.We also discovered last weekend that he can climb stairs.
We welcomed a new little man to our family this week. Our Little Man was pretty un-interested in his new cousin most of the day, but got curious toward the end of our visit.

Giving Little Man a bath used to be one of my favorite parts of the day. Now, it's so much work that I dread it. The moment I lay him down to lotion him, he flips over and speed-crawls away. Here he is cruising along our headboard.
A happy picture from tonight. Doesn't he look so much like his cousin "Tricky" in this picture?

Looking Ahead

2008 is over. It was a good year, wasn't it? We were blessed in March with the birth of our first-born son, Little Man. He really is the sweetest baby I've ever seen. My favorite new thing he's doing these days is giving kisses. They are open-mouthed and slobbery, but very sweet. I cherish every one of them. I feel very blessed to be his mother. I've become a "mommy" this year. It's something that I always wanted to be, but never really understood how it would change my life. I would do anything for that kid. It reminds me of that part in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"; my heart has grown at least three sizes this year.
The year ended with some stressful news; James lost his job yesterday. The guy he works for sold the route James had been doing, and met him at the terminal last night with the news. James was going to give his notice on Monday, anyway, but he feels a little betrayed. We were hoping to at least be earning a paycheck for a couple of more weeks while he looked for a job that would work with his school schedule. James is a hard-worker and I know he'll find something. It makes me grateful for my recession-proof job. I've been pretty grouchy about my job lately, so it's been kind of a reality check for me. I have a job when a lot of people don't right now.
Looking ahead to 2009, I'm hoping for an even better year than this year was. Little Man will continue to grow and learn, delight and confound me, I'm sure. James is scheduled to graduate in May, and after that, who knows? I'm hoping that I can be successful at my job this year, especially with my AP students. My resolutions are to be more organized, do a better job of fulfilling my callings at church (did I mention that I just got called to the Primary? I'm excited, but unsure how I'll juggle Little Man while I'm in the Primary for a two-hour block), and, most of all, be a better wife to my dear husband. I hope that you all are safe and warm on this New Year's Day and wish you luck with all of your resolutions!

Little Man's First Christmas

Merry Christmas! Ok, so I'm a few days behind. But you're all used to that by now, right? We had a great Christmas around here. It was very relaxing. On Christmas Eve, I made the traditional Funeral Potatoes and Ham dinner (my grandma makes it for her Christmas Eve get-together every year, but since I couldn't be there, I made it myself), watch "It's a Wonderful Life" on tv, and made some pies for the next day. It was wonderful. Little Man woke up early the next morning (5:30), so I let James sleep while I fed him and made some Gingerbread Waffles for the two of us. After that we opened presents. Little Man didn't really get it and I found myself wondering why I had even bothered to wrap anything for him since James and I were the ones unwrapping it all. Although we didn't buy him much in the way of toys, our living room now looks like a toy store. He got spoiled by his grandmas and aunts. He stills prefers to play with his bottles or other weird things rather than play with all the wonderful toys, though. Figures... After a leisurely morning of playing with new toys, we made it out to Rush Valley to spend the day with James' family. We had a wonderful time. By the time we headed home, the snow was just starting. It was a very long ride home.

Little Man is busier than ever these days. He's constantly either getting into something he shouldn't, or he's climbing up my leg. He's gotten very attached to me lately, too. He won't play in a room by himself anymore. If I walk out of the room, he follows me to where ever I'm going. He's also been really struggling with his teeth. He's had a very runny nose and been very slobbery, and very grumpy, but nothing has broken through yet. It seems like his teeth are taking a lot normal than average to get through. He's struggled on and off for the last few months but its been fairly constant for the last week or so. I feel so bad for him, but he won't let me do much for him.

Also, in other news, I made my first batch of homemade baby food today! James got me the book "Super Baby Food" for Christmas, and I read almost the entire thing yesterday. I got some kale and some broccoli at the store today, steamed it, pureed it, and put it in the freezer. I was so proud of all of my super green, healthy-looking "food cubes." I stirred some of the broccoli into a jar of Turkey with Rice for Little Man's dinner, and he loved it! Yea!

Here are some pictures from the week:

We went to see the lights at Temple Square last Sunday. We bundled Little Man up and headed out early, before it got super cold or super busy. It was a wonderful evening.
Please ignore the family posing for their picture.

Maybe I'm just not very observant, but I don't remember them putting the nativity on the reflecting pool in years past. Do I just have a faulty memory, or was this new? Either way, I thought it was stunning.Little Man got spoons in his stocking. I think they were a hit.
You know what I hate? When you think you're going to get a super cute picture of your first born's first Christmas, only to discover that your baby had a HUGE BOOGER when the picture was snapped.

Guilt

Ok, so I'm a really, really bad blogger. I've tried posting several times, but there's so much going on that I instantly become overwhelmed and give up. Rather than try to catch up, I'm just going to post a bunch of photos and call it good, deal? Deal.

Little Man, not wanting to sleep.
Can you see what I've had my hands full with?
I love that they both have the same squinty eyes.
Again, the squinty eyes.
Who needs the comb??
Out of all of his toys, Little Man's been choosing to play with his books lately. It makes me proud.
Pulling himself up to play with the toys.
Pulling up in the crib.
Little Man graduated to the big tub a couple of weeks ago. It sure has made my life easier having all that extra room.

Getting bundled up for school.

This is the story of my life these days. Daddy's home!

Little Man's new hobby is pulling everything off the shelf in the dining area. He only pulls things off the middle shelf, which is fine, because it's all his stuff anyway. I just about die laughing every time he finds one of his bottle nipples and starts sucking on it.

And now, the real reason for my guilt. Little Man crawled off the bed this afternoon, which actually wouldn't be that bad normally. But he landed, face first, on one of James's guitars. The strings cut his nose pretty badly. I ran him to an InstaCare, but the nurse at the desk told me to put some Neosporin on it and sent me home. I'm still sick to my stomach over it.

The Amazing Little Man

What an exciting week we've had. Little Man has learned so much! This morning, James said, "He's only supposed to learn one new thing a week, not five!" Here's the run down of his amazing feats this week:

1. He is sleeping through the night again.

On Tuesday night, Little Man was up from 1:30 to almost 3. I've never been so mad at my baby. He didn't seem to want anything in particular, just to be awake and with mom. I never really got back to sleep after I got him back down. The next day, I went to the library and checked out every book they had about how to get your baby to sleep and bought myself some earplugs. In one book, I read that if he was getting up at the same time every night, to try to rouse him an hour before he was due to wake, just to disrupt his schedule. So I set my alarm for 1 am, got up and rubbed his back until he started sucking on his binky. And he's slept through the night ever since. (We did have a little bit of a rough night on Friday, but he ended up crying himself to sleep after a while.)

2. He is crawling.

On Thursday, I was very excited because Little Man scooted one knee while we were practicing crawling after school. When James got home, I wanted to show him the progress, so we put Little Man on his knees and put his binky out in front of him. And he just crawled over to it! We tried again, and he crawled again! It's like something just clicked for him. He's still a little wobbly, but he's getting better and better.

3. He is pulling himself up.

Today, when I went in to get him up from his nap, he had pulled himself up and was balancing on his knees.


4. He can move to a sitting position from his tummy.

This might not seem like a big milestone, but this means that I no longer have to sit him up and that he can get to his hands and knees without falling down first.

5. He can dance.

The lady that runs the daycare has been playing the "Mama Mia" soundtrack a lot this week (James is not thrilled about his exposure to ABBA), and one night at home, I noticed Little Man bouncing up and down to some music. I have a super cute video of it, but for some reason I can't get it to upload. (Does anyone have any idea why? It seems like every time I try to upload something, it never works.)

That's all for this week. Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Ups and Downs

The last few days have been a bit of a roller coaster. I've experienced such sweetness and joy and such frustration and anxiety. Let's start with the joy...

Little Man is really growing up. I've spent a lot of time with him the last few days and every moment I realize a little more what a sweet little person my life has been blessed with. I love it when he reaches for me to pick him up and then wraps his tiny little arm around me and holds me. I love it when he laughs at the funny face I'm pulling or at the silly song I'm making up. There's even a small part of me that secretly loves the fact that the only thing he wants in the middle of the night is for him mom to hold him.

And he's getting so smart! Watching him play has become one of my favorite things. He's really mastered the "cause and effect" thing. He'll push the buttons on his toys on purpose now. I didn't even realize he'd learned it, but then one day, he pushed the button of a toy and when the little animal popped up, he pushed it back down, then pushed the button to make it pop up again. I couldn't be more proud.

And so strong! He's "this close" to crawling. We keep practicing with him and he gets better and better every day. Tonight, he was sitting on the floor, then he leaned over and got on his knees, rotated himself to point the direction he wanted, put one hand out in front of himself, and scooted one knee. And then he fell down. But he is so close! Even though he's not crawling, he can still pretty much get into anything he wants. When he's on him tummy, he can use his hands to turn himself any direction, then he'll scoot or roll to get the object of his desires. Today, he got himself into the basket of baby care items (mostly, its full of diapers and wipes) and I found him with the bugger sucker in him mouth. It was yucky, but I was impressed that he'd made it that far across the room to get it.

Tonight, we were practicing his crawling before the bath. I stripped him down, then set him on his knees to try one more time. We were playing and having fun, then he grunted. I knew what that meant, so I quickly grabbed him. But I was too late. He had already pooped on the floor. When I picked him up, his foot got in the mess. He was very intrigued by the poop on his foot, so he reached down to grab it. Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out the best way to clean this up. James was still at work, so I was on my own. I didn't want to leave him while I went to grab something to clean it up, because I knew he'd make a bigger mess. But I couldn't carry him either, because he was covered. Luckily, there were some wipes in the hallway from this morning, so I grabbed those. But while I was wiping him bum, he continued to play with the poop. I looked up just in time to see the poop covered fingers headed for his mouth. I yelled at him, then picked him up and put him in the tub (which, luckily, I'd already ran). I no longer cared about the mess carrying him would be. When James got home and saw the scene, he was totally grossed out by the pile on the floor and my stained clothes. We were laughing pretty hard about the situation by the time it was all over. Only a mother could still laugh when she was covered in baby poop.

And the frustrations... First of all, if you've seen me lately, you may have noticed that I have lost a lot of weight. I've barely noticed it myself; I only know that my pants are barely staying up these days. But I stepped on a scale at a friend's house and realized how much weight I had actually lost. I weigh almost 15 pounds less than my pre-pregnancy weight, which is a lot on my short body. My sister convinced me that I needed to see my doctor and make sure my thyroid was normal, especially given the fact that I've been consuming over 2000 calories per day. So I took the day off Monday to go see my midwife. She did order a thyroid test, but thinks that it's probably just because I'm breastfeeding. She put me on a 3000 calorie per day diet. I know, I know. Poor Tiffany... But it's not as cool as it sounds. I feel like all I do is eat now. It's not even fun. My blood pressure was also incredibly low (85 over 50), which probably explains the lightheadedness I've been experiencing. Hopefully, I'll feel better soon.

And the biggest frustration has been Little Man's sleeping habits. I'm pretty sure he was having a growth spurt last week. He was eating like crazy, getting up in the night to nurse, and taking marathon naps (his morning nap on Saturday was 3 1/2 hours!). I think he got a little too used to having mommy time in the night, however. Monday night, he was essentially awake from 11 until almost 3. I nursed him, gave him Motrin, rocked him, and nothing was good enough. The only way he'd sleep was if I would stand and hold him. When the alarm went off at 5 the next morning, I knew there was no way I was going to make it to work on only 3 hours of sleep, so I stayed home again. Last night, Little Man started doing the same thing. Whenever I would lay him down, he would start screaming. I decided that he was going to have to "cry it out." I am generally very opposed to "Ferberizing" but I didn't see any other choice. I convinced myself that it's only really bad for tiny babies, but not so bad for older babies that have learned to expect Mommy to come running at the smallest whimper. I still don't know if I really believe myself, though. So we let him cry. He was crying so hard that he was having a hard time breathing. He did that for about 10 minutes and then... he stopped! He went to sleep! He woke up once in the night, but before I could even get to him, he'd found his binky and was quiet again. He did get up very early this morning (5:15), but I'll take it if he sleeps through the night.

I promise this is my last story... This one is very scary! One day last week, when I got home from work, there was a strange man sitting at the top of the steps in front of my door. I thought it was weird, but I thought maybe he was waiting for someone to get home or something. On Saturday night, though, when we got home from our friends' house, he was sitting there again. This time, though, he was surrounded by beer cans and was listening to a little radio very loudly and muttering to himself. Once I got in the house, I called 911 to report him, but before the officer could get here, he took off. Later that night, James got up to use the bathroom and could hear him (and his radio) outside again. I called 911 again, and this time they were able to get him. They knocked on our door a minute later, so they could get our info to file a complaint, and told us that he's a notorious burgler in our neighborhood and also a know pedofile. Isn't that so scary! I was totally freaked out. It makes me a little nervous to be here alone in the evenings.

Ok, I promise I'm done. Here are some pictures from the week...

Here is my cute baby, cuddling with Daddy. (Please ignore the dirty house and the camera strap)
Family time before bed.

My boys, all cleaned up for church.