Life is One Giant Tantrum

This picture basically shows how Catie approaches life these days...  saying "No!" or "NEVER!!!" to everything.

She is the epitome of Jekyl & Hyde... though the nice one unfortunately doesn't surface too often. I'm worried the scowl might get stuck. She throws quite a mean tantrum. I now take back anything I have ever said about her not being determined.

I'm crossing my fingers that at some point she returns to liking sleep... because she is desperately needing more of it! In the meantime, I am getting lots of cuddles because after she rages for a long time she loves to cuddle with me. Being two is hard!

I deal with the overabundance of tantrums by getting a babysitter once in awhile. On Monday Ryan and I ran errands while Andrew was in school and Catie played with the babysitter. It was heavenly!

To combat tantrums and try and tire Catie out, we've also started a family jogging club. We're doing a 30 day work out with your kids challenge on my Toddler Approved blog, so this is one of the ways that we're working out together. Andrew is obsessed with his punch card. Catie is more of a social runner, so we run next to one another holding hands and have fun chatting. I love it. :)

I'm not shy about saying Ryan's my current favorite kid. I think the other two little people would agree. He is huggable and kissable all day long. The second he starts fussing Andrew will drop what he is doing to try and cheer Ryan up. Catie tries too so it is super cute. The only sad thing is when he is overtired and crying and won't smile at Catie and then she gets so sad and says, "Ryan doesn't like me!" and bursts into tears and runs away.

Fortunately that happens very infrequently though, since this kid just keeps himself amused all day long sucking his fingers, giggling, or talking to himself. I'll post more about him next week when he has his 4 month appointment (he turned 4 months yesterday), but we are IN LOVE with him!

Now I just need to post about Andrew's birthday, Ryan's baby blessing, Sophie's baby blessing, and a few other things and then I will finally catch up! Lately I've been falling asleep in front of my computer after eating my big evening bowl of ice cream so I haven't been productive!

One thing I have decided this week is that although I can't control Catie and her crazy tantrums (because I've tried just about everything), I can control my attitude... and the number of dishes in my sink! So, I have done SO MANY dishes in the past 3 weeks. It is nice to do something productive :) 

Chunky Monkey- almost 4 months

I love this cuddly smiley chunky guy. He is all rolls. I don't think I've had a kid this chubby before and I kinda love it. He is basically just one big smile. If you look at him, he smiles. If you're typing on the computer and not looking at him, he keeps smiling at you until you DO look at him... and then it is hard to tear yourself away because he is SO CUTE.

If I could, I'd spend all day cuddling with this little guy.

Here are a few things about Ryan right now...

- He absolutely adores his big brother Andrew. We call Andrew the baby whisperer and the two little guys have the cutest interactions. Catie is starting to get jealous though, so she's upping her game and is becoming a great baby entertainer too. We're one step closer to me sitting on the couch eating ice cream while the kids entertain the baby ;) Wahoo.

- Little dude is now super sensitive to sound. This doesn't bode well since his siblings don't understand the word quiet. He can't eat if they are running around because he wants to watch them and listen to their crazy noises. He also doesn't like when they are crying... which made the last week or two kinda sad since we've had a lot of crying going on around here.

- Ryan likes to sleep and has a pretty good nap schedule during the day. I feel bad when I have to wake him up sometimes to go pick up Andrew, but he's pretty flexible.

- Little dude is wearing size 6 month clothes and size 2 diapers. I had to go on a shopping spree for him last Saturday because we are now out of wintery clothes for him! Andrew was born a few months later so most of my 6 month boy clothes are summery. The best outfit I found was a rocket themed sleeper. Andrew was so excited!

- Ryan is happy and so chill. We love it. His personality has been a great blessing over the past few weeks. He goes to bed around 8:30 or 9pm and sometimes eats at 3am, otherwise he sleeps in until 6 or 7am. Now if only I could get myself to bed earlier so I could benefit from his sleep!

- Little dude loves to play with little hanging toys now and has some awesome leg strength. I've gotta find our rainforest play mat so that he can start going crazy with kicking the hanging toys. Today he kept himself entertained for over 20 minutes while I cleaned and the other crazies ran around helping. I love independent kids!

This little guy is my favorite obsession at the moment. I just wish I had more time during the day to just sit still and talk to him and listen to his cute sounds.

Anniversary dinner in SF

For our anniversary celebration, I got to go to dinner in SF with two of my favorite dates- Kevin & Ryan. We went to Osha Thai for an early dinner and enjoyed way too much food! 

We started off with appetizers- because you can't skip the Thai samosas or yummy fried spring rolls... and then we ordered our big meals. Our eyes were definitely bigger than our stomachs, so we came home with a lot of food... but we ate a lot too!

I had vegetarian yellow curry and pad see ew and Kevin had yellow curry with chicken and pineapple fried rice. Ryan couldn't stop staring at all of the food.

After dinner, we were worried we'd get stuck in traffic, so we hurried home. Since it was a holiday, there ended up not being any traffic... so we managed to drive into SF, park, eat dinner, and get back to our town in less than 3 hours. We made it into SF in 35 minutes. It was pretty amazing. We had the babysitter at our house till 7pm, so we decided to run some errands with our last hour... and we headed to Costco (super romantic)! I think we make it there maybe 1-2 times per year, so it was a treat. We had fun roaming around and exploring and we finally stocked up on a few necessities.

We ended the night with some ice cream sundaes and have deemed this year's celebration a success!! Hopefully I'll be able to roll out of bed in the morning to go running at 6am after all of the food we inhaled!

Catie also got moved into a big girl bed tonight... so hopefully we actually get some sleep! She's already escaped from her room a few times tonight to come visiting. There is never a dull moment around here!

Looking Back... Happy 7 Years!

Seven years ago today Kevin & I got married. It doesn't feel like that long ago, but a lot of amazing things have happened since then and time really has just flown by. I love looking back at these pictures and remembering how special our wedding day was and thinking about how many of our favorite people were there to celebrate with us. I finally got a few wedding photos framed and posted in our house (it only took me 6.5 years). This one below of us laughing is right by my front door and it makes me smile every time I walk by it. I am so blessed to be married to Kevin. We compliment one another in so many ways and have so much fun together. 

Since I have hundreds... if not thousands of wedding photos, I thought I'd post a few of my favorites as we celebrate this anniversary. We're not doing anything super special to celebrate this year, but honestly, I don't need anything fancy. Hanging out with Kevin while chatting and eating ice cream is fun to me. Some of my favorite moments we've spent together this past year would seem dull to most people... but they were highlights to me. Laughing while sorting through Legos and baby clothes together during Kevin's paternity leave earlier this year was one of those moments. I have also enjoyed all of our home remodel shopping appointments as we've picked tile and lights and fixtures. 

I am so grateful to be married to such a thoughtful, selfless, kind, and generous person! We make a great team. I am excited to have many many more years to spend together. Our kids are also so lucky to have such a super dad... who is seriously amazing, sweet, patient, and talented in so many ways! 

My favorite quote that President Hinckley shared a few years ago is posted below. It was part of the inspiration behind our family theme (posted in my header above).

“Marriage requires a high degree of tolerance, and some of us need to cultivate that attribute. I have enjoyed these words of Jenkins Lloyd Jones, which I clipped from the newspaper some years ago. Said he:

“There seems to be a superstition among many thousands of our young [men and women] who hold hands and smooch in the drive-ins that marriage is a cottage surrounded by perpetual hollyhocks to which a perpetually young and handsome husband comes home to a perpetually young and [beautiful] wife. When the hollyhocks wither and boredom and bills appear the divorce courts are jammed. …

“Anyone who imagines that bliss [in marriage] is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed.

“[The fact is] most putts don’t drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. …

“Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.

“The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride”

I am so grateful to be journeying through life with such an amazing friend and husband. It has been a wonderful 7 years!

Happy Anniversary to us Kev! Love you! :)

The Nightmare

Andrew has complained on and off for the past month or so of a hurt cheek. Every time we asked him about it he said he bit his cheek. We told him to stop doing that and moved on.

Kevin went to Brazil on February 4th. The night after he left Andrew woke up complaining of more cheek pain. He was up on and off almost all night that night and nothing seemed to help- even pain medicine.

As the week progressed, he complained more and more and we did whatever we could to alleviate the cheek pain. I thought he had a mouth full of canker sores so gave him canker sore medicine on the spot he said hurt and he sucked on ice and took medicine for the pain.

On Wednesday he was up basically all night screaming and crying off and on. I took him to the doctor Thursday morning. She noticed his cheek looked bitten, told him to stop biting his cheek, and told me to use Motrin. On Thursday he was in pain almost all day, couldn't concentrate at school, cried a lot, and then was up basically all night long in insane pain... like screamed and cried for hours on and off. At one point I don't think he stopped screaming for over an hour. Nothing could calm him down or get him to sleep other than watching some movies, playing games on the iPad for a few minutes at a time, and sucking on ice... and even then he was really hurting. At 3am I asked him for the 10th time that night what hurt and instead of saying his cheek, he said his tooth. I scanned his mouth and discovered red gums and a very icky tooth... How I had missed that before I don't know? I think I was distracted by his constant complaints of cheek pain.

He proceeded to scream and cry in pain most of the early morning and I got him into an emergency dental appointment at 9am. Thank goodness for dentists willing to come in on their day off! As soon as the dentist got the x-rays she informed me that he had an abscessed tooth (one of his molars) which was why he was in so much pain. We got him on antibiotics and more pain meds.

Finally he fell asleep on Friday afternoon for probably the first time all week.

By Saturday he was feeling a bit better, though was still waking up a lot at night complaining of pain. His whole cheek and side of his face was swollen.

Sunday and Monday night were pretty pain-filled as well... which meant no sleep for me or poor sad Andrew. The doctor switched his antibiotics on Monday and then Monday and Tuesday nights were still bad nights with more screaming/pain (though a little bit less)... but then he actually slept for 7-8 hours afterwards on Tuesday night and since then the meds seem to be working to curb the poor little dude's infection (cross my fingers).

Wednesday night a good friend came over and gave Andrew a blessing and Andrew slept all night long that night for the first time in 9 days. He went to bed at 8pm and slept until 8am the next day. My prayers were answered and I was so grateful. My stress/anxiety was also alleviated a bit too... which was so nice.

Kevin got home Thursday morning from Brazil and I was so relieved. Today I slept in until 9am (with a brief wake up to feed Ryan from 4-4:30 and 7-7:30) and Andrew slept all night again. It felt so good to stay in bed and relax and have someone else play with the kids in the morning.

This afternoon Andrew got to go back to the dentist's office for a quick cleaning and then we sat down with the dentist and discussed the treatment plan for his infected tooth. The poor kid gets to have it extracted next Wednesday. I am really looking forward to it being gone so hopefully he doesn't have any more pain there! 

I don't think I have ever been so scared or sad in my whole life than I have been over the past two weeks. Seeing your child in pain and having no way to help them or no idea what to do (or what is wrong) is so sad. I am so grateful for all of the kind friends, family, and doctors who helped me and Andrew feel better and did so many simple acts of service for us over the past 10 days while Kevin was gone. Our family is very blessed. We had friends invite us over for meals, friends bring us treats, family and friends watch the kiddos while I went to appointments with Andrew, and friends run errands for us. The kindest thing people did was listen to me and give me hugs and just let me cry- A LOT. I am especially grateful for my neighbors who were constantly checking in on us to see how Andrew was doing and just give me a hug and a pep talk since I was so tired and sad.

My testimony of prayer was strengthened this week as I prayed harder than I ever have... especially on nights when I felt so alone, helpless, and scared. Sometimes our burdens can't be taken away from us, but we can be given peace during the burdens or trials... and that definitely happened to me this past week.

This scripture in Mosiah 24:14-15 was one that I thought about a lot...

14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

I definitely wouldn't say that I am grateful for this little trial, but I am grateful for what I learned from it. I am also so grateful to have my best buddy Kevin home! He was missed!

Baby Shower & Eating My Way Through Utah

A few weekends ago Ryan and I jetted to Utah for a quick three day trip. My mom threw a baby shower for Cat and so we got to join in on the fun!

It feels like a decade ago that we actually went on this trip... but it was actually just a little over two weeks ago. I am very behind on posting pictures.

Here are a gazillion photos from our trip.

Ryan and I flew out around 7pm on a Thursday night and we came back Sunday afternoon. Ryan slept or smiled at me the entire flight. He was an angel.

The line at Thrifty was horrendous at 11pm at night. We waited in line for about an hour. There is a reason why sometimes going with the cheapest company doesn't pay. 

Little dude was a gem. He smiled and smiled and then fell asleep while we waited.

We arrived in Provo around 1 am to a grand welcome from Grandma Julie! We got settled and had an amazing sleep. Little dude slept fabulously and so did I.

Our first day was spent lounging, meeting up with my old roommate Miranda & Elise for food at Blue Lemon, and enjoying an amazing dinner with Uncle Karl, Aunt Wendy, Scott, Cat, Sophie, and my parents at the Riverside Country Club. Yum! We had two sleeping or just very chill babies and no crazy older kiddos with us, so we sat at dinner and chatted for over 2 hours. It was delightful.

We also visited Grandma Julie at work. She showed us all the cool Valentine's Day crafts they've been doing and Ryan smiled at everyone and made friends with all of the seniors and volunteers.

On Saturday morning Grandpa babysat Ryan while my mom and I went running. The weather was crisp and perfect. We had to take off our ear muffs and gloves because we were too hot. Loved it!

Later in the day Ryan and I ran errands and went and visited Kevin's mom. Ryan loved hanging out with Grandma Shari.

Shari & I went to lunch at Kneaders and then ran errands for Cat's baby shower... and grabbed me some treats at Sweet Tooth Fairy too. The Kneaders grilled cheese rivaled the one at Boudin in SF... I will need to try both again very soon. Yum! We also swung by Cafe Rio and got Kevin a burrito that I froze and flew home to him. It was so fun to have Shari as my errand running buddy. We got to chat while we drove around and then I didn't have to drag Ryan into every store either. Hooray! 

After all the errands, I went home and helped my mom put the finishing touches on Cat's baby shower... and then the party started! My mom did an awesome job planning the children's book-inspired shower and every detail was perfect! I took way too many pictures to try and capture the fun of the night!

The awesome hostess

The guests of honor- cat & Baby Sophie

The guys hung out downstairs and came up from time to time for food

After partying hard till late Saturday night, Ryan and I got up early Sunday morning to go to church with my parents. I had forgotten church clothes, so I raided Jessie's closet and put together quite an ensemble. I didn't document it and wore my coat over it :)

After church we headed to the airport to fly home!

We grabbed Cafe Rio for lunch at the airport since we hadn't eaten any yet. I am still craving this quesadilla to this day. I have never seen a quesadilla made with so much cheese- ever. I think the lady used like half a bag of shredded cheese. It was delicious!

We were so full that we slept most of the way home!

We were warmly welcomed by the crazy big kids who exclaimed that they missed us... especially baby Ryan!!

I think this past quick trip to Utah was among the best trips I have ever taken... mostly because it involved lots of time to spend with family and friends and lots of food. I feel like my trips to Utah mostly revolve around food. It is probably good I don't live there. I am counting down till we get to go back. Hopefully once we start our master bedroom and bath remodel we can escape to Utah again for a short trip. 

Thanks as always to my mom and dad for being amazing hosts!