Perhaps a Bad Idea

I will begin this post with an adorable but unrelated picture of Natalie. She was headed out for a short trip to the pond with dad to look at the ducks.

And here is what may turn out to be my very bad idea. I got Jansen some bathtub crayons for Christmas. Sometimes he doesn't like to take his bath, and I thought maybe this would move bath time up on the fun scale. He loves them and he especially loves when dad is doing bath time and creates masterpieces for him. I'm just a little worried that from now on if he gets his hands on a crayon, marker, pen, etc. that he will want to draw everywhere. So far we haven't had any problems.

You Will Be Missed Dearly

Today Nate and I made the decision to stop trying to get Jansen to take his naps. For the past little while we have been putting him in his crib in the afternoon for his nap and he just cries and talks and plays for an hour and will not lay down. Today I could hear him talking to himself and he was saying, "Mommy carry Jansen downstairs. That will be fun!" If he were exhausted and ornery in the evenings I would know he still needed the nap and would keep trying, but he seems perfectly happy and rested. Unfortunately. So now we will be begin "quiet time." Instead of putting him in there to nap, I will be helping him learn to stay in there for an hour or so and play by himself. I guess it's an okay situation. I will still get a break, and he will be going to bed a little earlier since he's not napping. Now, having said all this, I know one thing is for sure about children and that is they change. So perhaps we will be starting all over with this in a week, a month, whatever, but for now we are kicking the nap. Sniffle, sniffle.

Natalie was a champ last night though! She went to bed around 6:00! She woke up like 4 times before morning, but how can you complain with a 6:00 bedtime? And so now all of you have been updated on my children's sleeping habits. I just had to get that all out...

A Very Merry Day

Let me start off by showing you this picture of Jansen and his wild imagination. We have here a Thomas the Train pulling a small loaf pan and a Tupperware. They are both carrying a load of "wet wipes coal." I thought it was so funny when Jansen grabbed the pan and Tupperware for Thomas to pull, but when he started filling them up with wet wipes and saying it was coal I about died. He is so entertaining.

Christmas was wonderful. We were SO busy all day that we didn't even have time to think about all that we were missing out on at home. That was a good thing...I spend enough time missing Utah and family every other day of the year! I really enjoyed having a little Christmas with my little family. I loved seeing Jansen open presents and get so excited about everything. Each time he would open one he would just stop and play with it for awhile. The suspense was killing me and I had to keep shoveling the presents at him.

Look at that HOT MAMA in the back! I'm not sure who that is. But she's hot.

Natalie hanging out with her pal Connor.

Jansen loving us for forcing him to be in a picture. Look at that sweet little Julia being so cooperative.

Merry Christmas!

I really wanted some pictures of Jansen and Natalie in their Sunday/Christmas outfits...as you can see it was difficult to catch them both smiling. I promised Jansen a peppermint stick if he smiled in the pictures and he insisted on having it WHILE taking pictures. Natalie was just a good sport and at the mercy of how well Jansen could hold her up. I just love these two. Even if they were both crying like banshees tonight before bedtime

Bathtub Photo Shoot

Family Pictures

I have decided that one of my favorite things about family pictures is the irony of seeing this perfect little picture that DOES NOT tell the story of every moment leading up to or following it. These pictures don't tell of realizing at pretty much the last minute that you don't have shoes to match the boys' outfits and starting ALL OVER in the clothes selection process, madly trying to clean baby spit up stains off Nate's shirt, toddler tantrums as you try to tame hair, the snow, running late and having your appointment "cancelled" but "we'll see if we can fit you in", protecting the baby's outfit from all her many secretions until the photos are taken, the indecision of which package to buy and going BACK to the studio to tell them you've changed your mind and want to look at them all again, finding dinner on the way home because this whole process has taken 3 hours and battling Jansen all the way to PLEASE eat a chicken nugget and then he can have some Frosty. But it was worth it. It always is. But please don't make me do it again for a long time.

The Little Things

It's often the little things that really make my day. Today Jansen and I had a great time building some train tracks for his train out of colored popsicle sticks. He thought it was the neatest thing and told me, "This is great Mommy. Oh boy, Mommy. Oh boy. Thanks for putting glue on the tracks for Thomas." The pictures are a little "hazy" because there were fingerprints on the lens of the camera. I wonder whose little fingerprints they were???

Moms Etc.

Don't you just love moms? I sure love mine and wish I got to see her more often. What a wonderful invention mothers are! My mom flew back to Utah today after spending a couple of days out here with us. It was kind of a mini Christmas since we aren't going home. She gave us one of the greatest presents ever---all our old home videos on DVDs! This is priceless stuff we're talking about...including but not limited to: 6th grade spelling bees, rec soccer games, footage of my brother and I in the bathtub, preschool music programs, several solos sung by yours truly at age 4, etc. I have been worried for years that those old VHS tapes were going to get ruined or worn out, so I am just thrilled to have them on DVD. In other news...Jansen has an ear infection in each ear so we're working on clearing those up and last night Natalie only woke up once to eat and then went back to sleep! I have a feeling it was a fluke, but we'll see!

Jansen, Jansen, Jansen

• Jansen has been a hoot lately. This may be little too much information for some of you, but I thought it was hilarious so I'm sharing it. Yesterday Jansen said, "Mommy feed Jansen" and then climbed up on my lap and laid on the Boppy (as shown in the picture below.) I guess he's feeling deprived that I only nursed him for 3 months. Hah hah.
  
  
• This morning Jansen asked me to a draw a picture of Lightning McQueen on a Magna Doodle type toy. My drawings are always hideous, but he usually puts up with them. As I completed my drawing this morning, he slammed his hand down on the screen and said, "No! This is a mess!"
• Have I mentioned that Jansen loves ketchup? I caught him making this mess today, but I pretty much just let him do what he wanted because the bottle was almost empty and I knew he couldn't do too much damage. Sometimes I think kids just need to be kids.
  
  
  

Here We Go Again...Colds!

I HATE it when my kids are sick. It makes them do things like wake up at 3 in the morning (Jansen seriously did this today) and never go back to sleep. Which means daddy goes and sleeps on the couch while Jansen watches Madagascar. It seems like every winter the colds start coming and they NEVER STOP. I swear Jansen had a cold all winter last year. Which makes it really hard to decide if he should go to nursery, play at a friend's house, etc. in case he may be contagious. And I can't even keep track if he is "contagious" because all the colds just run into each other and I can't tell when one stopped and one started!!!

But winter time means fires in the fireplace and I love that. A few nights ago I sat in front of it and ate peppermint ice cream...what could be better than that! Here are some pictures of the kids SAFELY enjoying the fire. I think they are warming their toes!

A Two Year Old + Wrapped Presents Under the Tree = Unwrapped Presents

Aunt Emily and Uncle Donnie sent some WRAPPED presents all the way out here to Ohio...I guess we got a little over excited about the package and Nate decided to put the presents under the tree where they would stay until we opened them on Christmas. Now, I just have to say that I DID see trouble a brewin' as soon as he put the presents under the tree. But I didn't want to be too bossy about where they should go AND I have a hard time not opening gifts---so if Jansen wanted to do the dirty work, I was secretly okay with it. Well, you can imagine what happened when we weren't watching. He had those things unwrapped in seconds! We loved the gifts Emily and Donnie...thank you. Jansen and I read the Seattle book before bed tonight.

The Enchanted Express

I'd really been looking forward to this night because I knew how much Jansen would enjoy it. We went to the Franklin Park Conservatory and there's an exhibit there that invloves...TRAINS. Jansen's one true love. Check out this picture below...you may not be able to see very well unless you double click on it, but Jansen and Nate have the exact same patterns in their hair. I thought it was worth noting that.

This was our last stop before leaving and Jansen was seriously mesmerized. He stood there and waited for the train to come again over and over. He WOULD NOT leave and I wish I could have seen just how long he would have stood there.

And a little P.S. Natalie is so much happier these days. In some ways it seems like it happened over night. She sleeps in her crib at night and for naps now and I can even put her down while she is still awake (although very drowsy) and she will go to sleep on her own. It's a dream come true. She does not sleep much though---sometimes only an hour and a half all day. Nights are still pretty difficult. Her longest sleep stretch lately is only about 3 hours and she is waking every 2 or 3 hours during the night. She has really taken to her pacifier lately though and is much better at keeping it in. It seems like she channels all her crazy energy into the pacifier and for that I am so grateful.She will sit in her bouncer with the pacifier and actually be content for quite awhile! It is all so strange and unfamiliar to me that I often feel guilty like I am neglecting her or something because I can actually put her down. Sometimes I will pick her up even though she is perfectly content because I feel bad for putting her down for "so long." I know, I'm crazy. Bottom line is...my life is really starting to feel normal again. It is so so nice.

First Snowfall

And a Natalie!

Bear Hugs

I wrapped the arms of this bear around Jansen's neck and told him the bear was giving him a hug. He stood like this for a long time...I think he was waiting for the bear to be finished hugging him.