Baby Kisses and Feet

Hell Must Have Frozen Over

...because I have been domesticated!

During the past week I have made multiple home-cooked meals, cleaned my entire house (all right, I admit that I still have 1/2 bathroom to go), baked a cheesecake, did 50 loads of laundry (you probably think I'm exagerating, but the actual number is way closer to this than you might think), and did my best at raising and entertaining two boys (ok, three). I have to admit, there was a time when I would have never thought that I would do any of these things! Let alone that I would enjoy every one of them! I also was able to make omelets while our company was here on Sunday, which is a huge feat considering that usually it's a struggle just to get a couple frozen waffles in the toaster while balancing my kids. Speaking of which, this was the breakfast of choice this morning and I had to take Owen's away to punish him for continuously screaming at me that I didn't give him enough syrup. We're working on the screaming and making some good progress! Owen went to school this morning and his teacher says that he's by far the best at cutting and pasting. He made perfect little triangles to glue on to the back of his dinosaur. And I know I'm not supposed to compare my kids to others, but his teacher set me up for a "nana-nana-nana, my kids a genious" moment.... so I had to take it!

Anyway....

Some other stuff that's been going on: We went bowling on Sunday night and had a lot of fun. I used the bumpers just as often as Owen!

Sutton's whole way of life is changing on a daily basis. He's getting better and better at sleeping and we finally have him on a pretty regular sleep schedule. Yesterday he had his first taste of solid food. Pretty messy! His stomach seemed to be upset by it and he didn't sleep well though (urgh, maybe his parents should have waited until he was used to his new sleeping schedule). I'm not sure if we should try again today or wait a little while to continue. We also got out the Jumperoo. If anybody has a baby or has one on the way, I definitely recommend! The Jumperoo is my favorite baby invention. Owen loved bouncing away on it and it seems that Sutton will too. I've taken pictures of him in it and him eating, but I'll have to post those later.

We have a lizard that comes and visits us on our window almost everyday around 12. I think it's so interesting that he always comes back; I think he likes to sunbathe and eat there. Owen calls him his lizard friend and thinks he comes to watch Owen eat. It's nice because it helps Owen to eat all of his food so that the lizard can watch. Yesterday there was a bird on the bush during breakfast and Owen said the lizard told him to come and meet Owen and watch him eat. Here is a picture of Owen with his friend:

Owen got a golf set for Christmas from my parents and below are some shots of him playing in the backyard (please ignore our lovely landscaping).

The Approach:

The Follow-thru:

The cries that followed when he broke off the head of the golf club (he's screaming "no pictures", what a mean mommy with that camera!):

The Victory Stride after some tape fixed the golfclub and all was right with the world once again:

And, oh yeah, I almost forgot: just when you thought I had been completely housebroken, I have a job interview next week!

Baby Overload

Here's a bunch of baby blue eyes that I'm posting just for fun:

Happy Birthday Kierstyn!

Saturday was Kierstyn's 3rd birthday and I just want to say: Happy Birthday Kiki!

Kierstyn is the best at making everyone around her smile and is the greatest cousin my kids could every have (although her first competition is on his or her way)! We went to Peter Piper Pizza to celebrate on Friday and are looking forward to her birthday party next weekend!

Colin's mom, grandma, and Aunt Sharon came into town this weekend. We had a lot of fun, ate some really yummy food, and played cards. We took a few pictures, unfortunately we didnt get any of Sharon but here's some of the rest of us.

Sutton playing with his Daddy

Sutton with Grandma

Sutton with Super Grandma Billerbeck

One of these days I might figure out how to put on makeup before pictures are being taken. But, this is one of few pictures of me with my baby, so I had to post it.

Another of me and Sutton

Our two babies.

Sutton had a UofA outfit on for all of 30 minutes before he peed all over it. So, I think it's safe to say he made his own choice. I'm just so proud he made the right one! Go Sundevils!!

Our Shopping Spree

I try to avoid taking my kids to the grocery store with me because it's impossible to fit everything in the cart with Sutton in it with his car seat (and you better believe I'm not using the germ-filled grocery store baby seats!) and it's just plain impossible when I have Owen (I think this needs no explanation why). But, this morning I took Sutton to the grocery store while Owen was at preschool. I snapped this picture with my phone... you should have seen how funny we looked. The bottom of the cart was fully loaded and spilling out and Sutton's shade was caving in from the weight of the paper towels I had to put on top of him after I took this pic. Poor little guy wasn't too happy about it either. Anyway, I've been cooking A LOT at home lately. And actually edible meals, too! I can tell that Colin thinks I make a little bit too much chicken, so I decided to branch out of my recipe comfort zone. As I'm writing this, I have meatball and vegetable stew cooking in the crock pot! And who knew how easy it was to use a crockpot? It's my new favorite thing. I've also bought ingredients to make minestrone soup in it. My fridge is overflowing with vegetables....mmm. I can't wait. But you know I couldn't go totally healthy... I also got ingredients to make a cheesecake this weekend.

By the way... sorry about the overly wordy posts of late! Now that both of my kids are napping at the same time, I don't have anybody to talk to!

My Two Little Angels

What a difference two days can make! I think that Tuesday's venting session was good for me because after ranting on about my seamingly possessed children, we've all done much better the last couple of days. I'm back to thinking that my babies are perfect little angels. I think my mood is totally dependent on whether Owen takes a nap; and I also think he totally knows that he has this superpower!

Some things that have changed my perspective and made my heart swell:

• I keep remembering this conversation that I had with Owen on Sunday: Owen- "Mommy, why are we going to church?" Me- To worhsip God. Owen- "But how did he get dirty and what are we going to use to wash him?"


• Every time Sutton's crying (usually in the car) I hear Owen say to him, "Oh, it's OK Sutton, Mommy and Owen are here." Awe, tear.


• And last, but definitely not least: EVERY time I look at Sutton he gets the biggest, happiest grin on his face! How could I not smile back!

I've really tried to enjoy my time with the kids lately, especially since I know that at some point here I'm actually going to get a job and have to leave them. So, Owen and I have done a lot of fun things around the house lately. Including lots of painting, bike riding, and cooking. One of our favorites is to set up all his trains on the coffee table and then have Sutton "walk" and knock them all off. I wonder what our neighbors think when they hear us screaming: "Look out... here comes the giant baby monster!" Sutton is so smiley and easy-going during the day that it's really tempting to just put him down and try to get stuff done around the house. But, I'm trying to instead get down on the floor with him and enjoy his world with him. I know he's getting big way too fast and I don't want to miss anything. Those of you who know me know how hard it is for me to ignore stuff like cleaning my house and doing my hair and makeup. HAHA! Ok, so maybe that part is easy.

Anyway... here's an update on our sleeping situation: Tuesday night I told Owen no more food until the sun comes up! He didn't cry for as long as I thought (thanks to Colin for dealing with him), and then last night he slept through the night!! He woke up a little early (6am) because he had to go potty... but that's more than fine with me.
I read in a baby book that 90% of babies sleep through the night by 3 months. 90%! This made me so sick I almost threw up!! I mostly feel disgusted by it because neither of my kids were even close to this... so it must be my fault!! Aagghh! Help, I broke my kids! So, I decided that it was time. Sorry Sutton. I read that if you want your kids to sleep through the night, they have to beable to self-soothe. And if you want them to beable to self-soothe, they have to beable to fall asleep on their own. Wow, sounds so simple... and yet I hadn't done anything to get Sutton to beable to do any of these things! So, last night instead of letting Sutton be the high-maintenance sleeper that he is, we decided to put him down awake and let him cry it out. This was a little complicated by the fact that while trying to keep him awake later so that he would be tired, he totally just conked out in my arms. So, I had to wake him up and feed him so that he would be able to fall asleep on his own. We did the whole thing where you comfort him after 1 minute, then 5, then 10, etc. And comfort him cannot mean picking him up. It took about an hour of this, but then he went to sleep!!! By himself!! I think it was a mini miracle. Anyway, I still did his two feedings in the night because I figure we better just work on one step at a time. But, we did the same thing whenever he woke up and it wasn't time to eat... and he fell asleep without us picking him up everytime!!

So... I think we're on our way to some actual sleep!

Warning: Do Not Read If You Don't Have Kids

...or you might never take the plunge into parenthood! Some of you find amusement in my misery, so I thought I'd take a moment to describe just a few of the things my kids have done already this week:

• Owen threw a bowl of raisins at my head while screaming that he wanted his snack in a cup.


• Sutton has pooped on me... twice.


• Sutton has spit up on me, my clothes, my carpet, my furniture, and my car... 327 times.


• Owen dirtied about 10 pairs of underwear and diapers in a 2 hour period because he refused to sit on the toilet to poop and insisted that he be changed everytime he went a little bit. Oh yeah, this was all about an hour into bedtime. Needless to say we were all a little cranky.


• Owen (along with his tag-teaming cousin) screamed at my sister incessently for five minutes that he "wanted gatorade right now". We eventually had to go home to stop the madness.


• Owen clogged the toilet.


• Owen threw his toy car into the clogged toilet. (NOT a fun combination!)


• Owen, a.k.a. "Keeper of the Pacifier", is normally really good at keeping Sutton calm in the car (riding in the car is Sutton's least favorite activity, to put it mildly); however, during our worst excursion to date, Sutton was screaming at the top of his lungs and Owen took his pacifier and threw it all the way to the back... we were still 10 minutes from home.


• Sutton still wakes up every 3 hours to eat. On a good night. You don't want to know what happens on a bad night. Now, added to this, Owen gets up at least once to use the bathroom. I'm really excited that he's not wetting the bed, but part of me preferred the extra laundry over what's now happening. Usually after he goes to the bathroom, he insists that he's hungry. Now, this is just like when he was 8 months old and waking up still to eat... it was just easier to feed him than to not. So, we keep giving him some food, even though we know it would be better for all of us if we stopped this pattern now. Not exactly mother-of-the-year material, but it's the rut we're now in.


• I'm not even going to go into all of the typical tantrums that have also occured

The really scary part is that Colin and I were just saying last night how good Owen has been the last couple weeks. I'm glad I didn't stop to think about it during a bad week!

So, every night it's pretty much every man for himself around here. Any time one of the kids wakes up, Colin and I both pause in hopes that the other one's gonna get up. And, when one of us does finally get up, I don't think it would be good for our marriage if the other one could hear what we mutter under our breath. Sutton usually ends up in our bed around 4am. And, for the first time ever, we were desperate enough to do the same thing with Owen last night after one of his potty breaks. If you've never slept in a bed with 4 people, I don't recommend it. Especially if one of them likes to kick and squirm. Good thing we upgraded to the king size last year! If anyone has some recommendations on getting either of my kids to sleep better... I'd definitely like to hear!

Oh So Cute

Here are some pictures of the boys in their matching outfits that my mom got. They played on Owen's bed together for awhile and I took about a million pictures. I know this is way too many pictures of the same thing, but I think they're all adorable and I couldn't choose. If I'm posting this many, just imagine how many I have that I'm not!

Owen has kind of an evil grin in this pic, but I think it's cute.

And even more pictures!

My friend Stacia had a baby boy, Jonas, the same day as I had Sutton. This is Sutton sitting in Jonas' Bumbo chair. He really loved it.

This is the boys on the way to Oskar's birthday party (Stacia's other son). With the exception of a few times that they've had to be seperated to punish Owen for being naughty (aka throwing Sutton's pacifier to the back of the car), the boys usually sit next to eachother in the car. What's funny, is I think the reason I like this picture is because neither of them are smiling. We actually don't have many of those.

This is Sutton watching football with Colin. He's really trying to pull himself all the way up to sit.

Happy boys.

We went over to Ryan and Jill's to visit with Colin's grandmother and Aunt Sharon that came into town from Iowa. Brandon has a baby sister coming in March (or maybe February?!?) and he's so cute with Sutton.

Owen hanging out in his room.

Sutton at Makutu's

Carrie and Sutton were buddies for most of the time we were there, which Sutton was very excited about.

Looking a little worried; but we know he loves his cousin.

Makutu's Island

There's a great place in Chandler called Makutu's Island full of 30 ft. slides, rope ladders, tunnels, and all sorts of adventure. Carrie and I took Owen and Kierstyn there last week (and Sutton was along for the ride, too). Owen was a little bit of a scaredy-cat as usual, but got over it after watching Kierstyn go full speed ahead towards everything in sight. Most of the stuff there is intended for 5-10 year olds so I had to climb along with them and help with the more difficult parts. The kids had a blast, but next time we choose an activity I'm definitely choosing one that is less labor-intensive for myself. I have multiple bruises as proof of all my efforts. It was hard to take good pictures in the middle of all the action, but here are a few.

At first Owen spent most of his time in this toddler area that is full of giant soft blocks and small slides. He really enjoyed it because he made a few new friends.

The kids looking into one of the tunnels. Owen's really into pretending there's monsters everywhere.

Looking out of one of the caves.

Kierstyn taking a rare break.

You can barely see them, but this is Carrie and Kierstyn in a tunnel ladder.

Kierstyn makes this face a lot trying to be silly, I think it's hilarious.

Kierstyn climbing.

Owen was so excited when he found this smaller (about 10ft) slide that he could climb too by himself; so they did this repeatedly for quite awhile. Owen's face says it all-- you should definitely look at this pictures full size!