Both Hands Full

I’ll tell you, I think this is the most excited I have been in my life to see poop–Kimi went in the toilet! And she did it all on her own, I didn’t even need to coax her. So I think I might try potty training again next week after we go to Vegas this weekend. Kimi was so proud of herself, it was so cute. It’s definitely a start!

P.S. It was so cute, in her prayers last night, among being thankful for several random things like her clean sheets and Uncle Brady’s big clock, she said she was thankful that she went poop in the toilet. Don’t you just love kids?

So, I’m so proud of myself. I found these pants at DI, with a button adjustable waist, for 3 bucks. I got an idea from a friend. This is the before picture……..

And this is the after picture:

Kimi loves them! I’m not a great seamstress by any means, so please do not look up too close. For a play skirt, I think it should work.

I didn’t even have to tell her to model…she must be a natural.

Kimi loves to read Noah books. Noah’s personality is such that he will do whatever, as long as he gets food and paid attention to. He doesn’t even cry when Kimi sits on him.  He’s such a big boy and she’s such a dainty slim girl that I doubt it would hurt him anyway. I’m the one that has a hard time with my almost 3 year old sitting on my 5 month old.

Does that face show pure delight or what? She stayed up a little too late tonight and helped Dad catch night crawlers out of our flower garden.

Helping Kimi say her prayers tonight:

Me: We’re thankful for Mom, Dad, and Noah.

Kimi: And my wormies.

Me: We’re thankful for our house.

Kimi: And my wormies.

Me: Please bless us to sleep good.

Kimi: And bless my wormies to sleep good.

Me: And help us to be like Jesus.

Kimi: And bless my wormies to sleep good.

Me: Ok……..and bless my wormies to sleep good.

Kimi giggles and finally will continue with the prayer.

Here she is holding on for dear life, so proud of those slimy things.

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The only way I got her to let go of them was to convince her that they needed to go to sleep in the fridge.

On May 18, 2001 Mike and I were married in Portland, OR. You can’t help but reminisce on your anniversary, which ours landed on a Sunday this year. We instead decided to celebrate it on Saturday the 17th so that we could get babysitters and actually go on a real date. We went and saw two movies (Forbidden Kingdom, and Iron Man–the latter is WAY good, first isn’t bad), and ate at our favorite Japanese restaurant Asukas (pretty good with what Utah Valley has to offer). Thanks to the Provo siblings who traded off and watched our kids! So here’s a few pictures for family and friends to enjoy how things were 7 years ago the weekend of our wedding.

As I was taking too long to get ready for the reception, Mike being ready hours before, had Uncle Alan take some pictures to pass the time.

Love the bowtie

Flying Brock with his responsible Dad. Kristin, here’s a picture to add to your post a while back about Rob breaking that rule “Don’t throw your child high up into the air.”

My lovely bridesmaids and Mike’s bestman Cameron. Ok, my sisters have grown. I hardly recognize Katelyn.

My beautiful wedding cake by Kaye Freeman. Not only did she do a fantastic job, it was SUPER yummy. I’m not totally into eating wedding cakes with all the frosting, but this one was GOOOOD. I knew it was good because by the time we got back from our honeymoon the family saved us only one piece.

Wendi and her “friend” Mike

Little Madie–Ok, she’s REALLY grown.

Rob and Kristin’s cute little family. Brock was such a cute little baby!

My wonderful parents 🙂

My great photographer Uncle Alan

Grandpa Ozaki

Jared and Jen (a.k.a. “Twenty”) with Aunt Lisa. Sorry Jen, I couldn’t find one of you guys posing on my CD.

Rey and Wendy

Robert and Paula, my GREAT Father in law and GREAT Mother in law

Us with our pink noses. We were freezing by the end of the reception.

What a great guy I married. Here’s to many more great years ahead.

I had my neighbor spend about 5 minutes and take some quick snapshots of our kids and our family this afternoon. Surprisingly they cooperated. Here’s a few. Thanks Rebecca for the pictures!! Tomorrow we are getting together with some friends for some yummy Mexican food since it’s the Cinco de Mayo. It’s more just an excuse to get together for some good food with some good friends.

It needed to happen. I have been very skeptical about giving him a haircut, but he needed it. He was sporting a nice comb-over, and it also needed to be trimmed around his ears. So Mike got out his hair trimmers and did it. Noah was very chill the whole time, which made it a lot nicer for all of us. Kimi thought it was fun, so she got into the hair mess too, so we ended up putting them both in the bath after he was done. Here are the pictures:

BEFORE #1

BEFORE #2

AFTER!!!

And I have to say that I am quite pleased. It almost looks more full after taking a bunch of his hair off (I saved it for his baby book, how sappy is that). Look at those 92 percentile chubs! He’s also 92 percentile for height. Did I mention that he is now 18 pounds? Sheesh, I’m hoping he slows down soon. But I am getting quite the arm muscles from toting him around. I need to post another picture of him naked sitting up, his rolls almost hold him up (he’s still not quite ready to sit up by himself yet–he’s only 4 months).

So, today Kimi showed yet another piece of her persistent and headstrong personality. She likes to get into Noah’s bouncer seat, kind of like an exer-saucer, and most of the time she has a hard time getting out of it. So, this morning I was feeding Noah right before his nap, and she needed help getting out. She yells, “Help mom, help!” I told her that I would help her as soon as Noah finished his bottle and I put him down for his nap. She kept saying, “help, help, help, help.” I’ve learned to ignore her most of the time when it’s really not that important, especially when she does know how to get out of that chair. Except this time after me ignoring her for a minute, she said, “Timeout, mom, Timeout!” I looked right at her and said, “What did you tell me?” She said a little quieter, but very audible, “Timeout mom!” I guess she’s smarter than she looks, since she obviously knows that when she doesn’t do what I ask her to, I threaten her with the favorite word “timeout.”  Oh pray for Mike and I in about 10 years when she enters the wonderful world of teenagers.

Ok, so I have to update any of those who are interested that Noah is sleeping MUCH better.  Mike and I decided we would let him cry to minimize his night wakings, and it WORKED.   It is probably one of the hardest things I’ve done to let my kids cry, but after two or three nights they have it figured out. They are much happier and more rested, and I as a mommy am MUCH happier and can function like a normal person.  Before when he was waking up every hour or two, I wasn’t functioning–I was irritable, easily upset, emotional…I couldn’t even carry on an intelligent conversation because I couldn’t think of the simplest words to say.  Maybe that’s how it’s like to be on marijuana. 🙂

So, life is much better in our household.  I think that I’ve still been the most pleased with the principles from the sleep book “Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child.”  One of the things I like about it is that it is organized into different age group sections.  So if you run into problems at any age you can refer to this for suggestions.

Anyways, so now Noah has at least a 6 hour stretch, and another 3 or 4 hour stretch after that.  He’s still got a bit to go, but he has definitely improved.   Thanks for all your help and suggestions.

Ok, so we’ve been having a rough time lately with the sleeping issue. Noah has started some BAD sleeping habits, and it’s driving me insane. I feel like I am honestly not me right now because I have no patience for my children, and I am turning into a mean mommy. This is not the person I want to be. Noah takes maybe 45 minute naps, and wakes up still tired, but won’t go back to sleep. At night I don’t think it has ever been this horrible. He is up about every hour, but for sure every 2. But it’s not like it has been like this for the last week or so, it has been like this since he was born. I haven’t gotten more than 2 hours of sleep in a row since before he was born. Last night he was up about every half an hour from 12:30 to 3:00am.

Kimi was a bad sleeper, but we trained her with the guidelines from “Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child” by Marc Weissbluth, which we LOVED and highly recommend it to anyone. But, you can’t go all out, really, until they are about 4 months old and understand sleeping by the clock a little better. We let Kimi cry at night when she was 3 1/2 months old, and it kinda backfired on us. She cried for 3 HOURS! (but that’s nothing compared to the 5 hours she cried one night when she was about 18 months old). And she would have kept going, but we went in an got her. Once she turned four months old things just kinda clicked, and we let her cry when she wasn’t supposed to get up, and after two or three nights, she had it figured out and slept wonderfully.

Noah doesn’t turn 4 months old for another 2 1/2 weeks, but I think I am gonna go nuts before then. I think it all started when he had jaundice and I had to set an alarm and wake him up every 2 hours to feed him. But now he just wakes up to wake up. He’ll eat a couple of ounces each time. Does anyone have any advice? Has anyone let their child cry for long periods of time at Noah’s age?

Noah is growing by the day, literally. We’ve been dealing with food issues with him lately. The formulas we’ve tried just haven’t seemed to work, plus we think he still has acid reflux too. Definitely frustrating. But, thanks to a tip from SIL Kristin, today we tried Nestle’s Good Start, and Noah likes the taste and it doesn’t seem to bother his tummy like the others. It seems to be closer to breastmilk than any others we’ve tried. We’re crossing our fingers that this one works for him. I’m hoping that once we get his eating under control, I’ll get a little more than 1 1/2 hours in a row of sleep at night.

When I put these two together I can see similarities finally, or at least that they are brother and sister.