lazy Sunday

Jessica and her family are officially in Kiev, Ukraine. Mom talked to her yesterday so I posted a picture of Jessica and I when we were in Florence, Italy. Jess and I had a blast in Italy. What a pretty place. She seems so far away already. Although I hardly go to see her for the month she was here because me and my kids were sick for most of her visit. I don't know that I will visit her there with two little kids and all.

The kids and I went over and visited Jami and Carter this morning and then we all went up to Grandma Pat's for lunch. The kids had a high time and Avery just screamed until I finally got her to go to sleep. I had to tkae her into the other room while everyone else ate lunch to nurse her and soothe her. I could hear everyone laughing at Cade and saying I'm sure glad I don't have to take you home. Oh great. Cade decided the best way to eat cottage cheese was to put it in his hair. I don't know why everyone else hasn't figured this out yet. There's worse things. Cottage cheese doesn't stain and it works pretty good as a hair gel when it dries.

Avery is starting to fall into a pretty good sleep pattern at night. Hooray. Enough so that I don't feel like I have to take a nap everyday anymore. Rance is over helping my brother in law Robert fix up his corrals today. So right now the the house is quiet with both kids sleeping. Kind of nice to get a breather. Cade and I finally ate all the Easter candy, not that there was a lot of it, but he still keeps dragging me over to the cupboard wanting "hoc" (chocolate). He gets very upset when I am unable to produce any. So I had to break open a bag of chocolate chips and give him one.

Avery won't take her bottle anymore. Rance was supposed to be working on that today, but he seemed to think working on a corral with Robert is a lot funner than trying to make a hungry mad baby girl drink milk out of a bottle. I'm not sure who ends up more frustrated in the end Rance or Avery. I have also been trying to give her the bottle, but she just thinks I am crazy.

Four more weeks until I go back to work.

Go go go

I probably won't blog so much once I go back to work in a month, but hopefully I will find time to write once a week at least. That is my goal anyway. I'm kind of excited about going back to work and a little bit not. The call part will be zero fun, especially for Rance. He hates it when I am on call and I can't blame him. We both sit around waiting to see if I get called in. Rance would rather be working. I am hoping to get a job with no call in the next year. I didn't mind it before, but now with two little kids it is so hard. The Billings Clinic is planning on opening an outpatient surgery center by next January.


Chance drove his motorcycle over again last night after he got home from school. Cade thinks that is too cool. Chance would race around the driveway in it and Rance would yell "GO go go go" Cade caught on and then he would yell "GO go go go go" Pretty cute. Now Cade probably thinks that he needs a motorcycle and his rocking horse is no longer as exciting.

Little Miss Avery is really growing. She is starting to get much more interactive and interested in what is going on around her. It is fun to see her transition from sleepy cranky newborn to being well on her way to (hopefully) fun baby. I am excited for her hair to get long enough for pigtails. She has to go and get her two month shots next week. Poor Avery! It really sucks watching them get stuck. Cade has to get his 18 month shots on the same day. That is going to be a riot!

Peekabo in the tub!

Cade was having a blast hiding behind the shower curtain in the bath tub then peeking out and yelling BOO. We would act real surprised and then he'd giggle. Then he would go to the other end of the tub and do it again. Good fun. How can you not love baby giggles. I love this stage he is so much fun. Except of course when he is tired and cranky and the only word he knows is NO!

Spring is in the air

Cade really likes the baby reclining chair. He thinks it is a great place to kick back and relax. It cracked me up to find him sitting in it with his legs crossed looking all proud of himself. I had a pretty great day with the kids. Avery slept a lot and by herself mostly too which was really nice, and that meant Cade got lots of time with his momma. That makes him happy! We read books, played trucks, and he helped do a little cleaning. All he wanted to eat today was his Easter candy and drink milk. I did convince him to eat some cheese toast and cereal finally though and for supper he ate lots of corn. Corn might as well be candy for him. He even likes to drink the water the corn is cooked in.

It seems lately every time Cade loses his blanket I find he has left it in the pantry. And I wonder why it is such a mess in there all the time. I have rearranged the pantry so that everything on his level are things that are unopened and can't be spilled. i am still finding grains of rice scattered around in the pantry from when he dumped half a bag of it out.
In the afternoon Avery was sleeping really good so Cade and I snuck outside with the baby monitor. cade got to play with his bucket and shovel. We went to the dog house and feed Cisco. Cade likes to hand feed her. We have to get the dog dish, walk over to the dog food, put some in the dish, walk back to where the dog dish goes, he feeds her a couple pieces, dumps the rest on the ground and then we go get more. Needless to say I only put about ten pieces in the dish at a time. Cade can keep this up for a long time. He finds it very entertaining.
My little lilac bushes are getting leaf buds. Hooray. I can't wait for everything to green up. It looks like most of the lilac bushes Rance and I planted last year survived the winter. I hope the rest of the trees we planted fared as well. Cisco chewed up one of the caraganas but the rest look okay. We have some more trees coming this year to plant. It will be nice when we have some shade trees around the house. hopefully our lawn will start to look more like a lawn and less like a weed patch. It will be nice to get our yard established and have something other than mud, mud, mud everywhere when we go outside.
As I was coming back from my walk last night I ran into Chance (my cousin Wynne's 8yo) on his little battery powered motorcycle. I had him go over to my house to show Cade the bike. Cade couldn't wait to get outside to check it out. It looked like fun, I'm sure his mom is glad it only goes 15 mph.

Easter

Us girls had to get in one more picture together Easter morning with our babies before Jess, Eric and Keenan head off to Kiev for two years. I am going to miss my sister. She tells me they will have an American address and phone number though. They will have some time to come back to the states but who knows when that will be. How cool to get to be in Europe though. Jess and I loved Italy.

It is hard to tell in this picture, but Corinne on the end with Cade is 23 weeks pregnant and due in July and Jami is due in September. Hooray for more cousins. Corinne is having a boy so I hope Jami has a girl so Avery will have a little buddy out here her size to play with. I am so excited for both of them. It is also fun to know that when Corinne has her baby Avery will be close to six months old and will be close to crawling and sitting up. When Jami has hers Avery should be crawling and Cade will be almost two years old! Really puts things in perspective. I will be sleeping so much better than Jami and Corinne will be! Rance and I managed to get up at seven Easter morning, shower and get both kids out the door by eight oclock for Easter breakfast at my mom and dad's house. I thought that was pretty good. I was hungry and of course Avery decided she wanted her breakfast when everyone else did so I sat and fed her while I listened to everyone else eating breakfast. Mom then held Avery while I ate my cold french toast and eggs, the hash browns were still warm though. After breakfast we sat around and the kids stole toys from each other. We did manage to get a couple of pictures of them all together, but we never could get them to all look at the camera at the same time and smile. Avery soon started crying and Cade tried to bite Keenan's ear so this was the best picture I got.
We had a going away party Saturday night in Huntley for Jess with all the family and an easter egg hunt for the kids which Cade thought was great. He had already made the discovery about brightly colored eggs containing candy and chocolate. He managed to get quite a few thanks to Auntie Linda's frequent reminders to the older kids not to hog up all the eggs. I had to hide them when we got home because that of course was all he wanted and some of the chocolates he didn't like. I was finding little pieces of half chewed up chocolate all over the house. It looked like pieces of you know what.. gross! Cade made out pretty well for Easter he got a bucket and shovels etc, from Landa (babysitter) Grandma Debbie and me and Rance. We should have enough to last halfway through summer!
Avery also had a big day, she took a bottle for the first time. This is very exciting. Now maybe Rance and I can out to dinner with no kids. We haven't done that in...? Or I can go for a hair cut. oh the possibilities!

Cade wins the bottle again

We spent most of Friday morning down at my momma's, hanging out with Jess and Keenan and Carter was there too. Most importantly I got to take a shower without hurrying. When I got out of the shower I could hear a lot of commotion and crying, but it was soon quieted and when I came out of the bathroom I discovered why. cade was happily sucking on a bottle and here I had been so proud of him for only having one naptime bottle the day before. I can't blame Mom though I have been known to give Cade a bottle or two to placate him when he is upset. He just always gets so excited and happy when he sees you are getting him a bottle. He will lay on the floor with his blanket in one hand and bottle in the other just as happy as can be.

Friday night Vashti and her friend Seeley came over and spent the night, which was a wonderful help especially since they got up Saturday morning and cleaned my house for my. Nothing quite like a little money bribe! Cade took a while to warm up to the girls and absolutely refused to take his bath while they were here, which is funny because he loves playing in the tub and it usually is a struggle to get him out of it. They were also great with entertaining Avery.

I decided this picture was just too precious to not post, I just wish it wasn't so bright in the background. I sure love my little boy.

Sleep battles

Avery is a snuggler. That is code for she doesn't want to be set down especially if she is sleeping. SO all day we go round and round. I wait till she falls asleep and then put her in the bassinet. After backing quietly out of the room I run and get something done real quick like fold towels or wash my face, by the time I have the task done she is usually awake and mad. SOOO I pick her up and carry her around until she falls asleep again. Cade also lays in wait for these opportunities when I put her down. He sees my arms are empty and gives me his biggest smile, puts his arms up and says "Momma, Momma up!" It is hard trying to sneak in enough snuggle time with him too. Every now and then I get lucky and Avery will stay down for a couple of hours. I am determined to have her sleep by herself. Cade was always a great sleeper so this is a little bit frustrating. Cade even says "thank you " when you put him in his crib at night now. She sleeps so much better in bed with me at night but I don't want her in bed with me. I sleep better with her in the bassinet...when she sleeps in it. I usually give in and end up with her happy.We sit on the floor with Avery a lot and read books, play trucks, or play with Cades's barn animals. He has been wanting to hold Avery lately. I make him sit on the floor and help support her in his lap. He bends over smothers her in kisses and then is ready to move on to the next thing.
We have started trying to get Avery to take a bottle, of course she is not impressed at all. We have five weeks left to get her convinced. It took Cade a couple weeks to convince him. Cade has a fascination with plugging things in. I walked around a corner yesterday and found Cade had plugged in the baby monitor and was really proud of himself, but he knows he isn't supposed to be playing with plug in so he gave me his best "that's really funny huh mom" grin. Which is pretty hard to resist.

The one time Avery has really slept good so far has been all around Walmart in her car seat. So I hope she keeps that up at least until I get her on the bottle. I can't imagine trying to breastfeed in walmart, although I've made sure I know where the dressing rooms are just in case.

So far I have discovered two things tha really scare Cade. They are both at mu sister Jami's house. One is a toy cow that when you turn it on it makes sick mooing noises and the other is Purple Carrots (Carter's rabbit). Although I think he will get over them both some day, I hope. Cade was halfway past the rabbits cage when he noticed there was something hairy and alive in there with big ears. I couldn't convince him to come anywhere near the animal to see that it really was harmless. Of course he had his near death experience with the animal while I was trying to breastfeed Avery, so I couldn't just jump up and smooth it over right away.

Avery is a snuggler, that is the affectionate way of saying she wants to be held all the time thankyou very much. So I finally remembered I had a baby bjorn and she loves it. I did dishes and cleaned the house with her in it and she slept nearly the whole time, waking up only when I tried to sit down and eat supper.

Cade is fascinated with Avery and today he really wanted to hold her. So I sat with him on the floor and helped him hold her and he smothered her in kisses. He also tried to stick his finder down her throat to see how far it would go. Avery didn't like that very well, but she seems to tolerate his poking and proddings pretty well.

Fresh Air

Hooray, I finally got to go for a walk outside BY MYSELF!! It was so nice out last night and when Rance got home from work Avery was sleeping and so I announced I was going for a walk. Rance asked if I was going to take Cade out with me. Are you kidding?! I put my shoes and coat on and snuck out the door before Cade even realized what I was doing. Freedom!! It feels like I have been so cooped up in the house between being sick and the weather not being nice enough to take Avery outside. It was so nice, no one tugging at me. It wasn't a long walk but it was great for the mental health. I could have kept on walking all night, but I knew at some point Avery would wake up and want some dinner. We are going to start working on the bottle this week now that we are all feeling better. Six weeks till I go back to work, so hopefully she won't be too hard to convince her that a bottle is a way way to get nourishment. Cade took a couple of weeks before he took it really good.

I went down to Mom's this morning and hung out for a couple of hours .Cade likes it when there is someone who wants to hold Avery so he can have his momma to himself for a little while. We went out and looked at the cows and Clint took him for a four wheeler ride. Not to mention all the cool rocks we had to pick up and put in the wagon. Plus there is a great shop for riding tricycles in. Not that he can reach the pedals, but it makes it easier for Mom to push him. Keenan is 9 months younger than Cade and only about 4 pounds lighter, that kid likes to eat. Cade on the other hand is a fussy eater and would if he had any say just have his bottles of "mulk" and hershey kisses.

No nap for me

I noticed Cade and Avery were both wearing yellow today so I made them take some pictures together. Cade seems to really like to give Avery kisses. I should be trying to take a nap right now but it seems like every time I lay down the phone rings or I have to get up and get a drink of water or Avery wakes up, etc so I have given up on a nap because now I am certain Cade will wake up just as soon as I start to doze off and I just can't bear to be teased by an almost nap one more time today. So this is only my third blog, but they all mention sleep. Are we seeing a theme here? Maybe I should go to the Holiday Inn. The purpose of this blog actually was to mess around with pictures. I can't seem to get them where I want them, so you'll probably continue to see my blogs with pictures placed weird for awhile.

The Holiday Inn Express

Between being sick and Avery not sleeping all night I have been pretty exhausted. So the other night when I got Avery to sleep early Eight oclock I laid down too but for the nmext hour it seemed like every ten minutes or so one of us would cough, wake Avery up and I would have to get her all settled again. After an hour of this I was getting pretty cranky. Rance came in to go to bed and it seemed to me like he was being really noisey. So when she woke up as soon as he was settled in bed I picked up Avery to settle her once more, turned to Rance and said, if she wakes up one more time, you can put her back to sleep and i will go and get some sleep at the Holiday Inn express. There was a rather big silence from him and then finally a "Are you okay?" I keep dreaming about how nice it would be to have all the time in the world to get ready for bed and then crawl into bed and sleep without anyone bothering me for twelve hours.. wishful thinking.

Rance's mom Dee was here Tuesday night until Thursday morning which was really nice. I think Cade really liked that she held Avery a lot and that freed up me to play and snuggle with him. I could see how having a nanny or someone living with you would be sooo helpful. Someone to help with dishes while you feed the baby, someone to hold the baby while you do laundry or anything.

Have to start somewhere

Both of the kids are sleeping...yoohoo! So I thought I would give this a go. I decided last night about the third time I dragging myself up out of bed to get Avery that if Rance really wants to have another kid, which he thinks that he does, that one will just have to survive on formula and Rance can have the great privilege of performing all the night duties while I lay in bed next to him and pretend to sleep. When I informed him of my great plan this morning he though I was kidding. At this point I'm really not. It's so much fun to look over and see him resting or whatever while I am feeding, rocking and otherwise trying to convince Avery her best option at the moment is sleep. I don't see a whole lot of point in asking him to help because it seems like whenever I give her to him in such moments she soon starts to cry and Rance becomes very certain Avery is hungry and promptly hands her back to me..thanks. I have also come to the conclusion that after your first child you sort of gloss over or forget how horrible the first couple of weeks are because you get to nap during the day whenever they do, but with number 2 there is no napping unless you can convince them both to be sleepy at the same time and then I lay there paranoid that someone is going to decide they really aren't all that tired.

Cade got sick a week and a half ago, then Avery got sick, then me and then Rance. Of course by the time Cade felt better we were just getting sick. Rance and I spent most of the weekend and Monday on the couch feeling sorry for ourselves. Mostly I was really glad when Avery started doing better Sunday night. It is so scary when babies are sick. No thanks. So by Monday my house was a disaster zone and Rance's mom is coming in today for a visit. When i told Jami this she came right over with pork chops and cleaned my bathrooms while I made supper and cleaned the kitchen. Hooray for sisters! Carter also came over and Cade decided that Avery was his sister and Carter shouldn't be trying to kiss her.

I was able to get most of the rest of the house cleaned up this morning while Cade went down to Landa's. Now I just have to figure out what I am going to cook for supper. I haven't been grocery shopping for two weeks so that will be fun. It will be fun to have Rance's mom here so the someone can hold the baby while I get stuff done!