Oo-de-lally

We've had a crazy couple of weeks. We've had some serious fun, some serious stress, and some serious development. I'm just tryin' to tell it like it is, or was, or whatever...

We built a fort for date night one evening, complete with Chex Muddy Buddies, Oceans Thirteen, blankets, pillows, and cardboard boxes. It was a blast, especially when my sister came to crash the party! We love you ACE!

We may have gotten grad school applications in a month ago, but not the transcripts. This prompted a serious FHE on planning. Now we have our family plans/goals all in order, complete with visuals.

Cpc did some serious developing. He hit so many milestones in the past two weeks, I can hardly keep up with him now!

It started with mastering the full crawl (finally)! However, he still rarely uses this skill, it is clearly too slow for him!

Then overnight he learned to pull himself up to standing. This is how I found him at 6:00am one morning. I had never even seen him try this!

He learned to feed himself. I'm quite pleased with this one because it makes him eat slow enough to digest his food, so he gets full faster! Maybe he won't eat us out of house & home?

He prefers to walk everywhere. He recognizes that this is much faster than crawling. So, if he wants to get somewhere, he whines until you will come and help him walk. Most of the time however, the process of whining and waiting for someone to come get him, and then the actual walking takes longer than it would if he would just crawl!

He learned to crawl up the stairs. I actually just tried this out with him this morning, thinking maybe it would motivate him to crawl more. Well, he picked up the skill in a matter of minutes. We didn't have stairs in our last place, and the stairs in this place aren't exactly part of our apartment, so we didn't think to try it till now. We'll have to get a picture of that later.

Some other random details from the past few weeks include: cpc growls like a bear whenever he is playing by himself perfectly content, has learned to jump really well in the johnny-jump-up, an walk along the edge of furniture, learned to chew very well, he jabbers to himself while playing with toys, sings while I'm teaching violin lessons, watches me or pmc whenever a non-parent of his is present, smacks his tray when we aren't feeding him fast enough, talks to himself in bed when he wakes up, can go from laying to sitting to crawling to standing and any combination of the above with ease, doesn't wake up wide-awake from 2-5am anymore, needs salt on his green beans & cinnamon on his peaches but loves all food, gets a huge smile whenever dad comes home from work/school, loves showers, jumps in our arms when he's really happy, still has the cutest shoulder dimples, has lost his forehead crinkles, loves going on morning walks in the new stroller, loves the new toy-chest daddy made him for Christmas, totally digs playing the piano, can balance on his rocking horse, thinks that snow is really intriguing and that it should land on your face, and generally still has the same "love for life & learning" that he was born with!

The shoulder dimples.

Something we've found very interesting over the past few weeks is that we are a morning family. Our favorite time of day (as long as we went to bed on time, which we are much better at) is when we wake up in the morning. It's usually about 7:30-8:00, and cpc comes into bed with us and plays and laughs and giggles. Then we all read scriptures together and head to the kitchen for breakfast and family prayer, before sending pmc off to work/school. This is our most cherished time of the day right now, and we hope to be able to implement it with all our kids. We are lucky to have such a special routine to start our day off right!

Are you Kidding me?

I know you probably all think we're crazy, but we are hoping and planning for 7 kids. If it doesn't happen it won't be the end of the world. We won't do it unless we feel like we can really provide for their needs, emotionally, physically & spiritually. But we really do want to do so!

I just found something I think has hit the top of my list in baby products, and I have a (slim) chance of winning it. It's the "Bumblride" stroller. It's on the "I Never Grew Up" website (how cool is the name of that website?). Make sure you watch the movie to see how cool it is, and then check out the cool "I Never Grew Up" website. It's pretty sweet!

A Day in the Life of the Mother of a Boy

So I'm sure it's totally possible for this to happen with a girl too.....but it just seemed like the kind of thing for a boy to do!

Actually the story began on Thursday. Pmc and I had decided that for our Anniversary gifts to each other, we would buy ourselves new sheets & a matching duvet. We have been slow on the process of choosing them and getting them ordered, but they finally arrived on Thursday. Now, to limit the number of loads of laundry I do, I usually only wash the sheets every other week. So for us, as of last night, we still had clean sheets.

Skip to Saturday. After a few weeks of giving cpc a break for not sleeping well at night, we decided there was something more to his not sleeping than the move. We decide that maybe cpc is not getting enough food (solids & milk), and decide to load him up a little more during the day. The reasons for this decision are many, but the main one being that he only stops eating when there is no more food to give him ( literally, he eats 10+ ounces in a sitting, at least 4 times a day, plus all the breastmilk).

Sunday, we feed him TONS of extra food, and I offer him breastmilk like 8 times (of which he happily partakes). 11:00pm cpc falls asleep on his own, Mom & Dad cruise to bed.

Monday 6:00am (after a few more night-wakings than are preffered), I hear him crying. I roll over and ask pmc to go get him and bring him in with us to eat. Pmc comes in and says "his jammies are wet, do you want to change his diaper?" to which I respond (half-asleep) with "just grab a blanket to put under him." Now the next part is clearly my own fault, but give me a break, I wasn't thinking clearly. However, let it be known, that we have only changed cpc's diaper during the night like 3 times since he was born.....he's just been good that way!

8:00am, cpc starts wiggling in my arms, and I realize it's time to get up. So I sit up and pick him up, realizing that he is so wet that he soaked through the blanket and got the sheets wet. My nice clean sheets....grr! So I take him into his bedroom to change his diaper, and get the wet clothes off him. I take off his diaper, and in order to get his wet clothes off him without getting his whole body contaminated, I pick him up thinking he can't possibly have any more in his system to pee on me with. WRONG! This is the part where I call for pmc to come help me (so cpc and I can jump in the shower and soap up a bit, and pmc comes in and just laughs at me.

9:30am, we head out the door to drop pmc off at work and go to Costco, as I realize I didn't get any of the wet stuff in the wash.

11:00am, we are back home checking email when I realize cpc stinks. But he is grunting, which means he's still working on filling his diaper, so I'll let him finish.

11:02am, I realize that my shirt is once again wet, but this time it has a brownish hue. So, off to the stripping & showering AGAIN, but this time without pmc's help. When I pulled cpc's clothes off this time however, the diaper was so full that it literally couldn't hold all the poop in it. Good thing I didn't start the laundry earlier huh?

I'm sure this is pretty typical for a lot of moms, but I guess it kinda shocked me because cpc RARELY soaks through a diaper. He's had a few little leaks here and there. But these two diapers I'm speaking of were TOTALLY and COMPLETELY full, one wet, and one not!

Now I have showered twice, when I usually only shower every other day due to my dry skin, and it's not even shower day. I've done 2 loads of laundry and it's not laundry day. AND IT"S NOT EVEN NOON YET! Be grateful that I didn't take any pictures! Did I actually sign up for this willingly?

I'll give a real update  on our week when I get home from bowling this afternoon!

Welcome 2009!

So, it's finally here. 2009. That sure seems anxiously close to 2010, which for some reason is a year I never thought I'd hit....like even more than never thinking 2000 would ever come!

We started the year off right.....at Bear Lake! Mmmm, we spent New Year's with my mom and her husband up at their lake-house. It was nice and cozy. We played games and went to the Riverdale Resort. The resort is a hot-springs with a few waterslides. Clearly we didn't do the waterslide thing, but the hot-springs were so nice, even with FREEZING wind. Luckily there was a little enclosed part so that cpc could participate. He has become exceedingly coordinated with his hands. Much like his dad, balls are his favorite thing....we may have a sports-junkie on our hands.

After the hot-springs we left cpc with Momsey & Grandpa DG and headed to the Logan Anniversary Inn to celebrate our 2nd anniversary. I am so grateful to have been married to my best friend for the past 2 years. They have LITERALLY been the best 2 years of my life, and I fall more in love with him all the time.

After picking cpc back up from Momsey, we interviewed his great-grandparents on video for some family-history. We promised them we wouldn't share the video with anyone but family, so we won't be putting it on here. But it was fun to get some good details on their lives. We did however get the pleasure of looking through my Grandpa HDE's scrapbook. Since I've never met him, it was extra special to see the little notes he wrote in the margins next to pictures. It was sure clear that he doted on my Grandma RVSE. Here's a few special photos:

Once we got back we had to plunge shoulder-deep into boxes. Even though it was only a 5.7-mile-move, it took nearly as much work as moving across the country. Cpc seemed to handle the move pretty well. He actually had a harder time playing on the floor in our old apartment once it was empty, than he did adjusting to the new apartment. He loved helping us pack boxes though. Here are a few fun pictures from the move.

For some final details, we'll share a little about cpc's development. Cpc has been a little slow on developing his "shuffle crawl," mainly because I was not super-supportive of that progressing, I just didn't want him into everything when we had no space to get things out of his reach, and would be packing. He can now get up on his hands and knees, and just about has the hang of it. I'm positive that since we live so close to Aunt CSE now, she will teach him the rest! Cpc is now a bottomless pit/garbage disposal. He will eat anything, and as much of it as we give to him. Actually I must qualify that. He doesn't like store-bought baby food. Yes that's right. I've been making baby food. It's really not hard, and he gets more variety this way. He doesn't just get apples, he gets Braeburn & Golden Delicious, etc. He likes all types of squash & LOVES pumpkin. He can usually have something that we're eating, which is nice. The only thing I've made that he didn't like was Peaches, but top it with a little cinnamon & he'll eat it right up! I believe cpc came wired just like his mommy......all foods, if cooked right are worth eating, and foods un-tried are the best! We're making progress in the sleep department, though there are often setbacks. Mostly this mommy just loves that her little boy loves to cuddle, and has a very hearty laugh!

And as for the move, yes, we're caught back up, for the most part. All the boxes are unpacked (we can't live out of boxes!), and we are LOVING the extra space....especially cpc!

CHRISTMAS

Our Christmas was thoroughly enjoyable. Pmc and I were clearly more excited about cpc's first Christmas than he was, but we still think he liked it. He did seem pretty excited about visiting Santa Claus, we saw him whispering in Santa's ear what he wanted in baby-talk, and then getting excited after Santa told him that he could probably work that out.

We took our annual trip downtown to see the lights at Temple Square. We went with my dear high-school friend Rachel and her fiance, who got married Dec. 30. It was absolutely beautiful, especially when it started snowing!

So, although having divorced parents isn't what I would choose, there are definitely some perks. The first and foremost being, every holiday is celebrated at least three times (once for each of my parents, and once with the in-laws!), plus a few extra extended-family parties! So after the "Clark Party" the Sunday before Christmas, we had four more Christmas celebrations this year.

We started the Monday before Christmas with a dinner with my mom. We ate at the Coffee Shop at Little America. It was exceedingly good food, although I tend to prefer my mom's actual cooking.....but we can't expect that for every holiday right? Sadly this is the only picture we got from there:

Then we had the Cundick family dinner and talent-show at Grammie's on Christmas Eve. I got to play two numbers this year, one with my father-in-law and one with Aunt Ruth. Cpc's favorite part was the wrapping paper on his present from Santa.

Then there was Christmas morning as our own little family. Cpc LOVED his rocking horse, it must be what he asked Santa for.

After a visit to Grams & Papa's house to talk to Uncle Steve on his mission, we brought home a load of presents from them too. Cpc & pmc are pretty good pals, studying their new gifts together.

Dinner at my dad's followed shortly thereafter. Cpc showed off his latest skill.....the 1-foot trick. If you already don't like the video of the regular trick....don't watch this one.

There was the celebration at the cabin...we stayed for the weekend, and really enjoyed the snow & beautiful scenery. Sadly we cut our stay half-a-day short to avoid catching the flu from some cousins. We are sad we missed that time together with family, but all three of us avoided the flu, so I guess we're grateful! Before we left, we enjoyed getting to see cpc totally thrilled by a simple ball!

We also got an extra party with some of my Eyre cousins. My grandma announced that my little brother, who is named after my grandpa, is the exact same height now that my grandpa was, 6'2". Apparently that means that my little brother is plenty strong and tall to carry me around like a rag doll, 'cause he sure enjoyed doing so. We will spare you the Eyre family Christmas bells!

In all of this however, I would like to take a moment to share that we mostly enjoyed getting to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. We truly believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior, that He lived, suffered, and died for us. And that as we share gifts at Christmas-time, and have family parties, we are doing so because we are trying to emulate the example of our Savior. The gifts of eternal life & immortality that He made possible for us, and the example of love, these are truly priceless. How grateful we are to know and understand this as we live and celebrate life!

MOVING

To one and all (including ourselves).....the normal routine will resume at some point in the coming days. We have no idea when. We are moving, only a couple of miles, but nonetheless it is a full-fledged move. We have been packing for what seems like weeks (3 days). We have the moving van half-packed, and only a few more boxes and the bedroom to finish up. Our lives feel so chaotic right now. But it will end, it will end. We will get our home put back together, I will get back on track with my studio, pmc will start school again, I will get blog posts up about Christmas, New Year's, our Anniversary, and the move. But right now it sure feels like that is forever away, well at least getting the blog posts. The rest seems like it's approaching too fast for the getting-back-on-track part! To throw us for a loop, our computer recently decided it doesn't want to read our SD card drive. So now once we move, I can't just stick the card in the computer and blog. Nope, I have to actually dig through boxes and find the cord that links the camera to the computer via flash drive. Where are my computer-savvy cousins when I need them?

So, whether it be two days or two weeks, here's to hopin' things will settle back down. Oh, and that our blog will finally get rid of the red-and-green Christmas theme so nobody gets annoyed!