Ice Storm

So this entry is another after the fact one (It's just that I'm downstairs where the pictures are so I can upload photos.)

But last week we had a pretty cool ice storm, and here are the after effects. My dad taught Nate to kick icicles off of the car after the last mini ice storm, so next time this happens, Nate will be over the moon. Of course I think it was with this ice storm that Nate slipped and fell, so he is pretty wary of walking in the ice or snow any more.

Graham's blessing

So it is a little late coming, but we did bless Graham earlier this month. It was a pretty low key event. We just had my parents, Jesse's parents and sister there, and a few friends from the ward and bishopric members participated in the blessing.
Graham just barely fit into the outfit that my mom made for Nate when he was blessed. It worked out though, but it's a good thing we didn't wait until March to bless him.

A Breakthrough!

Ok, so I am pretty tired of Nate's eating habits, or rather lack of eating habits. He is a total non-eater. I have managed to hold onto a few healthy foods that are now his staples, but it drives me nuts that I can't just take him out and order something for him to eat. I have to pack my own food when we go to dinner at friend's houses. So I know that if I want to do something about this, I need to be better about exposing him to new foods. That and I need to actually feed him real meals every day. Sometimes I just don't have any fight in me after putting a colicky baby to bed and goldfish is a good enough dinner.
So my plan is to just be better about offering him new foods. When at all possible, he is going to get what we are eating for dinner. I know, it's revolutionary. So today was the first day that I am doing this, and we had pancakes for dinner as well as some fritata thing. I made a tiny little pancake for Nate, and cut up some fritata and put it on his plate with the chicken nugget and raisins that I was hoping to make a real dinner for him. To my utmost astonishment, he ate the pancake. No surprise, he liked it. He has tried pancakes before, but they have always been a gag food for him.
Now, let me regress about 2 years. My little boy was just getting to the age where he could start to try finger foods. He was doing great with this. Then one day, he gagged on it, and threw up. This happened over and over again in a short period of time, and he developed a fear of eating. The doctor said that it was physical (over-active gag reflex) and mental (associating eating with throwing up.) So we kept him on Gerber, which he loved. It cost us a pretty penny. Finally when he was about 16 months old, I said NO MORE! and I cut him off from baby food. At the time he had a handfull of foods that he would eat. Since then, he has added maybe 3 or 4 foods to that list. (This has been over a year, close to a year and a half.)
So he really does not have this problem anymore. I thought that the only reminder of this problem is his terrible eating habit. However, I have come to realize upon closer attention, that he still has a mental stigma associating eating and throwing up. He had put a hault to eating chicken, and then just a few days ago, he was talking about eating the chicken, and he said, "don't throw up." Then I remembered that a few weeks ago he had a big piece of chicken in his mouth and he gagged. Then today he was eating the pancake and he said "don't throw up." (I'm glad that he didn't.) But it's a little sad that he still has this mental association. The poor kid.
So I'm sorry for the digression. When I started this post I had no intention of going into the ins and outs of my child's over-active gag reflex. (no pun intended) and I certainly am sorry to those of you who have stuck through this post that has turned into a story about how much my child throws up. I really just wanted to say how glad I was that my child had eaten a new food. I think we'll start to have pancakes for lunch some days. Too bad he was 2 weeks too late for Shrove Tuesday.

Where did my sleeper go?

So Nate has always been a good sleeper for me. It is something that all of my friends are jealous of. He slept through the night at a very young age (by the time he was as old as Graham is now.) He also was the kind of kid that I could just put him down in his crib, and he would go to sleep. Of course, on the flip side, he was also the kind of kid who did not want to be rocked or cuddled to sleep.
So anyway, about 2 months ago (right after the new year,) we put him into a toddler bed. He is 2 1/2 He never learned to climb out of his crib or anything, but we had asked for fancy sheets for him, and we got them for Christmas, and he wanted to have the sheets, but I wanted to save them for when he had a toddler bed. So we just went ahead and made the plunge, keeping the crib in his room anyway. So the transfer was seamless. He slept in the "Thomas bed" without any reservations. Sure, he now runs around his room when he is supposed to be napping, but he used to run around his crib while he was supposed to be napping. I don't see much difference. He can't open his door, and he never tries to. He was not the kind of kid who cries to be let out. All that has changed however in the last few weeks. It started with him saying "remember to stay in bed." I would say this to him every time I put him to bed after the 2nd day when he discovered that he could get out of his bed. So then he started to say it back to me. Then he started to say it over and over and over again, wanting you to say it back each time. He would get quite distressed if it was not repeated back to him. SO I would end up walking down the hall yelling "remember to stay in bed."
In the past few days it has gotten worse. He now freaks out about everything. It used to be that he would just freak out if his closet door was open, and then it extened to the lotion not being inside the closet. Now if his covers fall the wrong way we need to fix it. Last night we were called up like 4 times. Once it was because the pillow in his crib (you know, the crib that he does not use, and the pillow that he does not want) was not lying the right way, so that needed to be fixed. Then his blanket was not covereing all of his other blanket, so that needed to be fixed. I guess these are just his "cups of water."
It's just one of those things where we used to have it so good, and now it's just super annoying that he has regressed to this. Although, it can't really be regressing if he never did it to begin with. Oh well, as in all things toddler, this too will pass, and then he will be back to being the good little sleeper we all know and love.
Now if I could just get Graham to be a good sleeper too...

Happy Valentine's Day

So we ended up having a wonderful Valentine's Day, and we actually got out for quite a while without either child. It was the first time that we left Graham with a babysitter, so we went all out. Our friends the Vandres asked if we wanted to go down to Baltimore to see U23D at the IMAX, and then we were going to go out to dinner. First of all, U23D was very cool. I have decided that the next time we go to a U2 concert, I am getting tickets for sitting on the stage. Or at the very least, I think we'll try to get tickets for the floor. Of course, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr are looking pretty old, so their next concert may be the nursing home circut.
After the movie, we went to Amicci's for dinner. It was really good. I had gnocci for the first time, and I enjoyed it.
So have I told you how much I love Baltimore? We didn't really get to hang out down there too much, due to it being cold, and having babysitters and everything, but just driving into town, every time I get so excited. Going into Baltimore was one of Jesse and my first "unofficial dates" (He had a girlfriend at the time, so I can't technically call it a date, but let's be honest with ourselves- it was kind of a date.) I was reading an article today about the top 5 underated cities in America, and Baltimore was top of the list. It's not a city that would be fun to live in, but I sure do love visiting there.
The only downside of the whole evening was that I got sick. I had a sore throat coming on for a few days, but I was holding out until Thursday night, because we had parties and stuff going on, and it's like my body just let go and let the sick come. But I made it, and then I just got to sit home all day on Friday and Saturday and be sick. I think that the kiddies are getting sick, but it's so hard to tell with little ones. So if this post makes no sense, it's because I really am not firing on all pistons right now.
So that's it.

Oy!

Oh, so for future record when your 2 month old has a cold and can't breathe and is in gerenal miserable, it's probably not a good idea to give him 5 different vaccinations. I had the saddest little baby today. When he did fall asleep, he wanted to be held, and it was punctuated with tiny whimpers. It was so sad. Oh well, it would have been way more sad if he got Polio or something like that. I'll take one or two days of saddness over a dreaded disease. However, the doctor said that he looked wonderful, and he said that he was the cutest baby he had seen all day. (I did point out that it was only 10 am.) In all honesty though, I seriously doubt that he ever did see cuter today.

Smiling Pictures

Well, things have been pretty boring around here. We just are sitting around playing all the time. On Sunday we are going to bless Graham, and that starts a busy month for us. Just a lot of different little things going on. So I am just going to post a bunch of pictures today. I think I finally got some good ones of Graham smiling.





This is Nate's new favorite way to sit in the stroller


And just for fun, here is one of Lizzie.