Hershey's world

So as previously mentioned, we are the meanest parents ever. This is that story. We took the kids up to Hershey's World one day in August. There is a part outside of Hershey Park that is free, including parking! So we decided to go. The first thing that we did when we got there was to go on the tour of how they make the chocolate. The line wound through a dark area, so Graham was crying right from the get go, and he never stopped. Nate loved it though. He did it twice. It was kind of like a little ride.

I think that the singing cows didn't help Graham at all.

Had some lunch in the back of the van. The kids loved sitting in the back. :)

Nate and Graham loved this race car.

We got a milkshake. We thought that the kids would love it. They didn't. So instead Nate played with some straws....

...and Graham played with spoons.

Eventually we went home. Olivia started to scream on the way home, so we stopped so that I could feed her. Fortunately we found a place with a bell for the kids to play with. How lucky!

Now, as it turns out, we have been back to Hershey again this past month, but we'll get to that later.

2 months

OK, so we're a little over 2 months. This week Olivia is 10 weeks old. Today we went and had her 2 month check up. Everything looked good for her. Here are her stats:

Weight: 10 lbs, 13 oz

Length: 22 1/4 inches

Head: 39 cm

A little bit about our baby at 2 months: She is a cute little smiler. If you talk to her about smiling, she will almost always oblige. Or maybe it's just me, cause she likes me so much. The boys love her to death, and especially love it when she smiles.

In general we're pretty pleased with her behavior. We put her on zantac for possible reflux, and it seems to help. She is getting into a schedule for napping. It seems that in sleep situations she is more like Nate than Graham. She will often get fussy, and will only calm down when I put her in her bed. So I'm happy that she is learning how to go to sleep on her own. She still won't take a bottle though. We need to work on that so that I can have an evening out from time to time. She is a great sleeper at night. She sleeps through the night several times a week, and when she doesn't sleep all the way until 7 or 8, she will sleep until 4:30 or 5 and then go back to sleep. When I told the Dr this today, he told me not to say it too loudly or there are many moms in the waiting room who would throw their diaper bag at me. Lest you get too jealous- I paid for it with Graham, so we'll leave it at that. She finally has learned to go to sleep at a reasonable time too. She used to be up and down from about 8 to about 11 each night, but we have started to get her into a better schedule, and she's doing a great job of sleeping in the evening. She is my baby who loves her baths, so she gets a bath every night.

Today she got a few shots, and has been the saddest little girl in the universe today. It's always hard to do thing that are good for your baby that make them sad! Hopefully she will be a little happier tomorrow. I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow, so Cammi will be watching her, and I'd like her to be happy!

Thoughts on our FIRST first day

So today was our first, first day of school. So far things are going just fine. Nate was very excited to go today. He got up earlier than normal, and got dressed right away. The problem is that he goes to a late school, so we then had about 2 hours to wait until it was time to go to the bus stop. So we hung out, watched a little TV, listened to a little music. We sat down to breakfast together, which we never do, but I'm excited to start doing. At breakfast (yogurt and cinnamon toast) we had our morning prayer and that is going to be our new time to do scripture study. After I said the prayer, Nate said that he wanted to say the prayer, so he said a sweet little first day of school prayer. The interesting thing was that it included things that Jesse had talked about in his blessing for Nate last night. It was nice to know that Nate had been paying attention.
Nate was very excited to go to the bus stop. If you notice from this picture to the next, there was one thing that we forgot- his name tag. I was pretty much to the bus stop, which isn't that far away, when I realized we'd forgotten. So I left Nate and Graham there with some other parents, and I ran back to the house (With Olivia strapped to me) and grabbed his name tag. I made it back with plenty of time to spare. You can see in the picture that it was too sunny to look at the camera. Pretty excited waiting for the bus!

Here is the proof that I sent my child to his first day ever of real school without combing his hair. It's not like I ever comb his hair, it looks the same if we comb it or if we don't, it goes where it wants. But I sat there all morning thinking that I needed to wet down his hair and get it to lie flat in that one spot. When I got to the bus stop I looked at him and thought, oops! Oh well, he won't care.

So I have many friends who are sending their child to Kindergarten this year, and all of the friends that I have from my mother's group are sending their first child this year. Some of my friends are sad beyond belief. Some of them are just so happy to get rid of their child for the school year. I guess I'm kind of in between. I will miss having him here, he's such a good kid to have around, and so goofy, and always good for having a good time. I worry for him, will he do well, will he be smart enough, will he make any friends, will he not do the embarrassing things that he does at home. (To clarify, they would only be embarrassing if he did them in public.) But I'm also excited for him. This is such a big step for him, and it's an important one too. He gets to have so many new experiences that will help to shape who he becomes. He will get to see something other than the inside of our house on a daily basis. It's hard to be sad for me when I think of how great this will be for him.

Graham is doing OK. This morning I had a RS Presidency meeting that took most of the morning, so we didn't really have too much time to sit around and be lonely. Although, Graham seemed to miss Nate even before we got back to our house from dropping him off at the bus. The next two days Nate has off of school due to the staggered start for Kindergarten, and we'll go and do some fun things those days. Thursday Olivia has a dr apt, and Friday I have a few other apts going on, so it'll be next week before we have a regular day at home without Nate.

So there you have it, Nate's first day of Kindergarten is almost done. They are probably getting ready to get on the buses right now at school. It's sometimes weird to think of him having this whole other life without me there. And I'm not going to lie, it has been nice to have two napping children with Nate gone this afternoon. So anyway, I guess this is us starting our next chapter in life.

School Haircuts

Ever since Nate needed his first haircut, I've just done it myself. At first it was because I didn't want to waste money taking them somewhere where they would scream and cry and be uncooperative. I'd rather keep that in the privacy of my own home. Then as I realized that I can do a just fine job, I just kept on doing it. Really, this is how they still feel about getting their hair cut. For a little while Nate had a mullet. We did cut it off though. But it was pretty sweet there for a minute or so.

Graham and his lollipop.

The end result. All of Graham's curls are gone, but for a while there he was looking like the guy from "The Blue Lagoon" or whatever that movie is.

My Kindergartener

The other day Nate got a hold of the camera, and went to town. This is my new favorite picture of him.

smiles

I was finally able to catch some smiles on camera. Hope they make you smile!

The Meanest Parents in the World

So in the next few days I'll tell the real story of our adventure today, but for now, I'd like to say that due to the insane amount of crying that goes on, one may think that we are really mean parents. (Sometimes we are, but all the same.)

Thoughts on the above picture- OK, so he's not crying, but look at him, it's like we're torturing him making him be here with us.

Second thought- look at the people in the background. Do you ever wonder how many pictures of you there are out there on the Internet where you are just in the background of someone else's picture? Did you ever see that episode of Better Off Ted when they developed a software that could find your photo anywhere on the Internet due to facial recognition? (I miss that show...)

That's it. Now back to the crying children.