11 Month Pictures

 I managed to grab a few decent pictures of Evelynn out of our extremely short window of time... Definitely not my best, but they will have to do. 

Our cute girl is 11 months old! 

This picture is being posted because of the hilariousness of it... This was the expression she started giving me when I was trying to get her attention. 

It was pretty obvious she was ready to be DONE. 

Ending March

I am updating two weeks in a row! Who's shocked?! I AM!

My semester is winding down and almost finished so I have had some spare time to take pictures and get things done.

This last week we made the decision to sleep train Evelynn. It was a stressful process with Connor was I was really nervous to start it.  Several weeks ago I wanted to train her to sleep through the night, but after the first night, I had so little sleep that I got really sick. I have never done well without my sleep so I just gave up on the idea. Anyways, this time I decided to just do it all at once, teach her to put herself to sleep, teach her to sleep through the night, and teach her to not need nursed at night. I was extremely nervous about it. A lot of my friends have recently being doing the cry it out method, also called the Ferber method, but I am such a whimp that I can't do it! :(

When I was sleep training Connor I read the book "The No Cry Sleep Solution" and it was a miracle worker for him. I worked with the skills it taught and had him sleep trained in less than 2 weeks. I was anticipating the same process. I put them in the crib for 10 minutes, and then go and pick them up and comfort them. Then when they are calm, I start again. When that is mastered, I switch to not picking them up, and just patting their back. Well, with Connor it was an hour long process every night for the first week. Imagine my shock with it only took 25 minutes the first night with Evelynn, and I only picked her up twice??? She only woke up once that night and cried for two minute before soothing herself back to sleep. It's been smooth sailing ever since! The next night, it was 15 minutes of crying, 30 seconds at night, and then 5 minutes, no crying at night. The last few nights it has been even easier. WAHOO!!! We are loving getting our sleep again! 

I had a hilariously cute video of Evelynn dancing to share...but for some reason, it won't let me upload.

So, instead... if you want to see it, go to this link: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=B91955357D145194!130&authkey=!AFxOovYEuDLajOU&ithint=video%2c.mp4

***(actually it may not work either.... It seems to only work on my phone or on Instagram now...)

I also started working out again this week. I have noticed I have tons more energy and my day always goes better when I start the morning with a workout. I've been super sore, but happy. I have even had time to do play dates and my Zumba workout with a friend! 

Caleb usually drops us off. I forced him to take a picture with Evelynn before we left on Tuesday and neither of them were enthused. And the headband only lasted a second after this picture before miss Evelynn tore it off! :( 

But here is a cute video of her standing and waving! She likes to act like she's not big enough to walk and stand alone... and it's kind of hilarious. :)

I also started using ItWork's! wraps. A friend of mine was looking for models for it and I had heard great success stories with them. I gave it a try and I'm liking the results! After the first wrap I didn't really see a change, but after the second, I think I lost about 2 inches off my tummy. I'm excited to see what a combination of the wraps and my working out will bring me by summer time! 

 I tried Evelynn's swimsuit on her for this summer and was thrilled how cute she looked! Although I thought she looked adorable, she hated the sunglasses. 

 Thursday was our 4 year anniversary. I still started off the morning with a workout and a playdate for the kids. We got to dye easter eggs and Connor had a blast. I was impressed at how well he did since he usually has no interest in artsy things or projects. 

 That evening the kids got to go back to play while Caleb and I went out for dinner. While I got ready for it, the kids got into messes...I told them it's a good thing that I love them. 

Caleb and I went to dinner at Olive Garden, which is my favorite place! 

When we got home poor Evelynn was so sleepy. She work up and wanted to play on the couch and while I got her brother ready for bed, she fell asleep, face first. 

We made plans to go the to temple today (Saturday) in honor of our anniversary. 

 The kids did pretty well being babysat. We decided to get Connor his favorite McDonald's lunch as a reward. He went and played without a tantrum and we were so glad! I wanted to take some pictures of the kids after getting home, but Connor had no interest. I changed Evelynn into clean clothes and took her outside, but she wasn't too thrilled either. 

Doesn't her expression and hand say, "enough with the paparazzi, mom... no more pictures!" 

March

Since our last post my kids have been keeping busy with all sorts of cute stuff. 

And I decided to give myself a hair makeover! I bought a new bubble wand curling iron for my birthday back in February but I didn't really use it until this last weekend. I last pretty happy with the results.

Then I realized that I still had not done a color. Several weeks ago I was trying to decided what I wanted to do, but I procrastinated actually making up my mind about it and doing it. My good friend showed me a picture of the ombre hair she had just done on herself, and I decided to give it a try on myself as well. It was one of the suggestions I had been contemplating. 

I was pretty nervous, but I think it turned out pretty well! 

Evelynn has developed a hatred of headbands. She used to pull them off so they would hang around her neck like a necklace, but she learned that if she pulls them backwards she doesn't have to keep them with her  AT ALL! She's super proud of herself for it. I've been attempting to convince her she looks adorable with them and must keep them on. 

I'm sad to say that I am failing miserably. 

How cute is my boy in his robe after his bath??? We have been really proud of him lately because he has been learning new words. He started asking for "bath". 

He also LOVES some new shows. They taught him to count 1-10, and he has learned several colors and shapes. He also is learning some of the alphabet. 

 We are still working on getting Connor to handle our new ward. The kids had a bit of a rough Sunday. Connor has been fighting going to nursery in the new ward because it's a new building and time and new people are there. We can't even look through the window on the door to show him they are doing fun things. We have decided to just keep trying and not push him past his breaking point, but help him understand that he eventually needs to go. 

We finally switched Evelynn to a new carseat. We bought her a convertible one and she seems to like it a lot. Doesn't look on her face show how proud of herself she was?!

I had the box sitting in the living room for a few days after because I thought the kids might want to play on it. I decided to put them in it and Connor thought it was THE COOLEST thing he's ever seen... Evelynn kind of panicked. I took her out right after grabbing a picture. 

This week was St Patrick's Day, of course. We didn't do anything special for it and I didn't even dress them in green. I think Evelynn looked pretty cute though. She kept tying to take her clothes off so maybe she wasn't pleased about my outfit choice for her either???

Evelynn loves to follow Connor around everywhere he goes. And she's learned to climb on bed and couches all by herself! 

We think she's pretty cute. She loves to help Daddy play games too! 

We have a couple cute videos to offer for this week. I apologize that they are all sideways and one has several seconds of the floor... it took me too long to figure out how to make it work on my new phone!

Yesterday we took Connor to a developmental specialist. We scheduled his appointment weeks ago and have been waiting with lots of anticipation and nervousness.

We are pretty glad to finally have some answers about how to help Connor with problems he has been dealing with and to have reasons for why they have been going on. He was pretty well behaved at the appointment and I think everyone left there with a positive attitude. It is definitely not the end of the process, but we are happy with the starting point and diagnosis that was given. 

We love our little boy!!!

Another Week

 School is still keeping me busy but I've been trying to do better with the picture taking. We will be replacing my phone soon so I will be a lot better about taking pictures .

Ever since Connor's latest ear infection he hasn't been eating much. Every time he gets sick he loses weight and the kid is already pretty darn skinny so I get really stressed about him losing weight. He's so tall, but just skin and bones. I let him eat anything he wants if it will just get him to eat more than two bites. His food of desire has been chicken nuggets. He would eat them morning, noon, and night, but only one 

(or two, if  I was lucky) at a time. 

At one point Evelynn decided that the other's I made for him shouldn't go to waste just because he didn't want them. I heard her excitedly squealing about something and discovered her chowing down on his food! 

Sadly, he wasn't very thrilled to learn about her eating his food. Apparently he wants them to remain untouched when he is done with it. I told him if he doesn't want her eating them he shouldn't have shared them with her ever, because now she likes them! 

Evelynn is getting so big and we are needing to bump her up to the next size of clothes. While at Costco on Saturday I decided to grab her a cute outfit I saw. When I got home I realized she didn't have any flowers of bows to match. She's outgrown a lot of the headbands I originally made. I have been trying to wait for her hair to grow long enough to put clips in but it's a slow process. There's one little section that is ready, but the rest isn't. I've been telling myself to make clips to put on headbands that I can interchange, it just hadn't happened yet. 

I decided to spend my spare time over the weekend making some new ones and trying some new ideas. I made a flower clip specifically to match her new outfit, and I thought it turned out super cute! Almost as cute as the little girl wearing it! 

Connor has been recuperating from being sick still. He still has a yucky nose and has been napping a lot and pretty grouchy. He loves to play with our tablet and knows how to work it extremely well. He just doesn't appreciate being interrupted when he is focused on playing games of watching shows! 

 I put together some other clips to put on headbands and in hair. I spent a few hours getting crafty! 

 I am learning how quickly the house gets messy with two mobile children. I'm pretty sure they gang up on me. I sit down to do school work and not even 5 minutes later everything has been dumped out or dumped over that I cleaned. Evelynn made a pen explode and covered herself in ink, and Connor freaked out because I tried to pick up the train tracks to clean. 

My kids are pretty good at keeping me busy and on my toes!

Here is a little video to add!

Evelynn has been making improvments with her walking. She can use her walker toy and hold on with only one hand, but she thinks she needs to plop on her butt the first second she's not holding on to something. We are fine with her taking her time and enjoying her improvements!