Cousin Time

Landonio: 

Has been studying all about Spain this week because we just booked a trip to Spain for our 10 year anniversary. Why? Because we found round trip tickets for $500. But he's over the moon about it. He's been reading blogs and articles and cougarboard etc. etc. He ordered a book about Spain off amazon and has been reading it all afternoon. I was originally going to book a trip for us and surprise him with if for his birthday. But the whole process stressed me out. Between Zika virus, his work schedule, family vacations, what he wanted, weather preference, pace of trip preference, etc, I just couldn't decide on my own. Sooooo I got him into the planning process. We considered Iceland, Venice, Greece, a cruise to the Bahamas from Charleston NC, Amsterdam. But when the Madrid Spain tickets popped up on @SLCWatchFlights, it was game over for him. Spain here we come. Other than Spain. He worked. I took him on a birthday date. He is probably getting released from EQP because EQP is moving so we had a brunch today at their house. That was fun. Now he's fallen asleep reading the Spain book. It does look boring, I don't blame him ;). 

Beckster: 

I spent the first half of the week watching my niece and nephew. It was such a great change of pace. I actually felt a little validated too. I sometimes have thoughts like, "Maybe I have such a hard time getting pregnant because God knew I couldn't handle more kids." I always envisioned my life with lots of little kids, closer together, back to back to back. But there were moments this week with all 5 kids where I realized "Oh! I could have done this!!!" Which just brought some peace to my heart. The kiddos were great and we were sad to leave. I finished the week off prepping for Lando's birthday and straightening the house. I invited his best friend in residency and his wife to come to dinner with us Saturday night. We went to Takashi and had the best time! Jonathan even made sure to get us to Ruby Snap by 7:00pm. It was a close call! We are having a bunch of couples over who are on the medical journey to come to our house for cake and ice cream tonight! I have missed hosting people and i'm just finding ways to host outside of the normal have someone over for dinner. I also know that though I will not live in a big home, I will live in a home that can host and entertain. That is important to me. 

Jaxy Waxy: 

He only had one day of school today because it was a snow day the other day and then he planned on missing thursday to hang with his cousins. He stayed at my parents house on Tuesday night and they took him out to get sushi and he LOVED it. The Box is his favorite roll. A roll that consists of raw tuna, yellowtail, and salmon over rice. There are fish eggs in the middle too. Its sooooo good. He had fun playing with Hal and Ty when he got there. He also has been learning Harry Potter on the piano. Reading like crazy. (Speaking of! He just walked out and finished another book.). He's also been learning Spanish on this Spanish app I downloaded to help me for Spain. Duolingo. Its a pretty cool app. He also had a blast playing at the gym with the neighborhood kids. And he's been working on his writing a lot. 

Tymiester: 

HE HAD THE BEST TIME WITH HIS COUSIN HALLIE. I was so impressed by those two. Often when two toddlers get together, they play off each other and become harder and harder. But this was the reverse. They were both so so so good together. And they saw the other person doing something good and they followed suit. I just love their relationship! But he loves Hal so much. He loves guitars. He loves elephants and snakes and bats. He loves coloring and creating anything. He loves to imagine. He spent most of Sacrament meeting with a LEGO batman and a string. I love that about Ty. He doesn't have a desire to do what other people do or have a million friends. He just wants what he wants and he knows what he wants. Like today at brunch. All the other kids his age were running back and forth playing tag or shooting lasers. But not Ty. Ty just sat in the corner quietly making a lego creation. 

Lukinator: 

He is SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT. 7:30-8:00pm to 6:30-7:30am (depending on when Ty opens the door.). Figuring out how to get your kids to sleep in the same room and not wake each other up is a process. But once you are there..... IT IS THE BEST! We are basically there. I also think traveling with babies (like going to Lacey's house for the week) allows you to see their sleep in a different way. Luke slept from 8:00pm-8:00am in Lacey's closet. Watching him do that made me realize that he does need more dark than he has in their room AND that quiet spaces are better. I can't control the quiet spaces as much. But I can slowly move his sleep schedule to be 7-7 just like his brothers. So thats what i'm shooting for. The other night Landon and I went into the boys room. They were all asleep. I picked Luke up and rocked him while Landon adjusted the bed lower since Luke can stand now. I rocked luke. Landon banged on the crib. All three boys stayed asleep. I finally laid Lukers down back in his crib, he opened his eyes, looked at me, and then went back to sleep. I was so excited. Sleep. Its a huge deal. And the fact that our church schedule IS THE PERFECT time for babies naps (11:30-1:30) I'm just feeling like we've almost made it to sleeping training our third. 

Luke does struggle with foods. Its hard every day. We are going to an allergist in March. Even if he's not allergic to anything it will be good to know what we need to work on vs. what we never can work on. We love our Lukes! 

Super Bowl Sunday at Johnny & Maries 

Ty and Hal thought it would be fun to rain cards. I was upstairs finishing the food for Cope & Luke and I hear "Its raining Its raining!!!" I just thought they were being so cute. Then I walked downstairs. I just laughed. They didn't do anything wrong. But I made sure that they picked every last card up. And they did. All 1,397 cards of them. Yeah I googled it. Luckily the Apples to Apples game was sealed and that game has over 750 cards. Anyway the pick and organization of the games was a 3 day process :). 

Snow Ice Cream WAS A HIT!!!!! 

ITS SNOWED SO SO MUCH! 

She was insanely good at organzing the cards. I thought this would make it so she never wanted to do it again, but then she loved the organizing process so it maybe backfired :). 

Me and Gary on my graduation night. 

Me and Lando on June 4th 2009. At Lake Powell 

I love the Nutcracker. 

Stop it LUKE. You are too much. 

I spy Lando. 

Most of our mornings are Jaxson practicing the piano and Ty creating something on the window. 

Night Shift

Landon: 

He was on nights this week. Ugh! Nights are sooooo hard. Each week we do them I do a little bit better but they are still so hard. Flipping your schedule for one week is this weird amount of time and then trying to flip it back takes at least three days. But he does love working on the OB floor. He had lots of fun epidural stories; A patient asking how many epidurals he's actually done or another one being so impressed with how fast and painless the epidural is that she said, "You wife should have let you do an epidural on her." He also had some sad cases two. Two babies didn't make it. He gave an epidural to a mother who was delivering a 38 week still born. He also gave an epidural so a teenager whose water broke at 24 weeks and the baby didn't make it. Some how, some how, he still got 21 miles of running in this week. He took me on a date Saturday night. We got Vietnamese food, we made a list of all of the SLC restaurants we've ever been to, and we went to On The Basis of Sex. It was actually the longest date night we've been on since Luke was born and it felt so good to just be together out of the house for 5 hours!

Becca: 

18 months. I feel like at 18 months I finally feel like I have a place here. I've always had wonderful people here who have been kind and my friends, but having a place feel like your home and your people takes time. I think it helps that i'm also starting to realllly feel like myself post Luke/pregnancy. Its a happy and content feeling. This week we had Landon's colleague, Mac over for dinner. We had Jaxson's friend, Oscar over for dinner. I had a girls night with 13 girls on Thursday night--Anna gave me the push to do this, I love her! :). And my cousin Russ came over for PPQ night (and Ty spilt water all over him! Such a good sport.) I also have gotten back to scheduling my life and being able to schedule my life because life is so much more predictable with Luke now. I visited with my friend Karen and her cute girls at the park. She is so awesome. I also went to the temple with my ministering companion Rachel and we talked about what we can do for our sisters. It was a really really great week overall. Other than my break down on Friday when I got mad at Landon for sleeping on the couch and throwing off our groove (ugh! why did I do that?? Nights are the worst). It was a good week. On Friday we were able to go to the Curtis's house. Jonathan is in Landon's year and they have become really good friends. We love the Curtis family and want to be just like them. But for real! 

I was really inspired by a Costco worker this week. Her name is Devan and i've seen her a couple of times at Costco. She actually works in the tire department, but this week she was helping with check out. I've never seen anyone work so hard and so happy as her. It was just inspiring to watch. I'm sure loading grocery after grocery onto a cart could be so monotonous but the power of working hard can bring happiness no matter what you do. 

Jaxson: 

Jax is LOVING being back at Bennion! SO so much. I know he wishes he could go all 5 days. Its hard to miss things. But its really been a wonderful mix of homeschool and public school. On Monday we feel our days with wonderful learning opportunities and we are productive and our environment is enriching. And on Friday we take it easy and read, practice piano, and do a field trip. Then he gets what he needs to from school on T-Th. I honestly wish school was only 20 hours a week for all of elementary. It doesn't need to be longer than that. 

This week Jaxson did two things that I thought were wonderful and hilarious. Actually three. First was on Monday. He had gone to practice and he felt like the teams were unfair and that he wasn't very good. He left in tears. The whole way home I talked to him about Lebron James, Steve Young, Taysom Hill, Zack Wilson, etc. I asked him if he thought they were worried about things being fair? I told him that unfair was an opportunity to decide to work harder. The second we got home he headed outside to practice and then 5 minutes later he was on the balcony sobbing because his hands were freeeezing. Yeah there was still snow on the ground. He was soooo disappointed that he couldn't practice. He hopped in the shower and without me saying a thing he came out and did wall sits, push ups, crunches and ran on the treadmill for half a mile. It was so cute. He had found a way to work hard to get a little better. He is a determined little hard worker! 

The second story was after piano lessons Jaxson said something like:

"That song was really easy. I'm really good at it." 

"Yeah and humble too." I said 

"What does Humble mean again?" 

"Well Hermione Granger is not humble, but Ron is." 

Jax quickly responded, "Ron is only humble because he isn't good at anything." 

I just busted up laughing so hard!!!!! 

The third was this morning when Jax got Luke out of the crib, the boys played together all morning, Jax got breakfast for everyone and Landon and I stayed in bed together til 8:45. It. was. wonderful! And Jax is groooowwwing up!!!! 

Ty: 

Oh this little boy is growing up so much too. I've been trying to read lots of books to him every day and i'm so impressed with what he is retaining. He enjoyed going to school on Thursday, which was a huge blessing. There is a new girl at school named Remington and Ty describes her as the girl that has golden hair. I guess they played non stop on Thursday. I think he is really enjoying more one on one time with me. I've noticed him mellow out a lot since Jax went back to school for three days. I think Ty gets his energy through being alone like me! But he also loves his people. He prays for Pierce, Hallie and Remington on a regular basis. And he also tells everyone his meets that his brothers names are "Yaxson and Yukers" and that his best friends are "Pierce, Hallie and the new girl Remington." He's going to be a loyal little one. 

Ty is constantly building things and creating things. Landon found a show on Netflix where they build incredible homes and show the plans and the process. He has been showing it to Ty and Jax and they are both just mesmerized. One night they drew and drew their houses while I read the scriptures and books to them. Luke was happily playing on the ground. It was one of the moments where you just feel like you've provided the ideal childhood for your children. And then Luke smashed his head on a sharp corner... good feeling gone :). 

I read Ty a dino book this week and he said, "Mommy mommy mommy" (because saying my name once isn't enough) "do you know dinoyors are bastinct." Why yes they are little dude, yes they are! 

Luke: 

He dropped from the 80% in weight to like the 10%. The doctor didn't seem too worried about it but after talking to Nate and Sarah late one night I concluded that I am just not feeding Luke enough. So I have been supplementing with formula. One morning after he woke up and nursed I gave him a bottle and he GUZZLED 6 oz of formula. And then ate and ate and ate his breakfast. So, basically, i've been starving my child. I blame Luke for this mostly. He is always just so happy and content, his nature isn't to complain its to just deal. Its always been that way. So I didn't know. But i've corrected things and he's been sleeping through the night ever since: 8pm-7am the last 3 or 4 nights! Hopefully that sticks around. You would think i'd be less tired than I am, but I reallllly struggle going to sleep early when Landon is working.

 We love this little dude. He is standing now. On Friday night he wrestled with daddy all night. It was cute, Landon would move to another part of the room and Luke would get so excited and crawl as fast as he could over to him and then climb up on him and chatter away. He is talking and smiling and growling like crazy. 

We went to get benches for our kitchen table to make a little more space in our kitchen. Ty saw this elephant and put it on his back like this and didn't say anything to me but what you see in this picture. Ty: 1 Mom: 0. But as Gary reminded me its more like Ty: 1,958,234 Mom: 0. 

Ty colored in the Elephant. (He's always been obsessed with Elephants forever and he drew this before he got his big "Ellie") Ty also wrote his name and that he's 3. Ty: 3

My new planner. I've always been a hard copy kind of girl, but I've finally transitioned to my phone. 

My nights were filled with chores and Gilmore Girls while Lando was working. 

Junior Mints are disgusting. My brother-in-law Cory loves them. I decided i'd get them for my boys to try. Jax liked them and Ty ate them and said, "I Yike them." Then when I asked if he wanted more he said, "Uh! Nooooo. Not today or not twowedsday. They bagusting." 

Kristy, Julie, Anna, Auroa, Rachel, Andi, Kate, Audrey, Angelina, Mary. Brealynn & Gabby had already left! Just some really really, really really good people here.