Me and My Boys: July 2012

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Sharing a Room

For over a month now, we've had the boys in the same room. Carter has never enjoyed naps or bedtime and puts up a huge fuss at those particular times, so it was nice to have his crib as a "cage." With putting him in a toddler bed, bedtime and nap time have been a lot more difficult for him (in fact I just gave up on naps this past week), but Caleb has made huge strides. Caleb has a very active imagination and the dark terrifies him. He has had trouble sleeping through the night since we moved him into his own bed just after he turned two years old. We've been battling his nighttime sleeping habits for over 2 years! No matter what we tried, sleeping through the night for him was a constant struggle. We tried different lighting combinations, talking to him about prayer and the Holy Ghost, putting up a picture of Jesus and the temple, closing the closet doors, etc. The only thing that had any semblance of success was making a chart for Caleb to "earn" cars for sleeping all night for a certain number of nights. Only then did he have the willpower to force himself to go back to sleep if he woke up in the middle of the night.

Even more than these sleeping charts, having Carter in the same room with Caleb has solved the sleeping issues. Carter is Caleb's protector from all the scary dreams or potential monsters! Out of the last month, Caleb didn't sleep through the night only 3 times, which is a marked improvement. Matt and I are enjoying our uninterrupted sleep as well!!! Hopefully it just continues to get better!

Carter loves being a big boy and being in the same room as Caleb. In the past few months, his talking has become a lot clearer, and he's speaking in sentences regularly. He's growing up so fast!

4th of July

We enjoyed having Matt home for 3 days during the week of the 4th of July. Wednesday morning we got together with my family for breakfast in the park. Later that night, we went to Matt's uncle's property for dinner, fireworks, and other fun activities.

Go cart ride with Daddy and a family friend.

Matt's family has a tradition where they put a dried Christmas tree floating out on the lake tied down to a blow-up mattress and a piece of plywood. Then in groups of 5, they take turns shooting Roman candles at the tree to try to catch it on fire. It's always a contest to see who has the winning shot!

We enjoy so much spending time with family!

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Sweet Caleb

I was just catching up on some things for Caleb's journal this morning and thought I'd share some of the funny things Caleb filled out for Mother's Day and Father's Day.

Caleb's Primary teacher had him fill out the following questions for Mother's Day in class:

1) What's your favorite food that Mom makes?

Waffles

2) What does your Mom like to do when you're not there?

Clean my room Ha!

3) What does your Mom like to do with her friends?

Talk and play games

4) What's your favorite thing to do with your Mom?

Play games

5) What does your Mommy teach you?

She teaches me about money.

For Father's Day, Caleb filled out the following information about his dad:

My dad's name is Matt. He is 30 years old, 7 feet tall, and weighs 139.5 pounds. (Caleb added 100 pounds to what he weighs in order to get this number.) His favorite food is cantaloupe. My dad is really good at bowling. My favorite thing to do with my dad is build train tracks. What I love most about my dad is wrestling. It makes Dad happy when I put his shoes away.

He is such a sweet boy! We love his inquisitive mind that's always processing and making connections.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Youth Conference

Matt and I had the opportunity to be team leaders at our church Youth Conference this year. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work went into it. We were the orange team, and unfortunately there were some youth on our team that weren't as competitive as Matt and I are :o), but we still ended up 3rd place out of 10 teams during the Olympic Events. Some of the events we excelled at were Rain Gutter Regatta and the hurdles. For the hurdles, there were 4 hurdles at 1, 2, 3, and 4 feet. The first and last person in the team had to go under the hurdle, and everyone else had to go over the hurdle. Luckily we had some strong guys that could help "launch" everyone over the 3 and 4 foot hurdles. It was definitely challenging!

For this Olympic Event, your team had to work together to build a tower as high as possible in a designated time with certain materials, and it had to be self-standing for 10 seconds. Most of the materials were newspaper and notebook paper. Our team had a good plan, but we just ran out of time. (Matt, his usual outgoing self, is sporting the bright orange pants to represent our team color.)

Being pregnant, this one grossed me out a bit. In a rain gutter lined with plastic wrap, our team had to dump two cartons of ice cream in the rain gutter (the big buckets from Walmart), 1 container of chocolate syrup, a bag of sprinkles, and 2 cans of whipped topping. There was also one banana per member of the team that had to be consumed. Each team member had a spoon, and you were just supposed to go at it! The teams that finished first through third medaled. It looked like a lot of fun, and definitely disgusting. We didn't place in this event.

There was a service project, classes, dances, and other fun activities. It was neat to be a part of it and to get to know the youth on our team. I was very moved by some of the classes; I hope the youth got as much out of them as I did!

While we were busy with Youth Conference, my parents were nice enough to watch our boys. They LOVE going to either grandparents house. At my parents house, they went to a splashpad that is near their home.

I love these pictures of Carter because they capture his quirky personality.