School days

We started back with school in full force at the beginning of the new year, which brought back that nice rhythm to our days. When we moved all three beds into the same room, we had an extra room, now deemed the "Activity Room. It houses their dressers, the toys and all our books and homeschooling things. We had been schooling in the dining room, which sometimes presented a challenge keeping Liam out of trouble. It is working better in the Activity Room, since all his toys are in there and he can't escape as easily. Here is what we have been up to:

Isaac's godmother, Aunt Patty, sent him a workbook as a Christmas gift so he could do school just like Issy. He loves it! He is very bright and catches on very quickly. I love his enthusiasm.

Liam playing with some toys while I worked with the other kids. See how neatly he lined them up? Yup, then he knocked them down with glee.

Issy working on math, while Ewok the cat joins in.

Part of school today was working on the map of the USA that Isaac got for Christmas. It was a nice break from doing workbooks and undoubtedly educational. Especially for this geography-challenged Mama :)

No appointment today, folks

So on Tuesday, I was feeling very proud of myself. I had managed to obtain the number of the midwife group I will be using, called, scheduled an appointment. Even arranged childcare. Then yesterday I got a call in the afternoon that went some like this:

Lady That Works for the Midwive's Office (heretofore referred to just as "Lady"): Hi, is this Mrs. Marney?

Me: Yes, it is (in my best phone voice)

Lady: Oh, did you happen to get my message yet?

Me: No, I have been busy, I must have missed it (i.e. I was taking a nap with my toddler).

Lady: We missed you today at 2:40

Me: Oh, I had scheduled that appointment for Friday.

Lady: Well, I had you down for today.

Me: I had told the person scheduling the appointment that I needed Friday, since I knew I would be busy today. It must have been a misunderstanding...

Lady: Oh, that is fine.....

And we go on to schedule an appointment for next Wednesday at ten in the morning instead. Sigh. And I had syked myself up for it and everything. Seriously, it is extremely difficult for me to walk into medical-ish buildings. After all the time I have spent in the places, mostly with fear and anticipation, I don't have good feelings about it. So it takes a bit of mental preparation for me to do it.

Oh well. So next Wednesday it is then. Got the babysitter rescheduled, which the kids are thrilled to pieces about (actually the babysitter is too.) I'll keep ya'll updated!

A visit from Anna

Our dear friend came to visit us this last week and we had a lot of fun! The kids adore her and a good time was had by all.

Playing in the snow. They built "Frosty" and a snow fort next to him.

Enjoying hot chocolate afterward. They were out there a long time!

Spa night. They soaked all soaked their feet, then took turns putting lotion on each other.

I got to take her cross country skiing... this is her fancy pose.

Saying good-bye is always hard. There were tears, but everyone started to feel better after we talked about what a fun week it was.

18 week belly

If you hang out with me here, you will have to endure me blathering on about pregnancy every so often. This is one of those posts, so if you aren't interested, skip it ;)

This pregnancy has been so weird. So not like my pregnancies with my boys. The nausea lasted longer (bleh) and I ended up losing 10 lbs my first trimester, which is ridiculous. I love having an appetite now, although I can't eat much at a time and some things still don't sound very good. I am eagerly awaiting the "look like a 15-year-old" acne's departure, though it does seem to be getting better. With the boys, I started to "pop" (a euphemism for: my stomach muscles gave up and I started looking pregnant even though it was mostly organs being displaced) much earlier than with this little one. In many, many ways this prenancy is highly similar to my pregnancy with Issy and notsomuch my pregnancy with the boys. Having a girl? Joe feels confident enough to call the baby "she". We'll see!

Everything is all set on the "prenatal care" front. I got an appointment with midwife group in Rexburg and will be seeing them on Friday. I also have an appointment with the parenatologist set for Feb 11th. This is later than I would like (ideally, they would do the first doppler/amnio at about 20 weeks- I will be 22) but since I made the appointment and not my midwives, they just had to take my word for it and they gave me the "first available". I am hoping my midwives can pull some strings and get them to fit me in earlier, so that will be a topic of discussion on Friday, but I don't know.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't apprehensive about all this. New midwives, new doctors, bloodwork, amnio, lots of driving, working out babysitters for the kiddos, lots of decisions to make if the baby is positive. I am trying not to be overwhelmed by the whole situation. Seriously, one breath at a time at this point. Make the best decisions we possibly can for baby Spud.

Two skiing posts in one day!

So I did some skiing today and I had to share my pictures. This is Teton Canyon, which is about 10 minutes from our house. The trail conditions were really good and I got a a gooood workout. I tell you, if I keep skiing, I am going to have some seriously toned legs and triceps! It was tiring but exhilarating. It was cold, 9 degrees when I started, but the sun came out and it was really gorgeous. I love snow!

Yay for skiing

Last week, I got a a chance to try out my new cross country skis! It was very fun, though the trail conditions weren't great because it was snowing a lot. As soon as they groomed it, it was covered in several more inches of powdery snow. But it was peaceful and it was quiet, which are things that this mother can appreciate. Just my skis, parting the powdery snow with each step, gaining rhythm. The sound of my breath and the snow falling on my coat. The chill on my face. Solitude.

Ringing in the New Year with (marginally) better sleep

Happy New Year!

An update on my last post: the last couple of nights have been better. Tons better than the night that I wrote about, but better than the violent sleeping in our bed, too. It has taken them about 30 minutes to settle down in evening. Then he has slept a pretty good stretch before coming out. And it hasn't been too hard to get him back in his bed. Probably the trickiest part at this point is staying in his room in the middle of the night to make sure he falls back asleep.

It is definitely a step in the right direction, though :)

*yawn*

Earlier in the month, I explained my love/hate relationship with co-sleeping with Liam. Well, in the last few weeks, he has upped the ante. It went from being somewhat uncomfortable, though tolerable, to not working at all in a few weeks time.

Basically, he has gotten more restless and more kicky and I just can't sleep with him anymore. Even when Joe sleeps on the couch, he finds me in the big queen bed, sleeps with his head digging in my back and kicks me. Not cool.

This combined with the fact that a) my belly is only going to get bigger and more cumbersome b) it is really hard to get comfortable in bed when I am largely pregnant anyways, sans the kicking toddler and c) the newborn that will be in our bed in a few months, we decided it was time to bite the bullet and try out something different that respected his need for companionship and everyone's need for a good night's sleep.

The Solution: The Sibling Bed(room)
As you can see from our picture, we moved Issy and Isaac into a room with Liam (his is the bed in the middle, he wouldn't turn around and pose for the picture) in hopes that he would feel comfortable enough to stay in his room, since he would have them in there. And that then he would not feel the need to sleep in our bed and harass me all night.

It is really nice in theory, isn't it? But as with many things with 2-year-olds (well, at least Liam) there is a large gap between the theory and the practice. As of last night, it was a total bust, but that only means that there is no where to go but up, right? (RIGHT?!) At this point, we are just going to have to stick to it and hope it catches on quickly because the alternative wasn't working either. And I want him to get used to it well before the baby comes so it is not perceived as a "baby usurping my position" thing. Honestly, I would be more than willing to let him sleep in our bed indefinitely if it was working. But it Just. Is. Not. Here is him this morning after being awake from 1:00 to 6:30 a.m. Trust me, you don't want a picture of me or Joe this morning :P
A final reflection: Honestly, I had no idea that parenting would be this hard. Seemingly simple things liking sleeping and eating with ease and unhasseled are a distant memory. Know what, though? It is totally worth it. I remember in college, I would nap for hours and hours a day even though I had a full nights sleep. But I didn't appreciate it. Now, every hour of uninterrupted sleep is hard fought and I see it for the gift it is. It helps to know that there is an end to all this too. I trust that it will not always be like this. When Liam is 16 the problem will most likely be how to get him *out* of bed and I won't have to hold his hand while he falls asleep.

Sweet dreams to all my readers :)

A Marney Family Christmas

At 4:22 a.m. Issy came in to tell us that Santa had come and it was time to get up. We assured her that even though Santa had come, it was definitely not time to get up yet. We put her on the little bed on the floor of our room. About an hour later (and I am pretty sure she was awake during that time) she told us it was time to get up and again, we told her not yet. Apparently, she fell back asleep, because Isaac came in shortly after seven and we got up.

Liam has decided to would like to go live with his godparents, Mary and Tim, so he was attempting to package himself up.

Mmmmm, chocolate before breakfast.

Isaac and Joe plotting putting together Isaac's United States floor puzzle.

We got them all skis, which they insisted on trying out in the living room.

Yum, snow!

Trying out the new skis. They were actually really good at it! They have kind of creepy clowns on them, but they were a good deal and the kids seemed pleased. They just strap on to their boots!

Issy and her much wanted American Girl Doll.

Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus.

We enjoyed an Apple cake for Jesus' birthday, it was delicious!

Preparing for Christmas

This is our Learning Shelf, that houses our books, puzzles, crayons and other educational toys for when we do our schooling. This year, we decided to decorate it for advent. We have our Jesse tree, which we have been decorating with symbols of salvation history that lead up to the birth of Christ. We have our advent wreath, that has candles for the four Sundays of Advent, in which we nestled the baby Jesus. And we have our Nativity set, minus Jesus, who will get to move over there on Christmas morning. The kids have really enjoyed our advent activities and the focus has been on Christ's birth at Christmas.

We are very excited to get to spend our Christmas here as a family. We are definitely going to miss all our family and friends in Kansas, but are looking forward to relaxing and making some of our own traditions here. And I am thankful not to be traveling since I has been snowing for the better part of the last week and a half.

Have a merry and blessed Christmas and know we miss you all!

A sweater for ME!

Yay, my beautiful purple sweater is done! I started it the day that I found out I was pregnant in early October. And I finished it right in time... the baby belly popped this week :)

The way the sweater is laying in the picture makes me look bigger than I actually am. See those beautiful ribbons? As the baby gets bigger, I can make them looser to accommodate the belly. I am very pleased with my first venture into sweaterhood :)

Ode to Ewok

They make a big show of annoying each other while they are in the house, but when they are outside, Ewok goes up to Clementine and gives her love.

See, ya'll hung in there with me when I didn't update for a while, and now things are paying off for you, eh?

Karen has inspired me to take more pictures of my cute, sweet kitty Ewok. We got Ewok when she was just a little kitten, about a year before we were married and she lived in my Dad's basement for six months. She had a brief stint living with some friends when we first moved up here and then she came to live with us last December. She is a sweet, sweet, patient, loving girl. I mean patient. She was actually purring in these last two pictures, even though there was excessive hugging.

This last summer, at the ripe age of 7, she decided she wanted to be an outdoor kitty. Would show up every couple of nights to eat. And now that there is lots of snow on the ground, she has decided she would like to be an indoor cat again. Spoiled kitty.

My cozy corner of the world

I have had the opportunity to spend my Saturdays at the yarn store for the last few months. I have no complaints. I get the chance to unwind, to sit and knit in front of the cozy stove, to talk to people about yarn and all the beautiful things they can make with it. It is nice to have some down time, away from the kiddos for a few hours (because who doesn't need a break from all that cuteness ;) And these days, I don't get much knitting time at home, since Liam is always on the move and, frankly, by the time he is in bed, I am just too darn tired. Because of my Saturday time, I have been able to nearly complete a sweater for myself (just need to finish a sleeve). I should be done and modeling by Sunday :)

O Tannenbaum

Everyone who knows else well knows our love of large (sometimes called obnoxiously large) Christmas trees. We had quite an adventure last year getting our tree by cutting it down in the forest. It was not exactly what we were looking for, but when you are trudging through the snow with three children, sometimes you have to alter your standards a bit. I liked it. I had character. And it was $5.

This year, we decided to support our local businesses by going to the nursery here (it is a seriously awesome nursery!) and getting a tree, since they had fresh cut trees there, and it was more manageable with the children. And we had a variety of "perfect" Christmas trees to choose from that we didn't have to walk through the snow to get. Maybe we will try that again when the kids are older.

And I will have you know, by Marney standards, it is a positively modest tree. It is only 7 feet tall and not horribly wide. It is gorgeous.

Liam has been driving me fairly crazy with it (although this should really come as no shock, since Liam often drives me crazy, in general, with seemingly benign things). He was really good with the tree last year and really didn't mess with it, so I assumed (HA!) now that he was a bit older that it would be smooth sailing. But he really really likes to touch the ornaments and, frankly, to pull the glass ones off of their hooks, which is annoying and dangerous. Alas, any that I put within Liam reach have been pulled off (by him) and put higher (by me).

Then there is the issue of straightness. This has always been our flaw in the saga of our tall, gorgeous trees. We only sometimes manage to get them straight on the first try. Sometimes we try again with better luck. Sometimes, we try again, and it isn't much better than the first time.

This one was crooked, but steady. We just weren't satisfied, so yesterday we tried again. We made it more crooked. And unfortunately, it got more crooked as today progressed. So much so, in fact, that it fell over an hour ago. We are going to have to start from square one tonight. With children in bed. And we will get it right this time.

Edited Tuesday Morning: When Joe got home and we put the kids to bed, we started fresh. Used our big, good-for-large-trees base. Perfect. Stable. We redecorated the tree, making sure all the breakable ones were near the top. Then we sat and enjoyed it :)

I love/hate co-sleeping

Ahhhhh, the little one. Beautiful, isn't he?

The story of Liam sleeping with us, Part I: Pre-Liam
It would be difficult to understand where we are without understanding where we have come from. It all begins with Issy, ridiculously easy, mellow, laid-back infant that she was. I mean it too, this is no exaggeration. I mean, she was a little tricky the first month (two?) and she had the fussy in the evening, but then she was magical. If I just laid her down, she fell asleep on her own. No fussing- just cooing, then sleep. We had nursing issues at first and I couldn't nurse laying down because it made my guts feel like they were going to fall out because of the c-section. When she was almost three months old, she started doing these huge nursings in the evening (hours and hours) and in the morning, but she was sleeping through the night. She slept in a little pack and play by our bed, but boy, did she sleep.

Then Isaac came along. Nursing was much easier and he liked to nurse a lot at night, so I pushed through the "guts feeling like they are going to fall out" part and learned to nurse laying down. And it was fine until about 5 or 6 months, when he started being restless. So co-sleeping was no longer working, and we tried to get him to sleep in his own crib. There was a lot of rocking and patting and shushing and nursing. Then when he turned a year, things got easier and he was a little more persuadable. And he too, started sleeping in his own space.

Part II: Liam arrives
He liked to nurse at night and I wasn't recovering from a c-section, so nighttime was much easier. He nursed and I would put him in a bassinet beside our bed (or not). At 5 or 6 months, he hit the "restless" phase and we side-carred a crib (basically, you shove a crib with one side off up against your bed) so he could have his own sleeping space. This worked awesome for a while.

Part III: The Ear Infection Phase
From about 11 months- 16 months, he had as many ear infections as not, so he would nurse and flail and nurse and flail and cry all night long. It was rather torturous for all involved.

Part IV: The End of the Ear Infection Phase and Nightweaning
So, during the ear infection phase be became accustomed to nursing all night long, which was fine for that time period when he really needed it, notsomuch for when he was all better. So we nightweaned him and it was glorious. He slept in his room until 3 or 4 or 5 a.m. then came to join us.

Part V:Liam Turns Two
I should have expected this, but I didn't. It happened with Issy, it happened with Isaac. When both of them turned two, they realized they could get out of bed at night and come to Mom and Dad's room. And they preferred it there. No biggie with them, we set up a little bed on the floor so they could slip in relatively undisturbed. Well, Liam started it too. Going to bed at 7:30 or 8 and then waking up at 10:30 and coming down to our room. But being the stubborn little fella he is, he wanted nothing to do with a bed on the floor, he wanted in bed where all the warm snuggling was.

Part VI: The Present
Which brings us to this point in time. And the love/hate relationship with co-sleeping. I love it when he walks into the room all sleepy, hair rumpled, puts his arms out, waiting to be loved and snuggled. Very sweet. He usually asks for a drink of water, then yawns and rubs his eyes. I love to watch him relax near immediately as he lays down in his Daddy's arms. And his little limbs get all limp and he closes his eyes and falls back into his little sleepy world.

Then I decide to go to sleep. And sometimes the night is ok and there is minimal encroachment upon my space. And then there are night like last night, where his little feet find me near continuously all night and he plants (seemingly) strategically placed kicks on me just to interrupt my sleep. And I keep shoving him over near his Papa and he finds me again. And again.

Sigh. I think I need a king-sized bed.

And yet, I have this feeling that he would still find me and kick me.

The rest of the Halloween pictures

So, apparently, there is a sort of on/off switch on my memory card. Joe turned it on. Honestly, whenever I think I am starting to the hang of this whole technology thing, I get thrown for a loop. Ahhhh, well, just means I need to keep the good old hubby around for trouble-shooting.

So yeah, he was actually grimacing in this picture, although I think it could pass as a smile. He really wanted Daddy to put him down so he could run into the street. Being the good parents we are, we didn't allow that.

He really liked the Jack O'Lantern

Here is my beauty.

Well, no pictures....

... but not because of a lack of trying. I have tried to upload my pictures on two computers in a couple of different ways the last couple of days, but to no avail. Joe said he would look at it for me, so I must wait patiently.

Life is life here. I am starting to have a good, normal-feeling day here and there, which is nice. I am hoping to get more of those, the first trimester blehs are getting old. I am truly thankful, though, when I consider how much better I have it than some women. In all of my pregnancies, I have had varying degrees of nausea/tiredness during the first trimester, but I never actually get *sick* which is awesome. So I will not complain :)

I am really looking forward to this Advent/Christmas season. The kids and I have started our Jesse tree, which they thought was very cool. We also got out our Advent wreath and I am hoping to make a paper chain of things we do that are kind for each day of Advent. We are staying here for Christmas, since traveling last year was such a nightmare. I am going to miss our family and friends, but it is also going to be nice to start some of our own family traditions. Issy and I were actually just talking today about what kind of cake to make Jesus for his birthday. We might have to take a vote.

So something nerdy I am really excited about. I got one of my Christmas presents early: cross- country skis! I am so excited, I want it to start snowing more (there is snow on the mountains but nothing substantial has stuck around in the Valley yet). I can't wait to get started! This is going to be a good way to stay in shape during this pregnancy :) I actually dream about my skis often.

My housekeeping has suffered the last couple of months, with the lack of motivation. The spirit is willing and all that stuff...

I am off for now (to do the dishes, actually) but will post when I have the pics!