Finally

We have a new house! We are so excited! We signed all our papers on Monday, and tomorrow morning we get our keys and can get things going. We have a lot of work to do before we can move in, but thats ok. We have some small holes and chips in the walls/ceilings to fix, then we need to primer/paint. Next, we are having carpet put in, that will make a huge difference. We also have some work to do downstairs in the bathroom, the washer stand pipe is short, so that we have to add some piping to so that the washer won't overflow (we had this problem in our other house, who knows how many time that thing overflowed before we caught it). Anyways, we are super excited, Tessa loves it, every time we go she begins the "derby race" through the kitchen to the dining room to the living room and back through the kitchen again. Ashley and Tessa will have a lot of fun running around that for many years I hope. So, we have until April 25 to get things done and moved in, because that is when our 30 days notice is up. Oh, we are super excited!

Sleep Baby Sleep

Ashley is so smart. She got with the "Sleep-thru-the-night" program super quick. It took only 2 nights of fussing, and then, walla, she sleeps thru most of the night. I lay her down around 8 ish at night, and then I won't have to go to her until around 4-5 for a quick 20 minute feeding, or sometimes she won't wake at all. There have been a few nights where she wakes and fusses for like 15 mins around 2 am or so, but she falls right back asleep. I love this girl.

I borrowed and read a book from my friend on sleeping, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, by Marc Weissbluth, and it said "sleep begets sleep. This is not logical, but it is biological" and "The more rested a child is, the moe she accepts sleep and expects sleep". At first, I thought sounds odd, but then I got to test the theory, and it's TRUE.

Here is how my test went. These past six months or so, I have been getting up at least twice a night. At first I was tired at night when I woke up, but after 6 weeks or so, you just adjust and it seems normal. I was tired, but I wasn't zombie-tired all the time. So 6 months passes, and I am still tired, but totally functional once I fully wake up in the mornings. ( I am more awake when I wake up at 1 am than I am at 8 am.) So, this past week, when Ashley started sleeping thru the night, I got to sleep for like 7 hours straight a few nights, from around 11 until about 6-6:30 am. And strangely enough, I am more tired now than I was when I was waking up at all hours of the night! Also, Ashley never napped for over an hour. Now that she is resting well at night, her naps have are becoming longer. In fact, she just woke up from an hour and a half nap!

So, I testify it is true! Sleep begets sleep!

This was taken on New Year's Eve. Thought I might finally post it for fun!

A New House

I am SUPER EXCITED!  We are signing on a new house today!  We went and looked at a nice home in Ceder Hills and decided to put in an offer, and they sent us a counter offer, and we are taking it!  Yea!  It is going to be so great to have a bigger place.  It is a 4 bedroom, with three bedrooms upstairs, which is something I really really wanted, but thought that in our price range, we may not be able to afford, so I am stoked.  It has 2 1/2 baths, so we will have a master bathroom, and in the kitchen there is a bar, which are other things I didn't think we could afford.  I am just beside myself with excitement.  Anyways, we feel very lucky that this came our way and hope everything works out like it should.  Sometimes inspections bring bad news, so we will be crossing our fingers and hoping that this is our lucky time to find a good home.  

I told Kirk on Monday morning when we went to look at it, that it was our time, because Sunday night I finished unpacking the last box in our apt.  Isn't that how it works???  So soon, I will start packing them up again!

Cry Baby

The time has come for Ashley to learn to sleep through the night.  Currently she is waking up about 2, maybe 3, times at night.  At night means from bedtime at around 8-9 pm until 7-8 am the next morning.  So, I am thinking this is a ridiculous schedule.  She is a 6+ month old baby, she weighs over 18 lbs, and she doesn't even eat that often during the day now because she has  2 entire containers of solid foods a day, one for breakfast and one for dinner.  So needless to say, she is not hungry all those times she wakes up at night.  I usually try and nurse her the first time, hoping she will then sleep longer, but alas, it doesn't seem to be working.  She will wake up again, just so that someone will pick her up and cuddle her so she can doze back off.  I love holding her and snuggling her, and I don't' mind getting up to nurse her at some point, but not three times a night.  So... it is time.  Time to learn to sleep.  And she isn't particularly happy about it, but she will be.  She will thank me someday for letting her learn to sleep unassisted (ok, maybe she won't actually thank me, but she will be happy that she can fall asleep easily).  We did this with Tessa, it took her 4-5 nights, and she got with the program and is a great sleeper (as long as she is in her bed at home).

I spoke with the downstairs neighbors, and they said they can't hear a thing, thank goodness.  So, we have the go-ahead to let her cry.  Last night she cried for about 25 mins before Kirk stepped in and rubbed her hair a couple mins.  Then she cried a couple more mins and went to sleep.  But, as our story goes, she was awake in about 2 hours, and then again in another hour... 

 So tonight, cry baby cry, cause mommy wants to be able to sleep again!

ps, she has been sleeping for her nap now for about 20 mins, and woke up and just started crying right this minute, so it begins :)

Oh My Goshness!

This is Tessa's new saying. Oh My Goshness! It's really cute. She is at the age of repeating everything. This one she just gets a little confused on :)

Apartment Life

I feel like I am 20 again, living in a cheap apartment without a dishwasher, cooking meals in an electric skillet so as to not dirty too many dishes, eating off of paper plates and using plastic cups as often as possible. But, I am not single, and I live with a couple of small children, which means we never have a clean house, unless they are asleep!

We finished moving the last box on Tuesday, and still have many to unpack. We signed our papers on Tuesday afternoon, so the house is offically not ours anymore. We hope the new couple enjoys it very much, we had a lot of fun in that house. So, like I said, we feel like we live in a college apt again. It's actually a very nice apt, it belonged to my friend Lesli a while back. I just wish I had a dishwasher. I told Kirk that if we have to stay here for like 6 months or so, we will be buying a portable and then resale it after we move out.

Our home buying is slow going, we found out that we didn't get the Springville home we put an offer on, we thought we might get out bid. Oh well. We haven't heard anything about the Pleasant Grove home. We really like it and really hope that it works out, but you never know.

So, we will just sit tight here in apartment life and see what falls into place for us!