Easter

We moved our Easter egg part to Saturday.  It was great - I think I might do it every year. 

So we dyed eggs on Friday night

The woke up Saturday morning to hidden Easter baskets full of art supplies,

and some candy eggs hidden around the house.

Megan ate them as fast as she found them.

Noah was pretty random and was more focused on finding his basket.

And our sweet Brock spent most the time pointing out eggs for Noah and Megan to find - he was very focused on making sure they got all the eggs they wanted.  He is a great first child.

Madison and daddy recorded the event.

They found the dyed eggs and their baskets.

It was a great Easter (Saturday) morning. 

Spring time outing

I have said this before on my blog but my favorite place to take my kids is Wheeler Farm.  We rarely go see the animals, we most often play in the river and their "back forest" area.  On this trip I told Jason that I LOVE playing with my kids in "nature". I think that is why I love Wheeler Farm so much, all nature.  I would always pick throwing rocks in a river or climbing over rocks and dirt mounds over something like Discovery Gateway any day.  I find I feel a lot of joy when I watch my children do things in nature.  I hope to take my kids up the canyons and go hiking a lot this summer.  It is one of the visions I have for this summer.

Miss Maddie-moo.  This was in her crawling backwards stage.  She is now crawling every where, and pulling herself up to standing.  She is VERY proud of herself and every time she pulls herself up to standing she will yell at you until you notice and praise her and then she smiles.  Melts my heart.

Megan-bug is at a hard age to get a good picture of because she is go go go - and as soon as I pull out the camera she wants it.  I am on a big obedience kick with her lately.  I realized the other day that she doesn't listen to one thing I say.  She totally ignores me, so we have been talking a lot about being obedient.  It seems to be working.  I ask her to do something (or not do something) and if she ignores me or says no, I remind her about being obedient and then she smiles and does it.  I hope it last. :)

Brock kills me.  He is the best.  He helps out so much and loves to be a great helper.  He is the best older brother any brother or sister could ask for.  I swear I could leave him to baby sit (don't worry I won't).  He climbed so high in this tree he wanted me to take a picture.

 

Noah - what to say about Noah.  He is so sweet and wonderful to his sisters.  Madison and Noah have a very very special bond.  And Megan often loves to torture Megan and Noah is nothing but sweet and patient with her.  On our end he is a difficult boy to please and he does that on purpose.  I am not sure why, he just HAS to disagree with everything you say, even if he agrees with you.  Me: "lets make cookies" Noah: "I don't like cookies" He is like that with EVERYTHING - but he always warms up and is pretty easy to go with the flow once you ignore him for the first few whines. 

 

Operation: Sleep Through the Night

I have been putting off teaching Madison to sleep through the night.  For a few different reasons.  The last few months I have been knowing that SHE was ready and if I didn't help her - I would probably miss my window of opportunity and just making it harder for her and me down the road.  But I still wasn't ready.  My reasons for not wanting her to sleep through the night:

1) She woke up any where between 3:30 and 5:00 am to eat.  She ate quickly and went right back to sleep.  Then when she woke up at 7:00 am for the day she wasn't hungry.  I didn't have to feed her right then.  She came down stairs with me and played with toys while I read my scriptures, got the other kids breakfast, and got our morning together.  She ate her solid breakfast before I nursed her in the morning right before her nap.  The schedule worked great. 

2) I wasn't having a hard time waking to feed her.  It didn't make me more tired.  So no real motivation there.

3) I knew I would be sad when she stared sleeping through the night - I just wasn't sure why.  I had heard other mom's of several children say because it was "precious quiet alone time" - but I didn't feel that way.  She rarely opened her eyes and I was always half asleep, plus we do get a lot of alone time everyday.  After some soul searching I realized I didn't want her to start sleeping through the night because then she would become one of "them".  A kid.  She would just start going to bed at 8:00 and sleep until 7:00 - just like the other kids.  I would have four kids, and no baby. 

I never cared about that before because at this point with all my other babies I was either pregnant or trying to get pregnant - so I was happily shuffling them into the next stage of "kid" to make room for the new "baby".  But I am not pregnant, I am not going to get pregnant, and if I don't have a baby... I don't think I will know what to do with myself.  I warn you that I might have a lot of posts in the next year or so as I come to terms with not having a baby or being pregnant.  Hope it doesn't get to whiny.

Anyways, so after putting it off as long as possible I realized SHE needed it.  All the signs were there.  So on Wednesday we launched "Operation: Sleep Through the Night". 

Since she is my longest child to still get fed in the night - I thought I would need a more thought out game plan, (with the others it just kind of came naturally) so this would be a 2 phase operation.

Phase one: Learn to not eat.  This would mean going in and just giving her her binky and blanket everytime she cried BEFORE 3:30, but not pick her up.  Then after 3:30 - do what ever I need to do (hold, rock, sleep with, etc) but not feed her.  (If this was not working and she was up crying every night from 3:30 on, I was prepared to start feeding her, but gradually giving her less and less every night).  Hopefully phase one would last about a week.

Phase two: Once she was no longer waking up to eat and would easily go back to bed with just a binky and a blanket - it is time to get her to put herself back to sleep.  This is very personalized to each child.  Some I let cry, some I knew that didn't help.  I am not sure what my plan is going to be with Madison. I need to do some contemplating to know what will help Madison sleep best.

We are still in phase one.  The last 2 nights I haven't fed her and she has only woken up twice and both times I never had to pick her up.  She just took a binky.  So far things are looking great.

UPDATE:  I started writing this post on March 29.  Things were going great.  Now on April 5 - things are terrible.  Still not feeding her - but she is up about 15 times a night and has ended up sleeping with me every night - just so I don't have to stand up to give her a binkey - but she is still waking up every 20 minutes or so.  I was HOPING she was getting teeth or something - but no such luck.  We are definitely out of phase one - but I don't think phase two is going very well.   Madison's problem right now is that she has really learned to crawl, roll, sit (from laying down), and pull herself up to standing. It is almost like she is addicted to doing these things and won't just sleep - but HAS to move all around and get herself stuck.  Every 20 minutes I go back in there and she is in some crazy position.  She is silly.

**Update again:  It is now April 11 and things are going better.  The last 3 nights or so she mostly sleeps all night until 5:00.  I give her her binky, she wakes up at 5:30 - binky, and then at 6:00 I feed her and then hop in the shower.  That schedule works fine for me.  Unfortunately those last three nights I have had my other three up once, twice, or even three times each.  So still not getting much sleep - but that is kind of expected in this phase of life... right??  But Maddie is doing well and I think soon will be sleeping until 6:00.  I think the goal is just to be consistent and not get frustrated - eventually they will follow suit.

Sisters

It is really fun to watch a sibling relationship start to grow and develop.  Brock and Noah are best friends - always have been.  Noah is really nice and sweet to Megan and is pretty considerate and patient.  Megan likes to bother and tease Noah.  I am hoping once Brock goes to school their relationship will flourish.  Madison is just starting to become really aware of Megan and the two of them are starting to interact.

I think Madison really admires Megan.  Sometimes I find her just staring at Megan with a look of awe and amazement.  She loves to touch her and pull her hair - but not in a mean way - just like she is trying to run her fingers through it - Megan is very patient about it and hardly ever gets mad, she just says, "don't pull my hair" - but never hurts her back.

This is their favorite game.  Madison gets on top of Megan's tummy and Megan rolls her off.  Megan is very gentle and they both love it.

They love this one too - I have to put Madison on and it doesn't last very long, because Madison will eventually just start pulling Megan's hair - but before that they rub noses and give kisses - it is pretty cute.

 

I think there is a lot riding on a sister relationship - they can be very emotional and quite a rollercoster.  These two are very close in age and only one grade apart - I am hoping they can be good friends and I am trying to foster that early.  But all bets are off once a car and boys are involved (I know from experience :)