California and The Happiest Place on Earth

We had the most fabulous vacation to California last week.  It was not relaxing at all but it was so much fun.  I'll try to keep it to a brief summary but just warning you I have a lot of pictures.  Feel free to skim.

We drove down to Las Vegas the first day and spent 2 nights there.  The weather was warm and sunny and it felt good to wear sandals and short sleeves.  Everyone did great on the trip down until the last 30 minutes. We couldn't get to our hotel fast enough.  We had some pretty tired of being the car girls but other then the last 30 minutes of all the legs of our trip, they did great...unless they were fighting over which show to watch. We happened to stay at the Siena Suites.  It was a 2 bedroom suite off the strip which was good and bad.  I loved having 2 bedrooms to split everyone up but the rooms were not the best and very uncomfortable.  The girls each had their own double bed and since this would be their first night in a bed ever I thought they would be fine in a big bed.  About 5am Siena fell out of bed.  It left 2 red marks.  The one under her eye lasted 3 days.  Poor thing.  The rest of the week she was fine.  Aria fell out once later in the week but landed on Siena's bed since she was sleeping on a trundle right next to her.

 First night in a real bed...

In Vegas I took the girls to the mall in the morning while Jaron took his morning nap then after lunch we went down to the strip and saw the Aria hotel as well as The Bellagio water show, my favorite.  That afternoon we took the girls to the pool.  They just stayed on the top steps splashing but thought it was so fun.  That night we went to my favorite Steak n Shake for dinner.

Click here to see how little she was the last time we were here.

 No wonder we make a scene everywhere we went...

The next day we headed to California.  We stopped in Barstow at this park right off the freeway which ended up being so fun.  It was perfect weather and we had fun getting out of the car for a while and running around.  Jaron got his first ride in a swing.  He didn't seem too impressed.  When we got to Christy's house the girls went to the park with Shane and when Christy's kids came home from church they met them over there and had a great time.  I love that park by Christy's house. Christy made us a nice pot roast dinner since it was our anniversary.

Monday we went to the beach.  It was the first time at the beach for all 3 kids.  The girls were a little unsure of the sand at first but got used to it pretty fast.  We ate lunch, built sandcastles, buried their feet, Aria even took a little tumble as a wave came in and got all wet.  It was seriously a perfect warm, sunny day at the beach and the beach was totally empty.  Jaron even fell asleep for a short while.  I felt bad because I missed sunblock right below Siena's eyes so the rest of the week she had these sunburn marks right under her eyes.

Tuesday was the day I had been anticipating for so many months since we had decided to go on this trip. We took the girls to Disneyland.  Christy was nice enough to watch Jaron for us and I was so glad because I can't imagine how hard of a day it would've been trying to keep him happy, fed, sleeping etc.

I will never forget the faces of my 2 cute girls as we walked into Main St. and first saw Goofy standing there. It was priceless to see their little faces light up when they realized Goofy was there in person.  Then they looked over and saw Mickey, then Donald.  It was the same face when we walked around the corner of Minnie's house and saw Minnie standing there and it was the same amazed faces when the first float of the parade came down and there was Mickey and Minnie with the bright lights and fun music.  They weren't as excited to get up too close to them when we would try to meet them so our pictures aren't great, but they did ok.

We had fun on some rides.  I learned quickly just to stick to the outdoor rides.  They didn't get the concept of standing in line and why we had to wait.  They each had their meltdown moments and each feel asleep on a ride at different times of the day, but overall they were troopers.  It was a long day for them but I know they had so much fun and really enjoyed seeing all the characters the most.  I made a video of our pictures from our trip and every day now they ask to see 'the trip one' when I ask them if they want to watch a show.

The next day Christy went above and beyond her hostess duties and watched all 3 of our kids so Shane and I could go enjoy the older kid rides.  I kind of wished we had a day in between to recover but because of the weather we went the next day.  We were both pretty exhausted but it was fun to ride all the rides and neither of us had ever been to California Adventure before so it was fun to ride some new rides as well.  By the end of the day I could hardly walk and we had our fill of Disneyland and we made it home just in time to tuck our kids into bed.

Christy and her family were so good to us.  They happily gave up 2 of their rooms and all the kids shared 1 room so we could have beds to sleep in.  They greeted the girls with hugs every morning, before school, after school and before bed.  Emmy, who is 3, pretty much thought she was the oldest kid around since the girls and Jaron are younger than her.  I think she liked not being the littlest for the week.  She kept telling me she was babysitting Jaron, it was so cute.  Christy fed us and gave up a lot of her week to watch our kids, feed us and keep us entertained, so Thank You Christy and the Brian family, we owe you!!!

We had one more day in California but it started raining that day (yay for California, boo for us) so we went to the mall and let the kids run around the play area and ride the 'magic stairs'.  That night we met my friend Konstantina for dinner and it's always fun to catch up with her and she was able to meet Jaron as well.

We drove to St. George Friday night thinking it would be a nice quiet stay before heading home the next day.  We tucked the girls into the bed next to us and not even 3 minutes after turning the lights off, Siena thew up.  She threw up everywhere, all over their blankets, pjs, bedding, hair.  She continued to throw up every 20 minutes for almost 4 hours.  I kind of wanted to get back in the car and just drive home but didn't want her throwing up in the car so we stayed and I laid by her catching throw up for 4 hours.  Poor little thing.  Good news is we didn't have to wash all the bedding (the poor hotel maids, but they were so nice about it.)  Bad news, we still had a lot of laundry, blankets, baby dolls to wash when we got home.  Jaron, Shane and I all got sick the next night and luckily that was it and Aria never got it.

We were exhausted when we got home.  Not exactly a relaxing vacation but such a fun week and one I'll never forget.

Jaron - 7 Months

Jaron is 7 months, even though he didn't really have a 7 month birthday...his 7 month birthday would've been Feb. 29.  So he just woke up on March 1 as a 7 month old.

This has been such a fun month for Jaron.  I love this age when they are interacting so much more, the laughs come so easily, the sleep is good and he isn't mobile yet!

Jaron loves to spit.  He does it over and over again and makes himself laugh.  He thinks he's so funny and if you blow raspberries back at him, he'll engage in a spit war as long as you let him.

He loves his sisters this month and his sisters love him.  They ignored him for a few months.  I think they got kind of bored of him when the newness wore off.  This month he is interacting with them so much more.  He has been laughing at them, smiling and all of the sudden there is a new interest in their brother.  I have several videos of either the girls laughing at Jaron or Jaron laughing at them.  They love to hold him still even though he just sits on their laps now.  Aria loves to rub his hair and Siena still smothers him with kisses.  This was my first attempt at his 7 month photo.

Jaron is the sloppiest eater.  He drools non stop still so he'll swallow his bite of food then smile and drool and leftover food comes spilling out.  It drives me crazy.

We moved him to the regular bath tub and have him sitting up in the bath now and he loves it.  He hits the water with his hand and causes the biggest splash.  I don't think he would ever tire of splashing himself.  Even when he splashes himself in the face, he doesn't care.  Look at those cute rolls...love them.

He reaches for everything and the only time he falls over from a sitting position is when he's reaching for something he can't quite get.  He's rolling around a lot more, but mostly moves around on his back because as soon as you put him on his tummy he rolls right over to his back.  He rolls over to his tummy to reach something and then rolls right back to his back.

We still swaddle him.  I have tried several times to unswaddle him and he is not happy about it at all. I talked to the pediatrician about it and she said it's perfectly fine.  Just this week we unswaddled him for nighttime, he seems to do fine with that.  But naps, he has to be swaddled or the naps are very short.

We went to California, his first trip, and he did great.  He was great in the car, with disrupted schedules, sleeping in a hotel room and in a pack n play, and didn't mind whoever was watching him (Christy...and Emmy).  What a great little traveler he was.

I never posted his 6 month stats but at 6 1/2 months when we went to the dr. here are his stats:

27 1/2 inches - 75%

18 lbs even - 50%

50% head

Aria's First Haircut

I've been wanting to cut Aria's hair for a while now but just never really around to it.  She's had this underneath layer that grew out faster then the rest of her hair when she was little.  This week in particular it was driving me crazy.  It just started looking stringy and needed a cut really bad.  So Friday night when we didn't have anything going on I decided to take her to get it cut.

I was worried she would cry the whole time as she doesn't really even like me to do her hair and only holds still for a very short time.  I told her if she was good and didn't cry that we would go get ice cream afterwards.

She did great!  She started to cry a little at first but as long as I stood right next to her talking and reminding her of the ice cream she held really still.  However, she did say 'All done, ice cream' probably 50 times during the hair cut.

I wanted the back to be one length and in order to do that we had to cut off 4 inches in the back.  I can't believe her hair was even long enough to cut off 4 inches.  I think it turned out great and it's not as short as I thought it would be.  The back of her hair has some weird flip/curl in it that drives me crazy (she gets that from me...you're welcome Aria!)

Cute little side story of the night.  We went to Wendy's for a frosty and as soon as we sat down and took about 5 bites, I mentioned to Aria that maybe we should take it home and share it with Siena who was patiently waiting at home for us.  Aria hopped right off the chair and headed straight for the car.  She thought it was a great idea.  When we got home, I took the ice cream in first and as soon as Siena heard the door open she came running, not for me but yelling Aria's name.  She stood at the door 'Ara, Ara, Ara' (that's how she says her name) until I opened the door and got her Aria out.  You would've thought we had been gone for a week with the squeals that came out of their mouths, it was such a cute reunion.  It was short lived when Siena realized Aria had a balloon and she didn't have one.  Lucky for me I had some spare balloons from a party and blew one up and wallah, problem solved.  They shared an ice cream and it was a great night.

Jaron - 6 Months

Our little guy is 6 months old today.  I'm so on top of it, posting on his actual 6 month birthday.

I don't have any stats for him because our dr. appt, isn't for 2 more weeks.  How do I always get so behind on these appointments?

Anyways, here's some things about Jaron this month.

• He found his toes.  He doesn't suck on them but loves to hold them and examine them.

• He loves to do this inhaling trick.  It sounds like he's been holding his breath and has just come up for air and does this inhale sound and he thinks he's pretty funny when he does it.
• Still drooling a ton but has gotten a touch better, along with the spitting up.
• Wakes up so happy.  I could just leave him in his crib for quite a while because I just love hearing him talk and coo to himself.
• Has decided he only likes the green binkies from the hospital. We bought some blue ones that are supposedly exactly the same.  Come to find out they are a touch firmer and he knows the difference.
• Sitting up really well.  He will still fall down occasionally so I keep a pillow around him still but the times I don't he'll go 5 minutes without falling over.
• Very easy going, happy, smiley little guy.  He really just has a happy disposition and only cries when he's tired.

• Sleeping from 8pm-7:15am.  Morning nap is usually 2 hours, afternoon nap is about 1 1/2 hours total. Although for the afternoon nap he usually wakes up half way through, talks to himself for 20 mins then gets whiny and if I go put a binky in then, he goes back to sleep for his 2nd half of the nap.  Then he takes about a 30 min. nap in the evening.
• He is still swaddled for every nap and at night.  I have tried to break him of this and he is having nothing to do with that.  I want to break him of this but at the same time he sleeps so well with it, I think why bother.  At some point I'm going to have to do it though.

• His cries sound like Aria.  I have always been able to tell the girls cries apart from when they were just a couple months old.  They are very different to me.  However, Jaron's cries sound just like Aria's.  At night when I wake up I many times think Aria is crying only to get out of bed and hear that it is Jaron. The other night right after they all went to bed, someone was crying who I thought was Aria (since she cries a lot right after we turn off the lights) and it was Jaron...once again I was fooled.  Just an interesting tidbit for you.
• He loves his burp rag and plays with it almost as often as any other toy I offer him.

• We started feedings this month. I meant to do a post about it but never got around to it.  He loves his food and likes it on the thicker side right from the start. He often will lean forward to take a bite and a couple times I've gagged him by accident because of it.  We only started veggies this week and so far he's loving the squash, green beans are up tomorrow.  I have to feed him before his bottle otherwise he won't eat a bite.  Even if I wait an hour or so after his bottle.  He spits out every bite.  But if it's before his bottle he gobbles it all down and then drinks his bottle just fine.

6 months has flown by...I can't believe we're on the downhill to 1 year already.  sniff sniff.

Room Changes

This month we've done some major re-work to our room situation in the house for several reasons.

My sister gave us my grandpa's piano that she wasn't using anymore, so we moved all the toys out of the dining room to make room for the piano.  The girls really never liked to play in there anyways, unless I was in there with them.

Then we sold my queen bedroom set that was in the one and only bedroom on our main level right off of the family room and moved all toys into that room.  That is now our toy room and I LOVE IT!  We just haven't broken the news to my mother in law yet that next time she visits, her nice private guest room is no longer there.  :)

Although most days all the toys still end up everywhere else in the house.  At least there is a spot to put them back and close the door.  And they're getting better about playing in there.  They actually like it when I close the door and make them play in there by themselves.

 Then the biggest move we made was we moved Siena back into her room to share with Aria.  And then we moved Jaron into Siena's old room.  We did this for a couple reasons...1-I have to sleep with a monitor every night because Jaron's room is so far from ours and I hate sleeping with a monitor.  2-I thought maybe the girls would kind of comfort each other and help stop the crying when they wake up, crying before they go to sleep, etc.  I really thought they would think it was fun to share a room but when we moved the crib Siena was sooo distraught.  For 2 days she kept walking to her old room for naps and bedtime standing at the door saying 'other one'.  I felt bad, that had been her room since she was about 3 or 4 months old so she knew nothing different.  But after a couple days she was fine.  It has helped a little bit with the crying and they do love it when they wake up after naps and have someone to talk, laugh and jump up and down with. It also made their going to sleep for nap time much longer but their happy so I just leave them.

And the other plus to all of this is I get my office back.

I'm in love with an owl

I'm in love with this owl.  It's been a life changer for me this week.

Maybe you have something similar...

This owl has an alarm clock in it and 'wakes up' at 7am each morning.  It only took 1/2 a day for the girls to understand what this meant.  It also has a timer for naps.  They now know that if the owl is asleep, they should be asleep.  Green = Awake...No light = Back to sleep.  It's worked for the mornings and for Siena who has been taking shorter and shorter naps.  HEAVEN!!!  They get so excited when the owl wakes up. A few times I have heard them wake up and start to cry and then they just stop and go silent and go back to sleep.

I can't imagine how frustrating it must be when you're little and you wake up and you have no idea if it's time to get up or not.  My girls have both been having a lot of sleep issues and waking up at all hours of the night. When I go in there cuz they are hysterically crying, the conversation goes something like this.

Me : "Are you ok?  What is wrong?"
S: "All done.  Downstairs.  Mickey Mouse.  Awake"
Me: "It is still sleep time, you need to lay down and go back to sleep"
S: "No, all done.  Awake."
Me: "Lay down."
S: "Waahhhhhhh"

or

Me : "Are you ok?  What is wrong?"
A: Silence
Me: "It is still sleep time, you need to close your eyes and go back to sleep"
A: Silence
Me: "Do you need anything?"
A: "Nope"
Me: "ok go back to sleep"
A: Silence
Me: walk out of the room
A: " Waahhhhhhh"

Like I said...I'm in love with this owl.  Hopefully it works for a very long time.