Back to Normal??

Mary Buckland with the boys this weekend.

Gary Buckland with the boys, or at least the ones who would allow their picture to be taken:)

Well, it has been a while since my last post so I am hoping some of you are still tuning in. Things have seemed to get back close to normal. My sleep has finally returned (praise be to God!) to its normal state, which is able to fall asleep at 10:30PM and be interrupted at least 2 or 3 times a night by at least 2 different kids for a wet diaper, a bad dream, or to put some one's covers back on (even though they are sitting right at their own feet!). I am usually able to return back to sleep and for that I am very grateful. Therefore, I have not had as much time to myself to do things like post a blog, read a book or magazine and all the other things I did in the middle of the night to pass the time when I wasn't sleeping, so I suspect my blogging will be sporadic from here on.

[Here are the boys playing blocks earlier this afternoon.]

We had a nice weekend despite the fighting and numerous temper tantrums. My friends Mary and Gary Buckland made it down for a brief visit, (and I was glad that most of the fighting and tantrums waited until after they had left!) They only live 3 hours away but we have only seen them about once a year since the move. I guess I shouldn't complain, we had a hard time getting together when we lived 20 minutes away, when we were in Leawood, KS and she was in Lee's Summitt, MO. It was nice to see them despite it being a brief visit. I am glad they are doing so well. I so miss having a close friend near by to run with, eat lunch with and do girly things with (as even though Jack likes some girly things, he still can't come with me to manicures, facials, shopping,etc!).

I am still not back to work and am technically on maternity leave. Had I known Trey's transition was going to be so much easier than either Jack's or RJ's I wouldn't have had to take so much time off. I also think Lance not working, instead of going right back to work a few days after we got back, has made a huge difference as well. I don't return until 1/26/10 but after today I would volunteer to go back tomorrow. Jack has had a particularly hard time with the addition of a little brother and his uprooting from the baby spot in our family. I thought over the last few days he was maybe just starting to get over it but today he outshone himself. We had at least 3 temper tantrums over the dumbest reasons, the last one lasted for over an hour!! He had been finally including his little brother in some of his play time and even sharing his toys and he even seemed to start enjoy being the object of Trey's adoration and imitation, but we definitely back tracked today, whew! Oh well, I guess we all have good and bad days.

Well, keep tuned. I am sure we will have more drama unfold in the next few days. I keep trying to remind myself, enjoy it now while they are young, it goes so fast, but sometimes it is hard to convince yourself of that!

Another Day Down

Am I the only one who sometimes feels that each day is a repeat of the one before? Also, does anyone else out there with young children look forward to the days when their children can start doing more things for them selves? And if you do, then do you also feel guilty about feeling that way? That was me today. As I wiped the third poopy bottom today, did more laundry and cleaned the bathrooms (again), I was actually looking forward to the day when the kids could actually do some of these things for themselves, as well as the day I return to work! Although, it was immediately followed by an immense feeling a guilt, especially since the new little guy has only been with us for 2 weeks (although does it make me sound like a horrible mother once again to say it feels longer than that?). All those feelings and I even almost had a full night's sleep! Usually, when I was getting really grumpy I was at least able to blame it on the fact that I could only get 3 hours of sleep a night. Last night, by the Grace of God, I slept almost all night with the exception of the one hour I was up from 1:30am to 2:30 AM after Trey got out of bed twice and had to be put back, you cannot imagine the elation I felt when I did not wake again until Trey came running in at 7:09AM!

I couldn't resist some cute bath shots, here is one of Jack holding on to his new birthday submarine (I think he was afraid that Trey would want to play with it if he let go!)

Here is Trey wriggling around after bath time, I would let him run around a little more if it wasn't so darn cold here (at least comparatively to what he is used to). You can see that even right after the bath he has slobber already down his chin!

Here is another of Trey right after bath before he got too rambunctious.

Well, here is wishing you all a good night's rest and I am hopeful that I will once again sleep all night and that I soon will have this insomnia problem fixed. Thanks for reading!

Jack's Birthday

Happy Birthday my beloved Jackson! Actually, his birthday isn't until next Wednesday the 6th but we celebrated it today because we all couldn't get together next week. Once school starts again then everybody gets really busy and Jack really has no sense of time, so we took this wonderful New Year Day to get together and celebrate. Mainly it was for Jack, I felt he really needed some extra special attention as he has felt a little out of place since Trey came into the picture. We also said a quick little birthday song for Lance as well.

We also got to take a quick trip down to Kuna, ID a couple of days ago to visit my family and introduce Trey to all of his cousins on my side of the family. He once again did quite well, it took him a minute or two to get used to the new faces but he was quickly enthralled with all of his cousins and jumped right in to play. He especially liked cute little Cora, the previous baby of the family. She is now 3 and more his size which I think had a lot to do with it. We had a great trip albeit brief. It snowed while we were there and we had to leave earlier Thursday morning than we had planned just to beat the storm. We were lucky that we did leave when we did because by the time we got here to Kennewick it was snowing quite hard. In fact, it started snowing quite heavily in La Grande but had just started and nothing really sticking on the road yet so road conditions were okay.

Here is Jack and Trey at one of Jack's more tolerant moments. As I stated earlier, Jack has been having a rough time with the loss of his spot as the baby. Jack has always been the most happy go lucky and mild mannered child but since the addition of Trey has become a whiny, crying and selfish little booger! I try to be a little more lenient with him because I know he is having a hard time and try to give him extra special attention but he has been really trying my patience! So let's all pray his transition phase goes quickly!

Here is another picture of my "boyz" all together on Lance's 40th birthday. This time RJ was the one not wanting to take any pictures and he wasn't too happy I made him sit for this one. It is a rare picture that I can get all 3 of my boys happy at once! Aren't they a handsome group!

Here is the same picture of the boys right before they sat for Santa. I downloaded it by accident and I think as I have told you before, am too stupid to figure out how to get rid of my accidents on this blog.

Well, the insomnia continues. I thought I had it licked the other night but I spoke too soon. The next night it was only 3 hours, however, during that 3 hours I was up once with Trey and 3 times with Jack! After the 4th time I was so mad that I knew there was no way I was going back to sleep although it didn't stop me from trying for another hour. I finally got up, worked on the computer for awhile then worked out. Last night was a little better, I slept from 9:30PM until 2:30AM when Jack crawled into bed with me. I then layed there for 2 more hours but was able to sleep again for another hour before Trey woke up and came in the room. I decided it was time for me to pry my eyes open and get out of bed finally. Did not get any exercise today as between errands, cooking, and playing with the boys was too busy so am hoping that doesn't affect my sleep as it does seem that when I exercise in the morning, I do tend to get more sleep that day, although, there really hasn't been any pattern which is what is so frustrating! Now it has become a mental thing with myself, I worry about sleep and when I wake up I worry that I can't get back to sleep and that only makes things worse! Ahhhhh! It is a very frustrating problem and I once again have great empathy for all those insomniacs out there!!

Well, I wish you all a good night's sleep and thanks for reading!