Studly Husband...

kendall is, by far, the coolest husband ever. let me just tell you why:

-he can listen to avery cry without going into hysterics, which is more than i can say for myself, most days. after listening to her today, i had to leave tonight and he was great to be with her.

-he is doing the atkins diet and is being quite successful (even though he does know it is not too great for a long time, don't worry, he's going to be doing something else to maintain the weight loss).

-he cleans the house while i am away...it's VERY nice

-he can edit movies and quotes them to me to make me laugh

-he is studying really hard to be, as ethan says, a "lauyyer"

-and he is very cute.

so everyone else, stop drooling!

love you kendall ;)

ps--let it be known that kendall is kind of embarrased that i posted this but it is all, 100%, true:)

crying it out...

so with Ethan i was completely against him "crying it out" to go to sleep and such. i just couldn't handle it when he was small. so we had a HORRENDOUS time trying to get him to go to sleep, stay asleep, do anything that resembles sleep. it was really bad. many times i ended up in tears and as frustrated as he was. then when we moved to AZ i decided to try again, he was about 13-14 months old and it didn't take long, he cried for a very short time a couple of nights and then it was fine from there on out.

so this time we decided to do it earlier.
the thing about Avery is that she is NOT cuddly or touchy...she is kind of prickly, and i'm not trying to be mean, but she just is. so when we try to get her to sleep it is a battle EVERY SINGLE TIME. she freaks out, arches her back, cries her head off if we are holding her or not. so kendall figured if she is going to do that anyway, why not do it in her crib. because we have tried going in and comforting her and going back out and it doesn't work so great. we end up holding her anyway, and then she goes to sleep that way, which is alright, if she wouldn't pitch an all out fit to get that way. so i am trying to be onboard with this because it is, once again, DRIVING ME BANANAS. i love my kids, but what is up with this non-sleeping business? she will only sleep for 30 minutes during the day a couple of times, on average and she is definitely NOT sleeping through the night and she is grumpy increasingly throughout the day.

so today kendall is gone to school and i am trying to do this crying it out business. because i am at a loss of what to do...i don't want advice, i have read so much and tried so many things and i don't really want so much encouragement, unless you have a really good story, but i just want to send my frustration and sleepiness out into the cosmic void....

it has been almost an hour and she is still crying as much as she was at the beginning...this sucks.

pictures!!!

here are some new pictures of us. avery trying to get some food in her mouth, which she's not too good at yet, and ethan smiling in all his glory.

blow out...

so, last week Thursday, i took kendall to school because he had missed the time the bus would come and wanted to get there quicker than waiting for the next bus and the bus ride so...the kids and i took him to school, which is fine, we all like to drive, for at least short distances. on this particular day, Avery had not pooped, and hadn't pooped the day before, so i knew something was coming, because, let's face it, stuff's gotta come out, right?

so kendall and ethan went into the school building to get something and were coming right back out and traditionally, while Avery is sitting in her carseat she'll have gas and/or poop, so i waited for it. and it came. and it sounded pretty big. have i mentioned that Avery is really a gassy baby? well, she is. so she pooped and I, for one, felt good about that. but then she kept on going, having big gas and pooping some more. and then i got kind of scared because, while I usually bring some version of extra clothes, i had not that day and felt unprepared for what awaited me when i changed her diaper. judging by the sound of it, it was quite large so i was sure we were going to need a new onsie and told kendall as much. we were on our way to an ASU bookstore, so we decided we would buy her an ASU something, since she has none. so i took her to the bathroom and took her out of her carseat and immediately turned her over to survey the damage...not as bad as i thought, actually, just a little bit of yellow soaking through her shirt above her pants...get a new onsie and problem is solved. right?

in theory.

i turned her over to put her on the changing pad and noticed that the legs of her jeans were a little darker than i remembered...oh NO! i attempted to check what i was getting myself into, and saw, to my horror that she had blown out of her diaper leg holes, in the front, all the way down her pant legs, basically. pockets down, full of poop.

allow me to say, GROSS. so now we have poop on the onsie, poop on the pants and, i discovered after i took her pants off, poop on her socks, from trying to get her jeans off. poor baby, but let me tell you, she was so much happier! it was pretty cute, she was laughing while i cleaned her off. and if you can say you pretty much gave your daughter a bath with baby wipes on the changing pad on the floor of "the College Store" bathroom, you are definitely inducted into Parenthood.

so what did we do when she had no clean clothes...i put a new diaper on (had plenty of those) and put her in her carseat, covered with a blanket, all tucked in so it was harder to tell she was naked. then i went out to check on the buying new clothes situation, but all the sizes were hugely too big, so we found out where the nearest target/walmart was, and it turns on there was an OLD NAVY there and because i had a gift card, we went there and bought some clothes on sale and put them on her in the parking lot so she wouldn't freeze.

and a fun time was had by all. quite an adventurous day:)

VCR..

so a couple of weeks ago our VCR decided not to work and i, sadly, added it to the ever-growing list of things that don't work...see previous post about computer, and camera and those are just two...we haven't even touched the car yet...but i digress...so the VCR didn't work. which is especially sad because tonight starts American Idol and i usually tape it for kendall because he has young men's, so he said why don't you just try it to just see. the VCR said it had a tape in it..so i go to eject and no tape comes out so i look inside and what do i see....

socks.

that's right, three of avery's socks, no two of them the same, mind you, no wonder i've been wondering where all her socks have gone...

so little man must have been up to some mischief...upon being questioned about said socks in the VCR, it went like this...

me: "ethan did you put avery's socks in the VCR?
him: "yes, mommy"
me: "but ethan, socks don't go in the VCR"
him: "why?"
me: "just tapes go in there"
him: "oh"
me: "maybe you broke it, buddy"
him:"no, i didn't break it, it was just an accident"

oh, cause socks and tapes look a lot alike, but i know he didn't do it maliciously, probably while i was putting avery down sometime he wanted to see if it would work...boys' minds:) pretty funny, but now it seems to be working fine, so no worse for the wear.

and as soon as i figure out how to get pictures off the camera we have now, i will post a picture of the offending socks so you can see them:)

going back to school...

not me...kendall:) kendall went back to school today, yay for him for keeping on keeping on! we are doing well here, and i am determined to have a good day because i knew this was coming and being sulky isn't cute, so...we are doing well. avery has had a 30 minute nap which i still don't understand, but i have accepted and decided not to fight, because it doesn't help if i do, anyway, and ethan got a tv show taken away today because he was fighting with me, so i think i've handled things well so far. we'll see how it goes.

avery is very excited to eat "real" food. whenever i'm eating or drinking and i'm holding her she opens her mouth, puts out her hands and makes wanting noises. we are trying to stave off starting solid foods, until i get my mom's older camera in the mail, as ours is belly-up. i know that's not a super great reason, but i already couldn't take my own pictures at christmas, i'm not going to have another "major" event in our lives without a camera! as you can probably surmise from my posting this, we got a new computer and it works fabulously. so no more shutting off.

although, we gave ethan the old keyboard and mouse and put a pillow for the monitor so he could "work" on his own computer and now every few minutes he says, "oh, man! my computer turned off!" wonder where he got that from?????

avery was officially 5 months old on saturday and time is flying! i can't believe we have been together that long. it's amazing. Saturday was also an anniversary of ours. it was 9 years from the time that kendall and i became a couple, when we had our DTR...kind of funny:) but we like to remember that date:)

computer woe...

the reason you haven't heard much from me, is because our computer is dying...it will turn on but will turn off with no warning and a sound kind of like a fax beeping after about 10 minutes or less...the reason i am writing right now is we bought a new computer yesterday and while we haven't installed it yet, our old one seems to think it will give us a headache by pretending it doesn't have a problem today...isn't that funny how that works? crazy computers....

anyway, we are doing fine, enjoying our last days with kendall home, he starts school on monday, 14th. we have enjoyed having him home, it's nice to be able to say, go have daddy help you with....instead of trying to do it all on my own. and as several of my friends have blogged about, that is a double edged sword, because you get kind of used to that and come monday...no more;( but we'll make it again by ourselves:)

we are going to move to a bigger house in our same area here, we are just waiting for one to be available because frankly our house looks like it blew up and there are avery clothes everywhere because she doesn't really have space of her own...it will be nice when she does:)

the wilsons are good...how are you????

Peas

black-eyed peas...not the music group. the food. we have them every new year's day, time out of mind, in my Tuttle family, hearkening back to our southern roots. it's supposed to be good luck. so this year, we are not with/at the Tuttle family house, but we are carrying on the tradition and i am making black-eyed peas for kendall's family this year. should be fun.

what else? ethan got his first ear infection this last week, and that rounds out our year:) avery is getting better and better at batting at things hanging above her, and grabbing my hair, which is painful and cute at the same time. she has the best belly laugh in the world! it's so cute!

kendall is happily installed in doing my "honey-do" lists while he is on break from school. we've organized and cleaned, with more on the horizon, but i love to do it:)

i am looking forward to a great 2008 and i hope you all are as well. i must tell you that our camera finally went the way of all the earth (Lacey, i know you know how that is...those cybershots man...) so we are waiting on others to help us out by getting us pics of christmas etc. so when i have those, you will too:) love to you all near and dear out there...happy new year!