Poor Graham.

On Wednesday Graham started breaking out in spots all over. In the morning we thought he'd just scratched his face while sleeping, then it looked like some bug bites or chicken pox. Then his eye started swelling up. By nighttime he looked like this.

Then in the morning he looked like this. Poor guy looked so, so sad and swollen! But he didn't seem to mind at all.

We took him to the doctor on Thursday and again on Friday, because when he woke up on Friday he looked even worse:

He looked so sad. I was wanting to just snuggle him and take care of him, but he couldn't care less about it. It didn't seem to itch him or bother him at all, thank goodness! We figured out that he was just having an allergic reaction to the antibiotic he was taking for his ear infection last week. He was on day 8 of the antibiotic, so we didn't think it could be that--and we'd unfortunately and unthinkingly kept giving it to him up until we took him in to the doctor. Poor guy. As soon as the antibiotic got out of his system, and the Benadryl kicked in, the rash started going away.

And he's back to normal today! Phew! And also, he's officially crawling! I was in the toy room with the two boys and all of a sudden I looked around and Graham was halfway down the hallway chasing after a basketball. He is so cute and happy about his newfound freedom. I LOVE seeing his cute face while he crawls around. (Although I am nervous about the amount of work is coming up as he gets more and more mobile.)

Dane's first week of Sunbeams!

I taught Sunbeams for two and a half years in North Carolina, and loved it. (Most of the time.) But one thing I remember especially from teaching Sunbeams is how difficult the transition is for these little three-year-olds to go from nursery into Primary. Even though I knew that, I still didn't imagine that Dane would have a hard time going to Primary for the first time. But, he did. It wasn't TOO bad, but there was a bit of tenderness and crying and he was a little scared to have me leave him in the Primary room. Almost all of the Sunbeams were crying, though. It was quite a sight.

I think the hardest thing for him was that his two best friends, Ben and Preston, both ended up in the other Sunbeams class. (I suspect that was on purpose, because Dane gets super hyper and over-excited around the two of them. And vice versa.) So he did not understand why he couldn't sit with them during Primary and was really upset when I tried to explain that they had a different teacher. I'm pretty sure he's just been going and sitting on Ben's side every week while they're in Primary, but I'm not going to worry about it unless they ask me to, haha.

Dane and his little buddy Preston, on their first week heading to Sunbeams. Dane refused to smile for a picture unless Preston was in it too.

Pretty excited about Primary--until he figured out he couldn't sit by Ben.

A creepy stalker shot from out in the hallway.

The second week, we heard Dane screaming out in the hallway during Relief Society/Priesthood. Tommy and I both went out there and he was crying because he DID NOT want to go to the girl's bathroom with his teacher. (Although he goes to the girl's bathroom with me every time we are out in public...) It doesn't help that our church is from 1-4 this year, and he is extra super tired with no quiet time for himself. He did really great last week though! I think he is getting used to it. And I think it's good for him too. I can't believe he is so big, going to Primary--but I also definitely can't see him being in nursery a whole extra year. 

Oh, and this is so cute: the Primary presidency gave us a CD with the Primary songs they are going to be learning this year, and I put it in the car because when else are we going to listen to a CD? And now Dane likes to ask if we can listen to Primary songs in the car. He sits there very seriously listening, with this intent look on his face. He LOVES the song that lists the books in the Book of Mormon (because he recognizes the names Nephi and Helaman--too bad it's only about 25 seconds long) and when he hears "Praise to the Man" he says, "This is the Conquer song!" And then he talks about how the stripling warriors were "conquers" and beat the bad guys. He is learning the words to "Stand for the Right" too: "Be true, be true, and stand for the right." I love seeing him learn things before my eyes. It's the most rewarding part of this whole parenting journey so far.

January with Graham Canyon

Back in early December I posted about Graham at eight months old, and talked about how he was kind of impatient, grumpy baby. Right after that, he started spitting up a ton (like ten times a day), and the doctor recommended we try him on soy formula. Not only did he stop spitting up, he also got a lot happier. He's still pretty impatient--what baby isn't?--but he doesn't cry any time I put him down and there is so much less shrieking and screaming than there was before. Hooray! It makes me sad to think that he was crying all that time because his tummy was hurting him, but at least we solved the problem for him. I think it also helps that at 9 1/2 months old now, he's much more coordinated and able to move himself around and do what he wants to, which helps him stay entertained by himself, at least a little bit.

He is about 90% of the way to crawling. He can army crawl (only using his right arm to scoot himself) if he's really motivated--like if he sees an outlet really close within reach if he moves himself--but he doesn't do it all that often. He still likes to just get up on his hands and knees, rock back and forth, do the plank, and eventually screech angrily until he gets rescued. He is OBSESSED with a few things: opening our kitchen cabinets and playing with the cords to the blinds. Unfortunately, neither one of these things are in his reach unless we are standing, holding him right in front of them. So when Tommy is home he spends a lot of time doing that while I finish dinner. He also REALLY likes the remotes that control our ceiling fans.

 He LOVES taking baths with Dane, hates going into his bedroom because he always thinks he's getting put down for his nap, loves eating real people food, and is happy whenever he's doing anything with Dane. He is drinking three bottles a day, at normal meal times. He takes two pretty good naps every day, which I love. He goes down for his nap really easily--usually he acts like he doesn't want us to rock him at all, which is a little sad, but at least it's convenient. The hardest hour of the day for him is the one when I'm trying to make dinner. But isn't it always?

 Oh! And the best thing of all--about two weeks ago he started babbling and saying "Dadadada." He had never said any syllables before, basically just yelling all the time (happy and angry) and it is the cutest thing ever to hear him talking to himself. He just woke up one morning saying it. Isn't that amazing how that happens? I guess there always has to be a first time, but it's just like something clicked in his brain that wasn't working before then.

I came in to get him up from his nap the other day and he was sitting up playing in the corner of his crib. He looked so proud of himself! No wonder I'd heard him talking to himself for a long time and he was totally happy to stay in his bed without me coming to get him. Looks like we might have to lower his crib soon.

It's really cute: I am able to put them both in the toy room to play while I work on dinner, and Dane will happily play in there with his trains and Graham will roll around from toy to toy, and I peek in on them every other minute to make sure Graham didn't find any random thing to choke on. But they are playing happily together (or at least in the same room) and it's the cutest thing! And so convenient for me! Graham is really interested in cars and trucks already at this age. He loves spinning their wheels and seeing how they work. He's going to be a little engineer! He's totally bored with the baby toys we have; all he wants are Dane's toys. We might as well just put those baby toys away. 

I love love love that he can sit in the grocery cart now! It makes my life so much easier!

Two brothers. So cute and sweet together. Dane really, really, really is the sweetest big brother. He LOVES Graham. Whenever he comes out from his nap, he runs over to Graham and gives him the biggest hug. He is always laughing at funny things that Graham does, and whenever Graham's crying he says things like, "It's okay, Grammy! Big brudder is here! Mommy's right there! It's okay!" I never have to worry about them together. (Although I did catch Dane running around Graham and stepping on Graham's leg over and over again the other day. Graham didn't seem to be bothered but was more confused than anything. So they're not totally safe together still.)

I'm always telling Tommy that I just think babies get cuter and cuter and cuter with every stage. Graham's getting these enormous cheeks that just hang down when he's looking around and stick out to enormous lengths when he's smiling. I love love love them. He also has four teeth on the bottom and one and a half on the top--so he grinds them together all the time, which I hate, but when he does it his cheeks somehow expand out to the sides. And he reminds me so much of Dane at this age! People are always telling me that they look just the same, and it's hard for me to see. But I do know that Graham looks just like baby Dane did, so they probably do look at lot alike. 

We REALLY love our Graham boy.

New Year's Resolutions 2016

Don't be fooled by the Jack-O-Lantern in these pictures; we were just finally putting it up in the attic and the boys grabbed it and were playing with it during these pictures. We took these on New Year's Day while we were cleaning up all the Christmas decorations.

I was feeling really excited about New Year's Resolutions this year, because I could feel that I NEEDED them right now. I had fallen into a lot of bad habits over the last half of last year--mostly time-wasting ones. I'd gotten into the necessary "survival mode" of the newborn stage, and never fully gotten myself out of it, even though Graham is now older, easier, and sleeping through the night (and has been for a few months now). When you're barely sleeping and barely coping with the crazy demands of two little kids, worrying about time management and personal development isn't really high on the list. It's all about trying to keep your sanity. But I had moved past that stage and wasn't taking advantage of it. So I needed a reset to get me back on the horse, so to speak. 

My New Year's resolutions this year include:

- Going to the temple once a month. (Sad that this is a difficult goal. When I was newly married in Provo I thought I would go to the temple once a week FOREVER. Times and seasons, my young self. Times and seasons.)

- Do a triathlon. An easy one, but a triathlon. I have lost all of the baby weight (what!?) so I need a different exercise goal to keep me interested. Step 1: Buy bikes.

- Stick to a grocery budget. And just a budget in general. Less impulse spending.

- Do weekly/monthly planning sessions for FHEs, weekly calendar, preschool with Dane, and goals. When I plan ahead, I do better and do more. I want to plan more.

- Go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. Less lolling around in bed. There's no excuse now that we're (mostly) getting full nights of sleep.

- Read. I've got a few different reading goals up my sleeve this year. But mostly I want to get back to having reading be my main go-to for free time. I got into the bad habit of veg-ing out and watching my TV show a lot of nights, which was totally fine when I needed it to save my sanity but now I don't need it. I only want to watch TV when I'm exercising or folding laundry--multitasking TV watching. 

It was pretty cute this year--we had our first FHE be about New Year's resolutions and we used these prompts for getting some goals out of him. We talked about how we like to try to make choices to make us be better people, and then we asked him what he thought about each of these prompts. Some of the ideas came from us, some of them came from him. He's thought about them and talked about them since, which is the point of resolutions anyway, I think. He's really thinking about learning how to pedal on his trike ever since we talked about this. So cute.

This year, I want to learn: how to pedal my trike.
I want to read: about Thomas and Winnie the Pooh and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

I want to make: cookies.
I want to visit: my friends.
I want to change: be better at obeying.
I want to be better at: writing my letters and cutting with scissors.
Most of all I want: to play with Graham and be a good brother.

I feel really motivated right now to be better about staying on top of things. We are past the hard newborn stage and I think getting to a normal life routine. I'm starting to teach again next week, and I think it's going to be good for me because when I'm busier, I'm more productive, less time-wasting, and generally happier. I'm feeling like 2016 is going to be a great year for us!

Christmas trip to Irvine

We were planning to stay in Texas for Christmas this year, and to do Christmas here by ourselves for the first time ever. However, around Thanksgiving, we got the very big news that my mom and dad got called to be MISSION PRESIDENTS in Ecuador from 2016-2019! This was a huge surprise and definitely changed our ideas for what was going to happen for the next few years. (I'll probably write more details about this mission call in another post.) So knowing that we wouldn't be seeing them much for a while, and particularly that we wouldn't have the whole family together again for a long long time, we decided to fly out to Irvine for a week over Christmas. It was a lot of work flying and traveling with these two kids (who never fully adjusted to the California time zone until it was time for us to leave, so we were kind of sleep deprived the whole time), but the trip was a lot of fun and it's always worth the hassle of traveling to see family. It was pretty cold there (for California in December) so we didn't end up going to the beach or spending as much time at the park, but we did have a great time with all my siblings there. 

A few pictures of the fun things we did:

Best thing was having the two babies together! They were both doing the exact same things--getting up on their hands and knees and rocking back and forth--and it was a lot of fun seeing them together. 

Both babies loved watching Murphy through the back door. Graham especially.

A morning walk/run with Grandma and Papa. Dane ran for probably a mile (off and on)... he was determined!

Balboa bars! Every time we go to California we have to get some.

We walked around Balboa Island and looked at all the Christmas lights the night we got there. Both boys were so jet-lagged but really happy and nice.

Christmas Eve matching cousins!

I just loved getting pictures of these three together.

Christmas morning, Dane opened more presents than last year but he still ended up being overwhelmed with all of them and wanted to be done. He was still really cute and excited about some of his presents though. 

Graham's first Christmas!

Best baby present ever: I got some random keys from the key-cutting guys at Lowes (for free!) and put them on a keychain and gave it to Graham. He still isn't as interested in them as he is in my own keys, but he likes chewing on them and shaking them around.

Talking about his favorite Christmas presents. Dane is very interested in favorites right now. He loves asking, "What was your favorite part of today?" or "What was your favorite thing?" And he has to ask everyone in the room. It's pretty cute to see him processing and thinking about that. 

Graham's favorite part of the trip!

The day after Christmas, we all went to a trampoline place and had a lot of fun jumping around. It was one of those rare activities that was fun for the adults AND for Dane. Win win.

We went to Irvine Regional Park and went on the train--like every time! Jackie was in Southern California helping Tommy's brother Shane and Kiley move down there, and we got to have her and their two boys meet up with us there. It was awesome to get to see her and them for the day!

Dane has been talking about his horse Echo that he rode on at that park a year and a half ago. He remembered all on his own! So we let him do it again this time. 

We had a really nice time with everyone together. We watched (most of) the Lord of the Rings trilogy, played Just Dance together, played Ticket to Ride and Monopoly Deal, and did a lot of talking. I was a little stressed out about getting everything ready to get there this year, but once we got there, we were of course really glad we went. It was especially a meaningful trip knowing that my parents won't be here for three years, and since they're moving away from this house that we all grew up in since 2000. It kind of makes me sad that Dane and Graham won't really remember this house or the fun times they've had there--but I guess that happens, and life goes on. And they will be coming back to Irvine after their mission so we will have plenty of trips back there in a few years! (And one or two more before they leave too.)

Non-Christmasy December stuff

Regular life still went on in December. One of the cutest things that happened was that Dane and Tommy went on a Daddy Date to one of the kids' workshops at Lowes, and built a Christmas train together. Afterwards they went mini-golfing at Tommy's work (they have a new putting green they put in there) and then got lunch at Chick-fil-A. Dane thought he had died and gone to heaven. Getting to use a hammer, go golfing, and hang out with Dad? BEST DAY EVER.

Great form!

One proud three-year-old.

We went over to the Myres' house for dinner before leaving for Christmas. Graham thinks that Ava is sooooo cool. And Ava thinks Dane is so cool. And Dane thinks that Ethan is so cool. They're always just interested in whoever is older than them.

It's so nice to put Graham in the seat in the cart now! I love not having to use that enormous carseat or having to wear him in the front pack.

I love seeing them when they're sleeping. SO sweet and lovey.

Costco buddies. Graham has started eating their samples and is the most shameless of all of us. He makes us go back for seconds and thirds of the ones he likes.

Someone is feeding himself now and LOVES it!

Watching the Grinch together. Both boys were so brave.

Dane says he is an angry construction worker when he wears his headband over his eyes like this.

Dane is learning how to use scissors. It's pretty amazing how quickly he can learn things. Just give him a few pages to practice on and he's got it pretty darn well.

SWEETEST boy!

I know I already posted this one, but I love it. This is my favorite part of the day. Being outside, enjoying the day with my boys. Just relaxing and being happy together. And waiting for the trash truck. (Or Daddy, depends on the time of day.)

I think I posted this one too. It's so cute to see them matching. Dane LOVES matching with Graham. He asks every night that they wear matching jammies.

Our grocery store just got new carts with cars in the front and I wanted to hug the manager for doing that. I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU. Dane needs nothing else to entertain him at the grocery store now.

Baby snuggles are the best.

Two naughty friends at the park...

They got each other's shirts super wet in a puddle at the park, so even though it was pretty cold outside, we took their shirts off and they were SO HAPPY to be able to run around shirtless for a while. Boys are hilarious.

I gave Graham a little blankie to sleep with and I think it was safe to say that he liked it. 

Snuggled up with his blankie.

BABIES IN HATS. Too bad Graham is a master of taking the hat off. Dane used to leave them on... Graham is not so easily manipulated.

Decorating Christmas cookies at playgroup.

Me and my baby boy.

Saturday morning snuggles in bed. Trying to convince them to let us sleep just a little longer... please?

Graham laying in Dane's lap in a milk-induced stupor of thought. 

I LOVED December in Texas this year. Most days it was nice enough to go places without a coat. It doesn't bother me to have a warm Christmas season, after growing up in California. After two summers here now I am just grateful for every single day that is moderate enough weather for us to go on a walk or go to the park. It was a beautiful month.