Gila Valley Temple

I just got an email today that announced two new temples in AZ. Sara and I are so excited, one of them will be in our hometowns.

"In his first temple announcement since becoming presidentof the Church, President Thomas S. Monson has announcedthe construction of two new temples in Arizona: one in theGila Valley and the other in Gilbert.

"The adjoining communities of Thatcher and Safford, located inthe Gila Valley, are best known to members of the Church asthe home of President Spencer W. Kimball, 12th President ofThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Though bornin Salt Lake City, President Kimball was reared in Thatcherfrom the age of 3. After returning home from a mission andmarrying Camilla Eyring in the Salt Lake Temple, the Kimballssettled in Safford to raise their children and run an insurancebusiness. In the 1980s, President Kimball initiated anunprecedented worldwide temple-building program. A templein the Gila Valley is a tremendous honor to his memory.

"Located in the southeastern section of the Phoenix metropolitanarea, just south of Mesa, Gilbert and its surrounding communitiesenjoy a high concentration of Church members, who currentlyattend the Mesa Arizona Temple. A temple in Gilbert will helprelieve demands currently placed on the Mesa temple, whichserves 74 stakes throughout southern Arizona."

Here we are...

Poor Reilly. The one o'clock church schedule we're on just doesn't do well for a boy that usually takes a nap from 1 to 3... He fell asleep on the 5 minute drive home a few weeks ago, and for the second time in his life (since he was tiny) he transferred inside. He slept here for almost an hour! He is starting to try to say more and more words, though most are still fairly unintelligible. When he's not being whiny, or trying to cut molars, he is so much fun!















Miss Jaina is getting so big! She is getting really good at grabbing things, and seems to be working on some teeth. Of course, if she's anything like her brother, she'll work on them for several months before we see anything...














Ah, sibling love. :)

By the way, did you know that washable crayons turn into a weird face-covering liquid substance if a child attempts to eat them? I'm sure some of you mothers know this already, but I just discovered it today. It sure looked like he had found an orange marker or a bag of Doritos, but he was just sampling one of his crayons...

Update

Jaina had her 4-month appointment today. She weighed 15 lbs 4 oz (75-90th percentile, that's up from her third percentile at birth and 25th at 2 months...). Crazy! She only had one "poke" (we are going to space out her a shots a little more than they normally do) and she screamed for like 2 seconds and then stopped. What a little trooper!
We got a Dr. Brown's bottle and we've been using that the last half of the day the last few days, plus giving her a little gripe water when she seems to be having trouble, and nights have been a little better. She woke me up about 5 times last night, but she was only hungry once, and there was at least an hour between most of the wakeups, sometimes several. Yay! It's nothing like her "through the night" stuff she was doing, but I can handle this. Hopefully things will settle down soon. And hopefully then I can try to move her to a bed instead of her carseat, or we are going to have some funny looking hair pretty soon. (It seems to be growing, but she has a nice bald spot in back where she rubs her head back and forth...) Took some cute pictures of the two kiddos together yesterday. Hopefully I'll post them soon. That's all, folks.

4 months old!

Our cute little girl is growing so fast!
(and a flashback of her brother at that stage)

You can click for larger pictures.

Frustration

So my fabulous little sleeper (she started sleeping through the night - we're talking 6-8 hours, then eating and going back to sleep for 1-2 hours - about 5-6 weeks ago) has stopped sleeping. And if she was just waking up needing to eat I wouldn't care, but we're talking waking up anywhere from every 15 to 60 minutes, with an occasional 2-3 hour stretch here and there (day and night). She has had a cold, and that was some of it, but it seems more like it's gas/stomach pain. She fusses then cries (she's in our room) but if we give her the pacifier back, she usually stops and goes right back to sleep. I don't think she's hungry - she mostly just goes back to sleep when I try to feed her.... Last night was completely awful - she had gas pains all night, and I got maybe 4 hours of sleep, VERY fragmented. Jeremy didn't get a whole lot either, even though we've started taking turns sleeping in the basement. What should I try?We put mylicon in almost every bottle (she is about 75% bottle fed). I tried soy for a few days, but I wasn't sure if it made much difference - how long does something like that take? She's already on Similac Sensitive. I try to burp her very often, and we use Playtex drop-ins. Just in case it's me, I stopped eating dairy, chocolate, and anything I know can cause gas yesterday. I am so frustrated! Should I try a different type of bottle? Any advice for us? She fusses very little during the day, but sometimes has similar problems with naps... I am getting a little sleep deprived and I'm not a very patient or happy mommy right now... And with an 18-month you need patience! :) It doesn't help that Jeremy is at the NUCCA Conference all day the last three days, though I'm excited that he has the opportunity, and he's really enjoying it. At least Reilly has been in a good (if spastic) mood the last few days. He would love for it to stop raining so we could spend some time outside and maybe see someone other than his sleepy sister and mommy...

Busy Weeks

So we haven't updated our blog lately because we've been keeping pretty busy! Just keeping track of these two little kiddos gives me plenty to do most days:






Starting while we were in Arizona, Reilly has had this mysterious rash that came and went with increasing frequency for like 4-5 weeks. Two different doctors had no idea what it was, and it got really bad the last few days before it finally burned itself out or something a week and a half ago. Still no idea what it was, but at least it's gone! It didn't seem to bother him until the very end...



Sara's friend, Gina, whom she met on the internet (over 10 years ago) when they both liked "Lois & Clark" came down for a visit. This was the fifth time they had visited together. She brought her boyfriend, and we had a very nice week, aside from Reilly tantrums. (Those are growing increasingly more frequent). Here is a picture of them:



We did several fun things, including the Putnam museum. Here's a picture of the kids there, hanging out in the cool double stroller Jeremy got through Craigslist.

Life is mostly back to normal now; here are our kids both happily watching either Baby Einstein or family videos. :)

A few more pictures for good measure:

*Mommy likes to play dress up, but Jaina doesn't usually look quite this happy afterwards...

*All ready for church!

*Reilly hamming it up for the camera

*Jaina showing some school spirit in Reilly's old t-shirt