Updates of All Sorts

So, the sleeping-in-the-same-room thing? Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. Thankfully they don't really cry much, (I know I would be having an even harder time with that) we are already using two noise machines, and I do have hope that it will get better! Currently the only real problem is instead of it taking Jaina 2-5 minutes to get to sleep at night, and it taking Reilly 5-30 minutes, they collectively take 30-60 minutes to get to sleep. They're constantly just making NOISE and keeping each other up. It drives me crazy knowing they're tired, but they're keeping each other awake. And I drive Jeremy crazy cause I'm stressed out and almost CAN'T listen to the monitor. I have to distract myself with something, usually on the computer. So this whole thing might be more of give-Mommy-time-to-adjust rather than it being about the kids. But I have faith that they'll get more used to it to. If not, I'm not sure WHAT I'll do! Adjust, I guess... Also, Reilly has been sleeping in some mornings (if I get to Jaina fast enough) due to the later sleep-time, but Jaina has been waking up even earlier. Sigh.

In other news, Jaina has finally figured out that she can roll over on PURPOSE (yes, she's slightly behind in that category...) and she does it religiously now, almost any time you put her on her back. She is trying so hard to figure out the crawling thing, and has gone backwards several feet, but can't figure out the up-on-her-knees thing or the forward motion. Reilly didn't start army-crawling until he was 9 months, and he was still walking by his birthday, so I'm not too worried... :)

I spent some of the last day and a half reading the first 200+ pages of Stephenie Meyer's (Twilight author) manuscript "Midnight Sun." Very sad the way that it got leaked out, and the fact that she's put it on hold for now, but I definitely enjoyed reading it, and look forward to reading it all someday. (It is "Twilight" from Edward's perspective - more interesting than I thought it would be, without all the angst, because you already know how the story goes...) Thanks to Katie Cluff (see Katie & Brendan sidelink) for making sure none of us miss anything Twilight-related. :) You can find the .pdf file on Stephenie Meyer's site, as she has made it available herself, since it was out anyways...

Sorry. This post has no rhyme or reason. :) We went to Nauvoo last weekend for Jeremy's birthday and stayed in some condos and villas there for an awesome price. (Since we are in the temple district, we were going TO the temple, and it's off-season) It was $50 for a 2-bdrm, 2-bath, full kitchen condo, and we loved it! We had a room, Reilly had a room, and Jaina slept in a bathroom. :) We also took the kids to a Vocal Point concert that night. It started at 8:30, and they normally go to bed at 8, but with late naps, they did great! They really seemed to enjoy it, and they were so tired when we got back to our room(s) that they crashed even though it was a strange place. All in all a great trip. :)

And the last piece of news today? Reilly is no longer a safe napper. J/K, but not only does he only take a nap 5 days out of 7 now (he plays in his bed for a while instead on those 2 days), but today he was talking and then fussing and then crying about 30 minutes after I put him down. I ignored him for a while, because I was on the phone with my friend, Isabelle, but finally I needed to go check on him. First I realized his bed was wet (really wet), and I thought his sippy cup had come open somehow. But there was still so much liquid in it! So I turned on the light, and that's when I realized he did NOT have a diaper on. I usually put him down for a nap in just a diaper and a t-shirt, because he gets really warm when he sleeps in the afternoons. Well, no more. At least not with his velcro/aplix diapers. The little angel had removed his diaper and peed all over his bed! I was so grateful it happened at naptime, and when I didn't care much if he took a nap or not, and that there wasn't anything worse in his diaper... So yeah. Snapping diapers, or shorts over the diaper, from now on.

He is getting so big! In less than one month, he'll turn 2! I can't believe it. He's saying so many words, and we're starting to actually understand some of them. He also understands a lot more. Yesterday Jeremy took him to his first "movie:" they saw Wall-E at the theater in Moline. Jeremy said he did really well after he got used to how dark it was. Just crazy stuff... Here is a shot of his best smile yesterday, and a comparisom by the same door this time last year...