Ho hum...

Well, we haven't updated much because there isn't much to update. Well, nothing with pictures. Mostly because our camera's memory stick freaked out and wants to be reformatted before it will work. Which means Jeremy's pictures from the NUCCA Conference in St. Louis aren't there. Which means the pictures from Sunday aren't there. Which means we can't TAKE any pictures. So... yeah.
But Jeremy WAS gone to St. Louis for 4 days, and he had a great time a learned a lot. Hopefully some of his friends took pictures? We did pretty well here alone (it was a lot easier than the last one - the kids are a little older now) except that poor Jaina got a cold. And I think I have it now. But otherwise, we're good. We hope that you're all good, too!

Lunch of Champions

Macaroni (made with some whole grains, mind you) and cheese with mixed veggies. Do they eat their mixed veggies plain anymore? No, they do not. Do they eat them mixed into mac & cheese? Yes, they do. Happy children, happy mom. ;-) We don't have this too often, but it's a nice "treat."
Reilly looks a little out of it, cause he just woke up...

It's rather cold and windy outside today, and it rained a lot of yesterday. Kind of sad - we had wonderful weather last week, and enjoyed it thoroughly! Wednesday and Thursday we went to the zoo (it was free week) for several hours each afternoon. Jaina liked the animals and anytime I would let her out of the stroller to walk around. That wasn't too often, because she doesn't seem to have much sense about where she shouldn't walk, and she doesn't listen AT ALL yet while walking. Reilly loved the lion, the monkeys, and giraffes. I liked the tiny baby monkey, the elephants, and the giraffes. Jeremy liked not having to come see the animals with us.
Here's a picture of our entourage the first day:
And here's Reilly the second day:
We also went to Nauvoo Saturday and got some temple time in before it closes for two weeks. It was a pretty, if slightly wet, day. Here is Reilly checking out some of the amazing flowers they have planted (some of which I have GOT to be allergic to):
Taking a walk out in front of the temple (I thought Jeremy took some of the temple with its flowers, but I guess not...):
Jaina after we ran for cover from the rainstorm:















So, an update on the Reilly-staying-in-his-room situation. I really appreciate all the comments and experiences everyone shared. It's nice to know at least we weren't alone in this! We decided to keep trying the method we were using (not talk to him at all when he gets up, just take him back to bed) and I added in talking to him about the rules for staying in bed and going to sleep when putting him to sleep. 3 out of the last 4 nights he hasn't gotten up. (after 2-3 evenings of the jack-in-the-box routine) The night he did keep getting up, there were a lot of people at our house, and even though we were in the basement, he knew it... But he seems to be doing well, so here's hoping. I'd really like to NOT have to lock his door somehow. (He can definitely open it; we keep it closed and he just quietly comes out anyway)
Also, he's been falling asleep more. In his car seat, at least. I'm guessing this has a lot to do with the nicer weather and all the exercise he's been getting. This was after the zoo the other day (he fell asleep in the car and Jeremy carried him in. Falling asleep on the couch wouldn't actually happen.):
This is his sister giving him "kisses" while he slept. I think she did eventually wake him, much to all our dismay. More often than not he wakes up really grumpy.
Despite that fact, I have decided to try to re-establish his nap. It has been dormant for months now. Yesterday we made him take a nap after church (he was exhausted). After 45 minutes of trying to come out of his room (I was camped outside the door with a book) he finally fell asleep for several hours. Today I made him have "quiet time" at about 11:30, a while after Jaina fell asleep. He fussed about it a lot, but didn't try to come out, and fell asleep and slept for 2.5 HOURS. Maybe this will work for us. I'll keep you updated, since I know you're all dying to know if he keeps napping or not. ;0)
I haven't said much about Jaina, but she is walking SO well now, asserting her will however she can, being picky as can be about food (yet still wanting to eat all the time), possibly working on her incisors now that her first set of molars is mostly through, making messes, and being adorable. I am in LOVE with this little girl! (it's a good thing, some days...)

Help! (Moms of Toddlers or older)

So... We converted Reilly's crib to a toddler bed about two weeks ago, and just in the last few days he has realized he CAN get out of bed after we put him "to bed" at night. And he does so. About every 2-5 minutes for 1-2 hours after we put him to bed, he comes slowly, quietly out of his room and comes looking for us. He doesn't cry, he doesn't protest being taken back to bed (usually in silence), he doesn't want to get in our bed. He's just driving us crazy (and not getting enough sleep, since he still doesn't nap, and he gets up at the same time). What do we do? Will he soon get bored of constantly being returned to bed and stay there? Do we need to be more forceful? Is a baby gate a long term solution? We're at a loss. What has worked for you??

Easter Weekend

Taking advantage of the 4-day weekend, we got out of Davenport! We like Davenport, but we haven't done anything fun (with all 4 of us, at least) in some time... We went with some good friends to Minneapolis (5-ish hours away) because most of us had never been. The kids actually did better than we could have dreamed on the ride over and back. Very little screaming, and a fair amount of sleeping. We spent some of Friday evening and a lot of Saturday at the Mall of America, and enjoyed all the interesting stores and the neat indoor amusement park there. It reminded me a lot of the carnival part of a county fair, except everything was really clean, everything was stable (since they're fairly permanent) and the workers were happy and un-scary. Also, it had a few super fun rides that we got to go on without the kids. Saturday night we didn't go back to the hotel until just after 9. We were impressed that the kids made it that long. (remember, Moms, you can click on these pictures to make them bigger!)

We went to part of a random ward's stake conference (we didn't realize it was stake conference, so we missed more than the first half...) and then drove over to see the St. Paul temple. Reilly got to wear a tie (successfully) for the first time, and Jaina had a cute little Easter dress and some new sandals. They were good sports for most of the pictures we tried to take of them. (And thanks to Emily and her camera for a few of the better shots!)

If you want to see more of Kennedy and her cute dress, I'm sure you'll be able to before very long HERE...

Our trip was a lot of fun, and I'm glad we got to have a little mini-vacation! It's so nice to have everyone well and feel sort of on top of things. Jeremy worked really hard (I helped a lot, too) to get the house sorted out, cleaned up, and the laundry done yesterday (he had Monday off too), so we're feeling pretty good today!

This Fun Needs Fuel

So Jaina is absolutely starving--all the time--lately. She is constantly signing "eat" and "more" and seems to be just constantly thinking about food. It seems like this has been going on for about 2 weeks. At the same time, she won't eat just anything. She's gotten pickier lately, and thinks veggies are kind of lame. Which is funny, because suddenly Reilly has decided broccoli actually IS food, and he likes it. An about-face from the last year... Anyway, I don't know if it's a growth spurt, or teething, or both, but I can hardly keep up with her constant need to eat!
Maybe now that she's walking well and getting around all of a sudden, she just expends more energy. She is finding all kinds of fun things she can do. Earlier I glanced over and she was right outside my bedroom door, looking at a library book. A few minutes later I hear a quiet "no, no, no" and go to see what's going on. Here she is, happily (but guiltily, it seems) shredding the toilet paper. What are we going to do with this girl? :)
If you're into videos, I am putting a video of this scene HERE.

A few more Park pics

These were too cute to pass up. Jaina loved the park too. Here are a couple pics of her, and one of Reilly.

Cheese!

So, this is what Reilly usually does these days when we tell him to smile for a picture...
And this...
And this...
There's a real smile!

Made for Each Other?

For the cute pictures I promised of Reilly and his friend at the park, go here:
http://brentandemily.blogspot.com/2009/04/kennedy-reilly-sittin-in-tree.html

I couldn't post them any cuter (more cutely?) than Emily did! :)

Bed Bugs

No, we don't have any of those kinds of bugs, thankfully. And I think we're mostly rid of the germy bugs, too. I'm still being really careful with what the kids eat, though, and I'm not certain enough to let them play with anyone yet, either. We'll give it another day, at least. :) Thankfully the next night after our evil night (where Jaina and I didn't sleep) we all slept ALL night. It was such a blessing, and I felt so good yesterday! I got a lot of cleaning done that had needed doing since I got home from Arizona! We've just been so out of commission since then, it seems. We're feeling good though, and if we can just get some warm, non-windy days, we could have a lot of fun around here...
So, the title: Reilly and Jaina absolutely love our bed these days. They'll spend 20 minutes on it bouncing around and being silly. More, if Jeremy or I will play WITH them... Jaina's only fallen off once, thankfully, but she seems to have a better idea of where the edge is now, and Reilly usually says something (like "oh..Jaina! No, Jaina, no. Jaina fall!") She LOVES to stand up on the bed, and then fall down. They like to bring their stuffed animals in (especially Jaina's elephant and Reilly's horse, which they each sleep with) and they like me to get out one of our card games for them to scatter from one end of the bedroom to the other. This bed has unlimited fun capacity.