Long Overdue Update

I know it's been way too long since I've posted any pictures or updates when people start asking me to please put up some pictures b/c they miss the kiddos. We've had a crazy past couple of months. We've battled a couple of illnesses, including 3 weeks of a wretched stomach virus, one of us at a time (except Karis, which is really amazing!). Marc's grandmother also was very sick and in the hospital for quite a while, so he was heading out to East Texas a couple of times a week. But thankfully she is doing much better now.
My sister was also in town for about a week, and it was her first time to meet Karis! We had to take advantage of everyone being together, so we took a family photo. I don't think any of the kids are looking at the camera, but it's still a pretty good one.
Aunt Emily and Karis
Emily, Matt, and Caleb


Back in August we also got a Rose family photo - love it

Update - Karis

The last time I blogged was about 2 months ago, and I was in the process of sleep training with Karis. I am so excited to be able to report that she is sleeping great! She goes down for the night about 6:30pm, wakes up once to nurse, and sleeps until about 6:30am. She takes a good morning and afternoon nap every day. Each time I lay her down, night or nap, she either doesn't cry at all or only for a few minutes. It's made such a huge difference to me, because I actually have some time to myself or with Marc in the evenings, and sometimes even dinner with a friend. Since I last blogged, Karis started crawling, got 2 teeth, and is pulling up and standing. She's still not fond of the bottle and refuses pureed solids, whether jarred or something I made. But over the past few weeks I have discovered that she loves finger foods. So she eats puffs, banana chunks, avocado pieces, and softened apple chunks. I need to come up with some new options, but am so thankful she's finally eating some solids.

She continues to be such a happy, easy-going, sweet baby girl. She loves bath time and especially loves playing with her big brother. Karis is also babbling more and saying "mama" and "dada", although I don't think she assigns the meaning to either of us yet....but I kind of think her first words will be "mama" ;) The other day I was walking away from her to do something in the kitchen and she started crawling after me fussing and saying "mamamama".
She has the longest tongue (like me!) and is constantly sticking it out - too funny.
We have been enjoying this beautiful weather by going to the park almost every day. Karis loves being outside, though I have to constantly try to keep her from eating the grass :)

She is into everything, crawling and exploring like mad
Her 2 little teeth - though they're much bigger than this now
Attempting to climb the stairs!
Yes, these are the looks I get when trying to feed her solids
Cracks me up every time!
And these last 4 are my favorites - in her adorable outfit from Aunt Janice - thank you! She started out sitting up in the cart, but decided to get much more comfortable by the end...

Two of a Kind

Update - Caleb

Where to begin? Caleb was officially 2 1/2 a few weeks ago, and he is every bit of a two-year-old. Have you ever seen the Sour Patch Kids commercials? They're sweet one minute and sour the next. Yeah, that's a pretty good description of Caleb these days. He is such a sweetheart most of the time - hugging and kissing his sister, listening so well etc. And then as he's beginning to assert his independence, we get some of the sour. 30 minute meltdowns happen several times a week, sometimes almost daily. All it takes is for him to not get what he wanted, and he's screaming and crying and pitching the biggest toddler fit you can imagine. Those are particularly exhausting for me, and I find this stage to be very trying - very rewarding, but also very trying. The Lord is definitely using it to refine me. If I am not on my knees in the morning asking the Lord for strength and patience, well, then I am not as patient with Caleb as I want and need to be. His favorite phrase right now is "I thought I was gonna do it". It's pretty amusing most of the time, minus the times that a meltdown follows.

Caleb is also potty training - well - sort of. He likes to pee on the potty and can do it all by himself, from undressing to getting on potty, down and washing his hands. His favorite part is the 2 M&Ms that follow. But he absolutely refuses to do any other "business" on the potty. The picture above is from a night when Marc was out of town and I took the kids to a frozen yogurt place. Caleb was so incredibly excited about it and talked about it for days. I decided to use this opportunity and told him that when he goes poo on the potty for the first time we will go as a family to celebrate at the frozen yogurt place. Even that incentive hasn't worked yet. But that is Caleb's personality. There is no forcing or talking him in to doing something. He will do it when he decides that he wants to. I'm just hoping it's not too long from now :)

Caleb has also started randomly talking about things that he heard at church or from me and Marc. A few weeks ago he was playing and just started saying "The Bible says is absolutely true". I asked him where he heard that, and he said his class at church. I love that they are teaching the children at such a young age that there is absolute truth, and it is found in God's Word. Caleb has also started wanting to pray. The other day he bowed his head before eating his snack and started thanking God for his snack, Karis' sippy cup, his racecar, and everything else within sight. He also prayed that God would help him to not be scared of dinosaurs and lions and that He would give him peace and protect him. Yes, he used those words. This is what Marc and I pray aloud for him every night -by his request. We definitely learned the hard way about what Caleb watches. We let him watch The Land Before Time (such a cute movie but the t-rex is scary!) and ever since he has had trouble falling asleep on his own at night. I'm sure it won't be the last mistake we make as parents, but sometimes I could kick myself for that one!

Aunt Janice, Caleb loves his new shirt with pockets in the front - he really digs pockets of any kind.
He is all about football and baseball these days. He even got to go to the World Series last night with Gramps and Grammy (pictures to come)...lucky kid!

I love this sweet boy of mine so much and especially love watching him play and carrying on lots conversations together about all sorts of things.

It's getting better :)

Thank you so much to all my amazing friends that have called, posted very helpful comments and advice, and texted. You each have helped to encourage me to stick with this and that it will get better. :) And it is slowly getting better. Night time has been really good. For the past several nights Karis has cried no more than thirty minutes and then slept either all night or only woke up once to nurse and went right back to sleep. I couldn't ask for better! The night before last she only cried for 15 minutes and then literally slept for 12 hours and 15 minutes straight! The new routine at night has given me such a new found freedom. After I put Karis to bed, I went and had dinner with one of my best friends 2 nights ago, and we had such a good time. I wasn't able to do that before since Karis wasn't taking a bottle and was so hard to put to sleep. Being able to do things like that now -getting time for myself- has really helped to lift my spirits and make me feel a little more like myself again.

Nap time is very slowly getting better. We've had black out shades and a noise machine since we started this process. She is very drowsy and relaxed during the soothing routine before I lay her down. I just think I had unrealistic expectations of how it would go. Most people only talk about night time and the sleep training process, so I never really thought nap time would be so hard. But several of you said it took your little one almost 2 weeks to get the nap time routine down. So I definitely need to be patient with it and not give up on the process. Karis took a good nap yesterday morning, but not in the afternoon. That's the hardest part, b/c then she's a mess for the rest of the day. But today she is taking a really good afternoon nap so far. Small victories :)

Sleep Training Woes

Ok all my sleep training friends - I need help!
Karis is getting better at night. The past couple of nights she has only cried for about 30 minutes, and then slept all night except to nurse once around 2am, and then promptly went back to sleep. I try my hardest to not let her fall asleep nursing, but here's the problem: she is so ridiculously exhausted because nap time is getting worse and worse.
That's what I need help with.

So this book says that at nap time to let them cry for no more than an hour and then go get them and keep them awake until the next nap or bed time, so that it doesn't throw off the next nap or bedtime. I've been doing that, but it just ends up that Karis doesn't nap ALL day long and is SO fussy all day. (literally, 2 days ago she didn't not nap the entire day)
It's miserable for everyone. Today I was so done w/it, so I decided to let her cry longer than an hour to see what happened. At her morning nap she cried for 1 hr 15 minutes and then fell asleep and slept for 1 hr 15 minutes. So that make me feel a little better about the process. But then for her afternoon nap I let her cry for 1 hour 45 minutes and she still didn't fall asleep (and I know she was very tired) So then I spent the rest of the afternoon holding her b/c she just cried every time I set her down. All the while, Caleb has had fever all day and needed me, too. So today I'm just mad at the whole process. Why is nap time getting worse? Shouldn't it be better by now? And we can't go anywhere b/c then she'd just sleep in the car and end up going to bed too late etc.
She did great tonight. She only cried for 15 minutes (and did not fall asleep nursing amazingly) and then fell asleep for the night. So I'm very thankful for that. But day time is really bad and I don't know why or what to do about it. We've been doing this for 6 days now. I just thought that by now she'd have the hang of it. (which she does at night, and I am SO very grateful for it!)
Maybe I had unrealistic expectations about how this would go. Did anyone else have nap time struggles even though night time was good? Any advice or tips, please?!

Sleep Training Night 3

Well, night 3 wasn't too bad. Karis did the same thing as the past 2 nights. She fell asleep nursing, slept for 30 minutes, then woke up and cried for an hour before falling asleep. She woke up once about 3am to nurse but immediately went back to sleep and slept the rest of the night. So that's not too bad.
But today during nap time was not good. The plan in this book is to keep her on a regular schedule with her biological rhythm. So most babies her age go to bed about 7, wake up about 7, take a nap at 9 am, and then another nap at 1pm. If you lay her down at her 9am nap and she doesn't go to sleep, you should only let her cry for an hour and then get her up and keep her awake until the next nap.
Well, that's exactly what happened this morning. Karis screamed the entire hour she was supposed to be napping, so then we had to keep her awake until her 1pm nap - which is not easy and definitely makes for a very fussy baby. Well, then at her 1pm nap she slept for all of 15 minutes, woke up and cried for an hour, and then Marc got her up (I was having some much needed girls' time with my community group!). And then we had to keep her awake until bedtime - again not easy. So I just put her down at 6pm. Again she was so worn out that she fell asleep nursing and so didn't cry when I laid her down. But now it's 6:25pm and she just woke up and started crying. I guess I'm just hoping that she cries for less than an hour tonight.

I've been having such a hard time with the sleep training today. It just doesn't feel like I'm doing something good for her. It feels like I'm hurting her. When she's crying, I want to go hold her and comfort her. But I have to remind myself over and over that this is for her good and for mine. It also seems like naps are getting worse, but Marc's theory is that maybe today was the "final death throws" as she realized what we're doing and that she's letting us know she doesn't like it. As Marc says, she's strong willed like her momma! I sure am hoping it gets better...and soon.

On a much more positive note, the weather was absolutely beautiful today, so we all headed to the park to play. I am so excited to be able to do this more now that it's cooling off outside!