Chris, Heidi, Nixon and Ruby

1. Last night, Nix slept in his pack n play again. He slept until 4:30, which means six hours since his last feeding, and then until 8. Not only am I sleeping better but I am sleeping longer! He is in his pack n play again tonight, but we got off to a little bit of a rocky start so I am setting my expectations for tonight low.  2. I started painting the bathroom. I got two coats of cutting in done. Tomorrow I will roll it! Looks good so far! 3. FaceTimed with Abby and Brett, who were also with my parents and Macy and TyTy. I am so grateful for technology!  4. Chris did laundry tonight! And helped with dinner and cleaned up dinner. I'm pretty lucky! That's it for tonight. Short, sweet and to the point. I'm beat!

I guess I took a couple days off. Not that there were no positives, cause they were good days! Here are some highlights: 1. It was the weekend! 2. The sky was blue! I don't remember any blue sky days since we have been here and even though it came with 6-7 inches of snow, I will take it! 3. Speaking of the snowstorm, after attempting to shovel our driveway and not getting very far with a snow shovel, we went and bought a snowblower. We are official Wisconsin-ites!  4. We hung out with some friends Friday night and played games. I love that we have friends!  5. Nixon slept in his pack-n-play all night last night and did really well! I slept really well too, since I didn't feel him every time he moved or flinched. We are trying it again tonight. So far, so good! (It has only been about 10 minutes though) 6. I saw three deer in our backyard! 7. This is a weird one, but Nixon actually held on to a rattle tonight. Anyone without kids (and probably most with kids) probably don't ...

There is one positive right there! Just the fact that it is Christmas is good! Of course, it was a hard day at the same time. Christmas without our family nearby is just not the same. We got presents and were able to FaceTime with most of our family but it isn't quite the same. But this is the whole reason for my daily positives. I don't want to dwell on what we are missing. So here are some of today's highlights: 1. Chris took Nixon so I could get some extra rest this morning.  2. I have an extremely thoughtful husband who is great at giving gifts. I hope each year that he doesn't feel ripped off. He got me a kindle this year! It is perfect to use while nursing! 3. Our families spoiled Nixon. We hardly got him anything (a rattle, a couple of books and a Spooner shirt to match his cousins) but he still hit the jackpot! Lots of books, toys, and clothes! 4. We didn't starve! I made breakfast pizza for breakfast (my family's tradition) and Chris made steaks for din...

Another milestone in this adventure today. We made it through Christmas Eve with minimal tears. I've got to say, I have always been a fan of Christmas songs, but a lot of them are a little more depressing to me this year. Like "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "Blue Christmas," "That's Christmas to Me," etc. There were some highlights though: 1. A trip to Rice Lake. It's always nice to go to a bigger town and get some errands done.  2. We took a gift over to our neighbors. We have met them once before, but we learned today that the wife (Christi?) is home during the day so she might be a source of sanity for me some days.  3. We went to the Kildow's home for dinner tonight. This is like 80 positives in one! They are just the nicest people! It was fun to meet their other son and his wife. They have the cutest little girl and are expecting a boy in February. We got homemade soap, salsa, jam and applesauce. We also got a pretty pine one wreath...

Crazy to believe this was our third Sunday here! Looks like the honeymoon is over. Chris got a calling, I got an unofficial calling to help play piano in relief society,  I got asked to teach relief society next week, and we got asked to speak on January 11th. Looks like Nixon is the only safe one...for now.  My positives for today are: 1. Nixon slept well last night again! 2. Despite some heavy snow, we made it home from church safe.  3. Ok, I know I put naps on here a lot. Other moms will understand how much of a positive that is. But today I got the nap of all naps when Chris took Nixon for a little bit and I was able to sleep 3.5 hours! That was awesome! 4. I got an email today with my mom's flight information! She is officially coming January 9th! I just have to make it to then!  Yay! Ok, I'm gonna hit the hay. Goodnight!

Today's first positive is a biggie!! One week here without family! I am happy I made it and also that it wasn't as killer as I was worried it would be and I would like to think it has something to do with my positives.  2. I feel like we are starting to get a routine down. It is still very much in the early stages but I feel like we are getting somewhere. Makes me feel like less of a failure as a parent! ;) 3. We had a pretty lazy day today. Slept in (well, in between feedings anyway) and watched the Utah bowl game.  4. Utes won!! 5. This kid. Need I say more? (Both of them) Even though there were lots of positives, today still had its moments. I know I am writing here to focus on the positives, but as it is somewhat of a journal for me, I think it is ok to remember some of the struggles I have had. I like having lazy days sometimes, but by the end of the day I was wanting something to do. That,combined with going through the pictures and videos on my phone (it was out of stor...

Tonight I am writing while a little baby sleeps in the Pack N Play at the foot of our bed. Now, I don't expect this to last all night, I am a realist. But it is baby steps. That is my first positive today. I am making steps, emotionally too, to having a baby who can sleep on his own.  2. We went and ate lunch at Chris's work today. This cafeteria is little. I mean really little. The choices are rather sparce. But it was fun to go spend time there with our little family.  3. I got the baby announcements addressed and stamped.  4. I dusted. I just haven't had the motivation to do that this week until today.  5. I found a gas station with root beer! 6. I got to FaceTime with the Moss family and my parents.  Not really a positive, but just a funny story. I looked out my window today to see a guy on his four wheeler plowing the snow on the lake behind our house with a dog running after him. It caught me off guard! That lake has been deserted since we got here. I want...

Last night I thought about my positives, but since I was lying in bed by a sleeping baby before 11, I knew I didn't want to chance waking him up. Here they are though.  1. We got Nixon's announcements in the mail! I have a goal to get them ready to go today so I can put them in the mail tomorrow.  2. I made it a full day without chocolate or caffeine. I wanted to see if that made a difference in Nixon's bedtime meltdown or the amount he spit up. It did seem to help.  3. We got all of our stuff shipped out to our families for Christmas. (The amount we paid in shipping is not part of this positive!) 4. And, of course, Nixon went to sleep relatively easy! And slept well through the night. We woke up at 2, 6, and 9.  My next goal is to get him sleeping in his pack and play. This is just as much a struggle for me as it is for him. I love snuggling with that kid, but I think it might be a step towards getting him to sleep through the night. 

This is one of those nights where the last thing I want to do is blog, which is why I know I need to. Nixon has had a really rough night, maybe a tummy ache?  He has been wailing for the last hour. And he has spit up pretty much everything we have fed him. Three burp cloths down. I got him calmed down long enough to read him a couple books. It is fun to see him look at the pictures!  Today Chris and I went to Rice Lake to take care of some bank stuff and go to Wal Mart. We also went in to Herbergers, a department store out here, for Chris to get some new pants. Nix was a great traveler for the most part!  As I think about the positives today, I realize that there were a lot! 1. Chris didn't have to get up early for work.  2. Like I mentioned before, we went to Rice Lake. It is nice to get out of the house and go there, even if it is for things like WalMart and Applebee's.  3. When we got back, there was a snowshoe hare running across our driveway. I love wildlif...

Today was my first day home alone all day. It wasn't as terrible as I was worried it would be. Chris came home for 20 minutes for lunch, which gave me a nice break from being alone. That's my first positive today. Here are some more: 2. I slept in! Well, sort of. I woke up, fed nix, and he went right back to sleep so I took advantage of it and fell back asleep to, which leads me to 3. We are trying to get Nixon to sleep well and have tried his swing, the pack and play and on a boppy between us. I'll be honest though, he and I both sleep best when I lay down and hold him next to me. Any chance he will be ok with that until he is 16? Cause I kind of love it.  4. We made dinner for the third night in a row. Wanna know how many times that has happened in our marriage? Probably zero. It helps that the only fast food restaurants are mcdonalds and Subway. I still haven't learned to love Subway, but I'm guessing I will before we leave here.  5. I vacuumed. Weird positive, b...

It is still Monday somewhere, right? Well it is a good thing I wrote more than three positives yesterday because we definitely didn't avoid the 10:30 meltdown like I thought we did. It's a real good thing this kid is so dang cute!  Every day I learn a little more about this place. Today I learned more about the bears around here. I went and had hot chocolate with our relief society president's daughter in law, Tia, who is one of Spooner's 7 full time police officers. She said she saw 35-40 just driving around last year! (She was driving, not the bears) She said the bears are more afraid of you than you are of them, but that never totally eases my mind.  I also learned Spooner has a five o'clock "whistle". Sounds cute, right? Not quite. I was feeding Nix today when I heard it for the first time and was pretty sure it was a tornado or bomb warning. I don't know how this is the first time I have heard it! On a better note, my positives are: 1. Going to ho...

Today was a good day. I'm doing better than I thought I would be. Not that I am free of any anxieties, but I'm doing ok. Today the positives are: 1. We went to church. There were 25 people there, which is up from last week's 19! 2. Chris made dinner tonight. Eggs and bacon. Yummy! 3. I got a nap today!! 4. I am snuggled in bed with an awesome baby boy, which means we might have bypassed his nighttime meltdown!  Here is a picture of the little man dressed up (kinda) for church. 

  It is time for me to get back into the blog scene, now that we have moved away from family. Let's be honest though. This is more for me and my sanity. When we decided to move here, I was so excited for this awesome adventure. I figured I would miss my family but had no idea the magnitude to which I would struggle. The goodbyes in Utah were hard. Saying goodbye to siblings and nieces and nephews hurt big time. After all, I saw these people at the very least every other week at Sunday dinner, but usually I saw them much more often than that. So the goodbyes, mixed with postpartum hormones and lack of sleep due to Mr. Nixon, made for some major tearful times. Then we got here. My parents and Chris's mom helped drive out here so I could fly with Nix. We got ourselves mostly moved in on the first day, thanks to all the help. Friday we got some more stuff done and before we knew it, Saturday was here and it was time for my dad to leave. To that point, that was the hardest goodbye. ...