Calling all Super Mom's!

It has been a long week. Yes, I am aware that it is only Tuesday. My children are driving me nuts and I am just not in a good place. Weston, my previously perfect sleeper, has been not going to sleep until at least 9pm and waking me up in the middle of the night every night except one since we got back from CA. I am at a complete loss as to what to do. I have been making him stay awake all afternoon, even though he begs for a nap. It still doesn't seem to help much since last night he didn't go to sleep until 9:20pm and was in my room waking me up for no reason at 1:33am.

So after being up with both my children and feeling completely overwhelmed they still were up at 7. On top of this, Weston has been having little poop accidents for the past couple days in a row. I also don't know what to do about that. He knows he's in trouble when he does it, but at the same time I don't want to freak out on him. We are considering taking a giant stride backwards and reinstating some positive reinforcement before resorting to giving him a cold hose down in the shower when he has poop accidents.

What it really boils down to is that I just feel like I am going in circles. Everyday I do the same things or try new things, but nothing changes. Nothing I do to change behaviors seems to work. I clean the house every day and an hour later it doesn't look like I've done anything. I just feel like there is no point to anything I do. I have no real purpose or direction or meaning in my day. I can't seem to be successful at anything. This feeling of hopelessness is doing nothing for my motivation and energy. I want to be Supermom, but I just can't seem to figure out how. I want to feel happy and fulfilled staying home with my kids, but I mostly feel frustrated and guilty.
Maybe I should go back to work. At least there I feel valued and can see tangible evidence that I am making a difference to someone and accomplishing something. I would appreciate any advice on Weston's sleeping issues. I'm tempted to just lock my bedroom door and see if he would get back in bed and go back to sleep or just scream outside my door. This is me, minus the smile and the ugly skirt suit.

Home Again . . .

home again jiggity jig. It has been a nice week home from our vacation. I cleaned the house, planned meals, grocery shopped, played a bit, babysat a friend's baby, and lots more. Nothing major going on.

The biggest news, that I'm really excited about, is that we decided to join the Kearns Oquirrh Park Fitness Center. This is the facility that I swim at, but we hadn't bought a membership yet because I still have to pay for my swimming separately and we weren't sure if we were going to be living so close to the fitness center for long. Now that we have decided to stay put for a couple more years it made sense to get a membership. So far it has been great. We haven't had a gym membership for almost 2 years. It feels good to be able to go work out whenever we want. I prefer to exercise in the mornings before the kids wake up and Ian likes to go at night. I'm hoping to get myself back into fighting shape, or at least lose the 20 pounds I've gained since having the boys. That's my goal.

It's going to be rough I think. I have a major sweet tooth and there's something extra difficult about staying home all day and trying to stay out of the kitchen. I always get really snacky in the late afternoon, but since I am aware of that I am trying to come up with some new strategies to avoid the pitfall. Any helpful ideas would be great. I don't call it a diet though, so I am not asking for dieting tips, just healthy solutions, substitutions or strategies.

It's funny because I have always had pretty good self esteem. Almost to a fault, like I think I look better than I actually do. However it has finally gotten to a point where I am not comfortable with the way I look. I am hoping to be able to take better care of myself. Anyway, sorry about that detour. I didn't mean for this post to be so health centered. Oh well. I suppose that's just what's on my mind.

Last night I got to go shopping all by myself for a couple hours. It was so fabulous. I forget how much I love to shop sometimes. I had a gift card to Old Navy, so of course I had to scour the store and try on at least 10 things. I ended up spending my birthday money on a new great pair of black sweats (I live in sweats, so this is highly exciting) and a cute spring hoodie that's white and yellow. Ian's only comment was "good luck keeping it clean." He's so encouraging. :)

I also hit Barnes and Noble, where I could literally spend hundreds of dollars, but I only got a couple books for Davin for his upcoming birthday. Then I went to Target to try on some capris that were on sale and pick up a new pair of headphones for my aforementioned trips to the gym. The capris were hideous, but they had the headphones I wanted for only $10, so the Target trip wasn't a waste. It was seriously just so much fun being able to browse and look and try on when I normally can't.

In an unrelated vein, I was making an old recipe from my childhood the other day and realized how incredibly easy and inexpensive it is, so I though I'd share. Seriously a quickie meal that uses mostly ingredients you probably already have.

Tuna Biscuit Casserole

1 tube of refrigerated biscuits (I used the Pillsbury Grands this time and they were wonderful)
1 can of tuna
1 can cream of celery soup
1 c. milk
1 t. parsley
1 c. grated cheese

In a greased 9x13 pan arrange the biscuits with a little room in between each one. Mix the tuna, soup, milk and parsley in a separate bowl. Pour the tuna mix over the biscuits, covering. Top with cheese and bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

CA Trip- Children's Museum & a Birthday

Friday of our trip was fun and mellow. We spent the morning playing in my parents' backyard while Davin took a forever long morning nap. When my mom got home from school at lunchtime we went over to the La Habra Children's Museum for the afternoon. It is a great little museum and the kids had a lot of fun. They had this exhibit with several little displays of different countries. Here is Davin playing with/eating the plastic food that the people of Indonesia eat.
Weston and I in a real rickshaw.
There were dress up clothes from the different countries too, so my mom and I had to put on hula skirts and Weston favored the Japanese fashions.
The museum also has a really small carousel in one of the main rooms, so Davin had his first ride on the merry go round. He looked bewildered through most of it, but I think he had a good time. He rode twice and was mellow the whole time.
Weston enjoyed being the bus driver. He had to take turns though because Daddy wanted that job too.
Friday afternoon we took the kids in the "pool" again. My dad brought home In N Out for dinner and then we celebrated Davin's birthday early. He opened his presents from my parents. Weston really wanted to help him rip into his presents, but he did pretty well waiting until I said he could help. Davin thought ripping the paper up was a fun thing. He loved his new book too. After he opened his presents we had cupcakes from Beverly's Best. Yum.
I was interested to see how Davin would do with his cupcake. Weston was not a fan of getting messy with his 1st birthday cupcake. The singing seemed to make Dav a little nervous, but he thought the candle was cool. He didn't try to touch it though. Mom and I blew it out for him.
Then we set the cupcake on his tray and he just ripped into it and ate and ate. It was quite the mess, but he was happy as a clam. He ate every crumb he could find on his tray. When we went to take him out of his high chair and clean him off he cried and cried and was still trying to eat the crumbs that had fallen on his legs and diaper. I would say it was a successful first cupcake experience.
After we got kids to bed we played cards and sat in the spa with my parents. It was nice to have some down time to just visit. We gathered our stuff up from the four corners of the house and set our alarms. We decided to drive all the way home on Saturday, so we got on the road at 5:30am and after 3 stops made it home a little before 6pm. Wow. What a trip. I am so glad that Ian was able to take the vacation time and that we got to do so many fun things all together. Thanks for bearing with me and my 5 post recap of our trip. Now back to reality. Ian is back at work, busy as ever and I am getting caught up with the grocery shopping, house cleaning and getting back into our routine. Fun times in CA. Can't wait to go back . . . already.

CA Trip- Aquarium of the Pacific

My mom took Thursday off work to play with us. We took a kind of slow morning and let Davin have a nap then we headed out for our aquarium trip. Weston was really excited to see all the fish. The aquarium was tons of fun and had plenty to keep us all entertained. We hit some bad traffic on our way down there, but it worked out because by the time we got there and ate some lunch all the bazillions of school field trip kids had cleared out and it was fairly empty. This was the first big wall tank when you first walked in. It seriously was so cool.
Outside they had these low, open areas where you could touch the rays and little sharks. I can't get over how they always feel SO slimy. Ick. Weston didn't go for sticking his entire arm in there, but later on in a different area with rays, the rays were coming up to the surface. He was happy to touch them then. He also spent some time with Grandma B touching the tide pool creatures like starfish, anemones, and urchins.
Also outside by the open ray pools was a play area with this fun boat and several big sea animals that squirted water when you pushed the buttons on them. This was probably Weston's favorite part of the aquarium. I was actually surprised we didn't have any major meltdowns when leaving here.
The boys and I were all pretty enthralled with the sea lions who were swimming all around this tunnel. They are so cute. We went to watch their feeding/training session too and they did some fun tricks.
Weston thought the rainbows from the water and sun were so cool. This is by the shark lagoon. See the huge shark right behind Weston? Wow. It was really a great aquarium.
We also got to see lots of jellies, seahorses, an underwater diver giving a tour of the coral reef exhibit, and this crazy fish called a weedy sea dragon. It was a really fun day. On our way out Grandma B got Weston a shark shirt and a toy whale. He loves them. We will definitely have to go check out the tiny aquarium near us in the near future. Thanks for the awesome outing Grandma B!

CA Trip- Double Date & Palmdale

After our high adventures at Disneyland we decided to take Tuesday easy. We slept in, had a leisurely breakfast . . . oh wait. No, we were up by 7am and had Cocoa Puffs for breakfast. :) Anyway, we went and met up with my Dad for lunch in the park. It was SO nice to be able to play at the park since in UT it has been too cold for the park for months. The boys came home and all took naps, which was fabulous. When we all woke up we got to swim in Grandma B's pool. Really it is just the hot tub that we turn down to 95 degrees and splash around in, but it's as good as a pool for the kids. Davin loved the water and had a blast splash splash splashing.

That evening Ian and I left the boys with my dad and we headed out for our official date. We doubled with my sister, Jules and her boyfriend, Jason. It was quite the marathon date. First we all got massages at Happy Feet (which felt amazing), then dinner at Lucille's (Yum). After dinner we tried to go mini golfing, but it was already closed, so we detoured to Jules' apartment to grab socks and went bowling instead. We all pretty much sucked it up at bowling, but the evening still ended on a good note with frozen yogurt at Yogurtland. It was fun to hang out with Jules and Jason. Ian and I could barely keep up though. We got home late and were exhausted. I don't know how I did that night after night when I was single.
Wednesday morning we got up fairly early and drove out to Palmdale to visit with Ian's Grandma, Aunt Teri, Uncle Mike, Todd, Jenni, and baby Preston. It was a pretty relaxed visit. We just hung out with Grandma and watched Wall-E then headed to Todd and Jenni's for pizza and playtime. The 3 boys played well together and Weston LOVED all the fun new toys to play with.

Here are all 3 of the Bowles great grandkids. Davin, Preston, and Weston.
Grandma Bowles getting lovins from Dav. He actually took a nice long nap that afternoon, so he managed to stay awake until 8pm.
We really are so grateful to have such awesome family (on both sides) that we really love and wish we could hang out with on a more regular basis. In the meantime we will just have to continue making the most of our visits!

CA Trip-Disneyland!

Monday was our day at the Land of the Mouse. We were all pretty excited. Weston talked non-stop about all the things he was going to do and Ian hadn't been to Disneyland in about 10 years. A friend in my parents' ward works at Disneyland doing the window displays on Main Street, so he was kind enough to drive down and sign us in for the day. These pictures are all from while we were hanging out waiting for him. We didn't wait that long, but when you are all pumped up for D-land 15 minutes seems like a long time.


Once we got into the park Weston's first request was, of course, the Buzz Lightyear ride. We went on it twice before I convinced Weston that we needed to go on some other rides too. Next up was the rockets right next to Buzz.

I love the excitement on Weston's face in this one. He had such a fabulous time the whole day. The rockets actually made me a little nauseated. I must be getting old.
As we stepped off the rockets we ran into Captain Hook. Given that Weston is very into pirates, he was stoked. We only had to wait for one other person before we got to visit with Peter Pan's nemesis. Captain Hook was really quite cute with Weston and tickled him with the feathers on his hat, signed his book, etc. Here they are doing the pirate hook and saying "Arr Matey."
Well after seeing Captain Hook we had to make the Peter Pan ride our next stop. After that Ian took Davin to feed him while I took Weston on the carousel. This is after the carousel. Weston is using his muscles to try to pull the sword from the stone. He seemed pretty annoyed that it wouldn't come out.
Next up was Dumbo. Ian took Weston on while I hung out with Davin. Despite my best efforts I couldn't get Dav to take a nap. Oh well. He still behaved really well. Here are my boys on the flying elephant.
That was about it for Fantasy Land. We headed over to check out the newly remodeled It's a Small World. Weston claims that that song is now his favorite. Yipee. The ride is really much the same with the exception of a few more modern Disney movie characters added, and everything had a fresh coat of paint and sparkles. I enjoyed it. After a potty/diaper change break we started trucking across the park toward California Adventure. We got side tracked though when we saw Goofy. When Weston was telling Grandma B and Grandpa Bob about his day he kept calling Goofy, Goof. I think it's funny that they are good enough pals for him to have a nickname.
Once we made it to California Adventure we were just in time for the Playhouse Disney show. It was a big hit since we now get the Disney channel and are quite familiar with all the fun shows. Davin had fallen asleep on our walk over to the other park, so he had a little nap and woke up pretty happy. Here he is playing with Daddy in line for the show. Davin was trying to steal Daddy's sunglasses. I think their faces are funny in this pic.
When the show was over we hopped on the Monsters Inc. ride then sat down and ate a semi-real meal. I really wanted to take Weston on the new Toy Story ride, but by the time we walked all the way over to it Weston had fallen asleep and we decided to send both the boys home with Grandma B. That actually worked out perfect. They were both really tired and Ian and I wanted to go on a couple adult rides. Weston was zonked for awhile, Davin not so much. Tired boys at the end of their fun day.
Once my mom had taken the boys, Ian and I headed back to California Adventure to go on the California Screamin' roller coaster. It was AWESOME. We both loved it. I can't remember the last time I had been on a real roller coaster and this one was really fun. We got off and immediately ran back in line. California Adventure closed at 6pm, so we hopped on the swings on our way out of the park then went back to Disneyland. We basically walked on Space Mountain and then went on Pirates. After that we were both pretty exhausted, so we swung into In N Out on the way home and called it a day. A wonderful day.

CA Trip-The Drive & Family

As you have probably surmised from seeing this post up . . . we are back! We got home from our week+ family vacation to California. We had an awesome time and I am so excited to share our adventures and cute pictures. I am going to split the trip into several posts. This will probably be the shortest and most disjointed since I am SO tired after our 12 hour trek home today.

We took off last Friday afternoon around 4:30pm with high hopes of reaching my Aunt's house in Vegas by 10:30. Ha! We ended up taking a ridiculously long stop after only an hour and a half of driving. The food was slow, Weston was slow to eat the food, we changed kids into pj's and in general dilly dallied. Needless to say we didn't get into Vegas until well after midnight. After about 5 hours sleep, we had some fun visiting with the Overson's in the morning. By the time we got back in the car at 10am everyone was ready for a nap.

I should mention that the boys both did awesome with all the driving. My tech nerdy, I mean savvy, husband rigged up the portable dvd player (THANKS Burton's!!!) and a little 7 inch flat screen he randomly had so that they hung in front of each of the boys. We had a car full of little vidiots the entire trip. It was fabulous.

Back to the story . . . about an hour outside of Vegas we (Ian) noticed that the temperature gauge was reading really hot, like almost over the hottest it could read. We didn't notice any other signs of overheating, but stopped in Baker to check things out just in case. After hanging out in the car with the boys for a bit while Ian talked to his dad, the mechanic and my dad, we determined it was most likely that the temperature sensor was bad and it wasn't overheating at all. Then we ate lunch at Bob's Big Boy and picked up some Alien jerky. Yum.
Finally we made it to my parents' house just in time for a family party! Right off the bat Weston got to hang with his cousins and I got to hang with mine. I really appreciated everyone making the effort to be there for me to visit with. I know that's really why they were all there. ;)

We were celebrating Sara and Katie's 17th birthday and they were so sweet doing crafts with the kids half the night.
I forgot to get 4 generation pictures last time I took the boys to CA, so this time I made sure I did. They are extremely informal, but at least I have them now.

Me, Davin, my dad, Weston, Grandma Olson, and Grandpa Olson
Me, Davin, my mom, Weston, and Grandma Snowball
Sunday morning we thought ahead to take pictures of all the cousins looking nice, but the porch swing wasn't the best idea. I still think these kids are all pretty stinkin cute.
Church was interesting. Davin was running a fever Sunday morning, so I drugged him up, but he was still pretty warm and fussy and just slept on my shoulder for most of Sacrament, so as soon as that was over I dropped off Ian and Dav at home so Davin could get some rest. When we all got home from church Davin was still napping. He seriously slept half the day. Poor kid did NOT feel good. By bedtime though he was starting to act more normal and didn't feel nearly as warm. That night was crazy though.

My kids actually slept through the night just fine. Weston went potty once, but Joy's girls were all sickies. Lizzie kept waking up just screaming because she didn't feel good, Mimi woke up fussing and ran down the hall to get Joy and ended up peeing everywhere, and Rachel just woke up like normal for her 8 month old self. While helping Joy clean up Mimi's mess, Joy decided that she and the girls would not be joining us at Disneyland in the morning. It really was just as well. We did miss playing with them at the happiest place on earth, but I'm not so sure it would have been so happy with tired, sick kids. Anyway, here are the kids and Joy playing Zingo right before we took off for D-land.
We had such a great time playing with the Henshaw's. I know it's a lot of work for Joy to bring the 3 girls down by herself, but I was so glad that she was there and we got to have some fun playing time. Woo hoo for visiting with family!

Stay tuned for the Disneyland post . . .