Thanksgiving 2012 in a Nutshell

If I don't keep this short, it'll never get posted...so here's a quick recap of Turkey Day 2012.

                          
My family came and spent Thanksgiving Day with us.  V also joined in the festivities and introduced us all to fried turkey....and boy, do we all LOVE it!  V and his fryer are definitely welcome any time during the year.  =)

We had lots of yummy food.  Actually, we had way too much yummy food.

Fortunately I was only in charge of gravy and dessert this year.  Everyone took pity on me and let me get away with doing very little.  I tried a new bundt cake and it was dee-lish!  It was a maple cream cheese pound cake with a caramel glaze.  My dad loved the cake so much that when he left, I had to make him more to take home with him.  He also made me promise to make more during Christmas.  He was so cute and texted me, "Thank you for making the best cake ever."  That's one of his biggest compliments to me ever.

We did our usual thankful/unthankful notes.  There were some funny ones.  I read them aloud and let the kids guess who wrote them.  They were pretty good at it!  For "thankful" we got everything from "my little driving cars" to "maple extract" to "naps."  Here is what people weren't thankful for:

1. allergies (J)
2. mosquito bites (Eli)
3. getting old too soon (Ah-Gong)
4. no passing zones (B...for the ticket he got)
5. global warming...which leads to hot Thanksgivings, like this year (V)
6. natural disasters (A)
7. sleepless nights (me)
8. bullies (Elina)
9. raining after a car wash (Ah-Ma).
As you can see, we had a wide spectrum of things...from personal issues to worldly issues.

We also played charades again.  I love getting my parents to do this game.  We were laughing so hard most of the time that we forgot to video tape them!  The kids wrote down all the words and some were really difficult!  My mom got the word "fox" and she just got on all fours and kept pointing her nose up.  We were all so confused, but it was so cute and funny.  My dad got the word "TV" and he was very matter-of-fact drawing a big rectangle and then pretending to sit back and use a remote control.  We let the kids go multiple times and Eli was the best one this year.  He did "dinosaur," which was good...

but then he did "monster" which deserved an Academy Award.  We were dying because it was the most awesome monster we had ever seen in our lives.  It still brings a smile to my face when I think about him acting it out.  Elina said she showed him how to do it...boy, did he really get into the role!

Evie got "car" and it was just adorable.  I don't think she realized that she was supposed to stop when someone guessed it correctly.

What a fun Thanksgiving!

Then the weekend after Thanksgiving, B's brother and sister-in-law came in for one night.  They were literally here for 24 hours, but it was sure fun for the kids to see them again.

Elina even got to play a duet with Auntie P, who is a pianist!

It was a great holiday with lots of family this year!  

Eulee is 3 Months Old!

It's hard to believe that Eulee is already 3 months old.  After those 2 weeks of non-sleep, she's back to just waking up once at night.  She usually has a 5 hour stretch and then wakes up.  I will take this over the waking-up-every-2-hours thing any day of the week.

She's also staying awake and alert more.  During the morning/day she can even be happy sitting in your lap WITHOUT movement.  This is huge because before this, we were always doing the side-to-side rocking motion even in public.  

Going to bed is still touch-and-go.  Sometimes she'll go right to sleep, but other times she'll wake after 40 minutes and we need to re-rock her.  It just depends on what she wants to do for the night.

Two big milestones for Eulee this month are--

1. Holding her head up by herself.  Now we can put her in the Bjorn facing outward, which she loves (on good days).  I think she could do the Bumbo seat, but we haven't had time to bust it out yet.

She's still not a fan of tummy time though.  On good days she will hold her head up for a bit and stay happy for 5 minutes...maybe.  But on most days, she just starts crying after a minute.  She doesn't like working hard.

2. Laughing.  This is one of my favorite things...the first laugh.  It's an amazing feeling and always takes you by surprise.  I was lucky enough to get her first laugh.  I hate showing the videos of this stuff because the adults always sound like fools.  Parents will do anything to get those first laughs...

After that, she was pretty tough to get laughing.  B was hurt that Eulee gave him her 4th laugh.  But now he's finding more ways to make her laugh, so he's pretty proud of himself.  It's funny because once she sees the camera, she'll stop performing.  It's very frustrating!

3. Sucking on fingers.  She's found her hands and fingers now...and she will go to town on her fingers. She's been favoring her pointer finger, but I'm not sure if she knows that the thumb exists yet.

On Eulee's good days, she is my nighttime shopping buddy.  Since it's hard to run errands and do Christmas shopping these days, if Eulee is having a good day, I will take her shopping with me while B puts the other kids to bed for the night.  We've gone out twice and she's been great.  She just stays in the carrier and I run in and out of stores.  It's been a pretty good setup.

Eulee is such a chubby, cute girl.  Even though she always needs to be held, screams nonstop when she sits in the car, and doesn't sleep through the night...we can't help but love her!

A Relaxing Austin Getaway

The weekend before Thanksgiving we decided to take the kids to Austin to have some fun.

On Saturday, B and I headed to IKEA with Eulee while J and V took the other kids out.  B and I spent way too much money at IKEA...while the kids went to a Thanksgiving storytime...

Baylor Street Art Wall...

to get some frozen yogurt, and to find a letterbox.

We also went to the 360 Bridge.  It was a beautiful place!  The kids found their second letterbox there.

Besides that, we just hung out at J's house.  J just got a projector setup in her upstairs living area so the kids had a movie night up there.  Even Eulee seemed to enjoy herself!

We also played some Playstation Move video games with the kids.  It was so funny to watch them play.


This was actually our most relaxing weekend ever in Austin.  Usually when we go, we want to do so many things.  Since we had Eulee we decided to take it easy this time and it was a great idea.  It was the first time we came home and didn't feel tired.  What a nice trip!

The only sad part to this story is that we lost Eli's class Clifford.  Each child in the class rotates taking Clifford home with them.  You're supposed to take him to do fun things and take pictures with him and then paste them onto some scrapbook pages for the child to show the class.  Well, right before the 360 Bridge, we misplaced Clifford.  B says he threw Clifford back into the car when Eli tried to take him out to a restaurant.  Clifford hasn't been seen since then.  We looked everywhere at home and in the car...multiple times.  J searched her house a few times.  Nada.  So I had to order a new Clifford for the class...and, of course, I ordered the wrong one!  The one I got is a "lying down" Clifford and the class one was a "sitting down" Clifford!  But the teacher was nice and said that it would be fine.  I don't think the kids would have noticed, but during Eli's show-and-tell, he decided to tell the whole class, "And then we lost Clifford in Austin!  And we had to buy a new one, but he's not the same."  Thanks for ratting me out, Eli!  I swear this has not been a stellar year for me as a parent.  I already forgot to show up to Eli's parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago...now I lose the class Clifford!  This baby is throwing me for a loop.

So, other than losing Clifford, we had a wonderful time in Austin! Can't wait to go back!

A Fun Brownsville Weekend

Last weekend Aunt A was nice enough to take Elina, Eli, and Evie down to Brownsville with her.  The kids were so excited to go see their grandparents and to be with their aunt all by themselves!  They had so much fun!

They spent one day at the beach.  It was a really windy day, but they didn't care.  They love going to the beach to look for shells and play in the water.  Look how happy they all look!

This next picture is one of my favorites!  The kids just spent the day running up and down the beach...running away from waves...

I love watching Evie enjoy the beach.  

The next day they went to the Children's Museum.

I like how Evie's screwdriver is reversed...

...then she tries to see why things aren't working.  So cute!

The last day they went to the zoo.

After that weekend, Aunt A definitely needed a vacation when she got back from Brownsville.  (She's an awesome aunt to willingly want to take 3 kids with her!)  And the kids had to catch up on some much-needed sleep.  But, boy, was it worth it for them!

As for me and B, it was strange to have only 1 kid in the house...especially a kid who doesn't talk!  It was eerily quiet for us.  It wasn't totally relaxing though since Eulee wasn't sleeping well at night and there was still a good amount of crying...but it was nice to be able to take care of our own things while she napped.  I managed to clean all the bathrooms and vacuum the house on the first day.  Usually there's a mess right after I clean, which is always discouraging.  It felt good to know that everything would stay clean until they got back home.  Sad that I consider that a victory.

Walking Dead

It's official.  I'm a zombie.

It's been 11 days since I've slept more than a 3 hour stretch.  So let's go back and review...

Twelve days ago Eulee and I were on the road to restful nights.  It's a beautiful, peaceful road.  Every couple of nights Eulee was making her sleeping stretches longer and longer.  We were getting into the 5 hour range...sometimes even 6 hours...and once even 7!  Everything was looking up...

Then it happened.

Eulee started waking up every 2 hours at night.  It was a nightmare.  Folks, when you are already on the road to restful nights, it's very very VERY difficult to do a u-turn and go back.  It's more painful to turn around than it is to find this road in the first place.  Trust me, you don't want to ever turn around.

For 11 days now, Eulee's been up about 3-4 (sometimes 5) times a night.  I am so exhausted that I'm almost delusional.  Not only does she wake up often, but then she's hard to put back down to sleep.  She does that tricky thing where she falls asleep and she lets you put her back into the bassinet....but then 4 minutes later, she'll stir and wake up and cry.  So you have to start all over again...with the rocking...and sometimes go back to nursing, then rocking.  She will rarely go back to sleep with just pure rocking.  She's just inconsolable, so I almost always end up nursing her back to sleep.  In the middle of the night, you just get desperate and do anything you can to get back to sleep.

At first we figured it was a growth spurt, but now it's just been too long.  So now we're back to survival mode.  We tried Tylenol last night because our pediatrician said it might be early teething (just gum changes, not actual teeth popping out), but she still woke up.  Soon we're going to try a bottle of formula...although we're not even sure she will take a bottle.  Plus, she's kinda chunky so I'm not sure she's really that hungry.

Anyway, things haven't been looking good over here for the past 11 days now.  And I can already feel 2 canker sores trying to make their way to the surface.  I'm so tired that I even forgot about Eli's parent-teacher conference today!  That has never happened to me before.  This school year I am not on top of my game at all.  What can I say?  Sleep is important!  So wish us luck.  We're hoping this will get better.  It has to, right?  I just hope I can go down that lovely road again sometime soon...I miss it.

To the River

Last weekend Eulee had her first trip to the river....she was NOT much of a fan. She slept in the carrier, but she also spent a lot of time crying, especially at the end of the night.  We were there from 1:30pm until 8:30pm, so you can understand her anger.

It was supposed to be an overnight camping trip for B and the kids (along with Elina's friend, AM, and his dad), but it was supposed to be 40F at night and we figured it would be too cold for them in the morning.  So we ended up making it a long day trip.

Aside from the crying, we all had a great time.  It was a relaxing, laidback way to hang out on a Saturday.  The kids explored and looked for bugs and critters.  They found the smallest baby frog.  It was amazing!

Evie just waded right into the river almost up to her waist and got completely soaked.  She just did not care one bit about being wet!  She loves adventure!

Because it wasn't exactly warm out, we had to change her out of her wet clothes into Elina's sweater and AM's dad's camo shirt.  But somehow Evie managed to rock the look!

The kids also did some fishing and they actually caught some little fish!

Eli caught a little bass and Elina caught a little perch.  They were so proud of themselves!  Elina wanted to cook them up, but we had to throw them back into the river.

We tried to have Evie catch a fish too, but they just weren't biting at the end.  It was ok because once she started throwing rocks into the river she forgot all about it.  

The adults did a lot of rock skipping.  I officially stink at this skill.  B is pretty amazing at it.

Then we grilled up some burgers for dinner.  Afterwards, the kids carved their pumpkins.

  Then we ended the night with s'mores and songs by the campfire...with Eulee's crying in the background.

It was a wonderful day outdoors!  Evie and Eli passed right out in the car.  (Of course Elina did NOT.)  But we ended on a bad note because we got a ticket on the way home.  Such a bummer!  It wasn't even for speeding!!  On the small highway, a car in front of us was signaling to turn right.  He started slowing down and moving over to the shoulder.  Instead of waiting for the car to turn right, B went around him.  Honestly, I would have done the same especially since the other driver was already moving onto the shoulder.  Well, since we were passing through a small town, the police officer kindly reminded B that he had disregarded a No Passing zone.  Seriously?!?  So the mean ol' cop gave us a ticket even though he heard Eulee screaming her head off in the background.  Heartless, I tell you!

Other than that, we had a fun day and can't wait to go back again!  But next time we will pay more attention to the No Passing zones.