Kristin Eve

A mobile blog today. We're out at Gramoo's on what seems to be a weekly swimming outing.

We've had a good time. Easton's made HUGE improvements since last time. HUGE.

Other excitement from today includes when Dalton called 911 by disabling my locked phone enough to allow emergency calls. The operator that called back to check on us was very nice and non-annoyed sounding. Oops!

Later I ran an entire cycle on the washing machine...without ever putting laundry in! 7 weeks or less...just 7 weeks or less of this. Ugh.

Anyway, gonna finish up our popsicles and head home. Happy Friday!
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Somehow I only have one picture...

It's the boys watching this Evian commercial. And now Easton wants roller skates. :)

With Dalton not having napped yesterday we attempted to get them both to bed at the same time...Easton was good, Dalton was not. Eventually Dalton fell asleep but then Easton's nose started bleeding. I could hear him saying, "Oh no. Oh no." I went in to see what that was about and saw alllllll the blood. There was a lot. He's had nose bleeds directly as a result of trauma at least twice but we're not sure if he's ever had just a spontaneous nose bleed like that.

Luckily Dalton stayed asleep through it all but it is still not my favorite thing in the world to get sheets on and off that bed. Ugh. What a pain!

Easton went to sleep once we got the bleeding stopped and him and his bed cleaned up. However, in the middle of the night Dalton turned posessed and started screaming angrily for some reason. He wouldn't be quiet so I had to put him in the crib. Then a few minutes later he called that he needed to pee (he had another dry night waking the one time to go to the potty!).

I hate to keep resorting to the crib and we're gonna run out of time here soon. I really wish we had 4 usable bedrooms so that the older two didn't have to share. It's not been the easiest of transitions. Not like potty training was for D. You win some, you lose some, eh? :)

Anyway, the boys are in a shared quiet time right now...keeping D from napping again today. They're having lots of fun in there. Not so much "quiet" but at least they're playing well together. I love hearing their conversations and interactions over the baby monitor. Even last night it was amusing when they were supposed to be falling asleep and Dalton kept saying, "Banana pants!" to get Easton to laugh (Thank you, Dora).

In other news, I put my rings back on today. I had to take them off on Monday because of swelling (must've been the heat) but today I could get them back on no problem. So I'm wearing them again for now.

I think we might go get one of my free birthday ice cream scoops here in a bit. And I've got to figure out some dinner for tonight. We borrowed some Pee-Wee's Playhouse DVDs from the library...must see what my boys think of a show "Little Kristin" (as they call my young self) used to watch. Ta ta!

Let's see...yesterday was a very lazy day for me. This anemia is not yet under control and I think it's only contributing to my third trimester exhaustion as it is. Sleeping has been a tad better the last few nights...J's agreed to turn the a/c down a few degrees and so I'm comfy and he's all bundled up in the down comforter. :) But I think Easton on his top bunk and I in my pregnant state are sleeping better with it a tad cooler for us.

Actually, we don't turn it down till *I* go to bed, so maybe we should turn it down a bit earlier so E can sleep better right away. It was 8:45 last night before the kids were quiet in their room. And that was with trying to stagger bedtime. Easton was just waiting for Dalton to come in. Then they talked a bit, got their "soft friends" taken away, Dalton was later seen trying to gather more (which is sweet, really)...Easton coughed and Dalton kept saying, "God bless you. God bless you, Easton!" thinking he deserved a response from E which he never got.

They both somehow slept till after 7:15 today...Dalton is usually the first up but today it was Easton and the second he wakes up (if the clock says 7:00) he loudly chants over and over till we show up, "Mama! Mama! I'm ready to come get some juice, Mama!" It's been his habit for awhile and I'm not sure it'll be an easy one to break. But it woke up Dalton. Grrrr.

Now I think Easton's the one that could've used more sleep...he's been having a rough couple of hours now. Ugh.

Because I was soooooooooooo lazy yesterday and made them watch a movie in the morning, quiet time in the afternoon with some gymnastics class thrown in afterwards I felt bad and wanted to make sure they got to do something fun today. So I surprised them with a trip to the Children's Museum.

But first I had to change clothes...


Then we were off. Most of the time, the boys like to start with the firetruck and today was no exception:


Some dress up while climbing through the ant hill:




Dalton wanted to head over to do some painting:








We hit the puppet theatre briefly:


Then we headed downstairs to a large area where the boys like to play. However, everyone has to take off their shoes. Today there was a museum volunteer standing there telling us everyone needed socks...and they had plenty of clean socks in baskets for everyone to wear. This was new to Easton and let me tell you, he was not a fan. He started throwing a gigantic fit. I told him if he couldn't stop and calm down then we were going to have to leave. Well whaddya know...we had to leave. Poor Dalton. He was so good, just took off his little socks, put on his shoes, held my hand and calmly walked out with us while I had to take off E's socks...shove his shoes on his feet (and again after he kicked one off and I told him if he did it again he'd lose his Bumblebee toy). I had to carry him out screaming his head off but really just felt sorry for Dalton the whole time. It's like Easton was the two year old instead of the other way around. When we got in the car (with E still screaming) Dalton said, "I don't want to leave the see'em (museum)" and I just said, "I know, honey, I'm sorry. But Bubba is being naughty and needs to go home." I hated that the consequence for Easton also ends up punishing Dalton who wasn't doing a thing wrong.

Maybe next time we should attempt a time-out in the car first. There is no way I would punish the other museum goers with attempting a time-out in some corner of the museum or something. If it was just a regular ol' time-out or something that'd be one thing but he was yelling and screaming and there's no guarantee he would've stayed put and I just can't have people staring for such things. Not me. So maybe a car time-out if this should happen to come up again. We were within about a half an hour of leaving anyway, but gosh, poor Dalton.

When we got home Dalton earned yet another pooping prize...it's seriously a non-issue anymore to get him to poop in the potty but I'm afraid to take away the rewarding for fear he might regress. However, he was happy to earn his Nemo glasses:




Meanwhile, my eldest child continued with some of his fit throwing by refusing to come to the table for lunch unless I carried him:


I'll have you know I did not ever go get him. I'd rather him not eat lunch than give into that any day. He eventually ended up in a time out, walked over to have his lunch and then went up for not-so-quiet time where he kept crying over a toy he couldn't get to work right. Dude probably needs a nap. Or maybe just a 6:00 bedtime. Good grief!

Not sure if we'll attempt any kind of plans this afternoon. I'm a little afraid. And Dalton isn't napping today so it's even scarier to think about. Maybe another movie is in order for today...

Adios!

Thirty-three and One

I'm as pregnant today as I was the day Easton was born.

So, actually, at this moment (in the afternoon) I'm even more pregnant than I was when Easton was born since he was born in the morning. :)

And oh how these pregnancies are different... hooray!

When Easton was born I'd gained at least 28 pounds and that was having lost 10 pounds in the first trimester. Most of the weight was from swelling towards the end, but still... With Wabie now I'm still right around 15 pounds total gain...yesterday was a little more, today was a little less. My blood pressure is still perfectly normal for me this time around too. Yippee!

While it's not been quite as carefree a pregnancy as Dalton's was, I'll gladly take every day we can get.

It's a little crazy to think about a baby even coming right now. What does a 33 week and 1 day old baby look like? Funny you should ask...



Maybe it's just my Mama Vision, but Easton does not look all freaky preemie-like to me...he just seems small, but what do I know? I'm his mom.

But speaking of freaky...I was certainly looking less than amazing myself:

Just look how swollen my face is...my cheeks, my chin(s)...it almost hurts when I look at those. I think I can safely say that, while I do have some swelling going on currently, it is nothing like that. Yowsa!

Anyway, it was really kinda fun to go back and look at these pictures of newborn E. Dalton said, "Awwww, wook at Wabie!" and I told him it was Baby Easton. We do not look at pictures of them from long ago very often (at all!) so it was kinda fun to show them what newborns look like and to show them the umbilicial cords they both had that they've heard so much about with Wabie. We also looked at Baby Dalton pictures and even his delivery since Easton is so fascinated with how it'll all go down. They loved it. And that made me want to share some video from Easton's first day on earth just to gain some thirty three weeks perspective. :) This is before he is "sick". This was a happy, healthy day for him--I was the sick one on this day. It's the next day that Easton crashed and was all of a sudden "sick". :( Most of you will find this quite boring but the grandparents might enjoy the trip back in time...

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Monday's are always a doozy when it comes to the blog lately, eh? This week is no exception...in fact, it might even be a double dooze. :)

So, good grief, where to start? It seems I always like chronological order. I guess that takes us back to Thursday. It was that day that my boys went to sleep so well that night, right? Here's part of the reason...when they came home from Ben's house they wanted to get right back into our pool...or near the pool at least:












You can tell Dalton is tired because he's lost a lot of coordination:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Then we came inside as the boys were getting tired and cold. Easton asked me to make him a "nest" on the couch:


On Friday we decided to head to Gramoo's again for more swimming. Lauren is out of town and I think Gramoo's a little lonely...plus we always like to see her and my boys always like to swim. Eastie is just convinced he can swim without floaties and well he can swim...he just can't always breathe. :) He needs gills. Or a snorkel. Anyway, I let him practice a bit but he got to being a bit of a stinker and screamed at me, "It is my important job to swim like a fish!!!" so I relegated him to the baby pool where Dalton and Gramoo had already moved to. Stinker.

Eventually they got cold and we called it a day...finding a lady bug on our way to get our stuff:








Both kids fell asleep in the car and thanks to a long detour and a stuck train they got a much longer nap than I would've liked. Makes bedtime so tough. We actually put Dalton in his crib and left him there all night. We slept wonderfully. :)

Saturday was t-ball at a bright and early 8:00 a.m. And it was our day to bring snack. Easton is getting super bored with t-ball and can't wait till it's time to play soccer again. T-ball is just too much standing around at this age. He loves to run to field the balls and he's often the first one there...but then other kids arrive and throw their gloves on top of his and he can't get up with the ball to throw it to first or anything. It's hard being on a team of 4 year olds. :) We've thought about letting him play soccer in the fall but it's not my favorite idea as we'll have a newborn. So, maybe not till next summer when both boys will be able to play and we'll just spend our Saturdays on the soccer fields. A 3 and a 5 year old would not be on the same team here.

Anyway, after t-ball was when the weekend really got started. Easton and Jason had plans to go on E's first ever camping trip! And Dalton and 7+ months pregnant Mommy would be staying home for some special one-on-one time. What fun!

Jason got busy getting everything together...it's amazing what you "need" for even one night camping. They were going with Rob (J's officemate) and Kaiden (who just turned 5). Partly because of our vehicle situation and partly because it'd be silly to take two cars, we dropped E and J off at Rob and Kaiden's house and that way we could put E's car seat in there safely. All the campgrounds were full as far as reservations go but they did have some first come first serve spots at a lot of places, unfortunately (for me) they didn't know where they'd end up so I said goodbye to my guys not knowing how or where I'd find them if I needed them.

They ended up finding a nice spot not too far away, but out of cell phone range. J took the camera and did a good job keeping up with their 24 hours away from me. :) Easton was apparently a total angel and had J just falling more and more in love with him after their time together. What fun bonding!


And in the wilderness? Where there are trees to climb??? Heaven for my boy!


Their home for the night...


Kaiden and E each brought a few toys...Kaiden let E play with two of his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:




A little creek near their campsite:


Both boys found it highly amusing to throw sticks into the fire...E was content with tossing in little twigs he'd find but look at what Kaiden's wanting to throw in! :)


Their camping buds are vegetarians so here is E roasting himself a tofu dog...Kaiden got to roast first as you might guess from him already eating there:


How cute it he?


Apparently Easton ate nearly all of his tofu dog! Jason had to get pics of that.


I just get all warm and fuzzy inside looking at my big guy, balancing a plate on his lap, eating something new:


And they roasted quite a few marshmallows for dessert, I hear:

How authentic...using real sticks!





Eventually the little guys went to bed. I hear they were being rascals for a bit (understandable) but eventually fell asleep. Once Jason and Rob went to bed a little later I guess it was really really cold. J didn't want to wake E to put more clothes on him but he got stuff out so he was prepared for later. Sure enough...E woke up freezing but J was ready and E was able to get back to sleep without too much trouble.

In the morning they made pancakes and I guess Easton ate, like, 3 platefuls!


Found some reindeer antler twigs:


And a big beetle on a stick:


Then they packed up to head back. Jason had said that they'd call when they got on the road so that I knew when to pick him up but he was hoping for noon since he and my cousin had plans to record some keyboard parts back at the house around 1:00. Well, at noon I still hadn't heard anything...and I was sitting in front of Rob and Kaiden's house. Starting to panic a bit because J's cell phone kept going straight to voice mail. Eek! Eventually Rob's wife and other kid got home and she let us in so we could fret together. She started looking up the campgrounds so we could make some calls when she was able to get ahold of Rob finally. Whew! They were on their way.

Anyway...with Jason and Easton away, I wanted to make the most of my time with our soon to be middle child. And Dalton was a bit sad that he wasn't getting to go camping so I had to tell him we'd be going to his favorite place: Chuck E. Cheese!


We headed straight there after dropping E and J off. Dalton didn't want lunch, he said. He was too excited to get there! :)



We had a nice time and he picked out a plastic microphone and a sucker with his tickets when we were done. We came home and tried to eat lunch but he wasn't too hungry so he took a little nap.

When he woke up we finished his Winnie the Pooh puzzle he'd earned earlier in the day with a few more poops in the potty.


And we did some singing with underwear on his head:


We vaccuumed and started some laundry and then he and I headed to Noodles with my coupon for a free "birthday bowl" in hand. A free dinner! Nice!




Next we went to the cool park. It was a super nice time:




And we decided to finish the night off right by sharing a scoop of ice cream:

(I couldn't get my free birthday scoop coupon to print so I guess we'll have to go back another time when it does. Darn.)

It was already E's normal bedtime when we got home, but D is different and likes to stay up later, especially when he's napped. So we got home and got a nice bubble bath ready for the two of us where we had lots of fun with bubbles and shaving cream and squirt toys. No pictures of that. :)

He and I rocked for a bit but then he asked for his bunk bed so at about 8:30 I put him in there and by 8:45 he'd fallen asleep very quietly and easily as I'd hoped. He even slept till nearly 7:00 the next morning...I heard him awake in there but he wasn't calling or anything. I went to get him and he looked at his light-on-a-timer and said, "Me light not come on" but I told him he could get up anyway. I'm so confusing. :) But my sweetie poo was waiting for his light again...finally!!!

We had a very leisurely morning snuggling in the big bed with his milk and a TV show or two before getting ourselves ready for church.


Dalton said my shirt looked "like Target":


Church was good...we had former football coach Bill McCartney (founder of Promise Keepers) speak. He lives in the area as he was the coach at my alma mater: The University of Colorado...although he was gone shortly before I got there. Anyway, it was neat to change it up a bit and J was bummed he'd be missing out this week. Oh well. Dalton wore underpants to church for the first time to boot!

After church, Dalton and I headed to Starbucks then home for a bit to wait to hear from J...only we didn't...as you saw above. :)

Once we finally were all reunited once again we came home. Easton fell asleep in the car and continued napping once we got here. I'm the one that carried him inside up to his bed and I sorta had to toss him into his top bunk. Man that was tricky. Pregnant woman climbing part way up a bunk bed ladder, sleeping 4.5 year old in arms. And had to get him over the rail that keeps him from falling out. Yeah. Don't want to do that again soon.

E had a nice nap but I woke him before he was ready...still...bedtime took forever for him thanks to his having had a nap. We put Dalton down first and then E. I think staggering bedtime like that is going to be our plan for awhile most nights.

It's getting harder for me to sleep as well now. I'm 33 weeks today and yeah, starting to have to get up at least 3 times a night to pee...and boy am I thirsty when I wake up too. It's hot so it's harder to get as comfy...then there's the kids that only I seem to hear. At 3:15 this morning Dalton called that he had to go pee. And he was dry! So I took him...he was dry again when he woke for the day! Not that I love getting up to help him pee in the night but hey, pretty cool that he woke up to go this time. Easton woke up at 4:30 saying that he was "so so so thirsty" so I had to get him a quick drink. Last night was definitely not the best night of sleep for me...getting me ready for Wabie, I guess.

However, despite all that, somehow both kids slept till our magic time of 7:00...well, like 7:04. Hooray!

Easton was in a bit of a foul mood this morning but we did doughnuts anyway. He was better once we got his blood sugar up (way up!) :) Then over our breakfast I asked him some more about his camping trip, specifically the sleeping in the tent and he said, "You know what? Kaiden was being a little bit silly [when they were trying to fall asleep]...he was hitting me." He told me he'd told him to stop but he kept doing it. He seemed so sad when he was telling me. :( I wanted to cry right into my custard-filled. :( Then he added, "Next time when we go camping I want you to sleep with me and Kaiden and when you see him hitting me, tell him not to." Oh my poor little guy. I hate that he was wishing he had someone there to stick up for him. His little face as he was telling me was just making me so sad. I'm proud of him at the same time for not hitting back (Kaiden would've said something and Easton would've told me too) and for not being a tattletale. Still, poor sweet boy. :(

We went to Dollar Tree and Target after our breakfast. We were looking for a new pool and for Wall-E. We found neither. But we did find some potential Wabie clothes:

More guitars!

And Easton picked out this little built-in-ballernia-slippers sleeper himself:


We came home and did puzzles. Dalton wanted to do his Pooh one again so Easton asked to get one of his out as well:


We did it!




Dalton picked out a Sponge Bob puzzle at Target today to earn as a future poopie prize. Right now he's working on his Nemo sunglasses.

So anyway, that's more than enough scoop from the weekend for ya. Till next time...