My Silly Sleeper

First, here are few of my favorite recent pics

I bought this hat for him in Jersey. I LOVE it! I think it's so cute! I love how the green makes his blue eyes stand out! I wish I had the matching sweater!

And Calin loves his Bumbo! It makes him happy to sit like a big boy in his own little seat :)

So . . . can you help?

How do you get a baby to not take so many naps?

Calin eats about 5 times during the day (I'm working on stretching that out. It's way past time!!), and he takes about 1 hr - 1.5 hr naps about 1.5 after each feeding . I wouldn't mind it so much, but he's still waking up between 4-5 every night. Maybe if he took fewer naps during the day he would sleep better? But it's not like I put him down for 5-6 naps each day, he'll just fall asleep wherever he is. He starts to get fussy, then usually within about 5 min he's out. I've tried to keep him busy, but that doesn't do it. I've wondered if he just gets overstimulated during his awake hours, so I try to let him play without so many toys, etc. But that's even worse! If he's not doing something fun, he'll fall asleep even faster.

How do drop the middle of the night feeding so your baby sleeps continuously through the night?

For the past couple nights, we've been trying to let Calin fall back asleep on his own when he wakes up at night (since he's waking up at the same time each night, we're hoping it's just out of habit, not that he really needs to eat), but so far it hasn't worked. He doesn't stop crying! The first night he cried for 45 min (that seems way to long! We're not talking about little wimpers either), then I fed him and he went back to sleep for another 3.5 hours. Last night we let him cry for about 15 min, then I went in, picked him up for a few minutes, and he went back to sleep, but only for an hour. That time I fed him, and he slept another 3 hours. He's slept 8 hours without eating or waking before, so I'm sure he doesn't NEED to eat in the middle of the night. Babies his age can go 10-12 hours (usually 10 for breastfed babies). Man that would be nice! lol. I really don't mind feeding him once a night since it's fast and he goes right back to sleep, but I know it would be better for him (and us of course) if he would just learn how to sleep continuously through the night!

I know everyone has different opinions and advice, and different things work for different people. So what do you have? Any advise??

M&M Family Photos

When we went down to Utah for Thanksgiving, I took some family pictures for Matt, Mickie & Ty (Jordan's brother and family). We took them down the street from their house by this AWSOME barn! We didn't have too much sunlight left, so we had to work fast, but I love the way they turned out. And I had SO much fun playing with different textures while editing them!

Here are some favorites

Cute family huh?! :)

Calin's Story

We put this video together a couple weeks after Calin's birth, but "lost" it. I found it last week, and thought we should share it.

I think it's a sweet way to remember such a special time.

I would like to do this with all our kids.

And now that I have this plan, the future videos should be better.

I didn't think about doing this till after Calin's birth, so we worked with what we had.

(Good thing Jordan drove to Idaho Falls while I was in labor to get the video camera, lol. His video's are so sweet - he is a very proud dad!)

Thankgiving

Jordan had a week off from school for Thanksgiving. He has been so busy this semester so a week off was much needed! We spent it with family in Utah. It was so much fun! We drove down on Wednesday. And here is a breakdown of our fun filled days in Utah:

Wednesday

• Made the 4hr drive, Calin did GREAT! (It was his first long drive)
• Took family pictures for Matt, Mickie & Ty (I'll post them later, they turned out great)
• Went to Will & Kristen's (Mickie's sister) for dinner with the Braggs

Thanksgiving Thursday

• Jordan, Matt, Preston & Suzanne played football with Matt's ward in the morning
• Went to Kristen & Will's for dinner that afternoon then took naps and relaxed
• Went to Mickie's grandparent's and had pie with the Coombs and Maxwells. YUM! So many delicious desserts to choose from! (I went with Mickie's Heathbar cheesecake :)
• After pie we went bowling then headed back to Matt & Mickie's.

I love these B&W's of Ty!

By the end of the day we were all matching :)

Friday

• Jordan woke up early to do a little shopping.
• We all met up in American Fork to see "The Blind Side" - great movie! And again, Calin did so well!
• Jordan and I did some shopping in American Fork
• Went down to Kristen and Will's and when everyone headed to the BYU basketball game, Jordan and I headed back to Matt & Mickies to get some rest.

*Jason and Sierra - Kristen and Will's kids - so sweet!

Saturday

• Packed up our stuff and headed down to Kristen and Will's again to meet up with everyone else.
• I took some pictures of the Bragg grandkids (still working on them to try to get at least one that is decent, lol)
• Had some lunch, and headed back up to Rexburg while everyone else went to the BYU vs U of U game.

*how cute is this pic of Calin (on the left) and Ty! Less than 3 months apart, they are going to have sooo much fun together :)

It was such a fun weekend! We weren't used to doing so much fun stuff! And I wasn't sure how Calin would do with so much going on, but he did so well! He loved playing with Ty already. I can't wait to see how much fun they have together in a couple years!

We love having family so close! It won't be like this forever, so we better take advantage of it now! Nate and Kelly came to visit this past Saturday. They only live 1.5 hours away, but it seems so far since we're used to having them right next door for the past few years! I just love my nephews! All my family really! But all my nephews are so dang cute and fun!

3 months

My little newborn baby is growing out of that newborn stage very quickly!

Calin is such a sweet little boy! He LOVES to smile! And loves it when people smile at him!

He grabbing more objects on his own now. Before he would just move them with his fist, but he's finally starting to grab them to get them to move.

He still loves his hands! And he usually only takes his paci when he's sleepy. Most nights he sleeps about 5-6 hours straight. But there are of course the rare times when he'll only go 4 hours, or the lucky nights when he goes 8.

He laughs, well tries anyway. It usually sounds more like a cough - still dang cute though!

He does NOT like to be scared. lol. For some reason Jordan thinks Calin should like this at such a young age. So he tries to scare (more like surprise) Calin often. Jordan tried this yesterday and Calin was mad at him for hours! Every time Calin looked at Jordan he would start to cry. Then as soon as Jordan was out of sight and Calin could see me, he would smile. haha. I don't think Jordan will be trying that again anytime soon.

The first picture is one of the only ones I got of him without his hand in his mouth. Most of them turned out like this picture above.

For Thanksgiving we went down to Salt Lake. We had so much fun and I have lots of pics to share on the next post :)