Parents, a princess and a pirate

Well, once again it's been awhile. Let me try to catch up quickly.

Matthew started sleeping through the night!!!! That happened right after Christmas. I was fed up with it and bought a book called "Healthy sleep habits, happy child" and read it over Christmas. I probably wasn't the most social I've been but I really needed to read that book. Anyways, it basically showed me how to look for sleep signs before he's tired and putting him to bed earlier, like 7pm. Which is 90mins earlier then before. We started better with the naps and bedtime while still at my parents. And once we got home, we let him CIO (cry it out) the first night. I was too exhausted and fed up to wait. Well, low and behold, he cried when we put him to bed for 15 mins and feel asleep! Then he woke up a few more times at night, cried for 5 mins or so and then went back to sleep. It was wonderful. So, now, almost 2 months later, he goes to sleep between 7-7:30 and usually sleeps until 5 or 6am. Then I nurse him and he falls back asleep till 7 or 8. Working good for me!

Matthew also has 2 teeth on the bottom. And started crawling on his 9 month b-day. He had been doing the army crawl for a few weeks but on 2/8/07, he started on all fours. It's pretty exciting and Kylie likes to cheer him on.

Kylie is doing great. She started gymnastics and is loving it. She listens to the teacher well and follows the directions pretty good too. Next week she starts going in the evening with Brett. He's anxious to help coach her with it.

We did have some potty training regression during Christmas. She got constipated and wasn't going for several days at a time. Then would go in her panties. It was very frustrating. After we got back into our normal routine after Christmas, we started over with the PTing. Had the chair in the kitchen, rewards for peeing, everything. Within a few days, she was back on track. It was like she forgot how to do it. I googled "potty training regression" and it said it can be very common around times of stress, like moving or the holidays.

Christmas was great. I had whole long blog written on the computer about our Christmas but I can't find it now. If I do find it, I'll publish it later. Basically, Kylie got her beloved Pony Castle from Uncle Josh. She was so excited when she opened it. She knew what it was from the first tear of the paper. She started screaming and jumping up and down "It's a pony castle!!!!". And she has played with it plenty. We had to move it into her bedroom because Matthew was trying to eat all the little parts of it. But she still plays with it a lot. Her other favorite Christmas present was a bag of little dollar store toys from her teachers. She carried that bag of cheap toys around all Christmas eve, even had to sleep with them. And it was near disaster when we couldn't find one part of it. What a funny kid.

Matthew really likes his discovery dome he got from Brett's parents (my suggestion, it looked so neat). And he likes to stand at the Thomas Train Table that Santa got him. He just pulls the train tracks apart so I have to figure out how they go back together. And the circus train that my parents got him is a huge hit with both kids. It was the first thing that he crawled too when he learned to crawl.

I got a beautiful diamond circle pendent from Brett. He hid it in my new boots that I picked out. He was mad that I was with him when he bought the boots so he wrote on the tag "Surprise, it's boots." Loser.

Brett really liked the portable iPod player we got for his car. And he's been using the camera lens we got a lot too.

Well, enough about Christmas.

Wrestling is winding down. State finals start tomorrow. We have 2 kids going, CP and another kid, Chris Hines. He's only a freshman, the first freshman to qualify for state from BD. I'm taking Kylie with me to Conseco for Friday night and then leaving her and Matthew with D&S all day and night on Saturday. It will be fun but I'll also miss them.

We've got some crazy weather here. January was really warm, like 40 and 50's for most of it. Then the snow started in Feb. This week, we had a "blizzard". We got 9 inches in 24 hours and would have had more if we didn't get sleet for 12 of those hours. Up north got more then 18 inches. It's crazy. So much snow that the mail lady can't or won't deliver because the snow is too high in front of the mail box. We haven't gotten mail in 3 days. I went to the PO today and they said the mail lady would be back at 4:30. And they close at 5. so I have a whopping 30 mins to get up there and pick up my 3 days of mail. Grrrrr.

My friend Sara, is most likely moving back!!! Her husband is just waiting on the official offer. How exciting is that. I've missed her so much. It will be great to have her near by again.

Well, that's about all I can think of. I'll try to write more often. :)