My once upon a time good sleeper

Ben has always been an AWESOME sleeper. Whenever it was naptime or bedtime, we'd lay him in the crib and leave. There was no crying from him, he'd just lay there and fall asleep. That is until recently. I guess he thinks he can have an opinion on when he goes to sleep or something. So just now at the age of 20 months we are working on sleep training. The other side of his problem with sleeping though is teething. He also wakes up when his diaper is full and just wants it changed. Lucy I think is teething as well. She was doing great with sleeping and all of a sudden has had issues. We are working on sleep training with her as well. Can you just hear my house at bedtime? I HATE to hear my babies scream. It's so heartbreaking, but a mom needs her sleep and the babies need to learn how to go back to sleep by themselves. Lucy had cried herself to sleep after only 5 minutes. Then I layed Ben down and he screamed and screamed for about 40 minutes. In the meantime it woke Miss Lucy up. Last night they kept waking each other up. Ben would start talking from his room and it'd wake Lucy up. I would finally get Ben back to sleep and then Lucy would start screaming and wake him up again. This went on a few times until they were both as tired as mommy and just stayed asleep. Lucky for me, Ally slept through it all, got up and watched TV so the babies and I could sleep till 8am (that hasn't happened in quite a while). So here I sit with Ally playing her leapster, Ben finally asleep and Lucy laying next to me sucking away on her fingers with a giant smile on her face like she knows something I don't.

The other night my mom babysat for us so we could hang out with some friends of ours and when she went to put Ally to bed, Ally informed her that her MP3 player needed new batteries because the others had died. My mom told her she didn't know where the batteries were, but she could still listen to music on her CD player. Ally then informed her that those aren't cool and no one uses those anymore. HELLO YOU ARE 4! I don't know where this girl gets some of the things that come out of her mouth. My mom proceeded to tell her she could either lay in silence or listen to the CD player. She opted for silence!

Lucy

She had just the perfect outfit to match her leg warmers.

Everyone else was sleeping when I realized I should get a picture.

December 25- afternoon

We had Christmas at my mom's house Christmas afternoon.

Can you believe we still have 1 more Christmas to go?

Ally wanted her hair in pigtails, so that's how I fixed it.

Crazy man!

attacking Grandma.

Ally told my brothers if they kept being mean to her they were going to get sticks and rocks for Christmas. Guess what? They didn't listen to her. She and my mom dug up rocks from our yard and found sticks (all which were under the snow).

December 25- morning

Before the kids came in.

Coming downstairs.
Lucy in her ball pit.

The kids got lots of movies.

Lucy was trying to sneak paper into her pit.

He's up to something.

So happy!

He gets so mad at her when he can't play her new leapster.

December 24

The morning of Christmas Eve we did Christmas with Matt's parents, sister, brother in law and nephew.

We got Matt's dad, pvc pipe...so he can have a backdrop for when we take pictures. Matt made it short so he has an example of what it looks like. It was actually too tall for the room we were in, so we'll need to cut a little off both sides.

This little guy can identify chocolate even when it's hidden under foil looking like Santa.
Loving her new fun socks.

Just happy to be a part of the excitement.

Dad..I look silly.

Oooo ribbon.

Daddy opening Ben's Geotrax.

Daddy, Uncle Phil and Ben putting the track together.

Cheese...I'm so happy I got trains and cars!

Oh blocks!

so yummy

applying lotion

It's been an exciting morning for this little guy. So wiped out!

Still loving my blocks mom! Thanks Grandma Horn.

December 23

This year we did Christmas with Matt's grandparents on December 23 (in the past we've done it Christmas Eve).

Lucy was checking out someones sippy cup they left a bit too close to her.

All this girl has talked about was...a pillow pet. Great Grandma got her a lady bug pillow pet and that poor thing has been drug up and down the stairs ever since we got home.

Lucy with Grandma Horn

Grandma sat Lucy down to play with her big stuffed animal, but she found it more entertaining to play with wrapping paper, ribbon, bows and boxes.

The kids found that Great Grandpa's chair has a remote control and can go up and down. Does Mr. B look tired to you? He was SOO tired.

Lucy and daddy playing

Still playing with the chair.

Lucy's fun outfit

Thanks Aunt Kim for the fun leg warmers!

Christmas clothes

Ally was upstairs changing her clothes while I was taking pictures.

I'm the DESTROYER!
Showing Lucy her shoes.

Lucy eating her new found shoes!

Such the happy baby. Still will only roll from front-back. She will push herself backwards on the floor and prefers to play either on the kitchen floor or the library floor, so she can push herself around faster.

Meeting up with Santa

She told Santa the only thing she wants for Christmas is the purple pillow pet (unicorn). SERIOUSLY! That's the power of commercials!

Poor little dude, his mouth was bugging him.
Fascinated with the guy in red.

3 kids

In the past I've dressed the kids up in their church Christmas clothes, to see Santa. This year I decided to go casual.

Fun in the snow with Daddy

Making a snow angel.
It's quite hard to push your dump truck through the snow.

He'd rather push it through the snow, than on the porch.