What a Great Week!

Before I get into the details of our awesome week, I found these pictures from Monday that I can't believe I didn't already post! A friend in the ward (who also happens to be Justin's 2nd cousin, small world) gave us these super "cutie" matching pajamas for the girls! As usual, Carrie likes to snuggle with Brigette first thing in the morning. And often requests that their picture be taken. :)

Singing "little baby songs" to her sister, like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", and the "ABC's"

Carrie wanted a turn being the photographer. Thanks to the slight blurriness, you can't really tell that I'm not wearing any makeup :)

And really, you can't do a photo shoot on a comfy bed without jumping on it afterwards :)

Now, onto our great week! We're all doing pretty awesome around here lately! Brigette has been sleeping in her own room ALL week! She wakes up to eat once at night, but goes right back to sleep. Her naps are still kind of newborn-catnaps. She'll still fall asleep just laying in her bouncy chair most of the time. I'm trying to start putting her in her crib for naps every once in a while though. I know that soon she's going to be old enough that she'll want/need the "privacy" in order to take a decent length nap.

Carrie is being much more cooperative lately. She'd been trying my patience a bit, mostly just by realizing and embracing her independence, but we're finding the balance of what Carrie wants vs. what mommy wants, and we've all been much happier the last few days. She really is a super nice girl, and is very obedient. We're trying very hard as parents to teach her the reasons we do what we do ie: "Our bodies need to sleep at night to get the energy we use to play during the day, so even though you don't want to, it's still bedtime." I think it's really helping her see that we're not just trying to be dictators and control every bit of her life, we're doing what's best for her.

*A quick personal parenting pet-peeve: I think kids just plain don't understand a lot of what we, as parents, do. Now, there are definitely moments when it's just "because I said so", but I'm realizing that Carrie is much happier and more willing to cooperate when we can simply tell her why we're doing something. She usually responds with "Ooooh! Ok!" and whatever dilemma might have developed, dissipates before it begins.*

Onto my great week. Mostly, I'm super proud of myself because I haven't taken a Unisom all week! Allow me to explain. In the early months of my pregnancies, I take a half a Unisom at night both to help me sleep, and combat morning sickness (it really works). Usually, I can wean myself off by about 16 weeks. Well, with Brigette, I was way more sick than any of my other pregnancies and when I tried to wean myself, I felt super sick. So, I kept taking it throughout my pregnancy.

I know Unisom isn't super hardcore, and I wouldn't consider myself addicted, but I had certainly become accustomed to taking it. I'm obviously not having morning sickness anymore, but I've gotten used to it for my sleep quality. I've always been able to sleep, but I've noticed that when I take the Unisom, I sleep more solidly. I feel more rested in the morning... But it's been long enough and I'm done. I've actually had a very good week of sleep without it, and therefore, I'm happy :)

Justin's recent awesomeness (well, one of the things that makes him awesome), comes from his new workout regimen. He's been going to the gym at work everyday with a crazy man... At least he sounds that way from Justin's descriptions of their workouts. He'll tell me and show examples of the moves sometimes and I get tired just watching. ;) It's certainly paying off though! Justin's already getting pretty ripped!

Today brought a lot of hard manual labor for me and Justin. It started with me going to sweep the dust and dead crickets out of the garage. That quickly grew into a complete cleaning of our garage. We moved shelves, freezers, strollers etc. De-junked and re-organized things being stored in there, and eventually, swept. :) It looks great! It's funny how something like that can bring so much happiness and pride.

Then later in the day, we set up our new kitchen table! If you're feeling some deja vu, it's because we had bought a different new table the end of June. And we hated it from the moment we set it up. So, we sold our barely used one, ate $250 worth of losses, and bought this new one. We LOVE it. This is what we really wanted the first time, but didn't realize. This table will last us a good long time.