Big boy Jason!

We have started using time out a lot more with Jason when he throws his toys or doesn't listen to Jeff or I or just generally misbehaves.  I'm not sure it is sinking in, but it stops the bad behavior for the moment.  The funniest part is that Jason will put himself into time out.  We will be talking nearby and hear him throw a toy and then watch him pitter patter into the corner.  It is so hard not to laugh in moments like these!

I am so ready for a day when he is done with diapers, but as of right now he hasn't given any indication that he is ready to start potty training.  So we will wait, besides with our current living situation in a little bit of limbo I figure we don't want to change too much on him at one time.  He is growing up so fast though, when we tell him he needs a diaper change he will lay down on the floor so that we can change him, which is so much better than having to chase him around the living room!

We always say that our little boy never grows, but again he is proving us wrong.  The other day I felt like Jason's shoes were getting tight on him and thought he needed to move up a size.  We went to the store to get his feet measured and he was weighing in at a 7.5 the shoes he was wearing were ...5.5, opps!  I guess we are going shoe shopping today

We have been seeing Jason grow up right before our eyes!  I wonder if he wouldn't seem so grown up if we didn't have Elizabeth right there to compare him to.  Now if only we can get him to talk!

Pretty Baby

Our sweet girl is getting so big! Elizabeth had her two month check up last Thursday and is at 50% in both length and weight. She is such a sweetheart too! She has started to learn to use her hands and loves to suck on them. I worry a little about her becoming a thumb sucker, but realize that she is just exploring her world and part of that is checking out how her body works. Beth loves to watch the mobile in her crib, but we have to watch Jason very carefully because it is a Winnie the Pooh mobile and Jason often wants to climb in and love on his friends.

Speaking of our little climber the other day I was busy doing something upstairs and Jason wandered down to the kitchen. The house is mostly baby proof so I am not too worried that he can get into much. When his Aunt Michelle came in she found him sitting nicely on the bar stool drawing on the envelopes with a pencil. I had no clue he could climb up there! I guess he is getting bigger all the time!

In other family news it looks like we are moving again! Jeff accepted a verbal offer of a job with a coal mine in Fairfield, Texas. It is about 4 hours Northeast of San Antonio so I know the grandparents will love us being this close. Jeff is trying to get me all hyped up about houses again, but I am trying to wait until we can take a trip there to get excited. We are figuring out a good time to visit the area in the next month and will keep everyone updated as we know more.

Our life recently

Lately Jason has been falling asleep on the way home from church on Sundays.  That's okay with me because it seems like when he falls asleep earlier for naps he sleeps better at night.  The only difficult part is taking my sleeping boy from his car seat to his bed when we get home.  I pride myself on rarely waking him up for this even as I take off his shoes and cuddle his sweet limp body on my shoulder.  When I have to take Jason, Elizabeth and all our stuff in by myself it requires a few trips out to the car and back.  This Sunday Jeff was with us and he brought in Elizabeth and my diaper bag.  As I was coming down the stairs he told me we needed to have a conversation.  Apparently I was getting my anniversary present from him today, he was taking me to dinner and a concert in Austin (about an hour away.)  YAY!  but my head was spinning with questions: Who? Celtic Woman. When? leaving at 3pm. What are we doing with the kids? ditching them with Grandma!  I got a date night out!

So even though the traffic was awful in Austin (seriously, who does construction on every major highway at the same time?) we had a wonderful time.  Our first stop was Cabela's, a sporting goods store, to get a reclining camping chair to replace the one I got Jeff for Christmas that was broken.  Next it was time to battle the traffic to get some dinner, we decided on Outback, and off to the show.  I was a little nervous as we waited for the show to begin that since I didn't know much about the group or any of their music I wouldn't enjoy the show.  That was not the case at all.  I did know some of the songs and I enjoyed listening to the new ones.  After the concert was over we hurried home before exhaustion set in. 

We came home to a report that both of our kiddos ate that night.  Jason decided to try a little bit of everyone's dinner and Elizabeth ate 16oz in the 6 hours she was awake!  Grandma has decided that our little girl is going to eat us out of house and home, we will see.  Both of them went to bed without a problem.  All in all it was a pretty good night!



 Some other things that are going on with us:
Jason got his first professional haircut and is looking so much like a big boy!

Jeff has a few job nibbles, but nothing is signed yet.  We will keep you updated with that.

Jeff and my 6 year wedding anniversary is coming up on Sunday May 29th.



Elizabeth has her 2 month appointment on Thursday and we are all going camping this weekend.  But right now the little girl needs me so I'll have to sign off.

Who will they grow up to be?

When a baby is born everyone asks who you think she looks like and before I had kids I honestly thought all newborns looked the same.  I mean they do look a little bit all squished up and wrinkly, but their parents always find distinctive features.  Before Elizabeth was born I envisioned another Jason, just wearing pink.  She has way more hair then he did, but I had a hard time figuring out any features that were distinctly mine or Jeff's.  When we brought her home Grandma Salomon said she looks just like her Mommy and the older she gets the more I realize she is right.

Of course there are ways that our children are like us other than in physical attributes.  They both love to be outside and although that isn't very surprising of a two year old boy, Jason, like his sister, has always been happier when he is outside.  We just take Elizabeth on a walk around the yard to calm her down, it's amazing!  They of course got that from their father, whose first word wasn't Mama or Dada, but outside!  Elizabeth hates change, she doesn't like to be passed from one person to another and if she is happy she wants to stay where she is.  We are so blessed that she is sleeping very well at night only waking about once a night after sleeping 5 or 6 hours at a time!  Jason is currently our sleep fighter, but he always has trouble when we are in a new place so maybe he isn't a big fan of change either.  Mommy is the one that I am sure they have gotten that from.

And why is it that Jason loves trains?  Is it because his family's love of them was breed into him or is that just something he picked up? No matter if it is nature or nurture it will be interesting to see these little ones grow up.

Hold on!

I feel like I have been saying that a lot, to Jason, to Elizabeth, to life!   It always seems to be that when Jason wants something I am in the middle of doing something for Elizabeth.  Jason just got over a very nasty stomach bug that lasted from Tuesday until Sunday and has suddenly had a newfound interest in eating.  I am thrilled with this interest generally speaking because our little shrimp needs to eat, unfortunately he only ever wants to eat when Mommy is nursing Elizabeth.  He is very used to being an only child and getting what he wants when he wants it.  It feels like every other phrase out of my mouth is "hold on a second Jason"


Elizabeth at 1 month


Jason at 1 month

Then there is our little Elizabeth, who is becoming not so little.  She is a whole month old now! We call her a little chunky monkey, but I am not sure she is any chunkier than any other baby.  I am constantly comparing the two kids and trying to remember if Jason was this chunky at this age, because he certainly doesn't look it now.  Elizabeth is getting so much head control and has even rolled over on accident a few times.  I feel like a terrible mother though because we didn't even document her first Easter with pictures of her.  We did take a couple of Jason opening his basket, but Elizabeth was napping and we put the camera down and forgot to pick it back up to get cute pictures of the kiddos all dressed up.


 
Mostly we forgot because Jeff, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Michelle and Uncle Michael hustled off after church to unload our house into a storage unit here in San Antonio.  They worked their tails to the bone and we repaid them with the nice stomach bug I mentioned that Jason had.  They were thankful, I'm sure.  Now everyone is mostly recovered and we are trying to settle into life here in Texas.

Goodbye New Mexico

I'm sorry I have been awful about updating the blog.  In the pre-Elizabeth time I would update while Jason was napping or after he went to bed, but with Elizabeth I spend a lot of that time sleeping or holding her.  We also had my parents visiting last week so we were kept busy.  It was really great to have my mom around to help especially on Thursday when Jeff and I were both feeling sick.  We know my dad loved cuddling his new granddaughter too!




This is also shaping up to be a busy week also: we will be packing boxes all week, then on Friday and Saturday we will be loading up a truck and on Sunday we will be moving to San Antonio, Texas.  While Jeff is looking for a new job we have decided to stay with his parents.  It will give me some help with the kids while Jeff is off interviewing and it will be nice to live in a major area with shopping and an airport.  I just hope we don't have to impose on their generosity for too long.





I know the grandparents will be very happy to see the kiddos.  Elizabeth might have started out small but she is growing fast.  At her two week appointment she had gained 1 pound and 3 ounces!  Our little chubster is a pretty cute girl though.  Jason has a few moments of jealousy over mommy's time but he has been nothing but sweet with his baby sister.  One of the most difficult evenings came when Jason was refusing his dinner and everything other than Mommy.  Elizabeth needed to eat and I had not had a chance to finish my dinner.  To say the least I didn't have enough hands to make both of my children happy.  Things have gotten better as I learn what needs have to be dealt with immediately and what can wait a bit.  I also recently realized that Elizabeth may have been effected by my afternoon soda so I cut it out yesterday and we had a great night.  Hopefully it wasn't a fluke. 



Well a little boy is awake so I have to sign off now.

There goes the rug...

Our little family is settling in at home. Elizabeth is a great eater and even lets us get lots of sleep some nights. We are getting to know her personality a little better. She doesn't like anything up near her chin and like most babies loves to be held when she sleeps. I wanted to try to get her sleeping in her crib early on, but we haven't gotten around to it because we are worried about disturbing Jason's sleep. We were so blessed to have Grandma Salomon stay with us for a week after Elizabeth was born. She cooked and cleaned and took care of all of us. Jason loved having the extra attention and Grandma loved spending time with both of her grandbabies. We didn't want to send her back, but Grandpa and Uncle Michael were missing her. So on Saturday we all drove up to Albuquerque to take Grandma to the airport with promises that she would see us in a few weeks. The Salomon's have offered to help us move into our new Tucson house over Easter weekend.





We took advantage of our time in Albuquerque and found a refrigerator for our new house (it was missing one), a double stroller, and a bunch of summer clothes for Elizabeth. We were told that Elizabeth was going to be a large baby so I didn't have many summer clothes for her in newborn size which is what it ends up our tiny girl will need for a while. I must not have been thinking when I stocked up because for some reason most of her clothes were long sleeve and pants which is a little warm for our 80 degree spring days.




I though the most difficult thing about Monday would be handling 2 kids by myself. I was so nervous, but forced myself to be productive and went grocery shopping and got some laundry done. Right after I got Jason down for his nap Jeff called. I was so excited to tell him how well everything was going, but he also had some things to tell me. Apparently his company was no longer going to be in the reclamations any more, which means that he had a job for now, but needed to start looking for a new one. The rug was pulled right out from under us. Goodbye Tucson, goodbye house. Life was changing. I went through so many emotions right then: anger at his boss who we asked if we should commit to a house, frustration and sadness that we wouldn't be fulfilling our housing dream at this point, concern in the fact that we have 2 kids that need food and clothes, and a million others that I couldn't name. We have gotten started on canceling the contract on the house and Jeff is starting to contact his contacts to see if he can find a good job that he wants. And we have been praying, oh there has been so much praying for guidance and help. Obviously the Tucson plan wasn't what God had in mind for us, but I kind of liked it, so it has been hard for me to let go of. I know that God will guide us and we just need to trust him.



Now that I have had a few days for this news to sink in, I am still a little upset, but I am trying to accept that there is a plan for us that I may not understand.  As always we will keep you guys updated on where our life leads.