First Fort and the new gate

So, Nixon and I the other day were playing and I decided to start cleaning up the kitchen real quick before Peter got home from work. It was probably 5 minutes later that I realized Nixon was really quiet so I had figured he got into something....Nope. He was sitting underneath one of the chairs from the table. On the couch I had one of his blankets and put it semi covering the chair. He loved it. He sat underneath there for about 10 minutes just playing with one of his socks. While he was doing that I was quickly trying to find my camera. After I found it I got one of him "inside" his fort and him starting to pull the blanket off. It was so cute! I love this little guy so much! He is quite the handful, but I love him!

On Friday, Peter and I decided that it was time for a gate so that Nixon couldn't bolt straight to the stairs EVERY TIME we put him down. These pictures were his reaction backwards....

Crawling back crying to mommy because he doesn't like it

Realizing that he can't get out and go to the stairs

Inspecting....deciding if he likes it or not...

BIG BOY

My sweet Nixon is growing up so fast! He has been walking around our house with the help of his little push toy thing. He loves it! Also, Nixon and I have been taking daily walks to the park. This time daddy joined us so that Nixon could show him that he now can go down the slide. It is so cute!

SO SAD

So last week Peter and I were in casual conversation on the phone and he tells me that that morning his computer had crashed and he had to reinstall everything or something. He proceeded to tell me the ONLY thing that he lost were the pictures of us at my parents house the weekend before Christmas to celebrate Christmas. Normally, it wouldn't be a big deal, but I am so sad because it was Nixon's first Christmas, Nixon meeting Santa for the first time, and some way cute pictures of him opening his first presents. Peter has tried everything to get the pictures back and hasn't succeeded. We tried getting them off his camera, but they are gone since we have taken a bunch of pictures after we deleted them off the camera. If that makes sense. So that sucks.

Beautiful Story

Take 10 min and go to this blog! These people are some of the most amazing people. Their story is so beautiful. .

First go here

Then go here

There is a link on her blog to follow the whole story! If you take the time to read it you will be so uplifted. She has such a beautiful attitude about life.

ADVICE PLEASE!!!

Okay. Nixon still isn't sleeping through the night and I don't know what more I can do. I got to finally reading a couple books and I tried their advice, but it didn't seem to work for him. He was sleeping with us for a while (6.5 months to be exact) and that transition went really well. Ever since he has started teething though he just hates sleeping in his room. I am not joking when I say this, but even when we are walking down the hall and he sees that we are going to his room he starts crying. It is so sad! Before he started teething I would just put his music on, lay him in bed and he would go to sleep. I do get luck every now and then when he is really good and only wakes up a couple times, but that isn't often enough.

So. I started off just letting him cry himself to sleep. He cried for over an hour. It was so sad! So then I tried giving him more naps in the day and that doesn't work. I tried not giving him a nap and that just seems to make him so tired that he couldn't go to sleep. I tried feeding him rice cereal before bed to make it so his tummy was more full and that hasn't seemed to work. I tried putting him to bed earlier like one book suggested and that didn't seem to work. I would put him right when he started to show signs of sleepiness and that didn't work. I keep the house at the suggested degree so he shouldn't be too hot or cold. I tried having him fall asleep with us and then gently putting him in his bed, but he always will wake up within 10 - 15 minutes. I am really tired and sick of getting up with him 3-4 times a night. I asked his doctor and he said that all kids are different and his daughter didn't sleep through the night until she was 4! FOUR! There is no way that this is going on until he is 4! I will not be sane if that happens! For the past week I have let him cry himself to sleep. I really don't like it. He still wakes up and I just listen to him cry. I will get up once to feed him and then I lay him right back in his crib and he will cry until he falls back asleep. I just don't get it. For awhile he was doing so well and then poof! gone! He just got 2 bottom teeth and I don't see anymore showing so do his gums still hurt and that's why he can't sleep? He is sick right now so that probably could be some of the problem, but even when he wasn't sick it was going on. I will give him tylenol and ibprofin and that seems to make him tired, but I don't want to give him that every night to help him sleep. I asked the doctor that too and they told me not to give him those together at the same time anymore. I need to do one or the other...which is fine, they just seemed to work good together. I know that even though I can't see teeth that his gums can still be hurting from teething, but I don't want to give him something that he doesn’t need. I thought that just after a few nights he would realize that he needs to sleep and he would do that. I thought that he would understand that after I bathed him, fed him, read him a book, put his music on, and lay him in bed he would get that it was time to go to sleep. He likes it when there is music on so I put this soothing primary songs cd on and he likes it, but not enough to just lay there and go to sleep. Oh. And I would just do each one of these for a day, I tried them each for a week. It would make life so much easier for the both of us if he could just tell me what's wrong. One day. Well, if anyone has any advice that would be greatly appreciated. T

I burned myself...

Peter and my conversation....

Heidi: "I burned myself today"

Peter: "Oh yeah"

Heidi: "Yeah...wanna see?"

Peter: (staring at his computer) no response.

Heidi: "Fine. I'm not going to show you."

Peter: "Baby, let me see. Please. (Pulling my arm)

Heidi: (pulling my arm away) "Not after that display. You had your chance."

Peter: (Flicking me) "Please."

Heidi: (Flicking back) "No."

The flicking continues for a few minutes..

ENDING.......Peter never got to see my burn.

ChRisTmAs

This year Christmas was exciting because it was Nixon's first Christmas and it was also sad because it was our first year without Robi here. We all miss him so much and are so grateful for the Plan of Salvation. Knowing that we will see him again is so comforting, but it still is hard not having his bubbly personality here. I remember last year when went to Opportunity Village ( there is a bunch of christmas lights and fun things to do ) I asked Robi to take a picture of Peter and I but to make sure to not get my gigantic belly in the pic ( I was prego ) and he zoomed in on my belly and took the pic. He always did funny things like that.

This year for Christmas we did gift exchange with the most of the family ( We missed you Melissa and William ). My Mother-in-law, Nancy, got us all gifts from Robi. When we opened them up there were the exact same brand of slippers that Robi would wear. They were hot pink, fuzzy, and super duper comfy! I can see why he loved those slippers so much. I will always cherish the memories that I have with Robi. We all miss you and love you. Keep watching over us!

Now onto Nixon's first Christmas...

Peter and I didn't really know what to expect. We didn't know if he would open his gifts or if we would open them for him or what. We were really happy that he loved opening his gift and ours until we realized he liked the paper more than the toys for the most part. We would put a toy in front of him and he would crawl over across the room to get to the paper that we put into the garbage bag. He did like his gifts once we put the garbage out of sight. Here are some pictures. Try not to get distracted with how hot we look in the pictures...

Nixon's sweet cousin, Madeline

As a tradition we go to IHOP for breakfast on Christmas morning. Nixon wasn't very happy sitting at the table so Peter got up and played with him.

Sweet face.

I love it when he yawns. It is so cute!

Opening his stocking stuffers from Oma

Christmas Eve Pajamas - I got Peter, Nixon, and I all footsie pajamas in remembrance of Robi.

Another tradition is every Christmas Eve we each get a new ornament. As you can tell, Nixon was so excited to get his very first ornament. Peter got me a Wonder Woman ornament and I got him one of Ralphy from The Christmas Story in his bunny outfit.

On Christmas Eve we went over to Peter's Aunts house for some delicious food, good conversation, and an awesome program of the nativity story. Nixon was a sheep. I made him an hysterical outfit! I glued cotton balls over a onsie and made some ears and attached them onto a headband of mine. He looked more like a bunny when we put the ears on him because I had no idea how big sheep ears were. He did make a cute sheep though. It was so funny because he left a trail of cotton balls when he would crawl. They either came unglued or he pulled them off. All in all it was a cute little program.