celebrating 8 years

This weekend Jared and I celebrated our anniversary. We met on August 8, 2002. We knew each for 2 weeks before Jared proposed to me and we set a date. We were married 6 months later on February 1, 2003. Nobody thought it would last, but this has been the most amazing 8 years of my life. I can not wait to see what the future holds for us. We are at a place right now that we are so happy together, sharing our life, raising our family, and working towards our dreams.

I am always teasing Jared that he doesnt have a romantic bone in his body, but this weekend he proved me so wrong. So what I discovered is he can be romantic, he just has to put a lot of thought and effort into it. The past month or so he has done just that. He surprised me by making reservations at The Grand America Hotel. I was excited, because we had never stayed there before and it was so nice! I am so mad I forgot my camera, so these pictures are kind of crappy because I took them with my phone.

This is the amazingly beautiful (and HUGE) flower arrangement just as you walk in the lobby. It smelled so good!

After we got all checked in we walked to dinner together, which was really nice. Jared surprised me again and took me to Christopher's! It was really nice and so delicious! I got what they called the King Crown, which was a NY steak topped with crab and hollandaise sauce, with asparagus and creamy mashed potatoes. It was good! Jared just got a HUGE steak (that he could only finnish halh of) and a baked potato! He was in Heaven! After dinner we walked over to the Gallivan Center and we were going to go ice skating, but it was so cold and we were both really full. So we decided to just go back to the room.

It was a nice, but very cold walk back to the room. Jared had another surprise up his sleeve that would warm us both right up. When we opened the door to the room it was dark, except for a million lit candles all around the room. There was a trail of rose peatals from the door to the bed and there were roses all over the room as well. It was gorgeous!

The hotel provided this awesome little cake for us. Just the right size for two people(this was even a surprise for Jared) So cute!

The cake was from the hotel, but the flowers were from Jared. The entire room smelled of roses and eucalyptus. It was amazing.

Jared thought of everything. There was a bucket of ice with our favorite drinks in it (being that we dont drink wine) Jared had apple beer and I had dr. pepper. We also drank out of wine glasses!!

The bed was turned down and covered in rose petals.

I had to get a picture of my awesome(rarely romantic) husband!!

He also had it prearranged for room service to deliver fondue! Yum! We had such a wonderful night together and it was so much fun! Jared truly made me feel like a princess and I absolutely appreciate the effort and thought he put into it. He is the most wonderful husband and I am so blessed to be able to call him mine!

Thank you thank you thank you to my out-of-this-world awesome parents!!! I am so glad it went so well, after the initial melt down! I know my boys are always happy at your house and wouldnt want to be anywhere else. Love you both so much!!

Operation CIO

Grayson started sleeping through the night for abuot 7 hours straight just before he was 2 months old. He has always been a really good sleeper. When we moved him from his bassinet to his crib in his room (which is shared with big brother Grant) he started waking up once a night at around 4:00 am. All he wanted was his binki. He didnt want to eat or be held, he just wanted his binki back. With Grant being in the same room I didnt want to let Grayson cry for too long, in fear that he would wake Grant up. Grant really needs to get a good night sleep because he has to get up early for school in the morning. So when Grayson would wake up I would run in there and give him his binki. He would imediately go right back to sleep. I obviously didnt realize the monster bad habit I was creating. Lately Grayson wakes up several times a night, wanting his binki. When I say several I mean 8-10 times a night. Noone around here is getting any sleep at night. With him waking that many times, he is waking Grant several times a night too. Jared is a bear because he is so tired and ornery after a long day of work on no sleep. Grant is so moody because he really does need a good night sleep to be a happy boy. His school work is even slipping a little. I am so fed up I am beside myself with frustration at the whole situation. When I took Grayson in for his 4 month checkup I asked the doc if he had any advice. You know what he told me? He told me to go out and buy a whole bunch of binkis and put 5 or 6 in his crib with him so that when he loses one he can just put another one in his mouth. Wow great advice doc. Grayson is not to the point yet where he can even put his own binki in his mouth by himself. So we have moved to plan E, "Operation CIO" (which of course stands for CRY IT OUT)
I believe it is perfectly ok for a baby to cry himself to sleep and to learn to self sooth. It is not going to hurt him one bit. So last night I made Grant a bed on the floor in my room and that is where he slept. Grayson went down to bed great like he always does and I didnt sleep much because I was listening for him all night so that I could time him. It may seem a little extreme to some of you, but my plan was this.. I was going to let him cry for one hour. Then if he was still crying I would go in and reassure him that  I hadnt abandoned him, by gently stroking his face for a few seconds, but I was not going to give him his binki. That would just kinda defeat the purpose. If he didnt settle down I would leave without saying anything to him and let him cry for another hour, or however long it took.
This is how it went for our first night. He woke up at 3:40 am and cried for 20 minutes. Then he stopped for about a minute and then continued to cry. After that he cried off and on for the next 30 minutes and then he was out for the rest of the night. All in all it was about 50 minutes total. All in all I think he did good, a lot better than I had expected. We will see what happens tonight. I am hoping that the crying will be shorter and that tomorrow night it will be even shorter. Hopefully this will only take a few days and then he will know how to sooth himself back to sleep without a binki at night. My goal in the end is for everyone to get a better night sleep, including Grayson! Wish us luck!

Been busy

I went scrapbooking with my friend Sara on Friday night. We went down to Archiver's and it was so much fun! Neither of us got a whole lot done, we dont really care. It is fun to get out of the house and have a girls night and do something that we really love to do. We are going to start going at least once a month!

Here are some of the things I have created lately!

I havent journaled on these yet but this is Grant's first experience with ribs. He still loves them!

Maama and her boy.. Snowbird.. 2009

Grandma

My awesome husband got me a scanner for Christmas. I love it and I am so excited to get all of my non-digital photos into my computer. It is going to take me awhile, but I just though I would share these sweet pictures of my Grandma with my little Grant. I love them so much!

Looks a little bit like his baby brother, doesnt he?

Photo Blog!!

If you havent yet, go check out my photo blog!!!

Click here!

4 months

4 months?? Seriously? Where has the past 4 months gone? I can not beleive my baby boy is 4 months old already! He just keeps getting cuter and cuter everyday. I just wish people would quit mistaking him for a girl. He is getting to be soo much fun too! He loves to play with toys and can now actually keep them in his hands. His hands of course are still constantly in his mouth. He is always all wet down the front of him because he drools so much! He loves to smile and laugh and giggle! He really loves his daddy and brother, but mommy is still his favorite! I LOVE the way he gets all excited when daddy comes home from work! It is so cute! I am still breastfeeding but he has started with cereal and he loves it. He is actually a really great eater. Hardly any of the food comes back out and he swallows really well. He is a pretty neat eater too, he keeps his face pretty clean. He is sleeping in his room in his crib full time now. I am sure he could have been doing this a long time ago but I just wasnt ready to let him go. He is just getting too big too fast. I hate it!

He had his 4 month check up and the doc says he is doing amazing. He is really strong(always has been) and very smart! He is a little bit short and he has a big head like Daddy and Grant. Poor kid. They gave him 2 shots and he whined a little but not a tear was shed. He did pretty good that daywith just a little whining, but that night he got a fever and was very unhappy. We were up pretty much all night and all he did was cry. It was horrible. We finally got about an hour of sleep before I had to get up with Grant. When he got up about a half an hour later I fed him and he threw up all over me and him, three times. It was awful. He continued to run a fever of 100 to 102 for the next 24 hours and during that time he was so miserable and tylenol would not help. Neither of us got much sleep and we are now both exhausted, but the fever has broken and I think he is on the road to being my sweet happy boy again!! I hate shots!!

Here are his 4 month stats:

Height ...24.5 in... 35%

Weight ...15lb1oz...54%

Head ...43.2cm...75%

New Year's Eve

Every New Years Eve we go over to Maama and Papa's for dinner, games and fun!!

 Grant got Toy Story trouble for Christmas so we played that!

 Me, Grant, BJ, and CJ played Trouble.

 BJ got Grayson this cute shirt.

 He passed out early while we were all playing games.

 Me, Grant and Maama played UNO Jenga.

 Grant got really sick of waiting for midnight to roll around.

 But when it finally did, we went out side and brought the noise!!

 Grant was having so much fun, but it was sooo cold.

And of course he passed out on the way home!