Sleeping through the night at last!

Some days I think he looks like Owen and then I'll take another look at him and he just looks completely different!

Yay chase is sleeping through the night!

When chase was born I decided not to use babywise. I had used the method with Owen and had great results (sleeping through the night at 6-1/2 weeks.) But I hated the strictness of the schedule and all of the crying it took for him to learn how to go to sleep on his own. I thought that Chase would be happier if I held him more and got him to sleep before putting him down instead of letting him cry. I spent a ton of time rocking and holding him which was great other than he just became harder and harder to get to sleep and the time it took to get him down took longer and longer. And when I'd finaly get him down he'd only sleep 30-45 min on his naps, if that. He kind of started turning in to the baby that never sleeps!! I felt super tired all of the time. I had no real time with Owen and I was pretty frustrated with the whole thing. (this is already getting to be a long post)

Anyway about 3 weeks ago I started up some of the basic principles of babywise again.
-feeding regularly every 2-1/2 to 3 hours (obviously there is some flexibility there for growth spurts and what not)
-helping them get to sleep on their own
and napping inbetween each feeding.
-allowing them to cry after all their needs have been met (fed, diaper change, relief of burps, gas) and giving them the Chance to self sooth

And somehow last time I initiated babywise I had missed how many times they say BE FLEXIBLE. LISTEN TO YOUR BABY'S CRIES AND BE AWARE OF THEIR NEEDS. And they list several things to do to help your baby learn the skill of sleep rather than just letting them cry it out all of the time. Anyway I guess I had missed all of that last time.

Within the first couple of days Chase already seemed happier. He was more content when he was awake and easier to get to sleep when he needed some extra help. I felt a ton happier cause I finaly felt in control again, and Owen was less whiny cause I could give him the love and attention he was needing.

Some of the wonderful Benefits of using babywise for Chase has been

-1-1/2-2 hour naps inbetween each feeding time.
-Discovering his fist and thumb to sooth himself rather than just his pacifier or being held
-Rarely any gasiness or upset stomachs. His little system just got way more regular once he started sleeping better.
-More contentment durring the time he was awake. Now he is such a pleasure to hold and cuddle and rock! And the times I do rock him to sleep at church or on irregular days, he falls to sleep so quickly and peacefuly. I love it!

Anyway he is still asleep now and I feel like I'm about to burst cause it's going on 9 hours of straight sleep right now!!!!

BB: Napping in the Wild

So Owen woke up, or better put, Owen came out of his room aroun 3:45
and came to watch Ice Age but since we just watchd it yesterday I put
his new favorite SpongeBob Square Pants on and in 10 mins the boy was
out! I put a blanket on him and all he did was get more comfortable as
can be seen in the picture. He is a good kid I love him and can't wait
till his birthday so I can get him a baseball glove so we can play
catch together.

2 month checkup

At today's checkup Chase weighed 13.2 lbs and measured 24 inches long! He is growing like crazy, in the 90th or 95th percentile for height and weight right now. My little baby is not staying little very long!!

Crashing Out

Owen has had a hard time taking naps this last week. He stays in his room forever, like seriously sometimes for 3 hours not sleeping. Half the time I think he's sleeping then I'll hear a noise coming from his room and I'll peek in and he's playing with something. Up till now he's been taking good 2-3 hour naps and sometimes he'll sleep for even longer than that if we've been traveling. Anyway this is what happened the other day when he wouldn't take his nap. Brad and I were cleaning up the spare room and putting stuff away with the tv on some show and we looked over and owen had totally crashed out! He slept on the couch like this till night and then when he woke up he wandered around the house like he was still asleep for like 20 minutes. We just kept looking at each other trying to hold back the laughs.

BB: Photoshop on the iPhone

So yeah Brad is Blogging again and he has been hard at work on his iPhone making cute pictures of Chase look cool. In case you wanted to know there is no Photoshop app but it is close it is called Photoforge and can do almost anything the average Photoshop guru can but on the iPhone. So the first picture and last two pictures (of me) were taken with the iPhone and edited without any help from a computer, heck I even posted here from my iPhone. The second pic was taken by Tirza with a camera I beliv but edited with the same iPhone app. Anyway Chase is cute and I love him and Owen so much. Tirza is the greatest cause she lets me take mountain biking trips and get such great shots like you see above. I love her the most!!
Later wamasabi!

Chase

Chase is getting so big and changing so much, he is such a sweet cuddly baby. I love holding him and rocking him. He just stares up at me and looks right into my eyes. He has been throwing us a lot of smiles lately. It makes me so happy when he smiles.

He loves to be wrapped tight to go to sleep, but he usually wriggles an arm two free, and of course there are his escapee feet . . .

My Sweet Chase

This one is his funny-cute half smile

The Move

After this week we are thankful for regular boring days where there's nothing much to do besides get up, eat breakfast in your pajamas and do whatever the day requires of you. Last month we decided to move and we had lots of stuff going on between the time we decided and the actual move so it kind of snuck up on us. But because we were renting our last place and renting this place it makes everything a little more complicated. You have to have everything perfect and clean when you move out and you have to sometimes clean and fix stuff before you move in to the next place. We also chose to paint before we moved in to the new place just because it's so much easier unless you are trying to paint the whole house in three days while juggling, packing boxes, taking care of an infant and an active toddler, and cleaning the old place. Anyway it was CrAzY! The craziest part was Brad literally lifting and moving entire dressers by himself because we moved in the middle of the week while everyone was at work and school. Well, we are glad to be in and somewhat settled now. We are also glad for the xtra space and the great LDS landlord we have thanks to some great friends of ours. He is so laid-back that we haven't even signed a lease yet and he let us move in a week before we had to pay rent. Of course we are good renters and appreciate the kindness and leisure of the whole thing. :)

New Family Picture

We couldn't get Owen to look at the camera for anything! At least he is smiling.

BB: Shall we call him Owen Woods?

This is the first of a new series of blog posts, BB = Brad Blogging.

Since I have an iPhone 3GS I have several fun videos of the family and

friends, mostly Owen being goofy or cute, so I thought I would set up

mobile blogging and share some of these great videos and pictures!!

Owen and I, along with a few friends, made our way over to the Grand

Sierra Resort and hit some balls on the golfing range. Of course since

the balls hit the water Owen loved it and as you can see (hopfully the

video works) Owen is a natural! Ok not quite but he is pretty funny!

Cute Stuff

Just Hanging out

Not looking at me . . . but still cute

Chill and relaxed

Owen looks giant compared to Chase right here

Fun Bath-time shots with Dad

So Content after his bath - he is finally starting to like baths more

We have been having fun taking pictures of our cute little guys. Life is great and busy. Brad and I are having fun finding out what it's like to have more than one child that needs attention at the same time. And that can be a little interesting at times. All in all it feels pretty natural and we are getting the hang of it. I am supposed to be packing and cleaning for our move but I keep finding little cute excuses that distract me. :) I seriously love being a mom. There is nothing more rewarding in the world! We spent last weekend in Utah for my sister's sealing. It was a pretty good trip, a little fast considering the 8 hour drive, but Brad took pictures for them and they turned out really good. I am so happy for the two of them and how far they've come in this past year! We are in the process of packing to move the 2nd week in September so we will be nice and busy for awhile.