What a busy weekend we had! Saturday morning we were busy cleaning the house and preparing food. Kris and I worked well together that morning and we were all done by noon. Just in time to eat lunch and get ready for my cousin's wedding that afternoon. To convince Annika to come upstairs to get ready, Kris and I started listing all the people we would see that afternoon and the next day. When we would say Auntie Krystle, she would say "And Uncle Mathias!" We would say Auntie Carrie and she would say "And Uncle Adam!" After we were done listing everybody Annika exclaimed "I like the boys!" Kris and I burst out laughing and then she followed that with "They chase me!" Oh, my sweet little girl. She does prefer all her uncles, grandfathers, etc to the women in our family sometimes. And I do think it's because they are more physical in their play with her. She loves to jump, swing and fly through the air. I love that about her. If she had her way I think she'd be the ultimate tomboy but wearing a dress. She can be a little girly-girl too with her dresses. Maybe she's just the right mix of tomboy and girly-girl! The wedding was very nice and the reception/dance was fun. Annika had a great time! She headed to the dance floor as soon as we arrived and stayed there the whole night. The only time she came off was to eat a bit of dinner. Then she headed back and didn't come off again until it was time to go home. Kris and I both tried to dance with her and she wasn't interested in that at all. She just wanted to spin and dance all by herself. Even Auntie Shelly was shot down. It was great to see all my family again. I even got to see my aunt and one of my cousin's from North Carolina.

Sunday morning was James' baptism. Most of our immediate family was able to come and it was so, so nice to have them all together. Auntie Carrie and Uncle Mathias are James' godparents. The service was nice. There were two other people being baptized that day, a baby girl and her father. The baby was super tiny. Kris and I thought maybe she was a newborn, she was so small. Her name was Anika and it was so funny to hear the pastor talking about Anika and James being baptized. Every time he said it I did a double take and then remembered he was talking about the little baby. After the service was over the baby's grandmother stopped to talk to me briefly. Turns out the baby was born April 5th at 2 pounds 14 ounces. She's thriving and is already up to 6 pounds. No wonder she looked so teeny tiny, she is! My babies were never that small, well, outside of me anyway! We took a couple pictures at church and then we rushed back to our house. Uncle Mathias had to leave to get to work. He took our cat, Tigger with him. We are officially pet free now. I cried like a baby when I put Tigger in his cage and helped Mathias get all Tigger's stuff in his car. Even though I never pet him, didn't have time for him, and all the issues with Annika and Tigger, he was still my cat that I've had since he was just a kitten and it was hard to let him go. Mathias loves him though and I know that Tigger will be much happier with him. Still though - ugh! After Mathias left we had some lunch and cake to celebrate James' baptism. Then most everyone left for a few hours except for one aunt and uncle and the great grandparents. While everyone was gone Kris and I made more food for that evening. Kris turned 30 last week (Did I even remember to say Happy Birthday to him on this blog? I've been so exhausted lately, complete with crying out of exhaustion this morning, that I think I did forget. I'm so sorry honey! I love you! Happy Birthday!) and we were having a birthday party for him Sunday evening. It was a nice evening. A bunch of people were out of town or busy with the holiday weekend and unable to make it. I was really happy to see those that were able to come though. Everyone left so early though! Everyone was gone by 10:30pm. OK, so that wasn't so bad for me, the eternally tired, but I think Kris wanted to party a little harder than that for his 30th! Oh well, that's what happens I guess.

Monday was pretty low key. I spent the morning cleaning up the house again after the party. Then we got everyone ready to go and headed to Uncle Dusty's house. He grilled us a fantastic lunch. It was also our last chance to see Auntie Carrie and Uncle Adam for a while. We'll see Auntie Carrie again fairly soon, in a month or just a little over that, but we're not sure when we're going to see Uncle Adam again. He has a busy summer and fall coming up.

And here we are again, back to our normal lives. This is actually a good thing. That long weekend of many outings totally screwed up Annika's schedule. It's good to get her back into somewhat of a routine again. James is a super easy baby so his schedule is doing just fine.

Now about that sleep thing. If they would both just sleep, life would be golden. As it is, I'm up 5-6 times every night. Since I usually only get 7 hours of sleep (10pm to 5:15am), you can see that my sleep quality sucks. I don't get long stretches of sleep ever. It would be nice if Kris could help at night and it's not that he can't or won't, it's that it's almost too hard. Kris is a deep sleeper and I'm a fairly light sleeper (or maybe it's because he's a man and I'm a woman, who knows) so I always wake up first when the kids wake up, even though James' baby monitor is on Kris's side of the bed. James is usually up 1-2 times a night to eat and then up maybe 1-2 times more to be reswaddled or given his pacifer back or rolled over. And Annika is usually up 1-2 times a night to go to the bathroom. This morning Kris suggested I just let her go by herfself but I think that's a terrible idea. Let the 2 year old go to the bathroom by herself? That's just asking for a toilet bowl full of toilet paper or some other disaster. No, one of us has to help her. And why can't Kris help with all of this night time parenting? Well, I nurse James during the night so Kris can't help with that. Well, I suppose he could feed him a bottle or something but I'd have to get up and pump anyway then so I don't screw up my supply. It's just easier for me to feed him. And Kris could go reswaddle, plug, roll James and would if I woke him, but I'm awake already anyway so I just go do it. That's usually a quick thing anyway so it's not too bad. And he could help with Annika, and has tried occasionally, but Annika is on a super big Mama-only trip latey. Anytime Kris tried to help her at night she screams and cries for me. And since I don't want her waking James, I just go do it myself. So I'm tired. Really tired. I may start restricting Annika's liquids before bed. Hopefully that will help her sleep through. But there's not much I can do for James right now. If he still needs to be swaddled to sleep, then I'll get up to reswaddle him. And if he wants to eat every 3-5 hours at night, I'll get up and feed him. He's still so little, not even four months yet. I think I just need to be diligent about trying to get naps on the weekends and going to bed a little earlier if I can because falling asleep while driving (like I almost did yesterday on my way home from work), crying out of exhaustion and red, stinging eyes with huge bags just isn't healthy. Wish me luck!