Matching Brothers

You all know I love to take pictures of my kids wearing the same outfits. Weird, I know. The top four pictures are Cameron at 4 months old. The bottom two are Griffin.

I love Cameron's hair. It sticks straight up most of the time.

Cameron was tired and not so smiley when I took these, but he didn't seem to mind me playing photographer too much.

And of course Griffin. If you couldn't tell by the fact that he has darker coloring than Cameron, you could surely tell by the fact that he is crying.

I'd say the boys look to be about the same size. Cam has his check up tomorrow and I'm interested to see how big he is. He looks kind of scrawny, but he is really pretty solid. Long and lean. What else would you expect from me and Ryan.

For those of you who were around a lot when G was a baby, you can back me up. This is pretty much all he did. He was such a miserable little guy back then. He may be a terror now, but at least he's happy :)

Success

After 3 days of locking him in his room, I have succeeded. I win! That's right, I beat the two year old folks!

What I really want to do right now is jump up and down while I scream, "I win, I win, you lose, you lose!" But since I'm an adult, I'll refrain.

Instead, I'll enjoy my first bit of peace and quiet since the whole "new bed" thing went down. Isn't he sweet when he is asleep!

Locked In

I am about ready to pull my hair out right now...well, that or roll around on the floor laughing hysterically. Remember how Griff is in the big boy bed now...yeah, it's going well ;) When we put G to bed at night, he does great. He goes right to sleep, stays put all night and is generally great about sleeping in his bed.

Naps are a completely different story. This kid needs a nap...really needs a nap. I really need a break from said kid. Kid refuses to nap in bed. Something has got to give.

Just in the past week, these are some of the things he has done while he was supposed to be napping.

1. Poop his underwear. Multiple times. Finally I wised up and put a diaper on for nap time. He poops that too.
2. Strip all the sheets and blankets off of his bed and hid them under the bed.
3. Emptied all the dressers drawers and left the drawers and clothes scattered all over the floor. Multiple times.
4. Found 2 of Jackson's chapter books (after I thought I had emptied the room of everything) and ripped them to shreds. Literally, one inch pieces of ripped up papers everywhere.
5. Broke the closet door off the track. The whole door was just leaning in on the closet. He's lucky it didn't fall the other way.
6. And of course, escaped a bazillions times. You know that Supernanny thing you do, where you put them back in over and over without talking or looking at them? Yeah, that doesn't work.

I decided, against my better judgement, that the answer to the problem was a baby gate. I know, I know. We all know that a gate would never work. I think I got desperate. Ryan brought the gate home last night and I tried it for the first time today. It took him 7 minutes to get out. That includes ransacking the closet, finding an old pair of sandals and putting them on, grabbing his cat, and hopping the gate.

Failure!

Then I had a brilliant idea. I decided to turn the door knob around and lock him in. So, I did that. But, he is such a stinker, he knows how to find random stuff to stick in the door and unlock it. So, I stripped down the room (for the second time people) so he couldn't find anything to use. I also put a child proof door knob cover over the knob. You can still stick stuff in and unlock it, but it would be much harder. That was the only reason for the cover, because as you remember, he learned how to open those things long ago.

Where do we stand now...he's been in his room for close to an hour. He is still awake. I can hear him dumping dresser doors, playing with the door stop, yelling, banging, and generally being annoying. He is getting mad, but he hasn't gotten out yet.

My hope is that as soon as he realizes he can't get out, he will just give up and go to sleep. I won't be surprised though if I hear him coming down the stairs in a few minutes. That kid is brilliant and I have a feeling he won't stop until he figures out how to get that door open.

Anyone care to place a bet?

Edited to Add: I feel like I should say, this is a kid who LOVES napping. He slept 2-3 hours every day in the crib until he learned to climb out. He has never fought nap time before. Really, like not once in his whole life.

First Time in the Crib

We got the crib all set up in my room today. It was ready and waiting for little Cameron. I however, was not sure I was ready.

Cameron has been sleeping in his rock and play for months. If you don't know what a rock and play is...you should. It is the best of the best in baby gear. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration, but if you have a baby with reflux, GO GET ONE. It is like a bassinet/seat/rocker thing. It is amazing. It it tall (like the height of your bed) and puts them at the perfect angle so they are not puking/having acid come up their throats all night. It really it that awesome.

Went off on a tangent there didn't I?

Anyway, I felt like Cameron was getting ready to move to the crib. I just didn't really want to move him because I don't want to admit he is growing up at all, and also I was afraid he would hate it or scream or something.

(Not sure why I thought that...it's not like the kid ever cares about anything. He could be the most easy going baby on the planet)

As the pictures show...he loved it. He didn't have one bit of a problem. He went right to sleep and seemed pretty darn comfortable.

I'm still not loving having a baby in my room, but we'll make it work for now. If I can just get Ryan to be quiet and quit waking him up it will be fine.

I think he looks very much like Uncle B.J. Except for the elf ears. I don't know were he gets those. I'll blame it on Ryan :)

Picnic Weather

I am enjoying the mild winter weather enormously! It has been wonderful. It was so nice this morning that the kids played outside barefoot.

They also asked for a picnic, and I was happy to oblige.

Can you even believe it is January in Utah? We sure can't.

Sword Fighting

Griffin loves to fight. The other day I noticed him doing the funniest thing. He would hit with the sword a few times and then yell "DEAD," and fall to the ground very dramatically. It was hilarious.

G has many swords. Most of them are soft. The ones they are using here are not soft. Ask me how I know that? (Ouch, ouch, ouch. That kid hits hard).

DEAD!

Bunkbeds

The dreaded day has come. The girls and I took apart the crib. We've known it was coming, but still, who wants Griffin out of his cage?

Seriously though, Mok and Pok got the boys a set of new bunkbeds for Christmas this year. Griffin was getting ready to be out of the crib, and Cam is getting ready to use it, so we knew they were a necessity.

We set them up about a month ago and still had the crib set up too. I wanted G-man to get used to them before he actually had to sleep in them. A few days ago he started jumping out of his crib. It was pretty funny and we laughed, but he only did it after a nap. This morning however, Ryan and I were awakened at 6:30 by a cute little two year old standing next to our bed saying, "I get out...I stay up."

And with that, Griffin is done with the crib.

He likes his new bed. He has napped in it a few times and done well. Hopefully that will hold true for night time too. I can't imagine all the destruction he could cause if he escaped at night and we didn't know.

(And no, I don't think a gate at the door will work...this is Griffin we're talking about people. A gate is child's play for him:)

The boys room is pretty small, but it seems really big with the crib out of the room. (It is going into our room for Cameron...Unless someone wants to come and finish our basement :)

Right now we just have an old dresser and random blankets on the beds. I think we will decorate this spring. I'm thinking a matching dresser, some bean bags for a reading area, a rug to play toys on, matching blankets, and of course, paint.

That's a project for another day though.

I love my little trouble maker!