9 weeks. (2 months)

At Zach's 2 month check-up he was 12 lbs. 12 oz. and 24 inches long.  He loves to be with his big brother and sister and sometimes watch t.v. with them.  He is mesmerized by the color and movement.  He also likes soft music and it puts him right to sleep, along with his wonderful swing!  He enjoys looking at himself in the mirror above his swing and watching the little birdies rotate around.

At about 7 weeks he really began to coo and make noises, sometimes scaring himself!  He is much more vocal now, especially when he is happy!  He is always full of smiles as you can see in these pictures!

So far he has a really good sleep schedule down.  He sleeps 4-6 hours before waking up at night and likes to come to bed with me at around 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning after a long night of being alone in his bassinet.  I can usually hold him off from feeding until about 7:30 when I get up to get Brady ready for school.

At 8:00 a.m. I have helped Brady with breakfast and getting dressed, started the car and gotten Olivia up.  At 8:15 I drive hustle the kiddos out to the car and drive Brady and his best friend, Aiden to school.  Then we come home and continue to get ready for the day....breakfast, shower, getting dressed, chores, errands etc!!!

Zach usually takes a cat-nap in the late morning and then we have lunch around 11:30/noon, after which he is laid down in the swing for his LONG nap of the day (3-4 hours!!!) and I read to Olivia and she has quiet time in her room or falls asleep and takes a nap for an hour or two, if I'm lucky!

The afternoons/evenings are a hustle and bustle lately!  We are busy but having fun too!  Zachary is used to being toted around where ever we're going and sleeps well in his car seat.

Here's our crazy schedule (which will only become crazier I'm sure when the kids keep growing and have other activities/responsibilities!)

Monday nights Brady has basketball practice at 5:00 and then we have FHE later after dinner if Chris is going to be home that evening. 

Tuesday-Relief Society Presidency meeting at my house 1:00 p.m., then Olivia has ballet at 3:30

Wednesday- NO plans!! (YEAH!!!)

Thursday- Brady has clogging at 4:00

Friday- NO plans!!!

Saturday- Brady has basketball games in the late afternoon or evening

Chris is still working very long hours!  I have found that it is easiest if I just stick with our "normal" schedule and have dinner the same time every night whether he is home or not.  I usually don't have any idea when he'll actually be home. It ranges from 6:30 -10:00.  He goes out of town almost every month too for a day to 3 days on business.  He is such a hard worker and truly does love his job, so we are proud of him and try to support him the best that we can!

Christmas Goodies and Projects.

Olivia and I made Christmas goodies for our friends and neighbors.  When I started out on this "little" endeavor I didn't realize how many friends and neighbors we really had!  I didn't want to leave anyone out because we kept getting so many treats delivered to our door from neighbors/friends in the ward that we ended up baking 175 gingerbread men!!!  Next year I'll have to cut back but we sure did get a lot of grateful "thank yous" from everyone! 

The kids colored some Christmas pictures to send to family and hang on the fridge as well!!

I was quite proud of myself for also getting done the homemade gifts that I had planned.  Being the procrastinator that I am, I of course left myself with only a week and a half to do everything! 

Crayon Roll for Olivia:

Quiet Book for Olivia::  (I started this project in the fall of 2010) intending to finish it in time to give to Olivia for Christmas.  Instead, I was busy with work and never finished the last 2 pages that I wanted, the cover and some little details.  It got put in my "To Do" pile, and then when we moved got stashed in a box that remained unopened in the craft room.  Over the summer I came upon it and couldn't decide whether I wanted to finish it or not, knowing the hours I'd still have to put into it.  In the end, I decided that I had already labored too many hours and put too much "love" into it to desert it now!  I am so glad that I finished this project because it came out adorable and Olivia really loved it! 

Pages 1 & 2:  "Go Fish" Gumball Machine

  

 

The "Go Fish" page has magnetic fishies and a pole for hand/eye coordination

There are three fish, a starfish, a jellyfish and a crab

       
The Gumball Machine is for color matching.  Each of the gumballs is snapped to a white circle underneath that is outlined in the color where it matches.
 
 
 
Pages 3 & 4:    "Now I Know My ABC's..."
 

This page is obviously all about the ABC's!! 

Each circle with a letter has a pocket to put a picture that starts with that letter!

 Page 5 & 6:  Shapes and Numbers

  

The Shapes are each velcroed to a white shape           The cupcakes each represent a number with how

to match where it goes.                                               many sparkels they have; match the sparkles to the
                                                                                  number on the cupcake liner and put it in the pocket!!


Page 7: Sorting Laundry

This is a cute little page.  There is laundry in the laundry basket that needs to be hung up to dry and then folded and put away!!!  This works on fine motor skills with the opening/closing of the tiny little clothespins and folding the laundry to put it back in the basket!

Captain America Outfit for Brady:

 Super Heros "are in" this year for little boys...really making quite the comeback actually!  We bought a Captain America mask and shield at Wal-Mart but I couldn't find an outfit that I liked.  Brady loves to play dress-up and is having a Super Hero birthday party this year so I wanted him to have a cool outfit.  I bought a dark blue sweatsuit at Wal-Mart and used some felt that I already had in my stash to make the outfit.  I thought it came out pretty cute!


Star Wars Eye-Spy Pillow for Brady:  This is another project that I started a LONG time ago and never made it out of the "To DO" box until just recently.  I intended to give this to Brady for his 5th birthday when he had a Star Wars themed party.  I ran out of time (if you can imagine) and never found the desire to finish until now.  I figured now or never!  I'm also glad that I finished this project (it literally took 15 minutes!!!)  I can't believe sometimes how LITTLE time the projects that I have unfinished take to finish!!!

(I either found little items, ordered them from EBay or printed out and laminated little pictures)

Feliz Navidad!!!

Last year when we were in Maine over the holidays we started a new tradition of having a "Feliz Navidad" dinner.  Feliz Navidad means, Happy or Merry Christmas in spanish and it gives us a great "excuse" for having a huge Mexican feast!!!  We'll either eat the sweet pork salad that Cafe Rio is famous for or (if lazy and too busy to make it like this year) we'll just head out to Cafe Rio instead!!! 

Our "besties," Quinn and Natalie joined us with three of their girls, Kaytee, Lily and Ally. 

Their neice Kaitlyn tagged along for the fun too!!

Ally and Hannah

(she just recently decided that she likes me now

and always comes running to me with hugs and smils!!!)

Chris, Olivia and Brady

After dinner everyone was good sports as we ventured out into the FRIGID winter night to deliver a few Christmas goodies to some people and friends in our ward and Christmas carol (err, should i say ATTEMPT to carol!)  I DO NOT think that caroling will be part of our yearly tradition!!!

Once back at home we the Mexican theme continued with delicious and warm

Mexican Hot Chocolate!!!

and doughnuts! YUM!!!

          

CHEERS!!!

Quinn and Chris always enjoy a good laugh together!

and Natalie and I get along quite well ourselves!!!

One "perk" of living in Idaho Falls has been the opportunity to spend so much time with these dear friends

(The picture below if from the very end of November when I took Natalie out for some dessert for her birthday!  It was so much fun to eat way too much cholocate and talk all by ourselves!!  I think we'll have to make birthday desserts out another tradition!!!)

8 weeks and his first trip to Grammie and Grandpa Grafs!!!

On December 17th we met up in Poctalleo with Chris' parents, sisters and Grandma Opal to do a little Christmas shopping and to have lunch and visit with Uncle Marlo and Aunt Penny.  I didn't even get any pictures from the visit or from Zach's first visit to Grammie and Grandpa Grafs!  We spent the night at their house after visiting with our friends, the Wells in Twin Falls.

Annie, Olivia, Brady and Sofie!!!

Nicole and Hannah

Daddy and Zach being "homies"

We had a little pizza party and a great visit with them!  I wish I got a picture of all of us together!!! 

(not pictured: Ryan)

The next morning we came back up to Twin Falls to go to sacrament meeting in our old ward and say hi to friends there!  We love our ward and new friends here in Idaho Falls but really miss all of our friends and acquaintences in Twin Falls too!  After doing a quick "drive-by" of our house to see if it is still standing (*smile*) we got together with our other friends, Jon, Charlotte, Sam, Alivia and new baby Jane for some lunch and a visit before heading back to Burley for dinner and then on to home.  It was a busy, quick weekend but worth taking the trip to see friends who we miss so much!!!

Zach and his new girlfriend, Jane!!! 

They were born about 5 weeks apart!

Here is mister man at 8 weeks old!!!

And, again I didn't get pictures of everyone, but I did grab a photo with one of

my "bestest friends", Charlotte!  *Miss you!!!*

After all the excitement of the day Olivia feel asleep on the way back to Burley in the middle of coloring!!!

Babes in toyland...

Olivia is always making sure that Zach has something to play with!  I have to watch her though (this was about HALF of the toys she had piled on top of him) because "he told her" that he wanted some toys!!!  What a good little sport he is...watch out Zach, before you know it she'll be dressing you up in girl clothes and doing your hair in bows!  (Sorry to my brothers for the years of torture they endured from me!!!)

Brady's Christmas concert

Brady had his first concert at school for Christmas!  His grade sang two songs and they did such a cute job!  Here he is sitting with one of his best friends and classmate, Daeson.

7 weeks.

Brady & Olivia-isms

December 2011/January 2012

Daddy:  "Brady, you're doing such a great job at reading!"

Brady: "I am so good at reading because I am the smartest kid in my class!!!"

Mommy:  "Well, you don't say that to your friends, right?"

Brady: "No.  They already know!"

Olivia : "Mom, what are you doing?"

Mommy:  "I am putting Taco meat into freezer bags so we can eat them another time."

Olivia: "Mom, you're so silly.  You don't do that!  Plastic bags are not for that.  They are just for sandwiches and candy!"

Olivia: "Mom, when I get big is my butt going to get bigger too?"

Mommy: "We say bum-bum, not butt.  And yes, your bum-bum will get bigger when you get older."

Olivia:  "Yeah!!!  I'm going to have a big butt!!!  Just like you mom!!!"

Brady: "Mom, you drink smoothies for breakfast because they have less calories right?"

Mommy: "Yes. hopefully they will help mommy lose some weight."

Brady: (later in the day) "You can eat all the fruit and vegetables you want because they don't have calories.  You can't have very many calories but I will eat all of the calories you can't have because I am skinny."

(I think my children are trying to tell me something....)