July 21, 2013

I'm not gonna lie.  This was the hardest week I have ever experienced as a mother.  We were all suffering from post-vacation blues big time.  Tommy was having digestive troubles and stopped sleeping through the night.  Annie was acting out and aggressive and totally contrary.  Lily was emotional and exhausted.  Daddy had a lot of catch up to do at work (although Daddy was the happiest of the bunch this week).  And Mommy just plain lost it while trying to get well from a horrible chest cold, while getting the family back to our regular schedule, while dealing with three little people who all needed more sleep, more snuggles, and more discipline after playing so hard for a week - all on minimal sleep since Tommy was waking two to three times a night.  I yelled a lot, prayed a lot, and tried to be a happy mommy.  We all cried a lot (except for Daddy).  And finally by Friday we had turned a corner and restored peace to our home.  Daddy was so patient with his emotional little brood and helped Mommy so much.  It feels good to be back to ourselves.  Next year we're going to enforce a regular bedtime for the kiddos at the family reunion because it took us a whole week to catch up on sleep and get them back to normal.

Due to grumpy circumstances I didn't take a lot of pictures this week.  But since we were feeling fine again by Saturday we ventured out to a church Pioneer Day activity.  Members of our church celebrate July 24 to commemorate the arrival of the first Mormon pioneers to the Salt Lake valley.  In our area we did a huge breakfast, a 5k run, and a children's parade.  Lily and Annie wanted to dress like pioneers, so I pulled out clothes from our trek last year.  I didn't have bonnets, but they wore straw hats and looked adorable riding their bikes in the parade.

 Annie in the parade

 Lily riding with Claire 

 Lily and her buds after the parade

 I didn't forget about Tommy.  He is rolling over like a champ and only wants to sleep on his tummy.  He is so precious when he's snoozing.  I know tummy sleeping is a big no-no in today's parenting but he sleeps better this way - so what's a mom to do?

I've been meaning to post this picture of his nursery for a while.  Once he started sleeping through the night we assembled his crib and finished decorating his room.  I couldn't fit the whole room in the shot so here's the cutest part - the crib.  Tommy is almost back to sleeping through the night again and his tummy is feeling much better now.  He will be four months old next week.  Time has really gone so quickly since March.