No sleep...but I have healthy teeth!!

For the last few weeks, not only do I have my baby waking up 1 or two times during the night (which I'm perfectly okay with since that's how it is with a baby!!) but also Cayden has been waking up 2-3 times each night!!! To top it off, Shaylee woke up last night. Here is how my night went:

11 p.m. - Tyler and I go to bed
1 a.m. - Cayden wakes up
4 a.m. - Addy is talking and laughing in her crib. A feeding puts her back to sleep!!
5 a.m. - Cayden AND Shaylee wake up. Cayden wants to know if he can play in the living room with his toys. I say no so they get drinks of water and go back to bed
7 a.m. - Tyler gives me a kiss goodbye before he heads to work
7:30 a.m. - The kids wake up

I used to be dead to the world when I slept, but since I have a baby right now...I wake up to the tiniest noises. Our bedroom door stays open at night since it can get hot in there otherwise...but our door is about 4-5 feet away from Cayden's...and the second he starts opening his door in the middle of the night, I'm awake. AHHHHHH!! I feel like it's been forever (atleast 3 weeks!!) since I got much nighttime sleep at all!! It would be helpful if it wasn't so dang hard for me to fall back asleep everytime I get woken up, but it takes about a good half hour each time!!! Luckily Shaylee is a huge help with Addy and usually comes and steals her in the morning, puts her in her bouncy seat, and let's her hang out with her while she and Cayden play!! Sometimes it gives me a whole extra hour of peace to sleep so that I can function that day!! By the time I get up, Shaylee is usually tired of playing Addy's mommy...but it'll probably be a long time before she really understands how helpful she is!!!

OHHHH, and about the teeth...Tyler and I finally have dental insurance through his work and we're able to go to the dentist yesterday for the first time in years. THANK YOU MOM FOR GETTING MY TEETH SEALED WHEN I WAS YOUNGER!!! The Dentist said that my mouth looked great because luckily the sealants hadn't worn off. No cavities for me!! I do still have my crossbite (big suprise) and need to have my wisdom teeth pulled. I was really nervous about a problem with my teeth though and thought for sure I'd have to have a root canal...but it turns out I just have sensitive teeth from all the whitening products I've used! I have to alternate my whitening toothpaste with the regular kind. I can handle that!!!! Now Tyler on the other hand....5 cavities. He knew he had some. He also needs a bridge to put in a gap in his back teeth since he had a bad tooth a couple years ago that we didn't have the money to fix so he just had them pull it out. Anyway, all in all it was a very successful trip, and Tyler's insurance is great so atleast getting his cavities fixed isn't going to cost an arm and a leg!! (just an arm, haha!)

Addy Jumping

Okay so the video is sideways. I tried to save it right-side up. I've had a heck of a time getting videos to load on here at all so feel lucky I got this one up!! I'm still trying to get it to load one of Addy rolling over. She is now doing about 4 rolls in a row across the room...maybe someday I'll get that on tape, too! It's fun to see her in her jumper now because she just barely figured out how to actuall JUMP in it, so she'll stay in it for a good 20 minutes!!

Hannah Montana

Several month back I was so happy that we didn't have Disney Channel, because it meant that I was able to avoid the whole Hannah Montana madness!! A few months back my husband decided that the handful of (dirt cheap) local channels just wasn't cutting it for his Sports needs, so we had to upgrade. I have absolutely nothing against the Disney channel, I really like it most of the time, but now my daughter has gotten sucked into the craze. So....about 3 weeks before the big 3D Hannah Montana concert, we went to Walmart to see if they had any of the free 3D glasses you needed for it. They told us they'd had TONS that morning but they went quickly. So...I went on Ebay and found a set of 10 Sharkboy/Lavagirl 3D glasses and ordered them so that we'd be all set (there I also found why all the Walmarts were out of the glasses...people had hoarded them and were selling them on Ebay...why would I buy them from them when they were supposed to be free but they decided to be dishonest and take more than they needed to try to make a profit??!!!). Anyway, Tyler even missed a big fun shindig that was happening out at the local card shop, just so that we could all watch the concert as a family. It wasn't too bad, although I was dissapointed she didn't sing that "7 Things I like about You" and Tyler was dissapointed that she didn't sing the duet with her dad. I have to say that the song about missing her Grandfather was a tearjerker, though. I love that my husband is a bigger ball-baby than me as we get older...it makes me look like less silly!! Of course I didn't know that song had made him cry til it was time to take off the 3D glasses! Oh and something weird...after I took of the glasses, I was seeing things in color for like the next 20 minutes!! (The red and blue from the glasses...only I saw the colors in each OPPOSITE eye!! If that made any sense!?) So far Miley Cyrus seems to be okay. Let's hope she keeps sticking to decent morals...that would be a change from all these other young popstars and actresses!!

New Callings

After being in the Primary (at church) for 4 years straight...I finally get to go to Relief Society, and Sunday School with my husband!!! I served as the Secretary, the 2nd Counselor, the Sunbeams teacher, AND the 5-year old class during those 4 years, and I did enjoy it. I will miss my 5-year olds, but I LOVE finally getting to go to sunday school with the hubby and meeting more of the women in the ward with this new calling. Well here it is ...Compassionate Service Leader. Ya, laugh it up. Not that it's not an important calling, because it's actually an incredibly important calling, its just not one most people would really want since it involves calling people up and asking them to serve by taking a meal to a family, etc. Luckily I've already sent around sign-ups for people willing to bring meals in the future...so I've got a starting point. With a young baby it's nice to not have to worry about preparing a lesson or anything for Sunday and I can just focus on my family.
I don't think I posted that Tyler got his first calling awhile back. He is the Elders Quorum Secretary! It's helping him get to know the other men there and he really enjoys helping plan some of the activities. He has already put together a basketball missionary project! Tyler already takes a few of his friends from work to play basketball with the missionaries & other members on Thursday nights...so he got the idea to have a big Saturday basketball tournament. There has to be some members & nonmembers on each team so they can all get to know eachother. Then after all the fun and games they'll have a meal provided and have some little tables set up with some lds info on them in case they want to take something home. I think it'll turn out really great!!

Summer Rut

Does anyone else seem to find themselves doing the same thing day in and day out during the summer? I guess this applies mainly to people who have kids in school during the school year...but maybe not? For some reason, the summer days last SOOO long...I guess because my oldest daughter gets bored easily. She NEEDS school and it'll be nice when it starts up again. For some reason, the less kids I have at home, the more energy and drive I have to tackle big projects like organizing closets, condensing things in the house, etc. That's mainly because I have less children to distract me...but I don't think that's the only reason? I don't know. I just feel like I've fallen into this summer rut where every day is pretty much the same. I guess I just need to get my lazy body out and take the kids to some new places. Sadly we still haven't been to the local Nature Center, or the public pool (we go to Grandma & Grandpa Caudle's to swim). It's also been a long time since we went to Mr. Gatti's (basically a Chuck E Cheese), and we still need to check out the Zoo in a town about an hour away. Cayden has never been to the Zoo!!! I guess the main problem is that it gets so hot AND humid here, that if you really want to go anywhere...especially with a baby...you have to head out by about 8 a.m. so that you have atleast a couple hours before it gets yucky. I've gotten a lot more used to the weather here over the years...but I guess at the moment I'm just really wishing it was Fall already.

It's ALL About the Competition!!

Okay, so it's not big news that us McConkies have a bit of competitiveness in our blood, but last night I realized I have a little more than I thought...atleast when it comes to competing with my husband!! Tyler had mentioned yesterday that the All star game would be starting after he got home from work. I'm not sure exactly why...but watching sports on tv isn't that exciting for me. I'd rather either be AT the game, or playing the game myself! I mean, I LOVE opening and collecting baseball cards. I have a great Mariners collection. My favorite card being a dual Griffey/Griffey signature card of Ken Griffey Jr and his dad! I also have some jersey patch cards. But I decided I'd really like to get into it more with Tyler because he really likes it when I'm next to him during a game, even if I'm just crocheting. I told him that since he knows a lot more about each team...if he'd let me pick which team I was going to root for, and if he would root for the opposing team, that maybe it'd help me pay more attention. We could also pick a reward for the winner. The prize was a neck & shoulder massage. Well I picked the American League. In my opinion most of the game was pretty slow. The score was 0-0 til like the 5th inning!?! Anyway, I actually got so into it that I made Tyler stay up for a few of the extra innings...but by about midnight we needed to go to bed because we both had to be up pretty early (him earlier than me!). Well lo and behold, the American League won, so guess who gets a massage tonight?? Woot Woot!! Anyway...through that one little game and a teensy bit of competition, I learned more about myself, and found yet another way to be a fun wife/best friend. What are best friends for anyway, right?! :-)

The Ugly Bug Ball

"Once a lonely caterpillar sat and cried

To a sympathetic beetle by his side

I've got nobody to hug

I'm such an ug-i-ly bug

Then a spider and a dragonfly replied

If you're serious and want to win a bride

Come along with us, to the glorious annual ugly bug ball

Come on let's crawl (gotta crawl gotta crawl)

To the ugly bug ball (to the ball to the ball)

And a happy time we'll have there, one and all and the ugly bug ball"

I know that atleast my family members remember the movie "Summer Magic" with Hayley Mills in it. This song is from that movie and I love it!! I really need to try to get ahold of that old movie! Anyway...Tyler found this really funky looking caterpillar in our carport the other day. Doesn't it look like it's wrapped in leaves?? Texas has some crazy/psycho/cool looking bugs! I haven't had time to try to find out what the name of this caterpillar is but if you find out, let me know!!

Recent Pictures

Remember that dress I had crocheted and put in an earlier post? Well Addisyn FINALLY fits in it. The neck was still big but the rest of it seemed to fit her well. She was looking pretty fancy this last Sunday for church. Funny how babies seem to be the best dressed people in families huh?! But who can help it...they are just too much fun to dress up. Babies bring out the little girl in all of us and sometimes we just want to really dress up our doll!! Oh, unfortunately the bonnet is still way to big...she has a medium to small head. Her outfit probably would have been a bit "much" anyway with it.

Also, lately Addy has been acting like she's teething. We can't find any definite teeth coming in, but she's felt warm for a few days now, she's been cranky, falling asleep a lot easier at random times from exhaustion, is drooling like CRAZY, and is chewing on things. She has discovered her thumbs! My husband and I are very much anti thumb-sucking so we try to give her teethers. Luckily though she doesn't seem to be sucking on it, closer to chomping! I guess that's not a good thing either, but I'm sure it'll be short lived. Occasionally I can't help but look at her with her thumb in her mouth and think it's cute! Of course then I remember the deformed thumbs I've seen on people that were thumb-suckers when they were young...and remember stories of people having to always have braces when they are older...and I zap back into reality and pull her thumb out of her mouth!!

Addy looks like she's checking out those pretzels.

And YAYYYY, the other jumper arrived!!! Weeks ago I bought one on ebay that didn't have the tray, and it was definitely not right for Addy. She is tall but her chin barely went over the top of that thing. If you buy a jumper, definitely invest in the kind with the tray. They are pricey (this was cheaper since it was a gently used one from Ebay) but hey, they store easily for your next baby!!! Of course only buy one if you have a convenient door FRAME (with TRIM) to hang it from!!

**The 4th & 8th of July**

*Wow, over the last 3 weeks I've thought of lots of different things I could write blogs about...but since I was so frustrated with messing up my layout...I avoided my blog. Well now I'm back and I managed to spend some time fixing it...so hopefully you'll see new posts more often!!!

4TH OF JULY

First I better touch on the 4th of July. It was a lot of fun! Tyler's mom came over and we fired up the BBQ, busted out the bags of chips, oh and I made a pretty fruit salad like my mom had made in the past! I had also bought a fondue set so we did a chocolate fondue. (I bought the set for $15 at a Thrift store when it's normally like $60...it's a very pretty stainless steel set and it looked like only the forks in the set had been used...but what I wanted was an ELECTRIC fondue set but I didn't even think about it when I bought it...I didn't realize they even made a kind where you use a candle instead of plugging it in...my parents had electric ones!!) Shaylee was kind of scared of the fireworks, but Cayden was having a blast having daddy light them, then he'd throw them onto the street! Addisyn was pretty indifferent, especially after I put tissue in her ears so that it wouldn't be too noisy. Unfortunately...there was ONE casualty this 4th of July. I was backing up my car so that we could light fireworks in the driveway...when the car had some resistance...and I heard a quiet but weird noise. Tyler had told me earlier but I'd forgotten....the stroller was behind the car!!! What...you thought I wouldn't have made sure all my of children were in FRONT of the car before I drove? Trust me...I'm always very aware of where my kids are...but hello...why was the stroller behind my car??? Eh, luckily we have another one...this one already had problems from years of use from Cayden. I bent the front wheel pole so unfortunately it'll have to go to the trash instead of going to a garage sale or something! Earlier that day at the grocery store, the kids begged for giant lollipops. My first thought was "what a huge waste of money...I remember when my parents bought us some of those and we barely ate them..." Then I had to stop. It was one of those "aha" moments that my parents probably would have been proud of me for...because I then realized why my parents had probably bought us huge lollipops and giant jawbreaker candies. I know they bought the giant jawbreakers on the way to Utah so that we'd be quiet the whole ride while making our tongues raw from licking those giant things...but it was also about the memories. I remember how we had races to eat them....but after a whole 10 hour car drive to Utah...we were lucky to have survived licking the outer shell away!!! So...I let my kids get the lollipops. Hopefully they will have good memories from it, just as I did. So really...the lollipops weren't a waste of money afterall. All in all, the 4th was a fun day.

The casualty

My fruit salad that was inspired/copied from my mom!

Self explanatory!!

It looks like Cayden got his lollipop stuck to his hair, haha!

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8TH OF JULY

Now, yesterday would have been my dad's 60th birthday. Yesterday I thought about how we use to tease him and my mom about how by the time their youngest daughter Nicole is in high school, and as she got to be treated to dinner at a nice restaurant for getting good grades...that mom and dad would be able to get the senior discount!! That still makes me laugh. I can't help but get sad, though, when I think about all the things he and my mom were looking forward to doing together as they got older. The other day I finally got some pictures put in a cute country frame I'd bought like a year ago. I put a picture of my dad in his combine, a pic of him on the LDS trek from years ago...and also a picture of Nicole when she was little, sitting in the Pioneer cart my dad had built for the trek. My dining room is country so it looks great there...and is also near our computer desk so I always glance at it now while on the computer (hey, it's a BIG dining room). I've said it before, but I'm so just glad for the Gospel and the knowledge that we have that my family will see Dad again. I'm not afraid to admit that sometimes I talk out loud to my dad...and I smile as I think of him thinking "Michelle, don't worry about me...I'm in a better place than all of you guys right now...I'll see you soon enough!!"

My dad...born on July 8th.

I found this pic of my dad...I'd never noticed how Nicole looks JUST like him in this pic!!!

And this post would not be complete without a picture of my Mom & Dad together. She is who she is because of him, and he is who he is because of her. They brought out the best in eachother. And together, they've helped bring out the best in all of us kids! I love you!!!