Happenings

We've made some great friends in the ward out here. My visiting teaching companion, Cari, is a photographer and took pictures of Mark for us for free. She's working on her portfolio and photography blog for advertising so she was happy to take some pictures. We appreciated her help to get some professional pictures of Mark. Of course, despite being tired he would have nothing to do with sleeping so he's awake in all of them. Within 5 minutes of Cari leaving, he fell asleep in his swing. Is this a sign of a strong-willed child? I hope not.

I love this one. It's like he's trying to prove how much of a tough guy he is.

Bryce is hoping he turns out to be tall and left-handed so he can be a pitcher...we'll see.

Mark likes to hang out with us on the couch and watch T.V. or just watch us while we're doing things. He's finally able to track us with his eyes and seems to know that we are his parents. He's trying to start smiling and every once in a while gets it right. Once he gets a bit more consistent, we'll take a picture.

Last week some of us girls met at the park to have a picnic and play (for the kids that can walk, that is). Heather Parkinson told us about a "Kid's Nearly New Sale" at the Howard County Fairgrounds. Families can rent booths and then sell their clothes, toys, books, etc. to other people. I figured it was worth a shot to go down and see what I could find. That county is one of the nicer ones to live in around here so I figured the clothes would probably be good as well. Meagan and I left the babies at home with our husbands and got there within 10 minutes of it opening. There were tons of people there, but I was able to get about 35 things for $50. I would say at least 10 things were completely new and nothing was stained or too worn.

Now Mark has more 'real' clothes (other than sleepers and onesies) for the next little while. I'm glad we went early though; by the time we left (about an hour after we got there), there were so many people it was getting difficult to get around. Meagan was even getting boxed out by a lady looking at the same rack as her. They do this sale twice a year so I'll definitely go back this September (12th) and get whatever else we discover we need (especially for toys). Thanks for the tip Heather! It was well worth the trip.

On a final note, our complex has been having some repairs done to the siding. This week, they spent two days banging relentlessly from 8am-5pm. Needless to say, it took it toll on little Mark's naps. By last night, he was exhausted. We had gone to have dinner at the park with friends and by 7:00 he was done for. It's the first time that we took him out of the car and he actually stayed asleep in the car seat when we set him down. He had blown out his diaper so Bryce set him on the changing table and he still didn't wake up. As we were taking off his clothes he finally did and boy was he mad. He just screamed and screamed. He needed a bath so we got that done as quickly as we could, got him dressed, rocked him for maybe two minutes and then put him into his crib. He was still awake, but fading. That was probably at about 7:50pm. Around 4:30am I woke up and was amazed that he hadn't woken up yet to eat since he hadn't had anything since 6:30pm. I went and checked on him and he looked like he was searching for food in his sleep, but he wasn't awake so I left him, but figured he'd be up soon. He finally woke up at 5:50am --10 hours after we'd put him down. And, he's already taken two decent naps since and it's only 11:30! I'm just glad he can finally sleep. I should probably stop blogging and finish working while I can.