Pulling up Daisies

This morning was a little hectic and I was busy helping Cameron upstairs (teething troubles most likely --and yes, we've gone back to sleepless nights :))

Anyway, I came downstairs a little nervous to see what Luke had quietly been up to for the 30 minutes or so that I had been ignoring him. To my surprise, I discovered this:

and this...

My little boy did a jigsaw puzzle all on his own! 2 jigsaw puzzles to be exact! At first I thought that maybe we just forgot to take them apart from yesterday when we worked on it together...but no, I distinctly remember seeing the pieces scattered all over the floor earlier this morning (which is why there are a few pieces missing...they were under the couch).

Now I'm not trying to advertise the fact that clearly my son is BRILLIANT :) hehe ...because really he is just as bright as most kids I know his age. My main point is that I AM A TERRIBLE PARENT! Do you know how many times I have seen Luke working on a puzzle and I jump in to "help" him? Just about every time. I see him trying to put the wrong pieces together or trying to put a corner piece in the middle and I immediately think that he is going to get frustrated and I should come to the rescue. But really, Luke has probably been thinking, "Geez Mom, give me a little space. I can figure it out on my own."

I learned an important lesson today. I need to let Luke struggle more and do more things on his own. Luckily, this is naturally the byproduct of having a second baby because I don't have time to be by Luke's side helping him 24/7. In fact, I thought I was pretty good at letting him figure things out on his own but clearly I am not.

Patience Lauren! He may not do things as quickly as you want or the way you think it should be done, but he's figuring things out. And you shouldn't insist on constantly pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing. (i still remember that phrase from this Neal A. Maxwell talk ...it took me awhile to understand what he was saying at the time but I still think of it often).

However, though I may not have clear grasp of what Luke is capable or incapable of doing.... he clearly cannot look at the camera and smile when I ask him to:

A Round of Ovaltine on Me!

(trying to get a happy "brothers" shot is next to impossible)

I have good news...

It only took 6 months and 20 days for my little Cammy to finally sleep through the night! And let me tell you it was just in the nick of time because I was about to lose my sanity.

I am in a hurry to celebrate the moment because I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a fluke. For the past 6 months and 18 days little Cams has notoriously had a rough time sleeping, day or night. I have tried just about everything. The past few months or so have been even more intense with little guy waking up every 2-3 hours. This makes for a cranky baby (we were seriously about ready to return him :)) and a Mom that has to give herself several pep talks a day about how great life is and how maybe I'll turn into one of those people who doesn't need much sleep to function, etc, etc.

On the 6th month and 19th night, baby slept 5 hours in a row which was AMAZING. Really, if that was the end of the story it would have been fine. 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep is a great gift. The fact that he soldiered on to sleep 8.5 hours last night is just over the top!

Good work Cams! We are so proud! And he is such a HAPPIER baby now... I think we'll keep him :)

p.s Unfortunately I didn't get to fully enjoy the 8.5 hours because I was up working half the night. And then there's the nursing Mom problem of having WAY too much supply when you're used to nursing every 3 hours. I was so full it felt like there was breastmilk pumping through my heart (tmi, i know).

maybe tonight will be different...

Monterey

For me, Monterey is one of those places where you are reminded that there must be a God because how can so many beautiful things in nature come together so perfectly by accident?!(Okay, we saw a lot of places like that now that I think about it....Yosemite, etc). I'm just a sucker for waves crashing on giant boulders and those twisted dark cypress trees... love it!

This is my sister who is so much fun to be around. She knew all the fun places to go and best places to eat in Monterey.

Luke loved all the rocks. Throwing rocks in water is one of his favorite pastimes so this place was perfect for him.

Sorry Cammy...don't know how you missed out on the family photo-op. You were probably sleeping in the carseat.

Michele took us to a park in Monterey called "Dennis the Menace Park". It seriously was Disneyland of playgrounds. I should have taken more pictures of the play structures. If we lived closer this would be a family favorite for sure.

An uncanny resemblance...don't you think!?

Up next: Yosemite and the Giant Sequoias

San Francisco

Have you ever had a post to write that was so huge that you just could never muster up the energy to do it? That's how I feel about our Utah/California trip. It is just an overwhelming number of pictures to go through. But today is the day (and tomorrow, and the next day) I'm going to finish it up (over 2 months later!).

We did a lot of hiking this trip. Here we are climbing Mt. Baldy which is up Dry Creek Canyon. It was...um...dry.

Great view!

For Mother's Day we got a flowering pear tree and planted it in my Mom's yard. For future reference Mom, we really enjoy doing things like planting trees on our vacation, so please be thinking of the next project you want accomplished in August.

On to California...

First we went camping in Yosemite for 3 days but I'm going to hold off on that for right now. We stayed with my sister Michele and her family in San Jose for most of the time which was so fun! I haven't been back to San Jose for almost a DECADE! Fortunately, it still felt like home. A little too much like home actually...it was hard to leave and I started feeling all homesick. There is something about the place you grew up that always feels so comfortable and familiar. I had forgotten how much I love the foothills, the beaches, the cities, and most of all, the people.

We love these boys (my nephews). There was definitely an overwhelming majority of men in house (7 boys, 2 girls) which I am kind of used to I guess. Needless to say I have never seen so many shows about shooting crocodiles, fishing, hunting, etc. This place is a man's paradise (with a woman's lovely touch, I might add)!

We took a day trip to San Francisco and did the typical touristy things. It was a beautiful day to be there and windy as usual.

Pier 39

Luke loved the seals (even though the expression on his face does not indicate that) I think he could have watched them all day.

Clam chowder in the famous Boudin sourdough bread bowl. Yum. Did you know Boudin still uses a piece of the original (1849) "mother" dough to start every loaf of sour dough bread. I don't know if that's cool or sick.

A little trip to Ghiradelli Square went over really well with Luke (lets be honest, it went over really well with everyone and all of our faces basically looked like this :))

We drove down Lombard Street, but oddly we were the only ones driving down it and they had a few signs that made it unclear whether or not we were allowed to drive down. Then all the tourists around were staring at us for some reason. So as exciting as it was, we were just sort of nervous and confused the whole time like maybe we were about to fall into a giant manhole or something.

btw, you ARE allowed to drive down Lombard Street. No manholes :)

We have about 15 pictures like this and Luke isn't looking in a. single. one.

If you're able, I would recommend being at the Golden Gate Bridge for sunset. It was absolutely beautiful!

And then it finally happened. Our luck ran out. We always set our camera up in crazy places (on timer) to try and take pictures all together. We have done this for years. But the infamous SF winds finally brought that to a screeching halt as you can see in the last normal picture our little point and shoot will ever take:

On its way to its death.

This left us in a predicament because it really was the most beautiful sunset with the most beautiful view of the bridge. Luckily, a random photographer who was taking some engagement shots, started taking pictures of Luke and emailed us a few. So nice!

This picture of me is so dorky, but I'm a Mom now so I have to include dorky pictures of myself when my family looks so cute. Welcome to motherhood!

Up next: Monterey

This Man is 29 Today

and just keeps getting better and better...