More Short Naps for Owen & Our Weekend in Marquette

Samantha: 85 Months, Week 4
Aedan: 51 Months, Week 2
Owen: 9 Months, Week 4 (Week 43)

Sunday, July 8th was another typical Sunday in our house with church in the morning, lunch and then nap time for little Owen. As is normal lately, Ben ended up having to sit back down with Owen again. He is much better at getting him to sleep on him, and then I was able to do some much needed work around the house that I have a hard time getting down during the day. The other exciting thing of the day was having Ken and Linda come early so that Ben and I could go out to eat together before going to the Married People small group. They offered to give us a date night, and the kids were excited to have some extra time with their favorite babysitters. They arrived at our house at about 4:15, we finished up a few things and then went to Wicked Sister for some dinner. It was so wonderful to just have time to sit and talk together and to connect with having to feed or take care of kids. We even had conversations about things other than our kids, and it was lovely. We definitely need to have more date nights. :) After dinner we went to our Married People small group, and it was so nice to be able to sit around and talk to other adults about how to have a good, strong marriage. I have really enjoyed this small group, and I'm so glad that Ben and I committed to going to it.

After a late night of getting the kids to bed, Monday morning came bright and early. We had a busy morning with the big kids' first swim lesson down in Rudyard, as well as my first MOPS leadership team meeting. Ben was already planning on staying home for the morning to be with the kids while I went to my meeting, so he also had to take them all down to Rudyard for their first lesson. Here are Aedan and Owen at breakfast that morning.

It took a little bit of time for Ben to find where the pool was at the school, but they left in plenty of time to get to their lessons on time. The first day was testing day to see what level they would be in. Aedan placed at Level 1, and Samantha placed at Level 2. They were excited to get in the water and learn some more. Aedan is getting much better at being comfortable in the water, getting his face wet, and jumping off the side without someone having to catch him before his head goes under water. Samantha has definitely improved a lot in the last few months with swimming. She has learned how to swim across short distances in the water, even if she can't quite touch the bottom. She loves to swim with her goggles on so she can open her eyes under water, and she has no fear of jumping off the side into the water. She's always been our little fish, whereas Aedan has always been more hesitant around water. We have heard good things about swim lessons down in Rudyard, and I was excited to see how much they would learn by going four days a week for two weeks.

I was excited to be a part of the first MOPS Leadership Team meeting. Jill asked me to be the Kids Coordinator because of my years of experience as a teacher, so she gave me some material to look over. We got to know each other a little more, went over the expectations of a good leader, discussed the theme for this year in MOPS, and also looked at the various leadership roles and what their responsibilities are. I am excited to be a part of this group of women, to get to know other women better through serving alongside them, and to push myself out of my comfort zone a little in stepping up into leadership like this.

Owen fell asleep in the car on the way home from swim lessons, and he continued to nap for about half an hour after they got back home. Samantha and Aedan went right outside to play in our back yard, and then they just hung out until I got home a little after lunch time when I took over with the kids and Ben went to campus for the afternoon.

Monday night was also rather busy because Aedan had t-ball practice and Ben had his softball games. Throughout the day on Monday, Ben was not feeling very well, so he decided he would sit out the first game and hang out with Owen while I helped Aedan at t-ball practice. It's definitely much easier just being able to concentrate on Aedan. At his practice lately, they have been doing a few stations to practice batting, hitting, and running the bases, and then for the last few minutes of practice they do a little game where they face another team, and each player gets a chance to bat and run the bases before the teams switch. Aedan enjoys that, but it is also harder to keep his attention because there is a lot of standing around and waiting. Watching little kids play t-ball is pretty funny, especially with the short attention spans of a four year old. After his t-ball practice was over, we went over to watch Daddy's softball game and hang out with some other kids. It's always a fun time, even though it means we are out late at night. It's summertime, so we can do things like this.

Tuesday morning the kids had swim lessons again, and I planned on taking the kids that day. However, Owen woke up super early that morning and was ready for a nap, so Ben offered to work from home so we could let Owen take a good nap. Swim lessons went well, and I was able to sit and talk to some other moms while watching Samantha and Aedan swim. When we got back to the house, Samantha and I had hair cut appointments, and Aedan decided he wanted to come along, too, so he could play with the toys at the hair salon. Then, after eating a quick lunch at home, I took Samantha and Aedan to see The Incredibles at the Arts Center on campus. Throughout the month of July, they were going to play a movie each week, and since we don't have a movie theater in Sault Ste. Marie, I thought the kids would really enjoy being able to go, see a movie on a big screen, and have some popcorn. It's fun that Aedan is old enough to enjoy stuff like this now, and that he can sit still long enough to enjoy a whole movie. With how much he likes super heroes, he was really excited to be able to see The Incredibles. It was fun taking the big kids on this special date while Ben hung out with Owen at home. 

Since Owen took such a long nap that morning (almost until noon), he was awake for the whole time we were out at the movie. Ben ended up taking him for a walk over to campus so he could pick up some things from his office and talk to Sheri about his conference in Boston. When we got back from the movie, I tried putting Owen down for a nap, but he woke up after a short time again. At least he took a good nap that morning though, without needing anyone to sit with him and get him back to sleep. Here is Owen exploring and reaching out for Izzy. Do you see how he's standing without holding on to anything? He can do this for a few seconds at a time now before reaching out for something or falling down on his bottom again.

On Tuesday evening, we didn't meet with our small group again, so we decided to go downtown and get some $2 ice cream. We then decided to make a quick stop at Walmart to look at stroller options (since I backed over the wheel of our old stroller with the car) and a new, bigger bike for Aedan. His little Buzz Lightyear bike is much too small for him, and we knew he would enjoy riding a bigger bike with bigger wheels so he can cover more distance faster. We decided to let Aedan get a cool, new Spider-Man bike with webs that pop out of the handlebars. As we were looking at the bike aisle, Samantha found this dinosaur head and decided to try it on and show off for a tired Owen. He loves his sister so much. He's not laughing in this video, but she can get more giggles out of him than most people in the family.

Wednesday morning we were off to swim lessons again. Here are some videos of the kids during their lessons. Here's Aedan practicing some back floats with a life vest on. Aedan has definitely increased his confidence and comfort in the water. He's becoming more brave, and it was great to see him listening to his swim instructors.

Here's Samantha practicing her forward stroke from halfway across the pool. She has gotten so good in this short amount of time, learning new techniques with her strokes, and greatly increasing the amount of distance she can cover as she swims. I was so proud of her.

And here she is doing the backstroke. She says this one is her favorite one to do.

Ben offered to stay home with Owen again to put him down for a nap and just work from home while he slept, since he woke up so early that morning. However, even though he had him asleep before 9:00, Ben texted me while at swim lessons saying that he woke up after only 25 minutes. I felt bad that he didn't nap well like he did the previous day and that Ben would be stuck dealing with him rather than getting work done. I should have just taken him with me because he would have had just as long of a nap in the car on the way home from swim lessons. Then Wednesday afternoon he only slept 20 minutes before waking up. I tried to get some phone calls done while Samantha and Aedan had some quiet play time in their rooms, but I had to go down with Owen after finishing up on the phone and helping Aedan in the bathroom. Owen had gotten pretty upset while waiting for me to come down, and I felt so tired of dealing with these short naps. That afternoon I was even planning on trying a strategy that I read about called bridging his sleep cycles, where you go in and wake them up right before when they usually wake up, as a way to help them enter into the next sleep cycle before waking up. However, he didn't even sleep long enough for me to do that. As I sat downstairs with him letting him sleep on me, I texted Ben about how I wanted to talk more about how to help Owen with sleeping that evening. I just felt like all this wasn't healthy for him or us, and I felt like we just needed to come up with a plan. Doing what we were doing was just not working, and sitting in his room every day to get him to sleep when we have other things to do and two other kids that need and deserve attention, was just not a practical solution. It had been going on for a long time, for over a month now, and wasn't getting any better. I had so many dreams and ambitions for what I was going to get accomplished over the summer around the house with going through things, getting things organized, and even doing special projects and spending time one-on-one with Samantha and Aedan while Owen napped, but I felt like the summer was just passing me by as we deal with Owen not sleeping.

After not much napping that day, Owen was pretty tired at dinnertime when I took the following video. He was getting slaphappy, and Daddy pretending to burp was the most hilarious thing in the world. I love his belly laugh, his dimples, his snorting, the laughs of Samantha and Aedan in the background, and the way Owen looks at them when he laughs, loving that they are all joining in this laughing fest together.

Ben and I talked about trying a new method with him that night when he woke up, rather than picking him up and holding him to get him back to sleep every time, as a way to train him to fall asleep without us, called the Pick Up and Put Down Method, where you just hold them for a minute to calm them down and then put them back in their crib, wait for a few minutes and continue until hopefully they fall asleep on their own. However, on Wednesday night it just was not working. Owen did his obligatory waking up 20 minutes or so after I put him down for bed, and Ben was trying the Pick Up and Put Down Method, but it wasn't working at all. It was an hour and a half later, and Owen was still crying and screaming in his bed. I felt like we were just traumatizing him with his sleeping even more, and Ben ended up just holding him so we could finally get him to sleep. That night I asked for some prayers from a few people because I felt like all this sleeping stuff was such a trivial thing, but it has been causing so much frustration, tension, and exhaustion in both Ben and I, that I really didn't know what to do anymore. Between only napping 20-25 minutes at a time and then waking up at least two times between when we lay him down for bed and when Ben and I go to bed, I literally have no time to myself, to get things to done, or to just spend time with the other kids or Ben. The one bright point in all of this, is that at least during the night he has been better lately. He's usually easier to settle down, and after I nurse him, he'll go right back to sleep in the middle of the night, usually only waking up once or twice.

Thursday was the last day of swim lessons for this week, and I took Owen with me since it clearly wasn't going to work to have him nap at home while Ben worked. He did pretty well for me during the lessons. I kept him in his stroller as long as I could until he started to get too antsy, and then I tried to distract him with toys for the remainder of the lesson. The hardest part was keeping him away from the water because he loves water and would have gone right in the pool with the other kids. He then slept half an hour in the car on the way home from swim lessons, which is better than nothing. With swim lessons taking up most of our mornings this week, we didn't do too much extra stuff. Swimming tires Aedan out a lot, and by the time we got home from lessons, the big kids were ready to just play together in the house or outside, so that's how we spent most of our mornings, and other than Owen not sleeping, we had fun just hanging out and being together.

Thursday afternoon I had my Bible study and I was just going to take all the kids along with me since they provide childcare, but Ben offered to stay home with Owen while he napped that afternoon. Samantha and Aedan came with me though, and we met in a church instead of outside at the park because of the rainy weather. The kids were excited to play with some new friends, and it was nice being able to meet with the women in the Bible study. We are doing a study on being a woman of faith and on that particular afternoon we read the stories of the men in the fiery furnace and Daniel in the lion's den, and it definitely spoke to me about how much I need to increase my faith and reliance on God. Instead of worrying about it and agonizing over it, I need to pray about it more. I think before the last couple of weeks, I thought Owen's sleeping problems was an issue that God didn't really care much about. It felt like such a frivolous thing to pray about, or I was worried that I was trying to manipulate God by asking him to help make Owen sleep better. But lately, through this Bible study and actually starting to read the Bible more consistently, I have been reminded that God does care about the seemingly insignificant things in my life, for if it matters to me, it also matters to Him, and just as He can comfort me, His Spirit can comfort Owen as well. I also have been praying not just for help with Owen's sleep, but also in my own attitude, that I would know what to do and stop letting it drive me crazy and consume my thoughts or ruin my day. As I nurse him to sleep, I have been praying and throughout the night when I am up with him, I have been trying to pray, rather than worry and get upset. I can definitely feel the prayers of these wonderful women who care about me and lift me up. In fact, on Thursday night, Owen didn't cry at all after I put him down like he usually does, and he slept all the way until almost 4:00 in the morning. Then, I nursed him and it took about 15-20 minutes after that to settle him back to sleep, but then he slept until 7:00. It was wonderful, and that Thursday evening was the first time in weeks that Ben and I were able to sit on the couch together, cuddle, relax, and watch a show together, without having to get up and deal with Owen multiple times. It was a small victory, and I gave God all the credit for hearing my prayers, as well as the prayers of others.

After looking at the weather forecast for the weekend, Ben and I decided, kind of spur of the moment, to take a little weekend trip to Marquette to escape the heat for awhile and to enjoy some time away doing some fun activities. Marquette is about 2 hours and 45 minutes away from our house, so not a bad drive at all. We got finished packing up on Friday morning and then started driving once it was time for Owen to take his morning nap. We stopped for lunch at a local hot dog place in Munising before continuing on our way to Marquette. It is a pretty easy drive, and a pretty straight shot from Sault Ste. Marie. We have been to Marquette twice since moving to the U.P., but we have always gone in the wintertime, so it was different experiencing it in the summertime. Here is Samantha posing with Owen outside the restaurant after lunch. We tried to get Aedan in the picture, too, but he didn't want to get in it.

We were able to check into the hotel early that afternoon, and we got adjoining rooms for free with our credit card points. We got all our stuff situated in the rooms, and then Ben took Samantha and Aedan to go swimming while I tried to put Owen down for his afternoon nap. However, even though he was tired, he only slept for 20 minutes again. I figured it wasn't worth trying to get him back to sleep since we had things we wanted to do that evening, so we decided to just get the kids dressed and head out.

Our first stop was a pottery painting place. They don't have anything like this near us in Sault Ste. Marie, and we wanted to make a hand print tile like we did for Samantha and Aedan when they were 9 months old. We let Samantha and Aedan pick out these little super hero figurines to paint while Ben and I attempted to get Owen to cooperate enough to get his hand prints. I love this picture of the two of them painting. They are looking so intently at their statues, and it was serious business trying to come up with the colors they wanted them to be. (I love how Aedan sticks out his tongue when he is really concentrating on something hard.) Getting Owen's hand prints were definitely tricky. He didn't mind having paint on his hand, but then he was just enjoying the sensation and squishing his fingers together to feel the paint, making it very hard to get his hand out flat to try and get the hand print on our tile. We did a couple of practice attempts and then just decided to go for it. The perfectionist in me was having a bit of a hard time because I really wanted it to turn out nice and actually look like a hand print, but it is hard to make a squirmy baby do what you want them to do. In fact, after getting one hand done, we let Owen take a break and eat some food because he was getting hungry and tried of us messing with him.

Since the pottery had to be fired in the kiln before we could take it home, we paid for it to be shipped to us, and the kids couldn't wait to see what their superhero statues would look like when they were done. Since I am writing this blog post a couple weeks after this trip, our pottery came in the mail, and here are our finished products. Aren't their super heroes so cute? Samantha was painting so carefully, trying to do colors in small details and only get the black paint for her hair. Aedan tried to make his look like Batman, painting his bat symbol in the middle of his chest and giving him a black mask. This was such a fun project for them to do. Samantha definitely wanted to come back and paint again another time.

And here is Owen's hand print tile. As you can tell, it didn't turn out perfectly. We are missing some parts of his fingers that didn't show up when we pressed his hand down, and his left hand thumb was tucked under his index finger, which is why you can't see it, but it turned out cute, it's a fun story to tell, and now we have the memento for all of our children at around the same age. :)

Here are the other tiles for our other three kids. Now I just have to get Owen's framed, and we have to find a way to configure all four tiles.

After finishing our painting, we walked down the street to a local sandwich shop that had good reviews for dinner, and then we went back to the hotel to get all our tired kids to bed. Ben and I decided to take turns going to the hot tub that night, and Owen did a much better job going to sleep, even though he was sleeping in his pack and play in the bathroom.

Since we were staying in a Holiday Inn, there was no breakfast included like when we usually stay at Holiday Inn Expresses. However, we decided to just get ready and go out to eat at Big Boy across the street to take advantage of their breakfast buffet. We did that a few times when we lived in Oxford, and the kids enjoyed choosing whatever they wanted for breakfast. We definitely filled our tummies.

From there we went to the U.P. Children's Museum to spend the morning playing and having fun. The kids did a good job sleeping and were well-rested and in good moods that Saturday morning. They had a blast playing at the museum together, and it was so fun just to watch them explore, pretend, and play in every area of the museum. Here are some pictures from our morning at the children's museum.

Owen really loved seeing these cars, and after crawling after the car, Ben put him in one and pushed him around for awhile.

Soon after we got there it was time for Owen to take a nap, so I put him in the Ergo and walked around with him for awhile to get him to fall asleep, and he took a good little nap snuggled up against my chest. Samantha and Aedan enjoyed putting on a performance for us in the theater. Samantha was singing songs from Willy Wonka Jr., reciting much of the play by memory. She really loved that musical theater camp, and Aedan even knows some of the music by heart as well from hearing Samantha sing it so much.

Daddy was a good sport in letting the kids pretend to style his hair, and you can see me holding Owen in the Ergo in the mirror in the background.

Samantha and Aedan just love to pretend together, and this museum has lots of opportunities for kids to pretend, explore, and play creatively.

Here is a video of Samantha and Aedan cleaning up the restaurant, while Owen pulls up and explores around the kitchen. I love just watching the kids interact with each other.

One of their favorite parts of the museum is what is called the "fart slide." You climb up the stomach and then slide down through the intestines and out the bottom. There is even a button that you can push that makes a farting sound. The big kids loved it, and we even let Owen sit on Samantha's lap and go down the slide as well.

We ended our time at the museum in the nature area where the kids played in a tree house, looked at baby turtles, dug up dinosaur bones, played with shadows, and sat in a large digger.

After spending the morning at the museum, we ate lunch at a very yummy Mexican restaurant. (We have to get Mexican food whenever we have the opportunity.) Then, we decided to go out to Presque Isle State Park. We heard that it was beautiful but didn't know what to expect at all. We drove around for awhile and Owen promptly fell asleep in the car. As we drove around the park, we discovered that people go there to swim at the beach as well, so since Owen was asleep and Aedan was falling asleep, we decided to let them keep sleeping and drive back to the hotel to get our swim stuff and then head back to the beach.

The kids couldn't wait to get out into the water, and it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day. Even though the Lake Superior water was a bit chilly, the kids could have cared less. They got right out in the water, swimming, splashing,and playing around. We started Owen off in the sand, but it didn't take long for him to crawl down toward the water and want to get in himself. This little boy LOVES water, and it was hard at times to keep him safe when he was crawling around in the water.

We put Owen in his baby float in the water so he could move around wherever he wanted. When he was in the shallower water, he could touch the bottom, so he was basically walking around in the water like he was in one of those baby walkers. He explored wherever he wanted to go, and he was especially interested in a boy that was wearing snorkel gear. It was so fun to watch Owen enjoy his first real time swimming in a lake.

After getting our fill of swimming in the water, we had some beach play time. All three kids worked together to dig a hole in the sand. The only problem was when Owen tried to crawl into the hole and sit in it. He loved being included with his big brother and sister.

Here's a video of the kids playing in the sand together (and a good save from Daddy at the end of the video).

No one really wanted to leave the beach that evening because it was such a beautiful day and we were having so much fun, but it was getting to be dinnertime and we needed to get everyone fed. We decided to go to a local pizza place, and our food was great. I took these adorable pictures of Owen's crazy beach hair that night at the restaurant. I just love his big blue eyes. Isn't he a cutie?! I love my family, and this spontaneous weekend away was a wonderful chance for us to spend some good, quality time together.

(Blog about July 8-14, 2018)

Outdoor Fun with the Kids & Owen Continues Struggling to Nap

Samantha: 85 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 51 Months, Week 1
Owen: 9 Months, Week 3 (Week 42)

It feels like our summer has been pretty busy so far, and we've had a lot going on from Samantha finishing school June 8th, friends visiting, Samantha's science camp, then going on vacation for a week and a half, then Samantha's acting camp and Aedan's VBS. So, this first week of July was really our first week with no scheduled activities, and I was looking forward to having some fun with my three kiddos, going and doing some fun things together.

Our Sunday was pretty typical with church in the morning. However, I actually taught the K-1 class, so Ben dropped me off at church and then went back home with the kids so that I could go to the service before serving second hour. Ben was able to get Owen to take a little nap before leaving for church, and it was nice not to have to miss being a part of the worship service. Sunday afternoon Owen took a little better nap than normal, actually sleeping a little over one hour which is much longer than we've been getting from him lately, giving Ben and I a break from having to go down to his room to get him back to sleep. I finished hanging up the 12 month clothes that I had taken out, washed, and organized after putting away all the 9 month clothes that he was most definitely too big for. Hopefully his growth will level off some now and he can stay in 12 month clothes for awhile. I also cleaned the floors and got laundry going while he napped. It was so nice to actually have time to be productive around the house. It's amazing what I can get done in a little over an hour of time where I don't have to chase a baby around.

Then, Sunday night was our Married People small group again. We felt bad that it was so warm in our house. We had the air conditioning on, but there's only so much that little unit can do, so we encouraged the kids to play in the basement that night with Ken and Linda. They always have such a fun time with them on Sunday nights. I think it's one of the highlights of their week. We also had plans to let Samantha and Aedan sleep downstairs on their mattresses to get out of the heat of their rooms. They were excited to be having a sleepover and to be able to sleep right next to each other. By the time I was done putting Owen to bed, all was quiet, so it didn't take them too long to fall asleep. Playing with Ken and Linda definitely tires them out.

One place we wanted to visit was Point Iroquois Lighthouse. We hadn't been there in a long time, and I was looking forward to spending some time there on this beautiful U.P. day. My plan was to put Owen down for a morning nap before leaving for the lighthouse, but I couldn't get him to to stay asleep. So instead of spending most of the morning trying to get him to sleep, I decided to just head out with the kids and forget his morning nap. Ben had a meeting at a local coffee shop with a student, so we dropped him off first before heading on our way. I hoped that maybe Owen would fall asleep in the car, but this boy just loves to be awake too much, and Samantha and Aedan are definitely very entertaining to watch in the backseat.

When arrived at the lighthouse, Samantha and Aedan both wanted to check out the 1950s house before climbing all the steps up to the top of the lighthouse. I even got Owen out of the stroller and carried him up the stairs. Then, we walked out along the boardwalk down to the beach. The kids couldn't wait to take their shoes off and play in the sand. Samantha and Aedan got right to playing some imaginary game and discovering crayfish that washed up on shore that they wanted me to help save by putting them back in the water. Owen loved sitting in the sand, feeling it run between his fingers, and bear crawling around. He didn't try to eat the sand at all, which surprised me. It was the rocks that he kept wanting to taste.

After awhile Owen discovered the stairs, so he bear crawled right over to them so he could climb the stairs.

Then, I convinced the kids to all sit on this bent tree branch for some pictures of the three of them. I included some of the outtakes as well as the good ones where they are all looking at the camera. I love these three kids of my mine, the way they love each other, their silly personalities, and these precious moments we have together over the summer.

After being awake all day, there was no keeping Owen awake in the car on the way home. I would have rather him taken a nap at home, but even a nap in the car is better than nothing. We picked Daddy back up from the coffee shop, and I left Owen to sleep in the car while it was running in our driveway so he could at least get a little bit more of a nap in for the day.

Since it was the week of the 4th of July, Ben did not have softball that night, but Aedan still had tee-ball, so we made it a family affair. I was glad that Ben got to come and work with Aedan some, helping him with the proper technique of how to throw and hit the ball. Samantha wanted me to take a picture of her hanging on the bar like a monkey.

Here are the players practicing running the bases.

Here's Aedan getting some practice hitting the ball off the tee. He does much better when he has something to aim for out in the field.

Sometimes it's a bit difficult to keep Aedan focused and trying until the end of practice, but it's been a good experience for him to be a part of his first sport's team. He sees big boys playing in the fields and says he wants to play that when he gets big, so this is the first step towards that, just learning the basics of the game. This is definitely something we will have to keep up with both our kids, just doing more with them in catching, throwing, kicking, and hitting as we play in the back yard together. Maybe we should buy a baseball bat for the kids to use instead of the little plastic tee and bat that we have.

Aedan hasn't been quite as interested in helping with Owen as Samantha was when Aedan was a baby, but on Tuesday morning, Aedan wanted to help feed Owen breakfast, so we gladly let him feed him a few bites of his fruit mixed with cereal. :)

Tuesday continued with more hot weather. However, there was a MOPS play date at Project Playground that we decided to go to as our fun activity for the day. I figured it would be good to get outside and play before it got super hot that afternoon. When we got there it was Owen's nap time, and I tried to rock him in the stroller to see if he would fall asleep that way without me having to hold him, but that wasn't working. So even though it was hot, I put Owen in the Ergo and walked around and bounced him for awhile. He finally fell fast asleep as I walked Aedan back from taking him to the bathroom. I tried to stand in the shade as much as possible, but it was fun to just be with other moms, talking and catching up, while our kids ran around and played on the playground together. I waited for Owen to wake up from his nap, then we headed back home a little after noon.

That afternoon, since it was going to be so hot in the house, even with the air conditioner on in the living room, I came up with the idea for the kids to go to campus with Ben and watch a movie on a big screen in one of the classrooms. That way they could relax in air conditioning while Ben continued to get work done, and then I was able to put Owen down for a nap. I even made some popcorn on the stove for them to take with them as a snack while they watched the movie. They had a great time sitting on the floor on their blanket watching the movie. We will definitely have to do this again this summer. It's the little things that are so fun to kids.

Now of course with how Owen has been lately, I got him to sleep by 2:30 and then he was awake 20 minutes later. Every time I got him to sleep and laid him down, he would just scream. I didn't understand what his problem was or what we were supposed to do to help him. I felt like we were already doing as many things as we could think of. I even tried to sit down with him to let him sleep on me like Ben does, but he didn't like that either. He was just crying in my arms and wasn't settling down. Finally, Ben and the kids came back home and he took over with Owen, giving me a break. I felt bad that I couldn't get him to settle down and go back to sleep. In fact, I just sat down on the couch downstairs by myself for awhile and cried because I was so upset about it and just needed a break. That day I got Christy's package in the mail with our Halo sleep sacks that were mine but she wasn't using anymore for Oliver, so that way I could try using them for Owen. Sometimes I felt like he was too constricted in the Zipadee-zip, and I felt like he was getting too warm in them with his hands and arms contained. I tried the Halo Sleepsack on him for the first time on Tuesday night, figuring he was already sleeping so poorly, it surely wouldn't hurt anything.

Wednesday was July 4th, and Ben took the day off to spend time together as a family. The kids both woke up in a grumpy mood that morning, probably because they were sleeping in the basement together and it was just something different. Ben and I had the idea to go swimming in Canada from 11-1, but with the kids acting grumpy, we didn't know if it would be worth it to go over there or not. Plus, we tried to put Owen down for his nap that morning, but he just woke up crying, so Ben had to stay with him in order for him to sleep.

As we just hung out around the house that morning, I got out the walking toy for Owen, turned it around, and let him stand holding on to it and encouraged him to push it and walk. Watch the video to see him go! He was so excited and so proud of himself. When he would start walking and look back at me, he just gave me a huge grin. Samantha and Aedan thought it was so cool to watch him walk back and forth. In fact, they joined me on the other side so that Owen could walk back and forth between us.

Even though the kids were grumpy, we decided to go over to Canada to swim anyways. It was just too hot in the house to spend the whole day cooped up inside with each other. Samantha and Aedan always love playing in the water, and we knew they would do great as soon as we got there. This was the first time going there with Owen since he was so mobile, and it was definitely challenging. He wanted to crawl everywhere in the pool, not realizing that he was crawling into deeper water or that the fountain would spray him right in the face. I think Owen is going to be a little fish just like his big sister. Ben and I took turns wrangling him in the pool. It was a pretty quiet day at the pool, but we all had a good time.

After swimming we stopped at Smashburger for lunch before heading back home for nap time. We had all the kids nap that afternoon since we had plans to go see the fireworks, and they needed to nap if we were going to stay out that late. Samantha and Aedan didn't put up too much of a fight going to sleep for us that afternoon, even though we had them nap in the basement together, since they started out the day tired and swimming always tires them out. I asked if Ben would give me a break in the afternoon so I could go to his office and work on my blog. With all the trouble we've had getting Owen to sleep and stay asleep, I have had very little free time, which means I have had very little time to keep up with my blog. I like to try to stay up to date, doing one each week, but lately I have been running about two weeks behind, which I don't like to do because then I forget what happened and the stories I want to share. Anyways, I put Owen down before I left, but of course he only slept for about 20 minutes before waking up. Ben got him back to sleep for another 30 minutes, but then couldn't get him to lay down after that. Samantha said they got up about 4:25, and Ben let Owen sleep on him until almost 5:00. He was a tired boy and still wanted to sleep, but he just didn't want to be put down.

After eating dinner together that evening, we drove down the hill, parked our car, and found a spot for the 4th of July parade. We decided to sit closer up the route so that it would start and end earlier. We found a spot in the shade of a building, and we were there in plenty of time to relax for a little while before the parade started. The kids had plastic bags to fill up with candy that was thrown from the floats, and they had a great time running around and waving to the people passing by. (They got quite a haul of candy as well.) Owen really liked the fire trucks and was mesmerized by watching all the action all around him. The hardest part was just trying to keep him with us because he just wanted to get down and crawl around.

Once the parade was over, we went back home so that I could put Owen to bed before taking Samantha and Aedan to watch the fireworks. Ben took Samantha last year while I stayed home with Aedan, so it was his turn to stay home this year. With Sault Ste. Marie being a smaller city, it's never difficult to find parking, so we parked on a side street a couple blocks away from the park by the river where you sit to watch the fireworks. It was fun being able to just take Samantha and Aedan, and not to have to worry about Owen being grumpy and trying to wrangle him past his bed time. As we were walking to find a good spot to sit, we saw the Sayer family. They called us over and invited us to sit next to them. It was fun to be able to talk with Jill for awhile. Samantha and Aedan quickly got to playing with the Sayer girls and the Roe boys, and it brought back a memory from our first summer here when we all went to the fireworks together. We knew no one, and we sat by ourselves at the fireworks. I remember looking around and seeing all the kids playing together and families talking together, and I remember feeling lonely and not knowing anyone, but I said to Ben, "Some day maybe our kids will know other kids and will run off to play like these kids." And now that is reality! I feel very blessed by the people we have gotten to know and the friendships we are developing. Once it got dark enough, which is past 10:00 this far north, the fireworks started, and it was fun to sit outside and watch them light up the night sky over the river. I took a few videos to show Ben since he missed out on seeing them in person. Fireworks also remind me of Ben because he came to visit me in Chicago one summer when we were dating, and we saw fireworks with my family in Park Ridge. Ben and I both remember that trip as being the time we decided we wanted to marry each other and spend the rest of our lives with each other. And Ben used fireworks when proposing to me, so now fireworks give me a romantic feeling in my heart.

Owen was finally starting to do better at night this week. In fact, on Wednesday night into Thursday, Owen slept all the way from when I put him to bed until 6:00 and then went back to sleep until 8:20. Even Samantha and Aedan slept in until about 8:30 on Thursday morning, after staying up so late at the fireworks the night before, which is just amazing for them. It was nice for everyone to be able to get some extra sleep.

To continue with our week of doing fun things together in the morning, on Thursday, after having a slow morning, we went to the library for some time to play and check out books. Rain was coming in the forecast and a cold front was finally going to start coming through to bring us some relief from the heat, so we decided to hang out in the air-conditioned library for awhile. We had a bunch of books that needed to be returned, and Samantha was excited to look for and check out books herself. I was able to get Owen to take a short nap in the Ergo, which was good, especially considering that's about as long as he would have napped if we were at home anyways. Here are all three kids playing in the children's area at the library that morning.

I have been so glad that Owen has been doing better at night. He still wakes up once or twice between when I put him down and when Ben and I go to sleep, but it usually only take a few minutes of holding him to resettle him and he goes back to sleep easily. Then, he has been making it most of the night with only eating once and then going right back to sleep, which is great, and a definite improvement from when he was waking up 5-10 times a night.  I have felt much more rested because of the better nighttime sleep, and I'm always so surprised when I open my eyes and so many hours have passed.

However, our problem is still napping because he won't sleep longer than 20-25 minutes, then he wakes up crying, and often won't go back to sleep unless you continue holding him. The napping issues continue to boggle my mind, and it's especially frustrating because he has been doing it the whole time since we've been back from vacation, so almost two weeks now. The hard part with Owen is that you can get him back to sleep, but then he will wake up when you lay him down. I can't ever rock him to sleep either, I have to walk him around, and if I sit down in the rocking chair, most of the time, he will wake up. Ben can actually sit down with him once he is asleep on his shoulder, and he will stay asleep for awhile, but that never seems to work with me. I mistakenly looked back at my blog for when Samantha and Aedan were Owen's age, and I read that they were already sleeping through the night fairly consistently by now, and Aedan was taking pretty regular naps of about two hours, so that made me sad that Owen wasn't doing those things, too. I think Owen might always be one of those kids that is finicky with sleeping.

Ben once again got Owen to go to sleep on him on Thursday afternoon when I had trouble with him that afternoon. He slept for a little while before waking up, but I couldn't get him back to sleep. Sometimes I feel like Ben is the baby whisperer, always getting Owen to fall right asleep on his shoulder. He just likes to cuddle when he sleeps. Here are a couple pictures he sent of Owen fast asleep on his lap that afternoon.

Samantha likes to wear matching shirts with people, so when she picked out her Guatemala t-shirt, she asked Daddy if he would wear his shirt as well. He gladly obliged, so at dinner that evening, I had to get some pictures of the twins together. I love how silly these two are together. They both have quite the personality and love to make silly faces together. I got so many good ones of the two of them that it was hard to pick just a couple, so here are some of my favorites. :)

And here's a little video that I snuck in. We have fun in our house, that's for sure.

Friday was another pretty normal day with the kids while Ben went to work. I took all the kids with me grocery shopping that morning, which was quite the event. I had never gone with all three kids before. It went fairly well, but it definitely took longer than it typically does. Plus, I tried to get Owen to nap in the Ergo while we shopped, but he had no interest in being contained or falling asleep. That afternoon, I had thought about taking the kids to play over at our neighbor's house if Owen napped, but with Owen not napping, that ended up not working out. However, I did have a brief success with Owen that afternoon. I tried to change my attitude about him waking up and just expected him to wake up after 20-25 minutes, so I guess it wasn't as bad because of that. He hadn't napped at all that morning either, so I hoped that he would go longer than 20-25 minutes, but this is just his norm lately. I tried laying him down after he woke up and I got him back to sleep on my shoulder, and I almost thought I succeeded in laying him down without having him wake up, but as soon as I tried to walk out of the room, he woke up, so I decided to just sit and hold him. I let him sleep on my shoulder, and I finally got him to stay asleep on me like Ben does! I felt bad leaving the big kids upstairs by themselves and hoped they weren't causing too much trouble, but I knew Owen needed at least some sort of a nap that day, even if it meant his nap would be in my arms.

On Saturday morning Samantha and Aedan had their first soccer Bible camp at the Lutheran church around the corner. They were excited to be able to go to the camp together and to see some of their friends. It was definitely different only having Owen at home that morning. Then, after I picked up Samantha and Aedan from camp, we had lunch and decided to go over to campus for a family bike ride. I even put Owen in the Wee Ride bike seat that we haven't used in years. He really enjoyed being a part of the bike ride, to feel the wind blowing on his face, and to get a new perspective on riding bikes around campus. Having all of us on bikes made it much easier to go faster and ride all around together. We had fun and will definitely have to do more family bike rides with Owen in the bike seat.

After the activity of our bike ride, Owen actually took a good nap that afternoon, sleeping for an hour and ten minutes all by himself, without us having to go down and hold him, which hasn't happened in two weeks. We had such a nice family day, playing outside, eating dinner together, giving the kids baths, and getting them to bed at a decent time. The kids fell asleep quickly because they were so tired from being outside playing pretty much all day. I love days like this where the kids are in good moods and we can just have fun being outside and playing together. (It was an added benefit that Owen actually slept by himself, too.) Summertime is just the best.

(Blog about July 1-7, 2018)