Update.... Finally

I guess it's about time for an update now that I am getting over the embarrassment of the last post of donating my breastmilk to my brother-in-law.

Life hasn't been too exciting lately besides the sleepless nights from our little boy who doesn't like to be left alone to sleep. We have been working on helping him sleep through the night or at least to go more than two hours before he wakes up (okay so let's face it I need to get a good nights sleep to remain sane in a house full of boys). Getting Colter to sleep through the night has consisted of alot of crying, not just from him but from me also. It has been so hard to let him cry. Thanks to Chris's help and Dr. Weissbluth's book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child", Colter seems to be sleeping better. It's only been a couple of nights, but he is doing much better. Hopefully, it will continue to do better so that I can catch up on all of that lost sleep.

Colter is now five months old and is growing so fast. We love his smiles and giggles, but he has a really cute pouty face as well. He babbles all the time, and has learned to scream (not cry), which can get pretty loud and annoying. He drools non stop and we are constantly changing his clothes because he soaks them. We can tell he is going to be a trouble maker because he is so curious about everything. It is about time to childproof the house.

Tanner and Dallin have been busy with school. We try hard to keep up on their homework. Tanner gets so much homework some nights that it can take up to three hours. Chris and I personally feel that this is too much homework for a 9 year old. I am planning on talking to his teacher about it, but I don't want to offend him so I haven't yet. We feel that this amount of homework is taking away from family time. Tanner just keeps plugging away with it though. We are so proud of him.

Dallin is learning to read, and he reads to us for twenty minutes everynight. He is doing amazing in spelling. He has gotten 100 percent on every spelling test, which we don't study for at home because he says that he already knows them (and apparently he does). At parent teacher conferences his teacher said she couldn't beleive that he has gotten 100 percent on every spelling test.

Chris is busy finishing up his last year of grad school. He works three days a week at his intership and is in school the other two days, and on the weekend he works at his regular job. On Fridays, I am lucky if I get to see him for an hour. Sometimes I meet him for lunch just so I can see him. This pictures shows how exhausted he is. He even has a highlighter in his hand.

I am grateful to be able to be at home with the kids and I'm having fun working on improving my homemaking skills. I am trying to lose those last 5 lbs. (well maybe 10) by going to the gym at least 4 days a week. I just can't seem to give up the chocolate and goodies. Since I have been nursing, I have used the excuse that I could have the extra calories, but now that I am only breastfeeding part-time right now I need to start doing better. Hey I am eating a yucky "Healthy Choice" meal right now for lunch, and I'm doing this while feeding the baby and writing this blog. That should burn some extra calories.

We hope all is well with everyone and hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season.

The Annual Tippets Family Halloween Party

Well, we had our pumpkin carving contest again. My Grandparents are farmers and they have a pumpkin patch and so each year we go select our pumpkins and bring them home for a contest. This year there was the added twist of my sister Amber bringing over her new boyfriend. You must know that in the past when she has brought boyfriends over they usually appear once and never return again because they think that we are either obscenely strange or just down right offensive. Apparently, this year Amber sufficiently prepped "Han" for what he was in store for because she informed everyone that she had "warned him." I choose to believe that all of her previous boyfriends were weird and that we are the normal ones.

Any how, the party was a success we carved our pumpkins, played spooky music, and ate lots of good food. Then we put the kids to bed and introduced Han to a long standing family tradition of playing Rook. He got schooled, and so we decided to bring out another family favorite...Sequence. If you know our family very well then you are aware that we are all addicted to gambling. I am currently in recovery and have been clean for almost 2 years. Any how we don't just play sequence we have to make it a little more interesting with a little friendly wager. This time we came up with the great idea of making the loser drink a cup of Andrea's breast milk. We had 3 teams; Breanne and Judge, Chris and Nick , and Amber and Han.

And the losers were........................................................Judge and BreAnne. Luckily for BreAnne, Judge took one for the team and devoured it before anyone could do anything about it. Apparently he liked it.

Also, you may find it interesting that Han liked our family he was quoted as saying the next day that "it was one of the funnest nights of his life." He also told Amber that it was going to be very difficult if they break up because he is still going to come hang out with her family.

Finally, a normal guy for Amber!

Is This a Courtesy Laugh?

I think he might just giggle out of courtesy so that we don't feel so silly acting life goof balls. Just so you are aware---the silly laughing and tongue clicking is Grandma Tippets.