17 day catch up

It seems like I am tempted to title every 3rd post "catch up" so this time I got creative and actually numbered the days I was "catching up" on. So thorough.

• My mom was in town from the 21st- 27th. It was awesome to have her here again.
• My Aunt Maxine went through the temple on the 25th so my Mom and I went to Roosevelt and Vernal for the weekend. It was really cool to be there with a lot of my mom's brothers and sisters.
• On the night of the 25th some of my cousins on my dad's side of the family got together at my Aunt LouAnn's house. It was a lot of fun to hang out and watch everyone be "moms & dads"!
• We stayed at my Grandpa's house for 2 nights. I hadn't seen him since my Grandma's funeral last August. I was glad that he was able to see Elea. It cracked me up because some of the phrases he used and his tone of voice sounded just like my dad.
• On Sunday, the 25th, we stayed the night at Tricia's house. Her little Keaton is a cute baby boy. She took some pictures of him and Elea together since they are just a couple of weeks apart. So cute.
• Monday after I dropped my mom off at the airport Elea and I went to Lori's to visit her and Gavin. I didn't have a lot of time but we were able to fit in the important conversation points with what time I had. ha. Gavin seemed HUGE to me compared to Elea and he is only 1 and a couple of months!
• That night we went to Thriller with Amanda & Tyler at Tuacahn. It was the first date-date that Jeff and I have had since Elea was born-- we went to lunch once when my mom was in town a few weeks after she was born. It was really good-- it's a dance show with different halloween themed skits. A couple of the dancers were from this last season of So You Think You Can Dance so that was pretty cool. I was stressing out the entire drive home from Salt Lake because I didn't have a ton of time to get home and feed Elea before we needed to head down to St. George. On the drive Friday she was really good and slept most of the time. On the way home she woke up after about 2 hours-ish and then would start crying. So while dislocating my shoulder to put her binky back in she would stop crying, but then she would start again. So I would take the next exit so that I could feed her and before I could get stopped and to the backseat to get her out, she would be asleep. This happened the rest of the way home. But I can't complain-- she did really well considering how many miles we covered in such a short time, plus she was in and out of her car seat all day every day that we were gone. (Now she just HATES her car seat).
  
• Wednesday the 29th was Jeff's work Halloween party. I went as someone from the 80's, Elea was a punk rocker (with much guidance from Auntie Gwen), and Jeff was one of the Beijing Olympic Swimming Relay Gold Medalists with 3 other guys from work. I have a picture of Jeff (which isn't really appropriate for mass distribution), but didn't manage to take one of myself or Elea-- I will get one of Elea easily enough since it just involves a onesie, pants, and 2 sweatbands on her wrists but my costume was disposed of within 24 hours.
• On Halloween Jeff had a football game and it was cold and/or windy outside so I didn't go. So Elea and I just hung out at home with the front porchlight off because I totally spaced buying candy for the trick or treaters. (That's one of those adult responsibilities I have yet to master).
• This week I went down to St. George a couple of times- jeff's parents gave their kids their christmas presents early this year-- they paid for us to load up on food for our food storage. Monday my two sis-in-laws and my mother-in-law went to Costco. We were pushing the big pallet type carts (like home depot's) and they were getting really full. So between the 4 of us there were three huge carts, one normal size cart completely full, and 4 kids 3 years old or younger (and shan's pregnant). Needless to say, we got some weird looks and one guy asked if we all lived in the same house. Another girl asked if we were planning on living underground. I'm crossing my fingers I will never have to be 100% dependent on what we've stocked up on, but it's good to know we could last a little while if absolutely necessary.
• Jeff caught a cold towards the end of last week, then Elea caught it, now I have it. I took Elea to the doc on Monday to make sure she didn't have an ear infection or anything and luckily she didn't-- she's just really congested. She only weighed 12 lbs 11 oz.! I knew she wasn't getting big quickly but I thought that she at least weighed 13 lbs. But it isn't a drastic drop percentile wise so her pediatrician isn't worried.
  
• The past week or so-- maybe shorter maybe longer-- Elea has been waking up two or more times a night. I haven't been sure if she was hungry or just waking up for the fun of it or what, but by Thursday morning I had had enough. So I pulled out the Baby Whisperer book again (which I failed miserably on my first attempt when she was a few weeks old). So yesterday was the first day of her napping in her crib and it went a lot better than I expected. It's called the Pick Up/Put Down method-- you don't rock your baby to sleep, but you don't leave them alone to cry it out either. When she cries hard I pick her up, then once she's stopped crying I immediately lay her back down. Over and over and over again. Her first nap yesterday I did that for over an hour. (Thank goodness I only have 1 child!) But then by today her first 2 naps I didn't have to pick her up and lay her down more than once. This afternoon was a little more rough but at least she is sleeping in her crib while it's daylight! BUT the best news of all is that after doing that yesterday she slept through the night last night!! I didn't wake up once. 8 blissful hours with no stupid nightmares about spiders and demons, no Jeff snoring, no baby crying . . . it was fabulous!
• Cedar played Park City tonight and they were ahead until the last 3 minutes of the game. They lost 11-8 so Jeff is officially done coaching until February. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't excited that he's finished. It will be nice to have him just working a normal 40 hour work week without school, coaching, etc.