He Smiles!

It's amazing how such a little thing can make my day so much brighter!

2 month stats:

12 lbs. 5 oz.

23 inch. long

Graham's One-liners

This kid is crazy! He says the funniest things and makes me laugh every day. I've kept on the fridge a list of goofy things he's been saying and I want to record them in a not-so-temporary place. Here they are:

• "Hey! Get off on me!" (He usually says this when Jason is pretending he doesn't see him on the couch and sits on him or when he and Lucy are rough-housing.)
• "Kissing is wiwwy gwoss!" (Translation: Kissing is really gross! He gets sooo mad when we kiss him on the cheek.)
• "Is Ben back in your belly?" He asks this when Ben has gone to bed and he hasn't seen him in a while.
• "A goin' to Disneyland?" (Imagine him saying this in the most whiny voice possible. He asks every day if we are going to Disneyland.)
• "I'm wiwwy not happy with you!" (I think he hears this one too often from Mom.)
• "It's too fair!" (This one is typically said when he's ticked off about not being able to watch TV or something equally annoying.)

And my all-time favorite that makes me laugh every time: "Nuffin' a do..." (translation: There's nothing to do. I don't think he really gets what it means because he says it when we are just sitting down to dinner and he doesn't want to come to the table or when we're getting ready to leave the house. He learned it from Lucy. When she says it, it's not so cute.

He's growing too fast and I find myself rushing and rushing around without really listening to him and enjoying him at this age. I'm going to try to be better at that.

Gratitude Turkey

This is our Gratitude Turkey we made this year. I read about this tradition somewhere and wanted to start it at our house. We made the actual turkey during Family Home Evening one night and then every night before bed (when we remembered) we had Lucy add a few feathers. It was fun to record the things she is grateful for at this age. Here's some of my favorites:

• Snow (she thinks we get ripped off living in Cali where we don't get any)
• Candy
• Jesus
• Teachers
• Bishops
• Oceans
• Baptisms
• Chicken Nuggets
• Toys
• Dad's Job (Lucy gets pretty ticked off when Jason has to go to work, so we've had many conversations about how we need to be grateful that he has a job so we have money for food, clothes and a home)
• Ben, Graham, Mom and Dad (We're grateful for you, too, Lucy!)
  

A Few Notes from Crazytown

Well, tomorrow Benny will be 8 weeks old. This postpartum Mom is struggling, but we're pushing through. Ben has quite a bit of tummy trouble and it's giving me quite a bit of anxiety.

As many of you know, I'm a very routine oriented person. So, as you would assume, I have tried to get my kids on board soon after they are born. Lucy picked up what we were putting down very early. She ate, stayed awake for about 90 minutes and then slept for about 90 minutes. Graham gave us some napping struggles, but slept for at least 45-60 minutes each cycle. Both kids slept 7-8 hours straight at night by 9 or 10 weeks. Poor Ben is having a tough start. He's definitely got some tough stomach issues that he's dealing with. He has a hard time napping for more than 15-20 minutes at a time. Evenings and nights are better. He'll sleep 2-3 hours at a time at night. With the other kids, I was able to let them cry for 5-10 minutes at this point to help them learn to go back to sleep. I just can't do that with Ben. I worry so much that he's in pain. He has terrible gas and I hate to think that "crying it out" would make it worse.

We went to the doctor the beginning of this week to get some advice. I stressed about going because, honestly, it's not like he's arching his back in pain all day. Some moments are worse than others. There are times when I just need to hold him tight and keep the pacifier in his mouth so he can sleep. He's noticeably very uncomfortable when he's trying to relax. The doctor suggested some things (most of which we've already tried or been doing).

Ben is eating mostly breast milk. We give him a couple bottles of formula every day because I hope to stop breastfeeding by the end of this month or the next. (I'm pumping full-time because I hate nursing....but that's a whole other story and might be way too much information for most of you). The doctor suggested we try soy formula for a couple weeks and see how he does. Today is the start of the third day trying that. We'll see how it goes.

Jason is gone this week, which switches my life into survival mode. Lack of sleep and Maggie don't mix well. My family caught me in a couple bad moments last week and so my wonderful brother, Blaine, flew in to help me the first three days that Jason was gone. Blaine has always understood my craziness a little more than others and is able to help me question my thoughts instead of just continuing in my warped sense of reality. He left yesterday and within two hours we had a some dark moments here at the Ray house. We got through it and last night he slept a little better, so I am a bit more rested today.

I guess I wanted to sit down and record a few things while I am in a more reasonable mood so that when another dark moment creeps in I can keep some perspective.

So, these next few lines are for the crying, sleep deprived, frustrated, guilt-ridden Maggie of the future:

• It's okay to hold your 8 week old and let him nap in your arms. It won't turn him into a 8 month old that naps in your arms. There will be time to train him to sleep on his own when he is older and in less pain.
• Picking up your keys and driving away is not the answer. You will regret it later.
• It's okay to get overwhelmed and stressed. Don't feel guilty about it. That just adds to your moment. It's true, you do have 3 beautiful children, a great husband, a steady income, food and a home. But that doesn't mean you can't have feelings of frustration.
• It's okay that Ben is well over the 6 week mark and you have only worked out a handful of times. Your husband has a tough work schedule and you are barely sleeping. Your time will come and you won't be flabby forever.
• Graham's addiction to television will be overcome at a later date. His brain will develop normally and you are not sentencing him to a lifetime struggle with ADHD.
• Your kids will recovery from the times they have watched and wondered why you are crying....again. They've forgotten about it as soon as the tears are gone. They will also recover from the times you have made them cry after losing your patience with them.
• Last, but not least, take deep breaths and try to keep perspective. Enjoy the moments that you get to hold Benny and just sit. That won't last much longer and pretty soon he'll be running around trying to get away from you.

Hopefully these words will bring comfort later today when I'm ready to call Jason and notify him that Ben is in his crib crying, Graham and Lucy are watching Toy Story 2 (for the 56th time) and I am on my way to Mexico.

Growing Like a Weed

Ben-O at one month old
I can't believe how fast he is growing. At 5 weeks he weighed 10 lbs 4 oz. and was 21 inches long. He wore this outfit home from the hospital and it was drowning him. We sure love this little guy!

Cute Kiddos

A few weeks ago I sent the kids out to play with chalk while I made dinner. This is what I came out to see. I thought it was pretty cute.

These two funny kids make me laugh every day. I love hearing Lucy laugh her head off at the funny things that Graham says. Especially when they are pretending together. They fight A LOT, so when they are playing and enjoying each other's company, it makes me smile.

Tonight they watched Peter Pan and then spent the next hour becoming Peter and Wendy and running around the house. At dinner, Jason and I had to pretend to be Tinkerbell and Captain Hook.

It's been a rough few weeks here at the house and I haven't been a very nice mom to these two. But they still give me hugs and kisses and forgive me for screaming at them when they ask for another waffle. I'm so lucky to be their Mom.

Grandma and Grandpa To the Rescue!

What would we do without them? My Mom and Dad came to help us when Benjamin was born last month. They made our lives much easier and the transition to 3 kids a little less rocky. Here's Mom with child #1 and #2. This was right before Jason took her to the airport. I'm surprised I was able to snap the picture.....I was crying my eyes out!
Jason and Dad took the kids to the pumpkin patch. I don't think either of the grown men were too excited about it, but for some reason I had it in my head that the kids really needed to go to one or their October wouldn't have been complete.

We made these spider cookies for our FHE treat while they were here.

Don't you just love the toothless grin? She's lost 6 now and a couple more are pretty loose.

We are so grateful that Mom and Dad could come help us. I think of them every morning when I'm running around like a crazy person trying to get everything done before 7:30 am. When are you coming back?

Hanging out with Benjamin

With the flu and everything else that is going around we are not ready to take Benjamin to church. Today it is my turn to stay home with "Beno" while Maggie and the kids go to church. I decided to take advantage of the time alone to get some pictures of Ben and post them. I found this outfit in the drawer late last night after feeding him and thought it was really cute. I just finished feeding him and wanted to get a picture before he makes a mess of it. We have a hard time getting good picture in our house because the lighting is bad. So I decided to try the backyard on this blanket (courtesy of Aunt Shellie) that matched the theme.

Sweet Benny

Zippidee-do-dah!

Disneyland was awesome this time around. We had two full days to party it up. It was nice not feeling pressured to get every thing done in just one day. We had great company, too! Here's Graham and I finishing up the Mr. Toad ride. I have to say, some of the rides at Disneyland are kinda creepy. Mr. Toad is up there at the top of the creepy list.

We took the kids to Ariel's Grotto, which is a restaurant in California Adventure where you get to have lunch with all the princesses. Here's the kiddos with Ariel.

Here's all the kids with Aurora. Graham was pretty jazzed about the princesses, maybe even more so than Lucy.

He was especially intrigued by Princess Minnie. He watched her for a long time.




I think all the kids look so cute in this one with Cinderella. The lunch experience cost us an arm and a leg and so we probably won't do it again, but the kids had a great time and it was fun watching their reactions to everything.
Here's the fam after riding the Toy Story ride for the 3rd or 4th time. We really liked this one. Although, Lucy did not. She's a little harder to impress than the rest of us.



I love this picture! One of the nights we were there, Jason took Lucy and they went on the Matterhorn and then the teacups. She was pretty scared of the Matterhorn, but has since ridden it a couple more times along with many other big rides I wouldn't expect her to try.


There was a short line to get pictures with the Winnie the Pooh characters. Graham would only do a picture with Tigger and only if Dad was holding him.

What a fabulous trip! We loved our vacation at home with the Grunigs. They are such great friends and we always look forward to spending time with them. For days after they left, Lucy kept saying, "I miss when Peter was here."

Good times with the Grunigs

The Grunigs came to town!! We were so lucky to have them come and stay with us last month. We had a fabulous time and we can't wait for them to come back!We spent a couple days at the beach. The weather was great and the kids had a blast.

We spent much of the second beach day looking for crabs and star fish in the rocks. As you can see in the picture above, Graham was thrilled to be getting his picture taken.

We had dinner one night at Yolanda's. It's a restaurant right on the water. The food is pretty good, but mostly we go for the view and atmosphere.

Peter, Lucy and Abby
Our last picture as a family of just 4

We also went to Ventura Harbor while they were here. There's little shops and a huge marina with hundreds of boats. We stopped for a photo op at these funny murals.
We had to stop for some ice cream, too.

Here's crazy Graham enjoying his cone.

We had such a fun week! It was great watching the kids play and enjoy themselves. Jason took off work and we just played all day. It was like being on vacation, but we got to sleep in our own beds and didn't have to drive anywhere! We're so glad the Grunigs made the trip. We ended the week with two days at Disneyland! More pics to come!

Halloween 2009

We had a great Halloween this year. I have lots of posts I need to do before this one, but I thought it would be fun for the extended fam to see the kids in their costumes. Here's Graham in his Spiderman glory. The mask was a bit snug to begin with, so Dad had to cut the holes bigger and add some length to the straps.
Here's one of our attempts to get all the kids in a picture.

Sweet Benny as an adorable pumpkin. All three of my kids have now worn this costume for their first Halloween. The other two filled it out a little more, being how they were 2 months old when they wore it instead of 2 weeks.
Our beautiful Spanish Princess. Don't you love the model pose? She didn't like that she had to tell people what she was. She wanted them to just know. My favorite Lucy quote of the night was said when we were trick or treating. Her friend's house was out of candy and she said, "Well that's a thummer." She was meaning to say bummer.

Hammin' it up for the camera

We hope you all had a Happy Halloween. Doesn't Benny look like he did?

Benjamin Matthew is Here!

Our little guy made his debut on Friday, Oct. 16. He weighed in at 7 lbs. 11 ounces and is doing great. It's been a little crazy around here, so I took a while getting these posted, but better late then never.

He wasn't scheduled to arrive until Wednesday, the 21st, so we were more than a little surprised when my water broke on Thursday night. I was just making myself comfortable with a big bowl of ice cream and some good television, when I sat down and our adventure began.

We spent the next hour trying to decide if my water did, in fact, brake. I was in denial....big time. This is not what I had planned. There was laundry to do, a van to clean along with many other small things I wanted to get done before Wednesday morning. We called my neighbor and had her come sleep at our house while we went to the hospital.

They didn't have me deliver until the next morning, much to my dismay. So, because I was in a shared room until after the baby was born, there wasn't anywhere for Jason to sleep. So, he made a bed for himself in the van and I tried to get some rest until morning.

The delivery went really well. I was, of course, very nervous until I heard him cry and then I could relax. He was born at 10:16 am on 10/16. Kinda cool. Here we are after getting settled in our own room......finally.

I think this was day 3 at the hospital. With my other kids, I was in no hurry to get home. But this time, I wanted out of there. My Mom couldn't come until Wednesday, so I had friends watching my other kiddos and I was worried about them. It was time to go!

This is the first day home. All tuckered out.

This was the morning before we left, I think. Isn't he cute!

Here's all the Ray kids together. I didn't want the kids to touch him until they were bathed. I'm trying really hard not to be compulsive and crazy about germs.

I think this close-up of Ben is hilarious. He seems disgusted with the world and just wants to be left alone.