A Project and a Birthday

Once again, too much time in between posts. I will freely admit I've been neglecting my blog (and grading papers) because I finally started reading the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris and they kind of took over every free second of time I had. I only read the first 4 and had to make myself stop so I could get other stuff done!

We've been wanting to paint Ella's room since we moved in, and we decided it would be great to have it done for her when she came home for her birthday weekend/Thanksgiving Break! So last week, every extra minute we had was thrown into redoing this room:

And making it this room:

I know, I know...it's pink, huh? That's what Ella requested--"bright pink" actually, and we went for it! I think it turned out pretty great, right?? This was our first time ever painting a room, and it went pretty smoothly! We are no longer painting virgins!

We also wanted to redo her little chest of drawers. It belonged to my grandparents, and it was a blonde-ish wood with bronze hardware. We wanted it to match everything else in her room, so we pretty much copied my DIY-idol, Just a Girl, to the letter in doing this thing! It turned out pretty well! The only thing is that we only let the paint dry about 20 hours when we probably should've let it go longer because of the rainy weather. The TV scratched the paint off immediately! But it still looks great!

Ella loved it! She still is a little apprehensive about sleeping in there alone, though. It's way down the hall and around the corner from our and Kamden's bedrooms, so the first night back she wanted to give her bed in Kam's room a go.

He's supposed to be lying down to sleep. Riiiiiiiiight. She was going to read one book and then go to sleep. She kept calling out to tell me he was standing up. He was a little distracting=) So she did sleep in her own room that night, but half of the night I was in there and the other half her daddy was:) And then as soon as he came back to our bedroom, she was in about 30 minutes later! We'll see if this continues to be a pattern=)

The next day was Ella's 5th brithday party!!! Yes, our little lady turned 5 years old on Sunday!!! Unbelievable. Her party was a lot of fun...the kids seemed to really enjoy themselves! Here's the birthday girl on her throne...

And here's her beautiful (and delicious!!!!!!!!) Margie cake! (For those of you who aren't family members, Kaleb's Aunt Margie does all the cakes for the family...and the are all just as gorgeous and unbelievably, sinfully delicious!

Ella's main gift from us this year was a bicycle! And a princess helmet and elbow pads, naturally. She loves it!

And lastly, the other child. He's doing well...I know you saw the picture of him in his crib, and you're probably wondering (if you care at all) how his sleep is going. Well.......he does start his night out in his crib, but he wakes up around 1 and I just put him in bed with us so that I can function at work the next day. However! Kaleb and I are both off this week, so we are dedicating ourselves to some serious sleep training with the boy! Last night went great! He went down after his last meal around 10. He slept until probably 12 or 1, when he woke up fussing. Kaleb got him to go back down until maybe 2 or 3. I went in and got him to go back down without nursing!! He woke back up at 5, and that was basically morning, so I brought him to our room and he ate and played for a while before going back to sleep. He went from 10-5 without needing to eat!!! So now that I know he can do it, it'll be much easier to just let him cry without worrying that maybe he really is hungry. Hopefully, though, his waking will start to diminish. Fingers crossed!

At Kamden's sitter's house, there is a walker. And Kamden loves this walker. He goes everywhere in it. He comes to meet us in it when we pick him up, laughing all the way! We were going to get him one, and then one of our friends at church told us she had one she wasn't using!! We've only had it one day and it's already been a HUGE lifesaver!!! He just smiles and laughs and roams the house in it!
It's so nice to know he is able to be mobile yet contained=) He goes all around the house on his hands and knees, too, but the walker makes it much harder to get to cords and wires=)

Lastly, this sweet picture of my sweet possessive baby boy. Does it look like he's saying, "She's mine!!" Oh, I love my life!

The Tale of the Boy Who Cried...Every 2 Hours.

Once, there was an adorable, sweet, funny, heaven-sent baby boy named Kamden. He was (and is still) adored by many. He was a very healthy baby, weighing in at 19 lb 13 oz at 6 months, and every sign indicated that he should be sleeping through the night by now. But was he?

No.

His parents thought that maybe, just maybe, it was because he was still sleeping in a pack-n-play by their bed...and was able to eat any time he woke up because his mama wanted to sleep and thought it was much easier to just put him in bed with her, latch him on, and fall back to sleep...several times a night. So, maybe they were waking him up! Yes, that must be it! Maybe Daddy's snoring, or being able to smell Mama just a few inches away was what roused him from his sleep and made him think "time for a midnight/2 a.m./4 a.m./10 p.m. snack!"

So, the tired Mama and Daddy bought a baby monitor for the sweet thing and put him in his very own bed in his very own room at 8:30 the night he turned 6 months old. (They waited 6 months because his mama, who reads entirely too much, read that the risk of SIDS goes down if he co-slept in their room for the first 6 months!)

And everything was great! And then it was 10:45. And he awoke, certain that he was just starving to death. So Daddy tended to him for a while, and there was just no consoling him, so they thought maybe, just maybe he was needing his last meal for the night. So the mama let him nurse...and he fell asleep after about 10 minutes of eating.

This happened again at 1:10, 1:50 (at 1:10, Daddy got him to go back to sleep), 3:30, and at 5:30, when Mama fed him and brought him to their room so she could pump and start getting ready for the day. Oh, my. Is this what it's going to be like every night?

The mama and daddy certainly hope not!

That, my friends, is how Kamden's very first night in his very own bed in his very own room turned out. It gets better, right?

Oh, and yes he will take a paci, but if you really want to see a violently angry 6-month-old baby, you should try offering Kamden a paci when he really just wants to nurse. It ain't a pretty sight--and the sound is even worse!

Excuses and Happy Halloween!

So here's my excuse for the length between posts this time!

It is Election season at the Breaux house. As most of you know, my wonderful better half is the Election Coordinator for our county...which means for about 2-3 weeks during the fall and sometimes the spring, too, he has to work LIKE A DOG every single day. Seriously, he has not had a day off since October 19!!! We so appreciate all the hard work he does for our family!! Sadly, this means he has to work longer hours so we don't get to see him as much. And you can probably guess how well Kamden does when I'm trying to do something besides give him my undivided attention...so blogging has been out of the question! But right now he and his daddy are taking a much-needed pre-bedtime nap together, so here I am!

Yesterday was Kamden's first Halloween, and also Kaleb's and my first real Halloween together! Why? Well, like I said, it's Election season...it's always Election season during Halloween! So this is the first time he's had Halloween night off since he started working for Jefferson County 3 years ago!!! We were pretty excited about it, and we had a Halloween Party to go to! We got Kam's outfit last weekend, and kind of procrastinated on our's...okay, we really procrastinated...we were at Goodwill and Spirit Halloween Store yesterday afternoon getting what we needed for our costumes:) Can you guess what we all went as?

Okay, Kam-o is a monkey...and the cutest monkey I've ever seen=) Kaleb went as Harry Caray, the late Cubs announcer...well actually he went as Will Ferrell doing Harry Caray. It was hilarious! I wish I would've filmed him!!! And I went as the Octomom. I was thinking I'd just get Ella's dolls and hit up Goodwill for however many more I needed to make 8 so I went to her closet and started pulling them out...the girl has 8 baby dolls!!! I could only fit 7 of them in, so I just threw Kamden on my hip and called him my 8th! And we could not get a good family pic...closing his eyes wasn't part of Kaleb's get-up...he just has the tendency to do that when he takes pictures! Haha...and I forgot to take my glasses off for the picture. Oh, well!!

The party was a lot of fun...and we got to fall back last night! It's my favorite night of the year. Kamden didn't really understand it this morning, though, as he was crawling all over me at 6 a.m. ready to start the day! We had a talk, but I don't think it's sunk in yet. He's been realllllllllllly sleepy today, and cranky for a lot of it. He didn't rest much yesterday, though, so we are praying that's why! A little boy at his sitter has come down with H1N1...and I am reminding myself that God is in control, not my worrying, oh, about every hour on the hour since we found out=) We started some vitamins as I've read that Vitamin D deficiency is thought to be a cause of all influenzas...and mostly we're just praying and trusting God to keep our baby boy well! He had his 4 month shots this past week (yes, I know he'll be 6 months(!!!) on Wednesday) and he never ran any fever or anything. He's still eating anything we'll give him and he coughs a bit but it's mostly when he's upset and he's done that since he was about 3 weeks old. Don't know who he could get that drama from!! =)

I'd also like to ask for your prayers for Kaleb's family...you may remember that they lost a cousin suddenly a couple months back. We found out yesterday that another cousin passed away Friday night...he had a pulmonary aneurysm that caused a heart attack. He was only 30 years old...I had the privilege of meeting him at the other cousin's funeral, and he was such a wonderful guy, so full of life. We were throwing around plans to go visit him in New Mexico in the future. It's just so very tragic, and something that everyone's just scratching their heads about. Please keep the family in your prayers in these coming days, weeks, and months.

I think that's about it for this update...I should really attempt to do my lesson plans while Kam is asleep!