David, Molly, Annika, Benson: October

Email excerpts:

10/7: We have had a good week... except for night time. These kids are AWFUL sleepers lately. Annika has been waking up during the night the past few nights (she hasn't done that two nights in a row in probably 6 months). Last night she was up from midnight to 2 am screaming "dadadada!". She would be quiet for a few minutes and then start up again. I know I will laugh about it someday, but it is seriously so hard. I have to pray for compassion and patience for her during the night because it doesn't take long to get fed up with her pointless crying. Benson actually slept better last night than he has been lately. Over the past 3 or 4 weeks he has been waking up several times during the night. The most frustrating part about it is that he was sleeping so well from about 2 months to 3 1/2 months. He was sleeping until 4 or 5 before waking up to eat and then going right back to sleep. Now he eats at least 2 times every night and is up a few other times for some reason. The last two nights I have probably got 3 or 4 hours of sleep. yuck! And David isn't getting as much sleep as she should either because he has been helping with Annika's craziness during the night. Please pray for our children to start sleeping better! Benson has been taking good naps lately, so that's good at least.

I made some missionary goals during conference. I have two people that I am going to befriend and try to bring closer to Christ. I will keep you posted.

We are still loving our van. It is so convenient and comfortable for our little family! I used it for a little scout field trip to The Outlook newspaper and the library this week :) The boys kept commenting on how nice it is. We're pretty fancy now. iphones and a minivan :)

Conference was awesome! I have some rereading to do! Where did you watch conference? Did you have any investigators watch with you?

Oh big news for Annika... something must have clicked in her brain with the talking thing this week. She has probably said 25 new words in the last week! and one of them is ABBY!! Some of her new words are baby (her first 2 syllable word), awake, nap, bib, shoes, church, papi (grandpa), Rose, momo (Amayah), foot, water, eat, chair, Elf (possibly her new favorite movie), zoo, beep, cake, caca (Jessica), book, work (her answer when I say "where is daddy?"), bed, bath, burp, mom milk (for the milk that Benson drinks:). Another funny thing, when I'm using the bathroom, she almost always comes in and says "poop?" asking if I'm going poop. She also has been putting my nursing cover on and putting her baby under to feed her. After 30 seconds, she pulls the baby out and burps her. It's pretty funny and cute and smart! :)

10/14: We had a semi rough weekend w David being gone at a drivers Ed conference. He left right after school Friday and came home at 9 pm Saturday. I do not envy single mothers. Thankfully Annika slept through the night on Friday. But benson woke up like 4 times. Someday I will sleep again.

Annika's newest word is apple. I've been trying to get her to say Keenan and Dustin but she's having a hard time. I'm sure she will by Christmas though. She still says the f word for truck. It really gets us laughing:) she also loves walking over to the middle school field to watch soccer and football practice. We still go to Pam's playground a few times a week.
Benson is quite social. He loves to smile at everyone. He laughs a lot when I do pat-a-cake or talk in weird voices to him. There is one voice that David does that makes him cry. It's pretty cute in a sad way. Annika loves to help him roll. She's not very gentle. She just shoves him over onto his tummy. I am trying to teach her that she can't do it unless I'm w her. She usually looks at me and asks "roll?" before she shoves him over. She loves Benson!
Well I hope you've had another fantastic week! We pray for you daily. Also Annika has started saying prayers with our help. She can say food and Jesus pretty well. She's a cutie and a stinker.

10/20: I can't remember a lot that we did but I just know I'm tired. So we must have been busy. Either that or I don't get enough sleep:) benson is actually improving at night. Thank you for your prayers.
> Tonight we were just hanging out at home when Annika heard sirens. She jumped up and started yelling truck truck truck! (But it was the f word) David and I were laughing pretty hard:) her newest words are neck, dark, star, move, wal mart, Mexico. We're working on Arizona. move is my current favorite. When she's walking by us she just says move, move. We're also working on "move please". She still thinks her name is Abby. We brought that wood stove home from grandmas. The one that mom had for preschool. Not sure if you remember it. Annika loves it! Grandma is recovering well from her knee replacement surgery. She no cartilage and padding left in her joint so they decided to do a replacement. Bambie was there for a few days. The morning we went to visit, Bambie had slept in because she took a sleeping pill instead of her thyroid meds she takes at 6 am. Pretty funny.
> Benson is such a happy baby. We went to a BBQ for David's ELL kids on Friday and all the HS girls were holding him and he smiled at all of them. He loves attention:) he started grabbing for toys last week. I like putting my face close to him when he lays on the floor. He grabs my face and smiles and laughs.
> We're going to cannon beach with David's family next weekend. I hope the kids are good in the car and sleeping at the condo. It will be fun to see Stephen. He has a concert there and that's why we get the discounted condo price. I'm hoping to get some good beach pictures of Annika.

11/4: We had a fun Halloween. Annika was a tiger and benson a farmer. They were adorable. I thought benson had an ear infection last week but he is just congested. He is 5 months old as of last Wednesday! He is such a sweet boy. Sometimes he just looks up at me and looks into my eyes for several seconds. He smiles and laughs all the time. He's a very happy little guy. I love my kids!
Annika loves benson so much. I love watching them together. She definitely is still a 2 year old and takes his binky sometimes. But overall she is very sweet and concerned for his happiness. The other night he was "talking" to us and she got down on the ground by him and said "oh ya? Oh really?" She was talking to him like David and I do. So cute.

Cheese! This girl loves cheese!

I love putting Benson next to Annika first thing in the morning. She is usually up before him, watching a movie.

Benson wrapped in the soft blanket Bambie made him. He is such a smiley boy!

She wanted to wear her costume to Pam's Playground. It was one of the first days of October. I decided costumes in public are fine for the whole month. :)

My sweet babe

bumbo baby!

He doesn't get a lot out of tummy time. He still isn't rolling over. But he sure is cute!

mega binky!

those eyes!

Aunt Bambie! We went to visit her at grandma stock's house. I still love visiting my grandma's house. It was a bonus to see Bambie too!

that smile!

Annika prefers her own swing. But she still does it so I can get a cute picture :)

concentrating on removing crayon wrappers

love my girl in overalls

one of my favorite faces she makes

reading with Papi :)

sleeping on the way to the OR coast! Unfortunately, Benson travelled horribly. Especially on the way home. And he slept terribly at the condo. Oh well. The beach time was fun and worth all the trouble, I guess :)