Our beautiful little Travis Ives King! Born: September 23, 2006 This is the hospital picture taken on September 24, 2006, just before we went home.
Here is Travis just before turning one, making a mess as always!
And this is Travis yesterday. He is making his "pirate face".
Here is Travis' cake:
The boys have been obsessed with black widow spiders these last months, checking out every book from the public library that you can possibly imagine on the subject. So I made him a black widow birthday cake. Pretty creepy, huh? When Westley got home from school, he had three observations: #1) the hourglass is on the wrong side of the abdomen (yes, I realized this, but I needed to put it there for decoration's sake); #2) there were no spinnerets, and #3) where were the eyes? He did congratulate me, saying it looked "cool".
Some recent happenings around here: We went to a fireworks show on August 30th for Labor Day weekend. The church near my folks' house in Mesa puts on a huge firework show for the Fourth of July, but they had to postpone it this year for some unknown reason. They rescheduled it for Labor Day weekend. They also had a little carnival going on with bouncy house things (what are these things called anyway?) at it. When we got there, we let the boys pick one to go on (the lines were super long!), and then they played on the nearby park playground. Then we went and sat on our blanket and goofed around until the fireworks started. Caleb loved it, but Westley fell asleep during it. We had left Eliza and Travis at home in bed with Grandma and Grandpa, since the show was so late.
In line waiting to go in the Spider-man bouncy house.
Waiting for the fireworks to begin. I even did a little tumbling on the lawn and found that I can still do a round-off back handspring. Of course, I was very sore for about a week afterward!
Last Saturday, Tony the Tiger was at Walmart promoting Kellogg's cereals, so we went. The boys got to eat a couple sample bowls of cereal and then get their picture with Tony. It was fun for a free Saturday morning activity.
They had done this in February also, at which point I took only Caleb and Westley. Caleb at that time was afraid of Tony. He wasn't afraid anymore, and I thought for sure that Travis would be, but Travis wasn't--he kept going up to Tony to try and show him stuff and talk to him. But Eliza sure didn't like him. Westley tried introducing Tony to Eliza, which just made her scream in terror. It was all in good fun...
I got my hair cut again. I keep going shorter and shorter. I'm thinking next time of just shaving it all off. Not really, but I thought I'd post a few pics.
This one is at the Mesa Temple. Corey and I finally made it to the temple again on Saturday, for the first time since February. Even though we live so close, it sure is hard arranging a sitter and getting over there. After all we went through to get a sitter (calling several people, getting one, then having her cancel last minute, so calling again and finally finding one last minute), I almost wanted to skip the temple and just go out to dinner. But I really needed the spiritual uplift and felt a lot better about stuff after we came out. And we did go out to a brief dinner at Applebee's, which is so nice without the kids. It's almost boring, though, because I'm so used to having episodes to deal with when out in public. Just the two of us just seems so calm! Too bad I forgot to have the server take a picture of us together, something we haven't had since February 2007 when we did a swing dance at the ward talent show! Here's that picture, in case you were wondering:
We've been letting Westley walk to the bus stop by himself in the morning. It's six houses down, so not far, and then one of us goes down there a few minutes after he leaves to make sure he got there and that he gets on the bus. This week Caleb started walking down there with him. Yesterday, I went down after they left. I was able to see them walk past the last couple houses together. They were holding hands. It was so sweet!
This morning, Travis wanted to go with them too. I'm not as lenient about the idea of the three of them walking completely unsupervised, the way Westley and Caleb are the first few minutes of the walk. So after they left, I followed along behind, lagging back far enough that Westley didn't really realize I was following yet. It was so cute! Travis, the typical 2-year-old, would stop every few steps to look at something on the ground or on a bush. Westley would stop Caleb and walk back, take Travis by the hand and tell him to come along. He wouldn't leave Travis behind. It was such a wonderful sight to watch, I almost cried.
It seems my life is an endless cycle of sleep, no sleep. Of course, the no sleep cycles always seem to be at the forefront. We are currently going through one of those. I don't know why I even bother going to bed at night sometimes, I get up so many times for different things with different children. Caleb is my night owl, always up about 4 times before he finally settles down for the night. Travis has been waking up screaming in various parts of our end of the house at various times of night. I think he might sleepwalk. One night, I found him curled up in the middle of the hallway! Then there's Eliza. She is almost 9 months old and still getting up at least once every night. She did actually sleep through until 5 am over the weekend (Friday, Saturday AND Sunday nights), but the last two nights has reverted back to her old wake-up time of 3:00 am. I really am at a loss. She's eating plenty during the day, but at 3 am, she always sucks down 7-8 ounces of formula before going back to sleep. Last night, I didn't feed her, I just moved her to her port-a-crib, which is still set up in our closet from John and Allison's stay here on Friday night. I think she went back to sleep. I don't really know. I shut the closet door and the bathroom door and then put my earplugs in.
So that's how it goes here. Aside from the kids always waking up (Westley has had a few bad dream nights, but otherwise, he sleeps all night, though he still keeps really early hours in the morning--5:30 am is the norm), Corey has been working tons of night shifts and getting into bed at about 2:30 am, which is when my day really starts. Being that as it is, I think I'm going to cut this vent short and head off to bed. Last night was one of the harder nights, and I'm plum tuckered out!
On Sunday, August 31st, I had to deal with the usual wrestling match during Sacrament meeting. I wish that we could sit on a back row that isn't in the cultural hall, with the hardwood floors and hard chairs, because our pew is like a mini-playground. I'm sure it's very amusing for people sitting behind us, albeit embarrassing for me. I don't even want to know what the people think when they sit behind us. I'm sure we're a huge distraction from the service--with Travis escaping under the bench every five minutes, Eliza now escaping as well, Westley acting like limp spaghetti because he doesn't want to sit up, and Caleb (the klutziest 3-year-old ever) bonking his head every time he moves and screaming. I feel like my hair is standing on end and that I've revealed myself every possible way with kids climbing over my clothes and pulling them up and out and everywhere by the end of the meeting.
Well, this past Sunday, after chasing down Travis and getting him back to the pew, I sat him on my lap, with him facing front when suddenly...SMACK!!! He reared back, throwing his hard little noggin right into my lip. It was excruciatingly painful--and then I started bleeding. I handed Travis over to Corey, trying to stop the tears that naturally start flowing after being struck in such a fashion, and went to the ladies' room to find that he had given me a fat lip, which was actually a split lip on the inside, now a cankersore.
I have never wanted to leave church so badly in my life. I would have too, but Corey had to leave early himself to go to work, and I didn't want to have to drag all four kids away from church, especially when they were enjoying their classes so much. So I stayed. Next time, I'll remember to sit Travis facing me. Or maybe just have Corey deal with him. Now that I think about it, Travis also enjoys head butting...
