Back to Life, Back to Reality

Still no pictures... sorry! We have taken pictures, but cannot upload them until we get our laptop back. We are starting back to normal life today, and we are off to a pretty good start. Brandon has been off since we had Blake (that is over 2 months now!) and he started back to work today. We really enjoyed him being off and I feel like we took advantage of it. We traveled, relaxed, he hunted, we got into some sort of routine with 2 kids, and we watched tons of movies! We watched the box set of Band of Brothers and are plowing through the season sets of The Unit and we cannot get enough. Now it is back to work for all! At least I can still stay in my pajamas for a little while each morning while Brandon is headed to Tuscaloosa at 5 or 5:30.
We have started sleep boot camp for Blake at our house, which means he is learning to cry himself to sleep for bedtime and the naps we are home for. He has done pretty well so far, it is us sharing a room with him that have to deal with it. I am making myself look at the clock and wait 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc. before I put the pacifier back in, and the first night it took a little over an hour, but the second and third nights it only took 5 or 10 minutes. We have just been going so many places that he has been napping in someone's arms or a swing for so long, it was time to get him used to that bed. I did not let Kate cry it out until she was way older, but I also had time to sit there and hold her and look at every eyelash and take note of every sound she made. Unfortunately, Kate has us running around so much that Blake ends up on a blanket on the floor or in his bouncy seat a lot of times. At least he is mostly happy when he is there! That child can sleep through anything- the other day, Kate was banging her pots and pans around his head and bumping into his legs all while he just kept on snoozing.
Speaking of the pots and pans, that is what Kate got for Christmas- a kitchen with pots and pans and all the fake food you could imagine. We had planned on moving it to mom's house until we move into somewhere bigger, but Kate is obsessed with it. She got letters and numbers for the bathtub and the fridge and tons of other toys. She needed clothes, so she got tons of clothes too. On Christmas morning, Brandon and I looked at the piles from Santa, and apparently Kate was a very good girl! Her pile was about 3 times the size of mine, Brandon's, and Blake's piles. Blake is still so little that he did not need that much, but he did get some fun toys to grow into!
Brandon and I got some nice toys too! We got a digital SLR camera that we have been looking at for a while, and we have been taking some great pictures already. We just need to figure out just how to use it, it is a little intimidating! I have NEVER enjoyed video games... EVER! My brother and sister always played them when we were little and Brandon could play Playstation for hours, but I have thought they were boring and annoying my entire life, until we got a Wii this Christmas! It is so much fun and I am more obsessed with it than Brandon. I have had to restrain myself from buying more games, and Brandon had to explain that we need to savor one game at a time or we will never really appreciate it (wisdom from a true video game nerd)! We have already had a few people over to play, but I cannot wait for more people to come play with us. I just wish Kate was old enough to do it, because she is so interested in what we are doing and she says, "bowl" and "fish" when we are bowling and fishing. Anyway, I decided I wanted a Wii Fit (like everyone else, evidently), so I have been calling around to have people laugh at me when I asked if they had any. Finally, the people at Best Buy told me they were getting them yesterday, so I stood in line like a crazy person and got one! You would not have thought that I had 2 kids waiting/crying in the car with Brandon after being at early church and Sunday school- I was determined! Needless to say, I am a little bit of a "gamer" these days and it is cracking me up.