Move Over, Soothie...

Unlike Benjamin, Rhett has been very fond of the pacifier. But recently he has discovered the self-soothing capabilities of his thumb. He's not consistent with it yet, so he still uses a pacifier, but I'm voting for the thumb. Like I said, self-soothing. Our kids will probably have braces anyway.

Snoozin' Update

Benjamin's sleep in his big-boy bed has gone so much better since the first nap! We think he just needed time to get used to it. Still, he doesn't always sleep soundly. And he doesn't sleep late anymore. The past few mornings he has been up early. And it's nearly impossible to get him to go back to sleep. This morning we wound up with the whole family in bed together: Rhett because he's always there anyway, and Benjamin because something woke him up early and he wouldn't go back to sleep by himself. He was like a little sleepwalker this morning, something I hope doesn't become a habit.

Today he was nearly falling asleep at his high chair at lunch so I put him down for a nap. I had to return him to his bed a few times before he finally fell asleep. About halfway through his nap I heard a loud thud, and a cry. I think he fell off the bed. But it was quiet after that. A while later I went to check on him and found this. Apparently when he fell off the bed he only made it part of the way back on.

Official

Also...

Paul forgot to mention that BYU President Cecil O. Samuelson was there with his wife Sharon! We were allerted to their entrance on the sidelines when a whole crowd of Cougar fans next to us started chanting "Cecil! Cecil! Cecil!" It reminded me of the "Cecil is my Homeboy" shirts seen on campus.

Okay, so maybe it's not that interesting, but I thought it was cool.

BYU vs. University of Washington

As you should know, Vicky and I have been looking forward to the weekend of Sept. 6, 2008 for a long time. Or at least I have. In this time of great anticipation we have been preparing Benjamin for this memorable weekend. "Ra Ra, Cougars!!" says Benjamin everytime he sees the BYU "Y." Vicky also taught him, "Goo Cougars!" He says it in his little boy Benjamin voice. It's really cute and we need to get it on tape. The moment I knew that Vicky and I had succeded as parents was game day morning. Wearing my cougar blue with a large Y on my chest I was ready for the day. I went to get Benjamin out of bed because I could hear him talking. As I approached him he excitedly pointed at me blue and white "Y" shirt and said, "COUGARS!"

That weekend we were also treated to the visit of a few of my friends who had come up to Washington to go to the BYU/UW game and site-see. They flew in on Thursday night. On Friday we drove down to Seattle and saw a number of the city's sites. We visited Chinatown, took a tour of Safeco Field (Mariners), visited Quest Field (Seahawks), went up the Space Needle, saw the Ballard Boat Locks, watched large salmon swim up stream from large underwater windows, ate at Ivars, rode a ferry to Whidby Island, and visited Anacortes. On Saturday we went to the game (I will get to this below), visited the Seattle Temple, and drove senic Chuckanut Drive at sunset. And on Sunday my buddies flew home.

Okay, now to the game. What a game! Wow. We were all very excited to support BYU at this harbor side stadium. Of the 60,000 plus fans there were 10,000 BYU fans in attendence. Even though I was a little disapointed in how BYU played, when the Cougars needed to make a play, they did. As many know, BYU preserved the win by blocking Washington's extra point attempt. And all I can say is that a win is a win.

The play previous to the blocked kick unfortunately is what everyone seems to remember. And as much as I LOVE ESPN (and my love has still not waned), they were completely wrong in how they treated the outcome of this game. UW's amazing sophomore quarterback ran five or so yards for the game tying touchdown and left only two seconds on the clock. What happened next is what ESPN and many many many many many others have gotten completely wrong and have made something out of nothing. Trust me, I was sitting on the same side of the field it happened on. After scoring the touchdown the very excited UW quaterback then threw the ball up into the air. Did anyone notice that ESPN, Fox, nor anyone else ever showed on TV how high that ball flew straight up in the air? I have seen each replay of the play at least 100 times (no joke) and never is it shown how high that ball went. It went at least 30+ feet into the air. Because of this, a celebration penalty was called on him. We need to remember here that the NCAA rule book says when a player throws the ball high into the air after a touchdown, this is a celebration penalty. A rule is rule and we all must live by the rules to make things fair. The penalty is a loss of 15 yards on the extra point attempt. So instead of Washington getting a PAT (point after attempt) at 20 yards it was pushed back to 35 yards. ESPN claims that UW lost the game because of the celebration penalty that pushed the PAT back. A field goal from 35 yards should be a piece of cake for any field goal unit. If you can't make a field goal from 35 yards, you shouldn't be playing high school ball. Jan Jorgenson of BYU said that he knew he had to make a play here. So on UW's PAT Jan Jorgenson blew through Washington's guards and while standing on his feet he blocked the PAT. STANDING ON HIS FEET!!! (ESPN has a sweet picture of it on their website. It also was the #1 top play of the day on ESPN that night.) Jan Jorgenson saved the day and this is why UW lost. Not because of a controversial call. HOG WASH! (If we want to talk about controversial calls, why not talk about the Pac 10 referee's home cooking and blantly missing at least six obvious calls that really helped UW. . . . I better stop here.)

Okay, I needed to get that off my chest, because I am sick of ESPN and everybody else not giving BYU any credit for the win.

Wasn't yesterdays kiester whooping of UCLA great! BYU went up from #18 to #14 in the polls because of it. (Not to mention that the Moutain West Conference played four Pac 10 teams yesterday and we ran the table! BYU over UCLA, TCU over Stanford, New Mexico over Arizona, and UNLV over #15 ASU!)

Below are some of our memories from the game. It was really fun to be there and loudly cheer our Cougars on to victory.

Excited Cougar Nation!

BYU Captains. (#74 is a Construction Management Major.)

BYU COUGARS!!!

HAKA!

Cosmo and the boys at halftime.

GO BYU!

Faithful CougarTown!

Victory! (You can see the score, and Bronco visiting with UW's coach.)

For the record, BYU has not lost a game when Benjamin has been in attendence (he's up to 9 wins including wins over Utah, Arizona, TCU, and Washington.) Nor has BYU lost to Utah since Benjamin has been born. I hope this continues. . .

Labor Day Weekend

Vicky, the boys, and I were treated to a fun and energetic weekend. Dad, Mom, the Segos, Vicky's Mom and older sister all came up to Bellingham to visit. As you know they each came for more than just a visit, they came for Rhett's baby blessing. Below are a bunch of memories from the visit.

Dad and Benjamin went fishin'!

Now that's some clammy instruction! (Birch Bay State Park)

(Dad was teaching us about a clam Lane dug up.)

The sea star queen.

Curious Allie.

Lunch in the park at Bellingham Bay.

Two handsome boys.

Rhett and three cute girls.

Nice catch Lane and Cara.

Happy day.

Baby Blessing Day.

Benjamin and Sarah playing catch.

Uhhh, LANE!, do you know where that has been!?

Lynda's first time with a sea star. (Larrabee State Park)

On a walk in beautiful Maritime Heritage Park.

Maritime Heritage Park, near downtown Bellingham.

Zonked.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Snooze

Sometimes when I'm driving with the boys in the back seat I'll ask Benjamin, "How are you doing?" And he'll say, "Good," in his sweet little almost-two-year-old voice. Then I'll ask, "How is Rhett doing?" And he replies, "Good," once more. And if I ask him, "What is Rhett doing?" he inevitably replies, "'Nooze," meaning that Rhett is taking a snooze.

A snooze. Most days I would love to take one. Most days I don't. And up until recently Benjamin has been a great snoozer during his afternoon naps. But a big change was made in his almost-two-year-old life which has put a wrinkle in our not-quite-perfect-but-perfect-for-us sleeping routine.

A big-boy bed.

Benjamin has been sleeping in a Pack-n-Play since he was seven months old. Up until now we haven't had room for a crib, so it was a great space- and money-saving alternative.

But, of course, he has grown a lot since he first started snoozing in the Pack-n-Play. For weeks, even months probably, he's been sleeping with is face smushed against the mesh sides of his bed, so that when he wakes up the pattern is imprinted on his forehead, and we decided that now was a pretty good time to upgrade the sleeping accommodations.

We had family and friends come into town to visit us recently, so we purchased a twin matress at Costco for their use, and for Benjamin's new bed once everyone left.

The first night was fine. It was Monday, so our Family Home Evening was dedicated to saying goodbye to the baby bed and hello to Benjamin's new bed! We put him to bed that night with no problems.

Yesterday Benjamin's naptime came around. I laid him on his bed and left the room, shutting the door behind me as always. A few minutes later the door opened and Benjamin was at my side. That was the first time he had ever opened a door on his own. Go figure. I tried to get him to go back to his bed. Later Paul, at work, received this text message from me:

Big boy bed = naptime failure

Benjamin cried through the afternoon, cried through dinner, then snuggled in my lap with his blanket for a few minutes where I hoped he'd fall asleep. But he didn't. So we went through the bedtime routine and tried again to lay him down in his new bed. I even tried lying next to him but he would just get up and try to run out of the room. He finally went to sleep after Paul laid on the ground next to his bed.

So this afternoon I anticipated a struggle. And got one. I tried lying next to him. Even after putting his teddy bears and Mr. Potato Head down for their naps, Benjamin still didn't want to go down for his. I spent several minutes holding his door closed from the outside, hoping he'd cry himself into exhaustion and fall asleep in the doorway. When he did quiet down I resumed my tending of Rhett only to be joined by Benjamin a few minutes later. I led him back to his room and repeated the previous scene. This time when Benjamin came out of his room he hovered timidly in the hallway, then sneaked into the kitchen, presumably to eat Cheerios. I led him to his room once more, and laid down again. When he was finally sucking his thumb with his eyes closed I tried to sneak away, but the plastic cover on the mattress gave me away and Benjamin rolled over and said, "No! Mamma snooze!" So I lay back down.

But this is what I have now.

After two and a half hours Benjamin is finally taking a much-needed snooze. And I didn't even have to unpack the Pack-n-Play (which was my plan). I may need to try CJ's felt doll role play idea at our next FHE. Any other suggestions?

Ant Moosh Dada

Benjamin has enjoyed relating this story lately:

Translation: The other day Dad and Benjamin were playing basketball. Dad dropped the basketball on an ant and smooshed it.

Just before we took this video we caught Benjamin "talking" on Paul's phone and repeating the words, "Ant. Moosh. Dada. Dada. Beeball. Moosh. Ant." The things that make an impression on a two-year-old...

Family Home Evening

Can you guess who came to our Family Home Evening last week?

Noah, of course!

We invited our animal friends (of all shapes, sizes, and species, including the Glo-Worms) to help tell the story of Noah and the Ark! It seems that our Noah liked certain animals enough to bring three of each.

We've really just begun having Family Home Evenings centered around Benjamin. We'd love to hear any suggestions for good lessons and activities for 2-year olds. Particularly, we are having a struggle with Benjamin when it comes to saying prayers! We know that he knows how to do it, but he won't. Can anyone suggest a good way to encourage him to want to say prayers with us? Any other fun ideas would be great, too!

Fair-Going

Yesterday we headed north to Lynden, WA to visit the Northwest Washington Fair. Typical of the fair, we saw...

COWS

HORSES

PIGS

And even a KARATE TIGER.

Benjamin had a great time feeling the wool on sheep and lambs, and touching goats' tails and pigs' noses. There were tiny little ponies and big huge Clydesdale horses. We saw some fantastic quilting and photography. All pretty typical things to see at the fair.

Except...

MONSTER TRUCKS!

When was the last time you saw monster trucks at your local fair?

A company closely affiliated with the one Paul works for was a sponsor of the fair, and particularly the monster truck derby, so we got free tickets to both. We looked forward to some pretty exciting entertainment, but for some reason we didn't at all anticipate the NOISE! They were louder than anything I've ever heard in my life, I think. I feared for my children's hearing, but neither of them seemed really bothered. Still, I covered Rhett's ears the whole time and Paul tried, rather unsuccessfully, to shield Benjamin's from the roaring of the trucks. That was actually our first stop at the fair, and we left halfway through to go see the animals and everything else. An interesting experience, to say the least!