On the subject of vacations, we survived a rough start to April including teething and colds and are currently spending time at my parents’ house in WI. About a week ago we flew from Salt Lake to Denver on what was THE ROUGHEST flight I’ve ever been on. I have 
never come so close to using an airsickness bag in my entire life…and that was after my usual dose of motion-sick meds. Once in Denver we had a nice amount of time for our layover, and thankfully the connecting flight to Madison was much smoother. I hope flying back is smooth, or it may take me some time to work up the courage to travel again. The boys traveled great and have adjusted to sleeping in a new house about as well can be expected. It took the first 4 days of vacation to get everyone enough naps to feel human. I was the last to get the head cold the boys previously battled, and it hit just as we arrived in WI. The timing of this trip was in honor of KTP’s wedding and Christopher’s first birthday. We had been considering coming around Christopher’s first birthday (as we also did for William’s), so when we got the wedding invite for the same week it was a no-brainer. Wrapping a family Easter into the same week was just the icing on the cake. Along with a beautiful wedding and a family Easter we also managed to get to Dubuque, IA to see my dear friend Sarah and her kiddos. They are so cute, and such good kids. It was a perfect change of pace. William was impressed by their extensive collection of cars, trucks, and other fun toys to play with. William had so much fun playing with her two middle boys, Henry (5) and Simon (3), that when we had to drive back to grandma’s house he asked if we could stop at Grandma’s quickly and then come right back to play more.
Easter was a two part event. The first half of the event was Easter weekend when we spent some time with Jason’s family at his sister’s new house. After living in India, Boston, and San Francisco (all within the last 6 years or so), they purchased their first new home just 20 minutes down the road from us. It will be great to have all four of the cousins living so close. If life ever slows down, I look forward to having some fun summer play dates. The second half of our Easter event happened in WI this week, where we spent a day with my mom’s side of the family. They are always great to rearrange holidays around when everyone can be there, and it is awesome they all came to spend the day while we visited. The photo below is the great grandchildren with great grandma and grandpa DeBaets.
Arriving in WI included a special surprise I wasn’t anticipating. When we hauled our stuff up to my old room upstairs (now the guestroom), I noticed a new quilt on the bed. I hoped and suspected it might be for me and it was! Mom had gifted us a quilt for our wedding 5 years and 11 months ago. It took me about 4 years and 8 months to select an acceptable pattern. Apparently since mid-December my mother has been doing little other than non-stop quilting without telling me anything about it. It was quite the surprise! I love how it turned out, and only wish the border was done so we could take it home right away. Hopefully it will be done in less than another 5 years!
Just before our vacation I finished up a project I’d been daydreaming about since February. We 
created a board to record the boys’ heights as they grow. We bought the unfinished board and one of Jason’s coworkers routed an edge for us. Then I stained and varnished it to my liking before applying the vinyl numbers and tick marks. The hardest part of the project for me was being patient. I have a hard time finding the time to get out a project in the first place, so when every 15 minutes of work results in 2 days of drying time, it seems to drag on forever. I’m pretty pleased with the results though, and hopefully it can be a keepsake for a long time. We will have some measurements to add next week when both boys have well-child visits (William 3, Christopher 1).
Christopher turns one tomorrow! He is still a happy bug most of the time although teething was pretty hard on him. He finally got his front two teeth, bringing his total count to 4. He understands a lot but still doesn’t say much of anything. My mom is convinced he says “yah” and “hi”, although mostly he just shakes his head “no” at everything. He’s still a great eater, but his lack of teeth make it a bit challenging. At least he doesn’t get angry and flat out refuse foods like his brother did. He’s not too keen on grandma and grandpa’s dog, which is funny since Mike and his tennis balls helped teach William how to crawl a couple years ago. We’re going to have a serious week of sleep training next week when we’re back in Utah before Jason leaves town for a week for work.
William is doing better with potty training. It seems to be a matter of stubbornness and motivation. He doesn’t do sticker charts, couldn’t care less about M&M rewards, and generally dislikes the suggestion of using the potty when not on his terms. The one thing that seemed to get us started in the right direction is when we realized he really liked to play Angry Birds on my iPhone. That got us further in a few days than we did in the last 6 months. Then we got a Kindle for our upcoming vacation (and because I wasn’t fond of him always wanting my phone) and his first dry day was the day it arrived and we said he could play it IF he stayed dry. I guess it’s all about knowing what buttons to push when they’re ready. He has days where he stays dry completely, but still has trouble pooping in the potty. I’m often reminded, “We don’t say poop, we say stinkies”, which is what they say at daycare. He grew out of the first set of underwear I bought for him (Spiderman) without ever wearing them. I guess we will hand them down to Christopher and just hope he potty trains a little earlier.
Here are a few pictures from our trip so far. I’d have taken more, but we had a few days of travel, a couple days of a nasty cold, and a couple days of pretty nippy weather that kept us house bound. Hopefully we can continue to enjoy the next few days before flying back to warmer weather.
