Update

So, just a couple updates...Chris's arm is healing quickly and he'll be starting full time again this Thursday. As frustrated as it has been for him to not be able to exercise as usual, it's been great having him around the house a bit more often these past couple weeks (especially after a 3 week vacation in August). He's started running again, and that feels good. He can't bend his arm totally straight yet, but he's going to a physical therapist a couple times a week and is working on it.

Our little princess has been sleeping beautifully lately. In the past 4 weeks, we've only had 2 incidents of her getting up and then refusing to go back down. So, hopefully (fingers crossed) that phase in our little 2 1/2 year old is coming to an end. (I've also been reading Love and Logic and getting some good tips from that...however cheesy that book is, it has some good principles...i'd recommend it).

Samuel and Sofia have both started pre-school. Sofia was so excited to be able to start going this year. She's been walking Samuel to school with me for 2 years now. They go 15 hrs/wk, which is perfect both for them to get out and play with friends and for me to have some alone time with little Emmy and get things done around the house. Samuel and Sofia both LOVE going to pre-school, so that feels good.

I've started working one day a week at the institute here doing secretarial stuff. I've always had the job, but have mostly worked from home. Now I've been trying to go in at least one a week to get the things done I need to. Emmy gets to come with me, which is fine since she sleeps in her stroller most of the time. And when she is awake, she's so content to just sit in her stroller and play with her toes or hold a toy. :) (Wonder how long that'll last...)

I've started playing beach volleyball with a group of other moms in our ward too. It's A LOT of fun! I love sports and haven't had a lot of opportunitites to play lately. Now, we just need to get a basketball team going and I'll be set to go!

Emmy is growing like a weed and is as cute as ever. In a couple of weeks, she'll be 6 months! I love this age because she's all smiles and knows who mommy and daddy are. She can get so excited when she comes to us...I love it!

Anyway, that's that. Kids are getting their school pictures taken tomorrow, so hopefully we'll have them to post in a couple weeks. :)

Our growing Emmy

Five months is such a fun age. It's so fun to see Samuel and Sofia smother her with love (sometimes literally). Totally responsive and easy to smile, Emmy is bringing so much joy into our little family.

(I love Sofia's face in this one...the tv was on. and Samuel's in the middle of blinking)

About a month ago, Samuel saw this Yoda shirt at H&M and thought it was so cool. So, like his beloved, muscle-showing, spiderman-shirt, we told him if he could earn enough money, he could get it. After about a month of saving, he declared he had saved enough money. So, triumphantly, after school Wednesday we walked to the local mall to pick it up only to be devastated that they didn't have the shirt in Samuel's size. He was so sad/mad/disappointed and cried all the way home. However, the lady gave us some numbers of other H&M's in the area and the next day we called around to see if they had his size. Only one store in the middle of town had one single shirt left in his size. We asked them to put it on hold and the next day took a little outing on the bus with the whole family down-town to pick up Samuel's Yoda shirt. He was so excited to think that he had gotten the very last one. As soon as we walked out of the store, he stripped his old shirt and put on his new one and after a couple minutes, looked down at it and said, "wow, this is such a cool shirt I have!" Talk about drama!

Sofia decided to use her money to buy this hat (and some princess underwear). She LOVES it :)

Stubborn Sofia

So, here's the situation: Our dear sweet, adorable, cute-as-a-button, Sofia can be far from cute and adorable sometimes. Especially at 2:00 am! The past 6 months (yes, about a month before baby Emmy came along), she started randomly waking up in the middle of the night (most of the times to go to the bathroom, which we praise since she's not going in her bed, right?). But when she does wake up, she wakes up screaming that she has to go to the bathroom, so we calmly (and sleepily) take her to the toilet, let her do her thing, then walk her back to her bedroom. However, when we turn around to say good night, she refuses to lay down and go back to bed. Half asleep, she starts throwing a fit that she doesn't want to sleep and that she wants us to simply crawl into bed with her, or let her crawl into bed with us.

The easy thing would be to let her crawl into bed with us, cuddle up and let our family of 5 all get a good night's sleep (minus mom who keeps getting kicked in the ribs throughout the night). However, we've tried to be strict and told her that she has to sleep in her bed and mommy and daddy have to sleep in their bed. She still doesn't budge. I finally give up and say okay, then I'm going to bed. Good night.

However, as soon as I start to turn around, she throws another fit. I try explaining again that it's in the middle of the night, and that it's time for bed and that everybody else is sleeping. She still just stands there stiff as a board seemingly ignoring me. When I try picking her up to lay her in her bed, she throws another fit. So, I walk out again. I let her cry until she finally makes her way into our room. (Poor Samuel who shares a room with her is an angel and usually, despite the screams, manages to sleep through the whole thing).

When she does come into our room, I patiently walk her back to her room, tell her good night and leave again. She immediately starts screaming. I let her scream until she comes into our room, and then again, patiently walk her back to her room. However, about the "umpteeth" time of doing this, I can only stay so patient. Because really the only thing she wants is for us to hold her, stroke her and snuggle down with her. I do hold her and sing her a song before leaving back to my room, but that doesn't cut it. Sometimes she cries that she can't see, so I turn on her night light, however, she immediately starts crying that it's too bright and hurts her eyes. We've bought a night-light recently which seems to work. But, she's simply stubborn.

So, awhile ago, we made a rule. She can cry all she wants in the middle of the night, but she has to do it outside because everyone inside is sleeping. So, we walk her to the back door, open it, and let her out. She obviously doesn't like being out in the dark, cold night by herself, so she calms down. When she does she comes back in, we walk to her room, we say good night, only to have the entire process to start over again!

Sometimes this process lasts for hours. Sometimes, only a half hour. But, the thing is, she's so stubborn and so tired, she doesn't even know herself what she wants. She can't simply fall back to sleep for some reason.

This happens only randomly and lately, the days that she doesn't wake up in the middle of the night, she wakes up in the morning having wet her bed. Every morning whether or not she was up in the night, she always wakes up happy and ready for the day like nothing even happened. We make it a point to try to talk to her and let her know, we weren't happy last night because she wouldn't go to sleep and she always quickly agrees that tonight, she'll sleep the whole night.

Lucky for us, Emmy, like her brother, sleeps like an angle through the whole thing. But, it's been exhausting lately and we have no idea what to do. What's the best way to go about handling her in the middle of the night, when our patience is spread thin? How can we change this behavior?

Sorry for such the long entry, but any advice would be helpful. Thanks.

Uncle Steve!!!

So, after grandma coming in April, then Heidi coming in July, we ended this summer with a week's visit from Uncle Steve. What can I say, if we don't get to visit my family, my family gets to visit us!

It was so great having Steve here and being able to show him around. Samuel absolutely LOVED having him around. Sofia thought it was pretty special as well. (Emmy was indifferent) The kids had a great time showing Steve their school, the shark museum, the islands, playing spiderman, telling stories and working in the garden. When it was time for Steve to go back home, Samuel asked us why he had to go and we explained that he had to start work again. Confused, he asked why he couldn't just work at daddy's work and stay here in Sweden. If it were only that simple...

Here's a couple pictures of our week.