It's been busy!!

I can not believe that June is almost over! The first few weeks have been crazy!

We had Jason's cousin's wedding last weekend that started with a Wednesday cookout, Thursday get together, Friday golf (guys), Saturday wedding and Sunday gift-opening. The wedding was fun. My cousin came down to watch Bret since it was an adult reception. I stayed 'til about 9:30pm then went back to the hotel room. Bret did well with Chrissy; I need to leave him for a few hours more often. He needs to get used to other people. My fault, I know.

Father's day was fun. The day started off like this....LOL....So gross at the same time. Jason and I were eating lunch on the couch when I heard splashing. I asked Jason where the heck that noise was coming from. When I looked at Bret, I just busted out laughing because he was stomping his feet in it.....YUCK

Jason got his gifts early. He got some Lowes gift cards (to start working on the basement again :) ), a mousepad with a funny pic of Bret on it and an "I love my Daddy" frame for his desk. Here is a pic of three generations of Starks:


The color is a little off because of the sunlight. Otherwise, it's a cute pic.

I've been checking out a lot of books on child-rearing lately because I've allowed Bret to fall asleep nursing since he's been born. Now that he's almost 8 months old and on the home stretch of nursing, I need to 'teach' him to fall asleep on his own. This is part of the reason why he still wakes up at night (I think). Today I started feeding him more food during the day and we'll see how he is at night. I started reading the Baby Whisperer (thanks Heather!) and so far, I've been doing two no-no's: using props to put my kid to sleep (stroller rides and nursing) and I practice 'accidental parenting' which means you start a bad habit with good intentions (i.e. nursing him to sleep). So, the author basically suggests the EASY method for routines E= eat, A= activity, S= sleep and Y= you time. For the S, she recommends the Put Down/Pick Up (PDPU) method for babies who don't know how to put themselves to sleep. Basically, I put Bret into his crib and walk out of the room. When he cries, I walk in and pick him up to comfort him. Once he stops crying, I put him down in the crib again. I'm supposed to do this until he doesn't cry or falls asleep. I tried this yesterday for his PM nap and it was HELL. We went through it for 1/2 hour and he still cried. I didn't have the heart to keep him crying so I nursed him. He slept for 2.5 hours. Last night he woke up at 1am and I did nurse him. However, I did not get him out of bed when he woke up at 2:30am and then again at 5am. He fell back asleep until 7am. Woo hoo. Today, I started the EASY routine. It's sort of different but it's worth trying. I fed him lunch (solids), played with a new toy that we bought then I put him in his crib. He cried one time. When I put him in his bed the second time, he fussed a little but then started 'talking' to himself. After about 10-15 minutes he fell asleep. ALLELUIA!!!! We'll see how long he sleeps this PM. I'm excited!!

This weekend, we have two birthday parties on Saturday and two graduation parties on Sunday! We're going to be traveling fools......Plus, I think we're going to Milwaukee with Jason in the next week or two....Karen, I'll call you before we leave; maybe we can get together for dinner or something. Then it's off to Tech for the 4th. I am SUPER excited for that trip. I can not wait!

That's my fun for the past few days / week!