Duck eggs

Ryan was out doing yard work yesterday and he found a bunch of feathers right outside our front door, which he thought was a dead bird. Then he realized it was alive and that it was a duck! The duck got scared and flew away, revealing the next with twelve eggs in it! It's kind of amazing how all of those feathers make such a thick, perfect circle for the baby eggs. We found the mama duck later keeping a close eye on our house from a neighbor's rooftop, and we are happy to announce that she has returned to be with the eggs again. I'm excited to see all the babies!

If we had an Easter egg hunt in our yard, some little kid would have gotten real lucky. :)

Martin Family Reunion

We had so much fun in California for the family reunion. All of Ryan's siblings and their spouses and kids were all there, which was great since that may not happen for a while now because of everyone's school and work locations over the next few years.

This reunion was the perfect mix of relaxation and fun, and included: lot's of surfing (just Jonathan and Craig, and Marc joined in the last day, which was unfortunately the only day he could join us because of dental school boards), good discussions, searching in tide pools for shells, catching lobster to eat and crab as shark bait :), making matching kids t-shirts, playing bingo with awesome prizes, fishing, watching movies, drinking lot's of orange crush and eating treats like crazy, hot tubbing day and night, watching sea lions, dolphins, and sharks (yes, sharks... plural!), visiting with G&G Tibbitts one day, taking lot's of pictures, flying kites, playing with glowsticks, and building sandcastles. I'm sure there's more that I can't even think of right now.

Anyway, here's 5 million pictures because it's quicker to upload that many than to sit and choose which ones I like the most.

Desperate for help!!

Okay, so before I get too deep into this, I just want to start with a quick note that I realize there are people with much worse problems than this right now and I do realize that things could be way worse for us. That being said, I'm still getting a little desperate for help right now, so here it goes...

I've mentioned that Lucy is not a good night sleeper. I can count the number of good nights we've had on one hand since she's been born (two 7-hour stretches, two 8-hour stretches, and one 9 hour and 22 minute stretch.. yep, every minute counts... and also, this shows that she can do it!!). Other than that, here is a typical night: do our little bedtime routine, put Lucy to sleep, and, on average, get a 3 hour stretch and then she wakes up. Every stretch after that, on average, is only about 1.5-2.5 hours. This means that Ryan and I are up about 5-7 times every night and the ONLY way that Lucy will go back to sleep is if I nurse her. We've tried just soothing her by putting her pacifier back in and by rubbing her among many other things. We've tried not picking her up, we've tried picking her up... nothing works. Once in a blue moon she will take her pacifier and fall back to sleep but without fail, she is up 30 minutes later. Every time. Even when I do give in and just nurse her, she's awake again less than a couple hours later usually. There have been times where I have attempted letting her just cry when she wakes up like that, but the longest I have made it is an hour and a half and she was completely hysterical by the time I finally went in and it took another entire hour just to soothe her and get her breathing to calm down again too.

All of these signs make it seem like she might be hungry during the night, which I thought was maybe the case. Although, she is doing worse now than when she was a newborn! But I don't think she is hungry. I have been cluster feeding a lot in the evenings to make sure she's getting a lot of nursing in, and she has been eating rice cereal in the evenings for about a week now as well (which I thought would help, but not the case). When I do go to nurse her in the middle of the night to get her to calm down and go back to sleep, she sometimes will just latch on and not even really eat, but just relax and go back to sleep, so I know she's not hungry! Additionally, Lucy's pediatrician said she is healthy and since her tummy issues and reflux are now under control, he knows she is fine and said that at this point he would expect her to be able to do an 8-11 hour stretch at night without needing to wake up to eat.

I've given many sleep training efforts a chance for days/weeks at a time and nothing has stuck or worked. Ryan and I are so sleep deprived that it's becoming a very negative thing (not being able to function or do anything during the day, waking up late for work after being up all night, my emotions are a little unstable, etc.). We are to the point where we don't know what to do other than to let her cry it out all night long and not go in to soothe her for a few nights in a row in hopes that that will solve the problem. We've actually had many people, including Lucy's pediatrician, say that that would do the trick, but I just have a REALLY hard time going longer than I already have with crying-it-out since she gets so hysterical. But maybe that's just how hysterical all babies get when people let them cry it out and she will get over that...? I don't know.

Anyway, I am most certainly NOT asking for ANY sympathy because, as I already mentioned, there are so many people out there who have things way way worse than we do and when I think about those things, I am grateful that our only problem now is nighttime sleep. In fact, I actually feel a little silly posting all of this because of that. But, I've been praying like crazy for inspiration as to what to do about this situation and the last few days I have just felt like I should throw this situation out there on my blog to everyone reading this. So I am hoping someone out there who reads this might have some advice... anything.... that might help us figure out how to make things get better instead of worse in this department. Maybe someone else has had a similar problem, or knows someone who has had a similar problem, and can offer some suggestion that might be what works for Lucy/us. So if you do, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE either leave a comment, text me, call me, or email me at brittney84(at)gmail(dot)com. Thank you!!

Utah

As previously mentioned, we were in Utah for two days. Monday, we were supposed to spend the day with Lisa and Ashlynn but unfortunately Ashy girl was super duper sick and so they had to cancel. :( We did swing by their place to say a quick hello from the car and to borrow a stroller. Ryan and I went and perused the BYU Bookstore for a little while for fun and so Ryan could update his BYU wardrobe with a new sweatshirt and hat. We then grabbed a little lunch at none other than J Dawgs, of course! We followed that with a little shopping at some of the stores I was hoping to hit while in Utah, including See's Chocolates. :) Finally, Lucy and I went over to Megan Scott's house where I met up with a bunch of old friends and roommates and had an amazing dinner and lot's of fun catching up (why do we never get a picture?!). Ryan spent the evening with his Dad going through all of Ryan's old stuff in their basement and deciding what he was going to keep or get rid of.

Tuesday morning, I had an orthodontist appointment (only one more to go now) and then we headed up to Salt Lake to visit my grandma. Lucy took a good, long nap in a comfy little "nest" we made for her on the bed, and we caught up with my grandma, one of my cousins that stopped by, and had dinner there. My dad made an delicious dinner while we went and got Lucy's ears pierced at the new City Creek Center, and then we went back home to pack and get some rest before our early flight the next morning. We are so glad that we were able to spend a couple of very quick days in Utah while we were already out west!

Travel

So we recently got back from our vacation and we had such a blast! We flew from Ohio to LAX on Saturday, March 17th and stayed at Marc & Michelle's house for a couple nights. Then on Monday, we headed to the beach down in the San Diego area, where we stayed for the week. Ryan's parents and all of his siblings and their spouses and kids were there that day as well, except for Kevin & Amy and their kids who all joined us on Wednesday night that week. We had such a fun family reunion (more details on the reunion to come in its own post), and were sad when we had to leave. Then on Sunday, March 25th, Ryan, Lucy, and I drove with Ryan's parents from California to Utah where we visited with friends and family for two days. We flew home on Wednesday, March 28th.

Everyone has asked us how it was doing all of that traveling with a 4-month-old, and honestly it went way better than I expected! On the flights out, Lucy was mostly awake and happy, with the exception of some tears on the decent when our ears were all popping (I tried nursing and pacifiers like everyone recommended but it didn't work. I have terrible ears when it comes to flying so maybe Lucy inherited that). Our first flight home was the same, but our second flight was only about half full and they let us take her car seat on, which she was already sleeping in, and hook that into her own seat. She slept the entire flight and all the way home, too! Thank goodness because she needed that sleep!

The drive from California to Utah was what I was most worried about since she would have to be in a car seat the whole time and in Lucy's opinion, the car seat is the devil. But she was actually very happy almost the entire drive! She didn't sleep until the very end besides a little 20 minutes cat nap here and there but she was still content. That was a total blessing. A funny part of the drive was when I had to lay her on my lap to change a diaper. I was sitting in the middle seat and in the middle of changing her diaper I realized she had scooted forward a little bit and her head was completely off my knees and she was happily staring at Marc and Janae in the front seat. Ha! That must have been a new, interesting view! It was pretty funny.

She had already started lifting her head in this picture, so it was even farther back than this! haha.

Conference Weekend

We love General Conference weekend and feel so uplifted and inspired after hearing the messages that were shared. This session did not disappoint and thanks to a super good baby we heard every word of it! We also feel uplifted and inspired by yummy breakfasts, cute babies, and spring flowers. :)

Martin Family Reunion 2012

We just returned home on Wednesday from our Martin family reunion and that in and of itself makes me feel behind on blogging simply because there is so much I want to blog about to remember from this trip! Not mention that between me and my three sister-in-laws, we have close to 2,000 pictures that I have to now sort through... it was a miracle that all of us remembered our cameras AND took them out and used them frequently. :)

Anyway, we had so much fun but I just realized that Lucy has been sleeping for THREE hours already without a peep (amazing!) and I haven't even gone to bed yet. And when Lucy is sleeping at night, I should most definitely be sleeping as well. I will have to get to the details later... and goodnight.