Sleeping all night, Thunder the cat

I was hesitant to say it before, but I think I can now finally say Aeson is sleeping through the night! (which also means he has totally night weaned!) He falls asleep on his own (with us in bed next to him) and sleeps until about 6a.m. & then he'll usually crawl up in bed with us & nurse & go back to sleep until around 8. He's done it for about a week and a half now, so I think it might stick! It started when it got really warm out and we had the windows open and the fan on.. Once it got chillier and we stopped those things, he did wake up a couple of nights but was able to get back to sleep on his own. (I wondered too those nights if his legs or teeth were hurting, because it seemed like it) It's all a process to us! I'm hoping after a few more weeks we can move his bed to his room and have him sleep in there.. We'll see!

We've been going for walks every day when the weather allows us to. Westen's found a place he loves that has several 'hiding spots.' He has only a week left of school. I'm actually anxious for him to start kindergarten, because I think he's just getting too bored at home! I don't like the amount of tv he watches. Speaking of tv, Aeson doesn't watch any at ALL. He never sits long enough to watch tv. Even when he nurses, he's playing with something. What he loves doing is having books read to him ALLLLLL day long! I've never met a kid that loved books so much! If me and Eric are both here, he'll have one of us read a book then take it to the other one and have them read it! He even has some parts memorized and will talk about them before we even get there. I swear we go through at LEAST 30 books a day. I'm guessing it's probably closer to 50 (some are the same books read over again, though).

Eric's birthday was last week. He had to work all day on his actual birthday, but we made an angel food cake (his favorite) for him and Westen had us all hide and yell "Happy Birthday" when he walked in the door from work. We had some friends over this past weekend to celebrate, and although it was rainy & we had to stay indoors, we still had fun.

Monday, we decided to go to Quincy to look at the cats at the shelters. We'd been thinking about getting a cat for a while. We'd looked at our shelter here a couple of times and didn't find one we really wanted. There was a siamese we were wanting in Quincy but when I called that day, she said someone was coming to pick her up that same day. We decided to go look anyway, and we found a girl kitty to adopt. She's grey and orange long haired with white paws and has a slight crossing of her eyes! She's super sweet! She didn't make a peep on the whole way home. She's gone in her litter and ate well since she's been here. She's super loving and not too hyper but still playful. They had her estimated at 6 months, but I'd guess around a year. She'd been found about a month and a half ago in Quincy and they waited to see if someone would claim her until just a couple weeks ago, and since no one had, they went ahead & gave her shots, microchipped her, fixed her, etc. Westen's named her Thunder. :) We haven't had a single issue with her since getting her, so I'm so glad! I'm also happy we got an adult because she doesn't try to scratch the kids at all, she's lazier (meaning she sleeps all night and doesn't scare Westen by tearing around the house!), and I know it's harder to adopt out older cats. We couldn't be happier about our choice!

(We've read four books just while typing this!)

Easter, Field Trips, and Mother's Day

I haven't had time to write lately, because I've been soooo busy with school. My last class was on Monday, so I am officially done for the semester; however, the couple weeks prior to that class, every available second was spent on the things that were due. My head and eyes hurt from looking at the computer so much! Normally, I wouldn't wait until the last minute to do everything; however, these last projects were based on whichever theory we identified with.. and we had to get through all of them before we could be certain that was 'our' theory. Anyway, I survived a 10 minute presentation (with an A!) and gladly turned in my essay final and my 20 page final paper. My house was so neglected during that time too, so I've been super glad to be able to clean again!

Let's see how much I can remember from the past several weeks...

The night before Easter, Eric's mom watched the kids so he and I could go see his brother's band. We had a great time- I always do when we go see them! We went to church with his family that Sunday and dinner was at their house this year. It was delicious and the kids loved the egg hunt afterward. We had also gone to the hunt in Adair again this year, and the boys loved that as well! I'm going to have to get some pics up on here, because once again, Aeson LOVED the Easter Bunny. I love his age right now - It's so fun! Anyway, after Easter there, we stopped by my mom's house, so the boys could get their Easter gifts, and then we all ended up going out to dinner. The boys got so much candy & other things this year.. I don't remember ever getting that much as a child!

Westen's class had a couple of field trips. Due to cold weather prior to Easter, we didn't have our field trip to his teacher's house until after Easter, but they still had a little hunt and the kids were able to play there and see the lambs. Last week, we went to a local nursing home, where the kids sang songs and gave flowers to all the women present (except Westen- he gave his to the only man there!). I was happy I got to go on each trip with them, and I hope I'm able to in the future!

Mother's Day was very nice as well. On Friday, Westen came home with a magnet he had made me (his picture in a flower pot) and a poem with his handprints on it that had been laminated. I almost cried, they were so cute! He'd also written what he was going to do for me for Mother's Day and that was to pick up all his Lego's! :) Eric had to work Mother's Day morning, but after that we spent all day outside! Eric's dad tilled the garden area for me that morning (so thankful for that!), so I was able to get almost everything planted that day. I'd already planted red and yellow onions a while back but now there is also radishes, carrots, green beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes. We're also going to try raspberries this year.

It has finally, finally gotten warm here! We've been outside the majority of the day for the last several days, and the kids LOVE it. We've even eaten several meals out there, which Westen thinks is fun. We bought the kids a sandbox for Easter, and they've enjoyed playing in that. We also got them a little kiddie pool yesterday, which Westen loves but Aeson is so far afraid of!

Westen has only a couple more weeks of school left, and we're definitely looking forward to summer. Aeson's less than 3 months away from his second birthday!