It's A Preemie World: Feeling a little better

The kids are with Doug for the evening, so I thought I'd hop on and post another update.

My mood has improved since the last time I posted. I get a little crazy under normal circumstances when I'm sleep deprived, but under the current circumstances, I got EXTREMELY crazy with Brooke not sleeping great. It really magnified an already difficult situation. But she has slept straight through the night the last 3 nights and that coupled with some other recent events has cleared my head a little and given me the chance to put things in perspective again. By the way, I *think I figured out why Brooke hadn't been sleeping well at night. Ever since we got here a week ago this past Friday, I'd been putting her on my mom and dad's bed to sleep for her naps. Their bedroom is on the main floor and it just seemed easier. Plus, Brooke seemed to sleep better there. I think it backfired on me, though, and she wasn't sleeping at night because she was used to napping on the bed and preferred it. So Sunday I started putting her down for naps in her crib again and wouldn't you know it, she is now sleeping great at night again, ever since Sunday night. Coincidence? Maybe. But whatever the reason is, I'm loving it! She's not napping that great, but I'd rather deal with that than sleepless nights!
Ryan has actually been behaving better as well. I'd say we're back to the typical 5 year old mouthiness and attitude. LOL. I've just been trying to be very consistent with him and also keep my temper in check. It really does help!

Brooke is still not eating great and I don't know if it's her teething or what. Like I said, though, she seems to go back and forth between eating great and not eating great. Aside from actually eating less, she is also being more of a pain to eat. Sometimes she is just too nosy to drink her bottle! Seriously, she has to see everything that is going on and if she can't do that while drinking, then she won't drink. And if I try taking her in a quiet room with no distractions, she just breaks her neck still trying to see what's going on! She's doing fantastic with baby food, though. She eats that like a champ! She had green beans for the first time yesterday and to my surprise really seemed to like them! She even ate them again today (sometimes she'll eat something once and then act like she hates it the next time you give it to her, lol).

Ryan is super excited for Christmas and has been crossing off the days on the calendar. I still need to get over to the house and wrap the kids' gifts. Doug said he would do it, but I want to wrap at least some of them. I love to wrap and besides, it just wouldn't be the same if I didn't wrap any of their stuff! I'm pretty sure the kids and I are spending the night over there Christmas Eve. And you all may be surprised to learn that I'm actually going to be going to Doug's parents' house for dinner (and then to his brother and SIL's house to open gifts b/c they have more room) and tonight my mom also invited Doug over here for Christmas dinner. I'm so happy that it seems we're going to be able to all still get along and have holidays together. I think it will be great for the kids. My best friend's parents are divorced and still spend most holidays together and I know she really likes that. I'm actually sort of regretting my decision to move out before Christmas, but on the other hand, I really do think it was the best/right decision at the time. It was going to happen eventually and at the time, I didn't think my mental health could take the waiting it out until after the holiday. Being away and out of the situation has probably made me think now that I could've waited it out, but at the time it was something I knew I couldn't do.

Okay, enough about that...I'm going to post some pictures now! (Please excuse the messed up captions and odd spaces between pics and such...Blogger is being a PITA and won't let me fix them : P.)

The kids the night we put the tree up at home...2 days before we left.