I feel like I am just getting way behind on posting. It just seems like I have no time to just sit down and write a post. Lately I just can't seem to catch up. My house always feels trashed to me, which really keeps me feeling stressed out. It just feels like I am not on top of things at all lately. I'm feeling kind of burned out. And I think I know why. Let me explain. My adorable, gorgeous, precious baby girl is not, let me repeat NoT, sleeping at night. I am lucky if I get a three hour stretch. Lately she has been up about every hour to two hours. And it's not like she is hungry, she just wants me to hold her or pat her bum while she sleeps. So I have even tried having her sleep with us and that makes it even worse. Then she wakes up at about two in the morning and thinks it's time to have a party. It has been nine and a half months since I have slept through the night. I am exhausted. And you know what's really sad, if I get a night where I am only waking up every three hours I actually feel a bit rested. When Dutch was a baby he didn't sleep through the night until he was ten months old. But he was never up as much as Maylee is. He was only up once or twice a night. And then I could take naps with him during the day. So I could function and stay on top of things and actually have an ounce of patience in my body. Now I feel like I am always on edge. Anyways with Dutch we finally just let him learn to cry it out. The first night he had to cry it out, he cried for about 20 minutes and the next night maybe 13 and then after that he was only crying for less than a minute every night and sleeping through the night. So I have tried this technique with Maylee. No such luck. The girl got her mothers stubbornness, I'm afraid. She will stand in her crib for an hour and never once sit down. So I can't let her cry it out. Because I just can't do that to my baby. I never ever let Dutch cry more than 20 minutes and I never really had to. So I just don't know what to do for Maylee. So needless to say I'm very tried and feel like I am running on a very short fuse. The funny thing is, the other night David and I decided to put the pack in play in the office that way if she kept waking up we could put her in there and let her cry and not have her wake up Dutch. So she woke up at 12:36, I nursed her and put her back in her crib at 1:11, so I was up for 35 minutes. Then she woke up at 3:30 and I nursed her and put her back in her crib at 3:54. So 24 minutes I was up. As soon as I put her back in her crib and crawled back into bed she started crying, I knew she was hungry, I just fed her. So I lay there for a minute, b/c I was too tired to go and get her. But then David got up and got her and put her in the pack in play in the office, shut the office door and our bedroom door. And I laid in bed pretending to be asleep because I didn't want David to tell me to go and get her, I was just to tired. So here is where it gets funny. The next morning David calls me from school so excited and says "so how did you sleep last night". I was trying to figure out what he was hinting at. So I said, "OK I guess, she was only up every three hours." (She wakes up at six every morning.) Then David got quiet and said "She woke up twice", me "yep". David "I thought that when I got up and put her in the pack in play that was the first time she woke up. I thought you got to sleep all night long." David sleeps through it all. He has no idea. But if it really is the thought that counts, it was sweet that he thought he was letting me sleep all night long by getting up and putting her in the office. I guess it's a good thing she is so cute. Otherwise I really don't think that I could keep hanging in there.

Now for the reason I even sat down to post. Sorry I guess I needed to vent a little bit. Anyways we decorated our house for Christmas. I love Christmas time. It was so magical when I was a little girl and I haven't felt the magic for many years until I had kids. And now Christmas is just magical again. Although Dutch still doesn't understand but that's ok, I'm pretty sure next year he'll get it. But we had fun decorating our house, David and I decorated while the kids played in the boxes and ornaments. Our Christmas tree is decorated half way up the way I like for the tree to look. With all of my pretty glass ornaments. And then half way down in our cute soft ornaments that the kids can't break. Dutch was really exciting when we were decorating it about all the "balls" we were putting on the tree. He just doesn't understand why he can't play with those "balls". Then after we got the house decorated we made sugar cookies. I think that is another reason why David and I love Christmas so much. It's our excuse to eat as many sugar cookies as we want. One of my most favorite things about decorating for Christmas is my Christmas china. David's really good freind Bill from his mission has sent us Christmas china every year since we have been married and I just love it. I have it set out all month long and I love for us to have at least one fancy meal on it. This year I am a lot more nervous about having it set out for fear of Dutch breaking it. But I've decided that I can't never use it because of Dutch, so I have to just really reinforce the fact that he is not allowed to touch it.