Warm Weather At Last?

The last few days have been so beautiful! We've been able to play outside in the water, take walks and keep every window in the house open. I love this time of year. Of course, I hear it is supposed to rain tomorrow and be colder for the next few days, but even that is nice when it is not snow. In three days we are braving a 20+ hour drive with the kids and my parents to Illinois to see my sister Monica's family and the church history sites there. This is the kickoff to the next three months of busy-ness, with our anniversary, birthdays, girl's camp, reunions and more. Are we crazy? Are we going to survive? Will we come home from Nauvoo with ticks? Wish us luck!

How time flies

We have had such a busy couple of weeks. Between sickness, traveling, visitors and life in general, I haven't had a spare second. So, I thought I'd fill you in on some quick updates of our month.

We'll start with our big announcement first:

I'm expecting

you to all be as excited as I am that Dustin finally defended his thesis!! Yay, yay and more yay. I was super proud of him. His committee had nothing but praise (could it have been because they were in a hurry to catch a flight? Nah.). We have hardly seen Dustin for the last four months because he has been so diligent in working to finish it, so we are all very ready for lots of Daddy-Daughter Dates.

My sister, Monica, and her two girls came to visit for two weeks. It was tons of fun and so busy. The kids were great together, with very few fights. They shared toys and kisses and germs and and so all five kids came down with Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease (sound familiar Aggie Village-ites?).

Thinking it was Chicken Pox and that everyone was immune, we then took our germs to Denver for a few days for our nephew Tysen's baptism and shared them with Dustin's side of the family. Sorry everyone. But it was really fun to be there for it and see Dustin's family.

There were multiple cute babies born which we visited and cuddled (and hopefully didn't infect).

Our van broke (again) and got fixed, but we didn't have to pay for it because it was the mechanics fault. That made me not so mad at the mechanic.

My sister Nicole graduated from BYU, which Monica and I and all five kids attended, twice. She then left for China for six weeks, lucky girl.

And the kids stole a jeep and drove to Texas.

And that has been our month.
But now I need your help. One of my callings is Young Women Camp Director. Camp is in June and I am still nursing Ryan. The goal was to have him weened by then as he will be just a few weeks short of one year. I am working on this, all except for nights. He is waking up four to five times a night. Now, I realize that I shouldn't nurse him back to sleep, but when I am being woken up every two hours of the night, I can't logically think of good reasons to not have him fall instantly asleep by nursing. So, if any of you have any great methods of getting a baby to sleep through the night, please post a comment and let me know. Keep in mind that we are in a two-bedroom, so all three children are in the same room. This makes the cry-it-out method a little harder (plus, I just can't handle that one). Thanks for any suggestions you may have (except these)!
Oh, and in case you are confused, no I am not pregnant.