We not only survived, we CONQUERED!

Over a week ago we decided to go a week without TV in our home. It has become too much of a crutch for me with Spencer. It is an easy distraction to use so I can nurse without him climbing all over me. I'll turn it on thinking - okay, five minutes while I nurse. However, nursing never takes five minutes and then the TV ends up staying on for way more than five minutes. Spencer loves to pull out the DVDs and look at the covers and then wants to watch one when he's done looking, of course. The other time I often use it is in the evening so I can focus on fixing dinner. This always seems to be a stressful time of our day.

It may have been a drastic measure to cut it off completely, I know, but I was ready for the challenge, and that's exactly what I was expecting it to be - a challenge. I unplugged the TV and put all the DVDs up in a closet (out of sight). I thought for sure Spencer would try to turn on the TV or question where all the movies went. He never once asked about the movies, and maybe once a day he would walk up to the TV push the button and say "It's broken, it needs batteries". With the DVDs out of sight he spent a lot more time playing with the toys right next to the TV - because the DVDs weren't there to distract. I realized how much of the problem was me using it as a crutch as opposed to Spencer actually wanting it.

Surprisingly enough, we had an incredible week. Spencer was not nearly as emotional as he has been and I accomplished twice as much as I usually do - because Spencer was such an angel. It turns out that it is just as easy to pull down some books off the shelf for Spencer to look at while I feed Benson as it is to flip on the television. I thought for sure we'd all be a mess the first night by dinner time, but somehow we were all smiling and less stressed at dinner than we usually are. Don't get me wrong, it was a lot more work to find things to fill that time, but it was well worth the effort. I was very pleased with our efforts, but Brooks was excited to finally watch a little football by the end of the week! The DVDs are still up in the closet and we've cut back drastically on our television consumption because life is so much better without it.

East Coast Adventures

BEACH BUMS

The past few weekends we have had fun exploring the east coast. A few weeks ago we went to the beach or shore - depending on where you are from! It was a beautiful day. We staked a spot on the ocean side of the peninsula we were on. Spencer had fun with the sand and sea shells, but wouldn't set foot in the water because of the big waves Do you like where this bird decides to land right as I'm taking the picture?

And that's the end of the good pictures we got before the camera battery died! My fault for not charging it. The rest of the pictures were taken with Brooks' phone - hence the quality, or lack of. After a few hours we wandered over to the other side of the peninsula and found a great place for Spencer to swim. He would have swam all the way out to the boats if we let him!

If you look closely you can see New York across the water. It was a beautiful day, but pretty windy which made it quite the task to keep Benson out of the sun and wind and not get him too hot all covered up.

WASHINGTON D.C.

Last weekend we ventured down to D.C. We started out at the Air and Space Museum. He loved it. You could spend days in just one of the museums, but we took it Spencer speed and saw it in an hour of two.

After that we made the trek down to the memorials and the white house. I wish we could have spent more time at each one. Spencer was determined to climb all of the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial by himself. He wouldn't let me help him, and he did it, but you could tell he was getting tired by the time he got to the last few steps! Most of us even got in a midday nap. I had all three boys asleep! This picture may look fake with Spencer on his knees like that, but they both are really asleep. Once we were all rested we ventured into the National Museum of Natural History. Spencer and Brooks buzzed around looking at all the amazing exhibits while Benson and I tried to find a quite corner so Benson could finish his nap, he was not ready to wake up to a crowd.

We stopped by the D.C. temple. Spencer and I explored the grounds and the visitors center while we waited for Brooks.

The best part about the east coast is that we've had almost as many visitors in the last month as we had the whole time we were in Omaha. We've loved having these fabulous people stay with us.Benson's favorite aunt & uncle! At least until he meets everyone else, then they'll have to put up a fight to keep the title! :)

Thanks for coming! Come back soon!