First Family Vacation

This past weekend we took our first family vacation to the beach.  The Oregon coast is only an hour away from us, but we don't tend to make it over there very often. Tony's parents rented a house for the whole family, which included them, us, Tony's brother and his family, and Tony's grandpa.  We arrived Friday evening and came home Sunday morning.  It was a very fun weekend, despite our lack of sleep.

Sleep.  Sigh.  The babies really struggled sleeping.  We had a pack-n-play (pnp) for each of them set up in our room.  Rylee naps in a pnp at home, so we figured she would probably be fine.  Wrong!  Neither one of them slept very well!  Our first night over there, they had trouble going to sleep so Tony and I each took a baby to separate rooms and held them until they fell asleep, then put them back down in their pnp's.  A few hours later, they were both awake again and wouldn't go back to sleep.  We gave them both a bottle.  That worked for Ayden, but Rylee was not interested in going back to sleep.  I took her upstairs to the couch so Ayden would stay asleep.  Rylee finally fell asleep, but not until I stood and rocked her side to side forever. We slept the rest of the night on the couch.

And then Saturday night happened!  They both fell asleep fairly quick, but they didn't stay that way!  Ayden woke up and was crying, but I was able to lay down with him and he fell back to sleep.  Then Rylee woke up.  She had pooped.  What is it with this girl pooping in her sleep??????  This was at 10pm.  I knew she wouldn't go back down very easy, so Tony gave her a small bottle to try to help her along.  Yeah, that didn't work.  Then Ayden woke up.  I had him almost back to sleep, but then Tony came back into the room with Rylee and he was up again.  We tried laying down with both of them in bed with us, but they thought we were having a party.  It was a little comical, but by that point it was 11pm and we both wanted to go to sleep!  I took Rylee upstairs to the couch again.  Tony had Ayden in our room and he was not a happy camper.  He was crying, very loudly.  Rylee was crying.  I'm pretty sure the whole house was awake.  Tony gave Ayden a bottle and he finally fell asleep around midnight.  Rylee was another story.  I tried laying down with her.  I tried standing with her.  I tried rocking her in the rocking chair.  I tried giving her a bottle.  The girl would not go to sleep!  My MIL came out and tried holding her for a bit.  I apologized for keeping everyone awake. Rylee still wouldn't go to sleep.  Finally, I took Rylee outside to the deck.  It was pretty chilly out there, but wouldn't you know it, Rylee finally passed out!  It was 1:36am.  Why hadn't I taken her outside sooner?!??!

Despite the lack of sleep at night, everyone had a great time.  During the day, we moved one of the pnp's to another room so they could take their naps and they did at least take a few short naps.

We had AMAZING weather!  The Oregon coast tends to be a bit windy and chilly, but it was actually 79* and there wasn't a lot of wind.  Saturday was a perfect day for taking the babies to the beach.

Our first family trip to the beach

We were SO excited to let the babies play in the sand.  They LOVED it!  Both of them enjoyed digging their little hands and feet into the warm sand.  It was fun to watch them grab handfuls of sand and let it sift through their fingers.  It didn't take too long before Ayden was trying to eat it though, and then we had our work cut out for us trying to keep the sand out of his mouth!

It was game day, so of course they were decked out in their Beaver attire.

Ayden was ready to try to eat sand again.

More fun pics from the weekend

All the grandkids gathered in Grandma's bed each morning

Rylee being a poser with her Great-Grandpa 

Rylee and Ayden with their cousins

Sunday was our youngest nieces first birthday party.  We had planned to all go to the party, but Tony and I made the executive decision to keep the babies home.  We felt like they were way too over stimulated from our weekend get away and wanted them to be able to get their afternoon nap and hopefully get back to our regular routine so we could sleep that night.  We were all exhausted!  I went to the party and Tony stayed home with the babies.

The Birthday Girl