Anthony's sleep-inducing armpits

or "Why Anthony is My Hero"

Simply put, I have the best husband in the world. Two weeks after Summer came home from the hospital, Anthony went on night duty. Every night I get to go to bed around 10 or 11 and sleep solidly until about 6am. Anthony is in charge of Summer, including the 2am feeding and diapering. He lays down with her for about an hour each night on the couch to help her fall asleep and often curls up with her again at 2am to get her back to sleep. We've joked that Summer has learned to associate Anthony's armpits with instant sleep.

He has been on night duty for 3 straight months now! (except for maybe a half dozen nights). This great act of husbandly service and love has saved my sanity. I do not do well when I am sleep deprived (I get grouchy and depressed), so he has made the sacrifice for our whole family. I am so so so grateful for him (and so are the kids because they get a happy mommy all day).

Now at the ripe ol' age of 3 months, Summer's royal treatment comes to an end. We've started the cry-it-out and learn-to-sleep-on-your-own sleep training. 3 days in and she's getting better already (only 20 minutes or so of crying tonight). Anthony is excited to have less baby sleep duty, but I think it's a double edged sword. For the past 3 months he's also been able to take long naps whenever he wants because he knows as long as he lays down with Summer I won't complain (in fact I'm delighted to have her sleep a long time too). But I think that's been a well deserved perk for being on night duty. Thank you Anthony! I love you.

Marriage By The Numbers

• 7 years
• 3 children
• 8000+ diapers
• 4 cars (2 have passed on)
• 3 houses
• 3 trips to Disneyland (1 as newlyweds)
• 320 Star Trek episodes
• 2555 days of gratitude for a great marriage.

And that's the gospel truth. We're pretty lucky to have a lot of common interests and very little conflict. Raising 3 kids together is a lot of fun. Challenging, but in a great self-and-relationship-maturing kind of way. I love my family.

We spent an over-nighter this year in Park City. My parents kept the older 2 and the babes was with us. For that reason it was pretty low-key: movies and sleep-deprived napping.

The day before our anniversary I spent a night in Park City with the kids and my parents. We had fun exploring the hotel, the park and the pool. It was actually a great refresher for me to get some quality vacation time with my adorable kiddos.

Eva Summer

Summer's full name is Eva Summer Johnson. We had a tough time naming this baby. We had an ever growing list of 20+ names that just kept growing even after she was born. We almost named her Jadie Eva Johnson. Adorable, except that it started to sound like JD Johnson, which sounded like a boy's name to me. We considered names like Haley, Holly, Joanie, Jill, Hannah, Susie, Allison, June, Brooke, Mallory, Melanie and Melody. The one name that I just couldn't let go of was Summer. It took Anthony a while to warm up to the name, but since I was so wishy-washy about everything else he finally said, "Let's name her Summer." Once I had his blessing on the name, I knew that was the only name I wanted!

The name Eva comes primarily from the name Austin and Ruthie gave the baby after we found out she was a girl. They chose the name Aviva (or as Ruthie says it "a-eeva"), which is a character on Wild Kratts, their favorite kid show. I loved the idea of my kids helping to pick the name, but I didn't like Aviva per se, and I also wanted a family name. Anthony's great-grandma's name is Eva and it seemed a perfect fit. We even have one of Eva's paintings hanging prominently in our living room. However, to avoid having our child burdened with the name "Summer's Eve" we opted for Eva Summer and to call her by her middle name.

Much thanks to Debbie for taking all these fabulous pictures for us the week Summer was born. I love how they turned out.

The first 5 pictures are an attempt to match some similar pictures I have of Austin and Ruthie as newborns. Now the question is, which one of the 5 should I hang next to these (Austin top, Ruthie bottom)?