Wish lists!!!!!

I'm in a wish list mood again today!  Here we go.

For Boy:
Sophie the Giraffe (it's a teething toy)


I've even seen this little guy at Babies-R-us.  Who knew he got so popular.  I haven't ever seen him as cheep as I found it on Amazon.  Every kid that I've seen that has this doesn't ever put it down.  I guess the rubber tastes kind of good and it's the perfect amount of softness.  I am done with teething, so I don't really know, but I would love for Boy to find out.









Mimijumi bottle - I think they are the best shot of having success (due to the shape)!

Since my little guy refuses to take a pacifier or bottle he MAY take this one.  It's shaped more like a breast than a standard bottle.  The only downside to this bottle, besides price, is that the replacement nipples are just as expensive as a new bottle. He would need a higher flow nipple that what this comes with, so it would be a $30 investment just to see if it works. I may just have to force the bottles we have on the kid!








BumGenius diapers.  I would LOVE some prints, just for fun, but I also like the solid bold colors like Clementine.




Cute clothes - Size 9 months

From the makers of the magic bullet, the Baby Bullet!  It looks PERFECT for when I start making Boy's food.!!!  The regular food processor is just a pain to clean sometimes.  I got this idea from my sister-in-law.  Thanks Jenn!

Baptism suit


Girl:
Clothes - 3T
Cute shoes - size 6 or 7
We like our "hair pretties" and always want more
Books

Me:
new hair cut and color
new outfit (for baptism)

However, all of this costs money, so I will not be getting it. That's why they're called "wish lists", right?  I WILL be coloring my hair and buying baptism outfits, but that's about it.

WHY??????

I hate mastitis.  AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.  Whew, just had to get that out!

So, as you guessed, I have mastitis again.  I'm tired, actually exhausted, sore, have tender areas, but otherwise GREAT!  hahaha  Boy has been eating non-stop to help me out.  He doesn't seem to mind.  ;)  I think I caught it early, so I should be feeling better by tomorrow.  I feel bad for Girl. I'm just too tired to REALLY play with her.  She is doing okay with it though.  I have movies planned for the afternoon.  Thankfully Grandma sent some new ones home for us to borrow.

This morning she had her barbies laying next to me on the couch.  That's how I played with her.  I'd let her set them up, then there would be a mommy earthquake and they'd all fall off and she'd have to put them back up.  She seemed to think it was pretty fun!

Weekend in review

We had a nice weekend up north!  Girl got to play with her Grandma and Grandpa.  She was very well behaved and there was only 1 injury.  Not too shabby for running around like a crazy girl all weekend.

The injury: not too bad of one.  She was running around the house with her cousin chasing back and forth and she tripped on a rug.  She of course fell and her teeth caught her upper lip and it split it open.  It didn’t bleed much and after a wash cloth and ice cube she was asking to go play some more.  She’s a tough cookie!

Girl also got to play on the Wii, make muffins with grandma, play lots of board games with everybody, and color with her cousin Maddison.  Madi also played hamsters, kitchen, barbies, and other “girl” stuff with her.  She LOVES playing with Madi and I like it because it’s like having a babysitter without having to pay for one.  :D

Jared didn’t catch any fish during the tournament and didn’t win anything with the raffle ticket.  At least he had a fun time with his friends. 

I liked being up there because I had lots of help not only with Girl but also with Boy.  It seemed as though everyone WANTED to hold the crying baby.  It was SO nice and a much needed break for me.  Boy did LOTS of rocking and walking with Grandpa.  Everyone else helped too, but Boy was a Grandpa’s boy this weekend.  I REALLY appreciated all the help.

Nothing really eventful happened, but it WAS a nice weekend.

Friday updates

I am sooooo excited for my 2 bffs.  They are BOTH having baby girls this spring.  Too bad I sold all of my girl stuff though.  Oh well. I now know that I can start taking pictures and selling the boy stuff as well.  I have about 3 lots of clothes that can go.  Then I can use that money and buy stuff that fits Boy now.  I have 2, yep 2, 9 month outfits … I also have to get a new carseat.  Boy has almost reached the weight limit for the travel system.  I think anyway.  I have to look it up to make sure.  It MAY go up to 30, but I’m thinking it’s 20.  Of course 20 could be when we switched Girl to a non-carrier car seat. I don’t remember, it was 1 ½ years ago!  I think it says on the carrier, but I’m in the car right now, so I can’t look.  Yes, I’m blogging from the car.  Actually I’m typing it in word and am going to post it later.  I’m not fancy enough to have internet in my car.

Other treasures that I want:

Mall stroller – by this I mean a stroller where one of the kids will ride behind the other.  I have a jogger that is a side by side, but that one is a little big to fit in-between the racks. Not having a mall stroller has prevented me from going out and about as much as I want to.

Hair bow/clip holder – I am going to try to make this.  All I need is a topper and some ribbon and a cute bottom piece.  Then I can hang it in her closet and I can grab her hair clip while I’m picking out her outfit.  I have found some plans online, but I am going to try to convert a clothes hanger into one so it fits in the closet a bit better.  I’ll be sure to take a picture when it’s done!

A bedroom plan for Girl’s room.  I am thinking I’ll wait another year or so before we change her room up and we’re going to let her pick from a few choices that I have narrowed down and approved.  I just don’t know what I want for the main plan.  There are SO many options out there.  I don’t want it to be too little kid and I don’t want it too big girl.  It’s a fine line …

More pocket diapers – I think I am going to buy some for myself for a birthday present.  I don’t NEED any, but I want some.  Hehehe  I want to try a few other brands yet and I haven’t been lucky on the blog giveaways lately.  Sigh.

On with the recap of the week:

Wednesday Girl had another playdate with Ava.  This time I got to have adult conversation as well.  It was nice.  The girls were a little touchy for a while, but I think it’s because us moms were there.  Once we headed upstairs to make lunch they played together and ignored us and their moods improved, it was kind of weird.

Thursday Girl and I had a laundry day.  I think I did 6 loads of laundry.  I washed EVERYTHING so I could pick and choose what I wanted to pack for the weekend.  I ended up picking all things that were previously washed, go figure. Boy was having yet another “hold me all day” day too, ugh. It’s nice that he loves me, but annoying that I can’t do anything without having him attached to me.  I don’t know what I would do without my Moby wrap.

Today we headed up north for a fun weekend with Grandma and Grandpa .  Jared is going to be in a fishing tournament in Brainerd on Sunday morning, so it was a perfect time for a visit.  I told Girl that we were going to be going up and she got very excited.  It’s so cute.  She also asked if we were going to see Grandpa B (my dad), but didn’t seem too bummed when I said no.  Perhaps we’ll head there next weekend?

On the drive up we had The Little Mermaid playing.  It’s Girl’s favorite movie.  It’s nice to have things on the dvd player.  She isn’t a very good rider otherwise.  Even with a movie on she is playing with the “car toys”.  We were half way through the basket before we were halfway up!  We did make more stop than normal.  Our first was to get gas.  There’s nothing like getting hosed out of all your money.  Our next stop was at a grocery store to get baby wipes for the weekend.  I was going to cloth diaper, but didn’t feel like packing them all up.  If I would have packed just some I MAY have had to do laundry and I didn’t want to have to deal with that.  One weekend with Boy in disposables won’t hurt him, I hope!  Girl is only in diapers when she’s sleeping, so we’ll go through MAYBE 4 diapers for her, no biggie there.

There were some snowmobilers driving in the ditches today as well.  CRAZY.  Our car says it’s -10 and you’re outside willingly?  Whatever floats your boat I guess.

I guess it’s time to wrap up this rambling novel of a blog post. (this is what you get when I’m stuck in a car with nothing else to do)

What a fun day!

Girl got to have a friend over yesterday ALL DAY!!!  She loved it.  Both girls, and Boy, were perfect angels.  No crying (Matthew doesn't count with this one), no tantrums, no fighting.  It was wonderful.  I was proud of everyone.  I even managed to have all three of them sleep simultaneously.

Our day started with pancakes.  Girl ate 3 and some banana.  Ava ate nothing

 This was a picture as they were waiting for me to get Curious George on.  Shortly after they shared a snack of cheddar bunnies.  They both ate like I had been starving them.

 Before lunch we did a couple of projects.  One was fingerpainting.  Ava and Girl both liked it at first.  Then Ava realized she was dirty and decided she was done.  It was pretty funny.  Girl loved every second of it.

Our second project was coloring a heart.  Then we glued it on a sheet of paper and added glitter.

After nap time we played dress up.  I was included in this fun.  The turtle even got included in the games.  Surprisingly there wasn't any fighting during this time either.  They shared clothes, necklaces, wings, everything.

Ava striking a pose:

The following picture is the two of them playing with the lacing beads.  Instead of lacing, Girl stacked the blocks and Ava would knock them over.  They were both laughing and loving the game.

After the beads they decided they need to play with the barbies again.  This was after a nice game of "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes".  We have a few cds with kids songs and Girl likes the action ones and of course wanted to do one.  So we did.  Ava looked at us like we were crazy at first, then she joined in and started giggling. It was cute.  I don't have a picture of that since I was participating.

Not much else has happened this past week.  I can't say I'm complaining!  Actually I take that back.  Sunday night was terrible.  Matthew was awake and crying from 8pm to midnight.  Neither one of us could console him.  Poor guy.  Eventually he fell asleep but each little round of sleep didn't last long.  He  DID sleep like a champ during the day on Monday to make up for it.  It was the perfect day for him to do that since I had the two girls.  What a smart little boy I have.

Tomorrow we have a mini playdate at our house!  Girl gets to have 2 friends over and so do I!!!  Matthew doesn't have any friends yet, hahaha.  I'll hopefully remember to take pictures of tomorrow's festivities!

Just another week

Monday started off our week with a little bit of excitement!  Grandma and Grandpa came to visit!!!  WAHOO.  Girl was so excited she refused to nap until after they left.  They actually came so I could bring Boy  to the doctor without having to bring both of them.  It was SO nice to go out with just one kid during the day.  I forgot how much easier that is!!  Boy weighed 15 pounds 8 ounces on Monday.  The doctor just thinks he's a big boy.  The nurse said to keep and eye on it and call if he gains that much in the next 2 weeks!  I'm hoping he is just a big guy.  I was looking through Girl's baby book adding some more things and I noticed she didn't weigh that much until she was 6 months old!   It's amazing how different kids can be.

Nights have continued to go well.  Boy SOMETIMES wakes for a 2am feeding but otherwise he goes until 5am.  He goes to bed anywhere from 8-10 at night.  I like to tell Jared that Boy is trying out to be his alarm clock.  Jared says he has the job ... now if only we could change the settings for days we want to sleep in!!  Once Boy has had his 5am feeding he sleeps until 8.  Girl wakes up at 7 EVERY day, so I have one hour to feed her, get her dressed, brush her teeth, and do her hair.  I am usually VERY successful and even have some time to play with her before he wakes up ready for a diaper change and breakfast.

Potty training is still going great.  No regression.  She does have accidents like every kid, but 1 every other day is awesome.  I don't expect perfection until next week. HAHAHA.  Okay maybe 3-4 months ...  One thing that is wonderful with her being trained: less laundry.  I was doing diapers every other day when they were both diapered, but now i can go back to every 3-4.  I still do them every other day because I have the time, but I don't HAVE to.  It's great!!!

I've gotten really strict with making Girl eat what we are eating and she's doing much better with it every day.  Yesterday she ate more sweet potato than I did.  Of course she has ALWAYS loved sweet potato, but wowza!  She also enjoyed her turkey (instead of hamburger) stroganoff yesterday.  She did so great.  She is even eating sandwiches with me at lunch time.  I like that she is eating just as healthy as I am.

We haven't had anything else out of the ordinary going on this week.  Same old same old.  Maybe I can come up with something fun to do this weekend.  This darn snow just has to stop falling!

"Hooray for Underpants"

Anyone that has the movie Elmo's Potty Time has heard this quote.  I have had the hardest time getting Girl to WANT underwear.  I asked her yesterday and she replied with, "No thanks mom".  Yes, she really IS that polite.  So I was thinking, hmmm and just ended up shouting out "Hooray for underpants" and started dancing and singing it.  Of course she joined in.  Then I asked her again if she wanted to get some and she said, "okay, sure".  I had to make a run to my LEAST favorite store (Wal-mart) to do some returns/exchanges so we headed back to the toddler section.  The smallest size they had was 4t, but I figured she could always grow into them.  I let her pick her styles.  She chose Tinkerbell and Minnie Mouse packs.  Can you believe that toddler underwear is over $1 a pair?  What in the heck for?  I was annoyed. Anyway, I washed them up when we got home.  She went down for a nap.  When she got up she was able to wear them and she loved it!  They really aren't that big on her.  I didn't want them to be too tight and simulate a diaper and make her regress.

So why was I in such a hurry to put her in underpants?  Honestly, her little butt is getting chapped from being naked.  She even cried about it hurting today. (she is going to kill me someday for putting this on the internet) Now that she has underpants it IS another challenge before going to the bathroom, but she's doing REALLY well with it.  She has pulled them down every time except once.  Well, one and a half.  The first time she was trying to get them down and couldn't hold her pee any longer so she started going while trying to get the undies down.  I obviously helped her and got her on the potty.  We didn't make a big deal about it and just grabbed a new pair.  The other time I think she forgot she had them on.  She just sat down and went and got up and cheered for herself (which she does every time).  I asked her if she remembered her "underpants" (what she calls them) and she looked down and said, "oops, no.  sorry mama".  Once again, no big fuss was made and I let her go underwearless since we were going to be going up for nap soon.  I still put a diaper on for nap time.  I learned my lesson yesterday.  She had gone 2 days with a dry diaper after nap (sleeping an hour and a half) and then yesterday as we were approaching the 2 hour mark I knew she would wake up wet.  Yep. I was right.  Peeing actually woke her up, so we're one step closer to her knowing and getting up before.

Her amazingness continues (it's my blog and I can brag all I want to!!!!).  So you know she does her duties on the potty but here are some other highlights from my 26 month old:

* she made it out and about on 2 different trips without getting wet yesterday
* after she pees she takes the potty cup and empties it and then puts the cup on the bathroom counter for me to rinse (I didn't even teach her this)
* she is starting to say out loud "pee" right before she runs to the potty
* she is starting to eat everything we put her on her plate (granted we bribe her with yogurt and milk)
* she likes to read to her brother - she has some of her books memorized and reads the pages to him - it is SOOOO cute
* she tries to console her brother whenever he is crying
* she always agrees to let Matthew play with us when we play a game, barbies, or potato head


Matthew has his own wonderfulness going on:
* slept through the night the other night
* slept 5 hours, ate, then slept another 3 last night (in his carseat again, but who cares)
* he is sleeping in his CRIB as I type - this is his first time sleeping in the crib (I can't say enough good things about having a video monitor right now either)

We do have a weight check for Matthew on Monday since I'm pretty sure he is gaining weight way too fast.  Perhaps it's "just him" but my gut is saying there is something goofy going on.

My children have just been astonishing me and making me proud every day so far this year.  They are both learning new things and gaining new skills so quickly.  I love them so much.

He did it!

He did it! He did it! He did it! So what did he do?  I'll get to that, first, let's chat about yesterday.

It was our wedding anniversary, 6 years married 10 together! The time has flown by.  We've had our ups and downs like any relationship, but it's been almost all up!  In this time we've owned 2 houses, had 2 kids, lived in 5 cities together, and had 4 dogs (we adopted 2 that ended up having to go back due to life changes).  We have partied, chilled, and now like old people look forward to going to bed at night!  Hopefully that last one changes once he's done with exams and our kids are a little older.  ;)

So our day: After getting up in the morning Girl and I headed to the kitchen for our morning routine.  When I was getting her milk I noticed that Jared forgot to take the veggie platter he had purchased for work.  They had a potluck.  So I had planned on having to make a trip to St. Paul that morning.  Luckily he bought a new one on the way to work so we didn't have to go. When I came downstairs I found that my WONDERFUL husband had left this for me:

  

Each card has a memory on it, some funny some sentimental.  I laughed, I cried, and overall I was overwhelmed with how wonderful my husband is.  I also realized setting this up was why he forgot the veggie tray.  Silly boy! The present was a pair of pearl earrings.  We made a "no buying presents" rule    once again this year.  So how the heck did he get these?  Well, the jewelry store sent a coupon for free pearl earrings.  I left it on the island for him to use.  ;)  LOL The earrings are pink cultured pearls.  Not too shabby for free.  He also brought home a dozen roses, he says flowers don't ever count as buying something when it comes to special events.  I concurred.  hehehe

 

(I love the way the picture above turned out!!)

 

Back to our morning, it consisted of going out to do returns: the veggie platter to Rainbow, some stain to Lowe's, and I had to pick up our prize from the diaper store.  We made another stop to price check some things for Jared, but didn't get anything. The rest of the day was normal and uneventful. I did make some delicious and healthy taco soup for supper!  I gave Jared the option of eating that or making his FAVORITE meal (frozen pizza) and he chose the soup!!  It WAS really good. mmmm  Luckily there was plenty left to freeze so we will have it again next week.

After Girl went to bed I brought out my exercise ball and bounced on it with Matthew almost all evening.  It kept him from crying the night away like he usually does.  It was AMAZING!!  Needless to say I see a lot of bouncing on the exercise ball in the evening in our future.  Then it was bedtime.  Good day overall!

Oh I forgot to tell you what he did!  First we must establish who did what.  Was it Jared or Matthew?    What's your guess?  The answer is: Matthew.  He had a rough time falling asleep, but once I put him in his carseat he only cried for 5 minutes then 7 hours later he woke up to eat.  Yes, that's right I said 7 hours, straight.  He didn't even whimper, whine, or stir.  It was solid sleep.  It was AMAZING. I feel SO refreshed. I mean WOW, wow, WOW!!  He is just like his daddy, giving me the best anniversary present ever.  I don't expect it to be a nightly thing, but now I know he CAN do it!!

Time to backtrack

When I uploaded the pictures from our anniversary, I found the following pictures.  They are from the 31st of December.  Girl and I made cupcakes after reading one of her new favorite books.  It's a Fancy Nancy book about making cupcakes.

Before we made cupcakes, she was playing dress up with daddy:

Pantless Paradise!

It's a pantless paradise for Girl - not anyone else in this house!

I was having trouble with getting her to take her pants down for potty training, so I just decided - keep them off.  It's been working wonders.  She goes on the potty whenever I remind her to.  She even went on twice today without me telling her.  The first time I was upstairs emptying the dishwasher and when I came down she had gone in the potty!  Later I was changing laundry over and she was in there with me.  She decided to leave, which is normal, and when I came out she was carrying the potty cup to the bathroom to dump it.  I was SOOO  proud of her.  We even went on an outing to the grocery store today and she stayed accident free.  I did have a diaper on her just in case.  I was sure to put her on the potty before we left and again as soon as we got home.

She did have an accident last night on the couch, but we cleaned it up and moved on.  She hasn't had an accident since.

I should mention that her potty chair is in the living room.  I think it helps her remember to go on it when she sees it every time she turns around.  I plan to leave it out here for a week, then put it right outside the bathroom door for a week, then after that it will go back into the bathroom.  I am just SO proud of her.  I knew she could do it, so I blame myself a bit for not letting her go bottomless earlier to get the practice of going down.  Oh well, she's doing great now and I know it will continue!

Other things going on:
I was going to open up a container of milk for M and I looked at the date on it: 12/30/10.  WHAT?  I just bought it on the 1st.  Why was it even on the shelf. AHHHHH.  I was so frustrated.  So I packed up the kids and we headed to the grocery store to exchange it.  There was only one on the shelf that had a date in the future.  (1/9/11)  What the heck is going on at Cub.  This is the first time I've had this kind of issue.    I know that the organic/whole food section gets neglected, but SERIOUSLY expired milk on the floor.  That's pathetic.

I won a photo contest with a local diaper store.  Well, Matthew did.  Of course it was thanks to Christin and her campaigning.  :D  Thanks Christin.  I also have to thank all of my other friends and family that "liked" the facebook page and voted for him.  THANK YOU!  I plan to head to the store this week to get our prize.

I'm getting ready to sell off the newborn sized prefolds and covers!  It's kind of sad that my little baby is too big for them.  I tried putting one on him today (I didn't just try, I made it work) and it wasn't the best fit.  Time to upsize him to infant prefolds. Those are the same size Girl usually uses.  :*(  My baby is so big.

Speaking of Matthew getting big - he is in 6 month clothing already.  That's right, my 9 week old wears 6 month clothing.  I had a "3 month" pair of overalls on him yesterday and they were about 3 inches too short.  Sigh.  I made those work for the day too.  I wanted him to wear every new outfit he got at least twice and that was the last one.  :)  There are plenty of other 3 month clothes that I got from garage sales that he never wore.

I have all the newborn and 0-3 clothes packaged up and ready to be retired, but I'm not quite ready to retire the 3 month stuff.  I don't think I want to face that he's that big.  I also don't want to put those SUPER cute outfits out of sight.  Of course, he'll never fit into them, but still ...

Time to wrap this up, I'm going to try to sneak in my own nap while the kids are sleeping.  They don't ever sleep at the same time, it's wonderful!!!!