Celebrating Together

Last week marked another year older for me. And when I say week, I mean it. When we were younger my step-mother started something we in our family call “birthday week”. You are celebrated the whole week long leading up to your birthday. There is nothing really special about it except that the birthday person is given deference. Basically you are just made to feel special all week long which for those of us with birthdays around the holidays, it’s extra special!

Turning 32 didn’t even faze me and I’ve come to realize that my 30’s just might be my favorite decade. Kinda like pulling on your favorite jeans, I feel like my 30’s have me in that spot of life. Worn-in, comfortable in my own skin, cozy. And now that Elizabeth is here, life just seems a bit sweeter, even if it means my days of being footloose and fancy free are over (for the time being.)

Last year I started my own little tradition of making my own birthday cake. I don’t really like to bake, especially when neither Alex nor I really want to eat an entire cake, but I’ve decided that on birthdays I will go all out. And for our MN family celebration I spent the day making this cake and it was quite delicious!

Almost every year of our marriage we have spent Thanksgiving in Wisconsin with my family. This year we gathered with my Aunt and Uncle, cousins, and siblings to devour our share of turkey and other Thanksgiving delicacies, like raspberry jello. So delicious! And of course, to top it off Elizabeth got to meet her second cousin Graham who is just 4 months younger than her. She looks huge in comparison:) Having babies again in the midst of our family is so much fun!

The rest of our time in WI was spent hanging out with family. My little brother was back from college and my nephews and niece are always fun to be with. Alex helped Jack build this gigantic robot that actually walked! And Elizabeth had fun playing with Uncle Matt.

Fun fact, my sister and I have the same birthday. I was born on her 8th birthday and often have overshadowed the day; my 16th fell on her golden birthday, etc. But this year, I was happy to hand over the shadow. Since I let you know how old I turned, add 8 and you’ll know it was a BIG birthday for her! We celebrated by heading out to dinner with my siblings, my sister-in-law, and dad and step-mom. We are never a quiet crew while we were out…we had a LOT of fun together and even made my little brother squirm a bit. He just headed off to college this year!

This also marked a new experience for Elizabeth as well as she was left with a stranger for the first time ever. My Step-mom’s niece watched her (so no stranger to us) and it was so liberating! Seriously I made Sara tell me over and over again that she was not lying when she said Elizabeth did great and that made me feel like we just won the lottery. Given a bottle and put to bed by someone she didn’t know and she didn’t even waver. Gotta love that!

All in all it was a great Thanksgiving…it goes without saying that we have MUCH to be thankful for this year! A house, clothes on our back, money in the bank, food to eat, a daughter, each other, good health, saving faith…basics are all met and for us, that’s more than enough!

Hoping you and yours had a great Thanksgiving…

now I’m off to finish putting up the Christmas decorations!

5 Months Old

To say these 5 months have been the easiest 5 months of my life would be a lie, it’s been hard, but they have definitely been some of the best. I can’t imagine our lives without Elizabeth in them, even if it has meant giving up some prior conceived liberties and so-called necessities.

I never would have imagined a few years ago that on my 32 birthday (in a few days) I would have a 5 month old. When you are in the midst of infertility and the thought of having babies seems so unlikely, the hope of children slowly diminishes. To say we are thankful this Thanksgiving is an understatement. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t offer up thanks for this little girl who has so innocently stolen our hearts. We just keep praying for many, many days with her; to watch her grow and mature. Hard to believe that she’s already beginning her 6th month of life. Can’t wait to see what’s ahead.

All that aside, our baby girl no longer seems like a baby. She’s a little girl now! She’s rolling over, sitting up for short amounts of time, has broken in 2 teeth, and has such a personality!

The past month has been anything but easy but then again if I were getting teeth I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be the happiest camper either. This month marked the beginning of teething and mid-month those stubborn bottom teeth popped through the surface. Guess that was why her sleep was so wonky. She’s still not back to normal in the sleep department but I’m not worried as we’re headed out of state for the holidays and I know that will mess her all up anyways. So once things get back to normal we’ll work on sleep again. Until then we’ll just take what we can get.

Our days remain pretty consistently the same; 2 long naps, 1 short nap. She’s eating 5 times a day with one feeding during the night (usually). She’s mastered rolling over both ways especially when in the woombie. One night Alex and I just stared at her on the monitor rolling from one side of the crib to the other, wailing all the while. It seems she doesn’t fully understand how to stop and start:)

We love watching her learn new things and experience new places. She loves playing with her toys and scooting around. She can almost sit up unassisted for long periods of time so we know that milestone is around the corner. She has the silliest personality…she loves to be tickled and jump in her doorway jumper. She could spend hours there! When daddy gets home she gets the biggest grin on her face, it’s pretty cute.

As far as solids go, I’m using the car ride to read up on Baby Led Weaning. Our pediatrician really recommended waiting until 6 months so we’re not in any hurry to begin. I’m sure I will do a hybrid version as I want to add fortified oatmeal to her menu to get all the vitamins, etc. Although Elizabeth has been sitting at the table with us in her new high chair. We love how straight the back is, how inexpensive it was, and the fact that it’s really easy to clean. She seems very interested in what is going on and enjoys sucking on ice while watching us in her new feeder.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Bless Someone’s Day

For free!

You know when it’s your birthday and someone sends you a card in the mail how excited your heart gets? Or maybe when you’ve been down and someone sends you a card to cheer you up? I don’t know about you but I love getting cards in the mail. In fact, my mom just sent me the sweetest card about being mothers…seriously brought tears to my eyes.

Well if you are feeling like there is someone that you would like to bless, Shutterfly has you covered. They just launched their new brand of greeting cards called Treat and today and tomorrow (Nov. 19-20) you can send a card for FREE!

They have some of the cutest cards…

This one would be perfect for any of our friends that just had a baby

Or this one is perfect for my little brother…we actually say this to one another because in our case it’s true…same dad, different moms.

 

Or maybe you want to send something to say thanks for just about anything

So are you ready to take a look and send out a free one-of-a-kind card? Just head here and enter the code TREATBLOGR upon checkout.

{Book Review} Breaking Free from Fear

I love to read.

I especially love to read things that give me hope and bring me nearer to the One who has cleansed me from within. Every fall I am giddy to sign up for Bible study. And then I’m giddy again in January when I do it all over again. For me, consistent, regular time in the Word is absolutely necessary for my life. The first food we should feast on.

Over the past 3 years I’ve done different studies, but mainly I’ve done Precept Upon Precept by Kay Arthur. They are incredible and allow you to dig deep in the word. There is plenty of underlining and circling and use of colored pencils, which I, of course, love.

So when Kay came to speak at last years women’s conference at our church I was ecstatic. When I was in college I studied Covenant by Kay and it was life changing for me. So when the opportunity came about to review one of her 40 minute, 6 week studies, I was all over it. I chose “Breaking Free from Fear” because really, who doesn’t struggle with that from time to time.

It’s excellent. The study by Kay is composed as a 6-week, no-homework study meant for groups. Although I did not do this in a group, I felt that it was definitely still worth while to complete on your own. Each week is broken down into Observe & Discuss portions. These would be perfect for small groups. You walk through a portion of scripture, observing and marking the text in true Precept form, and then she poses questions pertaining to the text you just observed. I can see how in a group the questions would be great for discussion although again, there is something here even for the individual student.

As far as the topic of fear, Kay does a great job walking through the different aspects of fear while giving encouragement through the scriptures. Fear is all around us taking on many different forms and through the study she touches on many of the areas and allows for personal reflection.

I would definitely recommend the study for groups of individuals and those studying on their own. It is a great tool for studying the Bible and diving deeper into Scripture.

Have you done any of Kay’s studies? If not, I’d highly recommend it!

 

Disclosure: WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group provided this book to me for free in exchange for this honest review as part of their Blogging for Books program.

Last night’s crazy

Some would call the four of us crazy for what we did last night. Others will wish they were there. And still others will wonder why we did what we did.

Anne, Dana, baby Lewis and I ventured out into the crisp air to go and see some of our favorite bloggers, Young House Love. We’ve all been keeping up on their blog for awhile now and I love *them*. This is the crazy thing behind blogging…you always feel like you know them even when you don’t.

I started blogging and reading blogs right around the time Alex and I got married. First I started a family blog, then I started food blogging, and then both of those gave way to this blog. So for over 6 years I’ve been immersed in blogdom. Crazy. And through blogging I’ve met some very dear friends, ministered to many people or so they’ve told me, and shared our life through words. I love blogging whether people read our blog or not:)

Which brings me back to Young House Love. I’ve been reading their blog almost since the beginning when they were This Young House. I remember some of their earliest projects, was their through their pregnancy and birth of their daughter, watched as their friendship grew with fellow blogger Katie Bower, and have sent hundreds of emails to my husband asking if “we could just do this” in our house!

So last night, we bundled up, parked nearby and waited in line for 3 hours to meet them and have them sign our books. And even though the line was long and we grew weary, by the time we got up there we smiled like silly little schoolgirls excited beyond belief that we were meeting them in person.

Somehow, it’s the little things that make us the giddiest. And a special thanks to my husband and in-laws for watching Elizabeth and forcing bottles so that I could get out with friends for a special night of crazy. I may or may not have called home a few times to check in and after the second time was told firmly by my husband to stop calling and enjoy myself. Sometimes us mommas need someone to tell us to let go. And from then on, I did just that!

Thanks Anne and Dana for joining me in the fun!

Have you ever gone out for a book signing?

Last night’s crazy

Some would call the four of us crazy for what we did last night. Others will wish they were there. And still others will wonder why we did what we did.

Anne, Dana, baby Lewis and I ventured out into the crisp air to go and see some of our favorite bloggers, Young House Love. We’ve all been keeping up on their blog for awhile now and I love *them*. This is the crazy thing behind blogging…you always feel like you know them even when you don’t.

I started blogging and reading blogs right around the time Alex and I got married. First I started a family blog, then I started food blogging, and then both of those gave way to this blog. So for over 6 years I’ve been immersed in blogdom. Crazy. And through blogging I’ve met some very dear friends, ministered to many people or so they’ve told me, and shared our life through words. I love blogging whether people read our blog or not:)

Which brings me back to Young House Love. I’ve been reading their blog almost since the beginning when they were This Young House. I remember some of their earliest projects, was their through their pregnancy and birth of their daughter, watched as their friendship grew with fellow blogger Katie Bower, and have sent hundreds of emails to my husband asking if “we could just do this” in our house!

So last night, we bundled up, parked nearby and waited in line for 3 hours to meet them and have them sign our books. And even though the line was long and we grew weary, by the time we got up there we smiled like silly little schoolgirls excited beyond belief that we were meeting them in person.

Somehow, it’s the little things that make us the giddiest. And a special thanks to my husband and in-laws for watching Elizabeth and forcing bottles so that I could get out with friends for a special night of crazy. I may or may not have called home a few times to check in and after the second time was told firmly by my husband to stop calling and enjoy myself. Sometimes us mommas need someone to tell us to let go. And from then on, I did just that!

Thanks Anne and Dana for joining me in the fun!

Have you ever gone out for a book signing?

Thank the Troops

This past Tuesday we were able to exercise the right to vote.

That right did not come about freely or without a fight. By men and women.

We live in a country that allows us the freedom to say what we want, believe what we want, think as we want, elect as we wish, and more.

Freedom is ours. And we owe much to the millions of men and women that have fought on the lines, cared behind the scenes, ministered, aided, and protected.

This Sunday is Veteran’s Day and Shutterfly has a great opportunity to anyone who would like to bless a soldier. Take a moment today to go here and create a card for the troops.

We are truly blessed with Freedom so let’s extend our thanks together!

For love of sleep

Something had to give around here.

We were all sleep deprived. For the first time that I can remember, visible circles were forming under my eyes and my ability to complete ordinary tasks was slowly dwindling. I used to pride myself on the fact that I could go without having or needing much sleep. Those days are over. All the while, I kept thinking that I would take the newborn days all over again if it just meant we could sleep.

We got ourselves into come bad habits. It was either pacifier abuse, growth spurts, regression due to new skills, or just a stand-off between parent and child. If I’m honest it was probably all of the above.

It all started almost a month ago. I know for sure because unlike my non-type A self I’ve been tracking E’s sleep since she was 5 weeks old. Around October 12th everything went hay wire. Elizabeth started rolling over and at the same time waking up every two hours. It wasn’t every two hours like it was when she was a newborn, wake, eat, back to sleep…it was more wake every 2 hours, put in pacifier or feed, spit out pacifier, cry, which equaled 4 trips to the nursery every two hours.

It all started around her dedication weekend and now looking back, I’m not surprised that she was absolutely intolerant of the 20+ people who suddenly took over our house. But what started out as a few nights of disrupted sleep continued on for weeks. Every once and awhile we would catch a break but more often than not this every two hour thing was status quo. The difficult part was figuring out what on earth was behind it. So I did what any mother would; I started googling.

(PS…most of my parenting knowledge comes from google, forums, and great websites like this one, this one, this one and this one.)

Along with cozying up with google I also checked out books.

1. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child / 2. The Sleep easy Solution / 3. The Baby Whisperer Solves all Your Problems

Not shown but also skimmed: The Wonder Weeks

First step in our eyes, try to figure out what is going on. First thing we realized, we were unintentionally promoting a sleep prop. Pacifiers…love to hate them! I love that E takes a pacifier and over the last month I’ve hated it. I must also mention here that just a couple of weeks prior to the regression we stopped swaddling. Well, that was not ideal. With her newfound dexterity, Elizabeth would pull out the pacifier and throw it across the crib and then scream. It wasn’t a game, she didn’t realize what she was doing, it was just a reality.

While I was proud of her newfound skills I was not so fond of grappling to find the paci in the middle of the night only to slide back under the covers and realize we were starting all over again. Vicious cycle. After 3 weeks I couldn’t take it. Not only that but she learned to roll over. Only from back to front. Alex and I looked at each other in bewilderment and did what we thought we would never let her do. We let her cry. We knew she had to figure out how to sleep on her stomach or we would never sleep again.

And learn she did. That part only took one day before she re-figured out how to sleep on her tummy. But we were still up all night due to that darn pacifier and agile reflexes. So this past weekend we started sleep training.

We took our cues from the Baby Whisperer and started instituting the 4 S’s before bedtime, the shush-pat, and Pick up/Put down. The 4 S’s include swaddling, sitting quietly, winding down, and the shush pat. I read that we should sit with her for ~5 minutes on our lap right before putting her down. I laughed. Alex laughed. There was no way that would work. Well we were wrong. First time, we sat for 3 minutes tops and she was almost asleep. Crazy! If only it all went so easily. Talk about needing a backbone. I’ve heard it said that to train Navy seals they make them listen to babies crying for hours on end. Well we’re that much closer to Navy Seal designation!

So many tears on both ends but we held it together and it only took a few nights. In fact, I felt like we were reaping the reward last night when she woke a few times but babbled her way back to sleep. You see, we still give her the pacifier initially but over the past week she’s learned to fall back asleep without it. We’re calling that success and patting ourselves on the back. I’m sure it’s just because the wonder week is over and soon enough we’ll be doing this again, but here’s to hoping our sleep has been momentarily reclaimed.

It was excruciatingly horrible. I do not wish that on anyone. But if it creates a good sleeper those hard days and weeks were not for naught.

And that is the end. I hope.

So tell me, sleep tips? Have you had to sleep train, cry-it-out, etc?

Thankfulness continued

I’m more than a few days behind in my record of thanks. I’ve thought of things each and every day and yet haven’t had the energy to get them recorded.

These past few weeks have been crazy and just this weekend, after weeks of disrupted sleep, we began sleep training Elizabeth by way of the Baby Whisperer. So far the past 2 nights she’s slept through with one little wake up that was solved through “pick-up/put-down”. We can’t tell you how freeing this has been but it hasn’t been without a LOT of work and many tears on Elizabeth’s end. I’m hoping if today’s nap is any indication, that she’s on her way to better sleep!

So back to my record of thanks as we make our way through November:

November 2: Thankful for mothers who drive over to visit and do not put down your efforts in parenting but encourage you through the really hard moments. Who pray for you, help you, make the coffee, and offer to play all day long! We love you Mom!

November 3: Thankful for my other half. The part that walks through this rollercoaster of life with me. Working hard to provide, hard to keep our house up, and who loves me for me more than I could ever ask or imagine.

November 4: Thankful that Elizabeth was not affected by the change in time but instead blessed us by sleeping through the night for the first time in weeks. Was a precious gift of grace!

November 5: Thankful for snuggles with my baby girl and lots of book reading. So very thankful that God have her to us…

I’d attach pictures from our weekend but somehow I misplaced the camera cord in my sleepless zombie state. Stay tuned:)

Making a list

 

 

Every year someone asks us for a list of gift ideas, either for Christmas or our birthdays. For years, I would scramble last minute to try and figure out what on earth I should ask for. It was pure craziness. What ended up on my list were things in the aftermath I would look at quizzically and wonder what I was thinking. So for the past few years we’ve been taking a different approach.

I know so many people still make hand written lists, don’t give gifts, make a board on pinterest, etc. but we utilize the list feature on Amazon. Each one of us in our little family of 3 have a list. And all year long I add to them things that we think would be good ideas for gifts. I love that I can delete and add at my discretion and it definitely makes giving gifts easier.

You might wonder, but what if something I like is not offered by Amazon? Well, I downloaded their “Universal Wish List” feature to my browser bar. With the click of a button I can add things to any of our lists from any website. That makes things so much easier. I also have the Amazon app on my phone so I can scan things in the store, see if Amazon carries them, and if they do add them to the list. If they do not carry it, I just snap a quick picture to add online later. And if I didn’t have the app, then like I did for years on end, I just snap pictures in any store of the items I want to remember and then come home and manually add them to the list. I do this all the time with books I want to reserve at the library!

Amazon is not giving me anything to talk about this…I just love it! Plus I love how almost everything is cheaper on Amazon than in the store. So we can give great gifts and save money. My parent’s love it too because they can get us things we like and have them shipped usually for free. When you send so many gifts to those out of state, postage can add up quickly!

Living far from family, I wish everyone made Amazon lists. It would make it so much easier to buy gifts that need to be sent and it would help ensure that the recipient would not receive duplicates. That’s a bonus to…when someone buys something, it gets removed from your list. How great is that!

So I’m curious as Christmas gets nearer by the day, how do you try and stay organized with gift giving? Do you use Amazon lists?

On being thankful

Several of my friends have decided to make their way through November marking what they are thankful for. I think it’s a great idea, especially since my birthday lies towards the end of the month. So I’m jumping on the bandwagon and every day I will add something I’m thankful for.

November 1st:

Thankful that though we lack much we have someone who never lacks,

Jehovah-Jireh, provider.

And for caffeine:)

Elizabeth’s 1st Halloween!

Halloween was very low key around here. I mean, I can’t in right mind, take my 4 month old trick or treating. Seriously, I’m not sure anyone would give us candy:)

So although we didn’t go out door to door, we still celebrated and made it a fun night around our house. We don’t have strong convictions on Halloween at our house and treat it as a fun night to dress up and get candy. Plus we love carving pumpkins and eating the seeds! That being said, I happen to be one of those people who has a “bah humbug” attitude toward costumes. Not for Elizabeth but for myself.

Halloween always caused me great anxiety as thinking of a costume sent me into a people pleasing coma. Seriously I lack the witty ability to come up with something uniquely comical and full of pun worthiness so I take this approach:

But for Elizabeth…well we went all out. Meet our Sweet Pea in a Pod.

Doesn’t she look like she loves Halloween already? Hilarious.

Here are some more from the day:

And to top the night off, we only had 2 sets of trick or treaters…

more candy for us!

How was your night…did you dress up?