Snow Day!

The Song and Dance Technique

Oh, the things we do to appease a grumpy child...

Austin caught one of my tactics on camera this morning. Here I am in all my morning glory using one of my most effective techniques to remedy the morning grumps: The Song and Dance.

http://youtu.be/Omg1W3ciTEM

Oh Boy Oh Boy!

Yesterday we found out we are having a boy!

Despite Adelyn being sick and me feeling under the weather as well, Austin and I made it to our ultrasound. It is so fun to see the little baby move, kick, and squirm. We were also so glad to find that everything looks healthy and normal.

Our orignal plan to find out the gender was to have the techincian write it down. Austin and I were going to go to a coffee shop or something and open together there.

However, since I was feeling pretty queasy, we opted to go to Sonic for a Sprite. So our magic moment happened while parked at Sonic... haha.

Here is a picture before we opened the envelope. We both were pretty convinced it was a girl. Even to the point of us starting to land on a name we liked for a girl.



We opened the envelope to find a picture that the technician had put in. It was pretty clear what baby 2.0 was. A boy!!! We both squealed. Well, Austin didn't really squeal but more of a manly, "hey!!!" I for sure squealed.

 



This is me just moments after finding out.


I honestly didn't expect to be this excited about a boy. It's a bit hard to wrap my mind around. As I was poking around online looking at boy blankets and clothes, I got even more excited.

I also loved seeing how excited and almost proud Austin was. I don't think he stopped smiling about it for an hour. I love the idea of him having a son. He is already talking about how he is going to take him to games and instill a love of sports- haha.

When we told Adelyn that she had a baby brother on the way, this was her reaction:



OK, not really. But we did tell her. She knows that a baby is mommy's tummy but we could also convince her it is in my elbow or in the toy box. She has no idea how much her world is going to be changed. Honestly, neither do we.

I can say this though, my heart is full of love and excitement for this baby boy right now.

Holiday Season is Upon Us

Something about having kids makes you want to get more into the holiday season. This year we actually have decorated for Christmas- inside and out. We've had Christmas music playing non-stop and I already have some presents wrapped and under the tree. Despite the fact that I was in shorts two days ago with the car windows down, it has been a fun holiday season so far.



As expected, the Christmas tree and all its glittery ornaments have been a constant temptation for Adelyn. For the most part she does well with the "one-finger rule" in which she is only allowed to touch ornaments with one finger at a time. However, it is not uncommon for me to be in the other room and hear an "uh-oh" followed by a toddler bringing me a hookless ornament. At least she owns up to her sin, right? For some reason she also likes to tickle the ornaments. Strange but true.

Adelyn had a pretty rough 2-3 weeks but I feel like has finally turned a corner the past few days. The transition from 2 naps to 1 was rough and turned her into a total grump. In the midst of those rough weeks I told Austin if Baby 2.0 is a similar temperament as Adelyn, we are done having kids. I'm happy to report that Grumpalyn has taken a leave of absence for the time being and we have a happy toddler back.

Baby 2.0 is cooking right along. I am 19 weeks and excited to have our ultrasound next week to get a good look at the little one. We have a list of boy and girl names but haven't even come close to settling on one. I'm beginning to feel more and more kicks, especially when I'm sitting still. I just had a glass of chocolate milk and Baby 2.0 is doing a little celebratory shin-dig in the uterus right now.

21 more weeks to go!

Thanksgiving Week

Whew!

We are back from a pretty eventful Thanksgiving week. For various reasons we ended up staying with my parents two days longer than we initially planned. It was a great week down there though. We spent quite a bit of time outside the first part of the week since it was unseasonably warm.

My aunt and uncle (who took a lot of these pictures) were in from Texas for a few days so we got some great time in with them as well.





What's a lake visit without some pictures of dogs?









The boys kicked the week off with a little hunting day trip. Austin had never been hunting before so it was quite the experience for him. They actually started off by going to a hunting preserve to do some training with the dogs. This made finding the quail pretty easy. Shooting them was a different story.





I think this is an awesome picture of both dogs on point.







Other than hunting we were busy eating, doing a huge puzzle, visiting family and friends, and just hanging out.

Thanksgiving Day was actually pretty small for us this year. It was only our immediate family so we were pretty low key which was nice. That night my brother, Austin, and I went to see the movie Lincoln. However, I wasn't feeling well and it only got worse as we were in the movie. I ended up feeling so bad that we had to leave early. The next 12 hours were not pretty. I ended up coming down with some sort of stomach bug (not food poisoning) that pretty much took me out for the next two days. It was so NOT fun but I was glad to be home so there was extra help with Adelyn.

My dad was eager to get into the Christmas spirit so he went out and got a tree the day after Thanksgiving. I LOVE the smell of a cedar tree in the house. We are currently fake tree people so I had forgotten how great a real tree is.



They dragged it into the house and we got a good laugh at how BIG this tree was.



We even got a good (slightly nervous) laugh at the fact that Will's dog was on point the whole time we were setting up the tree. At any point we were ready to see some sore to critter jump out of the tree. Nothing came out but Axel (the dog) was pretty sure something had previously been in there.



The next night we got it decorated with lights and all the ornaments that we had grown up with. Our tree has always been a hodge podge of homemade and sentimental ornaments. There is not method to the madness on what goes up on that tree.







Here is one I made when I was little.





This one gave us the biggest laugh. Will made this when he was in elementary school. Santa in a tank, why not?



We got back in town on Sunday morning and hit the ground running. We got our tree decorated, stockings up, and are ready for a great Christmas season.

Hopefully my body is done catching every stomach bug it's exposed to!

Thoughts on Sleep (or lack thereof)

I don't know why it has taken me 17 months to fully embrace this but today I came to terms and finally accepted the fact that my daughter is just not a sleeper. She never has been and probably never will be.

In the beginning months I floundered big time as I struggled to make the Babywise sleep-eat-play routine work for her. It never did. I was thrown into a tizzy of stress and uncertainty about what she "should" be doing. The 1.5-2 hour naps that my child "should" be taking were ending shortly after 30-40 minutes and I thought it was because I was doing something wrong.

This only propelled me to read more books which in turn stressed me out even more. It exhausts me to even think about those first few months. I think I'm still scarred by it all and am vowing to have a different experience with baby 2.0. I was recently so encouraged by a post by Shawna on Styleberry Blog about her successes and failures with BabyWise. She was a huge advocate of the method- that was until her second child came along.  I love this paragraph from the post:

I have decided, that Ezzo (the author of BabyWise) is still brilliant. He makes successful Babywisers believe in themselves. What better tool for a new mama? But he makes failed Babywisers…well…feel like failures. But some of us will LOVE Babywise. We will swear by it. We will recommend it to everyone we know and judge other mothers who cannot get it to work, because he tells us we can control our child’s sleep pattern. But what about the rest of us? What about those of us who are the same parent, if not a MORE skilled parent and cannot get it to work. Then what do we do? There is no eat-wake-sleep pattern if there IS NO SLEEP. Heaven help those first time mamas who just can’t get the Babywise routine to work. Sweet mamas. IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT.

Love that. So much. I wish I would have read this post in those hard months.

Anyway, we stumbled through our first year and are half way through our second. Adelyn gradually moved into two naps a day that were about 1.5 hours each. Not bad in my book.

Now on to the present.



Our little lady has always been an early bird- a six-o'clock a.m. early bird. It's not rare for that to drift back to 5:30 sometimes. I can remember ONE time that she slept until 7:30. It was heaven. When daylight savings time hit and we were to "fall back" and hour, it was brutal. We were up at 4:30 a few mornings- 5:30 on the other days for about a week. When I would hear other moms complain and whine about their kids waking up at 7 a.m. instead of 8, I didn't know whether to laugh or scowl.

About a month ago, she transitioned from taking two naps to one. I was told by many people that even though you lose the morning nap, it's really nice in the afternoon to have a longer, 2-3 hour nap where you can get a lot done. I looked forward to this but should have known my daughter would not conform. In fact, instead of taking a longer nap in the afternoon, it got shorter. She wakes up after about an hour and is a total grump. Where is this afternoon leisure I was promised?? Instead, I have found myself working harder to appease a highly temperamental 17 month old. It's exhausting.

I write all this because today was a particularly hard day. She was up at 5:24 a.m. this morning, and took only a one hour nap in the afternoon. While 17 months old is a really fun stage, it is REALLY hard too. I just feel like I don't have a break.  Many suggest putting her to bed earlier (before her normal 7 p.m. bedtime) but this seems to only backfire by her getting up earlier. Today, however, I didn't care. She was such a grumpy mess by 6:00 so she was in bed and asleep by 6:15. Tomorrow might be an early morning.

I'm tired. I just wish my 17 month old was too. :)

I'm trying not to overanalyze it all like I did in the first 6 months of her life. I'm trying to just go with the flow, not over think it, and embrace whatever the day hands us.

However, being a pregnant, tired mama, I can't help but hope each day that she transitions into a long afternoon nap. Selfishly because I want one too!I can't help but hope that when I go to bed, I will get to sleep past 6. I think my frustrations are coming because I keep hoping she'll be someone she's not. She's not a sleeper and probably never will be. She's not the kid who will sleep into 8:30 and that I have to wake up for breakfast. She's not the toddler that takes the 3 hour blissful nap in the afternoon. She never has been so I don't know why I grow so frustrated when she's not.

Adelyn is who God made her to be. Who am I to wish for something different simply because it is an inconvenience to me? I want to embrace her for who she is and love her the way she is. I don't want to be a mom who is constantly trying to make their child into something they are not. And honestly, that mentality and pattern probably starts with the small stuff like naps.

So today was a hard but good day for me. I accepted she isn't what is ideal for me but accepted that God intimately knit everything about her together in the way he wants it to be. I can't change who that is, nor should I want to.

The Conner House Plague

I always wondered what we would do if both Austin and I got sick at the same time. Well, my questions are answered. Yesterday we both came down with the same stomach bug that resulted in chills, fevers, toilet hugging, headaches, naps, Tylenol and tag teaming taking care of our un-phased toddler.

What's ironic about it all is that yesterday morning I asked Austin if he could come home a tad early so I could go out and get my flu shot. Three hours later I knew I was coming down with something and was kicking myself for not getting the flu shot earlier. I don't think what we have is the big time flu but it's a close cousin of it. We aren't quite out of the woods yet but I see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Adelyn has gotten to watch a lot of tv today. She's also read a lot of books since she discovered if she brings them to us while we are on the couch we will pull her up and read to her as much as she wants. As long as we don't have to move, we will read as much as she wants.

A note on food preferences: I learned that my husband is a 7 up man when he is sick. I didn't really know this. I am a blue gatorade woman myself. For some reason I also like rice mixed with honey and butter. I have no idea why but it's usually the first thing I attempt to eat after a round of the flu.

It hasn't been fun but we are making it.

See Ya Twenties

It came and went fast... My 30th birthday.

I've had a few people ask me how it feels to turn 30. Honestly, not that much different than 29. It's just easier to remember how old I am now. I'm not all that distraught about being in my 30's. Maybe I should be.

My birthday week was great. On Wednesday, my actual birthday, Adelyn blessed us with a 4:30 a.m. wakeup time. Daylight savings did a number on our sleep. It was pretty brutal for a few days there. Anyway, my birthday got kicked off very early.

Austin had to go to class in St. Louis for the day so my mom came into town later that morning to spend the day with me. She of course showed up with balloons, flowers, and a few little goodies that were much appreciated. We did some shopping, had some special coffee drinks, ate cheeseburgers and fries, took naps, and then another shopping outing that ended in a quick return to home because Adelyn had a major blowout and we were unprepared for the destruction in her pants.

She did love the balloons that Nana brought. They entertained her for quite a long time. Especially when she can't quite seem to get her hands on them! (see below).

http://youtu.be/Egp11Yfsh7Y

That night we went to dinner with the Garretts at the Kobe Japanese Steak House. It was SO delicious and fun. After dinner we went to another place for drinks and dessert. Since Jen and I are both prego- the drinks were for the guys and the dessert was for us :)

The birthday celebrations continued that weekend. What I didn't know was that Austin had planned a little surprise get together for that Friday. I thought we were headed out to a dinner for just the two of us but we ended up at the Garretts house with a group of friends and my family who drove up for the party. It was such a fun surprise.

So, turning 30 wasn't all that bad. I have fond memories of the memorable week.

Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween!

Last year we didn't really celebrate Halloween. Adelyn was an infant and Austin had a Veritas event. I think we had one trick or treater come by our house. Sad day.

Since Halloween was a big deal in our house growing up, I was super excited to go Trick or Treating with the family for the first time!



We teamed up with our good friends, the Garretts, for the night's festivities. After some cheeseburger soup and chocolate chip cookies, we suited up the kiddos and headed out the door to collect come candy! Before we went anywhere though, we did snap some pictures of the cute kiddos.









Brooks was careful to help Adelyn across the streets. He's going to make such a good big brother!



Brooks also did the talking for the two. He had to be reminded to say "Trick or Treat" and not "Candy!"

We also had to keep Adelyn from going into every house that opened the door to her. She was just ready to meet and greet all these friendly people who were giving her candy!





We didn't Trick or Treat for too long but the the time spent out and about was really fun. Luckily Adelyn doesn't even realize she collected a bag of candy. She willingly handed it over to us every time she was handed a piece. I'm guessing next year will be a different story.



We had a great evening and look forward to many future Halloweens with the Garretts!

Chauncey and Adelyn

One of the things that daily warms my heart is to see the bond between Chauncey and Adelyn. It's hard to explain but they just seem to really love each other. I've never seen a child and a dog give as much affection to each other.



There are so many sweet stories and examples I could tell you about. Like the time a few days ago when Adelyn was in her pack 'n play while I was taking a shower. I could hear her crying in protest from the bathroom but couldn't do much since I was showering. When I was done, I noticed she wasn't crying any more. I quietly peeked into her room to see Chauncey laying right beside the pack 'n play keeping her company.



Just today, Adelyn took a big fall and bonked her forehead on a chair. I scooped her up and couldn't quite calm her down. I tried all sorts of things to get her mind off her injury but the only one that worked was when I said, "Lets go see what Chauncey is doing..." She stopped crying and pointed the direction that he was. We went over to pet Chauncey and she instantly forgot about her injury.



Chauncey is a timid dog. He is super skeptical of new people and usually just hides under our bed if anyone other than family is over. He can be easily spooked by any object in our house. If I just point a remote at him, he starts to back away in fear. It took him years to be even be in the same room when I have the hair dryer on. Don't even try the vacuum or Swiffer around him.

So it is amazing to me that with all his skittish quirks, he allows Adelyn to stack blocks on top of him. He allows her to put necklaces around his neck. He lays passively on the floor as she parades around with whatever new object she has discovered in our house. He seems to have no fear of anything she does!



Adelyn also loves to find Chauncey in his favorite place in the house- under our bed. If I ask Adelyn, "Where is Chauncey?" She heads straight to our room, squats down, and babbles to him as he peeks out from under the bed. She's also been known to back herself under our bed to join him in his sacred spot. I'm sure he got kicked and prodded in the process of her joining him but you would never know.

What I love most about their relationship is the gentleness that Chauncey responds to her with.

Check out this video to see what I'm talking about.

http://youtu.be/DoaHtPq4yU4

When we got Chauncey from the animal shelter, we had no idea what a wonderful dog we came home with. We really lucked out with our "Bubs."



Lastly, here is a video I made over a year ago of Adelyn and Chauncey together. Even though Adelyn is a whole different kid, his gentle demeanor hasn't changed a bit.

http://youtu.be/JVy8Rrvzl3Q

 

 

Changes

This video was taken one year ago today:

http://youtu.be/Ei54AlDEM0U

And here is one almost exactly one year after:

http://youtu.be/ZEJ9FWeUiAU

When did my little lady turn into a talking toddler?!?!

Week 14... or Something Close to That

The title pretty much says it all- this pregnancy is still in the backseat of my mind as of late. Yes, it's there and it reminds me every day around 2-3 p.m. when I'm dying for a nap but that is about as much as I notice so far. Well, if you don't count the fact that I can't button any of my jeans.

I am a middle child and my family has always joked around how I was overlooked, have hardly any baby pictures, and as a result was desperate for attention. I have vowed this would never happen to my second child but it's inevitable. Sorry baby 2.0. You might have to speak up if you want any attention around here. You have a dominant older sister who loves ruling the roost right now and passivity won't get you anywhere in this family.



Anyway- I thought baby 2.0 was deserving of a little update even though things have been a bit uneventful.

Size: Baby 2.0 is about the size of a lemon right now.

Doctor's Visit: I got to hear the little one's heartbeat over a week ago. It was music to my ears especially since it took my doctor a few minutes to find it! She kept consoling me telling me it often takes a bit to find it since the baby is so little. Finally she landed in the right spot and we heard that little heart thumping away at a healthy rate!

Cravings: I haven't had too many cravings with this one. However, lots of things that I normally don't eat have sounded good. We are talking HEARTY things. Meatballs, burgers, fries, ice cream, pizza, etc. All the things that pregnant women stereotypically want, I want. With Adelyn I wanted dainty things like fruit salad, cantaloupe, and multigrain cherrios. Not with this child. Bring on the meat!

Sleep: It's ok so far. Just have to get up once or twice a night to help out my overworking bladder. No major disturbances there if you don't count my early bird child waking up at 5:30.

Nursery Progress: I'm still scheming how and when to turn our guest room into Adelyn's big girl room. She is in no way ready for a big girl bed so the crib will move as well and baby 2.0 might be in a pack and play for a while. We'll see. My mom is coming in town for my birthday next week and we plan to do a little shopping for her room so hopefully the train will get moving after that.

We are starting to throw around names but nothing has stuck yet. Still haven't decided if we are going to find out if it's a boy or girl. Last week I was set on not finding out. This week I feel differently. We'll see.

Well, Baby 2.0, there is your update. Your pregnant mama knows you're there and is going to do the best to document your life as much as your big sister's. We pray for you daily and hope you are growing and developing into a healthy little baby Conner. Oh, and sorry about the sudden jabs and pounds. Your big sister hasn't quite understood she can't plop, step, and jump onto mom like she's used to doing. Hang in there. I'll do my best to do the same!

Apple Butter Weekend

Even though I posted about this over at Thriving Home today, I'm giving you all a more detailed look at this fun family tradition of Apple Butter weekend. Prepare yourself for a picture filled post.

Friday night we peeled and chopped 8 bushels of apples.



She has this box fetish going on right now so she didn't mind being carried around in it.



We filled up 10 of these buckets by the end of the night!



The next morning, a fire was started around 6:30 a.m. and apple began to dumped into the huge copper pot. Mornings on the lake are so beautiful!





When Adelyn was down for her morning nap, guess who decided she needed to be babied a bit...





Pumpkin decorating. You can guess whose idea that was :)

Sweet cousin Emerson.

Will's dog Axel didn't seem to mind the cold water too much.

Neither did his buddy, Cooper!

Chauncey watched from a distance. (This is one of my favorite pictures of him by the way!)

Adelyn sported her new zebra hat quite well.

Adelyn with Grandpa Paul.

Getting her first chance to stir the apple butter pot!

Canning time!

Cleaning up the pot with rolls is the best part of the day!

Such a fun weekend!!