Dear Miss Adelyn

Miss Adelyn,

You've been pretty stinking fun lately. It feels like you're coming out of that tough little stage between 16-19 months in which you have opinions and a strong will but the inability to communicate or be reasoned with. That can't be fun for anyone!



You still have your "Dramalyn" moments but we've had some fun days together.

Your favorite words right now are: Uh-oh, fall, cah-cah (cracker), show, outside, mommy, bath, ball, and YEAH!! You love blueberries, peas, crackers of any type, macaroni, cheese, and pretty much anything that I have on my plate.



Lately you've taken to sitting on Chauncey's head. He doesn't seem to mind too much. Much to my dislike, you still like putting toilet paper in the toilet and then fishing it out. Gross, little lady.

You are loving any kind of group gathering. For the first time at the gym today, I had to pull you out of the childcare because you weren't ready to leave! You love to wrestle with daddy on the bed and to be chased!



Another thing you are loving (and we love too) is dancing. We can put almost any type of music on and you'll start wiggling and swinging your arms in all directions. You've got moves girl.

You got your first real hair cut yesterday. A friend of ours, Kay, did it in The Crossing's bathroom while I distracted you with fruit snacks and videos on my iphone. Daddy doesn't like how short it is but I am glad to see the she-mullet go away for a while. Hopefully this will give your top half a chance to catch up with your bottom half.



Baby 2.0 kicked you in the head the other day. You were laying your head on my tummy and he happened to give a swift kick in your direction. You didn't seem to notice but I know you felt it because I saw your head move. My guess is that was the first of many hits and kicks that will be exchanged between you two.



We are also discovering some things you DON'T like. For some reason you HATE being dried off after a bath. We can't figure out if you're cold or just want to run around naked. You don't like sweet potatoes or cucumber. You don't like it when I take the phone away from you without warning. You don't like being knocked over by Chauncey. You don't like it when I give daddy a lot of attention over you (You'll need to get over that my dear. Daddy comes first). You don't like when Chauncey barks near you. You don't like mommy to brush your teeth but you'll let daddy do it most of the time. You don't like your hair being messed with. Again, the iphone comes in handy when we do pig tails.



I've learned the secret to a happy day for both you and mama is to have variety. We almost always have something planned in the morning. Either play dates with friends or the gym. After your nap in the afternoon we almost always run an errand or two. Sometimes that errand is just to get a Sonic drink for mommy. But the outing is enough to mix it up. I can't wait until it gets warmer and less muddy so we can play outside more. You love it out there!



 

Little brother is growing fast. I am in my 3rd trimester already and hitting a point of discomfort in a lot of ways. Reflux, leg cramps, back aches, shortness of breath, clothes not fitting right, crazy hormones, and all the other wonderful side effects of pregnancy have caught up with me. I remember going through this with my first pregnancy but I'm at a little bit of a low point. I feel like I've been pregnant forever but also feel like I have a long time to go. The 2nd time around does go a lot faster but there is a newness and excitement that doesn't accompany every new milestone. I want my body back to normal.

Despite my third-trimester blues, I really am looking forward to meeting little man. I treasure all his movements inside of me and remember how much I missed that when Adelyn was born. I don't want to take this season for granted. It has long days but they are filled with moments that make it all worth it.

Nesting?

It's hard to tell when "nesting" really kicks in for me. I feel like I'm in a continual state of it. However, I think the past two weeks might prove as a case that the nesting has truly kicked in. Here are the signs:

Sign #1: I'm doing a "Seven Challenge" in which I'm giving away seven things a day for 30 days. Sounds crazy but I'm excited about it. We have so much stuff we don't need or use and I like the idea of giving it to someone who could use it.

Sign #2: I'm itching to have enough time to transform these clip on earrings (that were once my grandmas) into hair clips. I think Anthro might pick up my finished product if they turn out like I want to.



 

Sign Three: I reupholstered these stools. The picture below is the BEFORE picture. You'll have to follow along on Thriving Home to see the finished product in the next week or two.



Sign #4: Speaking of Thriving Home, I revamped our side bar on it and got three posts written yesterday. Yes, nesting can manifest in the form of blogging.

Sign #5: I've got Baby 2.0's crib set up with sheets and all. Ya ya, I know I'm still 3 months away from my due date but I am also well aware that my body won't want to do much but sit those last 6 weeks. Adelyn loves to be in his crib and bounce around.



Sign #6: I transformed a dresser into a changing table. Again, check out Thriving Home this coming Wednesday to get the full story. It's orange and I'm trying to like it. Heaven knows I'm not painting it again any time soon!



Sign #7: I've started working on some boy decor for the nursery. It's still in the works but the project has begun!



 

Sign #8: I've already organized a group of pregnant mamas to do a freezer meal exchange in mid-March. I have 5 friends who are all due within 6 weeks of each other so we figured we could each make 5 of the same meal and then exchange them all. I'm excited to get my freezer stocked with meals. I don't want to neglect the health of this little gal when Baby 2.0 comes along!



 

OK, so I think it's obvious. I'm officially nesting and not just in normal go-go-go mode.

I'm growing more and more excited about Baby 2.0. We think we have a name but I'm not 100% committed so we aren't going too public with it quite yet. If you ask me though, I'll probably tell you.

This boy is more of a kicker than Adelyn was. I remember having days where I'd get worried that Adelyn hadn't moved much. I have yet to have one day of wondering if this boy is ok in there. He, like his older sister, seem to have an affinity for my right rib cage. He also is wreaking havoc on Mama's lower back.

I shouldn't complain though. So far this pregnancy has been uneventful and a bit forgettable- which is a good thing! I love all the kicks and movement and I love looking at little boy stuff.

I'm a little worried about how Adelyn is going to handle the new addition. She grows pretty jealous when I hold another baby. Heck, she even gets jealous when I'm hugging or snuggling with Austin. I fully anticipate a few tough weeks as we adjust. Hopefully she'll embrace the role of an older sister love up on little brother.

Well, Baby 2.0 is telling me it's that time of night... time for ice cream that is.

Signing off with one last picture of Big Sis.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and More

Sometimes when I haven't posted in a while, I feel overwhelmed with all the catching up I should do and just avoid it even longer.

In light of that I'll just let you assume we had a great Christmas (we did!) and a Happy New Year (I was in bed by 10:30).

OK, so a little more on Christmas:

My whole family was able to get together which is becoming a little more rare now that 2/3 of us have in-laws and the other 3rd lives a state away. Despite all odds, we were in one house and had a great time. Lots of gifts, eggnog, toys, dogs, naps, puzzles, and laughter.

Even though my parents were "cutting back" on the massive amount of gifts we get this year, we felt no change in their amazing generosity. Even baby 2.0 came back with a loot.

Austin got a pair of noise canceling Bose headphones. The technology in these is freakishly good at making the world go silent around you. We actually had to have a conversation about how much he wears them around the house. We would both be sitting at the kitchen table working, Austin with his headphones on, me chatting away about something for minutes until I realize he has not heard a word I was saying. It also helps to tune out toddler noise which in turn leaves me to deal with whatever ruckus the child is up to. ANYWAY, they are a great gift for a guy who studies non-stop in public but not for someone who has 1.5 kids and a tired wife.

On a different note, I started using Instagram (for the grandparents: Instagram is a iphone app that is kind of like twitter but with pictures).



I've started a new book that I'm loving.

It's called 7: An experimental mutiny against excess.



So far it's made me want to get rid of tons of stuff, stop buying tons of stuff, eat more simply, use less technology, read more, give more, and serve more. Her  style of  writing cracks me up and I've found myself laughing out loud many times and then in deep thought with in a few pages. In fact, I plan on starting a movement of giving seven things away for thirty days. Sounds crazy but when I think of all the stuff that we don't use and don't need, I really don't think it will be that hard.

Adelyn has been really fun lately. Unless its from 4-6 p.m or pre-nap time. A few things she does that I hope I don't forget:

• She dances any time we put music on. When I say dance, it's a stiff-legged rock from side to side.


• Attempts to say "amen" when we pray before meals and at bed time.


• She likes to clean up after herself. Part of the fun is putting all the toys back in the bin.


• She LOVES songs right now. A few topping the charts are: The Fish song, 5 Little Ducks, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, ABC's, and pretty much anything that involves movement.


• She gives the sweetest kisses.


• She learned to say "bye bye" a few days ago and now says it to anyone in public when we are leaving somewhere.


• She loves to chase Sophie around the house. You can imagine how much Sophie loves that.

A few challenges we are facing:

• Knowing when and how the heck to discipline a 18 month old.


• Dealing with the swatting/hitting she does when she's not happy about something.


• Meal time battles. These have just started a few days ago but sometimes she simply won't eat.


• Being pregnant with a go-go-go toddler. By the end of the day everything from my rib cage down aches.

Lastly, it's taken me 3 hours to finish this post. Maybe that will give you an idea of the pace of life around our house. Tonight I plan to catch up on a little blogging, start a puzzle, eat some cookies, and work on a craft project for Adelyn's room. I love the days but I also LOVE the nights around here. :)

Snow Day!

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!

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.

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

 

 

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!!

Pumpkin Carving

A few days ago, we enjoyed the amazing fall weather with some pumpkin carving!



As you can imagine, Adelyn was a tremendous help throughout the process.



She was loving that goop!



 





We let Adelyn have her first sucker. I figured she needed to experience the glory of the carmel apple suckers that come out in the fall. She was digging it. So much that it ended up all over her face, arms, dress, and hair. We almost had an epic meltdown when I eventually took it away so we could get her cleaned up.











I put my camera away before I could get pictures of Austin's pumpkin. It turned out really good though. He did a face on one side and a Michael Jordan symbol on the other. He was pretty proud of himself.