Chalk it up as a good week

Zach made a castle with a big 'ole box last week. It took him probably longer than he intended. But it's been well loved by Naomi. And also by her friends.

Then I had some leftover buttermilk from making fried chicken (see last post:) and remembered a creative idea from my days in school. Preschool that is. My professor during my undergrad days at USU for the Child Development Lab used the cool trick once of chalk+buttermilk.

If you dip sidewalk/colored chalk in buttermilk it gives it a much deeper and thicker color. Zach and I probably had the most fun with it. Sometimes you need to just sit down with your kids and color with crayons too, except this was more fun, definitely cooler:)

As for other fun and exciting news- as fun and exciting life with a toddler and baby all day can be... James had his first bowl of baby cereal! And he liked it.

He's been eating a bowl a day for 4 or so days and he's getting better and better. His hands like to get in the way though. He tries to grab the spoon and then sucks the cereal goop off his fingers, or smears it all over the table. He also dribbles it out a lot. He still has the tongue-thrust thing going on. He ends up eating nearly everything- meaning not that much is actually on his bib/hands/table. But it's still plenty messy.

Naomi could not be more thrilled that her baby brother is *finally* starting to "eat." She gets to help with a few spoonfuls each time we feed him. She's a little overzealous but he'll survive. I'm sure she'll end up feeding him plenty of food in the future.

I've started reading up (again, I forgot nearly everything) about baby food and what foods, when, etc. I also read a bit about introducing your baby to spices! I'm interested in adding a few of those in as we get going on foods for James. Here's an informative site: http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/tipspices.htm

I also gave James a sippy cup with water for the first time last week. It's a love/hate relationship. Actually he likes it now, he gets small sips and Naomi is more than happy to assist him with holding the cup. Seriously, he'll never learn to do anything on his own with her around. Rolling over, drinking from a cup, holding his toys, rolling over, sitting up, eating his toys, rolling over. Just a few things she "helps" him with. "Tummy time for James!!!!"

(new) foods I love

I have lots and lots of foods that I love. But I put together a list of some new ones and a few old favorites:)
Totally a random post, but it was fun.




Nutella
How was it I was well into my 20's before I discovered this decadent treat? Probably because the label is "foreign looking" and my parents never bought it. If you have never tried this, please stop at the nearest grocery store and buy a jar. You will not regret it. It's like peanut butter but waaaay better. I think the traditional/normal way for people to consume this chocolate hazelnut "spread" is to put it on bread. A spoon will work fine. If you must eat it on something, I recommend dipping Nilla wafers.






Bueno Bar
I first tried one of these in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, about a year and 1/2 ago. We stopped at a grocery store to grab some snacks and this candy bar caught my eye. We bought one and I was hooked. It's so yummy. It's also hazelnut and chocolate (and wafers). You'll find a good review of it here. It's not really marketed in the U.S. but random stores will stock it. I had my sister who lives in Switzerland bring me back a stash last time she came for a visit. Sadly it's gone.





Raspberries
Does this one even need explaining? Probably not but I will anyway. I grew up on raspberries every August-September. I remember going as a family to Grandma and Grandpa Low's house to pick raspberries. We each had a bucket with a rope or old tie on the handle and then tied to our waist. I think I used to eat more than made it to the bucket back then.
My parents have had raspberry bushes for as long as I can remember too. At one point about half the garden was devoted to raspberries. I've learned from my mom how to make freezer jam. Last fall I took Naomi to a local farm here in Maryland where you pick your own produce. She picked right along with me, but probably ate most of her finds. I'm looking forward to going again next week- the raspberries are on!




Chocolate Milk
This is a new find. Well, I've aways loved chocolate milk but we all know it's full of fat, that's what makes it good right? Nope. At least not now. This brand Skinny Cow is awesome! It's so so so yummy. And yup, it's fat free. Plenty of sugar, yes- but whatever. I'm in love with it.



Fried Chicken
I decided that if I'm going to live in the South I had better learn how to make fried chicken. I've only done it twice but it was better the 2nd time. There are pages and pages of instructions, tips and recipes online for Southern Fried Chicken and each is just a bit different. There are a few basics that I've followed and from here on out it's just tweaking to get it just perfectly right. Peanut oil, soaking in buttermilk and the right seasonings seem to be the most important.
Unlike the chocolate milk, this one is NOT fat free:) I won't even put a link. If you want to make some too, just Google it- the info is endless.



Bacon
I just love bacon. Even when I was dead-to-the-world pregnant-sick I could still eat bacon.



Almonds
My parents used to buy a big bag of bulk nuts, with the shell, around Christmas every year. I honed my skills at nut cracking and discovered that almonds are not too difficult and definitely my favorite. I didn't even realize back then that you could buy almonds in a can, shelled.
I like smoked, roasted and salted but the natural raw ones are my very favorite.





Dark Chocolate M&M's
I hope they never discontinue these. I eat these by the handful. I have to hide the bowl/bag or I I have to share... Naomi always ends up with colorful stains on her shirt, and if I share with Zach they are just gone too fast. So- these are for me:)

Potty Mouth. Jk, just lots of talk about PT this post...

We are finally making some progress with potty training. SOME. Not a lot but if you step back and look at the week as a whole, we've come leaps and bounds!

We realized last night that it is probably not a good thing that we are getting upset/frustrated with her when she poops in her panties. So yuck but that's the way it goes. We reminded ourselves that she is SO just learning and that we up and changed ALL the rules on her and then expected her to just "get it" immediately. A week and a half ago, it was totally A-OK to poop and pee whenever, wherever. Then we tell her she must sit on the potty/toilet and go there. On command. Or else.

Really though, in all seriousness- she has been wearing pull ups the past two days because it just makes things so much less messy. And she goes "tinkle" -as we call it- nearly every time we put her on the toilet. We just have to remember our jobs here.

1. Put her on the potty every 1/2 hour to hour

2. Tell, don't ask if she wants to use the potty

3. Rewards! Praise! Excitement! when she does successfully go on the potty.

4. No getting upset/mad/disappointed when she poops/pees somewhere other than the potty. Even when she was JUST sitting on the potty.... Just be clear and calm about what we DO want and have her help clean up the mess.

5. Remember that she uses 1-2 diapers/pull ups in a 24 hour period now, instead of 4.

Also, I think she likes the attention, the one-on-one attention she gets when she's sitting on the potty. She likes us to read books to her:)

So I guess my one weeks worth of "experience" has helped me to learn that persistence, positive action/thinking and patience will win the race here.

We are here..just trying to get organized again.

We are here..just trying to get organized again. I mean we are in Maryland.
Our stuff was everywhere after we got home. Lia (and Justin) had left our place super clean, organized and complete with a loaf of homemade bread! Then we walked in with all our bags of clothing and just junk. And papers. I hate hate hate all the papers everywhere! I have a semi-large "to file" pile right now, but at least they are in a pile and the recycle ones are in the blue bin.
Two of my older sisters (I have 3 older sisters:) are so awesome to give me clothing that their girls, and now boys, have grown out of for my kids. It saves us so much money, but bringing home all the extra clothing is a challenge sometimes. Especially now that the airlines only allow one free bag. But there are ways to get it all on board. We bought two huge duffel bags, which are very light weight themselves. Super cheap-o ones from Smiths or something. Then we stuff and stuff and stuff all our clothing, shoes, clothing, diapers, bibs, blankies, etc, you get the idea, into the bags and we end up with 4 bags to be checked total. You are allowed to check one "baby" item for an "infant in arms." We choose a bag full of his clothes:)
Then I gate-check the stroller and car seat, Naomi's seat comes on the plane. Then each ticked passenger is allowed one carry-on luggage (more clothes and stuff) and one personal item. We end up with two-three carry-on items and one personal item that is my diaper bag. It's a lot of stuff.
So here we are, 3 days later and finally feeling sane. Everything is in it's place. Almost everything...my clothing needs some better organization, but whatever.
And to help us feel so much more calm, we are potty training Naomi. FUN!
Hah. NOT fun at all. Well, that's a lie too. It's kind of fun to see her be proud of herself and she's funny sometimes in the process.
But cleaning up "it was an accident, I didn't mean to"s is really not fun. We had a lot of accidents today.
BUT we had one big success. We waited and waited and tried all day to get her to poop on the potty and she wasn't about to. So after she went pee in her "pantsies" again I just left her bare bummed. She ran into the bathroom a little while later and announced, "Mom, I'm going potty!" I peeked in at her and told her "Great! Let me know when you're done." I walked back into the bathroom about 1 minute later and she was standing with about 10 wet wipes pulled (all still connected together:) out of the pack and was wiping herself. She had indeed "gone potty" and it was a bit messy..... lots messy. But she did it, all by herself! So we are slowly getting there I think.
I wasn't' about to tackle this whole potty training thing just yet. I'm too lazy. But Zach is a bit more motivated about the whole thing and it can't just be him on potty patrol, it takes both of us, and we still have accidents. But anyway, I wasn't going to even try until she was good and ready, I mean totally ready age 3+ and begging me for underwear.
But then Zach brought in her little plastic potty and she went bonkers. She was so excited that she announced "I'm not wearing diapers anymore, I'm not, I'm wearing pantsies!"
Ooooohkay I though, we'll try it out. So here we are, 3 days later and I think we're making progress. Funniest part about it is that she wants nothing to do with that little potty. She uses the "big person" potty. Fine, that's one less thing to transition to.
So, for other things. James and Naomi have been sharing a room since we got back Saturday. Nights have been pretty good. Really good I would actually say. I've been putting James down first while Zach reads to Naomi and then she goes to bed as soon as he's in his crib. She has strict instructions to "be quiet and use soft voices." She likes to talk herself to sleep a little.
He has woken up randomly and cried here and there and she hasn't responded except for this morning at about 5:30 a.m. But Naomi went back to sleep immediately so no biggie. I'm hoping this is going to be as easy as it seems right now. It's nice to have our own room, and we've had our own room the whole time in Utah. I don't really feel like sharing again:)
Speaking of, it's so time for bed for me.

aaaaagh! A new post finally.

So it's been a while and there is much to report. First of all, I am still working with James a little with sleeping. He was doing great. Really great. Then he got his 4 month old immunization shots. He woke up that night and would NOT stop crying until I fed him. And that continued for a few nights (Thursday - Sunday) and then we were at Lake Powell (yay!!!) and I couldn't let him go crying at night. At all. It would wake up everyone on the whole houseboat:)
So he was eating once a night at Powell and going to sleep just great. The first night back here in Logan I didn't feed him and he went back to sleep after about 15 minutes. But then he woke up again at about 5:30 and HAD to be fed, NOW. So we did that for a few days and now here we are. Last night he went to bed at 9 p.m. and I didn't hear from him until 7:40 a.m.
Perfect. I hope tonight goes as well. :)
Lake Powell was fantastic. It was definitely very busy for both me and Zach with two little kids but we had a great time. Naomi loved the water. But not so much going down the slide or jumping in. That would require getting her face wet. She would be swimming along side Zach and holding on to him a little, getting towed a bit, and he would go deeper or under water and she would too! She was holding on so tight that she didn't realize she should let go and down she went! She stopped doing that after the first couple of dunks:)
She wore a SuperSoft life jacket, it's the vinyl yellow ones- it was perfect. Ginger brought it for us to use and it was perfect.
Backtracking a second. Before we left for Powell we spent the weekend before with Zach's family. Talia and Wes came up for the weekend too and we all had tons of fun. We all went to the new Batman movie, the boys went golfing, and Naomi, Dylan and Trey played and played. Zach's brother Chad had his farewell on Sunday. He is now in the MTC, one week tomorrow! He's going to be a great missionary.
We left Sunday night at midnight and drove all night to Lake Powell. I am now officially a fan of night driving. It was cooler and no traffic and Naomi and James slept basically the entire drive. Naomi had a tougher time of it than James by far, she's not one to love sleeping in her car seat for extended periods. James only woke up once! We rolled into the Page Wal Mart at 7:30 a.m.
So our time here in Utah is coming to an end. We flying out of here Saturday morning, back to Silver Spring, MD. or "DC" as I tell people who want to know "where are you living now?"
I'm scheduled to have surgery on the 12th and hopefully have a quick recovery:) Zach will be home with us, being everything to everyone. I'm hoping to do a few fun things before I'm down and out and then be feeling good again soon enough before he starts school so that we can go and sight see a little. There's so much to do and see in DC. Lets just say I'm getting excited to get back "home."
I have loads of pictures to post. Maybe I'll get the motivation to get my camera and load the latest pictures:)

Mean Mom or Good Mom?

Well, I've been delaying writing about what's been going on with James for the past week and 1/2. And that must be because I'm feeling a little bit guilty, or maybe insecure about my decision. But then again, I wouldn't have acted the way I did if I didn't think it was for the best.
So, with that weighty introduction, here's the story.
James has been sleeping "through the night" since mid May, so for two months now. What I mean by that is that he has been eating his last meal at 7:30 or so and sleeping from 8 p.m. until about 7 am. Give or take a little. But he was waking up on average twice a night and needed me to put his pacifier (binky:) back in his mouth for him to get back to sleep. He always went right back to sleep. He was in our room in a pack 'n play until we got here to my parents house, he's in his own room, so I have to get up and out of bed to get to him. Also, he was dependent on being swaddled (as well as sucking on a binky) to get to sleep. But he was consistently getting his arms free and waking himself up that way as well as losing the binky.
So I made the executive decision (since I'm a CEO of the family:) that he should be weaned of the binky and swaddling. We did this same thing with Naomi at 6 months and she adjusted really quickly and we never looked back. She has been a great night time sleeper since.
Last Monday, a week and a half ago I put James to bed after feeding him the last time. He was sleepy but awake and I didn't swaddle him or give him a pacifier. I think that if he can't have a binky, he needs access to his hands.
He cried for almost an hour. Not hysterical, but sometimes very sad.... I went and comforted him twice and he was out for good after about 45-50 minutes. He woke up again at 3 am and cried for another 45 minutes and then slept until 7. That was night one.
Night two he took about 20 minutes to get to sleep and woke up twice, taking 20-30 minutes each time to get back to sleep.
Night three he went to sleep after about 15-20 minutes and slept until 5 am and had a very hard time going back to sleep.
Then he got the hang of it. He started going to sleep with 5 minutes or less or no crying at bedtime (and naps). He only woke up at about 3 am or so and just talked back to sleep.
The last two nights he hasn't woken at all until about 6:45-7 a.m. to be up for the day!!!
So success! Crossing my fingers here that he sticks to it.
I felt so sad the first few days and nights. I was used to him not crying ever, seriously ever. But he's just as happy, if not more so. He's sleeping all night and so am I!
Naps have been a little bit of a struggle. He has a tendency to wake up 45 minutes into a nap, which for Naomi when she was this age, was as long as she would ever nap. But James wakes up and is so tired still. So I often will go and comfort him and try to get him back to sleep. Most of the time it works.
He's napping about 3 times a day. Morning and afternoon naps that are about 1 1/2 to 2 hours and then a cat nap in the late afternoon to tide him over until bed time.
I'm hoping he can continue to do so well at night as we travel to Lake Powell next week and then transition back to our apartment in DC. I'm really hoping to be able to put Naomi and James together in her bedroom. Right now they have the same bed time, about 8 p.m. and wake up within 20-30 minutes of each other, you never know who's going to get up first:)
So. Mean mom or good mom. I feel a little mean for not waiting until he was ready to just stop waking up at night on his own, but I have plenty of friends who's children don't do that until age two.... and then I also feel like a good mom because now he sleeps all night with uninterrupted sleep, so he's more rested- I feel better when I sleep all night, I'm sure he does too. And then there's the selfish part. I obviously did this for my benefit, but I am a better mom when I am well rested. I have more patience and energy.
So there you have it. James is now sleeping through the night. And I am really happy about it!

Utah Summer 2008

I'm really enjoying myself here:) Last Saturday we went to Tony Grove for the day. We loaded the canoe up and floated out on the lake. James thought that was fun for about .5 seconds. So we unloaded and I walked the rest of the way with him in the baby bjorn. Babies hate life jackets.

We hiked up past the lake and found some summer snow! Naomi was in heaven. It was so beautiful up there. I just kept thinking how you can't find anything like that in DC or Charlotte. Sigh.

We've also been making good use of the backyard kiddie pool. Today Erica and Dave's son, Isaac came and swam/played with Naomi. She was SO sad when he had to go home! It was really cute.

Naomi loves water. A lot. And I always put sunscreen on her. 50 spf and she is so very brown already! And we haven't even been to Lake Powell yet! (That's next week:)

Zach's little brother Chad is leaving on a mission to Honduras next week as well. ( I can't believe he's so old already!!! I swear I was just 19...) So we are trying to do both. We'll be hanging out with the Champlin's this weekend and will be here for his "farewell" and then joining my family in Lake Powell Monday until Thursday.

So the fun just doesn't stop! We're definitely making the most of this summer vacation.

Tony Grove


That's my life jacket from when I was tiny!

4th of July fire works in the back yard


My sweeties


Boys... Zach, Chad and Luke


twins.... James and Uncle Chad


twins again! James and Grandpa Jeff


Dawson-Naomi-Isaac. Look at those EYES!


James and Grandma Linda

Naomi and Issac. Being "Mermaids"