Birthdays, Beaches, and Blogging

Things have been a bit crazy here with learning to navigate life with a toddler and a newborn!  Eric is now 4 months old (gasp) and finally not so colicky.  We're still having some struggles with waking up anywhere from three to four times a night (two on a good night).  So, I'm still pretty darn sleep deprived and 4 months of sleep deprivation can lead to neglecting a blog, clearly.  I probably would have just complained the last four months anyway.  But I'm going to try to get back to this because I really want to keep documenting these times so one day I can look back and and REMEMBER things that my sleep deprived memory might rob me of :).

This fall was beautiful and the weather has been really mild.  Lillian's birthday was a big hit.  She had an apple themed birthday party with LOTS of friends, family, and babies.

Just a few decorations

Pie in a jar for our guests to take home (we didn't serve dessert at the party)

She was running around so much, this is the best photo I got that day!

My little colic monster would only rest with mommy

Lillian is growing up so fast.  She picks up on so much going on in the house too.  Ever since we brought Eric home, she has been ALL about her baby dolls!  She puts them in his swing, on his play mat, in his jumperoo, in his bumbo seat, she lays them on the bed and puts diapers on top of them, puts the swaddle on them, etc.  She burps them and rocks them too.  I just love watching her and if she's playing with her dolls, then she's staying out of trouble...

Speaking of trouble, turning two has been interesting.  She has learned how to get my attention by getting into anything and everything she's not supposed.  Drives me absolutely batty!  It's especially hard with a newborn who cries and nurses all day and I'm trying to soothe him while keeping my eye on her. Oy. And all while sleep deprived. 

It's been really hard to not loose my mind the last 4 months.  I was so desperate for a break, and felt horrible that Lillian wasn't getting the attention she was used to.  Finally out of desperation I called the local PDO program (parents day out) and asked if they had any openings, and thank God they had one opening in her age group. We went in and toured the facility and I talked with the teachers in her classroom for a while.  It took a few visits before I was comfortable leaving her there for the whole day (9-3), but I'm thankful they are willing to make a few adjustments for her and were more than willing to learn about her syndrome.  The kids eat snacks and lunch at "school" and I'm able to provide Lillian with all her own food, so that makes everything much less stressfull.  I found a great PDF file written for preschool educators of children with PWS.  The link to that file is here.  I also printed this out for all of her therapists because it's really great information on how they learn best.  She absolutely loves going to "school" and usually doesn't want to leave when I go to pick her up.

So now Lillian's schedule for the week consists of 2 days at PDO, 4 therapies (PT, ST, OT, DT), and church 2 mornings a week (once during a mom's group and once on Sunday).  She's a busy girl!

We also recently went to the national PWSA conference in Florida and met some really great people.  Lillian enjoyed swimming and we spent some time at the beach. 

Eric deserves (more like demands) a whole post to himself, so I'll update on him later. He's an absolute joy and I'm really enjoying this age with him!  Lillian loves her brother too and luckily has shown no jealousy of him whatsoever.  Hopefully it stays that way.

Any sleep advice for a 4 month old is welcome :).  I'm sure many of you have experience in this department!  Since he was a colicky newborn, up until this point I've basically done anything to get him to sleep.  Rocking, nursing, singing, etc.   Now that he's not crying all the time, I'd like to get him out of the habit of needing to nurse to sleep because i'm really not getting enough sleep to be a good mom.  I'm just so tired. 


Sarah

Eric's Birth Story, The Cliff Notes

We're all still sleep deprived and I'm officially a new believer in Colic.  It's no joke.  But I figure this post needs to get written before details are forgotten.

If you're anything like me, you want the facts fast.  Sometimes I just want to know what happened, cut to the chase, don't give me the long winded version.

So here are the Cliff Notes:

• Labored at home all day, visited doctor around 2pm to have membranes stripped (4cm dilated), went back home
• Called my mom around 5pm and told her we were heading to the hospital around 9pm
• Mom shows up to watch Lillian around 7:30pm
• Continued Laboring at home timing contractions 4-8 minutes apart, 1.5 minutes long
• Water broke at 9:04pm in the living room
• Left house about 10-15 minutes later
• Car ride from hell
• Got to hospital around 9:30pm
• Barely got my clothes off in time
• Baby arrived at 9:52 - no epidural, no doctor, no problems!

Thank God for a great nurse who didn't lose her cool when she realized she was alone and about to deliver a baby by herself, and a quick on call mid-wife.  The mid-wife literally introduced herself, I nodded my head, grimaced and said "OK" while bracing for the contraction-straight-from-hell, and then his head popped out.  Woah nelly.

If my husband had parked the car in the parking garage instead of leaving it in front of the hospital doors and grabbing the wheelchair conveniently left next to the door, I would have had the baby in the hallway :-/.  Thank goodness he listened. 

And here's a picture of my 1 month old little colic monster.  Don't let the smile fool you....

Sarah

This One Time, I Had a Baby...

And it was CRAZY fast. 

Unplanned med-free birth story to come... as soon as I get some sleep.

Sarah

Reason #135212344 why Pinterest Rocks

Because it provides inspiration for adorable things like this:

And ridiculously easy smell good stuff like this:

And yummy food like this:

and this:

And for inspiring photos like this (oh hey, it's my 40weeks 4 days belly!)

I took this photo on my kitchen floor with the auto timer while Lillian ate lunch :-).

If you don't pinterest, you are totally missing out.  If anyone needs an invitation, I just need an email address and I'll send you one!  You won't regret it! 

Here are a few pins I have pinned to my boards just waiting to be used!

Finger Print Pendant:

Tiny DIY Kitchen:

A "don't touch my baby" cover :)

Sarah

A Much Needed House Upgrade

We finally got a new deck!  It hasn't been stained yet.  Not sure when that will happen but probably sometime when it's not as hot outside. Maybe the fall?  I'm loving it though, and so is Lillian.  She finally has a flat spot to play outside. 
Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Oh yeah, and I'm still pregnant. Here I am at 40weeks 3 days:

HDBD: 39 weeks

I just realized this hasn't been updated since 34 weeks.  Hello slacker! I'll keep it short and sweet and just throw in some pictures.  Sound good?

D-A-D Funny

Wow, 2 blog posts in one week!  You'd think I'm just sitting around on my couch waiting for my water to break or something... Oh that's right, I am.

Lillian has decided to go back to 2 naps a day which is A-OK with me.  Momma needs a break, and a donut, and some coffee.  And some peace and quiet.  And to NOT be climbed all over thankyouverymuch.  I love my girl and her rough housing but I'm huge and exhausted and just need a wee break in the day.  We're still trying to keep our regularly scheduled activities of PT/OT/ST and trips to the pool and splash pad.  It's not easy though.

So for a while Lillian had this really cute thing she would do.  I would say "Lillian, say CHEESE" and she would give me this hilarious wide open mouth "smile".  It was adorable.  So adorable that I thought, this could turn into a great gift idea for Father's Day!  A friend of mine posted a photo like this on Pinterest....

Super cute, right?  I thought so.

"Hey Lillian, say CHEESE!"

"Lillian, please say CHEESE!"

"Lillian, this is a gift for Daddy.  You love Daddy.  He's your favorite.  "CHEESE" please!"

Yeah...

Oh Hey, I Finally Finished Something

And yes, I'm still pregnant.

We finally got around to finishing Lillian's new big girl room... only 2 months late.  We were really hoping to move her in long before the little bambino showed up, but here I am 39 weeks pregnant and she still hasn't slept in there.  She does play in there and all her clothes are in there, so I think she understands it's her room.  I guess we're just going to wing it and hope for the best when she gets transferred to sleeping in there.

The words along the shelf and the bird mobile were made by moi (I have a brief tutorial for the words to post another time).  Phil painted the "dresser" which was originally two extremely ugly poop brown night stands.  He painted them white and painted the handles green - which I loooove!  The bookshelf came from IKEA (I'm thinking about painting the backboard of it), and the mirror came from a consignment shop. She has a walk in closet, so there's plenty of space to store her cute little wardrobe.  Everything else we had on hand!

Overall it's exactly what I was hoping for, something timeless, girly, and a bit sophisticated without being too grown up.

{You can click on the photos to make them bigger}