40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge

This is a challenge that I found on Pinterest. It was originally meant for the 40 days of Lent however, we are hosting a big family Christmas party in mid December and thought it would be great to purge 40 bags of crap from our house. I am planning to officially start the challenge on November 1, 2011. I am hoping I will be able to get a button and stuff set up so that if you wish to join the challenge you can link your posts on your own blog to this. The bags can be any size. For me it depends on the size of the space. Cleaning out Eli's toy box may only take 1 plastic grocery bag while cleaning out the bathroom closet could take a huge trash bag. Either way it's getting rid of junk that you no longer need. Please keep in mind if it is something you think others will use to donate to Goodwill, Salvation Army, or another organization or individual who could use the item. My next post, before the challenge starts will be to post my list of 40 spaces to clean out. If I think a space needs more than one bag it will be listed on 2 days. Good luck to everyone and I hope you will join me!

Where oh Where Have I Been?

Life has been crazy and blogging has just gotten away from me. I don't even know when I blogged last but I do know it was a long time ago. Eli will be 15 months old on Friday and I still can't believe that! He is quite a challenge. He takes after his mommy in his persistence and stubborn attitude. This leads to many many face off's between Eli and I on a daily basis. It is a constant battle of the wills and who will give in first. Right now the score is about 50/50. I have a few personal posts to do as well as a few challenges. I am planning on posting about sleep in our house! Eli still is not sleeping all night and we are up at least 2 times a night. Also, I will be posting my views on what it is like to be nursing a toddler almost exclusively. That leads me to my last post about having a toddler with an Oral Sensory Disorder that is causing him to not eat most foods. We are starting to work on this at home and again with his strong will this is a daily battle. I am going to also be starting a 40 day challenge which is going to force me to blog daily. If I could figure out how to allow others to sign up and link their blogs of the challenge I will also be doing that. I am going to see if Dan will help me with that later this week. Lastly, I hope to put up some reviews for different cloth diapers that we have used on our big boy. When I was looking for reviews on what diapers work best for large babies and toddlers I couldn't find anything so I feel it is necessary to give my opinion on what we have tried.

Tickers

On the left of my blog there are 2 new tickers. They are there to motivate me to reach my goals.

The top one is weight loss. I am starting with loosing 22lbs. This gets me down to my pre-pre pregnancy weight. I have 12 pounds to go to get to where I was before I had Eli. The extra 10 will get me to a much healthier weight and where I was when we got married, before my miscarriage. I have been procrastinating long enough. It was time to take action. I have used the excuse that I am a nursing mother for 10 months now. Well the weight isn't coming off anymore. Yes, I need to eat extra calories to make milk to sustain the life of my amazing little guy. But apparently I don't need to eat as much as I have been. So today I took a big step in signing myself up for Weight Watchers. I chose weight watchers because it is the only plan that I could find that has something tailored specifically for a nursing mom. They know how much extra you need to add to your diet to keep up your milk production and stay healthy for both you and your baby. Tomorrow morning I will be doing my initial weigh in. Then I will be weighing in every Monday morning. I have told myself that I am not going to officially start until Monday. This holiday weekend would be killer on my diet.

Ticker number 2 is Traveled Miles. I have started walking and will soon move on to a combinations of walking and jogging. I have no specific goal of how many miles I want to cover and in how much time. The only thing is that I want to keep going. I picked 50 miles as a starting point because it seemed manageable. My plan is to track the miles I cover in 2011.

With the 2 tools I hope to meet my goal weight and run a 5K at the end of summer. Encouragement is always welcome.

Birthdays

As you all know, birthdays come around once a year for everyone. It's a celebration of another year passed. As the years go by, birthday's aren't quite as exciting as they used to be.

Today is my 26th birthday. I love birthdays! I woke Dan up at 12:15am to say " IT'S MY BIRTHDAY". He was so thrilled about this but he knew to expect it because I always to it. Although recent birthdays haven't been as exciting as the pizza party's and sleepovers of my childhood this on had to be one of the best ever. Why you ask? Because this year I am a mom! Eli makes everything better.

For my birthday Eli gave me sleep! He slept a 7 hour stretch last night and didn't get up for the day until 8am. He then took 2 great naps and was in an amazing mood. I really couldn't ask for anything better. Dan got me a jogging stroller since I am starting to train for a 5k that I will be running at the end of the summer. This way I can run with Eli. I was so excited when he told me I could pick one out because I thought he wasn't on board due to the cost.

After my day with my little man, we headed out to dinner with my parents and Dan's parents. We had a great time with great food and topped it off with chocolate cake from my favorite bakery.

Now I am a year older and a year wiser, or so they say. Here is to another great year with family and friends.

Week 1 Complete

We have officially completed week one of baby sleep boot camp. We have had our ups and downs but overall are make progress. Eli is only up 2 times a night which is a lot better than 10. I would like to spread it out more but I am not sure if I am ready for that tonight. I think I will give it a few more days. Over the last week we had a great 2 night with an 8 hour stretch. The last 2 nights weren't as good. Night 6 went pretty good. Eli slept 6 hours and then 4 hours so that wasn't too bad. Last night he went down at 8:30 and woke up at 11:30. I finally nursed him at midnight thinking it would put him back to sleep. Not so much, he thought it was play time. So he played by himself in his crib until 1am. He then woke up at 4:30 and slept in until 8am. He also refused his afternoon nap today.

Tonight it was a lot of work to get him to go to bed. He was very tired and would doze off in my arms but would FREAK out when I would try to put him down in his bed. I am thinking that he is getting another tooth or something because this isn't like him at all. I will recap sleep in another week.

BSBC Nights 4 & 5

Tonight we are starting night 6 of baby sleep boot camp. This is my recap of nights 4 & 5 as the title says. It has been 2 amazing nights. I can't believe how great they have been but I keep telling myself that they were just flukes because I don't want to get my hopes up. So here is how they have gone.

Night 4:

Friday was a busy day and we spent most of it outside. Eli hadn't napped well again which made him a very tired boy. We were out watching Dan play softball until 7:30 which is bedtime so of course he fell asleep on the way home. Dan and I let him sleep in the car for awhile in the driveway with the windows open so that we could get some work done in the front yard. Finally at 8:20 I woke him up to get him ready for bed and down for the night. He was asleep by 8:30pm. At 11:oo he woke up and was not happy. I ended up feeding him at 11:30 which was earlier than I would of liked to but he was one extremely angry boy. After this Eli slept until 7:45am! That is OVER 8 hours!! I couldn't believe it. I woke up at 6 in a mild panic and had to go check to make sure he was still breathing. A mother always worries. I really couldn't believe that he had been asleep that long.

Night 5:

Saturday was a good day spending most of it outside again. I really think the fresh air helps Eli sleep. He had taken a late nap so when we tried to put him to bed at 7:45 he just sat in his crib and talked. Then he started to scream. I went in and checked on him a few times and it was apparent that he was not tired and ready for bed so we let him come out and play for a little bit. At 8:40 he was finally showing signs that he was sleepy so I nursed him again and put him in his bed. I went to bed a couple hours later and woke up in another mild panic at 5:10, yes that is 8.5 hours! I went to check on him again like a neurotic mother and accidently woke him up when opening his door. So I nursed him and he went back to sleep until 8am.

Dan and I haven't slept in until nearly 8 in months. It felt amazing. I am praying that its going to stay this way but still telling myself he is just random because I don't want to get my hopes up. Right now its 12:20am and he has been in bed since 8 so we are still over his 4 hour mark that I have set for this week so that is a great sign. I am off to bed and praying we sleep until 8 again.

Spring Garden Clean up

Today was another beautiful Spring day here in Northern Minnesota. It was about 55 out and sunny. I couldn't ask for a better day. I spent hours outside cleaning up my garden trying to get it ready for spring planing. Here the last frost date isn't until June 15 so there is still quite a bit of time but I have a lot to do.

After getting Eli up and fed and sending him off to Grandma's house with dan I tackled the front raised bed. I am planning on turning it from flowers to vegetables so there were quite a few things I needed to do. I dug and dug and dug. I took out 60+ lily bulbs that I brought in to a friend for her to plant in her flower beds. I know there are many more in there so I have now decided that we are going to have to remove all of the dirt from this bed (to be used somewhere else) and start from scratch with a great mix suitable for vegetables.

I then came inside and started planting my seed. I started tomatoes, peppers, peas, green beans, and lettuce. I will add carrots and possibly onions when I plant outside. They are now in their mini indoor greenhouse for the next 5-7 weeks until we can plant outside.

This evening after we returned home I headed to the backyard to try to tame our raspberry jungle. When we moved into our home a little over a year ago there was a huge garden in the backyard. We had no idea what was in it but as summer came we realized it was over half raspberry bushes. Now half of these are old canes that don't produce berries anymore. I started to prune them and remove dead canes last year but I was too big and too pregnant to care. This year I am hoping to tame them and then work on the other half of the garden that is a horrible eye sore. I feel like barely made a dent in the garden back there but the section that I was working on looks great.

I can promise that there will be a lot more posts on my garden because I have a lot of work to do on it and really want to make it look nice.

Loving Spring

It is finally feeling like spring is arriving after taking it's sweet time to get here. After living in Northern Minnesota all of my life I know that some years spring doesn't arrive until at least mid May. It seems as though this is one of those years. Today is May 6, 2011 and it was beautiful out. We spent our morning at home enjoying some play time. After morning nap we headed off to meet a friend and her son who is 4 months older than Eli. We had a wonderful 45 minute walk on a trail through the woods. This is another plus of living in Northern Minnesota. There is a trail in the woods pretty much in the middle of town. After spending some great time in the woods and sun we headed home for Eli to take his afternoon nap. Then it was off to my in-laws house. They live on a gorgeous lake and I headed out in the kayak. The water was smooth as glass and so beautiful. Eli put his feet in the lake for the first time. the water is still cold since the ice just went out a week ago but he is now obsessed with the lake. I love that I have a water baby and Dan loves it even more. Dan got off work and we headed into town for his softball practice. It was such a nice evening that Eli and I enjoyed the sun and company of some friends (other guys' girlfriends and wives) while the guys had batting practice. Eli fell asleep on the way home so we left him in the car in the driveway with the windows down and got some work done in the yard. Dan raked and played with Nala while I weeded the front garden. After this we came in and had a normal night. I had to share our day step by step because we FINALLY got to spend an entire day outside in the wonderful spring sunshine. Here a few photos of my adorable little boy while we were watching Dan at batting practice.

Watching Daddy play softball.

BSBC Night 3

It seems like nights are getting better. Eli didn't go to bed well last night but I was expecting that. He didn't get his afternoon nap making him overtired. This usually leads to a complete meltdown at bedtime. He had his expected meltdown as soon as I took him out of the bathtub. Of course as soon as he was able to nurse he calmed down. This is just one of the many benefits of nursing, you can calm your child right down, but that's another post for another day. Unfortunately because he was so tired Eli fell asleep after about 10 seconds of nursing. I snuggled with him for a little bit because I love it and it's the only time he will snuggle. Then put him down in his bed. He wok up and was very angry with me. Because he had been extremely hungry but didn't eat anything he woke up and realized he was still starving. I did something I never do, I took him back out of his crib and fed him some more. I usually don't do this but I knew he was hungry and was not going to deny my hungry baby his milk. This time I focused on keeping him awake so he would eat. He did nurse well and I put him back in his crib awake at 8pm. I didn't hear another peep from him until 12:30am. That was 4.5 hours. After letting him fuss for a few minutes and knowing he wasn't going back to sleep I went in and nursed him. He went right back down. He did wake up crying at 4:15am. I just fed him in my sleep deprived state I didn't even look at the clock. This really gets me in trouble. I need to pay attention to the clock or we will end up right back where we were. The good thing is that it was only 15 minutes early and tonight I will take special care in watching the clock and making sure we wait at least 4 hours. Eli then woke up at 7:40am for the day. I really think we are making progress!

I do want to note that I am not usually a by the clock feeder. During the day Eli nurses whenever he wants. This is usually every 2-3 hours. He does however go 4 hours on occasion. However, I feel like continuing to feed on demand all night is going to leave use even more sleep deprived than we already are.

Today I leave you with a new photo of my sweet little man that I took this morning, while typing this post. We will be back tomorrow to let you know how tonight went.

BSBC Night 2

Last night was much improvement over night 1. Eli went down without a fuss at 8pm like he does every night. His pre-determined feeding time was at 12am which was 4 hours after he last ate. Eli woke up at 11pm which seems to be what he is used to. He always wakes up around 11. I let him fuss for about 5 minutes and he wasn't calming down so I went in and told him he was ok. The main problem is that his blankie was out of reach. He can't sleep without it. I gave his blankie to him and he curled up and went back to sleep without my picking him up. Between 11 and 12 he woke up about every 10-15 minutes. He let out a cry and when I didn't immediately appear he would quiet down and go back to sleep. When he let out a cry at 12:10 I went in and nursed him laying him down awake but close to sleeping. I didn't hear from him again until 4:30am! That was past his 4 hour mark! He hasn't slept 4 hours straight in months. I let him fuss for a few minutes but he wasn't going back to sleep so I got up and nursed him and didn't hear from him again until 7:50am when it was time to get up for the day! It is so nice to see some progress. It seems like we are getting a little more sleep every night. I'll be back tomorrow to let you all know how night 3 went.

BSBC Night 1

Last night was night number 1 of Eli's BSBC. It was a rough one but saw progress even throughout the night. Going to bed is always easy for Eli. He hasn't fought it in a couple of months but staying asleep is hard for him. I went into last night telling myself I would only pick him up and nurse him ever 4 hours. He went down at 8pm like usual and awoke screaming at 11:10. For the next 50 minutes I went in over and over at predetermined timed intervals to tell him he was ok. He continued to scream but I knew he was fine. He had a dry diaper and wasn't hungry. He is just so used to having mommy pick him up and cuddle or nurse him every time he cries. At midnight when he hit the 4 hour mark I went in picked him up and nursed him. Laying him back down drowsy but awake and off to bed we all went. He then mad it until 3:45am! I then let him fuss until 4am which was his next feeding time. He didn't scream at all at this point. He was obviously unhappy but just fussing and whining. At 4am I fed him again and put him down. He awoke at 6:45 and at 7 he got to get up and eat. The reason this was not at a 4 hour interval was because he was getting up for the day.

We are already partway in to night 2 (and I should be sleeping). It is going better than last night and I can't wait to update you all tomorrow!

Sleep, or Lack of Sleep

Eli has entered into his mommy's own version of boot camp. I call it Baby Sleep Boot Camp or BSBC. My sweet little boy is not a good sleeper. He has no problem going to sleep on his own. I always lay him down in his crib awake and he chats to himself for a couple minutes and then he drifts off to sleep. However, this only lasts about 1 hour then he would like his entire night time routine repeated so that he can go back to sleep. I am only human and can only wake up so many times per night and still function. I understand that all babies learn to sleep through the night at their own pace and that it isn't something to be forced. I heard last month that night wakings are only as much of a problem as you make them. Well, after not having more than 3 hours of sleep straight for over 9 months they are becoming a problem. I don't mind waking up 1 or 2 times a night. I am not expecting him to sleep through the night until he is ready but I can not continue to wake every hour every night.

I have read MANY books on sleep, talked to doctors, nurses, and other moms. Everyone has their own opinion of what you should do. Don't let them cry. Let them cry it out. Put them down asleep. Rock them to sleep. Wake them to feed so they don't think they get fed when they wake. After all this input I created a plan using bits and pieces of everything I had hear. I used this method with success a couple months ago to get him back to sleeping in his crib instead of our bed so figured it was time to try it again.

Lindsay's BSBC Guide:

Stage 1: Getting to Sleep

• Be consistent! If you give in the baby knows. You need to be able to outlast your baby. It may lead to a few nights, even a week of even more sleep loss but it will get better.
• Have a bedtime routine. Eli knows when bed time is coming. We go in his room undress him, lotion, diaper change, teeth brushed, redress in jammies, then put on his sleep sack. As soon as the sleep sack goes on he starts to go nuts because he knows what comes next. He gets to nurse while I sing to him. I sing the same song every night. When he is getting drowsy and his sucking has slowed I unlatch him, get one last snuggle and off to bed he goes.
• He doesn't cry anymore when I put him down he is an old pro at going to sleep. However, when he did I let him cry for a few minutes, usually 3 and then checked on him, then 5 minutes later repeated, and 7 minutes later. We never had to go beyond 7 minutes. I told him he was ok, that I loved him, and gave him a kiss on the forehead while telling him he needed to sleep like a big boy.

Stage 2: Dealing With Night Wakings

• Set a predetermined amount of time you would like your baby to go between feedings. Eli goes anywhere between 2 and 4 hours during the day so I picked 4 hours. I know he can go that long without eating as he does it all the time during the day. This means in his 12 hour night he gets to eat 2 times.
• If he wakes up after sleeping for at least 4 hours I let him fuss for 5 minutes to see if he is willing to put himself back to sleep. If that does not work then I go in and feed him until he is drowsy and then back to bed he goes and the clock starts over for his 4 hours.
• If he wakes up prior to 4 hours I allow him to cry for 5 minutes before going in and checking on him. I repeat timed checks mentioned in the previous stage until 1 of 2 things happens. He either falls back asleep or he reaches his 4 hours.

Stage 3: Lengthening Sleep

• After successfully reaching the 4 hour interval I plan on lengthening it.
• Week 2 will be 4.5 hours, week 3 will be 5, week 4 will be 5.5 and week 6 will be 6 hours.
• I am planning on stopping at hours as this will be 1 night feeding and I feel comfortable with that. Eli will then be able to decide when he would like to drop that feeding.

I have read so many things that tell you to lengthen every night. I feel that is too soon. I want Eli to adjust and sleep well but not completely shock him.

Let's Try This Again..

This post was started on April 22 but deleted and retyped on May 2, 2011.

I have been such a bad blogger lately. I feel like I should set aside a certain day and time each week so that I can write and let all my friends out in blogland know what is going on in our life. Our days have been crazy here but we are having a lot of fun and enjoying life. Here are some updates of each of us. We will start with the cutest and most exciting member of our family:

E: Last week E turned 9 months old! I can't believe that he has now spent more time on the outside than he did inside! He is a very big boy! He just had his 9 month well child visit and weighs in at 25lbs and is 30" tall. He is in the 99th percentile for both. He has a big head too. It is in the 120th percentile! I just keep telling myself he has a lot of brains in there. E is babbling like crazy and loves to play with mom and dad. He hates playing by himself and lets you know that he wants your undivided attention by screaming. He doesn't move yet, just spins on his butt while sitting. This again leads to screaming as he sees so many things that he wants to get to but can't. He is happiest when he is given 2 fingers, one for each hand, and walked around and around and around. He could do this ALL day. E doesn't sleep well and has entered baby sleep boot camp. I will be posting on this later tonight but it needs its own post.

Lindsay: My life revolves around E. So really, there isn't much new going on with me. I just realized a few weeks ago that as of last week we have lived in our house for 1 year! I also realized that we have NOTHING on our walls. This led to a massive shopping spree at, Wal-mart, Target, ETSY, and Amazon. Our house if finally starting to look like a home.

Dan: Has been busy with work. He has been home a lot more lately which is nice. Back to just going in to the office for 2 days ever 2 weeks. It is extremely nice having him home. I look forward to him coming home so he can play with Eli and I can have a little break. Then it's my turn again as I get him to bed. Eli loves his daddy and Dan loves him but in the middle of the night Eli hates his daddy. He will cry and I will send Dan in. Eli stops crying when he hears the door open. Then he looks up and see's Dan and you would swear that he is trying to hurt him he goes nuts. He does this for anyone but me.

There's the family recap. Hope you enjoyed!

MIA

I have been missing in action lately from just about every online site I usually visit. I have managed to stay up on Facebook to update the Goodies 2 Shoes page but not much else. My husband is gone again. That means that he has been home for 3 out of the last 16 days. I miss him dearly but most of all I wish he was here to help out at 3am. When he was on vacation both E and I were sick. I had strep throat and a sinus infection and E had a nasty cold. I am feeling much better but just as E's cold was on it's way out he started teething. He has had 2 teeth for the last 2 months and the top right one popped through sometime over the night. Unfortunately he has THREE more that I see are working there way up and through. This makes for very long days and even longer nights!

On the business front; I have added another flower to the page and tomorrow will be adding some more and some bows. I will also be debuting the new spring dresses that I am making. Be sure you check it out!

Sick

I am still trying to figure out how this happened... I am sick and E is sick and Dan just left for 5 days in Cancun, Mexico. I suppose it is just all part of being a mom. I hate to fly, err, I don't fly anymore. It terrifies me and gives me those previously mentioned panic attacks. So when my wonderful husband asked last November if he could go to Mexico with a friend he works with I said sure. I feel bad that I don't go anywhere worth him and figured it would get him to stop begging about going to visit a friend in Australia. Oh, and this was a FREE trip so that helps. What I wasn't counting on was both E and I being sick and E needing to get shots while he was gone too. All I have to say is thank goodness for grandmas!

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You & Me + E makes 3

My life has changed a lot in the last few of years. Four years ago I was a college student suffering from sever anxiety and panic attacks. I had a boyfriend that I had been dating since high school and he couldn't deal with my attacks anymore and the relationship came to an end. In all reality the actual panic attacks weren't what he couldn't deal with it was the way I had become due to the attacks. We had been together for a few years and lived together at college. He knew me before I started suffering from anxiety and saw the gradual change as my life became more and more secluded. In November I moved out of our apartment in our college town and went home. I then lived with my parents 3 hours away. We fought our way through this until June of 2007 and it just wasn't a healthy relationship anymore. The next night I was angry and annoyed. So annoyed that I put all my fears aside and went out for a girls night at a local bar. There I met the love of my life who is now my husband.

You wonder why I tell you so much about an ex-boyfriend? Because the last year of the relationship and how it ended really shaped who I am today. That night out with the girls changed my life! I met an amazing guy while I was drunk. His younger brother used to date a friend I was out with and like they say.. the rest is history. The following weekend we went out on our first real date to Shrek 3. Then we sat in a local park until 4am talking. At this little playground we shared our first kiss. We spent many more nights that summer sitting on the same tire swing just talking and laying in the grass looking at the stars. In all honesty at that point I thought "he's cute, it will be a fun summer fling". August came and summer was drawing to an end. I then realized that I had really fallen for him.

The following spring we made a huge commitment when we got our puppy Nala. This little (now huge) golden retriever really changed our lives. In the fall of 2008 we got engaged. Dan asked me to be his wife on the beach of the Mississippi River. Of course the beach was also in a dog park so Nala was there with us. We were married on July 4, 2009 in a beautiful outdoor lakeside ceremony in our home town. We then moved back to our hometown and into my parents home. In December 2009 we found out we were expecting our first child, a boy, in August 2010. In May we bought a house of our own and on July 28, 2010 after 3 weeks of bed rest and 10 hours of drug free labor our son Elias Daniel C was born. Most likely you will see him referred to as E in this blog since that is what we call him as long as he is behaving. E will be 7 months old next week and I can't believe how the time as flown by.

I am planning on keeping up on this blog. It will be ramblings about my life as a stay at home mom with a workaholic husband, in-laws in town who sometimes smother us with love, and my own parents just miles away. Also my adventures as a working at home mom (WAHM) selling my crafts online and at local craft fairs.