A New season

Sorry for the hiatus. I'll be back to blogging someday. Right now I'm focusing alot on crafts and Christmas projects. When i come back to this, hopefully it will be with a different page layout, and a purpose. Anyways. Enjoy the new season, it seems that winter has decided to come early and stay.

Potty Training

So, we went on vacation and put our kids in disposable for 5 days. Katie decided that portable toilets are great and now we're back to square one. I'm sure that most days we catch more pees and poops in a potty with DJ than we do with Katie. She's so eager to wear her 'Big girl' undies, but just pees in them. Yesterday I decided to make her a Sticker chart. Every time she successfully goes to the bathroom on a potty or toilet, she gets to put a sticker on her chart. So far she has three stickers. The first one was just a practice one to try an get her excited about it.  She loves stickers, so hopefully it helps.

One day

What would you do if you could be 'not mom' for a day? I feel very over touched some days, just to have my husband come home, expecting me to want to spend time with him also. It's frustrating, because I want to give my kids and husband all the attention they want and need, but where is my me time? It seems to have gone awol since having kids. If i could be 'not mom' for a day, I wouldn't go out partying or on some crazy adventure or vacation. I think I would rather spend the day lying on the dock at camp, listening to the waves, birds and breeze. OR even just curl up on mom and dads couch and read a novel cover to cover. Go back to my mummas house and spend the afternoon riding an old orange bicycle, roll down the hill a dozen times and catch grasshoppers in my baseball cap.

5 Km

So, as you know, over the past 6 weeks Vic and I have been working up to a 5 Km run. This last week has been a bit hectic, since Jay came home, it was Canada day weekend and we've been looking at that house and visiting the bank. With all that going on, I missed my run on Monday night, and my jog/walk prep thing on Wednesday night. Yesterday, Vic wasn't feeling great and Brandy hosted an Arbonne party, so sadly we had to postpone our final 5 km run. The plan is to go today, with or without children, I'm not sure which. Even without having ran for the past week, I feel pretty confident about being able to complete it without any stops. We picked up a jogging stroller for cheap last night, which needs a new inner tube on one of the tires. Elijah said he wants to start running with me...We'll see how that goes, he's a little too competitive for my taste.

So, Arbonne party, I left DJ at home, and got home early, expecting him to want to feed...just to find out that he was upstairs asleep, and stayed asleep until 1130...oh well. such is life.

Annnddd next Saturday, we'll be home for two weeks! WOOO HOOO, I'm SO excited for the humidity... not.

Porty family farm

So we've been toying with the idea of moving to a 21 acre hobby farm 45 minutes away, and on the way to and from french class tonight, I heard these two songs for the first time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkhcjI5Pwi0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkZViobhYnk

Made me laugh, thought I'd share.

So, should we move? Wouldn't it suck to get settled in, start planting in the spring...and get posted?

Mud Pie Station

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”  ~Margaret Atwood

 http://mysmallpotatoes.com/2012/03/24/build-a-mudpie-station/


Using Kay's Garden, I plan on making Katie her own Mud Pie station, check back in the next few days to see how it turns out!

a few words

I have beautiful children!

That is all.

Good night ♥

title MIA

So, running is coming along nicely. Pushing a stroller definitely slows you down and wears you out faster. Sucks to be Vicky who's pushing the double stroller lol. Anyways, I feel pretty confident that we'll be able to reach the 5km no problem by the end of this. After that we're thinking of bumping it up to 10km, hopefully in time for the terry fox run in the fall.

Aside from running, I got a nice little surprise when i stepped in the scale today. For the past four years I've weighed 155. Now I weigh 149. i know, it's not a huge difference, but it still feels good :). Hopefully we can keep eating healthier and i can add more exercise to my life. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to reach 140!

Last thing, we spent the day at Ethel lake on Sunday. It was wonderful ♥ That's the kind of life I want to life. The kids loved every minute, and so did I. There's nothing quite as calming as nursing your baby on the end of a dock with your toes in the water.

wow

Holy crow am I ever out of shape. At the beginning of each hockey season, my first skate of the year, my ears hurt. Today, when i went for my run, by the end of the third interval, my ear was hurting. Plus a few other places on my body lol. Anyways, point is that I'm out of shape :D But I'm glad I'm doing something about it. speaking of doing something about getting in shape...

CONGRATULATIONS BRANDY!!! :D My friend ( and i know you read this ) placed third in Cold Lake's Biggest winner this year! Out of 100 people!!! She's been doing amazing these past few months, and looks fantastic ( not that she didn't before) but she just looks confident and proud of what she's accomplished. Anyways, if that's not enough to motivate me to get my ass in gear...well then, I guess I'm screwed haha! Wish me luck :D

P.S. In six weeks we head home for two weeks, which means i should be able to run 5km by then. I'm hoping to do it in under 25 minutes, because in high school I ran a 5 km race for gym class, which our teacher said we'd get an extra 5% on our report card if we did it in under 25 minutes... I did it in just over 25 minutes, but still got the extra credit :P Anyways, it would be nice to finally do it!  SO if you hear of a 5 km race going on close to Guelph while I'm home, let me know!!!

5k

The plan ( because I'm lazy and unmotivated)

5km in six weeks. ( I got this from Today's Parent )

Week one (which started today)

Workout 1 (today): 30 minute walk
Workout 2 (wednesday): 7-min walk, 2 min run, 1 min walk, repeat 3 times, 7 min walk
Workout 3 ( Friday) : 7 min walk, 2 min run, 90 sec walk, 3 min run, 90 sec walk, 2 min run, 7 min walk

:) The walk today was nice, I was in a bit of a funk today. We went to the provincial park for a bit, which cheered me up, and then went for a walk. I think that was all I needed. Anyways, hopefully i stick to this, I'll let you know!

Picture Post

Daddy and Katie playing Xbox

Nap time

Diapers on the line ♥

Elijah shooting his bow for the first time! he loves it :)

 Oops! haha

 

Bad form...

kinda went awol...

Sorry about the sporadic updates. I know that they're few and far between, but things have been just a little hectic since DJ was born. It seems as if we've had visitors non stop. I'll start with a quick update on the last little while.

-In laws visited
-My sister and Niece visited
-My bestie and her fiancee visited
-Alex went home, leaving Sara to deal with a grouchy mama by herself for a week lol
-Katie cut one of her two year old molars and is super cranky while she works on the rest
-Potty training sucks. Toddlers seem to be way to busy to stop and go for a pee.
-Kids are growing up WAY to fast. Raevyn will be one on Saturday, and Sophie will be two :'(
-We decided not to go to my cousin's wedding, which makes me sad, but it was an unrealistic trip with two under two's
-We paid off the credit card!!!
-We got a flat tire ( one of our nice newish snow tires) and we both just laughed! I love not having to worry about money
-We brought Katie's twin bed back upstairs and put her toddler bed in our room for DJ
-It makes me kinda lonely having him sleeping in a different bed...so he starts the night off in his bed, and I bring him into our bed when he wakes to feed. This way I get snuggles with my hubby, and then i get to snuggle with my little guy for the rest of the night :)
- Elijah has been working out a lot. He has a pair of shorts that used to be to small, and now they're to big. We're going to have to buy him a new swim suit as well, or they're going to fall off his skinny  butt.
-We've been eating out WAY to much, and not eating healthy enough at home.
-We're going home for two weeks in July!! ( Karen that's for you )
-People see my little guy and ask how old he is, he's five months today, they think he's 7 or 8 months. Katie on the other hand, is still little :) I love my babies.

Mmmmmm that's it for my update, not for a short rant:

I think the thing I don't like the most about military life, is not knowing when you're going to be posted. We've been here for four years, which should mean we're nearing the end of this posting. But then again, you can always get posted to different units on base. You could spend you're entire career in one place if they wanted to keep you there. Elijah is ranked pretty high for his rank and trade, which likely means a promotion next fiscal year. With promotions you typically get a posting as well. We were hoping to go to Borden, and he could have two postings there ( one at 400 and one at the school. But since they're closing 400 squadron, there goes that idea.

Not knowing how long we'll be here, is keeping me from being social. I don't want to go and make a whole bunch of friends with kids, just to leave them all in a year. Next posting I think will be easier, because we'll be going there as a young family, and we will make friends who have kids, instead of spending the first half of our posting drinking and hanging out with the party crowd. For some reason, those friends seem to disappear once you have children, and starting over in the same town kinds sucks. Oh well, we have a few good friends here, I just wish I could suck it up and stop being anti social.

Super Size Me

It's 9 am, and I just finished watching super size me. What a disgusting movie. They show parts of a surgery to shrink a man's stomach. It's a good thing we've decided to start eating healthy again, starting today. Even after watching that movie, I think I would still happily go and get a burger and fries. Knowing that my daughter would only eat the fries if you let her, and that whatever goes into my body, goes into my son's. Knowing all the toll it takes on my body, and how sluggish it makes me feel... I would still go for a milk shake. Just one more, that would no doubt become another a couple of weeks later, or days, depending on how lazy we are. I'm sure I'll eat fast food again. There's just something about the smell as you drive by, or maybe it's just how often you see their logos...whatever it is, it's addictive and I love my greasy foods...until I'm done eating and feel like crap.

So our goal is really just to eat healthier. But I'd like to eat local as much as possible too. I'm going to try cooking with foods I've never tried, and try to eat seasonal farmers market foods. Lets see how well we do, having both grown up on very limited diets.

Pacifier

So I made the decision when DJ was born, not to give him a soother. Elijah supported me 100%, even though there were many MANY times when I was about ready to walk barefoot through the snow, break into walmart and steal one in the middle of the night. Instead, we waited the 6-8 weeks that it takes for breastfeeding to become well established. Let me tell you, it was a long 6-8 weeks...but it was long with Katie to, and she had a soother. DJ is 3 1/2 months old now, and he's just about the easiest baby I've ever seen. Granted he does get cranky some times, and doesn't normally like to sleep alone, but hey, neither do I :) Anyways, aside from the few times he just can't settle down, it's really the toddler in the house that's causing me to loose hair. Little Miss Kay has decided to start cutting teeth again, and is the crankiest little girl ever. It makes me wish i hadn't stopped nursing her. But then again, I wouldn't have DJ yet. And he is totally worth the cranky teething toddler that i can't help lol. Well that's enough of me ranting, later!

Picture post

 Once again i have no idea why blogger flips my photo's...

Chair before

Chair after! It's going in the playroom

Bookshelf for the playroom

Family tree in the playroom

They're backed with felt and there's a square of velcro on the wall, with each persons name painted underneath

And my little man chilling in his bumbo chair :)

That's what we've been up to :) Play off game number three tonight at 7:30, if we win, we go to the championships. If we loose, we play another game to decide if we play in the gold of bronze medal game.

Zzz's and smiles

I'm not sure why it does this to my pictures sometimes...grrr. anyways. Naptime, I love you. You make long days possible. Now if you'll excuse me, i have laundry to fold ( aka... i'm going to sit my ass down on the couch, read a book and snuggle with my little man ♥)

Farmhouse table and bench

As posted a week or so ago, we decided to build a farmhouse table and bench for our kitchen. We're done the build, and now we just have to sand, fill, sand, stain, sand and stain again :)

Willow, Katie CPK sitting on the bench...Katie doesn't think she should wear clothes

Apparently it won't let me post the picture right side up...

I'm not sure what colour we'll be staining it yet

Fridge worthy

I can't get over how much DJ has been screaming, or how much he feeds compared to Katie. It's overwhelming and frustrating. To make things worse, people just tell me stupid things like
- babies do that
- he'll grow out of it
-he has colic
-it must be colic
-maybe he's just a bit colicky...

shut it already! Then I googled it, trying to find something besides " all babies cry" and " it's normal"... you know,  something sensible. and i came across this...


http://www.incultureparent.com/2010/12/why-african-babies-dont-cry/


I love it. period. very reassuring to know that it's just our culture that's a bit screwed up, not my kid. I have no problem feeding him all day if i have to, but when you have it drilled into your brain that babies should only feed a certain amount of times per day....it's hard.

Also interesting, is a comment the author leaves about co sleeping. apparently in Kenya it's considered un safe to let your baby sleep alone. So shut it about my choice to cosleep, breastfeed on demand and carry my child through out the in arms phase.

The end. :) I feel better already!

One Hundred Dollars

What would you do with one hundred dollars?

Elijah is on parental leave for the month, and driving me nuts. He needed a project, or I was going to send him back to work early. A few weeks ago, we had discussed making a dining room table and come across this:

http://ana-white.com/2009/12/plans-farmhouse-table-knock-off-of.html
 http://ana-white.com/2011/01/plans/farmhouse-bench

After a trip to Rona today, and 100$ later...we have the supplies to build our table and bench. :) mind you we're adjusting the table to six feet and the bench to four, since our dinning room isn't large enough to look nice with an eight foot table in it.

Pictures to follow as the project progresses.

DJ's Birth Story

 Excuse the lack of paragraphs and odd flow :)... his birthing story really began before halfway through my pregnancy when my old doctor pissed me off enough, that I walked out halfway through the appointment and ended up jumping through hoops to get a new doctor. She is amazing, actually takes the time to talk to you and explain things to you. She treats you like a person and is open to new things... like me birthing using the squat bar :) Anyways, here it is:

Just like my daughter's birth, my contractions began early in the morning ( This time at 4 am) and were ten minutes apart. Not being being able to sleep through them, I tossed around until a semi sensible hour, got out of bed quietly and made banana muffins. Elijah came running downstairs around six, half asleep, when he realized I wasn't in bed. He asked if it was time, and I said no, but asked him to stay home from hockey and work just in case. I had been expecting them to stop, like they did with Katie, and start up again the next day. instead they grew closer together, occurring every4-6 minutes. Normally with your second, you would o to the hospital at this point, but they weren't very strong, so I called my doula and told her that we were going for a walk and i would let her know if anything changed. Instead of intensifying, they spaced out and became sporadic again. They stayed like that all day...which was really annoying. With my daughter, I hadn't been feeling half of the contractions and was 4 centimeters when I went in to my appointment that day. So, just before Katie's bedtime, we decided to go the hospital to get checked out. At this point, they were back to 10 minutes apart, and i was only 3 cm. We went and picked Katie up, went home and i dozed on and off from around 930-1230 as my contractions intensified and got closer together. At 1230 they were to uncomfortable to keep lying down, and my pants felt a little damp. I stood up and felt a gush, went to the bathroom and felt another gush. The contractions got worse right away, so I called my doula to meet us at the hospital.We dropped Katie off at Justin and Brandy's and made our way there. Once there, registered and hooked up to the machine, I was checked and had already made it to 7 cm. AND apparently my water hadn't broken?? Since I am super woman and was mentally prepared this time around, I was able to walk through most of the contractions, staying calm the whole time. We had one nurse come in near the end, saying how quiet I was, that she couldn't believe I was in labor and that she wished everyone labored like that. I was starting to feel a little pukey, so I didn't eat, assuming the baby would be here soon, and that I would probably puke it up anyways. The hours crept by slowly, and I was so exhausted come early morning, having hardly slept in two nights, that my body decided to rest. The contractions eased up and spaced out, allowing the three of us to doze for a few hours. somewhere between 8 and 9 am, my doctor told me to eat and drink something, so that the baby and I would have energy and wouldn't have low blood sugar. Having slept, eaten and drank a little, my body decided it was time to pick it up again. I went for a pee, and felt alot more comfortable there, so hung out in the bathroom for a few more contractions. I had been having the weirdest contractions that night, some feeling like my body was slowly pushing the baby out on it's own. Still, i didn't feel the urge to push. i flt a little pushy though, and we decided to put the squat bar on the bed so i could give it a try. I may have tried two little practice  pushes when my doctor came in. We had agreed earlier that i could do whatever i wanted for the first half hour, unless it didn't work, in which case i would push how she told me to. I pushed for 9 minutes with my daughter, felt like i had no control over what was happening and walked out with stitches. This time my water was broken when I was ready to push, and as soon as she broke my water, the urge to push was there and my body took over completely. I pushed when it told me to, and held my breath for as long and as often as it needed. such a difference from being yelled at to push and being told your not pushing hard enough or holding your breath long enough. Including the two practice pushes, having my water broken and actually pushing, DJ came out in 11 minutes. I even got to feel the head crown a little bit before he came flying out with the cord around his neck three times. i learned later that my doctor tried telling me to stop pushing once his head was out, but there was no stopping me at that point. She clamped the cord and cut it right away, appologizing the whole time. We had agreed to leave it attached for a little while, but i guess the way he came out, she needed to cut it.What a high you body gets when you actually experience what your body is capable of during childbirth. My doula was great company, telling us about her birthing stories and keeping the atmosphere clan. I labored so well that there wasn't much for her to do, but just hearing her say that this was the birth she had been waiting for to restore her faith in women, was very cool to hear. DJ was given to me right away and nursed for an hour (on the same side...which ended up being very painful for the next week) before being weighed at 7 lbs 14 oz. He passed all the meconium at the hospital, loosing a pound in the first 24 hours of his life. He didn't sleep very well, and still hasn't figured out that night time means sleep time not scream time. He now weight 11 pounds at four weeks. He drives me almost to insanity when he screams and I don't know what's causing it, especially at 1 am . But i love my little man to pieces and am falling more and more in love with him every day.

EC randoms

Now that things are settling down a bit around here, I've been able to notice a few things about when DJ eliminates.
1. He doesn't pee while he's asleep, or at least not in a deep sleep, he'll stir and rouse himself just enough to pee before going back to sleep.

2. He doesn't seem to enjoy "soiling his nest". he seems to know where he sleeps already, and yesterday while i was sick, he stayed in bed with me most of the day. At one point he was starting to get fussy and wouldn't calm down, so off went his diaper, and the closer we go the the bathroom the quieter he got. he went for a pee and a big poop and was content right away. we went back to bed and he nursed and fell asleep again.

3. apparently Katie knows when DJ has to pee. It's happened a few times already, but I only responded the last time. I'm still not sure if i believe it or not, but sometimes when he cries, she'll come over, signal potty and say "psss psss". That last time she did this, i took him to the bathroom and he had a big pee and calmed down.

Just a bit chaotic lately...

I swear i will make some time to write about DJ's birth...soon!!! PROMISE