Catching up!

So I have been totally absent from my blog lately. Actually I have hardly been on the computer at all except for listing pretty much everything we own on Craigslist. Sometime in March Jeff was offered and accepted a job in Hawaii and since then life has pretty much been a whirlwind of trying to sell our home and get things situated for the move. We leave on June 6th. We are very excited to say the least. A little nervous too of course.

Curly has just about started walking. He can stand forever without holding onto anything and he can take about 4 steps before he falls down. He is such a mama's boy and loves to cuddle up to me anytime I pick him up. Since he is now 1 year old I decided to try and start weaning him which I soon found out Curly was not going out without a fight...a big fight. So very quickly I decided with the stress of the move and everything else going on I am not even going to attempt to start weaning him until after we are moved and settled in there. He says mama, dada, hi, bye and a almost understandable "thank you". He loves his sister and idolizes her every move. When she is sent to her room for being bad he crawls to her door and waits for her to be allowed out. Uncle Brian has nicknamed his "Loie the french kisser"..dont ask. haha.

Also of course I will be posting pics of our new home as well. Right now we are renting a condo until we can buy a home which will not be until we sell our home here in Ohio. Which hopefully will be soon. We have a very positive realtor which has helped me to stay sane. Worrying about it is not going to sell our house any quicker so all can do is be patient...and pray.

Here's a few of pics from when my husband went out for his interview.







ALOHA!

Bed to Crib Part 1

So last night I committed to getting Curly in his crib and not giving in. He is 9 1/2 months old and has not slept in his crib for 1 day of his life. Yes he's slept in there for the occassional nap or two and for maybe an hour in the evenings a couple of times when someone has watched him while my hubby and I went on a date. But for the most part he has been curled up right next to me in our bed. Which I love! But he is just getting way to big and way to mobile.

So I decided to try a method of the cry it out method (I hate this method but I have tried just about everything else and NOTHING has worked) So actually the night before last I put him in his crib, let him cry for 5 minutes, went in and soothed him and left. Let him cry for 10 minutes then did the same. Increasing the time I let him cry more and more each time. This didn't work. He just kept getting more and more upset and the crying got harder each time I left. So I brought him back into our bed and called that night a bust.

So LAST night I decided to go ahead and let him cry for 25 minutes (max) before going in to soothe him. Well for 20 minutes straight he cried pretty hard while my heart broke clutching the baby monitor. Wondering what permanent damage I was doing to my sweet little boy. After 20 minutes he kinda went down to a whiney humming so I decided to let him go as it didn't seem as horrible as the full blown crying and I was worried if I went in to check on him the full blown crying would be all that would come of it when I left again. So I let it go on. This went on for about 20 more minutes and little 20 or 30 second blurps of full blown crying in between there a little bit. But after about 40 minutes of all of that there was silence and he was asleep. I DID IT! And him and I both survived it. AWESOME! Few hours later he woke up and I nursed him and put him back in his crib. He only cried for about 5 minutes and he was asleep. When he woke up at 5 am I put him in the bed. Mostly because I missed him like crazy and I just...well I'm weak! Now I am worried I totally messed it all up by putting him in bed with me this morning. But we shall see tonight I guess. Wow I really hope that this is it. I have been stressing about this for literally months.

I'm sure noone will actually read this post because its pretty boring but I wanted to write it mostly for my own records.

Oh and he is acting like the same little boy today as he was yesterday so I feel that the crying didn't do any permanent damage. I know it sounds dumb but this was a true worry of mine.

And as soon as I get around to it a more detailed post about our cruise is coming. Just been kinda busy around here.

Caribbean Cruise 2010

We are home. We had an amazing time on our 7 day cruise. For now I am just going to give mostly pics as I am still busy spending time with my little girl that I missed like crazy while we were gone.





More to come. I promise. Just wanted to get some pics out there. Check back for more about our trip.

What a week...

So it's Saturday night. I am reflecting on my first week as a SAHM. It was interesting. I really didn't lose my patience with Boo until Friday which I was kinda suprised at myself for. Honestly I didn't have anything to lose my cool about...until Friday (more about that in a minute) When I told her to do something she did it. When I told her it was nap time she would ask me if daddy would be home when she got up which I would reply "very soon after you get up he will be home", she would smile at me and lay her sweet little head down and be out for the next 2 hours. Curly was happy as a clam. I think mostly for the fact that he didn't have to take a bottle all week. Mommy all the time. He's such a mama's boy and I loooove it! I do think it is going to be a long winter inside though. It hasn't gotten over 20 degrees outside since I think sometime going on 2 weeks now so even bundling the kids up as much as possible I still hate taking them out in this cold. It sucks!

So Friday Boo was getting a bit of cabin fever I think. She was running around the house like a crazy girl almost the entire day. Wouldn't listen to a thing I told her to do. You get the picture. To sum it up it was a long day. I was glad when hubby got home and I could get away for just a few minutes for a deep breath...and quite frankly just to be able to go to the bathroom alone was a bonus.

Other Stuff From My First Week:

There is a girl. Beautiful woman, 2 young children (ages: 2 and 3 months), married, 28 years old. When she was pregnant with her 2nd child she noticed a lump in her breast, Dr's said most likely a hormonal thing from pregnancy, baby was born. Couple weeks later..diagnosis: Stage 4 breast cancer. She died Friday morning. My mind won't let it go. I have this incredible sadness for her family and her children. I also keep thinking about how she must have felt before she died. She was a Christian so she knew that she would soon be in the arms of her Lord and Savior which for anyone is an amazing thought because ultimately I believe that is where we all long to be. But again we are still human too. Knowing that you will never get to see your children grow up and they will never remember how much of an incredible strong mother they had. Only from pictures and stories will they know her. That to me is so sad! I pray for her family and ask that anyone that reads this would do the same.

On a different note: Since little Curly is now going on 9 months old he is getting a little too mobile to be sleeping in our bed. He wants to crawl to the edge and check out what's beyond the 6 foot boundaries of the mattress and I am not getting too much sleep. So we are trying to get him to sleep in his crib and its torture. I hate the cry it out method so I have been trying all kinds of other things. As of right now he will sleep the first few hours of the night in his crib then he wants me and he refuses to go back to sleep without being cuddled up next to me. And me being..well me..I give in and he's in our bed the rest of the night. Its a work in progress.

Well its getting late and I am tired. And I wanna check my facebook account so I am signing off. Take care and live like you're dyin.

Bye for now

Absence

Sorry about the absence lately. I have had a lot going on. I keep signing in to write a post about my thoughts and feelings and then proceed to write down a few paragraphs before hitting the delete button. There are a lot of changes going on right now. In all aspects of my life. I don't know yet to what extent I feel comfortable writing about the things going on. I am still fairly new to the blog world and I am still quite reserved in my writings. Maybe thats why I don't have many readers..haha. I don't want to say that I am not honest in my posts because I totally am but I just choose not to incorporate my struggles into them. For today I will just say that I am grateful for the blessings in my life. My wonderful, understanding husband and my 2 incredible kids. I feel right now as if the rest of my world could crumble around me and as long as I have those 3 then it wouldn't matter. Eh just feeling sorry for myself. I will post more as the time is right but as of right now its just not feeling right.

On another note, Christmas was incredible. I will write a detailed post on that soon. Boo was a hoot. At 3 she's really starting to "get it" More on that later. Gotta go for now.

Michelle

A little catchin up

So I haven't really posted anything in a while...sorry. I have been so busy with just the day to day things that I really haven't had a moment to just sit and think or write.

Curly is really trying to crawl with all his might. He gets on all fours and rocks and kinda scoots a little bit but doesnt have the real movement down yet. But he gets to where he wants to go by rolling around. I just know it wont be long before he is chasing his big sis around. You can just see it in his eyes how bad he wants to go after her. He had just recovered from a cold and then last night woke up with a goopy eye and nose again. Cold #2 for a little guy. Poor thing!

Boo is doing so good. I think she may be FINALLY getting out of the testing phase (for now) She is starting to listen better and be sweet and lovable again.

Thanksgiving was really great. We had it at our house again this year for my husbands side of the family. It was pretty crazy but still a nice time. Everyone pitched in and brought something for food so that helped a lot. We didnt get together with my family partly because Curly had a cold but mostly because my nephew had phemonia and we didnt want to expose the kids to that.

I am getting super excited for our cruise in January. I have really lost quite a bit of weight and am going to continue to try and lose more. I haven't been on a vacation in about 4 years and I really want to feel good about myself. Great motivation to get my baby baby weight off. Actually at this point my weight is below what I was when I got pregnant with Boo so I am right on track.

Still have not done any of my Christmas shopping yet. Terrible I know. But we really dont have to many people to buy for so I'm not too worried about it. Next saturday my sister and I are scheduled to go shopping together so hopefully I can pick some things up then.

My next post is going to be about co-sleeping. I really want to get my opinion out there and hear what others have to say about it. I know that as far as my family goes. (inlaws included) they do not share my feelings on this but I'd really like to share so hopefully in the next couple of days I can finally get that posted. Watch for it.

Giveaway!!

11th Heaven's Homemaking Haven is giving away a gorgeous Hotslings baby carrier!

To enter click HERE.