National Infertility Awareness Week

National Infertility Awareness Week is this week April 24th-30th.
From Resolve.org: 1 in 8 women and men are diagnosed with infertility. RESOLVE and the infertility community are busting myths and telling truths about the most popular public myths and misconceptions about the disease of infertility and the different ways people build their families. 

If you want to get more involved, check out http://www.resolve.org/national-infertility-awareness-week/home-page.html

Eighteen Month Old Pic

Okay, here's his official 18 month pic...you know...we are only a week away from him being 19 months but better late than never....this was taken on April 13th-

Who Needs Toys When...Installment 2

If you have children or you have taught or taken care of children, you know you can have a million toys but children will want to play with things that are not toys....

Well, back in January, I decided to take more photos of things that are not toys but keep my children amused. These photos are randomly from January until recently.
Besides the fact that we don't have tons of room for toys, this is another reason we don't buy our children lots of toys...because they rarely get played with...except by other kids who come over for playdates...
but....here's what does get played with on a weekly basis-

Paper towel rolls!
They become microphones and telescopes-

Clothes baskets! They become trains-

Boxes! They become whatever you want them to be-

Curtains! They become hiding places-

Even brand new mess mats attract attention and become hiding places as well...that's Miss A under there-

18 Months Old!!

Our little guy is 1 and a half! WOW!!!

Here are some words he is saying:
"Aww Nun"-All Done
"Bee-uh"-Bear
"Pees"-Please
"Moo-uh"-More (It sounds kind of British when he says it...similar to how Miss A said it when she was a toddler.)
"Dee-Dee"-Tee-Tee (when Miss A goes potty, he says it or when he sees he potty)
"Bee-Bee"-Baby

He still signs All Done, More, Please and Thank You. He signs "Thank You" the most.

He's up to 9 teeth-4 top front teeth, 4 bottom front teeth and two bottom molars have cut through and they have been a beast! He has been so clingy for the past few weeks. He was waking up a ton before the first molar cut through. Those teeth are the worst because they are large and dull and take f-o-r-e-v-e-r.

He is less cautious when it comes to the playground/tot lot than his sister was when she was a toddler. Miss A didn't start going down the slide till she was almost 3 and FJ loves going down the slide! He also enjoys the swings A LOT and giggles as soon as we put him in one. He loves climbing up the tot lot equipment in our neighborhood. He also enjoys running. I don't think Miss A liked running till she was almost 2. He is a go-getter!

 Weight-21.9 pounds (5th percentile)
Length- 32 1/4 inches (50th percentile)
Head- 47 3/4 (50th percentile)
He only got the polio vaccine that day so all that's left is the MMR which he will get at 2 and the chicken pox vax which he will get around the time he is ready to start school (if I don't homeschool him) and the Hep B vax which he can get way later.

Here are some snapshots of him but I need to try to take some more as these are blurry, I couldn't get him to stand still (imagine that!) and I'm not sure I want to make them his "official" 18 month photos because I am oh-so-official with my pics ya know-

 He had to have a nebulizer for the first time a couple of weeks ago after a visit to his pulmonologist. (He still has tracheomalacia.) I took him while he had a cold which was a request by the doctor. The doc listened to his lungs and then had him do a nebulizer treatment in the office and then listened to his lungs again. His lungs sounded much better after the nebulizer. So, here's a snapshot of him at his grandmond's house having a treatment-

Riding in the ducky rocker that E's late grandfather, Daniel, made with his own two hands and has stood the test of time all these years and is such a wonderful toy for kids-

We bought FJ A new carseat once he hit the height and weight limit for the infant carrier and it was put in about a week ago. We turned Miss A around right after her 3rd birthday and I am so glad we kept her rear facing for so long. FJ will stay rear facing till 3 too-

Oh did I mention that we got a minivan? I can't remember. We have a black 2011 VW Routan...I love the perks of having a hubs that works for VW/Audi. We aren't really minivan peeps and said we would never drive one but when they came up on the employee lease program, the deal was great and we only have it for 1 year so it wasn't like we were committing for the rest of our lives. We are enjoying the extra room.
A pic of FJ trying to empty the contents of his sister's chocolate milk onto to the floor at Tuskie's for E's mom's birthday brunch-

One last pic...our little cutie just hanging out reading a book (upside down) in the kitchen

Have I mentioned how much this guy loves for me to read to him? He loves bringing me books and then plopping down in my lap as I read to him. He then kicks his legs and giggles as I get ready to read to him. Miss A usually tries to grab any open space on my lap too to listen to the story. 


Happy 18 months, FJ!

Sewing Project: Nursing Cover

My friend, Sandie, is due with her second child, another bouncing boy, on April 16th. (Which also happens to be my nephew, Gabriel's birthday-Happy Early 1st Birthday, Gabe!)
Back in January Sandie said she wanted to buy a new nursing cover because she didn't really like the one she had last time. I got a little brave and told her I would make her a new one...even though I had never made one in the past. She readily agreed and I sent her the list of materials to buy. She quickly bought them and picked out her material and brought the supplies to me. But it took me till this past week to actually start it and get it done.
Each week after her prenatal appointments, she has called me or emailed to tell me that she is either 1, 2, or 3 cm so that got my nesting instinct going and I finally got started.

The most challenging part was putting the boning in but the rest was pretty easy.
Some work in progress-

The final product-

I'm pleased with it but I told her not to look at the stitching too closely! My stitches are sometimes curvy and not very straight.

These are the two tutorials I used:
I used this tutorial for most of it-Sew Much Ado
I used this one for the boning-Freshly Picked

Grocery Shopping

I shop at Wegman's for my groceries every Monday. Every Monday. Every Monday. I just had to repeat that because I feel like I am the only one who has a grocery shopping day. (If anyone else does, please comment and let me know!) I write up my grocery list the night before or that morning and try to have at least a couple of meals planned before I go. Usually I have most of my meals planned before I go and already written down on my weekly calendar that is on our chalkboard in our kitchen. We have a weekly budget for groceries that I try to stick to and usually do. After I am done grocery shopping, I don't need to go back the rest of the week unless we get invited over to someone's house for dinner last minute and need to bring something or we invite someone over last minute.

I take both kiddos when I go shopping and we always get a little treat from the bakery. Now that Miss A is 3 and potty trained (ahem...don't tell the Wegman's peeps that she poops in her panties) she can go in WKIDS. What is WKIDS? It's the free service that Wegman's provides for kids 3-8 (?) in their store while you shop.  You just drop off your child, sign him/her in, get a bracelet for you and for your child and a pager for yourself that attaches to the buggy. The child can stay in WKIDS for 1 1/2 hours...for FREE. Your child then can watch whatever movie is playing, play computer games (or as Miss A says "emailin'"), color or play with toys. They only page you if the child needs to go potty. This deal is fabulous. It has cut my shopping time by 30 minutes. Miss A doesn't want to stay in the cart and likes to walk while I shop which makes the shopping trip that much longer. So, now she goes in there and happily plays after she has had her bakery treat. (Yes, I have picked her up twice and had her tell me that she pooped in her pants and yet somehow no one in the room knew about it. Phew! I guess her undies never caught any air or else there's no way that could have gone undetected. Yes, she had to ride home in poopy undies because I had no extra pants and I had no idea how I was going to wash all that out in the grocery store bathroom with a toddler in tow too. We live only 5 minutes from the grocery store and she didn't shed a tear or put up a fuss about riding home in poopy undies either....hmmm...)

Well, that was quite the digression, wasn't it?

I didn't start this post to talk about her oopsies...because that could almost be a daily blog post...I started this post to talk about grocery shopping. I want to know who else out there has a grocery shopping day, a budget for groceries, and who plans their menu out ahead of time?

Mortified

Today, while looking at a model home, my husband was down stairs talking to the sales guy. I am upstairs with my mother in law, Karen, FJ, and Miss A. Miss A wanders off to another room to look. I am in a room with FJ and Karen. I hear Miss A say "Mama, I tee-teed!" I look in the bedroom she had been in and just see her shoes on the floor. Then I realize she is talking to me from the master bedroom and she's actually in the bathroom. I think to myself "she just used the model home toilet...I hope the toilet is working!"
But I go to the bathroom and instead I see a. PUDDLE. of. pee. on. the. floor. Oh and Miss A standing in soaked jeans. All I could say to myself was "this isn't happening". After that I thought, let's just hide the evidence....there was no toilet paper. So, I saw a basket of cotton balls and thought we could use those to dry up the pee from the floor and then hide the cotton in my coat. But my mom in law grabbed a hand towel from another bathroom and brought it in to dry up the mess and then rinsed it off in the sink. Yep, the hand towel that belongs to the model home...oh and did I mention that the model home is already sold? Anyway, we walked downstairs and Karen told the man what happened and E went up and got the towel to bring home as our souvenir. Miss A rode home in undies and no pants....

I still carry extra undies because although Miss A made great strides with pooping in the potty after Christmas, she has since reverted to her old ways of comfortably pooping in her panties some days.

But I digress...I was mortified after today's events to say the least.

Oh and later in the day, while we were at the tot lot, Miss A had once again waited too long to go to the potty and needed to go immediately so I had to hold her up and have her pee right in the middle of the tot lot today. Thankfully, there were no other kids around. We're just keepin' it classy around here.