Thankful Thursday

This list goes on...

23. Generous strangers

24. Red Lobster (specifically shrimp)

25. Hanging out with Jenna

26. Birthday phone calls for Grace

27. Grace's little friends

28. The cross

29. The resurrection

30. Time spent with family

31. All things looked good at Caleb's doctor appointment

32. New recipes

Happy Easter

We had a great (for the most part) Easter weekend. The only bad part about it was I got really really sick for about 15 hours. I spent all night Saturday on the toilet and throwing up. I will spare you the details but in the morning I said it was the worst night of my life and I would much rather go through labor again. Needless to say, we were not able to attend church on Easter Sunday because I was so sick. I think that was probably the first time in my life I missed an Easter Sunday service and it was pretty sad not to go. But, we were still able to celebrate the reason for Easter and reflect on the fact that Jesus is our Lord and Saviour. Because no matter how sick I was Jesus was right there with me and that is the most important thing. And, we still had a fun weekend with family so I'll give you those highlights now.

On Saturday, Matt's parents and his sister Rachel and her husband Rollin came to visit. Rachel and Rollin got to meet Caleb for the first time since they live out of state. We also got to celebrate Grace's birthday and Easter. Matt's mom brought some eggs and we all went to the park so Grace could have an Easter egg hunt. She is really into finding things these days so the hunt was really fun for her. It was a nice day and it was good to get outside.

On Sunday, after a few hours of laying around and making sure I could be away from a bathroom for an hour we got in the car and headed to my parents house. This was Caleb's first trip out of town and he did really well. At my parents we had a yummy lunch (I was able to eat a little), played with my dad's new iPad, watched Grace open a few more birthday presents, and had a nice visit with family.

Aunt Rachel and Caleb

Easter Egg hunt

All smiles on Easter

Birthday Celebration

Today was a great day celebrating Grace's birthday. We had fun with friends and a good family night.

We woke Grace up this morning by singing Happy Birthday to her and asking her what she wanted for her birthday. She responded with, "a tricycle" We have been training her to say tricycle for the last couple of weeks. Recently she came up with blue helmet and has been asking for that too.

Then we went downstairs and gave her her present. It just happened to be a tricycle. The tricycle we got her is perfect because it is green and has "Go Green" written on it. It is made from mostly recycled materials. And since Grace was born on Earth Day how can I pass up a recycled gift! We also got her a couple of books (which we will give her tomorrow since I forgot about them).

After playing on her tricycle for a while Grace got to have whatever she wanted for breakfast so she ate a lot of donuts. Then we just hung around and got ready for the day.

For lunch 2 of her 2-year old friends came over to eat and celebrate with her. We got Papa Murphy's pizza and a s'mores pizza. It was yummy.

After that it was naptime. We just bought a railing for Grace's big girl bed and put it up this morning. So I thought I would try to let her sleep in her bed. She was pretty wound up so she was just playing. I finally just got her up and put her in her crib for her nap.

Later my friend Jenna came to visit and hang out with Grace and Caleb for a little bit. Then Matt and I loaded up the car and headed to Red Lobster for dinner. The last time we went there was for Grace's 1st birthday so we decided to continue the tradition. Some of the staff sang Happy Birthday to her. They don't give free birthday desserts so we were going to buy her something. But, someone at the table next to us beat us and had a sundae sent out to her. How cool is that?

Now Grace is laying in her big girl bed and we're wondering if she will fall asleep and if so how the night will go. I'm a little nervous so I feel pretty sure we'll move her to her crib once we go to bed. I don't need 2 babies waking me up in the middle of the night!

Grace - 2 Years Old

Grace is 2! I don't even know where to start. The 3 months since my last update have been lots of fun. I think the biggest change we've seen in Grace is more independence. She is learning to do so much on her own and really wants to do it on her own. This is a big change for me because she has always been so go with the flow so it was shocking when she started asserting herself more.

Grace's new hobby is buckling things. She likes to buckle car seats, high chairs, bouncy seats, my infant carrier, and anything that looks bucklable. She is always saying, "Grace do it herself" when faced with a buckle. She also loves to feed herself, attempt to put on clothes herself, and climb on things herself.

Grace's communication skills have taken off in the last couple of months. She is definitely saying complete sentences and thoughts. She can repeat whole entire songs and can say the name of almost everyone she encounters that she knows. She knows what's coming next in books and recites every word on a page in her favorite books. She pretty much talks non-stop at home.

The other things that Grace has learned this "quarter" are her colors (or at least several of them), her address, her full name, and her age. I know that I didn't cover everything but hopefully I remembered the highlights!

Thankful Thursday

The list of what I'm thankful for continues...

12. Friends from church who live down the street

13. Meals prepared by other people for us

14. Mexican food

15. Running into and having dinner with friends at Mexican restaurant

16. The new cry room at church so I can still hear the sermon while dealing with a fussy baby

17. 2 sets of 4 hours blocks of sleep in one night

18. Seeing old friends that I haven't seen in a while

19. Franch from Monical's (French and Ranch dressing combined to make a great salad dressing)

20. April showers

21. Harry Potter movies

22. My Kindle

Caleb - 1 Month

We survived the 1st month with Caleb! I think that we not only survived but we thrived. We are thankful that we have so many friends who brought us meals and were willing to help out because without them we probably wouldn't have thrived.

Caleb has been a blessing and a joy to have around this last month and I honestly can't remember life without him. I'll try to sum up some of the highlights and what he's been up to these days.

Eating: First of all I'm very thankful that Caleb is a great nurser and has been from day 1. After about a week or two he got himself onto a 3 hour eating schedule. A few times he's needed to eat more frequently than that but for the most part he eats every 3 hours throughout the day. At night he has been getting up twice in between 9pm and 7am so he'll go a little longer than 3 hours once a night. However, last night he only woke up once between 9pm and 6am. I don't know if this is a new habit he's starting but I'll take it.

Sleeping: Caleb is doing well at night and usually goes right to sleep after he eats. During the day he takes pretty long naps (~2 hours) in between several feedings. Ideally I would like him to have playtime and then naptime in between each time he eats but it doesn't always work out that way. He is a much better daytime sleeper than Grace was at this stage so I do love that.

Awake Time: When Caleb is not sleeping he loves to be held. I get tons of cuddle time with him and I love it. I think I'm trying to soak it all up because I don't know if I'll have a newborn again. So, I don't want this time where he needs to be held to go by too fast. We also put him in the bouncy seat or swing a lot when he is awake. And he seems to be ok with tummy time. Now I just have to remember to do it more than once every few days:( The evenings are his fussy time and I've noticed it getting a little worse over the last couple of days. According to some books I've read that is normal right now and will escalate for a couple of weeks before the fussiness starts to die again.

Outings: We've been out several times with Caleb this month. I've even taken both kids out several times. We have been able to go for walks, run some errands, and visit friends. As a family of 4 we've gone to church, out to eat, on picnics, and gone shopping. I feel like I'm more active now than when I was pregnant with Caleb.

Milestones: Not a ton of milestones happen in the first month but Caleb has given me a couple of smiles that last couple of days. I can't always get him to do it but he has looked me straight in the eye and smiled. These are not gas smiles!

Thankful Thursday

The list of things I'm thankful for goes on...

4. While out for a walk I had to roll up my sleeves because I was warm

5. Grace, Caleb and I all taking a nap at the same time

6. Crockpots

7. Great worship music at church

8. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting

9. Cuddling with Caleb in the middle of the night while feeding him

10. Parks and slides

11. Flowering trees

ANTS!!!!!

Ug, I hate ants. Not the human aunts but the insect ants. We have had an ant problem for the last few weeks. It started with a small trail in our playroom UPSTAIRS! I didn't think ants went upstairs but these did. I read some stuff online about natural ways to get rid of ants because I didn't want chemicals or poisons in the room where kids hang out. It turns out cinnamon is supposed to deter ants. So, we cleaned up the ants and put down cinnamon. We have yet to see another one in the playroom.

Moving on to the kitchen. The kitchen is a normal place to have ants and we found some on the floors and a few on the counters. After using above natural remedy the problem was no more.

Moving on to the half-bath downstairs. This problem was much more difficult to conquer. We tried the cinnamon but the ants lived on. Then we bought ant traps and they lived on. Although, for the last few days we haven't seen any in there so maybe that problem is solved.

Back to the kitchen. We found several ants in the kitchen again 2 days ago. Natural remedies were not working so we got out the ant killing spray. There were a lot of dead ants on the floor a few hours later. Victory!

The ants fought back. This is why I am MAD!!!!! They got in my yellow cake with chocolate frosting and I ate a whole piece before I discovered the many little ants in the pan. Thankfully they were on the other side of the pan from the cake but I am not convinced I didn't eat several ants. SOOOO GROSSSSSSSSS! I hate ants.

WE WILL DESTROY YOU ANTS!!!!!

Double Trouble

We finally got our double stroller yesterday. I am using the word finally because I have spent tons of time researching and reading about different double strollers. As soon as I would settle on one I would find another one that I thought seemed more suited for what I wanted. The major problem is we don't have lots of big baby stores around us so I didn't really get to test drive any strollers. I just read reviews and watched videos on You Tube. I did finally decide to get a side by side stroller and had narrowed down my choices to 2 different strollers.

In the end the one we went with won because I can buy an attachment for it that would allow me to put Caleb's carseat on the stroller and it has huge sunshades. For right now Caleb is happy in the reclined position but I like having the option of buying the carseat attachment. I was also able to get last year's model for a far cheaper price which was great. After the stroller was delivered yesterday and I realized it was 75 degrees outside I ripped the box open and assembled it to take the kids on a walk. It was wonderful. The weather, the stroller and the walk were all wonderful. I can't wait to log many miles on this stroller. And in case you are wondering it is the Baby Jogger City Mini Double.

Thankful Thursday

It has been a long time since I did a Thankful Thursday post but I'm hoping to be more regular about them again. I've been reading a really good book called "One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are" and it is essentially about being thankful for what God has given us. The author goes deep and really challenges me to be more thankful. She shares about her own heart of gratitude and how it developed. One thing that she did in her journey was write a list of 1000 gifts that she was thankful for. And people noticed she was changing because of the gratitude in her heart. She challenges her readers to practice thanksgiving and not just read about it. So, I decided that my Thankful Thursdays was a great place to practice. And I'm going to see how many Thursdays it takes me to get to 1000.

So, here they are 1000 things I'm thankful for (I'm starting with a big 3 today but am going to be looking for things to be thankful for even in the small things)....

1. My husband

2. My darling little girl

3. My newborn baby boy