Sweet Babies and Recent Projects

Blake has really started enjoying bathtime. I don't know if this picture is too far away, but he has a sweet smile on his face. I was pouring the water at just the right time to keep him covered.

After bathtime... my sweet boy!

This is a pair of pants I made for Kate... they look so cute on! I just use a little of the same fabric to do an applique initial on a white shirt for such a cute outfit. I am going to add a section to my blog of prices and design ideas if anyone is interested in using me as your personal seamstress! :)

This is another applique shirt I made to go with matching pants or shorts. They look so precious on!

This is the latest dress I made and smocked for Kate. I am so glad that I went to the classes to learn how to make these dresses from start to finish, I am getting much faster at it and will keep cranking them out!

Here is Kate "holding it" as she says. On a daily basis, she holds Blake and now she even says "I suv you." I was making him mad by sucking his nose out the other day and he was screaming... Kate climbed up onto my bed and kissed him on his forehead and said "I sorry" and "sss ok." She really is sweet to him, sometimes the sweetness just freaks him out a little. She can get him to smile better than any of us! Life is getting more and more fun with these kids!

Wii Fun and More Savings

This is how Kate and her friend, Campbell, play Wii. You are supposed to eat it, right? Katie and Ben came over for dinner and to play Wii and the girls were not satisfied until they had remotes in their hands too.

Yes, I went to Publix twice in one week and it was worth it both times!

I had another $5 off $25 coupon that was going to expire this weekend, so I HAD to go put it to use! I got all of this for $14 and some change... unbelievable! I had coupons for everything but the canned mandarin oranges. I actually did have a coupon for $1 off produce, so that covered the bananas and part of the strawberries. I got the 4 boxes of popcorn for FREE and everything else for pennies! There are 2 boxes cereal, 3 boxes pasta, buffalo wing sauce, worcestershire sauce, 3 cans tomatoes/sauce, 2 cans PAM, and 2 boxes fruit roll-ups. I LOVE PUBLIX!

On a side-note, I went back to CVS as well because I realized that I got a coupon on my receipt for a promo item this week and I could get free merchandise and actually make some extra care bucks. I got chewable baby aspirin (for Nanny) and some Excedrin. When I got there, she scanned a random item that was not mine, so we had to start the transaction over and the register printed out another coupon for free glasses wipes (we both wear glasses)- so I ran and got them to add to my total. After coupons, my total was 4.98 and I had $5 ECB, so I had to buy a caramel for $0.33 to make my total above zero again. I walked away with all that and 5 ECB again... it feels like I am robbing them!

Still Saving!

Just to let you know that we are still couponing and saving... I just haven't posted a picture in a while. I bought all of this for $20.88 out of pocket. It was worth $65.70 before I took advantage of all the sales matched with coupons. Family Dollar sent an ad for $5 off $25 this week, so I took it over to Publix and put it to good use! It does take a little planning before you go to the store, but look at the stockpile of snacks we got! All of this stuff stores well too, so we can store it up and just buy necessities when we need them. The milk and bananas were the only non-sale necessities I bought. There are also 2 boxes of Velveeta, 2 bags of chips, 2 bags of Cheerios snack mix, 2 bags pretzel crisps, 2 bags of Voila meals, 3 cans of tomatoes, bacon, bratwurst, and sour cream. I am very proud when I but only things that I know we will use.

This is from my CVS run... also an amazing sales day!

I got 2 packs of Revitalift face wash cloths, 2 bottles Palmolive, 3 tubes of toothpaste, 1 toothbrush, 3 glade oil candle refills, 1 glade candle, 1 body wash, a glucometer (it was free after a coupon and I have 2 diabetic grandfathers in town), and a mini tube of Excedrin. I had to buy 2 candy bars to make my total above zero for 1 transaction. I spent a total of $8 over 3 transactions to get all of this and I still walked away with 15 extra care bucks for next time! I should have spent $5.50, but the wormy check-out guy rushed me out of the way because he said his line was backing up, so I forgot to use $2.50 extra care bucks one transaction. And that was after I had already let 2 or 3 people go ahead of me... I guess I was taking longer than I thought!

Tomorrow or the next day I will post some sewing project pictures... stay tuned!

Venting

I think I may start screaming louder than Blake if he will not start sleeping through the night! We were doing pretty well for a week or two and now I feel like we are back to square one. I feed him and put him down around 9:30-10 and he is crying at 1 AM... That is NOT okay with me. I re-wrap him and put him back down and he will sleep 30 minutes to an hour, and I re-wrap him again... back up in 30 minutes to an hour, and so on. Last night, I kept putting him back in bed and fuss some more until 3 AM. I know he can go that long without eating, so I made him wait until then to eat. He was not starving, he was just restless and not fully asleep. What is his deal?! He is over 3 months old now, and he should definitely be going longer than every 3-4 hours at night. I get stressed out, but what can I really do about it? He is right next to me, and I hear him with or without earplugs. The laundry room idea is sounding better and better to me. My holdback is always that I worry about the ventilation in there. I have this mental picture of him breathing in dryer lint and I can't put him in there. If we don't move out of this tiny condo soon, I may be moving into a mental institution!
Loud neighbors + 4 humans and a dog + no more clear floor space + no escape from screaming baby = Insanity

Curious Kate

Yes, she is pulling his hair... we are working on being kind to each other at our house. Kate has gotten very interested in Blake lately- she has been kicking and biting and pulling his hair to see what kind of response she gets. I think she has realized that the response she gets is not so fun, so I am hoping that this phase of exploration ends soon. She wants to hold him all the time and she comes to me and says, "hold it." Funny kid!


Another way of "exploring" has been to play with his stuff. She loves climbing into his swing, sit in his bouncy seat, and lay in his tub. She just can't figure out why she cannot play with certain things and why she cannot get into his cradle or carseat.

Blake is getting big so fast! He enjoys sitting up in the bumbo seat, but he gets tired pretty fast. I feel like time is flying and I am trying to do a better job of keeping up with pictures, we will see!

He is a ladies' man! Kate thought it would be sweet to share her baby dolls with him. When I saw this, I had to get a picture just to show Brandon that his sonis already putting moves on the ladies- do you see he has his arm around one!

Things have been busy around here lately, but I hope to post more as things slow down. I need to post some recent sewing projects I have been working on too. More to come soon!

2 Month Stats

We went to the doctor yesterday for Blake's 2 month checkup. He weighs 12 and 1/2 pounds now and is almost 24 inches long! He is in the 75% for both height and weight, so he is growing just fine! I asked her all about letting him cry himself to sleep and she made me feel much better. She said that it is perfectly fine to let him cry when I know he is full because he needs to learn how to put himself to sleep. She also made me feel better about the nighttime crying. She said that when he wakes up in the middle of the night, let him cry/whimper for 5-10 minutes before I get him out to eat just to make sure he really is hungry. I did it last night and he went from 11 until 4:30, so I feel pretty rested. I can't complain because I am just going back to bed shortly after while Brandon's alarm is going off for the day. He is doing an anesthesiology rotation in Tuscaloosa, so he has to leave extra early, but he has been home by lunchtime every day. It is a nice rotation to ease me back into normal life without him here. And YES, I am very aware of how lucky I have been to have him home with me and the kids this whole time!
Another few tidbits from the doctor... She said that it looks like Blake's dark skin and true blue eyes are here to stay, which will be an interesting combo since we are used to our pasty white Kate and her bright blue eyes. His hair is sort of strawberry-blondish/brown, but it is growing in white at the roots- another interesting combo! But, she said if his hair is still here now, it probably will not fall out. You know how his hair stands straight up in the back (we cannot get it down)- well, the nurse thought she was hilarious when he was screaming after a shot and she said, "It hurt so bad it made his hair stand straight up." I told her that it actually looks like that all the time, and that my family calls him Rooster.
Do you think that I will ever have a child without reflux? I am tired of ruining clothes! It is just 9 AM and we have already changed Blake's clothes and mine twice and I am washing his swing cover since he had projectile spit up in the swing and all over me twice! Most of my t-shirts have a grease stain on them from the fat in the milk (maybe that is too much information) that he spits up. Worse than that, he looks miserable when he crunches his legs up around his tummy and just cannot stop moving. He is really not a fussy baby- thank you, Lord- which is surprising since I know he is uncomfortable. Maybe I am just wishful thinking, but I would like to sometime feed a baby and have them actually keep it down!

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Still no pictures... sorry! We have taken pictures, but cannot upload them until we get our laptop back. We are starting back to normal life today, and we are off to a pretty good start. Brandon has been off since we had Blake (that is over 2 months now!) and he started back to work today. We really enjoyed him being off and I feel like we took advantage of it. We traveled, relaxed, he hunted, we got into some sort of routine with 2 kids, and we watched tons of movies! We watched the box set of Band of Brothers and are plowing through the season sets of The Unit and we cannot get enough. Now it is back to work for all! At least I can still stay in my pajamas for a little while each morning while Brandon is headed to Tuscaloosa at 5 or 5:30.
We have started sleep boot camp for Blake at our house, which means he is learning to cry himself to sleep for bedtime and the naps we are home for. He has done pretty well so far, it is us sharing a room with him that have to deal with it. I am making myself look at the clock and wait 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc. before I put the pacifier back in, and the first night it took a little over an hour, but the second and third nights it only took 5 or 10 minutes. We have just been going so many places that he has been napping in someone's arms or a swing for so long, it was time to get him used to that bed. I did not let Kate cry it out until she was way older, but I also had time to sit there and hold her and look at every eyelash and take note of every sound she made. Unfortunately, Kate has us running around so much that Blake ends up on a blanket on the floor or in his bouncy seat a lot of times. At least he is mostly happy when he is there! That child can sleep through anything- the other day, Kate was banging her pots and pans around his head and bumping into his legs all while he just kept on snoozing.
Speaking of the pots and pans, that is what Kate got for Christmas- a kitchen with pots and pans and all the fake food you could imagine. We had planned on moving it to mom's house until we move into somewhere bigger, but Kate is obsessed with it. She got letters and numbers for the bathtub and the fridge and tons of other toys. She needed clothes, so she got tons of clothes too. On Christmas morning, Brandon and I looked at the piles from Santa, and apparently Kate was a very good girl! Her pile was about 3 times the size of mine, Brandon's, and Blake's piles. Blake is still so little that he did not need that much, but he did get some fun toys to grow into!
Brandon and I got some nice toys too! We got a digital SLR camera that we have been looking at for a while, and we have been taking some great pictures already. We just need to figure out just how to use it, it is a little intimidating! I have NEVER enjoyed video games... EVER! My brother and sister always played them when we were little and Brandon could play Playstation for hours, but I have thought they were boring and annoying my entire life, until we got a Wii this Christmas! It is so much fun and I am more obsessed with it than Brandon. I have had to restrain myself from buying more games, and Brandon had to explain that we need to savor one game at a time or we will never really appreciate it (wisdom from a true video game nerd)! We have already had a few people over to play, but I cannot wait for more people to come play with us. I just wish Kate was old enough to do it, because she is so interested in what we are doing and she says, "bowl" and "fish" when we are bowling and fishing. Anyway, I decided I wanted a Wii Fit (like everyone else, evidently), so I have been calling around to have people laugh at me when I asked if they had any. Finally, the people at Best Buy told me they were getting them yesterday, so I stood in line like a crazy person and got one! You would not have thought that I had 2 kids waiting/crying in the car with Brandon after being at early church and Sunday school- I was determined! Needless to say, I am a little bit of a "gamer" these days and it is cracking me up.