Thanksgiving

Mmmm! The turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries, green bean casserole and most importantly the stuffing. I can't wait! It's only days away until we stuff our faces with food and go into coma's for the afternoon because we ate way to much.

We'll be celebrating Thanksgiving this year with Daryl's family in IL this year. D's brother had their third baby, a girl, just 8 days before Isaac was born, so we'll get to meet her, and Daryl's parents are flying in from FL to celebrate with us. Grandma Noreen will be in baby heavan, two new babies to love.

What are you thankful for this year?

I'm thankful for:
My family and friends
My home
My job
I'm also thankful for low gas prices as we're driving the 6 hours to IL. Wish us luck!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Go to sleep...part 2

Are there any baby sleep whisperers in the crowd? If so, please contact me...I REALLY need your help.

Isaac is fighting sleep, for what reason I don't know. It's the evenings that are horrible, all he does is cry. The last two nights, he hasn't gone to sleep until midnight and than he's up every 2.5 hours...grr! Daryl and I think he misses Max after he goes to bed. Is that possible? I find it quite tranquil when Max goes to bed. The constant chit chat from a three year old all day long, drives this mama a little nutty by the days end. I love you Max!

I don't know what to do for Isaac. We rock him, walk around the house and he swings, which is clearly the only thing that settles him down. We better break the habit soon, otherwise he'll be off to college with it. I can see it now, I'm waving him off to college and the last thing I see is the adult sized battery operated swing strapped down to the back of his pick up truck. LOL!

This no sleep thing is NOT OK with me, nor with Daryl for that matter. Not only am I working during the day part time, but I am also working part time nights and weekends for the season. the combination of working and no sleep equals one tired and crabby mama!

I know, I know...this to shall pass!

Going green...

and cutting costs. The economy isn't getting any better so in an effort to save money in our household, i've decided I will try my hand at making a few Christmas gifts. Im starting this year by making kid friendly stuff (because they can't and won't criticize my work). We are celebrating a small Christmas with Daryl's family in IL over Thanksgiving weekend, so I need to have a few of these gifts ready by than. I just hope I can get them done in time. wondering what they are? Well, you'll just have to wait! It wouldn't be much of a surprise for the families receiving these gifts since they read the blog.


Amongst other ways of saving money, here's the short list.

• Cloth diapering: I work Wed-Fri so i'm only doing it part time, and only on Isaac. The sitter will use disposables unless I convince her otherwise. It's going well and I can see the benefits and my babies bum looks pretty darn cute.


• Breastfeeding/pumping


• Plastic on the leaky windows (which really shouldn't be leaking, but we opted for the cheaper windows). And turning down the thermostat.


• Setting a very small monthly budget for groceries and sticking to it. I better go tally up my receipts, it's not looking good this month. You should know that I love clipping coupons, sales and making my dollar stretch as far as it'll go.
  
• Menu planning: Which I need to start up again


• Haircuts at home for Max. The first one went OK (hopefully, he'll let me do it again, I did accidentally clip his ear...oops!)


• Re-using anything and everything possible. Check out http://www.realsimple.com/ to learn creative ways to reuse everyday household items.
• Washing the laundry in cold water and setting the load size correclty. Do me a favor, next time you wash a load of laundry, do as you would, let the washer fill up with water, than look and see how much water you actually need....you'd be amazed at how much water those suckers use and what is actually needed for a load. Turning the load size down just a bit saves a ton of water. My dial goes from small, medium and super...what happen to large?

Im sure there's more, but I thought i'd share just a few.

What's that I hear?!

Adults talking and phones ringing. I must be at work! That's right, yesterday was my first day back and I am happy to report that we all survived. The morning went as smoothly as it could, the boys got to the sitters, I to work (and on time) and I even remembered my lunch. Couldn't get any better.

Halloween!

I should have posted this already, but I don't get much time to blog right now. I think I'll start devoting the time when Sir Isaac is bright eyed and bushy tailed at 11pm.

Halloween proved to be fun this year. Max was so excited for it. We started the week out by going to the local community center where they held a Halloween Hodgepodge for the kids. They had games, trick or treating, coloring and a haunted house. I slipped Max in his costume (he couldn't contain his excitement) and we buzzed over for a bit. It was just the two of us, I think Max really liked the one on one attention.

On Wednesday we attended a Halloween playdate. Max had fun with the pumpkin bowling and playing outside with the boys. On Friday we attended another Halloween playdate with the moms group and again, Max enjoyed playing with all the toys and playing outside. The weather was beautiful all week so we enjoyed every minute of it.

Halloween night we trick or treat in our neighborhood for about an hour and than we head over to my moms Salon in Mendota Heights where they have a mall trick or treat, wagon rides with horses and the BIGGEST bon fire you ever saw. This has been our tradition and as long as the mall is still standing and my moms salon doesn't move, we'll continue it. It's not an extravagant Halloween by any means, but it's the memories we are making for the kids.

Did I forget to mention that Max dressed up as Spiderman. He had the biggest muscles of them all. Isaac wore a little halloween themed sleeper that my mom picked up for him.

Go to sleep!

I'll be the first to admit (with my husband right behind me) that Isaac is not a good sleeper yet. Max was a dream, of course we had our moments, but even to this day, he likes to sleep and does it very well, never argues with us and he stays put in his bed until we go in and get him (an hour can go by before we get him and he's still laying in bed, talking or singing). Isaac does pretty well during the day, but when night time rolls around, thats when all hell breaks loose. All he wants to do is eat and is often heard crying. We rock him, offer him a pacifier, bathe him, sing to him, walk around the house, shed a teer or two ourselves and feed him. Sometimes all our efforts just don't work and he cries, falls asleep and wakes up crying again.

Thank goodness for my moms group...I borrowed a swing from one of the fellow moms and it's been our saving grace. We put him in the swing and voila! he's happy and content (ok, not all the time). I feel bad always putting him in the swing, but how do you get anything done or spend time with the other loved ones in your family when you've got an infant that won't stop crying.

All I can say is that it's 10:23pm, Isaac is swinging peacefully (and wide awake) and I can barely keep my eyes open.

Who wouldn't love this, it's got music, lights, motion and fishy friends that spin around.