A little better

Thankfully I'm not feeling nearly as bad as I was yesterday!

So cute though, every time I told Finn that I didn't feel good and had an owie throat he would come over, give me a kiss and say "there, mommy feel all better now"

Now Conor just tells Finn that he has an owie so that Finn will give him
a kiss!

Here's my cute little girl. I put her in her exersaucer for the first time and she really liked it. She lasted a lot longer than Finn did the first time!

Oh so sick

Yesterday I woke up feeling a cold starting. Unluckily, or luckily depending on how you look at it, Elle was a little under the weather as well. Which resulted in her being extra sleepy and falling asleep everywhere I put her.

At one point she fell asleep on my bed, so I rested on the couch in the next room. Then she woke up but was still sleepy so I swaddled her and put her in the crib, where she fell asleep. Finn was upstairs at that point (with two uncles and grandma) so I crawled into bed and had a nice nap - it was pretty awesome.

In the afternoon Elle and I had another longer nap, Finn didn't end up sleeping, but Conor was home. We went to my moms for dinner. Just as we were leaving I started feeling worse. I put Elle to bed and just felt horrible!

I had a bath and then went to bed... Every time I woke in the night I felt worse and worse - I hate colds like these.

I hope it goes away soon so I can enjoy the weekend and Halloween.

Back to cloth diapering

I pulled out all of the cloth diapers on Thursday.

I sorted them and separated the diaper covers.

I moved the bin they were in to my bedroom.

Friday I bought a pail and some gloves.

And then I ignored it for the weekend... because I'm not a very enthusiastic cloth diaperer - plus, vainly, I just don't think the huge bum is cute. Maybe in sleepers, but it just looks weird in normal clothes.

But for the sake of our bank account I will... especially since I got all the diapers for free from a friend when I had Finn.

So I started yesterday. I guess it's not so bad. I hated it with Finn when I first started because I went from not having to change him for several hours (unless he did #2) and then I would forget he was in cloth and he would constantly leak so I would have to change everything.

This time I'm going to try to remember every two hours to change Elle.

Oh, and I use disposables at night.

Halloween Costume

I'm sooo not creative, plus I'm cheap... Which results in VERY few costume options.

I ended up not buying the kids anything and was gonna skip it altogether until a friend mentioned she had something for both kids that I could borrow. SCORE!

As for myself, I thought I would try on my wedding dress and if it still fit I would do something with that (princess, scary bride...something). I went and got it from my moms house today.

5 years and two kids later it still "fits"!! But there was a bit too much back fat for my liking, not to mention breathing was a bit difficult - if I had a shrug to go with it I might have done it, but I'll pass on dress up this year.

I will say though that I blame at least some of the tightness on current breast feeding and not just baby fat :)

Mobile blogging

I just realized that blogger has an iPhone app now - this might help me post more often... We'll just have to see.

Clothing no-mans land

*First I'll say that yes, I know I am very blessed to have lost the baby weight so fast, and I could have a lot of other problems in my life, but this is my blog, so I'll complain a little if I want to!! haha

So everyone knows about this clothing no-mans land after you have a baby. You can't fit into your pre-pregnancy clothes, you still fit into some of your maternity clothes, but honestly, who wants to wear jeans with a big panel over the stomach? And you don't really want to go shopping for NEW clothes for your current size because you plan on loosing the weight. So what do you do?

I was lucky that I had a few casual skirts that were too big for me that I could wear this summer. I really really loved my maternity jeans (other than the big elastic that went over my stomach) so I guess I was happy to wear those. And my black dress pants had always been too big for me (because I bought them after I had Finn when I was in the no-mans land so they ended up being too big for me!)

Well it finally came to the point that I'm about a pound off of my pre-preg weight, but I was still not fitting into my jeans. And I figured I won't for awhile, because it's not about the WEIGHT exactly, but WHERE the weight has gone. I still have a little chub in the front that I'm not that stressed about, but it means that I can't wear my jeans... I would need to do some crazy cardio and ab work for fit them.

On Thanksgiving Monday I was bored so I convinced Conor to come to the mall with me (there's no way to try on clothes with Finn around! haha). I didn't even think about it, but there were a lot of Thanksgiving sales on. I like sales :)

I have previously tried on jeans at the Gap and they were just weird, no matter what cut or size they just did NOT work for me. But someone had mentioned that their jeans in the last year have changed a bit, so I thought I would give them another shot - and I'm glad I did.

I wrote this a long time ago now, and wanted to take pics of the clothes before I posted, but that's just not gonna happen

Also, I fit my pre-pregnancy jeans now - with a little muffin top :)

Diaper Fails and Potty Victories

Yesterday was a big day for us.

It started when Elle and I went to take Conors brother to his piano lesson. I decided to check out some halloween costumes at Value Village (which I didn't get. I can hardly bring myself to spend $8 on something that Elle will wear numerous times, let alone something she will only wear once!) They didn't open for 15 minutes but Elle was fussing so I decided to feed her in the car. I heard her poo and was going to finish feeding before changing her, until I realized that my lap felt extra warm.

It was the BIGGEST explosion to date, from either of my children. And the first time that it's ended up on my clothes! It was quite a gong show changing her in the car. Lucky I was wearing brown pants (brand new pants - I might add), so no one could tell!

Diaper FAIL!

***

On the other spectrum. Finnian had stayed home with Conor while I was out, and when I got home Finn was wearing underwear (as opposed to a diaper).

First I should say that yesterday Finn kept holding himself, and I kept asking him if he had to pee. Finally he said yes, and I said he should put the pee in the potty. He ran to the bathroom but wanted to go in the tub. Okay. So he took of his pants, I took off his diaper, and put him in the tub and he peed! So then I tried putting underwear on him and told me to tell me when he needed to pee again. But he had an accident 3 minutes later! It was almost nap time, so I just put him back in a diaper.

I guess the same thing happened this morning. Peed in tub, peed in underwear and then when I got home he told me he had to pee again. So we went into the bathroom, but this time I convinced him to pee in the potty and then he could flush it down the toilet. And it worked!!! He peed in the potty, and did again 10 minutes later!!

We'll see how this goes, we aren't going to be home today so I don't know what will happen - he will be in diapers, but I will go buy some more underwear for him on the weekend and let the real potty training begin!!

Elle - Three months old

Time for a different onesie - the other one didn't fit anymore!

I seriously love this little girl so much! She is getting so animated and cuter every day.

I said last month that it was difficult to manage a toddler with a baby that you have to hold all the time, but I feel like I'm getting the hang of it a bit more. A lot of this has to do with the fact that Elle is getting better at laying by herself on the floor for longer periods of time, which is great! I like to put her on the floor when Finn is playing with lego or something, and she just kicks around and watches.

She was loving picture time. I got a great video that I'll put up later of her smiling and laughing for me.

She still doesn't really nap consistently during the day. She will usually have one or two short sleeps in the morning. The other morning she fell asleep in her carseat long enough for me to do dishes and vacuum but then she woke up. About an hour later I went for a long walk with them and she fell asleep in the carseat for about 35 minutes. In the afternoon I put Finn to bed and she is usually ready to sleep, but it takes her awhile to get into her deep sleep. I swaddle her and rock her until she's nodding off and then I put her in her car seat. That way I can rock her for however long she needs rocking while I read or watch a show on my iPod. I'm still very lucky to have a husband who will then take over so I can have a nap!

Night time is different though. And in such a GOOD way compared to her two month update. I started on a routine with her, and it didn't really start off good at all. Unlike Finn, she does NOT fall asleep while nursing. She just eats, quickly, gets it done and that's it... not enough time to nod off. So I thought for sure I would have to rock her or something, but that wasn't working, and we weren't getting her to sleep until OUR bedtime. She also just did not like her basinet. One night I went down, nursed her, and then put her down beside me in bed. It took about an hour, she would suck on her soother for awhile, spit it out, be fine for a bit and then want it back.. and eventually she fell asleep. She didn't need me to rock her or pat her or anything, I was just there to give her the soother if she needed it.

Since then it's been about the same. A couple times I've had to pick her up because she needed to burp, as soon as she would burp I would put her back down and she would be fine. Some nights have taken a bit longer, some a bit shorter. I now go down between 7:30 and 8 with her most nights, and I feel like a normal person again, having the evenings to myself!! A few evenings she had gotten hungry around 7, so I fed her upstairs and when I took her down for bed I just swaddled her and we both laid down. I didn't know how it would work, but it didn't seem to affect her falling asleep negatively in any way. I tried one night with her in the crib, but I was too lazy to keep it up (even though the crib is all of a foot away). I like not having to get up to feed her, I get to stay under my blankets all night :) It didn't help that I had a cold that night so I was already feeling pretty sluggish. Someday we might try again, right now we all like our arrangement.

If I do feed her when I put her to bed, she usually only wakes up once to eat, sometimes not until 6am. Otherwise she still eats twice in the night.

I love little girl clothes!

Elle wore this to Thankgiving at my moms

This was my dress, I wore it when I was dedicated!

Below is me at my dedication - I don't have any more close up pictures, but that's the dress

In her new baby bath!

She was getting too big for me to hold while washing!

Just look at those leg rolls!!

Picture time

Not much going on, here's some recent pics

Conor put Finn in Elle's crib

Ignore my camera cord - Finn sleeping, mouth open

Hike up at Manning

Bird that we saw - there were actually quite a few

Happy Thanksgiving

So I've been a bad blogger! But Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We had a good weekend with family. On Saturday we went over to my moms place. She make Turkey with all the fixin's and my sister-in-law did the potatoes and hosted us upstairs. I was sooo full afterwards! I had told Conor on the way that I hoped we didn't have pumpkin pie for desert (that is the ONLY pie I do like, but I just don't really like pie that much), but I said it would be nice if she did her cherry cheesecake though. And guess what? She read my mind!!

The next day we had Thanksgiving here at the Sweeney's... again, Turkey with all the fixin's, and pumpkin pie (which was delicious and freshly made!).

This year I'm just so thankful to be home to celebrate Thanksgiving! We will probably be in Australia by this point next year, so everything from here on in is a "last time" with the family, so we're really going to enjoy it!

We had bad news this week that Conor's grandma (his mom's mom) had passed away. While we new it was coming, and she had been deteriorating a bit more recently, it was still a shock... we aren't able to make it to the funeral (in Alberta), so that is kind of sad. But Conor's mom and dad are going, as well as 3 siblings, so I'm glad that some of them could go anyways.

If you read my last post, I never did go on that long walk with the kids, since it's been raining so much! But we went to the mall a couple of times, and it was very useful being able to throw Finn in a stroller just in case! hehe.

I'll try to be a better blogger now. I have some pics to put up, so I'll save those for another post :)

Fixed and ready to go

So remember I bought a used Phil & Ted's? Well on the ad the lady said that it needed a new rear wheel, so I factored that into the cost and was happy with it... but when Conor took a closer look he thought that all that was really wrong with the wheel were the bearings. So I went onto the Phil & Ted's website and they sold bearings for my model stroller, so we ordered those (for a lot less than a whole new wheel), as well as hinges so that I could put the second seat in the front and, well I'll take pics, it will explain how a Phil & Ted's works.

Anyways, the website said 7-10 business days, and they ship out parts on Thursday. I ordered on a Tuesday, I think. So I expected the stuff by last Friday but was disappointed when it didn't arrive. It finally came today, cue excitement, and Conor happily got right to work on it for me (happily may not be the right word!)

I'm so excited to announce that my stroller is all up and running and I plan on going for a long walk with the kids tomorrow!!

Here's how the Phil & Ted's works

• Top Left: Just as a regular single stroller
• Top Right: Single stroller with the seat reclined for an infant or sleeping child
• Bottom Left: Double stroller - the seat is reclined for the infant and the double seat is attached at the front for the toddler (that's what I needed the hinges for)
• Bottom Right: Double stroller - with the double seat attached at the back, the older/heavier child sits in front.

There's also an attachment (which I got on craigslist) so that you can clip in a car seat.