Hot Mom

Once again I've made it through to the next round in the hot mom contest!  This is the final round!  Please go vote for me!  You can vote everyday, so please do!  Here's the link:

Vote Here

If for some reason the link doesn't go directly to... me, just change the last 2 numbers in the address bar to 23.  Also please share this link, via your blog, or facebook or email.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Free

Croix is completely weaned.  He had his last feeding on this past Thursday. He has done great!  He doesn't seem to really miss nursing.  He takes his sippy cup without protest.  He hasn't had any negative reactions to cows milk.  He loves, LOVES, LOVES a little pediasure added to his milk.  I feel very blessed that the weaning process had been so easy for him.  For me on the other hand....can I just say OUCH!  It seems like everything I do hurts!  I can't give a proper hug.  There are times it seems like Croix is just out to cause pain.  Clogged ducts and hand pumping have become a daily occurrence.  This is no fun!  I have a friend who reccomended taking Benadryl to help "dry up".  I started that this morning.  I really hope it works, and fast!  It's making me very groggy.  It will be worth it though if it speeds this whole process up!  Good grief!  I'm wondering, all you Mom's out there who've been through this already, any suggestions of things that will help?  How long did it take you to not be uncomfortable anymore?  How long was it before you "dried up"?

Birthday Banner and Invitations

Croix's Birthday Party is going to have crab shack theme.  So I made little Crab invitations,

TONS of little crab legs

Little crab bodies

Ta-da!

It says :

Croix is 

ONE

Come joing us for the fun.

It will be a crab shack pool party,

So come in your swim suit 

Or you'll be sorry!

I also made a birthday banner for Croix.  We'll use it at his party and then every year on his birthday we will hang it up.  A fun tradition to make his special day just a little more special.

Croix loved the felt

Twenty little triangles

Twenty little diamonds

Turned into Twenty of theses

Which we then assembled.

To make a banner that says:

Happy

Birthday

Croix

Now I just have to make the party as fabulous as the invitations and banner!

Bosco

Our big fur-baby Bosco died August 14th 2010.  We are left with a giant hole in our hearts.  He brought so much joy to our lives and is missed terribly.  Our home and our lives feel a little emptier with out him.  He was the best dog in the world!

He was a chew toy

He was smart

He was an excellent Brother, to Rusty.....

to Rusty.....

,,,and to Croix

Occasionally he was a step stool

He made us smile

He made us laugh

He slept in the funniest positions

He was everybody's best friend

He did a wonderful job of pre-washing our dishes

He had the sweetest pleading eyes

He was a good looking dog

He LOVED to snuggle

He was truly a part of our family!

While we struggled to have a family Bosco filled, in some small measure the ache and longing in my heart.  When I didn't want to call and cry the same sad song to friends that they had heard the month before Bosco was right there to snuggle with me as I cried on the floor.

We love and miss you Bosco!  See you on the other side!

*The vet said he probably died from a heart attack.  He had survived cancer and valley fever.  The valley fever had caused him to collapse and "die" a few years ago.  He recovered but had a weakened heart and liver.  In a way he was already living on borrowed time.  He was only 6 1/2, had no signs of being sick.  We anticipated many more years with him.  We will cherish every minute we had with him.  

:)

I just spent hours making a birthday banner for Croix. (Pictures to come soon!)  My sweet husband not only humored my overly ambitious crafting, but helped.  Croix was feeling a little Mommy deprived and just before bed time came and gave me the biggest hug.  It's sweet to be missed, even when I'm still here.  We put Croix down for bed together, had family story time.  When we sang him his bed time song, Croix just snuggled close to me.  Then I went and danced in the rain with my love. 

My Joy Is Fully!

I've been fiddling with my blog layout.  I don't think it's quite where I want it but I think it's better.  One thing I didn't like before was I couldn't post really big pictures, they would be cut off.  So here's a big picture of my sweet boy!

This was how I found him last night when I went to check on him before going to sleep. He's always sleeping crazy like this. He usually has some body part on his bumper, arm, leg, head. Sometimes I find him holding his railing in his sleep. Tiny little fingers curled around the rails. I always want to take a picture but I've always been too worried the flash would wake him up. Last night I threw caution to the wind and flashed him! He stirred, rolled over and stayed asleep! And now I have an adorable sleeping picture! YAY!

WHAT!?!?!?!

I got an email today saying I made it to the second round of voting in the hot mom contest!  I'm pretty surprised!  I guess I have a lot of friends who are willing to take a minute and vote!  THANK YOU ALL!  Thanks for every vote!  So now it's round 2 of voting.  Down from 250+ entrants down to 50.  So here's the new link.  As with last time you can vote daily, and please do!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!!

Feel free to share this link anywhere you'd like (your blog, facebook etc!)!

Thanks lovers!

Taking Back the Ta-Tas!!

We have started weaning!! I'm quite happy about this!  I was planning to wait until Croix was a year to start since I'd had some concerns about him having a milk protein allergy.  For the past few weeks at Croix's night time feeding he has seemed unsatisfied and so we've been supplementing with a bottle.  I didn't worry too much about it since he was so close to a year.  Gradually he started nursing shorter and shorter and eating more and more form a bottle.  Then one night he actually seemed frustrated that I had him nurse before giving him a bottle.  I knew then he was as ready as I was.  He was only a few weeks away from being one.  So I called the pediatrician the next day to discuss giving him cows milk.  I didn't want to wean him from the breast and then wean him from a bottle.  I wanted to go straight to the sippy cup.  The Dr. said it should be fine, told me what symptoms to watch for as far as allergies and that very day we dropped the night time feeding.  Croix didn't even seem to care!  He just drank all his milk from his sippy cup and went to bed no problem.  The next night I had Brent feed him.  Croix didn't do quite as well.  He didn't drink hardly anything.  I was worried he might wake up in the night.  Nope!  He slept right through the night.  Woke up pretty hungry though!  I also dropped his mid morning feed the next day.  My supply had been decreasing.  I wonder if this might be partially contributed to the fact that I had stopped eating oat meal, which helps increase milk supply, in anticipation of weaning.  So I had no problem dropping two feedings within a couple days.  So far so good.  I'm hoping to have him completely weaned here with in a week.  I can literally taste the freedom!  It's been so nice if we need to run somewhere to grab a sippy cup and jet out.  No waiting around for distracted Croix to finish nursing.  I can wear anything I want.  I don't have to wear underwear that have easy access to the girls.  Ahhhhh it's nice!  I feel so blessed that Croix and I had an easy time with nursing.  That we were able to make it this long.  I know there are plenty of people who are not as lucky. I'm also grateful to be moving on.

Today Croix got up from his nap.  We went downstairs where I sat him in the recliner, put a pillow on his lap with his sippy cup on top of it.  Then I went and made myself lunch, while he ate, by himself!  It was glorious!!

This is a picture of freedom!

:D

Now that I've gone on and on about how nice it is there was a bitter sweet moment a couple days ago.  Croix is on a eat play sleep schedule.  Which means he eats right after he wakes up.  This has worked great for us.  Occasionally Croix will wake up, and then fall back to sleep while nursing.  Occasionally I'd let him just sleep, especially if he didn't take a long nap.  Two days after we started weaning he woke up and did just that, feel dead asleep nursing.  As my butt was falling asleep in my uncomfortable computer chair, and my back started to get stiff and hurt, I thought to myself, this will probably be the last time this every happens.  Part of me was happy about this!  No more being stuck, with a baby stuck to me.  No more being uncomfortable.  No more wasting time on the computer while Croix caught a few more zzzzz's.  Then the sentimental side of me was oh so sad.  My baby is growing up!  He's turning into such a big boy!  Needing me less and less (in some aspects).  I ended up getting a little teary eyed and just staring and my peaceful sleeping beautiful boy.  I soaked in his sweetness and relished the final moments of his sleep nursing. 

I feel like weaning is entering a whole new chapter for us. A one year old!  Solid foods, self feeding, greater independence for both of us.  I feel like we're saying good-bye to Croix the baby and hello to Croix the toddler.  I'm sure the toddler years will be full of a whole new round of unknowns, tears, joys and discoveries.  I'm so excited!

Solicitaion

I'm going to shamelessly solicit votes from you.  I entered a silly contest.  It's a hot mom contest.  I don't really have a giant ego and think I'm a super hottie or anything like that.  It was just easy to enter, upload a pic, that's it.  The prize is pretty nice, $2,000, plus a vacation, plus $1,000 at some gym/weight loss center!  I have lots of things I could do with $2,000!  So I uploaded a picture.  I figured all these contests really are anyway is seeing who can get the most votes.  SOOOO  Will you please vote for me?  It's really simple.  Just click on the link below, enter your email and there ya have it, you voted for me!  I know that about 150 people a week come and look at my blog, that could add up to a lot of votes!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!!!

Thank you!  PS you can vote daily, and please do!  It only take 1 min (literaly) 

Also this is more and FYI my nephew is doing a fundraiser and they are selling 3 mo. memberships to Fitness Works for $20!  It's a great deal.  It also come with passes for child care and coupons for local businesses (golden spoon, jamba juice etc).  It is also good at any Fitness Works location.  I'm taking advantage of it so I just thought I'd share the great deal with all of you!  If you are interested just let me know in a comment and I'll tell you how to take advantage of the offer.

Lunch

The other day The Cheesecake Factory was celebrating national cheesecake day by offering $1.50 cheesecake!  I was in!  I love their cheesecake and I'm cheap so this was prefect for me :D  I also thought it would be so fun to go with a group of girls and eat some cheesecake and maybe even have lunch.  I made an event on facebook and invited 72 people. I invited everyone at church, figuring what a better way to get to know people better then over good dessert!  I sent out an email and invited a ton more.  I imagined lots of friends eating cheesecake while wrestling our kids and laughing and having a blast.  Well I sadly got a lot of replies from people saying they were going to be out of town or had to work.  I had invited a ton of people so I figured it was ok, there would still be friends to come.  Well day of said lunch came.  I got a text from one friend saying her hubby couldn't watch the kids so she couldn't come.  I hadn't really heard from anyone else about going so I text a few people.  No one was coming!  I even called one person, a more casual blogger, facebook friend, who had previously said she was coming.  She couldn't come either.  As I realized no one was going to come I contemplated just not going. I wasn't going to miss out on $1.50 cheesecake and Brent had class that night so I couldn't just wait and go with him when he got home.  I ended up going just Croix and I.   I enjoy my delicious cheesecake, all by myself.  It was sad!  Not sad simply because I was alone.  I've done plenty of things alone, including eating at a restaurant, seeing a movie, going into NYC!  Being alone, doing things alone doesn't really bother me.  What did bother me was that I wanted a lunch date with girlfriends and not a single friend came.  It was that I didn't want to be alone, and I was.

It made me think of all my good friend that have moved away....remember this post.  It made me miss good friends I've left along the years as I've moved.  We still keep in touch over the phone, facebook, email, but well their just not here to go to lunch with me.  It made me think about my friends, and feel a little lacking in that department.  I feel like I'm friendly with plenty of people at church but like it doesn't go much beyond a casual friendship of hello, how are you? Glad to see you!  As we pass in the hallways.  That more intimate connection seems to be missing.  I was pondering this and decided it's harder to establish this as adults.  We have our spouse, we have kids, we have jobs, we are busy.  I don't think I'm ok with this though.  I was tempted to be upset with the fact that no one came and I don't feel like I have close friends here.  Then I decided to take responsibility for this!  Who's fault is it besides my own if I haven't been brave enough to call up my casual friends and share an intimate problem, or joy, or issue with them?  Mine!  Do I think a deeper relationship is just going to emerge out of thin air?  No!  I'm going to have to be willing to risk and open up.  If I want people to reciprocate that kind of trusting open relationship with me I have to give it first!  So watch out world, I'm looking to open up and let you in, and I'm hoping you'll do the same, and that we can become better friends!  I have social needs, that aren't being met.  So I'm making it a priority to fill that need in my life!  Watch out!  You just might get invited over to dinner or a phone call that could be uncomfortable, because I'm stretching my comfort level!

Eleven Months

Can you believe he's eleven months old already!?!?!  Gah it goes way too fast!  These are things I want remember about Croix at 11 months
He has learned to get on and off the couch by himself
He's started squealing a lot more, well maybe more screaming.
He stands by himself and can lower himself down into a squat and back up.
He will copy us if we make a funny face.
He can turn pages in books, and has favorite books.
He loves to walk in between Brent and I, but that's about the only place by himself.
He says Dada and knows that means Brent
He's trying to say the dogs names.
He's taken 10 little steps all by himself and cruses along everything.
He uses everything as a walker, dinning room chairs, toy bin, learning table.
He runs from the dogs.
His favorite toys are Leap Frog learning table, sensory balls, the giant exercise ball.
He has his top two teeth for a total of 4 teeth, still an easy teether.
He loves when I make bee noises.
He will blow raspberries on my belly.
He drinks from a sippy cup with a straw.
He loves big people food and self feeding.
He loves bath time but doesn't care too much for the pool.
He is very friendly at church.
He has learned how to open cupboards and drawers. He opens drawers (like my makeup drawer) sticks what ever he can grab in his mouth, throws it on the floor and repeats over and over.
He has finally learned to go DOWN the stairs.  Although I still don't trust him by himself.
He crawls forward and then pushes himself backward on his tummy.
He now gets bored and needs socialization with other kids/people and to see a different environment then his own home.
He is a joy and learning and growing every day!

Yes that is the trash can he's playing with

He loves his big boy buddies!