Love this Dress

 

There is a dress over at Smashed Peas and Carrots that I just love.  It is super cute and will do well in the summer when babies need lots of flow with their clothing. I also used the tutorial from Make it Love it to make a cute diaper cover for her.  I have been trying to find a way to use this fabric and just could not think of something. I know that they don't really go together, but I love the way the dots peek out of the back. It makes me happy. The hardest part of this for me was the diaper cover. This took me just as long as the dress to make. For some reason I could just not make the holes for the legs to look right. Thankfully Lily's legs are kinda chunky so you can't really tell that the legs are wonky.  The pattern says that it is for 6-12 months but it is still really big on her. So maybe with the next dress I'll scale it back 1/2 an inch. I think that it will fit a little better.

Day 3 of Diary of a Tired Mom

After tonight I am feeling kinda dumb for not starting this sooner. The girls did fantastic tonight. It was amazing. 3.0 went down at 6:50 (she missed her 3rd nap at 4) and cried for 7 min then was fast asleep. I thought that for sure 2.0 would wake her when we came in after book and potty. But no, zip, zero, nadda. No crying at all. We have a video monitor in her room so I watched for 15 min to see if she was going to get up at all. She just layed there eyes open for ten min then fell asleep.  I could not believe this!

Then at night, I slept through my 12am alarm to dream feed 3.0 and she work up at 1, so I went and fed her 3 min, put her down she was asleep. She made noises about 3 min later, but she was just turning over to her tummy.  And that was all out of her for the night. 2.0 woke up about 5-7 min later saying she was hungry, but I went over what she had eaten that day and knew that she had enough to eat. So once she got up and opened the door, I took her back to bed and said "Now is not the time to eat, it is sleepy time". And left the room. She started to cry and tantrum. Im thinking "oh here it comes". But it only lasted for less then 30 sec! What the heck!

I dream fed 3.0 at 4 and she woke up at 6:50 for the day.  Im am wondering if I had remembered to feed her at 12 if she would have woke at all?

Between 4 and 6:30 2.0 somehow managed to sneak out of her room and into my bed. I woke at 6:30 to her touching my face. So I think that it was closer to 6:30. (I hope). 

I can not believe the transformation from 3 nights ago to today. I mean, is it really possible to have such a dramatic change in 3 nights? Have I really just endured 4 years of bad sleeping to have it change in less then a week? I was sooo against cry-it-out (that is pretty much what this is) but it works and my kids still love me when they wake up. 

I am going to keep up my diary till Friday but hopefully by then all I will be writing about is 2.0 and 3.0 slept all night long!

Day 2 of Diary of a Tired Mom

Last night was much easier. I can't believe it but I think that this might just work. I took really good notes to, not that anyone but myself can decipher them but hey it was 1 in the morning. 

Going to bed was hard for 3.0, there are many things that she is not use to. First off having the kids in the room while she is trying to feed is hard. Last night she did not want to eat at all and I think that one reason it took sooo long for her to go to sleep.  But in reality it was only 21 min of crying, compaired to 60 min the night before.  2.0 did not cry at all, but she was covering her ears trying to block out sister. When I did my check at 10 min, 2.0 was sleeping and 3.0 was quieting down.
I went in at 11:22 last night to dream feed because I was so worried about her not eating at bed time. And it seamed like a good idea at the time I think that it backfired at 1 am because that was when the first wakeups began.

1:28am 2.0 opens up the door, calling to me. I get up and walk to the door, she runs back to bed and lays down. I shut the door with out saying anything. And as you can see by my play-by-play in my notes this all lasted till about 2am. I dream fed 3.0 at 4am for 4 min and she slept till 7:40!  Once 2.0 is asleep she did well till about 5:37. All I did was take her potty then bring her back to bed. She slept till 7:15am!

Naps today were hard. We went out and had tons of fun. The girls got the length that they needed so I'm not to upset. But lets see how it plays out tonight.

Sleep Diary of a Tired Mom

Here in the Random house we have some sleepy bunnies! I thought I knew what I was getting into 5 years ago when Mr 3.0 and I were thinking about having a baby. I just didn't fully understand the depth of sleep deprivation that I would be under on a day to day basis 4 years later.  Let me fill you in on some background. Baby 1.0 born 2007, at the time we were renting with my BIL and his girlfriend. I was terrified that a baby crying at night would keep them up, so with every peep I was in there nursing, rocking, basicly trying to pacify him so that he would not keep them up.

Fast forward two years. Him still waking on average twice a night, occasionally sleeping through the night. 

Then what comes along? Why its Baby 2.0! Now I couldn't let her wake him when he just started sleeping through the night now could I? Nope, I was in there at least twice a night for the last two years. This one is stubborn though. She would sleep through maybe once a week. But when she didn't want to sleep and you said to yourself. "Self she is old enough, let her cry it out. How long could she possibly cry till she falls asleep? Ill go in every ten min to see how she is doing." How long? She can cry for hours nonstop. That is how long. Ha Ha Mommy jokes on you.

Fast forward to 8 months ago. Yep you guessed it Baby 3.0! By now this mommy is accustomed to waking a few times a night. But all this is catching up and three babies are much harder to raise when you're tired.

I am trying everything now. I got a book called The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5  by Jennifer Walburger.

Mr 3.0 is on a business trip to Vegas for CES. So I decided that by the time he gets back my girls are going to be sleep trained. You are probably wondering why I am waiting till he is out of the house to try this. Well to say this nicely... I have an easier time letting 2.0 cry it out then he does.  I started last night and let me just say I hope that tonight is better.

The simplified idea of the book is

1) Compile a list of the things that your child/children need to go to sleep. For 2.0 she really needs someone in the room to go to sleep, that or needs to be held. 3.0 needs to nurse and fall asleep nursing.

2) Get everything ready that you will need for the night. They recommend having a sleep journal and write down everything. All wake-ups, intervals of going in, anything that you need to keep track of. Like if she/he asks to go potty/get some water/have a song... then the next day you can have all that done before lights out. At lights out there is no more contact with the child.

3) Once you are ready and you have made sure child has had what ever s/he needed. Time to shut out the lights and head out of the door.

What I did was this: Dinner, bath, brush teeth, PJs, tell them a story while nursing 3.0, sing a song, send 1.0 to his room, kiss 2.0 and say good night, kiss 3.0 say good night. Let them both know that Mommy is going to shut the door now and it was time to go to sleep and I'll see them in the morning.

Then sit outside the door crying quietly listening to my two babies screaming and crying. Go in 5 min half way in the room quietly say "Mommies here, its just time for sleep, Ill see you in the morning" leave, cry some more, go in again 5 min, repeat, 10 min, 15 min. This goes on till both girls are asleep. 1 hour.

At 1am 2.0 wakes up and comes into my room, I get up and walk her back into her room (she's crying). Get 3.0 up and dream feed her for 7 min (we are weaning) put her down (easy as pie) leave. At 2am 2.0 wakes again, put her back to bed, she is crying 5 min, 10, 10, 15,15,15 finally she stops crying. Now just making little noises for about 20 more min. I've stopped going in because at this point she is not crying (Thank God that 3.0 didn't wake up at all!)

She gets up again at 5am, I go in and dream feed 3.0 and bring her in my room cause 2.0 is screaming at me to hold her. I say very sweetly "Chlo, Its still night time, when the sun comes up then it is time to get up, but right now its sleepy time. Goodnight love I'll see you soon." With that I leave. And guess what only 7 min of crying then silence. 3.0 went right to sleep too. I got 2 hours of sleep before the sun came up and 2.0 walks in and touches my head and sweet as pie says "Mommy the sun is up wake up now". Day 1 is over!

Here is pic of Nap Time today

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Going green...

One of my New Years Resolutions this year was to replace as many items in my household as I could. I am starting with things I use the most down to random things. There are a few sites that I visit almost daily for inspiration one of them is Babbles: 15 DIY Reusable Disposables . From there I have been mozing along all the great blogs!
We eat out a lot as a family.. picnic style. That means lots of plastic baggies come along. Now I'm not frugal enough to wash them out after ease use and reuse them. No, those puppies go right into the trash when are done. This I decided was change number 1. I followed the posts from Oopsey Daisy and got some influence from Smashed Peas and Carrots and set up to do my own. I am going to do a few more but I'm out of time for now. Can I say late night tonight? Yes I can! Thank goodness I'll be able to nap tomorrow.

The fabric I used I found here and the paisley I think I found at here (but they right now are going under a redo for their shop so it most likely will not be there sorry)

So now for the pics. If you want tutorials please visit the other sights. I forgot to make one. Thanks

Persimmon Fruit Salad

My kids just love fruit, I mean LOVE fruit. I have, in the past just chopped up some apples and mixed it with berries and grapes and they are fine with that. But for me it is kind of boring. I like fruit too but there is only so much I can have plain before I am done.

I was excited to see a new kind of fruit in our CSA box for the last few weeks. Persimmons! I had never had one before and was baffled on how to eat/prepare it. I asked at the Farmers Market the next week and they said "Just eat it like an apple". I thought that was nice and easy and rushed home to try my new fruit. Oh my I did not care for it at all. The sin felt weird (I was told that the skin was eatable), the taste kind a funky, and the feel of it was just odd like a really fine mushy sandpaper. No way was I going to feed this to my kids. I was dismayed that the next few weeks our boxes always contained more persimmons.

I didn't want to keep throwing them out so I set out on a mission. Find a way to eat this and like it because it seemed like for the winter we were stuck with 4-5 of them. I tried a persimmon flan...way to sweet and kinda strange. And then I happened on a Persimmon fruit salad. BINGO! It was good. Just the right amount of sweet and tart. Oh and the kids devoured it! Winner!! Here is the recipe plus a little of my own because I love berries.

Persimmon Fruit Salad

1 persimmon (I peel it)
1 apple (any kind will work)
1 tsp honey ( I use buckwheat but any will do)
1-2 tsp fresh lemon juice ( I love the tart and use up to half a lemon)

Cut the apples and persimmon up small. Mix in the honey and lemon juice and there you go.

If you want to add some strawberries and blueberries. Add a little extra honey and lemon juice and that's it! Enjoy

I am so not computer literate!

So I am brand new to all the technology of blogger, making business pages on Facebook, and Etsy. I am just getting really frustrated trying to get a like button on my blog and I know that it is not that hard. I just can not wrap my mind around it. I really want to get my pages to work together but I just cant. I think that I am going to break down and have my husband help me. Oh well.

On a different note, I am so excited to announce the start of my Etsy page! I have two things posted so far and a bunch of new things coming! This is my take on a birds nest! Vibrant colors and lots of wrapping and twisting.

The other picture is a box that I've made to hold the items to ship to people. I just need to figure out how to get it done well. I don't want to send something that will fall apart in transit! I will be adding things as I am able to. But life is a little crazy at this point in time.