homemade gifts

I finally got some pictures loaded onto the computer off my camera. Here are the other things I made for Christmas this year

Stepping Stone for my mother-in-law

The snuggie I made for my niece, I made it a bit big but that way it'll last longer and cover her up better

second child

I almost have a crawler! I was beginning to think he would NEVER crawl but then Monday, he started to push himself forward with his toes while on his belly, then yesterday he started to get his one knee bent and would push a bit with it while on his elbows, today we are getting both knees going but still on his elbows. He is getting where he wants to go and is not getting as frustrated so hopefully if he keeps working on it today, he'll get it figured out and be much happier overall.

It is bitter sweet though, I will have to be much more careful about how long I leave him lying on the floor when I go to do something because who knows where he'll end up. not to mention keeping all the small toys and things out of reach! And making sure Ashton does the same.

Ashton never crawled so this is new to me. I feel like a new mom right now. I've noticed I'm a little slack with trying to teach things to Brayden. With Ashton I was always trying to get him to do new things but now I just let him do what he wants to do when he wants to do it. Its funny how we are so different with our second children, or is it just me? Not that I don't love him just as much, I just think you look less at what the book says and just let life happen. I'm not nearly as paranoid with the think he does. I let him cry more and I'm not as stressed out. Maybe I should have more? By the time I get to 4 like you Tif, those kids will practically raise themselves around here! lol jk, not having anymore!!!!!!!!

Happy boy

The last couple days in the house have been so much better. The kids have been a bit tough on me lately. This is my "woe is me" speach. But yesterday and today have been great.

Ashton hasn't had any meltdowns, he's been listening so much better. It sure makes things easier and he is so much happier too!

Brayden has actually sat on the floor and played by himself and is not screaming everytime I leave the room. Last night he even went downstairs with Jason and Ashton to play hockey while I cleaned up. It was so nice. He's been sleeping until like 5 or 6 am, having his bottle and going back to bed til 8 or so. That means more sleep for me too.

Today Brayden is extremely happy. I tried to put him down for a nap this morning. He was chatting away, which he usually does before going to sleep, normally I wait until he goes to sleep before getting on the treadmill but I figured I was safe to go. When I came up more than half hour later, he was still chatting! I guess nap isn't happening right now. I had a quick shower and went to get him. He was in there for like and hour and a half, happy as can be. When I went in, he started his little giggle, it's too funny and he's been doing it almost none stop since then. I LOVE THIS.

I just want my kids to be happy. I know we're going to have bad days but it has just seemed like lately, that's all we've had. It's so nice to have happy days. I guess I'll enjoy this until the next tooth comes in. Then we may be regressing! lol

House cleaning plan

Have I mentioned that I hate house cleaning? Well, I do, and even when I get motivated to do it, there is always a kid that needs the attention first. So I have a new plan . . .

I am going to just work on one room at a time. One day at a time. I have started in my bedroom this morning already. I can hopefully finish it today and then tomorrow I can move on to Brayden's room. I want to do EVERYTHING that needs to be done in there, even mop the floor. My room is a disaster. I find that I am continuously having to tidy/clean the kitchen and livingroom because that is what people see so my room, I can't even explain it! There are piles of clothes everywhere, most of them don't fit but I haven't gotten to trying things on so I can get rid of the one that are too big and put the ones that are too small away for a bit. I also need to go through my dressers, and closet! I still have shorts in my dresser, not only is it not summer, there is also no chance that I'd be able to keep them up because they are from just after having Brayden.

I figure if I do one room each day, then just keep repeating the cycle, then I won't have to spend so much time cleaning on one day, it'll just be a little each time. I may have to spend 2 days on some rooms the first time around because they've been neglected to say the least. Hopefully this will work and my house will actually look clean and organized for once. It's great having a bigger house, so much more storage, but it's also so much more to clean and you tend to keep more stuff you don't need because you have room for it. We are slowly running out of room and I'm not about to move to a bigger house any time soon.

coincidence?

Here is a weird thought, or maybe not?

Ashton is a bugger when it comes to meals, I've mentioned that before. I have pretty much given up on trying to get him to eat things I know he will not eat. The think that makes me REALLY mad is when he won't eat things I know he likes. Something that he ate like 3 bowl fulls the night before.

I think we're pretty lenient when it comes to this. Yesterday I made a nice chicken, just a small one, with stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots and gravy. I know he doesn't eat chicken, eventhough he likes it when he does, but he LOVES stuffing and carrots. He asked me before supper for just potatoes, which is weird cause he is hit and miss with potatoes, but I gave him mostly potatoes and then told him he had to have some stuffing and a few carrots, because I KNOW he likes them. Well, he ended up eating his stuffing and one carrot and refused to eat his potatoes. SO ANNOYING!

I told him if he didn't eat, he couldn't go to the Wheat King game with Jason that night. I was sure that would get him to eat. I even tried the "just 10 more bites" thing, still nothing. So I told him no bedtime snack if he didn't eat. Still wouldn't eat.

So instead of fighting with him, I just left his plate on the table so he could have it for a snack when he asked for one later anyway, didn't let him go to the Wheat King game and he had no other snack. He went to bed at 7:30 without a fight because he was way overtired. He slept great, until 6am when he came to my room wanting a drink of water. I would imagine he was starving because he didn't eat supper and I'm pretty sure he ate salad for lunch with me. I gave him his water and sent him back to bed.

he didn't go to sleep. He layed there awhile then came back to my room. I let him go watch cartoons and went back to bed. He kep coming and waking me up, not even because he wanted breakfast, he just wanted to wine at me. So at 7:30 I got up and sat on the couch, figured I'd catch up on computer time since Jason and Brayden were still in bed.

He comes the weird part. I went to get Ashton a glass of water and when I came back, he's laying on the couch, crying and throwing up. Didn't even bother to sit up, just layed there and let chunky white stuff (sorry), which I guess to be his milk he'd just drank, come out of his mouth. Gross!

This is the second time that we've sent him to bed without supper and he has got up sick. The last time he was throwing up all night and was fine by morning. This time it started later and after I finally convinced him to eat some crackers, he was fine. There has only been one other time that he went to bed with no supper and no snack that he didn't get sick. I can't imagine that he is getting sick from being hungry? It has to be coincidence, right? It makes me scared to not let him eat. But what else am I supposed to do, I already feel like I'm doing special orders to make sure there is something that he'll eat at supper time. I hope this picky eater thing goes away sooner than later!

only one more day

I have not been here for a long time, finally got a free minute so here's what I've been up to.
I have enjoyed the holidays but I have to say, I am looking forward to Jason going back to school on Monday. He's been off since the 23rd. I thought we might kill each other as we've never spent that much time together. Surprisingly, we made it through, so far, there is still one day to go.

Yes, I love him but his patience is not his best attribute! He becomes easily and very upset which then just adds more stress to me too. I've been dealing with the typical parenting issues the last couple weeks, or at lesat I would think they are typical. Children can really put stress on the marriage!

The kids have been sick so they are not themselves. That makes it so much harder! Especially when Brayden won't go to anyone besides me. I thought we'd passed that stage but apparently we have not. I'm not sure if it's his cold that he's had for a couple weeks or the fact that his teeth are finally coming in or if it's just because he isn't getting around like I can see he wants to, but whatever it is, I just want him to be the extremely happy kid I know he can be.

My routine has been out of whack with Jason here too. Normally I get up in the morning and check my email, facebook etc and then if I have a chance I'll have a look at a later time in the day. Well it hasn't been that way for the last two weeks and it's driving me crazy. Now, when I get up, I'm looking after the kids. Get them fed and then Brayden hasn't been letting me put him down for any length of time lately so I am pretty well booked until he goes for a nap just before lunch. Then I'd normally get on the treadmill and make lunch when I was done but with Jason home, I end up having to make him lunch first because for some odd reason he doesn't eat breakfast when he's off? I don't understand it, the rest of us still eat breakfast, so I'm not sure why he doesn't because then he's starving by lunch time. It's weird. If I end up making lunch and cleaning it up before I get on the treadmill, I often miss my opportunity. I hate waiting until the afternoon, that means hanging out in my PJ's all day and not having a shower and I feel gross until I can have a shower. Plus, during Brayden's afternoon nap, I like to either get something ready for supper, or catch up on Ellen that I recorded earlier in the day.

Now onto Ellen. I am WAY behind, I have finally watched Monday's show, it took me about 4 attempts, piece by piece, I finally finished it. I know it's really no big deal, but I really love watching Ellen, she always puts a smile on my face even on an otherwise trying day.

I am really looking forward to Monday! I hope that will help me get something done around here. I have some new Years resolution plans I'd like to work on as far as cleaning my house. We'll see if it's just wishful thinking. I used to think things would be easier if I had Jason here to help with the kids. I admitt, sometimes it is, but not for 17 days in a row! :)

What is that smell?

Have you ever opened your fridge and become overwhelmed with an arroma that is less than pleasing?

Well, that happened to me a few days ago. I knew I didn't have anything old and moldy in there because I look through it often but that smell, I can't even explain it! I figured I'd go through it again and just make sure there wasn't something I missed. I threw out all the leftovers even if they were only a couple days old, none of them smelled bad, but I was desparate.

Didn't work.

Jason and I decide then to take EVERYTHING out of the fridge and clean the whole think in case there was something spilled somewhere that was causing the odour. Once we finished that task, it seemed to be better, but still it smelled.

We begin to worry. A few months ago, we had a minor mouse problem in that we caught 5 mice in 3 days so we started to wonder if one had gotten into the back of the fridge and died and the stench was blowing into the fridge through the fan, so Jason pulled the fridge out, vaccuum it out in the back washed everything that could be washed and still it smelled.

We really didn't know where to go from here. How could our fridge still smell? I put some baking soda in a little container and put it in there too. I sprayed it down inside with a lovely febreeze sented spray and it still smelled.

Worst part, we had invited people over for New Year's eve and I was so worried, they'd pass out from the smell, that it might be worse to other people because we had become used to it, so I went out and bought a nicely scented candle and fired that up hoping to hide the stink.

As I prepared the food I'd be serving that evening, I just kept thinking how awful it would be for someone else to smell that fridge. I pulled all my veggies out of the crisper and began cutting them up. When I opened the bag of cauliflower that I'd purchased only a few days ago, the scent jumped out at me! Could this be it? It shouldn't be, it was not old, nor was it moldy. I  had used it in a stir fry just a couple days prior, but I thought maybe I'd found my culprit.

I took that bag over to Jason for a second opinion as I have a terrible cold and my sence of smell may be altered. I asked him if this is the smell, he said, "it doesn't smell good". I tossed that cauliflower in the garbage and promptly removed it from the premisis.

As I continued to prepare the rest of my food for the evenings festivities, I enjoyed a sweet smell of my new candle (that was supposed to be a gift for my Christmas gathering at my Grandma's house on Sunday). I just kept saying, "I'm so happy we got rid of that smell!"

What a happy New year! :)