What to Wear?

I'm going to rant as I sit here pumping. TMI? I don't care.  I'm trying to get ready to go to a family reunion today and I have nothing to wear, literally.  Well, unless I want to wear a boring old t-shirt, which I opted for.  I tried some of cute tops and it's like, nope, nursing bra hangs out.  Nope, nursing tank is too bulky.  Nope, not going to wear a nursing bra, normal tank, and shirt.  Too much for this weather and too annoying to get through all those layers to pump.  UGHH!!  I'm back to pre preggo weight, but certainly not to pre preggo body.  Can't wear that shirt and/or pants, muffin top hangs out, stomach roll is too visible.    It's moments like this that I want to be done nursing, but I will soldier on becasue these moments are few and far between.  How often does a SAHM dress nicely?  Not very often.  It's moments like these that reassure me of our decision to be done at two.  I will never have to do this again.  It will be a short six months until I am completely done.  Right?!?!

Five Minute Friday

Hello Friday!!  I love you today!!!  I am home alone with Ellie and it is MARVELOUS!!!  We have a Welsh family reunion this weekend so Wade left a little early and took Whitney with him.  I love my little Whit Whit but it is nice to have quiet time with Ellie and to get stuff done at home.  I have a list a mile long that is slowly getting checked off.  I would be getting more done had I not had a tooth ache that needed emergency attention.  The root of my top front tooth next to my big tooth has been tender periodically for years.  I assumed it was tender because of having braces and tooth movement.  And most recently I thought it was starting to get sore again because I have been less than consistent with wearing my retainer.  Two days ago it really started to hurt and my gums got red and sore.  It hurt so bad last night I wanted to throw up.  This morning I go to the dentist (in Ankeny because that's the closest practice that accepts our insurance) and find out that I need a root canal.  YIKES!!!  The kicker is that they can't get me in until Aug 9.  I'm beginning to think I should have gotten dentures instead of braces, I do not have the strongest most healthiest teeth.

Now, on to Ellie.  She is mobile now.  Not in a crawl across the room mobile, but she can rock on her hands and knees and throw herself forward to get what she wants.  Interesting.  She is for sure at least a month ahead of Whitney's mobility.   She seems to be my active grabby baby.   She is the reason I am home alone with her.  We are in the middle of a sleep battle.  I started sleep training her (again) a few nights ago.  She was getting better but dramatically regressed and is going through that seperation crying as soon as I lay her down.  One night she woke up e.v.e.r.y h.o.u.r.   We have been doing the cry it out method.  No going in every few minutes to let her know I'm here, just strict cry it out.  That's what seems to be working for her, which is funny because with Whitney I had to do the Ferber method(periodic checking)  Last night was the best night.  She went to bed at 9, woke up at 11:45, cried for two minutes and then slept until 4.  I hope I win this one, I've been sleep deprived for far too long!!

Story City Carousel

We visited the Story City Carousel today.  Wade found a garage sale ad on craig's list that he wanted to check out, so we made a little family trip to Story City just north of Ames.  The carousel is an old wooden one, one of the few left in the U.S.  It went surprisingly fast.  Whitney was not very fond of it and didn't want to ride again.  Ellie thought it was great! 

Ellison- 5 Months

Ellie is 5 months today.  I just love this baby stage.  I love the 5-8 month range when they are learning new things, able to eat foods and learning to crawl.  Ellie continues to be a happy baby and is easily amused, especially by big sister who unfortunately does not think a giggling little sister is as cute as I do. 

She rides in the car just okay now.  If we travel any distance it is best to do it at nap time. 

 Sleep-  getting better.  She goes down for the night around 8:30 and has been doing 5-7 hrs for her first stretch.  She will then do about 2 hr increments after that and wake up for good in the morning between 6 and 7.  She is never fussy during the night and goes right to bed after I nurse her.  I did a little bit of sleep training that if she woke up too early, I didn't feed her.  She wasn't too happy about that.  I also put her in warmer pj's which seemed to help as well.  Maybe she was just cold???  We all picked up round two of colds, so Ellie is way stuffy by morning.  That certainly isn't helping the sleep department.  Poor thing is only 5 months old and has had a cold for the last month straight.  We no joke were not completely over the first cold and we got a second one.   Naps-  not quite regular because we are busies in the morning.  If we are home she will usually take a long morning nap and another afternoon nap.  If she catches a short morning nap while we are on the go she will take a long mid day nap with a little pick me up early evening/late afternoon.

Eating-  she takes a bottle of pumped breast milk during the day and then nurses in the middle of the night and upon waking in the morning.   She drinks 3-4oz at a time whenever I think she may be hungry.  She eats really well, however the cereal seems to harden her poops too much so she only gets cereal once every other day.  There hasn't been a baby food that she has refused to eat.

Size- she has grown out of most of her 3-6 month clothing.  She wears a size 2 diaper and a 3 at night.  I don't change her diaper in the middle of the night in order to keep her in sleep mode, so she needs that extra protection.  Lately she has peed out her 2's at nap time so as soon as we get through the 2's I'm going to bump her up.  I'm going to have a 2 year old and a 5 month old in size 3's!!

Milestones-  sits unsupported, rolls front to back and back to front, rocks on her hands and kees, blows razzberries, coos, tries to pick up small objects, likes to stand, laughs, shakes rattles, pulls around in a cricle, works to get a toy out of reach

She has stranger danger and little tolerance for other people holding her, including Wade.  She is starting to dislike her little tub, which stinks because she is a little too unsteady yet in the big tub and it is really hard to lean over the tub to hold her.  She loves her bouncer and to get out to see new places.



Five Minute Friday

I don't have much to say this friday morning.  It's been a HOT and boring week.  I tried to keep our routine as much as possible.... going to the library, getting groceries at 8am and going to parks early in the morning.  The rest of day is spent indoors.  We got a nice break in the weather yesterday with some rain storms.  

Whitney saw her first rainbow!!!  I couldn't capture how big and bright it was with our small digital camera, but it was a good one!!  It was even a double rainbow that stuck around for a long time.  Whitney saw it and says, "it's not a sticker"

I let her out in the down pour last night, then decided it would be best to just let her be naked, then decided we would give her a redneck bath!!  Wade got the soap and washed her up, that is her washing her hair.

Recent Pictures of the Girls

Welcome Home Lee!!

Our brother in law is home from Afghanistan after a year long deployment.  He is one of the many Iowa National Guard soldier's returning home.  The ceremony was thursday afternoon in Boone. 

after the ceremony, combing Grandma Cathy's hair

Grant was so excited to have his Daddy home!!

Five Minute Friday

Okay, I'm going to type away for five minutes then later today I hope to get some photos up. 
I have been breastfeeding/pumping for 20+ weeks now, yay me!  I am a little less strict on my pumping schedule, going closer to 3 hrs than my previously rigid 2-2.5 hr schedule.  I don't mind if Ellie is no longer on exclusive bm like she had been just so she can keep the taste of formula in her mouth because it is super nice to have formula as a back up.  She still does not like the breast during the day, I gather she prefers the steady flow of a bottle.  In other Ellie news she learned to roll back to front!!!  I am elated that she is learning new tricks to gain a little more independence.  She is also sleeping a bit better at night.  She has done 6,7, and 8 hrs this week, with a few nights of waking up after a few hours.  I'll take it, I think we are on the right track!

Yesterday we had a welcome home ceremony for our BIL Lee whom had been deployed to Afghanistan for a year.  It is such an occasion of mixed emotions.  You are so happy to see Soldiers reunited with their loved ones, yet so saddened when you think they had to go without each other for a year.  That's some tough stuff.  With that said, we are so thankful Lee is home safely and is together with his wife and kids as a family unit.  Many others in Lee's Brigade were not so lucky, it was a tough deployment for the Iowa National Guard.

I agreed to let Wade buy some more land at Lake Sundown in southern Iowa, where we currently own 19.75 acres.  There is  a plot right next to us of 9.51 acres that opened up for sale and we were given a good deal being previous land owners, supposedly.  I get super nervous about debt, especially since Wade also got a new truck.  Some people buy nice clothes, houses and furnishings, and vehicles- we buy dirt.  And trees and grass.  Wade says "we are adding to our empire".   I say, "oh boy!"

Wade has his "man surgery" today.  Or rather his "un-man surgery" lol, I'm so funny!  Our decision to be done with two kids will be final in a matter of a few hours.  I think it will be a relief not to have to think about it any more.  Some times I hold Ellie a little longer than necessary and give her extra hugs and kisses knowing she will be our last baby.

Whitney is talking in paragraphs now.  Her vocabulary is expanding every day.  She can string together two 5-6 word sentences.  Sometimes she stutters and jumbles up the order of her words as she tries to piece everything together.  We are constantly laughing at the things she says!

TOT Collar

I had a moment of panic and ordered Ellie a TOT(tubular orthosis for torticollis) Collar.  She still holds her head crooked, or rather she lets it rest sideways.  For only $60 (don't ask me how plastic tubing costs $60) I figured it would be money well spent and I didn't want to wait around for a doc's scrip to get insurance to cover it.  It's a fight to get it on, but once she has it on she tolerates it really well.  Hopefully it will help out.  It surely is better than nothing now that she is getting less tolerant with her exercises and stretches.

this is her without it, and how she likes to rest her head.  Her back right neck muscle is long and stretched, and her left side muscle is short and tight.

Five Minute Friday

Okay, so it's saturday morning.  I've had it!  I've had it with lack of sleep and waking up every two hours to comfort Ellie back to bed.  Sleep training begins tonight!!  As I mentioned before, we all got colds three weeks ago.  I am still blowing my nose a few times a day because of it, but I am done making excuses for Ellie that that is the reason she is continuing to wake up.  I think the cold started the whole wake up routine and now she is just in a bad habit.  She was consistently sleeping for 8 hrs before this began, I know she can do longer than 3 hrs.  It can't be good for her either to be waking so often.  The other night in my sleep deprived craze I thought Ellie was in bed with us and I picked up my pillow, slung it over my shoulder and began burping my pillow.  It took a full minute for sure for my mind to fully process that I was not burping Ellie, but a pillow!    Last night I was up four times with her by 12:30, ridiculous!!  I pulled out the big guns for breakfast this morning, coffee and I have chocolate chip cookies in the oven.

We finally got some word as to what Wade may be doing when he is done with school in December.  He has been approved for an ILE course in Alabama from Jan 6- April 20.   Wade will kill me for sounding like an ignorant Army wife, but I'm not sure what ILE stands for, Intermediate Level Education??  There are so many acronyms in the Army that I just accept the acronym instead of asking what each one stands for.  The ILE course is something you have to complete when you are a Major.  Wade is not yet a Major, but should be promotable in the spring.  Usually the course is a year long course at Ft Leavenworth, KS, but the course is very backed up and it would be a good opportunity to get that completed while he is in between assignments.  Part of the package deal of him getting this masters degree is to work for the Corps of Engineers for two years when he is done, so again, it's kind of works to get that course out of the way.  This is a TDY (temporary duty) assignment, so we don't know if the girls and I will stay here in Iowa or try to go with to Alabama.  The dilemma to decide would be where would we live, what would we do with our stuff, would the Army accommodate us, and do we choose to be apart for  3 1/2 months when Wade could still deploy for a year at a time. This is not confirmed, nothing is until you have orders, but it is a likely scenario for us.

Five Minute Friday

Whitney got her first black eye.  Like, a real good shiner.  She hit her cheekbone on a fire place ledge and the next day the black eye came too.  I was worried we should xray her cheek, but Wade insisted it was fine, which I'm sure it is.

I have been battling sleep with Ellie these last two weeks.  I hope it is cold related and not bad habits that are starting.  It all started Father's day weekend and has gotten worse from there.  I am lucky if she will sleep four hours straight and 1-2 hrs after her first waking.  It is wearing me out.  It's like she is a newborn again.  I stopped nursing her for her first waking, I know the girl isn't hungry and she was just doing 8 hr stretches of sleep.  It was a battle the first two nights of not nursing her when she awoke, but last night when I picked her up she just laid her head on my shoulders and went right back to bed.   Hopefully she is learning.  She sleeps on her tummy and likes to roll to her side to sleep, but wakes up and freaks out if she falls to her back.  It instantly wakes her up.  That is also part of the battle.  I had to take blankets out of her bed too.  She tries to eat them and twice I have woken up to her sounding panicked and go to find her with a blanket over her face.   Whitney was an easy sleeper.  Put her down on her tummy and she stayed there all night, still does.  Ellie on the other hand is going to be a mover and going to be a challenge.

Wade got some new wheels today. A new Toyota Tundra.  I'm not talking new to us, it is brand new, new.  We just had some issues with his truck and he decided he was tired of buying used and didn't want to put another dime into that truck.

My sister had a boy on June 26.  Lawton is name and we are going to visit them this weekend.

Whitney's new favorite phrases.... yeah sure, that's my favorite, you're funny,