Adios

Wow! I can't believe that I haven't posted anything since March. Ok thats a lie, I would be even more shocked if I somehow was actually blogging on a weekly or even bi-weekly basis. I have to admit things are a little crazy over here....not that they ever haven't been but the dynamics have shifted slightly. I have been putting this post off for a long time in hopes that maybe I wouldn't need to post it but I need to just do it and move on for now.

So here it goes:

After some thought and sleep I have decided that keeping this blog going just isn't working at the moment. Between working 32 hrs a week, taking care of the littles and trying to maintain a somewhat clean house there isn't much extra time. With moving to our new place I have increased my commute from 15 min one way to 45 min. When we first moved here I knew my commute was going to increase by that amount but I didn't think that I would so much less time with the kids. In our old place I was home every day by 2 p.m. so the man could leave for work (we didn't have a nanny then), but now I am finding that I am not getting home till 4:30/5. Which means I come home and have to get supper for everyone and by the time that is done and cleaned up it is time to get Jorie ready for bed (she gets her bedtime bottle at 6:30 and is usually in bed by 7). I ended up moving Jackson's bedtime up from 7 to 8 just so he could get a little one-on-one time but that still is so much less time than before. And once the kids are all in bed I either am dead tired and sleeping by 9 pm, end up doing some household chores or I have work to finish up from the day.

Watching the video below helped make thoughts I've been having for a while now about the amount of time spent on electronics a little more of a reality. And made me realize a few changes needed to be made in our household to help de-prioritize (I don't think that's a word, just deal with it) electronics and prioritize face-to-face human interaction. Taking a sabbatical, if you want to call it that, from this blog is just one of the few things I am doing. The man and I have also briefly talked about having a no electronics day once a week. Either Saturday or Sunday the only electronics that can or could be used would be the camera, tv/blu-ray for family movie days, the radio/record player and lastly our land-line house phone (yep you read correctly we still have a land-line!)

Since I haven't blogged in so long I will try and quickly recap what has been going on over here for one last time.

The Man: the Man has been sleep deprived and stressed with the amount of work his classes have been this semester. Homework has taken over any free-time he has between working and reserves. We are so glad that this semester is almost over! He is almost done with his associates and is starting his bachelors June 1st. I am so proud of him for all his hard work, I know it hasn't been easy.

Jackson: Where to start with this little man. He has been 2 for a month now....mind blown!!! This kid amazes me on a daily basis. He is one of the sweetest little boys I know. He's a lover not a fighter. He helps out with Jorie and little chores around the house. Granted he does have his days where he is what you would consider your typical 2 year old and throws fits for no reason and doesn't listen to us. Thankfully the majority of the time he is a smart, sweet, dramatic, sensitive, emotional, happy little boy. Jack has also started potty training. In the back of my mind I have known he has been ready to start for a while but I kept putting it off because we are flying in a week and I didn't want to have to add that element to flying alone with both kids. But he had different plans and kind of started potty training on his own after one of our many talks about going potty like a big boy. I am really proud of him and how well he has been doing with it. He normally has a dry pull-up when he wakes up in the morning and after his nap. He is also pretty good at keeping his "big boy undies" or pull-up dry during the day. We are working on getting him to tell us when he has to go since he will go every time we put him on the potty. This is usually where he has an accident when he has them...but it's getting better.   

Jorie: I can't believe I'm going to say this but Jorie is 6 months old and is just amazing. She has almost mastered sitting up on her own and rolls all over our living room...nothing is off limits in that room. We have just started baby-led weaning with her and she has been doing great with it and is loving food. Cucumbers are one of her favorites right now! This girl is happy 95% of the time. She loves to play with Jackson, he can always make her laugh and smile. I am excited to see more of her lovable happy personality come out and develop. We have been lucky again to have a good sleeper, she sleeps for 12 hrs straight at night. With that she is a pretty awful napper during the day but I will take that trade off every time!

And me: Well there isn't much to say that hasn't already been said. I guess I should mention that I am so thankful we decided to get a nanny for the kids. Gemma has been with us since February and is amazing. Both kids love her and she even manages to do a few household chores for us most days like loading/unloading the dishwasher, sweeping, mopping and other little chores that no one likes doing. I really don't know how we managed without her. Somehow we did but I am glad that we now have her here to help.
 

Well this ended up being much longer than I had originally intended it but I guess that will happen when I haven't posted in so long. I just want to say thank you to the few people that still might read this. Who knows what could happen in the future, I could be back to blogging in a year or I might not blog ever again. Either way if you want to see pictures of the kids follow me on Instagram and if you want to know what is actually going on in our family give me a call/text/Skype/FaceTime (see way too many other forms of communication)

How do you know?!?

Here I am sitting on the couch, blogging and watching tv when I should be doing some things around the house, like dishes and laundry, since both kids are in bed for the night. Maybe after this post I will go do those things...now onto the actual post instead of random rambling.

My maternity leave is coming to an end soon, two weeks from Monday....seriously where have the past 10 weeks gone! With me having to go back to work soon the man and I had to start getting serious about what we were going to do for child care. If you didn't know before now we never had any child care; I work 1st shift, the man works 2nd shift and would take almost all online classes for school. I would go to work and then make sure I was home in time for him to leave and then the one day a week he usually had to actually go to a class I would work from home that day. We didn't get that lucky this school semster with our schedules. The class the man needed to take at the actual college is only offered in the middle of the day and is two days a week. On top of that, the man's 2nd shift job is suppose to be moving to 1st shift sometime in 2014....we have no idea when but they tell us it's going to happen.

With that being said we needed a new plan. Either I needed to become a stay-at-home mom or we needed to find daycare. I would say 90% of the time I really like my job and it has a lot of really great benefits. So quiting just didn't seem like the best option for us at the moment. Which left us with finding daycare.

I really don't know how people do it. I mean it is one thing to have to find daycare in the town you grew up in or next to where you have a lot of connections...you have people you know and trust to recomend a good daycare provider or babysitter to leave your kids with. I wish we had that situation but we don't. Instead we know very few people where we are at and have to trust our instincts.

Because I only work 32 hours a week and the man is still on 2nd shift we decided it would be more cost efficent to hire an in-home nanny or someone that does daycare out of their house. The first thing we did was sign up for care.com. They are a website that you can post babysitting jobs you need someone for or browse nannies/caregivers in the area and look at their profiles. At first we just looked at various profiles and even sent a few of them messages to see if they would be insterested in meeting with us for an interview....that turned up very unsuccessful. So we posted a job and ended up having around 20 different applicants. How do you choose who you want to meet with based off of what they said when they applied and reading their profile?!?! We found 4 people that we felt would be the best canidates to interview. So far we have met with 2 of them and Sunday we are meeting with the other 2.

Now really how does a person put so much trust in a complete stranger!?! I find my self asking this question over and over and yet I'm not sure what the answer is. I just hope that our gut insticts are correct and we choose the right person. If any of you have any secrets has to how you knew who the right person was to look after your kids please let me know!

 

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pictures, pictures & more pictures

Here are a few recent photos of the kids to help balance out the very wordy post I just had. Again these are all from my phone so I apologize if you have seen some, most or all of these already!

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Leading up to meeting Jorie!

Since I'm finally getting back into the swing of blogging and I have introduced Jorie to everyone even though I'm sure you all already knew who she was it's time to get into the events leading to welcoming sweet baby Jorie into the world.

The Man and I decided once again that it was a really good idea to move when I was very very pregnant. At least this time it wasn't across the country and was just 15 miles. In case you weren't aware my job allows you to go on maternity leave two weeks prior to your due date...awesome! I started maternity leave October 30th and actually I had 2 floating holidays to use up before the end of the year so I took those the 2 days before and which meant I was pretty much done working the Friday before. I really don't know what I would have done if I would have had to work those two weeks....our house was all sorts of crazy.

November 1st my Dad and the Man's dad flew into help us move the next day. Moving day was one of the longest days of life...I was 38 weeks pregnant and not much help other than telling everyone what to do and they all did what I asked. Our moving crew was only here for a very short trip, they flew in very late Friday night and flew back Monday morning. In the short time they were here we managed to move our entire apartment and even unpack and set up the kitchen, Jackson's room, Jorie's room and the living room. Like I said I worked these guys pretty hard and they were all troopers about it....I owe them a HUGE thank you because I don't know how we would have done the move without them.

After they left the Man's mom flew out a couple days later...that Thursday to be exact. She volunteered her time from the 7th thru the 18th. This was huge for the Man and I. Before she decided to come out for that time frame we were deciding which would be the worst of two evils: Jackson in the delivery room with us or the Man not there at all. The only problem with flying your daycare in from another state to watch your son when you go into labor is that you really don't know when you will go into labor. Knowing this I talked with my OB doctor and basically told him that I HAD to have this baby by the 16th because else I wouldn't be out of the hospital before my daycare left. At my 39 week appointment he said we could be induced if I hadn't gone into labor before my due date, November 13th. This was music to my ears, not that I wanted to be induced but I really wanted the Man to be there for the birth of the baby and I didn't feel like having a toddler sitting in the bed with me screaming Momma, Momma while giving birth. While my MIL was out here and we were waiting on Jorie's arrival, she was awesome and unpacked every box we let her and cooked all our meals and let me nap when Jackson wasn't....it was fantastic!!

Then November 13th came and we still had no baby or no sign of her arriving anytime soon. So I called labor and delivery as instructed at 8 a.m. I was told that they were full at the moment but would give me a call back later when they were ready for me to come in and be induced. I'm sorry but that waiting game was dumb...it took FOREVER for these people to call and I actually ended up calling them back before they called me. Since the man works 2nd shift we didn't know if he should go into work or not since we didn't know when we would get the call. About an hour before he needed to leave for work I called back to see what the deal was, they assured me that I was going to be going in that day yet but probably not till after 8 p.m. Now more decisions needed to be made, does the man go into work for a few hours or does he start his week of paternity leave already. He decided not to go in and to just get some more unpacking and organizing done around the house. Labor and delivery didn't end up calling us until 9 p.m.

We got to the hospital around 10 p.m. and they started everything...turns out I was already having contractions and just didn't know it :) I already knew I was going to get an epidural, I did with Jackson and it was amazing. With Jackson it took a really long time to get the feeling back in my legs and to be able to walk. So I decided I would wait a little bit before getting it instead of getting it right away. Around 10 or 11 a.m. on the 14th I decided to get the epideral. It took forever to get the epideral....I guess lifting a toddler everyday works your back muscles and that made it extremely difficult to get the needle in the right spot. I believe the Man said they stuck it in 5 different spots before getting the right one. Once that was finally taken care of I was again a happy laboring lady. The man and I continued to watch Game Show Network...its what we do when in labor. I should go back a little and say that Jorie was being quite difficult, the nurse would put the heart rate monitor on her and as soon as the nurse would let go she would move. If the nurse stood there and held it she would stay but everytime she left go she would move off the monitor. Other than that things seemed to be going well.

Around 2 I told the Man that it was going to be time to push soon. We called the nurse and the mid-wife and they asked if I was ready then and I wasn't sure anymore so they left and agreed that it wouldn't be long. An hour later they came back and Jorie still wasn't as far down as she should have so the nurse just asked me to push on the next contraction just to see if I could even move her....when I did that the nurse could see her head....I guess Jorie would come far enough down when I had a contraction but then would go back up some when they were over. They got the room ready and then it was time to have a baby. I pushed 2 maybe 3 times and Jorie was here!!! Jorie's umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck twice which was scary at first but turned out to be fine once they got it unwrapped. She also managed to tie a true knot in her cord, like a figure 8 sailors knot. The midwife said she had never seen that done before and that it was also the longest umbilical cord she had ever seen. They even asked if they could keep it to show students, since it was a learning hospital. I guess the more active the baby is in the womb the longer the umbilical cord.

We were discharged from the hospital Friday night. We had to stay for at least 24 hours but ended being there a few extra hours because we didn't have any evidence that Jorie had a wet diaper. The Man finally took her diaper off and put warm water on her hand to get her to pee so we could finally go home.

I am sure I missed a lot of the details about what all was going on right before Jorie was born but this is a pretty long and wordy post. I will end with letting you all know that I was told by the midwife that delivered Jorie and my nurse that I should have more kids because I am a rockstar at giving birth. When the nurse moved me to the recovery room from the delivery room she was told they needed her because a women just came in that was in labor; she told us that there's no way she is going to be as good at giving birth as me....the man and I just laughed....now thinking about it I really hope that lady didn't have a difficult labor!

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2013 in the eyes of Google+

Google+ sent me this little movie that they/it made. I loved it!

 

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2014 Goals!

I'm trying out a new blogging app today...fingers crossed that this answers all of my problems and hopefully will then save myself a couple hundred dollars from a laptop!

I've read a ton of peoples blogs lately with their 2014 resolutions. I am not big on resolutions, instead I take more of a goals approach to it. I already have daily, weekly, and monthly goals that are in my head and sometimes even get written down. Why wouldn't I set up yearly!

Looking back on last years goals I have to say I think we did pretty good on achieving them. We did everything on that list except for the last two goals. And the last goal, a trip to Switzerland, was basically thrown out the window when we found out we were pregnant last year. We also didn't get to go to New York City for Jackson's 1st birthday but we went to the ocean instead and made our trip to New York this past fall...so it still counts as a successful goal in my book!

Now for 2014!

Goal #1

To double the amount of money in our savings. We really want to get enough money in our savings to put down a nice down payment on a house someday. Last year we exceeded our money saving goal by cutting out a few things, so I'm hoping that we can do the same this year.

 

Goal #2

As usual, at least for us, take at least 1 family trip back to Wisconsin. It is extremely important that our kids grow up knowing their extended family and why the Man and I have such a love for everything Wisconsin has to offer even the -29 degree temps before the wind chill we experienced there a couple of weeks ago. The kids and I are planning a trip back this spring for my cousins wedding but the Man won't be able to make it do to his obligations to the Navy Reserves. So we are hoping for one more trip back! So I guess we already technically fulfilled this goal but we are hoping to make it happen 1 more time this year!

 

Goal #3

To go on at least one family vacation not to Wisconsin. You may find this hard to believe but our trips back to WI are not the most relaxing. There are about 50 people that we need to see and about 20 others that we want to see in a very short amount of time. This family vacation doesn't need to be anything huge but a 4 day weekend away would be amazing!

 

I would say that sums up our huge family goals for the year. I mean we do have more sentimental goals that pretty much stay the same from year to year: raise two beautiful, happy, healthy kids; be better people; love more and fight less. I also have a few personal goals that I hope to work on/accomplish this year: take more time for myself; become a better house wife; do better at my job; read more.

Here's to a great 2014!!

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35 almost 36

As I said in my last post I am sorry it has taken me this long to update everyone on this pregnancy.

This pregnancy has flown by! I really have a hard time believing that I will be 36 weeks on Wednesdays.

What's been happening:

-This pregnancy has been pretty easy if being pregnant is considered easy. The hardest thing had probably been keeping up my energy level...I really have no energy to do anything more than I must do.

-This sweet baby girl is WAY more active then Jackson.  It doesn't bother her to kick and push on my ribs & hips for extended periods of time. She also will start moving EVERY time I'm snuggling with Jackson.

- I believe my weight gain is pretty similar to last time....I can't remember exactly what it was at my last appointment but I believe I've gained between 20-25 lbs so far.

- my sweet tooth is a huge weakness. I think I could eat candy and junk food all day long, that's all this little girl wants to eat.

- I have been lucky enough to also have heartburn again. The difference is this time I get heartburn from EVERYTHING I eat: cheese, tacos, milk, ramen noodles...you get the point!

Since I'm writing this on my phone I know I'm forgetting to include some things but I promise to try and do another pregnancy before this baby arrives.

Photo Overload!

Here are some photos that I had taken on my phone over the past couple of months, not including ones from our trip to WI and NY...I still have plans for each trip to have their own post, patients people, patients! If you follow me on Intsagram you have probably seen most if not all of these!