My 2 Favorite Guys

My two favorite guys!

On Saturday Brett took the day off and it was pure bliss! It reminded me of our days when Brett worked at CAT and he would have both Saturday and Sunday off. We spent the day as a family just relaxing, playing Monopoly Deal, watching a movie, digging a fire pit, playing with toys, and going out to eat at the local restaurant. The whole day was wonderful but I am especially excited about our fire pit and look forward to having our first fire in it tonight after our little man is in bed.

This was Josiah's first time playing in the grass. Too bad it was cold and windy the day
we decided to dig our fire pit but Josiah still seemed to enjoy it.

My dear husband (who appears to be extremely excited) after finishing our fire pit!

An Un-Happy Birthday

Birthday morning playing with his horse.

Yesterday our little boy turned 1. All day I had planned on posting a blog and saying happy birthday to him but with getting ready for a little birthday party with grandparents and great grandparents I just never got around to it.

Wednesday and leading up to Wednesday Josiah was happy as could be.

Thursday (Birthday day)...crabby.

Friday back to his happy self.

Hmmm, this makes me wonder...did he know it was his birthday and just didn't want to turn one as I am feeling I don't want to turn another year older each year either?

Playing with one of his new toys before everyone got to our house...still happy at this point.

We finally got him into a happy mood and then grandparents came and that all went crumbling down. What I thought was going to be a fun night because he would get cake and presents to open turned out to be more of an Un-Happy Birthday. Once we pulled out the cake (that Amber and I decorated the night before until 11:30pm) the very un-happy birthday boy became even more un-happy. Needless to say his first birthday cake experience turned out to be one filled with tears. This makes me really happy that I didn't try and do something more elaborate for a birthday party for him. All that to say though, my little boy is now 1 which means I am now a mother of a 1 year old which still seems so odd.

Amber came over the night before and helped me make a John Deere cake...this was also my first cake I have ever decorated, it was a lot of fun. Thanks Amber for all the help!

Not enjoying his birthday cake.

He was really happy to take a bath though!

Playing on his new John Deere toy from Grandma and Grandpa Huber.

Happy Birthday Josiah, you've taught us so much this year about love and parenthood. We love you!

A Good Friend & A Craft

Although I wouldn't consider myself to be "crafty" I've spent a couple days in the last two weeks doing a few craft projects with a good friend. We let the little ones play together for awhile, put them down for their naps and away we go with our crafts - trying to finish before we hear the first child awake.

Our first craft was a clipboard made into a dry erase board. Amber, the crafty one, found this idea and so we set off to make our first craft. Here is what our end product looked like. I made just a decorative one and Amber made one for her 3 year old daughter to work on her ABC's.


Our second craft was a toddler towel. Those baby towels you get as shower gifts are wonderful but it was outgrown so fast. I was given a toddler towel as a gift from a friend in Peoria and because I only do Josiah's laundry once a week I thought another towel would be a great idea. Neither Amber or I knew how to make one so after the kiddos were in bed for nap time we googled on the computer and found a pattern and after we got the kinks out of our sewing machines (actually we never got it out of mine so we just used Amber's machine) we had the towels done in no time. This must be one of the easiest projects to do. I tried to get my dear husband to model the towel for me but he refused and Josiah was already in bed which is why you get the boring picture of it hanging on our pantry closet but you get the idea.

Rural South Dakota

Just shy of a year ago we moved from a the city of Peoria, IL to a very rural small town of Hoven, SD. I've come to love the beauty of this rural place, the many friendships God has blessed me with here, and the joy of living just a few miles away from my in-laws. Somewhere between the beauty of rural South Dakota and life with an almost 1 year old I have learned of the importance of relationships in my life. Relationships/friendships have always been a huge part of my life. I would say I've always been one of those people who not only never wants that "alone time" but that I really don't enjoy it when I get it. Yes, there are rare occasions when an hour to myself is nice but overall I love being around people. It does not make any difference to me if it is just one other person or if it is 10, I just simply love it.

This brings me back to my reason for blogging about "Rural South Dakota". I feel I must make aware before I go on that I do love it out here in this rural community. That said, I must admit that after almost a year of life out here I am beginning to feel the desire and yearning for more people. I have some really great close friends out here, some of whom are stay-at-home moms and some who work. I love them all and feel completely blessed to have been given the friendships that I do have with each one of them. As I'm going through this tough time with Josiah (for those of you who don't know it seems we are dealing with one sickness after the other along with incoming molars, a child who screams if anyone else even tries to hold him, and along with all of that a little boy who used to seem so happy is most of the time crying and inconsolable) I'm realizing my need and Josiah's need (though he would probably disagree) to have more interaction with people. Living in such a rural community has left me at odds of what to do about getting Josiah more interaction with children. We just don't have all the different opportunities that those who live in a larger community can get. So now I am faced with a dilemma that I find to be rather important to the development of my son. How do I get him used to other children and other people if those opportunities are not around. My good friend Amber who I met a few months after we moved out here has two children. One is a little girl that is 3 and a son who just turned one last month. We have both struggled with these same issues and have found our friendship a huge blessing both for ourselves and for our children. Although, it seems our once a week play dates just don't seem to be enough.

To sum it all up I guess I am just struggling with how to give Josiah more opportunities for interaction with other children. Has anyone ever shared this experience of a rural community or know someone else who has? Any idea's anyone?

It seems that most of my blogs lately are asking for advice and/or comments and I do apologize for that. I guess being a first time mom is more difficult than I thought.

Transition

Josiah is coming up on a year in quickly and I can still hardly believe it. As he is coming up on a year I find myself with a million questions twirling around in my head. My most pressing question is figuring out how and when do you switch from a bottle to a sippy cup? Do I do it when he turns a year? Along with that we still can not get him to take a sippy cup so how do I stop using the bottle if he won't take any liquids any other way? Do I just stop the bottle and he will just have to learn that it's either a sippy cup or nothing? I just don't know what to do and I'm not finding answers anywhere. This is really starting to stress me out. Everything I google about it gives me things about babies who are 6 - 8 months and not taking a sippy cup but I can't find anything about a 1 year old who won't take a cup. Am I wrong to want to stop the bottle at a year in this situation? I just really don't know what to do. I know I am rambling but I just have all of these questions and am just not finding answers. Can someone help, please?

5 am

5 am comes all too quickly in our house these days. It used to be that 5 am would come and go and I wouldn't even know it but now our little man has decided he needs to get up at 5 am. Those of you who know me well know that I am not a 5 am kind of a person. I'm not a 6 am or 7 am kind of a person either. Since becoming a mommy I have been able to adjust to 7 am (even though I still don't like it) but anything before that on a regular basis is just tough for me.

Josiah gets a bottle at 7 pm and is into bed anytime from 7 pm to 7:30pm. He is getting two of his molars now which could be the cause for getting up at 5 am but I'm just beginning to worry that maybe he is just going to start to get up at 5 am all the time. All this to say, does anyone have any ideas on how to keep an almost 1 year old to sleep later in the morning?

Side Note:

We would just get up with him when he woke up at 5 am the first few mornings but than we quickly realized that he would be extremely crabby and also would fall asleep playing about an hour later. This makes me feel like he really is not ready to be up at 5 am but I just don't know what to do. We have let him just cry himself back to sleep which has worked on occasion but it lasts for about 45 min of crying which makes for still no extra sleep for sleepy parents who don't go to bed at 7 pm.

What happens when he gets up too early.

Anyway, any ideas or thoughts would be great!