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!

Photography

While in Peoria I took a 3 week photography class with a friend, Christine. I think I reverted back to my school days of younger years and just tried to distract Christine (sorry Christine!) when I quickly realized that almost everyone else in the class had a Canon, including the teacher, and I had a Nikon which made for me never understanding what the instructor was talking about. It was a lot of fun though I must say but I felt like I hadn't learned a thing. Now a year later I find myself using some of the information I must have learned because I haven't learned it anywhere else.

During the class we learned how to use the manual settings of the camera which I was really excited to do because I hate using the flash. I just recently bought a new lens for my camera (very exciting) and of course having a baby around (who is almost not a baby anymore) makes for a lot of time with the camera trying to capture the personality of our little boy. Today was no exception so here are some pictures of the day.







Although I still have a lot to learn and a lot more practice to do I'm enjoying every minute of it!

Catching Up

It's been a few weeks since my last blog and a lot has happened so here I am finally sitting at the computer ready to try and catch up on the last few weeks of life. You might want to get comfortable and grab a cup of coffee because I'm not sure how long of a post this will be but I will try my best to keep it short.

Here are the highlights that I will touch on...
-Valentines Day
-2 Year Anniversary (first night away from Josiah)
-Josiah turns 11 months old
-Trip to the ER

(each one is highlighted so if you don't want to read them all just scroll down to the ones that interest you)

Valentines Day:

(after pruning them and waiting for them to open up)

My dear husband was so thoughtful and realizing we were leaving on Monday (the day after Valentines day) for our anniversary trip he had 18 beautiful roses delivered on the Thursday before Valentines day so I could enjoy them before we left. They came in the mail via 1-800-Flowers which was also a lot of fun. I think the last time I got flowers in the mail was when we were dating before I moved to Peoria which was at least 3 years ago if not more. I love flowers and I love getting stuff in the mail so the combination was wonderful! When Valentines day came I woke up to a note on our bathroom mirror with a huge heart around it...love it! There was a storm passing through on Valentines day which meant that church was canceled...again...so we had the whole day to spend together locked in our house as a family.

2 Year Anniversary:

Enjoying our first night alone in 11 months!

On Monday we headed to Minnesota for celebrate our 2 Year Anniversary! Since we had Josiah (11 months ago) we have not had a night alone together. Brett has had a few nights away from Josiah for work related things but since Josiah has been born I have not had a single night away from him and though I love him dearly, I was very excited for my night away.

On Tuesday at noon we left Josiah with his Aunt Heidi and Uncle Dan (Brett's sister and her husband). Kissing him goodbye and walking out the door I looked at Brett with a huge smile on my face and explained to him how excited I was for this night away (he shared in the excitement). We debated for the last month on what we wanted to do for our anniversary. We really wanted to go snowboarding or something more adventurous like that but after much thought we realized that this was our first night away from Josiah together and we just wanted to relax, enjoy, and catch up on sleep. In the end we enjoyed a relaxing day trying out couches (we are saving up for new living room furniture), eating lunch at one of my favorites, Kahn's, walked around the mall (I bought jeans!), checked into our hotel, went out for an amazing dinner at Victory 44 where we shared a 7 course meal (so much fun), slept, had breakfast at Bruggers Bagels, and meandered around Minneapolis trying to find an Army Surplus store. It may seem boring to some but it was wonderful just spending 24 hours together alone doing whatever we felt like doing at that moment with no agenda. For lack of a better word it was simply amazing!

At Victory 44 with our last course...the desert!

Our only down falls were:
-checking into our hotel early to use the hot tub and pool only to find out it was closed for remodeling (the same thing happened to us last year on our first anniversary)
-our hotel room was HOT and the bed was not comfortable which made for not the best night of sleep.
-waking up at 7am and not being able to fall back asleep (Brett assured me that it was still good getting up at 7am because at least we weren't having to get up with Josiah and start the day, instead we could just lounge)
-Trying to find a Army Surplus store in Minneapolis that I could have swore existed. After about an hour of searching we called our brother-in-law and asked him to look up directions. Once we got to the store (not the one I was thinking of) it was closed.

The best part:
-We had a full 24 hours together...alone...with no agenda!

Josiah turned 11 months:


On February 18th Josiah turned 11 months old! Only one more month and he will be a 1 year old...crazy!

Josiah's stats:
20.8 lbs
31.5 inches long

Favorites and new things:
-still loves books
-can turn the page for us (when asked) while we are reading a book.
-pulls himself up to standing (on everything, even if it's only a foot off the floor he feels the need to stand up while still holding on to the short object)
-still loves his jumper. We thought after he started crawling that he would hate it and so I thought I could finally put it away but he still absolutely love it when we give him a chance to be in it.
-loves crackers!
-loves the guitar! I will sit down in the living room and play and he will crawl over as fast as he can and try and hold onto the guitar with the biggest smile plastered on his face.

The ER:

We had an eventful day yesterday. We woke up in the morning and proceeded to get ready for church where we (Brett, myself, Josh, Courtney, and Luke) were leading worship at a friends church. While eating breakfast Brett asked if any of us (Dan and Heidi and the girls were staying with us) were feeling a bit sick and we all said no. Shortly after that my stomach really started to hurt as well and for the next hour and half Brett and I were in and out of the bathroom. We were trying to figure out what we were going to do since we were supposed to lead worship later that morning. After that hour and half I all of a sudden felt better which left me just enough time to finish getting ready and head to the church. Brett on the other hand was getting worse and began to throw up. He said he felt a little better after he threw up but we decided that I better just go to the church by myself and he would stay home with Josiah who was taking a nap. Church went smoothly for me and I didn't feel sick at all (praise the Lord). They have a meal after church so I stayed for the meal and chatted with friends before heading back home. After I got in the van I checked my phone and saw I had missed a call from Brett. I called him to tell him I was going to be coming home fully expecting him to sound alright. The opposite happened, he sounded terrible and in a lot of pain. I got home as soon as I could and found him in the bathroom throwing up again. He looked like he was in immense pain so I asked him if we should go into the ER and he shook his head yes. It's a 45 min trip to the hospital in Mobridge normally but after a few stops to throw up more we finally made it in about an hour. They admitted him, hooked him up to an IV because he was dehydrated, gave him pain medicine for the abdominal pain, and another medication to help stop throwing up. It ended up just being the flu but seeing him on the hospital bed hooked up to an IV just made me start to cry. I don't do well in hospitals at all and this just put me over emotionally. He is doing much better today!

While all of this was happening Brett's dad was going to Aberdeen to get Brett's mom from the hospital where she had been for the last few days. That morning while we were getting ready and getting sick, Anna (our 16 month old niece) fell down our stairs. At first we thought she was alright but after I left for church she would cry every time someone touched her foot. So as we were in the ER for Brett I found out that Anna was taken to the ER in Aberdeen to get checked out. It turned out that she had a fracture in her foot. I felt terrible...beyond terrible...that it happened at our house so as I sat next to Brett in the hospital bed the tears came streaming down. All this to say it was a very eventful Sunday that I don't wish to repeat.

And just to lighten it a bit at the end here is a picture outside our North window. When will spring come?

Sippy Cup

these are the two sippy cups we have tried
(one with a hard tip and the other wtih a soft tip)

Josiah appears to have a love hate relationship with his sippy cup. Why you might ask? I have not the darnedest clue!

This is what happens when I take the sippy cup out for meals...

Me: Step 1, (with a big smile on my face) Josiah here's your sippy!

Josiah: Step 1, even bigger smile on his face and kicking of legs in pure excitement with the sounds "eeeeee" coming from his mouth

Me: Step 2, (thinking it's going to work this time) I place the sippy up to his mouth.

Josiah: Step 2, (sippy cup coming towards his mouth... only to have his smile diminish with a quick swipe of his hand knocking the sippy cup away.

Me: Repeat steps 1 and 2 over and over again...

Josiah: Repeat steps 1 and 2 over and over again...

Me: I try taking the lid off of the sippy in hopes that he will just drink from the cup

Josiah: Huge grin on his face again, along with kicking legs in excitement

Me: I pretend to take a sip myself

Josiah: kicking of his legs gets harder, smile gets bigger...

Me: (once again thinking, "it's working!") bring the cup up to his mouth

Josiah: his smile diminishes again, legs kicking ends as he jerks his head back and forth doing whatever he can to get away from the cup (and of course hitting the cup with his flailing hands as the contents of the cup go all over me.

Me: Ahhhhhhh...seriously kid...I put the cup away, clean up and hope for a better experience the at the next meal.

This is seriously what happens each time I bring the sippy cup out for his meals. I have tried different sippy cups, different contents in the cup, and of course just letting him play with it to try and get used to it. Nothing works...I just don't know what else to do. He is nearing 11 months soon and we are planning on stopping the bottle around a year so I feel particularly anxious to get him going on the sippy cup so that when we stop the bottle he will still get the fluids he needs. I started the sippy cup at 6 months and it is now almost 5 months later and he still will not take it.

What am I supposed to do? Can anyone help?