F is for Family

Family, home, travel, life

Day 11: Family Fun

I’ll go ahead and call myself out! I missed yesterday’s post. But I’ll be making it up with a double whammy today! 

Yesterday, we spent the day cleaning the house and gardening. I’ll definitely say that the yard gets neglected more than we’d like because it’s pretty tough for both Jonathan and I to be outside, with both kids and actually accomplishing anything…productive. We also live on a busy street so, safety is paramount with the kids. 
We finally pulled off the unthinkable yesterday and were able to garden with both kids outside at the same time. (It only took us 11 months of being parents of two to figure it out…don’t judge!)
This was the conversation starter:

Me: do you want to go pick out flowers to plant with Daddy?

S: Yea, ok! I want red poppies, they’re my favorite color. Maybe some blue poppies for baby brother.

Me: I don’t think Lowe’s will have poppies, love.

S: oh, ok…roses then, red roses.

Unfortunately, roses were part of the plan either…she wasn’t too happy about that but we made sure to find the most “red” pansies possible.
Sofia went with J to Lowes and helped pick out new flowers. JT and I stayed behind and did “demo” on the old flower bed and cleared out the Pentas that never took. I plopped the little man in his walker in the garage and we sang songs while he played bumper cars with everything in sight. 
When the troops got home with the new flowers, we set Sofia up with her new gardening gloves. Jonathan, dug out holes, I transferred the pansies and Sofia filled in the holes with her bucket of dirt and shovel.
It was messy but fun. Sofia loved having a project and followed directions very well. JT loved being outside, he was a happy little man. Of course, me and the kids had to duck out earlier than anticipated for snacks and nap. So, the true heavy lifting was left on Daddy’s shoulder. Sorry, babe. 
But all in all, it was a great family day and we didn’t stay cooped up in the house on what ended up being a warm, sunny day!

Day 11: Family Fun

I’ll go ahead and call myself out! I missed yesterday’s post. But I’ll be making it up with a double whammy today! 

Yesterday, we spent the day cleaning the house and gardening. I’ll definitely say that the yard gets neglected more than we’d like because it’s pretty tough for both Jonathan and I to be outside, with both kids and actually accomplishing anything…productive. We also live on a busy street so, safety is paramount with the kids. 
We finally pulled off the unthinkable yesterday and were able to garden with both kids outside at the same time. (It only took us 11 months of being parents of two to figure it out…don’t judge!)
This was the conversation starter:

Me: do you want to go pick out flowers to plant with Daddy?

S: Yea, ok! I want red poppies, they’re my favorite color. Maybe some blue poppies for baby brother.

Me: I don’t think Lowe’s will have poppies, love.

S: oh, ok…roses then, red roses.

Unfortunately, roses were part of the plan either…she wasn’t too happy about that but we made sure to find the most “red” pansies possible.
Sofia went with J to Lowes and helped pick out new flowers. JT and I stayed behind and did “demo” on the old flower bed and cleared out the Pentas that never took. I plopped the little man in his walker in the garage and we sang songs while he played bumper cars with everything in sight. 
When the troops got home with the new flowers, we set Sofia up with her new gardening gloves. Jonathan, dug out holes, I transferred the pansies and Sofia filled in the holes with her bucket of dirt and shovel.
It was messy but fun. Sofia loved having a project and followed directions very well. JT loved being outside, he was a happy little man. Of course, me and the kids had to duck out earlier than anticipated for snacks and nap. So, the true heavy lifting was left on Daddy’s shoulder. Sorry, babe. 
But all in all, it was a great family day and we didn’t stay cooped up in the house on what ended up being a warm, sunny day!

Challenge day 9!

Nine days in to the 21 day straight blogging challenge. Only 10 days till my baby turns 1! Where has the time gone?! 

Getting ready to enjoy a fantastic weekend with family. TGIF to all.

Challenge day 9!

Nine days in to the 21 day straight blogging challenge. Only 10 days till my baby turns 1! Where has the time gone?! 

Getting ready to enjoy a fantastic weekend with family. TGIF to all.

Challenge day 9!

Nine days in to the 21 day straight blogging challenge. Only 10 days till my baby turns 1! Where has the time gone?! 

Getting ready to enjoy a fantastic weekend with family. TGIF to all.

The Sleepless and The Sassy

There are always challenges with adding a new baby to the household. Even more so if there is already another youngin’ at home. My two are 2 years and 4 months apart. A newborn and a two year old…didn’t quite think the logistics of that time frame through! But the start wasn’t quite the tumultuous  child run nightmare you’d suspect. Our challenges took a bit to surface. 

What’s more challenging than a two year old? A three year old! The sassy hit an all time high a few months ago. Adding to her sassy is that this kid is smart. And no, I’m not bragging for brownie point on this next piece, promise. Before her third birthday she was given her final evaluation to test out of Early Steps, a program that has been following her progress since she was released from the NICU. She tested in the 5-6 year old range. She’s also been noted to have “high energy” in past evaluations. Put those all on a blender and what do you get? A child who’s favorite game is what we like to call, “seek and destroy”, when she becomes bored. So, we have to keep this little toddler as occupied as possible. She’s started preschool but because of her birthday cut off she’s in a class with much younger kids. Socially it’s great but I try to keep an eye on whether she’s challenged to avoid becoming a “behavior issue” if she gets bored. 
We try to add some other fun games and learning techniques outside of school days. We have found a few games that she loves. We’ve found a few daily routines that make transitions throughout the day easier. I’ll be highlighting these in a series coming up so stay tuned.
On to Sleepless. Oh my little Sleepless monster. At 11 months old, I can count the days this little man has slept through the night on one hand! This is his biggest challenge. He’s my sweet, happy, little man during the day and a royal nighttime terror when the sun sets. I’m talking, walking and rocking at crazy hours of the night just to get him back to sleep. Still over night nursing on average 3-4 times a night at almost a year. This has been the biggest challenge of our year.
We aren’t into cry it out. Not for lack of trying. We’ve tried, my kids have stamina and I have a soft spot that can’t get past the scream fest. I don’t have a solution but your welcome on my journey to follow my attempts…the good, bad and the ugly. 
More to come…welcome to our crazy life!

The Sleepless and The Sassy

There are always challenges with adding a new baby to the household. Even more so if there is already another youngin’ at home. My two are 2 years and 4 months apart. A newborn and a two year old…didn’t quite think the logistics of that time frame through! But the start wasn’t quite the tumultuous  child run nightmare you’d suspect. Our challenges took a bit to surface. 

What’s more challenging than a two year old? A three year old! The sassy hit an all time high a few months ago. Adding to her sassy is that this kid is smart. And no, I’m not bragging for brownie point on this next piece, promise. Before her third birthday she was given her final evaluation to test out of Early Steps, a program that has been following her progress since she was released from the NICU. She tested in the 5-6 year old range. She’s also been noted to have “high energy” in past evaluations. Put those all on a blender and what do you get? A child who’s favorite game is what we like to call, “seek and destroy”, when she becomes bored. So, we have to keep this little toddler as occupied as possible. She’s started preschool but because of her birthday cut off she’s in a class with much younger kids. Socially it’s great but I try to keep an eye on whether she’s challenged to avoid becoming a “behavior issue” if she gets bored. 
We try to add some other fun games and learning techniques outside of school days. We have found a few games that she loves. We’ve found a few daily routines that make transitions throughout the day easier. I’ll be highlighting these in a series coming up so stay tuned.
On to Sleepless. Oh my little Sleepless monster. At 11 months old, I can count the days this little man has slept through the night on one hand! This is his biggest challenge. He’s my sweet, happy, little man during the day and a royal nighttime terror when the sun sets. I’m talking, walking and rocking at crazy hours of the night just to get him back to sleep. Still over night nursing on average 3-4 times a night at almost a year. This has been the biggest challenge of our year.
We aren’t into cry it out. Not for lack of trying. We’ve tried, my kids have stamina and I have a soft spot that can’t get past the scream fest. I don’t have a solution but your welcome on my journey to follow my attempts…the good, bad and the ugly. 
More to come…welcome to our crazy life!

The Sleepless and The Sassy

There are always challenges with adding a new baby to the household. Even more so if there is already another youngin’ at home. My two are 2 years and 4 months apart. A newborn and a two year old…didn’t quite think the logistics of that time frame through! But the start wasn’t quite the tumultuous  child run nightmare you’d suspect. Our challenges took a bit to surface. 

What’s more challenging than a two year old? A three year old! The sassy hit an all time high a few months ago. Adding to her sassy is that this kid is smart. And no, I’m not bragging for brownie point on this next piece, promise. Before her third birthday she was given her final evaluation to test out of Early Steps, a program that has been following her progress since she was released from the NICU. She tested in the 5-6 year old range. She’s also been noted to have “high energy” in past evaluations. Put those all on a blender and what do you get? A child who’s favorite game is what we like to call, “seek and destroy”, when she becomes bored. So, we have to keep this little toddler as occupied as possible. She’s started preschool but because of her birthday cut off she’s in a class with much younger kids. Socially it’s great but I try to keep an eye on whether she’s challenged to avoid becoming a “behavior issue” if she gets bored. 
We try to add some other fun games and learning techniques outside of school days. We have found a few games that she loves. We’ve found a few daily routines that make transitions throughout the day easier. I’ll be highlighting these in a series coming up so stay tuned.
On to Sleepless. Oh my little Sleepless monster. At 11 months old, I can count the days this little man has slept through the night on one hand! This is his biggest challenge. He’s my sweet, happy, little man during the day and a royal nighttime terror when the sun sets. I’m talking, walking and rocking at crazy hours of the night just to get him back to sleep. Still over night nursing on average 3-4 times a night at almost a year. This has been the biggest challenge of our year.
We aren’t into cry it out. Not for lack of trying. We’ve tried, my kids have stamina and I have a soft spot that can’t get past the scream fest. I don’t have a solution but your welcome on my journey to follow my attempts…the good, bad and the ugly. 
More to come…welcome to our crazy life!

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