Thanksgiving, Decorating, Lego League and Life

Finding time to blog is just not easy.  Usually if I'm on the computer, I'm nursing so have only one hand for typing.  I'm not a fast one handed typist.

Samantha's sleep hasn't been the best.  Somewhere around 8-9 weeks old, she started sleeping in very short spurts-2 and 1 hour stretches.  Occasionally I have been blessed with a three hour stretch.  After several very bad nights, I finally just let her sleep next to me after her first waking.  She still woke up too much, but I was getting more 3 hour stretches and since she's right next to me, I can nurse her and barely wake up.

The kids were part of a First Lego League team thus year. Precise Prince was on the team last year and Creative Princess joined this year.  The kids enjoyed the day and were exhausted by the end.  They didn't place quite as high as last year and that's fine.

Thanksgiving was spent at my youngest sister's house.  It was a quiet holiday with only her family, us and our mom.  It was nice. 

World Traveler will not let me decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving so we started on Black Friday.  It took us all weekend but we I got the inside done and he got the outside.

Precise Prince's birthday

Precise Prince turned 12 last month.  Here's a few pictures.  I hope to get a good update on the blog soon.  I just haven't had much time.

Halloween and Creative Princess's birthday dinner

We had a Harry Potter and Hermoine (catching a ladybug) for Halloween.  The big kids went around the neighborhood with dad while the ladybug and I stayed home to pass out candy. 

Tonight we had Creative Princess's family birthday dinner.  She chose donuts for dessert instead of cake.

Reflux, the Pumpkin Patch and Pictures

Little One has reflux.  It's fairly common I believe and usually it's simply a laundry issue.  All the spitting up has increased the laundry around here a ton.  However, her reflux has gotten worse and a few nights ago I woke up to her choking.  No parent wants to wake up to that.  In addition, she's been congested and coughing.  No fever and no other symptoms of having a cold.  So off to the doctor we went.  She starting taking Zantac 2 days ago.  It takes about 2 weeks to take full effect but already I think we're seeing a difference.  She's coughing less, no choking last night and it even seems she's spitting up less.  I am hoping the medication is actually whats working.  I absolutely hate giving babies medication but I'm also very thankful that there are medications that truly can help our little ones. 

Last weekend we headed to a local pumpkin patch.  The cost to do their activities was $9 per person.  Ridiculous in our opinion.  Especially since Precise Prince didn't really care if we did activities and with me carrying Little One in a sling, I wasn't going to be doing anything but watching.  So we headed off to a place that was further away but had some free activities.  The activities were geared to younger kids but it was enough to satisfy Creative Princess who really did want to do some activities.  This weekend we'll be carving the pumpkins the kids picked out.

I laid her down to wash my hands and she was happy so I worked on getting a few dishes done.  She fell asleep.

Two beautiful girls!

Sleep, vaccinations, a rough night and dinner out

For the past week and a half, Little One's sleep patterns haven't been so great.  She went about a week of only sleeping a max of two to two and a half hours at a time with even more one hour stretches.  Not fun.  The past three nights have improved with a three or four hour stretch to start with.  But after that, she wakes a lot with not even two hour stretches. Saturday night, her first stretch was 4 hours but I couldn't sleep.  Really?  I was exhausted.  I do believe it's because I had a Coke Zero in the afternoon.  To top it off, when Little One did wake to nurse, I was in the middle of a panic attack.  I woke up World Traveler who helped me through.  He changed Little One's diaper and burped her.  When she woke next (only an hour later) I was ok and able to handle her on my own.

On the 13th Little One had her two month check up.  We are going with select vaccines on an alternative schedule.  We'll be choosing to say no to some vac's and she won't get more than 2 vaccinations per month.  Honestly, I really don't understand the AAP recommending 5 vaccinations at one time for an infant.  Vaccinations are medication.  I could say a lot more on this, but I don't have time to type that much.  I am not against vaccinating, just against doing it blindly.  Enough said.  (If you have researched and feel good about your own choice to vaccinate on the AAP schedule then I support you!)

There have been a few times in the past two months World Traveler has suggested eating dinner out as a family.  I have vetoed the idea.  Little One was too fussy for that.  On Sunday however, I felt up to it. Little One has become a pretty content little baby as long as she has a full belly and isn't tired.  So we headed to Red Robin after running an errand and I'm so happy it was a success.  I nursed her just before our meal came and she happily sat in her car seat looking at the reflections on the sky lights.  I was able to eat and we enjoyed a nice meal.

Pictures

Smiling baby:

She's cute even when she cries.

Sisters

"Playing"  with her toys.

School Starts

The big kids started school back up this week.   We are concentrating on math and language arts for now.  So far, so good.  They each have a notebook and I write the week's work out broken into days.  That way they can get their work done before I even get up if they want to.  One guess as to which of my kids usually has his (or her) work done before I'm up.  hee hee (If you know my kids, you're answer will be Precise Prince.)

I've been too busy to spend time typing on the computer but I'll update with pictures soon.