I love sleep

I really do love sleep a lot. It would probably be in my top 3 favorite things to do. I could sleep all day long if I got the chance. When we got married I really wanted a nice bed, so we got a nice mattress from Macy's (a huge step up from my Ikea one!), and with wedding money we got really nice sheets (DKNY maybe?). Four years later I still love them. I spend a lot of time in bed. When Judah naps Cohen and I usually hang out in there. Wow. I sound pretty lazy now that I am typing this all out. Oh, well. Moving onto my point of this post...

COHEN SLEPT 10 HOURS STRAIGHT LAST NIGHT!!!

This is what I've been waiting for! Judah slept through the night really early on. I think by 6 weeks he was doing 8 hour stretches and then at 5 months he dropped his early morning bottle. (5-6 a.m. thats time to get up for some people. not in our house.) Cohen was doing 6 hour stretches for awhile and then went back to eating every 3-4 hours. I understand that is normal for his age...but Judah really set the bar high for his little brother. Lets hope last night wasn't just a fluke.

Cohen is still sleeping in the bassinet in our room. At the foot of the bed, I finally moved him out of arms reach. :) Justin is ready for him to make the move to his crib in his own room. I know it needs to happen, but I'm not ready for it. If he keeps sleeping like he did last night then I will definitely move him. It's just so much easier for night time feedings to have him in our room.

I will leave you with 2 pictures



(judah now climbs under his crib to get his larry's that have fallen. he was going to play in the snow and thought he needed all his larry's with him!)

guess who

Justin did this on his blog with the newborn pictures from both boys, so I thought it would be fun to see who can tell them apart now. Let's hear your guesses!

1.


2.


3.


4.


5.


6.

Cohen's baby dedication

Today was Cohen's baby dedication day. We had lots of family at church and then some of them came over for lunch. It was a good day. We missed our Hawaii family though.

trains and swings

I am amazed at how fast Judah is learning things. This morning we got his train set out and he one by one took out the trains and put them together on the arm of the chair.

I know most people will not understand why I am so proud of him for doing that, but I can't believe how much he has been comprehending lately.
He has also started asking for cheese. I think it is huge that he can think through what he wants and then ask me for it. I'm proud of him. :)

Cohen is 8 weeks old today! It has gone by so fast.


Judah likes the swing too!



We've had a lazy day at home. We haven't left the house since Sunday! Judah and I both have colds again. I feel a lot better today than I did yesterday. It doesn't seem to be bothering him much, but he still has a runny nose and is coughing and sneezing.


I watched When the Levees broke this afternoon, it is about Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath of it. I found it really interesting. I (obviously) was aware of Katrina and some of what surrounded it, but this dvd was really eye opening for me.

Now we are watching Curious George. We don't usually have the tv on this much, so it is a treat. :)

so sad :(

Heath Ledger died! I really enjoyed the movies he was in. And he was one of the few actors I actually respected. He always seemed like such a normal person.

Here is another article.

fun at the playground

Today we went with Grandma Debbie to the playground at Mt. View. They have a area for the younger kids that is fenced in, perfect for Judah to toddle around in!




He had a few crashes!


Notice the beauty bark on his face. :)


This is what Cohen did the whole time.



We took Judah to the monster trucks yesterday. Justin blogged about it. He has pictures on his so you should definitely check it out. We had a good time. He didn't want to keep his ear plugs in. I should have known that a 17 month old wouldn't keep something in his ears! He did a lot better than I thought he would sitting still for that long. He was engrossed for the whole first half of it. After the intermission he decided he was done. He started covering his eyes along with signing and saying "all done". So we left. Grandma Debbie gave him $20 to buy a prize so he got a super cool stuffed monster truck. It lives in his crib now. :) He jumped a few times when the trucks accelerated, but I must say I think he loved every minute of it!

buying local

My grandparents got me a great book for Christmas, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". I'm only a little bit into it, but it's got me thinking. How realistic would it be for me to buy only local items?

Fruits and vegetable we could easily do this. I would have to can and freeze more than I did last summer, but that is fine.

We really want to buy part of a cow (or maybe buffalo) but haven't because it is so much money to pay at one time. This year we are definitely going to do that. I am sure we could find local chicken to buy. We want to eat more fish, which I know we can buy locally.

Walmart sells Wilcox brand milk, eggs, yogurt, and cottage cheese. Wilcox does home delivery of their products, but the closest they come is Olympia. I e-mailed them to see if they would be extending their delivery to Shelton...so I will keep my fingers crossed on that one. I love their products...but hate using Walmart as the middle man. How great would it be to have home delivery of dairy products??? I would LOVE it! But I get giddy about silly things like that. :)

Other things can be found at farmers markets, cheese and honey are two that I can think of.

I make our own bread and I really like to bake, so what about things like flour, sugar, oatmeal, nuts, spices, yeast, cooking oils, etc? I don't think many of those are grown locally.

Some things like cereal, crackers, and granola bars would be tough to do without. And it would be a stretch to eat only fruits and vegetables that are grown here.

I don't know where to draw the line. Is my goal to support small farms? Or is it to help the environment by not buying foods that have been shipped from "who knows where" and uses resources in doing so? Or is it to have the healthiest things for my family and I know that nutrients are lost in the shipping of things. (produce mostly) I think it is a combination of all of them. I can buy things directly from farms using Local Harvest, but then they are still shipped here and therefore using resources.

These are the things I have been thinking of. Local Harvest is a great resource for finding local farms. Does anyone have other suggestions or ideas? Or do you know of things that can be bought locally that I haven't listed?

For now I am going to try my best to buy as much as I can local. It's a tough time of year to start though. I'll keep you all updated on how I do.

I'll write more about the book later because I have lots of thoughts on it.

These may be ideas that make Justin wonder what he got himself into when he married me. :)

i love sales

Old Navy is having a GREAT sale right now. The prices were great and we got a bunch of stuff.

Justin got:
a belt, vest, polo shirt, slippers, and a sweater.

I got:
a polo shirt

The boys got:
9 t-shirts (most in sizes 3-5 for Judah to grow into, Cohen got 1 new shirt, but he mostly gets hand-me-downs), a pair of sweatpants, a pair of nice dressy pants, 2 pairs of pj's, and a coat for Judah for next year (it's really nice and it was only $7...might be my favorite thing we got)

Plus we got a nice pair of pj's to give as a gift.

Original total: $338.75. Our total $117.17

Still seems like a lot of money to me...but we got a lot. If you need clothes you should head over there. The sale is also online, but it is way better in stores!

wipes

This is my latest bargain shopping. Target has a coupon out for $3 off any 2 huggies product. I got $47.96 worth of wipes for $14.96.
I use cloth wipes and diapers when I am "in charge", but I've gotta have the disposables on hand for other people. :) These should last us awhile.


We already used a few of the soft packages, so they aren't in the picture but I figured them into the total.
The diapers next to the wipes in the picture are from a different deal.

wow

you just gotta read it.

murder in our garage

I found this in our garage a few minutes ago. I assume Crowder killed it and brought it in. But he is kind of a sissy cat from being a indoor cat for so long, so I'm not sure if he has it in him to do that. He was also inside for most of the afternoon. If he didn't bring it in I'm not sure how it got here. Anyone know what it is? I don't know my birds, so please don't mock me if it is really obvious what kind of bird it is. :)



Here's it's head.


I'm going to leave it there for my wonderful husband to deal with.

snow and more

I like showing off my boys, so everytime I take pictures they end up on here!





(That's my new green wall in the laundry room behind them.)

i love my stroller

I have been busy painting and redoing the laundry room and bathroom that is off of it. We painted most of our house when we moved in, but that area never got done. It is amazing the improvement a little paint has on a room. It has been nice to have a project to do, and really nice to have the energy to do it. Even though it is tiring to have night-time feedings, I have so much more energy than I did when I was pregnant. I got my stroller delivered finally. It is seriously my dream stroller. I looked at a bunch of double strollers online, but I was in love with this one from the start. It was pricey, but seriously worth every penny. I put the boys in the stroller today and walked around downtown. It was wonderful.


(wow that picture is really small! no idea how to make it bigger. the stroller is set up a little different while cohen is so little, but this is how it will look when he gets a little bigger.)

Cohen had his 1 month check up last week. 11 and about 1/2 pounds and 23 inches. We grow our boys big. :) He got kicked out of our bed, and is now in his bassinet at the end of our bed. He went from sleeping 6-9 hours straight in bed with me, to now waking up every 3 hours to eat. He usually has one longer stretch sometime in the night, but not 6-9 hours. I know that 3 hours is completely normal for his age but I felt like we were going backwards instead of forwards! He has learned to put himself to sleep in his bassinet so it only takes about 20 minutes to feed him, burp him, and change his diaper then I just have to swaddle him and lay him down and I don't hear a peep from him for 3 hours. I think I would rather have a kid that can put himself to sleep than a kid that takes walking, rocking, etc to fall asleep and then sleeps 6 hours. It will be better in the long run. He is such a easy going baby, we have lucked out with both of our boys. He is starting to be awake and aware more, and he loves to smile. :)

Judah is a wild man! I just can't believe the energy he has! I have started to get a little more serious about potty training. He often wears big boy underwear and gets put on the potty every 1/2 hour or so. We have some successes and some accidents, but I hope he starts getting the hang of it. I assume he won't be potty trained for quite awhile, but I do want him to start to learn what the potty is for. He is definitely in the "tantrum" stage. The drop to the floor type of fits are frustrating to me because I know he does them out of his own frustration. I don't like feeling like I am not able to meet his needs, and I think some of his fits (if not most) are results of communication barriers. The sign language he does know helps some and he knows quite a few basic words, but there are some things he just can't communicate to me and then it ends in a fit. All his animal sounds usually aren't helpful to him when trying to communicate his wants to me. :) Other fits are a lack of him not understanding what I am communicating to him. I try to have patience and understanding with him on these things, but it is still frustrating. And the fits of anger...I could do without. :)

our year in pictures

January - Hawaii


February - Snow retreat


March - Pregnant with #2!


April - Justin was in Honduras, Judah and I did fun outings with my mom


May - Beach Retreat, Judah's 1st time camping


June - Holden Village


July - Fireworks!


August - Judah turned 1


September - My belly was getting big!


October - Fun at the pumpkin patch


November - Cohen was born


December - Christmas tree hunting


Anyone else want to share their year in pictures?