Easter 2012

For some reason, I don’t always do a good job of celebrating holidays. I like holidays, I just sometimes fall through with putting out the effort. But since Thad is getting a little older, I am feeling more and more guilty for letting anything pass without celebrating. I feel like I would be cheating him a little bit. So for Easter, we pulled out most of the stops. Decorated eggs, gave Thad an Easter basket, went to Justin’s family’s for an egg hunt and ham dinner. The obvious thing that we didn’t do is go to church. I’m not quite ready to tackle that one yet. Even though he doesn’t know why we were doing any of this, Thad still had a good time, so I’m glad we did what we did.

I didn’t get stuff for his basket until the day before Easter, and let me tell you, Walmart was at it’s FINEST. It was pretty ridiculous. But, I made it out alive and got some good stuff for him. Elmo plate, new sippy cup with TRUCKS!, some egg-shaped chalk, a stamp pad with alphabet stamps and some bendy bunnies. He did also get one candy item, some Peeps, which were used as a bribing tool during his next haircut.

He had a great time dying eggs with Daddy.

And then later eating 2 of the eggs. The first one he cracked playing with it, so we peeled it and let him eat it. The second one he hulked in half while I had my back turned, so I let him have that one too. Gross.

In the afternoon, we went to Justin’s cousin’s for an early dinner. I had offered to bring some desserts, and made a couple of new recipes.

I made Salted Caramel Popcorn from a recipe on Pinterest, which was really tasty but kind of a pain to make and SUPER sticky. It wouldn’t have been as big of a pain if I hadn’t let a saucepan of boiling sugar burn to a CRISP on the stove. That was a mess to clean up, and I had to make a second batch. But, it was a big hit with people. I would probably make it again doing a few things differently: Obviously, try not to burn sugar, duh, and I would also use less marshmallows than it calls for to see if it turns out a little less sticky.

I also made some frosted sugar cookies, and I have to say that they were right on the money. I have made the cookie recipe before, but didn’t like the frosting recipe that went with it. So, I searched for a different frosting recipe and found this one, which is fantastic. I expect 3 things out of frosting on cookies: I want it to taste good, I want sprinkles to stick to it, and I want it to harden so you can stack cookies. This recipe covers all three.

Birthday Boy

Thad turned 2 just ten days after Thatcher was born. Because I knew the timing was going to be tight, I had everything planned ahead of time. And by “I had everything planned”, I mean that I had it planned for everyone to do everything for me. Slight exaggeration, but my sister had offered to bring a birthday party to us, and I took her up on it.

I bought all of Thad’s gifts ahead of time from Amazon (my favorite way to shop). I try to maintain a level of organization with his toys, and buy him things that build on things we already have. I also really want to get him things that encourage his imagination, development, and keep him occupied for more than 2 seconds.

Play Doh Accessories: I wanted make better use of play doh than him just asking me to “make dog”, “make face”, “make cat”, and so on. I found this huge set of cookie cutters (extra bonus…now I have a huge set of cookie cutters for cookies). Strangely enough, we haven’t actually used these with play doh yet, he is entertained by just going through them and looking at all the different shapes. I also got him this placemat to play with play doh on, instead of having to scrape it off my kitchen table.

Stickers: He really likes the window decals that I have gotten him at the Dollar Tree. Those seem to be better at his age than real stickers that are only useable one time. I found this cool sticker book of reusable stickers and sticker scenes. This one has been a big hit, although he has to have someone take all the stickers off the the sheet for him.

Craft Supplies: This one is a no brainer, craft supplies are always good. The more you have, the better. Yes, they can be messy, but they can also occupy for a long time and be lots of fun. These items, along with the other things I got him are put up out of his reach. That way, we get them out at specific times, and they are not always accessible.

Whenever we have a gift-giving holiday, I always put EVERYTHING up and bring it out one by one. That way he is not overwhelmed with a ton of new things, and can focus on one thing at a time.

He also got some great stuff from the rest of the family. Lots of books (including books on disk, which he loves). Our families are really good about getting gifts that Justin and I approve of, and are in line with what we want our kids to spend their time doing.

We celebrated the weekend of his birthday. Justin’s parents were already in town, they had stayed most of the week prior to help me while Justin had to be out of town for training. My parents and sister with her family drove down for the day. They brought everything. Mom and my sister made lots of food. My younger sister who had to work made John Deere cupcakes (the theme of the party).

Thad had great fun opening presents and playing with his cousin (and Uncle Sam).

And we were all happy to have another chance to see new Baby Colby, who Thatcher met for the first time.

5 Facts of a Sleep-Deprived Mom

1. When you tell your husband that you think the disposal is breaking, he reaches inside and pulls out a washcloth, expect a dirty look.

2. A new bra can make you feel like a new woman, even if it is a nursing bra

3. If you can take a 3 hour nap and then immediately turn around and go to bed for the night, you are tired.

4. We filled my car’s tank when we went to the hospital to have Thatcher. I still have over a half a tank. It has been a month. That’s how many places we go.

5. I’m not sure who makes exercising more difficult; the infant who requires re-pacifir-ing every 30 seconds, or the 2 year old who is constantly climbing on me and trying to “get my toesies”

Coat Hanger

This was a fun Pinterest project that Justin and I did together. Total cost was under $2.00 for 2 of the hooks, everything else we had on hand already. Justin cut, edged and painted a 1x6 piece of wood for me, and also spray painted the hooks. There is a whole video that good old Martha has on her website, but I didn’t really follow her directions. She used stencils to paint on the animals (that you can download), but I just freehanded the animals with a pencil, then painted them on with acrylic paint.

Prepped Board

Final Product

We hung it up in Thad’s room so he has a place at his height to hang up his sweatshirts, hats, towels, etc.

Being Asked to Smile

Slightly scary, and definitely not a smile.

Still not quite right

Not sure what this one is, but definitely less scary

Super fake, but at least it’s a smile.

Thatcher Reid

Our little boy arrived a day early, on March 20th at 12:48 in the afternoon. I was scheduled to be induced that day, but ended up going into labor the night before. We headed to the hospital at our scheduled 7:00 am time since my contractions weren’t too bad at that point. Things continued to progress until I got my epidural, which slowed contractions down a bit. They gave me a dose of Pitocin, which quickly got things back on track. By 12:30 I was ready to push, and 15 minutes later after about 5 pushes, Thatcher was born. Almost the same exact size as his big bro, he was 9lb 9oz and 21.5 inches long. So much for my doc thinking he was going to be smaller than Thad. 

We spend that night in the hospital. Both of our parents were in town, my mom and dad stayed at our house with Thad, who to add to my stress, had a temp of 104. After his fever went down and he developed a doosy of a rash, we decided that he probably had Roseola. The night we were in the hospital we got a TON of snow, we watched it fall all night and crossed our fingers that we would get home the next day. After our hospital experience with Thad, we knew we would want to go home as soon as possible, so we stressed to all the nurses that we wanted to leave in the morning. After the night of poking and prodding and uncomfortable hospital beds, we were more than ready. Of course we ended up waiting for hours for all the paperwork and tests to be completed. Justin almost made a nurse cry. But I didn’t feel bad, I wanted to go home.

So, Thatcher has been here for over 2 weeks at this point. He is a sweet boy. Definitely has a resemblance to his brother physically, but is much better behaved. Emotionally, I am in a much better place. Lacking in sleep, of course, but holding it together. Happy that our family is complete.

31 Days of Prayer

When Justin and I got married, we lived in an apartment complex for a couple of years before buying our house. There was a church close by that we tried out, immediately loved, and have been going to ever since. I grew up going to church, but I don’t think that I really understood what it meant to be a Christian until we started going to our church. I have learned SO much there, and am challenged with something new on a regular basis. We have also started getting involved at this church, which is new for me, but definitely is a good thing.

One of the things that the pastor of this church really pushes is daily Bible reading and prayer. Shocker, I know, but I would say that easily the majority of Christians do not spend time with God on a daily basis (me being one of them). So that has been an ongoing challenge for me, to set time out of my day, to read my Bible, pray, and spend some quiet time with God. But I know that it is really important, and really mandatory in a lot of ways, if you want to live your life with God.

Recently, during by Bible reading, what I have actually been doing is copying down the Bible. I started with the book of Romans (my fave), and started writing some of it down every day. It helped me to slow down and really pay attention to what I was reading. Slow going, but effective.

Another tool that I came across was on a blog about raising Godly children. (www.raisinggodlychildren.org) It was a list of prayers and corresponding verses for 31 days of prayer for your husband. Obviously, and important part of raising Godly children is to be a Godly parent. So I printed out this prayer list and have been praying for Justin for the last 2 or 3 months. (Wait, didn’t I say that it was 31 days of prayer? 3 months? Yes, that’s because I am often neglectful and it takes me a while to get through stuff. I’m working on it).

I feel like the prayers have been really beneficial and eye opening. I always pray for my husband, but this gave me very specific things to pray about, in areas that I would never have though of on my own. You can find the link to the prayer list here. I’m sure there is lots of other good stuff on the website, but one step at a time!