Let's talk about sleep, baby. Let's talk about you and me...

Wait... is that song not about sleep? My mistake. Sleep is 75% of what I think about these days.

I've mentioned before that Bug is not a great sleeper. He's getting better, thank all the things that are holy, but he's still not sleeping through the night. But, ok. I'm accepting that that is just who he is. It sucks sometimes, but I've had nearly 8 months of it, and he is who he is. I expect it when I lay down at night; I expect him to wake up the minute I fall asleep, and then I expect him to wake up every 3 hours after that. I don't like it, but I EXPECT it.

What I don't expect is for Bean to be sleeping terribly all of a sudden. Around Christmas she started waking up at 7 instead of 8:30. It was a sudden change that I assumed was due to her excitement about Christmas and Santa, I assumed her wake up schedule would go back to normal after the holidays. I was wrong. It doesn't matter what time she goes to bed, she's up for the day between 6:45-7:15. I know that that isn't that early, but when you already have one crappy sleeper, you want your other kid to keep getting up at 8:30 because you're tired, and want your sleep. News flash: when you're a mom it doesn't matter what you want, or that you're tired... these sweet love muffins you brought into the world now make all the rules and you just have to rely on coffee to keep you going. But her early wake ups aren't the worst part. The worst part is a new development. One that I'm smart enough to not assume is just some short lived phase. Whenever I assume the best, reality smacks me in the face and I'm stuck with a new, crappy, normal. So, I'm trying to reverse psychology this new development and hope that it doesn't become the new normal by accepting that it is. Got that? That sentence was confusing to type. But my brain is confusing lately, so... try to keep up with my nonsense. I'm sure by now the suspense is killing you, What is this new terrible sleep development?! you're shouting at your computer... You're on the edge of your seat... Here it comes, get your best mommy-advice ready because I need some magic ju-ju to help... The new development is nightmares. She doesn't call them nightmares, but she says she has bad dreams, ones that make her afraid of the dark (even though there is a nightlight in her room), ones that make her yell out in her sleep - usually just nonsensical words, but sometimes full sentences and sometimes just cries, ones that make her "not want to be left all awone", ones that bring her into our bed at 1am, nestled in between Jeff and I, where she tosses and turns and lays sideways and upside down and folded in half at her waist, and neither she or I are getting enough sleep. (Jeff sleeps fine, because apparently Dads have magic sleeping powers.) I always assumed (I really should stop ASSuming things) that kids slept great despite their wonky sleeping positions/movements, but every time she kicks or jabs me awake at night I open my eyes and her eyes are open too. She isn't getting solid hours of sleep, she's only getting 30-45 min catnaps in between thrashing around and head butting me. Even though it would start a bad habit, IF she came into our bed and just slept I'd let her do it indefinitely, but she's not. I'm not sure what to do... do I walk her back to her room and have to sit/lay in there for an hour or more until she falls back asleep? Do I invite her into our bed, wait for her to fall asleep and try to carry her back to her room? Do I sleep on the floor next to my bed? I don't know why she's having the bad dreams in the first place, but that's the issue that I really wish I could fix. I wish she'd just have sweet dreams and sleep peacefully in her bed like she's done for the last 3.5 years. When I ask her what she dreams about it's always about a kitty or doggies. She doesn't talk about them being hurt in her dreams, or hurting her, or fighting amongst themselves, so I don't know what it is about the dream that is waking her up but she's visibly upset each time. We have her go potty when she wakes up and she always pees a lot, so perhaps it's the urge to pee that's actually waking her up, but she still insists that it was the bad dream.

All I know is that if I don't get some sleep soon I'm gonna snap. I'm talking shaved head, umbrella wielding, crazy faced Britney Spears type of "snap"... not some funny anecdote type of "snap". I can't keep getting up with Bug 2-4 times a night but then only getting 20-40 minute spurts of sleep, while I'm being physically assaulted I'm in my own bed by Bean, in between his nighttime feedings.

Send help. Send positive sleep ju-ju my way. Send coffee. Send the Sandman. Something. Anything.

napping narcolepsy-style because she's not getting enough sleep at night.

Updates on The Bug... since it's been awhile, again...

I can't believe Bug will be 8 months old in just a couple days. I mean, he's HUGE, so I suppose it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that he's getting older fast -- but it honestly doesn't seem like almost 8 months since he was born. I know every mother says that, but it's true.

Recent(ish) changes in him:

He army crawls like nobody's business. If he wants to get at something across the room he'll be there in a matter of seconds. He spins, on his tummy, in circles to change direction - if he wants to that is. If he's heading toward something he's not supposed to touch and I try to verbally correct him he completely ignores me. Keeps on keepin' on, refuses to even look in my direction, and keeps army crawling at the speed of light. He still rolls across the room to get around, but not as much. Army crawling has become his preferred mode of transportation. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth super fast. He's totally gearing up to crawl - for realsies - and then they'll be no stopping him. We're still able to keep him contained to the living room, but I doubt that'll work for much longer. In the last couple days he'll crawl up to the edge of the living room where the carpet meets the wood floor and he just stops and looks. He reaches out and touches the hard floor, and stares down the hall or into the kitchen, but he doesn't venture out onto the wood floor yet. He is unsure, and for that I'm thankful. Right now I have to pick up the living room floor about 6 times a day to (try to) keep him from eating things he's not supposed to. You know, the teeny tiny toys that Bean leaves laying around. Also backyard debris that the dogs drag in. And just picking up the living room that many times a day is time consuming and kinda stressful. (Especially when he manages to find the one piece of string on the floor that you missed and you don't realize until he's actively choking on it.) But once he figures out that the wood floor isn't something to be scared of, and he is running crawling amok through the whole house I'm going to be a crazy person trying to keep the floor picked up/swept/vacuumed/mopped. Now that I'm thinking about it, I suppose we need to put the child proof locks on the cabinets with chemicals inside asap. We never had to worry about these things when Bean was little. Yes, we did child-proof everything back then, but she NEVER got into things that she wasn't supposed to. You'd tell her no once, or "ah-ah!" at her once, and she'd never go near that thing again. Bug already ignores our warnings and returns to the areas/items we remove him from repeatedly. I'm talking 15+ times a day. He knows he's not supposed to be there, or touch that, but he doesn't care. He wants to do it, and he laughs at our attempts to stop him.

Hmm, what else? Food. Bean haaaaaaaaaaaated purees. I found this out after I painstakingly made 5 big batches of organic pureed baby food, froze it in ice cube trays, popped out the cubes of food and stored them all in the freezer in gallon freezer bags ready to be used 2-3 cubes at a time. I was so proud of myself and my efforts to feed her the best foods. She completely refused to eat ANY purees. It didn't matter the veggie or fruit. She didn't want them. So, instead she ate small bites of soft "real" food. Peas, steamed veggies chopped up into tiny cubes, fruit galore, Cheerios, scrambled eggs, etc. With Bug if there is ANY texture he gags and spits like he's about to swallow a giant jaw-breaker whole. Relax, Child! That tiny piece of banana/black bean/scrambled eggs/carrot, the one that's about 1/4 the size of a pencil eraser isn't going to choke you!!! Just gnaw it up and swallow it! You'll be fine! I promise. But, no. Instead it's a production of loud gagging, throwing his head back, drool EVERYWHERE, red watery eyes, coughing until he finally gets the offending piece of food out of his mouth. Now, we feed him pureed baby food 2-3 meals a day. I'm still buying store bought baby food until I have a good list of things he actually likes and then I'll go buy the foods to make my own purees. I'm not going to be stuck with gallon freezer bags full of pureed peaches/sweet potatoes/green beans in my freezer for months again. He definitely prefers savory vegetables to sweet fruits. Which is foreign to me. I have SUCH a sweet tooth that I can't imagine snubbing sweets. He likes what he likes, though. Some days he only eats 2oz of purees, and then some days (like yesterday) he eats 3.5oz each time! I couldn't believe he ate 7oz of baby food yesterday. I'm not sure what the "norm" is since I can't compare it to what Bean used to eat, but I guess it's good that he's eating his veggies (and some hidden fruit) without complaint.

**Side note/rant because UGH. Yesterday was the first day Bug got to try any grains. (We don't do baby cereals since they have no nutritional benefit.) The puree was "Organic Butternut Squash, Harvest Apple, and Mixed Grains." I know he loves butternut squash, so I was excited/hopeful that he'd eat the apples without complaint since they'd be hidden by the squash. He happily ate the entire 3.5oz container. I was shocked. After I cleaned him up and threw away the empty I started to wonder what the "mixed grains" were, so I went to the pantry to read the ingredient list.... "organic oat flour.... brown rice flour.... TUNA OIL (for added DHA)" UH.................WHAT?! As a vegetarian I was/am so squicked out!! Why on Earth would I have thought to check for animal products in a baby food that says Butternut Squash, Apples, and mixed grains?! I don't search out baby food that has "added DHA" since Bug is fed primarily breastmilk, which has plenty of DHA. I don't supplement with formula (which usually has added DHA to compete with breastmilk), I don't give vitamins with DHA in them -- again, because I don't need to! He's a breastmilk baby. It's not something I'm concerned with. I felt like such an idiot for not checking, but like I said WHY WOULD I HAVE THOUGHT TO CHECK FOR ANIMAL OIL IN A VEGGIE/FRUIT BABY PUREE?! First time mom Me, back with Bean, would have read every ingredient list before putting it in the shopping cart, but second time mom Me thought I had it under control. Blech! I'll be reading all the labels from now on... Side note part 2: I know he'll be fine after ingesting some fish oil, it just goes against my ethical code to eat animals/feed them to my children. I'll let them make that choice on their own when they're older. Side note part 3: He gas and poo has never smelled so disgusting. I don't know if the fish oil is to blame or the grains, but SO GROSS!! It's totally like man farts/poo, not baby gas/poo. This is the worst part about starting to feed your breastfed baby solid foods.

Ok, moving on... Sleep: For now, Bug seems to be sleeping better. He's no longer waking up 5-10 times a night. Now it's 1-3 times a night. I can't figure out any rhyme or reason as to why he wakes up 3 times some nights and only once other nights. I imagine tummy gas or teething or alllllllmost crawling are the culprits, but I wish I could better anticipate the nights. The nights he only wakes up once I feel almost human again the next day. And, because I'm out of practice, the nights that he wakes up 3x I feel like a zombie the next day. I'm not complaining, just making observations. I'll take 3x a night over 5-10 ANY day!!!

Speaking of teething, Bug has 6 teeth. Four up on top, and two on the bottom. (!!!) At this age Bean had 2 teeth. Bug may be slower at doing some things (like crawling) but he's not messing around when it comes to growing and popping out teeth! You'd think with 6 teeth he'd be better about eating solid food.... ;)

His preferred form of communication is yelling. Both happy squeal-type of yelling, and angry/sad-type of yell-crying. When he's happy talk-yelling you can't help but smile and laugh. He just sounds SO happy! But when he's upset watch out. He doesn't have any sad baby-cry left in him. His cries are all yell-crying now. Yell-growling, Yell-complaining, Yell-crying. He's such a happy baby 95% of the time, but he knows how to throw a tantrum when he's tired, hungry, hurt - or just pissed that his sister dared to take something away from him.

Bug is such a joy to have in our lives. He makes me laugh and smile every day. He makes me smack my forehead in disbelief at his antics at least once a day. He's a huge tank-sized baby, but he's healthy and happy and we couldn't ask for any more. But we're totally in for it with him. I imagine my next blog post will be one where I'm hastily typing out an S.O.S. because he will have taken over the house by then. haha!

Go big or go home

Man alive, I sure know how to ring in the holiday season: with a raging case of mastitis. I am lucky that I've never had to go through this hell before, and I thought I was in the clear as mastitis is most common in the first 6 months of breastfeeding and Bug will be 6 months old on Friday.

What started as a fever and aches and chills early Saturday morning (it was still dark, 4am-ish) has turned into pure hell. I thought I had the flu, now I wish it was the flu. This pain in my right breast is unreal. This fever (hovering around 102*-103*, even with meds) is unreal.

Since I'm an exclusive pumper I have to get up, and stick to my pumping schedule, regardless of these chills, regardless of the pain. If I was able to nurse my babies I would still be writhing around in bed, but at least I wouldn't have to get out into the freezing air to feed him. I'd be able to roll over, nurse him frequently, and then drift back into a fever induced dreamland.

I can't stand how it feels - FREEZING, skin hurting, joints aching with a fever. And then add in this huge red, warm to the touch, throbbing, heavy feeling breast infection. Put a fork in me, I'm done.

My midwife said, at 7:45am, that she would call in a prescription to the 24 hour pharmacy so I could get the Keflex into my system asap. But here I am, at 9:38am wishing for death. My mom, bless her, drove across town to the Walgreens to pick up my meds and they HAVEN'T EVEN RECEIVED MY PRESCRIPTION YET!! What the hell?! I've put in another call/message to my midwife, but she hasn't called me back yet. I hate how I get SO sick on the weekend when no one is in the office, but only on-call.

I'm currently pumping through the pain, I'm forcing myself to eat and drink even though the fever is making me super nauseous, I need to shower in a bad way, but the thought of getting goosebumps when I get out of the shower sounds like torture to me at the moment.

I'm hoping and praying that I get my meds by lunchtime at the latest, it'll take 24 hours for me to start feeling better and that 24-hour finish line can't start until I take the damn meds!

Hopefully I'll have some joyful Christmas something-or-other to post about in a day or two. I can only hope.

Ugh.

(If this doesn't make sense, don't blame me, blame the fever!)

Bug's first Thanksgiving!

Yesterday was our first Thanksgiving with the Buggy-boy! ♥ It is holidays and family get togethers that make me stop and reflect back on the last holiday or the last time the family got together and notice how much things have changed. Once you have babies time literally FLIES by in the blink of an eye.

Anyway, before I go getting all sappy and sentimental AGAIN let me just briefly touch on how thanksgiving went.

Bug wore the same "Baby's first Thanksgiving" onesie that Bean wore on her first Thanksgiving back in 2010. It was baggy on her. It was pulling tight on him. Haha!

I love that having two summer babies means I get to compare them in the same outfits at the same holidays! :)

Disclaimer: I am a stickler about not giving our babies solid food until they are 6 months old. There is endless research - medical research - about why delaying solids until 6 months or later is best for baby's gut. Bug will be 6 months old in 6 days. He's been extremely interested in watching us eat for almost 2 months now, he mastered his pincher grasp about 3 weeks ago, he doesn't have his tongue thrust reflex anymore... the only thing he doesn't have on his checklist before giving solids is: sitting up unassisted. But, have you seen the size of his head? It's heavy. I don't blame him for not being able to sit up quite yet. All that to say, we made the executive decision yesterday to let Bug try a small taste of plain baked sweet potato. It was Thanksgiving after all, and it was only 1 week "early".

Good news: He didn't ab-so-lutely hate it like Bean did. He also didn't love it. He probably only ate a total of 1/2 of a teaspoon and it went like this: first small taste - gnaw, mash, sucksucksuck, swallow. second small taste - gag and shake head around. third small taste - gnaw, mash, sucksucksuck, swallow. fourth small taste - gag and shiver shoulders like he got the heebie jeebies. Haha. He was pretty unimpressed, and I wasn't hell bent on making a meal of it, I just wanted him to try it. And he did. Now we'll wait until his half-birthday before trying something else. :)

My long-time friend crocheted Bug a suuuuuper sweet Turkey beanie for his first Thanksgiving. He's been wearing it every time we've gone outside since it came in the mail, but it looked really perfect with his Baby's First Thanksgiving onesie. Everyone at dinner loved it and it completed his ensemble!

She makes custom hats and scarves and hats for any holiday you can think of! If you'd like to order one from her let me know and I'll give you her info. :)

Alright... Jeff wants to go out into the crowds to try to snag a few good deals at the Black Friday sales so I've got to get going. I hope everyone who reads my tiny blog had a great Thanksgiving with their loved ones! ♥

(I didn't get any pictures of Bean yesterday because she was busy outside playing with her cousin non-stop!)

What started out as a "SLEEP, Kid!!!!!" post turned into a walk down memory lane...

If having a second child has taught me anything, it's that having ONE child teaches you nothing about raising childREN. Your second baby is guaranteed to be nothing like your first child. Sure, all babies cry, eat, poop, etc but the specifics about how much, when, why they do those things is a complete mystery. Throughout my pregnancy with Bug I felt pretty confident about what to expect once he got here. "I've done this before, and Bean was a difficult newborn, so this HAS to be easier this time around. I know what to expect. I'm prepared."

Stupid, stupid, stupid me.

Everything I thought I knew has turned out to be wrong when it comes to Bug. The only thing I'm better about this time around is how frazzled I get by baby surprises.

Bean was a colicky baby. She cried a LOT. She was a terrible napper, napping only 15-25 mins at a time. Her saving grace was that she was a fantastic nighttime sleeper. Starting around 7 weeks old, she'd go to sleep around 7:30 and sleep until about 7am. I didn't have to "train" her to do this, she just did. At about 6 months old she started waking up around 1am, drank her bottle without fuss, and then went back to sleep until 7:30am. That wasn't bad, I didn't mind. She was a tiny peanut and I felt she needed the extra calories. Her daytime bottles always went down without a struggle, too. She put herself on an every 3-4 hour schedule during the day and gladly drank her 4oz bottles and then was fine until it was time for her next bottle. Eating and sleeping, she had those two things down pat. She hit all her physical milestones early - rolling over at 4 months, crawling at 5.5 months, standing by 7 months, climbing on EVERYTHING by 8 months, walking unsupported by 10 months. She was (and still is) Miss Independent. I've actually read quite a bit on "difficult babies" (you do that, desperate, at 2am when your baby just won't stop crying in those early months) and it seems like she did everything by the book for difficult babies. Even her pediatrician said that her "colicky" babies were much like Bean, very intelligent, type A, over-achiever types. She always benefited from a schedule, things being done JUST SO, she likes things in order, stacking everything in sight, and God forbid her schedule got off track EVERYONE would pay the price. I love her to bits and pieces, but I'm oh-so-glad that she's out of those baby-stages. She is still very much that personality, but now she can verbalize her needs and we can (try to) help her through her freak outs when things don't go her way, or when things don't go in the order she thinks they need to. She was always, and still is, in the 75% for her height and 20% for her weight. She wore all her clothes when she was "supposed" to: 3 month clothes fit her when she was 3 months old, 6 month clothes fit once she hit 6 months, etc. Because of this she was easy to shop the clearance racks for, I knew that those 18 month pants would fit her when she was 18 months old. I knew that the 2T bathing suit would fit her when she turned 2 years old. And because she's skinny she can wear clothes longer than bigger kids... especially shirts. She has little feet, so I always bought her "good" shoes knowing that she'd wear them for a long time and we'd get our money out of them. Cloth diapering was extra super cost efficient because she wore newborn diapers for 4 months! She wore smalls until she was over a year old! She wore mediums until she was potty-trained! I didn't have to buy very many diapers, she wore them a long time, we got our money's worth!

 Still a peanut at 3 years old.

Bean was almost 3 years old when Bug was born. I thought I knew what I was 'in for'.... I was wrong.

Bug is a generally happy baby, perhaps not smiley and laughing all the time, but generally content. He typically only cries if he's hungry or has a dirty diaper. We took a roadtrip to Kansas when he was 3 months old and he didn't make a peep on the way there or back unless he was hungry. Bean wouldn't let us drive to the grocery store, let alone 45 mins across town, without a full blown meltdown the ENTIRE time in the car - I hated going anywhere in the car when she was little. He's not colicky, thankfully!! He's not a great napper, but he's better than Bean ever was. Granted, his naps are still only 25-90 mins long, which aren't as good as these 2-4 hour naps I hear about other people's babies taking, but Bean didn't take a nap that was 45-90 min naps till after she was over a year old. But his nighttime sleeping? Fuggetaboutit. He wakes up anywhere from 2-10x a night. He is 5 months, 3 weeks old as I sit here typing this and he's been on a 2-3x a night kick for about a week now. But up until about a week ago a good night was a 4-5x wake up night. And those were few and far between. Part of his wakefulness was due to teething I'm sure, part to growing, but mainly I think it's just his personality. Yes he would drink his milk at night, but not a lot. Where Bean would drink 6oz at night in 1-2 wake ups, Bug would drink 4-6oz spread out over his 2-10 wakeups. Even during the daytime he is a snacker. Looking at him you might think that he overeats; that he drinks huge bottles, chugs them, and then wants more. Nope. Wrong. He drinks 1-3oz at a time, every 1-2 hours. Just enough to not feel hungry anymore, then he's done. He's too interested in what is going on around him to sit still and drink his whole bottle. Because of his eating preferences getting him on a schedule has proven difficult. Leaving bottles with Jeff or my mom when I'm gone is tricky because I'm not sure how much he'll drink - or when. Like I mentioned previously, Bean was easy. She drank x-ounces every x-hours. Planning ahead was easy peasy. Also, just now at almost 6 months old he's kiiiiiiiiinda, sooooooorta, letting me set his nap schedule.

 Bug, during his morning nap 11/26... this one lasted a whopping 37 mins!

But he is SO not that Type-A personality that his sister is. He is NOT a schedule kind of guy. His bedtime is 7:30, his day doesn't start till 7:30-8, but the number of times he wakes up during those 12 hours is anyone's guess. I try to put him down for a nap at 10am, 2pm, and 5pm... but IF he naps, how long he'll sleep for is a mystery as well. As far as physical milestones go, he is in NO hurry. He hasn't rolled over yet, he doesn't sit up unassisted, he's not up on his knees rocking yet, he won't even support his weight on his legs if you're holding him under his arms. It is just SO opposite of his sister that I have a hard time not comparing the two of them and I have to stop myself from putting the pressure on him to hurry up and do the things that she did when she did. He will do them at his own pace. It's ok that he's not in a hurry. He will be our last baby, so the way I see it is: this way, I get to enjoy his babyhood for longer. He will need me for longer. And I'm ok with that. ♥ At almost 6 months old he's in 9 month clothes, but onesies are starting to get too short. 12 month clothes fit, but are slightly too long still. He outgrew his newborn cloth diapers in 3 weeks, the smalls by 3 months, and there is only one larger snap adjustment on his mediums to accomadate his thunder thighs before he'll need to be moved into large cloth diapers. I don't even own any larges!!! Bean never needed them! There is no doubt he is a chunky monkey, but I don't mind - I love to snuggle and nuzzle his cheeks. I like to grab and tickle his fat thunder thighs. And society, it seems, loves a fat baby. Everywhere we go people are cooing at him and telling me how cute my "big boy" is. Bug is much more easy going, easier to make smile and laugh (he laughed much sooner than Bean did), pretty chill baby. He goes with the flow, he sits back and observes what is going on around him. And even when he's sick or teething he is pretty cool, calm, and collected. The times you really notice that he's not feeling good is at nighttime. When his teeth were coming in he slept the worst, but during the day he was still pretty content. That's another thing, he got his first tooth at 5 months, 8 days old. His second tooth came through the next day. Bean didn't get her first tooth until almost 7 months old, her second tooth took almost another month to come in. So, I guess, when I see this stuff written out he doesn't do EVERYTHING later than his sister, I guess it just seems that way.

 happy go-lucky boy!

With Bean I was in such a hurry for her to hit her milestones, so proud to be able to "brag" about them happening so soon. But with Bug I'm happy to let him take his time. Like I said, I do have to remind myself sometimes that they're different people and it's okay for him to do things later than she did. And when I do remind myself of that I can actually feel myself relax and allow myself to enjoy him more. I like that. I wouldn't change either of them or their personalities. I'm excited to see how their similarities and differences change as they grow older. Ok, maybe I would change JD's sleeping pattern if I could. If I had a magic wand I'd make him a better sleeper. But since I don't have a magic wand I guess I'll deal with his sleep challenges and just thank my lucky stars that he's a happy snuggle bug instead of another colicky baby -- his easy, toothy, grins make me forget how utterly exhausted I am, even if just for a few minutes.

Grandma Godin's vegetable soup recipe

Fall is officially here and winter is right around the corner.  That means we have space heaters going around the clock, I'm never NOT wearing socks, and I want bowls of soups and homemade bread at least once a week. Growing up my mom would make lots of meals that were her mother's recipes; old-fashioned comfort food types of recipes. I've never been a fan of those types of meals. You know the type - stews, roasts, meatloaf, etc. I'm not a meat-and-potatoes, "sticks to yer ribs", type of gal. However, my Grandma's vegetable soup is one recipe that I always looked forward to. I used to ask my mom to make it, along with a loaf of bread in the bread maker. Let's be real here, I still ask her to make it. Food always tastes better when your mom makes it for you.

Now that I'm a grownup with a husband and 2 kids of my own I decided to buck up and ask my mom for my Grandma's recipe. She shared it with me, and I decided to post it here in case anyone else was in the market for a delish, easy, homemade vegetable soup recipe. I will say, that it's easily customizable. The original recipe calls for beef broth, but being a vegetarian I obviously use vegetable broth. The original recipe doesn't include carrots, and I know for a fact that my mom ALWAYS put diced up carrots in our soup. Feel free to change it up using ingredients that you have on hand, but it's nice to have my Grandma's actual recipe to use as a blueprint. ♥

The "whoops! I lost my head!" catch-up post!

Oh, that's right... I have a blog. One I used to write in semi-regularly... Life gets crazy, or perhaps I let it drive me crazy, either way... I got swept under the current for a few months, I can't believe how much time has past since I last updated - I can't believe 2013 is almost over!!, it seems like a different life entirely when I look back at my old posts. I would like to start writing again. I enjoy writing, and I enjoy having something to look back on because with little chitlins running around I often forget things that we did, I forget how little they were, I forget how I was feeling at that time, and it's nice to be able to go back, read, and reflect.

So, as you may have noticed I changed the title of this here bloggy to include our favorite little brother. All the new pretties like my header, the background, and the new About Us section (coming soon when I find a spare minute to write it), is thanks to my good friend Ashley over at Momma on a Mission . We're still "Adventuring in the Foothills of the Rockies" but it's no longer just Bean and I... Finally, formally, introducing Bug! ♥

 

He was born 6.5.13 at 1:45pm. He weighed 8lbs 15oz and was 21.5" long. He had a long and dramatic entrance into this world, but he is strong and healthy and we got to go home after only 3 days in the nicu. (At 5 months old he's now 19lbs and already has his two bottom teeth!)

Another update since my last entry, this little big girl Bean turned 3 back in August!!!

My mind has a hard time (still) wrapping around the fact that she is 3 whole years old. I can't believe I've been a Momma for that long now! She's an amazing big sister, and big helper to our whole family. She loves to be helpful and I love that she has that caring heart! (She is still a little peanut weighing in at 27lbs, but is tall and her hair is finally filling in and getting long-ish.)

Bringing us current, the most recent holiday was Halloween where Bean chose to dress up as Snow White (which I found funny seeing as how she's NEVER seen that movie) and was adorable of course, and we chose to dress Bug in an alligator because we loooooove those Florida Gators! They were both too cute for me to handle! I'm hoping that next year they'll let me coordinate their costumes, but I have a feeling Ms. Bean will have an opinion about that. ;)

I'm excited for Bug to learn to sit up, roll over, and start crawling. He has such a personality and is SUCH a talker. He gets to try solid foods next month, which I don't think will be an issue like it was with our Bean-Girl. He is opposite of his big sissy in almost every way you can think of, but they love love love each other so much and I can't wait to see them grow up together. I'm excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas as a whole family, together in our home. I look at our little family and feel so blessed, so lucky, so happy. ♥

I pinky promise, it won't be so long until I update again. Now that I got this big scary "Hi... I'm back..." post out of the way I won't feel so weird posting about current events as they happen.

Pip-pip-cheerio!! :)