Good Morning World!

Today is my lucky day!! I was awoken to the fresh smell of coffee and my darling son playing quietly on the floor, already fed and dressed, the newspaper laid out on the table ready to be skimmed over and my breakfast hot and piping waiting on the table! OH WAIT..*poof*..that was just a dream! I was greeted by the coughing fits of my still sick little boy (did i mention that his bday party is on saturday and we are both sick as dogs??) "Oh boy" i thought as i rolled out of bed swallowing past the still sore lump in my throat, "Another sick day at home...so much for getting shopping done for the party!". You see, you would think that i would have been greeted by the stench of his exploded diaper when i walked in his room but my nose has been gloriously plugged since yesterday and he is still in his growbag and all jammied up! Poor little guy decided that his morning mosturizer would consist of rubbing his now draining nose all over his face!! (sorry for you that are a little queasy!) "Ok, easy fix!" A little rubbing of the kleenex and we are good as gold! I am still nursing him in the mornings so proceeded to do so..in the meantime my nose had decided that it is going to unpack its bags and allow me to breath again!! BIG MISTAKE!! The only time i wish it hadnt decided to do so!! As my darling boy looked up at me and smiled and batted his long little eyelashes at my now scrunched up face!! "What mommy??" Maybe all that butternut squash soup i fed him last night was not such a good idea afterall! "How bad can it be!" i thought! So the morning ritual of changing his diaper began and i was ready to call in the troops! "Why cant i have one more hand?" i thought as i peeled back his onsie that was now glued to his back almost to his neck! Did i mention that my tub is unusable at this time due to renovations? Our baths have recently taken place like this

Needless to say he has loved creating tsunami's in the kitchen! His mother on the otherhand isnt sure were to find higher ground! Anyways back to my story..so my buck naked son at this point is now standing in my tiny bathroom sink while i try to rub him down! That standing didnt last long though and he proceeded to sit and make it that more difficult to try to wash the soap of his little squirmy slippery body! Well somehow inbetween Lucas trying to turn on the taps and burn himself and me trying to hold onto his snake like body and move all the seemingly innocent toys (scrapers, mallets, tile!) away from the clutches of his hands and wash the soap off ,we exited the bathroom in one piece (i think! My mind might be floating somewhere in the sink!) So Good Morning World!! Lucas is now squeaky clean minus the dripping from his little orfices on his face and perfectly whinney to take on the day with his mother covered in "I'm not sure what the slime is on my shirt!" clothes..and of course i just rolled out of bed look! Please no knocking on my door today, you there sales people, ups man, friends, girl scouts or lost little child! I dont need to give anybody the heebeejeebees today!

                                                  This is his i'm about to do something bad face

                                             "Umm, why do you look like that?? So embarrassing!"

Christmas, New Years and Little Birthday boy!

It would appear that I am behind on my posts a little! The craziness of Christmas will do that to a person I guess! Christmas was fabulous! We had my family over on Christmas Day and enjoyed a brunch of crepes and later on a Ham dinner! We were able to fit a little sledding in there and of course some gift opening! I don't do well with Chaos i decided, so thank you to my sister and mom for pitching in and helping!! (maybe this whole hosting thing is not my cup of tea!! oh well..could be the loss of sleep coming through?? maybe..?? We will use that as an excuse until further notice!)

Our next Christmas was spent in Red Deer with my Dad's side of the family..there was oh probably about 30 of us?? Once again Chaos!! haha! But i could handle it cause i wasnt hosting at least! Thanks to my aunt and uncle for doing that! We all got to meet my cousins wife from China for the first time! They both live and work there so it was nice to see them both!

                                       That is my cousin Danny in the middle and his wife Ying on the right

New Years Eve was what it usually was for us..relaxing and otherwise uneventful! (especially now with the little one!)  I'm not on to do resolutions cause i find that if there is something that i need to work on or change i can do that at anytime during the year..so i guess you could say that i make little resolutions all year long! My resolution is to make resolutions all year long! I look forward to watching my son grow and change even more and thus me and my husband change as well! I know there will be challenges but i pray that the Lord will help me through each one! (thus this far i am surviving the sleep one!) Another challenge we face this year is the fact that I am not returning to work. (to my previous shop anyways!) We made the decision because I would not make sufficient enough money to cover childcare! So goodbye EI and hello one income! I will however be doing hair (i am a hairstylist) out of my house and travelling to clients houses as well! Hopefully this will generate enough income to get us by! I trust the Lord will take care of us and I know that all our needs will be met! And i believe that if anything should happen with Reuben's job our family will not let us end up in a cardboard box!! right?? right??  So fears aside we press on and look forward to a year filled with weddings (my best friends are both getting married!), family party's, playdates, moms groups, coffee with friends and the joy of our little boy! We wish everyone a happy New Year and the blessings that it shall bring!


Here a few pictures from our third Christmas with my husbands family in Three Hills. We celebrated my Niece Asha's first birthday as well! It was an enjoyable time with amazing food and cupcakes!

                                                                                     Happy Birthday Asha!

Today Marks the first Birthday of my little monkey Lucas! Its hard to believe one year ago today i was holding you in my arms picturing your little personality and what sort of man you will grow into one day! You are one spirited little boy with the cuteness of a button! Its a good thing your cute cause somedays when you are in getting into trouble it sure comes in handy! You love to snuggle and hug! (a change from your baby baby days...you use to push us away if we held you too close!) Your daddy is the one who started calling you Monkey! And your antics are such that it has stuck!! (and it helps that your little ears stick out a bit! It makes you all the cuter!) You are teaching mommy the meaning of patience and love (a whole new kind!). We would not change a thing about you and pray that God will teach us as your parents the best way to raise you into a man of God!

                                                                    Birthday Pancakes!

                                                       Birthday present from Papa and Grandma

So happy to just play with paper of course!
 

Frustration, Christmas and Giving thanks!

Today is a very frustrating day. It didnt start out that way but it has ended up that way! As I stated in my previous post my son has decided that he doesnt want to sleep anymore. I was about to call it a Christmas miracle when the past two nights he slept through the night! (I am very grateful for that! My body was starting to feel the effects of no sleep!) However, naptimes are a completely different story. He has gone from taking two naps a day to almost zero! His naps have ranged from 15 minutes to the most at 45 minutes this past week. I love my son and i love spending time with him but his naptimes were great because that is when i was able to get things done..ie-cleaning, cooking/baking, or just time for myself. So needless to say i havent been able to do very much this past week. So of course he decides to do this the week before Christmas when i have taken on the task of having my family to our place for Christmas. I do not deal well with disorganization (However you would never know it if you were to see my place right now!) and I was hoping for a day of cleaning and preparing for my family to come! Well that has gone down the tubes, my son has not napped all day and after fighting with him for 2 hours to take a nap i gave up on that ever happening! So my parents come tomorrow, the guest room is not clean, the litterboxes are not clean, the bathrooms are not clean and i cant bring myself mentally to sit down and plan out a food shopping list. I know that my family could care less, but its me that cares and takes pride in the fact that my house was well put together and clean.  I am not a great cook so it was something that made up for that!  Thus it is hard to let go and not get upset over! So lately my husband has been coming home to not only the most unelaborate meals but a messy disorganized house! I am grateful that he could care less, so i dont know why it bothers me so much! I guess cause i would like to put myself on that list of "supermoms" but fail that time and time again! But on the other hand i am grateful! I have come across blogs lately of other moms who's children deal with horrible diseases every day! One of them being EB (dont remember the full word..) But its basically a horrible skin condition that when their skin comes in contact with things it cause blisters and bleeding, rubbing the skin off, in some cases this is fatal! (thats the short of it) These children are in pain everyday but yet they still smile and their parents are still smiling and giving thanks despite their situations! Check out this mom's blog and her son Tripp http://randycourtneytripproth.blogspot.com/ These children and all children have so much to teach us. So screw the house, screw the cooking, screw the naptimes! (sorry if thats harsh!) But i'm grateful that we are healthy (minus a few colds!), I am grateful that we have a roof over our heads, i am grateful that my husband has a job, i am grateful that we have food on the table, i am grateful that we have clothes on our back, and most of all i am grateful that i have a saviour that came to earth only to experience pain and suffering on my part! So i sit here while my very awake son toddles around, destroying everything in his path and i am grateful that he can walk, that he can break things, and that he can scream at me! (although ask me again tomorrow! j/k!) And thus i'm learning to be grateful (and ok) with my not so clean house! Sorry for the crazy babblings but i need to go as my son is currently unwrapping all the gifts under the tree!

                                            Caught Red Handed,,but oh so cute doing it!

                                     "But i dont want coal in my stocking! I promise that i will be good!"

                                                              and then i turned my back!!

Too Cute Tuesday!

                                                            Love him in the mornings!!

                                                            Check out my new slippers!

Guess who needs a diaper change?

                                                 

                                                                                 Ooops i made a mess!

                                                           early child slave labour, doesnt seem to upset by it!

                                                  Little does she know this whole time i've been blowing my nose in it! haha!
                                             (no wonder he was so happy to be wiping everything)

Sleep Training

Today was a long day. I had the joy of resleep training Lucas. One word "FUN"! I had done this previously when he was oh probably around 5-6 months old. And it did work and he did sleep..well mostly anyways. He still woke up for the occasional feed here and there but usually only once a night! I can handle that! Well he decided to throw that out the window a couple weeks/month ago and only recently it has started to get really bad! Now if you were to ask me how all that training dissappeared i wouldnt know what to tell you. I believe it had a little something to do with teething and the fact that he has a larger version of himself  ( i wont name names! lol) wrapped around his little pinky sometimes. And well i confess that i tend to cave as well! One look at the pouty littly monkey face and your done! And throw into the mix that fact that when he is sad he says "Momma" over and over! So instead of letting him calm himself down he used his little monkey charms to get us to rock him! At first it was maybe once every few nights..but lately it has been every night! And into the night as well! Well as you can imagine i am not too fond of having to do this in the middle of the night for any longer than 5 minutes. I am much too cranky of a person at 3:00 am..thus my patience is even thinner than during the daytime! And every since he started walking he would rather be awake and exploring than allowing his parents/mom to recover from the hurricane that ran around the house all day! So needless to say Saturday night was the last straw when he decided that he didnt want to sleep anymore..it would have been fine if it was say..7:00 am..no i lie..8:30am!! Well he must have felt like playing with a growly bear cause he woke up at 3:00 am and stayed up! No amount of rocking, sooshing, cuddling, threats, kisses, bouncing, nursing was going to convince him that bears were really scary and he should go back to sleep! Finally after letting him scream/cry for what seemed like an eternity i was able to return to my nice warm den at 5:30 in the morning to the blissfully ignorant snores of my husband! Last night wasnt much better..this time he decided that 6:00 am was a great time. I might have been able to drag my butt out of bed if it wasnt for the fact that he didnt go to sleep until midnight! So today turned into the day that i was going to change this not so welcoming habit! Truthfully i thought that it was going to go really well! Boy did he prove me wrong! For both naps I caved and rocked him...he slept for a total of 5 mins the first nap and 15 minutes the second. Lets just say that growly bears dont just come out a night!! They turn up as little children as well! So the research began (when i could evade the growls and snaps of a bear at my feet!) And i came up with a sleep plan! The short of it, NO MORE ROCKING..i know it sounds evil but it is necessary for my sanity and thus the sanity of people that come in contact with me! So tonight, we did bedtime routine and put him in his crib and rubbed his head and shushed him for a minute or two and than just stood there like an ominous scarecrow..just willing him to try to stand up and scream..but he didnt..he layed there and was comforted by my presence (i must not have been very ominous! Just wait till daddy stands there!!) He hugged his little zebra and passed out! boo ya! Success! Well that lasted for an hour! And than i got to do it all over again..go in..lay him down, rub his head, shush him and stand there! He layed there and eventually fell asleep again. I have a feeling that i might be standing a lot tonight!! But each night i am hoping and praying that it gets easier and easier for him to put himself back to sleep! And each night i will get further and further away from his crib when i am standing. This is my sleep plan. I will let you know if this works! If you call me and i sound a little gruff on the phone..well its not! :P But i'm too stubborn to give up! Too bad my child is stubborn as well! Oh little monkey...

                                            My view for most the day (hes still so cute when hes upset!)

                           One of the quieter times, he was just sucking his thumb which he never does!