Or, Momfessions, if you will! I haven't been in a good blogging funk lately. I go through phases where I could literally write 2 posts a day...and times when I can't think of a darn thing to say...like now. This is when it's good to participate in blog hops with themed posts! I realize these are supposed to be confessions about being a mommy....like related soley to my children...but I'm a mommy and even if these aren't 100% about being a mother, here they are:
You know that saying out there that it's okay to have dirty dishes in the sink and crumbs on your floor because it's more important to be with your kids, or something along with those lines? Well....that may be true for some, but not me! I cannot STAND having my house dirty or especially clutter about. I cannot relax and enjoy my kids if my house is dirty. It doesn't take that long to clean, really!
I could have 2 or 3 baths a day in this cold weather (not because I smell, contrary to what my husband teases me about)
Children should not be allowed to wake up before 8:00 AM, I'll even settle for 7:30 I am NOT a morning person, I never will be I figure
I have always been a 1 cup of coffee in the morning kinda gal, but I've been craving an afternoon cup sometimes
I do like a clean house, but I'm awful at cleaning the bathroom. It gets cleaned, of course...but I hate doing it. I've cleaned it 3 times since Ethan came home...and he's 7 weeks old today
The cold, dreary weather makes me happy. Yup, happy. It makes me feel like I have the right to stay in my warm, cozy home and sip coffee and bake and snuggle with my boys
I had a dream about my dad the other night...that I got to hug him, tell him he looked good and hoped he was doing well. That's the only part of the dream I remember and it makes me happy and hopeful that one day I might be able to hug him again
I'm not really getting Ethan anything for Christmas, just a personalized lovie blankie from Etsy!
On the other hand, I got Braden WAY too much for Christmas...good thing his birthday is a month after and I can divide the presents between the two!
My baby slept for over 7 hours the other night and I will not be made to feel bad about it, I'm celebrating. It may not happen again for awhile!
I love being at home as a mommy more than I ever thought I would. I will definitely go back to work, but I can see myself working less while my kids are young
I love Essie nail polish, I may or may not pick out a new color anytime I get a chance to go shopping (which isn't that often, don't worry)
I love Duck Dynasty. Like, love it.
Moscato is gooooo-oood! I drink a bottle to myself probably every 2 weeks.
I am 17 lbs above my pre-pregnancy weight (gained 38 lbs)...and this blows my mind! I do not feel 17 lbs heavier, nor do I think I look it...this is the same weight I was when I was 22 weeks pregnant - crazy!
I feel so much less stressed than I did last Christmas. I've learned to control what I can and cannot handle during the holidays. Until I go on Pinterest...which is why I don't
Speaking of that, I'm not doing a gingerbread house, I refuse until my kids specifically ask to do it or Poppy does it with them, hehe
I love being the mommy to 2 boys, especially that they have boy cousins their age!
I started the Advent Bible study with #SheReadsTruth and I've been missing it from my life the last couple of months, I need His Word in my daily life again
I know all my confessions aren't that shocking...and not all to do with being a mommy, but they are what they are. Do you have confessions this week? Link up with Growing Up Geeky.
Remember the year I painted my 28 week pregnant belly as a pumpkin? Or as I so aptly named it, my "bumpkin"?
And then, of course, for Braden's first Halloween he was my sweet little giraffe! I found the perfect giraffe costume, and best part was that it was used so it was super cheap!
Last year he was an adorable Cookie Monster because...well...he LOVED cookies and I figured it might be my last year of picking his costume!
This year, Braden was going to be a Jedi. We got him a light saber and he was excited about it....but then came the blizzards. It was -12 C with the wind chill on Halloween...but it honestly felt like -20! So his little fleece Jedi costume just was not going to cut it. So? Out came trusty Cookie Monster again! It still fit him, it was super soft and warm, and we could fit lots of layers underneath. I guess you're not a Canadian kid if you haven't gone trick or treating a handful of times with your snowsuit as your costume!...so luckily he could still wear his.
The thing about this Halloween? I was thinking I'd be painting a HUGE belly again! I did not anticipate nor prepare for the early arrival of a second trick or treater! Laura and I went to the mall the week before Halloween...and there was NOTHING left. Carter's had costumes for 3-6 month+, but no newborn costumes or Halloween shirts even! In fact, that was the only store that had a hint of Halloween left! Christmas had taken over already. So? What's a mom to do? Call her own mom! As many of you know, my mom moonlights as Poppy The Crazy Hat Lady, so I asked her if she could whip up Ethan an Elmo hat to go with his older Cookie Monster brother. No problem! So...here's my Cookie Monster & Baby Elmo!
They are adorable! But this was after Jay took Braden trick or treating and Braden was exhausted! Ethan was clearly having none of it...but it's something I'll never forget - that's for sure!
And cousin Blake was a cute little baby calf!
Maybe Ethan will enjoy Halloween a bit more next year? I'm kinda bummed I didn't get to take nice pictures of the boys, like I usually do...but weather did NOT permit!
I truly loved seeing all the social media kids' costumes streaming my Twitter & Instagram feeds! Come and link up and see even more adorable costumes!
Please please please keep voting for my 3 pictures! You have to like their FB page first, and then you can vote every 24 hours until November 15th! Cash prize....I'd really appreciate your support!
Ever have those moments as a parent where you stop, take a moment and think "Did I actually just say that?" Well, I've had plenty, but one in particular sticks out in my brain lately, I'll set the scene for you...
One day I was making meatballs at the request of one Hungry Farmer. I had my ground beef mixture all ready to go and I use a cookie/ice cream scoop to make my meat balls because a) it saves lots of time, b) it's less messy, and c) my meatballs are all the same size and I don't have to worry about cooking times. So I'm elbow deep scooping up meatbally goodness onto my baking trays, when Braden says, "oh, Mommy! I help you!" Totally normal. He loves to help in the kitchen. So he goes to grab a kitchen chair to bring over to the island...but on his way over he grabs his excavator toy. Then, the light bulb went off in my head and I actually said this:
"Braden, NO! You may not use your digger to scoop up meatballs!"
Now if that isn't a total Boy Mom Moment....I don't know what is! I just love how his little mind works! I totally understand why he wanted to use his excavator to help me with the meatball making process! My pregnancy/not-a-morning-person brain cannot think of anymore "things I actually say" sayings...but I'm sure there's tons more, but that one is my favorite! Come to think of it...here's a few more:
"Braden, what does Mommy say about playing with the dishwasher?" [enter smart ass husband] "Tuh not to!" - Jay in his best Mater voice
"Braden, do NOT lick the (cat, table, floor, etc)! We only lick our food!....sometimes!"
Do you have lots of "things you actually say"? Come on over and link up!
And also...while you're here, they reset the voting at Top Baby Blogs. Currently we're in the Top 50 and I'd really like to keep it that way. Please click the banner below to vote for us, and you can do so daily (every 24 hours, to be exact) on my sidebar!
Before I get to talking about how bedtime went, I'll talk about nap time. Firstly, my boy who usually gets 12 hours of sleep per night, only got 9 the night before. We went to church and he was more fussy and impatient than usual, but stayed awake on the ride home. We let him play a bit on the deck outside, while I scrambled to get his "big boy" room ready! He helped get his crib out of his room, and I'm so happy that he wasn't mourning the loss of his crib at all. I know that he loved his crib, but I'm very happy that he obviously didn't form a special "bond" with his crib and wasn't sad to see it go at all. We enjoyed playing in his room, I said excitedly "look at your big bed in your room! Wow!" and he seemed truly happy about it!" Look how big his room is without that crib!
"So much more room for your activiites!" Said Jay (for all you Step Brothers fans out there!) We spent extra time in his room and read extra stories. Had our snuggles and I sang to him and rocked him. I told him I was going to sing to him one more song, and then it was time to rest in his big bed. He seemed fine with that. But...then he didn't like being in his bed at all. Great! I sat on the floor by his bed, encouraging him to lie down and rest and Mommy would stay...but he started kicking his feet in protest. After about 10 minutes I told him Mommy had to leave now, but it's time to stay in your room and rest until Mommy comes to get you. I left his room, locked the door, and he cried/fussed for a few minutes and then there was complete silence. He was quiet and babbled at times off and on, I left at 2:30 and planned to go get him at 3:30. I got a bit caught up in my PVR episode of Grey's Anatomy, looked at the time and it was 3:37, he was starting to knock on the door and get a bit ticked. So I went it, told him he did a great job staying in his room! Then came bedtime routine.
He had tub time as per usual...and then he read stories with me...(I was too lazy to use my good camera, bear with the cell phone pics!) And then we had some nice snuggles...Mommy was very tired too! I rocked him and sang to him one song, and unintentionally on my part he fell asleep. poor little guy was so tired. I really wanted him to fall asleep on his own, but on the other hand, putting him down asleep in his toddler bed wasn't such a bad thing because he would wake up in it and hopefully realize that it's not such a scary change afterall.
So there's my big boy in his big bed. It was a rather heart melting moment seeing him there all snuggled into his bed. He did stir and start to whimper at about 10:30 last night, but settled himself and slept right through until about 6:45 this morning! Yay! Almost 12 hours straight through! I couldn't ask for a better first night. I am not going to get in the habit of rocking him to sleep every night. It's not our style and it's just not feasible for me with a baby on the way, and plus he will not be that tired every night to just fall asleep on me. So I just hope that now that he's slept in and woken up in his bed, that he will be able to settled on his own.
I feel really good about locking him safely in his room, and by your comments here and on IG and FB it doesn't seem that I'm alone in doing that either. Thanks for all your support, it sure means a lot to me!
I just showed Braden that picture of him sleeping and I said "look, Braden! That's you sleeping in your big bed last night, you did it!" He was so proud, tapped his chest and said "'Den! I did it!" And here's a video I took this AM about going in to get him:
And no included for your weekly TAT read! This is our same bedtime routine...there is just actually a bed involved! Thanks for stopping by, stay awhile!
This week Toddle Along Tuesday is hosting a photo contest of your favorite photo of all time. Of anything, anyone, from any time. It just has to be taken by you. I hate to toot my own horn, but I like a lot of my pictures. But I have to go with one of my faves of Braden. Plus, how can you NOT like this?
I encourage you to play along, join the blog hop, submit a photo!
So this week's theme is baby names. How did we come up with the name Braden James? Well...not so easily! I know we had discussed baby names even before we got pregnant, but we really got into discussing names into the second trimester. I distinctly remember locking in our names at 17 weeks. We had 3 solid girl's names that we were happy with, but only 1 boy name we could agree on. And that was Braden.
It actually took me awhile to finally agree on Braden. I really liked the names Brady or Brody, but one of Jay's best friends has a sister named Bradie and he didn't want to associate that with our son's name or something. I had always liked the name Braden, but when I worked at a children's hospital, it seemed every other boy was Braden or Ethan. They were both so popular at the time, and I didn't want a super popular name. BUT, Braden didn't seem like a popular name around where we live, so I agreed.
Then came the spelling. Also being a former peds nurse, it drives me NUTS how parents can really, for lack of a better term, screw up the spelling of their poor children's names! Some examples?
Airin for Erin
Dafydd for David
Reybekkah for Rebecca
Cydnee for Sydney
Kristuffer for Christopher
I could go on and on. So, I went with what I thought was the "classic" way to spell Braden. But, apparently the most popular way to spell it is "Brayden". I just didn't care for the look of the name with the "y" in it, but that's just my personal preference. I toyed with "Braeden" for awhile, but decided to just keep it simple! He'll have to spell his name for the rest of his life, just like me. "Sarah with an h". Even his father has to say "Jay. Just, Jay...J-A-Y."
James was easy. Two birds with one stone. This was also one of two other first names we considered, but we loved it as a middle name. It is a family name on Jay's side and it is also Jay's best friend's name. We both really liked the name Joshua, but it would inevitably get shortened to Josh and Josh Schultz is just too "shushy" if you know what I mean! Or it would just blend together into one word "Joshultz'. So that was crossed off our list.
Lord help us if we ever have another boy! I encourage your to participate in Toddle Along Tuesday this week if you never have! One of my lovely sponsors Simply Stavish is cohosting! But, if you don't blog...why did you name your kids the name(s) you chose?
Braden's 2nd birthday was just awesome! It was everything I'd hoped for and more. He slept in and was SO happy that my Mom was still here, as she came the day before and slept over. "POPPY!!!"
Jay and I got him his Thomas Power Wheels and he was excited at first, but then when he was riding it the sound of the battery kind of scared him! But he was over the moon about his first wooden track set and all the little trains that Mom brought for him.
I really didn't go above and beyond with my Thomas decor for the party. I bought the hats, banner, and cupcake wrappers on eBay for ridiculously cheap...and I am so glad I did. I had plans to make a "Braden is 2!" banner from Thomas scrapbook paper...but I just didn't have it in me, and that's okay!
All of Braden's cousins were here, his friends Katie, Tessa, and Sophia were here too. There were 12 kids age 7, 6, 4.5, 3.5, 3.5, 22 months, 22 months, 17 months, 14 months, 14 months, 1 month, and our 2 year old...and you know what? They were GREAT! They all behaved so well! I have a "no running" rule when there's so many kids over, they all (for the most part) listened to that, there were hardly any tears, no meltdowns, no fighting...they were all AMAZING!
Braden found Gus...can you spot him?
And then it was time for cake! I made this Thomas cake from a Wilton train pan before we left for Maui and I froze it. I'm so glad I did...it was all ready to go!!
Thanks, Natalie, for taking the videos with our iPad!!
A little Thomas humor...my niece Danika wanted to eat his head!
What a little sweetheart, that Sophia!
And then it was time to open presents!
He got a lot of great Thomas stuff, he's starting to collect the wooden trains for his train table that he doesn't know he was yet! He also loved this Cookie Monster from his Rayton cousins!
I didn't take pics of the goodies...but I just bought these blue treat bags from Walmart, put the treats inside with a Thomas sticker on the outside - voila! I made Thomas cupcakes for the guests to go home with and the other goodie bag had a Thomas train whistle, a few chocolates, a Thomas coloring sheet, and these Thomas crayon holders from Etsy with crayons included. Very reasonably priced! I didn't even do treatbags last year...oops!
And, since Grandma & Papa will probably never be here to celebrate Braden's birthday, we had an early celebration in Maui too! Lucky boy! I went to Safeway, got a $9 cake on sale, and she decorated it "Maui" style for free. And it was YUMMY!
We love you so much!!
Now we're linked up for Toddle Along Tuesday! Hi Growing Up Geeky readers!
