We shall succeed!

Last night Justin and I had a small victory with Jack. I'm sure a victory with an 8 month old is laughable in the grand scheme of things, but hey we'll take what we can get. This victory being a change in our night time sleeping (or lack there of) routine. Little Man slept in a cradle in our room for 6 months, we both liked having him near and he slept great. Well at 6 months we decided we needed to reclaim our room and move him to his own room. I worked hard on that room, we had to get some use out of it!

(giraffes we made, the tree is a sticker)

(letters from Pottery Barn kids the alphabet cards I had from when I was teaching!)

A friend had advised me to try the tough love approach and let him have a few nights of crying to learn how put himself back to sleep if he woke up. The first night we tried this Justin and I made a pact to let him cry it out, and lovingly if not a little sadly put him down to sleep in his own room.

In our baby prep class they played the sound of a baby crying for a minute to give us a taste of what we had to look forward too. I think if they really wanted to prepare parents they should have played it for at least 15 minutes! :) When you listen to a baby cry it seems to last forever! It breaks your heart because you are the comforter, nurturer, the protector. I actually timed Jack one time to see how long he cried and was surprised that what had seemed like 10 minutes was in truth only 2.

But back to Jack's first night in his own room. Jack went to sleep great, no fuss, just a fistful of moms hair and he drifted off to dreamland! Justin and I were patting each other on the back thinking this was a breeze... then came the first wake-up of the night. We both woke up, and listened to his pitiful cries, this was a lot harder than we had anticipated. Then, finally, daddy broke, his son was scared, didn't know where he was and needed his daddy. This is why I love that man! So that first night didn't work so well, and well, we just couldn't do it again after that.

Fast forward 2 months and Jack has recently been waking and standing in his crib crying till we come and put him back down. At first we thought he couldn't get back down, then we realized he was playing us. Sneaky little guy! So last night we vowed to try the cry it out theory again. 1 a.m. rolled around and Jack woke up, stood up in his crib and cried as if his little heart was breaking. Then he paused and listened for mommy and daddy, then cried, then listened, etc... I sat up listening to this pattern for about an hour before Jack finally fell back asleep, on his own. What about that loving daddy you might ask, well I had to use all my persuasive powers to stop him for going in there but it was worth it.

They say letting your child learn to put themselves back to sleep is the greatest gift you can give them. And while I understand this sentiment, I think the gift of a late night snuggle just can't be beat.

I Love My Ducks!

I just got tickets to an Oregon Ducks game and I am so excited! We've been talking about going to a game forever and not done it and I finally put all the talk into action. My family has been Duck fans for a long time now. When my sister went to the U of O I was able to go to a couple of games and sit in the student section. If you don't know what its like to sit in the "student section" you have never experienced college football at its craziest! :) 20 somethings decked out in yellow and green chanting, screaming... Go Ducks! This video was made last year when the Ducks were on their way to the Rose Bowl and I love it!

Its Friday... woot, woot!

Lets all breath a sigh of relief because its Friday! Ready one, two, three..... ahhhhhhhhh. I don't know about you but our household has had a busy week.

Some of my favorite things from this week were: going swimming at a friends house on one of our REALLY hot days, (thank you friend for sharing your cool waters with us), visiting with family, and our new way to cook zucchini (yummy!).

Some not so favorite things were: cleaning out my vacuum cleaner, running out of ice cream, and Jack's biggest crash yet which resulted in a toppled piece of furniture and a massive bruise on his forehead. I didn't want to leave the house after that one for fear someone would put me in the same category as that lady on the Southwest flight!

Thankfully though its Friday, I hope you all have some fun things planned. We will be praying Jack's teeth come in so we can all sleep in! Its the small things in life! :) I will leave you with another video of Jack's noises because they just crack me up. Have a fabulous weekend and we'll see ya next week.

Daily Jack

Jack wanted to share with you his motor boat impression! He works on it every morning.

Sweets for my sweet!

When you are pregnant people always want to know what strange cravings you have. I've heard of some crazy ones, cheetos with tapatio sauce and lemon, mushed bananas with peas and chili sauce, if that doesn't make your tummy curdle I don't know what will! However luckily for Justin I did not suffer from the frantic middle of the night need for a particular food item, well maybe just one. Sweets! Compared to the above cravings this one seems rather blasé though. Our freezer was well stocked with ice cream at all times in the last month of my pregnancy. I'm pretty sure Jack liked it as well because he was always jumping around in the evenings when it was time for some sweets! :)

Today I still love my bowl of ice cream, but I would trade it in for an alternative my sister introduced me too! VANILLA JILLS... just typing the name makes my mouth water! They have frozen yogurt, which is not only as tasty as any ice cream, it has less calories than premium ice cream! I recently had some of their Vanilla Bean with Lavender, so yummy. However, their Tart is also very good with some fresh fruit. If you ever are in Eugene on a hot day you definitely need to check them out.

Vanilla Bean with Lavender & Marrionberry with Chocolate Chips

The Daily Jack

Jack couldn't decide between his Huggies "Jeans" diaper or his dependable Pampers!

The "Daily Jack"

You always hear people say that kids grow up too fast. Everyday I look at Jack I see changes, and he is definitely sprinting towards being a big person! He just started crawling 2 weeks ago and is already pulling himself up on anything he can get his hands on. So, because of these rapid changes and the fact that my family lives terribly far away, I have taken to sending picture messages entitled "Daily Jack" as a way to share with them the daily changes, funny moments, and sweet snuggles of the little man. So here is the "Daily Jack" (well okay like 3 or 4)!

This is our shout out to the 80's...

... he was so proud of himself for standing up alone...

... that he had to try it in his crib...

... and he did it, which amused him very much!

DIY project and a goat

Yarn, fabric, tissue paper, glue, mod podge, pictures and more. I love doing crafty projects! Some of my favorite memories are of Kendra and I finding a cool new DIY project to try out. Safety Pin bracelets (Kendra rocked that project), hand crocheted scarves and hats, home-made christmas ornaments, wire picture holders and more. I currently have a growing list of DIY projects that I have seen in magazines or found online. My newest one is a hanging bed... yes, I know, how cool is a hanging bed. I've been in love with them ever since I visited a friends loft in which she had her very own, simply fantastic, hanging bed.

(picture from Ohdeedoh)

However, this project requires working with wood. Which, in hindsight I'm not quite that good with. My last project involving wood was to build a goat house for our goat. Yes, we had a goat. Not a cute little goat which comes to your knees but a full grown, I will head butt you goat. "Goat, goat" as it was dubbed (we had no clue as to the gender) arrived on our porch xmas eve in the arms of a friend who for some reason thought it was a great xmas gift. Let me add as a side note here that we are not goat herders. Dog people... yes, cat people... depends on who you ask, goat people... no! What possessed him to think we needed a goat is beyond me. Personally I wanted to return the favor with a pig or a ferret but Justin wasn't so inclined. Lucky for our friend. Our friend also generously included a leash, collar, and stake for the goat. Thanks!

This is what a day in the life of the goat went. Me: letting the goat off its leash cuz I felt bad, chasing goat because it was eating the plants on my patio, yelling at goat because it was pooping on my patio while running away from me. Henry: eating goat poop, pretending to herd the goat while chasing it around the house, eating more goat poop. You get the drift. Oh and as to the whole crop circle mystery, I would like to solve that one. Goat on a leash. It eats a perfectly round circle wherever you stake it. :)

But I digress, I felt bad leaving "goat, goat" out in the elements and decided to build it a shelter. Goggles in place I used Justins skill saw (? I think thats what it was) to cut extra boards we had in our barn. I spent a good 3-4 hours on that silly little creatures' house. But, by the time I finished the goat had something that looked like it came from a "Cat in the Hat" story. I'm thinking a builder is not in the cards for my future. Lucky for the goat Justin and our roommate at the time came to my rescue and fixed my haphazardly mess into a respectable little abode.

Which brings me back to my new fabulous DIY project... hmmmm, perhaps I will add that to my list of JDI (Justin Do It!) We will see.

Jack Crawls

Well somehow the end of last week turned into the first of this week. Things have been crazy around our house these days, some days I forget exactly what day it is I'm on. Never had that problem when I was teaching. Your days are mapped out in such detail you know each moment of every hour. But, back to Jack and his new lease on life. This video was taken with my phone so please excuse the poor quality. However I hope you enjoy this new milestone of Jacks'.

Old Family Photos

I've mentioned before one of my favorite websites/blogs Ohdeedoh which has a great collection of childrens rooms and kid-themed ideas. They recently had a post about people re-creating old family photos and it is such a hoot! You have to check it out!

Click here to view the article at Ohdeedoh

I'd Rather Be Jack Today

This is what I did today...

This is what Jack did today...

...guess who had more fun!

Giggles

Click here to view this video

Little Man of Action

Jack is now mobile. Froggy hop, inchworm, new terror on all fours, whatever name you want to call it, he has now mastered control and coordination of multiple limbs. And while I am ecstatic at this milestone he has reached, I'm also envisioning (insert sigh) the new supervision it will require. I took a gander at things around our house from a mobile Jack viewpoint... let me tell you the plethora of things that grabbed my attention was mind boggling! I will try to post a video later this week of the little man in action.

Oh speaking of video, I had an unfortunate discovery yesterday which reminds me of the love/hate relationship we seem to have with technology. Justin's computer crashed about a month ago, the air vent in our office was directed right at it, and while Justin had been faithfully cleaning out the dust, somewhere along the line the dust monster took over and killed the computer. 1 dust monster 0 us! The computer had to be cleared and reprogrammed or whatever it is that dead computers require. Meaning I lost all my video saved from our wedding, Jack's first photo shoot, bath, eating of solids etc. I literally mourned for those lost treasures, because while I have pictures of these events, the nostalgia one gets from watching old home videos of this and that is really something you can't replace.

Here is one video though which I thankfully had posted to shutterfly, its of Jack's first giggle/laughing session. Priceless!