Kiki

Kiki is really sick. She was throwing up a lot last week, and peeing inside the house. Since then she has been very lethargic and won't eat or drink much at all. She doesn't even want to sit with anyone or sleep upstairs in our room with her doggy bed. She doesn't even beg for food like she normally does. She has a vert appointment tomorrow afternoon, hopefully she is ok.

Giveaway at Aint No Mom Jeans

Check out this giveaway for an awesome pair of toddler Ugg Australia Halfhitch sneakers. They're like a boat shoe with a little bit of sheepskin for comfort. Look great and Casper will be so adorable in them!

Aint No Mom Jeans Giveaway

Making our house prettier

We (well, Chris) finished painting the kitchen this week. We were trying to decide between painting or installing a backsplash, but when we got the granite countertops we got the 4 inch granite backsplash thingy so we just went with paint and no tile backsplash. It looks nice. If we had better light in the ktichen I would take apicture but every picture I take looks awful so you'll just have to come over and see it. Next for the kitchen I want to get new kitchen table chairs (white ones from Ikea) since right now we have two folding chairs (they are wooden with fabric seats but still) and 2 dining room table chairs that are too big for the kitchen table.

We hung some artwork around the main sloor this week, too.

This one is in between the two windows in the front room: It's a close up of a fern leaf:

This is an enlargement of a picture I took of Casper's crayon bin on his easel. We'll put it in his play area.

Also one of my pictures. Just a closeup of his toys, again for the play area.

Some abstracty seashell pictures in the family room. I want to bring some turquoise, teal, and green into the room for color and these pictures have some of that.

A giant wave picture that was taken in Waimea on North Shore, Oahu. I didn't take this one :)





We Love to Cook

Casper really enjoys being in the kitchen with me. When I am cooking or baking, he always says "try it!" before I can do anything, so he can give it a shot. He aprticularly wants to try it! with all of the sharp things that could badly hurt him, of course. He also really enjoys licking the bowl and beaters after we make cookies or quick breads or anything else sweet and yummy.

Some Photography

Here are some older photos that I recently got around to editing. Enjoy!

I am probably going to jinx it, but here it goes...

Casper has slept through the night for over a week now! I can't believe it, we have been so sleep deprived for so long.

Earlier this year, we moved him from our bed to a mattress on the floor of our bedroom. That worked ok, but I ended up spending almost every night on the floor with him. I think it was because my first inclination when he makes a peep was to check on him and help him go back to sleep. Then, after my parents visited in May, we moved Casper into his room, into a twin size bed that is pretty low. For a couple of weeks, I would still jump up when I heard a sound on the monitor and run into his room several times a night, practically ensuring that I wouldn't get any sleep. When I was put on bed rest, I knew that I just couldn't run around all night and that I especially needed my rest, so I tried to ignore the sounds on the monitor unless I thought he was truly awake and needed something. I guess that's what did it, I was probably keeping him awake more than he was actually waking up when I would rush to his bed and check on him all night long.

Anyway, he wakes up at 6:30 am, gets a 1 hour nap around noon, and goes to sleep at 8 pm. He gets to take a Hot Wheel of his choice and a bouncy ball to bed (I take them away after he falls asleep so he doesn't roll on one and wake up).

It is working really well for us and I feel so rested! It's especially great to have a couple of months of true rest before the baby comes. Another reason it is awesome to have Casper in his own room is that our room is just OUR ROOM again and it is so comfortable and calming not having a baby/toddler here. I absolutely loved co-sleeping and still take the opportunity to take a nap with him when I can, but it is so nice to have nighttime to ourselves again.

Cloth Diapering a Newborn: Round 2

I can't wait to be able to use cloth diapers on a newborn again! Actually, we didn't even use cloth on Casper for several weeks after he was born since he was too little for most of the diapers we had. And then, when he was about 6 weeks old and a little bigger (around 7 lbs, maybe?) we started using cloth along during the day and were still using sposies at night because I was a little nervous about using the cloth at night. I think Casper was 3 or 4 months old before we were using cloth 24/7.

Now, after using cloth for 2+ years, I know exactly what I am doing and plan to use cloth from the start. We will use prefolds and Thirsties covers at home and will buy some newborn AIOs, like Rumparooz to use when we go out. Once he outgrows those we'll use half of the bumGenius stash that we use for Casper for the new guy, splitting the colors up (maybe baby will get blue and white?) so we can just leave those in the appropriate size and will just be able to grab the right color for each kid easily. Hopefully Casper will be potty trained soon though, although he doesn't seem to have very much interest yet.

New Camera Lens

Chris and Casper gave me a new 50 mm prime lens for my brthday! I haven't played around with it too much, but here are a couple of shots I took:

I think I am going to take Casper's dinosaurs out in the yard and take some photos of the in the long grass to make prints for his room.

Good News

Had a doctor's appointment with the perinatalogist yesterday, I was sooooooo nervous. I wasn't feeling too well over the weekend, and was scared I was going to get admitted to the hospital. So Devon helped me pack all of my things up that I would want for a 3 or 4 month hospital stay, we loaded down the car and Chris met us at the hospital. We had our ultrasound, the little guy sounds good and had the hiccups! He was very wiggly, too. My placenta is finally moving, but is still previa. The doctor said she thinks it will take another 4-6 weeks to be completely clear of the cervix. But since I haven't had any bleeding, though, the doctor isn't too concerned with the previa. This week (22 weeks) is pretty much the deadline for getting a cerclage to prevent the cervix from shortening even further but we can't do it because of the previa. That's ok for right now though because my cervix has lengthened to longer than it was before they started monitoring me at 12 weeks! Yay! That is great news, the bed rest seems to be working. Between that and the 17-alpha hydroxy-progesertone shots maybe we can keep this guy cooking until 37 weeks!