Happy birthday little boy!

Yes, I am behind in my posts.  It's not like I don't have things to write about, because I do.  I just can't find the time to write.  Work has been crazy, the kids are terrific but crazy, the kitchen has been crazy (I am cooking up a storm), and Adam's work has been crazy, which has led me to do more around the house and with the kids.  The good news is that after 6 weeks of at least one person being sick in our family, everyone is healthy.  Yay!!!

And my little baby had a birthday.  I can't believe he is one year old already.  I remember when he was born. 

And now . . .



We had a small family gathering to celebrate his birthday, and of course, I made him a special cake.

I took the kids to the store to get some decorations.  I wanted to specifically say 1st birthday, so I knew I was limited.  There were 2 for boys, one just blue, and one Sesame Street.  Sesame Street won.  Then I remembered that my friend made an Elmo cake for her daughter's birthday a couple of years ago, and sure enough she still had the directions and the cake pan.  I think it turned out pretty good.  For the cake, I used this recipe.  Now everyone is different when it comes to cakes, and I am not a huge cake fan (I said cake, not sweets people), but I thought this cake tasted amazing!  It's a little more dense than most cakes probably, but I thought it tasted awesome.  I did half organic whole wheat pastry flour and half organic unbleached white flour.  If you have to bake a cake anytime soon, I recommend this recipe. 

And here I am in hte kitchen cooking.  We had dinner at our house for the little guy's party.  I made hummus, homemade trail mix, spaghetti with 2 kinds of meatballs (one had meat and one did not), salad bar, garlic bread, and of course, the cake.  Dinner was a hit.  Everyone enjoyed it!

Everyone was not a fan of the party hats though.  I was lucky to get this one picture with my kids and their party hits (mine too of course).  I can't believe how big they are getting.

I wish I had pictures of the little guy eating his cake, but they wouldn't upload.  I will add them later if I can get it work.  Now Hope is a girly girl, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the way she is being raised.  She is all about skirts, dresses, princesses, and not getting sticky.  So one her first birthday, she was not into the whole cake in mouth thing.  It wasn't for her.  She didn't really even play with it.  Total bummer.  But my Aidan, he is a different story.  We gave him a whole eye of Elmo, so it was like his own individual cake.  He started out slow, but once he figured it it was a lot of yummy sugary stuff, he went crazy.  He had it all over his mouth, hands, it was . . . AWESOME!  I loved every minute of it.  I will never forget that moment. 

I then took the little guy into his 1 year appointment and he is weight is ok.  He is in the 7th percentile and still pretty picky about what he eats and how he eats it.  He only has 2 teeth still so I don't feel like I can give him much, but we are trying.  I am still nursing, but not as often and not in a rigid schedule like before.  He has had whole milk and had no problems with it.  I really struggle with what to give him.  He take organic whole milk with most meals and a little extra when I am not around, but he doesn't drink that much.  I nurse him anywhere between 2 and 4 times a day and then at night if he is waking up (he has been sick with an ear infection so I am currently nursing him when he wakes which is twice a night right now).  I am trying to be careful about soy with him because he is a boy, but the kid does like tofu. He hasn't had any meat, and doesn't like beans.  If there are any moms who have picky kids, tell me what you give them.  I refuse to have him eat chicken nuggets and mac and cheese every week.  We are doing what the ped recommends which is to just keep introducing the food over and over. 

Oh, and 4 days after the little guy's birthday, I celebrated my birthday.  The hubs did a great job for my birthday.  I felt very special.  And the cake I had was awesome!  It's a special place we get cakes for each other and they even come in vegan versions.

Did I achieve 2011 goals and what are my 2012 goals?

So here are the questions I posed one year ago. Let's see how I did.

• Get Hope into a "big girl" bed (hopefully Jan. 2011)
• CHECK - pretty easy transition except for climbing out of her bed repeatedly at the beginning and playing with her toys at night and nap
• Get nursery ready for new baby (again Jan. 2011)
• CHECK - but not until March really
• Clean out office/gym area and make it more defined and less cluttered (Feb. 2011)
• CHECK
• Birth a healthy baby (ideally without having to be induced this time) (March 2011)
• CHECK, went into labor by myself - 10 days early, had baby with no drugs
• Make a smooth transition from a family of 3 to a family of 4
• CHECK - Hope had little issues with her baby brother
• Develop a schedule where I can get in my workouts with 2 kids while still nursing (that is going to hurt those early morning workouts, any advice?)
• Kinda CHECK - I think I did pretty well considering no early morning runs really because I am still nursing (and hate pumping) and the lack of sleep until just recently
• Get back into pre-pregnancy running shape (no date because I don't want to try to over due it)
• Another kinda CHECK, I mean I did not PR, but some of my races were close
• Participate in the Race for the Cure 5k (this is in May, just 6 weeks after I am due, so I say participate instead of run, because I may be pushing a double jogging stroller in this one)
• CHECK - I started pushing the stroller, but it was so crowded the hubs ended up doing it so I could do a little bit of running
• Run the Peachtree Road Race (10k), ideally in under 55 minutes (PR is 50:02), but again, not going to push myself.
• CHECK - ran it in 52:26 (6.31 miles)
• Run the 13.1 Marathon in Atlanta in October
• CHECK, but after so much lack of sleep and poor training (due to lack of sleep), it was not a great race for me.
• Would like to run some more (3 new) local fun races (5k's and other lengths that aren't traditional)
• Ran 2 new races this year (a 4 miler in June and 5k in November)
• Develop a stronger relationship with my husband (see they aren't all about running)
• CHECK - we had a really good year, especially considering our family grew and we didn't sleep, can't wait for next year
• Have 110 blog entries in 2011
• FAIL - I got really bad at the end of the year, I am going to blame the little guy again. 
• Run 750 miles in 2011 (I would love to say 1,000 but with the whole pregnancy and giving birth thing, I think 750 is going to be ambitious enough)
• FAIL - I ran 680.92 according to my records which could be off, but not by that much.  I tried to keep track in my training log book and think I did pretty well.  Will try for 750 again this year.

2012 Goals

1. Run 750 miles
2. Blog more (110 again)
3. Increase Interval training/Tempo runs - aim for 4 times a month (30 min HIIT on 1/3 was 3.12 miles)
4. Increase bond between my daughter and son (it's important to me that they have a good relationship with each other, especially since they are not the same gender)
5. Enjoy my time with my children - try not to be so rigid with my schedules
6. Submit a recipe for a contest (there is one that is due the end of March, so I think I will try that hopefully)
7. Investigate an herb garden again (don't have to start it this year, so think about how to do it right)
8. PR a race this year (doesn't matter the distance)
9. Accept changes in my life and try not the dwell
10. Aim to do 10 races this year
11. Go on a date with my husband that is not a wedding, anniversary, or holiday party (yep, I am aiming for just one considering last year was one and that was before the little man came)
12. Continue to build a better relationship with hubs (I know, how subjective, right). 
13. Try to be a more positive person.
14. Abs workouts 3 days a week (abs are still very weak, but not sure they will ever get strong after 2 pregnancies).
15. Embrace my new roles (not going to get into this right now)

What are your goals?  Anything else I should add? 

I survived Hopeapalooza

Last week was such a crazy week, I can't believe I survived.  My little girl is 3 years old.  I can't believe it.  I feel like she is a child now, not a baby or even a toddler (I know she is technically still a toddler, but it doesn't feel like it). 

Little Miss Hope Cecile has been giving us drama from the very beginning.  Not only was she conceived with love, but also modern science and medicine.  Then when I was 20 week pregnant, her growth dropped a little.  They told us not to worry but come back for another extensive ultrasound in 6 weeks.  We did and she had dropped even more, being diagnosed with borderline IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction).  I was put on modified bestrest and told to consume as many calories as possible (easy to say after they freak you out so bad that the thought of food makes you want to vomit).  I won't take you through all of the details, but the specialists wanted me induced after she stopped growing at 38+ weeks which was something I didn't want, but had been so upset for so long, I just wanted her out and healthy.  The induction went well and relatively fast for inductions and my "miracle" baby was born on Oct. 14, 2008 at 7:30am (yep I labored all night long).

3 years later, . . .

For her birthday, we took her out to dinner and to see Disney on Ice - Dare to Dream.  Dinner was nearby the arena at Johnny Rockets.  Little Hope wanted a "pink" shake and chicken fingers.  And they have a very good veggie burger, so I was happy. 

At first, she didn't like the show. 

We were very close, it got dark fast, and it was loud, so it was a good 20 minutes before she calmed down.  She survived and really enjoyed the second half.  The next day was her family birthday party, aka Christmas for Hope. 

For dinner, I did 2 veggies soups, vegetarian chili with butternut squash (pretty much used this exact recipe), and baked potato soup.  The chili is very good, btw.

For her cake, Hope wanted a pink cake with pink icing and pink ice cream. 

It was a whirlwind weekend, but we survived and lived to tell the story, including this guy . . .



A big girl bed

We moved Hope into her big girl bed early last week.  The good news is she loves it and doesn't miss her crib at all (which is now in the nursery)! 

(Ignore the fact that the bed skirt hadn't made it on the bed quite yet.  This was the first night in her bed.  The skirt was ironed and put on by the weekend).

The bad news is that she figured out how to get out of her big girl bed on the second day, so we are struggling with keeping her in her bed at nap time and night time.  We hadn't moved her into a big girl bed before now because she never tried to get out of her crib so we just enjoyed the crib for as long as possible.  But now that we are nearing #2 coming into the world, we wanted there to be some time in between Hope moving out of the crib and #2 moving into the crib in case Hope didn't like the idea.  She got new bedding for Christmas, I ordered a bed rail from Amazon and we were just waiting for the perfect weekend to do it.  Well she was so excited about the size of the bed (it's a full) and the pretty bedding, she has forgotten about the crib.  Yeah!

Her first night in her bed and Daddy won the honors of reading her a story and tucking her in.  If anyone has any tips to keeping your little one in bed other than sitting on the bed with her until she falls asleep (ranging from 15 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes), we are all ears. 

But of course I don't mind too much having to snuggle with this face.     

Halloween 2010

Ok, so I decided not to do my posts in chronological order, because if I did, I might not get to Halloween until after Thanksgiving.  I wanted to capture the Halloween weekend before there was too much Thanksgiving talk (tell me it's not in 3 weeks already). 

So little Miss Hope was not really into the whole carving the pumpkin, especially when we were cleaning the inside out.  After Adam would scoop out the insides, I immediately separated out the seeds to toast them in the oven.  Yummy!

Here we have the finished product (got dark on us fast).  I know it's blurry, but you can tell our pumpkin is winking.  :)

It's Minnie Mouse.  We actually went to a Halloween party on Saturday night and dressed up then too.  She was not nearly as fond of the costume on Saturday, but by Sunday, she had no problems putting it on.  I need to remember to keep that in mind for next year, it's good to have a trial run.

Hope and friends trick or treating.  We had a couple of my friends come to our neighborhood to trick or treat with us.  It was a lot of fun and Hope was a real trooper.  I still can't believe she made it the whole time (both kids are older than Hope).

The transportation for the kids.  We would pull them in the wagon (can't take credit for this idea) and then let them out and they would run up the driveways.  Considering our age range was barely 2 to 3.5 years, it was a great idea and plan to use it again.

So that was our Halloween.  We had a blast!  Can't for for next year.  We will have 2 little ones!  Yikes!

So far behind, Happy Birthday little one

No excuse, but we have been having problems with our computer and downloading pictures and videos from our camera.  So you haven't had many personal updates from me lately.  But now we have it all figured out so you will be getting a lot coming to you over the next couple of days.  I will try to keep it in chronological order for you though.



My little girl turned 2  years old earlier this month!  Since she was born at 7:30am, by the time she was dressed for her mother's morning out program, she was already 2.  Here she is showing off!

Adam and I got her a bike seat to go on the back of Adam's bike.  We did this on vacation back in August and she still talks about it.  So we thought that would be the perfect gift for her.  She loves it!  Check out her new helmet. 

For her birthday party, I made her a homemade ice cream cake (she loves ice cream just like her mommy).  But her aunt and uncle wanted to make mickey and minnie cakes since we were having a mickey mouse party, and then they had leftover batter, so they made her another one.  So my lovely child had 4 cakes for her 2nd birthday.  Seems about right.

Here is a close up of the cake I made her.  It was a nutter butter crust, chocolate chip ice cream with a reese's peanut butter cup middle layer, and then whipped cream icing. 

Hope is not sure about all this singing for her (already in some dress up clothes from her aunt and uncle).

Eating her ice cream cake (which was her favorite). 

I still can't believe my little baby girl is already 2 years old.  She really has changed so much and acts like a child, not a baby.  I am so proud of her and so happy to be her mother.  I love you Hope!

Adventures at the Botanical Gardens

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to take my little one to the Botanical Gardens while it was still warm.  Unfortunately, I had just run 4 miles with the jogging stroller and didn't thinking about all the walking I was going to have to do.  Oops!

Well, it was a fun experience but she is still a little young (and obviously over getting her picture taken).  Here she is at our first garden.

Her favorite was the Japanese garden with rocks.  She could have stayed for hours playing with the rocks.  

I saved the best for last (smart mommy) - the children's garden.  Here, my little girl is going through the catepillar (we went all the way through where the catepillar became a beautiful butterfly).

Playing in the sandbox.  Fun times!

Lastly, I read about this place before we went, so I saw that there is a little foundation for children to cool down.  So I brought her swim suit so she could play and then we could change back into her regular clothes and not be wet the rest of the day.  

 

After a long morning, we hit Moe's for lunch and then a quick visit to hubby's office.  We were back home and everyone needed a nap.  :)

Fun Toddler Project

It was a lazy Friday day for us so I decided it would be arts and crafts day at the house.  I actually stole this idea from a friend of mine.  We have a bunch of different trees in our yard, but we do not have any pine trees.  So Hope and I took a short walk around the neighborhood and looked for some pine trees.  We collected a couple of pine cones and headed back to the house.  

Collected our pine cones and tried some string around the top of each pine cone.

Melt some peanut butter in a bowl and then let your toddler (very carefully) roll the pine cone in the peanut butter.  Cute little hand!

Then roll the peanut butter glazed pine cone in some birdseed.  

The finished product.  

Then we headed to the back yard to put our birdfeeders on a tree.  Hope enjoyed the project and it was a pretty quick one so she didn't get bored either.  

Give it a try with your toddler.

VACA 2010

Finally!!! Vacation time! We couldn't wait! We usually go in July but we had my brother-in-law's wedding, so we pushed our vacation back until mid August. I can say it was worth the wait! We went last year when Hope was 9 months old. We had a good time, but Hope was still napping twice a day and wasn't walking or anything. This year was very different. I thought we had fun last year; this year was so much fun! It was so much fun to see Hope enjoying the beach. We had toys for her to play with on the beach, toys for the baby pool, etc. She was so much fun and we tired her out, so she took some great naps and even slept in until 8am (that's huge for us).

On the exercise front, I was able to run twice, went on 2 bike rides, and played some tennis. I was hoping to run 3 times (and at least once on the beach which didn't happen) but I wasn't planning on both of the bike rides.

Here Hope is trying calamari for the first time. She loved it along with fried shrimp.

My baby girl playing in the sand. We did good - she never got burnt. Props to us.

Ready for lunch and a nap it looks like. She played very hard.

Getting ready for the bike ride. We rented a bike with a seat on the back for Hope. She enjoyed it so much that we are thinking of getting her a seat to go on the back of Adam's bike at home. Any recommendations???

A sweaty mommy after tennis holding her sweet angel baby.

Hope helping Daddy build a sand castle.

Diva!

A sunset on one of last nights on vacation.

Potty Training, yikes!

Well, we have embarked on this journey. Hope has been in cloth diapers since she was 3 months old and still got terrible diaper rash. There were a lot of foods we couldn't give her even though she loved them (grapes were a big one). So I started researching potty training. I saw a lot of conflicting research about whether or not to train your child before age 2 or after age 2. Hope is not in daycare, so it was going to have to be me who trained her. After all my research and talking to other moms and friends, I decided to potty train Hope at the end of July. We used the Potty Training Boot Camp method. Hope got a potty for Christmas last year so we had had it out for a while for her to get used to it. I read the boot camp book and got all my supplies. One Friday, we started with Day 1. The good news was we had 8 successes and 3 failures. She also figured out what she was supposed to do on the potty, so I didn't have to even keep her on their the whole 5 minutes. If she had to go, she went. So I felt like we made great progress, even though the book said 90% of children initiate going to the potty before the end of day 1. Days 2-4 we tweeked. Hope didn't feel comfortable wearing nothing on her bottom half, so we just did training panties. It was a lot slower progression than I had thought (again the book said 3 days was all I was going to need). But after 5 days, we were on the right track and by 7 days, we were doing well. It was very had work and frustrating at times (for everyone involved), but we in the end, we have a potty trained little girl.

If you have specific quesitons about what we did, feel free to post and comment and I will reply.

Traveling with toddler, HELP

So Adam's company is sending him to South FL for a couple of days and Hope and I are going with him to soak up some rays. We have been pretty lucky when it comes to traveling with Hope. We usually stay in places where we have plenty of room and she has only been on an airplane twice (once good, once not so good). The flight will only be 1.5 hours long at most so that is good, but now that she is a toddler, what do I need to bring to help her? Also, can I bring milk for her through security or not? No, not breast milk, just regular milk for her?

The airport is 18 miles away (Fort Myers airport, FYI), so I guess we will be renting a car. According to Delta's website, we can check her car seat at no charge. Is that true?

Any tips or advice with all of us staying in one hotel room? Nap time? I was thinking of just taking her on a walk during her afternoon nap but she probably won't sleep very well. I won't have my jogging stroller with me (too big and doesn't fold well) so I will be sporting my McClaren on the trip.

I am very excited about getting away for a couple of days and going to the beach. Should be a lot of fun! I just want to make it as smooth as possible for Hope so she has as much fun as we do!