Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Sensory Fun and Our Garden

Lately we've been trying to help Oliver start eating more. He's a pretty good eater, but has a hard time with textures. He'll try something and seem to like it, but gag or vomit before he can swallow. I did some research on the internet and found another family who was struggling with the same thing. This mother said they started doing sensory play each day and it helped their little one with his texture issues. So, I did a bunch of pinning on Pinterest and we started our sensory play.
Here's O's first sensory play: fun with dry macaroni.


We try to do something different a couple times a week.
He loved this shaving cream day...

At first he thought the shaving cream was pretty gross, but then he started to get used to the texture and by the end he was covered with shaving cream from head to toe!

We've also done flour and some different textures in gallon-sized bags. The easy part about sensory is that he often encounters new sensory experiences as we go through our normal day. The sandbox at the park is a good one, or the leaves and grass, just anything I can think of that would have a new or different texture. I think Thursday we're going to do boiled spaghetti noodles, it should be fun!
We've already seen it starting to help his texture issues, too. He's a much better eater now and hasn't vommitted at dinner for about a month, yay!

Two weeks ago I had a bit of an energy boost and it is still continuing, so we've knocked several things off the to-do list, hooray!
First was the garden.
Our last lawn maintenance person would only mow when he would come, and if there was anything on the lawn then he mowed around it. I can't believe they actually paid him, how does that even count as lawn maintenance? Whatever. So, it meant that the weeds around our apartment were crazy huge, especially lately since we've been getting quite a bit of rain. We had been planning on tearing them all out and planting a garden anyway, so we weren't too worried about it. Then, I actually started to work on pulling the weeds out and it was exhausting and took forever!
Here's O and I's progress on Day 1:

This chunk took me about 1 hour.
We only needed this front bed on the right clear to plant in, but I was going to do the strip on the left and the back bed on the right so we could actually see our sidewalk and it didn't look so trashy. I could see it was going to take me forever after I finished this first day, so I hit it for an hour a day as often as we had sunshine. Mike came home one afternoon and helped me do a chunk and then helped me finish it last week, woohoo! He would have helped me more often, but he almost always gets home after dark.
Then, this awesome thing happened... a guy showed up to do the lawn maintenance. This was surprising because we hadn't actually even seen the lawn guy for months. He mowed... then he edged... then he blew the clippings off with a leaf blower! What?! We love this new guy, he actually does something! Woohoo! This meant I didn't have to clear out the strip on the left or the bed in the back, since he knocked them down with the weed eater, yay! So much faster than a pregnant lady with a two-yr-old and a hoe!

Here's the friend O made on our first day:
I don't know what this thing is, but I was trying to be brave for O. No one wants their boy to be afraid of bugs! When we first found him I was a little surprised and I said, "Oh!" and jumped back. When O saw him he said, "I don't like him, let's run away!" I felt the same way, but I said, "Oh no, he's our friend! Look how cool he is!" O talked to him the rest of the time we were out there. We found him again the second day we went out to weed, lovely! Haha!
On later days we found a worm and a grub, both of which O took to immediately. He called them his friends and held them for awhile. He even wanted to kiss them, but I drew the line at that, no kissing critters! Unfortunately for his friends, he's not very gentle yet and neither of them survived the day. He didn't mean to kill them, but I'm pretty sure they didn't make it, poor little guys. Too much love I guess. We'll have to work on that.

Here's our spot all cleared out and planted, yay!!
We have two short rows of lettuce, a couple pea plants, and two short rows of carrots.
Now we wait... and weed! :)

O's been trying out his photography skills, here are some of his prints. :)





It definitely gives us an idea of what he sees... silly boy!

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Baby Mitchell

I've been a horrible blogger lately! Maybe it has something to do with the fact that all I can seem to do is keep up with O and the house and then collapse into bed shortly after getting Little Man to bed. This pregnancy is kicking my trash! I don't remember being so exhausted when I was pregnant with O, but I guess I also wasn't chasing a 2-year-old around and Mike wasn't working through Grad School.

Anyway, I thought I should do a post on the upcoming new addition!
When people ask me about how it's going, all I can tell them is how excited we are for this little one to come.
It might seem vague to them, but that's really most of what we're feeling. After losing our little one last January, it feels almost surreal for everything to be going so smoothly and we couldn't be happier!
A couple Sunday's ago I was sitting at the organ during Sacrament Meeting and it hit me how different that Sunday was from the first Sunday in February last year. I sat at the organ last year on the Sunday after our miscarriage and held back the tears as they announced the birth of a sweet baby to a family in our ward that week. It's sometimes hard to mourn the loss of a sweet little spirit that most don't know existed. This year though, I sat at the organ already bulging enough to make it difficult to use the foot pedals. While I still miss the little ones we've lost, I feel so incredibly blessed to have another sweet spirit on it's way to our family.

As for the pregnancy itself, it hasn't been too bad.
I was horribly sick during the first trimester, but Mike and I just considered it a blessing and a daily reminder that there was still a little one growing in there. (Mike had a little easier time at looking at the bright side of my morning sickness then I did, lol!)
6 weeks is a little early to see a baby bump, but I wanted a record just in case our time with this little one was short.
After I hit the 2nd trimester my sickness cleared up and I've been feeling pretty great, just exhausted.
I had a little problem with heartburn, but was able to clear it up pretty quickly, thank heavens!
I have spider veins and vericose veins, so I get to wear these incredibly fashionable compression socks around the house, which is pretty awesome.
20 Weeks
Here are all the pictures we have of our sweet little one.
 Profile

 Isn't it so tiny and cute?!







 Face

We're excited to be delivering him in Bear Lake. Especially since the office I've been going to here has forgotten I was there 4 times in the last 4 months I've been going there. Seriously? You can't even keep track of the patients you have checked-in? How could I possibly trust you to deliver my baby without forgetting about me or something?! 
After discussing it with my doctor here and the doctor I'll be delivering with in Idaho, I've decided to try for a VBAC. In order to VBAC(vaginal birth after Cesearean Section), I have to go into labor on my own, so we'll see how that goes. The plan is to give my body until June 8 and if nothing happens by then, then we'll have the baby by C-section that day. I'm a little nervous. What if it works and I actually have to deliver this baby?! I've never done that before. Last time I just laid down on the table and the doctor took it from there. I know that sounds totally ridiculous, but it is a little scary, right?

That pretty much covers this pregnancy, except for one very important detail:
Our little one's name!
We've already picked it and O loves it.
His name will be Elliott Dan Mitchell
O's middle name is after his Dad and Papa Mike, and Elliott's middle name is after Papa Dan. Both are incredible men for our little men to look up to!
Oliver is so excited, he talks about baby Elliott all the time:
"And then we will play with him and love him"
"I'll teach him how to run and run and run so fast!"
"Baby Elliott Dan kicked my face!"
"I love baby Elliott Dan!"
So do we, little one!
June 8th, here we come!