Hodge Podge

I miss you all!  Life has been very busy.  Some days it seems like all I do is the stuff that needs to be repeated tomorrow or the next day-like laundry, cooking, straightening the house, and baths.  Its a good day if I get beyond these things!

I love love love making my own baby food and it is incredibly gratifying to make it for a child that will eat it.  So far AJ has had (in order) rice cereal, avocado, peas, green beans, and just yesterday we added carrots.  So far he loves them all with the exception of the avocado.  Charlie only liked sweet potatoes as a baby!  Thank goodness he has moved beyond that phase!  See, AJ even loves just the spoon :)  Of course, adding solids has increased the number of baths around here exponentially!

Another thing that added to the craziness around here is we switched around childcare.  My provider during the school year is amazing-so amazing that her whole family runs a Catholic camp all summer, which means they live there and can't do childcare.  My summer childcare provider from last year is having back surgery which means she will be out almost all summer, so I had to find new folks.  We ended up putting Charlie in preschool/daycare at our church.  He is in the 2 1/2 room and will continue through the school year  We are really excited and I know he will love it.  Today was his first day and he couldn't stop talking about the hamster, Ernie :)

AJ was a little tougher in that we had to split his days between two sitters.  That's lots of saying goodbye and collecting items, writing up schedules to train the new folks and redistributing stuff!  Just in case you still have respect for me, I should add its 2:30pm and I just realized I haven't yet pumped today-yikes!  Where does the time go?  We did have a lovely 4 day weekend (dh was off Friday) where we got stuff done, had family time, and squeezed in a date night.  I am finally feeling closer to being on top of things after last weekend-which was graduation!  Here are a few of my favorite pics.

 I went to say hi to family in their seats since I had some time and AJ was already hungry.  I must admit, I felt a little like superwoman nursing him under my gown so I made dh take a pic, lol.

 Being hooded.

 Me and my kiddos

 Favorite family pic-see I do shower and remove the glasses for special occasions! ;)

I made someone take a pic after I realized how funny it must look having a diaper bag slung over my gown!

So, its been a little nutty around here.  Add to what I already mentioned the crazy storms and tornadoes and my dh traveling a bunch for work (which both happened at the same time and were completely scary-both his city and mine were having crazy weather!)  The biggest news I saved for last-AJ slept from 6:30pm to 5:00am before eating the other day! He hasn't repeated it since, but now that I know he can, we are about to have some tough love at this house. I had recently took him down to two feedings (one before I go to bed and one in the middle of the night), but soon we are definitely dropping it down to one!

I owe you aso many posts-about baby food (thanks for so much great advice-and I still have a couple questions), and one about the pro life mother's day rosary I attended at Plann.ed Parenthood; also, I attended a Christ Renews His Parish retreat that was much needed and time so well spent!  And I had a visit with a fabulous friend that is as close to a saint as I will ever know.

p.s. I did read some of your blogs but I was unable to comment-grrrr!  I plan on catching up shortly!  You all are never far from my thoughts and prayers, especially on mother's day!

Three Opportunities for Sanctification

Leila, I love this title, but was too lazy to steal the icon!

1. When people use NFP interchangably with avoiding.  Example, I love Kimbe.rly Hahn, but in her book Life Giving Love she says that couples need serious reason to use NFP.  Clearly she uses it interchangably with the term avoid.  This book needs a change in its next edition.  NFP, in our case, was all about diagnosing and treating in order to achieve! 

2. Children getting yelled at by crabby parents. Seriously, folks, do you not know that children hearing yelling just tune you out?  It is so sad to hear and see people who don't appreciate children as the blessings they are!

3. Okay, don't kill me for this one, but I struggle with a) cheesy sitcoms and b) local news-mostly due to the cheesy transitions between segments.  These completely get on my nerves and then I get on dh's nerves complaining about them!  I guess that is his opportunity for sanctification! :)