Pre-Christmas post update

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Ours was good, lots of fun with Fiona this year and exciting for another first for James.

Sleeping training has been going well, James was sleeping 4-7 hour blocks (9 hours on Christmas!). We have hit a bump in the road, I think it's tummy issues, which has made me a bit soft thinking he may be in pain. Now, I'm just not sure what the deal is. He is awake and crying like it's the first night of sleep training, and it's 5:30 in the morning. He ate at 4:30, back to bed @4:45, was quite for 25 minutes, fussed so I tried to burp him, put him back down and he hasn't gone back to sleep yet. He seems to be settling down though, now that I'm wide awake.

Fiona is doing well she has a bit of cabin fever so we went to the park yesterday. It was 44 degrees, almost comfortable while lightly bundled. We played for about 30 minutes and then her lip was quivering so we called it a day.

I'll post our Christmas update soon since James is now sleeping and I'm still awake.

I heart sleep training : )

Ah, I got 6 straight hours of sleep last night, along with 2.5 hours before that! James did really well, the third night there is still supposed to be some crying, but there wasn't. I put him to bed at 6p, he slept until 9:30p I fed him, even though my book says not to feed them unless it's been 4-6 hours-it was close enough for me. He went back to sleep and woke up at 1:30, I fed him again and was kind of bummed thinking we were might continue with a 3.5 hour cycle. But no, he woke up cooing at 7:20am!! I can't even express how I feel today. James has been great too, he has stayed awake for 2 two hour blocks, he was happy and played on the floor with Fiona and I, and he enjoyed listening to me read a ton of books. He even sat happily in the exersaucer while I made lunch for Fiona-usually he is a mess by this time.
He current has been asleep for 1.5, which may come to an abrupt end if his squealing sister keeps up (she is playing in her crib during nap time-time to sleep train her again).

Because I feel like I have to balance the spotlight: Crazy Fiona in her wool pants, they are supposed to serve as a diaper cover, but I put them on her a lot because I think they are the cutest things ever-I want some for me.
I thought about apologizing for the messy clothes pile behind her, but really, we always have a clothes pile on our couch. So I'm not apologizing because it'll probably show up in other pictures too.

Thanks Casey and Jennifer, I needed the encouragement the other night!

Sleep training sucks!!

My kids as babies have been difficult, sweet, cuddly, beautiful...but difficult. Both cried for the first 3 months of life, obviously not the entire time, but it felt that way. Always at night and sometimes during the day, then once they outgrow that they have sleep issues.
Fiona slept through the night (6 or 7 hours) at 7 weeks, then around 4 months started going to sleep okay initially then waking every 30-40 minutes for 3-4 hours.
James' record was 6 hours, and that happened once. This past week he was waking up every 2-3 hours. He was sick on Sunday, 103 degree temperature and made us realize he is probably going to get sick like Fiona, always scary high fevers. So last night after 24 hours of no fever, with a sleep deprived Mama (who has too short of a fuse), I decided it was time to start sleep training. I hate it, but it worked for Fiona who still, most of the time, lays down and goes to sleep when it's time to. I thought I would use a more gentle approach and do the "fading" method or Ferber method, where you go in after 5 minutes, then 10, then 15 or 20, etc. That worked okay last night but tonight it just pissed him off more.
So far it's been different then with Fiona b/c he keeps going to sleep and waking back up 30-4o minutes later. She cried off and on for longer periods of time and then crashed. Hopefully this is the worst night and then I'll get to be the fun loving, patient Mommy I need to be. Not to mention James is obviously tired most times, so this will help him too. I remember after we did this with Fiona her personality really started to show more. Okay, I feel better. James was crying again and JR is at a final so I had to do something to take my mind off, but now he's sleeping and after writing/reading this I, again, feel like we are doing the right thing.

I can't post with out pictures so here are some from our walk last week (before it was 10 degrees out every day). Like sister, like brother-I hope these two can be really close growing up, I know there will be plenty of fights, but in the long run I pray they can be friends.
As we were walking Fiona said "Mommy, a huuuge Christmas tree!...but, it doesn't have lights."

And from our Chirstmas card photo shoot: I wasn't going to do Christmas cards this year but found a good deal so I ordered them yesterday. They might not be received until after Christmas but it shouldn't be more then a couple of days after.

More Talent: sorting colors

While I was getting James ready for bed tonight (JR was at the KU game), Fiona apparently started practicing her sorting skills....
















In the cats water dish, nice!
See, all the yellow now in the water bowl:

Talent (catch up post)

Fiona can pee like Aksel-she seriously started doing this herself, it took us a little while to figure out what she was doing:
She can eat sushi with chop sticks:
As of yesterday, James can sit with support (don't mind the blood on his nose-going to the doctor tomorrow to get him checked out-thinking it's just dry air):

Thanksgiving weekend!

When JR and I got married we chose to do Thanksgiving with his family, Christmas morning at home-just us, and Christmas with my family. Then we could do fake days with the other family if needed.
This year it was hard to figure out Thanksgiving, our kids fall apart in the car during a 20 minute trip, so traveling was questionable. We usually go to Topeka for JR's extended family's Thanksgiving dinner, but we weren't sure of the details. JR's Mom invited us to come see her in Americus, about 2 hours away, she was willing to work around our driving/sleep schedule too. So three days before Thanksgiving we finally decided to go south to see her and Shawn.

We packed up with Nate, JR's brother, and headed out at about 8:30am. The kids did really well in the car on the way down, Fiona stayed entertained by looking out the window until about half way through. I brought a bunch of books and the magnadoodle so those kept her busy until we got there. James took a good nap and the chewed on my hands or his toys the rest of the way.

The day went well James took a great nap (made me realize we need curtains in our/his room), Fiona totally skipped her nap, everyone got to catch up and hangout. Grandma let Fiona make a pudding pie, with help from uncle Nate.

Dinner was fabulous, thanks Shawn and Bindy!
Fiona entertained everyone during dinner:

Grandma, James, and JR:

J.R.'s brothers,Drew and Nate, and Bindy's boyfriend, Shawn, on the end:

We packed up and headed out at about 345 in order to minimize the car time when James hit his fussy time, after 5 or 530. Both kids crashed once we got on the highway.
Sorry this is sideways, I still haven't figured out how to turn videos, just turn you head-it's worth the neckache. This is one down side of sucking your fingers:


We only had about 20 minutes of James fussing on the way home. I crawled in the backseat and tried to keep him calm, he never got to the fully out scream, so I call the trip a success!

On Saturday J.R. went to a wedding in Topeka, so I took the kids to my parents house for leftover turkey dinner. It's always hectic when it's just the kids and I, so I didn't take pictures once we got inside.
But of course I have pictures of the kids in the car, for two reasons: 1) I finally turned Fiona forward facing in my car and James got moved to her old covertable seat (b/c my car is so old it doesn't have the top anchor and the seat we had for Fiona couldn't ride forward with out it, and my belt on one side doesn't lock right so I couldn't get the base for James' seat to stay tight for more then one trip -the seat he is in now has built in locking clips). and 2) because of my craftiness, I made Fiona's "babylegs" out of $1 target socks and I made James' pirate blanket. JR fixed my sewing machine...again.

We had a good time with both families, lots of good food and great company!!

The incredible un-edible egg

Fiona started eating scrambled egg yolks before her first birthday, after she turned one, scrambled eggs were one of her favorite foods. Then last January or so she stopped eating them-didn't think much of it because she actually got really picky at the time. In march we went to Culver's and got dinner and custard. Shortly after dinner Fiona broke out in hives all over her face and neck and a few on her belly. We couldn't figure out what caused it,
that was probably the third time she had ever had fast food, so we wondered if it was the oil they fried the food in.
In June I made eggs in a basket for dinner one night. Fiona took two bites and broke out in hives all over her tummy, neck, and face. It still took some research to figure out that egg was the common food. Did you know there is raw egg in Culver's custard?

At Fiona's 2 year WCC the pediatrician was very clear that an egg allergy can be life threatening and we needed to completely avoid eggs until we saw an allergist.

So, in the end of September we took her to the allergist and he verified that she is allergic to eggs, the skin test ranked 4+, the highest rating. We also found out she has a mild wheat allergy (ranked 2, not enough to avoid), which explains the almost constant bumpy rash around her mouth, and the terrible eczema she has had every winter on the back of her neck.
We were too panicked to take pictures of the egg reaction but this is the wheat rash:


He prescribe an Epi pen for her because egg allergies can have an anaphylaxis reaction (throat close, tongue swelling, etc). It seems her allergy is mild because she was eating eggs with no reaction for so long, but every exposure can cause a different reaction.

It is very likely she will outgrow the allergies, the allergist thought possibly by next year! Kind of frustrating still; you hear all the information about how breastfed babies have fewer allergies and fewer ear infections, etc. And here we are, I nursed Fiona until 16 months and we have/had both, I guess I have to think of how much worse it might have been right? :)

On top of all that, I am dairy free because James has a dairy intolerance. Both the allergy diagnosis and the initial discovery of the dairy intolerence came in the same month so I was in a serious cooking rut...until I was referred to Peas and Thank you (Thanks Stephanie), not only is she a great cook but she is hilarious, and super nice! I have found great cookie, waffle, pancakes, etc recipes with no eggs and no milk!


That was one hell of a catch up post, I have more vegan cooking updates but that was a lot for one post. If you are still here thanks!