My Decision

I bought the Graco Mosaic for the following reasons:

1. Brandt prefers to walk wherever we go and I think once the novelty of the Sit N Stand wore off, he wouldn't be interested anymore and we'd be stuck with the bigger stroller.

2. The Mosaic still holds the infant car seat but it's not as big as the old Quattro Tour or the Sit N Stand.  I tried pushing the Sit N Stand at the store and it felt more awkward because it was longer.  And the carseat would be way out in front with the Sit N Stand.

3. The Mosaic is lighter and smaller and collapses like an umbrella stroller so it takes up less space in the back of my car.

4. I always have the option of carrying Lillian in the Bjorn and pushing Brandt in the stroller if need be.

Ultimately, my goal was to have less bulk and awkwardness with my stroller so I'm hopeful that the Mosaic fulfills my needs.  I'll be testing it at the zoo tomorrow.  But I know I'll still have stroller envy.

I Need Input

I'm thinking of participating with the Babies R Us Trade-In Event that's currently taking place so I can get rid of my old, ridiculously large and cumbersome Graco Quattro Tour stroller.  I am undecided on whether to get a Sit N Stand so Brandt has the option to ride, or a Graco Mosaic which is smaller & lighter than the Quattro Tour but still accepts the car seat.  Brandt is turning 3 in a couple of weeks and I really don't know if he'd still be interested in riding for that much longer.  I'm conflicted.

Favorite on Friday

I love my iPod Touch.  It's pretty much an iPhone without the phone or camera ... and I LOVE IT! Especially because I don't have to pay for monthly connectivity or data plans.  Since we have a wireless router at our house, my iPod keeps me entertained in the middle of the night when I'm feeding Lillian, and it's so easy to check my email or Facebook without needing my laptop.  And since a lot of places have free wi-fi (even my Safeway) I can easily stay connected throughout the day. 

Thanks, Lindsey, for introducing me to the iPod Touch :)

What's For Dinner?

I tried this super easy crock-pot soup recipe earlier this week and it turned out really well.  And super easy is always a good thing for food.

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup
from allrecipes.com

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 6-7 hours

1 onion, chopped
1 (16oz) can chili beans
1 (15oz) can black beans
1 (15oz) can whole kernel corn, drained
1 (8oz) can tomato sauce
1 (12 fluid oz) can or bottle of beer
2 (10oz) cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
1 (1.25oz) package of taco seasoning
3 whole skinless, boneless chicken breasts
shredded Cheddar cheese (optional)
sour cream (optional)
crushed tortilla chips (optional)

1. Place onion, chili beans, black beans, corn, tomato sauce, beer, and diced tomatoes in a slow cooker.  Add taco seasoning and stir to blend.  Lay chicken breasts on top of the mixture, pressing down slightly until just covered by the other ingredients.  Set slow cooker for low heat, cover & cook 5 hours.

** I use frozen chicken breasts and set my slow cooker to high **

2. Remove chicken breasts from soup and shred.  Stir shredded chicken back into soup and cook for another hour or two.  Serve topped with shredded cheese, sour cream, and crushed tortilla chips, if desired.

Like I said, super easy.  Just throw a bunch of stuff into a crock pot, turn it on, and by the end of the day you have some yummy soup.  Try it.  You'll like it.

Jury Duty

This is the first time I have ever been summoned, and luckily I should be able to get out of it since I exclusively breastfeed Lillian.  She hasn't taken a bottle yet, although we've only tried once.  But I'm pretty sure they won't want me bringing my 3.5 month old baby with me so this is another YAY for breastfeeding.

The Shortest Month

It figures that the shortest month of the year is always my busiest month.  Here's a quick rundown:

1st - my nephew's birthday
4th - our anniversary
6th - my father-in-law's birthday
7th - Brandt's birthday party & the Super Bowl
9th - Brandt's actual birthday, my dad's birthday, Rachel's birthday
14th - Valentine's Day

That's 5 birthdays within 9 days.  And I'm actually planning a bigger party for Brandt this year which makes me a little nervous but I'm hopeful we can pull it off.  Sadly, our anniversary kind of gets brushed aside with all the birthday chaos.  And by the time Valentine's Day rolls around we've kind of forgotten about it.  So romance & hearts & flowers are the last things I think about during February.  But at least we get a lot of cake.

Favorite on Friday

I thought I'd start a weekly post about some of my favorite things.  I was inspired by Colleen's Ten on Tuesday posts.  So here goes ...













I love Trumpettes!  I think they are the cutest little socks for baby girls and I get so excited when I put them on Lillian.  I have the Mary Jane pastel socks but I also think the Pixies are adorable as well.

What's For Dinner?

This recipe has always gotten rave reviews.

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Bake Time: 35 minutes

Baked Ziti
1 lb. ground beef or ground turkey
1 lb. ziti (or penne or mostaccioli, whatever you prefer)
2 jars pasta sauce
6 slices provolone
1 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded mozzarella

1. Bring pot of water to boil.
2. While water is heating, brown & drain mean in skillet.
3. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
4. While pasta is cooking, add both jars of pasta sauce to meat and simmer for 15 minutes.  (Season to your liking with oregano, garlic powder, basil, parsley flakes, onion powder)
5. Spray a 9x13 casserole dish with cooking spray.
6. Drain pasta & layer as follows:
     1/2 pasta, 1/2 sauce mixture, sliced provolone, sour cream, 1/2 pasta, mozzarella, 1/2 sauce mixture
7. Cover with foil & bake 30-35 minutes.

Mission: Organization

I really need to get on a schedule for cleaning my house.  Like, Monday is bathrooms, Tuesday is kitchen, Wednesday is dusting, Thursday is bedrooms, etc.  With a load of laundry thrown in every day to keep up with it.  If anyone has a schedule they use right now I'd love to read about it ... I'm open to suggestions!!  And since little Miss Fuss only catnaps during the day, I usually only get 30 - 45 minutes of time to do things.  Brandt is pretty good about entertaining himself, or I'll turn on one of his favorite shows.

Side note: He LOVES the new show Chuggington on Disney.  He loves trains to begin with and this show is all about trains to he is in heaven.  And when I say he loves trains I mean we have 3 different train sets out all day long: Thomas, GeoTrax, and Little Thomas.

Also, I need help with the following: potty training my almost 3 year old.  Any book/dvd suggestions or general tips would be greatly appreciated!  And I also really need to get rid of the pacifiers.  What can I say, after Lillian was born any semblance of order and rules and structure kind of went out the window during the newborn chaos.  As in, "What, Brandt?  You want marshmallows for a snack?  Fine, here."

And what happened to the spell check button on blogger?  I apologize for any misspellings.

Just Between Friends

I heard about this really cool consignment sale a few months ago and they're having the next one in March.  I'm conflicted, though, for several reasons.  1. Do I save my baby clothes to pass on to friends who might have babies in the near future or do I sell what I can now to try to make some money?  2. Will I have another child in the next few years and need this stuff again?

I've asked Joe several times what his opinion is and he never said one way or the other, so I don't know if he'd eventually want to have another baby.  And a few of my friends are trying to get pregnant so I could hold onto the stuff and pass it on.  I just don't know.  But the sale seems really fun, so even if I don't end up selling some of my stuff I do plan on shopping.

Cry It Out

I think that's what I had to do because after I had my breakdown on Tuesday things have gotten progressively better.  Lillian started sleeping at night, which means I have been sleeping at night, which means I'm a much happier person.  I honestly don't know what happened but something seemed to click with her and she's been sleeping really well.  I started putting her to bed at 6:30pm, which I know sounds really early, but in baby-land it's not.  At this age Brandt was regularly going down between 6:45-7pm.  And I can tell she wants depserately to go to bed, because by 6:10 she's on the verge of completely losing it.  So I give her a quick bath, smear on a ton of Triple Paste, swaddle her up and put her to bed.  Just keep your fingers crossed that this trend continues.  At this point I don't really care that she's only taking 20-45 minute catnaps 4-5 times a day, as long as the night time sleep continues.

How to Be a Crappy Mom

Just ask me, I'm an expert!  My 3 month old won't sleep.  No naps, up every 45 minutes to 1.5 hours at night.  If I weren't taking Celexa I would have broken down well before today.  But today is an official breakdown.

I called the pediatrician's office and the nurse told me to let her cry it out (CIO).  I tried that for one of her naps and she screamed for 30 minutes.  I picked her up, calmed her down, and nursed her to sleep.  I put her down in her crib and she's making noise already and it's only been 10 minutes.  If I rock her to sleep and put her down she's usually up within 30 minutes, sometimes five.  If I try to put her down drowsy so she can put herself to sleep she just gets super pissed off and cries.  She just wants to be held.

And she's super fussy all freaking day long because she's SO TIRED.  She doesn't get the sleep she needs.  And that's my fault.  I really need a break because I feel completely spent.  There's not much more of me left.  I want to feel pretty again, I don't want to always look like I just rolled out of bed.  I want to brush my teeth in the morning, but sadly that's the last thing that usually gets done ... so sometimes it doesn't get done at all until bedtime.  I want to have time to shave my legs.  I want to remember what it feels like to be good at something, because I feel good at nothing right now.  My house is a disaster.  I'm just sitting here crying because my whole body feels too heavy & exhausted to get up and do anything.

Dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far ... far, far away from here.

Therapy

I don't do this very often, because honestly it's not in our budget, but every once in a while it makes me feel better to shop. And it's a lot better for my ass & thighs to shop than to eat chocolate chips, so that is my coping mechanism. But I definitely have to keep it in check and I ONLY do it when I get an awesome deal. So here's my awesome deal:

OldNavy.com & Gap.com, 22 pieces of clothing that were either on sale or on clearance, 20% off the Gap items, & free shipping with $100 order using my Gap VISA. 22 items for $108. That's $4.91 each piece if you average it.

I refuse to pay full price for anything and I love free shipping deals in conjunction with an extra percentage off already reduced merchandise. Makes me feel like I conquered the retail world, even if it was only $108 worth. But at least I can feel good at something when I'm currently feeling incompetent as a mother.

And I'm in a particularly good mood right now because both kids are sleeping. Cross your fingers for me.

Scratch that, she just woke up.

High Maintenance

So far I have gotten the following items to help Lily sleep better:














I've also been trying to treat her horrible diaper rash that she's had since she was 2.5 weeks old. I think that was part of the reason she hadn't been sleeping well. I tried A&D ointment, Balmex, Desitin, Buttpaste, Aquaphor, Vaseline & hydrocortisone, FIVE different brands of diapers: Pampers, Huggies, Luvs, Seventh Generation, Nature Babycare. I even tried pouring breast milk on her bottom because breast milk has healing properties. I left her diaper off for 20 minutes at a time to let her air out and I took her to the pediatrician TWICE for it. The doctor was a waste of freaking money. My mom suggested corn starch and so did another mom I spoke with so I gave that a try. It helped for about 24 hours before the corn starch over-dried her skin and made it even more irritated. Think lobster-red sunburn on your butt. Finally I gave in and spent the money on this ridiculously expensive cream called Triple Paste. Her butt cream costs more than all of the products I use for my skin & hair COMBINED, which I guess doesn't say a whole lot about my beauty routine. But it's totally worth it because that's the only thing that healed her bottom.
Now I just need to get her sleep back on track because we've been regressing lately and I really need a night that does look like this: 12:30am wake up, 2:30am wake up, 3:45am wake up, 5:20am wake up. I know she'll get there but she's just taking her sweet time about it.

It's times like these when I wish my coffee was regular strength ... and Irish.

Party Planning

I'm starting to get things together for Brandt's 3rd birthday party. I already reserved the location and I'm super excited about it because he LOVES the place, and it wasn't as expensive as some other similar venues. We went to the party store today and I had him pick out his theme. And then I asked him repeatedly over the next 30 minutes if he was sure that's the theme he wanted, because you never know. And for all I know he could change his mind after his nap today. But at this point I'm sticking with his original pick. I have to get his invitations together and send them out next week sometime ... I'm thinking of inviting all the kids in his class since there are only 10 including B.

It's amazing to me how much he's grown recently. He's talking so much more and coming up with all sorts of clever things. And he's been so good with Lillian. He tries to help when she cries and he always talks to her, saying, "hi baby sister, what's up?" And he keeps asking us if she can talk yet. He's such a good kid, and I really want him to have a great 3rd birthday.