Mama Dani's Musings: September 2011

Friday, September 30, 2011

Pregnancy Update: 26 Weeks 3 Days and Ultrasound!

Today I'm 26 weeks and 3 days pregnant. For the most part, I feel pretty good! The heartburn has started but someone suggested peppermint candies and boy do they work! Another plus is they are much more tastier than Tums. The lower back pain has also started but it's getting better thanks to my chiropractor and using a birth ball more. I wish I had thought to go to a chiropractor during my other two pregnancies! Jellybean is still such an active baby! Well, until someone puts their hand on my belly and then all is still. lol I'm loving every minute of it. It's such a wonderful feeling. Names...we're really slacking that. We have a couple girl names but nothing we're 100% set on. Thankfully we still have time. Today I had my ultrasound. The tech told us to look away at the right times so Jellybean's sex is still a mystery to us. I'm really looking forward to discovering that on his/her birthday. I'm still leaning toward boy though.

Here's the pictures from today:
Side profile:

Feet:

Hand waving "Hi!":

In 3D

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Maddy's Update: Dairy Free

**Warning- this update includes a normal mommy topic that others may consider tmi. That's right, we're talking about poop! Don't say I didn't warn you!

Maddy has been battling constipation since around November of last year. At first we thought she was holding it in so the doctor suggested Miralax and time. We were told that it may take a few months for her to forget that it hurt to poop. That was in April. Miralax did help but after months, she still would only poop regularly when she was on the Miralax. For some reason, I started wondering if the milk she was drinking could be the problem. That was sometime this past summer. I switched her to a lower fat milk. Things got better but she still needed the Miralax at times. Also, most of the time that she went on her own, she had waited too long and it hurt her. Something just wasn't right

A few weeks ago I brought her to the chiropractor for the first time. They had talked to me about seeing children when I started going and what stuck in my mind was that constipation issues was one of the reason parents brought their kids in. Along with getting an adjustment, we talked about her constipation. The chiro said that she believes in mommy instinct and if I have a feeling that dairy might be a problem than it's something worth looking into. She gave me info on allergy testing (even though Maddy's on the young side for accurate results) and mentioned doing an elimination diet instead. I went home and did my research and talked to some mommy friends that have experience with dairy problems. After talking to Richard, we decided to give the elimination diet a shot.

It was in the middle of the week so I had to do our normal milk and bread grocery store run so I picked up almond milk. That night Maddy started on almond milk instead of cow's milk. The plan was after we did the week's grocery shopping, she was going to be completely dairy free. She was cow's milk free for 2 days before going completely dairy free. After just a few days cow's milk free, she was going regularly and without problems. Today is day 16 milk free and day 14 dairy free and she's continued to be regular and has not had any problems pooping! I do not think this is just a coincidence. I believe she has a problem with dairy.

Now we just need to figure out at what level. I'm hoping she does not have to be completely 100% dairy free. It hasn't been nearly as hard as I thought it would be but cheese is the hard part. Dairy free cheese is very hard to come by so we just completely cut it out. I miss it! I do think she will be able to handle some dairy since we saw a change before going completely dairy free. We're now going to add in the not obvious dairy and see if there's a change. If there is no change after a week, we'll add in a little obvious dairy...like maybe try pizza for dinner again! Hopefully we'll have this all figured out in a couple of weeks!

Flutter By Friday 9-30: Come Link-up!!

Welcome to this week’s Flutter By Friday blog hop!
The reason:
For readers to find other neat blogs to read and follow.
For bloggers to find readers/followers.

Here’s what to do:

Follow the host (Mama Dani's Musings) and co-host (I'm Bloggin')
Use the linky at the bottom of this post to post up to 2 posts per link-up.
Come back and see what other bloggers have been linked to.
Comment on a post you like.
Follow a new blog.
Come back next week to do it again!

I’ll randomly pick a link from this week’s blog hop to feature in next week’s blog hop!
Please take a moment and check out this week’s featured blog:
Eco-Crazy Mom

I'd also appreciate if you placed this blog hop button on your blog.

This linky will end Sunday evening.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Sean's Update: Our trip to the ER

Yesterday started pretty much as a normal day. It was a late drop off day for my daycare kid so the kids and I slept in a little. After getting up and feeding everyone, I started getting the diaper bag packed and clothes out for the kids. The plan was to get everyone in the van once my daycare kid got here and go to my midwife appointment. I was in the living room and called to Sean in his room to finish getting dressed. That's when I heard his cry. I immediately knew he had hurt himself. Moms, you know that cry!! I ran to him and met him at his door. I immediately saw that he had hurt his forehead but at that point the bleeding hadn't really started. It looked more like just a scrap. As I got closer, I saw that that wasn't the case. By the time I got him to the bathroom (next room over) the blood was everywhere. He had cut his forehead open. It wasn't long (maybe half an inch) but it was deep. The blood was freaking him out so I got him cleaned up and taped gauze to him. Thankfully, the bleeding stopped pretty quickly. I got a hold of my dad and he drove us to Patient First. That's when the adrenaline wore off and I started feeling sick: light headed and nauseous. They said he did need stitches but he needed to be sedated. So, we were sent to the children's hospital's ER.

But first, Patient First made this headband for Sean:

Sean was already feeling like his normal self because I had to constantly tell him to stop running, jumping and climbing. I won't be surprised if I have some grey hairs after yesterday! We were there forever. Sean got two different sedatives: an oral one and a local numbing cream. We waited for them to take effect. I knew it had when Sean started swaying, grabbing invisible things and then asking me why they turned on another tv. Drunk Sean is pretty funny. He even told me that he wanted a cord sandwich for lunch?? They finally came in to do the stitches and it was horrible! The tech wrapped a blanket around Sean so that his arms were by his side. She then held his head still while I held his body. He screamed and cried through out the whole thing. It broke my heart! He ended up with 3 stitches. They'll be in until Monday and the doctor said he will have a scar. Right now, he's pretty excited about the Cars band-aids he gets to wear.

It doesn't look too terrible 24 hours later:

Update On Me

Whew! It's been crazy around here lately! I've been keeping up with my posts but I feel like I've been MIA in the blogging community. Many apologies for the lack of comments, following back, ect. I swear I have good reasons!

The biggest thing occupying my time has been my home daycare. I've been below capacity for awhile now. This was mostly because of Keme's surprise pregnancy; I didn't try to fill spots while there were puppies in the house. Once they were gone, I started up again. The income from just 1 full timer is not cutting it. And I'm very sad to say, his last day was today. We are ending on good terms but it's still difficult. Needless to say, filling daycare spots has been top priority! I'm even looking into other ways to bring in income, such as weekend elderly care. Timing just stinks b/c no one wants to hire someone so pregnant.

I have a couple of update posts on the kids that are waiting in draft. Sean's will be finished today. Maddy and Jellybean's will be finished tomorrow.

A neat little tid bit: The mornings after a few of my most stressful days, we've had butterflies emerge and a couple have hung around longer than normal.

3 in 30: September: Week 4 Update and Month in Review

Here's a look at my progress for September's goals:

Me- Simi success- Again, no sewing but I did get craft time in and made Maddy a scrap tutu. I didn't really make my sewing goal for the month but I did make my goal of doing something I enjoy, even with the lack of time lately. That's a success in my book!!
Kids- Success! Again, nothing big but Maddy and I did spend some one-on-one time through out the week and on Tuesday we both had chiropractor appointments again. I never wanted our one-on-one time to only be big things like our mall date. So this has definitely been a success!!
Family- Fail. I knew this was going to be the difficult one so it's not a surprise that this one was not a success this month.

Again, this week wasn't perfect but it was a good week! Over all, this month has been good! I've started brainstorming on goals for next month, which starts Saturday!

Maddy's scrap tutu:

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Project 52: Week 39

I love this one of Maddy. She rarely lets me put her hair up.

I found Sean like this the other day. He told me "Your floor will be super duper shiny!"

Monday, September 26, 2011

Kids Meal: Dinosaurs

Sean informed me yesterday that he wanted to learn about dinosaurs this week so we started the week off with a dinosaur lunch! This is actually a lunch for two; Sean and Maddy shared it.

Stegosaurus and T-rex sandwiches, Tuna fish and celery trees,
Dinosaur foot print cookies and Fruit rocks

More Muffin Tin Monday ideas:

Muffin Tin Monday at Her Cup Overfloweth

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Weekend Recipe: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hello fall!! Time to start baking with pumpkin again! I love most things pumpkin so when I saw this recipe I knew I had to try it. The cookies had a different texture to them; almost cake-like. Boy were they good! This recipe makes a lot but they were still gone pretty quickly.

What you will need:

Pumpkin puree
Egg
Oil
Sugar
Baking powder
Flour
Cinnamon
Salt
Baking soda
Milk
Vanilla
Chocolate chips

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Bird Tree House

I don't have a School Days post for this week because we had a laid back week this week. I'll post about Sean's project instead. Earlier this week Sean came to me and told me he wanted to build a tree house. We had a problem though. We have no tree house trees in our yard. He settled on the idea of making a bird house, which turned into the bird tree house. We were going to make the whole thing with twigs but we didn't have enough. Too bad he didn't ask to do this right after Irene!! He enjoyed using the loppers (with my help) to cut the branches down to size. And then of course using the hot glue gun. He still may paint it but he was done after all the gluing.

Here's the finished product!

Friday, September 23, 2011

Flutter By Friday 9-23: Come Link-up!!

Welcome to this week’s Flutter By Friday blog hop!
The reason:
For readers to find other neat blogs to read and follow.
For bloggers to find readers/followers.

Here’s what to do:

Follow the host (Mama Dani's Musings) and co-host (I'm Bloggin')
Use the linky at the bottom of this post to post up to 2 posts per link-up.
Come back and see what other bloggers have been linked to.
Comment on a post you like.
Follow a new blog.
Come back next week to do it again!

I’ll randomly pick a link from this week’s blog hop to feature in next week’s blog hop!
Please take a moment and check out this week’s featured blog:
Welcome to the Motherhood

I'd also appreciate if you placed this blog hop button on your blog.

This linky will end Sunday evening.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

3 in 30: September: Week 3 Update

Here's a look at my progress for September's goals:

Me- Simi success- No sew but I did get craft time in and made yarn dolls.
Kids- Success! Nothing big but there were a couple times this week that Maddy and I were home alone and Tuesday we both had chiropractor appointments. Sometimes even just a car ride is nice b/c she's not getting interrupted by Sean all the time.
Family- Simi success- The kids and I went for a walk.

Again, this week wasn't perfect but it was better!

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Project 52: Week 38

Big brother reading to little sister **swoon**

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Yarn Dolls

The kids have new homemade dolls today....yarn dolls. They were so easy to make and they didn't take much time at all. I did most of them while the kids had snack and finished them up during lunch. ;) I just wish I had more choices of yarn; I only had the two kinds in the house. I can always make more!
Aren't they cute!?

The tutorial can be found over at Wee Folk Art.

Maddy wanted to nap with hers. Sean made his into an airplane.

Thank you The Chocolate Muffin Tree for sharing this idea!

Monday, September 19, 2011

Kids Meal: Caterpillar

There was really no reason why I chose to make today's lunch other then I thought it was cute. Don't you agree!?

Sandwich circles for the body, Tomato head w/turkey face (food marker for the eyes), Cucumber feet and antennae
Idea from this pin

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Weekend Recipe: Banana Nut Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Whew! What a name! They are oh so good though! Earlier this week I was searching for a recipe. I really like Quaker Breakfast Cookies but I thought I could make healthier and cheaper breakfast cookies. I found a recipe that sounded like it fitted the bill. And they do! These are some seriously delicious cookies! I wanted some chocolate in them so I cut back a little on the walnuts and added some chocolate chips.

The recipe can be found here.
The ingredients you'll need are:

Flour
Baking powder
Baking soda
Salt
Cinnamon
Butter
Sugar
Brown sugar
Egg
Ripe banana
Vanilla extract
Quick oats
Chopped walnuts

Saturday, September 17, 2011

School Days: Me on the Map

The past couple of weeks we've added geography to our lessons and we used the book Me on the Map. Unfortunately, even though they have the book, our library could not find it for me. But, I did find this video and it worked well. The plan is to use this lesson as the start of teaching Sean geography. I just haven't decided if we'll be doing a tour of the different countries or the states. I'd love to hear your ideas!

Update: Sean has told me that he wants to learn about continents, so that's what we're going to do!
First, he got to explore a globe. A lot of his new vocabulary came from just sitting with him and the globe and him asking, "what's that?". Some of the vocabulary that Sean worked on was: Map, Globe, Compass, Continents, Oceans, Equator, North Hemisphere, South Hemisphere, Country, State, City, North, South, East and West. Sean really seemed to like all the new tools he got to use during this unit. He likes the hands on things.

We used a star sticker to help him find us on the globe.

The big project for this lesson was a book of maps so there was a lot of map making.

His favorite part was when we took a walk and brought along a map of our neighborhood and a compass. We went a few blocks the opposite way from where we go when we normally go for a walk and I helped him use the map and compass to find his way back home.

...yes, safety goggles on the head are a necessity when doing this activity. ;)

The last part of this unit was putting the book together.

He really likes the hole puncher.

His book:
That's a picture of himself but yellows and oranges don't photograph well.

Because of safety issues, I arranged the first few pages so certain info can not be seen. I also realize I put them in the wrong order. The order it is in the finished book is:
My House- I drew the outline of the house and he told me what rooms were what and drew his bed in his room. A star sticker was placed in his room.
My neighborhood- I printed a map off mapquest. The bottom of the page has a card with our address. The map already had a marker for our house.
My City- A star sticker was placed about where our neighborhood is.
My state: Virginia- A star sticker was placed about where our city is.

The last several pages:
My country: United States of America- He colored in our state.
My continent: North America- He colored in our country.
Continents- A star sticker was placed on our continent.
My planet: Earth

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