Goodbye Breastfeeding

I am sad today. My son won't nurse anymore. He's just over a year old so I shouldn't be too surprised, especially since he's been uninterested for a few months now. Well he just doesn't want to anymore. He's too busy. My sweet boy! I wanted to keep him a little baby a little longer. They grow up way too fast. I nursed Chicklet to about 13 months. I will keep trying for the next few days until Bug turns 13 months and then I will let it go. I took a picture the last time he nursed though, because it was a sweet moment and there won't be anymore sweet nursing baby moments with him now.

Toddler Sleeping Sweater: Crafty Saturday!

Sleeping Sweater
It gets cold here at night in the winter. Especially the bedrooms. Well it's started to get kind of chilly at night here as of this past week and my kids had a bad habit of kicking off the blankets. I have been putting Bug to bed in a sweater vest and Chicklet to bed in one of my sweatshirts. It's an old ugly sweatshirt and I had to roll the sleeves half a dozen times! So I cut it up to make a sleeping sweater for her out of it.
First I laid it out flat on the table. Then I cut up the sides about 2 inches in from the side seam.

I cut 2/3 of the end of the sleeve off. Then I cut the sleeve about 3 inches in from the seam and paralell to it. I made my cut along the bottom of the sleeve and my cut along the side seam go in straight lines until they met. Then I took the same amount out of the side and the sleeve on the other side of the sweatshirt. I did not alter the neck hole or the length at all. Just the width and sleeves.

Then I cut some hearts out of fabric scraps and applique sewed them onto the front of the shirt to cover the logo.

Now, I've never ever done this before so it looks kinda sloppy but she's wearing it to bed and it's an old ratty sweatshirt anyway so I figured it's good practice. I also cut matching rectangles for cuffs out of the scrap fabric.

I sewed the cuffs onto the ends of the sleeves

and then I laid the shirt inside out and matched up the seams and sewed along the underside of the cuffs, arms, and along the sides,

sewing it together to form a very long floppy toddler sized sweatshirt that she can wear to bed. :)

I folded back the cuffs (I will unfold them when she's older and has longer arms) and put it on her and she loves it. I have her wear long pants pajamas underneath it and a cami under that. The sweatshirt comes down to her knees and looks tube-dress-like so over the pajama pants it looks very feminine and modest and it keeps her nice and warm at night.

The sweatshirt I used was an adults Medium and Chicklet usually wears a 4T if that helps for guaging size. :)

Too tired.

Have you ever been so tired that you are nauseous from it? Bleh!
So yesterday morning Chicklet woke up at 5am and I could not get her to go back to sleep. Now if you know her you know she is overly sensitive and cries alot when she hasn't had enough sleep. Well when I told her it's not wake up time for another hour or two she started crying and laid in bed loudly bawling, which woke up baby Bug down the hall. I had hoped she would sleep in a bit since the night before I was up until 2:30am catching up on some stuff. Well I've been catching up all week on my internet stuff after being pretty scarce on the computer for a couple weeks previously. So again last night I was up until late... or rather up until early. 1am. And again this morning 5am rolled around and Chicklet was roughly petting my head saying, "wake up Mama!" Ugh! Noooo! It definately does not help that I've never been a morning person.
So I am so tired after the last few days of this that I feel downright nauseous today. I am definately in need of a nap. And I'm getting to bed by midnight tonight. If I don't get a nap, make that 10pm. I can barely keep my eyes open! See? They are rolling back in my head from exhaustion:

BETTER Tollhouse Cookies

Happy Fry-day! Yes pun intended... Hehe. Tuesday I baked cookies. They are deeeelicious! I always use Nestle Tollhouse Morsels and the Tollhouse recipe on the bag but I make a couple alterations to give it that personal touch.
1) First of all I add a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. I love cinnamon and it brings out the flavors nicely. If I were to measure it, it would probably be about 2 teaspoons of cinnamon. But I don't measure it. I know, bad me! I just kind turn the shaker upside down over the bowl, give it a couple good whacks, and call it good. I love cinnamon. If you are not a total cinnamon fanatic like me though you might want to only add one tsp. ;)
2) I never ever substitute anything for the butter. My number one cardinal rule of making sweets is to ALWAYS use REAL and FULL-FAT or it won't taste as good! No low-fat garbage in my sweets, oh no! So I always use real butter never ever margerine or shortening. (Another of my rules is no semi-sweet chips. I use milk chocolate chips because they taste richer.)
3) Where it says to use 3/4 C. of white sugar and 3/4 C. of brown sugar, I actually use 1 C. brown sugar and 1/2 C. white sugar. It just improves the flavor.
4) I like to use twice as much vanilla because it just tastes yummier with two teaspoonfulls of vanilla than it does with one.
5) I sometimes use extra chocolate chips, sometimes not. Depends if I have them. Sometimes I mix other flavors of chips instead or along with. They taste really good with 1 C. milk chocolate chips and 1 C. butterscotch chips together! Or instead of half and half milk choc. and butterscotch you could do half and half milk choc. and white choc. chips. Or half semisweet. Or half mint chips. Whatever sounds yummy.
And
6) just for fun sometimes I bake them in a muffin tin. They come out all cute and rounded. :) Like bar cookies only round and no cutting required. I put a rounded Tblsp. of dough in each cup and do not use paper liners. After baking, cool one minute and then remove with a plastic fork. Plastic forks are flexible and you can just scoop that cookie right out of there with a plastic fork where a metal one would mangle it.

Customer Service and Cloth Diapers

I recently emailed a certain well-known diaper company to inform them we were having problems with the tabs ripping off some of their diapers. The other day in my email I got an apology letter from the company saying to expect something in the mail soon. I thought, "Well at least they apologized (which is more that I got from Taco Bell- but that's another story)! But what are they sending me? A couple $1-off coupons or something?" Well I was right about it being coupons. But I was wrong about them being $1-off. The coupons were $10 off!!!!! And there were 8 of them!!!! That's right, I was sent $80 worth of coupons because we had been having the tabs rip off the last few boxes of diapers. WOW! I must say I am super impressed with the customer service! Customer service is very important to me. That's the same reason I buy Graco baby gear. Because Graco is not anal or stingy about replacing it if something goes south. Don't you just LOVE good customer service? What companies have you experienced great customer service from?

And lest you think I lied about using cloth diapers let me set the record straight! Lol! I am one of those Mama's that cloth diapers. I ALSO use disposeables. Yes, that's right, I'm a traitor and use both! You see, I only have half a dozen BumGenius (love love love BumGenius! ONE adjustable size for the child's WHOLE life! Can't beat that!) so they would last me about half a day if that's all I used. I'd have to wash diapers every couple hours and forget about time for line drying or soaking out poo stains! So I just use 1 or two Bum Genius a day and the rest are 'sposies. Besides, I happen to like the convenience of 'sposies for nights and car trips. So guess what I'm going to do with all the savings from the abovementioned $10-off coupons??? I am gonna stop at a certain baby furniture store on the way home that happens to carry BumGenius in the back corner and I'm gonna pick me up a cute little cloth dippie. Each time. That's 4 trips worth of coupons, That's $20 in savings per diaper buying expedition since I have 2 kids and they each get a box of nappies, That means 1 BumGenius each time for 4 trips. The disposeable diaper company just bought me 4 cloth diapers. Okay now I really feel like a dirty traitor...

Walkers, Juice Boxes, and No Mouth-Noises

So yesterday I gave up. Well not really "gave up," but I did decide to quit wondering when Bug is going to walk. I guess since Chicklet walked at 11 months I expected Bug to walk by his first birthday. Not so much. It's not like I think he "needs" to be walking now, just that I expected he would be and he's not so I keep wondering. Well today I said I give up wondering! Lol! He will walk when he walks! He's smart and strong and he CAN walk and does when he thinks I'm holding him up, but he is just not brave enough yet to do it on his own. So I hereby decree the end of my wondering. I've been working with him daily for weeks trying to get him to walk and he loves when I help him but he just never takes the initiative to do it on his own. I've had the walker put up out of use since he was about 9 months old because I heard it could delay him, and before that he only used it when I was cooking supper. He used it so little that he barely knew how to go forward, and could not really steer it. So as a symbol of my letting go, not wondering anymore, and letting him do what he does when he's ready, I got out the walker, washed it off, and put him in there today. You should have seen him go! He jumped up and down in there for a minute until he figured out how to make it go and once he did, boy he was gone. He didn't limit himself to the kitchen either. He went into the living room and opened the chest of drawers by the front door and started pulling things out and then played open-close for a while. Then he came back to the kitchen and followed me around for a while. Then he got tired and came up and grabbed my pant leg and tugged at me until I picked him up and gave him a bottle and layed him down for a quick pre-dinner nap. The boy is too smart for his own good though... He learned in 3 seconds flat how to open the cabinet doors by backing up so the walker was out of the way of the door. So I rubber banded the doors together to hold them shut and he went over and started pulling the rubber band to the side exactly like you would to take it off... but thankfully he could not quite pull hard enough.

He can say:

"chz" -cheese

"bot" -bottle or nurse

"tsis?" -what's this

"tsat?" -what's that

"Mama"

"Dada"

"Sissy"

and a few more I'll have to think on to try to remember...

Buggie had his first juice box! Well, he's drank juice from a box before but Mama (that would be me) was holding the box. Yesterday I set him in the middle of the kitchen floor and gave him a juice box and let him learn how to not squeeze it. Oh he did SO good! I was so proud of him! He barely squeezed at all! I was surprised because the first time my daughter had a juice box she barely got any to drink because she squeezed it all out all over herself. Oh and this was in McDonald's she did this and I had to take her in the bathroom and wash her and change her clothes. Lol!







Also yesterday, Chicklet learned how to be silent during quiet time. I mean, it's called quiet time for a reason right? Lol! I just told her no mouth-noises and every time she would make a sound or talk I would tell her firmly but sweetly, "no mouth-noises, remember?" and tap her cheek. She thought it was a great game and I got a nap while she rested! Then today she again was silent during quiet time and she actually fell asleep because she was not keeping herself awake talking! Granted it was only half an hour of nap but hey, I'll take what I can get! ;) I have to give credit where credit is due, the no mouth sounds idea is one I got from Kimberly at http://www.raisingolives.com/ - Thank you Kimberly!

Toddler Tales Tuesday: Lions don't like cucumbers

Sunday, August 30th:
I picked up my nephew JD(almost 5) from the birthing center where my sis was in labor and as we're driving home at almost midnight, he's peppering me with questions. I decided to make some sort of productive conversation to avoid having to think of toddler-comprehendable answers this late at night. So I started asking him what Bible stories he knows. I asked if he knows Daniel in the Lions' Den and he replied yes, so I started quizzing him on it. At one point I got to the following question...
Me; "So he got thrown into the lions' den right?"
JD; "Yep!"
Me; "Why did they put him in there?"
JD; "'Cuz him was prayin' and they didn't want him to?"
Me; "Wellll sort of. Basically. But the lions didn't eat him, right?"
JD; "RIGHT!"
Me; "Why didn't the lions eat him?"
JD; "Because lions don't like cucumbers! Blech! 'Bye guys! Thanks for the Pizza!'"
[I can only guess this must have been the result of too many Veggietales although I've never seen this one myself (My kids don't watch tv anymore, see topic "Project No TV") so not sure, But you have to admit it is kinda funny... "lions don't like cucumbers..."]


Tuesday, September 1st:
I'm putting Bug(1) down for a nap. As I change his diaper, Chicklet(almost 3) climbs into the crib (holding a green foam ball that actually belongs to Bug) and tells me, "I gonna takea nap!"
Me; "Umkaay... You are going to nap in the crib with Brother?"
Chicklet; "I gonna takea nap inna crib with Buggie."
Me, putting freshly-changed Bug in the crib with her; "Okay then here you go. Night Night!" and I left the room to make Bug a bottle since he was not in the mood to nurse before nap.
When I came back, Chicklet had given Bug his ball, layed down beside him, and covered both of them with Bug's blanket. It was too cute! I just hate that I had to spoil the fun. ;)


-+-+-
If you have a sweet, cute, or funny Toddler (or kid) story, I'd love it if you'd share it here in the comments! :)
If you would like to post a Toddler Tales Tuesday on your blog, please just leave a link back to my blog in your post so people can see where you got the idea. You may leave a link to your post in my comments on the condition that you also post a comment! No link-and-runs please! ;) (I am still figuring out basic blogging so this will have to do until I am experienced enough to attempt a Mr. Linky or something.)

OOPS.

Well apparently now that I changed my blog's name, it is not showing up in feed readers and people are still getting the old link error message when they try to get here. I've been told that coming here from one of my links is the only way it's working now. Oops! I'm sorry, I didn't realize it would cause so many problems to change the name! :(

Troubleshooting:
-Make sure you are getting here through my NEW name URL. My OLD one that does NOT work now was http://bringingupblessings.blogspot.com/. My NEW one, THIS one, that IS working is http://everypreciousjoy.blogspot.com/. So make sure your links are updated.
-Un-follow and then re-follow me. Go to your blog's dashboard and click "manage" under the list of Blogs you are following. Remove *Every~Precious~Joy* (or Bringing Up Blessings, whichever is there). Then go back to my blog at http://everypreciousjoy.blogspot.com/ and click Follow again, or add it however you did the first time.
-Check your blogroll and make sure my link is the updated one.

I am not very good at this blog thing and don't know much about it yet so if anyone else has problems after trying the above, especially if they know how to fix it(!!) Please comment here and tell us. Thank you! And again I'm really sorry for the trouble!

My sister had her baby!

My sister had her baby at 12:30am this morning! She came over to my house this afternoon to pick up her 5 year old, JD, who had stayed the night here. So I got to hold the sweet little baby G! He is 7 pounds 2 ounces - SOOO tiny!!! She had thought he would be a girl.. good thing she brought unisex clothes to the birth! ;) Anyway he is just precious and sweet and soft and tiny and I now officially have baby fever worse than I did before... LOL! He was very sleepy and only woke up for diaper change time. Then as sis was snapping his sleeper closed again he was looking around and suddenly sneezed. I think it must have been the most tiring sneeze in the history of the world because he was looking around before sneezing and then after the sneeze (you know how you close your eyes when sneezing) he just never opened his eyes back up and instead settled back into sleep. He was making adorable little baby squeaks and snorts. Too precious!
The tots were totally enthralled by the baby. This was the first time JD met his baby brother. He LOVES babies and so does my Chicklet so when that carseat came in, before baby was unbuckled, there were two oh-so-eager and totally adoring toddlers crouched in front of the carseat staring with HUGE grins at the sleeping tiny one inside. They were like vultures just hovering around the carseat waiting for permission to touch. Lol! It was so sweet! They got their turns to hold the baby (Big Brother JD first of course!) and spent the rest of the visit petting baby G's feet and hands and soft hair. And giving him extra kisses of course. Little G has been covered with kisses on the first day of his life. I can't think of a better way to start a life, can you?

Monday Update on Mom's trip

Well my mom arrived safely home from her healing seminar on Sunday. I have not talked to her by telephone yet but she said her right shoulder is not hurting anymore. That's a good sign. She stopped off at her dad's grave on her way home. He just died July 1st. :( She said she left him some chocolate and had a good cry. It makes me want to cry, thinking about her crying, thinking about her missing her dad, and thinking about how I miss PopPop too. The last time I ever saw him he didn't even know me.
If you feel led to pray for my mom, Thank you! And a special thanks to my wonderful friends who have her on their prayer lists! :)

And if you're feeling all depressed now, just so your trip to my blog isn't a total downer today, scroll up and read my Next post which has SUPER AWESOME news in it! It's a very up sort of post in contrast to this one. Oh and more upbeat things to come soon!

Name Change

Before I had this blog I had another one just for family updates. I had named it Every Precious Joy because I was rejoicing over the precious blessings God has given me! I started this blog, and had to name it something, so I called it Bringing Up Blessings. I kind of wished I had saved the name Every Precious Joy for this blog though. It is more dear to my heart and meaningful to me!
I have been having a bit of trouble getting the technologically-challenged relatives to read the family update blog. So I decided to change the name to something more easy for them to remember. Which left the blog name Every Precious Joy open!
So I apologize for the confusion, and that I seem so indecisive as I am changing my blog name when I've had it less than a month, but I hope you will forgive me and understand about using the name that is more meaningful to my heart! Thank you for bearing with me on this beginning of my blogging journey. I hope you will find reasons to stick around as I share Every Precious Joy in my life with you! :)
God Bless You!
~Mirage