Dolly Priss

It's Friday, It's Friday! And you know what that means? We started our new bedtime routine 1 week ago, so we'll be doing another sleep log tonight! I'll post it sometime tomorrow and give you an idea on how it's working for us and then what we're going to do next.

So for Savannah's Birthday I bought this super cute dress from JcPenney's to wear but I was having a hard time finding the perfect headband to go with it. With my coupon's and sale I got the dress for only like $2 so I felt I could splurge a little bit if I needed to. I searched the Internet up and down and found what I wanted except it was the wrong color. I figured it couldn't hurt to ask if she would be willing to make me one in the colors I wanted, and she did! Dolly Priss and her Mommy Miss is the name of her company and I'm so glad I found her. You can find her on Facebook, EBay and Etsy. I had originally found her on Etsy but I believe I contacted her on Facebook. Either way, check her out! She has some beautiful items you can bid on, buy, or if you need something in another color just message her. She was reasonably priced, she got it to me relatively quickly and the headband is beautiful! The picture really doesn't do it justice, but I'll post it anyways to give you an idea.

My Nursery Rhymes Collection

Still snowing outside, was totally not ready for this. I don't know why it surprises me every year, we are in Wisconsin and it has been known to snow in October..........still doesn't mean I like it though. Scott better stay true to his promise and let me retire someplace warm!

So we recently finished reading My Nursery Rhymes Collection to the kids. I can't remember where I bought this, but I think it was before Connor was born. I've read one or two here or there, but never the entire thing, so we decided to. With Savannah's new bedtime routine we've incorporated 20 minutes of reading time so this was the perfect opportunity to get through the book. This book is a great purchase and I'm glad we got it, it has so many of the classics in it along with several I had never heard before. Connor enjoyed it and his two favorites are the Grand Old Duke of York, and Humpty Dumpty. It looks like the book was re-released this year, so I'm not sure how different the new version is compared to the version that was released in 2006.

Italian Beef Barley Soup

It's snowing outside, yuck! I really hate snow. It's barley sticking, so hopefully it doesn't stay around for long. This reminds me, I really need to get in and get new tires, I've had these ones for 4 years now, so I'm assuming I probably am in need for new ones.

So Monday night I made Italian Beef Barley soup for dinner. I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com and decided it sounded pretty good, so we tried it out. The only difference in the recipe when I made it is that I didn't crumble the cubes (to hard, I tried) and I added a little Garlic Garlic from Tastefully Simple in there. The recipe turned out good, and it's a great starter recipe. If we ever make it again we'll be adding some combination of the following: potatoes, carrots and celery. It just seemed that it was missing something and I think one of those (or all of them) would add to the soup and make it just a little bit better.

The No-Cry Sleep Solution

So we're back to our normal weekly schedule, thankfully. I got a few things done around the house this morning. Put some dishes in the dishwasher, folded some laundry, and finished getting Savannah's Birthday invites ready to be mailed today. I can't believe in just a few short weeks my baby is going to be 1! I hate how quickly time goes by!

So yesterday I finished reading the No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley and I'm super excited about it. I picked up this book from the library in desperation to get some sleep. However, if you are tempted to pick this up for a quick fix this isn't what it's about. It's about fixing the sleep pattern gradually to get optimal success and to keep healthy sleep habits. It takes you through the steps gradually. fed. You can really customize how you use this to your needs and your family. The thing I like the most about the No-cry Sleep solution is that anyone can use it. It gives tips to those who are co-sleeping, those who are breastfeeding or those who sleep in a crib and are bottle fed. The first thing that we changed while reading this book is bedtime. We were under the assumption if we kept her up as late as we stayed up, then the less she'll wake up on "our" schedule. But unfortunately that is not true, it just caused Savannah to become overtired and actually wake up more! So the first thing we decided was to make sure Savannah got to bed every night by 8 p.m. instead of approximately 9:30 p.m. So now the fun begins. The first step of the process is to create your bedtime routine. You start your bedtime routine approximately an hour before bedtime to help your child learn that bedtime is approaching. This is suppose to help bedtime go more smoothly and reduce the fighting to go to sleep. So this is what our new bedtime routine looks like:

7:00 - Bath

7:20 - PJ's & Lotion

7:25 - Read books with entire family in my bed

7:45 - Feed Savannah

8:00 - Bed

The next step is to create a sleep/nap log of the first night so you know how your baby is sleeping now compared to where your baby should be as far as how much sleep they get. The book has a graph on the amount of sleep a baby should be getting. Since Savannah is approaching the 1 year mark we are basing everything off of the 12 month slot on the grid. She should be getting 11.5-12 hours of sleep a night, and taking 1-2 naps totally 2-3 hours of sleep during the day. Here is our first night of logging:

7:58 p.m. - Sleep

12:18 a.m. - wake up - rock/sing back to sleep - 4hour and 20 minute stretch of sleep

12:55 a.m. - sleep

2:57 a.m. - wake - nurse back to sleep - 2hours 2 minute stretch of sleep

3:05 - sleep

6:37 a.m. - wake - nurse back to sleep - 3 hours 32 minute stretch of sleep

6:45 a.m. - sleep

8:00 a.m. - up for day - 1 hour 15 minute stretch of sleep

So Miss. Savannah woke up 3 times on our first night of logging and had a total of 11 hours and 9 minutes of sleep. So she is close to the amount of sleep she needs per night but unfortunately is waking us up often in the middle of the night. Our first day of nap logs looked like:

11:53 a.m. - Sleep

12:34 p.m. - Up - So a 41 minute nap

3:54 p.m. - Sleep

4:50 p.m. - UP - So a 56 minute nap.

So Miss. Savannah had her 2 naps for the day, but unfortunately fell short of the 2-3 hours total. She only received 1 hour and 37 minute of naps, and both naps were under an hour. A "good" nap should be over an hour, and supposedly the key to a good night sleep is good napping during the day.

So now that we have made our first sleep and nap log we know that there is room for improvement. The book says to create a new log every 10 days, but with work and weekends, we either need to do it every 7 days or every 14 days. You do not want to make a log every day because some days will always be worse or better than others, so to get a general idea if the sleep pattern is getting better you need to do it every week or two. The book has many suggestions on how to get the baby to sleep better and for longer. Right now I don't think we are going to take any other suggestions from the book. We changed our bedtime routine and bedtime which is a huge step into the right direction. We'll evaluate after the first week of the new bedtime and see how we are sitting then and then decide on the next step.

Christmas Pictures

So I have my very first parent teachers conference today, ahh! Kind of scary! I really don't know what to expect. I hope they tell me Connor is wonderful and he's the smartest kid in the class, but every parent wants to hear that, and not every kid can be the best........ As long as Connor is having fun and is making friends, I think that's the most important part of school. If you're having fun & making good (key word) friends, doing good in school will just happen.

So last week we went and got our Christmas Pictures taken at Portrait Innovations. This is the same place we got Savannah's 8 month pictures, and I ended up being much happier this time around. We got several great pictures taken and had lots to choose from. Unfortunately Savannah wasn't in the most smiley of moods but they still turned out pretty good. We got a whole bunch of wallets of Savannah to put in her birthday invites (started handing them out yesterday). Normally I would put her Birthday picture in her Thank-Yous from her party, but the Care Bear theme only came with Post-Card thank-yous so that wasn't an option. Well, here is one of our family portraits from the session.

Up In The Air

The weekend is almost over with, AHH, they go by way to fast. Started handing out Savannah's birthday invites today, can you believe she's almost a year old? I can't! Time goes by way to fast, it almost makes me want another baby, almost, lol, maybe when she sleeps better & we don't have to buy her diapers, then maybe.

So another Friday night we spent watching a movie and eating popcorn, a movie we picked up from the Library. This time we picked Up In The Air with George Clooney in it. I knew it was up for a bunch of awards a year or two ago, so I figured it would be pretty good. I enjoyed the movie and I think everyone should see it once. The only part I didn't like was the ending. I didn't like how the chick ended up having another family and he was just a "side" item. But I guess you can't have movies end the way you want them to every time. I'm glad I saw the movie, not sure I'll ever see it again, but it's definitely worth seeing once.

11 Months Old

So I really need to get the house cleaned and get to the grocery store, because I'm having my Pampered Chef Part tomorrow at noon! AHH To much to do! And I really don't feel like doing anything either, I just want to go out and hang with friends, but friends are far and few these days.......Justin/Jessica did text me earlier about going to dinner at Ella's Deli. Maybe I should go.....

So this past Tuesday, Miss. Savannah turned 11 months old. That means there is less than a month until her 1st Birthday! Can you believe it? It's so crazy to think about! Currently she is approximately 18.75 pounds, so I doubt she'll hit the 20 pound mark before her 1st Birthday. She still gets up anywhere from 1-5 times every night, but I'm starting the no-cry sleep solution, so hopefully we can get her to sleep better. She got her 6th tooth at the very beginning of this month. She's been drooling like crazy again, but I don't see anymore teeth coming in. We did switch her to 12 month clothing, more for lack of 9 month clothes, not size. Other than that, it was a pretty quiet month, no huge milestones to report it would seem.

Trick Or Treat

So this new schedule we are trying out with Savannah is going okay I guess............ Wednesday night she woke up 5 times, last night it was only 3, if we can get down to just 1 time a night I'll be happy, the downside I've noticed already is that she won't take her morning nap now...........which means I don't really get much accomplished during the day...........which means I'll need to start cleaning some at night when Scott is home so things get done........oh well I guess, if this makes us get more sleep at night I'll take it!

So Monday was obviously Halloween, which means CANDY! I rushed out of work 15 minutes early (4:45), so i could quick feed Savannah, eat dinner, and get out the door by around 5:30. Connor was Spider Man, Savannah was a bunny, Ella was an Elephant, Buddy was a Zebra, and Donovan was Robin. We had a good size group (The Moore's, Luther's, Evette/Autumn, and the Frank's) and went around the neighborhood for about an hour. Buddy didn't make it much longer than 15-20 minutes so he went back to Grandma's to hang out with her. Ella wanted to walk the entire time, Connor and Donovan had a blast running to the houses and Savannah was just looking around like we were all crazy. It was a lot of fun and after that we headed to Waunakee to see John & Carol for Halloween so they could see the kids in their costumes. Now is the time that I hate.......... I sit here and eat all the candy, and that 3 pounds I lost last month will probably come back.....lol, at least I have another 5 months to lose the weight before Florida!

Happy Halloween

So we're trying a new schedule with Savannah, instead of putting her to bed at 9:30ish, we're shooting for 8. Last night it was 7:45 when she fell asleep, and so far it doesn't seem to help. she woke up about 5 times before it was 7:30 (when I wake her up in the morning). Going to continue to try it at least a couple of more times before I consider it a failure.

So Monday was Halloween, I hope everyone had a good day! Scott had the day off of work, so he got to play with the kids all day (well after Connor was done with school), but I had to work like normal. This being Savannah's 1st Halloween, I had to make sure she looked super cute. I got an outfit after last Halloween, I think at Walmart on clearance. But I had to accessorize it to make it perfect. So I went online to My Little Legs and ordered her some leggings & a 5 pack of headbands. I think the outfit came together nicely and Miss. Savannah was as cute as ever!

Full Frontal Nudity

So last night was crappy..........Savannah tossed and turned all night........ I figured she would have slept good because when we went out to dinner last night she ate a ton of food........maybe she ate to much? I doubt it....... babies are much more likely to stop when they are full than adults........like myself, who ate way to much last night and paid for it later!

So Sunday I finished reading Full Frontal Nudity - The Making of an Accidental Actor - by Harry Hamlin. I didn't really know what to expect from the book - I had never heard of Harry Hamlin before but I got it for like $2 at Borders when they were closing, so I figured I couldn't lose much from picking this up. And I'm not disappointed that I did buy it. I realized I had seen something he was in (Harpers Island) and that he had an interesting life back in the late 60's and early 70's. I can't imagine going through some of the things that he went threw. Even if you don't' know who Harry Hamlin is I recommend picking up this book it was very interesting and it didn't take long to read. Now I'm going to read the No-Cry Sleep Solution! I'm hoping we learn something to help Savannah sleep better!