Hi Friends!

I have been neglecting this blog for a while now. I know all of my readers are absolutely heartbroken. Both of them!

I thought I would at least put a quick update out there (even without pictures) so that no one thinks I've dropped off the face of the planet :).

• My garden is a JUNGLE. There is a huge orb-weaver spider hanging out right at the entrance. He's been there for a few weeks now and he really freaks me out, so I am terrified of walking past him to work in the garden (even though I'm told they're harmless). Even though the weeds are thriving, I haven't had to buy much produce lately thanks to ample harvests of zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, and basil. My purple bell peppers are really cute (only about 2 inches tall) and will hopefully be ready to eat soon. I never harvested my broccoli (Liam's pediatrician said the broccoli in my diet made him gassy) and it grew some pretty yellow flowers. All-in-all, I would consider this year's garden my most successful yet!
• Liam is growing like a little weed. He will be twelve weeks old tomorrow. He smiles and coos and is the sweetest baby ever. He tends to get fussy in the late afternoon, but I think that's pretty typical. Last night he slept from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. without waking once! I love me a full night's sleep.
• My little business venture is going great! It's been really fun to get back into sales and marketing, especially because I am working for myself from home. I've always felt that it's important to support local businesses, and I'm already starting to feel more connected to my community as I discover tons of little mom 'n pop shops and restaurants. Check it out at www.coloradospringsgiveaways.com if you haven't yet!

I hope you are all doing well! Pictures of the kiddos coming soon, I promise :)

Bye-bye Naptime

I'm been working hard the last couple weeks...check out my new blog! I'll be featuring a new giveaway every day by a Colorado Springs business.

I have some really sweet giveaways lined up already. There's a free massage, fashion, home decor, photography, yummy treats, beauty products, restaurant gift certificates, tickets, and more - all from local businesses!

I'll be launching the site in September, but I don't have a specific date yet...stay tuned for updates.

I would love your help in making this a success! Please consider adding Colorado Springs Giveaways to your RSS feed and enter to win the giveaways you're interested in by leaving a comment. Also, if you know of a business owner that may benefit from a giveaway feature, please send them my way. THANK YOU!!

Claire photos

My talented friend Kelsey took some beautiful pictures of Claire and Liam for me. Liam pictures coming soon :)

Thanks, Kelsey!!!

July Garden

This garden is out of control!

View from one end of the garden.

Note to self: Buy taller tomato stakes for next year.

View from the other end.

All that green stuff? Veggie plants!

I'm learning a lot this year. I had no idea what a broccoli plant would look like.

My beautiful basil. I have four gorgeous rows of this stuff!

Note to self #2: I don't need two zucchini plants. The worst part is that my neighbors on both sides are also growing zucchini so I can't pawn it off very easily this year. Any recipe ideas?

Purple beans. They will turn green when cooked. Yummy!

All the tomato plants (9) are loaded with green tomatoes. I noticed one lone red one the other day...pretty soon we'll have more tomatoes than I know what to do with!

Want any radishes? Seriously. Please take them. I had never tasted a radish before growing them and turns out they're pretty nasty :). I have four long rows of these guys popping out of the ground.

Some of the cucumber plants. No cukes yet, though!

This is what a baby asparagus plant looks like. I had no idea what to expect. There are five growing happily...and one whose fragile leaves were all plucked off by a little toddler I know.

Rhubarb. I learned that if it grows a weird flower, you're supposed to cut that off ASAP.

Claire loves to visit the all-you-can-eat raspberry buffet every night after dinner.

Believe it or not, the yellow variety are sweeter than the red ones! I think I'll make some raspberry ice cream with our next harvest.

How is your garden doing?

Kid Pictures

It turns out that having two kids is a lot of work. I never imagined that being a stay at home mom would keep me this busy 24 hours a day. The house is trashed, laundry is piling up, and don't get me started on running errands with two...but I love it, of course. Here are some new pictures of my little sweeties:

Bedhead and her first bug bite.

This kid is huuuuuge. He was already 12.6 pounds (99th percentile) at his 1 month well baby visit. His doctor reassured me that exclusively breastfed babies can't get "fat", so I don't need to worry about childhood obesity yet :).

Poor kid has a hard time sleeping at night. Well, he sleeps well between feedings, but we're having a couple little issues. His longest stretch between meals is only 4 hours. He typically eats around 10 pm, 2 am, 5 am, and then mysteriously wakes again at 6 am., still tired and not hungry but unable to fall asleep for the next couple hours. I think it's the sun. I'll be putting thick blankets over his curtains tonight!

Claire helps Liam with his "tummy time". She always makes MommyMom (her stuffed bunny) lie on her tummy next to Liam. She loves being a big sis!

Quick Cloth Diaper Update

Most of you probably won't care about this, but I feel like I should post a quick update on how the cloth diapers are working out for us. I was thrilled about them last time I mentioned it, but we have had a few problems since then and I don't want anyone to take my earlier recommendations without knowing the whole story.

After a couple months without problems, Claire's Flips started leaking about one or two times per week. Also, even when they didn't leak, her diapers often smelled of urine because the insert would be soaked through to the cover (Nick would say "She smells like a New York subway!"). I finally realized that the manufacturer recommends to use two cloth inserts for toddlers, and I had been only using one. Once I started with two, we didn't have any more leaks. This is something to keep in mind because you may need to purchase twice as many inserts with this system once your baby grows into toddlerhood.

There has been another problem with all of the different brands and styles that I've tried (I purchased some one-size pocket style diapers in addition to the Flips). Claire has very sensitive skin, and the waterproof outer covers rub against her upper thighs, irritating her skin quite a bit. I can't think of any solution to this other than perhaps putting cotton panties on over the diaper. However, we've stopped using the cloth diapers altogether for now in an attempt to simplify my life while Liam is in the newborn stage. I will probably continue using disposables until Claire potty trains, hopefully within the next couple months. I'll try using the cloth diapers on Baby Liam once he is about 3 months old and no longer going through a million diapers a day. Hopefully the covers do not irritate his skin like they did for Claire.

There's a possibility that this has been a failed experiment and a waste of money. I really didn't mind washing them -- I had a good routine going -- but the main problem was the cover rubbing against Claire's skin. I hadn't read about that happening on any forums while I was researching the topic, so I would imagine that most babies don't have that problem.

Have any of you tried cloth diapers? What did you think?

Babywearing

I received several different styles of infant carriers and slings when I was pregnant with Claire. I tried each one and never felt completely comfortable wearing them; either I was afraid that she was not secured safely or the awkward positioning hurt my back. Eventually, my mom made me a "Moby" style wrap (google it for instructions - so easy to make!). It's basically just 15 feet of cotton fabric that you can wrap around your body in a variety of ways. You can carry a newborn against your body, which is great for Kangaroo holding. For older babies, they can be facing outward or carried on your back. Toddlers can even be carried on your hip with this wrap (although I've never tried that -- too heavy!).

I'm a huge fan of "On Becoming Babywise" by Gary Ezzo, and the Babywise philosophy does not advocate wearing your baby 24/7. However, I've found that with an active toddler at home, I have much less time to hold and cuddle with Liam than I did when Claire was a newborn. While wearing him, I can get things done around the house or play with Claire and he still gets some Mommy cuddling time. Just thought I'd mention it for other moms who may be in the market for a new sling!

June Garden

Let's check out my veggie garden in June. Now, I don't bother weeding around the perimeter of the garden -- so just ignore that, ok? :)

One of the two zucchini plants.

One of the two groups of purple beans (like green beans, only purple).

One of the four rows of basil. Still just little guys!

A few of the nine tomato plants. They are starting to get yellow flowers now.

Four rows of radishes. They are popping out of the ground -- but I don't think I've ever eaten a radish in my life. I don't know what to do with them! Between the rows are rows of carrots, but you can hardly see them. For some reason, my carrots aren't doing well this year.

One of the hills of cucumbers.

You can see nearly the entire garden in this picture. I'm standing where the lettuce and mesclun were planted...none of which came up! I have no idea what the problem is; we've had tons of lettuce every other year.

From left to right: One of the three bell peppers, a row of shallots, and two of the eight broccoli plants.

My special little garden helper!

Brother and Sister

Let me just say, I really admire newborn photographers! I'm having a tough time getting shots that show how cute this little guy is.

You may remember that Claire's nickname was "Baby" for her first two years of life. We thought that might be confusing when the new baby arrived, so we've been making an effort to teach Claire that she's a big girl. Now, she refers to herself as "BigGirlClaire". For example, "BigGirlClaire eat snack? BigGirlClaire play outside?". It's pretty cute. Nick and I now refer to her as BGC when she's not around because we're weird like that :).

A big yawn :)

A little smirk.

Baby Liam has been the sweetest little thing ever! He sleeps really well (but likes to stick to a 2-hour feeding schedule at night...hopefully that starts to stretch out a bit soon, but at least he's sleeping between feedings!). He rarely cries and is easily soothed. He has been a wonderful addition to our family.

A proud daddy showing off his swaddling skills!

Baby Liam

OK, now I haven't taken ANY pictures yet. We seriously only have a couple shots that Nick took in the hospital. I promise I'll post some really cute ones soon!

Liam Hurley Sabey arrived on Friday, June 18 at 3:42 a.m., weighing 8 pounds 2 ounces. He is perfect in every way!

Just a warning...this is a birth story, so get out now if you don't want the gory details!

On Thursday at 5:00 p.m., just over a week before my due date, I was cleaning the bathtub (a chore I'd put off for weeks), and all of the bending and twisting was probably a good idea...my water broke! I rushed around packing my hospital bag (another task I'd been procrastinating) and we headed up to Memorial North. I was checked out at the triage center and it was determined that I was having contractions 5-6 minutes apart and was dilated to 3 cm.

Because my water had already broken, I was admitted and told that if things didn't start picking up after about 6 hours, I would need to be put on pitocin. Nick, Claire and I hung around the hospital for the next few hours, waiting for my family to arrive to take Claire home. I never sat down and just walked, walked, walked, trying to keep those contractions coming!

At 11:00 pm, I was only dilated to 4 and my contractions hadn't picked up at all. In went the dreaded IV and the contractions definitely increased in intensity (and pain) once the pitocin started. At this point, I lay down in bed and tried to get some rest between contractions.

The pain was getting worse as time went on. By around 1 a.m., I was only dilated to 5. I started getting VERY cold and my entire body was shaking. This made it impossible to rest between contractions and I was starting to feel overwhelmed. I moved to a birth ball and was wrapped in 4 warm blankets, which made me feel a million times better. The mood lightened a lot and Nick and I started goofing off -- I discovered that laughing through the contractions made them much more bearable!

Around 2:30 a.m., my contractions were spacing out again and they increased my dose of pitocin. The pain became nearly unbearable at this point, and I could hardly breathe through the contractions. My nurse was certain that I was in transition because the pain was so bad, but I was only at a 6!

At 3:00 a.m., I moved back to the bed and things started happening fast! Suddenly, I felt the urge to push very strongly and could hardly contain myself from doing so as the nurse checked again...in just about 15 minutes I was already dilated to 9, and the nurse said to go ahead and push! After 19 minutes of nonstop pushing - and lots of screaming - baby Liam was born. He was so beautiful!

Thank you to all my friends who encouraged me to attempt a natural birth. Although the pain was almost worse than I could have imagined, everything went much more quickly and the recovery is going better than I'd expected.

Welcome, Baby Liam! We love you!

Funny Faces

Claire has always been a kid who makes funny faces...

"Surprise!"

"Sad"

"Pirate face" (including a hearty "Arrrrrrrrr!")

And this is how Claire sleeps 100% of the time...with that cute little bottom up in the air and cuddling with DaddyMonkey (her special animals at the moment are named DaddyMonkey, MommyMom, and BabyMonkey).

Claire's New Room: After Pictures

...and here is Claire's new room! (See previous post for before pictures). She loves it and adjusted very well to the move.

Nick painted the walls, and my mom hemmed the curtains and covered the little table shown here.

All of the furniture in the room was free: hand-me-downs from our wonderful family and friends!

The desk was Nick's childhood desk, built by his grandfather.

My mom transformed a thrift store CD storage container into a super-cute dollhouse.

Nick's talented sister, Danielle, made these collages featuring old pictures of Nick's grandmother.

A close-up of one of Danielle's pieces. I bought several mismatched wooden frames from Goodwill and painted them yellow (another project my mom helped with!).

Nick's other sister, Elise, created this piece of art. We're lucky to have such a talented family!