Weekend Festivities: A parade, bounce house, and splash pad... oh my!

Pregnancy, the heat and humidity, and our daughter's eczema seem to have really slowed us down this summer. We had spent most of last week stuck indoors for those reasons so when the weekend rolled around we decided it was time to get outdoors for a bit. Lucky for us, our town was having their yearly celebration and gave us several festivities to attend with our daughter.

First, we kicked off our Friday with a bounce house party in the center of our town. Our daughter had a blast despite my concern that she would be scared to go without her parents into the bounce house. She totally shocked me when she had no issues. Sad moment for mommy. I was proud, too, but it's amazing how independent she has become.

Our local (and new) hamburger joint offered free ice cream and we couldn't resist stopping in for some of that! Ice cream, hamburgers, and malts are where it's at.

On Saturday, we watched a local parade and Payton collected more candy than a 2 year old should ever have at once! I gladly helped her consume her bag of goodies. Afterwards, we did some quick shopping downtown before heading to our new splash pad! We are so excited that our town built this! It was a total hit for our family.

How was your weekend?

DIY: Sandbox

For our child's first birthday, we made her a kid's sized picnic table that converts into benches. It was a total hit for our daughter (as well as for us)! We decided then that we would want to give a handmade present of some sort for birthdays hence forth. The next year, we failed. For her second birthday, we didn't have time to make the gift we wanted to (I have a million excuses why). We did buy her a play house that she enjoyed though. 

Not to despair! We (by we, I mean my husband and his father) have since found the time to make a sandbox for our child and she couldn't be happier:

That's her doing the happy dance!

The sandboxes with bench seats seems to be very popular right now and I have seen several individuals locally selling them. I also regularly see them on Facebook and Pinterest. We loosely followed these plans for this sandbox. Most of the plans we found were for a 4 foot by 4 foot sandbox but we decided to go a bit bigger (go big or go home approach is typically our way) and did a 6 foot x 8 foot. sandbox It's seriously BIG! The great news is that it nicely folds up when we are done using it!

We have only had the sandbox for a few weeks but have found so much enjoyment from it! My husband and a friend also had a castle building contest over a random weekend after having a few too many drinks! I think it's safe to say, we are all enjoying this new toy!

In other news, I am 36 weeks pregnant with our baby boy! Holy cow, has time flown by! I definitely feel like I am about to pop at any given moment. I'm hoping to get an update on the pregnancy done this week. 

What updates do you have from your week?

This post has been linked up with Epic Mommy Adventure's Meandering Mondays blog hop.

Children's Museum

We have been wanting to take our toddler to our nearest children's museum for quite some time now. With our due date for baby #2 rapidly approaching, it was time to put the pedal to the metal and make the trip to the museum. This mean a 40 minute drive one-way. We found the experience well worth it! 

Payton only made it a little over an hour at the museum, which we expected. It was a lot to take in for her. Boy was she busy for that period of time though. And so excited. And so happy. She had a blast shopping for groceries, putting boats in the water, meeting other chdren, and shoving a whole weeks worth of activities into 60 minutes.

If you have a children's museum nearby and haven't made the trip with your child yet, I believe you will find it going to at least once! I looked into the membership pass and that could be worth getting if you think you will be able to go frequently. Our family would only need to go about 4 times to break even with the yearly fee.

Summer Goals Update

Since it's been over a month since I shared my summer goals for 2015 with you, I wanted to check in and give an update about where we are with meeting our goals now. I am not sure how much progress will be made after this post as I feel our baby due date is sneaking up on us. At our last ob appointment, we learned this baby could definitely be coming earlier than mid-July. Gulp! That is right around the corner!

In any case, here's our current progress:

1. Increase Payton's Library Attendance

I would say that I have made it to over half of these weekly sessions in the last month. At least one time story time was cancelled by the library, so missing that one wasn't my fault. I would say we are at least progressing on this goal, for now!

2. Get Outside

This goal is not going well. We have had high heat mixed with high levels of humidity. Not a good combination. The mosquitoes are out in full force and, despite using bug spray constantly, we are getting eaten alive. I'm very afraid of getting West Nile from these pesky creatures so unfortunately this has kept us indoors.

When we get outside, for brief periods of time, we are enjoying our time!

3. Prepare for Baby 

I still have not started our baby boy's room yet and I feel like this is a ticking time bomb. I could end up waiting too long and having to figure this out after he arrives.

On the plus side, I have been stocking up on basic items we use frequently (kleenex, toilet paper, and napkins) and have started getting freezer meals (beef and corn enchiladas, muffins, pizza crust, and breakfast burritos are done) in the freezer. When my daughter was born, the last thing we wanted to do was run to the store for anything!

Of course, I am already out of freezer room though and we have now decided to buy a new freezer to have as a spare. Since our current deep freeze is always full, it is probably time to add the second freezer. As we continue to buy our meat yearly and freeze apples from our apple tree our new freezer should stay stocked. Talk about expensive though! 

4. Grow a Garden

Done and done! The biggest issue now is we are not taking the time to weed like we should. We are hoping to get better at this. My grandmother came to visit and has helped us tremendously with the gardening.

5. Take a Quick, Close to Home Vacation

This may or may not even be a realistic goal. My husband's work schedule has had him traveling like crazy, but I hope to make a quick getaway before our next little one arrives. Before our daughter, we used to vacation all over the world but those trips have been postponed (indefinitely) while growing our family. We did take a quick vacation last year over Valentine's day and we had such a blast! I miss traveling and seeing the world sometimes, but for now, I really love our quick weekend road trips that happen annually with my expanding family.

How are your goals coming along?

What's Weighing On My Mind This Week

Do you ever have a week where you feel like you just have too much on your mind? I'm there this week. I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. I think it's just a passing mood and I'm now focused on trying to get through my mental struggles. Although this can be hard to admit to, here are some of the things I'm struggling with now:

*Money

We aren't necessarily struggling financially but prior to changing from a full-time employee to an extremely part-time employee we were on the fast track to becoming debt-free (including our mortgage). Not having the extra income has increased our debt payoff plan by several years. I feel so blessed to be able to be with my child every day, but I'm struggling to accept that this decision extends when we will eliminate our debt once and for all.

*Mom Guilt

I feel like I have been ending each day this week with lots of mom guilt weighing on me. Pregnancy isn't an excuse but I'm far enough along now that I'm moving much slower, have less energy, and find moving around much more challenging. My child is an active toddler with a wide range of fluctuating emotions and I am challenged lately with keeping my emotions in check. 

I feel that society puts a lot of pressure on being this supermom that does everything and has her child involved in everything, all while keeping a clean house. I'm constantly reminded I can't measure up to that ideal, although I can admit that I try my hardest.

* My Husband

We all go through our own struggles in life. It's hard for me to watch my husband go through a hard time that I can't change. Work has been extremely demanding for him and when he's home he is trying to finish our basement before baby #2 arrives. This leaves little personal and family time. I pray that I am meeting his needs and supporting him in the way he needs me to during this time.

*Baby #2

I am so excited for our new baby to come but I am also so nervous for the transition. I don't do well with change. Any change. I've always been very resistant and struggle with adjusting to life changes. It's been over a year since we bought and moved to our new house and I would say I'm still adjusting to that! I am just thinking about the changes coming up and trying to keep myself open to this time in my life.

This seems like such a downer post in many ways! These worries and struggles are real for me, but I know they won't last. They do reflect my current season of life, which will change.

On a lighter note, my daughter has quite the personality coming out! She is known as miss bossy pants at our house and loves to accessorize with jewelry, hats, and her shoes. She loves picking out her outfits and does a really good job most of the time! I'm so loving getting to know her personality!

Oh, and I'm totally in love with her mess of curly hair.

10 Mins To Yourself: Give Your Toddler a Box

Sometimes, life is just too simple and easy. Why do we make it harder than it has to be? I fall into this trap of needing to always be doing something really creative constantly with my child. Sometimes this means mess-free painting, bathtub painting, or any other Pinterest inspired activity I can find. At the end of the day though, my child doesn't really care what I put together for us to do, she just wants her quality time and something to do. I sometimes fail to recognize this.

The other day, my husband took an empty box and turned it into a train for my daughter, complete with a side door and windows. She loved this and has continued to play with it daily. She loves to have us sit inside with her while she climbs in and out. She also colors the box and brings her babies for a train visit. The possibilities for playing with this box appear endless! 

An added bonus is that my toddler will also play with the box and give me a quick 10 minutes to get a few things done. Who can beat that? And this activity... totally free! It may take up some space, but it's totally worth it!

I have been battling severe allergies this week and thus welcomed this box with open arms! Not feeling well combined with little sleep has made it especially challenging for me to get through this week. Alas, it's Friday (finally) and I am looking forward to the weekend! We have no major plans but to continue working on finishing our basement. I'm hoping to get some rest while I recover from being so sick this week.

Happy Friday!

Toddler Tales: Not Sleeping Through The Nights

A few weeks ago I posted our daily schedule. I mentioned then that nights aren't easy to predict. Some nights, my toddler sleeps straight through with no issues (YES). Other nights, she wakes and won't go back to sleep for hours. Like 2+ hours. The struggle is real.

Sleep has almost always been a challenge for our toddler. At birth, she had her days and nights backwards and it took months for us to get that switched. It wasn't until just before her 2nd birthday that she finally had periods of time where she slept straight through the night. Prior to that, the 1-2 nightly wakings would only last about 20 minutes. I would have her use the potty and rock her back to sleep. It was fairly routine and predictable. Just how I like it!

In the last couple of months, there is little to no predictability and I'm not entirely sure why. It may partially be due to not really having a routine when she wakes in the middle of the night now. When I got to the point where Payton wasn't falling asleep when I rocked her, I had no idea what to do next. I tried to lay with her in the toddler bed, where she would fall asleep but would wake as soon as I left. Being 7+ months pregnant now, it's not realistic for me to plan to sleep in a toddler bed all night (talk about leg cramps and hip/back pain). Now I feel like I've tried it all, sometimes within the same night. Rocking, bedtime story, sending in daddy, crying it out, laying in toddler bed, parent laying on floor next to crib all do not seem to be working. In the end, our child has ended up in our bed. This seems to be the ony way we all get any sleep. 

When we became parents we really didn't want to allow children to sleep in our bed. This was a personal decision based on the idea that we stood the possibility of never getting them back to their own bed (we still struggle with the idea of having our 2 dogs sleep on the floor). As long as it doesn't appear that our daughter is waking just to come to our bed, I will probably continue on this path. 

It's just amazing to me how one rough night each week can really throw both my daughter and me off these days. A night of little sleep worries me for her as she struggled horribly the next day. She is frustrated easily, has trouble concentrating, and is typically more aggressive. I hope we get this sleep stuff worked out soon!

But... Who can resist such a cute face?

I would welcome any tips/advice you would have for me!

Tell me, have you been sleeping lately?