Life with Kids

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Weekending - the time we went a pumpkin patch

Happy Tuesday friends!! I hope you are all able to enjoy this lovely October day. It's beautiful today in the PNW and when it's sunny in Seattle there is no place I'd rather be (except maybe Disneyland...)

We had a fantastic weekend!! Finnley actually went to to Gparents a couple days early and was loving all of the 1:1 time she was getting! It was so good for her to get to go and be by herself...and good for me too, letting go of my babies is probably the hardest thing for me. Good news!! We both made it, we both survived, and we are both A-okay!!

Ellie didn't have school on Friday and I had a screw in my tire. We made our way to the tire shop to get it fixed and walked to Arby's for lunch. She was so much fun, incredibly polite, and we had such a sweet time having lunch together (with Séamus too). Once Thomas got home we loaded up the car (including the dogs - because Cooper has diabetes and requires daily injections) and drove over the mountains to the Gparents for the weekend.

We made record time (safely, I might add) and enjoyed a great dinner of lasagna. It's a family recipe and includes sauerkraut in the mix. Strange? yes!!! Good? YES!!! I had two helpings myself and the girls even ate some, hashtag double win!! Séamus hung out on the floor during dinner and all Finnley really wanted to do was see her baby.

We chatted the evening away, my MIL and I discussed our Oils routines and talked all about Progessence Plus. It's basically my new best friend. I would love to share everything about it, but I have to implore you to do your own research on in. What I can tell you is that it has done amazing things for some of my friends skin!!

Finnley headed to bed early, Séamus slept hard in the crib...until he woke up at 1:30 for nursing, and then I woke up with a migraine, these pp hormones are no joke. Thankfully I brought my tension roller with us and was able to apply that to my temples, forehead, neck and shoulders. I grabbed an ice pack, a migraine pill, and everyone was nice enough to let me head back up to bed for another rest. A couple hours later I was basically good as new!!

My MIL and I talked about all the ways that you can stretch the Thieves Cleaning Line since it's so heavily concentrated. You can Triple the amount of your Thieves Dish Soap ($14 / 3 = $4.67 a bottle) and you can Double your Thieves Laundry Detergent stretching from 64 loads to 128!! ($29.50 / 2 = $14.75 a bottle!!) You can do the same with the Shampoo, Conditioner, and Bath Gel too!! Not only that but you are using clean plant based products infused with Essential Oils that are so good for you!

Then we made our way out to Michaels to pick up some letter stickers to put onto our roller's that we were planning to make that evening!

We got back and Thomas and his dad had returned from their fishing, we had a quick lunch, and then made our way out to a Pumpkin Patch! Finnley fell asleep in the car on the way there, as did Séamus. Ellie had an absolute blast while we were there. We got to watch the pumpkin cannon, Ellie got to shoot a walnut cannon, the girls played in the kids zone, they picked out our pumpkins, we had pumpkin doughnuts, and just really enjoyed ourselves to the max!

After the patch we had an early dinner and then made our way to a park. The girls went bananas at this park. It's brand new and so much fun. There is a zipline, an accessible zipline, the entire ground surface is that spongy rubber. They had swings galore, an accessible whirlygig, and all the slides you could ever want. They even had Monkey Bars and Ellie surprised us all with her ability to cross them all by herself multiple times!! We all cannot wait to head back.

Back at the Gparents, my MIL and I made rollers, we had dessert, put the kids to bed, and crashed ourselves. It was a full day.

Sunday morning we were up bright and early. Had breakfast and then were on our way home. Séamus slept the entire way, Finnley nodded off for a little bit, and Ellie watched movies the entire way. We spent the rest of the day at home and just settled in before the work week started.

How was your weekend? What did you do?

♥ Ashley

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

The Séamus Weekly - week 11

My heart skipped a beat when I wrote the title of this post. How is Séamus already 11 weeks old? That means that next week he'll have completed his 4th Trimester and we are well on our way to an infant! Little man is growing and changing every day. Every once in a while I will catch a glimpse of a similarity of either me or Thomas, but not very often. However, we visited with my BFF this past weekend (we've known each other since we were both in the womb) and she commented right away that Séamus totally looks like my family!! So there we have it folks, we got the right embryo!!

Sleeps: I think the babe is still doing pretty good on this front. Little Man is an expert at his naps and has been great at sleeping on the go this weekend. We all get much better sleep when we're home but that isn't always possible so I'm just thrilled that he's been able to just go with the flow. He is still getting up twice to feed. Our doctor told us that he is old enough now he doesn't have to be doing that...but I have no idea how to drop one of the middle of the night feedings. Especially since Séamus is still sleeping in our room in the Halo right next to my side of the bed. So if you've got any tips - please send them my way. I've been playing around with different diffuser blends to see if we can find a better match...my favorite sleep support is Cedarwood and I've been combining it with Gentle Baby the past few nights and I have to say, my sleep has improved!

Eats: still breastfeeding like its our job...because basically it is. Our nursing sessions have definitely gotten much shorter since his lip tie procedure and the pain is basically nonexistent!!! He is still eating all throughout the day and a couple times at night. Lately we've been experiencing a little bit of spit up so I'm going to try to take better note of what I'm eating to see if that is effecting his spit up.

Goes: we've been out to Target (of course), to the Farmer's Market and with my BFF, to Ellie's school, to the Library (where he slept in the Ergo the entire time) and to her Cheerleading class. As I mentioned above he is quite the little traveler and will sleep pretty much everywhere! The past couple of days he has been less than thrilled getting into the car seat but seems to settle down quickly after he is buckled in. Hopefully this is just a phase because his frequency in the car seat isn't going to diminish much here in the future.

Wears: we are still using size 1 diapers and have almost finished up all of the diapers that were gifted to us. Baby Boy is growing and filling out his 0-3 month clothing quite nicely and I love getting to see him in all the cute outfits we have! It's so hard deciding which size of clothing to get because I'm just not sure how long he's going to be in each size for. I've been able to get him to wear some footed sleepers and now that they fit him better he is tolerating them better.

Does: Séamus is holding his head up so well and loves to look around. He smiles and coos and it's the best thing ever, I think we've even gotten some laughs out of him. He is still rocking it at tummy time and has started to reach with his arms and kicking his legs! He loves to play on his play mat (we're on our third baby with it and it still is a total hit!) and bat at all the toys, or lounge around on the Boppy as well. We've also been practicing sitting up and playing with our activity cube (similar here and here) which he seems to enjoy. He is loving bath time and our nightly massages with YL Seedlings Baby Oil before getting his jammies on.

Mama: hanging out with my BFF was so good for my soul. I also had a chance to get into the kitchen and make a few things this week which was so much fun. I've been working on getting into a routine at night and I feel so much more ready to go to bed when I get everything done before the girls go down. I've been changing into lounge wear (if I wasn't in it already), washing my face and putting on my DIY Glow Serum (recipe coming soon), applying my wellness roller and calm roller, and misting our pillows with a lullaby spray! I have also been going through our house and posting things for sale/for free that we no longer use and just don't need taking up space in our home anymore. I am all about minimizing what we have in our house. I have also been really into Podcasts and have been listening to them in the car. I am soaking up all this time with the kids and am just loving watching Séamus grow and learn!

Sisters: Ellie loves her brother so much! She is doing great at Kindergarten and comes home with stories every day. I am able to get a lot more information out of her for what they did each day in Kinder than I was last year in PreK. She has been enjoying doing her homework and sends herself to bed around 7:30 each night!! Can't argue with that!
Finnley is all about baby bro and has been trying to drag him around by his feet...when she catches me watching her she stops, lets go, and says "I sorry, I sorry". Drives in the car have gotten so much better now that she is out of her sling and she just loves to play all day. She is very much self driven and is perfectly content going off and "playing" by herself. She is still BIG with her emotions and we are working on finding what's best for her.
Watching the three of them together is the best thing ever and I am so thankful to have this life.