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Birthday Blog Update(s)

Well here it is May already and I'm just now getting around to blogging about Collin & Gwen's Birthdays. That's what happens when you have an 8 month old that STILL doesn't sleep through the night. He was doing sooo well too. He was sleeping ALMOST all the way through (like 8 hours!!!) which is insane and awesome....then tragedy struck. He got his first fever :( I mean serious fever too....104.2 to be exact. All the wanted to do way lay in my lap and nurse. Luckily he wanted to nurse because he was getting a good dose of fluids and antibodies. But the fever lasted for 3 days. During that time I wanted him close to me so he slept in our bed and now we have regressed BIG TIME. Last night was a little better and I'm hoping he will continue to sleep again but we will see. He is still not eating much food and wants to nurse a lot more too so I'm thinking he's not getting enough sustainable calories to last him all night. Anyhoo, back to C & G. So Gwen turned 6 on April 5th and we threw a small birthday party for her and 4 of her closest friends at Meadowbrook park. She loves doing scavenger hunts with Sam and since her birthday was so close to Easter we figured it could kind of be a play on an Easter Egg hunt. My thought was this would be an easy, low-key birthday party well....I thought wrong. Timing was everything with this party.The park was really busy because it was such a nice day so we didn't want to hide the clues beforehand in case some other random person walking through the park saw them and messed with them so the plan was Sam was to run ahead of me and hide the clues one by one. When the kids first arrived we had them decorate their goody bags so by the time the hunt was over their bags would be dry and ready to use. While they were distracted with that Sam hid the first clue. They were all into in and found the first clue after some help. Then we headed down the trail and sent the kids on an adventure to find the other 17 clues. The boys were ALL into it. Especially Collin who thought he was "helping" by finding all the clues but um...notsomuch. So I had to reel him in. Half the girls were into the whole time but Gwen and her friend kind of lost interest in trying to catch the boys and find the clues before them so they just held hands and skipped down the trail most of the time. They did perk up though when they found a "candy clue". We put candy in some of the clue boxes for added fun and excitement. Half way through the hunt we stopped for a break to eat more (cause anyone who knows Gwen knows she can't go too long without eating) and recharge with some drinks. The last clue was the ultimate clue box which was full of balloons and each kid had to pop one and only one held the last clue which revealed that the hunt was over they had successfully found all the clues and to head back to the party table for the pinata. The pinata which I made from scratch cause I wasn't about to pay $20 for something they would rip apart in 6 seconds. So I did. The pinata part was easy....the decorating the pinata part SUCKED! But I suffered through. I filled it with candy and was so scared that is was going to fall apart (because I mean, really...how strong can newspaper, flour and water be? I mean it looks pretty precarious at this point)

that I reinforced the hell out of the bottom with cardboard. Gwen wanted a pull string pinata so I also had to figure out a way to attach strings to the bottom. Instead of having the kids pull the strings one at a time I handed them each a string and they all pulled at the same time and..um...nothing happened. I had reinforced it TOO well and all the candy was still stuck inside. Luckily one of the guest's older brother was there and he just started shaking it and all the candy fell down. The unfortunate thing is I didn't get a chance to take too many pictures. During the hunt I was too busy making sure Collin didn't find all the clues and after I was too distracted with leading the party so that was the sad part. Here are a few though.

I think she had fun. The one thing I spent the most time on was probably the thing this kids used the least and were the least interested in...go figure. I made a map from scratch by taking a walk through the park (3 different times I might add) and taking pictures of each of the sculptures and then printing them off into smaller pictures all the while making sure that I tried to angle the curves to match the trail. Um...yeah...HUGE waste of time. But it is still cute. :)

I was going to blog about Collin's birthday to see the Bulls game but I've rambled on far too much for one blog post so I will try to blog about that tomorrow. Toodles!!

Chapter 2

It's been a sweet, sweet 7 months. However, Sam and I have both come to the realization that Oliver's babyhood is over and now we're onto the next chapter of his life, Chapter 2, if you will.
Chapter 2 consists of Oliver needing to get into EVERYTHING. I can barely hold him anymore. As soon as I pick him up he squirms to get down. It's been a good ride and I really enjoyed him as a baby and he really lasted a lot longer than Collin and Gwen in his babyhood so I'm not complaining...it's just sad. I look back at pictures from just a few months ago when he was just a squishy door stop and now he's a full blown machine...on a mission to tear every single DVD off the shelf. Baby toys are no good anymore. A hairbrush or a lotion bottle is way cooler. Even better would be something he could choke on or cut himself with. Why is it that babies/toddlers are naturally drawn to objects that can either poison, cut or maim them?? Or is it just my kids?
Also he is officially crawling now. Not in the traditional sense though, oh no, it's some weird crossbreed between crab and bear crawling mixed with some good old fashioned butt scootching. He also thinks it's awesome to pull himself up onto the couch, chairs, the bathtub, the oven/refrigerator/dishwaher, etc.. You know, basically the step right before walking. I'm so not prepared. I haven't baby proofed my house. I guess when he falls down the stairs or sticks something in a light socket I'll know it's time to baby proof. I mean I know it's time I'm just thinking since there is only one of him maybe I can get away with not COMPLETELY baby proofing this time around. Probably not but I'm just not ready. Not ready for him to be so grown up.

Conversation this morning

Collin: A bug just crawled under the bookshelf.
Me: AAAAAHHHH! What kind of bug?
Collin: I'm not sure either an ant or a centipede.
Me: EWWW!! Oh My God! Kill it!
Collin: NO
Me: You're the big boy of the house you're supposed to kill bugs and stuff.
Collin: Not in this! (his pajamas) Let me get dressed first.

Ha! I guess he wanted to look nice for the unidentified bug's funeral.

Any Given Saturday

Today was a pretty typical Saturday in the Schiff household. It involved a great mix of playing/enjoying outside with friends and lots of food.
It is soooo nice to be back amongst the living. Last Sunday I got a horrible headache. I didn't think much of it. I took some Tylenol and it seemed to get better. That evening we went to eat at our FAVORITE restaurant (BEST MEXICAN RESTAURANT IN TOWN HANDS DOWN!!)and I couldn't taste the food :( After we got home I was sooo tired I couldn't stay awake. As soon as I laid Ollie down that night I went right to bed and left Sam to put the bigger kids to bed by himself. Ollie got up a few times during the night and I didn't feel right when I got up to nurse him. The next morning I could barely get out of bed. Tired is not the right word. Exhausted is not the right word. It felt like I had been drained of all my energy during that night. I could barely walk. My headache was back and I felt a swollen gland in my throat. There was a ton of pressure behind my right eye but I couldn't get any relief. I don't like taking medicine so the only thing I took was Ibuprofen to hopefully help with the pressure and the feeling my head about to explode. That day was long and hard with Ollie since I couldn't just lay around I had to keep going. As soon as Sam got home that night I went right to bed and left him to put all three kids to bed by himself. The several times I got up that night with Oliver I could tell I was not better. The following day is when the fever started. I was hot, I was freezing cold, I had the headache and the EXTREME fatigue was going no where. I slept for two hours that day when Oliver napped and woke up EXHAUSTED still. That night when I tried to go to sleep I was shivering soo bad I couldn't fall asleep and this was one of the 70 degree days we had last week so it really wasn't cold out I just had a fever. Sam got out the heating blanket for me and I tossed and turned all night with a fever of about 103. The headache was unbearable. Finally sometime during the night my fever broke and I woke up sweating buckets. Poor Sam and Oliver were burning up too becasue I was laying there with the heating blanket on full blast. On Thursday I felt a little more normal. I actually had some energy and cleaned my kitchen which felt really good but I think I overdid it a bit and was zapped of energy by the end of the day. Friday was a little bit of a setback the headache came back but finally some of the pressure was releasing and I was able to blow my nose and get some of the yuckky junk out of my head.
The awesome part of the this sickness was I was not hungry AT ALL. I lost 5 lbs. during the 5 day ordeal. It was water weight becasue I was still drinking lots of fluids. I was so tired and sick though that I couldn't even read my book! I got Mockingjay from the library about 5 days before my sickness and only read about 1/4 of it. Yesterday with my newfound life energy I finished the book. I cried my eyes out at the end. I couldn't believe the author didn't make Katniss and Gale still good friends and that Katniss and Peeta still struggled with their demons on a daily basis. I'm all about happy endings and wished that the Capitol could have given them some drug or treatment to make them forget all the bad stuff and go back the to lovely dovey relationship that they should have had if not for the Quarter Quell. But honestly, I LOVED the series. I'm needing to find another good book to read.
Anyway, back to today. It was lovely to feel better (not 100% but still) and to be able to play with my kids and joke around with my husband. This is what life is all about. I guess that is one thing being sick can do: make you appriciate not being sick and precious time with your loved ones. Oh and I think I gained all 5 lbs. back today. I made green cupcakes with my new all-natural food coloring and we went back to our FAV restaurant and I could actually taste the yummy food this time so I made up for not being able to taste last time BIG TIME ;-p

What a man, what a man, what a mighty good man

Today is my birthday. I wasn't expecting much. I turned 32 so it's not a big deal but this morning my husband surprised me and said he wanted to take me out for lunch. I also got all 3 of my snugglebugs in bed with me at 6:30 with 2 out of 3 singing Happy Birthday. Gwen informed me that I just had to get out of bed cause there was a surprise for me upstairs which she said she couldnt tell me what it was cause she promised daddy and then proceeded to tell me it was balloons. I also got two lovely notes from the kids and Collin spelled out a special message with Legos. After I took the kids to school I headed to the gym and then came home to shower. Afterward I met Sam at Ko Fusion for lunch. When we got to lunch he had an even bigger surprise...he was taking the rest of the afternoon off. After we got home from lunch he instructed me to relax and drink a Mimosa which I happily obliged. After the Mimosa I went downstairs to read my book. After I read my book for a bit he said he was going to go pick up the big kids from school which was awesome. When he was picking the kids up from school I laid Oliver down for a nap and I started to read my book again. At about 3:45 he came into the room and said I needed to leave and go to BodyWork Associates where he had booked a massage for me. I haven't had real massage done since I was pregnant with Gwen and it did not disappoint. When I left the massage I went shopping at Bella Mia and found some adorable shorts and a top. When i arrived home dinner was waiting and ice cream cake for dessert. I am one lucky mama. Sam took care of the kids all day, I got a great lunch/dinner, a massage and went shopping...throw in a mani/pedi and I could get used to this lifestyle REAL quickly. I've got a good man. He's a definite keeper! Now, unfortunately, Gwennie is feeling sick again so my day of leisure is coming to an end and my mommy responsibilities are kicking back in but after the day I've had I'm relaxed enough to jump in and take over.

Why I Quit Facebook

1. Sam really doesn't like the idea of Facebook. He's under the belief that a lot of people on Facebook are doing some sinister stuff aka cheating on their husbands, rekindling old high school flames etc. He's kinda old school. He only just recently started texting and only after I received my iPhone and went on and on about how cool it is that you can get sports updates sent straight to it did he finally convert to his first ever smart phone. Although his old school mentality about facebook and texting doesn't hold much weight in my world (both our moms are on Facebook and my grandma texts me) it is still important for me to take his concerns into consideration.
2. I've spent sooo much money on stuff I don't really need. Or course there is also the flipside of that and there are a lot of coupons that companies put exclusively on their Facebook page but I always forget coupons when I go shopping and printing out coupons I will never use is just another wathor wasting money. Printer ink is expensive! As of today I have a pair of shoes I bought for Oliver that he can't wear until he's about 18 months old. A cloth diaper that needs new elastic and I can't sew. 6 fabric headbands I bought for Gwen that she hates and on and on. I am constantly getting updates of these incredible deals for stuff I DON'T NEED.
3. IT'S A MAJOR TIME SUCK!! Now that I do have a smart phone I found myself checking the damn thing constantly just because I can. Which is cool if you're a single person without major responsibilities. Not so cool if you're a wife and a mother of 3 who is constantly checking out. My kids were always saying, "look mommy", "watch this", etc... and my response was far too often "hold on", "in a minute", etc... Talk about major mommy guilt. What was so important on my phone that I needed to neglect my kids? Oh yeah, NOTHING. I cut down my friends list to the bare minimum thinking that would help and it didn't. It was becoming TOO easy to check out and that worried me. I am so blessed that I am able to stay home with our kids. My husband works hard so I can stay home and here I was wasting that precious time by ignoring them. All of them. For what? For whom? I am in no way insinuating that this is the way all or even most of the people I know of Facebook act. It's just me. I have a somewhat obsessive compulsive personality that makes me go all out or not at all and since this was becoming a problem for ME I learned that the best remedy for me was to stop cold turkey.
Now a moment to reflect in the things I will miss.
1. Seeing what's going on in the lives of the special people in my life. Out of my (at one time 200+) Facebook friends I really only cared about 1/3 of them. So why so many "friends"? Morbid curiousity I guess. Otherwise I couldn't care less about what they had for breakfast or the vacation they took etc, etc. But a select few I really do care about and tryin to keep up with them the old fashioned way now is going to suck. I guess it will show me who I really care about and who really cares about me now that it's not so easy.
2. All my pictures!
I had virtually half of my childrens' lives documented through pictures on Facebook. My old computer broke in November of 2010 so I lost a TON of photos (I'm still not fully recovered). The process of saving all those photos to Facebook onto my new computer has been a loooooong process.
3. Feeling like I get to talk to adults during the day.
Being a stay at home mom (especially since my youngest is only 6 months) can be kind of alienating if you let it. I know lots of moms who are involved in a ton of different activities with their children....I'm not that mom. It seems too much like work to me. Facebook was a great middle ground between communicating with adults yet not having to get out of my pajamas. Which bring me to my next point.
4. The laugh factor
I have some seriously smart and hysterical friends! Scrolling through my news feed on any given day is sure to have me laughing out loud. Also sometimes people who aren't trying to be funny give me a hoot. I'm going to miss that daily dose of humor.
5. Important news updates. Facebook is where I found out Bea Arthur and Whitney Houston died. I don't read a lot of news articles online and since I now do so much from my smart phone (including writing this post so please excuse any typos) I have no need to scan the MSN homepage for news and interesting factoids. Watching tv is limited to about an hour before I fall asleep at night so not much info is gathered there. So many important things are now delivered at the speed of light and I will officially be the last to know....and I'm okay with that.
So where does that leave me? Well I've got lots more free time but know nothing about the world around me. I communicate less with people unless I do it "the old-fashioned" way.
My hope is that the disconnect with Facebook leaves me and my family more connected then ever. That my husband and kids won't hear my replies of "not now" and "in a minute" as often.
But I'm not COMPLETELY living off the grid. You can still find me on Instagram (@schiffty) and on Pinterest (@schiffty).

Well....it's almost official

My big break-up with Facebook is almost complete. I've been hanging on far longer than I should have and it's just time to make a clean break. It's not Facebook, it's me. You see Sam has not been happy about me having an account for quite sometime now and I've holding on because there are so many pictures on there that I need to save to my computer do they're not gone forever and it is so convienient to have all my far away friends in one place to keep tabs on but honestly facebook is a complete time suck and now that I have an iPhone I find myself checking Facebook far too often and checking out of quality time with my family. It's been a subtle transition for months now. I have slowly dwindled down my friends list to the bare minimum so I'm not over stimulated by the constant updates of people I barely know but even still I am constantly distracted. No more! I can do this. A good friend of mine did it and she is still alive to tell the tale. So I just need to stop cold turkey and like ripping off a band aid it will probably sting for a minute but then it will be all over. I've got plenty of social networking still available to me with twitter and Pinterest. Now when I update about my kids and my life I will be forced to go into details and keep this journal that I told myself this blog would be. I want to make it into a bound book someday so I can have all these memories to look back on and and two or three word sentence on facebook does not make a very good book.
I can do this!

All About Ollie

So far, gross motor skill wise, Oliver is nothing like Collin and Gwen....and I couldn't be happier.
By 4.5 months C & G were already army crawling. They hated their Bumbo seats and were always flailing to try and get out as soon as I would put them in.
Oliver, on the other hand, LOVES his Bumbo. He sits in there for about 10-15 min at a time. Another thing different about C & G and Oliver is that O is learning to sit up on his own. C & G never just sat....they were always on the move.
I love that at 5.5 months I can still put O down somewhere and know where he is. I haven't had to childproof much so that's nice. He's not a huge cuddler but he is somewhat cuddley. He loves avocados, sweet potatoes and bananas. I introduced acorn squash a couple days ago and it's not his favorite but he tolerates it. He loves to grab anything I have in front of him especially his giraffe Sophie. He loves to play with his toes and can bring his toes all the way into his mouth where he proceeds to suck on them. EWWW! :) He is very intrigued by the dogs and I think the feeling is mutual. He LOVES Collin and Gwen. When they talk (even if they're not talking TO him) he just starts smiling like crazy and making babbling noises. He has been making squealing, happy sounds for about a month now and recently he has started blowing raspberries.
In general he is a VERY happy baby. A couple of weeks ago he was fussy for about a week and I was convinced he was going to cut teeth at any moment but nope. No teeth yet. When we are out in public though and people come up to talk to him he is ALWAYS so receptive with a HUGE toothless smile and coo.
I can't even believe sometimes how incredibly lucky I am. I have 3 beautiful, happy, healthy children and an AMAZING husband who is seriously my best friend. Its why I'm the charmed mama. ;) Well Gwen has REALLY been testing me lately but that is a blog for a different day.

**please excuse the numerous typos in this posting. I am blogging from my phone.**

Hungry Girl

So at almost 5 months postpartum I've still got 20-25 lbs to lose. I've been working out and I've got no one to blame but myself. I've been eating really unhealthy and in large quantities. I don't want to stop eating yummy unhealthy food but something has to change. Today I started a new plan that I just made up where I allow myself to eat pretty much whatever between the time I get up and noon and then from noon to 5 I try to incorporate more fruits and veggies and then for dinner I have a Lean Cuisine or something similar and then NOTHING else after dinner. Well it's 9 pm and I want some snacks sooooo bad!
I brushed my teeth.
I am chewing gum like crack and still my brain keeps telling me I want a pop tart or some cookies or some chips or SOMETHING..anything.
But so far I have been strong. I have to believe that this is just my body detoxing from sugar and that it has to get easier. It just has to.

There is no excuse now....

I downloaded the blogger app to my phone so now I have absolutely no excuse not to blog more often.

Today was full of ups and downs. I followed through with one of my New Years Resolutions and invited a friend to lunch. It was amazing. Definitely an "up". Her daughter is suuuuper adorable and so well behaved it puts me and my kids to shame. Plus the food was delish and the conversation was superb!
On my way home I got a text from my sister-in-law. Her and my brother-in-law have been trying to get pregnant for over 16 months. She was actually pregnant the first time at the same time I was pregnant with Oliver. Our due dates were within weeks of each other. Unfortunately that pregnancy ended in miscarriage. They ended up getting pregnant 4 more times after that, all of which ended in failed implantation. On top of that my brother-in-law is an officer in the Air Force and they found out their next relocation will be to Minot, ND. My sister-in-law is from South Carolina. The very THOUGHT of ND makes her blood freeze. Well my brother-in-law applied for a position where they are currently located in the hopes that maybe they could stay and she texted to say they found out they will be going ND for sure. On top of that, last week they had another failed implantation and have officially been referred to an infertility specialist. A definite "down".
I feel so bad for them. It's also hard for me to know the right thing to say. I've never been in that situation. Sam and I look at each other too long and get pregnant. In the past I've said stupid shit like "everything happens for a reason" or "it wasn't the right time" or "God has a plan and we just don't know what it is yet" (and I'm not even religious!). Today though I spoke from my heart and said that I don't pretend to know what she's going through an I don't want to say anything stupid so I just told her that I will be here to listen if she ever wants to vent.
It's so frustrating! I know her and my brother-in-law will be amazing parents. I really do hope all of this infertility is for a reason and they will get pregnant soon.
All week we've been talking about going to Jupiter's 2 for dinner. I've been craving their pizza. When we got there the whole section by the play area was closed for a private party and there was a 45 min wait for a regular table. A "downer". We let the kids play for a while and then decided to hit Culver's on the way home. I got a chicken sandwich which was disgusting but I ate it anyway because I was starving and the fries were cold and Gwen's corn dog was GREY. To make up for the icky sandwich and cold fries I ordered a medium concrete mixer and ATE THE WHOLE THING. Usually I share with Sam or the kids but no I ate it all so now I feel like a huge fat blob. Downer!

Oliver finds his feet!

Oliver is 4.5 months and as of a few days ago he is OBSESSED with his feet. It's quite cute actually.