Lovesack giveaway!

Want to win a huge Lovesac? Mommies with Cents is giving away a giant Lovesac! Click here to enter!

Rules of Parenting

Ammon sent this in an email and it was so informative, I just had to share! I hope all you new parents out there are paying attention!

I love my messy baby!

Emilie loved her Spaghetti and Naan tonight, can't you tell?

Isaac's birthday party!

I can hardly believe that Isaac is just a couple days away from being FOUR! We had his birthday party with his friends today and had such a blast! Here are some highlights:

We had a rousing game of "pin the trailer on the semi truck" to really get the party started, followed by an even more rousing round of musical trucks. I forgot to take pictures of that game though, but it was pretty cute.
Then the kids ate lunch picnic-style on the floor and only spilled a few cups of orange soda. Few kids escaped without mustard- and Doritos-stained fingers, but nothing that caused permanent damage. Isaac's cute friend Marilyn, who Isaac insists he will marry some day. Isaac blowing out his 4 big birthday candles! It took him two blows, but he got them all out!Here's a close up of the cake. I made the "roads" into the number 4, then had little trucks made out of snickers, whoppers, and mini-m&m's. Granted, not the fanciest cake ever, but he wanted a green truck cake and that is what I came up with. Isaac's friends showered him with such fun presents, and most of them were trucks or truck-related. He is so excited have so many fun new toys to play with, thank you so much!

And the winner is.....

Congratulations Brea! Your sweet little Ema is going to look so styling in her new clippies! The catch, though, is you'll need to send me a picture of her wearing one! I hope you enjoy!

And as a consolation to everyone else, here's a pic of Isaac just hanging out last night.

Etsy store is open and ready for business!

I'm pretty new to the whole Etsy scene, but I put up my first round of clippies for sell, so be sure to check it out! Click here to visit my listing.

And to get you excited about some more upcoming inventory to add to my shop, get a look at these little beauties!Remember, it's not too late to enter my contest for some free clippies! I still haven't decided how many clippies will be in the giveaway, and I'll probably throw in a flower one too.

Nursing Strike

This week we've also had some issues with nursing, and while I think ours is a slightly less common problem, I thought I would share in case someone out there runs in to a similar situation.

It all started the other night when I was nursing Emilie before bed. She was really tired and a bit grumpy and when she was finishing up, she bit me. It hurt. A lot. So I screamed! And it must have scared her too because started wailing and crying and refused to nurse any more that night, so I just put her in bed and let her cry herself to sleep. She woke up during the night hungry and she nursed then, but after that, she wouldn't nurse any more. This went on for two more miserable days. Every time I would try to feed her, she would turn her head and start crying.

We tried giving her bottles, she refused.
We tried sippy cups, went slightly better.
We tried a syringe, no go.
We tried pumped milk, didn't care for it.
We tried formula, wouldn't hear of it.
We tried cow's milk, not her cup of tea. (although hilarious when I drank the rest of it and Rachele thought I was drinking formula!!!)

So I was desperate to get this girl to nurse again, I was worried that she was going to get dehydrated! Jarom did some research online and found some helpful articles here, here, and here. I also called the pediatrician's office and got in touch with a lactation consultant who suggested we tried some skin-to-skin contact and just taking things really slow and let her move at her pace, and that seems to have done the trick because she finally started nursing again! Yeah! Things aren't 100% normal yet, and she still hesitates a little bit sometimes, but at least she's nursing again and we don't have to try to figure out what we're going to do about hydrating her.

And in other news

Things have been pretty crazy around here these last few week and I've been trying to find ways to keep the kids busy and entertained. We got a membership (thanks Novell!) to the American Fork Fitness Center and Isaac is in an itty bitty t-ball class with his buddy Kaleb. They have fun and it gives me a chance to go running while he's in there. Isaac still has a bit to learn by way of listening skills, but he's getting better, and he is doing very well at hitting that ball!And Emilie is constantly on the move. I think she's trying to imitate her cousin Michaela in her stair climbing prowess. As I was getting dinner ready last night, Emilie was playing in the family room and I was going about the kitchen when it occurred to me that things were just a little too quiet. Emilie has been getting increasingly fascinated by the stairs, so with dread, I ran over to the stairs and saw Emilie sitting AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS with the biggest grin on her face, obviously very proud of herself. I really need to keep a good eye on that girl!Tonight since I've had some free time, I finished up my cards for our card swap next week. That was a lot of card making craziness!

Contest!

So I've been a bit busy lately (hence the lack of recent posts) and one thing that has been keeping me busy are these fun little clippies! Aren't they adorable? I've been looking all over the place for adorable ribbon and am learning by trial and error to make these perfect, and I'm getting close! But here's the exciting part, I am selling them too! More info on that will come in the next few weeks. But until then, I am giving away a set of these adorable clippies! Here's how you can enter.

1. Become a follower of my blog (you're automatically entered if you already follow)
2. Leave a comment on this post
   
3. Blog about my give-away on your blog (and let me know about it in your comment)

You can earn up to three entries, how exciting! This contest ends on Wednesday, March 25th at 10am MST and I will post the lucky winner that afternoon! How exciting!

Happy Birthday Jarom!

With two kiddos with ear infections this week, plus all the other day to day things that seem to take so much time, I've been feeling a bit too overwhelmed to do much blogging, but it's not because there hasn't been anything to blog about! On the contrary, this week has been very exciting because we were able to celebrate the birth of my most favorite person, my husband! I couldn't even imagine my life without him and the wonderful family that we have become. Happy Birthday Jarom!

On Friday (his actual birthday), the kids and I surprised him at work and took him and his brother out to lunch at Los Hermanos in Provo (mue bueno!) and brought him some cupcakes to share with his co-workers. Then today we had the whole Hatch clan out to our place for a big birthday dinner bash a la St. Patrick's Day. I made 3 corned beef briskets (we had a lot of carnivorous men to satisfy!), a whole slew of potatoes, carrots, and cabbage, some Irish Soda Bread, and some lime punch. We also had chocolate cake and ice cream, of course. Wouldn't be a birthday without it, right? Look at all those candles! And amazingly, he blew them all out in one try. Isaac was SOOO excited to hang out with his uncles and show off how strong he is. Look at his muscles! I just love the face that he makes when he flexes!Isaac is such his father's son. Here is he watching youtube videos with the guys. He could sit there for hours watching movies about semi trucks with rockets attached to them.

Big Mess

I've heard of a few friends doing this with their kids, so the other day when Isaac really needed a good distraction, I took a platter and loaded it up with shaving cream and just let Isaac have fun. Of course, he needed some cars to drive through the foam, and he was happy and busy for a good half hour! It took a little time to clean up, but it wasn't too bad, and the kitchen sure smelled good!

That about sums it up!

Here's an equation I learned today.

What do you get when you add together:

1 belligerent 3-year-old
1 small appetite
1 sore foot
1 massive outbreak of hives
1 sore little tummy
1 sore ear
1 night of very little sleep

________________

An ear infection.

Isaac had a weekend of strange symptoms that I didn't think were interrelated, but all night long Isaac kept waking up saying his ear and tummy hurt. I called the doctor to make an appointment, but the earliest appointment wasn't until 3. After he had been awake for a few hours, his ear stopped hurting and I just about canceled his appointment. I hate taking the kids in only to hear that nothing is wrong. But he took a little nap this afternoon, and after laying down, his ear started to hurt again, so we went to his appointment. The doctor looked in his ear and immediately said that it was infected, then said that some kids react to infections in different ways, including the strange symptoms that he had experienced over the last few days.

We now have him on antibiotics and hopefully he'll be able to let us all get some sleep tonight. Poor kiddo!

Hives!

Isaac is covered in hives! Poor kid! I hope that it was just something that he came in contact with today and that he will be better in the morning. I sincerely hope that it's not chicken pox! His foot has also been sore, so needless to say, he's having a rough night.

Sharing the love

I almost forgot about posting these pictures from Valentine's Day! I tried to upload them a few weeks ago, but that day Blogger wasn't being to cooperative so I gave up.

Jarom's grandparents were in town on Valentine's Day and took all of us out to lunch. Aren't those Hatch boys handsome?
Emilie and her cute cousin Michaela both wore their adorable little Valentine's Day shoes that our fabulous Aunt Chris made for them, aren't they sweet?Isaac is already quite the lady's man.

#1 is done

Remember my little giveaway last month? My first project is done and ready to be mailed off to Switzerland! Who is the lucky recipient of these darling booties? My cute friend and former mission companion Ruth! She just had a little girl not too long ago who is stinking cute. I finally finished them up this morning. I hope you enjoy these!I started making these for Emilie last summer, but then we got busy with the move and I forgot about them. Now they are too small, so I'm so glad little Anouk can wear them! And now I am motivated to make a larger pair that Emilie can wear!

I have a few more projects in the works, and one more that I will finish up this week, assuming I can find my paint!!!

Needing to vent

So I'm pretty proud of myself. I got up early (ok, that was more thanks to the kiddos than to any self control on my part), showered, ate a sensible breakfast, dressed the kids, and packed up the kids to go to the gym. (I even called ahead to make sure the daycare had room today!) Then we drove to the gym, got the kids settled in the daycare for a half hour, and then it was just me and the track.

*side note: My friend Darla talked me into signing up for a 5K in Provo on April 3. That's just one month away! I haven't done much running since 2006 I think, so I'm pretty rusty, and crazy.

Ok, back to the story. So I get on the track and start my warm-up walk around the track, then start running. The first lap goes great! Easy, no sweat! I'm back into my old running mode! Then the next lap, not quite as good, but still I persevered. Laps 3-5 were a little better, and then I found my groove and kept going for a few more laps. 12 laps is one mile, and after the 9th lap, I was pretty tired, so I walked the rest of the way to reach my mile. But still, 3/4 of a mile after not running for a while is still pretty good. I have a long way to get to the 3 mile mark, but it's a start.

So after I was feeling all great about my running, I saw that I had about 12 minues left until I needed to get the kids from the daycare, so I went into the cardio room and thought I would use the ellipticle for the remaining time. I got on and started going, but after a few minutes, one of the pedals would squeek every so often. Oh well, not the end of the world, so I kept going. I knew I only had a few more minutes, so I didn't want to take the time to clean off the machine and get on a new one. I had my goal for how long I wanted to go, but about one minute before my goal, this lady infront of me (who incidentally stole the fan that was right infront of my machine right as I got there!) turns around and very rudely says, "Is that your machine making that noise? It's distracting me, can you move to another machine?" I was one minute away from my goal, one minute! And she was giving me nasty glares, so I just stopped, cleaned of the machine, and got my kids.

Does she think I was enjoying the squeeking? Or that I was on the machine because I had nothing better to do than to make her life miserable? I just don't understand why people feel the need to be so rude.

Next time, I'm just going to stick to the track.