It's working!

I just wanted to give a quick update on how things are going with the sleep sense. I am very encouraged and happy to report that it is working. Brandon still protests for a while, but it doesn't last very long usually. And I haven't nursed him a for a few nights now, he still wakes up once but eventually goes back to sleep. I feel cruel leaving him, but I read that the best way to wean a baby from night feedings is to quit cold turkey. It is a comfort to know that he isn't crying because he is hungry but rather because he is protesting the change, and he thinks that he needs it to go back to sleep.

I know that not everyone will agree with what I am doing, but I feel that it is the best thing for both of us in the long run. I will be a better mom getting a good night sleep and he will be more rested as well. And I feel by doing this now, he'll have better sleep habits later on in life.

I took this picture of Brandon today. After about an hour and a half into his nap I went to check on him and this was how he was (and is still) sleeping. He hasn't had that long of a nap in a while.

Enough is Enough

My precious baby Brandon is now seven and a half months old and is still not sleeping thr0ugh the night:( But it hasn't always been that way. He started sleeping through the night at two months old and then it was interrupted by a few big trips that we took. I thought that it would get back to normal eventually, but then he got sick and I snuggled him a lot. Well things just went down hill from there. It got to the point where I would have to rock him to sleep for night and for naps and then he was still getting up two times at night to nurse....yawn. Anyway I finally had enough and I did some research on the Internet and came up with a plan. There were a few websites with good tips, but the one that I like the best was the sleep sense program by Dana Obleman. You can buy the book with a step by step guide, but she also has a blog with helpful advice. www.sleepsense.net/blog. Yesterday was the first night of trying out my plan. I laid Brandon down in his crib and I sat right beside him. Needless to say he wasn't that excited about my new plan and protested for a while. He eventually went to sleep...for about twenty minutes. So we did it again. The night didn't go so well either, I ended up still nursing him two times. Tonight I am very encouraged though, I laid Brandon down in his crib awake and I left the room right a way and he didn't even fuss:) Hopefully I can be strong and not nurse him tonight if he wails.

Some of the things that I am changing are; I am going to put him to bed a seven, have more scheduled nap times, I am not going to rock him to sleep, and I am going to stop nursing him at nights. Now hopefully this works he will be sleeping through the night in a weeks time. If not I might have to buy the book.

Other happenings

Although Brandon can get up on all fours, he gave up trying to crawl that way, for now anyway. He now gets around by doing the army crawl and when he is determined to get something he can go really fast.

Today we went Christmas shopping in P.A. We took all three boys with us and still managed to somehow buy them gifts without them knowing about it. (In a few years we wont be able to pull that off). Anyway every year we seem to buy the boys a lot of things and it is fun buying them things don't get me wrong. It's just that I want them to learn that Christmas is not just about getting but about sharing our blessings as well, mainly in Jesus name. After all He is the reason for the season. I'm a dreamer and I always thought that it would be neat to go to a city somewhere and do volunteer work with needy people during the Christmas season. That way the boys could see first hand that there are really others out there in need instead of just hearing about it. That might make it more real to them. If anyone has ideas they would like to share that would be appreciated.

Trip to visit my sister

We had a great time with my sister and her family last weekend. Doug had to miss the Rider game though. As you can see from the picture they tried to get the tv working but to no avail. Oh well at least the Riders won and it would have been a real nail biter to watch anyway.
Like I said we had a great time. The boys had a lot of fun too. It was so nice that they could go outside and play together and we didn't have to be out there supervising. Now Anson and Cameron keep asking when we are going back to their cousins house. With it being a ten hour drive I don't know how often we will get out there. Unfortunately those are the closest cousins. Our boys have 25 first cousins (another one on the way) but none live in Saskatchewan. They have the four that live in Alberta and the rest live in Ontario. It's really too bad that they wont get to know their cousins very well. We are really thankful that they have one set of grandparents close by though.

Laughing, and Learning!

Brandon is almost 7 months old right now and he is getting so strong. He can get on his hands and knees but hasn't figured out how to move yet. I don't think that it will be long and he'll be crawling....yikes! I thought that I didn't have to worry about our stairs until that time, but I was wrong. Yesterday I had him with me in the basement while I was doing some scrap booking and Cameron was downstairs as well playing with the toys. Well I went upstairs to call Doug and was on the phone not even two minutes, I then went to go back downstairs when I noticed that Cameron was half way up already with Brandon. I was so surprised that I called Cameron's name (mistake) and he let go of Brandon. Thankfully I got to them in time before Brandon went tumbling down. Needless to say my heart was pounding really fast for a while.

Our Halloween Convictions

My husband, Doug and I have read a number of different articles about whether or not it is okay for Christians to celebrate Halloween. All of them talked about the origin of Halloween and one mentioned that it is okay to celebrate if you are not celebrating the origin, another mentioned that it is bad to celebrate something with such a bad origin, yet others mention that you can use the day to evangelize. Doug and I feel that we don't like the origin or many other things about it, so we aren't going to have any involvement in it at all.
Up to this year, not celebrating Halloween was easy, we just carried on like any other day. But this year with Anson being school it has gotten a little harder. At school in the afternoon they had Halloween activities. I called the school to see if they had any alternative activities for those who chose not to participate, but unfortunately they didn't, so we picked Anson up at lunch. He seemed to understand why, and didn't mind.
Sometimes we feel like we are the only ones who feel this way, yet we understand that others might not be convicted as we are. Anyway with all this being said I just want to breath a sigh of relief that it is done for another year.