Happy Halloween!!

My memories of Halloween always involve my mom and her homemade costumes and decorations. One of my favorite memories is decorating the front yard with my mom with a fake grave that had a fake hand sticking out of it and a headless man sitting at the door on a straw bale with a jack-o-lantern in his arm. I wish I had a picture of it. My mom always seemed to really enjoy Halloween. I think I have gotten from her this joy in making homemade costumes and I hope to make many costumes for Nev. 
This year Micah and I were talking and I asked him "If Nev could tell us what he wanted to be for Halloween what would it be?" Micah said "Cookie Monster."  This was perfect! 
 
 Nev has been impersonating Cookie Monster for a long time now.  He likes to pretend he is gobbling something up like Cookie Monster does.  So I set out to get him a costume. I thought I would buy him one cause I thought making one would just be too hard.  My Mom and Micah convinced me I could make one myself, so I did.
I found a costume pattern that I could use to make the body and hood but with blue fur instead.  I had to get pretty creative to figure out the eyes.  They worked out pretty good.  Nev likes wearing it and pretending to eat the cookies. 

We also went to a pumpkin patch this year to get a pumpkin. I was not expecting to be able to visit a pumpkin patch in Hawaii. I don't think the pumpkins were actually grown there but it was fun anyway. 

Nev got to sit on a tractor, which was the highlight of the trip for him, and pick out a pumpkin but he was getting pretty mad that he was not able to pick the pumpkin up by himself and of course he did not want any help! 

We carved the pumpkin a week ago cause that is what we would normally do but we realized that this is probably not the best idea in the tropics since things decompose so much faster in the warm humid environment.  Our pumpkin has gotten a little prematurely moldy.  Oh well.  It just needs to last this one last night.

We'll take him trick or treating for the first time tonight.  Not sure how I feel about all the candy.  He hasn't really had much for candy before.
Happy Halloween and have fun trick or treating!

No More Mama Milk

It has been 1 week since Never has nursed!! I have nursed Nev for just shy of 2 years.  I am very thankful that I have been able to nurse him for as long as I have.  It was a good relationship between the two of us.  It brought him nourishment and comfort, gave us another way to bond and it also forced me to sit down, relax and give him my undivided attention for periods of time every day.  I really enjoyed this.  After Nev turned a year old I knew I would want to wean him sometime during his second year.  I knew I didn't want to do it while he was in daycare because of the extra immune boost he got from it.  Nev was in daycare until he was about 18 months old. Then it was time to focus on moving although the actual move would not come for several months I didn't want to wean him during a time of big change plus I thought it would be very helpful to have Micah's help to do it.  There were several times however when I really wanted him to stop nursing.  I was really feeling the need to have my body back to myself.  I was so tired at times and I felt exhausted when Nev wanted to nurse at the end of the day.  However, we were able to reduce the number of times he nursed to 1-2 times a day, at nap and at bedtime. Once we got moved and settled I started focusing on eliminating his nap time nursing.  He often did nap without "mama milk" simply because he feel asleep while we were running around. Then a few weeks ago Micah put him down for naps during the weekend.  He has been fine with going down for naps without any milk for some time now when someone else puts him down but when I put him down he wants to nurse.  So after that weekend when I would put him down for nap he didn't ask for milk.  Then if he did I told him "mama doesn't make milk anymore during the day."  Then last Friday when I put him down for bedtime I had gotten that feeling again that I needed my body back and I needed him to stop nursing.  After that night Micah put him down for bedtime and of course he went to bed no problem.  We did this for 4 nights then Micah had to work the next night so it was on me to get him to bed.  It went pretty good!  He asked me for milk once.  I told him that "mama doesn't make milk anymore" and that he was a "big boy!"  He cried far a minute then decided he wanted to go to bed and said "nigh-nigh mama." Since that night he hasn't asked.  It has only been 2 nights but I've got the feeling that he might be done.  I hope so!  I have had a lot of anxiety about weaning him.  I didn't want it to be too hard for him.  I didn't want nights of crying himself to sleep.  I think having Micah's help really made a big difference.  I think this can be a stressful time for a lot of moms.  If you were/are a breastfeeding mom, how long did you nurse and what was helpful during weaning?

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

To day is my dad's birthday so I wanted to post something special for him because he is an amazing dad and such an awesome grandpa! Nev absolutely adores his Grandpa and talks about him pretty much every day.

He loves going outside with Grandpa and playing in his truck or watering the yard. Even if he can't get outside he is happy to be playing alongside his Grandpa no matter where they are.

We love you Grandpa and we are looking forward to seeing you soon!

Aloha! Update from Hawaii

Pali Lookout

Nu'uanu Creek

Well we have been living in Hawaii for about 2 months now. For the first month here we were renting a room in house from a friend of ours. The three of us in one bedroom was less than ideal and we really wanted to get into a place of our own.  I spent a lot of time the first month just looking for a place to rent and hitting up yard sales since we came over here with very little.  But after a month of searching we found a nice apartment that is attached to a house with a quiet owner upstairs.  There is a creek just below the house that is very peaceful to listen to, especially at night.  It is in a nice location in the mountains above Honolulu so it is convenient for Micah to commute to work.  No more hour long drive to go 20 miles!  Yes the traffic here is that bad!  It is also gonna take some time getting used to the cost of housing here (we are paying more than double our mortgage in Oregon for a 2 bedroom apartment) And the cost of food! Yes a gallon of milk can cost $10 but it doesn't have too.  You just have to know where to shop.  I'm learning.... It is expensive to live here but it is worth it. 

 

We don't have a yard that is good for Nev to play in but there is a great park just a block away.  It has some really cool big, old trees and a play ground.  Lots of people take there kids to this park so Nev has lots of kids to play with there. 

We are settling in to our lives here.  And starting to get out and explore more.  Micah works a lot but we try to make time for the beach every weekend.  It has been a big change for us in so many ways.  Oahu is a beautiful island with so much to see and do.  It is a great place to raise kids.  The culture here is very family oriented and there is just so many things to do here with kids and a lot of it is free! I'm looking forward to exploring the islands and enjoy my time here. 
Have you ever spent time on Oahu?  If so what did you enjoy doing here? I'm fishing for more things to do and see.

Near North Shore

The Helping Stage

This past summer was very busy for me.  I was essentially a single mom with Micah already living in Hawaii and there was a lot to do before we could make the move.  Toddler hood has definitely brought in a lot of new characteristics to Nev's personality and one of the more delightful ones is being a helper.  I guess it probably has a lot to do with wanting to be independent and being able to do what the big people do.

 Nev was a great helper this past summer.  He helped me unload and spread 2 yards of mulch in our yard, feed the chickens every morning and water the blueberry bushes. I think this was his favorite task. He was able to scope out all the big juicy berries that needed to be picked.  Our bushes produced quite a few berries this year but I definitely didn't get very many and none of them made it to the freezer.

I also learned to use his helpfulness and energy to my advantage.  The co-op in Corvallis has the cute shopping carts for kids to push around.  I had always thought that Nev would have to be a bit older to use one cause I didn't feel I could trust him to not run over the heels of some unsuspecting shopper. Ouch!  But grocery shopping with a toddler can be a bit of a pain sometimes because with all that energy they tend to not want to stay seated in the cart for too long.  So one day I decided to give the small cart a try and I have to say I was very proud of my little shopper!  By giving him a task and letting him know he was helping me I was able to keep him on track and he would listen to me.  We were able to get everything we needed and no one's heels got ran over ;) 

Springtime 2011

Here are a few pictures from last spring......

His beloved rain boots

Eating like a big boy!

Water Puddles!!



 An Easter egg hunt at Nev's friend Seamus'.  Nev was very into the egg hunt.



The past year

Nev is almost 2 years old! The other day I realised that this past year has flown by me and I have not done a good job documenting the second year of Nev's life.  I had another blog ditton baby boy where I documented the first year of his life.  After his first year I thought that I would start a new blog with a different focus because he was not really a baby anymore.  I "started" that blog about 6 months ago but I had not posted to it, until today. 

In my defense I have to say that there was a lot going on in the past 6 months.  My full time job came to an end.  Nev and I went to visit Micah in Hawaii for three weeks and upon our return to Oregon it was all work getting our house ready to rent, find the perfect tenants and make the move to Oahu. All of this while I was essentially a single mom.  I have an even greater respect for all the single moms out there! 

There was some pleasure during all this time.  Nev and I spent some time in Sacramento visiting my family Nev had his first taste of In-N-Out, went to the CA State Fair and the Sacramento Zoo and spent a lot of time with his Grandpa!

My parents also came up to Oregon for a week to help me work on the house to get it ready to rent.  My parents are totally awesome!  We owe them the biggest thanks ever for helping me out.  I don't think it would have been possible for us to get moved over here with out their support.

So now we are living in beautiful Hawaii!  We have found a place of our own to call home for now and I am starting to settle in to life here.