First day on solids

Despite my best efforts, I took the plunge today and gave Carter solids 3 weeks sooner than originally planned. I really wanted to wait to 6 months but honestly I had to listen to my child. He is nursing 5-7+ times a day and 4 times at least through the night - and still just seems hungry. So I though I think its time to try something more substantial. He nursed today at 11:30, then I fed him rice cereal at 12:30 because he was fussing and he settled right down. Then he fell asleep at 1:30 until 4:45 and its now 5 and he has yet to ask for milk.

Dont worry, i'm not naive enough to believe this is how it'll be here on out but I am curious to see over the coming week if theres a continual change or not. I will only feed him cereals though until we're back from Disneyland, and hopefully only do 1 feeding of solids this week, then twice a day next week.

I am gonna hafta research feeding schedules, I dont remember how often and when a person should do feedings! oi, so much work being a mommy lol ;) jk!

Summer Fun

After Disneyland and the move, we have already a fun packd summer ahead of us!

1. Logan's birthday. Have a great bday party plan tentatively for him, which I won't mention yet in case it doesn't pan out.
2. We purchased Calaway Park passes - park is a 20 min drive away and all our friends bought them too, enough said!
3. We will be purchasing Zoo passes this year (likely in March or April). Have to go 2 times to pay for the pass, 3 times to realy make it worth it! (Also friends have bought them)
4. Fairwell Family Reunion in August!! This year I hope to make it to it and not end up in the hospital again (ectopic pregnancy).
5. Annual Magrath Days celebration weekend
6. Camping, camping, camping! Aside from reunion, we hope to get out at LEAST 2 times - 3 would be the ideal though!
7. Gardening and yard care of our yard! I am so excited to rip out a bunch of the stuff and replant things that I like. We also have raised beds that I think will be perfect for a garden.
8. Logan will likely be put into a day camp at his new preschool.
9. Logan will also likely try out a new program at Spray Lakes that teaches sports to 3 year olds.
10. Newspaper route - plan to bike it and hopefully lose 10lbs doing so! :D lol (I have a HUGE hill to bike up and down to get from my house to the route)

That's all I can think of off the top of my head! The beauty of living here is that people often get together for fires and bbqs either at people's homes or at Allen Bill Pond close by. I just am super pumped for the spring/summer of 2012! It will be a BLAST!

Preschool

I made the decision to put Logan into Preschool in September. I actually was really leaning towards -not- because frankly as i've decided to do homeschooling, preschool doesn't really seem to fit that bill lol. However! I do have my child's best interest at heart and I think he would really love preschool.

The deciding factors for me were: 1. We qualify for subsidy (more to come on this), 2. the preschool is RIGHT behind our new home, 3. the teacher is a member of my ward, and 4. Logan loves learning!

So the subsidy part: This is going to totally bring out my nieveity (sp?) but I didn't think there was subsidy available for ...middle income families (which is where we are), I always figured that things that like were only available to "poor" people (and I say that with truly the utmost respect). When I found out that I can get up to $100 a month towards preschool, it made the option financially do-able!

I signed Logan up for Tues/Thurs afternoons from 12-3. She does indoor/outdoor activities, field trips (including fire hall, various parks, a school bus, the zoo, etc), then letter/number recognition, reading/writing time, weather, crafts, etc. I don't doubt that I could (and will continue to) teach Logan these things, but honestly that's not why I am sending him to preschool! I actually feel badly for Logan right now because he seems really bored at home... Carter has been really clingy recently and needy of my attention, and even when he's not Logan just doesn't like to go outside and do anything! I worry about that and I think a couple hours a week of structured play and time away would be great for him! ALSO, I feel bad that I can't give Carter undivided attention sometimes, and this will be a perfect opportunity to spend time with him :) It's perfect timing for my life. This preschool has summer camps also this coming summer so we will likely sign up for 1 or more camps as well.

I'm pretty excited. I hummed and hawed about it, but in the end I feel really great about my decision! Logan had a really fun time checking out the place this past weekend - lots of fun toys and games and it's a great set up! The location couldn't be better. Honestly, if it wasn't so close I probably wouldn't have done it LOL. I say that because since I can walk to and from it in probably 10 mins round trip - lets say Carter is sleeping, I don't have to wake him up to go and pick up Logan! I have a hard time waking my babies so that is truly a huge benefit for me.

Looking forward to the summer!

Can't look in the mirror

Ugh, I can barely stand to look at myself in the mirror these days! Im not gaining weight per say but I am chubbing up in areas of my body that I haven't ever had to deal with before (my face is chubbier and my stomach). I've always carried my weight (and still do) in my hips/thighs/butt but now it's other areas too. Ugh, not sure if it's age or a hormonal shift in my body... ever since my surgery and Carter's pregnancy everything is completely different for me!

Sadly self image is very important to me. I almost feel like I have to repent for complaining about my body so much! I am VERY scared because I have little to no self control it seems, and i'm at the half way mark of my breastfeeding 'life'- and i'm sure i'm not gaining extra weight because of the BF. I need to figure out a way to get into a state of mind where I can reject the cookie or cake or snack and just eat healthy proteins and vegetables. Yes I -like- cookies, cakes and snacks but my body will never be where I want it to be if I continue to eat them, and eat them in excess!

I have asked a good friend of mine to help me this week coming in particular to follow a food plan that i've come up with (I've attached it below here as well so I can be accountable to my blog lol weird huh?) ..Anyways, wish me luck.

	Breakfast	Lunch	Supper
Monday	Cream of Wheat	Salad (lettuce, pepper	Shepherd's Pie
	Banana	cucumber, carrot)
		plus poppyseed dressing
Tuesday	Cream of Wheat	Leftover Shep. Pie	Chicken Thighs
	Banana		(seasoned, not breaded)
			M&M Meat Veggies
Wednesday	Cream of Wheat	Salad (lettuce, pepper	Crockpot Chicken Taco Chili
	Banana	cucumber, carrot)	and Salad
		plus poppyseed dressing
Thursday	Cream of Wheat	Leftover Taco Chili	Lazy Man Cabbage Rolls
	Blueberries		plus green beans
Friday	Cream of Wheat	*undecided - depends on	LADIES NIGHT *plan to have
	Blueberries	what's left in my fridge	a couple treats so will have
			a light salad for supper
Saturday	Rice Cake & Peanut	*likely will eat out with	Funeral Potatoes &
	butter & Banana	family - eating out food choices	Chicken parmasan (homemade)
		aren't a problem for me	plus veggies - not sure what kind
			yet

Excited

February is nearing ever so quickly. Disneyland, new home, it'll be hard to top this month!

As busy as it will be I look so very forward to it!

The Bly's are moving up...

...up the hill! That's right, we're moving - into our new home! Oh yes, we bought a place!! Well, we've come to an agreed offer and it's been accepted and the first of the paperwork is done.

Here's our home buying story: we've been humming and hawing for months, and looking and watching for even more months lol. To comfortably buy a home we needed the house to be 300K or less which in this market and my wish list, that was seeming to be impossible. What was on my list? 4 bedrooms, finished basement, not any closer to the train tracks, not on a busy street, not in certain neighborhoods, a garage, 2 living spaces (a sitting room and a TV room), and a fenced yard. Anyways, my criteria was in homes in the 350K range and I was getting really discouraged. There were houses in our range but I had to compromise on some of the above criteria, which I was not willing to budge on.

So, this house we are going to get meets ALL the above criteria. In fact, the flaws are that there is no neighborhood park in the area, and the backyard is not a level yard (it's slanted cuz of the hill). It was listed at 299, and we have settled at 289 for the selling price. It's a duplex style home with a walk out basement and double attached garage, all three floors are about 2000 sq ft in total. We have to bring in our own washer/dryer, and we will eventually have to replace the appliances (you can totally tell they took out the stuff and replaced with old stuff). The colors are totally colors I love, so I won't have to do any cosmetics. The bedrooms are carpeted which I prefer - and the rest of the house is hardwood and/or laminate (I can't tell the diff between hardwood and laminate). I prefer carpet, but am sure i'll adapt to the non-carpet :) Gonna hafta buy a good quality mop! Oh, and the other detail is that the house has been made to potentially have a basement suite downstairs - so there's a second kitchen. Not that we plan to have people downstairs specifically, it's a neat feature.

We are beyond excited! Darin, our realtor came over last night to have us sign the final offer and now we have to do the legal stuff and inspection. Needless to say we will have possession on February 24th. It's going to be a whirlwind of a February because our Disneyland trip is the 16-22! That being said everything will have to be in place and settled before we leave, and i'll have to get alot packed before we leave because we are hoping to move out of here on Feb 25th (Saturday's are easier I find to move because you can get alot of extra help from people). That will also give me 4 days to clean out the old place.

AH! I pretty much didn't sleep last night (there were other reasons lol, Carter and health reasons that kept me awake, but add in new home-ownership and I reeeeally didn't sleep!). WIsh us luck through the rest of the process!! Bye bye savings...