My August Check list

I think we did pretty  decent. The moving stuff right now isn't happening so I'm not painting, and I'm not freakishly wasting time cleaning since I don't have to as of now. We did get a call on a townhouse, but it has a deck and Carson does not see boundaries he sees challenges. So we turned it down. I want one with a yard so I can put up a tall fence and just let the kids outside to play. If we have to wait for that, thats fine with me. 

Cleaning:

• Pick a hot day and shampoo all the carpets. They desperately need it.  -CHECK!
• Go through and clean up toys and get out wrappers and garbage  -CHECK!
• Pull out the stove and fridge and clean under them and the sides of them (So gross we haven't done this since we moved in. EW.

Kids:

• Take the boys to omsi and watch a super sized movie there -Check!
• Go to the park and blow bubbles
• Get Carson really acclimated for swim lessons -CHECK!
• Go hiking (on not the hottest day of the year) -CHECK!

Moving Prep:

• Paint the Hallway and the living room white
• Hang kitchen blinds back up after painting
• Replace towel and toilet paper holders in bathrooms 
• Fill nail holes before painting
• Take down pictures and artwork 
• Magic erase the "art" on Carson's bedroom door. In fact magic erase all of Carson's "art" 

Bad blogger...

Every once in a while life catches up with me and I'm unable/unwilling to write. I either have nothing funny to say, or I do and I'm so tired I just can't get it out.  I have a couple posts in the works that will be published by the end of this week.

A week with out a partner: Survival Guide

Oliver 6 Month Check up

Football Season! Whoop Whoop!


I'm so excited for these catch up posts. Chris was gone to Philly for a week for a business trip, however, I'm awesome and insisted that he go over the weekend too and hang out with one of his closest friends. I also surprised them with Philadelphia Phillies tix. Which according to his friend "Won MAJOR points" for me! Whoop! WOTY.

Oliver turned 1/2 last week! I can't even believe it. He'll be ONE before I know it! In a way I'm really starting to get excited for that milestone. His 6 month check up is this week and I am so excited to see how huge he is.

We've been so busy this summer I'm hoping with Fall (it starts after labor day here in this house) we will slow down, drink apple cider, eat pumpkin donuts hot from the farm down the road and just, breath.

National Breastfeeding Week

I saw a lot of things recently on facebook about it being national breastfeeding week(month?) but today when I was blog reading (while nursing) I was actually reading another PacNW mama's blog. Jenn @ PDXmama. I love Jenn's blog and I was thrilled to see some baby Oz pics and read a bit about her birth and nursing journey. I always love seeing the side of working mom.

I've had two very different nursing relationships. Especially in the beginning. I do believe part of the hurdle that I had when I gave birth to Carson was lack of skin to skin right away, there was also just not that much support at the hospital and I was kind of left to fend for myself as a new mom.

My milk was slow to come in, 5 days. I never supplemented and I regret that, my baby was probably starving and I was so against formula to do what was best for my baby. (I am NOT against formula feeders at all. Feed yo babies!)

After my milk came in, Carson wasn't latching properly. He had a really shallow latch and was a sleepy eater in the first month or so of life. We used a nipple shield and I pumped around the clock trying to up my supply.

We battled low weight with Carson. He has always been tiny but I think part of it was my low supply.


Recommendation to new nursing mothers

1. It will hurt at the beginning but once you get a good latch, it will get better. 
2. Get a good Lactation consultant. Le Leche League is amazing 
3. Make everyone aware how dedicated you are BEFORE the birth (I swear it was the reason I kept nursing Carson) 
4. Keep in mind that it WILL get better
5. If you need supplement to, just make sure that if you are truly wanting to breastfeed. Pump out that feeding to keep supply up. 

Carson and I had a rough first 12 weeks of nursing, but then when we finally got our groove on. We nursed until he was 16 months old. It was the hardest thing I have had to do was break the breastfeeding relationship. 

Oliver was a tad different. This boy LOVES to eat. My dr joked at his birth that he was the only baby she's ever seen that was latched on and nursing before his placenta was delivered. I'm not joking as soon as he was born he was rooting and ready to eat. Double dipper ;) 

My nursing relationship has been pretty much perfect with Oliver (except he is a biter) I am so happy that he has been such an easy baby to feed. 

If you have a newborn or are pregnant and want to breastfeed, please do not hesitate to contact LLL. Lactation consultants will work on a sliding scale if you can't afford an appointment. 

Le Leche League

I can't believe its August already!

Goodness. Its already the "last" month of summer. Its supposed to *almost* hit 100 this weekend. That will be good for my tomatoes but not so good for my little ones that are true PacNW-ers and wilt under the heat. So does mama.

I am going to start making to do lists I think. Its probably a good idea. Even if I don't do them till the last minute. At least I'll do them. Especially with Chris being gone for almost an entire week and me and the boys staying home. Yikes! We are playing it by ear whether or not we will go spend the time down with my family. I kind of like the idea of taking the nap time and bed time and getting some much needed work done on the apartment in prep for our upcoming move.

So here is my "to do" list for the Month of August

Cleaning:

• Pick a hot day and shampoo all the carpets. They desperately need it.  -CHECK!
• Go through and clean up toys and get out wrappers and garbage  -CHECK!
• Pull out the stove and fridge and clean under them and the sides of them (So gross we haven't done this since we moved in. EW.

Kids:

• Take the boys to omsi and watch a super sized movie there -Check!
• Go to the park and blow bubbles
• Get Carson really acclimated for swim lessons -CHECK!
• Go hiking (on not the hottest day of the year) -CHECK!

Moving Prep:

• Paint the Hallway and the living room white
• Hang kitchen blinds back up after painting
• Replace towel and toilet paper holders in bathrooms 
• Fill nail holes before painting
• Take down pictures and artwork 
• Magic erase the "art" on Carson's bedroom door. In fact magic erase all of Carson's "art" 

Its a pretty long list. Hmmm. Well we will see. My guess is that I will end up going stir crazy while Chris is gone and I'll bust out like 90% of my list in the 5 days he's gone. I have a love/hate relationship with Chris traveling. Its nice, because I get some solid 1 on 1 time (1 on 2 time) with my boys. We eat lots of take out, and rent movies. Everyone sleeps in the big bed. We watch movies to fall asleep. 

This trip is going to be extra awesome for Chris. Not only is he working towards bettering his career, he is going to be in Philadelphia! Which is where his best friend lives with his Fiance! I "surprised" Chris with two tickets to a Philly's game. But I suck at surprises and told him like 2 seconds after the tickets arrived. 

Instafriday

I haven't done Instafriday in ages. Doesn't mean I'm not snapping pictures! Follow me on IG @salenam

4 of my 5 favorite peeps. I don't give my folks enough love on this blog. But the truly are the greatest parents and grandparents! 

Oliver burst into tears when he realized no one was going to share the icee with him

Riding in the back of a tractor! Oh yeah

Family train picture

I ordered this from GlassCast a couple days ago. I will hopefully have it by my birthday next week. I am so excited to get it though. Its perfect and personal. Something that shows the loves of my life are always present in my heart. Also GlassCast is a local company! So nice to support a local business and artist!

Waiting for the train. My dad hadn't been to the oregon zoo since he was a child! I couldn't believe it. Crazyness

My parents spent the night last weekend and my mom helped chris bottle his beer! While Dad and the boys and I watched the olympics

Awe a good picture of me, my daddy, and my boys! Oliver is wearing his John Deere Tractor hat from his "first" christmas! 

My hubby, the pack horse

If this isn't how picking blue berries with a toddler looks. You're doing it WRONG!

My dad is so happy to have 2 little fishing buddies :) 

Thank you mom for a great picture of my boys!

Favorite baby mile stone

Some of our harvest! SO yummy theres a party in my tummy, so yummy so yummy. 

We got sad and probably good news all at once yesterday

Sad news I called and all the leases that were coming available in August got renewed. No Townhouse move *this* month. By *this* month I mean next month because were waiting for a 30 day move out notice. So most likely from the date we are told that we are getting a Town house its probably 30 days for those people to move out and another 7-14 for them to clean it and fix any damage.

Here is why not getting one this month was good news. Our maintenance guy came to fix my kitchen light. I love being a renter, yo.

Well we have a pretty awesome back and forth banter because he always gives me crap about him having to fix really odd minor things. Not in a rude way just teasing. Well I asked him to walk through our apartment and tell me what needs fixin', lots y'all.

All the walls are painted. While I LOVE it and am so glad we did it, I wish I would have picked less bold colors. Orange and dark blue, green and aqua are gonna be a pain in the ass to cover. So he suggested I go to the front office and buy the 5 gallon white paint for 55$ and at least do one coat over all my beautiful walls. To save the 175$ it will cost per coat.

He told me that while I take down pictures, art work and curtains I should buy some cheap puddy and fill the holes before painting.

Since we will more than likely have 45 days from notice of being able to move, to do repairs and repaint. I am not sure if I will start painting and putting things from the walls away. I just don't know. But my goal is to get back 775$ out of our 1050$ deposit.

We have a few MAJOR things that we know we damaged. Bathroom molding got destroyed by Scout when he had a panic attack and he scratched the shit out of it trying to get out.

We drilled a hole through the sliding glass door frame to get our antenna cord to come inside. That will be easy with some putty.

Tons of pictures on the walls.

I have to put the sliding glass door blinds back up. Hopefully they aren't to banged up sitting out in the pantry. I'm going to hang those back up THIS weekend so they can straighten out a bit before we leave.

So once we get the call (Hopefully Sept 1st!! For mid Oct) We will begin work. I will start documenting all my fixer upper projects to get these place back in top top shape to move out and hopefully leave it as nice (minus normal wear and tear) as possible!