Weary in Wisconsin

We have had too many sleepless nights in the Pugh household lately.  I blame all of it on Elise...which probably comes back to me for not sleep training her properly.  Elise is 16 months old as of yesterday and still  wakes up at least THREE times a night!!!!  She has had nights in her life where she hasn't woken up, but those are few and far between.  Here's probably why she still does it:

- I still nurse her if she gets up.  Not every time, but sometimes.  Especially if I have already been up twice with her and all I want to do is get in and out of there as fast as I can. The best way to do that is to nurse her.  She is only nursing two or three times in a 24 hour time span and I know- I just need to stop.  Gotta cut the cord.  I think the reason I still do it is because when she wakes up at 3am that is what quickly gets her back down.  But I'm sure when I stop she will stop waking up as much. 

-I feel bad sleep training her with our current situation.  I feel bad for our downstairs neighbor who I'm positive can hear our daughter scream at the top of her lungs at 2:21am.  Maybe I should buy some earplugs for Zack and I as well as the two boys that live below us. I say positive that they can hear us because I can hear them open their closet door...so they must be able to hear us!

-Another situation is Zack studying.  Sometimes Elise will be having good sleeping nights, but more often than not she will be having a bad week when Zack is studying for finals.  When he has already been up all hours of the night studying I feel bad letting my daughter cry it out for an hour- which she will cry for at least an hour if we do let her CIO.

-I think she has learned that we are the only ones who can soothe her back to sleep when she wakes up from tossing and turning.  As soon as we hear her and walk in she is always standing up in her crib ready to be picked up.  It doesn't matter if we give her a dolly, put her binky back in- those do nothing.  She screams more if she sees us and we don't pick her up.  Her pediatrician told me to just go in and give her a binky and rub her back, and I laughed.  That would NOT fly with Elise.  That would only add to her rage.

I hate sleep training with all of my heart.  I feel bad for Elise, it keeps me up, we all have a miserable day the days that follow and it never seems to stick!  We have sleep trained her at least 3 other times but it never seems to really teach her to go to bed, and stay there. $100 to anyone who is willing to take Elise and bedtime and train her ;)  I'm running out of patience.  Last night when she woke up for the umpteenth time I walked in her room and actually slammed the door I was that mad!!  Don't worry once I pick her up I am very gentle towards her, but still angry ever.  Ahhhh...what to do?!  I can't take much more of this.

Story of my life.

Five on Friday

1- It is almost May which means that I can almost say that I will be home next month!!  In case you can't tell, I'm a little excited!!

2- I was able to go to a sample sale today with hundreds of items from Carters and Oshkosh.  All items were only $5!!!  It was so much fun and I got way too many things, but who cares?  Picture of all the goods I brought home below.

(some of these are gifts...which is why one of them looks like it's for a boy- because it is!)

3- The friend I went to the sample sale with also needed to go to Costco so I happily tagged along. I love Costco but we can't yet justify buying a membership.  I was able to get some favorites like freeze dried fruits and dried mangoes.  We even got several yummy samples while there.  Do you have favorites from Costco?  Share!

4- Lately I've been pulling out my George Foreman grill and using it for recipes like Asian BBQ Chicken. This week I felt like it was time for homemade burgers. Boy was I glad we did!  It was a simple meal, left hardly and dishes, and was utterly delicous!

5- Tonight our ward had a Fiesta Night!!!  We had delicious home made Cafe Rio and enjoyed lots of chips and salsa, photos booths, friends and even some Mexican dancers!!  It was a really fun night!

Some of the dancers

La Familia Pugh

On my Camera...

I often take pictures of Elise that are of one single event and never get around to posting them, but I thought I'd lump them all together today in one random post!!  These were all taken within the past month, and a just a few things we do around here to keep our little one busy!

I took this picture one morning while I was taking photos of a craft project.  This is Elise's face when she is so excited/angry about me having the camera out but not giving it to her! 

Last Friday when Zack got home I had a treat on his pillow that said, "Donut feel good to be test free?" He had been studying or taking tests so he hadn't been around very much and we were really excited he would get to relax a little bit.  As you can see, Elise really wanted a donut too!

So of course, we let her!!  We stripped her down first since we didn't want chocolate drool all over her clothes but she first started to pick off all of the sprinkles!!  Silly girl! And look at the cute belly!  I love it so much :)

I bought some shaving cream and added some green food coloring to it and plopped a big handful of it on Elise's tray.  She liked to squish it around in her hands and of course tried to eat it (learned her lesson the hard way that it does not taste good) but had a fun time!  A bath immediately followed!

Last Saturday we took a family trip to the library.  Zack hadn't ever been inside before so when we went inside we were all excited to see that the story room was open!  Elise liked to run around and explore!  Here she is sandwiched between two books!  It really is a neat room!

And that's our life in pictures from the past few weeks!

Five on Friday

1- I get my husband back today :)  He just finished a very difficult round of tests and only has one more test block until he is finished with his first year!!!  So proud of you, we love you Zacky!

2- I'm proud to say that dinner for tonight is already made!!  All I need to do is put it in the oven later :)  I made Upside Down French Toast.  I haven't made it before but I figure you can't go wrong with french toast, right?! 

3- Elise is teething and is getting in several molars at the same time which makes for a miserable baby and mama day or night :(  Why oh why must the teething process take so long?

4- In an effort to feed my love for movies and save money, I have started to put holds on lots of movies at the local library.  Did you know that most libraries have most new release movies?  If you are willing to wait out the hold period, it is your for the watching and free too :)  Plus, it is pretty exciting getting that email telling me that my items have arrived!

5- Elise is starting to figure out words and what other things do!!  It is so much fun to see her figure these things out!   She loves to bring me shoes to put on her feet, pick up the phone and put it up to her ear and talk talk talk, and just this morning she picked up some headphones and put the bud right in her ear!  They pick up so much!

A Day in the Life...

Recently I've been looking online at different toddler routines.  I don't know about you but sometimes I feel at a total loss of what to do to keep my little one entertained day in and day out.  I know that I am surrounded by great moms and I'd love to hear about your daily routines/activites you do with your kids! 

Also, I've seen several themed days on blogs.  Do any of you do that?  For example- "Make something Mondays", "Take me out Tuesdays" and so on and so forth.  Has this worked for you?

Here is an example of a schedule I found online that generally, I like.  I realize with all parenting the key is to be flexible but...how do you do it at your house?  And I want the nitty gritty down to the half our details!

7:30-8am Wake Up
8:30-9am  Breakfast
9-10am Productiveparenting.com activity(s)
10-11am Free play with colors
11-12:30pm Naptime
1245pm Lunch
1:30 -2:30pm Screen time while I do chores
2:30- 3:30pm Play outside
3:30pm Snack
3:45-4:30pm Nap
4:30-5:30pm Free play
5:30pm Dinner
6:30-7pm Play outside
7pm Bath time
7:30 -8:30 screen time with daddy while I do dishes
9pm- bed

Elise only typically takes one nap these days around 11am for two hours.  She gets two if she is being super fussy which is pretty rare. She typically goes to bed around 8/8:30pm. Her meal time for lunch is whenever she wakes up from her nap and dinner time is around 6:30/7pm. 

Any tips, trick, or advice would be greatly appreciated!!

My sweet sleeping girl! So precious!

Baptism Towel

My sister Natalie's son, Mitt, will be turning 8 in just a few weeks and in my Church that means he will be baptized!  Since I won't be able to attend the baptism I thought it would be fun to send him a gift to tell him how proud we are that he has made the decision to be baptized.

When I started to think of what I could give him (keeping cost and shipping in mind) I searched through the blogosphere and pinterest to find a great idea!  I learned about the baptism towel from the blog, My Sweet Shack.  There is also a poem and the link to the CTR emblem on there as well! 

It was a fun and simple project to do!  It only required a white towel, some heat n' bond, and a fabric of your choosing and you'll be good to go!  I hope he'll like it!

Five on Friday

The last time I blogged it was under the same heading-oops!! I meant to have at least one other post in between but I guess I'll have to try better next week!

1- This week I finished reading the book, Open, an autobiography of Andre Agassi.  I really really liked it!  I don't know much about tennis but it is one of Zack's favorite sports so since we started dating I have started to watch more and more of it.  I really liked reading about all the hard work and dedication it took to become such a great player!  I would definitely recommend this book however it does use strong language quite a bit (only when he is upset about losing games and injuries, etc) so if that will offend you best to keep this one on the shelf!

2- Tonight Elise and I are heading to a giant dinner party downtown to go to a Fish Fry!  A fish fry is a Wisconsin tradition that we have yet to participate in and we are excited :)People say fish and fry go together in Wisconsin like peanut butter and jelly!  Who doesn't love things that are fried?  I'll let you know if I was brave enough to try the fish or if I'd rather wimp out and have a burger!

3- I lucked out and was able to find some play cookware at Goodwill.  I know, it sounds like I go there all the time (and it's true)!  It is basically next door to Target so anytime I'm at Target I usually hop in to find something I've had my mind on.  With the completion of the play kitchen I've had my eye out for some pots and pans and food for Elise to use in the play kitchen!  There were some awesome things in the grab bag of kitchen toys including a pretend George Foreman grill, blender, hand mixer and lots of pots and pans!  I was so excited :)

4- Zack was able to finalize his summer plans and is officially going to PERU!  He is going to be in the small village of Yantalo.  He will be participating in their volunteer program and will even be living with a local family during his stay; you can learn more about it here.  He will be there for about a month! He is so excited to go! 

5- With Zack being in Peru for a month that means I get to be back in Utah!!!  After his month in Peru, Zack also wants some Utah/family times so looks like I'll be getting in a lot of Utah time this summer.  I am so excited to be in my favorite place for such a long time!

Five on Friday

Heck, everyone else was doing it (Shauna, Rachel) I thought I'd hop on the bandwagon!  It's a fun way to end a week in blogland. 

1- Zack and I have been watching Burn Notice notice these past few weeks and we are almost caught up.  We have LOVED this show and now are on the hunt for another one.  We'd like our next show to be one that has a few seasons (at least 4) under it's belt before we jump in.  Any ideas?

2- Did I tell everyone that our car was found again?!  This is so exciting I should have put it as #1 but I'm too lazy to change it now.  Ready for the crazy story?  Here goes:  Monday Zack as at school talking to his mom on the phone.  He was standing towards the front of the med school looking out the windows that look out to the parking lot and neighborhoods behind that.  From all the way inside he thought he spotted our car in the neighborhood that backs up to the med school parking lot.  He thought he might as well check it out since he didn't have anything to lose.  Sure enough, it was our car!!  He grabbed out his keys and drove that baby home!  Even better news- nothing was stolen!  Car works great, GPS was still there, both car seats...it's a miracle!

3- Google goggles.  Try saying that five times fast!!!  Don't know what I'm talking about?  Go ahead and check out the article about it here.  Do you think you would wear them?  I told Zack that I would feel a little bit like LeVar Burton from Star Trek if I wore them.  But I guess only time will tell!

4- I made Beef Enchilada Bake for dinner tonight, recipe found here.  It was simple, quick and tasted fine.  Wasn't delicious, wasn't bad. If you need a recipe idea for dinner this wouldn't be bad to try.

5- Tabbed browsing.  I hope and pray that you use tabs, not seperate windows.  Do you have a specific tab line-up that you use?  Here's mine (in order from left to right) gmail, google reader, facebook, pinterest, deseret news.  If it isn't like that it bugs me.  Of course thoughout the day there are other websites that I open and look at and those all go to the right side.  I guess that is a little OCD but it's what I do! 

A picture just for fun, because posts are more fun!  This is in 2009 at the Water Cube in Beijing.  I'm SO excited for the summer Olympics!!  Only months away :)

Easter Eggs!

 For playgroup this week the neighbor hosting decided to have an Easter egg hunt!!  It was a lot of fun.  It was Elise's first hunt and she did pretty well :)

 Mom and her favorite girl!

We had a perfect spring day!  It was beautiful!  Elise was a bit unsure what to do when she first got there and loved to bang the eggs together!  I would take them away from her and that would send her to find more, so I'd say our sytem worked well :)  I hope she remembers her training since we have another one on Saturday!