Long time no see.....

It is already two months since my last post about potty training. 

Well summer was here and time inside was limited to minimum. When outside, kids are much happier and calmer and they sleep better, so whenever we could we went out.

I'm not going to write long stories about what happened to us during these months.

But: Alex is great without nappies and has two new teeth and Jessie is walking, nearly running. No more dirty knees :D

We are still working on building good relationship between Alex and Jessie. Some days are great, some more challenging.

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Potty training 2

So just one day after I published our potty training post here I decided to check with Alex about her night time nappy.

She said straight away that she doesn't want it. 

Even though I was a little bit worried, I left it with her.

I only changed the sheets on her bed to a waterproof ones. Just in case.

And guess what....it's nearly a week and no night accidents.

Alex stays most of the time in her bed during the night and uses potty in the morning.

She got up to use potty at night only twice.

The only thing is that she calls for me during the night, because she wakes up sometimes. The reason might be the potty training, or maybe bad dreams. Who knows, but she won't tell me what woke her up.

I just hope it will sort itself out soon.

Jessie sleeps better now even though he had vaccination yesterday. He woke up last night twice as well, but it looks better today.

So here we go, we have one little lady home without nappies already and one really fast growing boy who climbs everywhere and has to sit at a table on a big chair like the rest of us.

Potty training

So it finally happened. Alex decided to try the potty.

I wanted her to try it before, but she wasn't really interested. 

And I wasn't ready for it either. I was stressed from the constant remarks from people around, that she should be without nappies already and I knew she feels the same. We both didn't like comments about it. 

In my mind I set up the right time. Summer! So she can walk around naked or in really light clothes and won't be home all the time, so there won't be much cleaning in case of accidents.

It's not summer yet, but the weather last week was great and when we stayed home alone I decided to check with her.

I asked her if she wants to wear skirt outside without nappy, so she can pee at the grass. I wasn't pushy and probably not even convincing, but she said yes. 

I took her to the kitchen where the potties are and then outside and showed her how to pee on grass.

She wanted to try to pee on the grass too, but it wasn't her time yet. While in a sand she sat on an ant and it bit her right to one cheek, so I changed the strategy and clothes and gave her underpants. Showed her again and in half an hour she went to that spot and did it. 

We washed 6 pairs of underpants that evening, but she managed to use potty twice.

To my surprise the following morning, she woke up and went to the potty right away. We changed the clothes and Alex didn't even bother to ask me or tell me that she needed to use it again. She went straight there and even cleaned it up with me. And so it continued that day with only two little accidents.

Day 3 was great as well, except a poop which went down on a floor. We even managed a car journey without nappy.

Same was day 4 but without the poop issue. 

It's a week and Alex has nappy at night only, but it's half of the mornings dry. 

I feel much better now knowing she's able to do it all by herself. She tells me most of the times, that she has to go and that's fine. 

When she'll be a pro, I'll try Jessie as well. It would be great if the nappy period will be over after this summer.

I'm one really proud mom. I was so afraid that I messed it up earlier, because Alex didn't want to cooperate, but she just needed to get there at her own pace.

We still have work to do to sort out the pooping, but now I'm positive this will be done soon.

Jessie is walking

Just a few days ago I talked with our grandma about Jessie. We agreed that he's cautious. He loves walking while somebody holds his hands, but he didn't want to let go. Not even standing alone. Just a few seconds next to a bed or chair, but no longer than 5 seconds in a row.

So on Saturday as my sister in law arrived for a visit we spent nearly whole day outside. It was finally lovely weather and when the sun was out it was really hot. Except there were some clouds, so from time to time the cold wind with the clouds created unpleasant temperature change.

My hubby took care of the growing grass in the morning, so we could sit down on a picnic blanket later that day and enjoy the family time. Alex was running up and down the garden, watering flowers and trees and Jessie was crawling around.

I took him on the blanket and asked him to stand in front of me. I just wanted him to let go and stand there for a while. He usually grasps anything around or sits down. 

He didn't do either. He was just standing there, looking around. Jessie was on a walk with granddad, so they didn't see it. I asked Jessie to walk to me and he did two steps by himself. Nobody was holding his hands. So I just tried again. Placed him in front of me and asked him to walk. He repeated two steps again and again until he managed 4 steps in a row before falling at me, I always catched him. 

So here we go....Jessie is walking. I know it's not such a big deal, because he does only a few steps and then sits down or fell, but for him it is definitely big thing. We are now practising every day and he managed even 6 steps once, but two or tree are standard now. In a few weeks he'll be maybe running :D

Alex will be in a trouble then....he will follow her everywhere. Crazy and exciting time begins!

What is going on here?

I just woke up this morning with Jessie in my bed again. He was up 5:30am and I don't like to be up that early, so I took him with me and we slept for two more hours. Alex was sleeping even longer. Sometimes I think she's a Sleeping Beauty.

But what surprise waited for us outside???? Yesterday we went for a walk, it was a bit cold, but sunny and everything was green and lovely, birds singing, bees buzzing, lovely spring day.

This morning though......I looked out of the window and it was snowing. Not just a little snowflakes like frozen rain, but a big ones and it was snowing heavily. We didn't expect it and definitely not the fact that it was snowing a whole day until 8pm. There is such a huge amount of snow outside, that we can go and build a snowman again.

What will happen with our vegetable garden? Who knows, I just hope the snow will work as a pillow and all seeds will survive the cold weather. It would be a pity if they won't.

Alex and Jessie didn't mind the weather. We played inside, but I would prefer to take them out. Hopefully tomorrow we'll go to get some more fresh air.

It's nearly May and I didn't expect the snow to come. I had plans to meet with my workout groups outside and do a little bit of training, but all is wet, it's freezing cold and in the city it's raining instead. If we would meet up it could work out, but we wouldn't be able to take kids with us, so I had to arrange online training for them. I know some of them will do it, even though we have online challenge for 30 days, well now only 20 left, which keeps my girls busy everyday.

I really need better weather. I have to start running. Me and a few moms decided to go for an obstacle race in 4 weeks. This weather isn't helping us much. I was running only twice so far and need to get use to it as it's 10K race.

I just hope we get ready and won't be last at the finish line :D

First workout group meeting

So I have first workout group meeting with my local No Excuse Moms.

It was Wednesday afternoon and I drove there only with Alex as I had a little bit of admin work with the NEMs before we could start working out.

The weather day before was gorgeous. Sunny like in summer, warm and even the wind was comfortable, but the Wednesday was a different story. It was much colder, 10 degrees Celsius less and cloudy.

I arrived earlier and went to the playground with Alex. She played a little, but was really shy. When other NEMs arrived, we had to introduce ourselves, sign some paper work and start with the workout.

Alex was sitting in a buggy, I took it in case she will be tired and want to sleep and to carry all my stuff.

Other kids where running around, so some moms had to chase them, that's why we decided to go from the field right into the playground where we could close the gates and keep the kids inside. The only thing there was checking them when they decided to use sled or swings.

We laughed a lot and people were looking at us as we were crazy, but every comment they made I turned back at them and asked them to join us.

After the workout we played there with kids. Alex still didn't want to join the other kids there, but eventually she did and went to a sled. She loved it and didn't want to go home, same as her new friend. Well I call him friend, but she only smiled at him a few times, no talk though.

I know our kids live in a great place, with lot of nature and animals around, but they need other kids to play with.

I'm really happy I can get them meet others this way and shape up a little. Just can't wait for next meeting.

Alex wasn't play for that long there, but when we were nearly home, she fell asleep in a car. Hubby picked her up when we arrived and took her to bed, she was like a puppet. We woke her up, gave her dinner and half an hour later she was in bed again, sleeping like a little baby.

Jessie didn't go with us this time, but will join us next week. That will be even better fun.

Jessie is 1

Our little Jessie is not that little anymore. He's already one year old.

He's still walking just around the furniture, but when on bed he lets go and try his balance.

He absolutely loves music, he's dancing even, if we just clap our hands.

I can't wait for him to start walking and talking.

This is a little cake I made for him. Very tasty lemon cake with vanilla sugar icing.

And last week the weather just became better. We can be outside most of the day, so it's great.

Kids are tired in the evening. Fresh air is a miraculous medicine to anything even boredom.

Our sand pit is full of new toys Jessie got as presents, so there is no fighting over anything.

Every time we are outside our dog and cat come to us and play as well. Just not between themselves. Our dog Hachiko doesn't care she's a cat, but she doesn't like dogs. But they are getting along more and more, so I believe they will respect each other by the summer.

Why do I study parenting books and taking courses?

I already mentioned a few months, maybe it's a year already, ago that we signed up for a parenting course.

So let me explain why. Simply: I want my children grow up in different environment as I did. Of course they do, because we live somewhere else and our family's different, but what I'm trying to say, I want them to have even completely different experiences as kids, different relationships with parents and be what they want to be.

I as a mother want to be supporting, understanding and loving and I don't want to be afraid to say it to my kids. I want them to know what I feel and what they mean to me. 

It's completely new to me to show my feelings and talk about them and to accept my children's feelings as they are. Nobody showed me while I was growing up. My mum was very strict. I want my kids to come to me when they have a problem and talk to me about it. I want them to feel safe with me. 

All my past experiences led me to search for gentle parenting approaches. So when I joined a free online workshop on parenting I hoped it will be something useful. And it was. The first one I watched was about taking kids to a doctor and how to deal with it, so kids will understand what is happening and won't keep us responsible for any pain they might experience. That means even phobias of going to doctor or dentist. And guess what. We had a perfect chance to test it just a few days after the workshop and it worked. There was another workshop soon after and that one was good as well so we decided to pay for the course and go full 5 weeks with them.

Did it work? I think so. A few people mentioned to me that they like how my kids behave. Even though sometimes I think nothing is working, most of the times I feel like I can communicated with them and sort out any issues without screaming. There are still times when I can't keep my temper down, but I don't think it's too often. It's usually when I'm under pressure from something else or really tired.

The only problem I found out, even though we have a great support from the course, is that sometimes I have no idea what to do. It taught us some great strategies, but they are so open to different ways how to deal with the stuff that I get confuse.

That's why I still look for more answers in books etc. I read a lovely books about kids and how to talk to them. I give you reviews on them on a separate page as I still have more to come and don't want them to just disappear here in the text.

We are still dealing with siblings rivalry and sometimes I really get desperate to do anything to stop it. I know that when I get to that stage, I can't stop myself and I do raise my voice. I'm working on it and I hope it will be better soon.

So click here if you want to read some of my reviews :)

No Excuses

It's busy again.

I just completed the photography course and I'm glad my studying is over for now. I have soooo much stuff to do lately.

After Alex was born I joined the No Excuse Mom Facebook page. I love this page, so much motivation, support and health tips. After we moved I was looking for members of No Excuse Mom (NEM) groups somewhere nearby, but there was no group.

So the reason behind my busyness is the fact that I'm starting the No Excuse Mom group here in Slovakia. Our Facebook group covers Czech Republic as well, so I'm hoping there will be some workout groups in the future too.

For those who never heard about No Excuse Mom here is a short description I borrowed from the official NEM program.

No Excuse Moms is a supportive group of women who prioritize health. It was created by Maria Kang and led by a team of volunteers including our online admins, regional managers, local leaders and NEM experts. We don’t believe in quick fad diets, the newest workout craze or abiding by any specific diet rule. We believe in: DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU, just don’t stop working.To order the No More Excuses Diet Book please click here.

All of us are at different fitness levels. Some of us are marathon runners, others have a goal to run a 5k. Some are fitness competitors, others have a goal to lose 100lbs. Some like to follow a Paleo diet, are gluten intolerant, can’t consume lactose, or are addicted to wine and chocolate. Regardless of your goal, ALL of us are women who understand how tough it is to prioritize health in the midst or work, school, family and events. Even deeper – it’s tough to follow through when you’re stressed, depressed, anxious or unmotivated.

That’s why we are all here.

My workout groups are starting next week. One on Wednesday another on Thursday, so I'm really busy with setting up the exercise plans, translating documents etc. I'm so looking forward to meet other local moms. 

I hope they will enjoy fitness and healthy lifestyle as I do.

That's it for now, I have to finish Jessie's birthday cake as his big day is just behind a corner ;)

Busy busy busy

Oh yeah, even I have no time sometimes. 

It was so busy these past two months, that I didn't have time to sit down and do something relaxing for myself like writing here.

We went to see my family and sort out some legal issues, which after a stressful month are done. 

Kids had one day stomach flu which affected nearly whole family, even I had it and believe me it was no fun and I'm an adult. Poor kids. :( We were glad that it was just a day, in Jessie's case three days.

I finally finished another online course which I didn't have time to do before and there was a time limit set for me. It's done now, but it was a very time consuming as I had to catch up on all the lessons. 

Alex also decided it was time to test our bedtime routine again, so I didn't have even evenings free. It settled down and the bedtime is at 8:30pm which gives me 30 minutes for the bedtime story and Alex is most of the time fast asleep by 9pm. There are some odd days when she tries to stay up, but we decided that if she comes to the living room, she could be there, but without our attention. Of course we watch her a little bit, but there is no communications and we pretend to do our stuff. This usually works and she falls asleep on the spot, so we move her to her bed. All is in normal the following day.

Jessie is sleeping better too. Usually up around 5am, but most of the nights not waking up after midnight. If he's not teething of course. When the time's right and my hubby won't be studying again, we will do the sleep training with him, so he stays in his cot by 7am at least. Wishful thinking, but it can be done ;) We know.

Jessie's going to be one soon and I'll have to get his present done. Another crocheted toy. I hope I'll finish it soon. I started before Christmas.....

I'll try to make more time for myself and my writing again as I need it to relax a little bit. I still have some parenting books to read and I'll write reviews on them here as well and yet another course starting next Monday. This time photography :D 

Alex's English is improving and she loves all her movies. She started to play puzzles and it's amazing how fast is she picking up what needs to go where.

I started to worry a little bit that she's not brushing her teeth much. She wasn't interested and liked to play with the electric toothbrush, but the battery's dead. So I was thinking what to do. As she started to play puzzles on tablet as well which teach her the words in English as well I downloaded a few apps for her. She adores cats and I had one app already. She got pretty upset when the cat had to go to bed and she couldn't play with it, so I decided to download another one. Guess what....the cat has to get her teeth brushed. Surprise!!!! Alex is now brushing her own teeth after breakfast and dinner and she would even often if I asked her to. I let her to do it herself, then I do a little bit and she finishes the job. Great fun and all done.

Jessie is walking around furniture. He tries to climb up on a bed, but it didn't work out yet. We had a two months of very laud screaming in the house, because he stood up and couldn't get back to the floor. Finally he got how to bend his knees and return back to the ground, so less screaming here and much more laughter. 

There is still some sibling rivalry and jealousy, but we are working on it and I'll write much more later.

So I hope to write some more soon.

New Year 2016

Hello Everyone,

so this is my first post in a year 2016. Our end of the year was calm. We were home alone, just me, hubby and kids. As our kids don't know what does end of a year means, we didn't wake them up at midnight. We just watched a movie  with my hubby to survive the last few hours of 2015 and don't fall asleep and wished each other happy new year. 

I don't even remember when I celebrated the New Years Eve last time. There were no big celebrations in Ireland, fireworks are illegal there, so nothing special and to be honest, with little kids I don't even have the power to stay awake longer than necessary. That means, when kids are in a bed, kitchen is clean and ready for following day, I don't bother with anything else. 

It's difficult to get some rest if you are waking up during the night to attend your babies, but it's getting better now. 

Jessie is crawling now. And he's pretty good at it and starting to be fast as well. He's able to climb over small objects and he's kneeling by footstool or boxes or anything like this. He loves that he can get anywhere now and nothing is safe. 

Alex doesn't take it as good as we do. She started to be jealous of him. It will take time for her to get use to it, that her little brother is not that little anymore and he loves to copy her with everything. So far it's just playing with toys. The fact that she pushes him sometimes doesn't bother him yet. I just hope we can get her behave better before he thinks that it's normal and starts to return these little favours ;)

So Alex was a few times on a naughty step. She didn't like it at all and when it was done by her daddy she didn't get it as he messed up a little. That was actually first time we used it. Today I sat her down there twice and second time it was much smoother, she even got me hugs and kisses after that and kissed her brother too. It might work ;) I'm really glad I remember something from watching SuperNanny those years ago, before our kids arrived.

Jessie has two teeth and another is coming out. He's sleeping much better last two nights, wakes only around 9pm, that's around 1.5 hour after bedtime and another time around 5:30am. He goes back to sleep and wakes again in an hour or two, so it's great, except we are use to sleep longer. We should probably change it a little. 

With me exercising again and eating better now, I have more energy to play with kids. If the good sleeps continues, I'll be super powered mommy in no time :)

That's it for now. I need to finish some presents for kids of my friends. They will have birthday soon ;) 

BTW the winter's here. It's really cold and snowing from time to time. I'm happy that we have full freezer, fridge and storage, just in case we get snowed in.

Our Christmas

So tomorrow is the last day of 2015.

I believe this year was a good one for us, even though we were really busy with the move, and of course after Jessie came to our little family :)

Our Christmas were the first in a new country for me and our kids. I was so happy that we could share it with my husband's family. There was 9 of us at the dinner table. 

Alex of course didn't want to wait and wanted to go to the living room before anyone could get dessert or coffee after the Christmas meal.

In here we share Christmas presents after the dinner and so we couldn't allow her to go back there by herself as all the gifts were already on a huge pile under our hanging Christmas tree.

We took her out for a moment to light up sparkles and give everyone else a little time to get ready to move out of the kitchen.

When we walked in Alex was surprised but didn't  know much about what is going on. 

My hubby's sister started to sort out the presents. Of course our kids got all of theirs first. Alex was so busy with her first one that she didn't even realised how many others were placed next to her. Daddy opened all Jessie's ones with him. Jessie didn't know what was happening, and to be honest he didn't even touch anything. 

Alex opened everything and helped her granddad to open his as well. It was funny as he got a bottle of alcohol and she tried to open it for him. That evening she didn't play with anything much. But she checked every single present even Jessie's ones and before she went to bed, she looked through mine and hubby's ones too.

The following morning she tried everything and played with most of her new toys. The one she unwrapped first she didn't like at all. It's the pop up pirate game. She was scared when the pirate jump out. So she complained when I was testing it with my sister in law. It took her 3 days, now she's able to sit with it for hours and play all by herself. 

She got puzzles, books, alphabet letters, other little games and toys. Jessie got a book, some fluffy toys and a set of cars. And same as Alex he was afraid of one of the presents too. My favourite: set of 4 cars. He couldn't be nearby them, but now he's crawling to get them and what's interesting he loves to play the pirate too, even though he can't stick the sword to the barrel, but he's trying :D

So far so good. All gifts accepted and kids are happy to play with them. This is what I wanted.

We still have a little bit of our cookies and a lot of other food in the fridge. Funny how much do you buy and get when the family should come together and then everyone is too full to eat anything :p

Now we are alone. Somebody would say, time to rest, but with our little angels rest is a word we don't know. 

Unfortunately the sleep training we did with Alex a few times and worked that worked with her perfectly is not working with Jessie, so we might need to try something different. He has good nights when he wakes up once around midnight and second time around 5-6am, but after a good night a bad one comes when we could go there even 8-10 times. 

I'm really tired and I fell asleep two days ago when both kids slept in the living room. This little power nap made me good, but it's rare to have it as Alex usually doesn't nap anymore.

So I call it tonight and go to bed, my eyes are burning, my body aching as I started working out after two weeks without regular exercising and tomorrow is the last day of 2015. I will need to prepare good lunch, dinner and a little bit for the evening as we might not go to sleep that soon.

Next post will be in 2016. So I wish you all the greatest end of the year and all the best in the new one. Most of all a lot of love, health and luck :)

BTW Jessie has a tooth!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

So it's here. Christmas Eve is tomorrow.

We have nearly everything ready. Our Christmas tree is hanging from the ceiling :D That's a lovely and very practical tradition if you have little children. Of course, your tree can't be too big ;)

Christmas cookies are done, two full large shoe boxes. 

We just need to prepare the Christmas dinner. It's going to be fish and potato salad and for those who don't like the fish we'll have pork ;)

All presents are wrapped and ready to be moved from one room to another at the right time. I can't wait for tomorrow evening. 

Why tomorrow? Because the Christmas Eve is the big day for us. We have family dinner and we get the presents. We don't wait until next day. This year it will be first Christmas for Jessie. Alex will actually enjoy this one as she will understand what is happening. Last year it was just another day for her, except she got some boxes to play with :) She didn't mind what was in them. Paper and cardboard were the best toys.

She likes the Christmas tree and she's happy that there is so many people in the house. There will be 9 of us at the dinner table.

I feel happy and satisfied with everything so far. So Santa or little Jesus come on, we are waiting for you :)

I would like to wish you all Merry Christmas and the happiest new year. May all your plans and wishes for next year come true. Thank you for reading my lines here and I hope you enjoy some of them.

I know I don't have a lot of posts. Hope you understand. 

Two little angles are keeping me busy and with Jessie who just started to crawl properly on all fours and was able to lift himself on a foot stool yesterday and move from living room to kitchen over 15 cm high threshold this morning, it will be even busier. 

So wish me good luck and strong nerves :p The funny time is coming!

Christmas traditions

As you all know every country has different Christmas traditions. 

In some presents are delivered by Santa, somewhere else the Three Kings (Wise men) and in our part of the world it's little Jesus. As I already wrote about it last year, I'm not going to white a long story about it. I actually love the ideas that you can get personalised letter or video from Santa and I love to do the Elf on the Shelf too, so we are combining Santa and little Jesus together. For our kids it will be one person or two best friends.

Alex and Jessie already got a video from Santa and Alex absolutely loved it, she watched it three times.

For me the Elf on the Shelf tradition will be something like Hide and Seek game with kids. The Elf won't go away to tell Santa who's good or bad. There is no need for this. I just like to make this little surprise for them every morning.

In our home countries we have one more person who gives presents to kids. It's St. Nicholas.
He comes at the beginning of December with Devil and Angel to check on kids. If they were nice, they will get sweets etc, if naughty they get potatoes, stones etc. 

Some families play this good/naughty game with their kids. They tell them if they are naughty the Devil will take them, a lot of kids get scared of them. I didn't want to traumatised my daughter, but I wanted to show her who they are. Jessie doesn't understand it yet, so there was no need for explanation for him, but Alex had to be told. We took them to the city where there was gathering of people to see this St. Nicholas and his helpers. (Kids here don't visit Santa's house).

I showed Alex a few pictures of people in the costumes, so she could be ready a little bit and I told her not to worry. We won't give her even if the Devil wants her and if she doesn't like him, she should scare him away. I told her to say "bu bu bu". While we were driving to the city she was constantly saying Devil bu bu bu, it was so funny. When we arrived there was a lot of people there. Christmas lights already on and a Christmas tree was standing in the middle of the public square. 

There was a tent were the St. Nicholas was sitting with Devil on his left and Angel on right and a few more kids behind singing songs. The Devil was actually a lovely girl and was smiling at our kids. Both of them got a little bag with sweets etc. It was nice. Alex was constantly saying Devil bu bu bu even if she said she liked him (her). I'm glad we took them there.

Some people continue to get their kids to behave the way they want, because Santa or whoever brings the presents will see them and so if they don't do what the parents ask them to do, they won't get anything under the Christmas tree. I just don't feel it's right and when I hear that someone is saying something like this to Alex because she does this or that I tell her that she's nice enough and she'll definitely get something.

What I feel is just exploring the world around, could look to somebody else like bad behaviour. It's just a different point of view. I don't want to change my daughter or son, I want to support them and help them enjoy the life. I want them to feel loved and understood and I don't want them to feel under pressure just to make me happy. They make me happy every minute of every day even if I get irritated or stressed. It's just a feeling and that will pass, but the love I have for them won't change with it. It grows even more as they do, because they can show me that they love me the way I am and I don't need to be someone else. This is called unconditional love and I have a lot of it for my babies. 

Christmas is behind a corner

It won't be long and the Christmas for our little family of four will be here.

This year we will celebrate with in-laws. My hubby's mum, sister, grandma, granddad and dad should be with us. It will be lovely to be with so many people. Alex will love it for sure and Jessie probably too as he loves attention and everyone around.

This year Alex will also get some presents we know she would enjoy. Even though she didn't write a letter to Santa, we know what she's talking about these days so we added some presents as per her interests on the shopping list now. I can't wait to see her face when she gets the gifts.

We already made a few Christmas cookies. Alex was helping me bake them. Well she was eating the dough a lot but did what I asked her to. It was fun, but I'm looking forward to next week when we'll be doing ginger bread cookies. I found the shape cutters today and handed them to Alex. She loves helping in a kitchen, so I hope she will like to make these too.

The snow is amazing. Alex was on ski already. A little baby ones, but she walked on them well. Didn't want to slide and didn't know how, but she thought it was fun when I showed her :D

We built a snowman as well, but we are waiting for better snow to make a bigger one. It's currently melting, but in a week or so we should get a fresh supply ;) I'm really excited about it. This is first real winter after so many years in Ireland and for our kids it's first one ever.

So as I didn't publish this post when I started to write, I can add now that we finished all the Christmas baking. We have a lot of cookies. It was certainly challenging work with two little ones.

Alex was trying to help and managed to eat a lot of cookie dough. I didn't like that, because I was afraid she'll get sick. She was OK, her digestion works perfectly. Jessie is teething again or still, not sure if we had any breaks in between and is really cranky.

We had his vaccinations last week and he was much better this time. It didn't make a big difference with his routine, so I'm really happy about that.

And of course we celebrated Alex's birthday. She had two cakes and two celebrations. One of the cakes was a rainbow one, You can't see the colours here but there was green, pink and the top was light blue. We even had a baby bubbly :D that was fun. 

Now we have just last bits and pieces to sort out, and the Christmas could come. It's going to be my hubby's birthday soon too, so we will be busy celebrating again.

Little update :)

Alex's birthday is nearly here. I picked up a recipe for her cake. I just hope it will be tasty and nice. Well, when it's ready, I'll take a picture and put it up here :)

We moved out of kid's bedroom last week. They sleep by themselves now. It's working good so far. Of course we have a baby monitor, but we could hear them through open door as well. Yesterday we rearranged the furniture there so they both sleep in new location and a little closer to each other. I just hope that they won't wake each other if they cry.

So far so good. Last night was the first night and Jessie slept much better than usual. He woke up only twice between 8pm and 5am, after that he didn't want to fall asleep, so I had to take him with me. When he was sleeping next to me for about 5 minutes he started to talk from his sleep. It was the longest babbling ever :D and so cute.

Jessie is 8th month already, but he's about the size of one year old baby. His clothes are getting smaller too fast. He absolutely loves food. Anything he gets, he eats and milk.... That's a different story. He doesn't take it during the day, only night feed(s). He takes usually one feed a night, but there is the odd night when he wants twice.

This evening it was a first time after about 4 weeks when he took milk after dinner, before he went to sleep.

Alex loves watching fairytales these days. The weather is cold and wet, so we can't go out as much. She loves horses, bunnies, dolphins etc and she's learning English from them and 90% of our movies are in English. She told me tonight Good Night in English. It was a big surprise for me. Her languages improved so much. She's constantly talking, loves reading her princess book and even playing with Jessie.

Jessie on the other hand is trying to crawl. He's moving around all right. Just not on all fours yet. He loves exploring everything especially with his mouth. I'm glad we don't have small toys yet. 

Alex didn't want to eat much lately. After we were sick, she had usually breakfast, a little one, a half of potato with something at lunch time and maybe something for dinner. I started to worry, because she didn't even ate what Jessie was able to finish within a few minutes. It was just a phase. After about 3 weeks of this picky eating she started to eat everything again. She surprised us one evening to finish whole slice of bread (usually she has a half of it), same portion of soup as I gave to her father and today two large chicken wings with rice. It was nearly the same portion I had for lunch.

We had to move her evening routine a little as she was complaining when we put her to the bed before 8pm. Most of the days she goes to sleep around 9pm which is still OK with me. If she has a bad day she would try to stay awake for ages, like yesterday but with the bell at 10pm she was in bed fast asleep. I told her to go the be when she wants, but I expect her to wake up at 8am and be fresh and ready for the day. That's what we agreed on. And even though she went to bed so late last night, she was up by herself at 8am and came to us. All happy and asking for a Litter Mermaid movie :)

Today it was 9 again, I hope tomorrow will be same.

That's about it. There is nothing special happening now, except for the snow outside, but we'll be really busy from this weekend onwards.

Christmas is coming!!!!! I'm really excited about this one, I'll tell you why next time :p

Just a few weeks until Alex's 2nd birthday

Alex's 2nd birthday is coming soon. I already checked some tasty recipes for her 2nd cake. I am really excited to bake it this year. If it will be nice and tasty, I'll share the recipe here with you. But because I didn't make it yet, I'll wait.

She will get another cake from her grandma, also home made. 

We have the gifts already sorted. Including the Santa's ones. We contacted the head elf ;) 

Alex is getting big and more communicative. She's not shy, it takes her 5 minutes to get use to somebody new. And how she talks now, it's amazing. She's making sentences with 3-4 words and they make sense 90% of time. :D

She loves reading books, playing with stuffed animals and exercising. She can recognise some letters, so there is a few presents which should help her learn even more. 

I can't wait to give her those. 

She found one of them by mistake in our wardrobe. I wasn't pleased with that, but it was my fault, I didn't hide it well. She was so excited to see it and wanted to open it, but she couldn't open the plastic bag. So she looked at it for a few minutes, turned it from one side to another and when she went to bed, I put it back to the wardrobe to a higher shelf. The following morning she didn't even remembered she found something new. 

So I hope she'll be excited to get it in a few weeks, but it won't be the only present we have for her. There is one more which should make her happy too.

The time goes by so fast, that it feels like yesterday when Alex was born and now she's nearly two and Jessie is 7,5 months already.

Sick family

Our little growing family was sick. Just a few days ago we got better. It started with the kids. Alex and Jessie had head cold, I had sore throat and my hubby too.

I wanted them to get better soon as we were invited to a family reunion. 

Alex and Jessie had really bad sniffles, probably sore throat as well and little cough. As it looked quite bad after 3 days, no improvements, we took them to the doctor. Both got some drops, vitamins etc. We were lucky as they had fever only once.

We had only 3 more days for them to get well, so we could go to see the family. I didn't care much about myself, but was concerned with them. If they would have fever or really bad cough, we wouldn't go, but luck was on our side.

By Saturday, the day of the visit, they were fine. Still had a little sniffles, but nothing big. Just Jessie slept really bad during the night. Alex was fine, she returned to whole night sleep and didn't even get blocked nose, but Jessie is still sleeping very light. He will wake up a lot, much more than before. 

Last night was a little better. Even though he woke up a few times, he settled himself back to sleep and after I fed him, he slept for a few more hours.

I still breastfeed him, but he takes only one feed during the night and that's around 5-6am.

I wish he would sleep better and longer, but he's still small. He didn't take his first sickness well. It really stressed him a lot. He's still getting over it, so it's easier for me to take him to our bed when he wakes during the night, so I don't need to get up. My hubby moved out of the room/bed when we got sick and still didn't return as he's studying now and has webinars until late night/early morning.

We are also expecting to get a new bed and move ourselves to different room. I will then start to train Jessie to get better sleep. 

As he slept longer last night, he was much happier today and had only one longer day nap. I didn't mind that. He was really nice. Alex was a different story. But not all days are happy days for everyone. 

She started well, but towards the evening got more tired and made a little trouble here and there.

Jessie is teething as well, so this could cause the sleep problems too, who knows.

We are not perfect and I was getting upset faster than usual too. The tiredness and lack of sleep affects everyone. 

I feel stressed sometimes, but I get better when I get some me time. During the weeks it's usually my workout time. I got use to the exercising again, that I really miss it during my days off :D

Alex is singing

Alex is nearly 2 years old and I thought it was time to teach her some songs. Well nursery rhymes etc. She managed already a name of one song she likes and when I ask her what to sing, she's able to tell me what should be the song about. Like song about bunny, horse or something else. I was singing for her and little Jessie often, but didn't teach her any of the songs properly.

I picked a song I was sure she would know how to say most of the words in it. And I sang it a few times myself.

Then I started to sing and waited at the end of each verse for her to say the word herself. It took her only 3 repeats of the song and she was able to finish each sentence herself. 

I was so happy. So the next day we sang this song at least 5 times and I started with another one. Alex got it within a few minutes. So I thought, she might be listening to me when I sing and I started to sing all the songs for kids I knew and waited a while for her to fill out the gaps or say the words with me.

She helped me sing nearly every song I tried. It's 6 or 8 songs I sing often because these are the baby ones that are easy to remember and follow. 

I'm really proud that she remembers these.

I made a small movie how she sings and send it to my family. 

My mum wasn't able to open the video so I helped her while I was on the phone with her. I was a little bit disappointed with her reaction. She said Alex should be singing these all by herself. I'm not really sure when kids starting to sing alone but I don't care. I think Alex is very bright and she learns really really fast. She picks new words every day, not just one a day. 

She's using 2-3 words sentences sometimes and is able to ask us for anything she wants. She's even saying "please" and if she's in a good humour "thank you" as well. 

Most of the words she's using at the moment are in Czech or Slovak, but I was surprised she came to our bed one morning with her Happy Hippo (hand puppet) and asked me in English: How are you?

I replied to her and she repeated Thank you in English as well, and is using it sometimes too.

I know it's not much, but she understands 3 languages. That's great I think. 

We are practising everyday now and she's getting better, but I think it will take time to get her to sing a whole song and sing it in a correct tune. But nothing will stop us now :D

Growth spurt

Summer is gone. Autumn is coming fast and winter even faster. We already had some snow here. It's wasn't much, but enough to cover the ground. 

Alex and I went out that morning when the snow came. It's was fun, Alex doesn't remember much of the snow from last year, she was too little. I think she'll love it this year. My hubby made a snowball for her and she brought it home and wanted to show it to Jessie. He was really surprised how cold it was. 

I managed to go through her and Jessie's wardrobe just the day before, removed summer clothes and put in some warmer ones and of course remove the small ones and pack them away.

I realised how fast they just grew. Jessie even though he just turned 6 months is wearing 6-9 months size for a month or so and some clothes are even 9-12. It's OK, I have a lot of vests and bodysuits from our ex-neighbour and some neutral after Alex. 

The only problem we have are Alex's shoes. When she started to walk, we took her shoe shopping, she absolutely hated it. I was OK with that, but since then everything changed. Her feet grew like  crazy in past few weeks. One day she had her house shoes and wellies a little bit loose and suddenly they were small. 

We had to go shoe shopping during last week twice. Well she skipped one size completely, but because of the cold weather we had to get some new winter boots and warmer house shoes too. 

This time I wasn't able to get her out of the shop. She wanted nearly every second pair of shoes. I bought her little ballerina shoes with ears and bunny face, because she loves bunnies. Two days later was soooo cold that we bought her another shoes with fur inside. And the boots? We had one from spring that we bought, because she was cold, but the smallest size was too big for her, well now it's perfect. As we were walking through a supermarket, there was a basket with winter boots. She loved them so much that she didn't let go of them, so now she has two pairs of winter boots. That's OK, because if one get wet, she can use another. 

But I need winter boots too. Guess what.....Alex was in the shop with me and was showing me a lot of different shoes saying I should buy them. :D It was really funny as she was nearly running from runners to winter boots, then to dance shoes, high heels, no heels and it was nearly impossible to get her out of the shop. 

So next time I do shoe shopping for myself, I thing I go there by myself :)