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 ;)

Crazy weather

The life in mountains is different.

It's not just the thing that we are here most of the time alone, it's quiet and we have fresh air and no traffic, but the weather here is different too. 

During the summer there was not much difference and during autumn we had a more nicer days I think as we are higher than the closest city. But winter! That's an interesting story I think.

Of course snow comes here sooner as we are in the mountains but what is happening lately is just crazy.

For the last few months we never know if we will be able to get to the shops or not. Lets take the last week as an example. Monday and Tuesday there was some snow from the weekend before, but it was warm and the snow disappeared. Wednesday and Thursday it was gorgeous weather. The sun was shining, Temperature well above 0 degrees and even some flowers started to grow. Friday raining, not a big surprise. Saturday morning raining, later snowing and Sunday still snowing. This goes week after week now. The difference between no snow and 10 cm snow is less than 24 hours.

Our great car broke down, thanks to the snow as well. My hubby was clearing the road, just in case the forest guards won't do it and that was it. Suddenly the car wasn't working, he had to take the plough down and reverse to safe space. Our car is in a service now, but it's 3 weeks without any vehicle here if hubby's grandparents are not here. 

Everything here is so romantic when the snow covers the ground. And when the sun comes out it's even better, but we have to be ready. That's why we have around 200 kg potatoes in our storage, full freezer and a lot of other food and stuff necessary to service in case of really really lot of snow. I'm talking over 0,5 m. 

We had a few visits lately and when my sister wanted to come we were pretty scared she won't be able to reach us. It was snowing for 3 days and luckily the forest guards had to feed the animals and cleared the road so hubby's grandparents managed to come to us and hubby went to pick her and her son up. We had a lovely couple of days together and as usually when they left so did the snow.

But I think kids love it. Jessie is OK with it and even went a few times down the hill on a sled with either me or hubby and to be honest Alex loves the time when the snow starts to melt. We have such lovely big and deep puddles here. She loves to run through them. We built at least 5 different snowmen since Christmas and we probably have a few more before the winter ends.

I just hope it will get milder now. 

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!!!