Utah bound!

Believe me, I was so conflicted with our decision on where we would move when Mikey got out of the military. The plan was to move back to California when he got out this January. However, we entertained the idea of Utah for awhile. It seemed like a great idea, but I needed to handle things with custody and I felt like the boys should be close to their dad and cousins, etc. I mean, most of our family is in California. So when January came and we weren't ready to move just yet due to finances and plans, Mikey quickly signed up for a semester of AWC. I was kinda devastated at the thought of the 5 of us staying in this tiny apartment any longer than we absolutely had to. Especially after the baby starts crawling. But we have almost gotten through it, and at about 10 weeks left before the end of our semester and the move coming up quickly, we had to make a decision. I worked some things out and we decided that Utah would be best for our little family. We may not be close to EVERYONE, but we will have some awesome family nearby. I am looking forward to this huge change. I have always been very close to my mom. So close, that I still depended on her emotionally for a lot. If I got sick, I would call her to help me with the kids. If I was upset or there were financial issues going on, I called her. She helped, and I am thankful for that. But when I moved to Yuma, it was hard, but much needed for both my mom and I. Now I talk to her once or twice a week. I'm at that point where I don't need my mommy as much.  I think this move will leave me missing her a ton, but it will be so exciting when we get to visit each other. Plus, it gives us an excuse for mini vacations! We talked to the boys a little about the things to look forward to in Salt Lake. Umm snow, definitely snow. The fact that we will have actual seasons is awesome! Cold weather in the winter?! What a concept!! The beautiful scenery. Hiking. Waterfalls. Awesome parks. Health food stores! Nice people. And the essential oil company I work for, just happens to have headquarters there. I will be right in the heart of it all, and in could not be anymore excited. Here's to new beginnings for our family!

Our week

I can't believe it has been a whole week! I meant to update a few times each week, but I guess I have just been busy, which is good. The boys went with their dad over he weekend, and Mikey and I stayed home with Mycah in Yuma. We would have loved to come down to California for my nephew Talon's second birthday party, but plans changed. I did enjoy our quiet little weekend at home. I got the boys room cleaned and made lots of yummy food 

I have a bad gluten intolerance, and I have been experimenting with different Paleo recipes for our family. Paleo is usually meats, eggs, veggies, fruit, nuts and seeds, no sugar and no dairy I think. But a lot of people modify it. I cut most dairy except for pasture butter. I also use raw honey, coconut sugar and stevia. No grains. You can use coconut flour, almond flour, tapioca flour and cashew flour instead. I know there are a few ways to do it, but I just do what works for us. Whole foods, nothing processed. No dye, no junk, no artificial, monosodium, high fructose, maltodextrin #42, BHT crap. Just real food that we were meant to eat. Although.. I'm not super strict and I throw in Starbucks here and there. Okay.. Maybe everyday.. 

We put Mycah's high chair together that uncle Johnny and aunt Yvette got him. He loved sitting up and having his toys right there in front of him. Tonight I actually put some very very very mashed banana in front of him to see if he would grab it and put it towards his mouth. This is our first step towards baby led eating. He just played with it and made a gigantic mess, without once bringing it to his mouth. We will try again later :) 

In other news, we are car shopping. Looking for a used Honda Pilot. I really like hem, and there is enough room for our family and the possibility of one more baby (sister) in the distant future. I can't wait to ditch the tiny Camry and move onto something that has enough space to where we don't have to have the kids right up against us, kicking our seats and causing us to want to drive off a bridge because someone is touching someone's toy and they can't handle it. 

Mycah has been having a few fussy afternoons and evenings, so we started taking walks around the apartment again to soothe him. He's so sweet!

We had another chiropractor adjustment today, Mikey went back to school, and the boys played at The Treehouse drop in daycare for a few hours. Nothing's extremely exciting to report..in this post at least.. ;)

Mycha's first chiro appointment

I slept on my neck wrong almost two weeks ago, and have been dealing with a lot of pain. So I found a chiropractor out here, and went to a consultation. I mentioned Mycah spitting up a lot more recently! and sleeping funny, so he had an exam as well. I would love to get Nixon in there as well, because I'm a huge fan of chiropractic care as preventative medicine. We had our first adjustment yesterday and I think Mycah thought the doctor was tickling him. He did so well! 

Our journey to healing Nixon.

I know I have touched on this a little bit on Facebook before. Nixon is a sickly kid. We have been dealing with it for awhile. He has had issues with being severely anemic, and craves sweets like no other. He is grumpy ALL the time. And I mean..literally crying at least 15 times a day, and just in an overall foul mood. There are plenty of mornings that I have a hard time getting out of bed because the day starts with him waking up screaming. It's pretty frustrating for everyone. After reading up on some things, and attending a talk given on Candida, I realized this is definitely our issue. The moods, the craving of sweets, the really bad yeast rash on his poor little butt  that we have been battling for over 8 months on and off. He has gotten ring worm twice, from who knows what (nobody else has it,) and he has the worst immune system. I have read that it is common for C section babies to be more prone to this yeast overgrowth, because they did not receive the beneficial bacteria from a vaginal birth. Gross, but that's what statistics show. So now we work on healing, so maybe he can have fun and function like a normal kid. That means no processed sugars (which we hardly do as it is), cutting back on his natural sugars and balancing  his diet with plenty of protein. We need to starve the yeast cells, which feed off sugar. Next, introduce a high quality probiotic to recolonize the gut with good bacteria. He will get essential oils on his feet twice a day that help with Candida, and also some Bovine Colostrum chewables, that help boost his immune system. I will also be giving him and Hayden Blue Ice Fermented cod Liver Oil for the high omegas and good fats. Hayden needs that to remineralize a tooth anyways. I'm going to try and sneak in some greens as much as I can. I'm hoping this helps with healing his gut, and flushing the bad things out. It's hard to see him so unhappy every, and it's hard to deal with. So our journey begins!

Oh Nixon...

We had a good weekend. We had planned on going to the air show, but Nixon woke up with a bad cough on Friday, and was super grumpy. Speaking of... We had a scare with him. Friday, the kids were playing and wrestling on the couch as usual. We were sitting in the next room playing with Mycah. We heard Nixon start crying, so I walked out. It happens all the time when they are play fighting, so I figured I would console him as usual and he would be fine in about 30 seconds. But when I got out there, he was on the ground arched really funny on his back. I went to scoop him up real fast and he was crying really hard. I looked at the ground and there was a Darth Vader toy under him. I figured he fell from the couch, onto the ground on that. I turned him over and ere was a red mark. He got quiet, so I turned him back around and he had a weird look on his face. I thought for sure he was going to have another seizure, so I started yelling his name and trying to get him to respond because his lips turned blue and he closed his eyes. I freaked out and passed him off to Mike so I could run to the room to get my phone and call 911. He wa totally limp and passed out in Mike's arms. It wa so scary. By the time I ran back out, we had him on the ground and he was waking up, and started crying. We got him some water and he seemed really confused and started crying. I comforted him and we called 911. He got up as I was talking to them and walked around. They came and checked him out, did his vitals and we came to the conclusion that he was crying so hard that he couldn't catch his breath and passed out. He was acting completely normal, so they had me sign a consent form to not take him to the hospital. It was crazy and soooo scary. Poor guy. Two scares in one month. 

Pictures pt.2

Pictures!

Here are some picture from last week and this week so far!

Michael wearing Mycah as he slept through most of our meal at BJ's with friends :)

He got to visit with aunty Jenny and Uncle Mike when he woke up!

Mycah had a bit of a sad day this week as we battled some nursing issues.

We are working on sitting up! Once he can sit unsupported, we will bust out the high chair and start some foods :) 

Somehow, even with being strapped in, he keeps trying to escape out the side of the moving swing!!

We found some awesome old pictures at my mom's house. The top ones are me, bottom three are my sister!

And who doesn't love a baby in a bear hat!

A full grateful heart

I'm not gonna lie, when I first had Mycah, I was completely overwhelmed. I had a bout of post partum depression that had me not even wanting to get out of bed most days. Now that he is four months, my hormones have stabilized and I feel so much better. In fact, a lot of times, at the end of the day when I see how much I have accomplished with the kids and around the house, I feel pretty dang good about myself! I am coming to really enjoy the different personalities each of my boys have. Hayden is more anxious, cautious and emotional, but super loving and creative. Nixon is daring, fearless and stubborn. I can tell him and Mycah will be close. So far Mycah is calm, very happy and I think he will be the type of child that watches everyone and everything. I couldn't imagine my life without them, even with most days being jam packed with chaotic moments. My mom called it 'Controlled Chaos.' That's exactly what it is to raise boys. 

Coconut chocolate pudding.

I have always been a fan of milk. However, after some research, and a baby with an unhappy tummy, I'm trying to avoid it. I am also determined to use stevia and raw honey in place of sugar in our house. So far so good. I have only grabbed the sugar once, when we were out of honey. I'm finding the stevia powder had a sharp taste, but when hidden in things with... lets say....chocolate, you can't really taste it.  Here we go

1 can of refrigerated coconut milk. It has to be refrigerated or it won't have the thick solid church of coconut cream on the top, separated from the liquid.

A heaping spoonful of cocoa powder

A tsp of raw probiotic powder

Stevia or raw honey to taste

Scoop out the solid coconut cream into a blender. (I used a smaller one like the magic bullet.) Empty the rest of the liquidy contents from the can into the blender as well. 

Add your sweetner of choice. I did a teaspoon of stevia.

Add your heaping spoonful of cocoa powder and your teaspoon of probiotic powder.

Blend everything really well. I mean..really well. Serve right away. I put the remaining pudding into a freezer safe mason jar and stuck it in the freezer so the boys can have chocolate ice cream later. 

Our kindergarten progress

I pulled Hayden out of school a few days before I had Mycah. Since then, I have not been great with keeping up with a schooling schedule, I have not made sure he has done work everyday, but we do teach him when we can. He can add and subtract and count to 200. He knows the value of each US coin and can count money and make change. He is so close to reading, but isn't very interested yet. He knows how to put words together and can usually remember to space them out. His penmanship has improved greatly. He knows what rhymes are, opposites, and can group similar things. He is learning vowels. He can use a knife to cut and spread. He can make a sandwich and pour a drink. He can clean up a spill. He can unload groceries at the register, wait for the total and then hand the cashier the money. He can take a shower and actually get clean without help. I'm feeling pretty content with his Kindergarten year so far. He didn't have the life experience or skills to do those things last year. So as I clean up the school stuff tonight, I feel like less of a failure in the homeschool department. 

Foam dough and letters in the sand

Hayden is a math genius, but cannot stand writing any letters or numbers. I want to incorporate more into his day, in a playful way. I have seen the writing in salt or sand, but we have an abundance of cane sugar I try not to use, so we tried that. Success!

I also colored some rice for a soon to be March themed sensory bin, but for now, they enjoyed scooping, pouring and burying their hands. 

Next we did foam dough. Equal parts shaving cream, which you add food coloring to, and corn starch. It makes a soft fluffy marshmallow type dough that is mold able. Of course Nixon crumbled it up into a finely ground mess, and stuck his hands in his eyes and hair about fifty times. That's just Nixon. Hayden mixed all his colors together until it marbled and made some 'cakes.' 

Signing out!

No direct offense to anyone in particular, but I decided I like my family more, when I don't know their political stance, their opinion on abortion, and if they believe in marriage equality. So I decided to say so long to Facebook. I will be posting updates on the family on this blog. Feel free to follow!

Chores for all

So I (Mikey) decided that the $15 Hayden has somehow roped me into giving him every two weeks, was not fairly being earned. He's five now. I feel that there are quite a few things he can do to help us around the house. He gets a good sense of pride for helping out with household tasks, so a win for all!

Picking up after yourself is required by all beings over 4 months, with two legs in our home. (Although believe me..I have been working on Slinkdog.) After seeing something similar that Jillian from PaxBaby does for her kids, I made one of these 

Those are extra things that can be done for a quarter each. Sometimes, if he's feeling extra money hungry, he will try and do them all, and other days he will do the bare minimum.  I count his clothes pins at the end of the night, put that number of quarters in his jar, and remove the clothes pins for the next day.  His jar with quarters stays at the top of the fridge, and he can have them all at he end of the week. Nixon usually just does the job of checking the mail with me, so he feels special. So far it is working out, especially because we do have the rule that if he does not cooperate with helping clean up after himself or starts crazy fights with his brother, quarters can be confiscated from the jar. Meaning, he will have less at the end of the week. We have tried chore systems in the past, but it didn't work very well, and he didn't seem to really understand how things worked and what was expected. I have hope this time! 

Pooped out!

Tonight, as I tossed something into the kitchen trash can, I noticed a pair of underwear in there. Before picking them out, I looked at both boys and tried to see if I could tell who wasn't wearing theirs. When I  figured out it was Nixon, I asked what had happened. He replied with "I wipe myself yike a big big boy wit dem!" Child, I give you props for trying to wipe yourself, but that is what our disposable, flushable toilet paper is for. I decided to cut my loss and keep them in there, take out the trash, and pretend it didn't happen. Speaking of poop, I swear Nixon has a special built in radar for when I am sitting down to enjoy my food.  It seemed to be his favorite time to run to the bathroom and poop.  I always savor those few precious minutes of my food before I hear "I done nowwwwww!" To which he gives me a whole 30.2 seconds to bolt to the bathroom and wipe him before he gets frustrated and starts yelling. Usually after I wipe him, my appetite is lost, or the dog has jumped up and devoured every morsel of my meal. Oh well. Occupational hazard! 

Hayden has become pretty serious about his bathroom ritual. He doesn't want anyone near the bathroom whatsoever, requires specific reading material, and takes about 15 minutes to finish his duty before wrapping things up and then complaining to me about the smell in the bathroom.. -_-