Blog Award!

My first blog award... Thank you Lauren at Throne of Thornes, this is very fun!

As a recipient of this wonderful award, one must continue the rules of the award which are:
- Put the Lemonade logo on your blog or within your post.
- Nominate at least 10 blogs with great attitude or gratitude.
- Link to the nominees within your post.
- Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
- Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

And while I don't actually read 10 blogs at this point because I'm new to blogging, here are the blogs that I do read and am going to pass along this award to!

Chasing My Dreams to Disney
Knit Witch Blog
The Little Way
Musings of A Catholic Lady
The Funny Things My Kids Say

Jack's First Christmas!

We had an amazing day and got to spend it at home in our PJs. We all got lots of goodies and are feeling very lucky! Here are a few pictures of Jack's first Christmas!

Here is Jack and Matt... its probably the best picture I have of him in his Christmas outfit.

A view of the bottom of our Christmas tree after Santa came... my favorite thing Santa brought Jack would be his chair from Pottery Barn Kids! (Excuse the exersaucer in the background, he already had that... haha)

Jack under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning... I couldn't get him to smile, I think he was so distracted by the presents behind him. He's even grabbing them already in this picture.

We even got some goodies from our new neighbors, whom we haven't even seen much since we've moved in due to the holidays. They gave us some edible goodies (Chex Mix, Puppy Chow, etc.) as well as two Hallmark ornaments. One is a "New Home" ornament for the family and the other is a Classic Pooh "Baby's First Christmas" ornament. This was such a beautiful reminder of the fact that we got the right house for us!

In other news, I bought a new vacuum after ours crapped out right before Christmas. We desperately needed one after wrapping paper, food, and guests were in our house. I couldn't really shop around as much as I usually want to do when making a major purchase. I asked for suggestions from Facebook friends and everyone said Dyson. Well, I simply couldn't justify spending upwards of $350 for under 800 sq. ft. of carpet and ended up going with the suggestion of the Eureka Boss Smart Vac after reading some more reviews. I'll be sure to post a review after using it for a while but so far so good!

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish everyone a very merry and blessed Christmas! Tis the season for me to be very thankful for amazing family and friends.

Now I've got to go to sleep so Santa can visit our house!

Friday Fill-ins!

Yes, I know its Thursday but tomorrow is Christmas so I will be busy ;-)

1. My boots are super cute... I got new Uggs for Christmas.
2. Tomorrow might be my favorite Christmas of this century.
3. Imitation sugar is not even close to as good as the real thing.
4. Do you want to call and talk?
5. I'd like to celebrate a wonderful Christmas with my family.
6. Cry a river, build a bridge and get over it?
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Christmas festivities, tomorrow my plans include visiting with a couple of aunts & cousins, an uncle and my grandma from Indianapolis and Sunday, I want to relax after the big weekend!

After All the Crying...

Comes sleep for all involved! That's my conclusion for all the "crying-it-out" we went through. In fact, Jack is feeling stuffy and yucky the past couple of days but tonight it didn't even take 7 or 8 minutes before he was sound asleep! Yes, it is normally not that long but since he's feeling stuffy again that is much better than the twenty minutes of screaming [every 45 minutes to an hour] when he was sick earlier.

I feel so much better after getting a lot of sleep for over a week now! I don't know that I've slept this good since before the 4th month of pregnancy, or maybe even before then (sleeping with 1st trimester nausea was not so much fun either).

Holiday Outings!

This weekend has been busy already! Just wanted to post a couple of pictures from out trip to the Columbus Zoo last night to see the Wildlights and from visiting Santa this morning! Enjoy!

Jack and Daddy in Santa's Holiday House at the zoo... taking a break from walking around in the cold to see the lights. His "snowsuit" says "Dad's Team" on it and Matt is really excited about it!

Jack and Santa at the Scott's children's holiday party! Its also a sneak peak of his Christmas outfit, but I don't think you can see it very well in this picture. I'll try and post a better picture after he wears it again.

In other happenings, the cry-it-out method has been going pretty well. Last night we had a bit of regression. I don't know if it was all of the excitement with going to the zoo or what, but it took over the initial 15 minutes to go to sleep and then he woke up again at 4:30 a.m.! We brought him to bed with us because we were both sleepy, but he did get 7 hours of sleep straight. Tonight has been successful though, he fell asleep in 3 minutes. Even through he woke up not too long ago, it didn't take any longer than 5 minutes before he was back asleep. Naps today were not good, he wouldn't sleep in his crib but slept on the couch while we did things around the house.

Friday Fill-Ins

1. Good times: Are always with my husband and baby boy!
2. I am finally decorating for Christmas at my home.
3. Sleigh bells ring is a sound that reminds me of school Christmas programs!
4. I wish Jack would stay little.
5. When will this work day end?
6. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Wildlights at the Columbus Zoo, tomorrow my plans include taking Jack to meet Santa at Scotts and having the Vatters over and Sunday, I want to get some Christmas shopping done!

Crying it Out Update

So far, crying-it-out has been working for us! Last night, Jack was asleep in only 12 minutes, tonight after only 8 minutes. In fact, tonight he actually woke up after about 30 minutes and I realized I hadn't given him tonight's dose of antibiotics. We got him out of bed, gave him his meds and put him down again with kisses from Mommy & Daddy. He cried for less than 5 minutes before falling asleep. Last night Jack slept for about 10 1/2 hours

Now, I believe that every baby and every family is different. Which is why I don't have any issues with someone wanting to formula feed, or someone who has their baby in their own crib from the night they come home from the hospital, or someone who does not let their baby cry-it-out. What works for us, may not work for someone else or even our next baby! We try to remain open-minded to trying different techniques to determine what is best for our son and our family.

I am really looking forward to this weekend! Friday evening we're taking Jack to see the Wildlights at Columbus Zoo... we got free tickets through work so it was an easy decision! We won't stay long because it is supposed to be very cold. I need to go and get Jack's winter "coat"/bunting so we can put him in the stroller. Saturday morning we're taking Jack to see Santa at the children's Christmas party at work. That afternoon we get to see our friends Brooke & Greg and their little girls Abby & Izzy, maybe some other friends will join us! I hope that in between visiting Santa and our friends coming over to see the house we can get our house decorated for Christmas finally! (I'm glad we didn't do anything outside before today because we had terrible winds all day today.) I will post pictures soon, I promise!!

Night 2 of Cry-it-Out

Let me put it this way... for the past 5+ months we've essentially been bed-sharing at night, not for lack of trying to get him to sleep in his bed. It has been extremely beneficial to me as a nursing mother having him in bed with us. Especially since I've been back to work and not had the energy to be waking up at all hours of the night to nurse him. There was a span of a few weeks where we were actually able to put him down in his crib asleep (around 10:30 or 11 p.m.) and he'd stay asleep until about 2:30 when he would end up in bed with me after eating.

Well, night one was relatively successful... we put him down right around 9:30 p.m. and by 10 p.m. he was asleep. He slept until 3:30 a.m., almost 6 hours straight! We were kind of caught off guard at that early hour that we ended up bring him to bed with us. Tonight we're determined to stick to it, even if he does wake up in the middle of the night.

We're ten minutes in to the first fifteen minutes and Matt went to go get pizza for us. This is a little bit tougher without keeping each other in check... I am practically staring at the clock so I can run in there and pat him and tell him how much I love him.

We will stay strong... We will stay strong... We will stay strong!

Thanksgiving Pictures of Jack!

Enjoy!

Happy Jack... in his adorable Thanksgiving outfit from Matt's Aunt Meg.

Jack and Daddy napping after yummy turkey at my in-laws!

Pictures like this remind me of how lucky of wife and mother that I am! :-)

Night 1 of Cry-it-Out

Well, its been a rough week in the Chilicki household... Jack has had his first double ear-infection. He's feeling much much better the past couple nights, but he's been on antibiotics for 4 days now. The first night was rough... we're talking waking up screaming as often as a 1-week old, crying so hard he threw-up... twice. It is heart breaking to not be able to help your baby while he's in pain.

Since he's feeling much better and nearing his 6-month "birthday" we've decided to work on self-soothing. As I type this my son is crying in the other room trying to go to sleep. Our pediatrician said if he wasn't sleeping through the night at 6 months we'd have to work on it for his emotional development. The way she said to do it was each night for a week give him an hour and fifteen minutes allowing him to cry-it out. After the first fifteen minutes, we are allowed to go in and comfort him, without picking him up, by patting him and telling him that we'll come and get him in the morning. She mentioned that he will get louder after hearing our voices but that we can leave the room for the remaining hour. This is repeated for 7 nights, but our doctor advised that usually within 2 or 3 days he'll be able to go to sleep on his own and if he wakes in the middle of the night he should be able to get back to sleep.

As terrible as it is to listen to your baby cry after our first fifteen minutes we realized that he's just mad, not scared or hurt. We know that he is fed, clean, and safe... and very sleepy. After going through the ear-infection, when he had to cry himself to sleep because we couldn't do anything for him, that he can do it.

This night it took just under 20 minutes before he was asleep.

I'll try and update every night on our progress... since I'll have roughly an hour and fifteen minutes each night.