Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween.  This was a big one for us.  It was Christopher's very first Halloween, and the first one where Sammy really understood what was going on.  We went out trick or treating with some of the neighbors and Sammy sprinted from door to door until she was exhausted and told me she was ready to go home.  She was so proud of herself for remembering to say "trick or treat!"and "thank you!".

My theory at this point, it to have Samantha's costumes be something that she can use for dress-up after Halloween is over.  Last year, my mom made her an apron and Chef's hat and got her a little wire wisk, that is still a regular in our toy rotation.  This year, I got her a pirate dress-up outfit, because she's very in to pirates these days.  Christopher didn't have an opinion on what to be this year, so he was a lion because the costume was warm and snuggly.

Sammy's Third Birthday Interview

I saw this cute idea on Pinterest to ask your kiddos the same 20 questions around their birthday each year starting when they're 3, and then have them all made into a book eventually.  Here's Sammy's first installment.

1. What is your favorite color? Pink
2. What is your favorite toy? My airplane
3. What is your favorite fruit? Watermelon
4. What is your favorite tv show? Fresh Beat Band
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Mac and Cheese and Chicken Nuggets
6. What is your favorite outfit? Ballerina tutu and butterfly wings
7. What is your favorite game? Memory
8. What is your favorite snack? Fruit Snacks

9. What is your favorite animal? Pig
10. What is your favorite song? Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People
11. What is your favorite book? Good Night Tennessee
12. Who is your best friend? Baby Chris
13. What is your favorite cereal?  Oatmeal
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Ride bikes
15. What is your favorite drink? Orange Juice
16. What is your favorite holiday? Halloween
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Care Bear and Ribbit
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Yogurt
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Spaghetti and meatballs
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? A pirate

Christopher David's Birth Story

30 Minutes Old

After my quick and uncomplicated birth experience with Samantha, I decided to look into a home birth for baby # 2.  We really lucked out and ended up moving to a house only 20 minutes away from the only home birth midwife in the area.

My whole pregnancy had gone smoothly, except for the pesky little issue of Pat's deployment.  Luckily, my mom was able to drive out to stay with me about two weeks before Christopher's due date.  Sammy arrived three days before her due date, so I assumed Chris would be a little early too. 

At about 1:30 in the morning on 9/25, I woke up with some mild cramping.  It came and went a few times, so I decided I should probably time them.  They were not very painful and only lasted about a minute each, but they were coming regularly and were only about 5 minutes apart.  I called the midwife, who advised me to drink some water, lay down on my left side, and try to go back to sleep.  I was supposed to call her back in half an hour if I couldn't sleep.  I e-mailed Pat to let him know what was going on, and then tried to rest.

By the time 30 minutes had passed, my contractins were a lot more intense, and I was convinced that we were having a baby soon.  I called the midwife and told her to head over and then woke my mom up.  My mom called my in-laws who were going to come over to watch Sammy.  By 3:30, I was in my room dealing with pretty serious contractions, and Sammy had woken up.  My mom took her downstairs to watch a movie, and I was just waiting on the midwife.

I think there were only 2 or 3 contractions after the midwife arrived before I felt ready to push.  Apparently, I only pushed for about 15 minutes, but it felt like longer than that.  My water finally broke, and 2 contractions later Christopher was born at 4:02 am.  The birth assistnt and my in-laws hadn't even gotten to the house yet.  He weighed 9 lbs 2 oz and was 21 inches long.  He was born with a full head of dark hair, just like his sister.

We let Sammy come upstairs to meet her baby brother, and then Chris and I got all cleaned up and settled into bed.  He latched on right away and has been nursing like a champ ever since.  Overall, it was an amazing birth experince.  If Pat had been able to be there, it would have been just about perfect.

Cleaned up and sleeping soundly

The Best Laid Plans

Never a dull moment at the Vogt house!  Most of our friends and family know what's been going on recently, but I thought I'd put it here too.  The biggest change would have to be that Pat is currently in Afghanistan for a year-long deployment.  The deployment was very unexpected, and kind of had us scrambling to fit in some quality family time and get things ready for Baby Vogt that we didn't think needed to be done until September/October.

We did manage to squeeze in a family trip to Jamaica.  We went to the Beaches resort in Ochos Rios and had a fabulous time.  They had a water park area for kids with lots of different slides, a nice shallow beach area, and tons of activities with the Seasame Street characters.  Sammy had an amazing time, and mentions frequently that she would like to go back.

Since Pat has been gone, I've been working on settling Sammy into a new routine.  The mornings are pretty easy, but you can tell she's missing have Daddy around in the evenings and on weekends.  I figure just about the time things have calmed down, Little Man will make his appearance, and we'll get to deal with craziness all over again.

Speaking of Little Man, he's doing great.  Everything is progressing along smoothly, and aside from occasionally using my bladder as a trampoline and my ribs as monkey bars, he's a pretty mellow kiddo so far.  Fingers crossed that he continues to be mellow out in the real world!  I really like the midwife that we're using, and I'm looking forward to having this little guy in the comfort of our own home.  My mom is going to come stay with us for a while to help out with the baby and Sammy, but its nice knowing that we don't have to worry about getting me to a hospital and all the logistics surrounding a hospital stay.

Well, hopefully that explains why things have been so quiet on the blog front.  I'm sure I'll have a lot more to post about once we have a new adorable baby in the house.

Interview with Sammy

Here's a short interview with Sammy.  She has news.  Enjoy!

Fun with Shaving Cream

I saw a cool idea on Pinterest to combine shaving cream with corn starch for some sensory play.  Daddy is out of town this weekend for a wedding, so I figured it was the perfect time to try to do something special with Sammy.  The blog that originally had the idea just had general instructions, so we kind of had to wing it.  I also thought that having some different colors to play with might be fun, so I threw some food coloring into the mix.

We started out with three bowls with some shaving cream in them.

Next I squirted in some gel food coloring.

I let Sammy do most of the mixing.  We had a red/pink one a blue one, and a yellow one.

On attempt 1, I dumped some corn starch into the first bowl and just let Sammy dive right in.  This was not a great idea.  It takes a while for everything to get mixed together and in the meantime, it's just a big mess.  I don't have any pictures of this because our hands were covered with pinkish goo.

On the last two bowls, I dumped the corn starch in and mixed it up myself with a spoon.  I don't have exact measurements, but I bet I used close to 3/4 of a cup of corn starch in each bowl.  Definitely don't be shy with the corn starch.  I tested it a couple of times to make sure it wasn't too sticky and had to keep adding more.  The yellow one ended up looking like scrambled eggs that someone had pulsed in a food processor.

The consistency was actually kind of silky, like flour or fine play sand, but if you squeezed it it would clump together.

Sammy decided to pretend to bake with it and spent a lot of time pouring it from one bowl to another and stirring it up.  According to her, we were making honey, and there were separate bowls for Mommy, Daddy, and Sammy.

I managed to make a pretty decent "snowball" at one point.

When it was mostly on the table instead of in the bowls, Sammy discovered she could draw in it.

We didn't have a ton left over after all the stuff that ended up on our clothes and the floor, but I stuck what was left in a baggie.  I'm sure it will keep for a little while.  It ended up being kind of a pale green color, but I guess that makes sense since we had mostly blue and yellow stuff.

Overall, this was a super-messy project, but it was pretty fun.  It kept Sammy entertained for about an hour (that's pretty rare for her), and clean up really wasn't all that bad.  If I had thought to throw a plastic mat down under her chair, it would have only taken about half the time.

Potty Party

Samantha had been using the potty pretty frequently at day care and at home, and I have been adamant that I would not have 2 kiddos in diapers at once, so I decided it was time to get Sammy into big girl underpants.  I decided to use the potty training bootcamp / train in a weekend method.  You basically strip the kid down for a couple of days and encourage them to use the potty as much as possible. 

Modeling her Dora big girl panties

To add an element of fun/excitement, we made the first day a Potty Party.  I decorated the bathroom with balloons and streams, got a big bag of M&Ms to use as rewards for using the potty, bought a cake mix, and came up with some other fun activities. 

Potty rewards

I then proceeded to be ridiculously enthusiastic and excited every time Sammy used the potty.  She also got to make a couple of phone calls (Grandma and Grandpa) to tell them about using the potty so that they could tell her how proud they were of her. 

Since I knew there would be accidents, I tried to come up with a lot of activities to do in the kitchen.  Clean-up is much easier on linoleum than it is on carpet.  :-)

Eating breakfast in the kitchen

We baked a Potty Party cake, played in the sensory bin with dried rice, and even painted Sammy's toe nails.  Even with all of my planning, the biggest hit of the day was one of the balloon decorations that Sammy pulled down.  We must have played with that thing for 3 or 4 hours in total.

Pink Piggies!

You want them to have as many opportunities to go on the potty as possbile, so I pumped Sammy full of salty snacks, juice, water, watermelon, etc....anything to make her need to pee.

She also decided early on that even though my bathroom decorations were cool, she'd much rather use her froggy potty in the living room.  Whatever works!

Everybody plays with balloons on the potty, right?

On Day 1, Sammy had 3 big (ie puddle on the floor) accidents, but she managed to poop in the potty two times!  This was encouraging, since she's always resisted pooping on the potty.  By Day 2 her accidents were just tiny little amounts that she would pee in her underware before she realized what was happening and ran to the potty.  I decided to keep her home from day care today (Day 3) because I felt like she was so close to getting it.  So far, she's only had one teeny tiny accident, and every other time she's made it to the potty in time.  Woo hoo!  I'm so proud of her and excited at the possibility of a couple of months without diapers before Little Bit arrives.  I know we'll still have accidents, and I plan on carrying at least one dry change of clothes with us for a while, but I think we're well on our way!

A celebratory slice of cake.  (Sammy did her hair all by herself.  Nice, huh?)