The End of CoSleeping

Since the day my daughter was born she has slept in my room, on my bedside. Every night for 2 years and ninety four days she slept either with us or in her bed, next to mine.

When we brought her home from the hospital she started out in her bassinet, that lasted for about 6 months. I don't remember exactly when, or why but she ended up in our bed, and she just stayed there. Until last year, after we moved here to California, I set her crib up as a toddler bed and we slowly transitioned her into it. First I had her bed set as a side-car. This allowed her to move back and forth easily. After I got her accustomed to sleeping in her bed I moved it about a foot away from our bed. I put a neck pillow along the edge to prevent her from rolling out, something I'd seen done on pinterest with pool noodles. It wasn't perfect, and she still rolled out a handful of times, but it worked good enough. She got to the point of mostly sleeping in her bed sometime last fall. But I was still breastfeeding her so she moved into our bed every night at some point. It was still convenient to have her in our room.

Just after the first of this year I got a cold, and partly due to cold medicine and partly due to it just being time, Evey weaned. With her no longer breastfeeding she was sleeping almost the entire night in her bed, only climbing into our bed to wake me up in the morning. At this point the only thing keeping her in our room, was the fact that I liked having her there, I was comforted by the fact that I can check on  her any second of the night.

She has this beautiful room.

(I lost the sheet to her bed, so I need to make a new one, or go to Ikea to buy another.)

The last thing I needed to do was to attach her dresser to her wall.

It weighs about a billion pounds and it's unlikely she would be able to tip it over, but the chance that she did, it would surely crush her if it fell on top of her.

Yesterday I put about 30 holes in the wall trying to find the studs, but I found them, and I got this sucker attached to the wall, it's not going anywhere.

So last night she slept in her big girl bed. For the first time in two years and ninety four days she didn't sleep next to me. I had a hard time with it at first. I checked her on the monitor about 400 times. But she slept all night, until 8 this morning. When I woke up to the sound of her whispering to her bunny "hop, hop, hop" 

8am

"hop hop hop"

When I remotely moved the camera she looked up at it so I was able to get these cute shots of her face. Then she went back to playing with her bunny. I laid and watched her for about 15 minutes before she called for me.

I am so proud of her for making it the whole night in her big girl bed. And I'm very proud of myself for not moving in there with her, no matter how badly I wanted to.

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More random college thoughts.

A nice unrelated pretty picture, because I hate making posts without pictures. 

I am finally wrapping up the history class that has been driving me mad. If you have been following me on any other social media you know that it really has taken a toll on me. I have had little life outside of the house for the last 4 weeks, besides attending Japanese twice a week I barely walk out the door. I have dubbed the class #historyclassfromhell. But it's almost over. My final paper is off to my sister for revisions.

That's a great thing about having a sister who is in college too, she's a great spelling/grammar checker. 

But she thinks I use too many commas, screw that, I'll comma all I want, , , , , , 

anyway. 

I just submitted my last class discussion, and once I polish my paper and write a conclusion I'm done! I hope to submit it by tomorrow afternoon. 

Then I can focus on bringing my Japanese grade back up. My A dropped down to a B the last exam because I am really struggling with verbs, they all sound so much alike! 

I am also trying to plan next semester. I know I am taking Asian Studies online through the University, so I need to pick a another class to take online through the Community College, and I will take Japanese 102 face to face.

Yeah two schools, it gets confusing. But I'll explain how I am doing that eventually. 

I am so excited to be done with that history class. I have been neglecting so much, household chores, cleaning, my poor child who learned to count to 9 from watching the most freaky cartoon ever made. Seriously Charlie and the Numbers is scary. But she loves it. 

Last night to celebrate finishing my paper, I cleaned and rearranged the play room, so Evey has a little bit more functional place to play and what Thomas the Train. Next week I plan to tackle the upstairs, laundry, bathrooms, Evey's room still needs to be decorated. I have a whole list of fun things I want to do with all my extra spare time. 

Front Loader Washer Failure

If you have an HE- FL Washing Machine, this is the last thing you EVER want to see: 

It's filled with suds, FILLED. 

Suds are evil in a High Efficiency washer. EVIL. 

So, I just suck. I usually make my own detergent for diapers, but with our upcoming move I didn't want to buy all the stuff to make more, just to have leftovers that we would have to move. So I decided to buy. First I bought Tide Free & Clear (powder). Totally not HE safe, didn't find that until after I opened it. A couple days later I bought Gain, because that's also supposed to be cloth diaper safe. But I bought the one that is not HE safe, and that resulted in the image above. 

After running 6 rinse and spin cycles I was ready to start over, I used the last of my home made detergent and had clean diapers again.

I brought Paul with me tonight when I bought more detergent, to be sure I didn't screw it up AGAIN. We'll see if my diapers survive another wash. 

Also if you do this, and end up with super sudsy water, you can add vinegar. I didn't find that suggestion until after 4th rinse, and by then I was nearly rinsed suds free. 

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Evelyn's Nursery

Evelyn shares her room with a guest bed, but she doesn't mind (because she doesn't actually sleep at night in there yet, she still sleeps in our room). But she wanted me to share her half of the room with you.

Dresser that her daddy and I worked on for months, also in the right corner we have her diaper basket. The changing pad on the dresser is attached under the mirror to the top of the dresser, so it's not going anywhere. The rocking chair I got the first year we were married, while living inWestern Mass. 

Her bed and her Aiko dog. The nightstand that is painted the same way as the dresser. 

Her cute little mirror above her little bed.

Taco wanted to say hi too. 

Tune in Wednesday for a DIY post about her dresser.

You should know, I am well aware the walls are green, and that doesn't at all, even a little bit go with a purple bedroom. But we rent, So I have no say in the colors. 

These are a few of my favorite things

There are a few things that I really like about the house we are living in now. 

 We have a really cool view. That out there is a mining headframe, which is a tower above an underground mine shaft. They are used to hoist things from inside the mine. 

Trees! We have trees! And they are pine trees! 

I love the sound of the wind through pine trees, it's got to be one of my favorite sounds ever. 

Also behind that tree is a little park, how cute is that?

There is a lot of history up here too, Walkerville is part of the historic mining town from the late 1800's and a lot of the buildings and houses around us are very, very old. We are only about a mile away from Historic Downtown Butte. It's really cool being surrounded by all this history, I can't wait to learn more. 

another thing I really like is the smaller back yard with a built in firepit. Come this summer I am hoping we will get lots of use out of it. 

I like that the yard is smaller, so I have less of a yard to chase the dogs through, but they still have enough room to run around. 

another tree!

So we are really settling in here, and really liking the place. 

But I am also really looking forward to moving out of Montana at the end of the year, hopefully before it gets shitty and cold again. I am looking forward to summer, a lot goes on in Butte, specifically in downtown Butte, and we are in just up the hill, about a mile, totally in walking distance. 

Another exciting thing about this area, is that it's hilly, so that'll be great for walking and exercising.

One small thing that worries me is stray (or unleashed & unsupervised) dogs, there are quite a few we've seen around. Renji is still traumatized from being attacked a two summers ago, and has fear based agression (we've done a lot of training, but it's still a problem). It's hard to take him around other dogs, because he has a tendency to flip out. He's never attacked anyone, but he acts agressive and just flips out, Thankfully he's only 18 pound so I can easily restrain him. But around an unleashed dog, his behavior could lead to us being attacked. 

But we'll just have to see, there are also several walking paths that would likely be safer with the doggies and Evey. 

So this summer look forward to some posts of adventures through my neighborhood. 

- Alana

Slowly getting settled

The last two weeks have been a mess. Packing, unpacking, looking for my jacket, finding things I forgot I had.

The actual move itself wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. They got all of our stuff packed, and delivered safely. Since it was just an overnight pack (they packed one day loaded the truck the next and delivered the third) they moved our pantry contents and all of our alcohol. Which included my large hoard of wine that I collected while pregnant.

They successfully took apart and reassembled the huge entertainment center that we own. We love it but damn, what was I thinking, it's enormous, and weighs a ton.

We got the house emptied had some guys come and clean, spend one last night on the floor, the same floor that we spend our first night on only 2 years and 2 months prior.

The next morning we got up early and packed out. We loaded our cars way beyond comfortable capacity with the things we knew we would need right away and the few things the movers wouldn't move (dog kennel, cat litter box, pack and play, vacuum, plants, and cleaning supplies, live animals.)

and we said good bye to the first house Evelyn lived in.

And the view we have grown to love. 

The drive down to Butte actually really sucked. The roads were much nastier than usual. But we arrived in one piece and met the movers and got all of our billions of boxes of stuff.

We have moved from a 3br 2ba with a living room, den and a 2 car garage on about 2/3 acre to a 2br 2ba with parking in the front yard on about 1/8 acre. So we do have a little more than we have room for, but we're working through that. The back yard is only about twice as big as the deck in the old house. But that's not really a bad thing. I have less of a yard to chase my dogs through when they won't come inside.

We worked very hard for a whole week unpacking and making huge strides in getting rid of stuff we never use, don't need, have enough of.

Everyone has been pooped out. We have all been sleeping pretty good. I don't know if it's because the stress of moving has passed. Or if it's because the neighbor dogs aren't barking all night.

Then Wednesday afternoon we finally got internet, And productivity came to a screeching halt. I have not touched a single box since Wednesday. Yesterday I didn't do anything, except tend to Evelyn and take the dogs out and shower. Today I at least left the house though, we went to get lunch and then came home to internet some more. 
We got netflix again, That's been the real time killer. I have watched the entire first season of Workaholics and the first season of Parenthood. 
The whole internet thing has been super-d-dooper because we have had satellite for 2 years, at a breakneck speed of 1.5 megabytes or something. Which is fast enough do download an entire album from iTunes in about... 3 hours. I could drive to target buy the CD and drive home in less time. Now we are about 10-15 times faster than that. 
But this weekend Paul will be home and we will do more unpacking/purging. I hope to get the nursery/guest room at least partly set up by next week, then we can fill it with boxes again and finish the living/dining room.

And that is all. I am working on some much overdue Evey picture posts. And brainstorming some exploring Butte posts in the next few weeks, Because you all want to come and visit Butte, Mt.  

Best Invention EVER

I got this for my birthday, and it's seriously the best thing ever.

I am a one occasional cup of coffee kind of person.  I've been craving coffee through most of my second trimester. I usually ask Paul to just leave me some coffee in the pot in the morning. He usually makes a pot and drinks most of it. So I get old cold coffee when I get up a few hours later. I've been asking for one of these for a while now.

Well I got one for my birthday last week! Yay! 

It's fantastic. It's great for that one cup of coffee that I drink a day. It's great for the hot water for my tea and hot coco. It's great for just being great. I love my new toy, and I think Paul loves it too. He's been using it every day, I think we may even be able to move his big huge coffee pot out to his office and just use the Keurig. We've got the cool piece that lets you grind your own coffee too, I don't think he's used it yet, but that was a selling point for us, because Paul grinds his own beans.


Now run and get one, now, if you don't have one.


-Alana


 

Forever Home

I have been thinking quite a bit lately about my Forever Home. Paul only has a few (8ish) years left in the Marine Corps and then we will need to settle down somewhere. How do you decide that? We are not from the same city, state, or even coast. So really we get the option to go wherever we want, that sounds exciting! But then we have to decide where we want to go... well maybe it sounds scary too . We could live somewhere that we have family, this would be nice for several reasons, free babysitters, free in-person moral/emotional support, family dinners, big holiday festivities. But what if we don't want to live where we grew up. I don't exactly want to live on the East Coast, and Paul doesn't really want to live in Tucson, (neither do I for that matter.)

 I have given a lot of thought to the things I want.

Before living in Montana, I wanted seasons, I wanted four beautiful seasons. I grew up in a place that sort of skipped winter. Tucson, has winter for about a week. Maybe two, where the temp drops below 40 at night. But after those two weeks usually in January the temps go back up to 60's and 70's. Oh, and mountains, I want mountains and wildlife.

I was totally set on Flagstaff, Az. Seasons, mountains, wildlife, a big college, small but not tiny like Helena.

Source: webweevers.com via Alana on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Alana on Pinterest

Flagstaff looks so pretty, and it's in the mountains and has even more mountains as well as plenty of trees, and I've been there, I liked it.

But...

After living here , I'm over winter, and okay with skipping it. Or at least having a normal winter, that.. you know.. doesn't last 8 months. But I am leaning towards a mild winter. I also miss the beach, I miss the water, as crazy as it sounds I miss humidity. I also want a big city, I don't have to be in it, suburbs are fine, but I need options, food options, clothing options, dining, grocery, farmers market, movie theaters, activities and education.
We are also getting to a point where having babies is maybe going to happen soon. So I have been thinking about kids, going further out I am thinking about schools. So many things to consider when thinking about where I want to live. The opportunities are endless.


I went to FindYourSpot.com and my number one spot was Las Vegas.... no thanks. Number two? Portland, Oregon.

Source: aaronaikens.com via Alana on Pinterest

I have been researching Portland, and it seems like a pretty cool place. Lots of arts and entertainment, It's right on the ocean so fresh sea food (SUSHI!!!) plus a suburb called Beaverton (and if you know me personally, you know I want to live there.)

Source: google.com via Misti on Pinterest

It's a big enough metropolis that Paul shouldn't have much trouble finding a job, and I (hopefully will be done with school) should also be able to find work right away.  

Of course realistically we will go where the job is, if he finds a good job somewhere like Iowa, we'll go there, But we can get our hopes up right?

Saturday Snow Day

I am so sorry, this post has  been sitting on my laptop waiting for words since saturday. I fail miserably. But I have had a crazy busy week, and it'll only get worse. We had snow saturday, that night we had Marine Ball number one. Then I have been working like crazy and we have another Marine Birthday Ball friday. I'll do all my pictures then. 

So here is last Saturday. I was thankful for anti lock breaks and heated seats. 

First Snow

First snow of the year last night. It was just a dusting, thankfully. Because I am not ready for this. 

I still want to wear my tank tops and  flip flops. 

The snow stopped almost as suddenly as it began, and the clouds blew out and the temperatures just plummeted. I think the low last night was 21, right now (at 10 am) it's 27. Brrrrr! I think I'll work out then take a long hot shower. 

House Hunting

Source: legobrickmaster

I've still got friends in Okinawa, and I recently have been communicating with one on ideas of fun outdoorsey things to do for her and her husbands anniversary. It made me quite homesick. We still want to go back so i sometimes find myself thinking of where I would live.  I even go as far as to look at houses for rent online.

 This is the first one I found today, and I totally love it. I love the big yard and the covered porch. I always wanted a covered porch while we were there because it rains often, like really often. And Paul and I like to BBQ, like really often. So a covered porch would make that possible in a downpour.

I can see it now, our grill in the corner, with lots of potted plants all around. maybe a little house for the dogs. 

 This front area is beautiful too. More plants and flowers outside the sliding doors. 

I love the tatimi room. I love the wood carvings. That room will be gated off so the dogs can't tear up the tatimi mats. This would be mama's yoga zone. or maybe a play area for a child. 

The kitchen looks pretty open, i like that it has a japanese fridge. We'd probally have to buy or build some sort of island in the middle for more counter space. But who cooks in Japan anyway? I'd be eating soba and sushi every meal!

This is beautiful, but could be misleading. The tub looks deep, so it could be big. But we had some friends who lived in a Japanese style house and their tub, while deep, was only about 3 feet long. But in my imagination this tub is a full size. 

I can't tell if this is a second tatimi room or just another angled picture of the first one. Either way, i love it. (i think it's a second though)

The only downside I see (besides that when we go back in 2 years none of the houses I am looking at today will be available) is that the kitchen looks like it has a japanese oven, which means it's the size of a toaster oven, so no thanksgiving turkey, roasted chicken, even baking can be hard. But you know what? we all have to make sacrifices to have what we want.

Someday we'll be back. I cannot wait.