Happy Easter Everyone!

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him." John 3:16-17

I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Pretty tasty mini oreo!

A little Pinsperation

Living on base it's hard (to me) to want to put a ton of effort into decorating when I know I will be packing up and moving in a couple of years.  We don't own this house, so I can't really do much anyway.  

Our bedroom is located on the complete opposite side of the house. I use to just keep the door closed and that was that.  But I realized Tanner really enjoys playing on the window seal when I have the window blinds open; it's the perfect size for him to play with his little toy cars. So I noticed I was back in my room quite a bit during the day. And I got tired of staring at 4 white walls.  It needed a little something.  I could have just put picture frames on the wall, but this was a nice chance to give Pinterest a try.  

I picked four ideas that looked pretty easy and cheap.  This way I was pretty sure I would have something on each wall.  And almost everything turned out perfect. (Everything was found at Hobby Lobby. I LOVE that store.  It must be genetic, because my mom loves it too)

I saw the painted glass bottles floating around Pinterest and knew that was something I wanted to do.  My friend, Kaitlin, made some a few months ago and they look great! 

I picked 3 bottles I liked from Hobby Lobby and found a few colors of paint that would work with the color of our bed/furniture.  

 For some reason the grey and blue worked on the bottles, but the yellow would not.  And after trying 4, yes 4, different yellow paints, I realized it was the stupid bottle.  Not the paint.  
So I just painted some designs on the outside instead.  I really wanted the pop of yellow color in the room.  (I will be repainting, I don't like it. Ha!)

This craft was originally supposed to be on canvas, but I already bought some for a different project, and they weren't on sale.  But the little piece of wood was.  I painted it all the same color, used wood glue to stick the letters to the wood piece, and then sprayed it with some clear acrylic spray I had left over from another project.  

It's hard to tell, but it's shiny. :)

I liked this one a lot, because it was really, really easy.  But I need to make a few more different sizes to hang up.  Three isn't enough, and I need more variety of sizes.  

This one was my favorite.  It turned out exactly how I wanted it to.  I will be making two more to hang next to it.  I painted the wood the same blue that I used in some of the other projects and used mod podge to hold the picture on.  And I just another layer of mod podge on top of the whole thing to make it shiny.  Love it!

These were super simple projects and they added a little something to my room.  I'm pleased!

Breastfast Club Featured

My breastfeeding story was featured on Nurse Loves Farmer's blog today! Go check it out! 

C25K Update

There has been a reason why I have taken so long to post an update.  A very sucky reason.  I got halfway through week 2 and began having extreme pain in my left leg.  At first I though it was shin splints.  But having a painful throbbing wake me up in the middle of the night or barely being able to walk told me otherwise.  I googled it, and sure enough, my symptoms were telling me I had a stress fracture.  

I started taking my vitamins again and let my leg heal for 8 weeks.  I was really bummed out.  I had gotten to the point where I could tell my endurance was growing.  Besides the pain, I was starting to enjoy running.  

Now I had to start all over.  I started running again last week.  My new plan is to run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on the treadmill while Tanner naps.  I didn't think to do this before because I figured it would be too loud since the treadmill was in the room next to Tanner's room.  But after running a little test (pun intended) I realized it's really not that loud.  And after running 3 days last week and Tanner never waking up, I think this plan might actually work.  

I've also got a pretty nice set up on the treadmill.  Instead of listening to music, I'm watching a show on Amazon Prime.  I've noticed I'm not clock watching and hating every second when I'm distracted with watching something.

I'm hoping I can finish this program and be able to run 30+ minutes at a time on a treadmill.  Once my endurance is where it should be, and the weather is nice again, I will take out the jogging stroller again.  

Week 2 begins today.  This is the point where the pain started last time.  I hope my new shoes, the rest I took, and stretching will keep the pain away.  

Consignment

Before Tanner was born I was pretty adamant about getting everything new for him. I didn't want hand-me-downs, or things that might smell funny.

It's funny really. Last year we stumbled upon a consignment sale in the mall. My eyes were opened. Those things are amazing! Ever since I've gone to each sale that they have had.

Two weeks ago I went to the first Spring sale. Besides a few odds and ends, I think I got Tanner's complete spring/summer wardrobe! 24 clothing items and 2 puzzles! All for $60. Mostly Old Navy and Baby Gap brands, too. The PJs though, are too small. Everything else is perfect!

Holey Nipples!

(This is the post I wrote for the Breastfast Club series over at Nurse Loves Farmer.  So it might sound a little funny.)

When I was pregnant with my son, I did what all other moms-to-be do, read.  I spent numerous hours with my nose in books (or in my laptop) reading information on being a mom.  I never really had to think about breastfeeding, though.  I always knew I would do it. From learning about all the wonderful “powers” breast milk has in nursing school, to calculating the cost of formula each month, it was a no-brainer.  I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but the closer I got to my due date, the more determined I became to make it work.

Tanner was born, and months flew by. Nursing seemed to come naturally to us (after getting past the brand new baby/sore nips stage, that is). After being pregnant for 9 months and having my son to myself for that whole time, breastfeeding was that special thing only I could do after he was born.  I grew to love it more and more, and so did he. 

Yes, I am nursing him here. I'm a little busty, haha!

And then when my Tanner was 10.5 months old, everything changed.  It started out as what felt like an uncomfortable latch.  Then it turned into raw spots on my nipples.  And then, holes.  Yes, holes.  It was almost like my son decided he wanted to use his teeth to latch on after 10 months of nursing perfectly.  The holes grew as did the pain.  I searched and searched for answers to why this was happening.  All I could find was, “what to do when your baby bites”, or “how to get over sore nipples with a newborn”.  Nothing applied to my situation.  I kept thinking, I couldn’t be the only person out there with this problem!  All I could do was try to change positions.  And each time I would do that I would get new holes.  At the peak of this terrible issue I had 7-10 deep, ½ inch long holes in each of my nipples. No amount of position changes, latch fixes, or creams helped. I couldn’t even get them to heal.

I had 6 weeks to make it to my breastfeeding goal of a year when this all began.  And I remember thinking to myself, “only 2 more days…”, while I screamed out loud from the pain as my sweet boy nursed before bedtime. 

I wasn’t ready to stop nursing.  But it had gotten so bad I didn’t know what else to do.  So I slowly introduced WCM to my son and decided I would stop cold turkey.  I spent all day and night crying my eyes out.  I seriously felt like a part of me was dying. 

I took this picture thinking it was my last time nursing him. I wanted to remember it forever.  I was also bawling my eyes out.

I didn’t nurse him for a full 36 hours. But during the afternoon after the 36 hour mark my Tanner crawled into my lap, signed “milk”, and pulled on my t-shirt.  I began crying again and I unhooked my nursing bra.  I gave in, and he nursed.  And there was no pain.

No pain.

I can only assume it was the time I was able to give myself to heal, and the prayers sent from not only me, but my loving family and friends.  I knew the problem wasn’t fixed though.  Something caused this latching problem and I needed to figure it out, fast, before the pain returned. 

What changed at the 10.5 month mark?  Why did my son stop nursing like he use to, when he would nurse perfectly fine 8-10 times a day for so long? And then, DING DING DING!!!! I figured it out.  Right around the time we began having this problem, I introduced a sippy cup.  And not any normal sippy, but a straw sippy cup. The kind that the straw has to be bitten to open the valve to get the water out.  He learned to bite the straw to drink, and he began doing the same thing to me when he nursed.  Right then and there the straw sippys were thrown out.  After a week or two with new sippy cups his latch was fixed! 

It took a lot of time, and patience, but I wasn’t ready to wean him.  And he wasn’t ready either.  I am so thankful for finally getting past those 8 weeks.  It was the most excruciating pain I have felt, probably because my heart was breaking as well. But I am happy to say my Tanner is now 15 months old and nursing is still going strong! Almost like we never had any bump in the road at all!

2 Years!

If you're uncomfortable reading about feminine things, don't read on any further. Since I am not going to cater to whomever reads my blog, I don't care what I write about anymore.  

I'm pretty excited.  Today marks two years since I last had a period.  I will thank Tanner breastfeeding for that.  I definitely had it lucky, as many of my friends with nursing babies had their period return much, much sooner.  

But it will be nice to have it come back at some point.  I'd like to maybe think about having another baby at some point.  :)

Speaking about nursing, it's been a very long time since I posted a nursing updated.  I wrote a post on a problem I had a couple of months ago and sent it to Sarah over at Nurse Loves Farmer.  She started a series called the Breastfast Club which is a bunch of different, unique stories on breastfeeding. They will be posted on Wednesdays. I will post my story I wrote for her on my blog tomorrow.