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Teething - Stage 1

Little C has official cut his two bottom teeth. Some parents say that they hardly even noticed when their child was teething, for us this was partly true. His first tooth came and we wouldn't have even noticed if he hadn't caught me off guard and got my hand in his mouth. He was fussy but we thought it was just him getting bored with his toys. During the second tooth he was a bit my fussy then before but now that we knew why he was fussy we were prepared. My theory is not to give meds until I have no other option, my husbands is if he is in pain give it too him. We tried the teething gel and both me and the baby hate it. It gets very sticky on my figures after it hits his drool and he just screams. You would think the yummy flavor would make him enjoy it... nope. Yes, I did taste it as I wanted to know if it was sweet or not.

Little C loves the teething tablets and once I put them under his tongue he will stop crying. I believe from the way he acts that they work faster than the gel as well because once he had them he didn't fuss again for a while.

There are times when he is is a lot of pain and I want to give him a little more then the tablets. He second tooth wouldn't get through the gums for the first 2 days and they were sore and red. Times like that is when I gave him the Baby ibuprofen to get the swelling to go down. I love giving it to him at night, it helps relieve the pain enough to get him to sleep and then help him sleep for a little while.  He is very good about taking it so I have no tips on how to give it to a child that doesn't want it, my kid is just that good. ;)

Once the tooth was through I only had to use the tablets to relieve a little of the pain. Through The teething process I have only given him tablets at most two times a day (max is 4) and Ibuprofen a max of two times as well. I am sure when we get to the molars I will be hitting my max limit on the tablets. I hear those are brutal.

We have bought a few different things for teething to help before the meds come out and some have worked and others have not. One things that he loves is his teething ball. I got it on amazon for $5, which is a great price apposed to some other things we have gotten. It is a soft plastic that has numbs coming out on all sides. It is easy for him to hold himself and direct to the area he would like to chew with. when he is crying I like to squeak it in his face and the noise and the air makes him calm down and notice that it is there for him to play with. I will add that if you have dogs you should keep this up as it is just like a dog toy. My dogs never chew on anything but their toys as they are very well trained. This toy however confused them and they thought it was theirs and tore it up. Little C and I loved it so much that I did get another one, well worth even $10 dollars.

Another toy that he likes for teething is his toofeze. It has a thick soft plastic handle and a metal circle piece. Little C likes to chew on both parts, dipping the metal part in ice water is an extra bonus that I rarely do as he doesn't want me to keep taking it from him. This was a $19 dollar purchase on Amazon and I do like it but I would feel now after using it I would have only spent $15 on it max.

One thing he loves is his shoes (Flip Flops, no it is not a teething toy), it is very easy for him to hold and gives him a new thing to chew on.

I like to keep a little pile of the toys he likes next to me when I hold him, he often gets excited and flings his arms and his toys go flying. They are often across the room and its not a quick bend over and pick it up thing. It is such a pain to get up and down to get his things while holding him.

C also loves to simply chew on a wet baby rag. I would say it is maybe one of his favorite things. Some people freeze their rags but I think it gets too cold for him and he does fine without it being frozen. It works on multiple levels with him being hot from summer, being bored and wanting something to chew on.

Ours are from target :)

One purchase that I go back and forth on it being a good purchase is the Munchkin Food Feeder. Putting ice chips in the mesh (as they suggest) didn't work for us. It melted to quickly and the straight ice made his moth too cold and he was extremely upset after. I have put some gold grapes in it and he really like that but isn't coordinated enough yet to fully love it. He has a hard time holding on to the handle and keeping it in his mouth. I am sure that in a couple of month I will love this purchase but at 6 months its not my favorite. ALSO this is the one thing that you SHOULD NOT buy on amazon it is a $1.50 (or so) more on amazon than at target.

My worst purchase is the standard freezable rings that everyone has. Now I didn't buy them myself but I have tried to use them multiple times. He hates them not frozen and frozen. I thing a little softer plastic may work better but again my son just hate these all together.

We also purchased a mouth gaurd as my husband calls it, Tommee Tippee Stage 1 Chewther. Little C did not like this after it made him gag and throw up. NOT WORTH IT.

Bathroom Towel Hanger

I made this when we first bought our house and never was completely happy with it. It was one of those quick “Let’s get it up and move to the next project” things. Now with a little less things going on I just have to go back and update it. I made it buy first putting scrap pieces of wood that we had together and drawing a design on the top. I then carved out the image and weathered the wood using wood carving tools. This part was hard as I used scrap wood and some of the wood was very hard and difficult to carve into. The wood was free and on hand so it was worth the extra work. Then I gave it a light sand to smooth out any rough areas and using wood glue glued it all together. I first spray painted it with black spray paint then painted everything but the center image in blue.

 FAIL! I hated that coloring, so I added some white paint that we had and decided it would do. I hate it now and especially the fact that the white is glossy. It looks very keep and not rustic like my first idea was.

 

Redo Time! I started by sanding the entire thing and only leaving little parts of the paint behind. (During this process I broke my piece in half so it would be easier to sand.)

 

I then used a Jacobean stain to darken up the wood, applying it with a sponge and removing it with and old sock. After it had set for 6 to 8 hours I made sure that all the stain was off the wood with a Clorox wipe. The places where the paint was not sanding a lot didn't absorb the stain.

 

 

I don't have pictures of it on the wall yet as I need to put up the wainscoting first :)

Pin Test: Cinnamon Roll Waffles

I don't have pictures as this was a late night desperation for something that was sweet and warm. It was so easy to do and I actually like the rolls better this was than cooked in the one. I am not a fan of the doughy center for cinnamon rolls and when in waffle form the entire thing is perfectly cooked. It was fun for me that they still pulled apart like regular cinnamon rolls do. I also loved that it didn't heat up my entire house from turning on the oven and was ready in a snap. All in all LOVED it. Hubby was all on board too and said it was a pass. He is very critical for food so I trust him on what he thinks when it comes to testing food.

MUST DO IT AGAIN SOON!!!

Sleeping on His Own

Little man C is now 6 months and mommy decided(with the doctors suggestion) that it is time to start getting him to sleep through the night. The first few months he was really good about sleeping and would only wake up one time in the middle of the night to eat. Now that he is in in a really bad habit of getting up 4 times in the middle of the night. He eats maybe 2 ounces and then goes back to sleep. There are times that he will eat 3 full 4 ounce bottles in the middle of the night but the doctor says if he is fine and doesn't need the food. I love my doctor and do everything he suggests as he is one of the most sought after doctors in our area. He said right now C is forming bad habits of waking up too much and if we don't fix it now it will be really hard to fix it.
So on to the fix.
The suggestion was to go in tell him it was ok and let him cry himself back to sleep while just checking to make sure that there was nothing wrong that was not him being just upset (example: in throw up). The first time we tried it he screamed for 3 hours! NO JOKE! It was so hard for me to just let him cry and cry and at that point I gave in and gave him a bottle. I waited a few weeks so that he was not cutting a tooth and then I tried it again. The first night was not terrible but he did cry for about an hour (I think, I was really out of it). Then I decided to bite the bullet with the support of my hubby and go pick out a crib soother.


We picked out the Baby Einstein mobile sea dreams at Buy Buy Baby for $50. I picked it for the fact that it stays on longer than the other options and it has a remote that allows me to turn it on and off without my son seeing me. I might have been able to find this for cheaper but I needed it right then as I was desperate for sleep.

The first night we used it was magical. I put C in awake and he feel asleep to it, after of course being so excited and making his happy noises. In the middle of the night I would go and turn it on and tell him it was ok and he would take about 15 minutes and then fall asleep to it. He would still cry and be fussy but it never grew to him being extremely upset and he still fell asleep without me or a bottle.

The morning of the second night I went in to get him ready for church and was surprised that he was awake and happy (usually he lets me know to come get him) and was kicking it on and off.

I am happy that he figured that out so fast. Maybe when he wakes up in the middle of the night he can turn it on himself... wishful thinking! As far as right now it is well worth the money.

We were nervous that it would scratch the finish on our pricey crib so we put a burp rag around the strap in hops that it will help.

After using it for a few weeks I find that there are nights were he will have nights were he will still cry until he gets a bottle but after that the soother works like normal. I am guessing he is a growing boy and sometimes he just needs a little food :)

Pin Test: cauliflower pizza bites

I am always trying to find healthy alternatives for my pizza crazed hubby. This one is a complete FAIL. They came out fine and the taste was good but the soft texture of the cauliflower was not worth eating or worth all the work to make them. Here is the link if you would like to try them.

http://joandsue.blogspot.ca/2012/05/cauliflower-pizza-bites.html

Quick tip: Decorative Door Knobs

I bought so BEAUTIFUL Doorknobs for my kitchen pantry from Anthropologie and come to find out that the pre drilled hole that is in my pantry door is too big for the doorknob plate and the spindle it came with isnt long enough to make it to the other side of the door. My doors are in no way special, they are standard builder grade doors. I loved the knob so much that  Ijust couldnt bare to return it. After holding onto it for a good year I decided it was time to find a way to use it. I researched the parts of a doorknob so I first would know what the middle part was. It is a spindle!! Yay, I know something. I gave up on using it for my pantry and decided to use it as Dummy knob for our spare rooms closet doors.

I thought I would have to rig something up to make it stay but after searching on google I come to find that there is something called a dummy spindle. I got my dummy spindles on etsy for a total of $13.

All I needed to do was screw my spindles on and then screw my knob in place.

 

Notice how much smaller the knob rose (plate) is compared to our builders standard knobs.

 

I am in love with the look!

Now I have to start painting the room.

Using and Making actions in Photoshop

We are not all professional photographers that know their cameras extremely well and can have a picture come out of the camera just the way we want. This is where Photoshop comes in everyone. Yes, you can create images like the professionals. Don’t let people fool you, most professional are actually using Photoshop. You may be surprised to see what the pictures look like before they are edited.

My little man C is always moving and I am just not fast enough with the focus ring to get a crisp image. For these times I use Photoshop to quickly sharpen my images with preset actions that I made. Actions are very easy to make, it just requires some practice.

I am going to walk you through how to make an “Action” in Photoshop and then how to use them. You can also download the Actions used in this tutorial here for free. They are very basic effects and therefore I feel it is silly to charge people for them. Just because you don’t know it is easy doesn’t mean that I should take advantage.

 

 

I am working on developing an entire selection of Actions for my store that will give a wide range of different styles. It is helpful to get premade Actions when you want great looking pictures but are new to Photoshop or don’t have the time to make one.