Life'sSimpleMelodies

blanket time!

Ok, so something I have started early with Little Miss Mayah is “blanket time”. This is a Babywise term, but pretty much it is what it sounds like. It is something that you can start while a child is Mayah’s age, then continue to do when a child is more mobil, teaching them to know the boundaries of the blanket. Once they are mobil, many parents use a timer or something of the sort so that the kids know it will end at some point.

I am want Mayah to understand boundaries, especially because we are in the big, huge church building on Wednesdays when there aren’t many people there. I don’t want her to be one of those pastor’s kids who think they own the place and roam all over, only for the parents to never know where they are. So, I am being proactive in teaching Mayah independent play during youth church, on the blanket. Who knows how hard it will get later, but for now, it is easy, as all she does is roll and scoot.

So, I thought this was pretty cute. I have started playing on the worship team again on Wednesdays, and I have been having Mayah sit on a blanket near me on the stage. She starts out sitting (with the boppy around her, in case she tips over…the floor is super hard, no padding), then later in the worship set, I lay her on her back and she rolls and plays a little. It is cute, and she loves it.

Here are some pictures, I had a friend take one showing Kyle and I, plus Mayah behind me, then one of just Mayah and I… ( you have to look close, to the left of the picture)

Isn’t that cute? Our little worship team member.

Here are a few pics we snapped during the rest of the evening…

mmm….fudge…

I thought you might enjoy this picture! It makes me laugh!

And this one… the rosy cheeks and nose means she just woke up and just finished eating!

So, Wednesday, I made some fudge! It was fun, although some of the peanut butter chips wouldn’t melt, so some of that fudge has chips in it…I’m not sure why!

Anyways, here are some pics from the process!

I tried something new this time and lined the pans with wax paper. Last time I made fudge it stuck to the pan, so I wondered if this would work. So far, so good, fudge is coming out without too much work!

There is my troublesome peanut butter…. argh… bummer that it has clumps, it still tastes good, just has chips!

And the other thing I tried, you can see in the top dish, I put chocolate on the bottom and peanut butter on top, to make chocolate-peanut butter layered fudge. Tastes pretty good!

And of course the mess! I got it all cleaned up before I went to GYC though! I was proud of myself.

So, here is the crazy thing about Wednesday…Mayah got up as usual around 8am. She took her nap at 9:30 and woke up at 11, which is also normal. At this point, she was perfectly on schedule, was awake til 12:30 and went down for her next nap, still normal. Here is where it gets so funny….she didn’t get up from her nap til 3! She has never slept that long during a nap! What is even more shocking about it was that I went in at that time and just woke her up! She was sleeping still at 3! I didn’t want her to go more than 4 hours from the previous feeding, so I got her up, plus I needed to go to the grocery store so I could start the fudge. So, now I was so amazed that she had slept so good and figured she wouldn’t probably take her next nap like she should, because she slept so long, but to my amazement, she showed her tired signs at 4:45, so I put her down just like normal. What is so amazing, she slept til 6:30! I went in to check on her, since we had to leave for GYC (we were already later than normal), and to my surprise, she was just laying there looking around and smiling! What a good girl! I was so happy! She did soooo good at GYC. I think she may be moving herself to a 3.5/4 hour schedule rather than a 3-3.5 hour schedule. This is all Babywise/Baby Whisperer stuff, and I am so happy she is doing so good with it. She didn’t cry really at all on Wednesday and was so good! What a happy baby she was! To top off the great day, she slept 10.5 hours Wednesday night! Yay!

Josh and Cole spoke at GYC on Wednesday. They did so good.

GYC ended with the kids praying for each other….

It was a fun night.

Kynsie got to hold Mayah for the first time!

  

Well, I hope you enjoyed our day!

trip to Oregon and a day in the hospital

My grandpa had to have surgery on Monday, so Mayah and I went to Oregon with my parents and Tyler to be there in the hospital during the surgery. We decided to head down on Sunday so we wouldn’t have to drive both there and back on the same day. We stayed at my favorite hotel in Portland (the same place we stayed for the girls conference). It was fun to stay there again.

We were glad to get to the hotel finally after a long car ride that Mayah did not enjoy. (be sure to go look at Tyler’s Blog)

Mayah slept like an angel. I am so glad we have conquered the sleep routine and she has gotten easier and easier to put down for bed. I am always nervous in a hotel, but she still does good. I put her down right after feeding her. It is so sweet because she always opens her eyes and smiles at me as I lay her down, then she just goes right to sleep on her own. Our bedtime routine is pretty good and I am thankful for that! That would be thanks to the Babywise routine! Here she is sound asleep in her little bed in the hotel:

On Monday, we got up and spent the morning in the hotel room. Mayah took one nap in there, so she could get a good one in before the busyness of the day. Once again, she went to sleep with less than five minutes of tired fussing after I laid her down. I am amazed at how well she goes down when she is tired. The trick for me is putting her down right when she is tired, but not letting her get overtired (or else she screams when I put her down). There is a fine line, but now that I have learned it (thanks to the Baby Whisperer), she goes down really well! Again, I can’t even begin to express how thankful I am for our routine! Wow, it is so great. Here she is taking her nap!

After nap time, it was time to get ready to go and check out.

Tyler is happy here, mostly because Mayah was not crying in the car this time!

Mayah got to meet her Great Aunt Linda…

And her Great Aunt Wendy….

Both for the first time. Also, she got to visit with Great Grandma Janie for a bit…

  

I’m happy to say that Mayah had all of her naps during the day, some not as long as I’d like, but she still at least took some form of a nap at every nap time… here is what we saw during the naps:

Here is a picture with my Grandma, Aunt Linda and Aunt Wendy. It was fun to get to see them.

Grandpa came through his surgery well. I am glad we got to go down and be there for him and my grandma. You should go look at my mom’s blog for some really great pictures she took.