Nate's Visitors

Nate had lots of visitors in his first month.  He was very happy to have them since it meant more people around to hold him, which is of course what should be happening 24/7 according to him.

His grandma came and visited him.

His Aunt Paloma came and visited him.

His Aunt Laura came and visited him.

His Aunt Sandra came and visited him.

His cousin Karla came and visited him.

His Aunt Viriginia came and visited him.

His cousin Monica came and visited him.

Group shot of that visit :).

His uncle Ruben and Aunt Tisha came and visited him.

His sister wants to visit with him every day.  It is literally the first thing she asks every morning when I come down the stairs, "Can I hold Nate?"

His brother loves to visit with him too and Nate (usually) loves it.  Corbin can really hold his attention.

Nate loves visiting with his dad.  He is apparently very comfortable to sleep on.  Juan's chest is one of Nates very favorite places to fall asleep.

Three more visitors that I don't have pictures of, (soon to be fixed) were his Aunt Eden, his Grandpa John and his Grandma Sharon.  His Grandma has been so helpful watching him whenever I have appointments and occasionally when I need a nap.  I am so appreciative of all she does for us.  Nate loves being held by her and thinks she's great.

Things I made for Nate

I thought I'd share some of the things I made for Nate while I was still pregnant. 

You might recognize this as Nate's coming home outfit.  It was part of a mix and match set.  I made it using THIS pattern.  It was an easy pattern with a good fit.  I plan on making more sets for Nate in the future.  

I tried some freezer paper stenciling to make shirts for everyone on the big day.  They turned out pretty well, but I would use different fabric paint if I was to do it over.  It was a glitter paint and I thought it had color in it, but really it was just clear with glitter.  It would have looked a lot better if I had used a white fabric paint with the glitter paint over it.  Oh well, Jovi and Corbin helped with the stenciling and they were super happy with the results and that was the most important thing.

I made this diaper bag from my own pattern.  Really, I just put it together as I had all the pieces sitting on my shelf for well over two years, but it has lots of pockets in it and works great.  If I had put it together back when I had cut it out and sewn the separate pieces I probably would have given it as a gift, so I guess procrastinating sometimes works out for the best.

We are cloth diapering Nate, at least part time, so I made him some newborn fitteds.  The first set was with the Darling Diapers FREE newborn pattern.  I made it with organic cotton velour and each has a snap in soaker.  I really liked this pattern.  I made the second set using THIS pattern.  While I liked how easy they were to make (notice, it is all one piece), I did not like how it fitted.   I used some orange cotton sherpa that I had gotten when Corbin was a baby and had been sitting on my shelf since then.  I used the cotton sherpa and cotton velour to make some wipes to go with the diapers. 

At about 6 weeks, Nate grew out of all those diapers and I started exclusively using Flips covers with a diaper flat folded into it and a few pocket diapers.  I like that the covers are one size and with the diaper flats they are trim and get clean quickly in the wash.  I'm hoping this is the system I stick with till he is potty trained. 

Please ignore the dirty floor.  These are pictures of the quilt I made for Nate, I really like the fabrics and how the colors came together.  I also made several flannel receiving blankets since I only like mine over sized and can't find them in stores at reasonable prices.

Thank you for looking at all my creations.  I'm working on lots of stuff for Christmas and will hopefully post about that in the next few weeks.

A Lot Can Happen in a Year...

Like adding a whole new person to our family.  Nathaniel James Flores was born on September 13th at 6:15am.  He was 9lbs 8oz, 20 inches long.  My pregnancy was a bit hard, everything seemed a little worse than all my other pregnancies, but then again I don't like being pregnant and I was much busier than I was with my previous pregnancies.  At 34 weeks I found out that Nate was breech and if he stayed that way I would likely have to have a c-section.  It was a shock and a huge stress.  I tried all sorts of stuff to get him to turn, but nothing was working.  At 37 weeks I went to the only doctor in the DFW area who does vaginal breech births, Dr. Cummings.  He was amazing and was able to turn Nate in the office with minimal discomfort on my part.  We thought Nate would come earlier than Corbin who was born at 38 weeks.  We made all our plans thinking that he would be born around 37 weeks and then, after he was turned there was added stress because the only way to assure that he wouldn't turn back breech was to have him be born.   FYI, stressing about labor will not put your body into labor any faster and can sometimes delay it.  Nate was born exactly one week before his due date.  The birth was by far my easiest, fastest birth.  My water broke at 3:00am without any timeable contractions, 30 minutes later they were timeable and close together, but I was able to breath through them pretty easily.  My parents came to our house so my dad could stay with Jovi and Corbin and my mom could come with us.  We got to the birth center at 5:00, I was 4cm but could stretch to a 6.  I labored on the birth ball for a while and then asked to get in their extremely large tub.  I will always labor in water from now on, the pain relief I got was extreme.  About 30 minutes later I told my midwife that I was feeling a lot of pressure.  She got the bed ready and had me get out of the water so she could check me.  She said I was 9cm and asked if I wanted to start pushing or get back in the water.  I wanted to get back in the water, but with my next contraction she said that she could see the baby's head and that I should push.  With both Jovi and Corbin I felt an extreme need to push and pushing lasted 30 minutes to an hour each time.  With Nate I felt no desire to push, but he was born in less than ten minutes of pushing.  They put him on me as soon as he was born.  He was so beautiful with a full head of hair.  He was very calm and alert after he was born just taking everything in.  He nursed very well right away too.  I felt so grateful and blessed that everything had gone so well and we were both ok.

 We went home a few hours later and Jovi and Corbin got to meet their new brother.  They were so excited and thought he was SOOOOO cute.

 Later that day Eden and Laura came over, but I forgot to get pictures, future pictures are to come.  We are so excited for our new family member.  He's been with us for 4 weeks now and we all just love him more and more.

Snuggle Babies

This weekend we went down to Eagle Pass to visit Juan's grandparents.  We took my 11 year old niece, Arrieanna with us on the trip to help with the kids and have fun.  Jovi and Arrieanna shared a bed in our hotel room.  This is a conversation Juan and I overheard in the early morning hours:

Arrieanna, very sleepy says, "Jovi, move over to your side of the bed.".
Jovi says, "But I like to snuggle.".
Arrieanna replies, slightly annoyed, "Just move to your side.".
Jovi says, "Ok...  I know, you can come on my side of the bed to snuggle.".
Arrieanna ignored the offer.

My children love to snuggle with someone while they sleep.  We have finally gotten them out of our room at night, but it took till last month.  Corbin was always crawling into bed with us and Jovi would try to do the same.  Our answer at the time that was only marginally successful was setting up blankets on the floor beside our bed for them to sleep on.  Corbin still climbed into our bed most nights and I was often too tired to move him back down to the floor.  We finally decided last month that the blankets had to go and the kids HAD to stay in their beds.  Or compromise was that if the woke up at night and needed someone they could go and sleep in each other's rooms.  This has worked really well for us, we rarely get a child coming into our room at night and the kids seem happy.  They are usually in Jovi's room when we wake up.  I wondered about this till Juan told me what he saw one night.  Jovi had woken up, gone into Corbin's room, woken him up and she was prodding a very sleepy Corbin through the hall to her room so he could sleep in there with her.  I guess Jovi prefers her room to Corbin's room. 

Jovi's Reading Journey

I wrote this as a post on a forum and wanted to remember it.

We did ETC last year and on the days I had dd do it, we did NOT do handwriting. I, personally did not find that ETC was enough for dd's phonics instruction. I have tried a LOT of phonics programs. Reading does not come naturally to dd, but she wants to learn so here is what I've tried, hopefully you will see something you can use:


Bob Books: dd could memorize them, but I learned that she couldn't hear separate sounds within a word so I looked for something to help with ponemic awareness.



Phonemic Awareness In Young Children has tons of easy to play games that help children hear beginning, middle and ending sounds in words, they play with rhyming and sylables too. A lot of the games require a larger group as it is a classroom program, but some can be done with just one student and some of the games are fun enough that the whole family can enjoy playing. We did not use the whole program, but I know what we did helped dd. *This is NOT a reading program, there is no written component, but it is an EXCELLENT listening program*



Next, dd could hear specific sounds in words, but couldn't blend them, the above program works with that, but I also started using Phonics Pathways. The book stats out VERY simply, we drilled her short vowel sounds and played their blending game over and over. Then she stated doing the "lessons", reading a page a day. We stopped after all the CVC pages were read because even though she could read short vowel words, she lacked fluency. Every word was laborusly sounded out no matter how many times she saw it.



We stopped phonics pathways and switched to www.starfall.com. I had the books and student workbook and I used that along with the online books and games. I had her read a book a week and by the end she was reading each one fluently and it was transfering to other things she read and best of all she loved reading time each day. BUT once we started into the vowel combo books it wasn't enough practice for her, she was getting confused and the rules were not transfering to other things she read.



We switched to The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. We skipped the beginning and got through digraphs, she was progressing, slowly, but she hated it. Reading was no longer fun and now a chore.



A little bit after I started using OPGTR, I got All About Spelling. I really like this program. It includes phonemic awareness, it teaches ALL the sounds for every letter, alphabetical order and dd enjoyed it. I know others have used it to teach reading and could see how it would be very effective doing so. I was using it for spelling, but saw dd's reading ability increase too. But I wanted a reading program to complement my spelling program, I didn't want to use it as the reading program too.



This year we have started using PAL: Reading. I LOVE this program. I warn you, it is teacher intensive, but it is SO effective. Supposedly you are able to take a total non reader to reader with this program except there is an underlying assumption that your child knows their letter sounds and there is no direct instruction on blending, but it is perfect for where my dd is now. It really focuses on vowel combos, it introduces them through poetry and there are LOTS of folder games. By the end of the program, I have confidence that dd will be able to read most children's books and early chapter books. She will also have been introduced to a lot of poetry, new vocabulary and some grammar. I highly reccomend this program if your child can't seem to get past reading short voewl words, it is great!

Kerchina

My mom has been waiting to get Jovi an American Girl doll since she was born.  We both felt that at 6 years old, Jovi could both appreciate and take care of the doll.  For her birthday, my mom took her to the American Girl Doll store and let her pick out her doll.  Jovi didn't want one of the historical dolls, but choose one of the dolls in the My American girl doll series.  Jovi named her doll Kerchina (said Kercheena) and she looks a lot like Jovi, but with straight brown hair.  After she chose the doll, My mom, Jovi and I went and had "tea" (aka hot chocolate) upstairs and the American Girl restaurant.  They even sang to her and she got to blow out candles. 










  

Monks

At the end of August, for history we were studying the movement of Christianity from Rome to England and the creation of the monestaries there.  I made somewhat authentic Monk habits for Jovi and Corbin and brought them to co-op for the kids to try on.  They really enjoyed them and it made for some great pictures.  That same day everyone got to try writing with quill pens.  Writing with quills and ink is NOT easy.  I can understand why copying books took so long.  It was a fun co-op day.