Turning over a new pillow.

My kids have issues.  I love them dearly, but sometimes I wonder how these 3 kids with their different issues were all put in my care by God.  Here's the short list: Club Foot {check}, Lactose intolerance {check}, Celiac {check}, Sleeping disorder {check}.  Not all of these affect all three, but they all affect me.  I haven't blogged much about the Landen's club foot because we've done all the treatment necessary for now.  We're required to visit Children's Mercy Hospital (CMH) annually for him.  Cecilia is my Celiac and we visit her GI specialist every few months at CMH as well.  Talia's been seen at CMH for GI stuff but nothing really big.  Until yesterday when her boycott of sleep for nearly 18months finally landed us at CMH for a sleep study consultation and sleep psychiatrist.

I really wish I had been keeping a journal of her sleep patterns for the last 2 years, but I didn't so my sleep deprived memory is what we have to go one.  She slept well as a baby.  Around the 7/8 months mark, she stopped sleeping well and started waking up for a 3 am feeding again.  She wasn't nursing any longer and her pediatrician said she woke up to eat simply because I got up and fed her.  She screamed for hours.  Ferber was wrong for this particular child.  I started waking to keep her company during the night, catching a few hours here and there before the other kids woke up.  Soon I began pulling more all nighters than I could handle.  We moved, changed jobs and towns.  I started stressing because my soon to be 2 year old was still awake consistently though out the night for 5 or more nights a week.  We started to shorten her nap times to just one 45min nap a day.  She has always had an excellent bedtime routine, Sleep at 8pm, wake between 6:30-7am.  Except more and more it was common for her to be awake from 2am-5am as well.  We started .5 mg of melatonin.  NOTHING. Eventually worked up to 3mg nightly of Melatonin.  Still no change.  Occasionally, she falls asleep in the car or at dinner.  But not often.  Finally, I call my pediatrician and BEG for a sleep study.  He sends us to CMH.  And here we are. nearly 2 years after the first problem began.

The appointment yesterday was wonderful.  It was long, intense and eye opening.  It was also frustrating.  We are looking at first availability for a sleep study in May 2012!  I plan to stalk the cancellation list until then.
The pyschiartrist gave me a beginning plan for fixing the learned behavior that has come with whatever medical issue we are facing.  #1 No more Talia in MY bed. (i thought easier said than done) #2 No giving in. EVER.

If you weren't sure, Luke and I are not into co-sleep parenting.  I have nothing personally against this method, I just don't sleep well with anyone besides Luke and I in our bed.  It causes our relationship to be more strained and we really don't need any extra strain!  This is actually good for us because our doctor seems to be super against it as well for many reasons (not all I am sure I agree with) but the good news is for whatever reason we are all on the same page for Talia's sleeping!

So, here goes nothing- "Project: GET TALIA SOME SLEEP" starts NOW!

Angry Birds: The Birthday Party

When my soon-to-be 7 year old asked for an Ipod Touch for his birthday, I knew we were in for it.  After a long afternoon of reasoning with him and trying to figure out why exactly he wanted an ipod touch, we came to the conclusion it was all about the angry birds.  I finally said, "babe, you're not getting an ipod touch".  He starred at me for a bit until I saw his eyes light up with an idea, "Mom, what about an Angry Birds birthday?"  I was super excited because I knew it would be a very creative party! He loved the party and I hope you find some good ideas to use for an angry birds party of your very own!


The main objective for the party was to be able to play Angry Birds in our living room and involve more than one person at a time.  My husband and son decided we needed a real set of angry birds to play in the house.  (It's January- no one wants to be outside!) The boys really wanted the game to be enormous.  I have no idea why but when it came down to it, we needed a more manageable size.  

Here's what we came up with:

We used the golf balls in a standard sling shot as the birds and shot them into small bottles painted green for the pigs.  Used small boxes to create the platforms.

PIGS:

I had just purchased a 12 pack of Naked Juice (10oz bottles) at Costco.  

We painted them green, drew faces and glued them to the bottles.

BIRDS:

I bought 60 plastic white golf balls at Walmart.  It was about $5.  I painted them the colors of the birds (which was time consuming and they chipped easily- wish I could have found plastic golf balls in colors!)

The sling shot was purchased through Oriental Trading.  

They were about $1.25 a piece and also become part of the gift bag.

The second game was a pinata.  These are a tradition for our kid's parties so I made two, one for his friends party and one for his family party.  You can read more about making these here

Cupcakes:

I made my own cupcake toppers by grabbing a picture from pixmule and adding conversation bubbles to say "Happy 7Th Birthday, Landen"

(This is OKAY to do because I received permission from the artist- YOU MUST SEEK PERMISSION)

I printed, cut and taped them to plastic toothpicks.

Goodie Bags

(blue paper bags from $1 store with red bird glued on front)

•  Slingshot (punch balloons for the younger kids)
• 3 "birds" to shoot
• Angry Birds Fruit Snacks (walmart) Gushers.                                                                      WM sold out the week of the party and hasn't gotten them back in yet :( I searched EVERYWHERE for them.
• candy they filled themselves from the pinata

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gift from Aunt Ashley & Uncle Sam

Angry Birds Pinata tutorial

I posted this picture to facebook last week and friends immediately begged me to "pin" it to pinterest.  So, I did  but I decided I needed a tutorial to go with the pin!  So, if you are visiting me from Pinterest, Welcome! And if you are just interested in learning to make any pinata, I will teach you!

Homemade Pinata Tutorial

Supplies:
newspaper
paste
paint brush or sponge
balloons
paper hole punch
string or ribbon
paint, markers, paper, crepe paper, tp roll, small balloons, etc to decorate pinata


Preperation:

• cut newspaper into 1inch by 10inch strips

• choose your balloon shape & size; I used a punch balloon (round) for the Angry Birds and a regular large balloon for Pinkalicious.

• mix your modge podge, make paper mache paste, or my diy pinata paste (equal parts water and glue).
• Create a space where your pinata can be made and left to dry without being bothered by small hands

Create!:

step one: blow up balloon to desired size

step two: mix your paste of choice.  I like to use the diy pinata paste because I can mix a lot and keep it in an air tight container for the next project.

step three: Prep your balloon - for the Angry Bird pinata I used the punch balloon.  I had to tape down the extra material where you tie a rubber band on to make it smooth.  It doesn't have to be perfect!

step four: paint the paste onto the back side of your newspaper strip.  Place it on the balloon.  repeat this step over lapping the strips until the entire balloon is covered.  Leave a small opening around the balloon tie to stuff candy in.  Ensure all seams are properly wet and stuck down.

step five: Leave it alone for a few hours until hard and dry. With regular balloons, you can wait up to 24 hours.  However, with punch balloons, they tend to shrink quickly.  I wouldn't wait longer than 8-12 hours.

Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you have 3-4 layers of newspaper strips covering the balloon.

step six: Paint the pinata all over one solid color.  Obviously, for Pinkalicous I did a skin tone and for the angry birds I did the color of bird my son had chosen.

Step seven: Decorate!  For pink, I made the mistake of drawing right on her.  My pinata didn't turn out the way I wanted but I couldn't change that much at that point.  With the angry birds, I free hand drew their facial features on white paper and used the diy pinata paste to glue them to the pinata. (If you aren't confident in your drawing abilities, print the facial features off a website like pixmule) For the black bird, I used the tp roll to make his "horn" and for the red bird I used small balloons to give the fuller look to his top feathers and crepe paper for his black tail.

gluing down face

look just below black's horn to see hole opening,
Red's balloon "feathers" cover his opening.

balloon deflating

balloons out

step eight: deflate balloon and fill with candy.  Use paper hole punch to make a string holder and start whacking!

pinterest version

Finished Product

As you can see, the final finished black bird looks a little different than the pin I posted.  I did touch up painting to the actual pinata as I felt was needed.  It's just very hard to draw and paint the actual design on the pinata.

REMEMBER! It doesn't have to be perfect!  There are tons of flaws on mine the important thing is that your kid gets the pinata he likes without you spending way to much money! 

If you have any questions, leave a comment and your reply email address!