Guess What?!?!

Well hello there, long time no see. So, big things happening in the stokes household the biggest being baby number two is on the way!!! Our due is end of October and we couldn't be more excited to watch our little family grow. We had great fun telling Noah he was going to be a big brother although for all that he is two not quite sure he's grasped the concept yet. He does however say he's going to be a big brother when you ask him. So far this pregnancy is completely different than my pregnancy with Noah. With my first pregnancy I had the classic morning sickness, that I battled with a thirty minute breakfast while drinking ginger ale with my feet propped up. I stopped going to the gym very early on in my pregnancy because I just felt ill after every workout. I hated red meat and didn't want sweets at all, at least until second trimester when I could have eaten a bag of marshmallows everyday, but limited myself to one a day. With this pregnancy I want sweets, bread and starbucks peach green tea lemonade. I'm not at all sick in the morning and love going to the gym. However, evening time is when I struggle, the thought of cooking makes me ill and if I'm going to be nauseous evening is the time of day it happens, making cooking a very difficult thing for me right now. I'm trying to come up with ways to be able to cook and not be ill, so far grilling and crockpot recipes have been the winners. Also I have a few favorite keep the ickies at bay that I'm really loving. One is preggo pop drops, my SIL introduced me to these and they have been a lifesaver in the evening time when my tummy can't decide what it wants to do. My other favorite is celestial seasonings jammin lemon ginger tea it is another great stomach settler that I can drink in the morning or at night, especially if I wasn't hungry when I woke up and then all of a sudden I'm like starving and nauseous all at the same time. My last favorite is so much a stomach soother as a gut mover. As all women know being pregnant can cause the pooper to become a little slow to non existent. Luckily I discovered dark chocolate covered prunes!!! Amazing little things that satisfy the sweet craving and keep things moving in a timely manner. I've found a small handful a day is just perfect. Casey and I are hoping for a girl, but we will of course take whatever God gives us and pray for a healthy baby above all else. As of right now we're about ten weeks along which makes us already 1/4 of the way through!!! Can't wait to see how this pregnancy goes.

DIY laundry fix

So my husband and I have been talking about changing up the laundry for a while now. Our current laundry space just wasn't conducive for all the things we needed it to be, ie. Storage, laundry, and mud room.  Enter Pinterest and an entire board was created just for a better laundry.  Well last week the diy bug bit my husband hard and he decided laundry was on the chopping block.  We found a paint color worked out a scheme for more storage and off we went.  As with any project what started out as a paint change and some added shelves, warped into stripes a new lighting fixture and pretty baskets to make it look fancy.  Paint color is Valspar for the blue and behr for the gray stripe.  I've wanted stripes for a while and I'm so glad I convinced myself to take the extra time and do it!! Plus it meant I got to use my favorite tool the CHALK LINE!! I have a seriously unhealthy love for that little guy.  But back to the laundry we added extra shelving and hooks and moved all our cleaning products.  I purged a ton of stuff as I restocked my new baskets and it felt soooo good.  The shelves themselves are Allen Roth and target hooks and the pendant light was an awesome clearance item at Home Depot! So without further ado the before and the after, and I must say this is my most designer worthy makeover yet!

Adventures in baby sleeping!

OurSo did anyone catch the movie reference in my title?? Huh huh did us? Well just like the movie this tale of full of excitement and danger. Well maybe not danger so much as heart stopping astonishment. Starting in January my almost two year old son decided to kick off the new year by climbing out of his crib.  Yep you read that right, my never even tried or attempted to make an escape kid made a grand escape one night and scared the bejesus out of me and his daddy.  Let me start by saying my son has never been an awesome sleeper he was ten months before he slept through the night and even then would still wake up in the night.  He does not sleep well in strange beds which makes traveling more exhausting then rejuvenating, and we've always put him to bed already asleep. Now I know you people are thinking horrible mom let him cry he's gotta figure it out on his own.  Well here's my dilemma with letting him cry it out. It doesn't work he cries until he vomits or hyperventilates and the. It's that's much longer and harder to get him back to sleep.  So in the end we modified CIO with no tear sleep solutions, and it was working until that fateful January evening.  It started with noah waking and crying off and on for two hours and ended with me soothing him and putting him back to bed. He immediately started crying but I was like he's gonna figure it out and doze off, oh no mere minutes later I hear this little voice and both Casey and I shoot out the bed as we realize that voice is getting closer open the door and there stands a hiccuping hyperventilating little boy who as soon as daddy picked him up passed out.  Needless to say he slept in our bed that night. Next night in the crib we're asleep he wakes up fussing we leave him be and I watch him climb out his crib quite gracefully I might add. So night two in our bed, and we needed a plan.  Next morning we are off to babies r us and come home with a toder bed. The next few weeks are spent redoing his entire sleep routine and finding ways to keep him in his room.  Our mini genius figured out how to pop open the baby proof doorknob and escape so we taped that together.  Then began the process of a new routine one in which he went to bed awake and fell asleep in his toddler bed.  It's still a work in progress but it's gone so much better than I had thought it would.  He gets a bath, pjs bedtime story of choice milk a quick snugs and then into badge goes awake.  I sit next to him but I basically ignore him and he drifts off all by himself!! Now the way he sleeps is one for the books! So many crazy positions! So for moms who hate CIO there is another way you just have to pull the pieces together so it works for you.

Yummy serendipity!

So today I'm going to tell y'all about a yummy dip I came up with all by myself!! Well my mom assisted slightly but the over all idea was mine and I'm kinda proud of myself so I'm sharing.  As you all know today is New Years what you don't know is that it was my holiday to work.  Sad face I know but someone had to take care of the sick and afflicted as my husband calls them and that was me.  But I digress, so anyways couple days ago one of my fellow nurses sends me a text saying that she and another coworker are bringing snacks am I in.  Well of course I'm in!! Hello snack queen here, hence the reason why I still have baby weight, but that's a tale for another post.  So back to snacks the hardest part is deciding what to bring, so I start with Pinterest of course!  I have a board labeled party food, but as per my usual wasn't feeling any of it or didn't have ingredients readily available. Then I decide to type in New Years dips and see what happens, eureka there it is a s'mores dip!  I'm digging it and I have chocolate and marshmallows.  Then comes the dilemma, this dip is best warm and I can't keep it warm at work.  So mom and I brainstorm and come up with a delicious solution!  

S'mores dip

All measurements are approximate

 4 oz low fat cream cheese 

1/8 c Nutella 

Dark chocolate chips to taste

Marshmallows (tiny) to taste

Directions

Bring cream cheese and Nutella to room temp or if short on time place in microwave safe bowl for 30 seconds at 50%. Then mix until combined add chips and marshmallows and store in fridge till ready to serve!!

This dip was tangy and not to sweet and perfect on either nilla wafers or graham crackers! 

Happy New Years!

Christmas time is here

It's been awhile since I've put anything on here, but a lot has been happening in the stokes household.  We've been to the beach multiple times, Noah flew on a plane for the second time in his life, and my husband has entered the world of animated Christmas lights!! It started with a Halloween display where he made pumpkins lights up in time to music noah absolutely adored it.  He's been wanting to do a Christmas show to music and this year he finally did it!! He started programming the lights at our fall beach trip and continued until thanksgiving night when he turned it all on! Since then we've had a fairly steady stream of cars each night in our cul de sac stopping to listen.  I'm so proud of my husband and I love watching him plan out next years show and come up with new ideas.  I honestly don't know what we are going to do come January when there are no more lights.  Noah wakes up each morning and the first thing he wants to do is go and push all the buttons to make the lights come on.  My mom says we may have to decorate the basement to ease his distress.  

That kid

So, my son is about to be labeled as that kid, or at least that's my current fear. The kid that's separated from other kids because of what he might do, which right now is biting. He's not a consistent biter and he doesn't do it to be mean, and he only doesn't when he's teething. We have tried every teething toy on the market and I cannot find one he'll take to. I'm not as worried about the biting but a child that bites carries such a stigma. Today I watched a mom's face as my son's teacher told her that her child had been bit by someone in her class, and I watched her face change. I feel so bad that my son bit her child but I feel worse for my son. I watched my brother grow up being labeled "that" kid due to his ADHD. No one believed him or gave him a chance they just assumed he did it or it was ultimately going to be his fault. I don't want this for my child, he's a sweet kid who loves hanging around other kids. At sunday school one teacher has already labeled him and makes him sit by himself because of what "might" happen even though it's happened so infrequently she's already put a label on my child making sure to tell all the other teachers he's a biter an to watch out for him. And while I know that this is such a small drop in my son's little pond, it still makes me so upset because I can't fix it. I'm not there when he does it, I don't know what type of situation he was in that caused the biting. Was it just because his teeth hurt or was it do to some situation that stressed him out and that was what his little brain told him would relieve stress. I know my son can't be liked by everyone but I don't want him to be disliked because of something he did with from what i can tell without malice of forethought. I don't want parents to give us "the" look as we walk down the hall, or to not let their kids come play with my son. It seems silly I know, but it still worries me.

Pumpkins!

Today was pumpkin day. Well really everyday since my son has discovered pumpkins is pumpkin day. My husband decided to go a little nerdy this year and use his dancing christmas lights to make pumpkins sing. But that's a tale for another post. Today we took Noah to pettit creek farms in cartersville. Last year when we took noah to a pumpkin patch, he was fairly immobile and quite content to sit amongst the pumpkins and pound on them. Oh what a difference a year makes!! This year he's mobile, independent, and talking. All pumpkins are "pao pao", and he's quite good at making moo cow noises. Enter in pettit creek farms, it fit perfectly with our sons current obsessions. Not only did they have farm type animals, but also a hayride, bouncy house, corn maze and of course pumpkins!! The hayride was a stupendous hit, Noah just kept saying choo choo and pointing at all the animals and making his O face. He was able to feed the animals as well as throw food at them, which was awesome since throwing things is another current favorite for him. After the hayride it was off to the bouncy slides with a pit stop to feed the goats and sheep along the way. Noah felt quite independent being able to hold his own cup of food for them, although those goats and sheep were quite pushy and the curly ram was the definition of a bully. We jumped in our first bounce house and meandered through the corn maze, discovered tractors and last but not least PUMPKINS!!! Funny thing though his favorite pumpkin was a fake one made to look like a house that he had a grand time playing in with all the "big boys". To round out our country pumping trip we of course had to eat at the cracker barrel, where my son feasted on mac and cheese, chicken, rice apples, and hash brown casserole. All and all it was a great trip and I can't wait to watch this family tradition grow as our family does. Although as per usual my favorite parts of the day included watching my husband and son walk hand in hand through the corn maze, and seeing the two of them sitting on the rocking chairs outside cracker barrel sharing neccos which come to find out was something Casey and his dad used to do when he was a child. I just love to see the memories my husband makes with our son and I love that some of those memories are passed from his childhood as well.