Accomplishing Goals

Well, I have A LOT to catch up on on this blog, house projects, holidays, etc. But I'm not quite ready for all that yet. My post today is about goals. 

I've set a lot of goals in my life. A lot of them revolve around weight loss, and I hate that. Last night as I sat in bed thinking about how I've been unsuccessful in most of those goals, I thought about one goal I've completed recently. I knocked it out of the ball park in fact.

When I was pregnant with Ami, I blogged about breastfeeding. You can see that post here. I talked about giving it another shot because it was one big disappointment with Beth. I hate failing, and I really felt like I failed breastfeeding with Beth.

I remember when Beth was a few weeks old, I was talking to Katie Hobson at church. She said, "Hey it didn't work out this time, but you can totally do it with your next baby!" She told me a story about her sister or sister in law, who didn't breastfeed her first, but was successful with all her others. And at the time I just shook my head and said, "yeah, maybe." But it always stuck with me. 

So, when Amielia was born, I had a goal of breastfeeding for 6 weeks. Which seemed really short, and an eternity at the same time.  I questioned everything, my ability to produce milk, if my baby would latch, if jaundice would be an issue we'd have to deal with, if I'd cave and go with what was familiar to me, formula. But I set the goal, and started out on a hard 6 weeks. 

Getting breastfeeding started in the hospital

Happy baby after breastfeeding

I'm really really really happy to say that I blew that goal out 
of the water and breastfed for 
18 MONTHS. 

Some people thought I was crazy for breastfeeding so long, but honestly, when you put so much effort into planning and fight so hard to do something, you don't just stop after a year. 

My happy 1 year old!

When Ami was 6 months old I accepted a position as a Breastfeeding Peer Counselor for Southwest District Health. This position has been wonderful, and it's really shown me the impact breastfeeding can have, which is another reason I didn't stop breastfeeding between 6 and 12 months. 

It wasn't always easy, like every other mom I had latch issues at first, questioned my supply the entire time, Ami decided biting was fun to do off and on for the last 9 months of breastfeeding, and it took patience, lots of it. But I am so happy that I can say I did it. I did it. I breastfed my baby without giving her an ounce of formula. Without giving up. And after 18 months I can say, it was WORTH IT.

Now, on to some other goals that have been pending for YEARS.

Until next time, which I hope is soon, Happy Blogging!

Our Summer FUN!

Well, I have definitely slacked the last two months on blogging. But I have good excuses. Lots of Birthdays and FUN Summer activities. Mid June, we celebrated Amielia's FIRST Birthday. I am SHOCKED that she is growing up so fast. She is no longer my baby, and she is often wanting to do things by herself. At times, it's a nice change for her to be independent, but at times it's sad. 

At 1 Year Old she was 19lbs 12oz, and 29 in tall. She is walking everywhere, and even though we don't understand much of what she says, she's a BIG talker. She mostly says "Dad" and "Hi." She will eat pretty much anything and she is still breastfeeding.

We had a fun Birthday Party that was SUPER HOT. But it was fun! Ami wasn't really interested in opening any of her gifts, so we opened them for her. She got a lot of great gifts, but we really just enjoyed having everyone over.

One of her gifts from us was her quilt. I started it during my pregnancy and my mom helped me finish it for Ami's birthday. Beth also received a quilt and it is now a tradition. I have to realize my baby is no longer a "baby", but for a while she will still be "the" baby in our house.

About a week after Ami's Birthday Andrew & I celebrated our 6th Wedding Anniversary. It's amazing that time has gone by so quickly!! We celebrated by going out to one of our favorite restaurants, Copper Canyon in Nampa. It was a great night!

We celebrated Beth's 3rd birthday a few weeks later. Beth still doesn't really understand the "birth-DAY" idea. She understood that it was a special day, but the exact reason why still remains a mystery to her.

Another realization that Ami is not a "baby," is the fact that we have another baby in our family! Jana gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on July 3rd. June Lois Claus was 7lbs 4oz. Jana's labor and delivery was so amazing. After 2 c-sections Jana felt impressed to have a Vaginal birth with June. She discussed it with her doctor and after a few hurdles, she had a plan in place. Her delivery was so peaceful and I am SO PROUD of what she accomplished. If you want to watch her Birth Video, here is the link:

Jana's VBA2C Birth Video

I have loved having another baby to cuddle. June is such a sweet baby. I feel very blessed to be an Auntie!

Our Summer Adventures have been great. We've really enjoyed having a backyard, and the girls are SO busy and fun at this age!

Also, this summer Andrew and I celebrated our 25th Birthdays! I celebrated mine by attending the Evergreen Perinatal Lactation Conference. It was a 5 day, 8 hr per day, long conference in which I received LOTS of breastfeeding education. I got certified as a "Certified Lactation Educator."

We celebrated Andrew's birthday by going to a few of his favorite restaurants and doing some shopping. We don't go on dates very often, so we loved the opportunity to have a few hours just as adults. 

This summer we've done camping, canning, drive in movies, lots of late nights, family dinners, and much much more! I am sure I am missing LOTS of things that happened. I am happy to see the hot weather go, and get into FALL! 

We have had our share of hardships this summer, we've had to replace a few things in our house, and we are currently a one car family, but we do feel very blessed. We know that the challenges will make us closer, better and stronger. 

Until Next Time, 

Happy Blogging!!

What it means to be a Homeowner!

I'm sorry I have fell behind in my blogging duties, this post has been a LONG time coming! Lets start off with a definition.....Homeownership: The act of being enslaved to your house every free night and weekend in order to appease your inner desire to be surrounded by perfection.....

 First off, I do not consider myself a home OWNER. I don't own my house yet, so when people say, "how does it feel to be a home owner"....I say "I don't know, ask me in 20ish years!"....But most people use the term homeowner to describe someone who has purchased and is currently paying off a mortgage. So, yeah, that's us.

When we bought our house about 9 months ago we knew it was going to be a lot of work. Andrew wanted to build/remodel a house (he's the fix-it/make it your own type)....and I wanted to have a move in ready home. So I guess this home was a good compromise. We did most of the major changes before we moved in. A few walls came down, new paint EVERYWHERE, new carpet downstairs, a few minor landscaping changes, etc. And I told myself I would be HAPPY with that for a while. And we were. And time flew by. Before we knew it, it was spring. And it was time to get to work on all our spring projects. We had 2 major projects we wanted to complete. 1. Our BSU Bonus Room and 2. Landscaping.

The Bonus Room. This room was a perk to buying this house. We originally planned on buying a 3/2, but we ended up getting lucky with this house, it's a 3/2.5 + Bonus! So I didn't really have any plans for the bonus room. Andrew was quick to call dibs, and request that it be a BSU "Man Cave." We are BIG Boise State fans, so I didn't have a problem with it. But we debated about the paint for a LONG time, as in almost a year. We knew we wanted BSU Blue and Orange, but we didn't know what design we wanted. We decided to do some strips. 

Luckily, I have paint in my blood, my Grandpa Bassett and Dad are excellent painters! So, they came and helped me paint. They have decades of experience, so I told them what I wanted and they helped me.

I'm really happy with the final result. We're hoping to add more furniture and a TV next year sometime, but for now, I'm happy with the paint. :)

When we purchased our home the backyard was trashed. It was covered in weeds, holes and trash. We knew this would be a BIG project. But we didn't realize HOW BIG. Let's just say there is lots of blood sweat and tears in our landscaping. But it was worth it. 

Over the winter we just left the backyard alone, but in February Andrew rototilled, and it was beautiful!! Sure, It was only dirt, but it was evenly leveled and graded dirt. No holes, trash or sticks.

After this was done, we tackled the sprinkler system. I didn't take any pictures of that project because, well, it was the worst part of the landscaping, and I hope to never think of sprinklers again. We were working with SOME sprinklers the previous homeowner had installed and installing new ones. Lots of troubleshooting and angry words. But finally, we were ready for sod. Here is our lovely installation team enjoying their work:

And after they were done, it looked like this:

Hallelujah!! It's beautiful wonderful grass!! After a few weeks of this, we ended up finally finishing the gardens. We moved the garden boxes to the side of the patio, added rock and some trees and now we have this:

The new location of our raised garden beds 

 We still haven't planted anything, but I'm hoping to get a few plants in this year. 

And we added a garden at the back of the house:

We even re-did the garden in the front....don't mind the small lawn growing on the left hand side of the garden. I learned that bird seed will grow if it falls into your garden :)

So. After almost a YEAR of not being proud of our landscaping we can finally say, "Look what we've done!!!" We are happy, we love it!

We are glad to be done, at least for a while, because we have a BUSY summer coming up. In the next 6 weeks we will be celebrating Amielia's 1st Birthday, Beth's 3rd Birthday, our 6th Wedding Anniversary, My 25th Birthday, and Andrew's 25th Birthday. In. That. Order. And within 6 weeks of eachother!! Summer brings LOTS of Birthdays and my little niece June will be adding hers to the mix because Jana is due in just a few short weeks. We are so excited for what this summer will bring. I hope you guys are getting your projects done too and enjoying the sunshine!!

Until Next Time, Happy Blogging!