Suggestions for Europe

As many of you know, Tony and I are taking our first Jacob-free vacation (thanks Grandma and Grandpa P.!) at the end of June.  We are going to Amsterdam!  Hooray!  Tony has a meeting for work there and then we have a few days to explore the rest of the Netherlands.  I am just wondering if anyone has traveled to that part of the world and if so, do you have any suggestions for things to do that are a little less touristy.  We are planning on seeing some of the standards like the Anne Frank museum, Van Gogh, and Rembrandt. We are also going to rent bikes and cycle around the city.   We are willing to travel to Denmark, Belgium, and Germany, but we don't want to spend our entire vacation on a train.  So if any of you out in bloggerville have some interesting suggestions we would really appreciate it.

Sewing Question

Recently I have been on a sewing kick.  I guess I was inspired by Tony's cousin, Shannon Y., who recently opened an Etsy shop (click here) full of cute dresses and skirts for the toddler/young kid crowd.  My sister Megann has also given me lots of great ideas for sewing the last few months.  Anyway, I feel that I have been pretty successful at making simple things like Tag blankets (see example here...these aren't mine though) and customized burp cloths (see example here) (I actually got this idea from Shannon V. who gave me some fabulous burp cloths when J was born).  So I guess my success had to run out sometime.  I decided to try to make this super cute skirt for my niece Marley in the hopes that it would turn out beautifully and that I could then move on to making a couple for my nieces Ava and Brooklyn (Lisa, don't tell them, I would like to surprise them).  

Once I had the skirt put together and was trying to feed the elastic through the waist casing, it was abundantly clear that it was not going to work out as I had hoped.  The biggest thing is that the circumference of the skirt was much too large for a 12-month old size skirt.  I couldn't get the elastic to make it around the skirt.  Yikes! 

So my questions for all you seamstresses are:

Did I make the circumference too big by not following the instructions correctly?

 I measured just like it said and cut on the fold...

Are the instructions just really bizarre?....almost 72 inches around for a toddlers skirt.

Anyway, I ended up chopping circumference of the skirt in half and making a less fabric-y (is that a word?) skirt.  In the end, I still think it is a super cute skirt, just not as twirly as I had hoped.  I will post some pictures later, but I am baffled by this skirt.

Here are the pictures as promised

Here is the final skirt after the removal of the excess fabric.

And...here is all the excess fabric.  Like I said, YIKES!

Paper saver

I recently found this really amazing website that helps you save paper when you are trying to print out information from a  website.  It is called Print What You Like (www.printwhatyoulike.com).  

It allows you to select only the text and/or pictures you would like to print from your favorite website and eliminate the advertisements and other junk.  As you can imagine, you can save tons of paper this way.  You don't have to download a program or do anything special.  You just go to printwhatyoulike.com and type in the website you are interested in.  Then it will navigate you to that page and a sidebar will show up in your browser.  You pick the parts of the webpage you are interested in and tada!  That's it.  It also allows you to save your new document in pdf or html format.  The website also has a short tutorial to help you get started.  I really like this program because it allows me to create pdf versions of my most recent posting on my blog without the sidebars or main photo.  I can then save them in my journal or use them in iphoto.  I know that you can make a book out of your blog with blurb, but for me this seems to be a better choice.

Successful surgery

First of all...for those of you who knew it was happening,  my surgery was successful!  And for those of you who didn't know...my surgery was successful!  I had an right arm ulnar nerve decompression and transposition on April 2.  The reason was because I had been having quite a bit of pain in my elbow, lower arm, and hand for the last few years.  Imagine feeling like you smacked your funny bone several times a day without ever even moving your arm.  Lately, it became quite unbearable and constant.  Along with the pain, my pinky and ring finger were almost constantly numb and it was driving me nuts!  Basically the Drs moved my ulnar nerve (funny bone nerve) from the back to the front of my elbow.  My younger brother, Andrew, had a similar surgery several years ago and my older brother, Josh, recently had the surgery, too.  I guess it runs in our family.  When Josh got his surgery it gave me the nerve (no pun intended) to finally take care of things.  So I had the surgery on April 2 at the U of U Orthopaedic center and other than a bit of recovery pain, things have been great.   It was difficult not picking up Jacob for a couple of weeks, but Tony was a great help and took care of him while I was recovering.  The best part is I can now feel my pinky and the pain is mostly gone!  

 Here are a couple of pictures of my newly acquired scar.  It is in a really good spot because no one can see it unless I awkwardly hold my arm over my head. My arm is still a little swollen and blotchy, but nothing too disgusting.

The Dr. said that if I hadn't had this surgery done, I would have eventually lost muscle function in my hand and would have had permanent damage.  Hooray for modern medicine!

Outside....Finally!

A few weeks ago, we were able to take Jacob outside to play in the park.  As you can see from the pictures, he loved it!  He was in heaven playing on the swings and slides.  He also just loved running around and not being confined to a small space.  We look forward to many more adventures outside with him this summer.  I know that I am a little biased, but I think he is adorable.

Swinging

    

Watch me slide! 

It was really great to see him enjoy himself so much.

Sleep update #1

So after consulting the ever informative internet and reading a little more of "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby" we tried something new last night.  We put Jacob to bed when he first acted tired (6:00pm).  I made sure that I did not hold him until he was asleep, but put him down drowsy, but awake.  He fussed for about 15 minutes and then went to sleep.  We checked him before we went to bed and then did not go in his room again until he woke up this morning.  Around 12:30am I heard him crying and saying 'mama', but I was strong and did not go in to pick him up.  He cried about 10 minutes (maybe more, but I fell back to sleep) and then slept until 5:30 this morning.  I can handle 5:30 because that's when we get up anyway.  Also, because I didn't give him a bottle or drink during the night he woke up and actually wanted to eat breakfast.

Hopefully we can stick with this plan of getting him to bed a little earlier and then letting him soothe himself.  I just hope I can tell when he really needs me during the night.

Suggestions for getting the boy to sleep

Ok, I thought that when Jacob was sleeping through the night by 3 months that we had it made.  But now our little man has decided that he should wake up at 3-4 am and won't go back to sleep for 1-2 hours.  We have tried giving him milk, water, and letting him cry (not so good at the last one after 20 min or so of him screaming).  Nothing has worked.  I think that part of it might be that he is getting 4-6 more teeth, but there is only so much Motrin he can have.  

Here is his schedule

6:30-7:00 pm - in bed usually w/o a fight

12am-1am - wakes up and screams until someone comforts him

3am-4am - wakes up and won't go back to sleep

6:30am - grumpy and wants to sleep.

So, all of you experienced moms out there send me your suggestions.  I don't mind waking up and helping him if he has serious needs (like when he puked all over in bed), but for Tony's sanity as well as mine this has to stop.