Well, as Shane mentioned, he’s going back to school online.  I wish him the best of luck with that.  I know it will certainly keep him busy.  He’s made a schedule up, and it does show time for Allyssa and I, but like all schedules we will see how well it actually works out.

He talks about doing dinner, but he enjoys that (usually) and find it relaxing.  But don’t worry he doesn’t do all the cooking.  I make the lunches for the 3 of us since he works and will be going to school from home.  While some might thing that lunch is a lighter meal, it’s still important to keep it balanced.  My theory is that we’d be better off if lunch is a bit heartier and dinner a bit lighter since most don’t have a lot of physical activity in the evening.

Shane has also started doing weekly fighter practice for SCA.  This is once a week on Wednesday.  Allyssa and I go as well, we talk to others and watch him get hit with sticks.  It’s good to get to know the other SCA folks in the area.  And we have several events we are talking about going to in the near future.

We have found two parks in the area which Allyssa enjoys.  Of course we’ve also found out that as long as the park has slides it will be one that she enjoys.  She is a huge fan of riding the slides.

I have found a cross stitching shop in the area.  It wasn’t easy but I have finally figured out how to find shops when you new to the area and have no idea of what they are called.  It’s hard to do an internet search for them without a name, and harder still to do a yellow pages search because often the shops are so poorly categorized on the online yellow pages.  I was on a website of a company that dye their own fabric colors for cross stitch.  They are a wholesale company so when I asked them about shops in my area they were able to give me the name of two within 21 miles of me.  So now I know how to look for shops in the future.  Go to the wholesale suppliers and ask them who is in my area.

Why worry about giving a local shop?  Well I try to support the local shops whenever possible.  I have a simple view of things.  If I don’t do my part to support my local shop, when I need to pick something up quick they won’t be there.  The day after I received the information about local shops, I went to the closest one and checked them out.  It was good to be in a shop dedicated to needlework.  Not one where it’s just shoved off into a small corner of the craft store, which keeps getting smaller.

I finished the birth announcement I was working on for Allyssa.  Please click on the image to see the entire piece.  Now I’ll have to clean and mount it.  Of course, since that one is done, I had to start another project.  This new project is one of Santa looking at signs to check his directions.  It’s on a black background and is originally from an old postcard.  I have an entire book of Santa’s from old artwork it’s called Santa Remembered from Leisure Arts.

Allyssa is growing in leaps and bounds, but lately it’s been hard to get her to sleep on her own.  She wants to be attached to momma when she sleeps.  She just doesn’t want to let go.  Lately it’s been if she won’t let go at nap time, we get up.  It makes her more tired in the evening, but she has to learn that she can’t stay attached to momma.

When she falls asleep at night, she also wants to stay attached also.  This makes things hard for momma.  While I don’t mind taking an afternoon nap with her (actually I usually enjoy a good afternoon nap), I like to get up for a bit after Shane and Allyssa are in bed.  It’s a good time for me to have some private quiet time.  It’s my ME time, and I have learned that I need it.  If I can’t have my me time for I get more irritable and much easier to annoy.  I have also found that if the housework isn’t done before they go to bed it’s not going to get done that night.  My time is for me, not for housework.  (Doing housework during that time is a sure fire way for me to get extremely annoyed.)

Well that’s all my thoughts for now.  I’ll try catching people up again soon.

This morning Allyssa and I went to Chuck E Cheese to meet some other area moms and kids.  While she started out quite shy, Allyssa warmed up to the other kids before we left.  There were two boys there that are not quite 2 months younger than she is.  And I believe a good time was had by all.

While at first she wasn’t sure about the rides or games, she found a car that was near where we sat, that she dearly loved.  And then to top things off as far as Allyssa was concerned they also had a slide she could go on.  Talk about a place having it all in her eyes.

After we left Chuck E Cheese, we went to Michael’s.  There we purchased a small stool for Allyssa.  When we were at my dad’s last month, Allyssa liked sitting on a box to put her shoes on.  So we have now purchased her a small stool so she can sit down and put her shoes on like daddy.

Since I feel as if I’m in the home stretch for the cross stitch project I’m currently working on, we also stopped at Border’s to check what cross stitch magazines they have.  I did find one magazine with something I would be interested in doing but since the magazine is originally from England it’s about $12.  I am debating whether or not the design is worth such a high price, currently.

I also asked at Michael’s to find out if perhaps there was a speciality cross stitch shop in the area.  I’m really looking for a local shop to purchase the evenweave I use instead of aida cloth.  While they didn’t have it, or really know of any speciality shops they did tell me where the nearest Hancock Fabrics, and JoAnne’s are.

While I was checking out JoAnne’s, Allyssa decided that it was definitely nap time, and slept in the cart while I browsed the store.  JoAnne’s does have a small selection of evenweave in packages, but it’s all in precut sizes and a limited color range.  Not really what I was looking for but I had to check.

After we left JoAnne’s we came directly home.  Allyssa slept the entire way, and barely woke up to get in out of the car.  Once we came in, I thought that would be the end of nap time.  Boy was I wrong.  While we sat in a chair nursing for a little bit, she really wanted to go lay down.  Which we did.  With a bit more milk she ended up sleeping for about 3 more hours.  (Okay she woke up once or twice for a few minutes but not very long, and went back to sleep each time.)  She’s either fighting something off, or having a growth spurt, or both, or it might be related to her teething since she is getting a few more teeth in as well.  Both daddy and I are having sinus/cold issues which she may or may not be sharing.

Here we are, Mother’s Day, 2008 and Laura’s second as a mommy. So far it looks like Allyssa is enjoying it, with a big grin – must be a good dream – or maybe she knows that daddy is taking her picture. She is such a ham.

Anyway, on to the real reason for this post. As you probably know if you’ve been checking we haven’t posted much since Allyssa turned nine months old. That’s just stupid, because we have pictures and we want to share them, but time slips by and they don’t get posted. Until I realized that WordPress allows me to back date posts! A blog like this is not only a great way to keep family and friends up to date on the family, but also to keep a historical record of our lives as a family.

So today and throughout the next month I will be adding posts and back dating them to when they actually were taken. This will allow me to get my memories down somewhere while they are still somewhat fresh in my mind, and let you get up to date on our life so far in 2008. So if you see me I don’t want to hear, “Geez, I must not have visited your site in a while, I never saw all those posts!” because you know now that it was my fault and not yours. So enjoy them as I get them up and share your thoughts if you care to. For now, Happy Mothers Day!

Well, as you can see, I work way too hard during the day that when I finally get some time to spend with Allyssa, we usually nap together. This was how we spent our quality time on Monday, and I’ve been so busy since then I just finally took the time to post the photo.

For those of you that do not know, I am working on a social networking web site for network marketers, you know, those people that first sell you something then want you to join them in the business? Well, I found a business that I like and is going to help me get healthy so I can spend more time with my family. I have been taking the whole food supplement known as The Pops since April and it is really starting to make a difference in my life. But I shall spare you the details here for now – take a look at my Healthy Dad web site for all of those details. I’ll just share that since taking The Pops, I have more energy during the day and sleep better at night. Want proof? Look at the picture above.

Ok, you’ve seen another picture, now it’s time for me to get back to work.

Last night (or should I say this morning?) Allyssa completely amazed us. As usual Wednesday night she became sleepy around midnight, sleepy but not necessarily asleep. She would doze a bit and then wake up again wanting a bit to eat. She ate around 1 am as usual and then fell asleep shortly after. She was asleep by 1:15-1:30. Nothing odd there.

Thursday morning though she didn’t wake me up at 7:30 as she usually did. Instead I woke up around 8:30 and she wasn’t awake yet. The lack of visible movement made me check that she was still breathing, which of course she was. I dozed lightly for a while, then noticed the time a little after 9. She was still sleeping, an occasional sound coming from her bassinet to keep worrying down. At 10:15 the phone rang and that woke Allyssa up.

Since I was like two geysers by then, I was more than happy to have her awake and hungry. While I certainly could have used some relief before she did wake up, I really didn’t want to cut her sleeping short. She continued this pattern last night – and I am hoping it continues forever.

Allyssa is starting to establish a pattern, one that I feel is good for her and us. We had the start of a pattern in that she would typically have a feeding around 1-1:30ish and then be down for the night. Well, it wasn’t always then, but it was typically between midnight and 2:30 am.

Although, she had been doing 4 to 5 hours at night Friday night actually she slept for 6 hours! Ok, on Saturday night she didn’t sleep 6 hours, so I wasn’t sure this was working itself into a pattern, but then on Sunday night she slept 6 hours again. I liked it. I hope it continues.

Well, as you can tell, Allyssa loves to sleep, but she does it at all the wrong times. I know, because I took this picture just a few minutes ago, and she is sound asleep.

Isn’t she just a little angel when she sleeps? Of course, I always think she is a little angel, but it’s a lot quieter here at the house when she is sleeping. Of course, it would be really nice if she would sleep through the night so both Laura and I could get a good nights sleep. Guess we will just have to wait a few more months before that happens.

How about that – three pictures in one day! Bet you never thought that would happen!