currently {vol. 9}

m a k i n g
I spent this week organizing the photos from 2014 on my computer...oh my gosh that was a lot of work. I'm resolved to do this monthly in 2015 so I don't have to spend two full days at the end of the year deleting, filing and backing up the years pictures. Now that they're all cleaned up, I'm working on our 2014 part two photo book. I use shutterfly to make photo books with all our family photos instead of printing them out and manually putting them in albums, it works great! I also print out my instagram photos in books using chatbooks. 

l i s t e n i n g   t o
The dryer and washer are both running, KSKA (PRI's The World, to be specific) is on the radio in the kitchen, and Riggs is telling me everything he's thinking about as I type this. The soundtrack of my life, haha.

h o p i n g
A lot of my houseplants desperately need to be repotted and I'm really hoping I can find some cheap but not hideous pots at the thrift store in Palmer. Maybe the subtitle for this should actually be dreaming as I've never had the best luck at this particularly thrift store.

r e a d i n g
Slowly making my way through David Starkey's Six Wives. Every paragraph in this book is packed with historical information making it nearly impossible to read when the kids are awake. Since I haven't been able to commit to any fictional books lately I decided to read some history instead and learning all the actual details about Henry VIII's wives and marriages to them is really hitting the spot for me. 

p u r p o s i n g
I took so many pictures of Riggs with my real camera when he was a baby (see my 365 projects from 2012 here and 2013 here) and I've been feeling a little bit guilty lately about how many I've taken of Raina (not very many). So I'm purposing to keep my camera out and handy so that I can grab it instead of my iphone when I want to capture a special moment in her life. I wish that I would I have started an actual 365 project with her from day one, but I didn't and I can't go back, and late is better than never, right? I might actually have a photo a day of her since she's been born, but definitely not using my real camera.

Here are a few I've taken lately that really capture who Raina right now:

and one of Riggs and Tutka, I couldn't leave them out...

365 project: Riggs in 2013

I finally finished putting together the slideshow/video for Riggs' 365 project from 2013. I'm excited to share it here with you guys. Participating in a 365 project the year he was born is what helped me to grow so much in my picture taking skills, I'm so glad I did it. That being said, I'm not doing the same thing for Raina. I feel like I should technically feel bad about this, but I don't.

I take a lot of pictures of her too, enough that I don't feel like she'll be missing from our family photo albums or anything. And I take multiple pictures of both kids every single day at least 98% of the time. I'm just not going to be logging them on a separate blog. I will make a similar video of her first year in photos though, just because I love the process of making them and I think it's a great alternative to looking at the photos in an album.

Anyway, enough rambling. Here's a picture a day of my sweet boy (who slept much better last night) in 2013:

Riggs 2013 from Whitney Harness on Vimeo.

To see Riggs' 365 project from 2012, click here.

To see other video compilations I've made of Riggs, click here, here and here. 

when toddlers go all-out crazy

purchase from hello

Since birth, Riggs has been an easy child. And when I say easy, I really mean it. He latched on immediately after birth and nursed great until he weaned at just over two. He slept great, with us for nearly eight months and then in his own room in his crib with no problems after that. While not the most adventurous eater, he still ate well and tried lots of new foods when offered. He was happy and easy going and rarely cried.

Well lets just say things have changed. I'm typing this in my dark living room at six something in the morning, not because I'm one of those moms who has everything together and likes to be up before my kids ready to face the day. Oh how I would love it if that were the case. Instead, I'm out here with bloodshot eyes ready to give up before the day has even started. 

My tiny little three-month-old baby who you'd reasonably expect to be the cause of my bone-deep exhaustion? Peacefully sleeping like a little angel. My two-and-a-half year-old who has always been an amazing sleeper? Mumbling to himself in his room, still awake after getting up at 4:45. And this is like the 46th day of this. I'm so tired.

It started out somewhat innocently. We switched him to a toddler bed just before Raina was born, and he actually did great. Going to bed was when he'd try and push his limits, which was rare. And then after Raina was born, his normal 7-7:30 rising started to creep earlier and earlier. 6:45am felt like it was still the middle of the night at first to me after being up a few times in the night with the baby (who now only wakes once or twice at the most from 7:30pm to 7am to nurse). 

And yet as early as it felt, I know from reading books on sleep that 6:45, 6:30 or even 6am is a biologically normal time for young children to wake up, and that his sleeping habits might just be changing slightly as he got older. I think this was my first mistake. Instead of putting him back to bed and making him stay there until 7, I let him get up and start the day. Day by day this kept creeping earlier and earlier.

When he started getting up before Steve's alarm even went off (at 5:15am) we'd just tiredly pull him into our bed in the hopes that we could all go back to sleep. Which may have worked, if that alarm didn't go off five, ten or fifteen minutes later. And if Steve didn't have to turn lights on and make normal getting ready noises for the next thirty minutes.

Thinking about it now I'm realizing that we started making mistakes in how to respond to this from the very beginning. Thinking it was just a fluke at first, it didn't even cross my mind to make him get back in bed. And then when it kept happening, I still didn't mind because I'd just pull him into bed and enjoy the thirty minutes of quiet cuddle time. And I wasn't too worried about the hour or two less sleep because he was still sleeping at least two hours for nap time. Until suddenly, he wasn't. 

About two or maybe even three weeks ago (the days are all blurring together at this point) he just started waking up after only an hour of sleep. This was instantly concerning to me, because I knew he needed to sleep longer. He was waking up cranky and grumpy and crying at the drop of a hat. This wasn't the normal wake-up adjustment period either, it would sometimes last an hour or two. This is the point when I started to get really worried about his sleep situation. 

Coinciding with all of this, he's become a very selective eater. Some days he'll happily eat up anything you put in front of him, but most days he eats very little and will cry on and on for the foods he wants (yogurt? chocolate milk box?). I've been feeling like a failure constantly worrying that he's getting enough nutritious, filling food. 

On top of everything, over the last two months all four of his two-year molars are coming in, he had hand-foot-and-mouth, and now all four of us are sick with a nasty head-cold. You guys, I'm so tired. I'M SO TIRED. 

Sorry to yell, but really. Today it just hit me. And I feel that building anxiety of wondering what on earth I'm going to do to get him back on track.

So. Please. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers. And if you have gone through a similar situation and have some magic cure, PLEASE share. 

BUT if you just want to share whichever sleep training plan worked amazing for your baby or something, I'm sorry to sound rude but I'm just not interested. He goes to bed great at night and has no problem falling asleep for naps. At this point I think the problem is perpetuating itself because he's so over tired. I'm looking for tips on how to get his 'sleep bank' filled back up so he'll sleep longer at night. 

Thank you all in advance and please if you see me at 7am at Target in my PJs looking a little bit like a bum, don't judge. 

Thunderbird Falls is best in the fall!

Steve's dad and his wife came up from Homer for the weekend. It was great to see them and it was an especially special visit because it was their first time actually meeting Raina. Sunday was a beautiful, crisp fall day so we all piled in our truck for the drive to Thunderbird Falls, about twenty minutes outside of Anchorage.

I haven't been in forever and had forgotten how beautiful it is there. I felt like I was taking a stroll through Rivendell, it was just magical. Raina slept nearly the whole time but Riggs walked the entire way to the falls, about a mile I think, and uphill nearly the whole way. He was pretty worn out by the time we reached the falls and it was naptime too so I packed him up in the ergo and carried him the way back. It was funny to hear all the comments about what a 'load' I was carrying as we passed people along the trail. I loved getting to snuggle both babies close, and it was a great workout too.

If you live in Alaska, you need to go to Thunderbird Falls and take in all the beautiful fall colors before they're gone.

After the hike we headed to Palmer for the lunch at the Palmer City Alehouse. It was delicious as usual and truly an enjoyable meal because somehow both kids were happy/sleeping when our food came and both Steve and I were able to eat our meals while they were still warm.

I'm so glad Rick and Dorle finally got to meet Raina - they were pretty smitten with her I think ♥

life with two

At nearly three months in, I find that we've really settled into life with two. It feels so natural, like it's always been. Both Steve and I are so very in love with Raina, and each day watching her little personality bloom further deepens our feelings for her. Riggs has handled the change like a champ, and he is even funnier and cheekier than he's ever been, if that's even possible. 

Of course, some moments are hard. But they've gotten so much better that I'm already forgetting how it felt in the beginning. I look at my life and feel like pinching myself to make sure it's real. I was tearing up last night as I fed Raina a bottle (something I never did with Riggs), and Steve looked over and asked me what was wrong. I smiled up at him. "Of course I love breastfeeding. But it fulfills some deep twenty-something-year-old longing in me to feed her this way." He looked confused. "It's just that I vividly remember carefully holding my baby sister and giving her a bottle as my mom watched over us nearby. As a child I can't think of something I looked forward to more than the day when I would have my very own baby to cuddle and feed."

I don't think Steve really got it, but he shrugged and turned back to what he had been doing. As I sat there thinking about it, I was struck by how surreal it feels to truly be a mother now, not just to one, but to two babies. Two beautiful, happy, and healthy babies. And I'm so glad it's even better than I ever imagined; those two babies, how I love them so.

toddler soccer practice

Saturday Riggs had his first day of Soccer. It's his first organized anything other than nursery and library group so I was pretty nervous about how it would go. Luckily my friend Nancy and her adorable son Griffin were in our class too. I put Riggs in the 18-30m class even though he's just a little over 2.5 now so that he could ease into a class like this. If he needs to we'll transfer him up to the 2.5-3.5 year old class later. 

Just seeing his little uniform laying out the night before made me just about die of cuteness. Then when he put it on with his tiny little soccer socks and everything? heart. melted. I wish I could say my heart was just bursting with happiness during the class, but that would be a lie. It was pure craziness at first, with lots of toddlers and even more parents and grandparents milling around and soccer balls everywhere.

Riggs was definitely overwhelmed at all the people, and quickly proceeded to grab a soccer ball from the ground and cling to it for dear life. When the class started, we were supposed to go sit in a circle and sit quietly while the ball was passed around to introduce each child. Cue mass crying each time the ball had to be taken passed from one child and given to the next. Of course Riggs didn't want to sit still for this, and he didn't want to do the little stretches they did after that too. But then he warmed up and had a great time. I'm excited for next week and especially excited for when Steve will be able to come and I can just watch on the sidelines with Raina ;)