Good grief am i a slacker on this blog. It's been a hell of a week, and I reserve the right to use that word because yesterday was harder than labor pains. only emotionally. jude caught a little cold a couple of weeks ago so he was back next to our bed, and often in our bed (i love me some family bed sharing after 5 a.m.). then last week we had visitors for a few nights. I love having visitors, i just feel stressed to keep jude quiet. thus, any squeak i hear get some milk action, you know? before i know it, jude thinks he can wake up every 45 minutes expecting to be rocked constantly and never put down. what happened to the little angel that was sleeping 7 hours a night???

thus, yesterday began our sleep training regimen. "cry it out" as they call it. more like "rip it out," as in my heart. taft wouldn't let me start it when he was home, so i waited for judes first nap while taft was at work. the book says to only let them cry for an hour. i can do an hour, i hoped, as long as it works. if it works once, i can have faith in this barbaric method.

51 minutes. that's how long i sat there listening to screams. and then silence. . . for 20 minutes. dambnabit. all that work for a 20 minute nap?

40 minutes for the afternoon nap, then 25 minutes of silence.

15 minutes this morning, and 30 minutes of nap.

ladies, whats the deal? will these naps start to get longer? do i need to let him cry more when he first wakes up from the nap to see if he'll go back to sleep? when i go and get him he sleeps 2 hours on me. help.

p.s. will post some pictures after this depressing post.

Randoms

These pictures are in backwards order. . . so older to younger.

nursing. . .

ways to know you are newly nursing/sleepy mom-

tv commercial, "my daughter is going to middle school"

you hear, "my daughter is going to nipple school"

tv commercial, "it's the best!"

you hear, "it's the breast!"

It can be very confusing. . .

My New Life

2 weeks ago. . .

2 weeks ago Monday, my water broke at 8:15 in the morning. Quite the experience. . .

By 10:15 I was in the hospital.

At 1 they started the petosin. . .

I was a 'suffer in silence' kind of contraction girl. If I'm quiet, don't talk to me. But by 4, I was ready for the epidural.

From there it was smooth sailing until late that night. After 25 minutes of pushing. . .

I got to meet my son!

We spent the rest of Tuesday catching up on this (Taft caught up, I sat there thinking about what had just happened).

Wednesday we opted to go home instead of stay the second night.

I couldn't be more pleased with how everything went. We feel extremely lucky and blessed to have such a happy and healthy baby.

We have lots of catching up to do, but this picture sums up our life so far! We are just so in love!

Jude Taft Foster

Jude Taft Foster

7.14.09

8 lb. 13 oz.

He is ours, but we are really his.

Still. . .

Still LARGE and IN CHARGE here at the Foster house. At least I've had these little mamas to keep me busy and not obsess over the fact that I'm now overdue. Looks like Wednesday is my soonest chance to be induced. Jenny and the girls just left for Montana but my mom is here to keep me company. Guess I'll have lots of time to update the blog over the next few days!

*the girls came up with these baby bumps on their own

Mobile

I have some fantastic (insert sarcasm there) news. Not only am I still pregnant, but my phone broke. And not only did my phone break, in order to replace it, I had to get a new number. A.W.E.S.O.M.E. Because that's exactly what I need the week I'm going to have a baby. I need everyone I know to NOT be able to get a hold of me. So to get to the point, here you go:

312-550-4156.

p.s. someday when i can put coherent sentences together again, i will update this blasted thing. luckily, i've just been too busy doing cool stuff to sit down and blog about it.

HELP!!!

My sister will be here in 2 weeks! I've been searching craigslist for a reasonable priced queen or king sized mattress for them to use over the summer. I plan on just selling it back on craigslist in August when they leave. Anyone have one laying around that they want to make some money on? Keep your ears open for me!

A Moment of Clarity

Aha! My brain has found it's way back to me- at least momentarily. That delicious salad was found here http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/03/my_most_favorite_salad_ever_ever_ever_ever/

A bit labor intensive, but ohhhh so worth it!

Utah Baby Shower

So I've been a little M.I.A. lately. Busy life, out of town a few times, and visitors. So I'll start with April and work my way forward. I had my first baby shower at my parents house in Salt Lake. A special thanks to everyone that helped out! It was bird theme, which I loved, and turned out really cute.

Lets just start with a good one for L. This is her 'Dumb and Dumber' impression. She made these adorable birds to hang on a twig mobile for the baby. She's as crafty as they come.

She also painted these little bird houses to go with the dish clothes for party favors.

Love the toasted coconut bird nest cupcakes. . . I've been addicted to coconut ever since.

This salad belongs in a restaurant. My sister, Angie, found it on a blog. . . but I have pregnancy brain so I'll have to get back to you on that one. . . just know it was F.A.N.T.A.S.T.I.C.

My momsie getting the food ready. It was a FEAST.

Some of the gang getting ready to play games.

Me with my pom-poms. I was pretty excited about the shower or something.

Jenny getting her famous memory game ready.

And the head honcho of the planning, L. If anyone ever needs a party planned, call her. She's professional.

Thanks for the great time, Ladies! It was perfect!

F+U+N=?

These are just the sort of cool scraps of papers I find laying around the house. Don't ask.

But if you insist, I believe Taft is trying to calculate the distance to the sun.

For F-U-N. . .

O.M.G.

Right now I'm thanking my lucky stars I'm having a boy.

Foster

After 3 years of marriage, and almost one baby later, I finalized the deal and changed my last name. Thanks baby, you were my real motivation. With only ten weeks to go, I would prefer your birth certificate look like your parents were actually married.

I thought about scanning it and featuring the picture on Friday Faces, but for my dignity, I refrained. Let me just say, I look like a blob. I was hoping it was just a bad picture- that I really wasn't walking around looking like I belonged on 'The Biggest Loser,' but after seeing my baby shower pictures, this was no fluke. My face looks more pregnant than my belly.

That being said, baby shower pictures to come. . . After I photo shop half of my face out of them.

Easter Song

Let me start by explaining this link. Last Easter, Taft and Austin spent about 6 hours goofing around on the guitar, and ended up with this. It's a good thing Easter only comes around once a year, because I needed those 365 days before I could listen to it again. So think 'Flight of the Conchords' with Taft as the lead singer, and Austin in the background.

http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.popupplayer&songid=45783032&artid=3696793&albid=-1

I'm pretty sure Taft would want me to emphasis the part about them joking around- this is definitely not one of his serious songs.

Girls Trip

This post is insanely late/long, but I'm just now getting pictures from my sister.

To make this seem shorter, I'm going to attempt to post in one total sentence.

These ladies started their trip with some spa treatments,

hit up my first ever boat tour,

thanked Mother Nature for decent weather,

let them experience true deep dish,

won these 2 'Wicked' tickets,

watched Jenny's 'Baby Mama' victory dance after her name was called,

explored this secret garden next to the Lincoln Park Zoo,

tried to use the swan shaped paddle boats, but they were closed,

and did a lot of SHOPPING.

And for you 'Friday Faces' viewing pleasure, a picture of Jenny and I that probably wouldn't normally make the cut.

Have a good weekend!

Friday Faces

just because we are hot like that.

(believe it or not, we didn't take this picture ourselves)