The Magic of Sleeping Babies (and a GIVEAWAY!)

It was just last week that I posted a little update on 5 month old Brendan and mentioned how he was the worst sleeper in our family's history.  It was kind of ironic, because although I feel like I make parenting mistakes every single day, having good sleepers was kind of my jam.  I thought I had it all figured out, and have written about it before.  Then we had our seventh baby and BAM!  Humility lesson 101.  

Brendan has definitely taught me that every baby is different, even if we try all the same tricks in our arsenal.  So what was a tired mom to do?  Well I googled how to get babies to sleep, of course!  I kept hearing about Baby Merlin's Magic Sleepsuit.  

So what is the magic of this sleepsuit?  You can read more about it on their website, but basically it was designed by a mother of four, Maureen, who is a pediatric physical therapist.  Maureen saw the need for something to help her baby fall asleep and came up with a cozy and thick suit that keeps the baby warm and, much like a swaddle, keeps their little reflex movements to a minimum so as not to startle the baby awake.  

Brendan did not like being swaddled, and would constantly roll himself over and wake up, multiple times a night.  He only seemed to like sleeping when he was next to our warm body, and we don't do cosleeping well.  So we tried putting a space heater next to his crib, but he still woke up all the time and wouldn't settle back down after he had eaten.  Once we finally bit the bullet and bought the Magic Sleepsuit, we were amazed at how quickly he fell asleep once it was on, and how long he stayed asleep.  You guys, it actually works!!

BRENDAN IS SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!

(Sorry to yell, but we are so excited and feel like humans again!)

Cue angels singing.

I was so impressed with the product that I reached out to Maureen to ask her to partner with me for a review and giveaway and she graciously agreed.  So I'm not just pedaling a product that came my way, I went out of my way to find this truly magical sleepsuit and had to share it with you all.  I seriously can't say enough good things about it.  

And now for the best part...you get the chance to win one in the color, material and size you want!    A better night's sleep is coming your way.  If you aren't the lucky winner, you can buy one for yourself OR become a hero for another tired mom and pamper her with the gift of sleep!  Spoiler alert: this is going to be my go-to baby gift in the future :)  Just enter below and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

7QT: A Cuber, Pro-lifers & A Winner

1)

Andrew has a new trick.  He got the cube for his 12th birthday in October, printed out some instructions on how to solve it, and has been practicing for months.  He finally got it down so that he can solve it in less than 2 minutes without looking at any instructions.  I'm (probably way too) proud of his dedication to this!  Now the other boys are trying to keep up.

2)

Lucy Doodle Martin got spayed.  And then pooped, peed, and puked in our house.  The poor thing, she was in pain and couldn't even walk up the stairs.  I felt so bad, but I know it's necessary!  I thought she might come home from the surgery wearing a cone, but the vet said female dogs usually know how much to clean the incision and when to leave it alone.  Talk about feminine genius.  She also got microchipped, because I just wanted everything done in one swell swoop.  I love her more than I expected.

7QT: Trump, Runs, and a Giveaway!

Hey y'all it's FRIDAY!!  That was quite the long short week, amiright?  Here we go...

1)

I am seriously so "off the grid" sometimes.  I had to google this morning to see if it was Inauguration Day.  I don't watch the news, I don't read the newspaper or any online news sources, and I'm not on Facebook.  So yeah, today's kind of a big deal for our country!

I'll make fun of his hair, but that's about it.  He needs to prove himself a terrible president before I start protesting him as a president.  I'm not a huge fan of his personally, but I don't know what he'll be like in office.  I really don't like sending a message to the rest of the world that we are a nation divided.

2)

My two middle schoolers completed their Science Fair last week and did amazing.  They both put so much hard work into their projects, wrote their papers, and ran their experiments.  We didn't have to help JP at all on his, and Andrew only needed a little guidance as this was his first one.  

JP made electricity from mud (the science behind it has some long name but you'll have to ask him for specifics!)

Andrew studied the link between being active during the day and sleeping at night.  He had ten test subjects (Theresa was one!  Thanks girl!)  provide their activity tracker data and unfortunately found no correlation.  Too many variables.

Oh Brendan

You guyssssss, Brendan turned 5 months old today!

Settle down BB, it's not like your 6 month birthday, geesh.  You party animal.

It seems like just yesterday I was waddling into the trauma that was an induced labor.  *shudder*  I feel like I barely post anymore, and I don't want Brendan to get lost in the shuffle and blame me in therapy one day, so here's what you need to know about this little man:

1)  He is fat.

This is not an insult.  I wanted a fat baby, and the Lord heard my prayers.  Declan was such a string bean, and still is, and it worries me so I wanted a nice solid chunky monkey, and Brendan came through!  We love this bib, especially since more food gets on it than in his mouth!

Welcome to the New Year...

...only 17 days late.

So January is flying by!  We had a big snowstorm last weekend that also kicked off the Martin Stomach Bug of 2017 (you hear that 2017?  You can't strike us again!).  I am not good with sick people, and especially sick kids who can't control their body fluids, so my anxiety normally goes through the roof when the bug passes around.  

But this time, we were in the midst of praying for Baby Joy and anytime I would start to feel really sorry for myself, Phil would remind me that the Lobodas only wished a stomach bug was their biggest problem right now.  Very true and it helped so much keeping it in perspective.  These brief illnesses are so hard but they make me value our health more and remind me to pray for those who suffer a lot longer that 24-48 hours.  

One thing Phil and I have been talking about a lot recently is how we spend our family time.  We used to get out of the house and do so many fun things with our oldest four kids - zoos, storytimes, museums, fairs, it seemed every weekend there was always something fun to do.  

But once those kids got older and started having sports/school/church events to attend and we added more littles to the mix, we stopped doing as much as a family for fun time.  We leave the house whenever we have a commitment to attend (which is all the time) but not so much to just go have fun together.  I know we are in this difficult season with a toddler and a newborn and I'm not feeling too guilty about that.  That's life.