Stress, yo.

I should have known better than to be pregnant during Christmas time, but I did and now I must deal with the "consequences".  Christmas is always stressful around here, as I'm sure it is for all of you. We have 6 Christmases to go to, plus a few birthdays and various Chriatmas get togethers. A toddler and a pregnant sick wife on top of a hectic work schedule is Ryan's worst nightmare. I'm miserable already and it's only November 30th.

Right before Thanksgiving, I took my mom and we got our nails done together.  I got a gel manicure. I NEVER get manicures. Occasionally I'll get acrylic nails put on, but quickly remember that they're more hassle than they are worth and I have a huge problem paying someone to do something I can do at home by myself. However, I was there, I'd never had the gel polish on before and thought I'd try it out. Huge. Fan. It hasn't chipped or cracked at all. Love it.

Hannah can say "sister". It's absolutely precious. She will pull up my shirt and tell me "baby!" Sometimes she gets confused and pulls up her own shirt or Ryan's and says te same thing, but for the most part she gets it. As much as a one and a half year old can, I guess. What she doesn't get, however, is being easy on mommy's tummy she tries to crawl and lay and push on my stomach, which makes me just about puke. We've been correcting her since she started, but she doesn't seem to get that she has to be "ebey".

I knew Hannah was going to be a sponge at this age, but WOW! She knows the planes in the air and the trains she hears in the morning. Homegirl "knows" colors! When we ask what color something is, she doesn't always get the color right, but she will say a color. I'm not sure what age they're supposed to learn that, but I'm proud!

Yesterday, I told her we were going "bye bye" and she grabbed a sweater of hers off the coffee table and a gift bag that was also there. She held the sweater and put the bag on her arm and walked right out the door! Who needs a TV?

Some random thoughts...

I just heard that Disney is developing a sequel to Boy Meets World based on the life of Cory and Topanga's daughter. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I absolutely loved BMW growing up, but have any shows like this ever been worth watching?

Thanksgiving is two and a half weeks away. Um...what?!

I was so pumped up to get out my fall decorations and decorate for Halloween. Now, I can't bear to take it all down. Not because I'll miss the Halloween stuff, but because I can't put forth the energy to do it! Oops.

Hannah has been climbing for months now, but lately it's just a stupid amount of climbing.  She wants to be on top of EVERYTHING. Including the side tables beside our couch and our coffee table. I literally can't keep her off stuff.

On the Night You Were Born is such a sweet book... But only the first 15 times. I've considered hiding it so I don't have to read it to her anymore. Am I a horrible mother?

Some of you know that my house been quite crazy lately. My house is a disaster area as a result. Anyone know of a cleaning fairy?

Zoo!

Last Tuesday I took Hannah and her sweet friend Georgia Grace to the zoo with my friend Ashley and her little girl, Kinley.  The girls had an absolute BLAST!  Ashley & I did too.  I loved giving Georgia Grace's parents a day to themselves(and their new baby boy!!!) and letting Hannah run around and play with kids her own age!

I couldn't post about our trip without posting pictures along with it, so here you go!

This is as far as Hannah would get to the Gorillas!

Watching the giraffes!

GG looks bored, but I promise she wasn't!

 

This is also as close to the snake as Hannah would get!

Oops!

It's been ENTIRELY too long since my last post!!!  Surely we're not the only ones with packed schedules every weekend of the summer..right?  Someone told me while I was pregnant with Hannah that our lives would slow down once she got here.  Either they were lying to me or purpose, or they are very lucky(and spend a lot less money on gasoline!)  I know that I say this all the time, but we are constantly on the go! It's rare that we only have one event on our calender for the weekend(and even rarer that we have NOTHING!).  I'll try to catch up as much as I can!

Hannah's First Birthday
Her party was so fun to put together & experience!  We had everyone over to Ryan's parent's lake house! She got lots of presents & had tons of fun! Once we got in the car to come home, she CRASHED!!! Here are some pictures from her day:

Beach
We went to the beach a few days after Hannah's birthday.  Unfortunately, our camera died as I was trying to take the first picture of the trip.  Did I think to pack the charger? Of course not.  We had a great time, even though it rain almost every single day.  It was nice & sunshiney on the day we left though.  We took Hannah out on the beach, where she promptly sat down and started shoveling sand in her mouth.  We went to dinner the first night we were there and Hannah passed out, in the high chair, for the entire meal.  We put a jacket under her head(she was laying on the table!) where she laid(& drooled) until we got ready to leave.  Normally, I wouldn't let her sleep like this.  I would've brought her into my lap or something, but since she hadn't slept the whole ride down(even though we planned our ride around her naptime!) and she'd been fussy & energized all day, I just didn't have the heart to wake her up or move her.


Crafting


I have no idea what's gotten into me lately, but I've been a crafting & sewing beast lately!!  I'd pinned a few dresses I like for Hannah on Pinterest and I decided that I could easily make those and packed Hannah up and off to Hobby Lobby we went for fabric.  I  made two things: a dress & a shirt.  The shirt was my very first attempt and was supposed to be a dress.  When I tried it on Hannah, I realized it was extremely short for a dress and looked back at the page that I got the tutorial from and in the picture, it is clearly a shirt.  Oh well.  It's cute and I like it!  I was in "The Zone" and remembered that I had some Halloween fabric left over from a few projects last year and decided to break it out too and attempt an actual dress this time.  I was pretty impressed with my first-time results and posted the pictures on The Facebook.  I got a TON of responses!  It felt so great to have someone compliment me on something I'd made!  I went back to Hobby Lobby the next day and got more fabric to attempt another dress.  When I posted a picture of that dress, a few friends started asking me to make dresses for their little ones!  After all this, I decided "What the heck! Let's see what I can do!" I opened a shop on Etsy.  It was crazy easy too!!!  Should any of you want something, let me know and we can talk! I put a link on the side of the blog - you should go visit! :)

Hannah learned stuff!


I know that this goes without saying, but Hannah is always learning new things!!  It's so awesome to see her learn new skills and hear her say new words!

We use an ottoman to block off the entrance to our kitchen.  She figured out that she can crawl under one of our side tables and go behind a chair and get in our kitchen.  She giggled the first time she did it!!  She was so proud of herself.  We've since blocked off the table she uses so she wont crawl under it, but now she's just learned to climb over our ottoman.  After a few falls, she also learned how to get herself down from the ottoman!

Last night she learned how to get up on our couch(and thankfully how to get down without falling once!)

She has also discovered our DVD collection.  There are ALWAYS DVDs on our den floor.  She doesn't care anything for them really once they are on the floor.  She just wants to pull them down!!!

New Foods


I helped out with our church's bible school a few weeks ago.  While I was teaching, Hannah got to play with kids her own age(this ONLY happens when we're at church! I really need to find her more friends her own age!).  They wore her out every single day!!  While we were there, they gave the kids NutriGrain bars.  She'd never had them before(Ryan and I don't like them so I don't keep them in the house).  She fell in love!!!  She'll eat two in one sitting if we let her!  The weekend after bible school, I was at Sam's and bought a huge box of them!

Fifty Shades of Grey

I absoluely LOVE to read.  I love getting so wrapped up in a book that I cant wait for Hannah to nap so I can pick the book back up. I love the bittersweet moment of closing the book when the story is over.  In school, I always hated having to read.  Not because I didn't like it, but I don't like being forced to read something I don't find interesting.  I remember having to read Cold Sassy Tree in early high school and I loathed it! Now, it's one of the books I read over and over.  Along those same lines, I don't like reading books that are crazy popular.  I want to pick the books I read, not society.  It took me years to cave in and read the Twilight books.  And I only picked te first one up to A) See what all the fuss was about and B) so that I could be involved in the conversations the women in my family were having.

Generally, if a book gets a lot of hype, I don't read it, and if I do, it's after all the hype has gone down. (I also dont buy books that have a picture from the movie on the front).  The book is always better. I do however, go see the movie adaptation of books I've read, just to see.  Last summer, the movie Something Borrowed came out.  I was really anxious.  This is one of my all time favorite books so seeing it in movie form, knowing what I know, made me a little scared.  My only hope was that they didn't ruin it.  I had high hopes, since the author, Emily Giffin, was very involved in the process.  My Mom, sister, and I went and saw it the day it came out.  When we got home, my Mom said "That was a cute movie!" to which I replied, "No, it wasn't." and handed her the book. They added things that didn't happen and took away details I thought were important.

Anyway, this post isn't about movie adaptations of books...


Recently, there's been some hype over this book "Fifty Shades of Grey".  People either love this book or hate it.  Since it hasn't "blown up" yet, I decided the other day to check it out.  Hannah was napping and I couldn't leave the house, I got on my handy iPhone and downloaded a sample of the book.  It was only a few chapters, but it was enough.  I was hooked.  I'm not sure I liked it, but I wasn't going to put it down. I didn't like the people(the guy has crazy issues and the girl won't grow a pair and stick up for herself) and it deals with some very..I'll say 'different' ...things. So far from anything I've ever been, or care to be, exposed to.  I was pretty shocked that I enjoyed the book in general(which is pretty ironic - given the story line)The book is the first in a trilogy and I always want to finish any sort of series, just to get the whole story.  It's certainly a "beach read" and all that that entails.  It's one of those girls only book club reads that when you meet to talk about it, you have one of those girls only parties paired with it. And I'm always up for one of those.

Anyway, I urge you all to make your own decisions about the books you choose to read. You might be surprised!

Laters, baby!

Untitled.

We've had all kinds of craziness at our house lately. It apparently isnt' going to get much better for a while either.  Weekend before last, my Mom and I went to Greenville for a consignment sale for kids.  We went with my aunt and grandma(they live there).  We spent the night up there and came home on Saturday. Ryan obviously had H the whole time and was a wonderful "single" parent.  I came home to everything in our den covered by a blanket so H couldn't hurt herself.

 Last weekend, we cleaned the house.  Like, a good good deep clean.  We're still not completely finished, but it's much better than it was.  We had Ryan's family over Sunday for a family lunch.  While we didn't "do" much, I felt so exhausted when I hauled myself to bed Sunday night.

This coming weekend we have a wedding Saturday and some friends are babysitting Hannah.  I cannot wait.  I'm less excited about the wedding than I am about a night out in nice clothes without a baby.  I remember when we got the invitation, I told Ryan that it will be a REAL night out in nice clothes.  I asked if he remembered those. He did not.  Crazy how much it can all change in 10 months.

Next weekend is Easter.  Ryan and I will be having both sides of our families to our house for Easter.  I'm looking forward to it actually.  I've never hosted a holiday before. And it's still a safe distance in time away.  I decided to have my families Easter outfits coordinate this year.  This was dumb, but I'm committed now.  It wouldn't be such a hassle if the color I'm working with wasn't so weird.

We have something to do every single weekend from now until, what feels like, eternity.


I hate running errands with Hannah.  I cannot stand it and leave them until the last possible day.  Her carseat is heavy, she gets bored VERY fast, and I'd rather stay at home.  I know this will not get any easier as she gets older. Sometimes I wish I had an assistant or a nanny so I could nap, or get things done.  I miss having my haircut and my eyebrows waxed and pedicures.  I'm fairly certain that if someone just showed up at my house and said, "I've got H, you go and let my driver take you and do what you want!" I'd get in the car and do all those things.  I'd also pig out on Chick-fil-a. 

I've become OBSESSED with Mad Men.  I couldn't find anything to watch on TV about a week ago and found Mad Men on one of those million "On Demand" channels.  I watched the last four episodes of season 4 and immediately bought Season 1.  I watch it constantly now!

I think that's enough rambling for the day...

Alive and well

I've been really slack in bogging lately.  Oops.  Oh well, I have a 9 month old.
She's crawling, chewing on EVERYTHING and pulling up on everything sturdy enough to hold her(and a few things that weren't so sturdy..)

I got a little time to myself today and found this on Pintrest and wanted to share.

 I have a VERY pregnant person in my life right now and I plan on doing this for her.  I give YOU no choice. :)  I'm very excited to meet your little girl!!!

Here's the link.

100 Ways to Praise a new Mom

1. Fold her laundry – especially all the socks
2. Leave immediately when the baby falls asleep so she can nap
3. Bring chocolate
4. Don’t tell her to call if she needs anything, just drop by and help with everything
5. Take the big kids out for a play date
6. Tell her she’s a hero
7. Bring her food in disposable dishes so she doesn’t have to deal with washing or returning them
8. Don’t tell her to carpe diem
9. Cry with her
10. Laugh with her
11. Share details of what you love about her baby
12. Watch Up All Night with her
13. Don’t tidy your house before she comes over to visit – it doesn’t help her to think you have it all together
14. Tell her a day will come when she will sleep again
15. Make her a 2am nursing station on Pandora
16. Email her a bunch of fun deals links she can surf while nursing
17. Make sure she’s actually in 1 out of every 1,000 photos she’s taking
18. Take candid pictures of her in the new daily routine
19. Bring diapers when you visit
20. Offer to drive her on errands and stay in the car with the baby
21. Be honest about how hard motherhood can be
22. Text her encouraging messages throughout the day
23. Come over and hold the baby so she can have her arms back for a while to do chores or cook or catch up on anything that’s driving her crazy
24. Tell her to keep her phone on vibrate so you can call without being “that person who woke the baby.”
25. Don’t let her become isolated in the baby cocoon – invite her and the baby out so she can reconnect with friends
26. Never expect her to show up anywhere on time
27. Bring her lip gloss
28. Massage her neck and shoulders
29. Run her a hot bath
30. Don’t imply that breast feeding should be a breezy walk in the park; let her know it’s normal to struggle sometimes getting the hang of it
31. If she chooses to go the bottle route, please let her do so guilt free
32. She is just discovering the hard world of mother guilt – please don’t do or say anything to add to that burden
33. Don’t share any horror stories related to motherhood
34. Protect her from turning on the news in her first few weeks of being home
35. Vacuum
36. Bring fresh flowers
37. Take out any dried up bouquets
38. Paint her toe nails
39. Tell her she’s beautiful
40. Don’t tell her by now your kids were all sleeping through the night
41. Especially if by “sleeping through the night” you mean from 1am to 5am.
42. Remember that your memories of new motherhood have the romantic haze of distance
43. Wash her dishes without being asked
44. If you come over for a meal, please bring the meal and then clean it all up afterwards
45. Let her know it’s normal to stand hunched over a sleeping baby just listening to them breathe
46. Anytime she is disappointed by her new figure remind her that she grew a human being – that’s a miracle and turns out miracles need room to grow
47. Don’t bring over any magazines that feature celebrities in swimsuits 6 weeks after giving birth
48. Ask her what the one chore is around the house she wishes she could get to and do it for her
49. Always bring your camera when you visit
50. Print and frame one of the zillion photos she emails of the baby; include baby’s name and birth date
51. Bring toys/games over for the older kids when you visit
52. Tell her it’s OK to feel like you want to quit motherhood some days
53. But tell her that Trace Adkins is right and she’s gonna miss this one day
54. Don’t just make a hand print of the baby – make one of mom and/or dad’s too for a fun comparison keepsake
55. Bring her a Memory Keeper Box for that hospital bracelet, first lock, or even those first few pairs of shoes or favorite toys
56. If she has to go back to work, assure her God will be watching over that precious baby. She is brave if she gets up while it is still dark to provide for her family
57. Tell her pizza covers all the food groups
58. Hold the baby so she can get a shower
59. Bring over the Pride and Prejudice (BBC Series) boxed set for all those dinner {for the baby} and a movie {for her} months
60. Ask her which baby items she still needs – get her those instead of the cute clothes you have your eye on
61. Assure her you understand that while she might know that she’s walking on holy ground, that doesn’t mean she won’t still feel irritated how often that ground is strewn with cracker crumbs and yesterday’s socks
62. Admit motherhood is one of the hardest things you’ve ever done
63. Go ahead and quote that goodie-but-oldie, “It’s not brave if you’re not scared.” {Thank you Ben Affleck}
64. Warn her everyone will have an opinion on how she mothers but at the end of the day, hers is the only one that matters
65. Assure her motherhood is not graded; some days just surviving is victory enough
66. Tell her that drive-throughs are the best friends of mothers-with-sleeping-babies everywhere
67. Keep a pack of Thank You Cards handy in case she freaks out late one night that she hasn’t thanked anyone for all the meals
68. Never expect a thank you card from a sleep deprived new mom
69. Tell her there is no such thing as “doing it all.” And especially no such thing as “doing it all perfectly.”
70. Reassure her that sometimes the love and happiness in a home is directly proportional to the mess.
71. Send a special prayer, encouragement or blessing addressed to the baby via snail mail
72. Turn the music up and dance with her and the baby
73. Suggest that the greatest Pandora station for soothing baby music that mama can also love has to be “Winter Song” by Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles
74. Take her (and the baby) for a walk
75. Stock her fridge with necessities anytime you come over – like milk, bread, eggs, yogurt, ice cream etc – in case she isn’t up for grocery shopping
76. Watch the baby for her while she goes grocery shopping
77. Suggest she spend 15 extra minutes just reading in the magazine aisle
78. Tell her it’s normal to be be smitten with newborn love one minute and weeping with tired the next
79. Encourage her that a content household is rarely ever a perfect one
80. Remember to always be kind to the mom on your flight
81. Bring a goodie bag over for the new mom and not just the baby when you come to visit
82. If you’re too far to bring over a meal, tell her dinner from her favorite delivery place is on you
83. Tell her there’s no shame in cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner
84. Make up midnight snacks for her to grab when she’s up feeding the baby
85. Tell her not every photo needs to be perfect – sometimes the closer to real life, the better
86. Give her the The Girlfriends’ Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood for when she needs to laugh
87. Give her Devotions for Sacred Parenting: A Year of Weekly Devotions for Parents for when she needs to be inspired
88. Tell her matching socks are highly overrated
89. Wash the baby bottles for her
90. Tell her not to sweat store bought baby food, disposable diapers or pacifiers
    - whatever works, works
91. Reassure her that perfect is merely a street sign at the intersection of impossible and frustration in Never Never land
92. Tell her motherhood should come with a super hero cape, a really cute one with sparkles
93. Buy her sparkly nail polish
94. Tell her not to sweat everything Pinterest tells her she should be doing, baking, making and crafting for the baby
95. Encourage her to embrace PJ days – even if they last for weeks
96. Encourage her also to go spend two glorious hours at the hair dresser while you watch the baby
97. Tell her about all the women who did all these things for you
98. Assure her that just passing along the encouragement one day is thank you enough
99. Remind her it’s the ordinary days that make the extraordinary memories
100. Promise her it will just keep getting better