I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving weekend. Ours was great, though we had a few little problems (post to follow). I am so happy to get back to the blogging world, and my mind is just full of post ideas for the week. We now have a functioning computer so I will try to post tonight with some updated pictures of my little man and some breaking news about our family. Other posts in the making this week...
Caleb's Christmas Shirts (yep they are finished)
Third Trimester Update AHHH
Glucose Test Post
Caleb's 16 month post
Possibly a Christmas Decorations Post
A little heart felt work that I have been thinking a lot about lately
Can I just start this post by stating that I am super super excited about so many things this week. I am excited that today is my last day working this week, I am excited that I get to spend a whole weekend with my family and hubby, I am excited to travel home, and I am so so so excited about Thanksgiving. I mean you all do not even understand the goodness that awaits me deep in the hills of the Appalachians. I am honored to eat dinner at the home of probably the best cook in the entire world. I mean seriously. Just the mention of some of my aunts dishes makes your mouth water for weeks. I am not even going to start on how excited I am about her dressing and the glorious Roles! Don't even get me started on her roles. It is my goal in life to master them. I did help her make them last Christmas, and I wrote down the recipe, but I have yet to try to make them on my own. Also, I am oh so excited about the cranberry salad and pumpkin rolls that I have been craving for weeks now!! YUM!!!!I have always loved Thanksgiving, but I think I love it even more this year because I am preggo. I have every excuse in the world to indulge myself in the goodness over and over and over again, and the best part is I will not even have to unbutton my jeans because I will be wearing maternity ones. I may gain more weight on Thursday than I did with Caleb's entire pregnancy, but I am ohh so excited.
Update on Bundle:
We are at 27 weeks!! Ahh! I can not even believe that we are only one week away from the third trimester. Seriously?? Time is flying!
I had my glucose test last weekend (post with pics on that to come at some point). So far no news is good news, and I am hoping that I do not have to repeat that. It was just as nasty if not more nasty than last time.
Last check I had gained 11 pounds
She is already kicking my ribs and moves all over the place all of the time.
If you ask Caleb where his baby sister is he will pull my shirt up and kiss my belly. He will then proceed to pat my belly (sometimes a little to hard).
I am starting to get more of the pregnancy pains. My skin under my ribs hurts, if I eat to much I feel stuffed up to my throat, I am having trouble getting comfortable while sleeping. Ughh. Only 13 more weeks right?
I am still wearing normal shirts but I am loving the maternity jeans!
We are going to have a 3D ultrasound performed within the next week or two, and I can not wait to see if she looks like Caleb.
I still have not decided on her bedding, or bought any clothing. The only thing she has to wear as of now is hand me downs and a few things that my aunt and grandmother picked up. I have to admit I am excited to start shopping for her though.
I can not even believe that I am going to have another baby in less than 3 months!
I will post belly pics as soon as we get a functioning computer.
Who doesn't love Christmas cards? I mean it is the one time of year when the mailbox is filled with something other than bills or junk. It is just so exciting to rush to the box each day to see what cards will be there to greet you. I know personally since getting married I have made it a ritual to send Holiday Cards each year, and that is something that I plan to continue until I'm 90.
Shutterfly.com this year is offering an amazing deal that has buzzing through the blog world. 50 free holiday cards for bloggers. I am a sucker for a good deal, and you can't beat FREE. I am so excited about this oppurtunity, and I just had to do a post about all the great things that shutterfly.com has to offer.
This was our very first Christmas Card as a married couple. We used shutterfly.com, and we were so happy with the way it turned out. It is so cute to look back on our little family of three. Wow funny how two Christmas's later we have already added one dog, one baby and we have another baby on the way!! Geeze.
This year I plan on incorporating various pictures of Caleb and our family. I mean it is so hard for a mama to pick just one pic of their sweet precious to share with friends and family everywhere. I have big plans for incorporating miss Mckinlee as well, but we will see if my plans work out.
Lucky for us shutterfly.com has many Christmas cards with tons of space for pictures of our sweet babies. Here are just a few that I have my eye on.
Don't you just love them?? I know a cute little boy who has the best face every to fill these up as well!! His name may just be Caleb. Ahh I am so excited to get into the Holiday spirit, and share my little man with my friends and family.
If you like what you see you should hop on over to shutterfly and start picking out your 2010 Christmas cards as well. Trust me you will be glad you did.
So...both mine and my hubbys computers are completely gone to computer heaven now. Hubbys crashed a few months ago, and we knew it was only a matter of time before mine did. I mean 6 years is a long time in the life of a laptop. Yesterday was the day it said bye bye :(. So, I am blogging from my work computer, in which I can not load pictures, so family you will have to wait till you see Caleb in person on Wed for any cute pics :(. One of our friends who is great with computers is going to try to salvage all our info from our old computers this weekend. It sucks. We need a new laptop but I am not sure if that is in the cards right now for us :(. I will be back to blogging with pics soon. Until then you will just get boring, non picture posts from me.
Today Caleb and I joined our mama group and headed to a fabulous place in our area for children. Totter Otterville. Let me just tell you it was amazing!! It is a full building of fun filled with various themed rooms, and outdoor play area, and a food court. There was a veterinary room, a construction room, story time room, puppet, house etc etc. Today Caleb was able to play various roles in each room that he visited.
He was a construction worker
However, he unfortunately pushed in the house that was built. I have to admit I almost died when he knocked this huge house over. I thought that it was unbreakable. However, the other mamas around assured me that it happened all the time, and that my child was not the only one to ever destroy it. Needless to say building it back was beyond my level of expertise, so this is how it was left.
He was a homemaker, a grocery store shopper/clerk, and a daddy who pushed his baby in a stroller in this room. We spent a lot of time here, and he played house with his future wife Madi.
However, my favorite room was the one in which I know dada is not going to be to happy about. The ballerina room. There was a TV playing a ballerina video, mirrors everywhere, and the tutus!! AHH I died. Caleb had to of course dress the part, and check himself out in the mirror (he is a little vain of the pretty baby in the mirror). It was all in good fun, and don't worry his sister will be here soon enough, and I will stop dressing him like this :). Well, maybe. I think he actually enjoyed it...shhh..don't tell dada.
It was such an amazing morning, and my little man who has refused naps for the past week is sleeping away as we speak. I loved this place!!
Okay, so yesterday our family experienced something in which I honestly thought we never would. The day started out fairly normal, church, nap/lunch, and then we headed out for playtime at the park. However, this park day was going to be one in which we never could have dreamed...
As we pulled up to our local park we noticed a large crowd over beside some trees. At first we gave them no thought, but upon further investigation staring, we realized that we were witnessing a world all of its own. In fact we were watching a fake medieval battle. Yes, you read correctly. There were seriously teenagers/wanna be teens battling with fake medieval made weapons in our local park. We died laughing in the car. I mean was this really for real?? Of course I could not let a moment like this pass us by without documenting it. I mean as I say all the time this was so "Blog Worthy".
So, I did what any mother would do. I took my child close to the "battle" scene, and pretended to take pictures of him, all while snapping away at the kings, jesters, and queens behind him.
Notice I only managed to get Caleb's shadow in this one!
I am to lazy to edit these pictures but look closely at the tree. There were two girls dressed in medieval wear, purple hair and all, watching their manly men fight to the death!
I mean seriously how hilarious. I could not believe we actually got to witness this on a normal Sunday afternoon. In fact they stayed until we were leaving, and we saw some pretty cool weapons come out. Including a boy and his make shift bow/arrow boulder that he literally practiced shooting for a good thirty minutes. As they were packing up and leaving they were all sweating and downing water as if they had just run a 5k marathon.
Meanwhile my little prince was playing away without any knowledge of the hilarious antics taking place in the field beside us. Nick and I laughed about what we would do one day if Caleb chose to participate in something like this. We both agreed that we probably wouldn't be able to help but laugh at him. Lets hope he doesn't want to so we don't have to destroy his heart by being the parents that laugh at him.
Oh well, for now he is just an adorable little prince who lets his mama take wonderful pictures of him at the park. I mean he was so into looking right at me, giving me his profile for every picture that I snapped. Oh yes, and I know the hat looks ridiculous. We still have to find the perfect winter hat, and this little one dollar Wal Mart gem is not it.
Daddy was clearly not into giving me a good picture either. I think he was to distracted by the games taking place in front of him. He specifically placed him self on the swing so he could watch. I dared him to go join in the fun and introduce himself as Sir Nicholas the Jester.
Good morning bloggy friends. In fact, good Saturday morning. OMG I keep looking at the clock and asking myself "Why are you awake??". I mean seriously it is 6:30 am on a Saturday morning and everyone in my house, including my dogs are sound asleep. Everyone that is except me. I blame it on pregnancy, and the fact that I tried to sleep off a possible cold yesterday, and the fact that my little man woke me up at 4 am to play. What your babies do not do that? Oh mine never used to either, but it has been the ritual for the past 3 nights. I hear him laugh/whining in his crib, and I know that he has lost the precious binky somewhere beneath the covers. I debate back and forth in my head...to go in or not to go in....I try to ignore...the laugh whine gets louder...I know he will not go back to sleep until binky is found....I give in....get out of bed....go to his room to find the binky...only to be greeted by laughter. Yes, I have to admit it is cute, and I'll even admit I gave in the first night...however, NOT ANYMORE. This mama refuses to Play at 4 am no matter how cute and cuddly and kissable my boy may appear. I instead, search the bed for what seems like a million years to find the precious binky, give it to Caleb, kiss him, lay him back down, say night night time, turn on his music and leave the room. Yes he does cry, but it only lasts for a couple of minutes and he gives back into sleep.
However, this mama is screwed for the rest of the night. Why?? Because I am pregnant, and God forbid you wake me up in the middle of the night!! I can not go back to sleep if this happens. In fact, my hubby is under strong orders to stay clear! I mean God forbid he try to cuddle me in the middle of the night and wake me up. There have been battles over this. Poor guy. Oh well that is what he gets for knocking me up back to back!
So, here I am. I have been up since Caleb's playtime in the wee hours of the morning, I tried to go back to sleep, failed, decided I was hungry, and now I am indulging myself in blogger and yogurt. I keep re-loading blogger in the hopes that there will be a new post from some other mama who is up at the butt crack of dawn. So far Katie came to my rescue, and I am happy for that. I love me some pictures of some Ellie Kate all dressed to impress :). I am also trying to decide whether or not to go ahead and order Caleb's appliques for his Christmas wear. Etsy is tempting me because it says there is only one left of a few of the appliques I want. Maybe I will check the bank account and go ahead and do that. I mean there is absolutely no point in going back to sleep now because Caleb will be waking up for real in about 20 minutes, and I know I am going to be one drowsy mama if I try to go back to sleep.
So, just for laughs and giggles I am going to post this video of my little man who discovered one of his past loves the other day. The jumparoo. The baby I nanny for recently got one, and after a few "No's" to Caleb when he tried to climb in, I decided it was not worth the tantrum, checked the weight limit, saw he was good, and put him in. What do I say, I pick my battles. I have to say it was a success, but the fact that he is basically bouncing on his knees cracks me up. Ignore my annoying voice, I have to talk like that when all I do is converse with people under the age of 2 all day every day.
Ever since Caleb has started growing hair I have worried about the hair cut that would make him look like a BIG BOY. I mean I put off his first haircut for forever, because I was not ready to give up my sweet baby look. Thankfully, the first haircut did not really make him look that much older. However, the time came for another big man hair cut last week. Caleb's hair grows extremely fast and he was sporting a not so classy MULLET. I mean don't get me wrong my little man could rock it, but I figured for his sake we should go ahead and cut it.
I finally took him to the kiddie hair cutting salon that I had been dreaming about. You know the one where they sit in car chairs, with cartoons on the TV, and toys all around? Caleb loved it! He did not cry at all throughout the haircut, and he had the best time playing with toys afterwards.
However, this is the haircut that did me in. This is the haircut where they took just a little to much off the bangs area, and turned my Lil bitty baby into a big boy. I have to admit he looks cute, I prefer the bangs a little longer, but his hair will grow super fast. However, every day that I look at him now I am reminded about just how fast he is growing up. Sigh.
Brit and Abby both did some great posts about their ordinary lives. Today I feel as though that would be a good subject to write about because we are feeling very ordinary these days.
A Day In Our Lives:
I may be sitting at work watching the clock tick by wishing the day would hurry and end.
I just might have forgotten both wipes and extra diapers this morning on my rush out of the house. Caleb might have already pooped 3 times today, and gone through the 2 diapers that I had for him. I just squeezed his big o booty in a size 3 Pampers and I am praying it holds.
Our life may be filled with sleep training on the job these days. I have never had to deal with a baby who was used to only be rocked and held while sleeping, and that may just not work for us. I mean after all Mckinlee will be here sooner than later, and we have to learn some independence. Naps without being held generally result in crying and about 10 minutes of sleeping. Ughhh to say the least.
I may love that in my ordinary life my child is a great sleeper, and I firmly thank both Baby Wise and the crying it out method for that!
My day has been filled with trying to teach a little one to enjoy tummy time, and learn to roll over, all whilekeeping my toddler from laying on her.
My ordinary life is filled with the realization that Mckinlee is going to be here soon!!
A day in our life is trying to figure out what in the world to buy for Christmas, who all we are buying for and how we are going to budget for it.
My mind daily thinks about how we really should have been saving for Christmas all year.
In my ordinary life I am in sweats 90% of the time and my child runs around in pjs. I mean after all, why get dressed up when you are dealing with snot and poop all day?
I may just be super excited that today begins the weekend for me this week!! Hallelujah!!
I may not have any cute pictures because I am using the computer at work, and all of my pictures on on my computer at home.
So, I think I have made it well known on this blog that I am beyond a non-crafty person. I can not cut a straight line, or even draw one with a ruler. When I try to paint the paint always drips, I can not tie a pretty bow, and God forbid if you saw the mess I made of Caleb's baby book. However, this holiday season I have an itch in my tail to try to be (hold your breath) CRAFTY!!
I am determined to make Caleb some cute inexpensive Holiday wear. I mean I love looking through etsy and seeing all the adorable outfits for little boys for the holidays but I refuse to pay anywhere near what they are asking for something that he will wear once or twice. Call me cheap, I prefer frugal. However, I am in listing the help of my "sewing expert" family members over Thanksgiving break, and I am determined to learn how to make a few cute things on my own.
How do you ask?? Well I have discovered the wonderful world of the iron on/stitch appliques on etsy. That is right the adorable little Santa face that is attached to that 30 dollar pair of longalls can be bought separate. In fact most can be purchased for as little as 2.50. BARGAIN!!! I am planning on purchasing about 4-5 appliques, taking them with me on Thanksgiving break, and in listing the help of my family to stitch those babies on some plain shirts for Caleb. I am so excited. I hope that I can learn a few things about sewing, for once be a crafty success, and have some adorable non-expensive looks for my little man.
Here are just a few of the ones I have my eye on...
Cute right?? All of them can be custom ordered to your preference and I am so hoping they turn out the way I plan. The only question now is where to buy plain long sleeve shirts to put them on without breaking the bank. Any crafty mamas out there know a good place?
Grammy and Aunt Libby get ready. We have some sewing to do, and I promise it will be better than my Sophomore Geometry sewing disaster that Aunt Lib had to basically re do for me :). At least I hope it will be.
Also, just because I love a good deal you all have to check outShutterfly!! They are giving away 50 free holiday cards to bloggers!! All you have to do is post a lil something something about how great their website is. I have used shutterfly for holiday cards in the past and they were amazing! I also love love love their photo books. In fact I used them for both our guestbook at our wedding and at Caleb's first birthday party!! Go check out shutterfly.com and get your free 50 Holiday cards!!
I have always loved the time of year when you "fall back". I mean it is so much greater than "springing forward" and losing that extra hour of sleep. Sure the fact that it gets early at 6 pm is weird, but I love that extra hour of sleep in the morning. Well, that is until I realized that a babies time does not change.
Caleb generally wakes up around 8:30 on the weekends. However, this morning following right on schedule he woke up at the new 7:30 am. I tried to get him to come back to bed with me and sleep a lil longer, but he ended up just flopping around in our bed and keeping us awake. Since it was Sunday morning and we were planning to go to church we went ahead and got up after about an hour of being kicked by our little 15 month old. We went about our normal Sunday routine. Breakfast, getting ready for church, leaving for church etc. However, on the way to church we realized that a certain said mister was turning into Satan in the flesh. Suddenly it dawned on me...it is 10:30, or "11:30" before time change which equals NAP TIME. We knew that was probably going to be an issue but we kept our fingers crossed as we headed into church.
We headed straight to the nursery and went in to drop Caleb off. As soon as his feet hit the nursery floor he started screaming. This is very unlike him because he loves the nursery. I consoled him for a minute and then walked out. I went to the comfort room which has a window to the nursery in it in which the babies can not see you. While in there I witnessed him throwing the tantrum to beat all tantrums. I mean kicking, screaming, throwing himself on the floor. The poor nursery volunteer looked like she had a gun held to her head. I decided right then and there to relieve her and just take him with me into the service. Oddly enough he did great during the service. In fact we did not have to take him out once, but as soon as we hit the car he was OUT!
After lunch, while Caleb was sleeping I had an overwhelming nesting urge. I mean to the point that I had hubby up with me scrubbing our kitchen baseboards with a toothbrush. Poor man. I kept apologizing to him and explaining that my hormones were going crazy and that I did not know how to explain it. I mean I know there are worst things in life than a dirty house, but my pregnancy hormones beg to differ. I mean I can not keep this house clean enough, and the fact that I have a toddler running around does not help with my OCD.
Needless to say this time change has had a huge effect both on Caleb's schedule and my hormones.
Now pictures that have nothing to do with this post :)
Yesterday my little man turned 15 months!! 15 whole months!! That means only 3 months left where he is my only little baby!! Time is flying by, and he is changing so much.
Caleb at 15 months:
Sleeping: Still sleeping amazing. 2-3 naps a day. They usually last about 1 1/2-2 hours. You have been teething so we have had a few sleepless nights.
Eating: You still eat three meals a day and have snacks in between. You have started protesting a full dinner unless it is something you absolutely love. You hate eggs, and any meat that is not in a pasta. You will always shake your head if we try to give it to you. You always bring me my lunch box at work and say "uhhh" for food. You also sign "more" instead of eat if you are hungry.
Size: You are in a weird size. You still weigh 24 lbs, and we will find out how tall you are tomorrow. Your 12 month pants are to short but your 18 month are to long. Some 12 month shirts fit you, some are to small. Some 18 month fit and some are to big, and you can also wear some 24 month.
Exciting new things:
You try to run now.
You run and laugh
You always bring us a book to read
You have memorized certain pages in books. You point to your top side for head in one book, and you open your mouth and say "ahhh' for the inside.
You say "kiii" for (kitty, keys, and kick). You say this and "tee" (teeth) in a whisper. Not sure why.
You always pat and kiss the baby I nanny for, and put your finger to your mouth and say "shh" when she is sleeping. You are going to be a great big brother.
You kiss Bella and Sydney all the time, and then feed them and laugh hysterically.
Dada is the only word that comes out of your mouth most days. I will ask you to say mama and you will say "Dadadada".
You point to our pictures and say our names.
You kiss the "pretty baby" in the mirror.
You always come up behind me and rub my back and kiss me. I love this.
Binky is slowly getting dwindled to only "night night" time.
You won't let us help you brush your teeth. You want to do it all by yourself.
You have thrown less tantrums this month, and you do not get as mad when we tell you no.
You are obsessed with holding onto our legs and sticking your head in between them. I always tell you there is no "Re-entry".
You will slap my tatas and try to pinch my nips if I do not have a bra on infront of you.
You have a new love for Yo Gabba Gabba (ughh).
You love to play outside, and you always go to the door and try to open it.
You use a key on the door knob.
You know where your head, nose, and teeth are. You have almost learned ear.
Words you have said or say all the time: dada, mama, vroom, woof, kiii, tee, baba, yea, hi, yay, ny (tony)
You are still obsessed with dogs!
When we ask you if you want to take a bath you run to the bathroom while trying to take your clothes off. You also run to your bed when we ask if you want to go "night night".
You can climb in and out of your toddler bed all by yourself now but you are still sleeping in your crib.
You have learned how to open your closet door, and anytime we can't find something it is hidden in your little hoarding corner inside the closet.
You go to the kitchen counter and whine for food.
You love to feed me and dada. You laugh so hard.
You understand everything it seems like now. I will explain something to you and then you will do exactly what I said. It amazes me.
You sign "more" and "all done" when you feel like it.
The baby I nanny for has a block with various pictures on it. You can find the dog, the truck, and the sun on command.
You "read" to us. I love it. When you read your always say "gaa gaa gaa gaa" not sure why, but it is cute.
You never let us finish a book before you grab another one.
Okay, so I first must admit that I avoid infomercials if at all possible. They always have some way of making you truly think that there product with change your life in the greatest way. I have given into the idea that a certain make up will make me look like a hollywood starlett, that oxi clean really will clean everything, and I am not even going to begin discussing my "love" for the steam mop. However, today while working at my nanny job (yes I got a job and have been here for about 3 weeks now!), the kiddos were sleeping, and I got sucked into "Your Baby Can Read". I mean like really really sucked in. I mean to the point that I was calling my hubby, and messaging various mama friends about my new obsession. Thankfully I am not alone in this obsession.
Here were my first thoughts on this product....
Yea right this is a big bowl of s***
This is all made up
These babies have just memorized certain words
Again this is a bowl of s***
However, as I kept watching I began thinking..
OMG this is amazing
Yea, the ideas make sense
Oh I love the fact that they have different levels. You start at the 1st level and you do not move up until your child has mastered that.
The studies say that these children are more advanced in all levels of education
I want my baby to be advanced
I need to start teaching Caleb more anyway.
Maybe this is the way to go.
I could use it at work as well and teach both children at once
I want my 18 month old to be able to read
I wonder how much it cost?
You see how they roped me. So, I have to admit I am seriously considering this product for a Christmas present for Caleb (hint hint to any family members out there who are wondering what to get him). I have even used e-bay to check out prices. Now my question to you is have you tried it? Does it work, or I am just getting sucked into another promising add?
I mean could this little guy really go to Infinity and Beyond in the reading/language arts area before he is 2?
Isn't he just the cutest little Buzz Lightyear you ever did see? I mean I may be kind of obsessed with him, but if he walked up to my door I would have slipped him some extra candy. Just saying.
We had a great Halloween Weekend. Filled with wrestling midgets, killer clowns, and trick or treating. Don't worry a post about the two previous will follow at some point this week.
We also had a weekend filled with teething pains, and those unfortunately showed their ugly head during the trick or treating festivities :(. Poor boy.
We did make it to about 4 houses in our friends neighborhood. Caleb and Keegan did trick or treating in style. However, you can see the clear "enjoyment" on my childs face. He did have fun after eating, having some medicine, and moving inside our friends to play with Keegan. All in all it was a fun Halloween night.
