Savvy and Sweet

9 Months

2012-02-10T15:12:00.000-05:00

Baby C is actually 9 and a half months now, and I can't believe how fast that time has flown by!

He's still not crawling, and doesn't seem to be too interested in figuring that one out. He's getting better at standing while holding on to the couch or ottoman though. At his 9 month check-up he measured in at 30 inches long and 21 lbs, 4 oz. His height puts him in the 97th percentile according to the World Health Organization- we've got a future NBA superstar on our hands! I think that his height and weight are contributing to his lack of crawling or standing though- it's a lot harder to learn balance when you're that long!

He survived his first cold and is well-adjusted to the new daycare routine. I love how his face lights up when I pick him up from daycare- he's so happy to see his mama!

We're doing baby-led weaning, so we skipped the purées and spoon feeding and went right to letting him feed himself. He doesn't eat a whole lot of solids, but he's very interested in trying everything that mommy or daddy (or anyone else) has. He's not great at actually eating what is in his mouth before trying to add more, so we're working on that one. He loves any kind of cereal, bread, or rice crackers. He seems to like banana too, but they get so darn slippery that they're hard to handle!

He LOVES grabbing mommy and daddy's phones and the remotes. We got him his own toy remote, an he likes it, but definitely prefers the ones he's not supposed to have.

Another big hit lately is the mirror. We put a long mirror down on the floor and he happily checks himself out, screeches, giggles, and plays with toys in front of it.

He's got two bottom teeth and any more teething that is going on doesn't seem to bother him. Even through two new teeth and that pesky cold that he had a few weeks ago, he still slept like a perfect angel- something that Hubby G and I are most definitely counting our blessings for!

Book Suggestions!

2012-02-08T20:24:00.001-05:00

I just got done reading The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson. I was really into it and enjoyed it, but I didn't really like the end- I felt like it finished up so abruptly!

Anyway, I'm looking for suggestions for my next book to read- I'm open to just about anything!

Career Woman

2012-02-06T19:48:00.000-05:00

I'm really proud to be a full-time working mother. Especially a full-time working, full-time breast feeding, full-time cloth diapering, working mother. It is by no means easy. Being a mother alone, regardless of what other roles you fulfill on top of that is no cake walk in itself. It is also a bottomless source of joy which makes the rough days definitely worth it.

I think I could be a stay-at-home mom, but I don't think I would be as good of a mom. I've talked about this before and it's definitely a personal decision- just because I'm a working mom doesn't mean that my way is the best way. It does mean that it's the best way for me, Baby C, and our family.

It's no secret that there is some serious mommy warfare out there. I totally support a family doing whatever works best for them. What bugs me is when a mom decides not to return to work after baby and says something along the lines of, "I don't want to miss out on any part of my baby's life" or "I love my baby more than my career".

Ok. It's not that I think those moms are necessarily trying to sound like they're judging me, but statements like those definitely put me on the defensive. Because it says to me: "I'm going to take care of my child 24/7 because they're the most important thing to me. You're going back to work, so you're being selfish and must not care about your child as much." Extreme and irrational, I know. I know that kind of judgment isn't usually the case. Usually having that kind of effect on another mother is the last thing they're thinking when it comes out. But I can't help that that is the thought that goes through my mind and puts me on the defensive.

I also know that I have a different situation in that I truly LOVE my job. I could definitely see myself wanting to be a stay at home mom if I was in a career that was just about the money and that I didn't really enjoy.

Because let me tell you- daycare is expensive yo. It totally makes sense for a lot of families to have mom (or dad) stay home instead of paying for daycare. A lot of times your entire paycheck could be going to daycare, and if that's the case, what's the point? I mean, unless your job is really personally fulfilling for you, then it makes more sense to spend that time with your child and not send your paycheck straight to the daycare.

I love the work I do- I get to make a real, tangible, difference in people's lives every. single. day. That's really personally fulfilling for me. And I think it's really important as a mom to find a good balance between being a mom, wife, and whatever else while maintaining your own identity. I work because it's something I enjoy. Do I think that makes me selfish? Absolutely not. Because I know that that is the best fit for our family and I'm a better mom to Baby C because of it.

Daycare

2012-01-28T22:07:00.001-05:00

C started daycare 3 weeks ago when Hubby G started his new job. Before I go any further into the daycare situation, I must first say that our previous child care situation was heavenly. Wonderful. Couldn't have asked for anything better. Hubby G would watch C in the mornings and my sister in law would watch him in the afternoons at our house. It was amazingly convenient.

But with Hubby G starting the new job, his schedule changed and we felt that daycare would be our best choice. Also, C is no longer a tiny infant and we thought that it would be in his best interest to be around other babies and take advantage of the learning environment that daycare could provide.

The crazy thing was that our turnaround time to actually find a daycare, take a tour, and enroll was CRAZY short. Like a week. Less than a week actually.

God was watching out for us though and we were actually able to get into what we determined to be the best daycare center in our area and even though they typically have a waiting list that is several months long, they had one opening in the room that Baby C needed to be in! It was meant to be!

First day of daycare- couldn't sit still!

The first week of daycare was crazy. I wasn't really worried about my little dude because this center is really nice and clean and well-staffed and I'm really happy with all of that. Plus every room has web cams so that parents can login and see what their kids are up to at any time during the day. It was crazy because Hubby G was out of town for training for the ENTIRE WEEK. Adjusting to the new routine of daycare , working full time, plus getting all the household chores done all by myself was exhausting- it definitely made me appreciate all of the work that Hubby G does!

And luckily daycare initiation didn't hit for C until his second week when Hubby G was back and able to help me out. And by daycare initiation I mean that C got his very first cold. My opinion is that yeah, I hate to see my little guy sick, but kids are going to get sick no matter what at some point- daycare or no daycare. I read somewhere that kids who are in daycare get sick less later in life because they're exposed to more germs earlier, so I'm not beating myself up over C picking up a cold.

C had a runny/stuffy nose, drainage from his eyes, and a nasty cough. I picked him up early one day when his daycare caregiver was concerned that he might have pink eye and so I brought him into the doctor. Luckily the doctor checked him out and found that he did not have pink eye, his ears looked good, his nose looked good, and his lungs even sounded good despite a cough. It was just a cold, but even so, we decided to hold him out of daycare the next day to let him snuggle his mamma and rest.

Mama, I'm sick! :( -Taken before we headed to the doctor to get him checked out.

C's still got a runny nose and the cough is on it's way out, but we can tell that he's feeling WAY better and more back to his usual self playing with toys and babbling like crazy. We've survived his first cold!

Changes

2012-01-23T17:30:00.000-05:00

Whew!

I promise I have not fallen off the face of the earth and I have really REALLY been itching to blog for the past week but my goodness readers, it has been a crazy house over here!

1. Hubby G started a new job. Yay! This is a good-for-our-family change but also required him to be out of town for the entire first week. Boo.

2. With Hubby G starting the new job, Baby C started daycare. C got his daycare initiation right away and is just now getting over a week-long cold.

Those changes, plus the cold (which I think he was very generous with and passed along to me as well), plus life and work in general have left ZERO time for anything else. I've barely even had time to look at my reader- the horror!!

Hopefully now things will settle down a bit and I'll get back on track!

Notes on Faith 2.0

2012-01-12T17:30:00.000-05:00

For a little more background, please check outNotes on Faith 1.0

Getting to tag a long with Hubby G while he went through the RCIA program was a great experience for both of us. In addition to the opportunity to explore the Catholic faith together, we met a lot of other young couples in our parish. It helped us to really feel like we were a part of the parish community.

One interesting detail that was looming in our minds as Hubby G went through the RCIA program- the day of his confirmation (the Easter vigil) was also my due date. So I was actually praying that our little guy would be at least a day later than expected so that we would actually be able to celebrate Hubby G's confirmation. And you know, actually be present for it!

God heard my prayers and despite the church being 1,000 degrees on the evening of the vigil, I did not go into labor and Baby C waited until the day after Easter to make his debut.

After we took a little time to get into the groove of being new parents, we had C's baptism at the end of August. In combination with the baptism, Hubby G and I also got our marriage convalidated! Basically that means we made it even more official Catholic-wise since we didn't have a Catholic wedding. It worked out perfectly because the godparents that we chose for C had also been our maid of honor and best man in our wedding, so it was a nice little way to tie everything together.

Hubby G and I are really enjoying getting more involved in our parish. Hubby G has joined the Knights of Columbus (he's a 3rd Degree Knight!), we helped to deliver a Christmas dinner and gifts to a family in need over the holidays, and I recently attended a brainstorming session for a Young Adult Ministry group. To give you an idea of the fun things that are hopefully in store for this Young Adult group: they're planning a coffee social/discussion group and calling it "He Brews" har har har. I love it!

It's interesting because our church is really active especially in a lot of youth ministry because of the area we live. The Christian Reformed Church is HUGE in our area (no joke, there are at least 4 large reformed churches within 5 miles of our house) and because they have a lot of really engaging and active youth ministry programs, our Catholic church does the same in order to provide the same level of programming. I don't necessarily want to say that our church has to do this to stay competitive, but to a degree that is completely true. To me, it's just a great motivator to have phenomenal programming at our church, and that's definitely something I'm on board with!

Savvy & Sweet Sponsor Swap!

2012-01-07T06:07:00.000-05:00

I'm stealing this idea from Kelley over at Brixton Makes Three (love her and her blog- go check it out!) and I'm doing a Sponsor Swap!

What does that mean? It means you send me a button for your blog and I'll post it here on Savvy & Sweet- I just ask that you return the favor and post my Savvy & Sweet button on your blog.

Totally easy, totally FREE.

Woohoo! If you need help making a button for your blog, try following these directions. I tried a dozen times and then Kelley sent me that link and it worked like a charm!

Notes on Faith 1.0

2012-01-06T17:30:00.000-05:00

One of my goals for 2012 is to get more involved at church. I realized that I haven't really ever talked much about my faith here on the ole blog, so here we are! I'm going to split this up into a few "installments" just so it doesn't run on too long.

Hubby G and I are Catholic. I was born and raised Catholic, but Hubby G just went through the Rite of Christian Initiation in Adults (RCIA) last year to become an "official" Catholic. I couldn't be more proud of him!Although I was born and raised Catholic, I stopped attending church regularly while I was in college. After college, when Hubby G and I got married (with a non-Catholic wedding) we both agreed that we wanted to join a church, but we were divided on which church. Hubby G was raised Methodist, but he didn't necessarily feel strong ties to the Methodist faith. He was, however, quite skeptical of the Catholic faith. He held some common misconceptions about Catholicism, but after attending mass with my family in my hometown, he was also completely unimpressed with it all.

It's hard for me to describe, but even though I hadn't been attending church regularly through college, I still felt strongly tied to the Catholic church. As much as I really wanted to think that I could be open to exploring different church options, I knew in my heart that I belonged in the Catholic church. I really wanted to be open to finding something we could both agree upon and feel comfortable with, but I just couldn't.

Hubby G could.

I'm still in awe and amazed at his ability to open his heart and his mind like that. We found the nearest Catholic church to our house and went to mass together one Sunday. It just so happens to be an AMAZING parish. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's infinitely more engaging than any other Catholic church I have attended. After attending mass for a couple of weeks, Hubby G made the huge decision to covert to Catholicism and go through the RCIA program. Not only is this a big decision because of the commitment to the faith, but the RCIA program is a big commitment of time as well. Hubby G met with his class for about 2 hours every.single.Sunday. from September until April, plus several other commitments outside of those 2 hour blocks on Sundays.Each Sunday, the RCIA candidates and catechumens would be dismissed from mass after the homily and begin their class meeting. Mass would end and I would join Hubby G in the class and it would end about an hour later. I didn't HAVE to join Hubby G for the later part of class, but I really wanted to be there for him and show my support while he went through this important process. As it turns out, I learned A LOT myself! I'm really glad that I got to be a part of it because it helped me understand my own faith better and to cultivate a deeper faith in addition to supporting my husband and allowing us to grow our faith as a couple.

Stay tuned for the continuation of this topic!

2012 Goals

2012-01-05T17:30:00.000-05:00

It's time again for me to announce my ten goals for the year. Although I haven't had a stellar success record in years past, I really do like writing these goals out and posting them here- it makes them feel a little more 'real'. So without further ado, here are my ten goals for 2012:

1. Run in a race

2. Read at least 5 books

3. Write at least 100 blog posts (average about 2 per week)

4. Cook or bake at least 10 new things- and keep track!

5. Learn a few basic signs and teach Baby C to sign

6. Create a birth -1 year scrapbook for Baby C

7. Create our wedding album

8. Take more photographs

9. Organize a business plan

10. Plan a one night getaway with Hubby G

Numbers 1,2,3,4, and 7 are repeats, or similar to last year. They're goals I either didn't accomplish or want to repeat again for 2012. And I actually have an amendment to my Review of 2011 Goals post- I waiting until the absolute last minute, but I did actually run in a race in 2011! On New Year's Eve my mom and I ran in a benefit 5k. It was awesome, but I'm definitely keeping that goal on my 2012 list since I'm already working hard at training for the Fifth Third Riverbank Run 25k.

What's #9 all about? Well....I'm not ready to reveal that quite yet. But it's in the works and it's something that I'm really excited about! I'm hoping to let you all in on my project in the next month or so :)

So there are my goals for 2012! Did you set any New Year's resolutions or goals? Care to share?

Review of 2011 Goals

2011-12-29T06:30:00.000-05:00

2011 is wrapping up with just a few days left, so it's a good time to review and see how I did on then ten goals I set for myself back in January!

1. Be better at showing my appreciation for Hubby G

This was kind of an abstract goal, but I think I can say that I completed it. There is definitely still room for improvement though!

2. Walk Colby at least 3 times per week on our 1.5 mile route

Up until the birth of Baby C, I was doing AWESOME on this goal. Even after a few weeks of recovery after C was born, we started back up and I was doing really well again. The thing that killed it? Cold weather. Even once I went back to work I was pretty good at coming home and packing up C and Colby and heading out for our walk all together, but once the weather got too cold to bring C out with us, it pretty much put the kibosh on that one. I tried taking Colby with me for some of my morning workouts, but anything that involved running (which most of them do) he was not down with.

3. Keep writing in this blog

Posting was light in the months after C's birth as I was adjusting to life as a new mommy, but I kept at it and posting has been a bit more consistent in the last few months- woo hoo!

4. Run in a race

Big fat FAIL on this one. Times two since this is the second year in a row that I've set that as one of my goals and not made it happen. I'm super determined to make this happen in 2012 though!!

5. Be the best mom I can be to our son

Again, this one is abstract, but I feel confident in saying I achieved it. C was exclusively breast fed all the way past six months despite a very rocky start and we've been able to keep going on strong even with my return to work. We've also been 100% committed to cloth diapering AND I think I've done a darn good job and finding balance between work and home life (definitely a tough thing to do!) But aside from all of that, C is a super happy, healthy little dude whom we love to spoil rotten!

6. Cook or bake at least 10 things that I've never made before

I'm pretty sure I completed this one, but I've been really terrible at keeping track. I can think of 5 things off the top of my head just from the last few months, so that's a good sign that I actually made this one happen!

7. Read at least 5 books

I read:
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
Water For Elephants
The Help

I may have read one or two more that I forgot about, but I can't confidently say I completed this one. I wasn't too impressed with Water For Elephants despite the rave reviews, but I did really enjoy the other three. I've been on the library wait list FOREVER to read The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (third book in the trilogy) but now I don't have to wait- Hubby G got it for me for Christmas! I can't wait to get started.

8. Put together our wedding photo album

Wha wha.....another big fat FAIL. Times two. Again. I really need to make this happen.

9. Be smart when purchasing things for our son- he doesn't need every single thing that all the mommy bloggers write about or everything on Amazon's Top 100 Baby Items list.

Sort of completed? I would have said that we did a pretty decent job with this one, but then the whole Sophie the Giraffe meltdown happened and spoiling C silly with Christmas presents, so I'm not quite so confident on this one. I can't say that I'm all that disappointed though....buying things for C is so much fun!

10. Lose the baby weight after our son is born

COMPLETE!! Whoooohooooooo!

Although, I must say that it's a cruel reality that just because the scale registers the same weight, that doesn't mean that I look or feel the same. My body did not miraculously snap right back into place, but hopefully with the help of the 25k training, I'll get there slowly. Either way, I'm happy to be fitting back into my pre-pregnancy clothes. And I will take a second to brag because if you can't brag on your own blog, where can you brag? Some of my pre-pregnancy clothes include pants from high school. BOOYAH!

So all in all, not a bad wrap on 2011. Not perfect by any means, but not bad. My list of ten goals for 2012 is already compiled, so stay tuned for that coming soon!

C's First Christmas

2011-12-27T18:00:00.000-05:00

Christmas 2011- C's first Christmas- is officially in the books.

We had a quiet day with just our little family, but it was wonderful.For Christmas Eve Baby C and I hung out all day while Hubby G was at work. Once Hubby G got home, we got C packed up and ready to go to mass at 4pm. Our church has mass at 4pm, 6pm, midnight, and then another mass on Christmas morning. Last year we went to midnight mass and it was beautiful. We would have loved to go to midnight mass again, but it just wasn't logistically practical with C. By the time we got C fed and packed up, we arrived at the church right on time for the 4pm mass, which really meant that we were late for such a popular mass! We ended up having to stand for the whole mass, but we still enjoyed it. Plus, we learned something new! Every year for the 4pm (and presumably 6pm as well) mass, our priest picks a children's book that tells the story of Christmas and instead of a traditional homily, he invites the children to come forward and sit in the front of the church while he reads the story. What a fun thing! We all know the story of Christmas and there are plenty of children's stories that tell the story, so what a fun twist to add! This year's book was "The Crippled Lamb" by Max Lucado.

source

I was hoping to pick it up for Baby C and start a collection with a new book each year, and wouldn't you know, it just so happened to be a part of a set of Max Lucado stories that my mother in law gifted to C- perfect!

Once we got home from mass, guess what I did?

I RAN 2.5 MILES.

On Christmas Eve.

Because my 25k training schedule said so.

I still kind of can't believe I talked myself into it! But I'm glad I stuck with it and got it done :)

We just hung out as a family for the rest of the night and Colby got himself into big trouble by eating almost an entire summer sausage and a half a block of cheese. He must have a lead stomach because somehow it didn't make him sick. Before C went to bed for the night, Hubby G read him "Twas The Night Before Christmas" and we hope to keep that up as a tradition every year. On Christmas morning, C woke up around 6:30 and I fed him and he went back to sleep (as usual). I went back to bed and Hubby G and I slept in until about 9. We woke up and made coffee and monkey bread (another tradition we hope to keep up each year) and Baby C woke up at about 9:30. We got right down to the business of opening presents! We helped C open his presents and took turns exchanging gifts to/from each other as well. By the time all of that fun was done, it was time for C to eat and all of the excitement had actually worn him out already!We spent the rest of the day enjoying our gifts and just relaxing as a family. We celebrated with Hubby G's family on the 26th and we'll celebrate with my family later this week. All in all it was a great holiday and it was wonderful to create some new family traditions!I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

River Bank Run Update - 2 Weeks In

2011-12-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

I've officially been training for the Fifth Third River Bank Run 25k for two weeks now and I'm proud to say that I haven't skipped a day of training.

And I've also recruited a handful of other crazies (including my mom!) to run too!

By some crazy twist of fate there has been practically zero snow here in West Michigan and although that makes my little Yooper heart sad, it's been really helpful for running. I'm doing all of my training outside because I'm too cheap to get a gym membership and we don't have a treadmill (yet- we're thinking about buying one). I really don't mind running outside- I prefer it- but I have a feeling my tune might change once there is some snow on the ground and not all of the sidewalks in my neighborhood are clear in the early morning hours when I'm hitting the pavement. When it's early morning in the winter it's DARK outside and I'd much prefer to stick to the sidewalks and stay safe from cars who probably have a hard time seeing me.

So here are my stats so far:

Total Training Miles Done: 18.5
Total Time Spent Training: 3 hours, 16 minutes
Weeks Until Race Day: 20
Longest Run: 2.5 miles
Approximate Total Calories Burned: 2,077
Number of Times I've Nearly Had A Heart Attack Due To Dogs Running After Me: 2

I get all these handy dandy stats from my Garmin Forerunner 305. I LOVE it.

Hubby G gifted it to me 2 summers ago when I was marathon training (which got put on hold when we found out we were expecting) and I hate to run without it. It comes with a heart rate monitor which is key for it to more accurately calculate how many calories you burn. Although my nerdy little heart loves all the stats that it can spit out, the thing I like best about it is really the most basic- it's a GPS. This means that I don't have to plot out my running routes ahead of time if I don't want to. I can just hit the road and my Forerunner will keep track of my distance so that I know when I reach half the total distance I want to run, I can just turn around and run back.

It hasn't been easy to drag myself out of bed each morning, but I'm really motivated and this is something that I really want to complete. Any other crazies care to join still? There's plenty of time to get started with the training!

A Typical Day- December 2011

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

I thought about doing one of those "Day In The Life" kinds of posts, but taking pictures all day and remembering specific times for everything just felt way too tedious for me. So instead of have a true "Day In The Life" post I decided to put together something a little less specific to give you a snapshot into my typical day. For this, I'm thinking of a typical work day.

~6:00 am
My alarm goes off and I hit the snooze at least once. I'm sleepy and my bed is so cozy! By 6:15 ish I get out of bed and go to the nursery (if C hasn't already woken me earlier). If C isn't stirring yet, I wake him up- I know, CRAZY lady waking her baby up in the morning. C is a fantastic sleeper though and this is part of our routine. I get him up and nurse him and slowly wake myself up a bit more. After C's belly is full and his diaper is changed, he's usually awake, but he goes back down into his crib without any fuss and I turn on his mobile and music, turn out the light, give him a kiss, and tell him to go back to sleep. Usually within 10 minutes or less he does just that.

~6:45 am
I change into my running clothes that I laid out in the bathroom the night before and I brush my teeth. I head downstairs and lace up my sneakers and head outside to get my run in (since I'm training for a 25k!) This small window of time between feeding C and getting ready for work is the ONLY time I can get my training run in on a week day, so there are no if's, ands, or but's about it!

~7:20 am
At this point in my 25k training the runs aren't too lengthy, so sometimes I'm back home even sooner than this. I get home and Colby is always waiting for me by the front door. I let him outside to do his business in the back yard while I get ready for work. I also fill up a glass of water to sip on while I get ready. I pick out all of my work clothes the night before, so those are waiting for me in the bathroom. I get ready, get dressed, make my lunch, and somewhere in between there I let Colby back in and give him his breakfast. I also pack up all of my breast pump pieces and pack bottles and an ice pack into the little mini cooler that goes into my pump bag. Every morning once I'm all ready for the day I eat a bowl of cereal and have a glass of orange juice. I get cranky if I skip breakfast.

~8:15 am
Before heading out the door to go to work, I always walk upstairs and tip toe into C's room and give him a kiss and whisper "I love you buddy, have a great day!" Then I go to our room and give Hubby G a good bye kiss and tell him to have a great day too. Usually Colby has found his way back up into our bed at this point, so he gets a good bye kiss too. I pour myself a cup of coffee into my travel mug and I grab all my bags and head out the door.

~8:30 am
I arrive at work and do work stuff that I love. Seriously. I love it!

~9:30 am, Noon, and 3:00 pm
I take a break to pump. I pump for 10 minutes each time and I'm able to leave my pump all set up in the nice, quiet, private room so that I don't have to set everything up each time. After the 3:00 session I pack everything up and bring it back to my desk.

~5:00 pm
Time to leave work and head home!

~5:30 pm
I arrive home to a giggly Baby C who's been hanging out with my sister-in-law who watches him at our house in the afternoons. My sister-in-law gives me any updates about how C's afternoon went and I thank her for taking care of C.

~6:00 pm
I put that day's pumped milk into the fridge and I put the ice pack from my pump bag back into the freezer. I get changed out of my work clothes and into my sweats and nurse C in his room in our rocking recliner. C usually falls asleep during this feeding, so we just hang out and snuggle for awhile.

~6:45 pm
I wake C up so that he doesn't get too much sleep so close to bed time. We head downstairs and either play with his toys or FaceTime with my mom for awhile. C plays on his activity mat or in his exersaucer while I make something quick for dinner. Whatever I make for dinner, I make about 3 servings of- one for me to eat for dinner, one for Hubby G when he gets home, and one to take for lunch the next day. After dinner it's more play time with C!

~8:00 pm
We don't do bath time every night, but if we do we start at 8. If it's not a bath night, we still head up to the nursery around 8 and I get C a dry diaper, and get him into his jammies. We read a couple of books and by then he's usually getting fussy and just ready to eat and go to sleep. I nurse him and he usually falls asleep in my arms and then I lay him down in his crib and turn his monitor on.

~8:45 pm
C is asleep and now it's my chance to get a few things done around the house! I clean up my dinner dishes, straighten things up, and then either do laundry or any other chores that need to get done. I usually also take a little break to watch a TV show (Glee and New Girl are the only shows I really follow though, so Tuesday nights are the only time I watch!), do a little blog writing, or catch up on my favorite blogs in my Google Reader. I also put my running clothes for the next day in the bathroom and I pick out my work clothes for the next day and put those in the bathroom too. Last nightly chore to prep for the next day- get the coffee ready and set the timer. CRITICAL for a successful morning :)

~10:30 pm
I do the thing that kills a small piece of my soul every day....I clean my pump parts. I hate washing those things. But while I'm at it, I take care of any other dishes that aren't dishwasher safe, so the upside is that every.single.night there are ZERO dirty dishes in our sink.

~11:00 pm
I hang out with Hubby G and we catch up on each other's days before heading to bed.

~11:30 pm
Bed time. We usually put a movie in (we don't have cable in our bedroom) but we always fall asleep to the movie, so we end up watching movies in increments.

Whew, that's it! Busy, but wonderful days!

Why I Cringe At The Term "Mommy Blogger"

2011-12-21T18:53:00.000-05:00

First off, I should say that I have absolutely nothing against Mommy Bloggers. I LOVE them! They fill up a good portion of my reader. A lot of people would probably classify me as a mommy blogger. This post is nothing against the writers of those blogs or the content of them- I'm totally a supporter!

I just don't personally like to be called a mommy blogger. I feel like the term says "I'm a mom and I blog." End of story. And like I said before, I wholeheartedly believe that there is nothing wrong with that and I love to read blogs that are just about being a mommy- I just don't feel like it applies to me. Yes I'm a mom and yes I blog. But I'm also a wife, a runner, a homeowner, a sister, a daughter, a dog owner, and I work a full-time non-profit job that I absolutely love. And I started Savvy & Sweet before I was even pregnant and it was more about figuring life out as a real, legit, adult with a husband, a dog, and a house.

Don't get me wrong, I love writing about Baby C and I love being his mommy more than anything, but there are a whole lot of other things that I really enjoy in life too, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Before Baby C was born, my mom told me that she felt like she was a better mom when she was working full time because she could come home from work and the house wasn't a mess and she could just hang out with my sister and I and enjoy being a mom. And going to work was really fulfilling- my mom loves her job. I feel the same way!

I enjoy every single moment that I'm playing or snuggling with Baby C, but if I'm being honest, it doesn't break my heart to leave the house each week day morning to go to work because I truly enjoy my time at work as well. It seems like there are fewer and fewer people in this world who can honestly say that they love their jobs, and I'm so grateful that I'm one of the lucky ones who finds so much joy in their work. Looking at it from that perspective, to me it seems silly to give that up. I understand that for many mothers, being a mom IS the "work" that they find most enjoyable- and that's great!! For them, it makes the most sense that they would feel most fulfilled in being full-time mommies. But even stay at home moms have personal interests and hobbies that they enjoy spending time on. For me, my job feels akin to a hobby or interest that I would choose to spend my free time on- I just have the amazing fortune to be paid for it!

Jenny over at Geek In Heels recently wrote a post about her "apparent lack of separation anxiety" wherein she wonders if there was something "wrong" with her because she enjoys having some time to herself to do whatever she would like. Reading through the comments it's a resounding response that no- nothing is wrong with that! It's just that we don't often hear that side of the story from moms, and to me it seems, especially moms who blog.

So there you have it- my confession that I love my baby, my family, AND my job :)

A Sophie The Giraffe Induced Panic Attack

2011-12-12T16:00:00.001-05:00

**Up front I need to apologize for the ridiculous amount of ALL CAPS used in this post. It's out of control, but this story kind of lends itself to a fair amount of ALL CAPS action. Consider yourself forewarned!**

If you're not the parent of a young child you may not know about Sophie The Giraffe. She's been in the top 10 of Amazon's top 100 baby toys for at least the last three years. What is this amazing toy you ask? What cool things can she do?

She is a rubber giraffe.
She is approximately 7 inches tall.
She squeaks.

The end.

Now if you're a little confused and think that you must be missing some detail because something that seems to be nothing more than a squeaky dog toy cannot possibly be so popular, YOU ARE WRONG.

Baby C (and presumably many other babies around the U.S. as well) loves Sophie. She easy to grip and C loves chewing on her legs.

She also retails for $25 (!!!!!)

Ridiculous, I know. But it's Sophie! Now, Baby C isn't particularly attached to any of his toys, Sophie included, but he does really seem to like her. Apparently I'm the one with the attachment to Sophie.

This past weekend Sister W, Baby C, and I went to the mall for some holiday shopping. We had only gone to a few stores and while we were in the very crowded hallway of busy shoppers Sister W looks into the stroller at C and says, "Where is his giraffe?"

I wish you could have seen my reaction. SHEER PANIC. Ridiculous, hands covering my face, blood pressure rising, over-the-top panic. Sister W thought I was totally insane (which I was at the time).

Via Pinterest from source

In my panic-driven FIND SOPHIE! mode, I immediately decided that Sister W and I needed to split up to retrace our steps because TIME WAS OF THE ESSENCE PEOPLE! It's like a missing child- your chances are better at finding them the closer you are to the time of the kidnapping. See this crazy thinking I had going on?? I'm comparing the loss of a RUBBER GIRAFFE to a MISSING CHILD.

Oh, I should also mention that Baby C was not concerned in the least bit about Sophie being missing. Not. one. little. bit. Nope, this crazy reaction was all mine. And to give you an even better idea of how completely over the top my reaction was, we had only been to 3 stores. Yup. It's not like we had traversed the entire mall and our search was going to be akin to finding a needle in a haystack...we literally had only walked into 3 stores.

So Sister W headed in to store A that we had just left and I headed back to store B. And by "headed back" I mean that I was power walking at max speed and weaving through the crowded mall of holiday shoppers with Baby C in the stroller. I get to store B and waste no time in finding an employee to tell them of my plight. "I was in here about 15-20 minutes ago and we lost a rubber giraffe toy. Has anyone found it?" The person was very nice and gets on their radio (this was a large, two-level store) and over the radio asks all other workers if anyone has found a rubber giraffe. I could hear how ridiculous this sounded and I didn't care one single bit. No luck. I retraced my steps and went up to the second floor and asked ANOTHER employee if anyone had found a rubber giraffe and he got on the radio AGAIN for me. Still no luck. At this point I run into the first employee who had helped me and she must have seen the panic in my expression because regardless of how ridiculous this whole thing seemed, she was totally in my corner. She even offered to take my name and number in case it turned up later.

Seriously?? I eagerly left my name and number with the store as a last shred of hope that Sophie might turn up. As I type this, I still can't believe how insane I was acting. And that someone actually offered to talk my name and number over a lost rubber giraffe.

Now, I have to pause for a moment in this story to tell you that during this whole fiasco Hubby G was at work and upon the discovery of Sophie's disappearance, I texted him to keep him updated on the clearly dire situation I had on my hands.

Me: We are on a hunt for Sophie :( C threw him out of the stroller somewhere...I'm ready to cry :(
Hubby G: Oh no, back track... he needs Sophie!
Me: I'm frantically searching :(
Hubby G: How far back do you have to look? Ask store clerks that you were by to see if someone handed it in. You can ask security too.

Clearly from this exchange you can see that Hubby G was at least somewhat in the same mind frame as me- as I kept trying to tell Sister W, "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! IT'S NOT JUST A TOY- IT'S SOPHIE!"

Sister W met back up with me and to my dismay she was empty handed. I had just remembered that there was one more store that we had briefly walked in to, and although my hopes weren't high for finding Sophie, you bet I was going to look every place I could possibly think of.

We walk into Store C and I explain to the employee that I'm looking for a rubber giraffe toy that may have been dropped in the store about 20 minutes ago and she says, "Oh yeah..." and walks back to the register.

A tidal wave of relief washed over me. From behind the counter she pulls out our beloved Sophie. The girl probably thought I was absolutely insane with the amount of enthusiastic thanks that I gave her. "Thank you SO much! You have NO IDEA how relieved I am!" The girl was like, "Sure..." and was totally wierded out. Justifiably so.

I cannot believe that I had a complete Mommy Meltdown over a rubber giraffe. Ask anyone that knows me, I am one of the most even-keeled people you will ever meet and I panicked over the temporary loss of Sophie The Giraffe. No joke, when I was regaling this story to a few of my co-workers today I even got worked up just in the retelling of the tale- what is wrong with me?!?

No worries though, I have come up with a solution to cure my ridiculousness. Sophie is getting a stroller leash. Totally normal.

Workin' On My Fitness

2011-12-08T22:38:00.001-05:00

Alright guys. In 2010 AND 2011 I set a goal to run in a race. And I didn't meet that goal either year. In my defense, I was doing really awesome training for my first marathon throughout the spring and summer of 2010, but pregnancy threw a wrench in those plans.

But I think I'm ready to get back on track and run in a race in 2012 FOR REAL.

source

I've got my sights set on the Fifth Third River Bank Run 25k (that's 15.5 miles). Go big or go home! There's also a 10k and and 5k if any readers are interested in those distances.

I wouldn't have considered running such a distance until I looked at the training plan on their website. I think it's pretty darn manageable. Here's what will be my biggest hurddle: finding the time.

As of right now, the ONLY time that I can get a run in on week days is in the morning after I feed Baby C but before I go to work- that's a pretty small window of time, but I THINK I might be able to pull it off. It's going to take a lot of self-discipline to drag my butt out of bed every morning though. If we purchase a treadmill it would open up some more possibilities and then I also wouldn't have to run outside through the winter, but I did some research on new treadmills and some searching around on Craigslist and HOLY MACKEREL TREADMILLS ARE EXPENSIVE! Good grief!

But according to Google Analytics a fair number of you stopping by my little blog here are from the Grand Rapids area, so if any of you happen to want to get rid of a treadmill or know someone who does, hook me up! I would appreciate it more than you can possibly imagine!

Also for your Grand Rapidians (or anyone else wanting to travel to GR for the race), if any of you want to join in training for the 25k, let me know! We can be virtual running buddies :)

I've added a tab at the top of my page dedicated to River Bank training - I'm not 100% sure what will be on that tab, but I'll keep you updated!

'Tis The Season

2011-12-04T22:46:00.001-05:00

Last weekend while my parents were still here visiting, we went out and got our Christmas tree! When we lived in our apartment we weren't allowed to have a real tree, so ever since we've moved into our house I've insisted on a real tree- that's what we always had when I was growing up.

Baby C and my dad

Like I've mentioned previously, I love the location of our house because we're just a short drive from downtown Grand Rapids, but if we drive in a different direction there is a tree farm and a pumpkin patch (as well as several other farms) less than 10 miles away. We got our tree this year from the same place we went last year- Luurtsema Tree Farm. Last year we just picked a pre-cut one, but this year I really wanted to cut one ourselves! And, speaking from last year's experience, we needed to get a much more prickly tree. I don't know what kind of tree we got last year, but I thought it was great initially because it wasn't prickly and it smelled good. It also turned out to be very interesting to Colby, who repeatedly tore branches off of it and dragged them around the house. So this year, we opted for a blue spruce- very prickly.

Me and Baby C- I made that orange hat!

Hubby G assessing the tree and how to cut it down. Baby C and I observed. Also note that I am wearing a cute outfit, but sadly you can't really see much of it.

Before we chopped the tree down, we got a family photo. I'm glad we got the photo, but I'm totally bummed about it because this picture is not doing me ANY favors and makes me look several pounds heavier. And as I mentioned yesterday, I actually fit into every.single.pair of my pre-pregnancy pants, so the fact that this photo doesn't do me any justice just irks me! Basically the only reason I'm sharing it here with all of you is because Hubby G and Baby C are cuties.

Hubby G hauling the tree into the Envoy on his own. None of us wanted to get poked by that prickly tree, so we left it up to him....very convenient for all of us.

Once the tree was bagged and paid for, Hubby G and my dad headed home in the Envoy and my mom and I took advantage of the face-in-hole cutouts with Baby C before we headed home as well.

Our tree has since been lit with red, green, and white lights and decorated as well. Happy Holidays!!

Winning!

2011-12-03T10:53:00.001-05:00

There was one last pair of pants in my closet that I hadn't even attempted to put on since Caeden was born. These jeans were purchased 20 years old (possibly even 19) while I was in college and were uncomfortably snug pre-pregnancy. I decided to try them today just because they were the only pants in my closet I hadn't tried yet.

They fit!!!!

Not only do they fit, they actually fit better than they did pre-pregnancy!

I feel like a million bucks :)

Fantastic Customer Service- Car Repair

2011-12-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

Even though we've had the misfortune of having to deal with some really terrible customer service related to a recent car repair, we've also recently had a really good experience with a different car repair/maintenance place.

We started going to the Muffler Man in Jenison to get oil changes on our vehicles because they've got the best price. Despite frequent long wait times, we continue to go there because they have excellent customer service. Muffler Man isn't one of those quick-lube type of places, so that explains the long wait times. They do all kinds of repairs and it's all by walk-in so sometimes things get pretty backed up. But if you stop by when they first open in the morning or if you can just drop your vehicle off, it all works out pretty well.

Quite awhile back Hubby G brought one of our vehicles in for an oil change and it was during that time that a much more serious issue was also found that they were able to address. Since Hubby G had gone in thinking that he was only getting an oil change, he had brought Colby along and just planned to take him for a nice walk while it was being done. With the oil change + repair taking much longer than anticipated, the person helping Hubby G at the desk very kindly let him bring Colby into their small waiting area. It was completely unexpected and so nice of them to cater to Hubby G and Colby in that way.

Last time I was there to get an oil change was a week or so before Thanksgiving and it was just before we would be celebrating Thanksgiving with my in-laws. Steve, the person helping me (and perhaps the owner? or maybe he's the manager? I'm not 100% sure on that) was very friendly and personable and when I told him we were going to celebrate Thanksgiving with my in-laws he wished me a happy holiday. It wasn't anything extraordinary, but in my past experience auto-repair guys aren't very personable or friendly like that, and his tone and intentions seemed so genuine- it was just nice and refreshing to get that.

Then, over the Thanksgiving weekend my parents and sister were at our house to visit and my dad wanted to take my sister's car somewhere to get the tires aligned. We recommended Muffler Man, and again, they did not disappoint. My dad came back to our house and with a bit of disbelief he told us that they were very honest and actually found that the car didn't need an alignment at all- it just needed more air in the tires. They could have easily not told him that and just charged him for the alignment, but they didn't. They showed admirable integrity and were open and honest- how refreshing!

So, to anyone in the Grand Rapids area or anyone who happens to be traveling in the Grand Rapids area and needs car repairs, I highly recommend Muffler Man in Jenison!

(Note- there are several other Muffler Man places around, but I've been most impressed with the service at the one in Jenison in particular!)

Terrible Customer Service- Car Repair

2011-11-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

Almost 3 weeks ago my low tire pressure light came on in my 2009 Dodge Journey (my official "mom-mobile" that I LOVE). As soon as I got home, Hubby G put air in the tires and while screwing the cap back on one of them, we realized that the valve stem was broken. The cap was on and the tire was holding air just fine, but we needed to get the valve stem replaced because at this point the cap wouldn't screw on tightly but it also wouldn't come off- which would be a problem if I ever needed to put more air in it.

When we purchased the Journey we also bought a bumper-to-bumper warranty that covered everything outside of normal maintenance like oil changes. So I went to the dealership where we purchased our vehicle to have the repair done so that the warranty would cover it.

WRONG. Apparently they consider valve stems to be normal wear and tear- what?? In addition to that ridiculousness, the valve stems are connected to the tire pressure sensors, so those needed to be replaced too (also not covered by the warranty) an they are not cheap.

AND once I got there it was discovered that not one, but TWO of the valve stems were broken.

So according to them, it was going to cost me $280 to get these two little valve stems replaced. Well, that seemed pretty ridiculous since we paid a pretty penny for that warranty that was supposed to cover things like this, so after some long drawn out talks with the guy who sold us our car- let's call him H- he said that he agreed that the valve stems should probably be covered even though they technically aren't and that even though we would have to pay for the repair up front, he thought that he could talk to his manager and get us reimbursed. Meanwhile, the guy in the service department was very nice and although he couldn't do anything about the whole warranty issue, he talked to his manager in the service area and I actually only ended up paying $85 that day- much better than $280, but the fact remained that it really should have been covered.

So sales guy H says that he's going to email his manager (who happens to be out of town) and cc Hubby G on the email to get this whole warranty and reimbursement thing sorted out.

The whole weekend goes by and no email. So on Monday I call and let H know that we never got an email and I get some excuse about how the email bounces back or something. H says he's going to try it again.

Still no email.

Hubby G takes over from here and calls H again to let him know he hasn't gotten an email. He finally gets one and the information in the email isn't really accurate, but at least it seems like we're getting somewhere.

Fast forward to now- 3 WEEKS LATER.

Hubby G has talked to H literally 7 or so times within the past 3 weeks and EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. H says something along the lines of "Oh, I emailed my manager and I'm waiting to hear back" or "My manager just got in and he's in a meeting, but I'm waiting for him right now" followed up with "I'll call you back in (blank) hours and we'll get this resolved" and every single time H has failed to call back when he said he would. EVERY TIME! I mean, what's the point in saying you're going to call back if you have absolutely no intention of doing so OVER AND OVER AGAIN? And I totally understand if he is legitimately trying to solve this issue and is waiting on other people to get answers, but that absolutely does not excuse not calling back within the time he said he would in order to at least give us an update and keep us in the loop.

Hubby G has been much more patient with H than he deserves, but it's reached a breaking point and today Hubby G called again and asked the receptionist to connect him directly to H's manager.

Guess what? H's manager had no idea this who situation was even going on. Apparently H never told him anything about it.

Grrrrrrrr......we still don't have a resolution, but hopefully now that we're in touch with the manager things will get done in a more timely manner.

On the flip side, I actually do have another car repair story to share on the opposite end of the spectrum- fantastic customer service! I'll save it for tomorrow's post since this one's gotten pretty long already :)

Breastfeeding in Public

2011-11-29T08:00:00.000-05:00

There was a recent news story about a woman in an area not too far from us who was asked to leave a courtroom because she was breastfeeding and it was deemed "inappropriate".

What is inappropriate about providing nourishment for your child? While some breastfeeding mothers cover up more or less than others while nursing in public, it shouldn't really matter- I think this pie chart describes the situation well:

via I Love Charts

I personally am more comfortable being covered completely and use a fantastic nursing apron that my grandma made me (thank you again SO much Gma V! I don't know what I would do without that! Also, how cool is it that my grandma reads my blog?!) Especially since Baby C and I had a rough start with breastfeeding, at first I felt like I would never be able to leave the house or do anything that would require being out of the house for more than a couple of hours because I would need to feed Baby C. I tried nursing in the car and that went pretty well and also felt like it gave us so much flexibility! We didn't have a set time frame wherein we needed to make a mad dash to try to complete all errands at once! We could just take a break and feed Baby C in the back seat of the car in whatever parking lot we happened to be at.

Once I got a little more comfortable with that, I also discovered that a few places that I frequent actually have designated nursing or pumping rooms- how wonderful! The Buy Buy Baby store in Grand Rapids has one, the Rivertown Crossings Mall in Grandville has two of them (one on the first floor and one on the second floor), and my alma mater of Grand Valley State University which I visit very frequently for work-related business has several Nursing Nests in different buildings around campus (if you click through to the link for GVSU the page makes it sound like the Nursing Nests are just restrooms- they're not! They're separate, private rooms within the restroom with a nice chair, table, and sink).

When Baby C was about 5 months old I felt much more comfortable and confident with breastfeeding, which made it easier to try branching out a little more. Since that time, I've breastfed at a Buffalo Wild Wings, a minor league baseball game (right in the stands), a high school football game (again, in the stands), a college football game (apparently we go to a lot of sporting events?), Costco, a Texas Roadhouse, and probably a couple other places I'm forgetting. I would venture to guess that almost 99% of the time people around me, even in crowded stands at sporting events, didn't even realize what I was doing. Even though my nursing apron has a fairly bold pattern on it, it makes everything quite discreet.

I hope that in the future more and more places will offer those nice nursing areas, but for the time being, a good nursing apron and some confidence go a long way! I would highly suggest purchasing or making a nursing apron for any breastfeeding mamas that aren't really comfortable and/or confident with nursing on the go. As I mentioned, my Gma V made my nursing apron, but it's very similar in design to this one from Bebe Au Lait.

And as I'm sure you've deduced, breastfeeding is going much better for Baby C and I! He just turned 7 months old and we're going strong and haven't had to supplement with any formula-woohoo!

Just Call Me Mrs. Fix-It

2011-11-28T21:58:00.001-05:00

So.

I haven't always been 100% successful when it comes to home improvement projects, but after my 6-month pregnant self successfully replaced the thermocouple on our water heater last year (even though that didn't end up actually fixing the problem), I got a bit more confidence.

Then I installed a DIY diaper sprayer (using this tutorial) for our cloth diapers onto our toilet and although there were a few hiccups in that project due to high water pressure and a sprayer that kept freezing up, I persisted and that sprayer has been going strong for 6 months now.

The weekend before Thanksgiving I took on my most ambitious project yet: replacing the faucets in both of our bathrooms AND our kitchen faucet.

So all of the sink faucets in our house.

Whoa.

There was nothing wrong with any of them, but ever since we moved in Hubby G has always at least wanted to replace the bathroom faucets with something a little nicer. Since we were already going to be replacing both bathroom faucets, I figured we may as well throw the kitchen one in too since I really wanted a faucet with a high arch to give us a little more room when using the sink.

So I'll start off by saying what anyone who has ever replaced a faucet will probably tell you: the hardest part about it is removing the old one. I started off with the upstairs bathroom sink and that one took me around 1.5 - 2 hours since I didn't really know what I was doing and just learning as I went. Once I got that one down I moved to the downstairs bathroom and even remembered to take a couple of pictures for you guys!

Here's the faucet before:

Old boring faucet

New faucet and tools all laid out and ready to go!

I won't go through all the steps for you guys, I'll just direct you to the steps I followed from Lowe's. They worked like a charm, even if removing the old faucet was a little tricky at times.

Old faucet removed! Ready to start fresh with the new one.

Once the old faucet was removed, installing the new one (especially since this was my second time around) was a breeze. Seriously, I was done in about a half hour. And the best part- it was a success!

Ta-da! Sleek, new faucet!

A nice little upgrade to our bathrooms!

The kitchen sink proved to be more time consuming that the bathrooms due to some rusty bolts and switching from a one-handle faucet to a two-handle faucet, but with some help from Hubby G we got it done and we LOVE the new faucet- so much more room when I have to wash my pump pieces every night!

I am by no means a home-improvement maven now, but I am pretty proud of myself for my handiwork! PLUS we saved ourselves the $300ish we would have paid to have someone replace all three for us- definite win!

Giving Thanks: 2011 Edition

2011-11-26T08:31:00.001-05:00

I could never possibly write down all of the things that I am thankful for, but these two are definitely at the top of the list:

I can't believe Baby C is already 7 MONTHS OLD. How did that happen? I'm pretty sure some sort of crazy time warp thing is going on, because my sweet baby boy can't possibly be 7 months old already.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year- first time that we've ever hosted Thanksgiving dinner with more than just Hubby G and I! I'm pleased to announce that it went very well and we did not burn the house down. Hubby G actually did most of the cooking and he did a fantastic job.

Also, our turkey and Baby C were about the same size. And that's saying something since Baby C is somewhere around 20 lbs.

We are going to be eating turkey until Christmas.

I'm so thankful to have my family here for Thanksgiving and that all of our family members including extended family that we don't get to see at the holidays are all in pretty good health. I'm also thankful for wonderful friends who are so fun and such great support. And I absolutely cannot forget Colby. That crazy dog brings so much joy to our lives and he is such a good big doggy brother to Baby C. Colby snuggles up next to him and lets him pull his fur and kick his nose and doesn't even seem to mind. Photo evidence of the snuggling (I swear this was not staged at all. Baby C was hanging out and Colby came downstairs and snuggled right up with him and Hubby G was able to snap a few pics before Colby had enough):

Last but certainly not least, I'm thankful for all of YOU blog readers! 2011 has brought more new readers here to Savvy & Sweet than ever before and your sweet comments make my day every. single. time. Seriously. Thank you so much for taking time to read my ramblings- I love to write, and even though I may not be very consistent in my posting, it's something that brings me a lot of happiness and that is amplified times a million when one of you comments and lets me know for sure that this writing isn't just going out into the black hole of the internet.

And it is now officially the Christmas season!! I think we're going to go get our tree today- I insist on a real tree and there is a tree farm just 5 miles down the road (which I just realized that I mentioned in my Giving Thanks: 2010 Edition post last year). Last year we picked a pre-cut one, but maybe we'll cut our own this year...we'll see!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

A Very Inconvenient Injury

2011-11-14T21:54:00.001-05:00

Last week I was doing something (I wish I could remember what now) and I got a sort of callus on the tip of my pointer finger on my right hand. Since I'm ridiculous and couldn't leave it alone, I picked at it a bit and made it worse. Then, this past weekend I hung up our Christmas lights outside (don't worry, we're not turning them on yet, I just wanted to get them up before it got too cold) and it involved a bit more roughing up of the finger tips. I just couldn't leave it alone and now the skin on the tip of my pointer finger is all red and raw and it hurts to do anything with it. Which is very inconvenient when it comes to touch-screen devices.Or typing.Ughhhhhhh......Also, about those Christmas lights: So, I'm a genius and only very briefly tested the first string before I got all motivated and it wasn't until 3 strings later that my sister asked, "did you check all of these?" that I realized that no, I hadn't. So I went to plug them in and of course, several sections were not working.After successfully replacing a bulb and getting one section working, I moved on to another section. I found the issue fairly quickly- a wire was actually broken. And then I proceeded to electrocute myself. Nothing like a good little shock to remind you that you should probably not be doing Christmas-light-surgery while they're still plugged in.Even electocution could not deter me though, and I got that last section working like a charm.Last but not least- I made it through my big work event last weekend (with much success I might add!) and I just have one more event tomorrow evening and I'll be able to breathe easy through the holidays! Woohoo!!

Confessions of a Not-So-Girly-Girl

2011-11-13T22:55:00.001-05:00

I enjoy fashion and style, and I like to look nice.

But I am not a girly girl.

The facts:

-The most recent time I bought make up was the day before my wedding (over 2 years ago).
-The number of days a year that I actually wear make up: maybe 30. Probably less.
-The number of days I've blow-dried my hair after showering in the last year: maybe 10. Again, probably less.
-I don't own a curling iron.
-The last time I got a hair cut (even just a trim) was a year ago. That one is pretty ridiculous even for me.
-I've only gotten a manicure twice in my life (once just before my wedding and once a week before Baby C was born), and I've only gotten a pedicure once.
-It's not at all uncommon for me to take a shower at night and then go to bed with wet hair that I haven't even run a comb through.

The crazy thing is that I have a fairly extensive clothing collection and I love jewelry. Hair and make up just aren't my thing! I think the other part of it is that I'm really drawn to more natural looks, so I'm more comfortable without makeup and with easy, air-dried hair.

I do really need a hair cut though.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Busy, Busy, Busy

2011-11-06T22:58:00.002-05:00

The first half of November is absolutely chaotic with my work schedule. I've got my sights set on the week of Thanksgiving when I'll finally be able to catch my breath! This weekend I had the first of my major November events and it came together quite successfully, so I can check that one off my list. Next weekend I've got my biggest event of the month followed up quickly with my last work-related event the following Tuesday. Whew!

Thanksgiving this year will be a little different- we're hosting my family! My parents haven't seen Baby C since his baptism at the end of August, so they simply cannot wait to be here and kiss those adorably chubby cheeks that they've been seeing on Skype for the last few months. We've never hosted my family for any holiday gathering before, so I'm really looking forward to it! I'm not really known as much of a cook, so we'll see how that part of it goes, but I've got a couple of fun holiday decor ideas in mind, so if nothing else, at least the dining room will look good!

And speaking of holidays, I apologize for not sharing a photo of Baby C's Halloween costume until now! He was pretty crabby throughout the evening, but I think that was due to being worn out from all the rolling around he was doing earlier in the day. Here's our little garden gnome:

As completely adorable as I think store-bought little-kid costumes are, when I was growing up my parents never let us buy Halloween costumes, we always made our own- so I stuck with the same idea with Baby C. It definitely wasn't anything fancy, but let's be honest- he's only 6 months old and has no idea what Halloween even is, so our simple route worked out just fine! We bought him the khaki pants and blue sweatshirt at Target (both of which he can wear as regular clothes, so more bang for our buck!) and then I just took a red party hat and attached cotton balls that I had pulled apart a bit to the elastic. Ta-da! Super simple and cute Halloween costume, done and done. Here's our family photo to give you a better look at the ensemble all together:

We stayed home and handed out candy to around 90 trick-or-treaters who came to our door. It was a good, laid-back night, despite our fussy little gnome!

I'll try to update again soon even though this work schedule is super crazy!

Random Updates Since I've Fallen Off The Wagon

2011-10-25T22:16:00.000-04:00

I've sort of fallen off the wagon with the October Photo Challenge, but I'm going to try to get my act back together. I'm sick again, work is getting really busy again, and I just haven't taken the time to take and/or organize my photos.
I've also fallen off the wagon with my exercise routine. The sickness has not helped. Or perhaps it has because I'm offically only 5 lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight- woohoo!! In all seriousness, I don't think it has anything to do with being sick (it's just a cold), and has everything to do with the fact that Baby C is still exclusively breastfeeding. Exclusively breastfeeding = 500-1000 calories burned EVERY DAY. That's equivalent to me running like 4 miles EVERY DAY. Makes sense when you look at it that way I guess. I still need to get in shape though. A woman I know just ran a half marathon 7 months after having her son and she's my inspiration- that is incredible!
Speaking of losing weight, I can fit back into just about all of my clothes now- YAHOOOOO! There's just one pair of jeans that I'm afraid to try on because they were quite tight pre-pregnancy.
I'm going to try to do a weekly post here highlighting my favorite Pinterest pins of the week. If you're not following me yet, please do! I'll follow you back and we can share our pinning addictions :)
I discovered how to use Skype on my iPhone 4s tonight. It was pretty darn cool.
My dad also just got an iPhone 4s. He has never had a smartphone before. I am his official guide to the 21st century. His favorite function is the talk to text (which I'm also a fan of) and he has exclaimed multiple times, "This is AWESOME!"
Today is Baby C's half birthday. Whoa. Where has the time gone?! We are going to try baby-led weaning as we start to introduce solids. He is such a goofball and he laughs SO much now, I love it!
The other night after we put Baby C to bed, Hubby G and I played Skip-Bo and then began to put together a puzzle. We are some wild and crazy 25-year-olds. In all seriousness, it was legitimately a good time and it was good to get away from all the technology that we're always connected to and just enjoy each other's company.

That's all for now blog readers...I know I've said it before, but thanks for sticking with me when I blog sporadically. I'm not sure how many of you are out there, but I really appreciate each and every single one of you. If you've got a blog, please comment and let me know- I'd love to be one of your readers as well!

Technology These Days...

2011-10-18T22:34:00.001-04:00

Hubby G and I got the new iPhone 4s last Friday when they first came out. We were both eligible to renew our contract and we were both ready to upgrade from our iPhone 3GS.

So far I love it. I haven't had a huge opportunity to explore all of the new features yet, but one that I've used frequently already is the talk to text function.

And by frequently I mean I'm "writing" this whole post by just speaking into my phone. It works astonishingly well. It's really handy when you need to text someone back and your hands are full with say, an infant.

I hope to give a more detailed review soon, but for now I just wanted to try this handy function out again and give you an example of one of the really great features (in my opinion).

Anyone else upgrade to the 4s recently?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Photo Challenge Days 11-13

2011-10-13T22:50:00.001-04:00

Day 11: Something Blue

I love these blue shoes. I can't even remember when I bought them, but they weren't expensive and they just feel so classy without being too dressy. They're a very subtle blue- more like a denim blue.

Day 12: Sunset

I really wanted to take a photo on the actual day for every day of this challenge, but I had a work function during sunset on Day 12, so I pulled this photo that I took two summers ago out. It's the view from my parent's house over the lake that they live on and it's absolutely gorgeous. I love it there.

Day 13: Yourself With 13 Things

These are 13 vintage pins that my grandma gave me. I love pins- they don't seem to be a very common accessory currently, and I think that's why I like them- they're unexpected. These pins are all beautiful and very different and I love to wear a pin in place of a necklace or fancier earrings when I go to work!

Here's a closer look at the pins:

Photo Challenge Day 10: Childhood Memory

2011-10-10T22:45:00.002-04:00

Day 10: Childhood memory

I carried this teddy bear around everywhere when I was little and it has definitely stuck with me. There's no denying that he's a little worn out, but you can tell he's been well-loved and that he'll be sticking around with Baby C for awhile. For now, this bear resides on the corner of Baby C's changing table and Baby C has started to grab for him during diaper changes- so cute!

Bad Week

2011-10-10T22:34:00.000-04:00

Last week was rough.

I had a really busy work schedule with lots of meetings.

I was sick, complete with a fever two nights. Strangely, the two nights were non-consecutive, which gave me some relief in between, but really just felt like it got more drawn out.

Baby C wasn’t his normal self- he was up every couple of hours on Wednesday night. Even though it was only one night, that paired with a sick mama was not good at all.

Because of the sickness and fever and what I suspect to be some plugged ducts, my pumping supply plummeted on Friday and I barely got enough to cover Baby C for today while I was away at work.

Usually when I’m pumping at work during the week I get enough for 3 bottles plus at least 2.5 ounces extra to put in the freezer every day. I know, I’ve been super lucky. But having that be my norm and then barely being able to fill 3 bottles on Friday, well, it was definitely worrisome. I took time this past weekend to relax and nursed Baby C directly and drank some Mother’s Milk tea to try to help get things back on track.

Today it seemed like things were going fairly well- not quite back to where I was, but definitely on the right track. I’ve been stressing-but-trying-not-to-stress about this since the end of last week because I really want to make it to at least a year of breastfeeding Baby C. Stress tends to make low supply issues worse, so I’ve been trying to remain positive and not dwell on this little hiccup. The first and second pumping sessions of the day went well and I was feeling good about things and then disaster struck during the third pumping session.

I lost an ENTIRE 5 OUNCE BOTTLE of expressed milk.

I was feeling really good and I could tell that I was going to end up with three full 5 ounce bottles plus a little extra and I had switched one full bottle out for a new empty one mid-way through the session. I wasn’t at my usual pumping location, I was out of the office pumping in a very nice and private nursing room. I’ve pumped in this location before, but the thing I don’t like about it is that I have to hold my pump in my lap. There’s a table, but the furniture is arranged in such a way that I can’t plug my pump into the outlet and also have it on the table. I secured the cap on the full bottle and rested it on the side of the chair so that I could finish up my pumping session. I knew I needed to be careful not to knock the bottle over, but it was the best place I thought to put it with the pump in my lap and the table out of reach.

With a few minutes left to pump, the bottle fell off the chair onto the tile floor and broke.

Needless to say, I was really upset. I was thankful to have that nice, private room while I got my tears out and cleaned up the mess. It’s really nothing to get upset about- accidents happen and I have plenty of milk in the freezer so that Baby C will be completely fine for tomorrow- it’s just the principle of it. It just felt like it set me back.

Ugh. I hate bad days. Tomorrow WILL be better.

Photo Challenge: Days 5 - 9

2011-10-09T20:08:00.000-04:00

Day 5: From A High Angle

Washing bottles and pump pieces every. single. week night.

Day 6: From A Low Angle

Hanging out with Colby

Day 7: Fruit

It was the last day before we went grocery shopping, so sadly the only fruit in our house was orange juice.

Day 8: A Bad Habit

I'm always throwing my clothes on the floor in our closet. This is actually a pretty mild pile compared to what I usually have!

Day 9: Someone You Love

Baby C hanging out, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather we've had this weekend by not wearing pants. What a cutie.

Photo Challenge Day 4: Something Green

2011-10-04T22:39:00.002-04:00

Day 4: Something green

A couple of Baby C's cloth diapers hanging out on the line to dry and bleach in the sun. Can't say enough how much I LOVE cloth diapers!

Photo Challenge Day 3: Clouds

2011-10-03T21:19:00.001-04:00

Day 3: Clouds

It figures that on the day that I need to take a picture of clouds, it's a perfect, sunny, cloudless day! No complaints here! I had to settle for the very slight haze at sunset. Seriously- ZERO clouds today.

There's no way in heck that I will complain about such a gorgeous fall day, but I must say that several of the cloud photos in our 30 Day Challenge Flickr pool are absolutely beautiful!

Photo Challenge Day 2: What I Wore

2011-10-02T22:27:00.003-04:00

Day 2: What You Wore Today

Me:
Brown and black checked scarf (gift from Sister W a few years back)
Pink long sleeve shirt (Old Navy)
Jeans (American Eagle)
Super comfy warm socks (Yak Trax)

Baby C:
Denim overalls
Tan long sleeve onesie
Brown hoodie with dinosaur print
No sock because they are impossible to keep on for more than ten minutes.

I wish I could have gotten a picture earlier today when we were at church- on Sundays I literally wear Baby C (in a ring sling) for at least half of the mass because it makes it so much easier when we go up for communion. Today was no different, but Hubby G wasn't able to come to mass with us due to his work schedule, so we didn't get a photo.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to post my photos daily as the work week starts up, but I hope to at least post every couple of days!

Lose The Baby Weight: October 2

2011-10-02T09:13:00.000-04:00

Last Week's Goal:
Run 1.5 miles 2 times

Results:
I did it! I ran on Tuesday and Saturday. I'm not gonna lie, on Tuesday I kinda felt like I was going to die. And my legs were sore on Wednesday and Thursday. BUT, it was sort of nice to really feel like I worked out and accomplished something. Saturday's run wasn't easy by any means, but it felt a little less hard than it did on Tuesday. On both days I took Baby C with me in the jogger.

My renewed zest to get back into shape is coming with perfect timing with a wellness program we're starting at work this week! It's called Active For Life and it's a 10-week program that encourages employees to be more active on a regular basis. Our office participates as a team and we can see how we stack up against the other offices in our division, so there's some fun competition to it as well. Even if your workplace doesn't have multiple offices, you can still participate just as one team all together- if your workplace doesn't have something like this already, it's definitely something worth mentioning to your HR department because the very best part about it is that it's completely FREE! The program is offered by the American Cancer Society and it's a free service because it allows them to help people become healthier and more active, therefore reducing their cancer risk.

So, onward!

This Week's Goal:
Repeat last week: Run 1.5 miles 2 times
Add: At least 30 quality minutes of strength training using the Wii Fit.

It's not much, but I really want to make sure I'm making my goals attainable. Feeling good and ready to take on the new week!

Being A Full-Time Working Mommy

2011-10-01T23:04:00.000-04:00

I've been back to work full-time for a little more than 2 months now and I feel like I'm in a good routine. Being a full-time working mommy is not easy, but I really love my job and that makes it a whole lot easier. The other thing that makes it a million times easier is the fact that we don't have to put Baby C in daycare. That's definitely the number one thing that made my transition back to work so smooth. Baby C hangs out with Hubby G in the morning while I'm at work, then my SIL (sister-in-law) comes to our house and watches him for the afternoon, and I'm back home in the evening. It's a really nice set-up and we're really fortunate to have it work out so well.

Since we've got a really great set-up for child care, the thing that I was most worried about when it came to returning to work was pumping. I've gotten into a good routine with that too though, and it's not as much of a pain as I thought it might be. I pump three times a day while I'm at work and I keep alarms set on my phone so that I don't forget when I get caught up working on a project. I pump for 10 minutes at a time and it's actually kind of a nice little break during the day.

source

(I rock a Medela Pump In Style)

The absolute worst part of pumping is cleaning my pump parts every night. Every night when I have to clean those parts I feel like it's killing a part of my soul. I only have one set of pump parts so I absolutely have to wash them every.single.weeknight. I like to have a clean kitchen every night, but cleaning those pump parts every night is definitely not my cup of tea. There's always a silver lining though, and washing those pump parts every night definitely makes me appreciate being able to directly breastfeed in the mornings, evenings, and weekends.

If someone would have told me 5 years ago that today I would be married, own a home, own a crazy dog, work full-time, and have a baby who is exclusively breastfed and cloth diapered- I would have told them they were completely insane. And it is totally insane sometimes- but we make it work for our little family and we love it!

Photo Challenge Day 1: Self Portrait

2011-10-01T21:59:00.000-04:00

It's October 1st, and that means it's Day 1 of the October 2011 30 Day Photo Challenge!

Day 1: Self Portrait

I used the super-handy "smile-shutter" feature on our point-and-shoot Sony CyberShot to snap this photo. I just set the camera up on our book shelf, turned the smile shutter on, and stood in front of the blue wall in our living room. The way smile-shutter works is that the camera just keeps taking photos every time it detects a smile, so you don't have to keep re-setting a self-timer. It's how I got this fun series of photos (toward the bottom of the post) back a couple years ago when we first bought this camera.

Time for full disclosure: I edited my photo a little bit using Picnik. We don't own any fancy photo-editing software, and right now I don't think I'd use anything too fancy because of my lack of time. I like Picnik though and it works well enough for my purposes. Total honesty: right before I took this picture I went out for my second 1.5 mile run of the week (I completed this week's goal!) and on my lower half I'm still wearing my jogging pants. And I pulled my hair into that low ponytail in about 15 seconds with the hopes that my hair wouldn't look like a complete mess. And I seriously considered taking a much more true-to-life self portrait earlier in the day when I was wearing my camouflage print sweatpants and old gray sweatshirt complete with a hole in the front. But...I'm really glad I put at least a little effort into it, because I think it turned out pretty well!

If you want to check out what each day of the photo challenge entails and who all is participating, check out this page on Our Wired Lives!

Losing The Baby Weight

2011-09-26T22:24:00.001-04:00

One of my goals for 2011 is to lose my pregnancy weight. While pregnant, I gained about 50 lbs, bringing me up to 195 lbs. Now, 5 months post-partum, I'm not quite back to my 145 lb. pre-pregnancy weight, but I'm proud to say that I'm only about 11 lbs. away from that goal.

I've got 3 months to lose that 11 lbs. to meet my goal. Even though I've lost 39 lbs. already, I think these last 11 are going to be a lot harder to lose. A lot of weight came off right away after Baby C was born and when all of my swelling finally subsided. After that, exclusively breastfeeding has definitely helped the weight come off! I read in a few different places that exclusively breastfeeding burns anywhere from 500-1000 calories PER DAY. That's crazy!! Even so, I think it's going to take more than just continuing to breastfeed to get rid of those last few pounds.

So here I am, publicly posting my goal for the week with the hope that it will help me actually stick with it. At the end of this week I'll adjust and set a new goal and continue that pattern until I lose the weight!

This week's goal:
Run 1.5 miles twice this week.

I know that I can't go crazy and jump into a rigorous exercise routine, so I'm going to start slow with small, achievable, goals to get back into the groove.

I'll keep you updated!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Catching My Breath

2011-09-26T22:00:00.001-04:00

Last week was crazy. I had an activity at work on Tuesday evening and didn't get home until 8:00 pm- just in time to feed Baby C and put him to bed. On Wednesday I worked from home in the morning so that I could hang out with Baby C and Hubby G when they both woke up for the day and then got back to work again in the afternoon before heading out to two nighttime meetings that kept me out until 10:30 pm. I stayed home with Baby C and Hubby G Thursday morning and just soaked up as much time as I could with them because around noon I had to head into work and then take off to Fort Wayne, Indiana for a conference. When I finally returned home on Saturday evening around 6:00 pm, I was completely wiped out, but was SO excited to know that I would have all day Sunday to just hang out with my family!

I absolutely love my job, but I'd be lying if I said the schedule didn't get crazy sometimes. It's all about balance and I really started trying to focus on having a better balance last year when I found out I was pregnant. I wanted to try to get in a better habit of having balance so that when Baby C arrived, I'd be able to spend the time with him that I wanted to! This week's work schedule is much less busy and I'm looking forward to playing with my little man! He's such a ham lately- he makes noise almost constantly and laughs at so much. He turned 5 months old yesterday and he's already in 6-9 month clothes. I can't believe how fast he's growing!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

30 Day Photo Challenge

2011-09-22T23:33:00.000-04:00

I'm no photographer, but I do like taking pictures when I think of it. Especially now that I have such a cute subject in Baby C!

Jenna over at That Wife does some beautiful photography (and has a super cute little boy!) and she's participating in a 30 Day Photo Challenge and asked if anyone else wanted to join, so I figured I'd try it out and hope that it would help me get on the blogging band wagon!

Source: whitepeachphoto.com via Merissa on Pinterest via Our Wired Lives

The challenge begins on October 1st. If you'd like to join in, head on over to Our Wired Lives and let them know!

Attack of the Mantis

2011-09-21T00:11:00.001-04:00

So today I got to work, parked my car, and walked around the building to the door. Our building is secure 24/7, so you need a special key fob to get in. So I've got my key fob out and I turn the corner to hold it up to the security thing and then I NEARLY HAVE A HEART ATTACK.

On the ledge right above the security thing is a praying mantis, and it is the most GINORMOUS bug I have ever seen in my life. My heart was racing. I have never been so grateful to have long arms, because I held my key fob out as far as I possibly could while keeping my body as far away as I could, and then shimmied through the door.

It was traumatic. My heart I beating faster right now just remembering the terror that I experienced.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I'm A Pinning Fool

2011-09-20T09:00:00.000-04:00

You've heard of Pinterest haven't you?

I think I first heard about Pinterest 3 or 4 months ago, but it wasn't until about a month or so ago that I actually decided to figure out what it actually was.

And now I'm addicted. As if I needed something else on the internet to become addicted to. When I become addicted to something I definitely like to share the love (hence this post). And I've already got my mom, sister, and sister-in-law all addicted as well.

I'll admit, it takes a minute to really 'get' how it works, so I'll do a quick explanation, but I'm telling you, you really need to go check it out yourself. And if it's still doing that thing where you need an invite to get an account, just let me know and I'll hook you up!

So Pinterest is basically a place where you can organize images that inspire you onto virtual 'pinboards'. When you see something you like, you 'pin' it onto one of your boards. It's kind of like a very visual version of bookmarks on your computer. You can have as many boards as you want to organize your pins- For example, I currently have 22 boards that include: things for Baby C, things that I think are Hilariously Awesome, Smart Ideas, a board I called Eat This for recipes I want to try someday, and a Dream House board

When you add the "Pin It" bookmarklet to your web browser you can pin things from just about anywhere on the internet, but that's not the addictive part for me. "Repinning" is what got me addicted. On the Pinterest home page there just a constant stream of everyone's pins. Like, EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON'S. PIN. from the whole world of Pinterest users. So it's a literally never-ending stream of visual inspiration for all over the internet. And you can just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling FOREVER.

IT SUCKS YOU IN. Like, comparable to how Facebook sucks you in. Yeah. I mean it. It's THAT addictive. For me anyway.

So "Repinning" is just pinning a pin that someone else already pinned (yeah, I kind of want to punch me in the face for that sentence, but I can't think of a better way to put it. Just stick with me here.) And you can search the stream of pins for something specific. So if you're looking for inspiration for a tree house, you can just type that in the search bar and all of the pins of tree houses come up in a beautiful stream.

It's pretty amazing. If you're already on Pinterest, let me know and I'll follow your boards! If you're not on yet- do it now! And then let me know and I'll follow your boards too :) Happy pinning!

Totally Random

2011-09-18T19:28:00.001-04:00

I've been a terribly inconsistent blogger lately, but I honestly really do miss it, so I'm back in action tonight with a completely random post. Hopefully I'll pull it together a little bit better with some more cohesive posts soon, but for now, embrace the random!

-Colby almost ate a stick of butter today.
He stole it off the counter but I think he was a bit disappointed in the results of his thievery, so he didn't do much damage before I caught him. Seriously, a stick of butter?? I mean, I understood when he swiped a entire half of a angel food cake off the counter and wolfed it down, (thank goodness it was plain cake) but a stick of butter? Dogs are weird. Colby especially. But we love him.

-Baby C is getting so much more interactive! He laughs like crazy when we play peek-a-boo and he loves grabbing his burp cloths and putting them in his mouth. Since my parents live so far away (9 hours) and haven't seen him in quite awhile, we get on Skype a lot and Baby C is so cute- he starts smiling every time he sees their faces on the screen! I'm so glad we got a new computer and HUGE monitor shortly before he was born!

-I'm kind of excited to watch the Emmy's tonight. Pretty much only because Jane Lynch is hosting. I love her.

-Is there an easy way to create links to other posts or other website from the Blogpress App? I always think of things I want to link to within my posts that I write from Blogpress and then I never finish the post because I tell myself that I'm going to go back and add the link on the computer (since that's the only way I know how to do it) and then I never do. Fail. Can anyone help me out with this?

Alright, that's it for now. I'm going to try to be a better blogger and write a few posts at a time whenever I get a chance and then schedule them out. And seriously, if you can help me out with the Blogpress thing I'll be eternally grateful!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Digital Scrapbooking Giveaway Winner!

2011-09-17T21:48:00.001-04:00

And the winner is.....

Reader "Kells" who said:

I would love the Spooky Halloween pack and make a book of my nephews halloween costumes over the years...cutest pictures ever :)

Congratulations! You should be contacted soon with directions to download your free MyMemories Suite software.

Still interested in trying out the MyMemories software? Good news! Use coupon code "STMMMS76639" for $10 off the purchase of the MyMemories Suite software and another $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store!

Thanks to those who participated!

My Memories Suite- Digital Scrapbooking GIVEAWAY!

2011-09-10T12:26:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago Liz from My Memories Suite contacted me about trying out their digital scrapbooking software. It was perfect timing because I had just been thinking about starting to assemble some sort of scrapbook for Baby C, and our family in general! I was definitely sold on creating some sort of photo book online, but then I was trying to decide if I wanted to have a digital scrapbook that could just be viewed on the computer and easily shared that way, or if I wanted an actual hard copy. The awesome thing about the My Memories software is that I can do both- which I will probably end up taking advantage of!

To try out the software, I started making an album with a few maternity pictures and then some photos of when Baby C was first born. I think what I'd really like to do is make a "Family Yearbook" every year, so I'm pretty sure I'll end up adding more photos of Hubby G and I from earlier in the year before Baby C was born. But for now, I stuck with some of the maternity and newborn photos.

There are a ton of pre-made photo layouts to choose from, but you can also make your own if you want something specific. Another nice option that I found was to have the software auto-populate different layouts for a whole album worth of pages- I just have to drop the photos in. The screenshot above is the My Memories software on the left and my picture files on the right. You don't have to have both screens open like this, but I like being able to navigate through my photos this way the best. Another thing I really like about the software is that you can just drag and drop photos in- so easy!

I don't personally get really into the different kinds of digital papers or embellishments that you can use, but I think that's one of the cool things about this software- if you like the different papers and embellishments that traditional scrapbooking offers you can get that in a digital format, but if you're not crazy about it, you don't have to use all those extras. Initially I was thinking I wouldn't use any of the digital embellishments, but then I added this little ribbon and bow to the bottom of this page (photo below) and I won't lie...I'm a fan. I think the more I play around with it the more I'm going to like those cute little things!

There are several options for digital papers and embellishments that come loaded on the software, but you can also purchase and download several other ones online. Look at all of the cool stuff they have:

The couple of pages that I've made so far are really simplistic- I really recommend that you check out the "inspiration" on the MyMemories website or the photos on their Facebook page- you can see a ton of really fun pages that others have made that are way cuter than mine!

Ok, now for my favorite feature: Once your album is finished, you've got several options. You can:

Print the pages at home on your own printer
Export your pages as JPEG files
Have your album printed and bound professionally
Have your album pages printed in a calendar professionally
Burn an interactive album
Save your album as a movie file
Save your album in an iPod-friendly format
Burn your album as a DVD

The options! I LOVE it! I especially love the interactive album one- this means that you can have videos, music, and narration in your album- how cool is that!? You can also add hotspots that link out to files, websites, or a specific page within your album. Definitely an awesome way to spice up a digital photo (and video!) album. One definite drawback- when I tested this out and loaded a video I had taken from my iPhone, it distorted the video (I think since I had taken it vertically on my phone). Maybe there's a way to fix this? Also, I wish the videos would show right in the album- you have to make a hotspot in the album and then click it for the video to open and start playing, and it pops up in it's own separate window.

I haven't spent hours and hours using the software yet, but I plan on using it to make our family albums! Having done some traditional scrapbooking before, I can say that I definitely prefer the digital version- I feel like it goes quicker and it's nice that it's all contained right on the computer- no supplies taking up valuable space in the house!

And now the very best part...My Memories has given me a copy of the software (available for Windows or Mac) to giveaway here on Savvy & Sweet!

To enter:

Visit www.mymemories.com and check out all the cute digital scrapbooking kits. Leave a comment here saying which kit is your favorite and what kind of album you'd like to make first with the software (ie Family Yearbook, Kid's Album, Holiday Album, Birthday Album, etc)
For an additional entry, go to Facebook and "Like" MyMemories and Savvy and Sweet Blog (if you haven't already!) and then post the following into your Facebook status:

I just entered the @MyMemories digital scrapbooking software giveway from @Savvy and Sweet Blog!

**Don't just copy and paste- you'll have to type in "@MyMemories" and "@Savvy and Sweet Blog" in order to get them to link so that I can see that you've entered and count your extra entry!

You've got a whole week to enter- I'll use a random number generator on Friday, September 16th to pick a winner. If you enter and don't win, no worries! I'll be posting a coupon code on Friday that will give you $10 off the purchase of the My Memories Suite software and $10 credit to use for downloading digital scrapbooking materials from their site! Good luck!

Best Pals

2011-08-23T19:21:00.001-04:00

I swear I have about 5 posts that I have started but never finished- I'm still here! Time to get back to blogging, I miss it!

For now, I just need to share this adorable evidence that Colby is a fantastically patient big doggie brother to Baby C:

YouTube Video

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wish Me Luck...

2011-08-02T22:22:00.001-04:00

YouTube Video

(This is my favorite video so far of Baby C. He's making so much noise now! I love coming home from work and "talking" to him about his day!)

Due to a work function, I am going to have to be away from Baby C for approximately 50 hours beginning this Thursday at 2 pm.

I'm pretty nervous about it and I know I'm going to miss my little boy SO much!!

I know I'll be kept quite busy during the time that I'll be gone, so hopefully that will make the time go by a little more quickly. Maybe I'll get another blog post in while I'm sitting in my hotel room Thursday and/or Friday night.

And I'm especially not looking forward to pumping during all the time that I'm going to be away from Baby C. Booooooooo.

So anyway, if you have a spare second, send some positive vibes my way and wish me luck for my first-ever stretch of time away from my little guy!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

We Made It

2011-07-25T17:30:00.000-04:00

We made it through my first week back to work full-time!

Other than missing Baby C like crazy, everything went unbelievably smoothly.

Baby C went to sleep by 9pm every night.
And slept through the night.
And didn’t wake up until about 6:30 am every morning.
(I’m ridiculously grateful for his amazing sleep habits!!)

We kept up with the diaper laundry

I had enough time to eat breakfast each morning

Baby C ate like a champ while I was away each day

On Monday Hubby G even had dinner ready when I got home from work!

And the thing that I was most worried about went really smoothly too: pumping.

My office designated a wonderful room for me to pump in. Some women really have to fight for a decent place to pump, but I’m very fortunate and very grateful for the space I’m using. The room I use is quiet and private and even has it’s own bathroom. I pumped three times per day all week long. My supply issues thus far have been that I over-produce rather than under-produce, so I was interested to see if so much pumping (rather than nursing) would bring my supply down. I don’t think it has so far. Each day when I returned home from work I had enough to fill three 4.5 oz bottles AND enough for a 2.5 oz bottle to store in the freezer. On Tuesday I even had more than that and just ended up giving it to Baby C that evening because I didn’t have any more storage containers. Given that my supply is so high, I was most worried about leaking while I was at work. I’m happy to report that there were zero leaking incidents this week. I had one close call, but crisis was averted.

I finally feel like I have some control over all the leaking business and that is SUCH a relief!

Our Neurotic Dog

2011-07-10T22:41:00.000-04:00

Last year we were in the U.P. for 4th of July. And we learned that Colby was NOT a fan of fireworks. We spent 4th of July this year at my in-laws house and didn't even attempt to go to see any fireworks- we just weren't really that into it and Baby C has been going to bed around 8:30ish and sleeping all the way until 6:30ish and no parent for a 2 and a half month old in their right mind would want to chance messing THAT up!

So, this past week, Baby C, Colby, and I went out for a walk in the afternoon like we usually do. We were almost half way through our route and we walked past a group of kids shooting off fireworks (in the middle of broad daylight...I'm not sure why they didn't wait until it was dark??)

Colby freaked out. Poor dude was so scared. He pulled at his leash the ENTIRE rest of the way (almost a mile) so that he could get home as quick as possible.

A couple days later we went for a walk again in the afternoon and right at the same area where they had been shooting off the fireworks, they had this giant inflatable water slide. Colby didn't seem to pay any attention to it, except that right as we were walking by, a kid slid down the slide and splashed into the little pool at the bottom.

Colby freaked out. Again. I don't know why he gets so jumpy over something so random.

So now Colby has reverted back to his days of HATING going for walks. We tried yesterday and today and he refused to go further than the end of our street. Today I even had a bunch of dog treats to try and lure him along, but he would not be bribed.

We were out in the backyard later in the evening and Colby was going crazy (in a happy, excited way) because our neighbors just got a new puppy and he was super excited to meet her and become best friends.

Until he heard fireworks in the distance. Not even big ones or loud ones. And I don't think they were even within sight.

And he ran right back up to our house and looked at me like, "Please woman! Let me inside NOW!!"

He is so weird.

I hope it doesn't take forever to get him to go for walks again!

The Truth: Breastfeeding is Hard

2011-07-05T22:32:00.000-04:00

Although my last post was full of sunshine and rainbows in regards to Baby C, I promise that it's not always like that. Breastfeeding has definitely been a struggle for us and it's just finally starting to get easier. It's still not easy, but it's easier.

**FYI: this post is probably the most open and personal writing I've ever done here on this blog. I'm writing this because it's something that I've learned a lot from and I think it's something that could be helpful or at least relatable for other moms. If you'd rather not hear about the details of my breastfeeding experience so far, definitely skip this post. No hard feelings if you decide to do so.**

No one ever told me breastfeeding would be so hard to learn and get the hang of. I took a class before Baby C was born, but I couldn't really grasp any of the information at that time. I just didn't get it. I don't know if there was any way I possibly could understand until he was actually here and I was actually doing it. I just wish someone would have told me that it wouldn't be easy. I understand not wanting to scare women out of breastfeeding before they even get started, but I just didn't feel like I got any hint of the challenge that breastfeeding can be. I felt like everyone in the world was keeping this big secret because we've all heard it- "breast is best" and no one wants to scare a mother out of at least trying to breastfeed. I couldn't believe how many people came out of the wood work AFTER I had Baby C and was in those early days of struggling through feedings and told me that they tried to breastfeed but couldn't continue because it was so challenging. On one hand that made me feel better- I wasn't the only one who had a difficult time with this! On the other hand I was like, where the heck were you with this valuable information before?! I felt like the challenges came out of no where and were a total surprise. I didn't know that this was common.

Giving credit where credit is due: There was one thing that I read during pregnancy that I felt gave me a heads up that breastfeeding might not be so easy and was completely open and honest about it- this series of posts written by Jenny on her blog Geek In Heels. I've been a reader of Geek In Heels for quite some time now and I've always appreciated the honesty that Jenny writes with. It takes a lot of courage to open yourself up the way that she does, especially when it comes to such an emotional and sensitive subject. Even though she published that series of posts when I was still early in my pregnancy, it stuck in my head and I went back to her blog to find them and re-read them shortly after Baby C was born. Reading the story of her journey helped me cope immensely and definitely made me feel less alone.

Here is my story:

4 days after Baby C was born I was at my wits end. I sat upstairs in the nursery with him and both of us were frustrated and crying. Neither one of us knew what we were doing, but we knew we obviously weren't doing it right. Hubby G called our doctor's office and we got an appointment set to meet with the lactation consultant, Karen, later that day. Hubby G was being as helpful and supportive as he possibly could be and without anything directly being said, I could tell that he knew how important and critical this meeting with Karen could be. I was an emotional wreck- I wanted to be able to provide for Baby C so badly and it just wasn't working and I had no idea why. Baby C was hungry and his cries were breaking my heart with every passing minute. I knew I needed help if we were going to continue trying to breastfeed for even one more day.

The meeting with Karen turned everything around. Going into the appointment I was on the verge of tears and leaving it I felt a million times better. I hadn't realized that Baby C needed me to teach him how to latch on, and even if I had known that, I didn't know exactly how to do that. Karen guided me through it all and made sure to emphasize that my well-being was important too. If it hurt I needed to stop and try again so that Baby C would learn the right way to latch and I wouldn't be in pain. Meeting with her saved us. I definitely would have given up and quit if I hadn't had her help.

Even once I learned how to get Baby C latched correctly, there had already been some damage done, and that made nursing painful. Like, curl your toes and clench your jaw harder than you knew you could painful. Getting a correct latch made it a hundred times better, but I'll keep it real and tell you that I'm still dealing with some damage, even 2 and a half months later (I've talked to Karen multiple times and we're working on some solutions to get things healed up, so even though this healing is slow going, at least it's going!)

Once I got the whole latch thing figured out, I was met with another fun issue: leaking. While some women don't produce enough milk, I was on the extreme opposite end of that issue. I can't remember a day in the last month where I haven't had to change my shirt at least once because of leaking. And that's with nursing pads. Of course, this warranted another call to Karen and she gave me a few tips to help correct the problem and they definitely helped. See? What in the world would I do without Karen?? As frustrating and annoying as this problem has been, I try to keep it in perspective. Some mom's want to breastfeed so badly and just don't have the supply to do so. At least Baby C can nurse and get as much as his growing little body needs without any problem. To me, that's worth multiple clothing changes in a day on my end.

So as I was saying, I'm really glad that I've stuck it out and I'm really proud of myself for doing so. It has definitely gotten easier! And Baby C is obviously thriving and doing extremely well, and I'm so happy that I've been able to provide him with that.

It seems like the decision to breastfeed or not is one of the hottest topics in the cut-throat world of mommy judging. It's incredible how mean moms can be to each other sometimes. In most cases, all moms are trying to do the best they can and they often feel passionately about the choices they make for themselves and their children. I know that I try really hard to be the best mom I can be and feel passionately about a lot of the choices I make for Baby C and I- BUT I know that what works for us isn't necessarily the right fit for anyone else. Knowing first hand now how hard breastfeeding can be, I can definitely understand why it's not a good fit for some families. Just because "breast is best" doesn't mean that breastfeeding is a good choice for every mom- if it causes a lot of stress, that can be much more detrimental to both mom and baby's health than switching to formula. It seems like a lot of moms who are faced with this decision feel guilty if they decide that switching to formula is the best fit for their family- and that's without any outside opinions weighing in.

I definitely don't wish to scare any expectant new moms out of breastfeeding, but I do hope that sharing my experience (and the link to Jenny's experience on her blog) will help someone to know that if they find breastfeeding hard, they're not alone. And no matter whether breastfeeding is a good fit for your family or not, it's the health of your baby and yourself that is the most important!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

2 Months

2011-06-30T21:34:00.000-04:00

I can't believe how much our little boy has grown in the last 2 months.

No seriously.

At his 2 month check-up earlier this week he weighed in at a whopping 14 lbs 10 oz and measured 24.5 inches long, putting him in the 90th percentile for weight and the 94th percentile for height (according to the World Health Organization)! Oh, and his head measured 16.5 inches which brings him to his most impressive growth percentile- 99th. Little dude's got a big melon! At least he's in the 90's for everything so he's not disproportionate in any area.

It's incredible how much his personality is starting to show. He's smiling a ton and making all kinds of noises. We feel so lucky to have such a laid-back and mellow baby! The only times he's really fussy are when he's hungry or tired. Other than that, he's one happy little guy!

He loves his Baby Einstein Neptune Activity Mat and we also just bought him the Tiny Love Nature's Serenade Mobile and he's completely mesmerized by it:

More than any other time, he's most likely to smile when he's getting his diaper changed- I guess I'd be pretty happy about getting a fresh diaper too!

It's amazing how non-picky he is about eating. He'll nurse, take a bottle at room temperature, or take a cold bottle straight from the fridge without batting an eye. As long as he's getting something to eat, he doesn't care how he gets it. Breastfeeding is still working out well for us (despite a rocky start) and we haven't had to supplement with any formula. Yep, that 6 lb 7 oz weight gain since birth is all from exclusively breastfeeding. If someone would have told me that he would be growing like this from breastfeeding alone, I would have told them they were crazy. I still can't believe it.

Hubby G and I are both worried that when we decide to have another child (we're not in any rush right now though, so don't get any ideas!) it won't possibly be as smooth sailing as it has been so far with Baby C- he's such a good baby! As if we needed further proof of this fact, this week he started sleeping through the night fairly consistently- about 9 or 10pm all the way to 5 or 6am.

Ok, so if I was reading this post- especially if I was a new mom, I might want to punch me in the face right now. Because come on. Life with a 2 month old is not all sunshine and rainbows and angels singing from the heavens 24-7.

That is definitely true. I've got a post in the works right now about a big part of this adjustment to life with a baby that is definitely not sunshine and rainbows and has definitely been a struggle.

But right now things have gotten easier and we're adjusting to the wonderful addition to our family. And even the parts of the journey that aren't so great are easily overshadowed by the good parts.

My Favorite Baby Gear

2011-06-03T05:15:00.001-04:00

Now that Baby C is here and I've had a little over a month to actually use a bunch of the baby gear that we got, I thought I would share some of my favorites so far! My favorite is our BumGenius Elemental cloth diapers, but since I just wrote about them last week, I'm not including them in this list.

In no particular order:

Moby Wrap

Since I got the wrapping technique down (it definitely takes a little practice), I've been using my Moby almost daily. I have a hard time getting Baby C to nap in his crib during the day, so oftentimes I'll put him in the Moby so that he feels like he's being held but I have two free hands to get a few things done! Baby C almost always falls right asleep in it and it's very comfortable for me as well. The only drawback is that both Baby C and I can end up getting really warm in it, especially when the weather is warm.

Angelcare Monitor

I'm so glad that we purchased the Angelcare monitor! Aside from letting you hear any noises baby is making, it's main feature is that it's a motion monitor. There are two sensor pads that we put underneath Baby C's crib mattress. These sensors track any movement happening in the crib and they are sensitive enough to track really slight movements- like Baby C's breathing. If the sensors detect no movement for 20 seconds, an alarm goes off. In addition to monitoring motion, the Angelcare monitor also tracks the room temperature and can be programed to sound an alarm when the room gets above or below your set temperature range. Having this monitor made it possible for Hubby G and I to be comfortable with putting Baby C in his own room in his crib from day 1. Even though you can only do so much to lessen your baby's risk for SIDS, the fact that we know we'll be alerted right away if our baby stops breathing gives us a ton of peace of mind. Plus, now we don't need to worry about transitioning Baby C from a bassinet to his crib or from our room to the nursery.

Total Baby iPhone App

If you've got an iPhone I definitely recommend spending the $4.99 to buy this app. I use it constantly and that's no exaggeration! This app allows you to track feedings, diaper changes, baths, and it has a miscellaneous section so that you can track whatever else you want. In the first few weeks when baby needs to be fed every 2 hours, this app helped me keep track of that and since I'm breastfeeding, I could also keep track of which side Baby C had last nursed on. It's also important during those first couple of weeks to monitor the number of dirty diapers baby has so that you know if they're getting enough food, so being able to track the diaper changes is also really helpful. Since I love data and tracking, I've used this app to record every. single. one. of Baby C's feedings and diaper changes since the day he was born! I used the miscellaneous section of the app for myself- I tracked when I had last taken pain medication so that I would know when it was safe to take another dose. For me, having all this information right at my fingertips in my new mom, sleep-deprived, state is a huge help. PLUS I can sync all of the data from the app to Hubby G's phone and vice versa, which will be really helpful when I go back to work. You can also email all the data or export it as an Excel spreadsheet so that it's all really accessible. I printed off the first two weeks of data to bring with us to Baby C's first doctor's appointment because I was so jazzed about having such accurate data. I'm a total nerd.

Eddie Bauer Diaper Bag

I think we went two different Target stores a total of 8 times before we actually tracked this thing down! The first time we saw it we weren't 100% decided that it was the one we wanted and later when we did, it seemed to be sold out everywhere (at least in the brown color, which is what we wanted). Anyway, we finally got one and we are really happy with it. It's not really girly at all, so Hubby G doesn't mind carrying it. He actually likes taking it- he says it makes him feel even more like a dad- it's so sweet! The bag has plenty of room in it. Inside I've stuffed:

At least 6 disposable diapers
Our Skip Hop changing mat
2 cloth diapers
An extra shirt for me
An extra outfit for Baby C
2 wet bags
A blanket
2 burp cloths
Pacifier wipes
Hand sanitizer

I'd say that's pretty good!

Baby Einstein Neptune Ocean Adventure Gym

Baby C LOVES this. His favorite part- the fish mirror. He stares at himself in that thing all the time! he doesn't have enough motion control to actually reach out and grab the other toys that hang on it yet, but he's pretty darn happy just hanging out on the mat and taking in all the fun shapes and colors. The mat is soft and easily folds, so I also like that this will be easy to travel with.

Star of the Show

2011-06-02T15:59:00.001-04:00

My friend gifted us with this awesome and perfect bib:

So true!

(my friend found it at Target in case any other fellow bloggers want to go looking for it!)

Cloth Diaper Love

2011-06-02T08:41:00.000-04:00

Before the arrival of Baby C I posted here about our decision to use cloth diapers. I researched like crazy before making this decision and researched even more afterward to make sure I had the whole washing thing figured out.

Well, we started Baby C in his cloth diapers a week ago today and I am IN LOVE. I love:

How soft they are
How easy they are to use
That we never have to worry about running to the store to buy more diapers
That the whole washing process is not nearly as hard or time consuming as I thought it might be
How cute his little rear end looks in them
How on-board Hubby G is with cloth diapering

I can't say enough good things about them! We have 24 of the bumGenius Elemental All-In-One, One-Size-Fits-All. Here's the color break down that we've got:

1 Bubble (a really light purple color)

3 Noodle

1 Sweet (a really light green-ish color)

1 Butternut

3 Clementine

3 Grasshopper

3 Moonbeam

3 Ribbit

3 Twilight

3 White

24 diapers seems to be the perfect amount for us. So far we've never felt like we didn't have enough between washings, and we're washing a load of diapers about every other day (we wouldn't want to go longer than that anyway). Because our diapers are just one piece, we don't have to mess around with covers or inserts- it's all just one piece so the process is very similar to putting on a regular disposable diaper. The only difference is that we have to gather and fold a section of the liner in the front as we put the diaper on- this is because the liner is a little too long when we've got the diaper snapped down to the smallest rise setting (since our diapers are also one-size-fits-all). This isn't a big deal though and it's actually kind of nice because it gives us an extra layer of absorbency.

Since we've been using our cloth diapers we've hardly had any leaks- when we were using the disposables we had leaks multiple times a day. Like I mentioned, the washing hasn't really been a hassle at all. We were spraying the diapers off into the toilet with the simple spray bottle I had gotten from the hospital when Baby C was born, but that got old pretty fast because we would have to fill the bottle up multiple times to spray off just one diaper. To remedy this, I found this tutorial for a diaper sprayer and headed to our awesome local hardware store (the same place that was super helpful when I replaced the thermocouple on our water heater) where I showed the tutorial to another very helpful employee who rounded up all the supplies I needed and even assembled it all together as much as possible right there in the store! I just had to make a couple simple connections when I got home and viola- we've got a diaper sprayer that works great!

I never thought I could get so much joy out of DIAPERING of all things in life, but I really do love our cloth diapers. And in case Hubby G is reading this- that doesn't mean I necessary love changing diapers all the time, I just love the fact that we're using cloth diapers :)

1 Month

2011-05-25T01:22:00.001-04:00

I can't believe Baby C is already 1 month old! The time has flown by!

The other day I folded up and put almost all of his 'newborn' sized clothing away- he's already grown out of it! We didn't have that much in the newborn size, but we have quite a bit more clothing in the 0-3 month size and it's crazy and fun at the same time to see him growing and fitting into just about all of those 0-3 month clothes now.

I won't lie, this first month hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows- adjusting to life as first time parents is not an easy task. We knew that having a baby would change a lot of things in our lives, but we never could have grasped just how enormous and all-encompassing those adjustments could be. It's been completely 100% worth it and our sweet baby boy brings an unspeakable amount of joy to our lives, but I would never say that it was simple or easy. Nothing truly valuable is though, right?

Our biggest accomplishment this past month has been getting the hang of breastfeeding- that has definitely been a journey for both of us! I'm proud to say that after a pretty rough start that included a lot of crying from both of us, we've stuck with it and Baby C is gaining weight and growing like a weed.

The other thing about this past month that has been great is switching from disposables to our cloth diapers! I love them! I promise to write a whole post about them soon.

Our little family is learning more and more from each other with every passing day. Colby was a little depressed for the first week or so since he is no longer the baby of the family, but he's adjusted to life with Baby C pretty well now. He's stolen his socks a few times, but I think that was just his way of welcoming him into the family. Every time Baby C cries, Colby is right there with us making sure his little brother is ok. And he hasn't destroyed anything since Baby C's arrival- that's a big accomplishment given his past history!

Hubby G returned back to work a couple weeks ago and I was a little nervous about being able to do it all on my own, but we've been doing well. Almost every afternoon Caeden, Colby, and I go for a 1.5 mile walk through our neighborhood so that we can get out of the house and get some fresh air.

So that's it- I can't believe a month has already gone by!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Birth Story Part 3- The Final Chapter

2011-05-19T15:32:00.001-04:00

I honestly don't remember what time it was when we were told that it was time to start pushing, but I'm going to guess that it was around 10:45 pm. After just a few pushes with the nurse, we had progressed enough to put a call in to the doctor to have him come in (we already knew he was only a few minutes away, so we could wait to call him until just before we were ready for the delivery). And I've gotta say, even though Hubby G was a little nervous about staying conscious, he did AMAZING and was a fantastic support for me- he stayed right by my side for every second. Once the doctor arrived, I only pushed a couple more times and the doctor started to get everything ready for the official arrival of our little boy.

But our baby was in no mood for waiting!

The doctor had turned around for less than a minute while he got some things ready and I felt another contraction. Since we weren't quite ready yet I didn't push through this contraction, but it didn't matter- this baby was ready to make his debut! I think I made some noise along the lines of "ummmm..." and Hubby G quickly alerted the doctor that this was happening NOW. The doctor seemed genuinely surprised that things moved along so quickly, but he was ready and instructed me to go ahead and push. One short, quick, push later, our baby had arrived at 11:42 pm on Monday, April 25th! With Hubby G right by my side, it was incredible to finally get to meet and hold this little guy who had been growing in my belly for 9 months.

I held Caeden on my chest while the nurses cleaned him up. They let us have quite a bit of time to just be together and bond before they weighed him and measured his height. He was 8 lbs, 3 oz and 19 inches long, with big feet and long fingers just like his mamma. Due to some post-birth procedures taking quite a bit longer than expected, we had about 2 hours of time where Hubby G and I were just able to hang out and bond with Caeden before any visitors could come in. Around 2:00 am Caeden had his first visitors- both my parents and Hubby G's parents got to meet their very first grandchild. Caeden also got visits from his great-grandma Gert and both my sister and Hubby G's sister.

After all of our visitors had left, we gathered our things and we headed to our new recovery room. By this time it was about 4:00 am and all three of us were exhausted. We settled in and got a couple hours of rest as our new little family.

That's it! That's the story of the day our sweet baby boy came into our lives. Life has been crazy and hectic and a complete whirlwind since then, but we're loving every second with our little Caeden!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Birth Story Part 2

2011-05-19T11:17:00.001-04:00

We got settled into our room and the nurse asked me if I'd like to labor in the whirlpool tub at all (every delivery room in our hospital had a whirlpool tub- it was a really nice feature!) That sounded like a pretty good idea to me, so after a quick round of being hooked up to monitors to check on the baby, I headed to the tub. It was nice and I'm glad I was able to take advantage of it, but my contractions were amping up and getting both stronger and closer together. Hubby G was an amazing support throughout the contractions. He was right by my side helping me breathe through them and doing everything he possibly could to help me get through them.

Leading up to the delivery, I had been leaning toward having a natural, drug-free child birth, but I didn't have extremely strong feelings about it. I knew that I could plan all I wanted, but there would be a good chance that at least parts of that plan would go right out the window once we were in the thick of things.

The drug-free part of that plan was one of those things.

Baby C was facing up, which meant that I was having intense pain in my back with every contraction. No matter how much I moved around and tried different positions to get him to turn face-down, nothing was working and the pain was getting to be more than I could handle. I decided that I wanted to get an epidural.

Oh. My. Gosh.

Epidurals are the best invention IN THE WORLD.

And on the other end of things, I have the utmost respect for any women who do forego the epidural and any other pain medication. Those women are amazing for going through that. There's not many things that could possibly make you more bad-ass in my book now that I know just what the initial pain is like.

I thought that getting the big epidural needle in my back would hurt, but the anesthesiologist timed it so that she was doing it at the same time as one of my contractions, so the pain of the contraction distracted me so that I barely even felt the needle for the epidural. And once that epidural kicked in (which didn't take long), the heavens parted and my goodness, THE SWEET RELIEF. From that point on, my contractions caused me zero pain. They were getting a LOT stronger and I couldn't feel a thing- it was glorious! I could relax and save up my energy for the pushing that would come later.

Birth Story Part 1

2011-05-10T15:45:00.001-04:00

These last three weeks have flown by! Apparently that's what happens when you have a sweet newborn baby boy in your life :)

Before I let too much time pass, I want to share how our day went the day Baby C decided to join us!

First of all, Baby C was due on Saturday, April 23rd- and that day came and went with no arrival of Baby C. Although we were anxiously awaiting his arrival, we weren't really disappointed that he didn't arrive on that day because we were very busy with the Easter Vigil service at our church. Sunday rolled around and there still didn't seem to be any action on the baby front. My parents and grandma were in town and staying with us, so we all just hung out around the house playing the waiting game.

I was seriously considering going to work on Monday. I mean, I wasn't feeling any labor pains and I wanted to work as many days as I could before the arrival of our little man so that every day of my maternity leave could be spent with him. I debated back and forth if I should go to work Monday and finally decided that I would just wait until Monday morning to see how I felt.

I slept decent on Sunday night, but not great. I still wasn't feeling any major labor pains, but I was feeling some painless contractions more frequently, so I notified my manager that morning that I hadn't had the baby yet, but I felt like it would be soon so I was officially going to begin my maternity leave. It's so crazy to think about now, but later that morning I was sitting on the couch and I said to Hubby G, "I think I'm going to have a baby either today or tomorrow."

I was right on the money!

Even though my contractions weren't feeling intense at all, we started timing them to see where we were at. I was feeling them consistently less than 5 minutes apart. Whoa. We called the doctor to give them a heads up on what was happening and they said to wait it out at home for another hour and call back with an update. An hour later I was still having painless contractions less than 5 minutes apart so they told us to come in to the hospital.

This was it!

Hubby G drove us to the hospital and while he parked the car I was wheeled into the emergency room entrance. They asked me at the desk what I was there for and it felt really weird to matter of factly answer, "I'm in labor." I still wasn't in any pain at all, so it just felt really weird to be so calm about it all. Hubby G met me there and a nurse came to bring us up to the labor and delivery floor.

Once we were on the L&D floor I was hooked up to monitors so that they could see how far apart my contractions were. They monitored me for an hour and my contractions were consistently 3 minutes apart. We really must have had perfect timing because during that hour that I was being monitored I started to feel the contractions much more than I had been. After they had monitored me for an hour the amped up intensity of the contractions actually made me sick to my stomach for a brief period of time- that really caught me off guard. After a call to the doctor to touch base, I was officially admitted to the hospital to have our baby!

He's Here!

2011-04-27T01:48:00.001-04:00

Caeden Brock
Arrived at 11:42 pm on Monday, April 25th, 2011
Weighing in at 8 lbs 3 oz and 19 inches long

Caeden, Hubby G, and I are all doing well. I plan to write a longer post soon about how this whole wonderful day happened, but for now you just get the basics because we haven't even been discharged from the hospital yet and I'm typing this one-handed as Baby C snoozes in my arm and Hubby G takes a very well-deserving snooze himself!

Thank you for all of the love, support, and comments throughout our pregnancy journey- I <3 you all and I'm so excited to be starting out on this new parenthood journey!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

#1 Hubby In The World

2011-04-19T23:08:00.001-04:00

**We'll get one important bit of news out of the way right away- our Peanut has not arrived yet. We are patiently waiting and we have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so we'll see what they have to say!

I just need to share how my afternoon went yesterday because Hubby G is definitely deserving of some huge kudos.

I left work and met Hubby G and Colby at PetSmart where Colby was getting a haircut. He was in desperate need- the groomer said he had "grinch feet" because of all the crazy fur sticking out between his toes!

I met them just for a little bit and then headed over to my extra special treat of the day- an appointment for a manicure and pedicure! Hubby G surprised me last week by making the appointment for me :) I've never gotten a pedicure before, and I really enjoyed the whole, relaxing experience. It was so nice to take a couple hours to just sit back and get a little bit of pampering!

With my fancy pink toes and finger nails all done up, I headed home and guess what I found there? Hubby G had:

Done all the dishes
Vacuumed the whole house
Dusted
Done 2 loads of laundry
Cleaned out the garage

!!!!!!

What a guy! And after all of that we went out for dinner complete with a delicious dessert!

I'm so thankful for such a wonderful Hubby who takes such good care of his very pregnant wife!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Apparently Things Are Happening

2011-04-15T21:37:00.001-04:00

We had a doctor's appointment today and for the first 3/4 of it I thought my worst fears may be confirmed: I will NEVER have this baby.

The nurse asked me all the same questions she always asks me and as I mentioned earlier, I had all the same answers- I'm not feeling any different whatsoever, which leads me to believe that I am going to be pregnant FOREVER. The nurse seemed a bit surprised that I wasn't really having any change in symptoms at all- I think between her and the doctor they asked me at least 4 times if I was having 'practice contractions' and I kept telling them no- not as far as I know anyway.

They decided to do a cervical check since they haven't done that yet (definitely not something I'm complaining about) and as it turns out- things actually ARE happening! I won't be pregnant forever! I'd rather not get into the specifics because really, just mentioning that I had a cervical check is kind of pushing my modesty limits here, but there it is- things are happening. And apparently I'm weird because I don't feel any different. At least I'm still comfortable!

**On a totally random side note: I consider myself to be pretty modest and private regarding my personal life, but I've always fiercely believed that everyone is entitled to their own ways and I'm actually quite envious sometimes of people who are comfortable sharing more freely. It doesn't bother me whatsoever to read about the personal details (I'm thinking of pregnancy journeys especially) of someone else's life and I completely appreciate that they're able to put themselves and their stories out there like that- kudos to them! I'm just not there quite yet (I'm not sure if I ever will be), so I guess I just want to say thanks for reading even though I don't get down to the nitty gritty details all the time- I appreciate that you keep coming back to ready anyway!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Waiting Game

2011-04-15T07:03:00.001-04:00

Life still feels like it’s moving at a break-neck pace around here, but at the end of this week I think we’ll really start feeling like we’re just twirling our thumbs and waiting for our little Peanut to arrive!

As I mentioned before, I had a really big (like 2,000+ people in attendance) event for work that I was responsible for that happened last weekend and I really wanted to make it through that event before our little dude arrived. Well, now the event is done (and was a huge success!) and a crazy busy week of work is wrapping up so I am definitely feeling ready for our little guy to join us now! Somehow a ton of my monthly work commitments all fell to this current week, so even though I feel ready now, when this week wraps up I think I’ll feel even more ready.

And maybe impatient.

Now that all of these work commitments are wrapping up and our Peanut still isn’t here, it’s giving me time to actually stop and realize- we’re going to have a baby soon! Hubby G and I keep pretty busy schedules- especially lately- so it seems like all of those “other” things in life have kept our minds busy.

And it seems like we’ve done a really good job of getting everything ready for our baby’s arrival, so we don’t really have a bunch of last minute baby-related things we need to do.

We’re just waiting.

I almost feel like maybe I jinxed this whole pregnancy thing by wishing that I would make it through last weekend because of my work event. I keep thinking that I should start feeling different- I’m not sure how I should feel, just different. You know, like your body should start making you feel something different when you’re going to have a baby some time in the very near future shouldn’t it?? I don’t feel any different at all, which makes me think that maybe I’ll stay pregnant FOREVER. Maybe since I kept wishing that I would hold out until after my work event, now I’ll NEVER have this baby and my body is just going to spite me.

Ok. That’s highly unlikely, but it is the thought that’s been in my head lately.

So that’s the latest report. T-minus 8 days until our due date and zero labor action happening here. I’ll do my best to keep you updated as these last days before our due date dwindle down!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Our Bags Are Packed...

2011-04-02T07:41:00.000-04:00

And we're ready to go to the hospital!

Well, I'm not REALLY ready to go into labor just yet, (my goal is to make it at least to April 11th!) but just in case our Peanut decides now is the time, we are ready! BTW, my mom had me 2 weeks early and I was 8 lbs, so for me to go into labor a couple weeks early isn't out of the question...but I'm still rooting for at least April 11th!

In our suitcase....

For me:

Pair of pajama pants
A couple pairs of comfy pants
A couple t-shirts
Sweatshirt
Nursing bras
Underwear
Robe
Slippers
Socks
Hair ties
Toothbrush
Deodorant

For Hubby G:

Pair of comfy pants
Swim trunks
An extra t-shirt
Socks
Underwear
Toothbrush
Deodorant

For the Peanut:

2 outfits in newborn size
2 outfits in 0-3 month size

Other stuff we've got packed in there:

Video camera
Gum
Shampoo, conditioner, and soap
Lotion
Chapstick
Baby book
Boppy pillow
Camera + charger

Stuff that we don't have packed but pray we remember to grab before leaving the house:

Phones + chargers
iPad + charger

There are probably a few other things that we've packed that I'm forgetting about, but that's a pretty good list of what we've got!

Now That I've Spent Hours Researching DETERGENT...

2011-03-31T18:22:00.000-04:00

Don't get me wrong, Hubby G and I are still really excited to put our cloth diapers to use once our little Peanut arrives. BUT I cannot believe how much time I've spent researching DETERGENT of all things.

Things I Have Learned About Detergent In The Last Two Months:

No one uses Dreft (THE baby detergent) for cloth diapers.
Additives in detergents include: brighteners, whiteners, enzymes, essential oils, perfumes, and dyes.
Even "free & clear" detergents usually have brighteners in them.
Brighteners can apparently cause cloth diapers to leak sometimes.
There are very few detergents that don't contain ANY of the additives I listed above.
A lot of people who cloth diaper swear by Original Tide powder.

Now, I am by no means picky when it comes to detergent, BUT if we want to preserve the warranty on our fabulous cloth diapers, we need to use a detergent that doesn't contain any additives. And since our cloth diapers weren't exactly cheap, we definitely wanted to make sure we preserved that warranty- just in case.

There are a couple great resources that list about a million different types of detergent and whether or not they contain any additives (I frequently used this one and this one), but those lists are so long, it was overwhelming! bumGenius,the brand of our diapers, consolidated the list to just a few that they recommend, so that made things a bit easier.

Or so I thought.

Three that bumGenius recommends (aside from their own brand) are:

Mountain Green
Planet
Country Save

(They also recommend All Free & Clear, but it has to be the military grade, which as far as I can tell you can only buy on a base, so that option was out for us)

Fabulous. Now to buy some detergent. I really wanted to be able to buy the detergent locally for convenience. I didn't want to have to order online every time I needed it, I just wanted to stop by the store and pick it up- is that too much to ask?

Apparently.

I called multiple stores to find out if they carried any of the three brands above with NO luck. Seriously? We don't live in the middle of no where- we live in the suburbs of the second largest city in Michigan. DETERGENT SHOULD NOT BE THIS HARD TO FIND.

I couldn't find any contact information for Country Save, but I e-mailed Planet with our zip code to see if they could tell me which retailers they distribute to in our area. Planet e-mailed me back with some really annoying, but at least helpful, information. Their first suggestion was Kroger. In West Michigan Kroger doesn't exist because Meijer reigns supreme in the grocery world here. NOT HELPFUL. Their next suggestion was some place called Busch's or Bosch's, I can't remember. I Googled it and the nearest location was approximately 3 hours away.

SINCE WHEN IS 3 HOURS AWAY CONSIDERED "LOCAL"??

They also recommended going to a health foods store. Ok cool. BUT WHICH ONE?? I mean, you distribute your product out so theoretically shouldn't you be able to tell me which health food store I should go to?? There is no way I am going to stop by every health food store in the greater Grand Rapids area just to find this detergent.

But I'm not gonna lie, I actually might have done just that because I was getting to a tipping point with this whole detergent business.

The saving grace of the e-mail from Planet was that they said they also distribute to some D&W grocery stores. Now "some" wasn't a guarantee, but at least I know there are a few D&W stores around here.

A few days later I actually needed to stop into a D&W store for something work-related, so you better believe that I was crossing my fingers and praying that I would find our detergent there as well.

The verdict?

SUCCESS!!

image source

There were only two bottles on the shelf and I had to scour the aisle a couple times before I spotted it, but there it was! The heavens parted and angels sang and it was glorious. Seriously, after two months of researching and searching for detergent, it felt like a freaking miracle.

So the detergent fiasco is now remedied. Throughout all the detergent research I also learned that it's also pretty important to "prep" your cloth diapers, especially if they're lined with natural fibers (ours are organic cotton). This means washing the diapers FIVE TO SEVEN times before you even use them.

4 washes down, 1 to go.

Still Here, Still Pregnant

2011-03-22T22:00:00.000-04:00

Hello lovely readers!

I hate that I haven't posted in two weeks, but life has just been so busy! Although I'm not to the point of wishing this pregnancy was done and our little Peanut was here already, I can definitely feel the toll it's taking on my body! I'm getting tired more easily again, but more than anything my feet and my back are bothering me. Being on my feet for anything more than a half hour makes both my feet and my back ache and it drives me crazy because I'm not very good at just sitting around twirling my thumbs- I want to be up and getting things done! Last week I vacuumed the whole house- it took about 45 minutes and by the end I was wiped out and my back and feet were killing me.

People keep asking me if I'm just ready to have this baby and I keep telling them no- not until after April 9th! Anything after that and I'll be happy. I think I've mentioned it here before, but I have a really big event that I'm in charge of for work (we're talking a couple thousand people in attendance) and it takes place on April 8th & 9th. I really REALLY just want to make it through that event! I'm taking steps to prepare things for that event just in case our little dude does decide to make an earlier appearance and I'm not able to be there, but doing all that prep work now is definitely another thing that's keeping me very busy!

A really fun thing that Hubby G and I were busy with the last few days were baby showers! Hubby G's mom threw us a shower this past weekend and it was wonderful! We were very generously gifted with all kinds of great baby gear and it was so fun getting it all organized and ready to go in our little Peanut's room. Today my co-workers had a baby shower for me and again, we received some really awesome baby gear! I'm so blown away by the generosity of everyone- we are definitely fortunate to be surrounded by so many people who want to help us welcome our little guy into the world!

As crazy busy as life feels right now, I still feel really fortunate and thankful for how smoothly everything has been going- it actually seems a little unbelievable! I never had a single bout of morning sickness or nauseousness and although I wake up one or two times during the night, I'm sleeping pretty well and I never actually have to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I'm probably going to start getting up 15 times a night now to go to the bathroom since I just typed that.

Thanks for hanging in here with me and my sporadic posting!

Fat Tuesday

2011-03-08T17:15:00.000-05:00

Happy Fat Tuesday!

I put a good amount of thought into what I wanted to give up for Lent this year. In the past I’ve given up pop, fried foods, or sweets. Giving up fried foods my freshman year of college was an especially good one because I swear, I ate french fries every. single. day. It’s a miracle that I didn’t gain the freshman 15.

I like to try to think of something to give up that will actually challenge me- I don’t just want to pick something that I wouldn’t mind going without anyway. And this year I felt like it was a little bit tougher because being pregnant for the last 8ish months meant that I’ve already given up pretty much all caffeine. But I’ve come to a decision and it’s definitely not going to be easy.

I’m giving up candy and reality TV.

The candy part is not going to be so bad. And I choose candy instead of saying ALL sweets because hey, it’s probably not a good idea to eliminate ALL sweets for a pregnant lady. There could be serious crabbiness involved with that. But giving up reality TV is going to be tough!! I don’t talk about it much here, but reality TV is definitely one of my guilty pleasures. My favorites include:

16 And Pregnant
Teen Mom 2
My Strange Addiction
Hoarders
Sister Wives (which begins a new season on the first Sunday of Lent!)

All of these shows are usually just so ridiculous that they just suck me in! I mean, I watched a whole marathon of episodes of Strange Addictions and my eyes were glued to the TV. Addictions profiled in the episodes I watched included different people who are addicted to eating crazy things which included:

Laundry detergent
Soap
Toilet paper
Household cleanser
Pottery
Cigarette ashes
Couch cushions

(source)

Yes, couch cushions. Who just starts chowing down on their COUCH?? CRAZY STUFF.

So instead of spending time watching all these crazy reality TV shows, I’m going to use my time more constructively. Who knows what I’ll be able to get done! I’m hoping to be able to blog more and focus better on preparing for the arrival of our little Peanut- who’s due date just so happens to be on the last day of Lent!

But since today is Fat Tuesday, I’m going to watch all the reality TV I can tonight (Teen Mom 2 will be on!) and eat the last of the Reese’s peanut butter cups that Hubby G got me for Valentine’s day. Anyone else giving something up for Lent and feel like sharing?

Prep Work

2011-03-05T09:36:00.000-05:00

Last month Hubby G and I went to 2 childbirth classes, earlier this week I went to a breastfeeding class, and this coming week we have a hospital tour. Whew!

After all of the fiasco of changing insurance and changing doctors at the start of the new year, I have to say that I've been really pleased and impressed with our new health plan. All of the classes that we've attended were a part of our insurance coverage and since they know exactly what our insurance plan is, the classes have been really specific to the hospital that we'll be delivering in.

I feel like I've read so many places online about women who have had hospital births and feel like they haven't had the freedom to labor like they want to or care for the baby right after delivery in the way that they would like- it seems like so many hospitals dictate these decisions for them. We never really considered anything other than a hospital birth, but at the same time we really wanted to be able to have some say in making decisions when it comes to labor, delivery, and immediate care for the baby. It seemed like going that route might set us up for needing a very outlined and detailed birth plan that we might need to fight for once the time came.

But I've been very pleasantly surprised.

In the childbirth classes we were taught different laboring positions and because the instructor, insurance plan, and hospital are all connected, the instructor was able to tell us exactly what we would be able to do and expect and let us know that yes, I would have the freedom to labor in different positions- I wouldn't just be confined to laboring on my back in bed.

At our last doctor's appointment, the OB nurse handed us an outline for a birth plan- from the hospital. I didn't expect the hospital to provide anything like that in the first place, (I thought we would need to do all the research ourselves to figure out what should be in that plan) and I definitely didn't expect the amount of detail and options it had on it. It has sections for:

Labor
Monitoring
Labor Augmentation
Pain Medication
Second Stage (pushing)
Episiotomy
Delivery
Cesarean Birth
Immediately After Delivery
Postpartum
Feeding
Circumcision

Just to give an example of one of those, here's the options (each with a check box) that the "Labor" section includes:

I would like to:

be able to move around and change position at will throughout labor.
have a whirlpool tub available for my labor.
have a birthing ball available.
be able to drink fluids during labor.
bring my own music to play during labor.
keep the environment as quiet as possible.
have the lights in the room dimmed during labor.
be informed of all procedures and be allowed time to discuss options in private when time allows.
Other:_______________

Since I hadn't expected to be provided with any type of birth plan at all from the hospital, I was pretty impressed. Hubby G and I will fill out the birth plan together, bring it back to our doctor, and they'll get a copy over to the hospital so it's already in their hands whenever I go into labor. We'll bring our own copy as well just in case, but it's nice that they'll also have one ahead of time.

Since we've never been through any of this before, I don't really have anything to compare it to other than what I read online. I feel like our experience so far with the hospital has been quite positive, which I haven't really read about many other places- anyone who reads this little blog of mine have any insight? Good/Bad experiences with hospitals related to childbirth?

Almost 33 Weeks Down

2011-03-03T20:16:00.001-05:00

No one I talk to seems to think I'm going to make it past 38 weeks with this baby- come on people! I'm shooting for at least 38.5 weeks :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Randomness

2011-03-02T20:10:00.000-05:00

Life is getting crazy busy again and I think it’s just going to get crazier as time passes- I’m going to do my best to keep up with posting here though!

I don’t have a very focused post to present you with here, so you’ll just need to bear with some randomness:

The nursery chair is here and sitting cozy in our little Peanut’s room. Now that it’s in the room Hubby G thought it might look a little too big, but I reminded him that we don’t need to fit any more furniture in there, so we don’t really need more space for anything else. Over the weekend we picked up a few more things for the nursery and we’re happy to report that it’s just about complete!

Nursery Ingredients:

Crib w/changer
Crib mattress
DIY crib skirt
Gentle giraffe sleep sound machine
Cushy recliner chair
Angelcare motion monitor
Lamp
Cubical storage shelf w/bins
Light blocking curtains
Super cute dinosaur wall stickers
Storage bins
Laundry bin for dirty cloth diapers

Not here yet, but on the list:

Turtle constellation night light
Some type of dock/speakers for listening to music from one of our iPods.

There are definitely a lot of other little things in the Peanut’s room (clothes, our cloth diapers, books, toys, etc.) but the items listed above are the things specifically for his room. Any suggestions of things we might be forgetting?

My mom came to visit this weekend! She actually came down to attend a conference, but we got to spend a lot of time with her too. My parents live 9 hours away, so this was a special treat! She got to feel our little Peanut bouncing around in my belly and we took her to check out the awesomeness that is Buy Buy Baby (I’m in love with that store). It was wonderful to have her here for a quick weekend visit!

Pregnancy is definitely affecting (effecting? I never get those two straight!) my brain. The other week I put noodles in a pot of water on the stove and forgot to turn the stove on. TWICE. And I had a little nesting frenzy wherein I cleaned our entire house including the task of disassembling the light fixture over the dining room table to clean it.

I finally gave in and bought a few pairs of maternity pants. I was using my BeBand like it was my job, but last weekend after church I told Hubby G that I just didn’t think it was going to work any longer. I can still get a decent amount of my pre-pregnancy pants on, but that’s about it. I’m afraid I’m going to break a zipper if I push it much more! Because I’m super cheap and I only have 8 weeks left, I was super jazzed to score a pair of black maternity dress pants from our local Meijer store for just $17. AND they’re long enough for my crazy long legs. Woot Woot! My next stop was Burlington Coat Factory- they definitely had the largest selection for a cheap skate like myself, however, I was initially discouraged. I tried on a size medium of a pair of khaki pants and they were no where near fitting (length or waist-wise). I even tried on the next size up and they were no better. I was feeling really discouraged and HUGE, but the low prices were too good to just give up, so I tried on a few more pairs. I ending up finding a pair of dark brown pants I can wear for work and a pair of jeans. The lengths are decent and definitely good enough for me for the price I got them at. I’m convinced that the khakis I had originally tried on must have been some sort of defect. That’s what I’m going to keep telling myself anyway.

Buying For Baby- The First Time Parents List

2011-02-17T21:20:00.001-05:00

I kinda can't believe that I almost forgot to tell you guys about this! So a few months ago I created this crazy spreadsheet in Google Docs because

1. I love spreadsheets
2. I love Google
3. I wanted to pull together all the lists of "Things To Buy For A Baby" that I kept coming across on the internet and consolidate them all into one big crazy list so that Hubby G and I would have an idea of what we needed to get for our little Peanut (plus all the little 'extras' that we could also consider getting)

I'm not joking when I say I love spreadsheets and I love Google. When I have the chance to create a spreadsheet for something in Google Docs, the time spent on that spreadsheet is pure joy for me. I'm weird and nerdy like that.

So anyway, I created this crazy spreadsheet that's all color-coded according to 8 categories that I placed 79 different items in. With estimated prices. And a column for priority level. If you didn't think I was a nerd before, I'm sure you definitely do now.

I was so jazzed about my spreadsheet that I made a template copy of it and loaded it into the Google Docs Template Gallery. And then I completely forgot about it for a month or so. A couple of weeks ago I randomly remembered that I had uploaded my template, so I went to check it out- 85 people were using my crazy spreadsheet!

Um, the only thing that could possibly make this nerd even more giddy about my obsessive spreadsheet is the fact that other people were digging it too and actually USING it. MADE MY DAY. Times 1000.

I just checked in on my crazy little template again and now it's got 148 users! I am LOVING the crazy spreadsheet love. My nerdy little heart is just about to burst!

So I know you all want to check out my crazy spreadsheet for yourselves now right? Here it is:
Buying For Baby- The First Time Parents List

And I know my list is by no means perfect, so if you've got any suggestions of things I should add, adjust, or change, please let me know!! I would love to improve upon this little project with some help from all of you!

If You Want To Make Me Smile...

2011-02-16T17:02:00.000-05:00

Take just a second and click on the Top Baby Blogs badge on the right side of my blog or on the bottom of my feed to vote for this silly little blog of mine! Top Baby Blogs resets their counters every so often so that newbies can move into the rankings (a pretty cool and smart idea!) and they just recently did a reset. So even if you clicked on it before, click again for me and you'll put a big goofy grin on my face because I love that you're out there reading my random thoughts and following me on this adventure! Thanks loves :)

Valentine's 2011

2011-02-15T19:38:00.000-05:00

I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day this year! Hubby G and I spent the whole day together- I began the day by making heart-shaped chocolate-chip pancakes, heart-shaped muffins, and scrambled eggs for breakfast. It was really corny, but we're corny people so we liked it :)

We got a few errands done and then headed to the furniture store and we bought a chair for the nursery! We opted for a plushy recliner instead of a traditional glider because we figured a recliner would be comfy enough to fall asleep in if we're awake a lot at night with the Peanut.

(source)

Even though our bedroom is right next door, I think the recliner will be a nice cozy spot to sit and rock our little dude in the middle of the night.

We had gone out for dinner the night before, so we had decided to get Valentine's Day ice cream instead- I think I liked doing that even better! And when we arrived home, these were waiting on our doorstep:

Our cloth diapers!! Woohoo! The darker green color had been back ordered, so they had taken a bit longer than usual to ship out to us. They are so cute and I'm so excited to use them!

I headed back to work today thinking Valentine's 2011 was done with, but Hubby G is a super sweet heart and he dropped off a a little present for me at my office- my favorite candy and a cute little bear. He had said that he was glad that we got to hang out together all day on Valentine's Day, but that also meant that he couldn't surprise me at work with anything, so he carried it over to today- I told you he was a sweet heart! I told him that I think we should always celebrate Valentine's Day on the 15th so we can get everything cheaper- I think that's a pretty good idea!

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day 2011!

Guilty As Charged

2011-02-11T16:28:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to take a second to admit to you all that I am *still* rocking the BeBand. Yes, with 10 weeks until my due date I still haven't purchased any maternity pants.

And it's not because I haven't gained much pregnancy weight- I've gained about 30 lbs. So yeah...the BeBand is working overtime.

And thank goodness for leggings. They are my other savior.

I feel like if I've made it this far it almost feels silly to buy maternity pants now, but I'm getting increasingly uncomfortable, so I think a pair of jeans and a pair of pants for work are becoming a necessity. You can only get away with leggings for so many days of the week.

The Water Heater Fiasco

2011-02-11T16:00:00.000-05:00

I literally have about 5 different blog posts that are in various states of "finished" that I haven't gotten a chance to actually post here because this week has just been so darn busy! In my head I always think that I should have some non-time sensitive posts ready to go and just schedule them out, but I always just end up leaving them only partially completed and then they never actually get scheduled.

Anyway. Here's the story of one of the things that's been keeping us busy this past week: The Water Heater Fiasco.

Late last week I was at home after work and I noticed that when I went to rinse some dishes, the water wasn’t getting hot. Uh oh. Hubby G was at work, so I texted him and told him that something was going on with the water heater and we didn’t have any hot water.

And then I Googled it. Because that’s what I do whenever I don’t know about something.

According to Google, our pilot light was probably out. I went downstairs to check if I could see a flame, and sure enough, it was out.

Next step: Google search “How To Light Water Heater Pilot Light”

I read a number of step by step tutorials, but the most helpful thing by far was this YouTube video:

Since we were dealing with gas and flames and I was paranoid about blowing the whole house up, I waited until Hubby G came home and we watched the video together and Hubby G did the lighting. Success! Pilot light re-lit and we’re back in action.

Or so we thought.

We went to check on the pilot light a few hours later and it was out again. Bummer. But now we knew how to re-light it! So we did that again. And it went out again.

Google search: “Water Heater Pilot Light Keeps Going Out”

According to Google the problem was likely to be our thermocouple. Thermo-what? Yeah, we are not savvy in the DIY home-repair world AT ALL, so we were thinking it was time to call in a plumber. We called a plumber and set up an appointment and he told us that the thermocouple would cost $11 to replace and the labor would be $88- so this was going to be about a $100 job.

Well...I turned to good ole Google and YouTube again because I remembered that while watching the “How To Re-Light Your Pilot Light” video, I had seen a “How To Replace Your Thermocouple” video. Hmmm......

I watched the thermocouple replacement video and it seemed pretty easy. So I stopped by the hardware store after work and my conversation with the very nice and helpful employee there went something like this:

Me: So I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but I need a new thermocouple for my water heater. I’m just stopping in on my way home from work so I don’t know any specifics about the water heater, I just know it’s a 40 gallon conventional tank.

Hardware Guy: Ok! You probably don’t need to know any specifics about your water heater, they’re all pretty much the same as far as the thermocouple goes.

[Hardware Guy shows me where the thermocouples are and grabs one for me- only $7 by the way]

Me: So I watched a YouTube video about how to replace one of these things...is it really as easy as it looks?

Hardware Guy: Yep, it’s pretty easy, except that you have to be down on your hands and knees to do it. If you just pay attention to how the old one is in there, you shouldn’t have any problems replacing it with a new one. Just make sure you have the gas turned off while you’re working on it.

Me: Ok, this might be a dumb question but I’m going to ask anyway because I don’t want to blow up my house- how do I make sure the gas is turned off?

[Super nice Hardware Guy proceeds to take me over to their display of gas valves and shows me what ours should look like and how to be sure it’s in the off position. Then he also takes me over to their display of water heaters and shows me how to make sure the gas is turned off there as well to be on the extra safe side]

So I leave the hardware store with my $7 thermocouple in hand and determined to do a little DIY water heater repair to save us a nice chunk of change. Hubby G was at work, so I texted him and told him I was going to try to be handy and fix our water heater. This is how our text conversation went:

Thermocouple replacement success! I was feeling so handy! Here I am, 6 months pregnant with a big belly and I’ve fixed our water heather myself, saving us approximately $90, all by watching a YouTube video. I AM SHE-RA, PRINCESS OF POWER!

Except it didn’t work. I was totally bummed. I checked the water heater an hour or so later and the light was out again already. Booooooooo.

So the next day we had a plumber come out. It turns out that the thermocouple wasn’t the problem (which actually made me feel a little better because at least I knew that I had done the replacement correctly and that wasn’t the issue) and it was something different and without getting into all of the details, we ended up just getting a whole new water heater. So definitely more than $100. Boooooo.

BUT our hot water is now back in action with a more energy-efficient model and we might even be able to get a tax credit for it. But I’m telling you, if your water heater ever stops working and the pilot light won’t stay lit- you can definitely try fixing the thermocouple yourself first, because if that IS the problem, it will save you a nice chunk of change. Or you can call me to change it for you and give me that chunk of change. Seriously, $88 in labor for something that simple?! If I didn’t think I would feel like I was getting away with murder I would totally go into business exclusively changing thermocouples for that kind of money.

SNOWPOCALYPSE!

2011-02-02T05:35:00.001-05:00

I'm a Yooper, so it's hard to impress me with snow fall- but this is pretty crazy!

You can't even tell where our driveway is if it weren't for the path that Hubby G started clearing!

Hubby G got called in to work overtime since so many people are snowed in- I'm happy to report that he made it in safely thanks to our 4-wheel drive vehicle. According to the news this is just a lull in the action, in about 2 hours we're going to be hit again!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Childbirth Class: Part 1

2011-02-01T21:03:00.000-05:00

Hubby G and I went to our first childbirth class! The childbirth classes that we are attending are free and part of our insurance plan. They're supposed to be 5 weeks long, but since Hubby G's schedule and my schedule didn't really jive with the class schedule, the instructor graciously offered to work around our crazy schedules and condense everything down to 2 classes and have a one-on-one session with us!

So our first class was 3 hours long with the instructor who is a registered nurse. She's had 3 of her own children, worked in labor and delivery, prenatal care, and post-natal care, so she has experience in a lot of aspects of childbirth. She was also very enthusiastic. It was a good thing, and I'm glad she was so excited to accommodate us and our schedules!

We got a whole book (ours to keep) called "Prepared Childbirth: The Family Way" to reference throughout the class. We didn't use it during the class much, but it seems like it's a really great reference to have on hand and to look through when I get a chance.

After a review of some anatomy basics for pregnancy we talked about breathing techniques. Although I'm a very analytical, organized, person, I'm also quite laid back and I rarely stress over things, so I wasn't really sure I'd get much out of the breathing techniques. I really liked the basics: Find a focal point, Take a cleansing breath, breath through the contraction, then take a final cleansing breath at the end. I think I'll definitely use that, but the different breathing techniques that you use throughout the contraction were harder for me to see myself using. But who knows!? Maybe once I'm actually in labor and having contractions I'll be really glad I know a few of them!

The other major thing that we went over were labor positions. I've read in a few places that some hospitals aren't very accommodating when it comes to laboring positions- I've read in a number of places that women can be mostly limited to laboring on their back (lying down) which isn't ideal. Thankfully our instructor informed us that the hospital that we'll be delivering at isn't like this at all and she encouraged Hubby G to remind me to change positions every 30 minutes while in labor so that the baby is better able to rotate- which will then lead to a less painful and more relaxed delivery- definitely a good tip! We went through a number of different laboring positions and she pointed out a few that help with painful back labor specifically. She also explained a few techniques to help stop the urge to push. I thought this was really interesting and valuable because she explained that if you get the urge to push but your body isn't quite ready yet (not dilated and/or effaced completely), then you're much more likely to experience tears and increased pain.

Our class was about 3 hours long and Hubby G and I were both glad we went! I think that for some parts of it I would have liked to be in a whole class of people, but for other parts of it I was glad that it was just one-on-one. We have part 2 of our class next week, so once we're done with that I'll let you know how it went!

Nesting

2011-01-31T16:47:00.000-05:00

I mentioned previously that Hubby G and I had purchased and put together the crib, but I didn’t have a whole lot else to say about the nursery. I think it was one of those things where once we had the crib put together things finally clicked in our heads and we got into the mode of really getting the whole room put together.

Here’s the thing about the nursery: from the day we bought our house, we knew that room would be the nursery. We didn’t know when we would decide to start a family, but whenever that time happened to be, we would have a room. When we re-painted the whole interior of the house, we purposefully chose a gender-neutral color for that room for that very reason (and this was still months before we even knew we’d be expecting). Our house has 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, 2 living-room type areas, a spacious kitchen, and a basement, so with just the two of us and Colby we already had more space than we needed. We never used that nursery room for anything- it was literally, completely empty. It was just waiting for a little baby to come along!

Since we didn’t have to do any painting or clearing out of furniture to even start to get the room ready, it just continued to sit empty- for the most part. Whenever we were given baby items or purchased anything baby-related we stashed it in that room, but everything was just sort of randomly placed in the room or in the large closet that the room has. Up until the last month or so, if you opened the door to that room you’d just see a car seat handing out on the floor in the corner, and a couple of bags of books also sitting on the floor. That’s it. We just didn’t really know what we wanted to do in there exactly. I was against picking a “theme”- I just wanted to pick a color palate and use that for a low-key, non-busy, modern feel. It didn’t even help when we found out we were having a boy because we’re super practical and we’d been planning all along to keep most things gender-neutral so that we would be able to re-use things for future children.

But getting that crib bought and put together seemed to give us a jump start, and now the nursery actually looks like the beginnings of a real room! A couple weeks ago we purchased a cube organizer for the room along with some fabric bins- we love the way it looks in there, and we knew we needed something for basic book/toy storage since our little Peanut already has quite the library building up! The only other piece of furniture we plan on purchasing is a chair. The crib has a changing table attached and the closet is really spacious, so we don’t think we’ll need a dresser.

And I swear, we are going to put some fun things up on the walls if it’s the last thing I do. Quite awhile back I mentioned that we have exactly 3 things hung up on the walls of our ENTIRE HOUSE. THREE. I had even made it one of my goals for 2010 to put things up on the walls, and we still never did it. I think that some of it is that we’re gun shy about putting holes in the walls, another part of it is that we just keep forgetting about it, and some of it is that I think there’s a part of us that actually kinda likes the clean, simplistic, empty expanses of wall space. Whatever it is, I think that our little Peanut's room definitely needs a little pizazz, so I'm determined to find at least a couple of things to put up in there!

I promise, photos will be coming very soon!

Just Dance- Uncoordinated Pregnant Lady Style.

2011-01-25T20:43:00.000-05:00

Looking for a laugh? How about watching a pregnant lady huff and puff her way through a good 'ole MJ hit on Just Dance 2 for the Wii? Yes ladies and gentleman, I'm putting all dignity aside here and sharing with you this gem of a video clip.

Behold, Sister W and I busting a move:

**It must be said that Sister W begrudgingly gave me permission to post this video and stated that it would only be right to mention that she is a super awesome sister for allowing me to post such ridiculousness. That being said- she's the one who bought me the game and I think she only agreed to the posting of the video because she knows just as well as I do that out of the two of us, I look much, much, more ridiculous than she does.

Apple Wireless Keyboard

2011-01-22T23:57:00.001-05:00

Hubby G got me a fancy schmancy, super-sleek Apple wireless keyboard for my birthday! I can't believe how thin a little it is! Definitely a great accessory for the iPad :) He's such a great guy!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad (with my fancy new keyboard!)

A Quarter Century

2011-01-21T17:17:00.000-05:00

Today marks my 25th birthday. A quarter century- it’s hard to believe! It doesn't seem like that long ago when I was reflecting on my 24th birthday.

My 25th year of life is going to be quite the mile-stone year. Our lives are going to be changed completely in just a few months with the addition of our son, and we couldn’t be more excited!

It’s a little overwhelming to think of all that’s going to change within the next year. We’ll be parents- trying to balance full-time jobs with a new family member and our crazy little fur baby Colby. We’ll be figuring out a whole new routine and way of life.

This is going to sound like I’m starting to go off-topic here, but I promise it has relevance in looking forward to what my 25th year is going to be like. For about the first 4 months of my pregnancy I didn’t gain any weight at all, even though my belly was growing. Then, suddenly in early December the scale jumped up dramatically. I blame my parents. During the week that we were visiting them I ate a ton (it was the holidays!) and at my doctor’s appointment following that trip my eyes bugged out at the number on the scale. I went from gaining hardly gaining any weight at all to being on the high end of my pregnancy weight gain. Now, I’m not freaking out about it or anything- I just want to make sure that both the Peanut and I are healthy. Whatever weight that happens to be is fine with me, as long as it’s healthy. In all reality my jump in weight probably had more to do with a growth spurt for the Peanut than me eating a few extra holiday snacks!

How does this play into my plans for my 25th year? Well, as I mentioned in my 2011 Goals, I want to lose the baby weight. I just know that I’m not going to be as happy or feel good about myself if I don’t do my best to achieve that goal. When I found out that I was pregnant I was in the middle of training for my first marathon, so I’d love to get back on that track. I don’t want to set unrealistic expectations for myself, so I don’t have my sights set on a marathon for 2011 (maybe not even 2012 for that matter), but I do want to get back to running. It’s something I really enjoy and I just feel better when I’m in good running shape. I’m doing my best- especially lately- to exercise more so that after the Peanut is born I don’t end up feeling like I’m completely starting from scratch. Within the last week Colby and I have walked 12 miles together! Plus, when it comes to deciding between exercising more or cutting out some extra calories, I’ve always chosen the exercise route- I like to eat whatever I want!

But thinking about trying to balance a new baby with a full-time job AND squeezing in time for myself for running- it’s definitely going to take some creative thinking to make it all work together! I feel blessed to have a case of eternal optimism though, so I don’t feel like it will be impossible. I’m sure some days it might feel like it, but we’ll work through it!

I have a feeling that my 25th year will be one of the best ever :)

Welcome To Our Crib

2011-01-19T06:37:00.000-05:00

On Sunday Hubby G and I tackled two big projects: registering for our little Peanut and assembling the crib.

Both turned out to be bigger projects than I had anticipated, but it's done now and we've got smiles on our faces!

We decided to registered at the brand-spankin' new Buy Buy Baby in our area. We had stopped by the store a couple of times already and I was already obsessed with it. Hubby G and I can both be very meticulous with things, so registering took us quite a while. We got it all sorted out though and checked out a lot of things that we hadn't seen in-person before, so that was great.

When we got home, we headed up to the nursery to begin crib assembly. I'll point out here that Hubby G is a big football fan and he gave up watching the games on Sunday to throw himself into crib assembly whole-heartedly. Even when it started to drive us both crazy. I was very appreciative!

The actual crib itself wasn't the challenge- it was the attached changing table that gave us all kinds of trouble. We probably spent 90% of our time assembling that part and only 10% putting together the whole rest of the crib. I'm going to make a crib skirt to go around the bottom- hopefully I'll make it over to the fabric store in the next few weeks to pick out fabric we like and get it on there!

In case anyone is curious: Our crib is the Delta Cambridge in Espresso and we bought it from Target. After much research, we chose this crib because it's made of solid wood with non-toxic finish, it converts to both a toddler bed and a full size bed, and it was very reasonably priced. We had a different one (the BabyMod ParkLane from WalMart) all picked out, but when we saw that the price of the matching changing table was almost as much as the crib itself, we started looking elsewhere. With the Delta Cambridge we got the crib plus the attached changer for $50 less than what the ParkLane would have cost us for the crib all by itself!

26 Weeks

2011-01-17T17:02:00.000-05:00

I kept thinking about blogging all this past week, but I never actually wrote anything because

1. I haven't been sleeping well at all and I was tired

2. Work was busy

3. I couldn't think of anything really that interesting to write about. And I don't think anyone's really interested in reading something I write if I don't even feel like writing it.

BUT I do have a few things to write about today!

Saturday marked the 26 week mark for our little Peanut. Things are going really well, except for the aforementioned sleeping problems. The experts say that you're basically only supposed to lay on your left side when you go to sleep, but that becomes a problem if sleeping on your left side isn't comfortable. Where are you supposed to go?? Sleeping on your back is a no-no, and not comfortable anyway, and sleeping on my right side is comfortable, however, I find that I often wake up and my hand is numb if I've fallen asleep on my right side. So I lumber back over to my left and hope to fall back asleep. I've never felt so restless in my sleep in my life! Saturday I slept in late and never once got out of my pajamas and that seemed to help immensely, so hopefully for the rest of this week my sleeping schedule will be a little bit better.

On Friday we had our first appointment with our new doctor. As you know, making this switch was something I was very upset about, but I was trying to stay positive and hope for the best.

I have to say, I was very impressed with our new doctor's office and our first visit definitely made me feel a whole lot better about the transition. I'm still not happy with the way the whole thing happened, but it can't be undone and I'm awfully glad that the situation is better instead of worse.

First of all, we were at this appointment for nearly an hour and a half- I don't think any of my appointments have ever been anywhere near that long! We started out meeting with the OB nurse. She was really friendly and personable- much friendlier than the nurse we had met with at our old OB office. She apologized for having to ask questions that we'd probably already been asked before, but she moved through everything as quickly as possible and gave us a good amount of information that we hadn't gotten before. Before wrapping up, she asked if we had any questions and since I've been plagued with a not-terrible-but-extremely-annoying stuffy nose for the last few weeks, I asked if there was anything I could do or take for it. She pulled out a really handy list of all the different types of medications that are safe for me to take (no one had ever provided me with a list like this before- I just have avoided everything). That seems like a pretty obvious thing to provide a first-time pregnant lady with- I'm glad I finally have one!

Next up we met with the doctor. The OB practice where we are going now has 3 doctors and it's a shot in the dark as far as which one will actually deliver your baby- it just depends on who's on call at the time. That being said, they recommend that you meet with any of the three doctors during your prenatal visits so that you can be comfortable with any of them. All three are also family physicians, so the really nice thing is that there's a good chance that which ever doctor delivers our little Peanut will also be his pediatrician, and will also be the doctor for Hubby G and I. Even though our appointment was just with one of the doctors, another one of the doctors happened to be in the office at the time and he stopped in to meet us as well. We got good vibes from both, so that made us feel pretty good. We asked about their c-section rate (something we want to avoid if at all possible) and they explained that their philosophy as family doctors is that pregnancy isn't something that needs a treatment- it's a natural process and they don't feel it's necessary to have a lot of different interventions. That was great to hear!

We had one more visit while we were there- the office has a dietitian on staff who stopped by to introduce herself. She explained that we probably won't be meeting with her again as long as everything keeps going well, but she's definitely available for questions if any come up. The fact that this office has a dedicated dietitian on staff was pretty impressive to me. I heard more about nutrition at this appointment than I think I have at all of my other prenatal appointments combined! I really liked that- it makes sense to put a lot of emphasis on nutrition since that's a big factor in helping our little Peanut to grow strong and healthy!

And last but certainly not least- the most important part of the visit- an update on our Peanut! Everything is going great and I'm measuring exactly 26 weeks, so we're right on track. His heartbeat sounded beautiful and he's kicking regularly (even up toward my ribs lately- I can definitely tell he's stretching those growing limbs further and further!) We'll be having appointments every 2 weeks from here on out, so that will mean lots of opportunities to see how things are going!

Hooray for a crappy situation turning out better than expected :)

Insurance Upsets

2011-01-07T18:56:00.000-05:00

Hubby G and I had a meeting with a member of our new health insurance plan yesterday. It ended in tears.

Here’s the background information: Hubby G has 2 different options to choose from for health insurance plans. After much research and many phone calls to make sure we had a good understanding of the alternate health plan, we decided to switch from the one we currently were on to the other plan. A big factor in making this decision was the fact that with the new plan, all of our pre-natal and post-natal care would be covered 100% with no co-pays. With the insurance plan that we had been on, we would have to pay a co-pay for every single doctor’s visit AND the care was only covered 80%. The biggest drawback of switching to the new plan was that it was an HMO- not a PPO like the plan we had been on. Being on an HMO meant that we would only be able to see doctor’s who are in that specific HMO plan.

It would mean changing to a different OB doctor.

This was a huge factor for us. We’ve been seeing our OB regularly for 24 weeks now and we both liked her and were comfortable with her. Being more than half-way through this pregnancy, I was not at all thrilled with the possibility of having to switch to a new doctor that I had never seen before.

Hubby G made multiple calls (before we officially switched) to get more information about our specific situation and the person he spoke with from our new health plan had told him that it would not be unlikely that our new health plan would let us stay with our current OB because of the point I had progressed to in this pregnancy. She couldn’t guarantee us anything, but she had made it sound like we had a pretty good chance of being able to stay with the OB we had been seeing.

We explained the situation to our OB and she agreed that it would be the best care for us to stay with her. She offered to write a letter to our new health plan to convey this, and we happily took her up on this.

It didn’t make a difference.

We met with the new insurance plan yesterday (the wouldn’t even let us meet with them until after the first of the year when the new plan officially kicked in and we couldn’t change anything) and the doctor told us that basically there was no way they would let us stay with the OB we had been seeing. He told us that they don’t usually let patients stay with their OB unless they are in the last month or so of their pregnancy or if they have a complicated pregnancy.

I did my best to keep it together until we left the office. Only a few steps out the door I couldn’t hold it in any longer and I started sobbing. I’m so glad Hubby G was there with me. I feel so frustrated and deceived. I honestly don’t know that our decision to change insurance plans would have been different if we knew there was no chance we could stay with our OB, but the fact that they had made it seem like we had a good chance of doing that had weighed in heavily on our decision, and it would have made us think further about making that switch. It’s really just a terrible way to begin our coverage with this new plan- right off the bat now I feel like they don’t really care about us- they just want to push us through their system and make money. The fact that they deceived us makes me feel like they were just trying to sweet talk us into switching to their plan, and now we’re stuck with it.

Our new OB might be fantastic. We might like the new doctor even better than the one we had been seeing. We have an appointment scheduled for next week to meet them and find out. But for now, I’m just really upset about the whole situation. And I hate that I have all of these negative feelings about it when we’re just getting started with this new plan.

Hubby G knew exactly what would help to cheer me up. We stopped by the store just across the street and did just a little bit of baby shopping. I told Hubby G that at least now we won’t have to pay as much for doctor’s visits and that means we can spend more on our little boy. I was being sort of sarcastic, but it did make me feel a little better. And I know it really has nothing to do with anything, but we also made fun of the doctor we saw who delivered all this crummy news to us today and I’ll admit that made me feel better too.

I don’t expect to really feel better about this whole situation for a little while, but I’m going to try my best to stay positive about it. I’m happy that my pregnancy has been completely complication free and I hope it stays that way from this point forward- regardless of the ridiculous politics that come with insurance policies.

The Diapering Decision

2011-01-04T19:41:00.001-05:00

Hubby G and I have decided that we're going to go the cloth diaper route for our little peanut.

Because he hadn't ever heard of anything different, Hubby G had pretty antiquated ideas of what it meant to cloth diaper- bulky, poor fitting, rectangles of fabric pinned together at the hips. That was what I had in mind too until I had run across this post from John & Sherry over on Young House Love. I read this post about a month and a half before I actually got pregnant, but I had found it really interesting, so I had starred it in my Google Reader.

So when Hubby G and I found out that we would be expecting a little one in April, I pulled up John & Sherry's post to show Hubby G how modern and easy cloth diapering has become. He was as easily swayed as I was- this made cloth diapering look easy!

After a little more research, I found that the specific cloth diapers that John & Sherry are using- the Organic, One Size, All-In-Ones by bumGenius were my favorite. Why?

(Image from cottonbabies.com - this is where we're ordering from!)

One size is adjustable to fit baby all the way from birth to potty training
They're all-in-one, which means you don't have to worry about inserts or plastic coverings. It's all together in one piece- very similar to a disposable diaper

Really, the only difference between these cloth diapers and disposables is that when a diaper is soiled, you wash the cloth diapers and you throw the disposables away. It's really not any more complicated than that!

But of course my analytical mind wanted some solid data to back up this decision. We knew that the decision to cloth diaper would be very earth-friendly, but just how financially-friendly would the decision be?

Enter my Diapering Notes:

Disposable diapers:
Approximately $0.30 each

Cloth diapers:
$22.08 each (for the specific ones we are looking at)

1 cloth diaper = about 74 disposable diapers (cost-wise)

Average age of potty training for boys = 38 months = about 1,159 days

Average number of diapers used in a day (from birth to potty training) = 10

30 days of disposables = 300 diapers = $90
60 days of disposables = 600 diapers = $180
90 days of disposables = 900 diapers = $270
120 days of disposables = 1,200 diapers = $360
150 days of disposables = 1,500 diapers = $450
180 days of disposables = 1,800 diapers = $540

We decided that if we went with cloth diapers, we'd get 24 in order to have a good amount to rotate between. We could probably get away with 18, but that would mean we'd have to wash them more often, which would cause them to wear out more quickly.

24 cloth diapers = $529.92 = 1,766 disposables = 177 days = about 6 months

Disposables from birth to potty training:
1,159 days x 10 diapers per day = 11,590 diapers
11,590 diapers x $0.30 each = $3,477

Cloth diapers from birth to potty training:
24 diapers = $529.92

So taking all of the above information into account, it means that we'll have to pay more up front for the 24 cloth diapers, but after 6 months the cloth diapers will start paying for themselves. By choosing cloth diapers we'll save ourselves about $2,947. And cloth diapers are known for lasting through multiple children, so our potential cost savings could be even greater if we use them for another baby in the future!

Now, there are a few other costs to consider in the whole diapering scheme:

Cost of wipes- our plan for right now is to use disposable wipes, so this cost isn't really a factor in deciding between cloth or disposable diapers since it will be the same either way. I know that cloth wipes are an option, but Hubby G isn't crazy about that idea and I'm on the fence for now.
Diaper sprayer- this is necessary (in my opinion) when going the cloth diaper route. Basically you use the sprayer to spray the solid waste into the toilet before putting the soiled diaper in your laundry bag. The sprayers are around $50 and are a simple DIY installation onto your toilet.
Diaper receptacle- This one is a non-factor too when it comes to deciding (cost-wise) between cloth or disposable diapers. If you use disposables you need some kind of diaper pail and if you use cloth you need some type of laundry bag or bin. Either way, you just need something that will contain the smells.

So that's how we arrived at our decision to cloth diaper. Even with the additional cost of the diaper sprayer (about $50), the cloth diapers still come out way ahead in financial savings. We'll probably keep a small stash of disposables on hand for when we're traveling and cloth diapers just aren't going to cut it logistically, but other than that, Hubby G and I are committed to cloth diapering full-time. We'll let you know how it goes!

Anyone have any thoughts, advice, successes, or horrors related to cloth diapering?

An Interesting Start To The New Year

2011-01-01T17:18:00.001-05:00

I already made some head way on my goal to cook/bake at least 10 things I've never made before! This morning I baked a strawberry cream cheese braid- my mom makes this with apricot around the holidays and special occasions so I thought I'd try my hand at it.

I didn't take any pictures because I was a little crabby this morning. I've never worked with phyllo dough before and I messed some of it up before I even got started. Luckily it all turned out just fine and tasted delicious, but the process still made me feel a bit crabby (plus I had been up way later than usual last night since it was New Year's Eve, so I'm sure that was a bigger factor in my crabbiness).

Hubby G and I spent some time cleaning up around the house which felt really good and I was feeling pretty motivated, but then I got our laundry going and when I went to move clothes from the washer to the dryer I had the lovely surprise of finding that our washer is malfunctioning and not draining all of the water out.

You better believe that upped my crabbiness level.

I gave up on the washer- despite some googling and YouTube searching, I can't figure out a way to check the drain tube to see if it's blocked and since it's New Year's Day there's no chance we can get someone to come fix it for us right now.

I was already feeling pretty darn crabby, so then it seemed like every tiny, little, thing was amplified by my crabbiness. Like I decided to just chill out and watch an episode or two of Glee on DVD but then realized that the Playstation wasn't hooked up so I had to do that first. Then after I got it all set up, I accidentally hit the button on the power strip behind the tv so everything turned off- but I didn't realize this until AFTER I had sat down and got comfortable.

I hate feeling crabby. That's no way to start the new year! So, in hopes that it will relieve some crabbiness AND help me work toward my goals, I'm now headed out to take Colby for a walk.

Let's hope this does the trick!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Goals for 2011

2011-01-01T09:25:00.000-05:00

Since I expect that our lives will be changing quite dramatically in 2011 with the addition of our son, I feel like it's ok to have some goals that aren't necessarily too specific. Here are my ten goals for 2011:

Be better at showing my appreciation for Hubby G
Walk Colby at least 3 times per week on our 1.5 mile route
Keep writing in this blog
Run in a race
Be the best mom I can be to our son
Cook or bake at least 10 things that I've never made before
Read at least 5 books
Put together our wedding photo album
Be smart when purchasing things for our son- he doesn't need every single thing that all the mommy bloggers write about or everything on Amazon's top 100 baby items list.
Lose the baby weight after our son is born

I'm pretty happy with that list. We'll see how I do! Happy New Year!!

What are your New Year's resolutions/goals?