Wordless Wednesday: Let it Snow

Obviously this is not a recent picture, since it is July and we live in the south, but I thought it was worthy of sharing.  Living in Atlanta means that we don't get very much snow, but when we do, it is fun!  This picture was taken in March 2009.  We had a TON of snow that day (for the south!) and the same thing happened again in 2010.  A little snow would feel good right about now. :-)

Library Storytime

Hannah went to her first Library story time at the local public library on July 12.  We decided to go last minute, so we were both not exactly "ready".  I hadn't showered yet for the day and Hannah was still in the onesie that she wore to sleep in the night before.  (I'm not lying when I say we decided to go at the very last minute).  I didn't even have any makeup on.  Yikes!  Hannah really liked the class, but the best part was meeting new friends!  We met two other babies and their moms and are now in their playgroup!  I am so glad that we decided to stop by that day (despite our dirtiness!). 

Siesta Key

I realized I never wrote about our trip to FL.  We spent a full week (July 3-10) in a condo on Siesta Key.  It was so relaxing and beautiful!  We decided to fly, to avoid the 10 hour car trip with a 4 month old and I am so glad we did.  The flight was relatively uneventful, although Hannah did have a minor meltdown on the flight over.  But as soon as the engines came on, she was passed out.

Hannah got to meet her great-grandparents (Brian's mom's parents) and they loved her and she loved them!

Hannah was not a huge beach fan, but it was really hot, so I don't blame her!  She is just too little still.  I have a feeling that she will love it once she can sit up and play in the sand!

The fourth of July took on a whole new meaning...instead of really being able to enjoy the fireworks (we had the most amazing view from the balcony of our condo!) I was worried about Hannah waking up.  But thankfully the condo came equipped with a very loud box fan, which we put on full blast to block out the noise!

Overall, it was a great trip and we really enjoyed spending time with Brian's family!  Here are a few more pics from our trip....

Our Playroom

I am so excited about the playroom we are creating for Hannah.  It has been a work in progress for a couple months now, but it is finally starting to come together!  YEAH!  I still don't know how to decorate the room, but I have figured out the layout and the furniture we need.  We already have a couch and a chair in the room (these used to be in our family room) and the pack n' play is in there.  Other than that, we needed a lot of book storage.  Since I used to teach second grade, I have a ton of children's book (we are talking a couple thousand!), so we needed some bookshelves.  I really loved the shelves at Pottery Barn Kids, but the ones I liked were $200 a piece....and we needed at least 2.  So I went on the hunt for good quality shelves at a decent price.  Thanks to some friends on Facebook, I found some at Target that are very nice!  And the price was amazing...just $60 each.  At that price, I could order 3 for less than one of the PBKids ones....so I did!  I spent a couple hours on Tuesday putting the shelves together (wow there were a lot of screws!) and am very impressed with how solids they are!

Since I didn't get the PBKids shelves, I decided to get the baskets from there (they were on sale and so cute!)  I spent Wednesday putting those together (very easy) and filling them with toys.  I love the way they look on the shelves. 

The top shelves will hold books and the baskets will have toys in them.  Yeah for storage that is practical and cute!  But now I need help with the rest of the room!  Unfortunately the couch in the playroom is read (doesn't really match my pink and green baskets), but the chair is a very neutral khaki.  You can see the wall color in this picture (also a neutral khaki).  The other thing I want to get for the room (eventually) is a small table and chairs.  I have been looking on a great website (www.eplayfurniture.com) and have a few in mind, but nothing picked out yet.  I like the look of the espresso table and chairs to match the shelves.  But I desperately need help with the decorating of the walls and the rest of the room.  I am so bad at that!  I barely have any pictures hanging on our walls in the entire house and we have lived here for over 3 years!  I need help!!  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! :-)

Great Customer Service

I love my Keurig Coffee Maker and I love their customer service department!  I woke up on Tuesday in desperate need of some coffee.  I don't drink much coffee normally, but when I do, it is because I need it!  If you read my post yesterday, you understand why I have been in need of coffee lately.  Well, I turned on my Keurig machine to make a strong cup of coffee and to my dismay, it wouldn't brew.  I tried everything I could and then called customer service for some assistance.  They had me try a couple different things (maybe a total of 10 minutes of trouble shooting) and when nothing worked, they told me they would ship me a brand new one!  Just like that.  No discussion, no begging, just a new machine.  We were given our machine as a gift about a month after Hannah was born, so it's only 3 months old, but I don't have a receipt or the box it came in or anything.  But they didn't even ask for that information.  The only thing I have to do is mail them the k-cup insert from my old machine in a padded envelope within 30 days of recieving my new machine.  This is all the proof they need that I owned the machine.  And to pay me back for the inconvienance and cost of shipping them the k-cup (it's a small part) they are also shipping me two free boxes of k-cups of my choice (I chose hot cocoa and a variety pack).  While I am not happy that my machine broke, I cannot say one bad thing about the company!  Why can't all company's be so wonderful?  I can't wait to get my new machine and coffee in the mail!!

Sleep...or lack there of!

Oh sleep, where art thou?  Hannah's sleeping habits have taken a nose dive over the last 2 months or so.  I realize now just how lucky we were to have such a great sleeper for the first 3 months.  Hannah slept through the night (7 hours) at 5 days old and never looked back (well a few days here and there, but nothing notable).  Then at 3 months (almost to the day), she started waking up in the middle of the night.  For the first week or so I treated it like a growth spurt and would feed her and she would usually go right back down.  Well, when her night waking continued, I realized that it was no longer a growth spurt and most likely a habit she had formed.  So we started trying a few different things....mainly giving her a pacifier before she woke herself up completely.  This has worked well for the middle of the night wakings (usually just once or twice), but the latest problem is when she first goes down for the night.  We are just never sure how it will go.  Sometimes she falls right to sleep with barely any fussing, while other nights she screams for 45 minutes or more (with us going in and out a couple times to check on her and comfort her).  Then there are the nights (most nights lately) where she wakes up after having been asleep for about an hour.  Sometimes the pacifier will work during this waking as well, and sometimes it won't.  Sometimes the only thing that works is another feeding (even though she just ate an hour ago).  This night time inconsistency is really starting to wear me out.  After letting her cry it out for over 3 months, it is just exhausting that she still doesn't get it.  Doesn't she understand that we aren't going to get her up and play with her...it's bedtime!

Well, after talking to some friends and trying to figure out why she is not falling asleep well and/or waking up in the middle of the night and/or an hour after falling asleep, I decided to try something new.  Our typical night time routine looks like this:
7:10pm - Bath time (every other night)
7:20pm - Pjs, massage with lotion, a few minutes of quite play in her room with mom and dad
7:45pm - Feed (lately our goal is for her to nurse on each side for at least 7 minutes, but sometimes she won't even go that long)
8pm - Story from her children's bible, prayers, and bed
I decided that since she doesn't always have a great feeding at this time, maybe my milk supply is down too much and she isn't getting enough.  So tonight I decided to supplement with 2 oz. of formula after she nursed.  She was a little hesitant at first, but then she ate it all.  In addition to the extra food, I used the Johnson & Johnson Bedtime lotion for her massage tonight.  And I gave her the prevacid her doctor had prescribed for her a while back (we hadn't give it consistently because we really don't like giving her medications....more on that in another post).  So with all of those different things, I am praying that she sleeps very well tonight!  So far, so good!  She went down with no crying at all (a little fussing and complaining, but only for a minute and never any real crying) and has been asleep for about 20 minutes now.  We'll see what happens when she hits the 1 hour mark! 

Any suggestions anyone has would be HIGHLY appreciated.  It is so hard to hear her cry and equally as hard to get up in the middle of the night to pop the pacifier in her mouth or feed her.  It is just hard because I know she can sleep through the night (she did it for 3 months!) and I really don't want to create bad habits with her.  I am really not a fan of giving her the pacifier at night (a habit I don't want to have to break down the road), but that is all we have come up with so far and it really is magic for her.  The second we put it in, she plops her head right back down and falls asleep (not always, but typically). 

Praying that tonight she will prove me wrong and sleep wonderfully!

Wordless Wednesday: Frank Sinatra

Bless his heart, my husband is not a singer.  But we sure do have some great memories of him serenading us while playing Guitar Hero!  I sure do love that man! :-)

Mommy Fail...

I officially win the title, worst mom ever!  Let me preface this post by saying that Hannah is fine and her happy little self, but me on the other hand....not so much!

Here's what happened:  On Friday I was out grocery shopping with the little peanut.  I was first in Rite Aid and she was getting fussy, so I got her out of her car seat (she was in her car seat, which was in the snap-and-go stroller) and held her as I finished getting what I needed in there.  As I was paying, I put her back in her seat so I could get my wallet out of my purse.  I failed to buckle her in at this point....mistake #1.  Then we went next door to Publix and she was a happy little camper and I was just running in for a few items.  I grabbed a basket (the hand-held kind) and started on my merry way.  I propped the basket on the handlebars of the stroller and started filling it up.....mistake #2.  You might be able to imagine what happened next...the stroller tipped forward.  I let go of the handle for one second and the weight of the basket was too much, causing the stroller to tip.  Thankfully everything happened very slowly and I was literally RIGHT there, but it sure did scare Hannah and me!  She didn't fall out of the car seat, but remember...she wasn't buckled in.  So her head fell forward a little (not abruptly or jerky, just forward) and she bumped it on the handle of the car seat.  She screamed bloody murder for what seemed like hours (in reality it was maybe 2 or 3 minutes tops) and now has a scrape on her head (no blood, just some flaking skin) to remind me of what an awful mom I am.  I can't even explain to you how scared I was and how awful I felt.  I grabbed her out of her seat as fast as I could and held onto her for a long time.  I wanted to burst into tears right there, but thankfully the Lord gave me the strength to pull myself together and be there for Hannah.  But I sure did break down once we got into the car (which by this time, Hannah was totally fine....blowing raspberries and making goo-goo noises in the back seat...securely buckled in to her seat now!) 

To top everything off, on Friday afternoon Hannah had her 4 month doctor's appointment (more on that in a separate post).  So you can imagine how I felt admitting to the doctor how she got the scratch on her head.  Yikes!  And to make it even worse, Hannah had to get a few vaccines at that visit....the poor thing! 

Needless to say, I will NEVER use a basket like that for shopping again (not even sure how I will ever grocery shop with her....just too scared now!) and I will ALWAYS buckle her into her car seat, no matter what! 

Welcome to motherhood.....

Tummy Time

Things have changed drastically around here!  Hannah is growing up so fast and I can hardly believe how much she changes every day!  I was uploading new videos and got side-tracked, looking at old videos.  It is amazing to see how much she has changed! 

Check out this video of Hannah doing "Tummy Time" at 12 days old.....

Then look at her "Tummy Time" just 4 days ago (17 weeks old)....

What a difference a few months makes!

Bubbles is so funny!

Hannah gets a kick out of our dog, Bubbles.  Bubbles rarely barks, but when she does, Hannah thinks it is hilarious....priceless!

We have a screamer....

Hannah can scream!  And scream she does! :-)  In the past few days, she has really found her voice.  She screams a lot now and has also started blowing raspberries.  For those that don't know what raspberries are, it is when you vibrate your lips by blowing air through them.  Of course, when Hannah does it there is a lot of spit involved!

Please don't mind my horrible filming, but I have to try to tape her without her noticing.  She gets camera shy the second she sees the camera. 

Wordless Wednesday: Bubbles

This is our 6 year old Bichon Frise, Bubbles.  She is a handful, but when she barks (which isn't often) Hannah thinks it is SOOOOOO funny!  So at least she's good for something. :-)

4 Months

My little peanut,

You are 4 months old today!  What a difference 4 months makes.  You are completely different than the day you were born.  You have changed so much!!  Just look at how much you have grown!!

• You are wearing 0-3 month and 3-6 month clothes (3 month are getting small and 6 month are a little big still)
• You are wearing size 2 diapers (but not too much longer until you are in size 3)
• You have really discovered your voice in the last week or so.  You are cooing and squealing all the time.  You make high-pitched noises and have the sweetest little voice!
• You can tripod sit fairly well now.  I'm sure it won't be long before you are sitting on your own.
• You still loves to stand up.  We don't have to give you much support either...you just hold onto our fingers and can stand up for several minutes.
• You LOVE chewing on your fingers.  If you don't have a paci in your mouth, you have your fingers!  Maybe you are teething??  You are also drooling like crazy and making little spit bubbles all the time.  I am trying to get you to blow raspberries, but you aren't interested.  You just think it's funny when mommy does it! :-)
• You eat every 3-4 hours (usually 3.5 or 4) throughout the day and you are still a champion nurser!  I so enjoy the time we spend together nursing.  It is such a special time!
• You take a 3 hour nap in the afternoon (from about 2-5pm) and you sleep through the night (sometimes) from about 9pm-6am.  But lately you have started waking up in the middle of the night...boo!  We put you down at 7:30pm, you sleep until about 8pm, then wake up screaming??  Sometimes the paci will put you back to sleep and other times we have to rock you or just walk around with you.  Then I feed you again at about 9pm and you usually go right down for the night.  Then I wake you up at 6am and feed you and put you right back to sleep.  You usually sleep until about 9 or 10am before you are up for the day.  I sure do love those extra hours of morning sleep!!
• We are starting to feed you rice cereal, again.  We took a few weeks off after the first time you tried it because you started waking in the middle of the night, but since you are still doing that, we assume the cereal doesn't have anything to do with it, so we are trying again.  
• You love to be held!  I think that is our fault...we have spoiled you a little. ;-)  
• Your head control is amazing!  We never even have to think about it anymore. You hold it up all on your own.  You can lay on your tummy and hold up your head for what seems like hours!  Don't you get tired??
• You LOVE your paci!  We really didn't want you to be a paci baby, but what can we do?  It is a magical thing.  If you wake in the middle of the night or in the middle of a nap, we just pop it in and it's like a sleeping pill....works every time! :-)  I'm still hoping you will figure out the whole thumb sucking thing so you can self-soothe yourself back to sleep!
• You have forgotten how to roll, or at least that's how it seems.  You used to roll from tummy to back like a champion, but you've stopped now!  What's the deal? But you are SO close to rolling from your back to your tummy now, so at least you are trying!
• You are giggling more and more every day.  When I hear that giggle it melt my heart.  Please giggle more!!  It is the most precious sound to a mother's ears.  You are starting to laugh when we tickle you now, which is so cute.  And for some reason you find it hilarious to get undressed.  It's just the funniest thing in the world to you.  When Bubbles barks it makes you crack up too. :-)
• You love your doorway jumper!  You love bouncing when I turn on the music (I call it dancing, of course!)  
• You love playing with your toys and you can hold them in your hands and grasp them all by yourself.  Of course, everything you touch goes straight to your mouth! :-)

We love you more than you can imagine.  There are times that I find myself tearing up for no apparent reason, except that I love you so much.  I try to cherish every day with you and want so desperately to remember you just as you are right now....but you keep changing!  I tell constantly tell you that you need to stop growing up, but you just aren't listening.

Oh little peanut, how I love you!

Wordless Wednesday: Sister

I love my sister-in-law!  I have known her since she was in 5th grade and have had the pleasure of watching her grow up.  She is now in college and I am so proud of her!  Love you!

A gift!

Psalm 127:3 - "Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from him."

While in the thick of parenting, we often forget what a gift our children are to us.  Being a parent is a tough job and being a mother is an endless and often thankless one.  When our days are bombarded with laundry, dishes, poopy diapers, spit up, nursing, baby talk, paying bills, organizing everyone's social calendars, cooking dinner, ironing, and other often monotonous tasks, it is easy to forget why we are doing it all.  While trying for 2 years to conceive our little peanut, I often thought of how the trial of trying would make me appreciate our miracle baby that much more.  And while I have definitely found that to be true in some instances, I too get bogged down in the daily grind at times and throw all of that to the wind.  What I wouldn't have given just a couple years ago to have a little one taking up my time.  Now here I sit, finding myself complaining from time to time about how mundane my daily life can be.  But the Lord calls my child a gift and a reward....what an awesome reminder!  How true that verse is!  Despite all the chaos that is motherhood and the boring and disgusting things we do on a daily basis, Hannah is a gift and such a blessing in my life.  

Thank you Lord for entrusting me with such a great blessing.  Guide me as I work to raise her in a godly home!  Let her know you from a young age.  And let all I do, day in and day out, be to glorify You!

Happy 4th!!

I hope you have a wonderful 4th of July!!!  We are currently soaking up some sun in FL and loving every minute of it!

Enjoy the holiday weekend and I hope you have tomorrow off of work to enjoy with family and friends!  If not, I will be sure to have an extra margarita for you! ;-)

I promise to post pictures of Hannah in her 4th of July outfit when we return!

Out of town....

We are leaving BRIGHT and EARLY this morning for FL!  We are so excited and can't wait to spend a week with family, relaxing at the beach.  While I am gone, I have scheduled a few different posts for your reading pleasure.  (I didn't want you to miss me too much!) :-)

I'm sure I will have lots of pictures to share when we get back....sure to be a few shots of a little girl in some 4th of July gear! :-)

Thankful

I have so many things to be thankful for....we all do!  Even when times are tough and our lives seem to be crumbling around us, we can choose to be thankful.  The Lord has blessed us with so much.  We live in a time of abundance and in a free country!  All of us have a place to call home, family, friends, and even a computer to access the internet from! :-)  In an effort to thank the Lord for all that He has blessed me with, I thought I would make a list of just some of things I am thankful for!  This is by no means a way for me to brag about my accomplishments or the things I have, but is my attempt to brag on the Lord and what He has done in my life.  I know that every good and perfect gift comes from the Lord! (James 1:17)

• My salvation - Jesus paid the price for my sin and covered me with His perfection.  That right there is enough to be thankful for even if you can't think of anything else!
• My family - I have the most amazing family (immediate and extended).  My husband is amazing!  I don't even know where to start with how much I love him!  He is definitely my best friend!  And my little girl is our little miracle.  I never knew I could love someone so much, so fast!  Then there's my parents who raised me in a Godly home and taught me about Jesus from a very young age (I'm sure they were reading me bible stories while in utero!)  I also have the most amazing siblings who love the Lord and are such a bright spot in my life.  I so wish they all lived closer!!  I have amazing aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, and grandparents too!  There isn't a family better than mine...I promise! :-)  But on top of all that, I have been blessed with the most amazing in-laws!  My mother and father in-law are amazing!  I always hear horror stories about mother-in-laws, but I have never found a negative thing to say about mine.  She is awesome!!  My two sister-in-laws are more like sisters to me than in-laws and I love them to pieces!  Not to mention my two brother-in-laws, who are a blast too! :-)  Who has it better than me?!?!
• My friends - Throughout my life I have been blessed with amazing friends.  Many of my closest friends growing up are still some of my closest friends today.  But I have also made some of my best friends within the last 5 years that we have lived in Atlanta.  It was tough moving to a city where we knew no one, but now some of our closest friends live right here. 
• Brian's job - I do not take lightly the fact that my husband has a wonderful job (these days many people are without one).  He has been very fortunate to have a job in the finance world that has remained stable through all the chaos.  We are blessed that we are able to live on his salary alone and that I am able to stay home with our little girl.
• Being a stay-at-home mom - This is the job I always dreamed of doing.  What a blessing to be able to stay home every day with my little peanut!
• Our house - We have a safe and secure place to live and raise our daughter in.  We have running water, air conditioning, heat, electricity, food, water, and a place to sleep at night.  It is so easy to take these things for granted because everyone around us has them too, but not every one in every country is as blessed as we are!
• Our church - When we moved to Atlanta we were overwhelmed with the vast array of churches to choose from.  The Lord led us to Perimeter Church through a pastor at my home church (Riverbend Community Church) in Ormond Beach, FL.  We could not feel more blessed to call Perimeter our home church.  We are so thankful that Hannah will be under the preaching and teaching of that church and will be raised in a church that preaches the truth!
• Health - While so many people around us are dealing with overwhelming healthy issues, the Lord has blessed me and Brian (and Hannah) with our health.  We are so thankful for every day that the Lord continues to bless us and keep us healthy!

Those are just the top things that I am thankful for today....I could go on and on.  It's the big things and the little things that make me feel so blessed. 

Take time today to thank the Lord for His many blessings in your life!

Vacation

Just typing that word makes me happy....VACATION!  :-)  We are leaving early Saturday morning to head down to Siesta Key for a week long vacation with Brian's family.  We have rented a condo right on the beach and can hardly wait to get there!  Brian's grandparents live in Sarasota, so the main point of the trip is for them to meet Hannah and for us to get to spend time with them.  But we also plan on relaxing on the beach and in the pool everyday!  Can't wait!!

We decided that we should fly down instead of making the 9+ hour drive with a 3.5 month old.  I realize that at this age, she is probably the most portable she will be for a while, however I just can't stand the idea of her having to be cooped up in the car seat for that long.  She is starting to really not like being in the car, so I can only imagine how awful it would be.  What used to be a 9 hour drive would quickly turn into 10 or 11 with all the stops we would have to make....not to mention how messed up her schedule would be.  So we are opting for a short plane ride (1.5 hours in the air...but of course you have to also factor in the time it will take us to get to the airport and the fact that we have to be there at least an hour early.)  So I am thinking from door to door it will probably be 5 hours, tops.   That's a lot better than 10 or 11 hours.  Plus Hannah will not have to be in her car seat for that whole time, since she will be in our laps on the plane.

Since this will be Hannah's first flight, I am a little nervous about how things will go, but I have a plan (of course!)  Our flight leaves at 8:45am.  Hannah normally wakes up at 6am, eats and goes right back down til 9:30 or 10am.  So instead of putting her back down, we will just feed her and get her ready for the trip to the airport.  Hopefully (but probably not) she will sleep on the way to the airport and while we wait for the flight to take off.  And wouldn't it be amazing if she actually slept on the plan....HAHAHAHA  I highly doubt that she will sleep at all once we get her up at 6am, but one can hope. :-)  I plan on nursing her during take off and during landing (even though that is not her normal feeding time) to help her ears regulate.  And she will have her paci for the flight too.  A couple toys and mommy and daddy to entertain her and hopefully she will be fine.  Then if all goes as planned (which it rarely does), we will arrive in Sarasota at 10:30am and take a cab to our condo.  Hopefully Hannah will get to take her normal afternoon nap (between 2 and 5pm) but with all the family around, I'm just not sure.  The goal is to keep her schedule as normal as possible, to avoid too many melt-downs!  We'll see....

Packing is definitely a challenge, but thankfully we will have a washer and dryer in the condo!  So I plan on packing light and doing laundry while we are there.  Our goal is to not have to check any bags (trying to save a few bucks....HATE that they charge for luggage now!), which could be tough since we are packing for 3 people for a full week.

Please share any advice or tips you have for flying with a 3 or 4 month old and any ideas for things to bring or not bring for her.  I can use all the help I can get!!