Saturday, May 28, 2011

Trip to DC

A few weeks ago, Chuck had to go to DC for a couple weeks for work. We thought it would be fun if Jade and I drove up Friday night and we spent the weekend being tourists.

Turns out Jade doesn't really like museums (big shocker), but overall it was a great weekend and it was nice to break up the monotony of being at home with just the two of us. It was also really cute to see how excited Jade got when she saw Chuck when we first got up there :)

Here are a few photos from the trip. Honestly, I didn't take very many. I've been to DC before and taken hundreds of pictures of all the memorials and they haven't changed... and they're boring pictures. And museums also don't make for interesting pictures. So yeah, just took a few to document Jade's first trip to our nation's capital.

She had no desire to sit in her stroller to wait for the metro... so here she is practicing walking with daddy.

And a close up :)

In front of the White House. Oddly, she did not seem impressed.

This is what she thought of the Washington Monument. 

And I took her on the carousel, completely convinced she would love it. She was uh... quite chill. Haha. I liked it though! And at least she wasn't screaming.

I have a couple posts coming up... Jade is 13 months old today! And I was 13 weeks pregnant yesterday. I plan to do weekly pregnancy post (including belly shots) again. So you should be seeing those sometime soon.

Hope you're having a great Memorial Day weekend!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The rumors are true...

Jade's gonna be a big sister!

And while this was quite a large shock, I'm slowly warming up to the idea of having 2 babies in the house at once :) People do it and survive all the time, right?

One thing that does have me really excited about this baby is that I've switched care providers from an OB to a midwife. The midwifery center that I'm going to is attached to a hospital, so I have the peace of mind of knowing that doctors that can perform surgery are right there, but I get to stay in a room with a queen-sized bed, hot tub, and staff that totally supports my desire for natural labor.

Immediately at my first appointment, I noticed a difference with this practice. First, at your first appointment (with my OB and the midwife) I was given a bag of information... things to avoid during pregnancy, how to pick a pediatrician, prenatal vitamin samples, etc. At my OBs office I was also given formula samples and my bag had a big "Enfamil" label on the side of it. None of that at the midwifery center. I later learned that the breastfeeding rate at the midwifery center is NINETY-EIGHT percent. 98. That's huge. That's the way it should be. When I was working with the lactation consultant at the hospital I birthed Jade at, I asked her how many people breastfed there and she said about half. Now that's not an exact statistic, but it just really makes me happy that DePaul is so supportive of breastfeeding that they don't cloud your judgment by passing out formula samples.

The other thing that made me really happy at my appointment was that they had posters for babywearing from thebabywearer.com. This website is an amazing resource for information on safe and correct babywearing and to see them advertised just made me so happy!

I hope this post doesn't come across the wrong way... that I'm not happy to be having another baby. The truth is, it's been an adjustment. But I know that this baby is my baby and that I will love them just as much as I love Jade and that it will truly be fun to watch the two of them grow up together. 

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Laundry room: finished product

Just wanted to post real-quick and share the final pictures of the laundry room. This is before we moved everything in... honestly we still haven't finished that process. With Chuck out of town I'm just proud the house isn't a disaster- the laundry room can come later!

Anyways, it is so nice to have a good space- I can let Jade come in there while I'm moving stuff from the washer to dryer without worrying about the mold and the wet floors. And it's much prettier :)

First, remember what we started with: very little storage, scary yellow walls, washer and dryer on different walls, stupid quote, ugly floor with water underneath it from the leaking washer:


And now:

Much better, right?


We now have cabinets on both sides of the stairs- and they're deep! We no longer have to store excess paper towels and toilet paper (I shop at Costco) in the garage!!


And no more brick stairs. Ah. So nice.

Should I have cleaned before taking these pictures? Most people probably would have. But I pride myself on giving you guys an accurate view of my life :)

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Family photos

First: I figured out that Blogger was all sorts of (very technical term) messed up yesterday. So that's what happened to my post. It's back now, so all is well. I was pretty upset when it was gone!

Second: A few weeks ago, we had family/Jade 1-year photos taken. We went with the same photographer we used for Jade's newborn photos because I just love her style so much. I was certainly not disappointed and I'm excited to share them with you guys :)

BUT, I just realized that I never actually shared Jade's newborn photos on here because I wasn't blogging yet, so I'm going to put a few of those first.





It's crazy to me to look at those and see how much she has changed in a year. Look at all the wrinkles in the last one... she hadn't even grown into her skin yet :)

But now the actual reason for the post... the family pictures we did a few weeks ago:





How can anyone resist that face?


I really wanted to put the last 2 side by side, but Blogger didn't want me to. Oh well. I'm so glad that we thought to bring the bucket to the one-year session. It'll be so sweet to frame the newborn and one-year side by side.

So what do you think? Aren't they awesome. Especially since Jade would not allow us to pick her up (the top photo is one of the last times she let us hold her without fussing), I think they're awesome! The kid wanted to be moving at.all.times. We even had to bribe her to stay in the bucket with Cheerios. But they turned out amazingly well and I'm so excited to have them!

Friday, May 13, 2011

What happened?

I had a new post yesterday... about the laundry room. I know that I saw it after it had posted, and now it appears to have disappeared completely.

Did anyone else see it??

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Laundry room: in progress

We've had SO much going on lately. The laundry room is officially done, but I wanted to post some in progress pics before posting the "final product" pics. Sorry for the ridiculous delay... I am trying to get better with posting regularly!

The project itself took 3 weeks. I managed to get away with only going to the laundromat twice. Not something that I miss from my college days...

The contractor was awesome to work with. Chuck is a bit, uh... picky? Let's just say that he knows what he wants. Exactly. We had a bazillion emails and phone calls back and forth and they were patient with us the entire time and helped us to make sure that we got exactly what we wanted. Of course, we paid for it, but ya know...

This is where we left off. After that, they put up the drywall and installed the floor, and then the cabinets came and then they painted. They ripped out the brick stairs and built wooden ones. I know I'm forgetting tons of stuff, but here are the photos to make up for what I'm leaving out.

Drywall installed.

No more mold where the washer was!

Tile installed.

Beginning of the cabinet install.

More of the cabinets.

No more brick stairs inside my house!!
I'm now gonna leave you guys hanging. Can't give you everything at once :)

Sunday, May 8, 2011

One year!!

I know this post is really late and I haven't posted in way too long, but I think it's ok because, really, what better day to write about my baby's first year than Mother's Day?

April the 28th, Jade turned ONE. We had her party the Saturday before with both sets of grandparents and a couple of the neighbors. That night, we had her dedicated in the church, which was a sweet moment to be able to share with our families.



This past month has been so much fun. She now says "dog/doggy", "Zoe", and "Belle". None of them very consistently, but "dog" is the most frequent. Just a couple days ago (so I guess technically she was already one, but oh well), she pointed at me and said "mama" which made me really happy. But then she pointed at her book and said "mama" so I suppose we still have a while to go!

The girl still loves to eat. She's gotten a bit pickier and has decided she doesn't like chicken, but she still devours breakfast every morning and impresses everyone she comes across with her eating skills. We get comments every time we go out to eat on how well she does with food and how much she eats.



We're still sticking with no dairy because her tummy just doesn't handle it well, but I have started giving her a cup of soy milk once a day now. She's still nursing 4 times a day, but I plan to wean sometime this summer and figure this might make the transition a little easier on her. The first day I gave it to her she was not a fan, but now she really seems to like it.

She sleeps through the night consistently. She sleeps through the night consistently. Sorry, I had to type that twice because it still excites me so much! Last month, we had to go in her room in the middle of the night ONE TIME. Most days, she also naps well. She's still napping at 9 and 1 for about an hour. For a week, she decided she just needed one nap a day but now she's back to two. Not sure when that transition will take place.



She is completely physically capable of walking, she's just too cautious to try. She will stand up and hold onto her cup with both hands to drink her water, will stand and clap, etc.... but when it's time to move, she's crawling. I know she'll get there soon so I'm certainly not pushing it.

She is still pointing all the time, but she has remembered that she knows how to clap (when she first learned to point it was apparently too much fun and clapping took a back burner), so now she's pointing, clapping and waving.



She has this new adorable smile where she crinkles up her nose and eyes because she's grinning so big. I love it.

She's still in her Carter's 6-9 months clothes and Old Navy/Gymboree 6-12 months. The Carter's 12 month tops fit ok, but the pants just fall off... even with the fluffy cloth booty. She's also still in her 3-6 month shoes. I put a pair of 6-9 month sandals on her and her toes didn't even reach the front strap. I guess it'll be a while!

"I don't need this anymore."
At her 12-month appt, she was 16 pounds, 6 ounces and 27 inches long. She's still off the bottom of the charts on both height and weight and around the 25% for head circumference. The doctor still shows concern. I'm still not worried. Looking for a new pediatrician soon :)

The last year hasn't always been fun... some days were downright awful. But overall, it was definitely the best year of my life. I am amazed every day by how much I love this little girl and I can't wait to see what she becomes. One thing that's remained consistent from the day she was born until now is her stubbornness, so Chuck and I pray that she will be stubborn in righteous things because that can take a person a long way.

I thought this one deserved to be super big :)