Jessica's Blog

Cloth Diapers

2010-09-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

Using cloth diapers is a really good way to save money.

Not to mention super cute.

We started using cloth on B in March. I ordered 10 pockets and washed every night. I slowly built my stash and once J was born I ordered a ton of prefolds and cheap covers. One thing that I was afraid of was not wanting to stick with the wash routine. It was a little intimidating thinking about all of the laundry I would be doing with 2 little ones in diapers. It took a some getting used to but after a few weeks it just became a part of my every day routine. I'm going to share exactly what I do with our diapers. First, I got a small trash can to store my dirty diapers until wash day. Once soiled I knock off any solids in the toilet then throw in the pail. I usually end up washing every 1-2 days just depending on how I feel. This is what I do:

Prewash with cold water - to get the ickys out
Cold wash/rinse with 2tspns of Rockin Green Hard Rock
Hot wash/rinse with 2tspn of Rockin Green
Extra cold rinse

If I get stinkies I do a couple extra rinses, if that doesn't help then I use some vinegar and that seems to do the trick. It's really simple.

Another intimidating part of cloth..... prefolds. I'll have a post on that later! :)

Photoshop

2010-08-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

Here is a super simple tutorial to make your pictures "pop". Open your picture in photoshop, go to layer > duplicate layer and set it to "soft light" adjust opacity to your liking. I also like to adjust the saturation of this layer by going to image > adjustments > hue/saturation. I set the master saturation at +30 then the red saturation to -20.

Done!

Water Play

2010-08-09T12:38:00.001-07:00

The heat lately has been unbelievable! So what do we do? We play outside with the water hose, of course.

Lightroom 3

2010-08-05T15:41:00.001-07:00

I downloaded the trial version of Lightroom 3 and it's basically amazing. I used to edit my pictures 1 by 1 in photoshop which took way to long. I installed Lightroom and instantly imported all of the photos off my camera. Easy!

Straight out of camera

After editing, looks much better right? ;)

BG 4.0 pics

2010-08-03T12:12:00.000-07:00

B is 30lbs and 36in. J is 16lbs and 26in. I could probably snap it down to the medium setting on B, fully unsnapped makes the rise VERY long which is nice. J is on the smallest setting.

Swagbucks

2010-07-30T15:31:00.000-07:00

Anyone not signed up for Swagbucks yet? It's pretty much the coolest thing ever. So far I have gotten $30 in amazon gift cards. I figured I would post my referral link here just in case anyone wants to join ;) http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/jessicalev follow the link, sign up and start searching! It's really easy.

Bum genius! 4.0

2010-07-30T13:31:00.001-07:00

I love our BG 3.0 but the velcro is terrible. We don't use it often because it's way to easy for B to take off on her own. I got excited when I found out they adjusted the rise on the new 4.0 and added snaps. I am definitely a snaps girl! At first I thought I'd hate them but my kids are pretty patient during diaper changes so taking a few extra seconds to snap them is no biggie for us. I got my 4.0 in the mail today and once I get some pictures of the fit on both kids, I'll post them. I tried it out on J and it fits wonderfully on the medium snap setting. He is roughly 16lbs and 26in. We have a hard time using cloth on him because every diaper cuts into his chubby thighs, it doesn't seem to bother him but I don't like it. The bum genius never leaves any marks and the elastic is really soft. I am really impressed by it, I ordered another one!

Pics will come shortly :)

Birth Story

2010-05-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

Jax was born on April 22, 2010 at 1:12 PM weighing 7lbs 10oz and 21in long. I was 39 weeks exactly! Around 550am thursday morning I woke up and my water broke. I instantly starting having contractions but they werent very strong. Patrick had already headed to work for the day so I called and told him what was going on and that I'd call him when its time to go to the hospital. So I get up and decide to do some very last minute cleaning, did dishes and laundry until B woke up then I got her ready to go to my friends house. At 730am I called Patrick back and told him to come home since he was 2hrs away I wanted to make sure we made it to the hospital in time. The contractions were still really mild and not timeable at all so I figured we had plenty of time. He got home around 10 and we had some errands to run before heading to the hospital. We finally got to there at 1150am and the nurse started the jacuzzi tub for me. At this point my contractions were 2 min apart and painful but I was laughing and joking around in between them so they werent THAT bad. I was only able to sit in the tub for about 15 min before the contractions became unbearable. I called the nurse and requested the epidural, contractions at this point were 1 min apart. They checked me and I was dialated to a 7. Within minutes I started yelling at Patrick to call the nurse because I felt like I had to push and he was like "No, they just checked you and you were only a 7" I started freaking out and finally I hit the nurses button while trying so hard not to push him out without my midwife there. They checked me at 1pm and I was fully dialated, my midwife rushed in and 12 minutes later he was born. I wasnt able to get the epidural because it went so fast and holy crap that was some horrible pain. I was really wanting a natural med-free birth but I honestly didnt think I'd actually HAVE one lol. I am so glad I did it though. He is doing great and growing really fast. He was back up to his birth weight at 6 days old and now at 15 days old he weighs around 9lbs.

Finally!

2010-04-11T14:34:00.000-07:00

My review for Kawaii cloth diapers! I've been so busy lately, nesting like crazy, doing tons of laundry and basically rearranging my entire house I completely forgot about my blog. I bought these diapers myself and wanted to post a little review for anyone interested in them. We've been using them for a little over 2 weeks and so far so good. First let me tell you about B, she is an 18 month old 28lb 33-34in toddler with chubby thighs and a small waist. So far shes been very easy to cloth and every diaper we have tried has fit her really well. The kawaii's are one size and come in either snap or velcro closure. I bought 4 snaps and 6 velcro. They are pockets so they come with 2 microfiber inserts each. B is on the medium size setting when only stuffed with 1 insert, at night she is on the largest setting stuffed with 2 inserts. They have a PUL outer with suedecloth inner to wick away moisture.

I do have a few minor complaints... I like to stuff them right out of the dryer so they are ready to go when B needs to be changed. These make that difficult because the inserts shift a lot. I'll stuff them and put them in the changing table but when I take one out the insert bunches up and I have to re-adjust it before putting it on. Like I said, very minor. The best thing is the velcro is holding up amazingly well despite being washed every night.

We have had 2 leaks so far and both were 100% my fault! Both times I left them on for to long. B isnt much of a super soaker and can go about 2 1/2 hours without being changed, sometimes longer. Over night I stuff with 2 inserts and that gets her through 12-13 hours with no problems.

http://theluvyourbaby.com/ is the website and the lady who sells them is very quick to respond if you have any questions.

I'm no professional reviewer ;). I plan on putting them on J when hes born in the next few weeks and taking pics. Just hoping to help some mommas out!

I'm so bad

2010-03-26T12:09:00.000-07:00

I'm so bad at keeping this blog up to date. I want to make some changes so I actually have things to write about. I'm going to start doing some reviews on cloth diapers, hopefully I can help some new cloth moms out. I just got 10 Kawaii diapers in the mail today and I'm so excited to test them out! They are in the washer right now and when they are done I will take pictures and post about them. I also ordered 1 KatyDid OneSize diaper though I'm not sure when I'll actually recieve it. When I get it I'll definitely do a review! I really do hope I can help some people out, cloth is SO much fun but super overwhelming.

So for future reviews I'm going to do the bumGenius 3.0 one size, Kawaii one size, KatyDid onesize. I also plan on getting some Rumparooz and the bumGenius organic one size. I'm ready to start reviewing. Who knew cloth diapers could be so exciting?

Potty Training

2010-02-24T08:37:00.000-08:00

So I guess we have officially started potty training B. I have been sitting her on the toilet for a few weeks but she started getting scared of it. I didn't want to force her so I stopped and bought her a little potty, much better. She loves to sit on it. I've done little research, I am really just winging it. She's been running around nakey a lot and we've already had a few accidents but honestly, I think it has helped her become more aware of what she is doing. She took a shower with me and I let her run around while I got dressed, she started peeing on the floor, I picked her up the second I saw her and sat her on the toilet. I figured she would freak out but she didn't. She continued to potty and got really excited! When she was done she tried flushing. I was a little shocked, I don't think I give her enough credit. She is a really smart little girl, I didn't think she understood what to do but she's proven me wrong! And when she was done she had to run and tell daddy, she was so proud of herself.

It's funny because the past few days she's been saying "P I!" we thought she was just babbling but I've come to realize she is really saying "I Pee!", she also lets us know when she poos lol. Wouldn't it be lovely if she was out of diapers by 2? I plan on using cloth with little man so if B continues the way she is, we will definitely save money each month. Diapers are expensive!

Easy burp cloths

2010-02-22T09:05:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine is having a baby shower on Saturday, since we are really tight on money right now I dug through my piles upon piles of fabric trying to figure out something I could make her. I decided to make her some burp cloths! I wish I would've had some of these when B was little since she was quite the spitter, we just used recieving blankets and while they're good for little spit ups they didn't hold much. These are super super easy to make and are adorable so I thought I'd give a little tutorial on what I did. Remember, I am a beginner. I still can't sew in a straight line and it is very apparent in the photos, I need practice :P.

Materials -
Scrap fabric, I used fat quarters and could make 2 burp cloths out of 1 fat quarter
Gerber cloth diapers, I got the 3ply kind from walmart
Iron
Scissors
Sewing machine

First thing I did was wash all of the fabric and the burp cloths in hot water. This only took about 40 min, they dried really quick!

My supplies

What I did was a laid my fabric on the cloth diaper and matched up the fabric to the thick center. I didnt do measurments because it looked like after I washed the diapers they all shrunk to weird sizes and the center portion looked like it was smaller at the top then at the bottom. Anyways, I cut the fabric about an inch bigger then the center strip of the diaper.

I folded the sides of the fabric under to hide the unfinished edge, then pinned it in place.

And started to sew! I used a straight stitch for this burp cloth but if I had to do it over again I'd use a small zig zag, only because the zig zag is easier for me to control and keep straight, for whatever reason. When I use a straight stitch I always end up going all over the place lol.

Here is the finished project! I sewed the sides down first then did the top and bottom. Super easy right?

See the wonky lines? hahah how terrible! In my defense, I made this in about 10 min while trying to keep a toddler from knocking over my ironing board. It't not like she has a million toys to play with or anything. I guess the ironing board is just that interesting. But the the lines dont have to be straight, I mean, the thing is just going to be puked on!

Here are a few more I made. I'm addicted! These are super cheap to make also. The closest Joanns is over an hour away so I have to stick with my walmart fabric. I discovered a little section that is nothing but fat quarters. They range from $1-1.47 I didnt see any more expensive then that. The cloth diapers were like $11 for 12. I also have a ton of fabric scraps left over from other projects that I could use. I think I'm going to make my little man some with soft flannel.

2010-02-08T17:36:00.001-08:00

Wow so I almost forgot I had a blog! Things have been super busy around here. We are trying to prepare for the baby but since Patrick has been laid off since December there isn't a lot that we can do. B has been going through some serious mood swings. I think shes getting sick, she's been running a low grade fever for the past 2 days and she's super clingy. Poor baby! Another reason I've been MIA is because we got internet through verizon wireless and we can only use a certain amount of megabytes each month. So far this month we've used up most of it so I'm trying to limit my time I spend on the computer so I don't go over and get charged an insane amount. I'm trying to work on another tutorial, a more detailed one but its been hard! I haven't been able to spend much time playing in my Photoshop either.

The baby is doing great. He's extremely active like, non stop movement. I can't believe how fast these past 3 months have gone. I only have 11 weeks left! I can't wait to meet him :) But we still dont have a name picked out. Well I have a name picked but we haven't agreed on it yet. Hopefully we get it figured out before he's born. I've gotta get my little cranky daughter in bed. Maybe I'll remember that I have a blog and start posting again lol.

Photography blog

2010-01-27T17:51:00.001-08:00

www.jlevphoto.blogspot.com

WOOHOO!

Copyright

2010-01-24T09:35:00.000-08:00

Anyone know of a good way to copyright photos? I'm a little worried about my pictures being stolen. I know I can always put a watermark on the picture but that can easily be taken off by anyone. I'm not really sure why anyone would go through the trouble of stealing someone elses pictures, it's not THAT hard to produce good photos so why not learn instead of steal? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Not a lot to blog about these days. We spent all day yesterday worrying about the crawl space under the house flooding because the sump pump wasnt plugged in. We basically flooded the street when we turned it on. Oops! Then we spent a few hours at Lowes looking through carpet because our upstairs needs to be done ASAP.

I'm a still a little undecided about the name we have picked for our little guy. I think we might end up changing it and maybe not telling anyone until after hes born. Is that mean? lol. I like the name Emmett but it just doesn't click with me. Not to mention everyone thinks we are naming our kids after twilight characters which makes me want to puke. Seriously.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-01-20T09:55:00.000-08:00

Adbrite

2010-01-18T13:42:00.000-08:00

I signed up for Adbrite and I'm not sure it's going to last long. I visited my page and within about a minute I had a full page ad pop up. Annoying! We'll see how it goes I guess.

Photoshop

2010-01-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

I've been working in Photoshop for years. I started when I was about 11 with photoshop 7. I was home schooled after the 6th grade and my favorite thing to do was design layouts for web pages (I also ran my own website for awhile but that's another story). I stopped when I went back to school for the 11th grade and have since picked it up again. I don't remember a lot so I'm like a newbie to it again. I want to start posting tutorials and stuff on here of things I learn and maybe help someone else out. I'm gonna start today! I'm not very good with explaining things so in order to understand what I'm talking about you'll probably have to have a little photoshop knowledge already.

Here is a picture of B that I took today while playing outside (taking advantage of the 45 degree weather here in Missouri!). Anyways, the top picture is SOOC (straight out of camera) and the bottom is after processing. I love the way it looks and it is really really easy. I rarely shoot in RAW, I did this using a high resolution JPG.

1. Open a picture in photoshop
2. Run an action.... for this one I used the free Coffeeshop Butterscotch Vintage action. There are a LOT of free actions out there and they make editing pictures so much easier.
3. When I first ran the action it made the right side of her face really dark so I selected the Dodge tool and went over the dark part a few times to lighten it up a bit.
4. To make her eyes pop a little I used the selection tool and went around both eyes then went to Images < Adjustments < Brightness/Contrast, I upped the brightness about 10-15 and the contrast 20-25.

And that's it! I'm sure this is totally confusing haha. I will do another tutorial soon with more detail and pictures. This is just a basic understanding of what I do.

Oh, and don't mind the deflated pool in the background of the picture. I actually forgot it was in the yard since it snowed like CRAZY and covered it completely. Oops!

2010-01-16T14:58:00.000-08:00

Sorry the pictures are a bit crappy, the first one was taken at night and I couldn't get B to sit for very long in the second one. The first is a bow holder that I made the other night. It turned out so cute and it was super easy! Its made out of an 8x10 picture frame that I sanded down a little and painted then hot glued the fabric and ribbon on. I also made the little bow, I'm proud of it since I've tried and tried to make cute boutique looking bows but always fail! I think this one actually came out pretty cute. I can't wait to make a trip to Joanns soon so I can buy some more small ribbon, I'm feeling creative.

Parenting

2010-01-13T13:59:00.000-08:00

When I had B I was very strict with how I wanted to do things. I didn't want to co-sleep because I figured it would be a terrible habit to break, I didn't want to rock her to sleep because then she wouldn't know how to self-soothe and yadda yadda blah blah blah!

I used to lay her down in her crib and pat her to sleep but she started to hate it so I rocked her. I have been rocking her little chunky butt every night since she was about 9 months old, I tried not to worry about it being a hard habit to break and instead focus on spending that time with her. About 2 weeks ago I tried to rock her to sleep, around 8pm which is her normal bedtime. She refused to sit still she wanted to run around so I let her. I figured maybe she just wasn't quite ready for bed yet. About 30 minutes later I tried again and the same thing, she threw a fit. At this point I knew she was getting tired she was showing all of the signs and I really didn't have a clue what to do so on a whim I took her upstairs and put her in bed and walked away. We listened for a bit expecting her to scream but instead, silence. After about 10 minutes I decided to go check on her and sure enough she was sleeping. I figured for sure that was a fluke. So the next day at nap time I tried to rock her and it didn't work so instead of fighting her I took her straight upstairs and laid her down in her crib, gave her kisses then went back downstairs. She put herself to sleep. This has been consistently happening for the past 2 weeks. And now she lets me know she's ready for bed by pointing to the stairs. She did this all by herself and I am so proud! I hate that, at one point, I actually listened to other peoples opinions on how I was raising B. We even tried letting her cry-it-out because I thought for sure that she would be rocked until the age of 28. I was so wrong.

Just recently I stopped listening to what everyone else thought of my parenting and started to trust myself a little more. We are going to potty train when SHE is ready, we are going to toss the binky out completely when SHE is ready and if she ever wants to sleep in bed with mommy and daddy then I'm going to let her.

2010-01-11T15:09:00.000-08:00

How do busy moms blog so often? I only have 1 and it's really difficult for me to get on the computer. For some reason I've been getting up early just to make breakfast, strange? I have been craving eggs, pancakes and french toast. So what have we had the past week? You guessed it; eggs, pancakes and french toast. This is probably horrible to admit but when I have a nice big, fulfilling breakfast I stay full for the majority of the day. Normally I'm not hungry again until around 5 which for us is dinner time. It doesn't help that I already feel like Emmett no longer has any space in my stomach. Is that normal for only 24 weeks? I'm assuming not. I definitley think he'll be bigger then B but I also predicted her to be big and she came out a whopping 7lb 7oz. So I guess we'll see!

We have officially started our journey with NO CABLE. The cable company decided they wanted to charge me 500 dollar fees to have everything switched over to the new address so I said UH NO THANKS. The crappy tv isn't even worth half of that. We still get basic channels but those are free. It was funny because Patrick was like 'YAY NOW WE DONT HAVE TO WATCH AMERICAN IDOL!' so I turn on fox 4 and I'm just waiting for him to notice that we, indeed, DO have the channel and we WILL be watching tomorrow night. He got pretty upset, he cant stand the show but I went through a whole season of Ice Road Truckers without complaining so he can SHOVE IT. In the nicest way possible, of course ;). So dinner is just about done and it smells pretty amazing (tacos!!!), I wanted to blog a little about the documentary "The Business of Being Born" but I guess I'll save that for another day. Stay tuned haha.

I love this little girl!

2010-01-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

2010-01-02T16:28:00.000-08:00

Lightroom

2009-12-31T12:31:00.000-08:00

I love Adobe Lightroom!!!!

I really need to keep up this blog a little better! My brother is visiting from Texas and he brought his girlfriend, she is a sweetheart! B and I hung out at my moms house last night with them, we watched the hangover and chatted. It was fun. I took some pictures of them and my brother gave me the greatest compliment, he loves how they turned out. That definitely helped boost my confidence in my photography.

I think they are pretty adorable!!

2009-12-14T13:36:00.001-08:00

Wow, I haven't blogged in awhile. It's been busy around here, getting ready for Christmas and whatnot. Patrick got laid off 2 weeks ago so we've been doing a lot of work to the house. Not really a whole lot to blog about. I took Christmas pictures of a friends kids and apparently everyone keeps asking her where she got them done! Thats flattering. I don't have a lot of confidence in my photography so to hear that people actually like it makes me happy :). I think I might start a photography facebook and blog so people have a way to contact me if they want any pictures done. If anyone has any advice I'd greatly appreciate it!

In other news, we had an ultrasound done a couple weeks ago and ITS A BOY. He's gorgeous, of course. And he's a crazy active little guy already. It took us awhile to agree on a name but we finally came upon Emmett Lee and it fits really well. I'll be 21 weeks on Wed. and I can already see him jumping around in my belly.

Sewing

2009-11-25T10:42:00.000-08:00

My sewing machine and I have started to get along a little better recently. When I first got it I had a hard time with the tension and whatnot so most of the things I made looked like crap. I stumbled upon http://indietutes.blogspot.com/2007/07/peasant-blouse.html this tutorial, I thought I'd give it a shot. The first shirt I started on made me SO MAD. I couldnt figure out how to put the back piece on and apparently I'm an idiot because I asked Patrick and he figured it out right away. Anyways, I found this stretchy material shoved in the bottom of my fabric box and thought it'd make a cute shirt. I have no clue what its called or even if its suitable for clothing but whatever I used it anyways and it turned out cute! I'm pretty happy with it. I didnt get around to putting elastic in the arms, I'll do that later. And dont mind my wonky lines, I still cant sew straight and making a casing for the elastic was a pain in my ass. Seriously.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving!! I plan on gaining a few more pounds tomorrow ha.

Baby Update

2009-11-24T14:48:00.001-08:00

I had my doc. appoint. today and it went good. Nothing exciting. I have only gained 6lbs so far, which I am proud of. The heartbeat was strong at 150bpm and I'm measuring right on track. B had to go with me since I didn't have someone to watch her. She did great! I was kind of shocked. We got there early and she played with a few kids out in the waiting room and she stood next to the exam table patiently as we were listening to the heartbeat. I got the quad screen done also which required blood to be drawn and I was a little worried about how B would react but she did just fine, sitting on my lap until I was done. The soonest they could get me in for my ultrasound is on Dec 15 and I'm not willing to wait that long to find out the sex so I made an appointment for Monday with an ultrasound place close by. I'm so anxious, I can not wait to find out what we're having! Everyone is saying boy. I even catch myself calling it a 'him' already. So we'll see :p.

I'm basically huge.

See? I can't believe how fast my stomach is growing with this one. And this kid is really active. I feel movement every day which is crazy since a lot of woman dont even feel flutters yet. Maybe he/she will be a 10 pounder :/ lol.

Outside Playtime

2009-11-17T11:41:00.000-08:00

I love our new backyard and can't wait for it to snow so B can play in it for the first time! So I'm thinking about getting into photography professionally. I want to take pictures for other people so badly but I'm not really sure where to start. I've offered to take pictures for friends but so far none have taken me up on the offer :/ I want to stick with newborn/kid photography so I'll get a lot of practice once the new baby is born. I already have so many ideas, I wish I had a baby to use them on now! B's a little difficult because shes all over the place and she's in love with my camera, so if I sit on the floor to get a shot of her she runs to me as fast as possible just to touch the buttons and look at the pictures that I already took. I think she is a photographer in the making! I bought a really old camera from an antique shop that doesnt work and B has taken it over. She actually holds it up to her eye like she's going to take a picture. Its so funny! I'm trying to teach her to say, "Say Cheese!!!" and one of these days she will and it will be the cutest/funniest/greatest thing ever. I just hope I can catch it on video.

I'm not having much luck uploading pictures..... So the wider pictures are cut off a bit, I have no clue how to fix it!

Wordless Wednesday

2009-11-11T06:06:00.001-08:00

Crafty

2009-11-06T09:41:00.000-08:00

I am so crafty lately! I want to make things and I have ideas running through my head 24/7. It's so fun. My mom gave me 2 old end tables that are a little beaten up, the smaller one I decided to use in B's room so I sanded it down and put a primer on it. Now I'm waiting for it to dry so I can add another coat then it's going to be painted a light pink to match her bedding. I also plan on making her curtains as soon as I can get to Joanns to buy some material. I think I'm just going to make them plain pink like her table. Her room is green and her bedding is pink/green/white/yellow so a lot of colors match. Since we are moving everything upstairs before any new flooring/carpet is put in we'll just have to deal with the old nasty stuff for now and put a small rug in her room. It's turning out so nice, we get so many compliments on what we've done to the house so far. But our landlord wasn't very happy that we changed the wood trim to white. I'm not really sure why, the old wood stuff was gross! Whoever painted this house before didn't tape off the windows or trim so there was paint splatters everywhere and it looked horrible after we got the living room painted so we decided to change it. I think it looks great and it really brightened up the room.

I made 2 baby blankets for a friend of mine who is having a little girl in March. They turned out so cute! I was so proud of myself. One side is made of minky and the other is cotton so its nice and soft. I heard minky is really hard to work with but I didn't have to much trouble other then it is slippery and messy! I got fuzz everywhere. I'll post pictures of them as soon as I get them off my camera.

Oh my gosh, I can't believe I didn't mention this before. Did anyone hear about the shootings at Fort Hood yesterday?! I got a text from my mom saying "shooting in fort hood ,7 dead, jeremy is ok" I was like WHAT?!?! Jeremy is my brother and he is stationed there. We are really close, I hate that he joined the army because I can't imagine losing him. I freaked out and rushed to my moms work where we watched Obama give a speech on the whole thing, which I didn't like, he didn't seem sympathetic at all he was just reading off a piece of paper. It's nice to know that my brother was safe and out of harms way but how tragic, 12 dead and over 30 injured. I just can't imagine what those families are going through, they are in our thoughts and prayers.

All Moved In

2009-11-06T05:25:00.000-08:00

Living room

half of the backyard

Bellas play room and soon to be office/sewing room

she's a good helper!

Finally, we are done moving!! I'm a little irritated with our landlord right now because they asked me to clean up our old duplex and I said yes. I got my mom to help and we packed all the cleaning supplies up and headed to the old place, when we got there a cleaning lady had already been there for a few hours and was half way done with the house. I figure maybe our landlord just wanted it done a certain way so she hired someone. I get a call about 3 hours later from my landlord saying "I'm going to charge you what I charge her." Uh what? I told them I was willing to clean the place and I would'nt have done it half ass, it would've been done GOOD. The cleaning lady charges $10/hr. The duplex was already clean, I wiped down the cabinets, vaccumed 3 of the rooms and cleaned the bathrooms. So I thought she would be just there a few hours, I drove by at 430 and she was still there!!! Almost 10 hours later. I was like wtf I am not paying this lady 100 dollars to clean a house that didn't need that much cleaning!!!! We went to scope out the house after she left to see exactly what took her so long. Nothing. It looked the freaking same! The cieling fan was cleaned off, everything was vaccumed and wiped down (which I had already done). It should've taken her a couple hours at the most, 10 hours is just ridiculous. If I was charging by the hour, I would take my time and I think thats exactly what she did. I was expecting the carpets to be shampooed, every window to be sparkling clean, the bathrooms shining. None of that was done, it was just a basic cleaning. That I was completely capable of doing. Ridiculous.

The weather has been gorgeous the past few days and I've been going without heat as long as I can but over night we need something. We also arent using the upstairs yet. So since they are on seperate thermostats we have just left it turned off up there. We are moving everything upstairs this weekend so even though heat rises and it feels nice up there during the day, the nights are going to be to cold. Have I mentioned how much I love this house? And I wish it was OURS. Everyone that walks in says "This house is huge!" Heck yes it is! And I love it! I open all the curtains during the day and its so bright.

For some reason I'm having a hard time uploading pictures from flikr so I have to use the uploader on here that squishes the pictures and makes them look terrible.

So busy!

2009-10-30T06:27:00.000-07:00

We have been working non-stop on this new house, getting it ready to move in. We sign our lease on Sunday and all our utilities are going to be switched over today so moving our stuff in needs to happen soon. We painted the living room a really pretty red and the baseboards were all splattered with old paint from the previous tenants and they looked gross so they are now white and it looks awesome! I can't wait to get stuff moved in. I'm going in a little bit to mop the whole house because the cleaning lady that was there for 2 days did NO cleaning. There is dog hair everywhere and it smells terrible and there is dust all over the beautiful hardwood floors so I'm getting it cleaned up. We also got a pretty like brown/tan color for the other room downstairs, that will be B's playroom for now. And eventually we are going to take the double doors out, sand them and re-stain them because on one side they are painted a dark purple and on the other one is white and one is brown. Weird right? These people had an obsession with bright ass colors. The ceiling in the kitchen is neon green.

Upstairs needs lot of repairs but that will be a project for later. The room B is going in is painted a light green, that I actually like and it matches her bedding so we're just going to leave it. And the baby will be in our room with us. Since our house used to be duplexes, one upstairs and one downstairs, the upstairs has 2 large rooms in the middle, one is going to be ours and the other we are going to put the baby in, so he/she is close. I also have to figure out how to safely clean the tub upstairs, its an OLD claw tub. And I mean OLD! About as old as the house. Its got stains at the bottom but I think they can be brought out with a cleaning solution, but I'm not sure what I can breathe in being pregnant. I'll probably just buy a good pair of gloves and a ventilated mask, there's also a window I could open.

Things are finally getting done! I saw my midwife on tuesday and she's just awesome. She heard the heartbeat right away and my uterus is pretty high. I've been feeling baby move for a little while now. It's the coolest thing ever, yesterday when I was driving I felt him/her roll across my stomach. We keep calling this baby a her and I'm not sure if that means we are having a girl or if its just because we are so used to saying her for everything since we have B. I can't say one was or the other what sex I want this baby to be. I keep going back and forth. I love the idea of another girl but a boy would be really fun. We find out in the beginning of December :)! It seems like so far away but its going by so quick that it'll be here before we know it. Not to mention there is so much going on in between now and then, moving, next doc appt, thanksgiving. So it should fly by since we will be pretty busy. And, great news, I've only gained 1lb since becoming pregnant. That is a HUGE deal to me because with B I gained 55lbs, and at 14 weeks I was already up about 10. This time around I've been watching what I eat and trying to stay active. Having a 13 month old to chase after 24/7 has really helped I think. Plus, I don't have much of an appetite this time. These pregnancies are SO much alike but at the same time SO much different.

In other news, Patrick has the flu. He's been sick since about tuesday. He is on tamiflu and it seems to be helping a lot but he's still sore. So it looks like I'll be finishing the house myself which is ok, I can do it. I'm just hoping B and I don't get it! It's hard to take care of myself with a child to watch and its hard to take care of her little sick butt all by myself, when I'm pregnant and exhausted! We are praying to stay healthy. Washing our hands like crazy and taking extra vitamin D. So far it seems to be helping.

2009-10-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

I took the ads that were on my page, off. They weren't doing a bit of good and I got tired of seeing them! So, they're gone.

Milestones

2009-10-23T06:13:00.000-07:00

I like to look back and see when B hit her milestones and sometimes I have a hard time remembering so I'm going to put them here to have forever!

She was able to hold her head up at just a couple days old, although it was a bit wobbly at first.
Rolled from belly to back - 2 weeks old
Smiled - 5 weeks old
Laughed - 3 months
Rolled from back to belly - 4 months
Said "dada" - around 5 months
Sat up with support - 5 months
Sat up unsupported - 5 1/2 months
Danced - 6 months
Crawled - 6 1/2 months
Pulled up to a stand - 7 months
Cruised furniture - 7 months
Said "mama" - 7 or 8 months but it wasn't until about 11 months that she said it often
Took first steps - 9 months
Walked well - 9 1/2 months
Ran - around 11 months, now shes a pro
Walk backwards - 10 months
Clapped - she started early but then stopped and didn't do it again until 10 months
Waving - same as clapping
First words - I'm not sure when she said her first word...isn't that horrible?? I think it was "ball" around 10 months
Pointed - 9 months
Played peek-a-boo - around 10 months, maybe earlier but I'm not sure.

Words she says now - ball, juice, this, that, no, yes, mommy, daddy, puppy, kitty cat, push, nana, sit..... pretty sure she says "shit" too and at first I thought she was just saying sit but it definitely sounds like shit these days.. yeah, we're working on that.

She can sign 'More' and does it for everything! I am attempting to teach her 'milk' and 'eat' but instead of doing those signs she just does 'more'. If I ask her "do you want some milk?" she'll say yes and then sign more lol. She also points at whatever she wants and signs 'more'.

I went to the new house yesterday in the daylight and woah does it need work! The downstairs is fine, just needs some cleaning and paint. But the upstairs looks just terrible. There are a few things we can do right away to fix it up like paint and some of the walls have holes that need to be filled. The floors are terrible. I don't know how someone could do that to hardwood floors! They're scratched up like no other and there was carpet in one room that had to be ripped out and the floors under it aren't the best. So carpet needs to be put in again very very soon. Right now my landlady is more concerned with ripping out a stair case that goes to the back of the house, which is a big priority for us too. That freaks me out, it is sealed off but I still don't like the idea of it. We were thinking of getting laminate flooring for B's and our room upstairs, because those are the only rooms we'll be using until the next baby comes along. And laminate flooring is fairly cheap but I don't think I could lay it myself, I'd definitely need Patricks help. I'm hoping we can do this in December since Pat gets a vacation check and quite a few days off, I don't want those floors to stay the way they are for long! They are hideous.

I did pick out some paint colors and I'm excited! We are going to do the kitchen and dining room in a dark/hunter green and I'm going to attempt to make some new cushions for our chairs. Then the living room is going to be a darker tan color, its called oatmeal. It matches out brown couches perfectly, then the extra room (that will be B's play room for now) is going to be a dark red. I was thinking about doing my sewing room/office in a pretty light yellow since I'll have all white furniture in there I thought it'd look good. Each room has the french double doors and someone decided to paint the ones to the office a really bright purple, so that'll be changed! The rooms upstairs and all going to be white other then the bathroom, it'll be light blue. Such a pretty color! I saw it in a little paint booklet being used in a bathroom that's similar to ours and it looks good. It needs to floors too but that's not a concern for me right now, they're salvageable. It does need a new mirror though, the one in there is sitting on top of the sink and its all nasty. I found an oval shape medicine cabinet at lowes for $108 that I love love love! So hopefully we can get it.

Moving

2009-10-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited! Our landlord owns quite a few houses in town and she is just awesome. She bought our duplex a couple months ago and we really like her, but we hate the duplex. So we've been looking for a house and so far have come up short, the only rental properties here are trashed and overly priced. My landlord owns a big yellow house that she mentioned to me once before, the people living in it weren't thrilled that their rent got raised and she thought they'd be out anytime. They packed up and left, without even telling her. We stopped as soon as we realized no one was there and peaked in the windows, we knew instantly we wanted it, even though the previous tenants trashed it. There were beer cans covering the front and back yard, not to mention trash thrown everywhere. They had a couple dogs and were not the cleanest of people, you could smell the house from the outside, gross right? Totally did not change our decision about wanting to move in. The landlord put a new roof on recently, completely resided the house, leveled it and put all brand new energy efficient windows in (hence the reason for the raised rent), and she has plans to tear out 1 of the stair cases to make a large walk in closet upstairs and she's going to put new cabinets in the kitchen. So for us it is worth the work. It needs a good cleaning and some new carpet upstairs but that will all be done by the time we move in. This place is amazing, its pushing 3000sqft with 4 HUGE bdrms upstairs and one downstairs (that will be my sewing room/office), the bathroom upstairs has a claw footed tub, my dream, and the bathroom itself is huge. One of the carpeted rooms upstairs is were the previous tenants kept their dogs................uh, yeah. You can imagine how nasty that was, but the carpet and padding was tore up and there are plans of putting new stuff in. So the house just needs a good airing out. Open all the windows for awhile and it'll smell fine. Oh, windows. Let me tell you about the windows! I LOVE WINDOWS. This house has a million! I'm thinking about sewing my own curtains because not only are the windows huge but there are literally a ton in each room so it would cost a fortune to actually buy nice curtains. The ceilings are higher then normal, I'd guess about 10-12ft maybe? And the windows are almost the whole length of the wall, so like I said, curtains=expensive. Right now they have these nasty sheer ones that they let their kids draw on with marker. So those will be the first thing I take down and throw in the trash! And my landlord is going to replace all of the curtain rods because almost all of them are bent really badly. Have I mentioned how much we love our landlord?? She is so nice and very understanding. She knows Patrick could be laid off at anytime and shes willing to work with us on that. She said if we ever have a problem with paying rent on time to just tell her and she'll understand. I think she likes us because we've lived in this duplex for 2yrs now and haven't trashed the place. Which is VERY uncommon here, all the rental properties around here have to be remodeled after every tenant, no joke. We've gone through 3 different neighbors in just 2yrs, 1 of which was cooking meth and selling pot out of the house, we know this because our old landlady has Patrick clean everything for her. The stainless steel sink was rusted! But that's a whole other story.

I'm just ready to have room again, we are so cramped in this duplex and we are being over taken by spiders! Huge, nasty, hairy spiders. There were 3, yes 3, giant (about the size of a golden dollar) spiders underneath B's little recliner last night. I saw a black one run under there and I yelled for Pat to come get it and he picked up the chair and noticed all 3 spiders just hanging out. He managed to kill 2 but the black one is still running around somewhere. I'm not sure what kind they are but I think they might be wood spiders, I think that's what they're called. They're relatively harmless and I don't think they bite. But that black one was NOT a wood spider because if I remember correctly wood spiders are brown. And this black one was freaking hopping nuts. I saw it before it ran under her chair, hopping. Seriously, hopping! I stared at it for a minute kind of shocked. I have never seen a spider do that. Very bizarre. It eventually ran into our hall closet and I sprayed around the bottom of the door with some bug spray so hopefully it dies. I hate spiders so much. In the new house we wont have to worry about this because an exterminator just came and sprayed the entire thing, wonderful! No bugs yay!

Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

We went to a pumpkin patch and there wasn't even any pumpkins. It was actually a waste of time but I got some good pictures out of it. We got lost in the corn maze, played in the corn box, went down a slide and then went home. At least it was a beautiful day! Sunny and a little warmer then it has been the past couple weeks. I dont have much to write about, things have been pretty boring around here. We are just trying to relax as much as possible. I've been using my new sewing machine a lot and playing on my new laptop. I made B a trick or treat bag, nothing fancy, just some fabric and I plan on using black ribbon for the straps, as soon as I can figure out a good way to sew them on lol.

Textures

2009-10-15T18:05:00.001-07:00

I've been messing around with textures and actions in photoshop. It's so much fun! I went on flikr and searched for textures, there are a bunch of wonderful people on there sharing the textures they made and I totally took advantage of it. I'm no pro at photoshop, that's for sure. I just mess around with layers and whatnot until I get a look that I like. I've been using photoshop since I was about 12, so roughly 9 years, and I used to be a-mazing. Not to toot my own horn or anything but seriously I could design a whole layout for a website in just a few hours and then I could write up the whole HTML code for you. Its ridiculous that I didn't make that my career. But oh well. I like being a stay at home mommy.

I have more pictures of her precious feet then I do of anything else. I cant help it, they're so darn cute!

This is an older picture of B that I took back in July. I was skimming through my folder of pictures and thought it'd be easy to play around with.

Like I said, definitely not a pro. I'm sure a great photoshop-er will see these and laugh but I'm new(ish) so gimme a break.

Gone

2009-10-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

So, I've been MIA recently mainly because I am exhausted! I could sleep all freaking day if I got the chance. Another reason being that my laptop broke in the summer and all I have is an old desktop thats sitting in my spare bedroom. I can't use it because B gets into everything thats in the room, it's just a pain in the ass. I check my facebook occasionally on my ipod touch but its pretty slow, and now I'm updating from my moms laptop.

I'll update again this weekend, a longer post with pictures too!

Fireworks

2009-10-09T06:05:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank whoever in my neighborhood decided it would be a good idea to shoot off fireworks last night. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Can you imagine how that wonderful idea came about? A bunch of idiots sitting around, bored. One says HEY LETS SHOOT OFF FIREWORKS, ITS NOT LIKE ITS 730 AT NIGHT IN OCTOBER. I mean who goes to bed that early anyways?! I'll tell you who, MY DAUGHTER. So again, I thank you for waking my baby up with your obnoxious BOOMS AND WHISTLES AND WHATEVER ELSE YOU FUCKERS DECIDED WOULD BE "FUN", and setting off her night terrors. I was up for 2 hours dealing with her horrific shrieks and screams. I have never gotten so close to shooting someone as I did last night, seriously. Someone almost died.

Yesterday was a bad day, all around. B is really testing her limits with me. Is it possible for her to be going through the terrible 2's at 12 months? I've dealt with 2 year olds that don't have as much attitude as her. I love this age because she's learning new things every day and she's just flat out hilarious but the attitude is just ridiculous. I'm hoping it gets better from here but that's definitely wishful thinking. I imagine it'll only get worse.

Baking

2009-10-08T13:52:00.000-07:00

Baking is something I should never ever ever attempt again I wish I could, so bad but every time I try I prove to myself once again that I suck. I thought it would be fun to make some cute Halloween pumpkin shaped cookies and then blog about them, that was until I actually decorated them and decided they suck way to bad for me to show the world. No more baking for me! It's weird though because I think I'm a pretty good cook. I love to try new recipes and attempt new foods but for some reason I cant bake for the life of me. It is a little disappointing but I guess I'll live.

I'm excited for this weekend, I'm going to take B to a pumpkin patch and I can't wait to get some good pictures in the corn maze!

Pictures

2009-10-07T13:57:00.001-07:00

How freaking fast do they grow up?? I'm sure I've said this many times before but holy crap! I can't believe how big she has gotten. I was reading some of my old posts and looking at the pictures from just 5 months ago and she has changed so much. She is almost 13 months old. Can you believe it? I can't (but you already know that). She has gone from a 7lb 7oz 19in baby to a 23lb 31in toddler! What the heck is up with that?

She is definitley starting to test the waters when it comes to our parenting. She grabs things that she knows she isnt supposed to have and hides. I cant leave ANYTHING on the couch anymore because she manages to get it, she can also climb up onto the couch which makes keeping things out of her reach really difficult (I usually put my cell on the back of the couch so she doesnt snatch it). And I tell ya she is one smart cookie. She called daddy on my cell phone yesterday, proceeded to talk for a few minutes then when I heard Patrick saying "Hello?" I said "Izabella, did you call daddy?" and she hung up!! How great is that, she knows how to make and end calls on my phone!

It still kills me every time she signs "more", she's been doing it for about a month and a half, I still get excited everytime. She basically taught herself, which I think is amazing. I was working with her on a few words when she was younger but stopped at about 7 months, for unknown reasons. She must've remembered because she randomly started signing 'more' around 11 months. She also points at what she wants and then signs, which to me is equivalent to a 2 word phrase. I think I could go on and on about her, seriously. I could brag about this child ALL day long! I freaking love her.

Teeth

2009-10-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

B has a new tooth on the bottom left next to her other 2 beauitful teeth! That brings her to a total of 7. I honestly didn't think she was teething. She's been her normal happy-self. This morning I was tickling her and I noticed it when she laughed. I never thought I'd ever get so excited over simple little things.

My weekend was rather boring, not a whole lot happened other then we bought a wii and have been playing on it when we can. Today we went to lunch with my mom, I've been craving chinese for like a month but since Patrick doesn't like it the only way I can go is by myself and that's no fun. So, I took my mom and yum yum it was freaking good!! I'm thinking today would be a good day for a mini-photoshoot at the park, since it's really really nice out and I haven't taken pictures like that in awhile. So, I'll probably be back later with pictures!

House Cleaning

2009-10-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

I just want to show everyone how my living room looks BEFORE I clean it. I read lots of mommy blogs (which are all fantastic, don't get me wrong) that have perfect, sparkly clean houses and I wonder how they do it? I felt crappy at first because I thought, well why isn't MY house clean 24/7? Am I a horrible mom for not keeping it clean 24/7? Then I remember no one is perfect and even though my house is a mess 98% of the day that doesn't effect my mommy skills at all. It is very unrealistic to want your house clean all the time with children and the only way that would happen here is if I hired a maid and frankly I just don't have the money for that. So I make do with my messy house. I just wanted to post this so other moms know its OK for your house to be messy at times, it doesn't make you any less of a person or mother.

Anyways, good news! B hasnt had a night terror since monday morning!! She has been sleeping so well this week and it makes me happy. I'm really hoping they were just a one time thing and wont happen again but I am prepared for if they do! I dont have much else to post so..... picture time!

I really need to think of some interesting things to post!

Worry wart

2009-09-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

I have been a "worry wart" my whole life, and it SUCKS. I worried about my parents all of the time when I was younger. Of course it only got worse after my father passed away. So naturally I am a complete freak when it comes to my daughter, every little thing worries me. It doesn't help that she has had some minor problems since she was born, first she had problems with milk/soy formula (this made me feel HORRIBLE for giving up breastfeeding so quickly, wont happen again.) so she didnt gain weight properly and I felt like a terrible mom. She was only 10lbs at 3 months because she was throwing up none stop. She was put on nutramigen which did wonders but was very expensive and sometimes a hassle to find, she was also diagnosed with acid reflux and had to take medication once a day. These things are very minor but for a first time mom/worry wart they were really hard to deal with. At 9 months I was able to switch her back to regular enfamil lipil which made me think it would be easier to transition to milk, wrong! She had a reaction to the milk and had gotten horrible diaper rash for the first time ever. She remained on formula until about a week ago and she was able to transition to milk with no problems. Like I said these things are VERY common and not something I normally fuss about, I know there are babies and families with so many more issues then us so I hate complaining. I feel like something has always been "wrong", we haven't gone a month without something coming up, her getting sick, having a reaction to something. Recently B started screaming in her sleep and thrashing around horribly. My first thought was night terrors, so I googled it and read that children aren't capable of night terrors or nightmares until after 18 months. But B is showing definite signs so what should I think? I think the worst, of course! I start worrying about seizures. I watched a couple videos of children (much older children) having night terrors and B's is 10x worse then any video I saw, and she's years younger. I hate sitting here thinking "what if" so I made an appointment with her pediatrician at 3 and I'm anxious to see what she has to say! I want these to be solved, it is the worst thing in the world seeing your baby like that. This morning she had a pretty bad spout of screaming and thrashing that lasted 3 hours, I read that when a child is having a night terror to not restrain them and basically just wait it out, so that's what I did and it was horrible. I think I cried just as much as her.

I'm sorry if this post is just all over the place lol I have a lot on my mind, not to mention I'm pregnant and sleep deprived. So I'm probably not making a whole lot of sense.

Pictures

2009-09-27T17:02:00.001-07:00

It's hard for me to grasp the concept of my little girl growing up so quickly. She learns things at an unbelievable rate and never seizes to amaze me. Shes been walking since 9 1/2 months and just recently mastered running. She signs "more" and on occasion "dad." It seems like she learns a new word everyday and her pediatrician said she talks much more then average babies her age. I guess I cant refer to her as a baby anymore since technically she is a toddler.

I've been trying to find more things around my house to do a good review on but haven't had much luck. I might post something about the stroller we have, since its been so good to us. Well I hear my baby, ahem, toddler calling for me!

Changes

2009-09-23T10:36:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start doing some reviews on here for baby/kid items. I'm not very good at just keeping up with a regular 'ol blog because my life isnt all that interesting and I dont have a lot to write about! So, this seems like a good option for me. I'm going to start out with B's carseat which I have lots of varying thoughts on. Here it goes:

Evenflo Titan

(B in her car seat at about 8 months, rear facing)

We bought this when B was about 5 months. I wanted something affordable and safe and this seemed to be the best option. Installation was very very easy! I did have to move the straps up one notch but that was simple. It installs in our 2005 ford escape very securely. We had a little trouble getting it level but a simple rolled towel solved that fast. B's head never flops over when she's sleeping which was a huge concern of mine. We never used the cup holder/snack holder mainly because it just took up to much room and with the seat installed in the middle its hard for anyone to sit on either side with the holders installed so we just left them off. The first few months the car seat was wonderful we had no problems, but once B started growing at an insane rate we ran into a few bumps. The straps seem to tighten on their own and every once in awhile one side will be MUCH tighter then the other, I have to yank on the strap really hard to get it equal with the other side. Not to mention they constantly twist. I also wanted to keep B rear facing until at least 2 and with this seat its really hard. At 12 months she was 30inches and just under 23lbs so she's not a huge child but I have troubles getting her in and out. Also, we had to move the seat from the middle to the passenger side because of a gap in my seat, the car seat falls down into, this was no big deal until we realized how far the front passenger seat had to be pushed up. Normally no one sits in that seat but on long car rides we take my vehicle so whoever sits there is in for some squished legs. B started to hate car rides and it was really difficult for her to fall asleep. The straps of the seat started cutting into her neck so I bought some fuzzy things to wrap on them and that solved the problem. Since I had a hard time putting her in and out rear facing I decided to try her forward facing and again the seat was very easy to install securely. I had no problems..and even though its not reclined her head still doesn't flop when she sleeps. This has helped with some of the problems and its much easier to get her in and out of forward facing not to mention whoever is in the passenger seat doesn't have to eat the dashboard. I also cant imagine putting a child that is anywhere near 47in and/or 50lbs in this thing! B looks as if she's already outgrowing it and shes half that size. It doesn't seem like it would fit a bigger child very comfortably. It was only $100 and seems to be very safe, which is what matters the most. I give it 5 stars out of 10.

2009-07-21T11:43:00.001-07:00

Framed this picture to put in her nursery, it matchs very well.

Blurry (patrick took it :p) but this is my baby and I at the sweet corn fest and shes knawing on a yummy piece of corn!

At Powell Gardens for the sweet corn fest with best friend "L".

Driving daddys car!

Standing up watching tv.

At the lake, again with best friend L.

I havent blogged in so long! My laptop broke so I was only able to get on the internet via my Ipod which I wasn't able to access my blog from. My mom gave us her old desktop computer for now until we can save up the money for a new one so now I'm able to blog again! So much has happened, B (aka bella) is getting big. She is 10 1/2 months! A couple days before she turned 10 months I took her to the doctor and she weighed 20.14 which I just round up to 21 :p. She started pointing, walking and saying a few words just within a couple weeks. They grow so fast! We've been going on play dates a lot which is fun, she loves it. And I am already planning her first birthday, it may seem a little early but time is flying and I know its gonna be here a lot sooner then I expect.

hats and headbands

2009-06-18T07:06:00.001-07:00

I made Bella a cute headband yesterday and put it on her to go to walmart, she hated it. She kept ripping it off and pulling the flower off, which I dont know how she accomplished because I sewed it on there very secure. I guess she's just at that age were she doesn't want anything on her head.

She is eating everything we eat! I haven't given her pureed foods in a couple days. She's eating baked beans in the picture from when we bbq'd and last night she had chicken fingers, tator tots and corn. She also doesn't take a bottle anymore she drinks everything from her sippy.. and I thought weaning would be hard!

She's in the process of pulling that hat off in this picture... she won't leave them on for very long! I made this one too. Its my favorite :) I'm still learning things though. She better get used to it because she's gonna be my hat model lol

I'm really proud of her, she's getting so big and smart! I almost can't believe that she's only 9 months. She's doing things so early, I give her another month or so before she starts walking.

it has been awhile

2009-06-13T07:27:00.000-07:00

Isn't she beautiful? I made the hat. I picked up knitting and crocheting, because you know I have so much time during the day to do such things. It's relaxing. I've been slightly stressed recently, I can't seem to figure out how things work in the world. Why certain things happen. It's all confusing. I'm sure I'm going to confuse everyone that reads this too lol. Basically nothing is going right for us, we just can't seem to get a break.

On a brighter note my little baby isn't so little anymore! She is 9 months old and weighs 19.11. The nurse measured her at 29 inches but I don't agree with that. I measured her at 30 ;). Either way, she's picked up her mammas tall genes which is good! She also inhereted her mammas allergies... which is not so good. But a bit of benadryl seemed to do the trick. We're back to co-sleeping because Bella doesn't want to sleep in her crib for some reason. She has become very clingy which makes things pretty difficult during the day. She freaks out if I leave her alone for 5 seconds and she will follow me everywere! She has basically been attached to my hip for the past 2 weeks.

2009-06-02T06:15:00.000-07:00

I love my baby! She was kind enough to take pictures with her lovely mamma :)! Now we're sitting here watching VH1 music videos and Bella's dancing like crazy. I think she might be a dancer when she gets older, shes got rhythm. Well I don't have much to blog about these days. Its been pretty boring around our house. I've been a little busy looking for a house to buy because I'm tired of renting! We found one amazing, gorgeous, perfect house but when I went and talked to the realtor she informed me that it was already under contract. I wanted to cry. I got my hopes up with that house! It was perfect for us in every way. Oh well. Back to searching I guess. We did find one that is a fixer-upper which is kind of what we both want but we're not sure how much work it needs exactly so it just depends.

And yes, I have a sunburn in those pictures but you cant really tell! I was in serious pain stretching my arm out like that to take them haha my shoulders have blisters and my face is swollen. I even used sunscreen!

2009-05-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

We had a BBQ at my moms house for Memorial day and Bella had fun spending as much time with her daddy as possible. He works all week and she only gets to see him for about 1hr a day so this 3 1/2 day weekend has been nice! I was supposed to take pictures of the whole family but they basically all ate and left so I wasnt able to. Oh well, I got some cute pictures of Bella.

Bella woke up at 6am this morning but was still very tired so I stuck her in bed with me and we cuddled! I love baby cuddles, it makes my day better :). She's such a little sweetheart. She hasn't been acting like herself for some reason I'm not sure if she's teething or what but she's been super fussy and sleeping 24/7! She's acting better today so hopefully whatever it was is old news.

2009-05-14T16:36:00.001-07:00

My little girl is getting so big, I still cant believe it. She has both bottom teeth fully through and I can see white up top, her gums are also really swollen so I imagine a top one is gonna pop through any time. She's also unbelieveably gorgeous! I stare at her wondering how something so beautiful came from me :p. She really is stunning, but maybe I'm just biased. I'm not looking forward to her growing up and having all the boys drooling at her feet. Ugh. It makes me nervous just thinking about her teenage years haha.

Nothing interesting has been happening recently so not much to blog about. The car should be done tomorrow which means I finally get my car back! Theres a trail in town called The Katy Trail, it goes through several cities.. well I love taking Izabella on walks on it because its so pretty! We got into a routine were we would go walk every day right around the same time but ever since Patrick hit the deer in his car we haven't been able to go :( his car is supposed to be fixed tomorrow so we will be starting our walks again asap!

2009-05-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

I love her....

even when she throws a major tantrum at applebees because she really just wanted some broccoli...

even when she wakes me up every hour at night....just because.

even when she screams and screams at 5am all because she just wanted to cuddle with mommy in the big bed....

even when she's teething....

even she has a major diaper blowout, so bad that my whole living room stinks for HOURS.....

even when she pulls my hair because the way I yell "OUCH" is pretty hilarious....

I love her....

Pretty Girl

2009-05-07T16:14:00.001-07:00

I love when the sun is shining so I can open up all of the windows in my house and take adorable pictures like these :)! She's such a little sweetheart when it comes to taking pictures. She just goes about her business while I snap - snap - snap. Jeez, she's getting so big. I cant get over it! She'll be 8 months on monday. Shes already crawling, pulling up to stand, cruising the furniture! I was so proud of her earlier when she pulled up onto the couch into a standing position about 2ft from were I was sitting then managed to cruise her way over to my lap. She's also getting braver by the day, she attempts to hold onto things with only one hand. So far she has really good balance and is able to stand like that for quite some time without falling.

I miss her as my little 7lb baby but I've gotta admit I love how mobile and fun she's getting! However, I am NOT liking the tantrums that she often throws. I have a feeling I'm gonna have my hands full with her in a year or two :p. I already do!!

2009-05-06T12:50:00.000-07:00

How should I start out this post? Hmmm.... lets see, Patrick hit a deer in our pontiac grand prix. Surprisingly it did NOT do as much damage as I thought it would going 70mph.

thats basically it lol occasionally the head light will fall out which is why its going to sit in our driveway until its fixed.

In other news, WE HAVE 2 TEETH! They showed up within a matter of days and I'm so excited!! My little girl is getting so big.

We got her this little high chair from walmart, which has turned out to be a pretty handy thing! It makes meal time much much easier and she can sit with us at the table during dinner. She's starting to pull up onto things which is nuts! She went from army crawling - hands & knees crawling - pulling up trying to cruise the furniture!! A little bit ago she pulled up onto my dresser, got her little fingers caught in the handle and fell straight back onto her back. I thought she was seriously hurt! She was screaming bloody murder and I felt so bad. It was sad :( But a little loving from her momma made things all better. I think shes gonna be a daredevil which scares the crap out of me!!

This is how you'll find her after a nap or in the morning. She's such a goof ball, she gets so excited to show off her new trick.

A friend of mine asked me to photograph her wedding and of course I said yes! But I'm so nervous!! I've never done it before so I know its gonna be difficult but she's understanding and we're gonna discuss exactly what she wants. I'm so excited because I get to rent an awesome camera! Which happens to be the camera that I want to upgrade to eventually so I'll get to test it out before spending an insane amount on buying it.

new car seat!

2009-04-26T15:37:00.000-07:00

Bella officially grew out of her infant car seat so we had to go buy a "big girl" one. I searched and searched for days trying to decide which I wanted, finally deciding on the evenflo titan. I must say its nice! It was very inexpensive and Bella loves it. She seems so comfy in it and she finally has lots of room again.

Not to mention it fits in my small ford escape wonderfully!

She also got to feed herself for the very first time lol of course I picked the messiest stuff, carrots, to let her throw around. She really really liked it though and thats all that matters :)

Have I mentioned how awesome the weather has been lately? I love it! I have all my windows open, the winds blowing and it feels great.

silly girl!

2009-04-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

I have the funniest child in the the whole world! shes in her jumperoo right now watching Little Einstein's and shes screaming her head off! Not because shes upset, but because shes getting so excited! They're finding different music notes and whatnot and when they say "goooo team!" she goes nuts lol

Last night was wonderful. She went to bed at 9 and slept until 830 this morning! Didn't wake up ONCE. Normally she gets up 1-3x because she drops her binky but not last night she was out cold. It was also at a really nice temp in our house so I think that may have helped. We slept with our kitchen windows open and our heater off, our house stayed at 70 all night it was great! It also thunder stormed so she must be like me, I sleep great during those :) The weather has been awesome these past couple days! I washed my car the other day.......

and as you can see Bella didn't like it very much......I felt so bad because I was cracking up when taking these pictures, I couldn't help it! She liked watching the soap but once the water came to wash it off she freaked out.

Brand New!

2009-02-24T07:59:00.000-08:00

I've never "blogged" before but it looks fun so I decided to start my own! I'm not sure what to write, hopefully it'll get easier as I go. My older brother got to meet my Izabella for the first time since returning from iraq! I think she liked him :) she loves her uncles. We spent the day over at my moms house then went out to eat lunch at the mexican resteraunt. I gave Bella her first taste of beans and let me tell you, she hated them! she made the yuckiest face, EVER. She better get used to mexican food because its her mommys favorite so I see us eating lots of it in the future. I really don't know what else to write about! So I'm gonna get off here. Hopefully I'll be back to write more soon.

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