Mamarazzi's Guilty Pleasures Swap

Mamarazzi over at Dandelion Wishes is hosting a Guilty Pleasures Swap this time around.  I'm so excited to create a box full of mine and send them out to a new blog friend.  Interested in participating, go on over - read the rules and fill out a form, there's still a little time.  Thanks Mamarazzi for hosting!

Phase 2 Dining Room Furniture

After a week of priming, painting, painting, oh and perhaps painting another coat or two, spray painting the hardware that could be salvaged and getting new, this is what we ended up with.  I used Chris from Just A Girl's advice on painting furniture, which can be found here.  In case you don't remember, click here for the Before, and now the After.

We took off the bar top, took out the wine rack from the center cubby and added two baskets.  My Gramma (who gave us the bar/buffet and dining room table) thought we bought a new piece of furniture. 

I'm so pleased with our $20 Craigslist re-do!

Still to do, decor, wall art, rug, find dining room chairs - am happy with our work in progress dining room though.
I'm linking to these parties.

Happy 7 Months Avalynn!

Baby Girl,

Wow - you're 7 months today.  We're officially over the hump of you being an infant baby and are on the other side entering into toddlerhood.  This is when I dig in my heels and say "NO", stay where you are!  Lols.

You my dear wonderful little girl are still not sleeping through the night.  Well, you did one night this past month, thankfully - because I was really sick with a summer cold and needed the rest.  I say it's because I asked your Daddy to wake up with you and you didn't want that!  Haha.  We did CIO (cry it out) with you this month and now I lay you down awake for naps and bedtime, half the time you fuss for a minute or so and then you are quiet and out.  Our lives are so much easier now that you can put yourself to sleep now, although I will admit to missing our rocking sessions occasionally.

You are eating two meals a day now - almost a whole size 2 jar at each feeding.  Some days I feel like you nurse a little and other days I feel like we're back to nursing all the time.  We also started giving you a sippy cup last week with some water.  You love holding onto the handles and chomping on the tip, but don't get that you have to tilt/hold up the cup to get the water unless Daddy or I helps you.  And we've been giving you some puffs and cheerios for you to practice picking up little items.  You pick it up and go to put it in your mouth and then it falls on your belly without you realizing it, it's cute!

You are starting to laugh out loud a lot more.  You love when your Sissy dances towards you - you start squealing and giggling so loud!  It's one of the most beautiful sounds!  Speaking of squealing, you love to make this high pitched squealing noise, reminds me of a bird, you go from that and making razberries especially at dinner when we're all around the table.

Yesterday you really started to crawl forward, you do best on our bed, I think because it's so soft and you don't like the hardwood floors.  You now pull yourself up on your knees when in your crib and are starting to go for the breakables, aka my elephant collection.  You can almost sit yourself back up from laying down and can go from sitting to the crawling position.  Amazing the changes in you, in just the past week.

We had your 6 month check up, you weigh 20lbs(95%^) and are 27 1/2in(90%) long.  We discussed you not sleeping through the night with your Ped and she said you had 4 teeth coming in.  You have cut 2 of them so far.  They weren't the most fun couple nights either.  You were normal all day long and then would be up screaming half the night, needless to say I'm glad we're over that hump.  Although on the other hand, I keep waiting for those other 2 to pop through, just hope you're not in as much pain as you were the first time.

We took you on your first camping trip this past weekend.  You slept horribly there, took us 2 hours each night to get you go to sleep & the 1st night you thought it'd be fun to stay awake for 2 hours after your feeding.  Otherwise you enjoyed being in your pack'n'play outside, playing in the grass, and hanging out at the pool.

I'm sure many more things will be changing in the next month and look forward to each of them. Here's a couple pictures of you from the past couple days.

Love,
Mommy

Wordless Wednesday

 The girls' on our weekend camping trip. 

Wordless Wednesday

Sleepy Baby! 

DIY - Family Established Wall Art Tutorial

Last week as I was blog hopping I happened across a great idea and instructions on making a piece of art of when our family was established.  We're re-doing our dining room and knew that I had to have this up on the wall.  That night after the kids were in bed I sat down and whipped this up in no time at all.  Yesterday, I printed it out from our home printer, spray painted a frame and 10pm last night was hanging it up on the wall.  I'm basically in loooooooove!

Amy from My 3 Monsters guest posted the instructions for this project over at Stephanie's blog Under the Table and Dreaming, here. Amy did all the hard work by finding Leo Reynold's Photostream, here. He has hundreds upon hundreds typography, he lets the public use his images with a couple restrictions, listed here.  To search for the letter I was looking for I would just type in "E" in the search box for his photostream and it would pop up all of the E's.  A more common letter like "I" and "A" I would add Letter before it to get more results.

I opted to chose the Small size (240 x 240) on to my desktop.  Then after I had a couple letters I'd arrange them how I wanted on the desktop to see how they all worked together before copying into my photo program.  After I had the letters and numbers I wanted I uploaded them into Picasa.  Selected all of the images and hit the collage button, I chose the Grid option, which makes the pictures equal size in rows and columns and selected the size I wanted to print it on, for my project that was an 8x10.

Here's my finished project hanging up in my dining room: {the Hubs & me love it SO MUCH!}

Thank you Amy for the great inspiration and idea! I'm linking to these parties. 

Teething Hell

Perhaps it's Mommy brain but I really don't remember Oldest ever really being fussy when she teethed.  Man, what a wake up call this weekend was for Baby Girl.  Wednesday, we had her 6 month check-up and I was talking to the Ped about STTN (sleeping through the night) and how she was prior to vacation but nada, zilch, not happening in the past 1 1/2 months since then!  The Ped said she definitely should be by now and then checked Baby Girl's mouth and "ah-ha" - she has 4 teeth coming in.  The bottom two were to break through any day, the top two are there but she thinks it'll be a month before they pop through.  Instructions, give her a good dose of Motrin before bed to help with sleep.

As the week progressed the nights kept getting worse and worse, Friday night being the absolute worse!  Horrible screaming, minimal sleeping after midnight that night.  I felt so bad that she was in so much pain and there wasn't much I could do for her.  I stayed up with her until 5:30am and then finally gave in and had to wake up the Hubs, which I hated to do since he gets up @ 4am M-F and I like to let him sleep in.  But alas - we had a extended family photo shoot scheduled for 9am and this girl needed some shut eye!

One tooth has popped through completely and I'm praying and hoping the other one is very very soon, it's extremely swollen.  Am happy to report though that definitely got a little more sleep last night than Friday night, but not much more.

Anyways to sum it up - teething for Baby Girl is miserable for her and not so fun for me, hate seeing her in pain.

Wordless Wednesday

Me and the girls' were having fun with some photoshoots this week, these two are my new favorites! 

Monday, Monday

How was your weekend?  I hope well!  The "R" house has come down with some yucky summer cold, started with The Hubs beginning of the week, Oldest started getting it middle of the week, and I got it by the end.  Thankfully, Baby Girl hasn't gotten it yet.  Even though I was feeling under the weather, it was definitely a productive weekend still.  

Did some re-organizing of our two hot spots in the kitchen, can you guess what they are?  The plasticware cupboard and our pantry.  I didn't take Before pics but here are the After's. 

Plasticware - Stacked containers into each other and then the lids are in another pile, this saves a lot of room! Purged the containers that were missing their other half and ones that we just don't use.  

Pantry Closet with Labels of how I organized it all.

We took a break Saturday morning and had a Mommy, Daddy, Little One date to see Despicable Me.  It was so nice to get out and spend some one on one time with Little One! 

Last week my hunt for a 9-10 drawer long dresser to be re-habed for our dining room finally came and for only $20.  So, the Hubs picked it up for me and we disassembled some of our current dining room furniture and I had a primer painting party on Sunday. 

                              

And we ended the weekend with some yummy fresh strawberries picked up at the Market Sunday. 

How was your weekend?  Did you do anything around the house? 

National Breastfeeding Week

So, this post has been on my mind all week and I'm finally sitting down to do it one day away from the end.  Better than never.  Most of all I just wanted to share my experience nursing baby girl and what I've experienced and learned along the way. Yes, what you've heard about it hurting and being difficult is true - but oh so rewarding on the other hand.  Know going in that it's going to be difficult but stick with it.  Give yourself mini goals, make it to 2 weeks, 1 month, etc.  I'm happy to say that I just past 6 months.  My next goal is to get to 9 months, ideally until she's at least 1 year.


Here's what I learned:

• In the beginning, every time you nurse you're uterus will start contracting, they say it's shrinking.  What I can tell you is yes it hurts/burning sensation, but it's normal and it will get better and go away soon! 
• Get the help while in the hospital.  I nursed baby girl within an hour of her birth and she did amazing with her latch.  So, 5 hours later when the lactation consultant came I felt confident and didn't take her up on her help.  After some difficulty, I'd call my nurse in each time to help me. 
• The baby only needs one nostril to breathe.  I'm a large chested woman and I was so freaked out that I'd suffocate her or something, but my nurse assured me that as long as one nostril is free, she'll be fine.  
• Take one day at a time.  I kept reading people who said the first 2 weeks are the hardest to keep with it.  And there'd be good nursing days and bad ones.  I had many meltdowns because I didn't think we'd ever get the hang of it.  
• Get some kind of pump, whether manual or electric.  It saved me in the beginning, I became extremely engorged and I was able to pump out a good supply so that the first month, the Hubs could get up and feed her once during the night.  
• Cluster feedings feel like they are going to be the death of you, especially when you feel like alls your doing is feeding every hour and getting no sleep at night.  Good news - they only last for a few days and then you can get back to your normally scheduled routine. 
• If you have a dip in supply try eating oatmeal, having a beer, fenugreek or mother's milk tea.  Have tried all but the beer (not a fan) and they've all worked! 
• Sometimes you have to eliminate some things from your regular diet as they'll upset the baby.  My first day home I drank 2 big glasses of apple juice, poor baby girl had 8 bowel movements that night, didn't I feel like world's worse mom at that moment! 

Make sure you have a good support system around you.  The Hubs has been my #1 go to, he's been so supportive and helpful through this whole process.  He helped me to overcome my fear of NIP (nursing in public, for all of you acronym loving people).  In the beginning, he'd stand cover holding up a blanket until she was on, and now I'm comfortable feeding her anywhere.  I'm happy to report that I haven't had a negative experience with other people while NIP.  

Things I never expected: 

• My boobs are no longer mine or the Hubs - they are solely baby girls'. 
• Spraying milk, either from her unlatching while feeding or getting dressed.  It's humorous to no end and the Hubs and me definitely have gotten a good chuckle or two during some mishaps. 
• The way that baby girl grabs at me sometimes, we went through a pinching phase for a few months, her hand that was under her, she pinch her way up the backs of my arms - can we say OWIEE!  Happy to say no more pinching for the past month!  Now, I get nice caresses. 
• Hickey's.  Yes - you're reading that right.  Since 2 months she has loved to gnaw on anything and everything, especially your fingers.  She's got quite the hard suck on her - as I'm sporting 3 hickey's on my left shoulder currently, and I didn't have her up there long either! 
• The 1st time your milk shoots in - while in public, the baby starts crying, or during letdown.  No way to really describe the feeling.

Items I needed and couldn't live without: breast pump, nursing pads, lansinoh cream, receiving blankets, small throw pillow (not a fan of the boppy to feed her with, but love it for other things with her), movies dvr'd for those late night feedings, and medula's nipple shield.  

Udder Cover's is offering a free nursing cover if you use promo code: onefree, and just pay S&H. 

Wordless Wednesday

The girls' before going to their Great-Grandpa's 80th Birthday Party.