Thursday, March 20, 2014

Spring has Sprung... I wish!

Yes it is the first day of Spring in Western PA and snow flurries are twirling down. Lily is not impressed so she decided to take a three hour nap! I am one productive Momma this morning. Today she will be going on her first Rita's trip so that I can get my Happy Spring free water ice. I am super pumped! Will post pictures later!

Anyway in the past week we have painted the dining room, pulled up carpet, ventured into the world of home projects, sanded, primed and painted our dining room floor. Mike and I were exhausted because that took us but mostly Mike a week to finish. I am so glad it is done now! For the walls we picked Behr's Porpoise (left) and for the floor Behr's Subtle Touch (right). I wanted to do a white floor because of all the woodwork in the room but had to compromise for grey since my man knew how dirty our dog's feet can be. Good thinking! We used the best prime ever (Zinssers) and barely had to sand using an orbital sander over places the carpet pad was stubborn. One coat primer and one coat Behr's porch paint, leave for 24 hours and boom, new floors!
    









Here is a small portion of the room so you can see what the colors look like
with the woodwork, oh and our printer :)




This was my own little project from Pinterest. Some people attach cork board while others made wood strips into the hook holders. I am not that handy so I got command hooks and put then right on my old cabinet doors. I have been using it for a week or so now and love it! So much easier to find my measuring supplies and my "Misc" drawer is cleaner and easier to close :)


That week I also took Lily for her 6 month appointment. She grew 2.25in and almost exactly 2lbs in 2 months so now she is a whopping 26.25in long (50-75th percentile) and 14lbs 6oz (25th percentile)! I would say we have a tall string bean on our hands! Lily only had to get two shots this time and we chose a sticker for her at the end. The light wasn't helpful but it says "Official Leprechaun Spotter."
In the upcoming months Lily will be traveling all over OH, PA, and MD for soccer so good thing this little girl loves road trips! I also wanted to announce that we will be having her dedicated on Mother's Day at our church. Mike's mom and mine will have the information so either talk to them or us if you would like to come. Of course pictures will be posted afterward if you can't make it!
My last thing is for all my engineer friends out there. This is Lily at the doctor's office using her blanket to make a bridge to hold her bottle up while she drinks. Not the most flattering picture but oh well, thought ya'll would appreciate that ;)





Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Happy Half Birthday Lily!

Like my previous post said 3.7.14 was crazy so these are the only pictures of Lily I have from that day. We celebrated this day with Steak n Shake, going to Gymboree, buying Catching Fire, and some movie snacks.
 

Let's fast forward to 3.8.14 which was an awesome family day to celebrate Lily.

We woke up at Lily time, 5am and drove to Northeast OH for Mike to coach three soccer games. During the games Lily and I had tummy time, met some new people, and she took a short nap. She impressed everyone with her quiet nature and what a good baby she is, which we already knew ;).
Her very excited face!
Watching Daddy's team play
Dressed in team colors
   Then we went to Pizza Hut, Lily's favorite of course, before our drive home. Lily and I took a nap during the ride and it was glorious. The rest of the day was just relaxing at home which was a perfect time to enjoy how much Lily has grown over the past 6 months.


          


A couple of moments from the last week because Lily likes to hit some milestones on time :) Falling asleep in her toys trying to prove to me she is too old for naps after fighting so hard to stay awake. Lily sitting up all by herself for almost an entire episode of The Bachelor. I am teaching her early how not to find a man! Lily sitting in the stroller for the first time without her car seat. She was so proud of herself smiling at people all over the mall.
 Lily can also wear bows in her hair now! So fun. This month she has eaten apples, bananas, sweet potatoes and squash. Bananas were definitely her favorite and now she knows how to smack her lips. Lily also tries to communicate with us even more. She coughs and sounds like a dolphin. Lily will usually do this when she wants to eat. Mike is really good at imitating her so she gets a kick out of that. On the crawling front she has gotten all the way off her belly. Here is a super cute video of me finding her like this after a nap.
Lastly, here is a fun look at what Lily looked like in here car seat right at 1 day old, 3 months and 6 months.
                  

I know you can't see her whole body in the second one but her length from 1 day to 6 months is crazy! And the pink fluffy jackets adds some width but Mike and I can't believe how big she is getting! Now its off to the doctors to see just how big that is. We have an over/under bet on 16lbs 5oz, I picked over so Mike gets under and even. Any guesses? I'll update again soon on how the doctors visit went.
Oh and thanks to Marti Aiken Photography for
 taking some family pictures. I will post those next time too, promise!



Crazy Days! 3.7.14

Yes our little Lily turned six months on Friday and I meant to write an update post then but it was a crazy day for lots of reasons...

Here is the first one. Lily's sleep schedule has been a mess recently from teething, refusing to nap, and knowing that walking into her bedroom means sleep time. So this morning she woke up at 5:30am and I went to bed late because of reason 2. I am incapable of falling back to sleep easily so I checked my email only to find a disgruntled parent email of one of the girls I coach. So I spent the time writing a response.

Reason two: Mike and I were up late because Thursday night I was offered a full time job with details to come and we were still figuring out if I would take it. The job sounded great but I was struggling with how I felt as a mom putting Lily in daycare. We had found an amazing center that had the highest ratings possible so I knew they would do great with Lily. If I took the job or not, either way I felt that I was being selfish. If I take the job, I would be selfish because it is something I want but it would also help us provide better for Lily. If I don't take the job I am being selfish because I would consider that laziness for not using my expensive degree or just giving up which I don't do but I would be able to be home with Lily. So hashing that out took a long time and I went to bed mentally exhausted.

 Reason three: I am still working part time so on Mondays and Fridays I work 7:30-12pm which means I am away from the house from 7am-12:30pm. This is a normal thing for us now but with everything else that happened it just made me feel even worse. The whole time at work I was just thinking about the conversation the night before with examples right in front of me. Envying the moms who stay home and I see running errands at the place I work but at the same time knowing that I am better than working part time retail and that I could be providing so much more for my family financially.

Reason four: while I am at work I got a text from our live-in nanny who is also a student at the college down the street that our dog had broken out of her cage and went through the kitchen trash. She and her fiance had picked it up but I felt so bad. Yes, our dog is smart and can break out of her hard sided cage.

Reason five: almost immediately after I got home from work I picked up Lily and went to run some errands. I have recently started using Facebook pages that help connect people with stuff to buy and sell mostly children related. Lily finally outgrew her size one diapers about a week and a half ago so I sold her last box of ones. So no break and on the road to meet the mom buying the diapers.

Reason six: On the way to meet for the diapers I got the email about the job. They had called me the day previously to say I had gotten it but I did not know the pay or benefit details. I was over qualified for the position so I was hoping to receive the top end of the salary range on the job listing which was discussed in my interviews. Unfortunately this was not the case and I had to decline the offer. The interviewees left out some information about the job situation and decided to slip it into the offer letter. When I questioned them about it, they said it must have been a miscommunication, they did tell me in the last interview. I replied saying I am sorry but this information was not relayed to me and here is what I need to work for your company. They have not responded so you can imagine my frustration. I felt like a fool for getting excited and wasting all that time the night before crying over a potential decision that was now pointless.

Reason seven: I was gone for a little over an hour and received another text from our live-in nanny who was packing up to leave for Spring break. Our dog had broken out again and had destroyed the carpet in our dining room by dumping a large pot that was soaking so I could wash it later. Went through all the trash again and left us little presents everywhere. This time our nanny didn't have time to clean up and it wasn't her job anyway so when I got home I was so irritated, frustrated, sad, mad, and exhausted was an understatement at this point.

**Good news was that the same time our nanny told me about the dog, she also told me she had found my keys because I had lost those before work...reason eight**  Like I said it was a long day.

So now that I am home with Lily, I locked ourselves in our bedroom and stayed there until Mike got home. I had no energy to clean the whole house and didn't even want to look at it.

Reason nine: Lily with her crazy sleep schedule did not nap from 12:30pm until she went to sleep that night. Usually after work I would put her down for a nap so I can sleep but that has not been working the past five days.

Then because I have a fantastic husband, he walked in the door after work with flowers he had already put in a vase. The arrangement included lilies which he didn't realize so I thought that was fun. Mike also got us some beverages for while we cleaned the house. He did most of the cleaning so I appreciated that too.

Sorry for the novel but I wanted to explain why Lily's half birthday post has been so delayed and a little of what is going on in our life right now. And yes Lily is actually napping right now, (YAY!) so I am going to hammer out the 6 month post now. Hurry before silly girl wakes up!