bringing creativity

You asked…

2011-10-25T22:04:00.003-04:00

Well. I was hoping for more than three questions, but that's okay :) If anyone else thinks of something, go ahead and leave it in a comment and I'll answer it next time!

Allison asked, "How long did it take the 'I feel bad for not blogging regularly' guilt to go away while you were on hiatus? ;)"

It never went away! To be honest, I probably thought about how I should be blogging every single day. But once I missed a month, then two months, then three months, etc., it just kept getting harder and harder to do a post because of how BIG that post would need to be! When Dallas had her first birthday, I thought -- this is it. NOW I need to really blog again. But I didn't. Then when we started thinking about having another baby, I thought that I really should be blogging again before I got pregnant. Then I found out I was pregnant...then we found out we were having a boy...then there was the whole pregnancy to blog about...and Dallas's second birthday party...then Bradley was actually born...

That was what did it. I knew I'd regret it forever if I didn't at least start blogging again and write out his birth story. It's only fair to him, since I documented every single week and took tons of pictures when I was pregnant with Dallas. Now that I've started back, I don't want to get into the non-blogging slump again...hence this post :)

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Amanda asked, "What's the hardest/best part about being a mother of two?"

Wow, this could be a really long answer. The best part is that I've got TWO KIDS to love. And that is really wonderful. It's also amazing to see their reactions every day when Dustin comes home from work. They both love their daddy so much. It's also great having two kids to share with our families -- more to go around for all the grandparents :)

I'll be honest, though -- so far having two kids has been tough. Dallas really did not do well the first few weeks after we had Bradley. At times I would look at her and really feel like she was a different child -- like I didn't even know her any more because her disposition had changed so much. Thankfully, she has pretty much gotten over most of that, but we're definitely going through a trying age. She is still a really good little girl, and I am thankful for how well behaved she is about 90% of the time, but man can that kid flip a switch and go crazy in a split second. It catches Dustin and me off guard every.single.time. since most of the time it comes out of nowhere. She’ll go from calm to kicking, screaming and thrashing about in a matter of seconds, and it seems like nothing we do can stop her. It’s really fun when that happens out in public – like in Target or the parking lot of Al’s Pizza! I know a lot of it is because she's not getting as much attention as she used to and because as she's getting older she wants to be more independent, but there's not much I can do about that when it's just me, Dallas and Bradley alone together during the day. Dividing my time between the children is really a struggle -- especially since Dallas does get the short end of the stick pretty much all of the time.

It’s also hard because my two babies have been so very different that sometimes it’s almost like being a first time mom all over again. I am so blessed to have had two good babies, but Bradley could not be more opposite from what Dallas was as an infant. We had to work HARD to get Dallas to smile and laugh, but Bradley smiles at anything and everything! Dallas liked to have her own personal time and would pretty much beg (as much as a baby can beg) to be put in her swing when she was over stimulated. Bradley would love to be held all the time. The biggest challenge, though, has been that where Dallas was pretty much born sleeping through the night and pretty much made up her own little daytime schedule, making life fairly predictable, Bradley is all over the place. One night he'll sleep 4-5 hour stretches all night and have no problems sleeping in his bed, and then next night he'll wake up every single hour. There were about 4 nights last week where he slept in his swing the whole night, and that was the ONLY way he'd sleep. And last night, for example, I put him in bed around 8:30pm and he slept like a rock till 12:30am. After that, he woke up at 4:30, 6:30, and 8:30am. Each time, he takes 30-45 minutes to eat plus a diaper change, so we're up for nearly an hour every time he wakes up. To say that I am a walking zombie the majority of the time is an understatement. We are trying to get Bradley on a Babywise schedule, but until that happens and he is sleeping a little better through the night, I pretty much dread bedtime because I never know what to expect.

When Dallas was a baby and up until Bradley was born, Dustin and I pretty much cared for her equally when we were together (apart from my nursing her, of course). Now, when Dustin is home, he's pretty much on Dallas duty and I take care of Bradley. This makes me miss Dallas so much, but for now it's the best we can do. I still try to rock her for a few seconds (literally...seconds) a few times a week before she goes to bed, but pretty much the only real close time we have together is whatever I can sneak in during the day while Bradley naps. I miss the days of tucking her in to bed and laying next to her and smelling her hair while we say her prayers. Again, I hope to be able to do more with her once we've got Bradley on a better schedule.

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Nikki asked, "How does being a stay-at-home mom compare with being a working mom?"

Being a SAHM is the BEST. I absolutely love knowing this time that I don't have to go back to work. When I had Dallas, I was hoping to never have to go back to work, but obviously that didn't work out for a while, and the uncertainty those first few months really put a damper on the time we had together in the beginning.

I remember writing at one time about feeling panicked every moment I didn't spend with her over the weekends and on days off because I knew our time together was limited. It was awful. I am so thankful that I don't even have to think about that this time. I didn't enjoy Dallas's first Thanksgiving and Christmas as much as I wish I would have because of the work issue. I'm glad that I won't have the same feelings about Bradley's first holiday season. I am also so relieved not to have to be getting up every day to go to work while also dealing with Bradley's non-sleeping issues. I can't imagine how hard that would be.

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And there you have it, folks. My first “ask me anything” post is done. And I guess it’s good that more of you didn’t show me love by commenting since just those three questions made for such a long post! In the next couple of weeks, I’m going to try to do a recap of Dallas’s 1st and 2nd birthday parties and post some pictures from our family vacation this past summer. I’m also going to really try to just keep up to date with posting what is CURRENTLY happening with us, so here’s an up front apology for how in-cohesive the layout of my blog posts may be from here on out.

Last but not least, here’s a picture of our sweet boy. I call this one “CRAZY EYES.”

Until next time! :)

Why I haven't blogged again yet...

2011-10-22T21:21:00.002-04:00

I seem to have forgotten how to write a post that doesn't contain pictures, and since I am blogging from my phone and don't know how to add pictures through my blogger app, I have a great excuse not to blog at all. Stupid and sad, but true. I'll figure it out someday, but until then, I need your help!! Thus, I am going to do one of those "ask me a question" posts and let you guys supply the material for my next few blogs. So...what do you want to know? Any specific questions about things that happened during my blogging hiatus...now is the time to ask!

Also, since I seem to have lost many many many readers since I went over a year without posting, I think you should all post on your blogs and tell people to come back to mine :) Okee dokee? Thanks!

Okay, so now, ask me anything!

A baby story… (part 2)

2011-10-08T20:43:00.002-04:00

As I said, I was pretty disappointed when the nurse checked me and said that I wasn't dilated at all. I knew that something was going on with my body even if the nurses couldn't really tell at this point. A few minutes after she checked me, I commented to Dustin that I felt kind of...wet (sorry if that's TMI, but you are reading a birth story). I mentioned it also to the nurse, and she said that it was just from the gel she'd used. I was not so sure, but I let it go and got right back to trying not to think about how awful I felt. A few minutes later, my nurse came back in and said that my urine showed that I was dehydrated, so I was going to be getting a few bags of IV fluid to help hydrate me and hopefully stop the contractions. I'm sure the nurse thought they were still false labor since they were so inconsistent.

The IV fluids seemed to do little except make me cold and need to visit the restroom over and over again...after which one trip I asked the nurse to please change the pads on my bed because the bed felt damp. I have no idea why I didn't think to ask the nurse more about WHY my bed was so wet, and I don't know why it didn't cross any of our minds that perhaps my water had broken... It sure would have saved us a LOT of waiting time.

Around 10pm, the nurse came back in with yet another bag of fluid and said that this one included some medicine including phenergan and was specifically for the purpose of making me relax and stopping the contractions. As she hooked this bag up, Dustin left to get something to eat since he'd skipped dinner to come straight to the hospital with me when he got home. This IV bag knocked me out fast...like SUPER fast. The nurse plugged it in (or whatever they do) and told me to "just go with it." I started to ask what she meant by that, but before she could finish telling me to relax, I was pretty much passed out. I'm sure it would've been amusing to watch.

I was out of it for about an hour, and when I woke up, I realized two things -- I had to pee REALLY BAD, and I was still having contractions. Dustin was of course back by this time, and when the nurse came back to the room again, she said that the anesthesiologist would be in soon to talk to me. I was like, "The anesthesiologist? So we're having a baby?!" She said, "Oh yeah! We're shooting for midnight. Your doctor is on her way here!"

This announcement triggered a wide range of emotion for me -- excitement that I wouldn't be pregnant any more and we'd have our baby, shock that it was actually happening, and SHEER PANIC because I knew what was coming. Suddenly the only things I could think about were how much it was all going to hurt, how Dallas was going to be affected, and how I was SO tired and after the baby got here I'd probably NEVER BE ABLE TO SLEEP AGAIN... a fear that proved to be surprisingly accurate for a while :/. I decided that all I really wanted to do was go back home, get in my own bed to sleep and wake up the next day and just be home with Dallas.

As the many different people began filtering through my room in preparation for the surgery, Dustin called our families. Dustin's mom went to our house to stay with Dallas, and my parents came up to the hospital. My mom and dad were each allowed to come into my room for a few minutes and talk to me. I was glad to see them, but honestly I can say that those two hours between the time the nurse told me we were doing the c-section till the time the baby actually got here were two of the longest, scariest and most difficult hours I have ever experienced. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with how tired I was, but I was completely terrified about what was about to happen.

Eventually I was wheeled back to the OR, and Dustin was left in the hallway to wait. He has since told me that he felt like he was waiting for forever, but I think it was really only about 30 minutes. Thankfully since I was in natural labor this time (as opposed to being induced with Dallas) my contractions during the time when the anesthesiologist was doing his thing weren't nearly as bad, which means the needles weren't as painful as I'd been expecting. I started feeling numb almost immediately, but then I started shaking from the drugs, the adrenaline rush and because it was fa.ree.zing in that OR. I felt like I'd been on that table for hours by the time I heard someone say that my doctor had come in the room, but thankfully everyone -- especially the anesthesiologist and his assistant -- was so nice and I could tell they were trying hard to make me feel relaxed and as comfortable as possible. At some point Dustin was allowed to come into the room. I don't really remember when.

During my c-section with Dallas, I don't remember feeling a thing. I was pretty much just falling asleep the whole time. This time, I felt a LOT. I know it's because last time I had an epidural meant for regular delivery and adapted for the c-section, and this time I was anesthetized from the beginning for surgery. It didn't really hurt a first, but I was definitely in a lot of pain by the time it was all over...almost like the drugs had worn off before the surgery was over. Not fun.

I knew the exact moment the doctor started pulling the baby out. I guess that sounds gross, but it's also really cool. The anesthesiologist's assistant was even able to get some pictures of the head, then shoulders then whole baby as he came out. Don't worry, I'm not going to post those :) At one point, I heard my doctor ask where all the amniotic fluid was. I wasn't sure if she was talking to me or the nurses or if she was just asking rhetorically, but I didn't answer. I didn't think about it again until few days later, and at my two week checkup, I told her about the whole feeling wet during triage thing and asked if she thought my water had broken. She said it definitely had and that she'd looked into it immediately after the surgery was over. It makes me feel a lot better to know that I truly was in labor when I came in to the hospital.

So, at 1:03am on September 1st, our baby boy came into the world...

Bradley James
6 lbs. 11oz. 19 inches long

Yes, his name is Bradley James. Dustin, Dallas and I kept his name a secret until he was born. He came out blowing bubbles. It was adorable, and that will always be my first memory of seeing him. I was so happy to not feel like I was about to fall asleep when Dustin was able to hold him so we could see him for the first time. I remember thinking that his skin was so smooth and pretty and that his nose was perfect and looks just like Dallas's. His eyes are blue but very dark -- much more so than mine and Dallas's -- which makes me think that they may eventually turn brown like Dustin's. He has about as much hair as Dallas did, but it's very dark brown -- again like Dustin's. He's beautiful and very, very sweet.

Unlike my delivery with Dallas where I had to wait over two hours in recovery before I was able to hold Dallas, I was able to go to the room where I'd be for the rest of our stay as soon as the surgery was over and hold Bradley immediately. I was SO happy about that. My parents were still waiting at the hospital, so they were able to come in and see us right away, too, and as soon as I was able to get a good picture, I updated facebook with the news that Bradley had arrived...because you know how important having an up-to-date facebook page is :)

That first night (really, the whole time we were in the hospital), Dustin and I missed Dallas terribly, but it was so wonderful to be holding our new little baby. I am so thankful that the Lord decided to bless us yet again with such a precious gift. And I am so thankful that he was born healthy and had no residual issues from my being on so much medication during the pregnancy.

Dallas was able to come up to the hospital the next morning to meet her "baby brudder." She was by no means a huge fan of his for the first few weeks, but she has slowly warmed up to him and now truly seems to enjoy having him around. She calls him "brudder" most of the time since that's what Dustin and I called him before he was born even though I now use his name the majority if the time. She is such a sweet big sister and loves to help me do things for Bradley. Every time I change his diaper she runs and gets her stool so she can get a diaper out of the drawer for me. When we give him baths, she stands on a chair at the kitchen counter and uses a little cup to pour water on his belly and feet to help keep him warm. If he fusses, cries or even just makes a funny noise, she'll yell, "It's okay, brudder!" as loud as she can to calm him down. She gives him his pacifier, covers him with blankets and will put toys in his lap whenever he's sitting in his swing or bouncy seat. I am so proud of her for being so sweet with him. She makes me and Dustin smile and laugh every single day.

I am so blessed to have such a beautiful, precious family.

A baby story... (part 1)

2011-10-04T01:53:00.001-04:00

One of the many reasons that I've always loved blogging is that it's pretty much like a journal of my life. I can go back and read what I was thinking about or going through at any given point. I know that's nothing new...I'm sure that's why a good number of people blog. I especially love being able to read back over the posts from when I was pregnant with Dallas. It is so special to me to relive those memories, and I am excited that one day, she too will be able to read those posts and see all of the pictures of me while I was carrying her. It may be many, many, many years before she appreciates any of it, but that's okay. It is my hope that some day she will be able to read through all of it and that it will make her feel so special to know how much Dustin and I loved her and how excited we were for her to be a part of our family before she was even born.

I very much regret not blogging during this pregnancy. That's one of those things that people always talk about -- how the 2nd child (and any subsequent kids) don't get nearly the attention that the first one did. Before I had this baby, I think I kind of had the thought in my mind that once you had one baby, the birth of any other babies wasn't as special. Now that I have two children, though, I know very well that (for me at least) that is not true in the slightest. The truth is that once you have a child, you're just busy. And when you're busy, you have to decide what is the most important to you. As I said in my last post, for me, spending time with Dallas along with all of the other things that come with being a stay at home wife and mom just became way more important than spending time writing a blog. I do wish I'd made time for a few "this is what I'm going through" posts here and there during the pregnancy, but...I didn't. Thankfully I've told my pregnancy story a bunch of times, and it's still fresh enough in my mind that I'll be able to at least write about the big stuff...the important things that this baby may someday want to know. So, here it is -- our (2nd) baby story.

(I want to add -- I was planning to put a lot of pictures in this post to go along with what I write, but since I'm doing this from my phone, that would be way too difficult. I don't want to keep putting off publishing this, so all the pics will just have to wait till another time :)

All my life I've said that I want two children. Then I met Dustin, who said that he wanted four, and when we got married, we agreed to compromise at three. There are three kids in my family -- me being the middle child -- and I've always liked the spacing between me and my sister (2 years) and brother (4 years). After having Dallas, I think Dustin and I both knew that we wouldn't wait too long to have a second child. Not too long after Dallas's first birthday (September 18, 2010) we started talking once again about having another baby. It was like Dallas all over again since it was also September when we'd first started trying to get pregnant with her. By the first of this year, even without taking a pregnancy test I was pretty much convinced that I was pregnant since I had found out that I was pregnant with Dallas also at the beginning of January. On January 6th, I took the test...knowing that it was really early to get an accurate result. Sure enough, though, it said that baby #2 was on the way!

When I found out I was pregnant with Dallas, Dustin was standing right next to me, so he saw the lines on the stick at the exact same time that I did. This time, I was impatient and took a test while he was at work. I guess I could've kept it to myself for a while and thought up some cute and creative way to tell him that he was going to be a daddy again, but instead, I called him at work, told him that Dallas and I had had a rough morning, and asked if I could stop by his office for a few minutes on my way out to my parents' house just to help us cheer up a bit. When we got to his office, he came out to the parking lot to say a quick hello. I actually had to fake and few tears to get him into the car for just a second, and then I told him -- we didn't really have a rough morning. We're actually having another baby! He was very excited to say the least, and since we weren't going to share our news immediately with everyone we knew, I'm sure it was difficult for him to go back to work and pretend like nothing had happened. I know it was hard for me to act normal!

We had my family (parents, brother and sister -- that almost NEVER happens) over for dinner about a week after we found out, and although we had planned to wait a little bit longer to share our secret, we went ahead and told them that night that Dallas was going to be a big sister. Actually, when Dustin prayed for the food, he said something like "...and please bless this new little life that's growing inside of Angela." After the AMEN, they were all excited and asked if we were serious :) We told Dustin's family about a week after that when we went to visit them and celebrate Christmas. Dustin told them that we had one extra present for them...but it wouldn't arrive for about 9 months.

Morning sickness started early with this baby, so of course from the very beginning everyone was just sure that we were having a boy. Sure enough, on April 20th, the doctor confirmed that Dallas would indeed be getting a baby brother for her birthday. Yes, my due date was September 16th-- just two days before Dallas would turn two.

Just like my pregnancy with Dallas, this pregnancy was difficult. Thankfully I had no issues with preeclampsia, and it was a huge blessing not to be working, but I started having terrible back and rib pains early on, and it was determined that my gall bladder was to blame. After several (very expensive) sonograms, my doctor proclaimed my gall bladder to be low functioning, full of sludge (sounds gross, huh?) and gave me a prescription for Loritab. After a few weeks, I was switched to Percocet and took that for the last 2 1/2 months of the pregnancy to help manage the pain. My doctor has since said that my gall bladder will need to be removed before I have any more children, and even though that won't be happening for several years, we've met our insurance deductible for this year, so the surgery will definitely happen some time before the new year. It's scary, but it's also exciting to think that if/when we have more kids (because yes, it is now an IF after all of this drama) I won't have to deal with this issue again!

Since the problems that I had during delivery with Dallas, we knew from the very beginning that this baby would be born via c-section. My doctor scheduled the surgery for September 9th -- one week before our baby boy was due. I, of course, was hoping that he would come earlier than that. Again, since I was having a scheduled c-section and because of my gall bladder issues, my doctor said that if I had any symptoms of early labor or regular contractions, she would go ahead and take him. I'd been having Braxton Hicks contractions since 19 weeks, but somewhere around 36 weeks they became real! Unfortunately, the real contractions did nothing for my uncooperative body, and my 37 week appointment came and went.

The Tuesday night of my 37th week, my contractions became noticeably stronger. I still didn't think I was really in labor...nevertheless I downloaded a contraction timer app and started to keep track. Irregular. 11 minutes. 15 minutes. 8 minutes. 30 minutes. 2 minutes. It was quite frustrating. I was so uncomfortable...I ended up just taking a bath and going to bed early. I figured the contractions would either wake me up and we'd go to the hospital, or I'd wake up in the morning and go to the pool with my friends as I'd been planning.

Wednesday morning, I woke up as I normally did... to the sound of Dallas playing in her bed. One thing was different though -- I was still feeling some pretty strong contractions. Up to that point, my BH contractions had occurred mostly in the afternoon, evening, and night times. I started timing them again, and even though they were still very irregular, I went ahead and called my doctor. As is usual, a nurse from the office called me back, and explained what was going on -- strong, very uncomfortable and yes even painful contractions and, by this point, quite a bit of low pressure -- as if the baby was pushing down. The nurse agreed that I was most likely in early labor and told me to keep track if my contractions. If they continued or got worse, she wanted me to go on to the hospital. She said that since I was scheduled for a c-section they didn't want me to labor at home for too long and risk having me dilate too far or the baby enter the birth canal or anything like that.

By this time, I'd called my mom to come over to keep Dallas...just in case. After a few more hours of contractions (still very irregular!) I called Dustin and told him that when he got home from work I wanted to go to the hospital to be checked out.

Honestly, I didn't think I was in labor. I never went into labor with Dallas, and even when given pitocin in the hospital I never progressed, so I really didn't think it would happen on it's own this time, but I was so very uncomfortable and so ready to NOT be pregnant any more that we went anyway...just in case.

After I told Dustin I wanted to go to the hospital, he went ahead and left work. When he got home, we packed our hospital bags (I'd only had the baby's bag and about half of my stuff packed before then) and took off. It was extremely difficult to say goodbye to Dallas because 1) I didn't want to upset her by making a big deal out of the fact that Dustin and I were leaving her, and 2) I didn't know whether to say, "I'll see you in a little while," or "I'll see you tomorrow after I have this baby oh and by the way your world is about to be seriously turned upside down." It was upsetting to say the least.

By the time we got to the hospital, checked in and got all set up in a triage room for monitoring it was about 6pm. The nurse hooked up monitors for both my contractions and the baby's heartbeat. It was apparent from the beginning that although I was having contractions, they were still pretty far apart and not coming at regular intervals. After a while the nurse checked to see if I was dilating at all, but just as my doctor told me at my appointment a few days before -- I was not dilated at all. Of course, I immediately started feeling pretty dumb for having come in to the hospital, and from then on I was just waiting for them to send us on home. It was very disappointing to hear that even with all of the contractions and even with all the low pressure I'd been feeling that I was still not actually progressing towards labor.

I was surprised when the nurse never even said anything about us going home after she checked me. At one point I think I asked if it looked like we'd be going home, and she said she didn't know and it would depend on what my doctor said when she called to give her a report. I was glad that we still had a chance, although I still really didn't think anything was going to happen that night.

To be continued in part 2...

Yep. It's me!

2011-10-01T21:20:00.002-04:00

Well, would you look at me...writing a blog post. Hard to believe that I'm back on the blogging wagon after all this time, but thankfully, I'm doing it! I didn't intentionally stop writing, but well, life happened (I actually really hate that expression) and suddenly spending time with Dallas became way more important than the ol' blogosphere. And then the longer I waited to post, the more difficult it got till it was just going to be way too overwhelming, and here we are more than a year later.

Just so you know, Dallas did age past 10 months old. I'm sure some of you were worried that that's why I stopped blogging. Rest assured, though, that in the time since we last spoke, Dallas turned one, learned to walk, has grown a whole lot of hair, learned to talk A LOT, learned to pee pee in the potty, (whenever she wants to...) became a big sister, and then turned TWO! Hard to believe she's that old now, but it's true.

Oh, and did you catch the BIG SISTER part? Yep. About four weeks ago we added another child to our family! That's sort of the reason I decided that I absolutely needed to start writing again. It's just not fair to deprive the world (any longer) of as many cute stories and pictures of my children as I can possibly squeeze onto the internet.

So...here we go again. Back to chronicling all the crazy things that happen around here. Maybe never as regularly as I might like, but I'm gonna do my best not to let another year slip by :)

Next up -- baby's birth story...

Squint.

2010-06-30T08:00:00.001-04:00

Can you find the commonality in these pictures?

(the fog on the lens was thanks to the wonderful Florida humidity…we actually breathe WATER here.)

(this one’s my favorite)

Trying to get a good picture of the two of us…

FINALLY!! We can see her eyes!

What a booger I have…

A game of cat and baby

2010-06-28T09:42:00.001-04:00

It all started with Dallas…sitting in the corner…minding her own business…

She has just started this thing where every time I try to take her picture she squints her eyes. Little goober.

Pulling things out of her bag…

Baggie sits watching, unnoticed…

Dallas says, “Hey, what are you doing in here?”

Baggie says, “Bet you can’t catch me!”

Run, kitty! Run!

Dallas gets just close enough to touch Baggie’s fur, and Baggie takes off again!

Baggie turns to make sure Dallas is still coming…

Dallas caught her! She actually landed her hand on Baggie’s paw so she couldn’t run away again!

Eventually Baggie escaped to the kitchen…

Quick pause for another squinty-eyed picture

“Let me pet you, Baggie!”

Baggie makes a smart move and runs under the dining room table.

“Why does she run from me, Mommy?”

Dallas can’t quite figure out how to get under the table.

She crawls under the chair and gets stuck.

Mommy helps her get free, and she’s off to find the kitty again!

Finally, Baggie got tired of running and hid.

I’m still not sure where she is :)

9 months have FLOWN by

2010-06-27T01:01:00.003-04:00

I seriously need a pause button for my life right now. Can anyone else relate? I hate doing these posts so late, and try as I might, I just can’t seem to find time to blog during the day. Pretty much my only free time is when Dallas is napping, and I have oodles of other activities that need to be done during that time, and blogging falls low on the list of priorities. Maybe some day I’ll be able to blog regularly again, but for now I think I need to stop beating myself up over it.

I cannot believe that Dallas is already 9 months old. I remember when she was born saying something about how it’ll be neat when she is older than how long I’ve known she existed. I didn’t think that time would come, but that time is now. It’s incredible. There is no way on earth that Dallas could ever be classified as an infant any more. She is a full blown BABY. I don’t think that I ever knew there was a difference before, but since she is now feeding herself regularly, says a few words, and can crawl faster than Baggie would like, it’s hard to deny that she’s really growing up….WAY too fast. Without further ado, let’s move on to what’s new with Dallas this month. I’m a week late, and I’m just going to include everything up until today.

This month, Dallas…

weighed 18 lbs. 8 oz. and was 28.75 inches long at her 9 month doctor’s appointment. She is in the 50th percentile for her weight and the 90th percentile for her height.
wears 6-9 month and 9-12 month clothes and has a few 12 month shirts that fit her.
has shoes in both sizes 2 and 3 that fit her. It just depends on the type of shoe.
wears size 3 diapers. I have decided that Luvs are my favorite diapers because they almost never leak, they’re WHITE so they don’t show through her clothes when she wears something light colored, and they're CHEAP.
is still sleeping really well. She’s normally in bed by 7:30pm and will sleep until about 7-7:15am when Dustin wakes up for work.
eats three meals every day, and feeds herself at least one thing at every meal. She’ll normally eat half of a banana and a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, but the rest of her food really varies according to what I have cooked for her.
eats a lot of new things this month, including peaches (HATES – either pureed or whole), Mandarin oranges, whole green beans (would never eat them pureed), chick peas, bread, crackers, mashed potatoes, and jello.

nurses 4-5 times a day.
has 5 teeth – two on top, and three on the bottom. I miss her gummy smile, but I must say that she is awfully cute with her little snaggle-tooth grin. And for the record (because I know some people will want to know), yes, she has bitten me, and yes it hurt. I dread the next time it’ll happen. I don’t think she does it on purpose, so of course I can’t be mad at her for it.
takes two naps every day. For her morning nap, she’ll usually go down around 9am and will only sleep for about an hour. Her afternoon nap always varies a little depending on our schedule, but on days that we’re home she’ll normally go down around 1pm and sleep for about two hours. Every once in a while she’ll surprise me and sleep longer, and that’s always a bonus.

sleeps pretty much exclusively on her stomach and still LOVES her Jaguar toy. I’m going to say it again to all you other new mommies out there – if you’re having trouble getting your baby to sleep, GIVE HIM/HER A SLEEP TOY. It has worked WONDERS for Dallas. She really, really loves her Jaguar, and she 100% knows that when I give her the Jaguar, it’s time to go to sleep. It’s like magic. Seriously.
is now taking baths in the big bath tub, and really enjoys it. She has so much room now to play with all of her toys, and she likes to crawl around in the bathtub. It’s super cute.

will wave when we say “hi” or “bye-bye.”
LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Baggie, and thankfully, Baggie is pretty tolerant of Dallas. Dallas has managed to pull Baggie’s tail a couple of times and has even grabbed handfuls of her fur, but so far Baggie has not retaliated. She’s a good kitty :)

claps on command when we say, “Dallas, clap!” or when we say, “Yay!” She’ll also clap whenever we get onto her for something. {Example scenario: Dallas crawls towards Baggie’s food. We say, “No, Dallas!” Dallas stops, considers crawling closer to the food, and eventually decides to obey. She’ll sit down, turn and look at us, and clap as if to say, “Yay for me! I’m a good girl!” This cracks us up every. single. time. Even better is as soon as she’s done clapping, she’ll turn and head straight for Baggie’s food again, and we’ll do the whole thing over and over.}

has mastered “Mama” and “Dada” and is now trying to say other words. I talked to her doctor about this because I know it’s a little early for her to really be talking, but the doctor was happy to say that it is quite possible. She said that they really don’t expect most babies to know the difference between “Mama” and “Dada” until they’re a year old, but if she’s got those two down, she may just be an early talker. So far, the only word we’re sure of is “Nie-nie” for night night. Dallas actually TELLS me when she’s ready for her naps. It’s a wonderful thing. Other words we’re hearing are “Bee-bee” (we’ve heard this one several times when she looks at herself in the mirror), “Ba” (we’re thinking maybe “Baggie”?) and “Geee” (again, maybe “Baggie”). Her favorite word of all is, “bookum.” She says this all. the. time. She also says a few variations of this word, like “hockum.” Not sure what the meaning of this word is. :) She makes a lot of other noises, too. Just yesterday she learned how to make a snorting sound….like a pig. So weird.
is learning baby sign language. We’ve only been working on it for about a week and a half, but Dallas already recognizes the sign for “milk.” She’s done it a couple times, but she hasn’t quite figured out that she can do it to tell me that that’s what she wants. Of course, milk means nurse to Dallas…not that she wants a sippy cup. It’s my goal for Dallas to eventually know the signs for milk, eat, more, and drink.

crawls everywhere and is pulling up on pretty much everything. It is amazing how much this has changed my life. She can get from one room to another in a second without my even knowing she was on the move. I love to watch her crawl. It’s hilarious and cute.

never sits in her swing any more. We finally put it up a couple of weeks ago.
still loves her exersaucer, and I am SOOOOO GLAD because it’s about the only place I can put her when I absolutely have to get something done while she’s awake.

went to the zoo for the first time on Memorial Day. It was very hot and that was hard on her, but I think she enjoyed looking at some of the animals.
is showing signs of separation anxiety, making it hard to leave her anywhere....like the nursery at church. We dealt with this a while back while I was working, but it had gotten a lot better in the last few months. I hope it will be a short phase again.
watches Sesame Street every morning and loves Elmo’s World.

has eaten 2 and 1/2 pieces of Baggie’s food and a bloody band aide (this happened on our way home from the doctor’s office after she had her toe pricked and got a shot).

has learned to chase us when we crawl away from her. We’re trying to teach her to play hide-n-seek.
left Florida for the first time a few weeks ago to visit her great-Nana in Georgia.
got her first real boo-boo this month. She fell when she was standing by the side of the couch, and she scratched her face. I think it was waaaaay more traumatizing for me than it was for her.

Last but not least, we had our first real family photo shoot a few weeks ago. There were so many good pictures, that I seriously could post like 100 more pictures, but I won’t…. Here are just a few of my favorites…

(Photos taken by Sarah Orgunov of Moments by Sarah)

New recipe, new website, and new addition

2010-06-16T07:58:00.004-04:00

Raise your hand if your first thought when you read the title of this post was that I was going to announce that I'm pregnant again.

Nope.

Now that that's out of the way....

I really, REALLY do want to get back to blogging on a regular basis again. I miss it sooo much! But I hardly ever have time to go near a real computer, so I still can't make any promises that I'll post more often. Honestly, up until this week I probably could have snuck into our office and typed something out really quickly while Dallas was playing on her blanket, but since she is now a crawl-master, leaving her alone in a room for more than 30 seconds at a time is just not a good idea. Despite not having a lot of time to blog, I absolutely LOVE that I have the opportunity to stay home with my sweet girl. This is what I've ALWAYS wanted, and being at home with Dallas is truly a dream come true.

One thing that I very much enjoy about being a SAHM is that I have time to cook dinner...most nights. A year ago, I would have called making Hamburger Helper or Stouffers Skillet meal "cooking dinner." Now, I don't even remember the last time we had something like that. We used to eat instant mashed potatoes on a regular basis. I now make homemade mashed potatoes at least once a week. They're Dustin's favorite, and I must say, I make pretty darn good mashed potatoes. The secret: 4 sticks of butter. I'm kidding, of course. I do use a lot of butter, but not 4 sticks. I also really enjoy making new recipes, and I'm even getting over my fear of making something that has more than 5 ingredients.

One of our newest favorite dinners is Stuffed Pizza Rolls from the food blog Our Best Bites. If you've never looked at that website, you should. It's inspiring.

Stuffed Pizza Rolls

1 roll refrigerated pizza dough
marinara/pizza sauce
2 T grated Parmesan cheese
1 T olive oil or melted butter
1/2 t garlic powder
1 t dried Italian seasoning
mozzarella cheese
Pizza toppings of your choice

1. Unroll your pizza dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat or roll the dough so it's about 12" by 8". Use a pizza cutter to slice the dough into 24 squares.

2. Place cheese and desired toppings (not the sauce!) on each square. Remember that you have to close the squares up, so don't put too much of the toppings. So far, we’ve only made them with pepperoni, and I put about two pieces in each roll. I cut each piece of pepperoni into quarters first so you don’t pull the whole piece out when you take a bite. I’m crafty like that. When all of your dough squares have cheese and toppings on them, carefully lift up each square and wrap the dough around the toppings. Pinch to make sure each ball is sealed shut and then place them seam side down in a lightly sprayed pie pan (or similar sized dish).

3. Brush the tops of the dough balls with olive oil or melted butter and then sprinkle with the garlic and Italian seasoning and top with Parmesan cheese. I don't even measure this stuff any more...I just sprinkle each of the seasonings and the cheese on until I think it looks right.

4. Cook them in the oven for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown on top. Keep an eye on them! Doughs vary, so I'd check them after even 10 minutes.

5. Serve with warmed marinara sauce on the side for dipping. So good!!

This last picture is a little deceiving because there are only two little rolls on my plate….but that’s only because I’d already eaten the rest of them! Dustin and I can eat nearly an entire pan of these ourselves. We really shouldn’t eat that much…but, well…. if they’re there, I just can’t let them go to waste! This recipe is really enough for 3 adults if you also have a salad. It’s a little bit time consuming, but if you've GOT the time, it's definitely worth it. Enjoy!

_______________________________

On to the new addition!!

Okay, no -- it's not a puppy or anything like that, either. It's actually a new dining room chandelier! I hated our dining room chandelier from the moment we bought our house. It was pretty much the standard gold and glass paned chandelier that most houses built in the 90’s got…and it just DID NOT mesh well with the style in the rest of our house. I’d been wanting to replace it for years, but just never got around to it.

It is thanks to my good friend Rachel and all of the extreme home renovations she’s done in the last few months that we finally got a new dining room light fixture! And not only that, but she sent us a matching light fixture for our entry way! Rachel is such a good friend to care about the appearance of my house so much :)

So…before….

entry way chandelier

dining room chandelier
(I forgot to take a picture before we took it down)

And…AFTER…

entry way

dining room

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but they are both brushed silver with frosted white globes. MUCH better than the ugly fake gold. I am so happy with them both! Thanks again, Rachel and Jeff!!

_______________________________

Last, but not least, I wanted to mention a FABULOUS new website that you all must check out RIGHT NOW! My good friend Tiffany has started her own business – an online dress shop. Her site is great because every dress there is under $50, she has styles for every occasion, and the best part – it is all categorized by body type so you know whatever you buy will be flattering to your figure! She’s a genius, I tell you. Check it out at LOVEofDRESSES.com!

EIGHT is Great!

2010-05-20T20:42:00.002-04:00

It's that time again! Dallas is eight months old now, and as I'm not going to be around my computer again for the next couple of days, I'm gonna take this opportunity to write a quick update of what's new with her this month from Dustin's phone. Please forgive whatever strange typos this post may contain...this phone has a habit of changing misspelled words to other words without my knowledge and/or consent. For example, a few minutes ago I noticed that it changed the word "couple" to "coulée." I don't even know what that means! I hope I didn't just curse in a foreign language on my blog. Anyhoo...

This month, Dallas...

-wears 6-9 month and 9-12 month clothes
-wears size 3 diapers
-was 17 pounds and 9 ounces at her doctors appointment last week
-is sleeping about 12 hours a night without waking up in the middle of the night anymore...THANK GOODNESS! She goes to bed around 7:30 or so every night - sometimes a little later, and sometimes as early as 7:00.
-eats oatmeal with cinamon and some fruit for breakfast, and chicken and vegetables for dinner. We are just now starting solids at lunch time so she'll be eating 3 meals a day.
-has eaten apples, pears, bananas, plums, avacados, carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, butternut squash, yellow squash, acorn squash and chicken.
-still nurses 4-5 times a day
-LOVES puffs and can pick them up and put them in her mouth with great skill.
-got her second bottom tooth.
-had to visit the doctor a couple of times for a bad diaper rash and a double ear infection. She is still taking medicine to treat both.
-still taking two naps a day and will sleep anywhere between one and three hours each time.
-sleeps on her stomach and seems to really like sleeping in the top corner of her crib. She absolutely LOVES her Jaguar blanket and almost always will calm down and get sleepy as soon as I hand it to her. To any other mommies out there strugling to get their babies to sleep, I highly recommend introducing a toy for sleep time.
-still loves bath time.
-still loves her exersaucer. She loves to rock it back and forth and can rock it across the room until she runs into something and gets stuck.
-still really enjoys sitting on her blanket to play with her toys.
-likes her swing, but hardly ever sits in it.
-had gotten to be quite generous with her smiles and laughs and I LOVE it!!
-HATES it when we stand her up against something. She used to like it when I'd stand her up in her bed or against the coffee table. Now she'll put her head down on her hands and just BAWL!

And now for the big stuff...
-can wave "bye-bye" (which really impressed her doctor at her last appointment).
-can clap.
-says Mama and Dada quite regularly.
-has started army crawling...not quite up on her hands and knees yet. She found the DVD shelf the other day and made the most adorable mess :)
-has learned to use her index finger to point and push little buttons on her toys. It is SO CUTE!

She really seems to be hitting the social and fine motor skill milestones rather quickly. Hopefully this month we'll make some progress on the other stuff...like better crawling and pulling up. I am so proud of my smart little girl!

I'll try to post more regularly this month and put her new pics up soon. I've had about all I can handle of this iPhone-posting mess. Have a good weekend peeps!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-05-05T22:21:00.003-04:00

The one where we insult the old blind lady

2010-05-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

A few months ago....actually, more like a year ago, I started receiving phone calls on my cell phone from some random little old lady. Seriously, she would call me about every other week, ask to speak to someone who was NOT me, then immediately say "I'm sorry sugar, I've got the wrong number." Then she'd hang up on me. After this happened about about 10 times, I would recognize her number when she'd call, and I wouldn't answer. THEN she started leaving me hang-up voice messages. Don't you HATE that? I mean, my voice mail message is long enough that any normal person should have time to both hear my voice, recognize that I am not the one they want to talk to, and hang up all before a message starts recording, but somehow she was still managing to wait on the phone long enough for my phone to record two seconds of a voice message. Ugh.

A couple of weeks ago, Dustin and I were at home one night watching the television when all of a sudden my phone started to ring. I look down, and sure enough, it was the wrong-number-lady. I handed the phone to Dustin and told him to answer and tell her to STOP calling me. This is what I heard...

Hello?

(pause)

No, you've got the wrong number.

(pause)

Yeah, you've got the wrong number. Will you please remember not to call this number again?

(pause)

Well save it in your phone, then you won't make that same mistake.

(long pause)

Mmm hmm...

(pause)

Oh, okay.

(pause)

Oh....okay.

(pause)

Okay, well...um.... just try not to call this number again.

(pause)

Okay...uh...thanks. Bye.

As it turns out, the lady is blind, so she's just sort of guessing when she dials the phone, so she calls me a lot because she can't tell when she accidentally dials the "2" in her sister's phone number twice. Also, she's old and lives by herself, so there's nobody there to help her when she needs to make a phone call.

Oops.

Since her conversation with Dustin, she has only called me one time. I did not speak to her.

In our defense, she didn't sound old....or blind. Next time someone calls me by accident, I'll be sure to ask them if they have any disabilities before I tell them they're not allowed to call me any more.

The end.

Dallas is SEVEN months (and almost 2 weeks) old!!

2010-04-30T08:00:00.001-04:00

I get the bad mommy award for this one. Yep.

It's been over a month since I've blogged, and I'm almost two weeks late posting Dallas's 7 month update! Last month I wrote everything down so I'd remember what she's been doing. This month, I didn't do that. See? I told you I get the bad mommy award. I won't include the things she's been doing the last two weeks in this post. I'll save them for next month.

This month, Dallas...

is sleeping through the night again most nights. She still wakes up every once in a while at some unpredictable hour, but for the most part she's sleeping from about 8:00pm till 7:30am. She is such a good sleeper!
had her first cold. It was so sad! She was only sick for about 2-3 days, but the residual runny nose and congestion is even still hanging around.
got her first tooth! It's her bottom left middle tooth, and it is so cute! I love her little snaggle tooth smile :) I'm sure the tooth has a lot to do with her waking up at night.

showing off her tooth

takes two regular naps a day in her crib, and will sleep for anywhere from one to three hours at a time. Her first nap normally happens around 9-10am, and her second nap happens around 2pm.
sleeps all over her crib. It is not unusual for me to find her balled up in the corner or flat on her stomach smooshed against the side of the crib. (And for the record, I've never taken her bumper pads out of the crib. For some reason I've never been worried that she'll smother to death with them in the bed. Feel free to share your thoughts on this!)
sleeps with a little Jaguar blanket that she got from the hospital every night, and gets really excited when I give it to her at bed time. She only gets to play with this toy when it's time to go to sleep, and it's so cute to see her cuddle Mr. Jaguar in her arms.
loves to have play dates with all of her baby friends.

Dallas with Collin and Max

Clara, Max, Dallas, and Brookelynne at Collin's birthday party

at the pool with Max and Collin

is still fascinated with Baggie.
loves the remote control better than any other toy in the world. I don't let her play with it, though, since she just wants to put it in her mouth.
loves to play with my hair. She'll run her fingers through my bangs over and over again and just look at the way my hair falls. If she pulls my hair, I'll say "OUCH" and she'll stop.
will stare really hard at anything she throws. It's like she's thinking, "Hey, I wanted to play with that." And speaking of throwing...
throws EVERYTHING. She can chuck her rattle all the way across the living room. I think she enjoys the noise it makes on the hardwood floor.
nurses only 4-5 times a day including when she wakes up and goes to bed.
eats two solid meals a day. She has oatmeal and some fruit for breakfast, and a variety of veggies for dinner. She eats bananas (LOVES), apples, pears, peas, green beans (HATES), carrots, butternut squash (LOVES), acorn squash (LOVES), avocado, and sweet potatoes (LOVES). I make all of her baby food. We are about to start eating lunch, so she'll be eating 3 meals a day.

eats Gerber puffs (like Cheerios) with every meal and as a snack whenever we go out. She can even pick them up off her tray and put them in her own mouth! It so so cute! Dustin and I like to cheer for her every time one makes it into her mouth.
likes to play with her sippy cup but doesn't drink much out of it. She mostly just uses it as a chew toy.
loves to take baths. She would sit in the tub ALL NIGHT if we'd let her. She has so much fun playing with all of her bath toys.
LOVES her exersaucer.
lets me paint her toe nails.

will sit on a blanket surrounded by toys and play for hours! She likes for me to sit by her and play with her, but she's just as happy to play by herself. She knows how to get to a lying down position without having to fall, so if she wants a toy that's too far away for her to reach sitting up, she'll just lay down and roll over to the toy. She likes to roll off of her blanket and lay on the hard wood floor, too.

fall asleep in random places ALL. THE. TIME.

in her high chair

on a wagon ride at Collin's birthday party

has gotten a lot better about being in the nursery at church. She was just promoted to a new class, though, and her Sunday School teachers were sad to see her go. Thankfully, she already loves her new Sunday School teacher, Jennifer, and her new Sunday evening teachers, Julie and Whitney. The next step is getting her to take a nap in a crib at church to help with some of the fussiness.
talks a TON! We think she might know what Da-da means at this point, but I guess we can't know for sure. She'll say Ma-ma, too, but not nearly as often.
makes all kinds of weird noises with her mouth.
is learning to clap and say "Bye-bye."
has learned to take off her hair bow. I'm using this special skill to try to teach her the word "NO." This is a regular battle.
gets REALLY excited every day when Dustin gets home from work. Her whole face lights up and she always smiles at him so big! Dallas definitely loves her daddy!
laughs a lot more often than she used to. It is still special every single time, but I'm glad that we don't have to work quite so hard for it any more.
is doing the thing where she leans towards me with her arms out when she wants me to take her from someone, and she lifts her arms up when she's on the floor or in her exersaucer and wants me to pick her up.
went to her first Easter egg hunt!

playing with eggs with her cousin Rylan

see Zipper in the background? He's gotten big!

had her first Easter!

went swimming for the first time!

wears size 3 diapers. We use Target brand, Huggies, and Pampers. Pampers are my favorite, but we use whatever is on sale or people give us.
wears size 6-9 and 9-12 month clothes pretty equally.
weighed 17 lbs. 7 oz. at the doctor's office this past Monday. We went in to let them check out a diaper rash and found out that she also had an ear infection! She wasn't really fussy before, but now that she's taking medicine, I can tell that she feels a lot better.

7 months old -- April 18, 2010

Dallas is SIX months old!

2010-03-21T00:04:00.006-04:00

I had great intentions of posting this on Dallas's six month birthday, but since that day also happened to be Dustin's birthday, it didn't quite work out. Then I was going to post it the day after, but my body decided that Friday would be a GREAT time for me to get a stomach bug, so it still didn't get done. And now it's Saturday night AGAIN AFTER MIDNIGHT and here I sit typing this post. *sigh* I'm just hoping that tomorrow I'll feel a little bit more normal and less like I need to run towards the bathroom at any moment.

I actually started keeping a list of everything new Dallas has been doing, so rather than write everything out in my usual wordy way, I'm just going to do bullet points.

This month, Dallas...

eats her toes constantly.
spits -- raspberries, sticking her tongue out, and making the "K" noise open-mouthed (do it...you'll see what I mean).
fake coughs.
laughs a little bit more, but we still have to work hard for it!
rolls over from stomach to back no problem.
can roll over onto her stomach, but doesn't like to so it doesn't happen very often.
reaches for EVERYTHING! Food, hair, the phone, Baggie, whatever! And if she can grab it, it goes straight into her mouth!
likes to drink water from a cup, and has started using a sippy cup.

is FASCINATED with Baggie. If Baggie walks into the room, Dallas will stop whatever she's doing to watch her. Baggie is very good about letting Dallas pet her, too. We love Baggie, but she can be mean sometimes, and we have been very proud of her that she hasn't retaliated when Dallas has pulled her fur. Don't worry -- we're being very careful with both of them.
looks at and tries to grab at the tags on her toys, blankets, etc.
babbles constantly! She's saying dada a LOT and has said mama a few times. Not sure if she really knows what it means, yet. Her favorite word is AY-YAI-YAI-YAI-YAI!
makes kissing noises.
will play on a blanket by herself for a long time! She won't stay where I put her, though. She always ends up laying half way on the floor.
drools a ton and chews on her hands and fingers, but still no teeth.
is learning to give kisses. I will make the noise "Mmm-uahh!" as I kiss her, then put her mouth on my cheek and make the same noise. She seems to know what I'm doing and gets pretty excited when we play that game. It's so cute!
LOVES to play peek-a-boo! She will pull the blanket up over her face and back down all by herself. She will play this game for HOURS if you keep saying "Where's Dallas?" and "There she is!" every time. Again, she gets so excited! I can tell she's really proud of herself for figuring out stuff like this.
sits up unassisted. I won't walk away from her, though, unless she's sitting with the boppy pillow around her, just in case.

has gotten to where she is VERY good at restaurants most of the time. We're going to a nice place next weekend for Dustin's birthday, and I hope that she does well then. She does well when there's a lot of new things for her to look at.
doesn't really like the nursery at church. I always feel bad for the nursery workers, and I hope that she'll grow out of this.
wakes up every day around 7-7:30 and will play in her bed for about half an hour before I have to go and get her.
is supposed to go to bed around 8-8:30 every night, but Dustin and I have a hard time sticking to this schedule. Some nights we won't start her bed time routine until 9:00 or so, but she almost always goes to bed without a problem.
has recently started waking up a few times a week in the middle of the night. I've heard that this is normal. If she is crying and I have to go in and feed her, I'm normally back in the bed in about 15 minutes, so it's not that bad.

is very unpredictable as far as naps are concerned. Some days she'll take like a 2 hour nap, and other days she won't sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time. It makes it very difficult when I have somewhere to be and I don't want to wake her up from a nap.
went through a phase where she wanted me to carry her around all the time. Thankfully, this has passed.
has learned to whisper. She'll talk really loud, then really soft. Again, I can tell she's proud of herself when she learns how to do stuff like that.
has become a booger factory, but hates to have her nose cleaned. She'll let me wipe her face with a wash cloth, but will cry as soon as I start on her nose.
takes baths sitting up in a little tub in the big bath tub.

learned to fake smile, and it is SO CHEESY! I love it!
wiggles all over her bed in her sleep. She always sleeps on her side now (she rolls that way herself) and one night she even rolled over onto her tummy!
is back to loving her swing and her exersaucer (thank goodness!!)

nurses 6-7 times a day.
has tried rice cereal, oatmeal, carrots, butternut squash, peas, apple juice, and pears. She will not eat the pears. I want to make all of her baby food, but I just bought some at first until I could get a baby food kit. Dallas ate the store-bought baby food no problem. I have not been able to get her to eat homemade food, yet, other than a little bit of peas. I can't seem to get the texture right, and she'll gag until she throws up. Not fun. We're going to work on it a lot next week. I've got a whole bunch of homemade sweet potatoes for her to try next.
wears size 2 Pampers diapers.
wears both 3-6 month clothes and 6-9 month clothes about equally. Of course, there are some things in the 3-6 month clothes that are too small, and she's pretty close to fitting some of her 9 month pants in length.
was 16 lbs, 10 oz, and 26.5 inches long at her 6 month doctor's appointment.

I'll always hit the milestone years a few months before him

2010-03-18T00:06:00.009-04:00

TODAY is a special day. Why, you ask? Because it is DUSTIN'S 26th BIRTHDAY! That's right! 26 years ago today, Nonna was writhing in pain (that's the phrase my mother uses every time my siblings and I have a birthday) in a Naval hospital in Tennessee in an attempt to bring her first born son into the world. The more I think about it (especially since I've actually had a baby now) I think that mothers should be recognized on a person's birthday just as much as that person is! And don't start with the that's what Mother's Day is for. I've been in labor, and believe me, mothers DESERVE to have more than one day. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to DUSTIN, and CONGRATULATIONS on all of your hard work, Nonna :) You brought a wonderful guy into the world and I will forever be thankful to you.

This is sooo not where I was going to go with this post, but oh well. Two nights in a row of posting after midnight does something to a person. So what did I originally have planned to mark this momentous occasion? I like to call it "The Evolution of Dustin" a.k.a. a series of pictures that I found in a photo album :)

1 day old

Dusty and his daddy

Dusty and his mommy

Dusty with his Nana and Papa

No clue how old he is in this pic, but isn't he so darn cute?!

Helping Daddy wash the car

So sweet -- Dallas smiles this same smile sometimes :)

And here is where I have to jump from cute little boy to all grown up. Sorry, I don't have any in-between pics.

High school senior -- 2002
(We met just a few months Dustin graduated)

Our first picture together

By a random fire hydrant not too long after we began dating

On our way to our first Jags game together

My shirt says "Dorkstin" -- it's the clothing line Dusty "designed" in high school
(the "o" is Dustin's face)

The song "So This Is Love" from Cinderella comes to mind when I see this pic. He must have really liked me to let me take his picture with a bow in his hair!

Ditto the last caption

Valentines Day 2005

At the zoo for my 22nd birthday

Engagement pics!

At one of my Bridal showers about a month before we got married

Dusty and his brother Tyler on Dustin's 22nd birthday

In the apartment where we lived when we first got married

New Years Eve 2006

On our cruise to Key West and the Bahamas -- 2008

Dallas's birth -- 2009

Family portrait -- Christmas 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DUSTIN!!

Dallas and I love you! We hope you have a wonderful day and we can't wait to spend all day with you tomorrow!

In lieu of a real post...but still interesting

2010-03-17T00:19:00.003-04:00

By now the whole world has been clued in on my lack o' love for the ol' telley, (can you even understand that sentence?! I crack myself up!) but just to run that subject just a little further into the ground, I would like to urge you all to click here and read the 10 REASONS TO AVOID TALKING ON THE PHONE. Oh. my. goodness these are so true. So. sadly. true. Dustin e-mailed this to me like over a week ago, and I just read it for the first time. That shows you how often I get on the ol' com-pu-tarrr (seriously, what is my deal? I'm typing exactly how I'm thinking these words in my head. I need to go to bed.) now that I'm not paid to do so like 8 hours a day anymore. I don't want to actually post it here because there are a couple of parts that are a little more PG-13 than I like to normally to keep things.

But after you read it come back here and comment!! Because I LIVE for comments!!! (Not really, but I'm apparently really hyper right now, and the thought of getting like 87 comments on a blog post really excites me.) Comments are what make me want to blog, so if you want me to blog, you better leave me a comment, mmmmmkay??

Dallas will be 6 months old tomorrow (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?) and I've already been compiling a list of things to put in a blog post, so rest assured that a real update will be happening in the near future.

Until then...nighty night!

OH NO HE DIDN'T!

2010-03-03T10:41:00.004-05:00

Remember last week when I posted about how I accidentally published my cell phone number on the world wide web for every annoying salesman in the world to see? Well, ever since then I have been receiving phone calls from different insurance brokers trying to sell me health insurance. Let me tell you -- this is one of the most annoying things EVER, especially for a person who hates talking on the phone in the first place! I've pretty much had to stop answering my phone at all when I get a call from an unknown number, which is even more annoying since I'm waiting for a different call from a woman on Craig's list. A couple of times I did answer and just told the person calling that I didn't want to receive any more calls.

This morning, one of the phone salesmen went too far. I answered the phone -- knowing that it was probably a sales call -- as sweetly as I could, waited for the man to say what he had to say, then told him that I'd already found health insurance (which is TRUE) and that I'd rather not continue this conversation any further. The salesman, Paul, then asked which insurance company I'd decided to go with. My exact words were, "I'd really rather not talk about this over the phone anymore. Thanks." He said, "You don't want to tell me? So you really didn't find anyone yet, huh? Well FINE. Goodbye." And he hung up on me.

This phone conversation happened just as I was about to take a shower, so of course I fumed the entire time I was lather-rinse-and-repeat-ing my hair. I imagined myself calling Paul back, asking to speak to his supervisor, and eventually getting him fired from his job for being rude to the poor little stay-at-home-mommy with no job, living in a shack in the middle of a field with a broken down car, a sick baby, a three legged cat and a 5 year old son who needs a heart transplant (the story got a little bit out of control in my head, obviously). Alas, by the time I finished my shower, I'd decided to instead send Paul a scathing e-mail. (Click the picture to make it bigger.)

A few minutes later, Paul wrote back...

Angela = 1
Annoying Paul the salesman = 0

I'm a stay at home mommy

2010-03-02T21:58:00.002-05:00

Okay, I have like 38 seconds to write this post because Dustin is already in bed and I don't want him to go to sleep without me, but I know that if I put this off any longer it's going to become one of those HUGE mountainous posts that will take me like 4 years to write. Staying at home is WONDERFUL! I love having the ability to both spend time with Dallas and sweep my kitchen floor every once in a while. Before, I felt like I had to choose one or the other. I'm still having to remind myself that it's okay to put Dallas down for a few minutes...that I'll still have time to play with her later...but also, if I want to, I can hold her and play with her for hours because I'll still be home tomorrow to do whatever chores don't get done today. It's FANTASTIC!

Just in case there are anyone else out there who would like some help in getting organized, I want to share with you the Motivated Moms chore planner. It's not just for moms, though. It's a list of chores broken down by day so that you don't have to think about what you need to accomplish every day. Isn't that great? It costs only $8 to download the calendar for the whole year, and for the record (and I've already told this to a few people) I think that downloading and sharing the calendar is kind of stealing, so don't ask me to do that...mmmkay? $8 is really not that much when you look at all of the stuff that is on this calendar and think about how much time it must have take the "Motivated Mom" who first created it. Thank you to my cousin Nikki who first told me about this calendar.

Lastly, I'm going to have to ask everyone to please refrain from writing any interesting posts in the next few days or so because I'm not going to have time to get on the computer very often and I don't want to get behind in reading. Okee dokee? I will post again as soon as I have another free minute. I know you're all just DYING to see some new pics of the CUTEST BABY IN THE WORLD. Am I right?

Later peeps!

I must be really REALLY beautiful!

2010-02-24T13:03:00.002-05:00

How's that for a narcissistic title?

I've been tagged yet again for the Beautiful Blogger award. And since I'm doing everything imaginable to keep from doing any of the real work that really needs to be done in my office before I leave here FOR FOREVER on Friday, I think now is a good time to complete this post. In case you've forgotten, I'm supposed to list seven interesting things about myself. "Interesting" is always the key word.

1. Dustin and I have taken to calling Dallas "THAT BABY" just like that whenever we talk about her. In e-mails, text messages, etc. we never write her name. Just THAT BABY. I may start doing that here on my blog, as well.

2. When I was little my favorite color was blue. I made a point to tell people that I didn't like pink because pink was for girls. I must have been confused, somehow. Now I like anything and everything that is pink. Pink rules. Blue drools.

3. Another when-I-was-little story.... At my kindergarten graduation (do all schools do a huge graduation party for kindergartners? I don't know if this is normal) we did a huge program with all kinds of different activities like acting out the story of Noah and the Ark and doing some simple math and phonics reading and all that jazz. At the end of the whole shebang, several of us lined up holding signs that said "This is the day we graduate" and different kids had different signs with different punctuation marks (that was a lot of "different-s"!) to make the sentence either a declaration an exclamation or a question. For the question, the kid holding the card that said "This is" had to turn it over so it read "Is this." I held the card that had the period on it...making the sentence a declaration. My name was Patty Period. My family members (mainly my dad) would randomly call me Patty Period every once in a while growing up. It always made me feel special.

4. I am horrible with directions. H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E. You should never, ever, EVER ask me how to get somewhere, because I will definitely tell you wrong. I have lived in the same city since I was four years old, and just today I got lost trying to get back to my office after getting something for lunch. I had to use my GPS or I'd probably be in Arkansas by now. To prove just how bad my sense of direction is...a couple of years ago, a few of my friends and I went up to South Carolina to visit Rachel and have an ornament and cookie party. I drove there with my friend Annie. On the way back home, I had to do a u-turn on the entrance ramp to the interstate because I accidentally got on the ramp to go NORTH. You don't go north to get to Florida from South Carolina. I am a much safer driver now that I have Dallas. Don't worry.

5. I am trying desperately to get my hair back to its natural color. I started highlighting my hair back in high school, and ever since then it's been a battle to keep my roots under control. I had my hair colored professionally a few weeks ago back to what is supposed to be my natural color, and I am determined never to do anything else to the color of my hair ever again....or at least until I start going gray.

6. I prefer a hamburger from McDonald's to one that is made from real hamburger meat and cooked on a real grill like in someone's backyard. I am now preparing myself to hear Oh my gosh that's so weird! like one million times.

7. I used to have to wake up in the morning like two hours before I needed to leave the house so that I could get dressed. It literally used to take me that long. I don't know what my deal was. Now I wake up about an hour and a half before I have to leave and I have time not only to get dressed but also feed and play with Dallas for about 45 minutes. How does that work? I don't know.

I think I've done fairly well in coming up with interesting things that I've never posted about. Now, I tag the first seven people on my blog roll to do this post as well. Actually, you're ALL beautiful bloggers, so I tag you ALL to do this post. And that includes all of you who haven't done a post in several weeks or months. You know who you are.

Number of working days I have left: 2

ATTENTION ALL EXPERIENCED MOMMIES!!!

2010-02-24T08:48:00.003-05:00

My friend Michelle over at Rumsey Ramblings is in need of some good Mommy advice. She has a beautiful new 4 week old baby girl -- Peyton -- and is struggling with how to deal with colic. She says they've tried everything they can think of so far, but now she is asking for help from other mommies who may have dealt with this sort of thing before. If you have any suggestions, please head over to her blog and give her some tips!

Random Tuesday

2010-02-23T16:50:00.002-05:00

1. I am currently in the market for health insurance. Today I learned that if you go to a website that requires that you enter your phone number for them to give you an insurance quote, you should immediately close the browser and step away from the computer. Stupid STUPID me -- I entered my phone number and received five different phone calls from five different insurance companies within half an hour. To say I was ~~annoyed~~ ~~angry~~ FURIOUS is an understatement.

2. I ordered Girl Scout Cookies from a co-worker's daughter a few weeks ago. Today they came in. I resisted even opening the box for most of the afternoon because I knew that if I even opened the box I would eat way too many cookies. After all of the phone calls, though, I stopped arguing with my belly and just opened the box. I have eaten at least 5 cookies already.

3. I have to work late tonight. Just an hour or so, but still. Boo.

Number of working days I have left: 3

She's a strong baby!

2010-02-22T11:17:00.003-05:00

One of Dallas's favorite things to do is stand up. Sometimes she'll be fussy, and if you just let her stand up in your lap she'll be fine! She's been doing this for a long time, and I remember that even as long ago as at her two month doctor's appointment her doctor was impressed at how strong her legs are. She has now learned to pull herself up on our fingers! Not on furniture, yet, but if we hold her hands and help her balance she can pull up to a standing position. It's too funny because she is obviously so proud of herself! And since I could never deprive the internets of a chance to see how cute my sweet girl is, here is a video of our little standing baby. Enjoy!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

(Sorry that this video takes so long to load! If you pause it for a few minutes and come back it might work a little better.)

5 months old

2010-02-18T14:39:00.006-05:00

I'm going to start off by saying how proud of myself I am for doing this post actually ON Dallas's 5 month birthday. I'm hoping I'll be able to continue this trend. We shall see...

Dallas has changed SO MUCH this past month, and she's doing a lot of new things! I haven't actually weighed her since her four month appointment, but I'd guess she's somewhere around 15-16 pounds. She seemed to have gone through a major growth spurt right after her last check up. I've had a lot of people tell me it's because she started eating cereal, but that can't be right, because she didn't start the cereal until after she had the growth spurt. I pretty much just let people think/say whatever they want, though, because as a lot of you new mothers can attest, people have opinions about babies and they're going to share their opinions and continue to believe whatever they want no matter what you tell them. The end.

As I said, Dallas started cereal a few weeks ago! We tried rice cereal mixed with my milk first, and she didn't really show much interest in eating it. Then I decided to try mixing the cereal with water because I didn't want to be wasting milk if she was going to refuse to eat the cereal. She didn't care much for that, either. After about a week of only getting about one mouthful actually into her belly, I decided to try mixing the cereal with water and a little bit of organic pears. That finally worked, and before too long she was eating a tablespoon of cereal mixed with one tablespoon of rice and one baby spoonful of pears.

After that jar of pears, we decided to try apple juice since we had some anyway. I'm planning to make her baby food once we start her on vegetables, so I didn't want to keep buying the jars just to mix with cereal. Now she eats two tablespoons of cereal mixed with one tablespoon of water and one tablespoon of apple juice. We haven't tried any other foods, yet. Probably once I'm home full time and have time to do something other than eat dinner and sleep at my house I'll get around to cooking some baby-friendly carrots.

Dallas is finally rolling over from tummy to back. I think she could roll back over onto her belly if she wanted to, but considering that she hates being on her tummy, I don't see that happening any time soon. When she is on her tummy, she can scoot across a blanket. She's not doing it intentionally, but if I don't watch her she'll end up laying just on the floor. When lying on her back, she sort of spins in circles. She is quite content to play on the floor with her toys, thankfully. In fact, last night that was the only thing she would allow apart from my holding her. She's definitely in a phase right now where she wants to be held all. the. time. or she acts like she's dying. DYING I TELL YOU and HOW DARE YOU PUT ME DOWN!! This just started last week, and I'm hoping that it won't last for too long.

She is doing great sleeping in her crib. She goes to bed every night between 8-9pm (depends on what time I get around to starting her bedtime routine) and most of the time she'll play for a little while before going to sleep. I can only remember one time that I've had to go and get her out of bed after I put her down for the night. During the week, she'll wake up around 6:30 or so and will play in her bed for a while until I go and get her. For the last few Saturdays she's let us sleep in until about 8am. She is SUCH a good baby! I am so glad that she sleeps so well :)

Dallas still sits in her swing, but she doesn't love it quite as much as she used to. She will still take really good naps sitting there during the day at my mom's house, but she hardly ever sits in it at night. Honestly, I think she gets bored. Which reminds me of another thing she has started --- the I'll-throw-it-and-you'll-go-and-get-it game. She does this all the time, too. She has about three different toys that she really enjoys playing with right now, but after chewing and sucking on them for a few minutes, she'll fling them out of her hand and then look at whoever is nearby with a look that says "Your turn!" It's so cute....although a little frustrating when we're in the car and we have to reach behind the seats over and over again to find whatever she's just thrown.

We recently bought Dallas an exersaucer, and she seemed to really enjoy it until she got into this current phase. Now she'll only sit in it for about 30 seconds at a time.

This is getting long and I'm running out of time, so I'm just gonna list the rest of the stuff:

Dallas wears mostly size 3-6 month clothes, but all her of 6-9 month pants already fit her, too. Anything with feet in it (like pajamas) has to be 6-9 months or it's too short and her toes will be all scrunched up.
She wears size 2 diapers.
She drinks about 5 ounces from the bottle most of the time but has been known to drink as much as 7 ounces in one shot.
She wants to touch EVERYTHING. Anything that comes even remotely within reach -- she'll stretch out her hands to grab it. I need to video her doing this with Baggie. It's so funny!
She still LOVES baths, but she's definitely outgrown her little tub...at least until she learns to sit up by herself. We need to either put her tub in the big bathtub, or just wash her in the regular tub because she splashes water all over the place right now.
She grunts and talks all day long. She is so expressive! She loves to smile, but still doesn't laugh very often. When she really gets really excited, she waves her arms around and grunts like crazy! I do have a video, so I'll hopefully post that soon.

I don't even have time to proof-read this, so I hope it looks okay. If I think of anything else I need to add I'll do that in a separate post.

Number of working days I have left: 6

Two Weeks Notice -- Not just a good movie

2010-02-16T14:22:00.003-05:00

Two weeks ago I ended a blog post by saying that I had some good news to share. The day has come to share said news. And since people say a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let this picture do the talking... (click to make it bigger)

Sorry for all of the blackouts....gotta protect the identity of the innocent (ME!) from all the crazy internet stalkers. So in case all of the blacked out parts left you in the dark about the purpose of this letter, let me enlighten you to the fact that as of Friday, February 26th (that's only 8 and 1/2 working days from now...but who's counting?!) I will officially be a STAY AT HOME MOM!!! Yay me!! I am SUPER excited. SUPER DUPER excited!! Wait, but not just SUPER DUPER excited, but SUPER-TY DUPER-TY EXCITED!!

Angela, are you excited to be staying home with Dallas?

YES, I AM!!!

It has been my goal for pretty much my entire life to be able to be a mommy and stay at home with my children, so I am ecstatic to finally being able to do so.

So that's pretty much all I've done today....talk about leaving my job, that is, and now, it's time to really work. I'm already experiencing the pull to just sit here all day and do nothing, so I'm going to force myself to keep on doing my job as if nothing has changed. We'll see how that goes. I've already taken Dallas's 5 month pictures, so you may all look forward to my posting those at some point this week.

Hope you peeps have a wonderful rest of the day!

"I love inside jokes. I'd love to be a part of one someday."

2010-02-08T11:30:00.005-05:00

In my post last week, I referred to the fact that Dustin and I call the restaurant Subway, "Way of the Sub." As this makes for an interesting blog post, I will now explain...

Dustin and I have both written before about some of our different ways of communicating with each other, but since those posts, the crazy has gotten a whole lot worse. We are now at a point where we almost cannot have a normal conversation. Normal being something that would make sense to someone who tried to eavesdrop on us.

We've gone from...
"You're a snowflake!" to...
"I'll show YOU a snowflake!" to...
"It's a FLAKE of SNOWINGNESS!!"

Sidebar -- Funny that I chose to use a snowflake in my example since Floridians are apparently the only people in the country who have not been snowed in at some point in the last couple of weeks.

Anyhoo, there really is no rhyme or reason to the things we say anymore, and though I would like to explain how we come up with our strange names for things, it's more of just an add-a-weird-syllable-here-or-mix-up-these-two-words-and-once-we-say-it-once-it-just-sticks sort of a thing.

Back to the Subway thing, though...a few minutes ago, I e-mailed Dustin to find out what he was going to eat for lunch. My actual words were, "What are you going to eat for lunchy-lunch? Way of the sub???? Remember, all foot long subs are only $5!!"

His exact response was, "I think I will probably eat way of the subby subington subalongadingdong for lunch. That sounds really good right now! I’m excited about the $5 foot long!"

Other things you might hear us say:
At least eleventy billion times a day...in person, e-mails, and text messges -- "I'm going to BITE you" or "I'm going to bite your face off."
When talking about Baggie -- "It's a tiny little teddy-bear headed bunny rabbit kitty!"
"I'll show YOU a diaper genie." or "I'll show YOU the laundry basket." or "I'll show YOU how to make the bed."

We're quite entertaining...at least to ourselves. Then again, it's kind of annoying when I want to talk about what to cook at night and the only response I can get is "I'll show YOU what's for dinner."

P.s. the title of this post is from one of the most awesome-est shows ever. Click here to see some funny clips.

NEW ETSY ITEMS

2010-02-03T16:22:00.005-05:00

White Hydrangea Flowers with a Clear Swarovski Crystal on a White Stretch Ribbon Headband - $7.95 + S&H

Medium White Rose with Rhinestone Center on a Stretch Ribbon Headband - $6.95 + S&H

Pink Hydrangea Flowers with a Rhinestone center on a White Stretch Ribbon Headband - $4.95 + S&H

Visit my Etsy shop

Texting with Dustin...

2010-02-03T12:21:00.002-05:00

Quick explanation -- "La Nop" is short for La Nopalera, a really cheap but good Mexican restaurant that we like to go to but that I could not eat while I was pregnant and so haven't been to in a long time; "Way of the Sub" is what Dustin and I call Subway. That's another story for another blog post...

*Disclaimer -- family members may want to skip this one :)

ICE Dusty (11:57 AM):
On my way to lunch at La Nop. What are you eating for lunch?

Me (11:58 AM):
Legtover way of the sub

Me (11:58 AM):
*leftover

ICE Dusty (11:58 AM):
Legtover?!?!?

ICE Dusty (11:58 AM):
What's that?!?!

Me (11:59 AM):
It's called a TYPO

Me (12:02 PM):
You should take me to la nop sometime. You go all the time.

Me (12:02 PM):
Or to tx roadhouse

ICE Dusty (12:02 PM):
K maybe we will for valentines day

Me (12:03 PM):
Psh...whatever! We're not doing la nop for valentines day.

ICE Dusty (12:03 PM):
Lol

Me (12:05 PM):
You take me me somewhere where my dinner costs $6 and you'll get the equivalent of that in "bedroom activities"...meaning i'll wear a pair of shorts instead of pj pants around the house.

ICE Dusty (12:14 PM):
Wow I can barely control myself

Me (12:14 PM):
I bet.

ICE Dusty (12:16 PM):
I'll make you a deal. The level of sexiness of your outfit you wear to dinner will dictate the level of fanciness of the restaurant we go to.

Me (12:16 PM):
Or maybe i'll just bite your face off.

ICE Dusty (12:17 PM):
I hope you like mcdonalds

Me (12:18 PM):
I hope you like sweat pants.

Clarification

2010-02-01T23:30:00.003-05:00

Okay, this has been bothering me ever since I hit the "PUBLISH POST" button on my last post today. I must have been in a bad mood, because a couple of my interesting items sounded down right bratty. So, to clarify....

#1 - I did not mean to sound so negative about having another baby. Of course I hope that we will have another child someday, and if God happens to bless us with a little boy, I will definitely be one happy mama...not only because I am sure that he will be the sweetest, most precious and adorable little boy ever to be born but also because having son would make my sweet husband very, very happy. All I meant by my previous comment was that I hope that we will be able to space out our children a little bit, and I'm very happy that we were first blessed with a little girl since I (being a woman) know more about girls than I do boys.

#2 - I wish to take back *almost* everything I said about the whole talking-on-the-phone thing. I hate that I may have given my friends -- specifically the ones who don't live near me -- the idea that their phone calls to me are unwelcome. That is not true. While I honestly do prefer texting to talking on the phone, I still do enjoy catching up with my friends/family whom I do not get to see on a regular basis.

Having said all of that...I feel a little bit better, and now I'm going to go to bed. Good night all!

Fulfilling my weekly posting quota

2010-02-01T14:42:00.004-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Julie tagged me for a blog award....

Thanks, Julie!! In order to accept this award, I'm supposed to list seven interesting things about myself. Honestly, I don't know if there is anything interesting about me right now. I feel like my life pretty much revolves around Dallas....which I LOVE, but other people may not care so much. Anyhoo, I'll give this a go...

1. I used to straighten my hair every single day -- even on the weekends. Since having Dallas, I wear my hair in a ponytail almost every day and I've been known to bring my straightener to work to fix my hair there if I have time. (I warned you that this wasn't going to be interesting!)

2. I am one of those people who can watch the same movie or read the same book over and over and over again without getting bored. For example: I read the entire Little House on the Prairie series at least once a year, and I like to memorize my movies so that I can listen to them while I do other things around the house and still know exactly what's going on (i.e. who's talking, character's facial expressions, etc.). I think this bothers some people. I am NOT, however, one of those people who will quote a movie that I've seen a bunch of times when watching it with someone who has never seen it before. I caught myself doing this once and I annoyed even myself, so since then I make sure not to do that.

3. I am terrified of having another baby right now. Mostly, because I'm afraid to have a little boy. I know all of you out there who have sons absolutely love them, but the stories that I've heard of what Dustin and his brother did growing up, and the stuff my brother-in-law Owen and his brother did, and my brother and my cousin.... Oh. my. goodness. Boys are scary. Period.

4. I think I've mentioned this one before but it's worth repeating: I HATE talking on the phone. HATE. IT. The only people I am really okay with talking to on the phone are Dustin and my mom. That doesn't mean that I don't love the rest of you because I do!! I just would much MUCH rather catch up over text or e-mail. If you're calling me with a specific question and don't keep me on the phone for more than like a minute and a half, that is okay. I'd just rather not do small talk.

5. I like to take pictures, and I like to have my picture taken. This is sort of a joke with my family.... If we have a birthday party or anything like that and I have the camera, you can count on as many random, self-taken pics of me as there are pictures of everyone else.

6. I am extremely anal when it comes to placement of objects. Things around me must be evenly spaced. If you have ever seen me make chocolate chip cookies, you have experienced this first hand. It takes me as long to space cookies on a cookie sheet as it did to make the cookie dough. Also, here is one wall of pictures in my office:

It took me probably an hour to hang those all just right. Yes, it is sad.

7. Since we're talking about my office, here is my calendar for this year:

Sock monkeys! I like interesting calendars. Last year my calendar was scenes from The Princess Bride. The year before, it was Gone with the Wind. Also, (on a slightly related side note) my slippers at home are sock monkeys. They are cute.

Okay, I'm even bored with myself at this point so I'm pretty sure that anyone reading this post has already fallen asleep.

Oh...OH....OOOHHHHH!!! I just remembered that I have a HUGE announcement to make!! But not today, and no, I'm not pregnant again (obviously...see #3). I can't say anything until next week, so...sorry to keep you in suspense. I'm pretty stinkin' excited. And please, if you already know what I'm going to say, PLEASE don't write about it in a comment. I'm not telling yet for a REASON and I'd rather not spoil it. Mmm-kay? I gotta add a little spice to posts like this just to keep my readers coming back!

The prettiest room in our house

2010-01-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

My daughter is four months and one week old and I am finally getting around to posting pictures of our room. I had a very definite picture in mind of what I wanted her room to look like, and I worked very hard to make it as perfect as I could. You can read all about it here, here, here, here, here, and here, if you so choose. I wish I could get a professional photographer in here to take some good pictures, and maybe I will someday...but for now, you're stuck with the best I can do myself.

The big stuff...

The view of Dallas's room from the doorway

View from the corner between the crib and the closet

View from the corner by the rocking chair

The crib as it normally looks...

...and without the mobile.
I had to smash myself up against the wall for this shot. We've got a lot of stuff crammed into that tiny little room.

Changing table/dresser - holds all diapers, wipes, receiving blankets, burp cloths, and bath supplies

Armoire - holds all socks, hair bows, pj's, onesies and pants that aren't part of a whole outfit, and big blankets and quilts

Rocker and nightstand - the water bottle is to squirt Baggie when she's bad in Dallas's room -- getting on her blankets and such :)

And the details of the room....

This butterfly hangs from the middle of her ceiling fan. It was a Christmas present from Dallas's Nonna and Poppy.

This hangs on the side of the armoire. It was made by Rachel and is signed by everyone who attended my first baby shower. Dallas's footprints from the day after we came home from the hospital are in the middle.

Rachel also made this "D." It hangs above the bedroom door.

Inside of the crib -- Dustin gave me this teddy bear for Valentines Day last year not too long after we found out I was pregnant.

Bows on the front of the crib

Knick-knacks on top of the armoire
Please excuse the layer of dust!! I didn't see it until just now :)

More stuff on top of the armoire -- I need to get some pictures to put in all of the frames!

James 1:17 -- So true!
(Vinyl wall cling from Uppercase Living -- designed by Dustin)

The cubby on the armoire

Shelf above the changing table -- those are Dustin's shoes from when he was a baby :)

So that's Dallas's room! We all love spending time in there, even Baggie! Hope you enjoyed your virtual tour!

hodgepodge

2010-01-20T11:53:00.011-05:00

I have soooo many things to blog about that I'm going to need to make a list to make sure I get through it all. This will also help me if I ever need to find one of these things again.This post will include:

1. Dallas's 4 month update
2. Dallas's dedication
3. Dustin's new responsibilities at church
4. My new Etsy shop
5. A bunch of really random pictures of the cutest baby ever

Okay, so that wasn't a very long list, but it's still a lot for me to cover. I apologize in advance for how long this post will surely be.

Last week Dallas had her 4 month checkup. It was a few days early since her actual 4 month birthday was on Monday -- MLK Day, and I wasn't about to spend my day off doing such un-fun things as taking my baby to get shots. So instead, I took her on Friday morning and she got to spend the rest of the day with me at work! That made the difficulty of getting shots a little bit easier...for me, anyway.

The stats: Dallas now weighs 13 and 1/2 pounds exactly and is 25 inches long. That means she's just barely below average in weight, but in the 75th percentile for height. Long and skinny. Why is this not surprising? :)

The pediatrician said that we can now start her on cereal and stage one baby foods. I'm excited about this and a little nervous at the same time. On the one hand, I like that if we go out somewhere we'll be able to give her something to eat from a spoon rather than only having the nursing option (I don't want to make her take a bottle if I'm with her), but the down side to her eating real food is that real food = real poop. Gross, but true. We're probably going to try cereal for the first time this weekend. I don't want to start it during the week when I won't be able to really focus on what I'm doing. Our mornings are so rushed with trying to get all of us ready and out of the house that it's all I can do to get her to just nurse for about half an hour.

Dallas is doing great switching back and forth from nursing to drinking from a bottle. It got a lot easier for her once I was actually working full time and her schedule became more regular. She still prefers me to the bottle, but she won't refuse the bottle any more when she's with my mom during the day. Funny side story -- last week, our good friends Son and Julie kept Dallas for us one night while we had to go to a dinner at church. I left several bottles for Dallas, and told Julie that she hopefully would take them with no problems since she'd been doing okay at my mom's house all of that week so far. But when Julie tried to feed her, Dallas absolutely refused and eventually started crying. Julie tried a few times, but after a while she gave Dallas to Son for him to try. What do you know -- Dallas took the bottle right away for Son. She is such a stinker! I have a theory that Dallas did not like the way Julie smells because she also nurses her son, Collin-the-cutie-pa-tootie. If that's really what it is, that's amazing that Dallas can tell the difference. I don't know what else it could be since I'm sure that Dallas really does love Julie :)

Dallas still has not rolled all the way over. She does the back to side thing on a regular basis, though, and I'm not too concerned because I think this is just a 4 month milestone. I'm sure she'll make it all the way over, soon. She's gotten a lot better about the changing-of-the-clothes thing just in the last couple of weeks. Maybe she's decided that it's inevitable that Mommy is going to put her pj's on every night and regular clothes in the morning no matter how hard she screams. She's smart to just save her energy for screaming about other, more terrible things -- like when Mommy makes her do tummy time. She's gotten over the hatred of letting other people hold her, too. I will attribute this also to her getting used to being on a schedule where she's away from me regularly -- not that this makes it any easier for me to leave her in the mornings. She still does like me and Dustin the best, though, so that makes it better.

As of last Friday, Dallas now sleeps in her own bed in her own room. It was hard moving her out of her bassinet, because it makes me feel like she's growing up way too fast, but it really is better for all of us. We've found out that Dallas likes to move around a lot in her sleep, as witnessed by the following pictures:

This is how I put her in her bed at night:

This is how I found her when I checked on her when I got up this morning:

Yes, she sleeps with her feet in the air.

This is how she looked when I actually went to get her up out of bed:

Quite the little wiggle worm, our Dallas! It is so sweet to see her smile up at me when I wake her up in the mornings. She's always glad to see me and that just makes me so incredibly happy.

This past Sunday, we had Dallas dedicated at church. Before we had Dallas, it was impossible for me to fully understand how this act is much more for the parents than it is for the kids. In having Dallas dedicated, we made promise before God and our church family that we would raise Dallas in a Godly home -- that we would be faithful to church and teach Dallas the importance of having a relationship with Jesus Christ. Her dedication service was so much more than just a chance to show off how beautiful she is, like some people might think. Although she was pretty darn beautiful...

With our pastor, Dr. Brunson

Other babies dedicated that night were Brookelynne (her parents are our friends Jennifer and Mitch....we didn't get a picture...boo!) and Maxwell (his parents are our good friends Brad and Whitney)...

Another exciting thing happening at our church is that Dustin became a deacon! He was ordained a week ago this past Sunday and we've already gone to dinner with the pastor and all of the other new deacons (there were 8 ordained in one night) and he had his first deacon's meeting this past Monday. Dustin feels very honored, but he is a bit apprehensive. As some of you know, our church is quite large as is the number of deacons, and some of those men have been Christians for longer than Dustin has been alive! It is quite humbling for Dustin, but I am so proud of him. Unfortunately, the battery on my camera died, so I didn't get any good pictures. Here is one of us with his parents that I got on my phone...

Fourth on my list -- I have decided to open my own Etsy shop. I've been making hairbows and things for Dallas since she was born, but for some reason the idea of selling them didn't cross my mind until Dustin suggested it this past weekend. And once he came up with the idea, there was no waiting at all -- he had my first two items listed that very night. There's not much there, yet, but I plan to make a few new things and take pictures of stuff I've already done this weekend so there will be more of a selection. Making hair bows and flower headbands is not necessarily easy, and it takes a lot of time, but it's something that I really enjoy doing, so I'm hoping that my shop will do well. I will be very disappointed if it takes like 6 months for me to sell anything. That was a hint for all of you out there who have or know little girls...which pretty much encompasses all of the internet world :) Here are the two headbands I currently have up for sale...

And last but not least, how could I do a post without including some more cute pictures?! Here she is! My pride and joy...

Gator shirt...check!

Gator socks...check!

Watching Daddy play Mario on the Wii

Lovin' on her elephant blanket -- a present from Santa

Helping Mommy cook dinner

My two sweeties

Getting ready to go to Grammy's house for the day

Eating her fingers -- one of her favorite activities

First night in her big girl bed -- watching her mobile

This last pic reminds me that I never did a post showing her room completely decorated. Maybe I'll do that next.

Happy Hump-Day peeps!

You know it's the Tuesday morning after a Monday holiday when...

2010-01-19T08:29:00.003-05:00

I just answered my phone at work and said, "Good morning, D;aflkjhdf* office. This is Sherry...er, uh...I mean ANGELA. This is Angela."

Seriously.

Thankfully, I actually knew the person calling me, and she just laughed, so it's all good.

Aaaannnnd...cue Dustin's comment about how the baby is eating my brain.

*The real name of my office has been changed to protect MY innocence :)

P.s. FYI...my mom's name is Sherry. Maybe this is a severe case of the whole "I'm becoming my mother as I get older" thing? I really have no clue.

Wordless Wednesday - My Cutie Pootie

2010-01-13T15:33:00.003-05:00

For Julie and Stacie...

2010-01-07T13:02:00.005-05:00

....and all of my other friends who keep insisting that I update my blog. People just can't live their lives properly unless they know what's going on in my head, right? I'm sure that's it :)

I am going to state right off the bat that this post is probably not going to be cohesive (I got out of that one by doing a title that has nothing to do with the post) and I'm probably going to end it abruptly when I get tired of writing.

You might think from reading that last paragraph that I don't have any interest in doing my blog any more. Well, that's not really it. I do still like doing my blog, and I do still read all of the old blogs that I used to, I just can never muster the enthusiasm to actually do a post, and I type a lot of comments and never hit "submit" because they're always really long and rambling (like this sentence) and by the time I go back and edit them over and over to say what I really meant to say I've talked myself out of commenting at all and just delete it. I'm going to blame all of this on pregnancy brain, and yes, I feel quite certain that I'm going to continue to blame a lot of my problems on the crazy baby hormones for at least another nine months. Because in nine months Dallas will be a year old, and I think it's just pushing it at that point.

Okay, now for a whole bunch of really random stuff...

1. A long time ago, I did a post on why I like blogging to justify my internet obsession to some of my family. Now, I feel I need to expand on this and discuss the fact that I now feel like I actually have a relationship with some people that I've never even met. I've been thinking about this for a while, but a comment from Allison on my last post helped me to know that I am not the only one who has these feelings. For example, I have been reading her blog for nearly two years now, so I feel like I sort of really know her. And despite what Dustin and some of our other friends may have tried to convince me of last night at the dinner table, I do not think that she might really be some creepy 45 year old man sitting on his couch in his underwear making stuff up about being a 26 year old girl living in Texas. (No offense, Allison.) In summation, I have made many blog friends whom I feel like I can confidently comment on whatever is going on in their lives and care just as much as any of their know-them-face-to-face friends do.

2. I have recently joined the Etsy rage. No, I'm not selling stuff, and no, I haven't even actually bought anything from there, yet, but I am obsessed with looking. Specifically -- I love looking at all of the baby headbands and bows. I am convinced that I could make 95% of the stuff that's on there if I really tried, but laziness prevents me from trying, and I don't want to spend $15 on something that I could make for less than $5, so here I still just sit.

3. I have also recently joined the Twilight rage, only I am not crazy. Haha! No offense to those of you who do these things, but you will never see me put a picture of Edward on my sidebar or wear his face on a t-shirt. Not going to happen. They are good books, though. Yes, I'm only reading the books right now -- haven't decided yet if I'm going to watch the movies. Kind of still leaning towards NO on that one.

4. I was going to upload a bunch of new pictures to this post, but I left my camera at home today. Bummer. Still, here are a few from a few weeks ago that I have saved on my computer of the CUTEST BABY IN THE WORLD:

playing on her Winnie the Pooh mat that she got for Christmas from her Nonna and Poppy

this blanket is her absolute favorite toy

sitting up like a big girl
(she's actually leaning on the pillow -- not sitting up by herself yet)

dressed up in her Christmas dress from her Grammy and Paw Paw

dressed and ready to go to church

I never did a 3 month post for Dallas like I said I was going to, so I'll just write a couple of little things:

Dustin and I are fairly sure that Dallas is going to roll over (belly to back) any day now. She is sooooo close! She can roll almost onto her side from her belly, but she can't quite make it over her arm. She pretty much always rolls onto her side from her back, now, every time we lay her down. It's so cute.
We just put her in her Johnny Jumper for the first time the other night. She's probably still a little too small for it, but she seemed to like it after a while. I took a video, but it's on my camera...
She smiles all the time, but is still stingy with her giggles. She has to REALLY get excited to laugh, and she'll do it at the oddest times...like when she's sitting in her swing (which she still loves) we can look over at her and she'll just be sitting there smiling at us, and she'll let out like one little laugh. So cute!!
Just in the last few weeks, she's gotten really good about riding in the car. She used to sca-reeeeeem every time we'd put her in her car seat, and she'd cry every time we'd stop at a red light, but thankfully that seems to have passed. Now she'll fuss when we put her in her seat, but she'll stop really quickly, and once we're in the car she's totally fine.
She still hates to have her clothes changed. Hates. it.
She loves to stand up on people's laps. She hates to be held in a cradle hold by anyone unless she's being fed. Which brings me to...
She doesn't really like for other people to hold her. This started when I started back to work. It got better over the Christmas break when I was pretty much with her for two weeks straight again, but as of a few weeks ago, she almost always cries if other people hold her. Even Dustin gets the poochy lip from her sometimes. I HATE THIS SO MUCH, but I don't really know what to do. Contrary to what people may think when they see her, I do not spoil her by holding her all the time at home.
She has recently started what I call putting herself to sleep at night. We stopped swaddling her several weeks ago (because she was breaking out of it every night anyway) and she made the transition with no problem at all. Now at night, I feed her till she is just about to sleep, then put her in her bed and zip her up in a sleep sack. By the time she's all tucked in she's completely awake, but I don't even remember the last time I had to get her back up out of the bed to feed or rock her again. She's gotten really good about just going back to sleep on her own. Sometimes it will take a good half hour of talking and playing with her hands (which she sucks on CONSTANTLY) for her to fall asleep, but it always eventually happens!
She still sleeps in the bassinet in our room, but I know that she's going to have to move to her big girl bed pretty soon. She's so long, now, that she can touch both ends of her bed when she stretches out. I'm just putting this one off because I don't want to be that far away from her at night since I have to be away from her during the day.
She talks ALL. THE. TIME. It is one of the cutest things EVER. When she's being held, or in her swing, or in her bed, or playing with her toys, she's always got this constant string of baby babble going on. I L-O-V-E it. It's kind of nice that where she used to just immediately cry when she was upset about something, she'll now start off by just telling us that she is upset, first. Dustin actually recorded her doing this while he was holding her the other night. Another thing that I need to upload here...

Okay, I think that's about all I can squeeze out of my brain for today. I'm pretty proud of myself for covering so much stuff! I'll get around to posting pictures of Dallas's first Christmas soon...maybe tomorrow. No promises made, though :)

Happy only-one-more-day-of-work-till-the-weekend y'all!!

Off to eat some punkin' pie...

2009-12-22T15:34:00.004-05:00

I'm staying on this computer here in my office 37 and 1/2 seconds longer than I really have to JUST to write this little post. I do not have to work again until next Tuesday....meaning that I will be spending time non-stop with my precious little girl and my sweet husband for a whole week! I hope you all have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

blog roll

2009-12-15T16:14:00.004-05:00

As you may know (if you've read my blog more than one time...I do tend to complain a lot), I have recently returned to work after being out of the office for about four months. During the time I was gone, my computer was replaced with a much newer and faster one (yay!), but I lost all of my favorites (boo). This was more sad than annoying because there were a lot of blogs that I used to ~~stalk~~ read that I didn't have saved on my blog roll. The even SADDER thing is, I don't even remember the names of any of the blogs, so I can't search for them!

So... If any of you know of a good blog that I should be reading that is not on my sidebar, please leave me a comment with the address so that I can add it to my list. You know I need stuff to do/read in my down time so I don't just sit here all day and feel sorry for myself for having to be away from Dallas.

Thanks peeps!

I Celebrate the Day

2009-12-15T08:54:00.003-05:00

And with this Christmas wish is missed
The point I could convey
If only I could find the words to say to let You know
How much You've touched my life

Because here is where You're finding me
In the exact same place as New Year's eve
And from a lack of my persistency
We're less than half as close as I want to be

And the first time that You opened Your eyes
Did You realize that You would be my Savior?
And the first breath that left Your lips
Did You know that it would change this world forever?

And so this Christmas I'll compare
The things I felt in prior years
To what this midnight made so clear
That You have come to meet me here

To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me
And the hope that, that You give
That you were born so I might really live
To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me

And the first time that You opened Your eyes
Did You realize that You would be my Savior?
And the first breath that left Your lips
Did You know that it would change this world forever?

And I, I celebrate the day that You were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life
Pray for You to save my life
Pray for You to save my life

--Relient K

To listen click here

She's encouraging me to be lazy

2009-12-08T13:27:00.002-05:00

Okay, this is like the biggest cop-out post ever, but my BFF Erin just wrote like the best post EVER that describes how much our lives have changed in the past 4-5 years. People who know us will appreciate this the most, but everyone should head over there and take a look! The bonus: You'll get to see what Dustin and I looked like BEFORE we collectively gained enough weight to make a whole other person :)

A few things I've learned today...

2009-12-04T12:42:00.003-05:00

You should never try to paint your nails when you're home alone with a baby. Something will inevitably happen that requires you to pick the baby up before the nail polish is dry.
Batteries will only work to operate a swing when inserted in the correct direction.
If you try to cook fish sticks (which are supposed to cook for 14-16 minutes) and french fries (which should cook for 22-24 minutes) at the same time and leave them in the oven for 30 minutes, they will both burn.
Burnt fish sticks are pretty darn gross.
Sometimes the little yellow line on a baby's diaper that is supposed to tell you if the baby is wet will malfunction and never turn blue even if the diaper really is dirty. If you wait like 3 hours to change said diaper, the baby's pee will soak through it and into her bed.
Even when things wrong, it's way more fun to stay home with Dallas than it is to go to work.

**UPDATED TO ADD:
Corn dogs are a good substitute for burnt fish sticks because they only take 2 minutes to cook :)

Dallas's first THANKSGIVING!

2009-12-02T22:00:00.000-05:00

Look at me all doin' a post two days in a row!

I must be growing up :)

No, actually, the one doing the growing is Dallas, who, I swear, is bigger every day when I get home from work...blah. Strange considering that the first day I worked the child didn't eat anything all day. That's right! She would. not. eat. So my mom had to bring her to meet me on my lunch break so I could feed her. We had been trying for WEEKS to get her to take a bottle, and at first she would do it as long as I wasn't around, but the last few times we tried, she would just get really, really mad and refuse to drink it. It was so sad! I hate to hear her cry when I know that I could do something to make her feel better....in this case -- nurse her. The good news is that last night I finally found a bottle that she will take: the Medela. Others that we tried: Playtex Drop-ins (both silicone and latex n1pples*), Playtex Advance, Nuby Baby, and Nuk (silicone n1pples).

(*I realize that I spelled the "N" word incorrectly -- I just do not want the readers that will come to my blog only because they searched for that word.)

I am so glad that she is finally eating while I'm gone from the house! It is a huge load off my mind while I'm at work. Working is hard enough without my having to worry about her being hungry. If the Medela n1pple hadn't worked, we also had some Evenflo glass bottles to try, and I was planning to buy an Adiri bottle to try next. I first heard about the Adiri when my cousin Nikki went through this same thing with her son Daniel. The Adiri is not an attractive bottle, by any means, so I am glad that I'll be able to avoid using it :)

Anyhoo...on to the real topic of this blog --- THANKSGIVING!!

Our Thanksgiving really did stretch for over the entire weekend. On Thursday morning, we met up with my family (minus my sister and her family) for breakfast. It has become my granny's recent tradition to have our Thanksgiving dinner catered by Cracker Barrel, so it's easy for us to just meet up there for breakfast since she has to go there anyway to pick it up. I'd bought Dallas an adorable little outfit that said "My first Thanksgiving" and she wore it that morning to breakfast. We arrived at the restaurant, ordered our food, and I took Dallas to the bathroom to change her diaper. OF COURSE as soon as I took her diaper off she peed, so she got to wear her Thanksgiving day outfit in public for a whole six and a half minutes before I had to change her clothes and no I did not get to take a picture of it. *sigh...* Despite the needed outfit change, the rest of our breakfast was lovely. I love Cracker Barrel.

As soon as we got home from breakfast, Dustin and I started packing up for our drive to Leesburg to see his family and OH. MY. WORD. we had to take a ton of stuff for Dallas. Seriously, it felt like our entire house was in our car with us...including Baggie! Dallas typically does not like riding in her car seat, so we were really praying that she wouldn't scream for the entire two and a half hours in the car. She actually did pretty well. We had to stop about half way there for me to feed her and change her diaper (in a random field which could only be described as the MOSQUITO CAPITAL OF THE WORLD), but other than that she slept most of the time.

That night, Dustin's mom (Nonna) and I gave Dallas her first kitchen-sink-bath. I had hoped that she'd enjoy it and do all the cute things that she does when she normally takes a bath, but instead she had this reaction:

I don't think we're going to try that again for a while. Maybe she'll do better once she can sit up on her own and isn't sliding down into the drain the whole time. Haha!

The next morning (Friday) we went with Dustin's parents and some friends to breakfast at Denny's. It was pretty cold, so we had to bundle little Dallas up. Here she is with Dustin getting ready to go over to his parents' house. (Clarification: Dustin's parents live on the grounds of a conference center, and we stayed in an RV right outside their house.)

Poor Baggie had to stay in the camper the whole time we were there. Really, though, I think she enjoyed exploring and finding all of the many small places she could hide while we were gone.

After breakfast we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things and check out the Black Friday sales, and then we took Dallas to have her picture taken with Santa! The poor baby was exhausted from being out for so long, and that plus the HUGE STRESS of having to change into a Christmas dress nearly put her over the edge. She cried up till the minute I handed her to Santa, but then miraculously stopped! It was just too funny that she seemed not mind this huge, strange man holding her for a few minutes. Santa sang to her the whole time they were sitting there, so I think that helped to calm her down. Tons of people walking through the mall stopped to watch Dallas getting her picture taken, and everyone kept telling us how cute she was. It was so sweet!

I was able to wash Dallas's Thanksgiving outfit so she could wear it again on Saturday when we actually ate our Thanksgiving dinner. There were plenty of people around to hold her, but this is where she was the happiest:

I told you...she LOVES her swing! She really was very good letting lots of people hold her. She got fussy when she was hungry and tired, but other than that she did great. Here's what everyone else did while they waited to eat Thanksgiving dinner...

Tyler, Kelly, and my parents (Grammy and Paw Paw) waiting for Thanksgiving dinner

Poppy carving the turkey

Tyson, Owen, and Dayna playing with all of Dustin and Tyler's old toys

Keeping busy in the kitchen

Dallas with her Great Aunt Dianne

Watching some football

After lunch we went out for a very short walk. It was short because Dallas was hungry and decided that she'd rather eat than sit in her stroller.

This picture reminds me to mention one other thing that Dallas has been doing lately....SUCKING HER THUMB (or fingers or hand). I'd thought that this might be an issue since she started doing it in the hospital, but it's gotten a lot worse just in the last week or so. We're still trying to get her to take a pacifier, but most of the time she won't have anything to do with it. Also, she kind of just licks anything that comes near her mouth lately....her shirt, her blanket, a toy, someone's shoulder....it's really stinkin' cute. I asked the doctor about it at her two month appointment, and she said that it's just Dallas's way of exploring things.

This really was a fantastic Thanksgiving. We have so many things to be thankful for, and of course one of the biggest blessings this year was Dallas becoming a part of our family. I look forward to all of the holidays to come and I can't wait to introduce my little girl to this special time of year.

Daily grind

2009-12-01T16:00:00.007-05:00

So...I'm back at work. I actually started back on Monday this week. If you're friends with me on facebook, you already knew that. I didn't think it would happen, but it was necessary and is hopefully only going to be temporary. I don't want to talk about it much. Right now, I'm only doing part time, but I don't know how long that will last. I guess it will depend on what kind of mood my boss is in when we finally talk about it.

Moving on...

Can I just say that I have the most precious baby in the whole wide world?!? It's true. And to prove it, here are a few pictures:

Playing with her rattle

She loves her big bows! Well, I guess I should say she doesn't mind wearing them :)

Our first time at church as a family

2 months old

She is such a good baby! She is still eating and sleeping like a champ. She sleeps at least 6-8 hours every night, and sometimes will even go 10 hours without waking up to eat. I love it! At her two month appointment (two weeks ago...yes, I'm a bad mommy for taking this long to write about it) she weighed 10 lbs. 5 oz. and was 22.5 inches long. She's right below average for her weight, but she's above average for her height. She's gonna be tall and skinny just like her mommy and daddy ~~are~~ used to be when they were younger.

I've seen a lot of other people do little monthly updates on all the new stuff their babies are doing, so I'm going to steal that idea and do that every month on her birthday. I want to be able to remember all of the little details that make up who Dallas is!

For right now, here are just a few things...

Dallas loves her swing! She seems to need time to herself every day, away from being held. This is great for me because I can get stuff done around the house. At the same time, I feel guilty every once in a while that my baby spends so much time being entertained by a machine when I'm right there in the same house.
She is starting to tolerate sitting in her bumbo seat. She'll only do it for a few minutes, but I want her to do it more often because it's very convenient for me to just carry around the house.
She can hold up her head really well! At her two month appointment the doctor was impressed at how strong her neck is. I think it has something to do with how small her head is. :) The only time she goes floppy on us is when she's tired.
Dallas loves music. Lo.o.o.oves it. Any kind of music. Whenever she's upset, we can turn on a CD or put her in her swing and turn the music on, and she'll calm down almost every time.
She loves to take a bath in her tub. She's just started kicking her feet in the water, so now Dustin and I are getting used to being splashed.
She hasn't actually laughed, yet, but we think she's getting close. She smiles on a pretty regular basis. I absolutely love it when I go to get her out of her bed in the morning and she grins up at me. So. precious.
She seriously hates it when we change her clothes. A lot of times she'll act like she's DYING when I try to pull her arms through her sleeves. The quickest way to get her to go from happy and smiling to screaming bloody murder is to put her pj's on.

I know there's a ton more I could write, but it's time for me to go home and snuggle that precious baby, so I'm going to end it here. I vow that tomorrow I will post about Dallas's first Thanksgiving. "Vow" sounds even more serious than "promise" so hopefully I'll actually follow through with it :)

How Daddy saw things...

2009-11-08T22:58:00.011-05:00

To read Angela's account of what happened, click here.

September 18th - 6am

My Side of the Birth Story
By Dustin

Like Angela said, we tried to go to bed early on the night before, but we were both too excited and nervous to fall asleep in a timely fashion. Even though I was tired, I couldn’t help but lie in bed and think about how my life would be different after the next day was done. Sometime after midnight, I fell asleep.

We awoke at around 5am and I began loading up all our gear into the car and making sure we had everything we needed while Angela took care of the important stuff, like making sure that each strand of her hair was straightened and in place and that her makeup was done. We left the house at nearly 6am and headed to the hospital. Having the induction scheduled ahead of time sure is nice because there’s no rushing to the hospital or hurrying because your wife is about to give birth all over the back of your car. Angela and I made it to the hospital at about 6:30am and I dropped her off at the door. After parking the car, I gathered up our suitcase and bags and met Angela in the lobby. We got settled into our room not long before Angela’s parents arrived.

After a couple hours of waiting, they started Angela on the pitocin and eventually the contractions started coming stronger. Angela said she could really feel them but she never really looked like she was in discomfort so it was hard for me to judge just how much pain or discomfort she was experiencing. Sometime after that she decided that she needed more drugs and that it would be a good time for the epidural.

It took about a half hour for the anesthesiologist to arrive so by the time he got to our room, Angela was very much ready to get her epidural. The anesthesiologist was a very nice Haitian man who was probably no more than 5 feet tall. He was very friendly and did a good job of making us feel like he was going to take care of Angela. I’ve heard terrible stories of epidurals and the size of the needle so I made darn well sure that I didn’t look at the needle so that I wouldn’t freak Angela out. I just focused on holding her hand and trying to make her feel better. Judging by Angela’s reaction, the epidural was very painful but she was very strong. It hurt her a lot but after only a couple of minutes she felt the best she’d felt in months! After the anesthesiologist was finished, Angela asked him how long he had been doing this. He replied without skipping a beat, “Oh, this is my first day. They have these really good videos online.” I knew he was joking, but part of me still kind of panicked. I’m glad he made that joke after the epidural.

The next several hours were spent playing the waiting game. The nurses would periodically come in and check her and for a while things seemed to be progressing normally. I guess it was around 7pm when the doctor made the call for the c-section. I don’t know why, but months before her labor, I think I kind of knew that Angela would have a c-section. I don’t know how I knew, but I remember thinking it. Of course, I said nothing to Angela about it because I didn’t want to worry her. I can still remember the fear and the worry that felt like a punch in the gut when I heard the doctor say that they were going to have to cut my wife open. Of course, she didn’t say it exactly like that but that’s what I was thinking. I just remember being scared and worried and praying harder than I’ve ever prayed in my life.

The doctors quickly began filling Angela’s IV full of all kinds of meds and within a matter of minutes that had wheeled Angela out of the room. The nurse said I would have to change into scrubs and they would come get me in a moment when it was time to deliver. She left the room at about the time I realized that I didn’t have any scrubs! I kind of panicked for a moment and jumped into the hallway to grab a nurse just as one was bringing me the scrubs. I changed quickly and my family and Angela’s gathered for a quick prayer. A nurse came and told me it was time. I felt like we were running down the hall. It was like I couldn’t get there fast enough. I stepped through the OR door and I kind of lost my breath. It looked exactly like it does on television. There were nurses and doctors rushing everywhere and my precious baby Angela was lying on the table all strapped down. I was very scared and felt like crying but I made sure to be strong for Angela.

No sooner had a sat on the stool next to Angela’s head when I looked up just to see my sweet baby being lifted from the other side of the sheet. It did not seem real at all. I remember thinking, “I can’t believe that’s my baby. I just can’t believe it.” I remember kind of holding my breath, waiting to hear that first cry that meant everything was okay. I heard a soft whimper from the little table across the room and the nurse called me over. Lying on a towel in a metal pan was my Dallas, my sweet, precious little girl. Tears filled my eyes as she wrapped her tiny little fingers around my finger. I don’t know why I thought what I did, but at that moment I was filled with a level of anger I have never felt. I remember feeling so angry and so mad that anyone could ever think that abortion is okay or acceptable. I don’t why I felt that way at that moment, but I did.

Instead of spanking Dallas to get her to cry, they tickled her, which I thought was funny. As the nurses suctioned her nose and mouth and wiped the pasty material from her body, she cried and screamed the more they tickled her. After mostly cleaning her up, the swaddled her up and handed me my daughter! It was the most amazing experience in my life, hands down. I carried her to my wife’s side all the while thinking, “Don’t drop her, don’t drop her, don’t drop her…” As I headed to the stool to show Angela our baby, I did glance over on the other side of the sheet to see what was going on. I wasn’t as freaked out as I thought I would be, but I did get to see Angela’s guts, which was kind of cool and kind of strange at the same time. I sat next to Angela and I just started telling her over and over again how beautiful Dallas was. I was completely amazed and breathless at how incredible it was to hold my baby girl. Angela was so tired and could barely keep her eyes open, but she was able to see Dallas’s face and stroke her cheek before she closed her eyes out of exhaustion.

After a moment, the nurse took Dallas from me and told me where Angela would be. I went with the baby to make sure the baby snatchers wouldn’t get her and followed the nurse and Dallas up to the nursery. They cleaned Dallas up and gave her the first bath. I was so distracted thinking about Angela and if she was okay that I left the room before they had weighed Dallas! As soon as I stepped into the elevator, I remembered and ran back but they had already weighed her! And I had missed it! I spent a long time just leaning over Dallas under the heat lamp and holding her hand and talking to her. It was so amazing to see her and touch her for the first time! Just flat out incredible! After they had finished checking her over, the nurse swaddled her back up and handed Dallas to me so I could show her off to the small crowd gathered outside the nursery window. After many, many pictures with cell phones and cameras, I put Dallas back down under the heat lamp and went to check on my wife.

She was asleep, I think, when I first made it to the recovery room, but she woke up after I arrived. She was shaking from the adrenaline, I guess, and she was really thirsty so I fed her some ice chips. She could barely move and was kind of sore. I stayed with Angela until her mom came and then I went back to stay with Dallas (gotta watch the baby snatchers). After a couple hours in recovery, they rolled Angela to her room and I wheeled my little baby to meet her mommy for the first time. The nurse handed Dallas to Angela and we both just cried in amazement at the little blessing we were holding! It was truly awesome and not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for my precious baby, Dallas! I will never forget that day, down to the smallest detail! Being a daddy is so much fun and I could not have hoped for a sweeter, more precious daughter. Thank you, Jesus, for my sweet, baby Dallas! Thank you!

9.18.09 - The day I will never forget

2009-11-07T22:10:00.025-05:00

September 18th - 6am

Dallas's birth story...

We tried to go to bed early the night before, but of course that didn't work out too well. I think we were actually in bed by midnight, but I have no idea what time I went to sleep. I woke up around 5am to get dressed, because I had to call the hospital to see what time we should be there. They said for us to come in as soon as we were ready, so we left the house right around 6am. By 7am, I was in my hospital gown and tucked into the bed with about 49 pillows around me. My back was KILLING me from all the (Braxton Hicks) contractions I'd been having plus everything else that had gone on during the pregnancy. I was also starving since I wasn't allowed to eat or drink ANYTHING after midnight.

We had called our parents on our way to the hospital to tell them we were going in, so my parents arrived shortly after we did. The nurse put in my IV....OUCH!! and they started the pitocin around 8:30am. I was told that I could ask for the epidural at any time, but that I should wait until I was having to breathe through the contractions. They say this because once you get the epidural you're not allowed to get out of bed. What they didn't tell me until it was too late was that they also won't let you out of bed after they start pitocin, so I was stuck anyway.

BOY DID THE PITOCIN DO A WORK ON MY BODY. I started having crazy contractions almost immediately. Soon after, the midwife, Amy, came in to try to break my water. Notice I said "try." It didn't work...for some reason. I really think that was one of the first indicators that things weren't going to go smoothly. Can I just stop right here and say that her trying to break my water was one of the worst pains I had all day? Seriously. It's been almost two months, and I feel nauseous right now just thinking about it. Moving on...

Me with my mom, my dad, and Dustin

I stuck it out until about 10am, then asked for my epidural. The anesthesiologist arrived around 10:30, but by then I was having strong contractions one right after another -- only about 2 minutes apart. Needless to say, their instructions for me to just "relax" while they did the whole thing were pointless. There was no relaxing going on at that point. I am happy for all of those people in the world who say that the only pain they felt from the epidural was the numbing shot...but I felt ALL OF IT.

Wow. Thinking back, it's crazy to remember how much that hurt. Am I scaring those of you who haven't had a baby yet? I'm sorry. Don't be scared. It's worth it.

If it wasn't for Dustin and the very nice nurse who let me squeeze her hand to death during the twenty minutes or so that it took for them to do the epidural, I think I would have died right there on my bed. DIED. Like DEAD. The silver lining, not 5 minutes later, the nurse asked me, "How was that one?" I said, "How was what?" Apparently I'd had a huge contraction right then, and I didn't even feel it. And THAT, my friends, is the beauty of the epidural.

The next few hours are a little blurry because nothing was going on that was of much interest. Dustin's parents got to the hospital a little after noon, and we all pretty much just sat around talking all day. We watched The Sound of Music and Meet the Robinsons to pass the time, and Dustin, his parents, and my dad all had a sodoku contest.

All throughout the day the nurses came in to check on me and yet-to-be-born Dallas, adjust my blood pressure cuff and the monitors on my belly, and mess with the pitocin levels. They had to increase my epidural at one point, also, because I started feeling the contractions. A few times they had to lower the pitocin because I was having too many strong contractions too close together.

The nurse gave this analogy to describe how contractions affect a baby --
Imagine you're in a swimming pool and someone comes up and dunks you under water for a few seconds. Just one time, and it's easy to recover. But if you get dunked under water for several seconds over and over and over with no recovery time, it puts a lot of stress on your body. That is what my contractions were doing to Dallas. Thankfully, throughout the whole day they never saw any signs of distress. They just had to be very careful not to let it get to that point.

When I was admitted into the hospital, I was 3 centimeters dilated and about 60% softened. My doctor and the nurses checked me several times during the day, but the progression was very, very slow. By 7:30pm, I was still only 7 centimeters dilated and about 70-80% effaced. It was then that my doctor decided that I was going to have a c-section. She examined me and said that my pelvis was not wide enough to fit her hand through it, much less a baby. This began a WHIRL of activity.

Of course, I was a little bit freaked out at the realization that I was about to be cut open. I really had not even considered a c-section an option before that second. I was so tired and emotionally drained from the whole day on top of which I felt nauseated from not having eaten anything in such a long time. The nurses all began prepping me for the surgery. They shoved what looked like tube after tube of stuff into my IV and gave me a cup full of the most AWFUL green liquid EVER to drink. I have no idea what the purpose of that stuff was, but it caused me to throw up several times almost immediately....very difficult when you're lying flat in a hospital bed.

As they were all doing their thing, my doctor decided to check me one more time. I didn't know it until much later, but she was concerned that I'd developed a fever, and she had smelled infection in my fluids the previous time she'd checked me. After that, she had the nurses hook me back up to the baby monitor to check on Dallas one more time. Again, I didn't know this until much later, but Dallas's heartbeat had dropped from 150 to about 80. Suddenly things went from fast mode to INSANE mode.

All of a sudden there were nurses everywhere. They pushed me on my bed through the hallway and into the operating room. I was lifted from my bed onto a different bed, and I watched as seemingly hundreds of people in scrubs ran around the room. They set up a sheet just like what you see on TV to block my view of whatever was going on with the lower half of my body. Someone put an oxygen tube in my nose, and I immediately felt like I was drowning in the much too strong air.

The anesthesiologist came to stand beside me and tell me what was about to happen. He promised that I would not feel anything, but I did not believe him. This was the same guy who'd said that I wouldn't feel it when he gave me the epidural, and we all know how well that turned out! I was lying on the operating table with my arms stretched straight out and strapped down, and I knew that I was about to be cut open so they could take out my baby.

I don't even know how to describe the disconnected feeling of panic that took over. I had no idea where Dustin was. I hadn't seen him since they took me from my room. (Come to find out, he'd been sent to change into scrubs.) I was scared that he was going to miss the whole thing! Finally, someone put a chair next to my head, and Dustin sat down. At almost the exact same instant, I heard a noise across the room. I looked over, and saw my baby for the first time...

Dallas Julia
8:01pm
7lbs. 2 oz. - 20.75 inches

We got to spend about 10 minutes together while they finished up with the surgery, then I had to go to recovery. My doctor stopped by to tell me that I will only ever have c-sections for any other children I may have. Yet another thing we didn't learn till much later -- after she delivered Dallas, the doctor saw an abruption in my uterus, meaning that the placenta had started to tear away from the uterine wall. They have no way of knowing when this happened, but had they waited even one more hour to do the surgery, my doctor believes that Dallas would have had to spend some serious time in the NICU.

My family all took turns coming to talk to me, and my mom showed me a video of Dallas in the nursery. It was only about a minute long, and I watched it over and over. Finally, after two hours, I was taken to my room, and the nurse brought Dallas in to me so I could hold her for the first time...

Pictures from the rest of our hospital stay to come!

**ETA -- I want to clarify that although I did have some problems and things absolutely did not go like I thought they would, I LOVED my doctor and the entire staff at the hospital where I delivered. I do not blame them for whatever may have gone wrong. I actually am very, VERY happy with the way my doctor handled my delivery. I think that it was her insight that actually saved both me and Dallas from having to endure even more trauma. I'm sorry if I made it sound otherwise!! :)

1 month

2009-10-18T19:07:00.008-04:00

Hello blogging world! It's me!!!

I've been dying to do a new post and yet dreading it at the same time because the first post after I have a baby should be a really BIG one, right? Well, I can't put it off any longer, and honestly, I'm probably just going to have to stop typing and just hit POST whenever she wakes up, or it's never going to get done.

I'm not even going to attempt the birthing story right now because I'm sure I don't have enough time to get into it all, and it will be hard to condense a whole month in a short post, so I'll try to just hit the highlights.

First and foremost, mommyhood is FANTASTIC. I love it. Love, LOVE, LOVE!! It doesn't hurt at all that I have the sweetest, most adorable and beautiful baby ever, either. She really is the best and I can prove it in just five words....

SHE SLEEPS THROUGH THE NIGHT.

Yes, you read that right. Dallas slept through the night on her third day home from the hospital. I'm pretty sure she would have done it the first two nights home as well, but we were told to wake her up to eat every three hours until she'd gained weight back to her birth weight.

Okay, she just started making noise, so I probaby need to wrap this up already. I'll leave you with a few pictures. These are all post-hospital. I'll save the pics from her first couple of days for when I tell the hospital story.

We say that she is perpetually slightly concerned.

Baggie....GUARD KITTY

She always sleeps with at least one arm in the air if she's not all wrapped up in a blanket.

4 weeks old - Dallas's first experience with a bottle.....she DID NOT like it.

She's already a Jags fan in her little pink Jaguars onesie.

One month old today!!

Introducing...

2009-09-19T08:51:00.001-04:00

Dallas Julia! She arrived at 8:01 pm, weighed 7 lbs 2 oz, and was 20 3/4 inches long. Dallas ended up coming by c-section but mommy and baby are both doing fine. Daddy is so exhausted. More info and pictures to come of our little cutie, Dallas!

6am -- On our way to the hospital

2009-09-18T05:57:00.002-04:00

Update -- still no baby

2009-09-14T17:18:00.002-04:00

That's right. Still no baby. Rather than completely rewriting everything, I'm just going to copy an e-mail that I sent out to some of my friends. I apologize for the lack of enthusiasm....it's just hard to be really up-beat at this point.

On Friday, I was still dilated only 1 cm -- no change from the last 2 weeks. My blood pressure was higher than it has been in the last several weeks (140/80), so my doctor ordered some blood work and had me schedule another appointment for today. She also stripped my membranes, which was FAR from enjoyable, but she said that that might help things to move along a little faster. Based on my blood pressure and what the labs said, she thought that we might end up inducing today, but obviously that didn't happen as I'm still home on the couch.

Today I saw one of the midwives, and my blood pressure was the highest it's been yet -- 150/90. I don't know a lot about blood pressure numbers, but apparently having anything over 90 is cause for concern. At first they said that they were probably going to send me down to Labor and Delivery, but in the end they decided it would be okay for me to wait another couple of days. They had me do a stress test to see if Dallas is being affected by my high blood pressure, and everything with her looked fine. Right before I left they took my blood pressure again and it was 130/90. The other concern -- I'm swelling a LOT. As in, I gained 7 pounds between my appointment Friday afternoon and this morning. They told me to just keep an eye on it. I hate vague instructions.

As of now, I'm scheduled to be induced this coming Friday morning -- the 18th. That's one day before my actual due date. They've put me back on strict, full time bed rest to help keep my blood pressure under control until then. I honestly don't know or understand why they're waiting so long to induce since I'm already full term and things obviously aren't getting better, but I just have to hope and pray and trust that they're doing what's best for the baby. I've had contractions almost constantly since last Friday, so at this point I'm just really hoping that they'll become regular in the next couple of days (or TONIGHT) so that I just have the baby naturally. If anything changes, or if they (the doctors) magically decide that I should be induced sooner, I'll let you all know!

Because let's face it -- the chances of my doing another post in the next few days are very slim

2009-09-10T20:55:00.003-04:00

As has become the norm, I need to apologize for my recent lack of posting. I'm only doing this post because I'm really REALLY hoping that at my doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon they're going to send me to Labor and Delivery on the spot. Do I have good reason to believe they will? Eh, not really, but I can still DREAM, can't I?

If you'd rather not read about the intimate, pregnancy related details of what's going on with my body, NOW would be a good time for you to STOP READING. Seriously, I'm going to talk about dilating and stuff.

Last chance!

Everybody gone who needs to be?

Okay...

Two weeks ago at my doctor's appointment, my doctor checked me for the first time. I was one centimeter dilated and 50% effaced. She told me it could be any day. I REALLY wish she hadn't said that, because it got my hopes up that it really could be any day, and yet here we are, two weeks later, and I'm STILL PREGNANT. Last week, I was still only a centimeter dialated, but I was 60% effaced. Only 10% progress? That doesn't impress me. The doctor may as well have said GIVE UP NOW. YOU'RE GOING TO BE PREGNANT FOR ANOTHER 94 YEARS. That's what I felt like, at least.

What she really said was -- if I don't have the baby before my next appointment (that would be the one tomorrow) we're more than likely going to set a date for me to be induced on Monday or Tuesday. And for the record, Monday and Tuesday are 4 and 5 days away, respectively. I know that doesn't sound like that long to most people, but me? I'm just not sure I can live another 4 or 5 days with a baby IN MY BELLY. I am ready. READY!! Do you hear me?!?

And just to show you how much pregnancy is affecting my view on what normal life, I will share with you a little story that made Dustin laugh at me in the way that lets me know that he thinks I've lost my mind:

Last week, we were watching some football game (becuase it is a rule in our house right now that if there is a football game on, we must watch it.....this is not MY rule) and the camera men showed a shot of the two commentators sitting in their booth doing their thing, and my immediate thought was how HORRIBLE it was that the NFL (or the TV station) was forcing them to SIT DOWN for hours and hours during the football game. Then, I had to remind myself that sitting down is not a bad thing for normal people. Most people do not have to endure terrible pain just from sitting in a chair. Normal people, in fact, are quite comfortable when sitting in regular chairs or on a couch or in a recliner. I am NOT normal people, obviously, because it DOES hurt ME to sit upright in a chair.

I know...I'm pitiful and pathetic, and I'm going to stop whining now.

I just read back through what I've written so far, and although it is not cohesive by any means and I've used more than double my normal allotment for CAPITAL LETTERS, I don't feel like going back and changing it. So...here it be. As is.

While I'm here, I should mention that I haven't forgotten that I need to post pictures of Dallas's room all finished. I said a few weeks ago that we'd just ordered one last thing to complete her room, and while we did get the thing in the mail last week, it didn't work out like we'd planned and we had to re-order it. If we can get it in next week and get it up on the wall (yeah, that was a clue that it's a wall decoration), I'll post pictures next week.

I will leave you with my latest belly picture, which may be categorized under 38 weeks. Dustin actually took this picture this past Sunday, so I may have gained some weight even since then.

Oh, speaking of weight...at my appointment last week, I realized that I have gained exactly 25 pounds since my very first pregnant doctor's appointment. Not bad, I'd say. I've been swelling a lot this week, though, which is why I say I probably weigh a lot more now than I did on Sunday. Granted, it's probably mostly water, so I guess it doesn't really count.

Anyhoo...I'll try and keep y'all posted with whatever happens tomorrow and over the weekend. So you won't have to wonder, I'll definitely make sure that a note of some sort makes its way onto this page if I do end up going into labor or whatever. No news will mean no baby. Okee dokee?

Talk to you peeps later!

I really hate it when...

2009-09-07T17:08:00.006-04:00

...I spend a good amount of time cleaning up my kitchen and even going as far as to clean out the refrigerator and wash by hand the superfluous dishes that won't fit into the dishwasher only to later find that I missed a huge spot on one of the casserole dishes and it will have to be cleaned all over again.

It really takes away from the joy I felt earlier of having accomplished something good when I really felt like I shouldn't be doing any real work on LABOR DAY.

Anybody else with me?

P.S. Happy Labor day :)

OPINIONS NEEDED

2009-08-31T16:24:00.007-04:00

For a while now, Dustin and I have been engaged in a debate of sorts. It's a rather small matter -- but still something that affects my life on a daily basis. And as we are having a child soon and children like to eat and stuff, it is an issue that will also affect the life of our child. The question is one that involves....

PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICHES.

I eat a pbj almost every day since I'm home all the time now. In fact, I ate one about 20 minutes ago -- which is what inspired me to write this blog post. And the debate that Dustin and I have been having is over this question: are grape jelly and grape jam the same thing, and is one just as good as the other?

I say -- NO WAY!! Jam is much, MUCH better! It spreads on the bread better, it squishes together with the peanut butter better, and it is just far superior to jelly in every way! Dustin, on the other hand, thinks that jam and jelly are the same thing, and he can't tell the difference. My mom always bought jam, and in the almost 4 years that Dustin and I have been married, I've always bought jam. SOMEHOW, though, a jar of jelly made its way into our house a few weeks ago. I don't know how it happened, but I've been having to eat it because I hate the thought of wasting an entire jar. Believe me, though, I have not been happy about this. I am just STICKING IT OUT until the jar is empty, and then I will go right back to buying jam.

So...this is the issue for which I need the opinion of the internets. Tell me what you think! Jam and jelly -- which do you prefer? Or do you think they are the same?

Signs I watch too much daytime TV

2009-08-27T11:35:00.010-04:00

I know the model's names on The Price is Right and Deal or No Deal.

I know that one of the models on The Price is Right just got engaged and that she has a gorgeous, honkin' ring.

I decide what to eat every day based on what kind of food is advertised on commercials.

It bugs me that Drew Carey cheers for each person while they're spinning the BIG WHEEL and then completely turns on them the moment their turn is over and tells the next person that the last person will be "so easy to beat." Two-faced meanie.

ALL of the commercials that come on during the day are geared either towards young, stay at home moms or old people. Thus...

I have the song for denture cream memorized....and I may or may not sing along every once in a while.

One of my favorite games to play with myself is trying to guess which house the family on House Hunters will choose before it's revealed at the end of the episode.

I'm confident that I could tear down and rebuild an entire house to code and have it staged and decorated in such a way that even the meanest realtor wouldn't be able to find fault.

I know which days the USA network does which marathons, and I look forward to Tuesdays because I can watch Law and Order: SVU all. day. long. And...

I know which season I'm watching based on Olivia's hairstyle.

I'm pretty sure I've seen every episode of John O'Hurley on the Family Feud -- and I was annoyed that today was a repeat.

I think that I am WAAAAY smarter than every contestant that makes it onto Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Once the people get past the dummy $100 to $1000 questions, they never answer a single one without using a lifeline.

All of this, and yet I still know exactly what is going on in my office at work. I think it would drive me crazy not to know....so I keep up with it every day via e-mail, newspaper, and IM with my coworkers. The thought of actually going back to work, though, makes me absolutely SICK.

Maybe I should lay off the cupcakes

2009-08-26T16:39:00.009-04:00

Today, as I was getting dressed for the day, I was putting on my mascara as I always do. Because even though I'm at home all day by myself, I feel a need to look nice. Also, I want Dustin to think I look pretty when he gets home from work. Is that so wrong? Anyhoo...

I'm running a little low on mascara, so I was doing that whole pumping the brush in and out thing that we all know we're not supposed to do but we all do anyway. Girls, you know what I'm talking about? I know you do. And don't pretend like you don't do that exact same thing when your mascara is almost out. You know you do. Anyhoo...

As I moved my arm in that quick motion, I felt something new, and it was not nice. I realized...that the skin on arm was jiggling all around! I have jiggly arms!!! I'm only 26 and I have floppy, jiggly arms!! Eww.

As soon as I have this baby, I'm going to have to start working out hard core. Seriously.

Stay-at-home SLACKER

2009-08-24T20:45:00.013-04:00

I'm going to finish writing about the rest of the things on my list, because this has really been cramping my style. Is it just me, or is it really, REALLY annoying to have certain things that you feel like you HAVE to blog about and you seriously have writers block until you blog about those things? Did that sentence make sense? Whatever. The point is, I've wanted to write several different posts over the last few days/weeks, but the feeling that I had to first write about the things on my list made me not want to write at all. I think that staying at home and doing pretty much nothing all day has turned my brain to mush. Moving right along...

Side story -- I'm in our living room, and Dustin is in the office (one room away) and we are talking to each other via skype. Seriously, we would be able to hear each other if we just spoke in a normal tone of voice, but instead we've just carried on a five minute conversation by typing. Yeah, we have problems.

Okay...

I have been going to the doctor every Friday since I was put on bed rest. As of last Friday, I am almost completely back to normal. My blood pressure, the protein level in my urine, and all of the other worrisome things that were going on are all good, and as far as I can tell my doctors are thinking that the remainder of my pregnancy will be uneventful. I'm still on bed rest, technically, and I'm definitely still really taking it easy, but I'm also able to get out and do things when necessary, which is nice. I've only been out by myself once -- to get a smoothie from Panera. Dustin is really reluctant to let me drive anywhere, and to be honest, I'm not sure I'd want to go to a store or anything because I get really tired and overwhelmed pretty quickly, and I wouldn't want for anything to happen while I'm out alone.

I will officially be full term as of this coming Saturday, and I am so glad to finally be at this point. I am TIRED of being pregnant. TIRED. TIRED. TIRED. Dallas's room is like 99% completed, all of her clothes are washed and sorted by size, and we have pretty much everything we'll need when we bring her home, so now we're just WAITING. I don't like waiting. At my appointment last week, we asked my doctor how big he thought Dallas might be at birth. As I've discovered is typical of doctors, he was very vague at first, but we finally got him to say that based on what he could feel of her in my belly right now, she "won't be huge by any means," and he estimates that she'll be right around 7 pounds. I think that's like the perfect size, so I was excited to hear the doctor say that.

As for working from home -- I'm not any more, and as long as I'm still employed, I don't think it's a good idea for me to give much more detail than that. Suffice to say that SOME PEOPLE do not think that medical conditions brought on by pregnancy are real and have been giving me a really hard time for the last 4 weeks. Unfortunately my not working will result in a lack of a paycheck at some point when I run out of paid time off, but I've finally come to terms with the fact that it's worth it when I consider my health and of course Dallas's health.

Since I haven't been working, I've pretty much become the game show and HGTV queen. I start my mornings by watching the TODAY Show (I love Matt Lauer but can't stand the psycho Ann Curry) until 10am. Then I watch 2 episodes of Family Feud, then The Price is Right. When that goes off at noon, I switch over to HGTV while I make and eat my lunch. I leave the TV there until 3:00 when I switch back over to watch Who Wants to be a Millionaire (I forgot to mention that I also dislike Meredith Vieira -- so it's almost painful to have to watch her twice a day!), then Jeopardy at 3:30, and an hour of Deal or No Deal (one of the best shows in the ENTIRE WORLD) starting at 4:00. When that goes off, I straighten up the house a little and start making dinner plans so I won't have to feel quite so guilty when Dustin gets home since he's just worked all day while I did absolutely nothing. I understand that doing nothing is the whole point of bed rest, but it still makes me feel bad.

The final things on my list have to do with Dallas's room and strange TV commercials. I'm going to wait to post any more pictures of Dallas's room until we're completely finished. We ordered the last element for the room today. It's so cool! But I don't want to spoil it by giving anything else up now. Hopefully we'll be able to put the finishing touch on everything in the next week or so....then I'll do a full post with pictures of every little detail. I can't wait!

As for the commercial thing -- tell me the first six seconds of this Dell commercial aren't completely disturbing...

It's not just me, right? If you don't get it, good for you. For the rest of us, though, all I can say is hmmmmmm......

Hasta la vista for now!

30 some odd weeks

2009-08-13T16:17:00.006-04:00

I've come up with another good excuse for my blog slacking -- it hurts my back and my stomach to sit up long enough to type it.

Does this get me off the hook?

No?

Fine. I'll write about my life.

Oooo!! A picture! I have a belly picture today...since I've been seriously slacking in this department as well. Honestly, I can't tell a lot of difference from my 30 week picture about a month ago.

I don't know...what do you guys think? Last night Dustin said that he thinks the bottom of my belly looks bigger, and that the sides are rounder, but the change is definitely not huge. I know at my last appointment my doctor measured me as still being a week small, so I must be growing a little at least to keep up with that.

Funny side story -- I was eating cherries while I was typing, and I accidentally just swallowed a pit. I hope I don't start growing a cherry tree in my belly along with Dallas. Seriously, this belly is FULL.

Anyhoo, I've been going to the doctor every Friday for check-ups, and the only thing that doesn't seem to be getting better is my blood pressure. Last Friday it was 140/80 -- the highest it's been yet. The doctor keeps always asks me a bunch of questions about swelling, headaches, blurred vision, and all that jazz, and it seems to baffle them that the only thing that's going on is the high blood pressure. Either that, or they know exactly what's going on and they just don't like to tell me stuff because they don't want to stress me out. I'm thinking that's really what it is.

I guess I also need to explain #2 from my list yesterday -- "my trip to labor and delivery." Long story short, last Tuesday afternoon (a little over a week ago) I started having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions. I'd had a few before then, but normally not more than 1 or 2 a day. That Tuesday afternoon, though, I had about 4 or 5 in just a few hours, and by late that evening, they were happening one after another almost without a break. I called my doctor's office, and they said that I should go in to the hospital so they could monitor what was going on and stop the contractions with medicine, if necessary.

Needless to say, I FREAKED OUT at the thought that they actually wanted me to visit labor and delivery, and thus I commenced with an exorbitant amount of crying and hyperventilating. Probably not the best reaction. By the time we got to the hospital, though, the contractions had just about stopped, and they ended up not needing to do anything to stop the contractions after all. They ran a few tests, monitored my blood pressure and Dallas's heartbeats and movements for a while, and sent us home after only about 2 hours. It was sort of a let down that nothing major actually happened, but I guess that I should be happy that Dallas and I were both deemed healthy enough to go home. She really needs to cook for another couple of weeks, anyway. I definitely don't want to have her too early to where she has to stay in the hospital for a long time.

Unfortunately, all of this plus the high blood pressure thing put a huge damper on my plans to ask for more privileges when I spoke to my doctor last. I was hoping they would allow me to go to my parents' house or a friend's house if I promised to just sit and be still....but I decided not to even ask. So, here I still sit. Bed rest is a lot different from what I thought it would be like. Not that I'd thought that much about it before I was put on it. I thought it would be boring, and it is, but somehow my days still go by pretty quickly. Working from home takes up a lot of my time, and my friends and family who have come to stay with me take up a lot of time, but sitting on the couch all day is definitely getting old. Since I have someone sitting here with me most days, though, I never really find the time to blog.

I know this is a really odd and fairly incohesive post, but I'm going to have to end it here because I have seriously been working it for several hours, and I'd like to go eat dinner now. More to come tomorrow!!! (or the next day :)

See ya' peeps!

Hey look! I have a blog!

2009-08-11T15:46:00.017-04:00

It's good to know I'm loved and missed. I feel it is my duty -- having been begged and pushed from so many different directions -- to update the internets on what I've been up to. Rather than doing one huge post, though, I'm going to do this in several parts. And so that I will actually DO these posts, I'm going to list the different things I'm going to cover so you all will know what you have to look forward to....

1. update on our flower beds

2. my trip to labor and delivery

3. my latest doctor's appointment

4. all about bed rest

5. my 2nd baby shower

6. working from home

7. Dallas's room

8. preparing the house for a baby

9. blogging from home

10. tv commercials that bother me -- this one is completely unrelated, but this is the sort of post I love :)

I think that's it. I'm sure Dustin will let me know if I've left something out. As he reminds me almost daily, the baby is eating my brain so it's pretty much imperative that I write things down or I will never remember them.

Okay, first....our new flower beds!

This past Saturday, Son (of Son and Julie) and Brad (of Brad and Whitney) came over to help Dustin finish up our flower beds. It's been so long since we started working on them that I was afraid Dustin would have to pretty much start over. Thankfully, the finishing up of preparing the soil didn't take long at all. Planting the flowers and doing the rocks and stuff, though, was a lot more time consuming. Still, I think it was all worth it because it looks so nice, and now I don't have to be embarassed about how our yard looks when people come and visit me! Of course, I wasn't able to get pictures of the boys actually doing the work, but here it is all finished!

The biggest bush right by the edge of the garage is a hibiscus tree. We're hoping it will eventually grow as big as the one on the other side of our garage and give us some privacy for our front window (which is actually our bathroom, by the way). The rest of the bushes are knock out roses. They'll grow to be about 2-3 feet tall, so they'll take up most of the space once they're grown. We decided to use lava rocks instead of mulch so we won't have to replace it every year, and I love the way it looks -- even if it was a little more expensive.

If you missed the beginning of our flower bed saga, you can read about it here and here. I said that it was finished, but really we still have to get some sort of trim or edging to go around the sidewalk. Then it will be done. Isn't it fantastic so far?

sad but true?

2009-08-04T10:53:00.002-04:00

Dustin just e-mailed me this graphic. I told him it's not true. What do you all think?

Click here for more funny graphs.

Confinement - Day 3

2009-07-31T18:16:00.006-04:00

Surprisingly, I haven't been quite as bored yet as I thought I'd be...hence, the lack of posting. Dustin was home with me all day on Wednesday working from home, and my family has come the last two days to keep me company. Yesterday -- it was just my mom. She arrived early in the day bearing several bags of groceries. She'd called before she left to see if we had anything to eat at our house. We didn't -- other than the snacks and things I'd brought home from my office at work...and all that included was some blueberry muffins, oatmeal cream pies, fruit snacks, and iced rice cakes. I ate HEALTHY at work. Can't you tell? My mom said that she would want something "real" to eat while she was here, so she bought us a few groceries -- including a roast and carrots to cook in the crock pot, some fruit, yogurt, and other healthier things.

We had a really nice day just relaxing, talking, watching a little TV, listening to Rush Limbaugh (my mom is a big fan!) on the radio, and looking at all of our baby stuff. Marme put the roast on to cook for our dinner, and she also made mashed potatoes and butter beans (or maybe they were lima beans?) from my poppa's garden to go with it. It was so nice to eat a real meal for dinner! I think Dustin really enjoyed coming home to a dinner that was already finished, too. That is something I'm really looking forward to once I'm staying home during the day and NOT on bed rest -- cooking meals for my husband.

Today, Marme came again and she brought my grandmommy with her. My dad also came once he got off from work. I think we drove him a little crazy by having hour after hour of HGTV playing on the TV, but it sure was fun! Of course, I'm keeping up with my e-mail and voicemail for work in between all of this -- but doing my work from home has not been a problem at all so far. Hopefully nothing will interfere with my being able to continue working until Dallas is born. Dustin and I would like for me to just be a stay at home mom eventually, but we're not quite prepared for that to happen yet.

This afternoon I had my 33 week doctor's appointment. This was scheduled pretty much just as a follow up since last week was not good. Thankfully, the bed rest seems to be working, because all of my numbers showed improvement! My blood pressure was back down to 124/80, and I'd lost 6 pounds. This is a GOOD thing because that was a lot of the water weight I'd been carrying that was making me swell so bad. Dallas is still measuring about a week small in size, but her heartbeat was strong. We asked the midwife who did my checkup today if Dallas's size has anything to do with my various issues, but she said that my condition has not gotten to the point where it would affect Dallas. PRAISE GOD!! That is what they're trying to prevent from happening by keeping me on bed rest.

The midwife seriously looked at my like I was CRAZY when I asked if my numbers being good meant that I might go back to work. Needless to say, she said "No!" I scaled it back a bit then and asked if I could go to church on Sunday. Unfortunately, the answer was still "No." She did say that if I continued to do well and the results from my 24 hour urine collection come back okay next week, we can talk about my spending a short amount of time away from home next Sunday. At least I've got some hope! I pushed it one more time by asking if I was allowed to get pedicures while I'm on bed rest. She actually said "Yes!" I suppose they allow that because pedicures are typically relaxing. Now I just have to find someone to go with me...since Dustin absolutely refuses :)

To anyone who lives near me who has offered to come over and hang out with me...I say YES!! I'm here all day, EVERY day, so I'm pretty much available for whenever your schedule permits. Just keep in mind I do have to stay on top of my work while also staying relaxed.

Tomorrow I have a baby shower at my friend Mary Beth's house hosted by my friend Stacie and my sister Dayna. I've been given strict instructions that I am only to sit in a chair, but I am really looking forward to getting out and seeing my friends. After tomorrow, we'll really be able to plan what we'll still need to buy to finish Dallas's room. I'm so excited!

At home to stay

2009-07-28T18:15:00.000-04:00

I have started writing this post several times over the last few days, but I just haven't been able to get it all out. From this point on, I want to warn everyone who reads my blog that I am going to be talking pretty openly about tests and things that I'm having to do that are sort of gross. If reading about bodily fluids and such grosses you out, stop reading now.

Dustin and I ended up not being able to go out of town this past weekend after all. I don't remember if I mentioned this or not, but I had my regular 32 week checkup scheduled for last Thursday afternoon, and unfortunately, it did not go well. Basically, the doctor was concerned because my blood pressure was quite a bit higher than normal (137/70 as opposed to my usual 115/60), there was protein in my urine, my feet have been swelling a lot, and the pain in my side that I thought was just Dallas pushing on my ribs might actually be a problem with my liver. Sounds like tons of fun, huh?

So instead of going away to stay in a hotel, we stayed home. My doctor sort of freaked out a little bit when I told her I was planning to go out of town, so Dustin figured that was for the best. We lost a little bit of money on our hotel reservation, but we ended up spending less over all because we ate at home several meals instead of having to buy everything for a few days. It worked out, too, that we stayed in town because I had to have blood work done on Friday morning. Blood work. With a needle. I don't like needles. Dustin went with me, though, and the nurse-lady who did it all was very good and talked non-stop to distract me, so I was okay. That night, we went to Mitchell's Fish Market for dinner -- soooo good!! And that was really nice ending to the day.

On Saturday we spent the day at my parents' house. We had a nice relaxing time swimming in my grandparents pool (they live across the street from my parents) and my dad grilled hamburgers for dinner. Other than that, we just sat around all day and talked. Sunday was pretty tame, too, as I had to stay home or at least close to home all day long -- the reason being (and here comes the gross stuff!) that I had to do a 24 hour urine collection. Needless to say it was not fun, and I was extremely happy when the 24 hours were up and I could just use the bathroom in the toilet again.

All of that relaxation made it very difficult for me to get up and get ready for work on Monday morning. I think it didn't help that I was just having to WAIT for the doctor to call me with any test results. By Tuesday afternoon when I hadn't heard anything, I figured that no news was good news and that I'd be fine until my follow-up appointment this Friday. Then, as I was packing up my stuff to leave work yesterday afternoon at 5:00, my phone rang...and it was one of my doctors. I knew something was up because I could tell that she was on her cell phone in her car (strange) and she immediately started asking me all the same questions she'd asked during my appointment on Thursday -- like how was the swelling in my feet? Was there any swelling in my face and hands? Was my side still hurting? Any headaches or blurred vison?

After a few minutes of updating her on what was happening with me in the few days since I'd seen her, she gave me my test results. Good news -- my blood work came back pretty good. The only problem was with my white cell count, which is low. The bad news -- the results from my urine test were not good at all. I don't know a ton about this, so I'm not even going to try to explain it all, but basically, the protein count in my urine was really high. From what I've read online, a count of 150 is normal. The "magic number" where the doctors get really scared is 300. My count, according to my 24 hour collection, was 245. The doctor said that the only way for me to get any better is to give birth, and until then, they're going to monitor me closely and try to keep things from getting worse.

So what does this mean for me? Well -- I get a 7 week vacation from work...kind of. They've put me on full time bed rest until Dallas's arrival, and I have to do a 24 hour urine collection every week. I'm actually going to try to keep working from home, but the doctor said that if my blood pressure stays high, I'll have to stop completely. That was really hard for me to hear -- not because I'm a workaholic or incredibly committed to my job or anything, but because I will only be getting paid if I'm working.

My maternity leave comes out of the same bank as my vacation and sick time, and I only get a certain number of weeks a year. Once that time is gone, it's GONE. So any maternity leave I take after I run out of leave time I've saved up will have to be unpaid. And we are just not prepared to live without my salary quite yet. I'm hoping to save all of my paid time off for after Dallas is born so that I can be paid during those first few weeks when I just won't be able to work. As of now, I'll be able to take off for about 4 weeks after Dallas is born, and I'm hoping to work from home again for a few weeks after that.

The good news for you all is that I'll probably do tons of posts every day because I'll be sitting at home all by myself every single day. Maybe I'll even include some pictures of the really sweet set-up I've got going on in my living room. Baggie is LOVING having all of our furniture moved around to strange places. I'll give more details later on what all this bed rest entails, but for now, I'm off to....well......lay on the couch some more. Hope the rest of the world has an exciting night!

Happy Friday!

2009-07-23T10:01:00.003-04:00

Yes, I said FRIDAY because I have off from work tomorrow!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Sorry...I don't mean to gloat over the rest of you. Well, yes, I do. Sorry again. I just have not had a real day off in a very, VERY long time, so I am extremely excited. Really, other than taking a day off for Tyler and Kelly's wedding a few months ago and on the day we found out that Dallas is a girl, I have not taken a day off from work since I found out I was pregnant. I've been saving every bit of time off that I have to use for maternity leave. And, yes, I know that there were a couple of holidays like Memorial Day and July 4th (3rd, really) when I didn't have to work, but those don't count because they weren't my choice and we had stuff planned for us to do on those days.

Tomorrow, though, Dustin and I will be leaving for a very last minute, very mini-vacation. A BABY-moon, if you will, as this is the last time we'll get to go away -- just the two of us -- before our baby comes. And I don't even know where we're going. It's a SURPRISE...sort of. We discussed a bunch of different places to go, so I know where Dustin was looking, but I don't know which city he ended up picking in which to book a hotel. My guess is Savannah, GA, but I guess we'll all just have to wait and see!

Going away for the weekend was Dustin's idea, and it was totally out of the blue. He hasn't actually said it, but I think he's doing this because he knows I've been really stressed at work lately and he may be getting tired of the many random and (I'll admit it) irrational emotional breakdowns that he's had to witness over the last couple of weeks. Let me just tell you -- the last couple of weeks at work have been HARD. Really, really hard. I know that the economy is bad everywhere and that tons of people have lost their jobs or are worried about getting laid off, but that doesn't make it any easier for me to have to go through it myself.

I'm not worried about actually losing my job, but when my salary has been printed in the newspaper TWICE in the last week and there are more-than-a-little-bit-serious rumors going around that the people in charge are considering cutting my pay (and the other people like me at work) almost in HALF, that just doesn't make for a happy day. Especially since I'm planning to bring a baby (and thus a ton of extra expenses) into the world in about 8 weeks. This is just one of the many things going on in my life right now. So a day off away from my desk? Yeah, that sounds pretty good right now.

Anyhoo...I don't want to end this post on a Debbie Downer note, so instead I will leave you with this picture.

This is Collin -- our friends Son and Julie's precious little baby. I took this picture this past weekend while we were hanging out with them and our friends Brad and Whitney. (I could write another very entertaining blog post about that day, and maybe I still will at some point.) If I were a good friend, I would have e-mailed this picture to Julie for her to post on her own blog...but oh well. It makes me smile. Such a cutie, huh?

Okay everyone -- have a great weekend!!

Two months from today...

2009-07-21T16:45:00.000-04:00

That's right! My due date is two months from today. If I haven't had Dallas by then, I'm going to be banging on my doctor's door to schedule the get-this-baby-out-of-me-NOW appointment.

I have discovered in the past couple of days -- I can no longer cross my legs. It is really uncomfortable and it smooshes the baby up into my guts. Also, I am giving up on closed toed shoes. I know I mentioned this yesterday, but seriously -- when I got home from work last night, my toes felt bruised like I'd been wearing shoes that were too small all day. The thing was -- I was wearing old shoes that I've worn a million times and never had a problem before! So, Dustin and I went to Old Navy and I bought a pair of black flip-flops to just leave at work. It looks terrible, but people are just going to have to deal with it. I just had to walk from my office to our reception area for a meeting, and even wearing my regular shoes that far hurt my toes. So, as soon as I got back to my desk, the shoes came back off.

Speaking of walking around my office, can I just tell you how lazy I am? Very. I've known it for ~~forever~~ a while now, but it wasn't until this morning that I really stopped to think about how bad it was. Let me give you an example: This morning I got to work, and I realized fairly quickly that I was hungry for my second breakfast. What I wanted to eat was a blueberry muffin, which I cannot eat without a cup of milk, but I remembered that I was out of paper cups at my desk. My next thought was that I was probably going to need to use the bathroom sometime in the near future, although I knew I'd be able to hold it for a while still. Also, I'd stopped at Publix on my way to work, so I needed to wash my hands since I'd touched one of their shopping baskets. I sat at my desk for probably 20 minutes -- until I was good and hungry and my bladder was good and full -- thinking of all of the things that I could do to make the most of the trip to get some cups. When I finally got around to leaving my desk, these are all of the things I got accomplished:

washed my hands
used the restroom
washed my hands again (the first time was just for the Publix germs)
washed the peach that I wanted to eat for LUNCH
said hello and good morning to several of my friends
got a stack of paper cups
got my mail from my mailbox
filled up my Bubba Keg with ice and water
got the milk out of my boss's fridge to drink with my muffin

That's 9 things I got done in one trip! That's what I call multitasking. The fewer the number of times I have to get up out of my chair, the better.

Now it's almost time for me to leave work, and I need to use the restroom yet again. Rather than just going, though, I'm going to wait until I actually leave so I won't have to walk all the way down the hall twice. It's worth it to just sit here and be uncomfortable for a few minutes and save a few steps.

Updates of the baby and the kitty sorts

2009-07-20T12:05:00.008-04:00

I feel like I've been making some good progress on Dallas's room. Even though we were gone from our house almost all weekend, we found the time to buy and partially put up the canopy above her bed. I say partially because it's not finished, yet. We still have not found a way to actually hang it up, and right now we're just using 3M hooks with command adhesive. If we don't find something better, we may just stick with that, but I'd love to have something prettier. If anyone has a suggestion, I'd love to hear it! I was kind of hoping for something like drapery hardware or decorative studs (not hooks) or something but I just haven't been able to find anything like that!

We also still have to find something to put on the wall right above the bed. We've thought of putting her name, and I even bought some wooden letters with Dallas's initials, but Dustin is really not keen on that idea at all. We're thinking instead we might find some sort of vinyl wall cling with a Bible verse. If anyone knows of a place to get something like that, let me know! I've looked at a few websites where you can customize or make your own wall cling but it's so expensive! I'm hoping for something pre-made that will be a little cheaper. Here's what we've got so far...

Baggie was h.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s. when we were putting up this canopy. Any time part of the fabric was on the floor, in very typical Baggie-cat-fashion, she would try desperately to climb on top of it and roll around in it. As I did not want the fabric to get a pick in it and I didn't want it to be covered in little black Baggie-hairs, I would immediately have to chase her off of the fabric. Most of the time she would run under the crib. It was too cute to be annoying. Poor Baggie -- she really just doesn't even know what's about to hit our house. I've been going against some of the advice I've read online in that I'm paying her as much attention as possible lately rather than cutting back to prepare her for the attention she won't be getting when the baby arrives. Say what you will -- but until September, she is our only child, and I can't help but to love on her any chance I get.

This brings me to an admission I never thought I'd have to make. We I have been giving Baggie people food as treats. I never thought ~~we'd~~ I'd do it....and she lived with us for three years without it happening, but it finally has. I don't give her big things! Really, I just will let her have some milk after I eat cereal, and if I eat ice-cream, I always dip my finger in it and let her lick it. But she has become quite the little beggar!

Here she's trying to put her paw in Dustin's ice cream bowl. He didn't let her, of course, but it was pretty funny.

And here she's hoping that I'll give her a bite of whatever I was eating. Bean burrito + little kitty digestive system? NO WAY!!

In other news, I'm pretty sure that I've been having Braxton Hicks contractions. I thought for a while that I was just getting little stomach aches or that Dallas was just pushing down really hard, but I've looked it up online, and I think that what I'm feeling is just the tightening of my uterus. It actually makes much more sense now that I've read about it. I know it's nothing to worry about and that they're actually helpful in preparing for labor, but I'm going to bring it up at my doctor's appointment this Thursday and see if she has anything to say about them. Thankfully they don't hurt or anything, but it can be pretty uncomfortable.

My feet and ankles have also been swelling lately -- to the point where wearing any shoes other than flip-flops is not too fun. I've only worn flats for a while now, but most of my work shoes are closed toe (ballet slippers and such) and several days I've noticed a crease in the skin on my foot from where my shoe was squeezing. Not. fun. I'm trying to keep my feet up and drink tons of water, but I think some swelling is inevitable. You can also see like every single little vein in both of my feet and ankles, and that is just GROSS. Maybe I'll be brave enough to show the internet world a picture some day. Not today, though.

I think there were more things I wanted to write about today, but I can't remember what they are, and I'm hungry, so I'm going to just end this here. If I think of more stuff, maybe I'll do a second post! Ha! If not, I'll just see (write to) you peeps tomorrow. Happy Monday-that's-already-half-way-over!

Double check before you press SEND

2009-07-17T14:37:00.007-04:00

**WARNING -- This post contains NON-explicit references to the fact that Dustin and I are indeed a married couple who engage in married-people activities. Family members may prefer to skip this one....although I promise it is quite funny ;) **

It seems as though Dustin and I were made for each other in more ways than we could have ever imagined. Specifically -- our tendencies to accidentally hit on people (you remember me and the bank teller?) whom we really shouldn't.

Case in point...I got this e-mail yesterday from Dustin a little while after I'd e-mailed him to find out what he wanted to do last night for dinner and such:

From: Dustin
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:26 PM
To: Angela
Subject: hey babe

I got your email a little while ago but haven’t had a chance to respond. What would you like to do tonight? I’m not really sure about what I want for dinner. I don’t really have a taste for anything as of yet. I just know I want it to be fast and easy. I do, however, know exactly what I want for dessert…

Notice how he does not type my name at the beginning of the e-mail.
That e-mail was followed up by this e-mail:

From: Dustin
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:38 PM
To: Angela
Subject: this is funny

Just so you know, that last email I just sent you, I accidently sent it to Brian first. I feel so stupid. Can’t believe I did that. Pretty funny, huh? As soon as I clicked “Send” I saw his name in the box and I was like, “oh crap!” but it was too late. Woops.

Oh, and Brian is Dustin's BOSS. Nice, huh. Fortunately, Brian has a good sense of humor and got a HUGE kick out of the whole thing, so no damage was done. I have always had a terrible fear of something like this happening with my boss -- but *knock on wood* it has yet to happen. But this just goes to show you that you really should double check your e-mails before you send them. That...or maybe we just have serious problems.

Okay, everyone fess up now...have you done anything like this before?

30-ish weeks - and - how to upset a pregnant woman

2009-07-15T11:25:00.005-04:00

According to my ticker (which is set by my due date) I'm a little past 30 weeks. According to my doctor and what I count on the calendar, I'm 31 weeks. How did this happen? I don't know...but whatever.

I'm starting to hear comments from people that are sort of along the lines of "You don't look big enough to be 7 months pregnant" or "You can't be that far along." It is then that I want to lift up my shirt and show random strangers just how low this baby is sitting in my belly. In case you were wondering -- the answer to that is really, REALLY low. She's all there -- you just can't see her! Even my biggest maternity pants that fall down when I stand up are too tight on the lowest part of my belly when I sit down. And all of the difficulty that I have doing things like putting on pants or drying my feet off after I take a shower is because there is a tiny little person pushing down with all her might on the underside of my stomach!

I had to crack up a bit when I saw this pic. My belly looks much more square than round! That bump you see at the top -- that is either a head or a butt. I can't tell which, but it manages to squish itself out into the open about 75 times a day, and I just have to push it back in. Unfortunately, that causes the skin on that part of my stomach to be pretty sore all the time. Little Dallas has also become quite fond of wrapping one of her legs or arms around my right side and then wiggling her toes or her fingers. I wish I knew what body parts were where, because it is seriously one of the funniest feelings ever! It is so distracting, though, that I have to work to push whatever it is back towards the middle of my belly. It kept happening last week when I was getting a massage, and I'm pretty sure that the massage therapist was annoyed that I kept laughing and wiggling to try to get Dallas to stop.

My back pain has not gotten any better, and last week I made the decision to stop going twice a week to the chiropractor. I may try to go every other week, but it was just too expensive to go so often -- especially when it didn't even seem to be helping. I just keep thinking -- 2 more months, and it will all be over. I don't even remember what it's like to not be in pain all day long. I've heard so many women say "As soon as I saw him/her I forgot all about the pain" and I can't help but hope that the 6 months of hurting besides the labor will be included in that.

And now...on to HOW TO UPSET A PREGNANT WOMAN. The short version: have the grocery store be out of everything that she feels like eating.

Backing up a little....
On Monday night, our friends Tama and Stuart came over for dinner. For dessert, I made home-made chocolate chip cookies, and we all ate way, WAY too many. With the cookies, we drank most of the 1/2 gallon of milk that was in our refrigerator, but I made sure that I had just enough so I'd be able to eat a bowl of cereal the next morning for my first breakfast. I say "first" breakfast because I always eat again -- my second breakfast -- when I get to work. I'm pregnant, and that's how I roll.

Anyhoo...so I used the rest of our milk yesterday morning for my cereal, and I forgot to stop and buy more on my way home from work. That meant, of course, that I would not be able to eat anything this morning for my first breakfast. That was really okay, though, because what I really wanted was a couple of muffins (Little Debbie double chocolate muffins are the best!) instead of a bowl of cereal. I decided to stop at Publix on my way to work and buy a box of said muffins. Of course, they were out. There were none there the other day when I stopped, either, and I was really hoping that they'd restocked, but I guess not. There was a man with a non-Publix uniform stocking oatmeal cream pies and stuff, so I asked him if he knew when they were going to get any more in. Turns out, he was the Little Debbie Snack Cake representative (cue: Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man...) and he said that they should get some more in by the end of the week. I told him GOOD! Because I eat those like every day, and he proceeded to stare at my belly while rubbing his own and saying something like "Oh yeah, and that must really be bad for you! Because...you know..." Yes. It is bad for me. And good for you -- figuring out that I'm pregnant and all!

So...I decided...if I couldn't have a chocolate muffin, I was going to get a box of Reece's Puff cereal to take to work. I walked to the cereal aisle, and guess what? They were out of that cereal. It was on sale buy one get one free, and some HOG had taken it all. I did one of those things where you just stand there and stare at the empty spot for a minute hoping that a box would magically appear out of nowhere, but nothing happened. My next thought was -- if I can't have a muffin and I can't have the cereal I want, I'll get a cinamon roll from the bakery. They always have those huge cinamon rolls with cream cheese icing and they always look so good, and today I feel justified!

You know what I'm going to say already, don't you? That's right! There were no cinamon rolls on display in the glass case. I asked the lady behind the counter, and she said they hadn't made them yet. I wanted to say "Of course you haven't." I was nice, though, and just let it go. I also wanted to cry, but in the interest of NOT embarrassing myself, I forced that down, too. Instead, I got a box of donuts.

I'll forgive my local Publix this time, but on my next trip, they BETTER have at least ONE of the many unhealthy junk food options that I enjoy eating. That -- or the trip might not end with me being as good as I was today. And in case you were wondering, I've only eaten two of the donuts so far. See? I'm strong.

A fun game

2009-07-14T09:00:00.000-04:00

Where's Baggie?

There she is!!

Where's Baggie?

There she is!!

Some people play with their kids....some people talk to their imaginary friends....some people play video games....this is what we do.

Bushes and shopping and tiny socks -- OH MY!

2009-07-13T11:13:00.013-04:00

I am proud to say that I had a very productive weekend. You may not be able to tell it by looking at my house, but really, we really got a lot of stuff accomplished! First off -- Saturday morning we continued with our gardening in the front flower beds. We had terrific plans to have the soil prepped for planting by the time we stopped for the day, but.....we live in Florida, so of course it started raining...even though weather reports didn't show any rain until later in the afternoon. *sigh* Still, we at least got all of the weeds pulled up and bagged.

Last week while we were working we came across a wire running from the house to underground somewhere. We marked it so we wouldn't forget about it when we got to that part of the flower bed, but when we got to that part and pulled it up the other day, we found another one that had been cut off.

We couldn't figure out what it goes to or where it led. It was really dirty and crusty, though, so we're thinking that it must have happened a long time ago. Everything in our house still works, so we've decided not to worry about it.

Just in case, Dustin dug a hole and buried it. You can't tell from the picture, but at this point it was raining pretty hard, so I helped by holding an umbrella over him so he wouldn't get soaked. It didn't really help, but at least I tried!

And this is as far as we got. After it stopped raining and dried up a little bit, I swept the sidewalk so it doesn't look quite as bad. Hopefully we'll finish up with the soil this coming weekend and can start planting flowers before too long!

While we were outside, I decided to also take a picture of one of our neighbor's bushes. Remember how I told you about our yard people who do a really terrible job? Well, they decided to bless us by mowing our back yard this week, but to make up for that, they left all of the grass and debris from the bushes that they trimmed all over the sidewalks in our neighborhood.

It's like they're pointing out -- LOOK! WE ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING TODAY! HERE IS THE EVIDENCE! Nice of them, huh? We're really hoping that our HOA gets rid of this company and soon.

On Saturday night, we met with a big group of friends for our friend Son's birthday. His wife Julie had planned for us all to go to this Brazilian restaurant called Tento Churrascaria that Son had been wanting to try for a while. It was supposed to be a surprise....but he somehow found out. Oh well. It was a really cool restaurant -- although a little on the pricey side. The big draw to the restaurant is that they serve a bunch of different types of meat all cooked in different ways -- and you can eat as much as you want. The down side for me is that DALLAS DOESN'T LIKE MEAT! So...I ordered only the salad bar (which actually had a lot more than salad on it) and just watched as everyone else stuffed themselves to the point of near illness with beef, and pork, and chicken and lamb. They would cook a ton at a time, and then bring it out on the end of a huge knife that looked a lot like a sword, and they'd cut a piece off for whoever wanted some. All of the meat looked really good, but I really didn't feel like I missed out at all. Dustin gave me two or three bites of his, but for some reason the thought of eating meat still just doesn't appeal to me. I would like to go back to this restaurant again once I'm not pregnant so I can really enjoy the experience.

After we finished eating Dustin and I went for a walk on the beach with our friends Tama and Stuart. Tama thinks that we (meaning me and Dustin) are neglectful and unappreciative of the beach because we've lived near it our whole lives. Not true....we just don't have time to go very often, and if we get out there 2 or 3 times a year that seems sufficient. It's always interesting to think of the beach experience through the eyes of a person who isn't used to having it so close.

On Sunday afternoon, I talked Dustin into running a bunch of errands with me. I needed to take a bunch of stuff back to different stores and I wanted to stop at a couple of places to buy little things for the nursery. The good news: I now have about $95 in store credit to Babies R' Us. The bad news: we spent about $75 at Old Navy -- most of it on Dallas, though! We also stopped by our friends Devin and Erin's house for a few minutes to drop off some painting supplies. Erin just got her baby's bedding in last week, and when we went in to see it, she already had it washed and on the bed ready to go. She said she'd also finished washing all of baby Collin's clothes! That pretty much gave me the kick in the pants that I needed to start on my own growing pile of baby laundry. As soon as we got home from running errands I started pulling off tags and sorting everything into piles. I had a pile for most whites, a pile for colors, and two piles of just pink stuff -- one light, and one dark. Haha!

This is just the whites pile! It turns out, Dallas has way more clothes than I thought! We still need a few more things for her, but it's much easier to tell where exactly we're lacking now that everything is out of the bags, boxes and packages and washed and sorted into drawers and shelves by size. I also got all of the towels, blankets, bedding and other things we've received so far washed, and I ironed the bed skirt, so we're just that much closer to having the nursery all finished! Next up -- we need to accessorize! One thing I already did was to cover the bumper pad ties with ribbons. I did not like the way the white strings looked (seen here), so I bought green satin ribbon and tiny flowers and attached them to the top. Unfortunately, the bottom ones are just going to have to show. Doesn't it look pretty?

I'm also going to make a canopy of sorts to go over the bed. I'm hoping it will look pretty and not make the room look cluttered. We'll see. I must confess, neither the bows on the bed or the canopy were my idea. I sort of stole them off of another blog that I found a long, LONG time ago -- before we even knew we were having a girl. I'd credit the person...but I don't know how I found said blog and I don't know that I'd ever be able to get back there. If someone sees my pics and wants credit, I'll gladly give it! Anyhoo...I'll put up more pics (like I have to tell you that!) as I make more progress. Dustin and I agree (and I'm sure Baggie would, too...if she could talk) that Dallas's room is our favorite room in the house!

We can start putting things on the walls now because...

2009-07-09T09:47:00.004-04:00

WE'VE GOT FURNITURE!

I am so excited! We ended up getting a changing table/dresser and an armoire, which is more than what we really needed, but it was a really nice set, and it will last FOREVER. It is solid wood -- really good quality -- and very sturdy. We blew our hoping-to-find-something-for-$50 budget WAY out of the water, but I think we made the right decision with this purchase.

View from the doorway -- that's a lot of furniture!

The rocking chair now officially sits by the window.

The closet is to the right of the crib, and the doorway is just right of that.

The beautiful new changing table and armoire!

As you can see, there are several glass-front drawers on each piece, so I'll have plenty of room for storage....at least for now. The right side of the changer has two large shelves, and the armoire has a bar to hang up (tiny) clothes and three more large shelves. I was able to put away all Dallas's new blankets and quilts on the shelves in the armoire.

Tama and Stuart came with us to pick up the furniture from the seller and get it to our house, and once it was in the room, Tama and I started unpacking a few of the things I got from the shower. We still have a long way to go, and now our office is a disaster area with all of the gift bags and things, but it is so much fun to see things finally shaping up!