Warning: Complaining Ahead

I'm just tired of being a mom today. I'm so tired of feeling sick. I thought it was getting better and the last 5 days have not been. My house is a wreck. I wish I was exaggerating.

When is MY vacation day??

What to do when you want to change your status on fb every 2 seconds..

Blog it all!

So this morning Sam took a 30 minute snoozer in her swing while I showered and got ready. Unusual, since it was an hour earlier than her normal (and still early) naptime.

We headed to the mall where she proceeded to get fussy and all I did was get my watch fitted to my wrist (thank you wonderful husband for the mother's day gift) though I did find some maternity clothes at Burlington and a sale at Motherhood, but someone was too cranky to let me try anything on! :-( I may have to go back.

I am in love with Chick-fil-a chicken biscuits. Why do they stop serving breakfast at 10:30?? Couldn't they carry just MY one breakfast item all day?? :-(

I've had 2 in the last 3 days and WOULD have more but again, its hard to get out before 10:30am. Though I might have planned my day around a chick-fil-a breakfast. Yes, I had this plan last night, and yes, luckily it worked out for me today!

Speaking of cravings, I'd really LOVE a coke right now...I'd only drink a little of it, promise. But cravings and having a one year old...its not easy. I can't just go get myself whatever I'd like. Sad times. :-P
I'm currently settling on sparkling apple cider. Nothing like a good ol' coca cola...but at least its sparkly?

And my sleepy head fell asleep in the car on the way home. I was super surprised that I was able to get her out of her carseat and inside and back to sleep on my shoulder. So I just layed on the couch with her on my chest. She moved around a few times, I got her shoes off. I thought surely she'd wake up. But no. So I finally REALLY had to go to the bathroom. I laid out a blanket and put her on the floor. She is STILL sleeping. 1.5 hours after she started her nap in the car. I'm truely amazed. However, I don't think her diaper is going to make it.
Oh well! Happy baby, wet floor is FINE BY ME! :-D

Go Figure

It would be the one day in 2 weeks that I blog that blogger decides to pitter out in the middle of my post and not save it. Yeah, I copied it on my clipboard but of course didn't do anything with it from there and now, well, a day later, its gone.
And the feeling from yesterday's post is gone, so I'll have to come up with something else.

Today.
Today I made my own laundry detergent :-D
Stolen from Mrs Weldy's blog (who I believed probably found the recipe via google) I made 2 gallons of detergent today. Then I'll use 1/2 cup per load. The supplies I bought means that the 6 gallons total I can make would cost me $0.04 per load. Compare that to one of the cheapest detergents at $5 for 44 loads (or about $0.11 per load) and that's a pretty good savings. Not to mention that I'll probably have 2 of the 3 ingredients left for many more batches, so in the end it will be much more savings than that!
But I won't lie, I did it for fun too :-)
I was hoping that the fels naptha (one of the ingredients) would help with baby food stains as well (in the concentrated form as directed on the package) but it did not. I'll try some other combinations, but for now I'll need to rewash some bibs with shout. Oh my do I need to find a cheaper stain fighter. I went through a bottle of shout in about a month, maybe a little less. It seems like almost all of Sam's clothes need Shout. Either a bib with food, spit up on her shirt or poop through her bottoms.

Sam.
Yes, my baby is one week from being a year old!! The (second half of the) year seems to have flown by! I can't believe she's growing up, but its also so much fun!! She pulls up on everything and has even stood in the middle of the floor a few times by herself. She doesn't seem all that interested in walking. If she stands up when you hold her arms, she'll only take a few steps before sitting and crawling. She does have a walker that she's so proud she can walk behind. Then again, after awhile, she'll just push it on her knees...
I've been kinda lazy about food with her. I was doing well introducing her to feeding herself, then we moved, I got pregnant and sick and she's had all jarred baby food for over a month. Well, she feeds herself cheerios and rice krispies, but I haven't made her peas or carrots in a long while. Soon, soon, when I get past this 'morning' aka "all-day" sickness.
She got a baby doll for Christmas and she's always liked it but this week she has been LOVING it. The doll came with us shopping and 2 mornings in a row she wouldn't give her up so she could eat breakfast. Its pretty cute.

Well Daddy just got home, so that's it for now!

Easter

So let's see if I can do better on the picture posting today.

Here is part of the Easter Egg hunt. Since Sam couldn't walk, Daddy helped her find one egg in her basket. We also think that Zade will one day look back on these pictures and wonder why his mom let him wear that hat. But he put it on and 3 year old boys are just kinda hard to stop

 This was in the first 5 minutes after all the kids got dressed in the morning. You have to catch them fast before they realize that they don't have play clothes and they want out of the 'fanciness'. Although there were 3 cameras trying to get good pictures, I think this one is probably the best. Yeah, you try getting 5 kids under 5 to look at the camera and smile and sit with their legs closed and not in front of each other and not crawling around or looking at the dog, etc....

 The night before Easter, we celebrated spring birthdays. Well, that kinda covers all the kiddos, but even if it doesn't, who would deny someone a cupcake? I think officially we were celebrating Sam in May, Jason in May, and Sadie and Avery in June, though all the kids got presents.

This was Sam's first cake and she did not really get into the first birthday cake smash. She just looked at it and then slowly put her hand in the icing (whip cream) then she pulled her hand back and looked at it as if to say "mom, that's kinda messy". Funny, she usually puts everything in her mouth, but not this time. I had to help her eat some of it and break off some pieces of cake for her. 

Sweet Uncle Matthew helped the kids dye eggs on Saturday. It was mostly "pick an egg, pick a color, watch Uncle Matthew put it in the dye". And no furniture was stained :-)

The older kids LOVE the pool at Mimi's house. They enjoyed splashing and getting all wet. Funny, they didn't enjoy bath time afterwards... Our family missed the mud pies they made, which from the pictures, looked pretty good!

While the older kids were out one day, the babies got a chance to talk to GG by themselves. All the kids love GG :-)

We had a wonderful weekend, then we got to bring a lot of the gang home with us for a staycation week. I'll have to blog about that too. The guys (and Laura) went fishing all day Tuesday, then we took the kids to the beach on Wednesday (and had fun despite the sun, seaweed, and awful bugs) and recouped on Thursday. Today is a quiet day with just the three of us. It is GORGEOUS outside, so maybe a trip to the park could be fun.

Birthday coming soon...

Now that there is just ONE MONTH till my baby turns one, we've started really thinking about her birthday party. I'm excited to have something simple at our (new) house and have people we love coming over to eat food and cake.
I'm kinda torn about presents though. I'm sure people want to bring things for her, but I really don't think she needs much. I have outfitted her for the summer (yes, a few times I couldn't control myself) so she has plenty to wear until the fall. Fall clothes really aren't out yet and I doubt anyone really wants to buy fall things in the next size that they wouldn't see her wearing for awhile. As far as toys, I don't want her to have too many so she really needs very little. She's more entertained by an empty box or water bottle anyway!
Of course, baby food or diapers are welcome, plus an additional baby gate or two that I'm looking at buying. But those aren't really things people get you as presents :-)
Is it wrong that I just don't want to spoil my child?
And maybe I'm going overboard. We're not inviting that many people and Christmas was much more low key than we made it out to be. The few toys she got, she really does enjoy and I don't feel like toys are taking over our house (yet).
So maybe I should just let it go...any suggestions from veteran moms?

Waiting...

How many times in life do we feel like we're just waiting? Too many, I think. We can't forget to LIVE!
Currently, I'm waiting for my parents to arrive for a (short) visit. I'm waiting for Nathan to get home from work because I love having my small family all together. A friend is waiting for a home-buying decision to get made.
Waiting...

I love the song While I'm Waiting by John Waller
I'm waiting


I'm waiting on You, Lord

And I am peaceful

I'm waiting on You, Lord

Though it's not easy

But faithfully, I will wait

Yes, I will wait

I will serve You while I'm waiting

I will worship while I'm waiting

I will serve You while I'm waiting

I will worship while I'm waiting

I will serve you while I'm waiting

I will worship while I'm waiting on You, Lord

 
So don't forget to SERVE, WORSHIP and ENJOY life while you wait :-)

Name change and other things...

Yesterday was a very good day. First, I put Sam in the nursery at church and went to the 'Called to be Mom' group. I talked to people (shocking for me, I know) and really enjoyed myself!
Plus I got some tips on my business, got another round of 'Let's get this thing going!' and am now in the process of changing the business name to make it less 'cute' and more upscale boutique-y and getting help with a logo design!
Sam did ok in the nursery. I mean, for her first time, everyone would say it was good, but now I feel guilty for leaving her there. I'm sure the workers did a good job, but....
She did cry for a bit, though she also took a bottle and a nap for them. She was still cranky when we got home.

And then I went to lunch for a friend and her husband and throroughly enjoyed having MORE adult interaction :-) :-)
Sam was pretty loud and got pretty fussy by the end of lunch. But after coming home and getting a nap, she had a pleasant afternoon.

Nathan got home, I made dinner, we ate and put Sam to bed. Then we had a nice conversation about our life and our plans and dreams. Then I lost horribly in Yahtzee! The game was so pathetic to us yahtzee-advocates, that Nathan actually added up the score at the end. 105 to 267. I scored 49 on the lower half - ridiculous! It was actually laughable.

And that is what makes for a GREAT day in my book.

Now today I need to do some dishes and clean up a bit ... oh well!