Go big or go home

Man alive, I sure know how to ring in the holiday season: with a raging case of mastitis. I am lucky that I've never had to go through this hell before, and I thought I was in the clear as mastitis is most common in the first 6 months of breastfeeding and Bug will be 6 months old on Friday.

What started as a fever and aches and chills early Saturday morning (it was still dark, 4am-ish) has turned into pure hell. I thought I had the flu, now I wish it was the flu. This pain in my right breast is unreal. This fever (hovering around 102*-103*, even with meds) is unreal.

Since I'm an exclusive pumper I have to get up, and stick to my pumping schedule, regardless of these chills, regardless of the pain. If I was able to nurse my babies I would still be writhing around in bed, but at least I wouldn't have to get out into the freezing air to feed him. I'd be able to roll over, nurse him frequently, and then drift back into a fever induced dreamland.

I can't stand how it feels - FREEZING, skin hurting, joints aching with a fever. And then add in this huge red, warm to the touch, throbbing, heavy feeling breast infection. Put a fork in me, I'm done.

My midwife said, at 7:45am, that she would call in a prescription to the 24 hour pharmacy so I could get the Keflex into my system asap. But here I am, at 9:38am wishing for death. My mom, bless her, drove across town to the Walgreens to pick up my meds and they HAVEN'T EVEN RECEIVED MY PRESCRIPTION YET!! What the hell?! I've put in another call/message to my midwife, but she hasn't called me back yet. I hate how I get SO sick on the weekend when no one is in the office, but only on-call.

I'm currently pumping through the pain, I'm forcing myself to eat and drink even though the fever is making me super nauseous, I need to shower in a bad way, but the thought of getting goosebumps when I get out of the shower sounds like torture to me at the moment.

I'm hoping and praying that I get my meds by lunchtime at the latest, it'll take 24 hours for me to start feeling better and that 24-hour finish line can't start until I take the damn meds!

Hopefully I'll have some joyful Christmas something-or-other to post about in a day or two. I can only hope.

Ugh.

(If this doesn't make sense, don't blame me, blame the fever!)

Bug's first Thanksgiving!

Yesterday was our first Thanksgiving with the Buggy-boy! ♥ It is holidays and family get togethers that make me stop and reflect back on the last holiday or the last time the family got together and notice how much things have changed. Once you have babies time literally FLIES by in the blink of an eye.

Anyway, before I go getting all sappy and sentimental AGAIN let me just briefly touch on how thanksgiving went.

Bug wore the same "Baby's first Thanksgiving" onesie that Bean wore on her first Thanksgiving back in 2010. It was baggy on her. It was pulling tight on him. Haha!

I love that having two summer babies means I get to compare them in the same outfits at the same holidays! :)

Disclaimer: I am a stickler about not giving our babies solid food until they are 6 months old. There is endless research - medical research - about why delaying solids until 6 months or later is best for baby's gut. Bug will be 6 months old in 6 days. He's been extremely interested in watching us eat for almost 2 months now, he mastered his pincher grasp about 3 weeks ago, he doesn't have his tongue thrust reflex anymore... the only thing he doesn't have on his checklist before giving solids is: sitting up unassisted. But, have you seen the size of his head? It's heavy. I don't blame him for not being able to sit up quite yet. All that to say, we made the executive decision yesterday to let Bug try a small taste of plain baked sweet potato. It was Thanksgiving after all, and it was only 1 week "early".

Good news: He didn't ab-so-lutely hate it like Bean did. He also didn't love it. He probably only ate a total of 1/2 of a teaspoon and it went like this: first small taste - gnaw, mash, sucksucksuck, swallow. second small taste - gag and shake head around. third small taste - gnaw, mash, sucksucksuck, swallow. fourth small taste - gag and shiver shoulders like he got the heebie jeebies. Haha. He was pretty unimpressed, and I wasn't hell bent on making a meal of it, I just wanted him to try it. And he did. Now we'll wait until his half-birthday before trying something else. :)

My long-time friend crocheted Bug a suuuuuper sweet Turkey beanie for his first Thanksgiving. He's been wearing it every time we've gone outside since it came in the mail, but it looked really perfect with his Baby's First Thanksgiving onesie. Everyone at dinner loved it and it completed his ensemble!

She makes custom hats and scarves and hats for any holiday you can think of! If you'd like to order one from her let me know and I'll give you her info. :)

Alright... Jeff wants to go out into the crowds to try to snag a few good deals at the Black Friday sales so I've got to get going. I hope everyone who reads my tiny blog had a great Thanksgiving with their loved ones! ♥

(I didn't get any pictures of Bean yesterday because she was busy outside playing with her cousin non-stop!)

What started out as a "SLEEP, Kid!!!!!" post turned into a walk down memory lane...

If having a second child has taught me anything, it's that having ONE child teaches you nothing about raising childREN. Your second baby is guaranteed to be nothing like your first child. Sure, all babies cry, eat, poop, etc but the specifics about how much, when, why they do those things is a complete mystery. Throughout my pregnancy with Bug I felt pretty confident about what to expect once he got here. "I've done this before, and Bean was a difficult newborn, so this HAS to be easier this time around. I know what to expect. I'm prepared."

Stupid, stupid, stupid me.

Everything I thought I knew has turned out to be wrong when it comes to Bug. The only thing I'm better about this time around is how frazzled I get by baby surprises.

Bean was a colicky baby. She cried a LOT. She was a terrible napper, napping only 15-25 mins at a time. Her saving grace was that she was a fantastic nighttime sleeper. Starting around 7 weeks old, she'd go to sleep around 7:30 and sleep until about 7am. I didn't have to "train" her to do this, she just did. At about 6 months old she started waking up around 1am, drank her bottle without fuss, and then went back to sleep until 7:30am. That wasn't bad, I didn't mind. She was a tiny peanut and I felt she needed the extra calories. Her daytime bottles always went down without a struggle, too. She put herself on an every 3-4 hour schedule during the day and gladly drank her 4oz bottles and then was fine until it was time for her next bottle. Eating and sleeping, she had those two things down pat. She hit all her physical milestones early - rolling over at 4 months, crawling at 5.5 months, standing by 7 months, climbing on EVERYTHING by 8 months, walking unsupported by 10 months. She was (and still is) Miss Independent. I've actually read quite a bit on "difficult babies" (you do that, desperate, at 2am when your baby just won't stop crying in those early months) and it seems like she did everything by the book for difficult babies. Even her pediatrician said that her "colicky" babies were much like Bean, very intelligent, type A, over-achiever types. She always benefited from a schedule, things being done JUST SO, she likes things in order, stacking everything in sight, and God forbid her schedule got off track EVERYONE would pay the price. I love her to bits and pieces, but I'm oh-so-glad that she's out of those baby-stages. She is still very much that personality, but now she can verbalize her needs and we can (try to) help her through her freak outs when things don't go her way, or when things don't go in the order she thinks they need to. She was always, and still is, in the 75% for her height and 20% for her weight. She wore all her clothes when she was "supposed" to: 3 month clothes fit her when she was 3 months old, 6 month clothes fit once she hit 6 months, etc. Because of this she was easy to shop the clearance racks for, I knew that those 18 month pants would fit her when she was 18 months old. I knew that the 2T bathing suit would fit her when she turned 2 years old. And because she's skinny she can wear clothes longer than bigger kids... especially shirts. She has little feet, so I always bought her "good" shoes knowing that she'd wear them for a long time and we'd get our money out of them. Cloth diapering was extra super cost efficient because she wore newborn diapers for 4 months! She wore smalls until she was over a year old! She wore mediums until she was potty-trained! I didn't have to buy very many diapers, she wore them a long time, we got our money's worth!

 Still a peanut at 3 years old.

Bean was almost 3 years old when Bug was born. I thought I knew what I was 'in for'.... I was wrong.

Bug is a generally happy baby, perhaps not smiley and laughing all the time, but generally content. He typically only cries if he's hungry or has a dirty diaper. We took a roadtrip to Kansas when he was 3 months old and he didn't make a peep on the way there or back unless he was hungry. Bean wouldn't let us drive to the grocery store, let alone 45 mins across town, without a full blown meltdown the ENTIRE time in the car - I hated going anywhere in the car when she was little. He's not colicky, thankfully!! He's not a great napper, but he's better than Bean ever was. Granted, his naps are still only 25-90 mins long, which aren't as good as these 2-4 hour naps I hear about other people's babies taking, but Bean didn't take a nap that was 45-90 min naps till after she was over a year old. But his nighttime sleeping? Fuggetaboutit. He wakes up anywhere from 2-10x a night. He is 5 months, 3 weeks old as I sit here typing this and he's been on a 2-3x a night kick for about a week now. But up until about a week ago a good night was a 4-5x wake up night. And those were few and far between. Part of his wakefulness was due to teething I'm sure, part to growing, but mainly I think it's just his personality. Yes he would drink his milk at night, but not a lot. Where Bean would drink 6oz at night in 1-2 wake ups, Bug would drink 4-6oz spread out over his 2-10 wakeups. Even during the daytime he is a snacker. Looking at him you might think that he overeats; that he drinks huge bottles, chugs them, and then wants more. Nope. Wrong. He drinks 1-3oz at a time, every 1-2 hours. Just enough to not feel hungry anymore, then he's done. He's too interested in what is going on around him to sit still and drink his whole bottle. Because of his eating preferences getting him on a schedule has proven difficult. Leaving bottles with Jeff or my mom when I'm gone is tricky because I'm not sure how much he'll drink - or when. Like I mentioned previously, Bean was easy. She drank x-ounces every x-hours. Planning ahead was easy peasy. Also, just now at almost 6 months old he's kiiiiiiiiinda, sooooooorta, letting me set his nap schedule.

 Bug, during his morning nap 11/26... this one lasted a whopping 37 mins!

But he is SO not that Type-A personality that his sister is. He is NOT a schedule kind of guy. His bedtime is 7:30, his day doesn't start till 7:30-8, but the number of times he wakes up during those 12 hours is anyone's guess. I try to put him down for a nap at 10am, 2pm, and 5pm... but IF he naps, how long he'll sleep for is a mystery as well. As far as physical milestones go, he is in NO hurry. He hasn't rolled over yet, he doesn't sit up unassisted, he's not up on his knees rocking yet, he won't even support his weight on his legs if you're holding him under his arms. It is just SO opposite of his sister that I have a hard time not comparing the two of them and I have to stop myself from putting the pressure on him to hurry up and do the things that she did when she did. He will do them at his own pace. It's ok that he's not in a hurry. He will be our last baby, so the way I see it is: this way, I get to enjoy his babyhood for longer. He will need me for longer. And I'm ok with that. ♥ At almost 6 months old he's in 9 month clothes, but onesies are starting to get too short. 12 month clothes fit, but are slightly too long still. He outgrew his newborn cloth diapers in 3 weeks, the smalls by 3 months, and there is only one larger snap adjustment on his mediums to accomadate his thunder thighs before he'll need to be moved into large cloth diapers. I don't even own any larges!!! Bean never needed them! There is no doubt he is a chunky monkey, but I don't mind - I love to snuggle and nuzzle his cheeks. I like to grab and tickle his fat thunder thighs. And society, it seems, loves a fat baby. Everywhere we go people are cooing at him and telling me how cute my "big boy" is. Bug is much more easy going, easier to make smile and laugh (he laughed much sooner than Bean did), pretty chill baby. He goes with the flow, he sits back and observes what is going on around him. And even when he's sick or teething he is pretty cool, calm, and collected. The times you really notice that he's not feeling good is at nighttime. When his teeth were coming in he slept the worst, but during the day he was still pretty content. That's another thing, he got his first tooth at 5 months, 8 days old. His second tooth came through the next day. Bean didn't get her first tooth until almost 7 months old, her second tooth took almost another month to come in. So, I guess, when I see this stuff written out he doesn't do EVERYTHING later than his sister, I guess it just seems that way.

 happy go-lucky boy!

With Bean I was in such a hurry for her to hit her milestones, so proud to be able to "brag" about them happening so soon. But with Bug I'm happy to let him take his time. Like I said, I do have to remind myself sometimes that they're different people and it's okay for him to do things later than she did. And when I do remind myself of that I can actually feel myself relax and allow myself to enjoy him more. I like that. I wouldn't change either of them or their personalities. I'm excited to see how their similarities and differences change as they grow older. Ok, maybe I would change JD's sleeping pattern if I could. If I had a magic wand I'd make him a better sleeper. But since I don't have a magic wand I guess I'll deal with his sleep challenges and just thank my lucky stars that he's a happy snuggle bug instead of another colicky baby -- his easy, toothy, grins make me forget how utterly exhausted I am, even if just for a few minutes.

Grandma Godin's vegetable soup recipe

Fall is officially here and winter is right around the corner.  That means we have space heaters going around the clock, I'm never NOT wearing socks, and I want bowls of soups and homemade bread at least once a week. Growing up my mom would make lots of meals that were her mother's recipes; old-fashioned comfort food types of recipes. I've never been a fan of those types of meals. You know the type - stews, roasts, meatloaf, etc. I'm not a meat-and-potatoes, "sticks to yer ribs", type of gal. However, my Grandma's vegetable soup is one recipe that I always looked forward to. I used to ask my mom to make it, along with a loaf of bread in the bread maker. Let's be real here, I still ask her to make it. Food always tastes better when your mom makes it for you.

Now that I'm a grownup with a husband and 2 kids of my own I decided to buck up and ask my mom for my Grandma's recipe. She shared it with me, and I decided to post it here in case anyone else was in the market for a delish, easy, homemade vegetable soup recipe. I will say, that it's easily customizable. The original recipe calls for beef broth, but being a vegetarian I obviously use vegetable broth. The original recipe doesn't include carrots, and I know for a fact that my mom ALWAYS put diced up carrots in our soup. Feel free to change it up using ingredients that you have on hand, but it's nice to have my Grandma's actual recipe to use as a blueprint. ♥

The "whoops! I lost my head!" catch-up post!

Oh, that's right... I have a blog. One I used to write in semi-regularly... Life gets crazy, or perhaps I let it drive me crazy, either way... I got swept under the current for a few months, I can't believe how much time has past since I last updated - I can't believe 2013 is almost over!!, it seems like a different life entirely when I look back at my old posts. I would like to start writing again. I enjoy writing, and I enjoy having something to look back on because with little chitlins running around I often forget things that we did, I forget how little they were, I forget how I was feeling at that time, and it's nice to be able to go back, read, and reflect.

So, as you may have noticed I changed the title of this here bloggy to include our favorite little brother. All the new pretties like my header, the background, and the new About Us section (coming soon when I find a spare minute to write it), is thanks to my good friend Ashley over at Momma on a Mission . We're still "Adventuring in the Foothills of the Rockies" but it's no longer just Bean and I... Finally, formally, introducing Bug! ♥

 

He was born 6.5.13 at 1:45pm. He weighed 8lbs 15oz and was 21.5" long. He had a long and dramatic entrance into this world, but he is strong and healthy and we got to go home after only 3 days in the nicu. (At 5 months old he's now 19lbs and already has his two bottom teeth!)

Another update since my last entry, this little big girl Bean turned 3 back in August!!!

My mind has a hard time (still) wrapping around the fact that she is 3 whole years old. I can't believe I've been a Momma for that long now! She's an amazing big sister, and big helper to our whole family. She loves to be helpful and I love that she has that caring heart! (She is still a little peanut weighing in at 27lbs, but is tall and her hair is finally filling in and getting long-ish.)

Bringing us current, the most recent holiday was Halloween where Bean chose to dress up as Snow White (which I found funny seeing as how she's NEVER seen that movie) and was adorable of course, and we chose to dress Bug in an alligator because we loooooove those Florida Gators! They were both too cute for me to handle! I'm hoping that next year they'll let me coordinate their costumes, but I have a feeling Ms. Bean will have an opinion about that. ;)

I'm excited for Bug to learn to sit up, roll over, and start crawling. He has such a personality and is SUCH a talker. He gets to try solid foods next month, which I don't think will be an issue like it was with our Bean-Girl. He is opposite of his big sissy in almost every way you can think of, but they love love love each other so much and I can't wait to see them grow up together. I'm excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas as a whole family, together in our home. I look at our little family and feel so blessed, so lucky, so happy. ♥

I pinky promise, it won't be so long until I update again. Now that I got this big scary "Hi... I'm back..." post out of the way I won't feel so weird posting about current events as they happen.

Pip-pip-cheerio!! :)

Yay for new stuff!!

Jeff and I did our taxes and were relieved, and excited, to learn we could expect a return. With us being fortunate enough to be a one income family so that I can stay home with our babies, money is strictly budgeted throughout the year and we don't buy big-ticket items, opting to put them on a wish list for someday when we have the money. The moment our return got deposited into our checking account we rejoiced; SOMEDAY HAS COME, SOMEDAY IS TODAY!!! We looked at our wishlist and decided what were our top priorities and what we could afford.

Jeff picked out man things. You know... a lawn mower, hanging shelves that hang from the ceiling of the garage so that he can store stuff up out of the way, peg board for behind his workbench - man stuff. I think he still wants to buy a saw too. I don't know what kind. That gets too complicated for me. But you know.... a saw... to cut wood.

I picked out grown up fancy homeowner things. You know, stuff that makes you feel grown up, like a responsible homeowner when you go to Lowes and proudly buy them. For your home. That you own.

Our entrance way/hall was always kind of dark. There is only one window at the front of the house and it's in our bedroom, so all the sunlight filters in through the side, back and bedrooms of the house. The front of the house was like a dark dreary cave. (Ok, not really THAT bad, but it was dark, and I wished it could be bright and cheery like the rest of the house.) We solved that problem by buying a storm door!!!!

This puppy comes complete with a window to let the beautiful sunshine in, as well as a screen so I can open the window and let the fresh air blow through our house when the weather and breezes are warm. I can't fully put into words how much happiness it brings me to have the entrance way flooded with light and fresh air. (See all that snow? I didn't open the window today since we got a random snow storm. But, the light was still heavenly!)

Next up was a new dining room table set. The one we had was ok, but it wasn't really functional for what our family needed. It was round, and the chairs were round. It was too small, and Bean's booster seat was strapped precariously onto the round chair. The top of the table and chairs were wood, but the legs of both and the backs of the chairs were wrought iron, and it was heavy. Bean has pulled the heavy, metal, chairs over on top of herself a few times in the past and I was just over it. I dreamed of a grown up, family dining table, that would last us through the years that we could comfortably sit at every night and make memories at as our kids got older. We found the perfect table, chairs, and bench at Oak Express. "Bench?" Yes, bench. I'm ssssooooo excited that our dining room table has a bench for the kids to sit on!! So far, Bean says she likes the bench because it's like a "bestaurant" :)

The washer and dryer we had were the ones that came with the condo Jeff bought back in 2004. They were good machines, but they were the smallest capacity that would fit into our tiny condo laundry room pantry. Like I said, they were good reliable machines and we were so thankful to have them, but because they were so small I'd have to wash a week's worth of Jeff's work pants split up into THREE loads of laundry. Washing bedding was a nightmare. And Bean, with all of her toddler laundry, had to be broken up into multiple different loads as well. A few months ago, when we had the money, we replaced the dryer for the largest capacity dryer Lowes carried (that we could afford), but had to wait on the washer. Not anymore!! With our tax return we went back to Lowes and bought a big, fancy, grown up, Jetson's style washing machine!! There isn't an agitator in the middle so I can do LARGE loads of clothes now and not have to worry about them being too crammed to actually get clean. And it has a glass lid, which I think is SO fun!! ha! (The dryer has a glass window door too, and when we first got it I would just watch the clothes tumble, mesmerized. It's the little things in life, people.)

Do you hear angels singing when you look at this washing machine like I do? Because I do. I hear them every time I look at it. As you can see by all the fancy lights, I had just started a load when I took this picture.... what might I be washing? Lets take a peek....

Eeeeeeppp!!! Baby boy clothes!!!!! ♥ I had bought a couple things already and then my friend sent me a box of baby clothes that her son has outgrown once she learned that she will be having a baby girl this next time around. I love hand me downs! I love wittle baby clothes!! They're so tiny and cute and soft! ♥

So, that's pretty much it for our tax return purchases... There are a few others, like window blinds and placemats and dinners out for a change. Oh! And we paid my car off!!! Which is a huge relief to not have that $200 payment every month anymore. There will be a few more items before our money is spent till someday or next tax time which ever comes first, but these are the big ticket items that I was excited to talk about. If it weren't for tax return time, it'd take a LONG time to save up the money needed to buy these items on our one-salary-income, so I'm so thankful for the money we got back.

Today's blog post was brought to you by the letters:

I, R, and S

as well as the number:

'12

get it... since it was our 2012 IRS tax return? get it? huh? huh?

Oh, and for good measure, here is a cute picture of my cute Bean skillfully blowing bubbles. 

  

Reading

About a week and a half ago I decided that I would start reading children's chapter books to Bean and I am so so so glad that I did. We started with Holes by Louis Sachar.

 It was one of my favorite books when I was younger, still is one of my favorite book-to-film adaptations, and was the only children's chapter book I had on hand. lol! Every day before naptime and before bedtime Bean would crawl up into my lap, put her head on my shoulder, and I would read for 20-40 mins - until she started dozing or until I started getting too tongue tied. If you knew Bean in real life you'd know that she is a very active, always moving, talking, doing kind of toddler. I could tell she really enjoyed our time reading because she'd sit on my lap and just listen. (Sure, there are moments of fidgeting, because she's 2.5, but she'd put her head back down as soon as I asked her to. It was never a struggle to get her to listen.) We finished that book in 6 days and on day 7 we took a trip to Barnes and Nobel to pick a new book; we picked Charlotte's Web by E.B. White.

An awesome plus to Charlotte's Web, that I seem to have forgotten from when I read it as a child, is the fact that every 2-3 pages there is an illustration about what's going on at that point in the story. I decided to spend the extra dollar and buy the full color edition instead of the one with the black and white drawings and am glad I did. She is really loving this story! She loves the silly voices I read the different characters in, she loves seeing the photos, she loves that it's about animals - and I love that while it's a children's book, it uses "grown up" words. And not just the words that Charlotte spins in her web (terrific, radiant!), but Fern's parents talk to their children like adults, the animals use a wide vocabulary when talking to each other, etc. There have been a couple words that she'll pick her head up from my chest and ask, "What's that word mean?" and I try my best to explain it to her in a way she'll understand, but I don't mind - she's truly a little sponge and remembers what we teach her and she uses pretty big words when she's talking to us once she learns what they mean. We've only had the book for 4 days and we're 3/4 done. I'd say we have about 40 pages left, so it looks like we'll be hitting up the bookstore again this weekend. (I'll need to hurry up and start perusing the children's chapter books at thrift stores, or else at this rate we'll go broke buying books! haha I'm kidding... sort of.)

I love that Bean has my love of reading - it's truly an escape for me, and I've loved reading for as long as I can remember - which I attribute to my mom being an avid reader and reading to me a lot when I was young. I love that I've started this new tradition with her and she's enjoying it so much. If she didn't, I wouldn't push it on her but it'd break my heart a little bit. I love that it's something easy and inexpensive that we can - and will - continue to do together once her little brother is born. I love getting that slow-down and snuggle time with her twice a day, and I look forward to being able to reconnect with her on a daily basis with our reading once the baby comes. For a while it may only happen once a day, at bedtime, when I have Jeff home to help with the baby while she and I snuggle in the chair... but once our little man gets bigger and more self sufficient I'll be able to pick back up with it at naptime as well. Then, when the blessed day comes that they're both on the same nap/quite-time schedule I'll bring him in during our story time ritual. Or maybe I won't, maybe I'll read him his own stories in his room. I guess I'll have to decide that when the time comes, but I have no intention of stopping this new, favorite, routine with my sweet girl once her brother comes.

For good measure, here is a picture taken from her 30 month (aka 2.5 year) bday shoot. I can't believe my baby is 2.5!! I swear, I just had her a few months ago. Double the amount of time she's been in our lives and she'll be 5 years old and in Kindergarten.... that's too wild for me to wrap my mind around. *sigh*

We're having a....

We're very excited to be having a boy! I'll admit that I feel, a bit, like we're jumping into the unknown seeing as how I know what to expect with girl parts, but I know that we'll be just fine and we'll figure out our sweet boy's ins and outs as they come. I've always wanted a boy, but I think once we had Bean I just assumed we'd be a house of daughters. That's what I get for assuming, right?

♥

Oh hai....

It's been 3 months since I last posted. Whoops! Life got crazy, really crazy, really fast and I just couldn't keep up. But, here we are in a new year and things have settled down so I'm going to try really hard to be better about posting regularly again. This is what you've missed in the last three months:

We went to Las Vegas for Jeff's grandparent's 60th anniversary celebration the first week in October, but sadly, his Gramps passed away the morning after we arrived. While we were there we also got word that we officially bought a house, and that the closing date was set for 3 weeks later. And, as if those weren't enough to deal with, I found out I was pregnant with baby #2 a few days after we arrived, and after his Gramps passed. Needless to say, that week long "vacation" was far from a vacation, instead it was full of mixed emotions and overwhelming stress. Jeff's grandpa was a veteran and the family wanted him laid to rest at the Veteran's Memorial cemetery. There was a bit of a traffic jam there, and they were unable to set a funeral date before we had to get back to Colorado for Jeff to get back to work.

We got back home and began packing the apartment as fast as we could. The funeral date was set fairly quickly, quicker than we expected, so we were home less than a week before we headed back to Las Vegas for the funeral. This trip we drove, instead of flying, to save money. The funeral service was beautiful. We wished that we had more time to spend in Vegas with his mom and Grandma, but we had to be back on a Thursday in order to close on the house early on a Friday morning.

Unexpectedly, and unfortunately, my "morning" sickness hit as soon as we got back home. With Bean I felt great until 9.5weeks along. This time it hit at 6 weeks, like a Mack truck. And I put "morning" in quotes because it doesn't last only through the morning, I felt like garbage all day every day. Thankfully I wasn't vomiting, but I was incredibly nauseous. Nothing helped to relieve it. I just felt like I had a stomach flu day in and day out. I did my best to get us moved over into the new house (with my family's help) and out of the apartment before I totally succumbed to the yuck and just laid down.

Moving is stressful and exhausting enough without feeling like total crap. It was a good day if I unpacked one box all day long. Bean was SUCH a trooper, she happily played puppets, coloring, reading books, practicing her flashcards, etc while laying with me in bed or on the couch or on the living room floor. The less time I spent vertical, the better. Jeff was also really helpful and understanding that I just couldn't unpack as fast as he'd/I'd like. We got it (mostly) done relatively quickly, and were able to sit down and enjoy our new house before Thanksgiving.

Thankfully my "morning" sickness started to let up just before Christmas. I was still nauseous every day, but not ALL DAY every day anymore. Which was a real blessing so that I could enjoy my family over my favorite holiday. Thanks to an amazing group of friends who all chipped in we had our very first real Christmas tree, in our very first house. Christmas was fantastic, Bean got spoiled of course, my mom came and spent the day with us which was really nice, all in all it was a really wonderful holiday.

Jeff had a four day weekend for Christmas and another one for New Years, but now he's getting back into the swing of things so I figure I should too. It's a new year, in our new house, I'm working hard at growing a new member of our family, and I'm doing my best to enjoy our life and our family as it is right now. We have about 5 more months as a family of 3, and as panicked as it makes me sometimes to think about how much our lives are going to change SOON when the new baby comes, I'm just trying to soak in my sweet Bean girl while she's still my one and only, and I know that she'll be an amazing big sister when the time comes.

Phew. That was a big update... I'm sure I forgot things, but it is what it is. Like I said, I'm going to try to get back into my normal routine... which sure will make updating my blog a lot easier if I don't have to do a 3 month update every time I log in. LOL!

Pip-Pip-Cheerio!!