Pregnancy #1 Belly Shots

I was inspired by something on Pinterest, and wanted to document my baby bump the same way. I had Adam take my belly shots every couple weeks.

Looking back now, It was a few too many. So I picked out four that were special and used picmonkey to make a collage.

5 weeks- We're Pregnant!!!
25 weeks- I finally told my students I was having a baby. I totally forgive them for thinking that I was just getting fat.
37 weeks- Full term!
40 weeks- Due date is here. Went another week before meeting our beautiful baby girl!


I loved being pregnant. Absolutely LOVED it. I miss it.
I think Kate was a month old when I told Adam I missed being pregnant.
He looked at me like I was crazy and just said "NO"

And no, I'm not pregnant, but I can't wait to document a growing belly again. I just need to figure out if I will go the same route as before.

Things I Thought I Wouldn't Need....

...but I use everyday.


When we were registering for baby stybs, there were a couple things I thought would be unnecessary to have. After bring Kate home, however, I had to make some last minute orders on Amazon to help us out.

1. baby monitor. Our house is old, you can hear everything, so why would we need a monitor? Well, you do hear everything... if you're on the same level. In the basement or even outside, I need the monitor to hear when Kate wakes up from her nap.

2. white noise. Kate was such a bad napper when she was a couple months old. I had seen people commenting on how white noise helped their babies, so I got the giraffe. It's cute, Kate still likes to snuggle it  in her crib, and for a while, the only way to get her to nap was to lay the giraffe across her tummy.

3. changing pad. This is the item that I thought was pointless and a waste of money. Oh how wrong I was. Every diaper change I had ever done had been on the carpet. Well, I was recovering from a c-section and bending over wasn't the best idea for me. Plus, middle of the night changes require some concentration and time efficiency, so when she was getting too big to leave the waterproof pad in her pack-n-play while she slept, I knew it was time to get a real changing pad.

What are some must-haves that you didn't think were necessary?

Five on Friday

1. Kate has Roseola. It sounds worse than it actually is, but I didn't know she had it until yesterday. She had been tired, but not sleeping like usual (5:30 makes sense now), and kept feeling warm. We took her temp on Sunday and it was 102 under her arm. I freaked out and took her to RightTime care. The conclusion there was that she had a virus, give her Tylenol for 2-3 days, schedule a follow up with her pediatrician. Before her follow up, she was feeling better, no fever, but had a rash from her neck to her chest. Yup Roseola. She'll be fine in a couple more days.

2. I finally started sewing Kate's quilt. I'm using my mom's serger to help me keep a straight line. I am horrible at guiding the fabric through a sewing machine, but a serger does that for me. I just have to keep it from bunching or sliding off. It is so much quicker and easier. I've been able to get a row or two done when I go to pick Kate up in the afternoons.

 I finally finished them today, but now I have to iron and sew the rows together.

3. I need a coffee pot with an auto-off. I have left it on all day twice in the past week. I've been looking into models with a programmable start time as well. I just don't know if Ill wait until our current pot dies, or just o ahead and order a new one. What I do know is coming home to the burnt smell of coffee sucks.

4. I am so done with this school year. Our curriculum is divided into 9 weeks. Next week is week 9, but we still have two more weeks, ugh. But, finally Memorial Day is here! Our only day off in May, and Adam is actually home this weekend. I'm looking forward to family time, yard sale-ing, grilling, and other summery things.

5. Stupid weight keeps fluctuating! I had lost all pregnancy weight, then gained 10 lbs back. I've been trying to be very conscious of what I eat, logging everything into myfitnesspal, and not become obsessed with the scale. But it's hard to not obsess, especially when  the numbers go up and down by 3 within a few days. I know, only weigh yourself once a week. I know, weight will change throughout the day. I just want to stay consistent or lose. It's really hard to see the numbers go up.  Currently I'm down, hopefully this weekend won't ruin it.

So those are the top 5 things on my mind this week. What about you?

Quilting

About a month after Kate's birthday I finally started on her quilt. Even though I had been saving ideas on pinterest for a while, I was still having a hard time deciding what to do. I knew I didn't want anything complicated- I had never quilted before, and have only used a sewing machine a few times- and I didn't want anything that needed a perfect pattern- no rows of squares. I am a little OCD/ and slightly a perfectionist so I knew that if I didn't get those rows matched up and straight it would kill me and I would take it out over and over and over.

So with some help from my mom I decided on 3" wide strips, but random lengths in each row. Mom showed me how to square off my fabric, and I got to cutting lots and lots of fabric.

After a couple weeks, I got all the strips cut. I took them home and laid them all out trying to make a "random" pattern that didn't look awful. When it looked good enough (over an hour later) I bundled each row up so I could return to mom's an sew them together.

I've started sewing the strips together, so I'll post whenever I get done.

What Workout, Mom?

This is what it looked like when I tried to workout while Kate was in the same room.

"Hey, Mom, let's just sit and watch the exercises, OK?"

Since I'd been having a hard time actually functioning early in the morning, and I am incredibly tired after Kate goes down at night, I thought I would try popping in my old Workout DVD while Kate was still awake and playing, and I still had some energy.

Every time I had my legs shoulder-width apart she saw that as an opportunity to try to run through them.

 I eventually gave her my little 2lb weights to distract her, but she ended up throwing them after about a minute.

So, time to come up with yet another new workout plan.
What works for you?

Wordless Wednesday: Sleeping in Past 5:30

(Low quality photos courtesy of iPad)

Mother's Day Round 2

This was not my first mother's day. My first Mother's Day was spent in my sister's bedroom tending to a month old infant who did not nap, and I couldn't nurse b/c I had stupidly pumped before leaving and then forgot the milk at home. My gifts from Adam were flowers that died a week earlier and a pint of ice cream that had melted and re-frozen before I even opened it.

This year had to be better.

Thankfully it was. We still spent the day at my sister's, but Kate played with her cousins, chased the dog, and I was able to interact with my family and eat lunch like a normal person.

To top it off, Adam got me the Dyson Animal Complete.

It's not that I expect presents, our anniversary was spent making sushi, which was great. But we didn't celebrate my birthday, it happened to be the same day as my father in law's funeral. So anyway, I was kind of hoping Adam would surprise me for Mother's Day but we picked it out at Sam's Club on Saturday. It is AMAZING. Sure it may be overpriced expensive, but my carpet has never looked so clean.

Hopefully next year will be just as good.

Playoffs

Kate's first Capitals game just happened to be Game 2 of the playoffs. We had said all (half) season  that if we had tickets to a noon game we would take Kate. Well we only had night game tickets so Kate didn't get to go. But when Adam sent me a text saying "Guess who had tickets to tomorrow's game?" My response was "You, and we are going and taking Kate?"

I would buy it  to get rid of the watermark, but not for $18.

Adam luckily scored 2 awesome tickets and a parking pass from work so we were able to skip Metro (and their track work/shuttles)  and the long lines to get into the stadium.

 We had great seats, took Kate down to the glass before the game, and out to the concourse during the 2nd period for a little walk. She made it to the middle of the 3rd period before we had to go. She missed her nap and was crashing. We listened to the end of the game in the car on the ride home. All in all it was a good day sharing what we love with Kate.

Whatcha Say?

Wow, getting up at 5:30 to workout has proven harder than I knew it would be. So far this week, I've gotten up, but no exercise. Baby steps, mama, baby steps. Kate is currently waking up right now. I can hear her in her crib, "uh oh", like she's calling me out for failing to even attempt to exercise this morning.

But she's not always so judgmental. Kate has been spouting out a lot of new words lately. We don't always understand them but she still lets us know what she thinks. She babbles the typical things: mama, dada, yes, no, baby, mmmm, and other gibberish.

But she also has some more specific words.

If she wants to watch TV she'll sing "Uh oh, oh no", the beginning of a Freshbeat Band song.
She chases after Grover, or "grogah".
She'll ask for a "nana" if she's hungry.
Every photo of a kid is "JJ" (her cousin)
And, the phrase she's been jumbling for a while, "whaissis?" (What is this?)

She likes playing peek-a-boo, hiding and saying "where is?"

Lately Kate has also been repeating words: shoes, go go go, oh no, here, and trying to mimic a cat's meow and a dog's woof.

So maybe tomorrow i'll finally get up and get moving, or maybe I'll change up my plan. Either way I know Kate will be there to call me out or maybe even cheer me on... Haha yeah right...
What are your kids saying? Link up below.

5:30

Kate's new wake up time.

Why?

I have no idea.

She goes to bed between 7 and 8, and used to sleep until almost 7.

So now we wake at 5:30. She just wants to get up, have a 'nana' and read her books. I sit with coffee, checking facebook and whatever else I can do with little effort. I used to wake up at 5:30 and workout. Now I can barely function.

This needs to change.

I have not been on a scale in a loooong time, but I know my clothes are getting snug. I need to get back to a workout routine. I can do something at 5:30 when Kate wakes up. I can take her for a walk after work.

Starting tomorrow I will try getting back into my morning routine.

Building with Daddy

Adam's always pretty busy, but when he can he will play with Kate. He said the only thing he looked forward to when having a kid was legos. Well Kate is a little too young for Lego  but she did get a lot of Mega Blocks for her birthday.

So the other day, while I was cleaning or something in another room, Adam and Kate had some building time.

Well, Adam would build and Kate would destroy. But they both liked it.

Springtime Water Fun

After Kate's birthday we purchased a cheap water table from Amazon. It's the right size for Kate (and one more) and she loves it. What she really likes to do, though, is try to climb into the water table. And when she can't get in, she then settles for sticking her face in and drinking the water.

The simple pleasures of a toddler.