Thursday, November 25, 2010

1st Thanksgiving (picture overload)

This year I have SO much to be thankful for. 2.5 months ago I could not have imagined my life being any better than it already was. I always knew I wanted to be a mom, but I had NO idea just how rewarding it would be.

I am so incredibly thankful for my wonderful husband, my beautiful baby girl and all of our extended family. My parents, brother and all of the Warrens. They're not my blood family, but I really get homesick for them all the same.

I am so thankful to be the heck out of Elko :-) I love the Salt Lake City area and our new home. I'm really enjoying all the new people I've met!


Moving On...

This year I changed up our menu just a tad bit. I followed a couple of recipes from the same source.

Green Beans:
I normally hate green beans, but found a recipe I wanted to try instead of green bean casserole. It turned out GOOD. Like I actually had two helpings. I normally never finish the first! I made the dish with fresh green beans and shallots.

Cranberry Sauce:
Then I wanted to try making cranberry sauce from scratch instead of buying jellied in a can. It turned out omg yummy!

I always make the gravy and this year it turned out the best, imo.


Dinner Rolls
:
I made the absolute easiest dinner rolls ever, which was a bad idea since I seem to be addicted to them.







I took a million pictures since it's Jocelyn's first Thanksgiving! They're totally in random order. I had to include all of the last 3 because they were so cute :) She's such a happy girl!
















Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Etsy

I will be opening an etsy shop soon! As soon as I can come up with a cute catchy name for it. :-)

I have a few things ready to go and will also take special orders.

This will be mostly baby/toddler items, mostly girly :).

Some of the items I will have listed: (NO knitting, it takes way too long)
Flower and Ribbon headbands
-silk
-satin
-crochet

Baby Bracelets

Binky Clips

Tutus

I'm thinking maybe burp cloths and nursing covers if I have time.
Maybe a knitted kids hat if I like you and have time. :-)


Name possibilities: (I'll probably go with none of them)
BabEssentials
Sunshine Baby Treasures
Butterfly Kisses Boutique
Maya's Memories

I'm not very good at coming up with creative catchy names. I'd love input.

Monday, November 22, 2010

SLC Mommies

I found a playgroup in my area and today Jocelyn and I went to our 2nd playgroup date! I meant to blog after the 1st one and forgot :) If you can imagine that!

Jocelyn LOVES babies and little kids. She just stares at them with this look of adoration and then gets this HUGE grin on her face and starts cooing. SO. SO. CUTE!! AND. Both times we attended playgroup, I actually liked every single mom there. I know. That sounds pretty snotty. But come on. How often do YOU attend, well, anything and actually like everybody there? See. It's not just me ;)

So, I'm pretty excited!! Jocelyn and I have made some new friends and really having fun. I took my camera with me today but didn't take any pictures. So I stole these pictures from the host. This little girl was the host's oldest daughter, she and Jocelyn adored each other. Ohmygosh, it was SO cute to watch them. And isn't that little girl just beautiful?








She also LOVES her bumbo and LOVES LOVES LOVES the fish tank. It's really pretty awesome. If she gets fussy, we can go stand in front of the fishtank and she calms down and just watches them. So I did a little rearranging and put a table next to the fishtank so that I could put her bumbo next to it.


She also loves being cuddled up in the moby wrap. Which is GREAT when I need to get stuff done around the house. I let her face out like this when we're at home. This is also SUPER for when we go out, I turn her the other way so we're tummy to tummy and she can people watch until she falls asleep. This works WAY better than putting her in a carseat, which she hates, plus I'd just much prefer to hold and cuddle her :)



The Sophie and one other dolly are really the only toys she sort of plays with right now. I think this is cute, looks like she's hugging her Sophie :)


Oh daddy! Why is it everytime I turn around he's holding her like this? LOL Apparently it's more comfy than it looks lol. And daddy has actually changed a few diapers this week! Even a dirty one! YAY DADDY!! I told him that changing a diaper may very well be the sexiest thing he's ever done :)


Just being cute :-)

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Mmmmmmm MMmmmmmmmmmmmmm Good!!

I made roasted butternut squash soup again. OH MY GOSH, It's so yummy!!!! I think I could probably eat a little everyday until it's no longer in season. Seriously. I made a HUGE pot of it and plan to devour it ALL. I made it a couple weeks ago and put a little too much pepper.

I'm starting to get super excited about Thanksgiving!! I love cooking on the holidays (definitely not the cleanup). This will be my 5th year making everything myself. My first year I thought every meal had to be made from scratch. haha :) We almost didn't eat because it took sooooooo long!! Like I even set out bread to dry for stuffing/dressing and I don't even like it! However, buying a few items in a box or can totally feels like cheating. Doesn't mean I won't do it :)

Friday, November 12, 2010

Our Weekend Adventure

We took Jocelyn to get her ears pierced!! Ahh I felt SOOO guilty and selfish making her sit through that, but oh my gosh it's so cute! She cried the second this stranger got in her face trying to mark her ears. It took forever to get it right b/c she was so wiggly and crying her little eyes out :-( When I finally approved and he pierced those cute little ears, I turned my head and closed my eyes!! I couldn't bear to actually watch. lol She screamed when they punched through, but was perfectly fine the second I got up from the chair and walked away.

She sorta did the same thing at her dr. appt. She was all smiley and chatty until the second the doc walked in. She's not a huge fan of perfect strangers. Which is good (mostly). It's probably good I'm now a stay at home mom (for a million reasons), I don't think she'd do so well at daycare/babysitters.





Blowing spit bubbles is her newest thing.


Her expression totally cracks me up :) She makes the funniest faces!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

2 Month Appointment

Jocelyn had her 2 month appointment today, poor baby :-( She got 3 shots, a combination of a million things so she's been sleeping the better part of the afternoon/evening. However; only in my arms. The second I try to put her down she starts whimpering :(

Anyhow, the dr told us she was measuring 6 weeks ahead and even acting like a 4 month old with her rolling over and attempts to sit on her own and stand! Yay! So we're doing good! She's not the biggest baby ever (12.6 lbs, 23 inches) or smartest/most advanced but she's higher than average so far in all of the above. We think she's a little smarty :)

Monday, November 8, 2010

2 months

My baby is 2 months old today!! Man time flies!



Sunday, November 7, 2010

Rolling Over

BG hates tummy time. She cries the second her tummy hits the playmat, so I haven't been a great encouraging mommy and giving her nearly as much tummy time as recommended. It makes me feel awful to see that pouty face and hear that sad sad cry. Well that is, she's hated tummy time until yesterday when she magically started loving it. She loved it because she suddenly figured out she could use her arms to lift her upper body and not just her head, and she also figured out that she could just roll right on over to her back and skip tummy time altogether! LOL The next couple of times I put her on her tummy yesterday, she immediately rolled to her back. Too funny!! But today she actually spent some time on her tummy with her head and chest up, kicking her feet, looking at the mirror, smiling and having a good time before rolling over. YAY!!!!!!!!

I have a hard time putting her down. I hold her probably 90% of the time. It makes getting things accomplished around the house pretty difficult to impossible, but she's happier that way and I'm happier that way :) And all the new info out there says you can't spoil a newborn, so I'm totally going with that :-)

I'm very curious how much different I would be if I'd started the baby thing much earlier when I was still pretty young. My family have all commented on how patient and calm I've been and, though I'm sure some of it is my personality, I'm thinking a lot of it is because I'm older. (I'm guessing). And not feeling super selfish and wanting me time, my new selfish is actually wanting to hold her all the time.

K anyway, back to rolling over! I have no idea the time table for these things, so I have no idea if she's late, early or on time with this new accomplishment. Anyway, I took a video this morning and wanted to share! I don't know why, but watching her do this totally cracks me up!!



And here's another one of her talking:




She has been smiling since day 1 and I think I mentioned she's been smiling socially or in response to talking or making faces since around 3-4 weeks old. This week (8 weeks) she's started smiling in response to a smile! It's SO SO cute watching her smile back at you :)

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Because I Can't Sleep....

yes, I know this is my 3rd post for the night!

Last night, I put Jocelyn in her crib. I had decided before she was born that she would sleep in our room for the first 2 months and then move to the nursery in her crib after that. Well...She will be 2 months in just 6 days (ALREADY!!), so I thought maybe we could practice and give it a try. No need to practice, my baby took to her crib on the first attempt!

She slept in her crib the entire night, waking at 2:00 for feeding then going right back to sleep in her crib. She did wake again when Mike was leaving for work, so I just brought her to bed with me (I know this is ridiculous, but I MISSED her!!) and we slept until 10!

A couple mornings ago Mike woke me up when he was leaving for work and I'd realized that Jocelyn had slept through the entire night! I couldn't believe it! I actually woke her up to feed her and we slept in. Hopefully this will happen on a regular basis, though I think I will be sad the first few nights since she'll be in her crib.

Am I ridiculous for feeling that way? :-) Because I feel a little ridiculous. I should be excited (and I am! kinda) because I will get more quality sleep. "Should" being the key word here. I couldn't fall asleep for a few hours because I was staring at the baby monitor watching her move while she was sleeping. And here's where my title comes in. :-) I put her in her crib again tonight and she's already been in there sleeping for 2.5 hours. And again, I'm still awake staring at my baby on the video monitor when I should be taking advantage of this time and sleep! (Hey, at least tonight I'm not crying)

I haven't really slept hard in a couple of months anyway, I'm so very aware of her every movement and sound. However, I could relax knowing she was right next to me and I could easily check on her. This crib thing gives me anxiety and also leaves me feeling a little sad. I'd realized this morning, after I was so excited to go get her, that this has been the longest that I have been physically separated from my baby!

Oy, I'm gonna be a mess when she goes off to college. :) Okay, so we've got years until that happens. OMG or start kindergarten!!

Are any of you feeling sorry for Mike yet?

8 Weeks

Man, time flies!





Nursing in Public

Not sure why this is such a big deal. This is a topic that a lot of people seem to have some pretty strong opinions about, or just simply get embarrassed about. I have to admit, I could have cared less about it myself before having had Jocelyn. Well, that is as long as they were attempting to be modest and not just hanging it all out there.

I've come to realize that Americans are very funny about this. I don't get why it's such a big deal when it's such a natural thing. Initially, I was pumping and bringing a bottle with me every time I left the house. I forgot a couple of times and ended up feeding in the car even though I always carried a nursing cover in the diaper bag. Then I'd be in a restaurant or at the mall and she'd have a fit, knowing she was hungry, I just fed her right there. Now I just cover up and feed wherever we are because it's important to feed her (duh) and to keep up my supply.

I guess I say American's are funny because I belong to an online forum for girls w/ September babies and it's an international group. The Europeans think us Americans are crazy for making such a big deal for every time any of us make mention of nip'ing. I think it's important that we're all encouraged to BF period.

Anyway, so one time I was nursing at the mall. I had my cover out and was sitting on a bench, I really thought I'd be shy about this but I'm surprisingly comfortable with it. Back on track...so this elderly woman walked up to me and said "I think you are a wonderful mother for doing that." Oh my gosh, that made me feel SO great!! There should be more people like that.