Today...

...we slept in until 7:30

...we skipped church

...we had steel cut oats for breakfast

...i started Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (re-reading entire series)

...i made GF oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, still not sure if i like them or not

...we washed, dried, and folded a lot of clothes
...we listened to our new-to-us Glenn Miller record my grandma gave us and played with the old camera that was my grandpa's

...we spent a lot of money at target and publix (the cupboards were bare)

...i made some fall purchases for Liam from zulily and oldnavy (love online shopping, hate replenishing my child's wardrobe every other month)

...we laughed, played, and enjoyed a lazy day before i go back to work tomorrow.

Whirlwind Vacation

We got home late last night from a super quick, super fun vacation!




(best hometown in all the land)
We left Friday afternoon to head to NW Arkansas for a dear friend's wedding that was on Saturday. Ryan's old band, Jackson Waters, played at the reception which made the whole event even more fun for us! It was such a fun reunion of both friends and music. I danced and sang myself silly, and loved every minute!



(love these folks, a lot)
Sunday morning we started the long trek to Dauphin Island, Alabama, where we met up with my older sister's family and some of their friends. We had a blast crashing the beach with them for a few days. Liam got to dip his little toes in the sand and ocean for the first time (pictures to come!) and he loved it!




We got home late last night and have been resting and working on laundry all day.



(sweet baby during a driving break)
The numbers...
Days gone: 5
States visited/driven through: 6
Hours in the car: 28
Jackson Waters memories relived: hundreds
Meltdowns Liam had in the car: 0
Pairs of sunglasses sacrificed to the waves: 1
Snow cone stops: 2
Loads of laundry done today: 5



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blessed be your name.

November 22, 1929--May 23, 2011

One of my favorite people in the whole wide world went home to be with Jesus today, my peepaw. I was incredibly blessed to be his granddaughter for 26 years, and I already miss him terribly.

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Certifiable.

I am a sound sleeper. Anyone who has ever lived with me can attest to this fact. I have been known to do some random things when awakened from a deep sleep and have always been prone to turning off my alarm clock in my sleep. Also, if you call and wake me up I will talk to you as if I am awake and then never remember the conversation.

Since having Liam there have been several instances where Ryan has had to shake me awake to feed Liam in the middle of the night. I am the only mother on the planet who can sleep through her child's cries. And even worse, I have definitely turned the monitor off in my sleep thinking it was an alarm I was snoozing. Awful! Usually, once I wake up I can coherently feed Liam thanks to surfing my iPhone.

However, last night was a different story. I was so sleepy that I turned off the monitor and once I finally got downstairs to feed Liam I could not stay awake. I record all the time and length of his feedings in my phone and I have no idea why, but I typed the word palpitations in his feeding log last night.

Anyone have any insight into that? Any other silly sleepy moms out there?





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V-day Recap.

Work, snuggly baby, jammies, risotto, criminal minds, new scarf, candy, homemade cupcakes, husby snuggles. Just an everyday kind of love story.


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Date Night!

(all fancified for date night)

Last Saturday Ryan and I went on our first date alone since Liam's arrival. We had a truly wonderful time! Erin came over to watch the bird and we went to dinner at Rumba. Rumba is one of my favorite Nashville restaurants and I bought a groupon for them last summer with the intention of using it on our first date after baby. They have the best mojitos in all the land and really yummy food as well!

We had a lot of fun and weren't gone long enough to worry about, or miss, Liam very much. It's really important to us to spend time together just the two of us. We were fortunate enough to be married for four years before adding a child into the mix and we want to keep the focus of our marriage about our relationship. I think a lot of times people allow their lives to revolve around their children and while Liam is the most important thing on this earth to us, our marriage is of extreme value as well. So, we are trying to welcome Liam into our lives, and not change our lives to revolve around him. I know that will become more difficult as he gets older, but I think with regular date nights we will stay on track. :)

(i love this man very very very much)

Five on Friday...

Confessions...

1). I have stooped to the very low level of watching The Bachelor. It happened by accident, but I got sucked in and now I cannot stop watching. It's like a train wreck of ridiculousness. And, I love it. Sorry. In all actuality, I hate the concept and lack of morals portrayed on the show. Every week it reminds me of how blessed I am to have Ryan. By the way, Emily is my favorite. Hate Michelle.

2). I have also been sucked into the Taylor Swift world. I can't help it, she's a catchy little writer. I'm not saying I think she's a good singer, I just can't get the darn songs out of my head! I also think her love life is a bit of a train wreck. Perhaps she should try out for the bachelor?!

3). I think I am completely abusing the "breast feeding diet." I'm pretty sure that I will regret being in the habit of eating ice cream and gobs of peanut butter everyday when I am no longer burning tons of calories. For now, it is nice to eat whatever I want and still lose weight. Did I mention I'm starving all the time?

4). I'm ready for a vacation. I love my job, and I'm glad to be back at work. But I definitely miss just sitting and holding my baby all day. That's the most fun job of all! It's a good thing I have three weeks of vacation to use by October. I need to start taking some long weekends!

5). There is a fine line between wanting your child to grow and thrive and wanting them to stay tiny forever. If you saw my last post, you can probably guess which side of the line I'm on lately. On the other side, that tiny little baby didn't coo and laugh and smile his head off at me!

Also, I just realized I never published my final pregnancy highlights post! Click here to see it!

Great States

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This is a map of all of the states that I have visited.  Can you tell I'm from the south?  :)  It's a dream of mine to visit every state during my lifetime.  I've got a ways to go, and I have no trips planned to visit any new states but I've got a lot of life left in me!  My grandparents were able to accomplish this dream for themselves after they retired.  Is it bad that I'm 26 and already looking forward to retirement so that I can travel?  I'm thinking Ryan and I need to come up with a fun vacation to one of those blank states this summer!

24...How many have you visited?  Which is your favorite?  Arkansas and Colorado are tied for my first place spot.  :)

Going Back

I am scheduled to go back to work bright and early Monday morning. I cannot believe how quickly the last three months have gone by, to say I am sad is putting it lightly.

I have loved loved loved being a part of every moment of Liam's life so far. I have loved pretending to be a housewife. It's been so nice to cook and bake and get laundry done throughout the day instead of a mad dash in the evenings.

That being said, I am blessed to go back to a job that I love, a job that I am (hopefully still) good at. I am anxious about transitioning back into a forty hour work week, especially one that starts with my alarm going off at 4am most days. I know I will have to give myself some grace and pray for it from my peers and employees as my company has changed several things in the three months I have been on leave. My store itself has at least two new team members that I have yet to work with! I have a lot of adapting to do and a lot of remembering as well. I currently can't remember any of my sixteen different passwords or codes to safes and alarms. I am also nervous about trying to arrange my work day around my pumping needs as it is in Liam's best interest to remain on a breast milk diet. I am hopeful that I will be able to find a balance quickly and that my team won't resent the time I will have to spend off the floor to pump. I am grateful that my boss in on my side and has given me several resources to make this easier on myself.

I am so thankful that Ryan will be staying home with Liam. It would break my heart even more to have to drop him off in the arms of a stranger at day care. He will be in good hands. I know that they will have a lot of fun and hopefully Ryan will be able to get some studying done during nap times.

Thankfully, my schedule grants me the opportunity to be home by 2 pm most days. That gives me a lot of time to still love on my little man. Hopefully, I can dwell on that and not on the fact that in twelve months time I will have spent 84 days at work and away from Liam. Can you tell I'm trying to psych myself up for this? :)

Please pray for me and our little family as we make this huge transition. Pray that I will have grace to do my job without crying all day. Pray that Liam bird will be good for his daddy and take his bottles. Pray that Ryan will have patience and will use his time wisely to study when he can. And, if you are one of my customers, or one of my employees, please be patient and kind as I make my way back to the land of the working woman. I promise I will try my best!

Brother, Gus

(the day we brought Liam home)

I realize that I haven't written about Gus' transition into being a big brother, of course he loves him! Yay! I don't know why I ever worried. From the moment we brought Liam home, Gus has been a wonderful and protective big brother. He is very concerned with Liam's happiness and curious about everything that relates to him. If Liam cries, you can guarantee that Gus will either be in the middle of you trying to console him, or he will come and get you to make sure you realize the baby is crying. When our families were visiting Gus was protective of Liam and seemed to worry that not everyone knew what they were doing with the baby, he would hover near the rocking chair and constantly try to lick Liam's head to reassure him that he was near.

(Gus loves "checking" on Liam while he is asleep in his pack & play or taking a bath)

All this being said, we haven't gone through this transition without a few issues. Mainly, Gus looooves Liam's diapers. We keep a small trash can in our laundry room for dirty diapers and Gus goes in there the second the laundry room door is opened to sniff the trash can. On at least two occasions, Gus has successfully gotten diapers out of the trash can and shredded/consumed them before we discovered his naughtiness. Let me tell you, gross. The only success we have with keeping him out of the diapers is to keep him out of the laundry room, which really shouldn't be that hard, but we frequently leave the door open. The other day as I was doing laundry, I walked back into the laundry room to find the top of the trash can stuck around Gus' neck! I really wish I had taken a picture!

Another thing that Gus loves is anything that Liam has spit up on. Gross, I know. We have to make sure not to leave burp rags or bibs lying around because Gus is bound to steal them and lick them to death. He really loves it when Liam spits up on the floor, but honestly, I don't mind him cleaning that up for me. :)

The most recent issue we have had is that Gus doesn't seem to understand that Liam's toys are not his own. We have started trying to introduce a few things to Liam like a rattle, music player, and the stuffed musical glow thingy in the previous post. Anytime we start to try to engage Liam with one of these items Gus goes crazy. He begs for the toy, he sits patiently like a good boy, he waits and waits for us to give it to him...and we don't. I feel awful because I know he must be so confused. For the last two years any toy that we brought into our home was for him, and the baby toys do resemble a lot of his own toys. I sat the stuffed toy on the changing table the other day for Liam to watch while I changed his diaper. I came back into the room later and saw the tail of the toy sticking out from under the bed! We have no idea how to teach Gus that these are Liam's toys, so if anyone has any ideas or suggestions I would love to hear them!

All in all, I think we have had a pretty easy time bringing a baby into our dog's life. While I was pregnant everyone had a story for me of how they knew about someone who had to give their dog away after they had a baby, so I was truly worried. But, I think we have worked really hard to make sure that didn't have to happen. Gus still gets a ton of attention from us and we try to trust him to be near Liam so he hasn't been jealous. Hopefully as Liam is in the floor more and more things continue to go well! We love our babies, both fur and human!

Liam Update

Littleface got to come home on Sunday!

He has done nothing but eat and sleep since he got home.

We went to the pediatrician (gross germy & running 2 hours behing late) yesterday and Liam is doing great!  He has gained some weight back!

Since he is so small, and we are trying to fatten him up, I am only nursing him three of his eight feedings.  The other five are all breast milk in a bottle so we can monitor how much he is eating.  This means that I have to feed him and then pump (read: exhausted).

Ryan continues to be the best husband/father in all the land.  He has been getting up in the night to feed Liam so that I can just pump and we all only have to be awake for thirty minutes instead of an hour.  He has also sacrificed a lot of his study time to take care of me and Liam and I am so thankful that he is willing to do that for his family.

I had a follow up appointment with my doctor today to check my incision and it is healing wonderfully.  I am so thankful that my scar will be small and may even go away completely, my doctor did a great job.  I have to go back in four weeks for another check.  When I was putting the date into my phone I realized that it would still be before Liam's due date.  So strange.

I am exhausted, but have not been very good at napping.  I think I am just now starting to "nest."  Every time it's a good time for a nap I decide it's a better time to do a load of laundry or deep clean the bathroom sink.  I'm working on letting it go.  :)

on the nest...

Ryan and I are expecting our first little birdie!  

I am currently 8 weeks pregnant, and we are due November 13, 2010.

We are so very excited and blessed!  

more to come!

Photo Friday

I know that this isn't a scenic picture of a beautiful land that I have been to, but I was browsing through my facebook photos and saw this...and there you have it.  This is what I wrote, almost two years ago, as a caption for this photo in my facebook album:

this is the good life...

through debt and betrayal and break-ins and car break downs...

this is the life we live and it's good because we have each other and we have faith that it will all work out...

 because we are loved by someone greater than ourselves...

 This is true yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  We truly have a good life.  I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Decided to post this one as well.  From the same album, two summers ago.  

On our way to see The Dark Knight.  

Love this boy.  Love this photo.

i think i can, i think i can...

I am psyching myself up for a very very busy week.  Isn't the week before vacation always the worst?  I mean, I am usually pretty busy so I don't think I actually have more to do this week.  I am just so ready for a break that it seems like far more than it usually does.  The good news is; my Monday is over!  All I have to do today is empty and load the dishwasher and make supper.  Wonderful!  

Then I get to open three days in a row, have my monthly meeting with my district manager, go to one super fun birthday dinner, go to my amazing home group, do a lot of laundry, pack for myself, pack for Gus, find out what we are doing with Gus, eat all of the leftovers...and we're off!  

Like a herd of turtles.  

I am so looking forward to relaxing and doing nothing for a few days.  Ahh...  

everyone needs this in their kitchen!

Well, maybe it's not everyone's taste, but I sure think that this print is precious!  And, it would look perfect in my red kitchen!  CJane recently posted about Persimmonandpink's etsy shop, and there is some pretty cute stuff!  The best part is, now through the end of February all shipping is FREE!  Thought I would share in case anyone has any decorating to do/gifts to purchase!  I am hoping to be displaying this in my kitchen very soon!  

on moving a dog to a new home...

For posterity's sake I decided to list the problems that poor Gus has had since we moved to our new apartment a month ago.

*The day we moved in we brought him over to check things out...he pooped on our bedroom floor.

*The day after we moved in...he threw up on the living room floor.  All of our cleaning supplies were still at the old apartment and I could tell that he was going to puke some more.  So, I definitely held him over the toilet while he threw up two more times!

*We live on the third floor, and when we first moved in Gus was terrified of the stairs.  He are pretty sure he has a fear of heights and the stairs and landings are wooden and you can see through the cracks.  We literally had to drag him up and down the stairs every single time we took him out up until about two weeks ago.

*There is a gas fireplace in our living room, one day I kept finding little black pieces of something on the carpet.  I finally caught Gus digging bits of rock out of the fireplace and eating them.  Not a smart idea to eat rocks that have been in a gas fireplace.  He was sick for a few days.  We invested in a fireplace screen.

*About a week after we moved in Ryan came home to find that Gus had gotten into his food.  We estimated that the poor dog had eaten about a week's worth of food in one afternoon.  Needless to say, there was poop and puke everywhere.  Also needless to say, we did not feed him for two days afterwards and he laid around with a swollen belly.  Poor ornery little guy!

*Last week Gus got ahold of a new Netflix DVD and decided to shred the wrapper into a million pieces as well as bite through the DVD.  Yup, we had to pay for that one.

I'm hoping that things level out pretty soon.  This dog is far too spoiled to be acting out!  He sure is cute though!

life in a snow globe.

this is the first time that i can remember actually having a winter.  sure, it has always been cold in the winter; at least for a little bit.  usually snows once or twice but doesn't stick.  or, there is one big blowout ice storm.  however, this year mother nature decided to show us what winter was all about.

we had a lot of cold weather in december and i think i remember a few flurries as well.

in january we had an 'arctic blast' which put our temperatures well below zero for the better part of a week.

two weeks ago we had 4-5 inches of snow.

last week we had an inch or so of snow and a few days of flurries.

it snowed again last night and into today, i think we had two inches of powder total.  gorgeous puffy big flakes.  the kind that truly do stay on your nose and eyelashes.  lovely.

i really don't hate it; as long as ryan is around to de-ice my car, drive me to work, and take the dog out.  ;)

um, hi...

yup, i did it again. stopped blogging for months at a time. oh well, it's my blog and i'll do what i want with it! :)

i'm not even going to try to catch up the past four months. i will just start from here and see where it goes.

ryan is in his second semester of grad school and i am so proud of all that he has accomplished! i have a smarty little husby! and he's cute too!

little gus gus has turned into a sweet little dog, thanks in part to a little ball slashing. ;) he likes to snuggle, but will still growl if the snuggling is not his idea.

i am working and working and working. and spending my free time watching the food network and putting off organizing/unpacking from our latest move.

yes, you read that right...we moved again! i think we are up to 7 moves now since getting hitched 9/2006. we found a cute little loft apartment that we are liking a lot. we also got an incredible deal on the rent and locked in to an 18 month lease. so, we will be here for sure until june 2011. then, hopefully in a more permanent situation. once we get everything unpacked and decorated i will post pictures for a virtual tour.

that's all for now, i'll be back!

warp speed

our lives have been so insanely busy for the last month that i'm not sure how we've gotten anything done.

ryan's trooper bit the dust (again) in July and we have been a one-car-family ever since. this has made reading Harry Potter books an easier task, but has also made for a lot of running around and back and forth.

i've been super busy at work (and at home constantly thinking about work).

ryan just started graduate school.

we're trying to get involved at church and are going to events and cooking for families, etc.

so, it hasn't been bad to be so busy, just tiring. i am completely enjoying having today off in our quite house. i've been sitting on the couch since 9:30 doing a whole lot of nothing...and right now, i can't move because there is a sweet puppy curled up asleep on my feet. :)

domestic goddess

today was my day off and i spent it actually getting stuff done. this is very rare for me. days off are usually spent parked on the coach watching whatever i'm allowed to watch on the dvr without ryan, or they are spent at work (don't ask).

but today i was motivated, and i am proud of myself so i wanted to list what i accomplished (because i love lists)...

*woke up before 9am (on my own)
*walked Gus, fed Gus, and walked Gus again
*had a phone meeting with my boss
*washed, dried, and folded 4 loads of laundry (they are all waiting to be put away by my loving husband)
*had a lovely lunch with ryan at whole foods...yum
*trip to target to buy cleaning supplies and other necessities (like dresses)
*cleaned both toilets
*emptied and loaded the dishwasher and hand washed the pots and pans
*dusted the downstairs
*changed the sheets on our bed

whew. now, i know that this is really not much for some people. but when i am home, i am l.a.z.y. it is my down-time, my me-time, my shut-off-from-the-world-time. so i am pleased with this list. who knows, maybe stay at home motherhood is in the cards for me?