Halloween!

I didn't do anything overly crafty for the girls Halloween costumes.  It's good that I didn't pan anything elaborate because we had another bad sleep week so I was struggling anyway.  I think I'm learning my limits, maybe?  Months ago I ordered these shirts from Zulily (affiliate link).  R.Soup's is actually a onesie, but close enough.

I had a red tutu for L.Soup from a party and a pair of pants (0-3 months and a little short - but definitely still fit... thank goodness for tiny babies) with a tutu attached for R.Soup.  I ordered these socks from Amazon and made them into baby legs for L.Soup so their bottoms will match (minus the heels).

I put long sleeve under shirts and stockings on each of them for some added warmth.  I asked my grandfather to knit them each a red hat to keep their heads warm and my mom made them bows to attach to the hats.


We didn't go to many houses, but I figured it would be more fun for me them if we went in the wagon instead of a stroller.

I don't know how many times I'll be able to do this matching thing before they start rebelling against me. 

So I'm soaking this all in.

Already?

I have a 6 month old.

I've been thinking about it all day and I'm still having a hard time with it. 

This tiny little nugget is 6 months old.

She's trying desperately to figure out how to crawl. 

She's getting more balance and is now able to sit up on her own for a few minutes.

She's interested in absolutely everything.

She's so serious, but so completely silly sometimes.

She LOVES her sister and laughs at everything she does.


She's starting to make more than just "ahh" sounds.

She's chewing on everything.

She's tried three foods - avocado, banana, and pumpkin.

SHE'S SIX MONTHS OLD.

I don't get it.

Happy Half Birthday baby girl.

Some paper crafting!

I've had a few Silhouette paper cutting projects recently.  That I've used a few of my "free nights" to work on.  It's taken forever to get some of them done but I'm glad I can finally make time for some sort of crafting again.

Two of my good friends are getting married (to each other) in 15 days!  A few months ago she asked me if I could help with some paper things for the wedding.  First up was a sticker to attach to the welcome bags that she had for hotel guests and the bridal party.  She gave me a general idea of what she liked, along with some examples for inspiration.  I came up with a few samples, but finally ended up with this:

(font is Janda Elegant Handwriting)

I printed them onto some full sheets of sticker paper that she had purchased and brought to me, and she said it almost looks like they were printed directly onto the bags! 

Next up, my mom asked for some help with developing a new business card for her Etsy shop.  She wants to completely remodel and streamline the look of her page, including the paper that she sends associated with her orders.  She wanted something on Kraft paper, so I came up with this:

(Fonts: Young & Beautiful, GeosansLight)

She loved that they looked like bows.

In looking for new ways to decorate my house for Halloween, I kept coming across this picture.

source

I desperately wanted to do this on our garage, so I searched through the image options for the Silhouette and found a group of bats that I thought would work well.  I set them up (all 60 of them) and cut them out on some black vinyl.

Here's what my version looks like:

I feel pretty good about the very little bit of crafting I've been able to accomplish lately.  Hopefully soon I will be able to increase my level of production.

Cross your fingers.

But don't hold your breath.

Now... what, exactly?

It's been an interesting few weeks at the Soup house....

D.Soup now has a red meat allergy.

My self proclaimed "meatatarian" husband can no longer eat beef, pork, or lamb.  His hands and feet start to swell, rashes form up his arms, and he has terrible stomach pains.

Also, pork being "the other white meat" is a lie.  Rude.

All because of a tick bite.

The Lone Star Tick has been spreading across the country, and if it bites you there is a chance that you will develop an allergy to red meat.  The tick carries a sugar called Galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose(alpha-gal) in its belly.  It transfers the alpha-gal to you and your body starts to fight it like it would a disease.  Alpha-gal is also found in the fatty parts of all non-primate mammals.  So when your body processes the fat cells of any red meat that you have eaten, you have an allergic reaction.

...That's my very dumbed down explanation of this whole shenanigans.

What does this mean for us?

We will now be a fish and fowl loving family.  We are only in the first week of transferring over to our new lifestyle and we honestly don't know how much he will be affected by different scenarios.  A lot of people with this allergy have issues eating out because of cross contamination.  We will have to take it day by day.  He has been prescribed an Epi pen, and we now have Benadryl stored in every vehicle and multiple areas in our house.


The good news.

He doesn't (so far) seem to have any feelings of his throat closing up during a reaction.

We already eat a decent amount of chicken.  So transitioning isn't going to be TOO hard for a majority of our meals. 

The other good thing is that turkey is much healthier than beef, so it will help us in our weight loss endeavors.

There is a chance that the allergy will go away on its own (3 weeks to 5 years is the "average"), he has to be careful not to get another Lone Star tick bite, because that will bring the allergy back, or make it worse if he is still allergic at the time of the bite.   

The bad news.

D.Soup hunts.  Deer meat is included in the list of no-nos.  We haven't tested it, and some people say they can still eat it so we are feeling hopeful at the moment.  We shall see.

We also have bags and bags of beef - hamburgers, steaks, ground beef, cubes - in our freezers.  I'm going to have to package everything up and give it away.  At least we know people around us that will take it, so we don't have to throw everything away.

It's also possible that we could deal with cross contamination in our own kitchen.  We use cast iron pans to cook a majority of our meals.  Those could very easily have remnants of meat that might affect him.



There's so much more.  I start thinking about it and I end up in a rabbit hole of stress and panic.  We just don't know everything that he will react to so its a strange and slightly scary time for us me.  He is less panicked than I am, at least externally.  I think if I wasn't so stressed about it he would be more stressed, but for now he has to deal with all my craziness so he's taken on his job as the confident one.

I can't believe that a tick bite can do this to people.  Hardly anyone knows about it either. Almost everyone that we've talked to has been completely dumbfounded that this is even a thing.

The allergist that D.Soup saw to get tested for alpha-gal was actually excited (for herself, not for him) that he was there.  She told him "I've studied this but have never actually seen a case of it before!  I'm going to have to do some more research!"

I will continue to post any changes.

Milestones

R.Soup has hit a few milestones in the last few weeks.  She's scooting backwards all over the floor.  She's so close to sitting up on her own.  She had her first taste of real food a few days ago.

And then, just Monday night... This:

That's my baby.  All alone.  In the CRIB!  Gah.

I almost couldn't lay her down because I was so sad.  It couldn't be time for this already!  But then I remembered the night before.  Her waking up quite a few times just to hang out.  With me.  Her father wasn't cutting it.

So I plunked her down in the crib and ran.  And then stared at the monitor for the rest of the night.

She did great!  Slept from 9ish until 3:30.  It took until about 5 to get her back to sleep.  And again she only wanted me (...yay).  But when she went back to sleep again she stayed asleep until 8.

Last night was not as great, but I think it was more my fault than hers.  I honestly am not completely sure, but it took 2 hours to get her to sleep finally.  Then she woke up around 3 and again around 5:30.  That second time I had D.Soup go get her because I just couldn't convince myself to get out of the bed.

We have been soooo late to work this week.

Growing

I've watched over the last few months as the bigger of my little baby girls has grown and changed and turned into a not so little-little girl.  Hair that refused to grow for the first 18 months of her life has sprouted and stretched and is now consistently in her eyes if its down.  The back, with its beautiful ringlet curls, pulls down to the middle of her back if straightened out.  It makes her look so much more grown up then I'm personally okay with.

Her face looks less and less like a baby every day.  Her attitude screams teenager.  Sometimes I forget she's only 2, because she already seems so much older than that.

 I watched her one night this week take off running through a field full of other children.  Instead of just watching them, she joined in.  They taught her how to do a cartwheel, and I watched her try to maneuver her tiny arms and legs in the same way these bigger girls were.  She followed them around the rest of the evening, and they played with her.  Last month girls the same size ran around her as she tried to figure out how to include herself in their games.

A part of me wanted to follow her around, keep close to her.  But instead I watched her from a distance.  She would come running back to us to tell us what she had done, and with a smile take off again to find her new friends.

My beautiful big girl.

Where Mz.Soup gets to make (most of) Dinner

I don't get to make dinner often anymore.  A baby with hunger cries you could set a watch to and a toddler that wants to "help" me do everything puts a damper on that whole leisurely making dinner thing.  Even if I start making dinner I usually have to pass the torch over to D.Soup in the middle so I can give my attention somewhere else.  

We had some chicken in the refrigerator, and I had some fresh tomatoes and green beans from Pappy's garden.  So I headed to Skinnytaste for some recommendations and ended up landing on these two recipes:

Roasted Parmesan Green Beans

Grilled Chicken Bruschetta

Both recipes only took about 15 minutes each once the vegetables were prepped.  It was a perfect quick meal that allowed D.Soup to grill the chicken and me to deal with the vegetable portion while passing R.Soup back and forth.  Luckily, L.Soup didn't take a nap yesterday so she had passed out in the car on the way home.  She slept on the couch through the entire dinner making process.

Not so luckily, she was not very friendly for the rest of the evening.  

On fancy dinnerware.

L.Soup attitude issues aside.  This was by far one of the best dinners we have had in a long time.  Definitely both options will be added into our dinner menu mix frequently from here on out.

Why do kids fight napping so much?

I would nap every day if someone let me.

And I wouldn't get fired.

Not quite sleeping

The last few nights, R.Soup has not exactly been sleeping.  I'm pretty sure she's in the middle of a growth spurt because the only way to comfort her when she wakes up is to feed her.  I know this is a fact, because I had D.Soup take her for a little while at 3 am on Monday night, and she just stared in my direction and screamed the entire 15 minutes until I gave in and took her back.  The little angel.

The last two nights were poorly placed (for me) since I'm still trying to recover from last weeks 5:30 every day wake up call culminating with Friday's no-sleepathon.

Let me start over.

D.Soup went away for work last week.  So while he was gone, instead of trying to get the girls and the dog into the car every morning on my own and still make it to work before 10 am, I stayed on my parents couch.  Each day I got up at 5:30 and snuck out before anyone was awake. 

(Side note, is snuck not a word?  I'm getting yelled at by spell check)

The problem with this is that I would still stay up until 11 or later each night, so I wasn't getting much sleep to begin with.  Then the last day we were there, L.Soup decided she didn't want to go to bed, and laid in her bed singing the ABCs until about 11:15.  I waited a little while, and went to bed around 11:45.

At midnight I heard R.Soup.  Of course.  And OF COURSE, every time I tried to put her back down, she would wake up and cry again.  So she and I ended up snuggling the rest of the night morning.  When I went to tell my mom I was leaving, I noticed L.Soup wasn't in her bed.  I had a moment of panic, before I found her snuggled down in between my parents in THEIR bed.

So it wasn't a good sleeping night for anyone.  

I got a little reprieve Friday and Saturday nights, and some extra time in bed both mornings while D.Soup handled the girls downstairs and made breakfast.  But I was finally coming back out of my haze when Sunday night hit and she woke up every 2 hours on the dot.  And then Monday night was basically the same.  I was in the middle of staining a crate in the basement when I heard her.  I had D.Soup go try to rock her back to sleep, and it worked for a while.  Just long enough in fact for me to get the stain off my hands (more on that later).

I pretty much spent the whole night sitting up in our brand new bed.  Until that 3 am situation, and I just couldn't muster the energy to sit up anymore.  So then I woke up to this:

I sleep great when I'm right next to mom.

And when its time to get up for the day.

Last night I didn't have the energy to even think about anything but sleeping by the time the girls were in bed.  I managed to make my way back downstairs, only to trudge right back upstairs and pass out.

At least she's cute.

Shelf support and storage!

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

After getting the shelves put into the laundry room, we knew we needed to get a support underneath the larger shelf between the washer and dryer, because it wasn't completely stable and the boards would start sagging otherwise.  Originally, it was just going to be a bracket type of support, but as we continued to think about it, we realized there was enough space there for some storage as well.

Of course I love storage, so I was all in for that plan.

Once we decided on that, D.Soup couldn't think about anything else.  So a few nights later after L.Soup was in bed, we mosied down to the basement and got to work.  The plan came from D.Soup's brain, and we're not master pattern makers or anything, so it's not a finished piece by any means.   But it will be perfect for between the two machines.

We knew the height to the bottom of the shelf was 37", and the space between the two machines was 13".  We had some spare 2x4's hanging around that would be the perfect skeleton...

Testing out the Kreg Jig.

We wanted to do a trial run on the Kreg Jig before my bedside table building session, and I also didn't want to be able to see any screws in the finished product.  After a few rounds of listening to D.Soup grumble about not understanding what he was supposed to be doing, I found a "how to use the Kreg Jig" instruction blog post.  Things seemed to go much more smoothly after that.

One side

Box Shape

Leveling out the last piece

We didn't have any plywood, so we picked some up the next day when we took our trip to the hardware store.  Unfortunately, D.Soup didn't account for the width of the plywood when measuring for size, so there is no space to put outside walls up that we had intended on doing.  I'm planning on getting baskets to use for storing things anyway, so the walls probably aren't completely necessary.

All done!

The more I look at it, the more I think we should have put the front 2x4 in the middle the other way, to allow that bottom shelf to have a little more space in the front.  It's easily fixable, but we'll see if it actually happens.

A few days later, we decided to put the cat door in, and finish up all the goals for the laundry room right now.  I sat on the floor in the hallway with my hands over L.Soup's ears while D.Soup cut a hole in the bottom of the door.  She's basically terrified of anything that makes a loud noise (except herself).  So whenever possible I try to let her experience loud noises from the protection of my (or her father's) arms.  It seems to be helping her get more and more brave around things she shouldn't be scared of.  Like a screwdriver.  Or the vacuum.

Bonus!

I'm so happy things are getting done around here.

Building with friends

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

Our bedroom has basically been the most ignored room in our house since we moved in.  There are so many plans that I have for this room, but we just haven't made the time to work on them.  It's a beautiful sized room, but we have filled it with things that are not exactly screaming bedroom sanctuary.

Originally, I had a whole description of the room written here.  But it was confusing and I kept forgetting to include the pictures that would help it make more sense, so I'll do a before and after soon.

But, until then....

We need night stands.  Badly.  I can't have the baby sleeping in the co-sleeper with my jewelry and the monitor for L.Soup and my phone all hanging out in there with her.  I also need the room to start looking more like a place that adults sleep, and less like a college dorm room.

My friend and I made a deal that if she helps me build these, I'll help her build an entertainment center in a few months when it's warmer.  So the plans were made, and a few weekends ago it was happening...

When mom takes too long putting the cart together, dad decides where we ride.

D. Soup and I made our way to the hardware store on Saturday, and Sunday was the day!  They were finally getting done!  She got to my house around 10, and we hung out for a little while and then got to work.  We got through the cutting part pretty quickly and efficiently.  This was the part I was more worried about, but apparently my friend was 100% confident in our cutting abilities.  We actually did much better than I expected, considering D. Soup never lets me cut anything.

All our wood cut up

The next step was assembly.  I was far more confident on this part, because I know how to use a drill and hammer.  We hit a few snags when instructions weren't completely clear, or when we discovered that our assistant (my friends mom) had not provided us with all the cuts we needed, so we had to steal a few pieces from the pile for the second night stand.  Not a huge deal, but it was confusing for a little while.

We also used the Kreg Jig to connect most of the pieces together, which took a bit of a learning curve.  But we got it figured out eventually.  It's actually really awesome!

Halfway there!

The other issue we ran into was the pine 2x2's we were working with were warped.  The nice wood in the lumber section at the hardware store was only available in 3 foot sections for 2x2's, and I was NOT paying $5.50 for a 3 foot section, especially when I needed 13 of them.  No thanks.

Luckily D.Soup found 8 foot pine 2x2's in another section, but they aren't as nice as the other materials.  Not a huge deal because I can easily sand them down to look nice.  The biggest issue was the warping, like I said.  It caused us a little trouble when putting the front bottom piece on.  It actually pulled the screw out of the board directly under the drawer.  We had to cut another board for that section that was a little longer and replace it so that it stayed attached.  That was frustrating.

For full disclosure:  We also had a slight mishap with the top boards.  We tried clamping all 3 pieces together and then screwing them together, and that caused the top piece to curve in the center.  I think I'm going to take it back apart and try again so that its more even across the top.

But in all honesty, you can hardly tell anything is wrong with it unless you are very seriously inspecting it.

Finished (unfinished) product!

I'm so happy with how it turned out.  Everyone was super impressed (and surprised... thanks a lot) at how good of a job we did, considering we don't use power tools very often.  Unfortunately we only got one done, because we had a few minor delays and we had to stop for eating and for babies and things of that nature.

The other one is in the works still, it's been a busy few weeks.  I'm hoping that it will get done soon so we will have a matching set.

I love mine already.

Adult outing time

D.Soup and I don't take many chances to have just "us time" outside the house.  We spend a few hours together every night after L.Soup goes to bed either working on some house stuff, or watching shows that we both like. 

D.Soup enters the weekly raffle through his company for tickets to the Capitals games, and we lucked out when he scored a pair for Tuesdays game against the Sharks.  We scheduled an extended day with my parents and made plans to leave straight from work to head to DC.

Originally my mom offered to just have L.Soup sleep at their house, but that plan was changed when I admitted I wasn't emotionally ready to not see her at all between Tuesday morning drop off and Wednesday afternoon pickup.  She will be 2 in April, and I have never been away from her for more than a work day.  I didn't want my first night away from her to be one where I was coming home to sleep in my own bed.

We got to DC around 4, and decided just to eat at the Greene Turtle.  It's attached to the Verizon Center, and it was a little gross outside last night.  That, and I wasn't terribly hungry, so I didn't want to go somewhere nice and not actually eat anything.

We split two appetizers - the Mozzarella Caprese and Crab Dip.  After that I was full.  We sat for a little while and just enjoyed each others company, while also people watching.  Of course.

D.Soup decided he wanted to get some wings before we went in for the game.  So I took that opportunity to order something I've been craving for the last week or so.  ICE CREAM.  On top of a brownie which was a definite bonus in my book.  It was delicious.

I was surprised at the number of people that would look at me, and then look down at my belly.  I guess the hockey jersey was throwing them off.  I don't think it was that hard to tell that I am pregnant even through the larger than average shirt.  But apparently some people were having difficulty what exactly was going on under there.

There were some older men sitting behind us, and while two of them were obviously interested in the game, the other two were absolutely not.  They spent the second and third periods gossiping like two little school girls.  It took everything in my red haze filled pregnant brain not to turn around and tell them to shut the eff up.  I couldn't stop myself from loudly complaining to D.Soup about them though.  There's only so much I can do to contain the anger.  At the end of the second period, I actually heard one of the two of them say:

"wait, why are there 0's up on the time clock?"
"It's the end of the second period??  Already??"

Sweet Mary.  How do you miss an entire 20 minutes of game time?!

Anywho... The game was really good, but sadly the Caps ended up losing in the shootout.

We had a great time, AND I got to see my girl this morning when she woke up.  Double bonus.

Thanks again, mom and dad!!

8 months later

We were cleaning up for having people over during the holidays.  I figured this would be a good time to remove the last of the decorations from L.Soup's first birthday party.  In April.

....It was only 2 things.  The Happy Birthday sign I had made as part of the decorations, and a small section of our living room wall dedicated to pictures of her from each month of her first year.

I had been fighting taking them down.

I mean, who doesn't want a wall shrine dedicated to their infant baby who is now a walking, talking, almost 2 year old machine?  That was the hardest part.

Before

After

I gently removed all the pictures from the wall and folded the tape over so that it was not visible.  Just incase I wanted to save them.  Forget about the fact that they were just printed on regular paper.  Or the fact that the pictures are all saved on my computer and I can easily print them again whenever I want.

Before

After

I had D.Soup pull the sign down.  Because I'm short and shouldn't be climbing on the couch trying desperately to reach the little Command hooks that were holding the sign up.  (PS.  Those things are awesome for party decorating!)  I carefully folded it up and put it with the pictures to be stored away somewhere.

So the walls are clear.  I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad about that fact.  The first night was definitely a sad moment for me.  But mid takedown I turned to D.Soup and said "I'm thinking..."

D. Soup:  You're thinking you want to paint what?

Me: How did you know I was going to say that??

D.Soup: You always want to paint something.

Me:  Well I'm thinking about chalkboard for this little section of wall.

So there might be another project looming in my future.  After Christmas.  And New Years.  And everything else that I've already got on my list.

Aka Never

Halloween!

Originally, when I was planning out a costume for L.Soup, I had everything ready for her to be a princess.  Or a fairy.  Or maybe even a really cute witch.  See, my sister passed down this adorable dress that her daughter wore for our wedding when she was the same age as L.Soup is right now.  I thought it would be perfect for a costume.

My niece and sister at my wedding.

Then I started thinking about it, and realized that in a few years she's going to be asking to be a princess, or a fairy, or maybe even a witch.  So I needed something else.

I was going to try to fit the dress into whatever plan I came up with, but it seemed more tailored towards my first 3 options.

I finally settled on candy corn.  Figuring I could add a little satin fabric to the dress and make her look like the fanciest piece of candy corn ever created.  So I went and bought the fabric.  And then I hemmed and hawed.  Is this going to look completely ridiculous?  Is adding pieces of fabric to this dress going to ruin it?  Is it going to even look like candy corn when I'm done with it?  Is it going to be warm enough?

So I hedged the idea of using the dress.   But by this point I was pretty dedicated to the candy corn concept.  My mom mentioned she had a good amount of felt in pretty much every color, since she uses them for hair felties.  She was nice enough to let me use some of it, and Monday night I created THIS:

I took a dress that fits her right now and used it as a pattern.  I just flipped the dress inside out, and traced (leaving a little extra all the way around for seams) around the outside of the dress for each color section.  The bottom of the pattern dress hits her right about mid thigh, so I knew I wanted it to be a little longer.  The orange fabric in the costume goes to the same length as the actual dress, and then the yellow is extra. I traced and cut two pieces for each color.  I could have also just cut one piece for each color, and only had one seam.  The white pieces are shaped a little differently for front and back, so I decided to do two seams for each level.

I sewed the colors together, for each side (front and back).  Then I carefully sewed the first seam, making sure the colors lined up perfectly with each other.  I had to do some trimming in the arm holes because I apparently am terrible at tracing, but it wasn't a huge issue.  Finished up the other side and I was basically done.

I'm pretty excited about how it turned out.  I got to use my KAM Snaps at the shoulders and overall it's perfect.  I enjoy working with felt, because you don't have worry about cut edges unraveling.  It was nice to not have to hem every unfinished section.  That just meant that I had to be very neat when cutting the arm and neck holes and the bottom of the dress.

What are you doing to me right now?

It's a little long.  Actually, it's exactly the perfect length.  Except L.Soup hates that it covers her feet, and she continuously pulls her legs up to try to figure out where they went.  So I'm going to have to cut an inch or two off the bottom.  Not a huge deal.  I might put it on her a few more times before I do to see if she gets used to it.  I kind of love it the way it is.

I even got inspired while I was in the crafting room, and printed out the pattern I bought a few months ago to make L.Soup a winter coat.  I got all the pieces cut out, now I just need to tape them together and get started. 

Now I just need to teach L.Soup to say "trick or treat".

That, and not cry every time she sees someone she doesn't know.

Yeah right.

Well that all went to hell

I was really excited about this whole weight loss thing.  Getting really motivated and even thinking about (gasp!) working in some running here and there.  Then this happened.

So for now, I'm putting the weight loss on hold, and I'm going to focus more on maintaining the current weight and not gaining too terribly much.  Since I never got rid of all the baby weight from L.Soup, I'm hoping to hold myself fairly level on the scale for as long as possible.  I'm going to continue eating healthy, well portioned meals.  Which is completely different from how I reacted to my first pregnancy, which was more like this:

original image source

With my first pregnancy, I was nauseated the first 3 months and lost 12 pounds.  But I ended up gaining it all back and then some with a little thing I like to call no self control.  That's the part I'm trying to avoid this time around.

At this point, I'm not having much of an issue with that, because every food related thing I see makes me want to die.  So... so far so good.

When I got pregnant the first time, I didn't want to make anything public on the internet.  I felt very private about what was happening to me, and didn't want to share it with everyone that I am linked to.  Well now a majority of my internet activity is posting cute pictures and videos of my daughter to Facebook and Instagram, so I think this time around I'll share more of the beginning stages too.

Last time I was sure that I would take weekly pictures of my progress and document everything, and I ended up with one picture of me at four weeks, and a picture of the positive pregnancy test.  That's it.  No other belly shots, not really many pictures of me at all from the entire pregnancy.

I'll try to be better this time around.

Back?

So I maintained basic radio silence for the last few months.  I figured:

1. It was too early to tell anyone at the onset that I was growing a person...
2. All I really had to talk about was how horrible I was feeling. I'm one of those lucky women that apparently experiences constant morning sickness throughout the first trimester.  Yay.
3. How many people really want to hear about how I feel like I'm going to pass out or barf every day? 
4. Because of said morning sickness I generally did nothing all day.  I would stare at my computer and forced myself to complete tasks at work.  Once I got home from work all bets were off.  Other than attempting to mildly amuse L.Soup I was useless to everyone around me.  I tried to be useless to her too, but she wasn't having it.
5. This included any projects that I had been working on before I found out about the little person.

Well, it seems that I'm starting to come out of the haze.  Still a little tired, but generally excited about starting back up on some projects.  I'm currently working on some signs for my youngest nephew's 2nd birthday party this weekend.  Because I'm on a little bit of a time crunch, my mom is going to be super awesome and help with some of the gluing.  She's totally amazing because that is the.worst.part. I think, at least.

I'll try to remember to take some pictures of them at the party.  Here's some of the samples:

Obviously, it's Finding Nemo themed...

Cupcake Toppers

Banner

Also, thanks to my little mini vacation last week (aka, the furlough) I got everything set up and D.Soup to help me start taping the wall so I can FINALLY finish the foyer.  It's been killing me that it's not done, so hopefully SOON.

We also put up some Halloween decorations outside, and I took some terrible pictures.  Once I get some better ones, I'll try to post them here too.  I have every intention of doing some more Halloween related crafts, but it may very well end up just being L.Soup's costume.

I'm keeping my expectations of myself low so I don't get too disappointed.

A little announcement

When I was pregnant with L.Soup I had a few of your usual pregnancy symptoms: nausea, exhaustion, cravings. The strangest thing I experienced though was complete and utter disgust at the sight or smell of meat cooking. I could eat it after the fact, once it was far away from the stove. But you couldn't ask me to be involved in the process at all. It was horrible. The first time I cooked dinner after I found out I was pregnant, I was so disgusted by the time it was done that I couldn't eat. After that it just grew more and more intense, and the sight/smell made me gag. I don't think I ever got sick (from that... no, other things... yes) but it was bad enough that D.Soup got stuck with dinner duty for pretty much the entire pregnancy.

Well, imagine my surprise at the end of July when cooking dinner made me feel absolutely terrible. I was sure that it was just an extension from earlier in the day when I was not feeling the greatest due to a horrible nights sleep. I muttered something about not feeling very well, and sat down to eat dinner. While sitting there I told D.Soup that afterwards I was going to run upstairs and take a test - just incase.  He agreed it was probably a good idea. We haven't been trying, but with our track record (it took one try before L.Soup was an actuality) I figured better safe than sorry.

 Well:

There's no denying that...



 Or that.

Week wrap-up

This week has been so busy!  We haven't had made a real dinner at home the entire week.  One night we had time to make grilled cheese, but that's it!  Hopefully tonight we'll have a real dinner, in our own home.  Next week is going to be just as busy.  Everything always happens at the same time.  I never have time to do any crafting!  <insert foot stomp here>

Since I have no crafting to talk about, I'll just recap the week.  Because I know you all are soooo interested.

Sunday - We went to a party at a nearby bouncy play place for our very good friend's daughter's 3rd birthday.  L.Soup (despite only getting a 30 minute nap in the car because she REFUSED to sleep) had a blast.  She hasn't quite figured out the idea of jumping yet.  So she just marched around in the bounce houses all wobbly while the other kids bounced around her.  She also made D.Soup take her down the big slide about 40 times.  It was cute.  I'm glad it was him and not me, because we probably would have died.  I don't have enough balance to pull myself up the little ledge stairs, let along drag her along with me.

Monday - This was grilled cheese day.  That's all I remember from that day, and I only remember that because D.Soup reminded me about it this morning.  Pretty sure I laid on the couch most of the afternoon.

Tuesday - Dinner with some great friends that we don't get to see very often anymore.  They have a little boy that's just over a month younger than L.Soup.  They are finally getting to an age where they acknowledge each others existence, so it's really great to see them play "together".  L.Soup chased him around the house and handed him back anything that he dropped like "dude, stop making a mess".  She's becoming a mild neat freak.  I don't know where she gets that from.  Definitely not from her parents.

Wednesday - We had surprise dentist appointments.  I say surprise because when I got the "reminder" call on Monday, it was the first time I had ever heard about it.  I'm the one that makes the appointments, so I had to have done it the last time we were there.  But I have NO recollection of that AT ALL.  Glad to report that I am cavity free, as is D.Soup.  So that's awesome.  I signed L.Soup up for her first dentist appointment, but promptly had to reschedule when I realized that I'm an idiot and only added her to my medical health insurance and not dental or vision.  They should give a mother more than a month to get that stuff situated.  My brain was in NO place to think about all that stuff within a month of having her. 

So now I have to wait until December to add her during "open access" with my company.  So I scheduled our next appointments for February.  That should be fine.  Its not like she needs anything actually done to her teeth anyway.

Wednesday was also a big day for us because it was L.Soup's first time having Maryland Crab Soup!  As a Maryland girl, I'm proud of her for eating every drop.  It was homemade (by my momma) too.  Delicious.  L.Soup and I had dinner at my parents house while D.Soup was working on (conveniently enough) a crabbing boat that he's planning on buying off his friend next year.  He wants to make sure its in working condition before he acquires it though.  So hopefully there will be more crabs for more soup in the future!  Yummo.

Thursday -  Family dinner!  My sister has an au pair to help take care of her kids.  She's (the au pair) moving to a new family this weekend, and my sister's family welcomed a new girl into their house.  We went over her house to have a welcome/goodbye get together.  We had pizza and salad and fruit, and played with the kids and hung out.  It was super fun.  L.Soup got to go "shopping" and get a new toy from Aunt Sissy's house.  Since her kids don't play with it anymore, it's moved to our house.

Friday - Today is Friday!  Hooray!  I'm so happy its almost the weekend!  My grandfather needs some help moving a heavy water tank in his basement.  So D.Soup is going to check that out today, and we'll probably go back over there tomorrow so he can help him get it moved.  That's really the only thing we have going on this afternoon.  It's beautiful out, so maybe we can go for a walk, or just spend some time outside this afternoon.  I'd like to get some more of the foyer wall worked on, but I'm not holding my breath.  We are such slackers. 

Today is also L.Soup's first "golden birthday."  She's 16 months today (the 16th)!  I know it doesn't really count since she's not 16 YEARS old.  But it's still her birthday.  So there.  She's so big.

Weekend - We have got some serious cleaning up to do around our house this weekend.  We are having my family over next weekend, and our week is so packed full that we aren't going to have time to work on the house much during the actual week.  We'll see how that actually goes.

Here's hoping that I can get some craftiness back into my life sometime soon.

Year Two

Eleven years ago I met a boy that was so completely mean to me every time he saw me that at one point I ended up in tears.  I did not like him, at.all.

Nine years ago today I realized that same boy was only mean to me because he liked me, and was unsure how to show it... Other than the in the way of a 5 year old.  And I started dating him.

Two years ago today I married that boy man.  In a beautiful building surrounded by our friends and family.

One year ago today I celebrated with that man, and a little tiny addition to our new little family cooking in my belly.

I couldn't be happier with the steps that it got us to get to this point.  We have our days that we don't really like each other.  But we always end up working things out in our way. We are both stubborn and hotheaded, and we try to do way too many things.  But we make sure to find time for us.  We never curse at each other.  And we make sure to say I love you as often as possible, no matter what.

I love you.