Life of Lacey

The Real Star of the Show

2012-01-26T16:49:00.007-05:00

I know it's been a while since Tuna has made an appearance on the ol' blog. And I'm sorry about that. I know he's some of y'all's favorite cat in the whole wide world. But, Tuna knew that Charley was about to roll over for the very first time** as I was videoing her, so he thought he'd make a slight appearance in the video himself.

**She has been rolling over from back to front for about a week now, but her arm always gets folded underneath her and she had yet to figure out how to get it out until today. So none of those other rolls counted until today's, where she finally was able to pull that arm out from underneath her.

[I'm kicking myself for videoing in portrait instead of in landscape! Grr!]

(Now you know why we call him "The Creepster".)

And he has now reclaimed his spot as the star of this show.

Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 10

2012-01-23T22:33:00.001-05:00

& finally, I can actually finish a blog challenge. Unlike this one, and this one that I gave up on. Late is better than never! For Friday December 9th, the topic was this: NYE memories/pictures.

Let's start with the first day of the new millennium. It would seem that since I was in the midst of my senior year in high school with no shortage of friends that I would have great memories from this New Year's. But no. I don't know where everyone was, but none of them were with me and I wasn't invited to wherever they went. My little feelings were hurt as I sat at home watching Dick Clark and wondering if Y2K was about to happen. It didn't, and then I went to bed.

Fast forward 7 years. Sure, I spent a couple of NYEs in between there having fun, but nothing too crazy [read: I have no pictures to share from those years.] So in 2007, John and I had been dating 3 years and were celebrating with a lot of his friends at a house party.

Wooo! Party!!!

2008 was more of the same. Only we hosted the party at our house this year. Oh, and apparently this is when Soulja Boy's Crank That was popular because there are an abundance of pictures from the night of people doing this in my living room:

2009 - what do ya know? Another party at our house...except we went to a local bar for the early part of the night.

Hi Drew! Way to ruin our picture!

2010 - We attempted a party at our house for the third year in a row. I think 5 people came, and I fell asleep before midnight.

2011 - I would find out I was pregnant in 8 days, but I went with my best friends to a party. (I'm seeing a trend here.) John stayed home this year.

2012 - I went to, you guessed it, a party at my BFF's house. John stayed home with our sweet baby.

So basically, I go to a party every new year's eve. I've never done a NYE where you get all dressed up and pay some ridiculous cover charge to eat a few appetizers and have a glass of champagne at midnight. But, when I put it that way, why would I ever even want to celebrate NYE that way?

How do you usually celebrate NYE? & how proud are you of me that I actually finished a blog challenge? I wonder how many points I'll get deducted off of my grade for being 45 days late...
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Very Pinteresting

2012-01-23T19:13:00.001-05:00

If you aren't on Pinterest, you should be. I have become obsessed lately. I have done away with having any original ideas of my own, because other people's original ideas are way better than mine anyways. I have bulletin boards full of other people's ideas on Pinterest and I've been working my way through trying them all out.

In just this past month, I did/attempted TWELVE projects from Pinterest. Some came out awesome, some came out so-so, and some didn't come out at all. But I tried and that's all that matters.

First, I bought some glass ornaments to attempt two different DIY ornaments I had pinned. One was a simple hand print of a baby on the outside of a glass ornament. So cute, and seemingly so easy. At that point Charley was still balling her hands up into a tight fist the majority of the time, so I decided to try a footprint instead. Paint the bottom of the little piggie, press it against the ornament and voila. Complete. Um, yeah. Not so much. I forgot to account for the curved glass of the ornament, the wiggliness of the little piggies, the slipperiness of a wet foot, and the unsteadiness of my hand. John and I tried about 10 times I think. We kept going to wash the smudgey footprint off of the ornament in the sink, drying it off and trying again. But this one was a bust. We never did get it done and now her first Christmas has come and gone.

[As an aside, my sister (who keeps Charley for me during the day) just so happened to give me a picture frame for Christmas that she got at one of those paint your own pottery places & she got it painted with Charley's hand and foot print! I love it!!]

The other glass ornament project was really simple. It required cutting up something important from the year, curling it up, and sticking it inside a glass ball. You could do this with wedding invitations if you got married that year, or birth announcements if you had a baby, or anything really. The birth announcement happened to apply to me for 2011, if you didn't know.

So, I chopped up one of the extras curled them up around a pen, stuck them inside, and put the lid on it. It didn't fill up the ornament as much as I would have liked, so I may go back and add some curly card stock in pink (for a girl!) or maybe just red & green (for Christmas colors) to fill it up more to my liking. But, this is how it hung on my Christmas tree this year. This one worked and was super easy!

The next thing I attempted was SUPER complicated and REALLY tough to do.

If you have an iPhone, you will instantly know how useful this simple little tip is. You take a binder clip (do NOT, under ANY circumstances "borrow" your binder clip from your office. I do not condone this behavior!), you clip it on the edge of your nightstand, pull the cord through and you're done. There is no more reaching behind the nightstand each night trying to find the cord so you can charge your phone overnight. And bonus points for me since my nightstand is black so it doesn't even really show up. This one was a success!

The next thing I tried was another failure. Not due to lack of trying or lack of skills on my behalf; I think this one was just a liar pin!

A picture was posted with the following caption underneath it: Awesome idea. (To get the balloons to hang upside down just put a marble inside before blowing them up.)

This was the picture:

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Looks lovely right? So when I was in charge of decorating for my BFF's surprise birthday party a couple of weeks ago, I decided I would try this. Seemed easy enough. Only, once the marble was placed inside the balloon, the balloon floated to the floor. The marble weighed it down too much. So then I tried a penny instead and Yay! It floated up to the ceiling! Only, 15 minutes later it was also on the floor. And so I went back to this picture and decided this caption is a liar! Because, if these balloons were all full of helium and floated up to the ceiling, they would all be on the same level and not staggered like they are. These had to be hung upside down on varying lengths of string. Liars! So yeah, this one was a big fat fail.

And, now, the last 8 things I've tried from Pinterest are all food related. Oops. It seems food (and the more un-healthy the better) is one of my favorite things. So here are the things I've tried:

1. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough + Oreos + Brownie batter. This one came out AWESOME! So easy to do, too.

2. Garlic Parmesan Chicken. I know we made this one, but I don't really remember much about it. So I'm thinking it must have only been so-so.

3. Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings. Ehh. It was only okay. Mine didn't come out nearly this soupy and was more like chicken and dumpling mush. I think it's because in #8, I found a tip that said you can easily shred chicken in your mixer using the paddle attachment. This worked SO good, actually TOO good, that the chicken got shredded too much and soaked up all of the soupiness in my chicken and dumplings. Next time, I'll add more broth and shred for a shorter amount of time.

4. Creamy Chicken Piccata. We made this one last night. It was pretty good, but next time we'll be using less lemon juice and heavy cream instead of half and half. Will make it again though so this one was a keeper!

5. Crock Pot Potato soup. Loved this one! Will be making it again. & we even halved it and still had PLENTY.

6. Sour cream hashbrown casserole. Made this one for our Christmas brunch and it was delicious!

7. White cheese chicken enchiladas. We've already made this one twice. So, so delicious. Definitely my favorite recipe I've pinned.

8. As mentioned above, this was a tip to shred chicken using your mixer. Worked awesome! I loathe shredding chicken so this was a great tip to find!

(P.S. You can get to all recipes by going to my "food" board on Pinterest here. Just click on the picture and it'll take you to the site which it came from.)

Are any of you Pinterest fanatics also? Don't tell me you are one of those that pins a million quotes. If so, I won't be following that board! (What do you do with a virtual bulletin board full of quotes??) But if not, feel free to leave me your Pinterest name and I'll follow you too!

Crappy Day Present Exchange

2012-01-16T16:13:00.002-05:00

Essentially, I am the most ungrateful and rudest present receiver ever. I got this gift nearly a month ago and have yet to blog about it or even send a thank you card. But for the sake of my own guiltiness about it, I want the gift giver to know that I WAS actually very grateful regardless of my lack of public acknowledgement about it.

Anyways, my blogging buddy Laura sent me an email in November sometime talking about this gift exchange between bloggers that someone was hosting, and said I should join in it also. I rarely get presents that are surprises, so I was 100% on board with this. Not only would I not know what I was getting, but I most likely wouldn't even know the person that sent it. It was a Secret Santa game for bloggers, basically.

So, the idea was to send several different gifts so that you'd have a present to open and make yourself feel better on a crappy day. This was also a great exercise in patience, as you were supposed to just open one present each time you had a crappy day and needed a pick-me-up.

I failed the lesson in patience and opened up all of my crappy day presents on the day they arrived. I wasn't even having a crappy day. Yeah, I totally missed the entire point of this gift exchange, but who cares because.... PRESENTS!!

My Secret Santa was Andrea. I had never "met"/read her blog before, so one of the first things I did after I settled down from my present opening frenzy was go read her blog and get to know her. And, I like her! Wahoo for new blogs to read!

So, even if this is an entire month late, I wanted to make sure that I said thank you to Andrea because I loved my gifts! It was kind of a proactive CDP because getting so many presents in one day prevented me from having a crappy day for at least a few weeks! Just look at how fun my nails were on New Year's Eve courtesy of one of the gifts Andrea gave me!

I also got some candy, some knee high socks (that I have worn for too many days in a row to shamefully admit), a cute little note pad, a Nutella snack thing (umm..YUM!) and some new mascara. And they were all so cutefully wrapped and labeled that I had a hard time ripping them open. [Okay that's a lie. I had no problem ripping them open in a frenzy, but I did mentally take note of how cute each little gift with it's coordinating paper and ribbons were!]

Thanks Andrea!!

Now, I was the secret Santa to......my buddy Laura! I sort of kind of requested her because I "know" her and thought she'd be easy to buy for.

I could have spent a TON of money on her because I kept coming up with things to get her. But luckily for me, the balance in my bank account said no so I had to control myself. Instead, I ended up buying gifts for everyone in her house (including her cats!) and then a few little extras for her.

She has posted about it here, and she's being a good little rule follower and only opening gifts when she has a bad day. And her daughter Adriana recently had a bad day and got to open up her CDP to try to make it better. But, she's 2 and there is no reasoning with a two year old when they are having a bad day, apparently. Laura said she liked it much better the next day, so whew! I thought I was going to have to overnight another gift to Adriana to make up for the first one that didn't go over very well!

If you'd like to participate in something like this, there is another one going on right now you can sign up for! [But hurry! Today is the last day you can sign up!] I'm sitting this one out since just getting to the grocery store lately has been a huge task! So until things slow down a little bit for me, I'm going to have to pass. But, it's a lot of fun if you have a little bit of free time. And who doesn't like getting packages in the mail?
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Phone Dump

2012-01-09T10:42:00.000-05:00

Two week's worth this time:

All pictures taken with Instagram. Follow me if you'd like: Laceyloo22

A. Playing with Daddy.
C. Napping with her new baby doll.
D. My New Year's Eve nails.
F. MAMA! I'm NAKED here!
G. My first and last shot of the year.
I. Mmm, Sophie.
M. Sleeping Beauty.
N. Disc golfing.
P. Grandaddy loves Charley.

Elevator Music

2012-01-06T18:53:00.003-05:00

This all started last spring. I was pregnant and out yard saling with my family. This particular day, my nephew Vince (he was 13 at the time) came along with us and brought a friend along who presumably was also 13. He normally scopes out the yard sale from the car, and after determining that there isn't anything there he's interested in, will stay in the car listening to music while we go to the yard sale. This time his friend was along too, so as many 13 year olds do, he was trying to up his cool factor around his family.

Which, is why at the time I assumed we were subject to listening to the HORRID music on the station he requested. It was rap and it was absolutely terrible. I like rap. Rap is cool. I mean, Lil Jon or Outkast or Eminem always make me crank the volume up a bit. They also bring back memories of me shaking my booty to those songs in bars. That was back when rap was cool.

This was the first clue, although I didn't realize it until much later.

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I am a big fan of XM radio. I have had it in my car for the last 4 years or so. My absolute most favorite station was 90's on 9, most likely because those are the songs that were played when I was in high school, and everyone resonates with the music of their high school days the best. So, no biggie that I was mainly listening to "older" music of another decade. I was still cool since occasionally I'd flip to the more current stations too.

But then the XM subscription ended & we chose not to renew. I have a 6 CD changer in my new car, plus I just wasn't getting the enjoyment out of XM anymore, so we decided it wasn't really worth the money. My subscription ended sometime in December.

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There are a couple of local radio stations in my city that play Christmas music 24/7 from Thanksgiving until Christmas. (maybe even earlier than that, but I'm not 100%). I'm not a HUGE fan of listening to these stations for my Christmas music because they play the same 10 Christmas songs over and over. But, when all else fails (such as XM being cancelled and being forced to go back to the AM/FM dials) I will listen to them, so I normally go ahead and add them to my presets in my car during the month of December. They aren't a normal preset for me because I have always considered these stations to be elevator music. In fact, in high school my friends and I jokingly teased one of our other friends for liking this particular radio station calling it elevator music.

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If you didn't know, I am now back at work after my 12 week maternity leave. I used to ride the train in every morning before I had a baby, but now I drive because it saves me about 30 minutes a day, and those 30 extra minutes a day are precious to me as they make up the little bit of time I get with Charley each day. Anyways, my drive time each day totals up to one hour and 35 minutes, or 45 miles. This includes me driving to work, leaving work to drive to get Charley from her babysitter's house (my lovely sister) and then back home. Which means way more time in the car. When I was only taking the train and didn't have a baby to retrieve my commute was a total of 14 miles a day. All that to say I spend a lot more time in the car these days and therefore a lot more time listening to music in the car.

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The culmination of all of these events led to a great realization recently. I have noticed on more than one occasion that I have ended up on the elevator music station and have been singing along and really enjoying myself until I would glance over at the dial. And at that point, I would scrunch up my face, look over my shoulder to make sure no one noticed, and quickly change the station to something more current and cool.

I never changed that preset back to a cool station after Christmas music was no longer being played. And since I use the little button on my steering wheel to flip through radio stations, I was inadvertently landing on elevator music station and liking what I was hearing. I mean, who doesn't like Richard Marx's Right Here Waiting or Seal's Kiss From A Rose?

And then "accidentally" landing on the station became less and less...accidental. It started to become intentional. And before I knew it, I was spending all 45 minutes of my drive jamming to elevator music.

And that's when it finally came to me. I didn't like the rap on that station my 13 year old nephew liked. I was always listening to 90's on 9. The rap I do like is old. I no longer go out and shake my booty. & that's when I realized: I AM NOW MUSICALLY UNCOOL. It's a sad, sad day.

I'm not ready to admit that I'm not cool in other ways yet. But I've come to terms with the fact that I'm now musically uncool.

In other news, we don't even have music in our elevators at work so that's a dumb way to describe music in the first place.
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Charley Bear: 4 months

2012-01-05T20:01:00.000-05:00

[1 month, 2 months, 3 months]

Charley is now 4 months old! Crazy how fast this goes!

We only did the bear picture on her four month birthday this month.

Mainly because I'm lazy. But also, because you can't really see much change on a week to week basis. But, if you really want to see some change (and want to make her Mama sad), compare the 4 month old Charley to the 1 week old Charley. Waaaaaahhhhhhh!

This month was really fun though. She's started playing with toys, she's a little chatterbox, and she is smiling all day long. And when she's not smiling, she's pretty serious and has mastered the furrowed brow. But rarely is she crying. She only cries if she needs something, and that's usually just a little fuss. She is such a good baby.

She finally started picking up her head this month. We weren't so great about tummy time, so it was mostly our fault that she hadn't done this yet. And then we realized that we could help her learn by shoving her arms underneath her, and she figured it out really quickly after that. She does her own arm shoving these days, and is quite the curious/nosy baby. She hasn't rolled over yet, but she's so close!

On top of being curious, she is very independent. She does not like it when you hold her facing you. She needs to be looking out and about and just staring at your ~~ugly~~ mug isn't her cup o' tea. Along with that independence comes less snuggle time, and that part makes me sad. She prefers to put herself to sleep without any snuggles beforehand. But every once in a while she'll snuggle with you and take a nap on your chest. Since I know these are few and far between, I always let her snooze with Mama.

It was difficult figuring out what to buy her for Christmas. Or, ahem, telling Santa what to bring her for Christmas. Right before Christmas she really had no interest in toys, so I basically went down the top toys for 3 month olds on Amazon's list and bought those. Oh, and also, she got a hobby horse. She may be a little too small for it still, and it's possible that Mama just wanted to give her that present because it looked pretty in front of the tree.

She was 12 pounds 10 ounces and 24 inches long today at her four month appointment. She's in the 25th percentile for weight and head circumference, and the 50th percentile for length. Tall and skinny like her parents! And luckily she doesn't have John's big head. [Just kidding John! Feel free to leave me an anonymous comment expressing your displeasure with that sentence as I know you will!]

It's all going so fast, so I was happy today to hear that the pediatrician does not want her to start solids until 6 months since she and I are doing so well with breastfeeding. That was perfectly fine by me because in my crazy mind that means she's staying a newborn for longer and that makes me happy! Well, that and the fact that we won't have to deal with icky solid-food poops for longer.

And finally, here is her regular monthly picture on the Charley blanket. No, she doesn't actually have red hair (as cute as that would be!)...it's just some weird coloring with the camera making her face and hair/head looking a bit reddish. I tried to get rid of it and all I could manage to do was turn all of the white squares on the blanket blue. Eh. Who knows.

Stuff I Like

2012-01-03T14:48:00.001-05:00

I have gotten some of the best ideas of awesome baby stuff from other blogs. I trust a picture and a recommendation from a fellow blogger more than an Amazon review any day! I figured it was time for me to pay it forward and list some of my favorite baby things thus far. This stuff was my favorite stuff for the 0-3 month age.

Sleep Sheep/Gentle Giraffe

We have both of these and they do the exact same thing. It's basically a white noise machine covered in stuffing with a cute animal face. The Sleep Sheep I own is the travel sized one, so it goes downstairs with me when Charley is napping on the couch, or in the car, or on vacation, or to Aunt Christy's house every day! Gentle Giraffe stays tethered to a crib slat and isn't to be removed, or else! & by the way, the rain setting is the very best. Charley told me it's her favorite.

Summer Infant SwaddleMe Blankets

Swaddling is very important in the first couple of months of a babies life. They may act like they hate it, but if you value sleep, you will swaddle them anyways! A swaddled baby = a sleeping baby in my limited experience.

Swaddling with a regular blanket works fine at first. They are little, they don't move much and you can pretty much be the worst swaddler ever and they'll sleep. But once they realize they have arms, little Houdini may start busting out of your best attempt at swaddling. That's where these come in. Velcro. It works. At first we were swaddling Charley's arms down because otherwise they were out of control.

Remember my little burrito? Once she got her arms under control, she started to express her hatred for having them swaddled and we compromised. I give you, the under arm swaddle:

She's still all snuggly, but her arms are free to do with what she wants. This works perfectly on the nights where it's too warm for a fleecy sleep sack, but putting her to bed without any sort of blanket obviously isn't going to work either.

I will say though, we are now completely done with swaddling so they don't last very long so you don't need too many. They come in packs of 2 or 3, and that was just enough for us!

Bright Starts Cuddly Carrier Pal

We've talked about Charley's love/hate relationship with her carseat. But when it was at its absolute worst, wanna know what makes it somewhat doable some of the time? This little pink elephant, that's what.

This is the only picture I could find of Ms. Elephant, so you also get the bonus of seeing Charley's rockstar cousins!

Sometimes while we are in the car and Charley is strangely silent, I peek back at her in the mirror to make sure she is in fact still there. And 99% of those times, what I see is her giving great big gummy smiles to Ms. Elephant.

City Mini Stroller

I've mentioned this one before, but it deserves to be on this list too. I absolutely love our stroller. It's so smooth, so easy to fold up, and most importantly, since Charley isn't the biggest fan of her carseat, we can still go on walks by just using the regular part of the stroller fully reclined. (We also have the car seat adapter, which works awesome, but not when your child doesn't like the car seat.)

Cloth Diapers

No, we don't cloth diaper. Sorry, Earth. But, we do use the heck out of the cloth prefold diapers for burp cloths. Charley doesn't spit up a ton, but she usually has a bit of spit up after she eats and so I burp her while holding one of these under her chin to catch any liquid regurgitation. Works every time.

Here's a true story: Charley was just a few weeks old and John and I were both in her room while one of us changing her diaper or something. We both realized there was an AWFUL smell coming from something in her room, and John went around the room on his hands and knees trying to find the source of the smell. We just knew one of the cats had decided they'd had enough with being ignored and were starting to pee in Charley's room in revenge. John said he had tracked the source of the smell to a corner behind the glider. We were so mad at the little furballs who had never done anything like that before. And then, somehow we realized it wasn't from that corner at all, but from the opposite corner which housed Charley's hamper full of dirty spit up filled burp cloths. Silly us, it was just time for laundry!

Baby Trend Diaper Pail Deluxe

I knew I didn't want a Diaper Genie. I remembered from when my nephews and nieces were babies and I was babysitting that they didn't mask the smell very well, and had some weird twisty thing you had to do to get them to work. On top of that, I'd heard lots of people say not to waste your money. A lot of people also suggested to not get a diaper pail at all, and just take the stinky diapers outside to the trash immeditely afterwards. Fair enough, for most people.

But I'm not most people. I rarely clean the cat's litter box (John does daily, thankfully) and when I do, I drop the grocery bag full of poop right outside of the sliding glass door instead of walking out of our fenced in yard to put it in the trash can. So I knew that there was no way I'd be walking 6 poopy diapers a day to the big trash can outside in the beginning. I had to have SOMEthing in Charley's room for diaper disposal.

And then John and I stumbled upon this pail at the baby superstore. We were sold on the fact that it didn't require special bags, and you could just use a regular trash bag in it. And now that we've been using it for four months, I can also vouch for the smelliness of it. Which, is very little to none. The top part of it flips around so you never really open it up, and occasionally a stinch will escape when adding a new diaper to the pail, but it's really rare. It's easy to use, works great, and my laziness is super glad we found it.

Robeez Organic Socks

In my 3 months of experience, these were the only socks that consistently stayed on my baby's feet. They aren't cheap, but are on BabySteals.com pretty often which is where I got the 3 pairs that I have. I suppose they are more expensive because they are organic, which you know I couldn't care less about, but these socks stay in regular rotation in my house while most of all of the other socks Charley owns stay in the dresser.

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And that's really about it for the 0-3 month age range, I think. We do have a bouncer and a swing too, and Charley didn't mind either of these, but didn't love them either so I left them off of my list. So far there isn't anything I absolutely hate, besides a few brands of bottles, but that's different for every child so I left that off of my list too.

I started writing this on November 18th and here it is January 3rd and I'm just finishing it up. In the last month, Charley has really started playing and using much more of her stuff, so the 3-6 month version of this list should be much more exciting!

Any suggestions for 3-6 month stuff that I just HAVE to have? Any comments on the stuff I liked for 0-3 months? Happy baby shopping!

2012

2012-01-03T10:17:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year! Hope you haven't already given up on your resolutions as it is already the 3rd of January. Which basically means you've had 3 full days to call it quits already. As for me, I'm still holding strong on my resolutions. One of which was a repeat resolution from 2011: the 365 Day Photo Challenge. Dun dun dun.

2011 fizzled out around mid February. But 2012 is still going strong 2 days in. (I haven't taken today's picture yet, but I assure you that I will!) I had a lot of trouble in 2011 coming up with things to take a picture of. This year, Charley makes a darn good subject, if I do say so myself, and because I don't want to ONLY have pictures of her all year, I also have this handy dandy little list to give me other ideas when my creativity is lacking.

Between those two things, I really shouldn't have any excuses. And hopefully by the end of 2012 I'll really notice a difference in my photography abilities too. Because currently I upload 100 picture to my computer and end up deleting 60 of them because they are blurry or out of focus or I look fat in them.

For New Years Eve, I went over to my best friend's house where she had a few people over to eat, drink, and be merry! It was my first night ever not putting my little Charley girl to bed, and I was pretty sad about it. But, I knew I needed to just get out and have a night for myself so I did it anyways.

Fellow Eat, Drink, and Be Merry-er, my other BFF Angela

John, however, didn't make it easy on me. He kept texting me cute pictures of Charley, making me wanna come home and snuggle her.

As each picture came to my phone, I shared them with whomever happened to be standing with me at that moment. It was a chorus of Awwwws and Ooooohs. She is pretty darn cute.

But, when John noticed the pictures weren't working as I wasn't making my way home, he decided to bring in the big guns. He sent a video. I just assumed it would be something extremely cute, so I summoned the people standing near me to watch it with me before I previewed it myself.

Cue the collective gasp from me and my fellow video watchers. John had just showed me that app the day before so I am surprised I didn't suspect anything before I hit the play button. Just in case I didn't realize this wasn't real, he then followed up with this text: 'It's a joke. I delete. She is safe.' Well thank goodness he clarified!

And then my poor little Charley lady spent an hour crying and not going to sleep so easily like she normally does. She is used to being nursed before bed, and of course John had to give her a bottle so she didn't like the change very much. I felt so bad, but even if I came home I wouldn't have been able to nurse her since I'd been drinking. But she finally fell asleep for John and we'll just have to try again soon. My poor baby probably just wanted to stay up and see the ball drop!

Hope you guys had a wonderful New Year also! I really think 2012 is going to be great. I mean, obviously it will be great as we will all be finishing up our bucket lists in time for December 21. Woohoo for the end of the world!!

Banned!

2011-12-27T17:36:00.000-05:00

Maybe I should take a hint, but I was banned from Facebook today. Had Facebook banned me for spending way too much time on there, then fine. They have a pretty decent case against me. I mean, what else is a girl to do while she's nursing her baby? But no, that was not their reasoning. I was banned for "suspicious behavior." Meaning, they thought I was trying to hack into Facebook or maybe thought I was posting too much of the same thing over and over. [Not unlike the millions of people that post stupid game stuff over and over and over, yet nobody is banning them.]

But the dumb thing is that I never actually posted anything at all. Stupid Facebook wasn't working and wouldn't post the link to the blog I wrote earlier, and I maybe tried hitting the share button one too many times for Facebook's liking. I mean, it wouldn't post so I kept trying to get it to work! What's the harm in that!? & then I got served a 24 hour ban. No posting on anything for a full 24 hours, and there is no way to complain and get the ban lifted. I'm able to see everything, but I'm not allowed to tell you that your baby is cute, or laugh at a witty status you posted. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but darn it, it's a big deal to me. You don't just take the pack of cigarettes from the smoker and make them quit cold turkey, do you??

Anyways, it's time for my weekly photo dump. And this week, there are explanations for some of the pictures. Please, try to control your excitement.

This was my week:

All pictures taken with Instagram. Feel free to follow me: laceyloo22.

A. Charley has a new best friend: Mr. Bear. He's a little blanket with a bear head, and she was hanging out with him at all times until she tried to smother herself with him a few times. They are now taking a break.

C. A pretty church I walk by every day.

D. I went and assisted Mr. Claus in the wrapping of my niece's Christmas presents this year.

G. This is the "mother's room", or the pumping room at work. I spend a lot of time in this super accommodating room. It includes: a table, a window, a cushioned bench, and a tub of Lysol wipes.

H. I was working in the clouds on Thursday.

I. I went shopping with my sister and nieces so my nieces could buy everyone a gift for Christmas from the dollar store. This was Lori during our trip.

J. Who's that cute baby with a bow ~~in her hair~~ on her bald head?

M. Santa brought Charley a hobby horse!

N. Piggies on the little piggies.

Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 9

2011-12-27T15:47:00.000-05:00

Still playing catch up, and I'm way late now. But the topic for Thursday December 8th was this: 2012 goals/resolutions.

I'm not much of a goal setter (says the girl that has a 101 list). Setting a goal puts too much pressure on me and I feel like I give up on it before I even give myself a chance to start it. I'd rather just start and finish things as I can instead of pushing through it because I've officially called it a 'goal'. But regardless, there are a few things I'd like to do in 2012.

1. Start (and finish this time) a 365 day challenge. I tried to do it last year and only made it through mid February. Pa. The. Tic. The premise is this: take and share a picture every day. Last year I claimed that the reason I couldn't continue on is because I didn't have a baby and therefore I didn't have a helpless victim, er, subject for my daily photo taking. This year I have solved that issue:

2. Get ourselves in to an even better financial situation. We did really good in 2011, and I hope to continue that and add to it in 2012.

3. Spend as much time as possible with my sweet Charley. This one should be easy!

4. Travel. Take a big trip. Take a girl's trip. Take a family trip.

And that's really about it. I know I should add something to this list about losing weight (can't seem to shake off that last 5 pounds of baby weight), but I don't wanna put too much pressure on myself or else I'll never do it.

Anyone else doing a 365 day challenge in 2012? Let me know so we can motivate each other! And good job to Kelly who stuck with hers throughout all of 2011! I'm impressed!
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Is It Just Me? [Slumpy Slanty Shoulders]

2011-12-19T13:21:00.000-05:00

I find great relief in asking "Is it just me, or..." to you. I've asked twice before, and both times people have reassured me that I am not in fact crazy, but that they also felt like a giraffe neck or a caped crusader. I'm looking for some more reassurance this time.

Anyone else feel like they have super slumpy, slanty shoulders? Kinda like this, maybe?

And, it's not even the way I think I look in the mirror. It's the way the slumpy shoulders perform every morning.

You see, I carry three bags in with me to work every day. I have my purse, my pump, and my little cooler bag that carries my lunch and Charley's milk for the next day. I try to balance them out and hang the pump bag on one shoulder, the purse on the other, and the lunch bag in the hand of the arm that has the purse, since it is lighter than the pump. We wouldn't want me falling over from an imbalance, after all.

But, every single day, I feel like my shoulders must be super slanty as I spend my entire 4 block walk each morning and afternoon yanking my bags back up on my shoulders. They won't stay! What am I doing wrong?! I never see anyone else during my walk with this issue.

So how do I fix it? Is it hopeless and just a design flaw in my body? In that case, should I ask Rihanna if I can borrow her shirt?

If I had that, I bet I could carry tons of bags on my shoulders! I could just slip each handle around it's own spike!

Seriously though, is it just me??

Anxiety

2011-12-19T10:24:00.000-05:00

There is a major case of anxiety going on here at Life of Lacey. I currently have 28 (TWENTY EIGHT!) posts in draft mode that are just waiting to be finished. They either just need pictures, or I ran out of steam, or are just old and never got finished. But having 28 posts in draft mode makes me very anxious, and much to John's displeasure, finishing these blog posts takes precedence in my life right now. They come before cleaning the house, making bird mobiles, cleaning up my coupon mess (they are cut - just need to be filed), or even feeding my child. Okay, that last one was a lie. But seriously, this gives me major anxiety and I need to finish these ASAP!

And of course, instead of finishing one of the 28, here I am typing a new blog post. And I have two more ideas in my head that I will likely blog about before I get to these 28 too. What is wrong with me?

You are probably going to tell me it's not that serious and I should just take a few steps back because it's just a silly blog, after all. And I'm going to tell you that I KNOW IT'S JUST A BLOG BUT I HAVE A MILLION THOUGHTS SWIRLING AROUND IN MY HEAD RIGHT NOW AND UNTIL THEY ARE BLOGGED MY MIND IS ALL A'CLUTTER! Thankyouverymuch.

So, depending on how my week goes, like, whether I'm super busy or not (I mean, who is actually busy the week before Christmas anyways?), there may be a surplus of Life of Laceying this week. Any complaints about that? I'm not guaranteeing their quality, but as long as the quantity of drafts goes down I'll feel much better myself.

Anybody else get bloggy anxiety, or am I the only crazy?
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Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 7

2011-12-18T18:07:00.000-05:00

This topic for this Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge is this: How do you celebrate the holidays? Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, etc.

In one word: Christmas.

In more than one word + some pictures:

Christmas Eve we typically go to a candlelight service/children's play at my sister's church. Afterwards we eat and play a gift game at my (other) sister's. We used to always play Christmas Bingo, but the last couple of years we've tried different games to change it up a bit.

On Christmas day, we eat and exchange gifts as one big, happy family. There are 16 of us now, but our family has always felt big, even when it was just the 6 of us. I love our Christmases, and feel a pang of sadness when it's all over.

I'm so looking forward to Sunday! More memories, another new family member this year, and lots of volume and laughs. It's not Christmas if it isn't loud, crowded and full of love!
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Phone Dump

2011-12-18T11:51:00.000-05:00

I used to periodically share pictures with you from my iPhone. They were funny, random things that I really had no business taking a picture of in the first place. I believe the last time I posted one of those blogs, I had 496 pictures on my phone. Since Charley has been here, the phone picture taking has gotten out of control. I currently have 1,170 pictures on my phone, and it's showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.

Since the phone is so quick and easy to use, I find myself grabbing it first before grabbing my big camera when Charley is doing something cute. All of her first smiles were caught on my iPhone camera, and just yesterday I caught the tail end of Miss Charley holding her head up during tummy time for the first time.

And now, I've downloaded the Instagram app. It's basically the same thing as the regular camera, but it takes square pictures which I love, and then has tons of different filters you can put on your pictures. I'm slightly obsessed. Which is why I'm going to have to start sharing these with you weekly or every other week or something.

Anyways, here are the instagram photos for this week. Everything from Christmas cards, to waffle fries, to Charley Jane. It's a quick summary of my week from the lens of my iPhone camera:

(P.S. I'm Laceyloo22 on Instagram if you'd like to follow me! Share your instagram name with me too!)
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The Christmas Card 2011

2011-12-16T07:27:00.005-05:00

***I thought I had scheduled this to post on Saturday, which would be long enough to ensure that everyone I sent a card to had already received them and I wouldn't spoil the picture on the card. But apparently I don't know how to read a calendar and it posted today instead. If you have a feeling that you will get a Christmas card from me, come back and read this later after you get it if you don't want to see it here first!***

I am 90% happy with our Christmas card for this year, which is better than I thought I would be. I assumed getting a picture of all 3 of us, when one of us is just 3 months old, would have been a nightmare. Especially considering I had my heart set on one certain pose, and I was going to set up the shoot myself instead of have someone take it for me. I tend to make things hard on myself.

This stems back to my complex about having to be original. I didn't want to do a picture of us in front of the Christmas tree. Too easy. Too common. I also didn't want to make a collage of sorts with separate pictures of each of us. Again, far too easy. & also, I'm a fan of a one-pictured Christmas photo card instead of the multi-pictured ones. Just my preference, and again, I like to make things hard on myself. So I set out to take the perfect Christmas card picture.

This is what I had in mind: The three of us, laying down in sort of a triangle shape, Santa hats on our heads with the points of the hats meeting in the center. Sorta like this:

But here are the problems this posed: 1) In order to set up a shot like this by ourselves, the camera needs to be directly above us and that would be hard to do logistically, 2) John and I don't own Santa hats ourselves, and 3) I would need to get all 3 of us smiling in one shot. Considering #1, I thought this may have been impossible to do on our own unless I was able to do one of these things:

A: Dangle the camera from the ceiling fan with a string. Use remote to take picture and hope for the best.
B. Develop go-go-gadget arms and take a beautiful self portrait, while making sure not to drop the camera on the subject in the middle of the picture, Charley.

Since those two options were totally doable but far too easy, I started to think that maybe this idea in my head wouldn't come to fruition after all. I started to give up on it until,

UNTIL!!...

I got an idea.

You see, we are proud owners of a glass topped kitchen table. And you know what is awesome about glass? It's clear, that's what. And you know what is awesome about my DSLR camera? The fact that it 1) Can be placed lens down, with the lens hood supporting it, 2) That I have a remote to use so I don't have to use the timer button, and 3) That my camera has a screen that can flip around for you to be able to see the picture. Like this:

So, combine my glass top table, with the cool features of my camera, and my Christmas card picture all of a sudden becomes doable. A little crazy, but doable. And who says I'm not a little crazy anyways?

So one evening, I was particularly liking my hair that day and decided it was time to set up for the Christmas picture. We didn't have Santa hats yet for me and John, but I was fine with giving up on that aspect of my idea. I was having a good hair day, after all.

John wasn't home yet, and Charley was napping so I decided to get it ready for when John got home and Charley woke up. I ran off to get my white comforter to use as our background and got to work.

I laid the blanket underneath the table, set the camera up on top of the table, grabbed the remote, and crawled under the table myself. I flipped the screen around so I could see the pictures immediately after taking them instead of having to crawl out from under the table after each picture. It only took a couple of practice shots when I realized that my crazy idea was actually going to work. While I was under the table, I went ahead and ate an old french fry I found on the floor.

Soon, the baby had awoken, John was home, and I was somehow able to convince John to participate in my crazy idea. We were ready.

We all crawled underneath the table and I started taking a million pictures. I knew it was going to be hard to get a good picture of Charley so I just took tons of pictures with the hopes that one of them would turn out good. At first Charley was pretty thrilled with the fact that her two favorite people in the world were laying on either side of her and she was happy. Soon though, she realized we were laying under a table and decided this was not cool anymore. Photo shoot was over.

I went to the computer and started to scan through the pictures. The very first picture comes up. My eyes scan from left to right: "Damn, I look good... Wow! Charley is even smiling!... Whoa. What on earth is John doing? Next." So I flipped through all of the rest of the pictures hoping for something even better than the 2/3 I got on the first take. Only, it wasn't there. JOHN had ruined the very best picture of the batch!

There were other good pictures of John though, so, another idea was hatched in an effort to keep my family from having to go underneath the table again. I opened up Photoshop.

I spent two full evenings replacing something-in-my-teeth-John with a good John. And in the end, I was pretty happy with my creation. I give you, our family Christmas card for 2011:

And if you notice, there are no names or a signature on the card. That's because I'm an overachiever and left them off so I could sign them all by hand, so that there would at least be somewhat of a personal touch. I'm such a thoughtful Christmas card giver!

Are you a Christmas card sender? How do you feel about photo cards? Most importantly, do you think my Christmas card from this year is the cutest thing you've ever seen? Discuss.
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Charley Bear - 3 months

2011-12-13T20:14:00.000-05:00

[1 month, 2 months]

I realize I am now 9 days late, but "late" is my middle name lately so that's nothing new. Anyways, I have to write this stuff down or I'm going to forget it! My little lady is growing so fast!

I really slacked off with the bear pictures too. I only have weeks 10 and 12. Oops.

Her big accomplishments this month have to do with her hands. She has learned how to hold onto toys (and much prefers her left hand)...

...and has mastered the art of thumb sucking. She still has a little trouble finding her thumb sometimes, but once she's got it, she's a happy little lady. Each morning when I go into her room to wake her up, I can hear her before I get to her because she is going to town sucking on her thumb. I think the open handed thumb sucking is the cutest thing ever, by the way.

She's still working on picking her head up while she's on her tummy, but has pretty great head control while I'm holding her. She's not interested in rolling over yet, but I bet that is coming soon.

Oh! And I almost forgot! While the car seat was on Charley's list of hated things from the two-month-old blog post, it has somehow become more tolerable to her. I wouldn't say she loves it yet, but I can happily say that I've had much more pleasant car rides and even trips to the store with no tears or screams. The thanks for this goes to my sister (who keeps Charley for us every day while we work) because she has broken her into the car seat. It's not that she keeps her in the car seat all day or anything, but she does have carpool duty a few times a week and Charley has had no choice but to get used to her seat. After a few tearful, screaming car pool rides, she has since gotten used to it and dare I say, even smile while in her seat sometimes. Thank you, thank you, thank you sister!

Also, she is now taking a bottle with no complaints, which is good since I've been back at work for two weeks now. Glad she didn't decide to starve all day while I am at work. We did switch bottles to the Avent brand and all is well with that now.

But most importantly, she's still really freaking cute and such a good baby.

I love my Charley girl! Happy 3 months baby!

Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 8

2011-12-13T11:56:00.002-05:00

Okay, I am determined to finish this even though I'm now a full week behind. Oh well, whatevs. It's not Christmas yet so it's all still relevant. I hope I don't lose too many points for turning in my homework late.

And, I'm not posting these last few in order. I'm such a rebel.

The topic for last Wednesday's Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge is this: Your Christmas wish list.

I tend to be practical even when requesting gifts. You'd think if it was a gift I'd be okay with lavish, unnecessary spending, but sadly I just can't do it. But if I COULD do it, these are some things I'd be okay with getting.

1. A Massage Gift Card

I will also need a flower in my hair during my massage.

I have never had a professional massage. My ex-boyfriend actually gave me a gift certificate to get one once, and I never used it. I was far too insecure with my tiny, skinny, not-an-ounce-of-fat-on-it body to strip down and let someone give me a massage. But now, in my non-tiny, stretch-marked, have-an-extra-pooch-left-over-from-pregnancy body, I have decided that I'll strip down for someone to rub my achy shoulders with no second thoughts at all. John is anti-massage and will only rub my shoulders if I have begged and pleaded for a week. I'm thinking my change of heart is due to two things: 1) The number of people that have now seen me naked due to childbirth and/or breastfeeding, and 2) Desperation since carrying so much stuff each day hurts my shoulders & back. [Daily, I carry a purse, my lunch bag/milk tote, my breast pump - which is quite heavy, FYI, a diaper bag, and Charley + her car seat. Of course I only have those last two items in the afternoons when I go to pick her up, but still. That's a lot of crap to carry!]

All of that to say, I would like a massage gift certificate.

2. Camera Stuff

I assured John after I bought my latest lens that I was finished buying camera stuff. But, there are just a couple more things I would like to own one day.

Tripod. Extra dorky flash. Couple more classes.

3. Boots & more boots.

I'm not a boot fanatic. I don't need a million different pairs to match each outfit. But, I feel like I don't even have the basics covered. I have a flat, brown, suede pair and a black suede heeled pair, and some cowboy boots and rain boots, but neither of those get much use. I used to pretty much wear ballet flats all winter long, when not at work, of course. But now, the tops of my feet have developed some sensitivities to the cold weather due to them getting used to boots. And who could deny the tops of my feet warmth?

The day after Thanksgiving Kohl's had a lot of boots priced at just $29.99, and I still couldn't find what I wanted. This is all I'm after: A black or grey pair of leather (real or fake) FLAT boots. No heel. No suede. And possibly with some sort of cute element, such as a buckle, or some slouchiness, or something. Doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to find! But maybe it's not that it's hard to find, it's just that it's hard to find when you are as cheap as I am!

These are decent.

So yes. A pair of boots or two. Not too much to ask I think!

4. Toms

Staying on the shoe theme, I also wouldn't mind a pair of Toms. Apparently they are very comfy, would solve my issue of top-of-the-feet-warmth, and there is no heel on them so I won't be taller than John. (I only wear heels when I'm at work, for the most part.)

5. Custom Wedding Photo Album

Found here!

I've had this marked as a favorite for 2 years now, and have yet to justify the price to myself. I absolutely love this photo album, but can't ever seem to fork over the cash for it. But if it was someone else's cash and/or decision I'd have no problem with it!

6. Undies

I feel slightly awkward putting this on my wish list because it's a necessity of life and I shouldn't be WISHing for undies as I'm pretty sure they are in the budget, but, Charley is 3 months old and I've yet to get myself some new drawers.

I also feel awkward knowing that I always share each blog post on my Facebook (so that my Mama sees them), and I am Facebook friends with several coworkers of the male variety, and here I am talking about my unmentionables. But, if they weren't scarred by all of the boob talk in recent months and I still have a job, then I guess I'm okay.

So anyways, I'm sick of wearing pack underwear and would like to go back to pretty undies. Pack underwear is a godsend while pregnant, but it's time to part ways pack underwear.

Take notice of the one word for women's unmentionables that I did NOT use. I loathe the word. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it starts with a "p" and ends with an "anties". Blech. What an awful, icky word!

7. Sapphire Jewelry

I would love to own a piece of jewelry with a sapphire on it. It is Charley's birthstone and I think it would be nice to own something sapphire in honor of my baby! But, what I don't like, are those recently popular necklaces or bracelets that spell out the kid's names and have their birthstones, etc. (Like this one.) It's too much. I think it's the word thing I don't like. Ick. I would just prefer a ring or a necklace that I know represents my baby and doesn't spell it out for everyone else to read. Make sense?

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Any other cool things I should be wishing for this Christmas?

And, several times as I was making this list I realized I was about to wish for something for Charley and not for myself. It's started already - no longer wanting anything for me anymore and wanting to give everything to Charley. Perhaps that is why I've yet to buy myself some new underwear and I'm buying her new underwear (err, diapers) every other week.
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Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 6

2011-12-08T10:43:00.001-05:00

Once again, I'm late and playing catch up. I just can't seem to do things on time these days...

The topic for Monday's holiday blog challenge was this: Share a Christmas dessert/treat recipe! This should be easy enough!

Each year I have high hopes for my Christmas treats. I come up with these grand ideas in my head, and somehow, they never come out quite as I had hoped, as demonstrated by the Whoopie Pies of 2009.

So, instead of sharing that failed recipe, I'll share a favorite. It's not Christmas specific at all, but it's all I've got.

Cajun Brownies/Goodie Bars/A-Million-Other-Names/Everybody-Calls-Them-Something-Different

(I stole these pictures from Allrecipes.com because I haven't ever taken a picture of mine. It looks just like this, but this version doesn't look like it has pecans in it....which is totally unacceptable!

Ingredients

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 cup melted butter
1 egg (beaten)
1 cup chopped pecans

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
4 cups confectioners' sugar
2 eggs

Directions

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan. Mix together the cake mix, melted butter and the egg. Stir in the chopped pecans. Press mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Set aside.

2.In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese with the confectioners' sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time until blended.

3.Pour cream cheese mixture over crust. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes. Cool in the pan, then cut into squares before serving.

That's it. And, it's delicious. John actually requested one last night, so since today IS his birthday I suppose I'll make one for him tonight.
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The Things I Do For You II

2011-12-06T12:30:00.001-05:00

I'm continuing to do things outside of my comfort zone for Charley. We all remember Nip Dip 2011, and now, we have The Poop. No need to fancy up the title, because, this poop was the master of all poops. At least until she starts eating solids anyways.

So, lets start from the beginning. A few weeks ago, Charley decided pooping daily was no longer for her. She decided to lessen her poop quantity by 75% and go just once every few days. We started out with a 3 day stretch, and then a 5 day stretch, and then she went 6 days which was last Saturday evening while I was out (by myself) shopping and John was home with her. Excellent timing, if I do say so myself. John disagrees, obviously.

"Daddy, I said I'm sorry! Next time I'll let Mama have it!"

So, with these less frequent poops comes more quantity poopage. And each time I have been amazed at just how much a diaper will hold. Luckily, it has always been contained since we've gotten to it fast enough and we have been at home. So yes, lots of poop to wipe, but, it's dooable. [That additional "o" was no accident.]

Which brings us to Sunday. Charley was now on day 8 of no poop and by the smell of things around here, I could tell it was coming soon. It was 10:00 in the morning, and my sister Joy was coming to pick Charley up at 10:30 for a few hours of babysitting while I went to get my hair did. [More on that later.] I had a pep talk with Charley as I was changing her (pee) diaper and asked her very nicely not to poop while with her Aunt Joy, as this was her first time babysitting her and I certainly hoped it wouldn't be the last.

Not 5 minutes later, I hear the tell-tale sound. Luckily, she's laying on the changing pad clothed in only a [fresh] diaper, as I was still searching through her drawers for something for her to wear. But that fresh diaper didn't last very long. Soon, it was full of a week's worth of poop, so I put my gloves on and got to work. [Figuratively I put my gloves on, I don't actually glove myself while changing diapers, but maybe in the future that wouldn't be such a bad idea.]

I think this job was about a 10-15 wipe job. Lots of wiping. Especially because half way through she decided to go again. More wiping. I hated having to use that many wipes, but I figure she's only pooping once a week so my wipe usage is way down as it is! Anyways, as I use the wipes, I lay them inside the dirty diaper. Once everything is said (usually I'm singing made-up songs about poop to her) and done (dear God please let her be done!), I like to wrap up the dirty wipes inside the dirty diaper, making a ball of dirtiness, if you will, using the diaper tabs to tape it closed. However, this ball of dirtiness was too big to close. I was going to have to carry the OPEN ball of dirtiness the one and a half steps over to the diaper pail next to the dresser.

One and a half steps, you say? No problemo. I mean, I walk one and a half steps all the time. I could walk one and a half steps with my eyes closed! When it comes to walking one and a half steps, I am the master. If walking one and a half steps was an Olympic sport, I'd be the gold medalist. Get the picture?

But this day, I stumbled during my one and a half stepping. Stumbled ever so slightly, that the top 3 wipes fell off of the open ball of dirtiness and landed poo side down on the floor. And one of those wipes, decided to gracefully graze the side of Charley's wicker toy basket on the way down. Are you aware of what wicker looks like?

So yes, as it so gracefully grazed the basket, it deposited fresh poo amongst all of the crevices. All I could picture was a scene from my future:

Charley is one year old and she and I are playing in her room. She is running over to her toy basket to get another toy. Mid-reach into the toy basket, she decides to gnaw on the side of the basket for a minute. Cue: Me, remembering The Poop of 2011, and running to get her screaming NOOO! for fear that I never got all of the poo out of the crevices.

So just to be safe, I will be scrubbing the basket once more with an old toothbrush.

But, the good news is that my sister did not have to deal with The Poop and had a really good time babysitting sweet Charley. I know she would have fared just fine if The Poop occurred while she was in her care, but I would have felt really guilty for her crappy luck.

Crappy luck, indeed.
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Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 5

2011-12-02T10:02:00.000-05:00

Day 5 is this: Ideal outfit for Christmas/NYE festivities. Since I'm SUCH a fashionista, this was right up my alley.

Let's start with the ideal outfit for Christmas. This is such a no brainer:

Isn't that what everyone wears on Christmas morning while sitting around opening gifts? No? Well, this is what we wear at my families' Christmas celebrations. I would consider you a scrooge if I saw you wearing anything else.

For New Year's Eve, I tend to dress more for function rather than fashion. Everyone knows that on New Year's Eve you are supposed to go to a NYE party and get so drunk that you don't even remember the new year starting at midnight. In an effort to make sure I reach this goal each year, I go for function with my outfit.

It's definitely not about the outfit for NYE, but about the accessories.

[No offense to the hosts of this blog challenge! This particular subject was just not my cup of tea...the day I make a "fashion inspiration board" will be the day that I start tracking my outfits using a spreadsheet. Oh wait, I already do that.]
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Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 4

2011-12-02T09:16:00.000-05:00

Day 4 of the blog challenge is this: Favorite Holiday Movies & TV Specials. This one is tough for me. Because, well, 10 minutes after I watch a movie or TV show I have already forgotten it. Which makes it hard to pick a favorite because they've all been forgotten. Usually my favorite movie or TV show at the time will be the one I've most recently watched. That's pathetic, I know.

So the Christmas TV special that I've most recently watched was this:

So I guess that's my favorite? And, as many times as I'd seen this in my lifetime, it was all new to me! There was an Abominable Snowman character that I didn't remember, and some toys on some rejected toy island. Yeah, see, I'm already forgetting it again and it's been 3 days since I watched it.

And as for movies, I know I enjoyed Elf before, and there was a movie where Tim Allen was Santa that I liked. I'm sure they were great! It's so exciting to have this media-related dementia, because everything is as exciting as it was the first time I watched it!

Anyone else suffer from this ailment? I've always wanted to be a cool person that could throw out funny lines from a movie and people would laugh and think I was so awesome. I remember in high school or middle school where everyone was trying to outdo each other in inside jokes - like, if you had the most friends with the most inside jokes between you two then obviously you were the bestest friend! And, a friend and I would go to a movie after school one day, and the next day in an effort to prove my best friend status to the other friends I'd try and throw out a funny line from the movie the night before as an inside joke between us, and I wouldn't be able to remember a thing. Like, "Hey BFF, remember last night in that movie, that guy in the movie, errrr ummm, remember how he umm, drove that car? Oh man that was funny, right?" and they'd have no idea what I was talking about and I'd lose points in BFF status instead of gaining them. I'm so smooth. Man, who doesn't miss those days?

Anyways, any classic Christmas movies or TV shows that I need to watch again? What are your favorites?

Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 3

2011-12-01T19:26:00.001-05:00

~~Today's~~ Yesterday's holiday blog challenge is was this: Day 3 - Holiday Decorations. I'm all over this one. [Although clearly I wasn't all over being timely with this one as I'm just finishing it up today.]

I've shared my Christmasfied home with you before. But each year is a little bit different so I'm sharing again. Plus, it's part of the holiday blog challenge so I hafta share it this year! It's the rules! Also, I have a sinking suspicion that some of you haven't gone back and read all of my old posts so this could be new to you!

My goal is to one day have enough stuff to decorate not only the living/dining rooms and kitchen, but to also decorate the bedrooms and bathrooms too. But for now, limited closet space for storage is going to limit how much stuff I can have and so only downstairs decorating is going to have to be enough. [This is my Mama's fault...she is the only person I know that decorates her bathroom for Christmas too. And since I wanna be just like her, I aspire to also decorate bathrooms one day. Man, I set really lofty goals for myself, huh?]

But I need a couple more things to finish this year's decorating. I need a mini artificial tree to stick on top of the fireplace in that back corner. I need something there with height, and that's the only Christmasy item I can think of that's heightful. Yes, heightful.

Also, in front of the fireplace on the floor I have a 3 candle holder thingy that needs three Christmasy candles. I was thinking candy cane striped ones. And wouldn't you know I see them all over the place until I'm actually out trying to find them and now they seem to be extinct.

Anyways, it's pretty and I like it and that's all that matters. And next year I'm going to have to take a whole new approach to my decorating by placing things out of reach from a little 15 month old's hands and breakable stuff may be no more. So I'm trying to enjoy my last year of doing whatever I please with my decorating.

But the tree won't have to change too much. I already have to put non-breakable ornaments at the bottom, and have had to do that for 7 years now. I'll give you two guesses on why I need non-breakables at the bottom, and I'll even give you a hint. One of the culprits is white, fluffy, and is hanging out under the tree in one of these pictures. Darn cats.

So far this year they have managed to take an ornament off of the tree, take it upstairs and deposit it in the bathroom floor. See! Even they want me to begin decorating the bathroom for Christmas!
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Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 2

2011-11-30T19:41:00.001-05:00

Continuing on with the holiday blog challenge, I am now on to Day 2: Favorite holiday tradition, new or old.

As most families do, my family has lots of holiday traditions. We have more traditions during the Christmas season each year than we do for the entire rest of the year. We have craft night, we go to the Southern Christmas show each year, we play the "game"/white elephant/dirty Santa/whatever-you-wanna-call-it each year on Christmas Eve with my immediate family, and also with my Dad's side of the family the weekend before Christmas, we go to the mountains to cut down our own Christmas trees every couple of years, and we used to go see the Christmas lights in McAdenville, NC each year also. But, not surprisingly, my favorite Christmas tradition is fairly new and has to do with food.

Picking out our Christmas tree - 1995

Each Christmas morning, my immediate family and I gather at my parent's house to exchange gifts and eat. We used to pretty much have the same meal on Christmas as we did on Thanksgiving, but at some point during the last 10 years, we changed the Christmas meal to be a brunch-type meal. On top of the favorites - ham and mac & cheese - we now also have breakfast items. We have breakfast pies, and hash brown casserole, biscuits, cinnamon rolls and orange danish. I'm going to attempt a french toast casserole this year too, and I absolutely cannot wait. It is by far my favorite meal of the year, and on top of that, my favorite tradition of the holiday season. Because on top of having my favorite meal consisting of my favorite types of foods (breakfast foods!), we all gather at the longest table ever and eat together. And you can't beat having a long table FULL of people and food you love.

Okay so this is old, from Easter instead of Christmas, and is missing quite a few people. But, you get the idea. All big family meals are had at this long table!

Any good breakfast recipes to share with me should my french toast casserole be a bust? Remember, I'm not the best cook!

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Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 1

2011-11-30T19:21:00.003-05:00

Okay. I'm a couple of days late, but I wanna play too! And so I'm just gonna invite myself over and jump right in. Even though my Mama always taught me not to invite myself over because it's rude. Sorry Mama!

[Quick side story: When I was little/teenagerish, my very best friends lived up the street from me and their house was the friend's hangout house. Their parents allowed a revolving door of friends to come in and out all the time and we were always welcome there. But, as I mentioned, my Mama taught me to never invite myself over somewhere. So if I were to go ask her if I was allowed to go to Angela and Amy's house to play, she would sometimes question if I invited myself over because she never heard the phone ring, and I'd be busted. Even though going to their house never really warranted an invitation. So, the creative, devious little thing I was figured out how to trick her. [I'm really sorry Mama!!]

They are going to kill me for sharing this picture. But I had to! We were so cute trying to look all bad ass (except for sweet lil Amy that has a hint of a smile!)

There used to be a phone number you could call which would allow you to hear a dial tone, hang up the phone, and within seconds your phone would ring right back, and when someone picked it up it would just be a dial tone. Ha! Tricked you! It was great for pranks on your older sisters when they were waiting for a phone call from their boyfriends. But, in this case, I started using this number to make the house phone ring, which I'd quickly pick up and then hang up, then call Amy and Angela to make sure they were home and up for some playing. Then I'd go ask my Mama if I was allowed to go, and since she heard the phone ring she'd assume I'd gotten a proper invite. And I was off! I love you Mama, and I'm sorry I was such a little trickster! She was just trying to instill some good southern manners in me!]

Anyways, on with the show:

This is a 2 week blog challenge that is holiday related, and is being hosted by her and her. Here is the complete list of topics, and it's not too late! You can play catch up with me too!

Day 1 is this: Your Favorite Gift You've Ever Received

Well, we all know Big Bear was a big hit from Christmas 1989. But, I probably wouldn't consider that my favorite gift ever. My favorite gift ever may actually surprise some people.

I feel like most people would say that their favorite gift was something big. Like, if they got a car for Christmas, or an engagement ring or even a house. (House?! Do people really get houses for Christmas? If so I need to temporarily join that family!) But mine isn't big or expensive at all. Sure, I've gotten jewelry from John for Christmas, or the KitchenAid mixer that I wanted from my parents, and although I absolutely love any and all gifts, they aren't the ones that stand out in my mind.

For Christmas 1995 (I was 13), my sister Christy gave me a big box of stuff for Christmas. The box was wrapped, and then once I opened it, it was full of many other gifts that had all been wrapped individually. As I started opening them, I realized that this gift was full of a ton of crafty things. Felt and buttons, pom poms, wiggly eyes and pipe cleaners. It was an entire box full of craft supplies and I absolutely loved it.

My sister Christy has always been the craftiest of us all. She is a bit older than me, so as I was growing up I remember how she always was making crafts with all of her cool supplies and she'd often let me help her. So this Christmas she decided to get me tons of supplies of my very own because she knew how much I'd like them. It didn't cost much or seem like much, but here it is 16 years later and I still remember this gift.

Buttons! Yay buttons!

Here is the reason I loved it so much - it wasn't something I asked for, but instead was something she thought of herself that she just knew I'd love. That is my favorite thing about giving gifts myself - I really try to think of something that I know that someone will love. I try to stay away from ideas on a wish list, and only get those if I just cannot think of something else myself. [For example, anytime I'm buying for any of the men in my family! Sheesh, they are so hard to shop for!] And so, when someone does the same for me I not only appreciate the actual gift, but I really love the thought that went into it. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and loved inside and I really look forward to giving and receiving gifts like this.

But, in my family and friend's defense, APPARENTLY I'm a tough person to buy for. APPARENTLY I make too many blanket statements about things I don't like - such as shirts with words or cartoon characters, decor with words, etc. etc. And then APPARENTLY that makes people nervous to stray from my wish list because who knows what other things I despise. But, that's okay. I love them anyways and I will still enjoy buying for them each year, much to my grinch of a husband's protests.

What has been your favorite gift ever?

Ketchup

2011-11-27T17:42:00.000-05:00

I have a million things I feel like I need to share with blogland. But, my countdown-to-back-to-work timer is currently reading 39.5 hours and instead of blogging I've been smothering my baby girl with attention. Currently she is napping though, so I felt like I could maybe fit a whole bunch of stuff I've wanted to share in one quick blog.

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Charley was a ladybug for Halloween. I'd say she was a happy ladybug while we went out trick or treating with her cousins, but then I'd be less than truthful.

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I continued my tradition with personalized Christmas ornaments this year. And, John didn't get the chance to throw them in the trash, so all is well in our household!

I had a hard time deciding if I wanted to continue with just a John + Lacey couple ornament and then a separate yearly ornament for Charley, or if I wanted to just do a family ornament each year, or if I wanted to do a family ornament + a Charley ornament. But, if I didn't do a family one I would never get the chance to order this ornament so I decided to do both a Charley ornament and a family ornament. And if I want to one day have that ornament, I better get busy. Move over Duggars!

Anyways, I'm so happy with them and if you wanna be cool like me and order some too, go here. I swear I don't know these people and I'm not paid to endorse them. I just really like their prices and their work. You can't get these kind of ornaments at Hallmark!
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Tuna is still around and as pretty as ever. Also as annoying as ever. I did absolutely no photo shopping to this picture. His eyes are just that pretty.

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So the success was short lived. Sure, we got her to take a cute pacifier a few times. But, taking a pacifier in general was usually a fight. But you know what's even cuter than a pacifier? A certified thumb-sucker. And it looks like that is what we now have. Now that she's figured it out, she's a pro.

Which, I'm sure is why she has yet to lift her head while on her tummy. She's spent all of her time learning the thumb sucking, and just hasn't been able to focus on head-lifting. One thing at a time, she says.
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If you are a part time couponer, or you would like to start couponing just a little bit, start with CVS. They are, by far, my favorite place to coupon. I get all of our personal items here - shampoo, razors, soap, hair products, etc. - and just couponing there makes my $1.00/week I spend on the Sunday paper well worth it. On Thanksgiving day, I woke up at 7, fed my baby, and rushed to CVS for one of their biggest sales ever. I walked out of there with all of this stuff, and I spent...

...nothing. They actually paid me $7.00 to take these items off of their hands. All that's missing from the picture is another Snickers bar, a Balance protein bar, and a Starbucks double shot espresso drink, which all somehow got consumed before I was able to take a picture.
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I've talked about Halloween, I've talked about Christmas. Somehow I skipped over Thanksgiving. Wanna know what we did on Thanksgiving? We ate.

And wanna know what else? I went to a parade with my family. Which happened to be #78 on my 101 list. It wasn't as great as we all remembered it, but we still had a good time. It's not like the Macy's parade which has giant balloons every other float. We just had one balloon in our parade, and by the time it got to us it wasn't much of a balloon at all.

It looks like it may have been a Turkey, but it lost it's stuffing at some point along the parade route.
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And finally, wanna know what else I've been spending my time on? Making bird mobiles for my Etsy shop. Since I first mentioned it to you, we have sold another 13 bird mobiles, for a grand total of 15! That means we have sewed (John) and stuffed (me) 120 birds and shipped them off to far away lands such as the elusive United Kingdom and the even more elusive Canada.

I know I've shared this picture with you before, but I'm sharing again because it's cute. And I need a picture to go with this section.

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So that's what's been up with me. What's up with you?

A Day in the Life: Maternity Leave

2011-11-16T23:29:00.002-05:00

I once posted a blog detailing a day in the life of Lacey. This was in March 2010 and was pre-baby. I knew that when I posted it I would want to revisit this once I had a baby to see how different my days are. I'm currently within my 12 weeks of maternity leave, so I think I'll do this once more once I go back to work. But for now, here is a day in the life of a temporary-stay-at-home-mom Lacey.

I'm going to attempt to duplicate the post from March 2010 and take pictures of my every move. Only, some of my daily duties now require being halfway topless so I'm going to have to be creative with my picture taking or else risk becoming an X-rated blog. Here goes...

6:15 a.m.

Baby monitor sounds off and wakes me up. I'm doing the math in my head as I gather myself and walk over to the nursery to get my sweet baby out of her crib. Went to bed at 8:45pm, woke up at 6:15pm, that's, umm, 9 and a half hours of sleep! Go baby! I on the other hand didn't go to bed until close to 11, so that's 7 hours 15 minutes of sleep for me. Still, I'm very thankful to have such a good little sleeper!

[Ooh. Forgot to mention this part. At 4:00 a.m. we lost power because there was an accident near us, apparently involving a telephone pole and a car. That woke both John and I up because we sleep with a fan on for noise and when the power went out and we lost our white noise and we both struggled to get back to sleep. It was out for 2 hours, so 2 of my 7 hours weren't consisting of very good sleep. Oh well!]

6:22 a.m.

Charley only nursed for 7 minutes (her normal is just 10 minutes!) and I was able to lay her back in her crib and she went right back to sleep. So, then I went back to sleep. I mean, I had to make up for my 2 hours of poor quality sleep!

Nighty night!

Somewhere around 8:00 a.m.
I'm assuming John left for work and I very sleepily said bye and I love you and all that. I was still snoozing and not awake enough to take his picture as he left.

10:15 a.m.
Repeat of 6:15 a.m. Baby monitor wakes me up. Walk over to the nursery and get baby. Thank baby for giving me 4 more hours of sleep. Nurse her for only 6 minutes this time. She's distracted and wants to smile at me while nursing. Only, that doesn't work very well because you can't smile and suck at the same time. I take her off the boob and lay her on the boppy in my lap to have our morning ritual of coos and smiles. This is my favorite part of the day and the part I'll miss the most when I'm back at work.

10:56 a.m.
Smile/coo time is over and it's time to get back to business! Charley begs me to nurse once again and I let her. Who could refuse that face!? She goes 15 minutes this time.

11:15 a.m.
Another favorite part of the day for me: time to get Charley dressed! I lay her on her changing pad and change her diaper. The changing pad is on top of her dresser which houses her clothes so after diaper changing, I start looking through her drawers to see what I can dress her up in for the day. Charley loves this part too, because it involves three of her favorite things. 1, her changing pad, 2, being naked, and 3, her bird mobile.

Today I decide on a pair of jeans (newborn sized still!) and a stripey short-sleeved shirt of which I have 2. Another hand-me-down item from her cousins Lindsay and Lori. Why do I need two, you ask?

Well, 2 minutes after I dressed her she decided to spit up all over herself. Jeans were fine, but shirt and changing pad cover needed to be replaced. Maybe she didn't like today's shirt and that's why she spit up on it. But, I just put the identical second stripey shirt on her anyways. Mommy wins.

11:30 a.m.
We make our way downstairs for the day. Open the blinds, open the door and start scrounging around for breakfast for me. I'm in luck today...I happened to buy 4 cupcakes last night and only ate 2 of them. That means there are two left, and what better occasion is there to eat cupcakes than breakfast? I pour a big glass of milk and chow down.

Sure, I could have taken a picture of the actual cupcakes. Only, they didn't last very long and I didn't think of it until I had a mouth full of the second cupcake. In fact, I had already trashed the box when I realized I didn't photo-document this part of my day. So I dug the box back outta the trash to take it's picture.

12:00 p.m.
Charley is already getting sleepy again, so I lay her down for her first nap of the day on the couch. I let her nap on her tummy as long as I'm in the same room as her. That sleep sheep is a very important piece of nap time too.

12:21 p.m.
After I'm sure Charley is asleep for good, I have to relieve some of the milk build-up in my boobs. If you've been keeping track, Charley has only nursed for a total of 28 minutes since 8:30 the previous night, so there's quite a bit left in there which can get quite uncomfortable for me. Since I know that this nap is pretty long usually, I pump them empty and freeze the milk for use on a later day. & yes, pumping makes me feel like a dairy cow. Moo. This only takes about 10 minutes.

1:15 p.m.
The house is pretty much clean today, so the only tasks I've given myself today are to write a couple of thank you notes, make a doctor's appointment, change a doctor's appointment and to mail back a few forms for open enrollment for my insurance. Such a busy life I lead. I finish all of those daunting tasks in the next half hour and even managed to walk the thank you notes and forms out to the mailbox.

4:11p.m.
Mail's here!

4:15 p.m.
Okay. I just skipped 3 hours of the day and you may be wondering what I did all of that time. Well, I'm curious too. Charley just now woke up and I looked at the clock and realized I've wasted 3 hours on Facebook, doing this blog, and having a snack. That's all that I can recall of the last three hours and that's pretty sad. Facebook can suck you in and you lose track of time!

Anyways, Charley just woke up and was ready to eat again! 20 minutes this time!

4:35 p.m.
Immediately after eating, we moved down on to the floor for some time on her play mat. Tuna joined us too.

4:59 p.m.
She's done with the playmat. PICK. ME. UP. please?

And I can only assume why she was done playing, but, I'm pretty sure I know why. Because every day at 5:00 I do the same thing. And I think Charley has figured me out and wants to join in my fun. So I give in and let her join me.

But, as you can see she doesn't last very long and she's back asleep by 5:30. Meanwhile, John has gotten home at 5:20.

5:38 p.m.

Ring ring. My phone rings and it's my best friend Amy. She was going to come over and visit us today, but we are having severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings, so we both decide it's probably not the best night to visit. She and I end up talking for 23 minutes. All the while, Ellen is on pause and Charley is still asleep on me. At 6:01 I finish my episode of Ellen.

6:20 p.m.
I unsuccessfully try to lay Charley down while she's sleeping and she wakes up. John takes this opportunity to sneak in some Daddy time.

6:47 p.m.
Charley eats again. This time for 23 minutes. She tends to eat a lot in the evenings. Luckily before she got hungry I manage to throw some taco shells into the toaster oven to start my dinner.

6:51 p.m.
John goes to check on the taco shells for me as Charley is still eating. They are done but he doesn't take them out of the toaster oven. Why? I have no idea. They burn. He puts some more in for me. And they are done (and he nearly burnt these too) by the time Charley finishes eating.

I know I don't have much time, so as soon as I can, I go to heat up my leftover Fiesta Chicken as my taco filling. I realize we don't have any other toppings leftover except sour cream. So I end up eating 3 chicken and sour cream tacos. And since sour cream is my only topping, I am extra generous with it.

Mmmm sour cream.

7:30 p.m.
Wheel of Fortune.

7:54 p.m.
Charley's hungry again! 18 minutes this time.

8:00 p.m.
Survivor! Only my favorite show of the week. Charley naps after she finishes eating and lets Mama enjoy her show.

9:01 p.m.
Survivor is over, and I haven't talked to my Mama in 2 days so I call her. She just finished watching Survivor too. We talk for 26 minutes. Meanwhile, at 9:08 p.m. Charley decides she'd like to eat again. Luckily I can multitask. 18 minutes again this time. At some point John comes and gets Charley and changes her and puts her jammies on her.

9:30 p.m.
After I get off of the phone, Charley and I have some play time on the couch. She really just enjoys looking around talking to Mama.

She then starts to get sleepy so I attempt to go lay her in her crib for the evening. She isn't having that and I bring her back downstairs. John attempts to put her to sleep for me. She's clearly not ready for bed...

...because...
10:13 p.m.
Charley wanted one last meal before bed. 14 minutes this time.

10:30 p.m.
I lay her in her crib and she's out within minutes.

Which brings us to now...

11:15 p.m.
...and I sit at my computer, with my baby monitor, finishing up this blog. My bed is calling me and I'm going to meet it in just a few minutes.

Things to note when comparing my pre-baby day-in-the-life to today's day-in-the-life.

No, you didn't just miss it. I did not actually shower today. But I did shower just before bed last night which explains the curly bed head that I have in all of today's pictures.
I never changed clothes. What's the point? I say if I make it through a day where I didn't HAVE to change clothes due to spit up, then I had a pretty great day!
There was no exercising.
There was no dinner making. Instead all meals consisted of what I could find and shove into my mouth in the least amount of time.
In today's day-in-the-life, I had a hard time documenting MY day instead of Charley's day. I kept catching myself only taking pictures of her. Hmm. It seems she IS my life. Crazy how that happens.

And with that, I'm off to bed. My sweet baby will be up in 8ish hours so I better go get some sleep myself. I'm not looking forward to going back to work, but once I get re-established with a new routine, I'll be sure to show you what a day in the life of a working Mama looks like.

Good night!
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101 Updates

2011-11-15T21:57:00.001-05:00

I've still been working on my 101 list. I have nearly a year and a half left, and I really need to get moving on some of these if I expect to complete my goals. Eek. Here's what I have managed to complete so far.

43. Have a baby.

Check.

Oh, hi!

5. Get a pedicure.

This may come as a shock to some of you more high maintenance people and you may say this is a freebie item on my list because "who doesn't get a pedicure?!" but, I don't really get pedicures. I got my first pedicure before my wedding in 2009. I didn't even wear open toed shoes at my wedding, so it was really for my honeymoon since I knew I'd be spending a week barefoot. I enjoyed it, but didn't deem them necessary. After that, I went back to painting my own toenails and was quite satisfied with that.

Then, in August, I had a problem. Shoes weren't fitting so I was flip flopping around everywhere. On top of that, I had a big thing keeping me from my toes.

Yes, that big thing.

John did paint my toenails for me once, but then I decided I may as well just go get them done so that I don't have icky feet when I'm sticking them in the nurses faces during delivery. So I went for my second pedicure ever. (And lucky for me Charley came just 4 days later!) It was nice of course, but, I'm back to painting them on my own again. I'm too cheap to throw money away like that!

8. Have breakfast in bed.

After Charley arrived, John was given a week of paternity leave to help out with our newest addition. My sweet husband made me breakfast in bed TWO days in a row! It consisted of cinnamon pancakes, bacon, and eggs and was so delicious!

Nevermind the fact that he woke me up to eat it when I was already waking every two hours to feed Charley. I'd say a hot, yummy, breakfast in bed more than makes up for that! ;)

23. Spend an entire day without turning on the computer / no internet.

Okay I lied. I have NOT completed this one, and this one is giving me the most anxiety. When I was on vacation last month I thought I would complete this one of those days, but no dice. I couldn't do it, and that's really sad to admit. A WHOLE 24 hours? Who made this silly list?!

25. Carve a pumpkin.

I actually did carve a pumpkin this year! I used the baby as an excuse to do it this year, because what kind of parents would we be if we didn't carve a pumpkin with our child!? I am an overachiever also, so I went with the classic carving: cat within a pumpkin.

If only I had taken a picture of Reese and Tuna next to it.

And also, I may still have this jack-o-lantern on my porch on November 15th. Since jack-o-lanterns are clearly a Halloween decoration, I just turned it around backwards since pumpkins can remain through Thanksgiving. What smell, neighbors?

60. Get a bike.

Got a bike. At a garage sale. Are you surprised? I paid $30, I think. It was somewhere between $20 and $40 at least. What a bargain!

Anyways, as number 76 in my 101 list states, I must take a picture of each item. I envisioned a cheesetastic picture of me riding the bike and waving at the camera, but, my impatience isn't going to allow that to happen. The bike is at my parent's house currently, and I am not going over there just to take this cheesetastic picture. Instead, I am going to share this lovely picture I text messaged to John after I bought the bike at the garage sale.

And, for added measure, you can also peek a glimpse of my bike on the left in this picture of my Mama riding her bike - which coincidentally was also bought at a garage sale.

63. Get my car windows tinted.

Remember how I just got a new Honda Pilot? Well, before that I had a Honda Civic and we traded that Civic in on the Pilot. Wanna know how to up your trade-in value by about $500? Tint the windows right before you trade it in!

Yeah, no. That's a lie. Tinting the windows does next to nothing to the value of the trade-in. Therefore when we got those windows tinted mere weeks before trading it in we essentially just flushed our money down the toilet. That's what we get for being impulsive.

Did I ever tell you about the time we bought brand new tires for a car we owned and then traded it in a month later? Yeah, that impulsive bug bit us again. We aren't very patient people.

Since apparently I never once took a picture of my Civic - windows tinted or not - you are getting this picture instead:

81. Go swimming in our neighborhood pool 5 times.

Okay, I haven't completed this one, but I've made some progress. Over the summer, when it was a million degrees outside and I was pregosaurus rex, I decided to cool off in the neighborhood pool a whopping ONE time. Only, we went at 8:30 in the evening, so it's not like it was even hot out in the first place.

So, the picture. I can't believe I'm going to share this with the entire inter-webs. But, I insisted on a picture for each item as it's completed so I hafta, right?

Remember when I said I was cheap? Well, I was also too cheap to buy a maternity bathing suit. So, I just wore my regular ol' bikini. Maybe THIS is why I only went to the pool one time this summer, and that one time was in the dark:

83. Type, print and organize all recipes into a notebook.

Check. I think John actually finished this one up for me. He was probably (mistakenly) thinking that if he organized all of my recipes I may actually start to cook for him.

And no, I didn't actually type and print them all. I changed my mind about that part. I kind of like when a recipe has hand written notes all over it. Especially in the case of the mac & cheese recipe pictured...the note says DOUBLE EVERYTHING because a single mac & cheese is never enough!

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So now I've completed a measly 25 items out of 101. If I plan on finishing this, I better start knocking some stuff off this list! Which item would you like to see me complete next?
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Triplets

2011-11-11T23:35:00.001-05:00

One of these things is not like the others....

And although my photoshopping skills are clearly superb and you probably can't tell, I'll reveal that little miss Charley is on the right, and has been photoshopped into one of my nieces' baby pictures since they are wearing the same outfit.

Charley is a bit smaller than they were when they wore it, as you can tell by the loose, wrinkly tights on her. But she (and I) are super thankful that their mommy saved so many of their cute outfits which Charley is now getting use out of. This one in particular which has a BIRD! on the dress! You know how I feel about birds!

I would have kept the picture in color, but, whoever took Lindsay and Lori's picture did some crazy coloring to the picture and I couldn't figure out how to match it. I need someone to school me on Photoshop!

Could they be any cuter!? And also, cute as they might be, I'm glad to just have my one!
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Thank Yous

2011-11-08T14:52:00.001-05:00

I always try to use my very best manners and say thank you when appropriate. Especially in this month of November, it is important to say thanks to those in your life that you may have ever neglected to tell. Since I have this prime piece of internet real estate right here, I thought I would use this space to say thank you to some people in my life that I may have never thanked before.

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First, I would like to say thank you to my old coworker Katie. (Remember? She was the other coworker that cared.) Katie did a very significant thing in my life. She convinced me to get my eyebrows waxed for the first time ever. She doesn't realize she did this, because I just started going after she did because she found a place that was right by our work. But, I was so impressed by her eyebrow shape that I then decided I needed to start waxing mine as well.

But, I really don't have a whole lotta eyebrow hairs, so it's not like I was walking around for 27 years with a unibrow or anything.

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Next, I would like to thank my sister Joy. If it weren't for her, four-year-old Lacey would never have known how exactly you get the Chicken Pox. You think you get it from contact with someone else that has them? No, no no. According to my big meanie sister Joy, you get them by being outside while a chicken flies over your head. [Because chickens are always flying, you know.] I am thankful that she told me that so while I played in my backyard at the young and impressionable age of 4, I could constantly dodge any fowl that may be flying overhead since they may have been chickens. That didn't interfere with me wanting to play outside at all.

I may look like I was happy playing outside, but I assure you I was living in constant terror of chicken flyovers.

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And finally, I would like to thank my high school french teacher Ms. Bain. Even though she was the only teacher to call home EVERY time you missed her class (I may have left school early a time or two), I do have to thank her for teaching me how to speak french. So fluently, in fact, that I got a great chance to use it last time I was in Paris.

My parents, John and I were in Paris and my dad's hand was really hurting him. I think it was sore or swelling or something, and he wanted to buy one of those heating pad things, something like this, to put on it to help with the pain. Luckily for us, there was a pharmacy, or la pharmacie if you will, right across the street from our hotel. When we got into the pharmacy, we were struggling with the language barrier and couldn't get the pharmacy workers to understand what we were looking for. The only word I could come up with to describe what we were looking for was the word for hot, "chaud". Apparently even with my very clear French description, they still didn't know what I was talking about. So looking around, I found something else to demonstrate the word "hot"...

I picked up a tube of warming sex cream to try and get my point across. "Chaud! Chaud! Chaud!", I repeated. Shockingly, they never figured out what we wanted and we left there with some mystery medicine.
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Is there anyone that you'd like to thank today?
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Charley Bear: 2 months

2011-11-04T21:18:00.000-04:00

In the same fashion as I did the 1 month birthday, here is the two month update.

We are still taking the weekly pictures with Big Bear. But, I accidentally missed the 6 week picture since we were at the beach that Sunday. I meant to take it on Friday night before we left, but packing for a week for a 6 week old baby somehow took up all my time that day. So, we have 5 weeks, 7 weeks, 8 weeks and 2 months.

She weighed 10 pounds and 7 ounces at her doctor's appointment today and was 22 inches long. She is chunking up quite nicely! She can still wear a lot of her newborn clothing, but can also finally fit in some 0-3 month stuff as well. I admittedly have way too much fun getting her dressed everyday! She also got her 2 month vaccinations today and she cried, but only for a few seconds. She's a trooper!

She loves: napping on Mommy, napping on her tummy, sleeping in general, mornings, ceiling fans, bath time, her changing table (due to the bird mobile above it!), my boobs, and trying to eat her hand.

She hates: getting buckled in her car seat, being stationary in her car seat (she's gotta be moving if she's in the thing), bottles (we've got 3 weeks to get this under control), pacifiers (ugh!), Daddy's scruffy face, and having her arms swaddled.

We love her to pieces and don't bother getting dressed, brushing hair, brushing teeth, etc., before spending time with her while she's awake in her room on the weekends.

We always make sure to wear matching pajamas to bed.

I will be back at work by the time her 3 month birthday gets here, and that makes me sad! But, my sister is going to keep her everyday for me and I know that I am very fortunate for that.

Happy 2 month birthday my Charley Jane! You are so very loved, little lady!

Facebookiquette

2011-11-04T16:08:00.005-04:00

Love it or hate it, Facebook is pretty important socially these days. But, it's still new enough that there aren't established etiquette laws to follow yet. Much like wedding etiquette, there are things you just do NOT do. And I'm sure you all followed wedding etiquette if you are married, right? You wouldn't dare print the addresses on your invitation's envelopes instead of hiring a calligrapher, would you? That would be just awful if you did! (Confession: I PRINTED, as in from a computer, the addresses on my wedding invitation envelopes! Gasp!)

However, I am certainly not the boss of Facebook (that would be Jesse Eisenberg, of course) but I felt like I could maybe lay down a few etiquette rules to get us started.

Thou shall not clog up my news feed with a daily picture of your child or pet. Sure, some of them are cute, but I do not need to see them daily or multiple times a day. If you do want to share a daily picture of your child or pet, get a blog.
See how that works?
Thou shall not comment on a photo album when you intended to comment on just one picture. Your comment now appears every time new pictures are added to that album and doesn't make sense any longer.

Thou shall not invite your entire friends list to play every single game. If I haven't played 99% of the games you've invited me to, I'm not interested. Thank goodness for the block feature when it comes to those pesky games. Before that feature was introduced, I could have screamed "LEAVE ME ALONE! I DO NOT HAVE ANY BRICKS FOR YOUR STUPID STABLE AND I CERTAINLY DO NOT WANT TO BE YOUR FARM NEIGHBOR." Thank you kindly.

This one is a matter of preference, but, I don't see any reason to personally thank every person that comments on something you post. If you have something conversational to say back to them, then by all means say it. But if it's just a "thank you!" or "LOL" (which I'll get to that in a minute), then don't bother. I don't expect to be thanked every time I comment on someone else's picture.

Speaking of the LOL, stop using it! Unless you are really laughing out loud, a simple haha shall suffice. When something really makes me LOL I can no longer use that because it's been overused by fake LOLers.

I've mentioned this one before, but, thou shall not have a profile picture that does not actually picture you. I am friends with you, not Minnie Mouse or your child or your dog.

This one used to be black/white for me, but I've since loosened up a bit about it. But, thou shall not friend the entire Facebook universe. I feel pretty certain that you do not actually know 5,000 people. If you don't know them, they can't be your Facebook friends.

Now - this is the part where I've loosened up a bit. I now have a few Facebook friends that I have never actually met. Several of them are girls that I bonded with on a message board I post on, and a couple are bloggy friends. I have crossed the line on keeping my efriends and real friends separate, and I'm okay with that now. I kind of like some of them better than real life friends anyways! ;)

How many of those "rules" have you broken? It's okay, I forgive you. We can't all be perfect like me. What Facebook rules do you have that need to be added to the Facebookiquette list?

Accent Vlog

2011-10-28T17:10:00.005-04:00

Eek. I'm about to post my first vlog ever. For you non-bloggers, that simply means a video blog. I know I posted the video of me singing Gangsta's Paradise not too long ago, but that wasn't nerve-racking at all since I am such an excellent singer, er, rapper. This is just talking though. Compare it to getting up in front of the entire class (in this case the entire WORLD since everyone clearly reads my blog) to do your oral presentation. My knees are shaking at the thought of it.

A few observations before I post these videos though. First, I make tons of faces as I talk. People that know me - do I always do that or is this just a product of my oral presentation jitters? If I do always do that - Is that annoying? Because I was almost annoyed at myself watching them back. Sheesh. What's wrong with a normal face, Lacey?

Next, look out for a secret Charley appearance in the first video. She was napping in the Boppy on the couch behind me, and her little foot kicks out from under her blanket around the one minute mark. Look out for it right above my left shoulder. She's such a show stealer, that one.

And finally, between the two videos I had to attend to Miss Fussypants. The time elapsed was about one minute long. And how did I calm her down so quickly? Well, I stuck her on a boob. And then did the second part of the vlog. Yes, I vlogged while breastfeeding. And yes, I did manage to keep any boob shots out of the picture. Whew. I'm quite impressed with my multitasking these days, myself.

Anyways, here were the rules of the vlog. Apparently this little blog idea is floating all around the internet, but the only person I've seen do it is my very best e-friend Laura at The Diniwilks. She is fab! But I think you should do it too. Come onnnnn, it's fun!

Here are the rules:

Say the following words:

Aunt, route, wash, oil, theatre, iron, salmon, caramel, fire, water, sure, data, ruin, crayon, toilet, New Orleans, pecan, both, again, probably, spitting image, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, syrup, pajamas, caught

And answer these questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that curls into a ball when you touch it?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you use to change the TV channel?

Here is part 1:

And then part 2...the boob part. Man, talking about my boobs on my blog seems to be all I do these days.

Edit: D'oh! Just watched this second video after it was posted and realized that Flickr cut off my video after a minute and a half! Boo! All I had left was the last question, to which I answered "remote" so you really didn't miss anything except maybe a couple more faces I made. And also you missed me asking all crazy Canadians to participate because I like their accents.

What do you think? Southern? Did I offend any Canadians by calling them crazy? Did I offend any "pop" sayers by saying you are WRONG? And also, what is the word for rain while the sun is shining? There is a word for that??

And lastly, because this question wasn't addressed and I feel that it needed to be, the name of this article of clothing on my head in this picture is a toboggan. A "winter hat," as some may call it, is just silly. Calling it a "winter hat" is basically like saying you don't have a name for it at all.

Yes, excitement over snow. We don't get it very often down here!

So, your turn! Let me hear those accents!
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Success!

2011-10-27T14:05:00.002-04:00

Ugly pacis, be gone! My child recognizes the importance of being cute, and has since shunned the ugly paci.

She apologized for liking the ugly ones before and blamed it on me for not letting her see herself in the mirror with them. I'm sorry, darling. I'm just glad we are now seeing eye to eye on the pacifier situation.
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Everyone's Doing It

2011-10-27T13:47:00.002-04:00

I have a complex. I seem to despise doing what everyone else is doing. I don't think it's necessarily a new thing of mine, but having a baby made it ten times worse. It's forcing my creativity to work on overdrive, which in turn is burning out the creativity motor all together. I may have to change tactics.

Lemme splain.

When I bought my very first car, (which happened to be my 2nd car since my parents gave me a Honda Civic as my first car) I had to have something that wasn't as common as say, the Honda Civic. I loved my first car, but despised the fact that every single person in the world seemed to also have a Civic and therefore I wasn't original at all. Never mind the fact that everyone owned one because they were such good cars...that part obviously did not matter to me.

So, I chose to buy a Toyota Celica because they looked different and there weren't as many of them at the time. I loved that car and loved that it looked fast. [I eventually got over this complex with my cars though as I did just own another Civic before trading it in on a Pilot.]

When I found out I was pregnant, there were several things I instantly did NOT want to do, mainly because everyone else seemed to be doing them. Although - everyone else seemed to be having babies and that didn't seem to deter me.

First thing I thought of was the nursery. Everyone seemed to be buying wooden letters spelling out the name of their child and hanging them over their crib. Sure, some people were decoupaging the letters or painting them to make them 'different' or 'original', but to me the idea was far too common and far too played out to be considered original or different to me. I decided I would not have to remind myself of my child's name by glancing into her nursery and would just have find some other way to remember Charley's name.

Another thing that I kept seeing everywhere - from contestants on American Idol to pregnant ladies in their maternity pictures - was the stupid heart symbol made with your hands. I despised this as well and vowed not to have any of that type of picture taken when I went to get my maternity pictures taken.

And I definitely did not do the "heart" pose during our maternity pictures.

But, when it came time to pick out our pumpkin this year, I was forced into a predicament. I love fall, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, and anything fall related. But when 95% of my facebook feed is currently pictures of people with their kids in a pumpkin patch, I just couldn't do it. I got into an internal argument with myself about whether or not I would dress Charley in a cute fall outfit, take her to a pumpkin patch, and take pictures of her laid over a giant pumpkin. I wanted to, and yet, I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. Why not? Because everybody's doing it and I'm not like everybody. "I'm different. I'm original!", I told myself.

And then when John, Charley and I found ourselves at the corner farmer's market, I decided it was time to buy our yearly pumpkin. No biggie this year, right? Sure we have a child now, but we buy a pumpkin every year and don't take pictures. Why would this year be any different. And yet, as I stood there picking out my pumpkin, I couldn't take it. I asked John for his phone as mine was in the car. "Why?", he asked.

And then I set her down on the crate and took the picture. Oh the shame.

Because what kind of mother would I be if I didn't document this momentous occasion in Charley's life!? I had to do it. I gave in. And now I wish she would've been in a cute fall outfit and not sleeping in her car seat. Unoriginal or not, I'm ready to join the masses. I'll be taking pictures as Charley carves her first pumpkin tonight too. And you know what else? I might even plaster them all over Facebook. Because darn it, my kid's cute. And her cuteness is original enough.
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My Temp Job

2011-10-27T13:16:00.005-04:00

I'm finally getting the hang of this temporary job of mine, the stay at home mom. It only took me 7 and a half weeks to get the hang of it, and in 4 and a half weeks I will be retiring from this gig and will be heading back to work. But regardless, I'm a domestic professional now. Just listen to how domesticated I was today.

I made dinner for the first time since I've been on maternity leave tonight. I made a roast in the crock pot, red potatoes and yeast rolls. It was really easy...I opened the package of meat, dumped it in the crock pot as to not dirty my precious hands, and turned the crock pot on for 8 hours. The potatoes were simply boiled in water, with a dash of salt and a spoonful of margarine. The rolls were frozen and just thrown in the oven. And yet, I had to call my Mama to figure out the potato part. Boiling water sure is tricky apparently!

And then, I changed the linens on the bed. I also washed the comforter, duvet cover, and sheets! I was feeling energetic, I suppose. Orrr, it could have been due to the fact that sweet Charley projectile vomited all over the bed during her nap. I'm sure I would have changed the sheets anyways today, vomit or not.... ahem.

But I got to it quickly and it didn't soak through to the mattress thankfully. So I took all of the linens down to the laundry room. And, as I was about to throw them in the washer, I realized I didn't know what I was doing and had to call my HUSBAND to tell me what to do. Yes, I had to sink so low as to ask a man how to do laundry. If that isn't the epitome of my laziness over the past 7 weeks + 9 months, I don't know what is. Turns out I did have to take the duvet off of the comforter to wash it. Who knew!?

And then I was a pro at taking care of my baby today. She puked, I cleaned it up. She cried, I made her stop crying.

& how did I do that? Well, I stuck her on a boob of course! And then later as I was looking at my breastfeeding log I realized this baby was playing me for a fool! She was eating for just 8 or 9 minutes every hour during the day! And so, yet again I had to phone-a-friend and ask my internet friends on a message board I frequent about how to get the baby to stop taking advantage of me and my boobs.

As it turns out, I have no clue what I'm doing.
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Driving School

2011-10-24T14:38:00.001-04:00

If you've been wondering where I've been (and lets face it, you've been checking over here daily, haven't you?) I will admit that I have been at the beach with my parents and baby. If you've been around for a while, you know we go to Pirateland campground in Myrtle Beach, SC about once a year with the entire family, but this trip was just a few of us since my nieces and nephews are in school this time of year. This was just a little getaway to take advantage of my maternity leave and a much needed vacation for my parents. Even John got to join us for a few days too at the end of the week.

Anyways, the campground is pretty large and you can rent golf carts to get around everywhere. We have rented a golf cart every year for at least the last decade and all of the adults would (seemingly) have had a chance to drive it around at some point or another. Imagine my surprise when I learned this secret: my dear mother had NEVER driven a golf cart! Somehow throughout all of these years she had always had a driver; the diva that she is. [In her defense, there are usually 7 or 8 other possible drivers with us, so maybe it's not too far fetched that she had never actually driven the golf cart herself.]

So it became my personal mission to make sure that she drove a golf cart at some point on our vacation. I volunteered my dad to be the driving instructor, and pestered my Mama to take the golf cart for a spin until she finally gave in. This was the tactic I used when I was teenager and I was trying to get her to agree to let me do something I wanted. It usually worked then, so I thought I'd give it a try now too. (Sorry Mama!) And would you believe that I've still got it? I was able to pester her into the driver's seat and Daddy hopped in with his clipboard to act as driving instructor.

I stayed back at the campsite to 1) take pictures and 2) take care of the baby. I considered taking Charley and riding along with the student, but when the driving session started out like this, I was reassured that I had made the right decision.

Sorry Mama...but your face is too funny here not to share!

But she passed with flying colors. Apparently, the instructor replaced the classic driving school requirements of three-point-turns and parallel parking with a more campground related tasks such as circling a picnic table three times.

I am proud to say she is now a licensed golf cart driver, and neither her, nor my dad, nor the golf cart ended up in a lake. I'd say that's a success story!
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Happy Anniversary

2011-10-24T14:11:00.000-04:00

It was two years ago today that John and I wed,

making it nearly 8 years (in November) that we've been together.

I'd say this year was the year with the biggest (or smallest) changes, and that being our little Charley. I am going to take a guess that this year is going to be our best year yet and I'm looking forward to sharing it with John.

John and I aren't a gifty couple. We don't do birthday presents, Christmas presents, Valentine's presents, or any other presents to each other. And when we got married, we decided that for our anniversaries, we'd do a trip together each year instead of gifts. This year proved to be a little more difficult with a 7 week old baby, but we made it work regardless!

Seeing as how I am already out on maternity leave, my parents and I thought we should take advantage of it and go to one of our favorite places for the week. We returned to Pirateland campground in Myrtle Beach and spent all last week there. John couldn't get the entire week off, but was able to come down for the second half of our week. And while we were there, we decided we'd go ahead and celebrate our anniversary since it was only 3 days early and we had willing babysitters with us.

It may not have been as luxurious as our honeymoon was in Punta Cana, or adventurous as our first anniversary was in Washington, DC, but having a newborn limited our choices a bit this year. So we left Charley with a babysitter...

...(her loving Gamma & Grandaddy) and we took off for Broadway at the Beach - a outdoor mall type place with restaurants and some rides and shops. Myrtle Beach recently made the stupid decision to close their large theme park on the boardwalk, and a few of the rides have moved here instead so I was determined to ride one of my favorite rides from when I was a kid. It's called The Caterpillar, and is basically a round and round ride where the best part is when a cover (the cocoon?) comes over everyone making you ride in the dark. So we rode the ride, and I kept waiting for my favorite part. And waiting. And waiting. And then the ride ended. And I cried. Okay, not really, but they got rid of the cover part! What kind of crap is that!?

So we left there being a bit disappointed (I should've rode the swings instead!) and went to have lunch. I had never been to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville restaurant, and it was close, so we went there. On the walk over we stopped to feed the icky fish.

We had lunch outside on the deck, and overall we were pretty disappointed in the food (gimmicky, touristy place with sub par food) but at least we were in good company!

And Charley wanted to make sure that we enjoyed as much of our actual anniversary as possible so she decided to try and keep us up for the majority of the night last night! What a sweet baby! ;)

So even though our 'date' for our anniversary and our actual anniversary has not been magical and perfect and exotic, it was just perfect for us as our real anniversary gift is that little lady right there.

John - I love you lots and lots! Thanks for giving me Charley! Happy 2nd Anniversary and I hope for many more to come!

Love,

Lacey

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Haiku Thursday

2011-10-13T15:34:00.003-04:00

Source

If you'd like to participate in Haiku Thursday, let me know in my comments so I can come see yours too! Feel free to steal the Haiku Thursday picture too...I stole/graciously borrowed it myself. And, if you need a little extra help in the poetry department: a haiku is a short poem consisting of three lines; the first line having 5 syllables, the second 7, and the third 5.

Please! Someone else participate this week. I'm beginning to think I'm the only one that appreciates the moving, motivating, and meaningful art form of a haiku these days. I mean, just look at some of my favorites from the past, for example here or here. If they don't move you to your core, you are just dead inside.

Loving my latest
Cute fashion accessory,
All nine pounds of her.

Se7en Things

2011-10-11T19:34:00.002-04:00

[Okay, it's technically 'Seven Things' and not 'Se7en Things' (as stolen from one of my favorite movies...shout out to Brad Pitt whom I'm sure reads Life of Lacey!) but how boring is the title 'Seven Things.' It definitely needed some sprucing up.]

I am never one to not follow through on a blog tagging, and I've been tagged twice so it's extra important that I follow through. I was tagged by her and her, both mommy bloggers that also have newborns at home! Thanks ladies!

The premise is this:

Write 7 things about yourself.
Give the ‘award’ to other blogs
Inform them about it!

If you've been around for a while, you know that I have done this before. I did 100 things, then 10 more, and then 7 more. And because I truly believe that every reader of mine has read every post I've ever written (you have, haven't you? If not, I suggest you get reading!), then I refuse to repeat any thing about me. So here are 7 new things that I haven't yet shared.

1. I have windshield wiper anxiety. If I pull up to a stoplight and it's raining, I am instantly looking at the speed of the wipers on the cars around me, and if mine are going faster than theirs are, I turn mine down immediately. How embarrassing!

2. If there are any homemade sweets in my house (brownies, cake, cupcakes, etc.), every meal then requires a dessert. Had Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast? Well then you must have a brownie for breakfast's dessert! [Hypothetically speaking, of course. I didn't actually have that for breakfast. Ahem.]

3. I have really thick head of hair that I inherited from my daddy. On the flip side, I have very low HPSI on my arms and legs. [HPSI = hairs per square inch]

4. John and I call each other Tuppy. No idea what it means or how it came about, but we are both Tuppy to each other. How sickening are lovey pet names? Bleh. But I do love my Tuppy! ;)

5. (Because all of my other lists were pre-baby) I have an adorable daughter named Charley. [Cue gratuitous picture of Charley...]

She was pretending she was conducting an orchestra.

6. I love filling out forms. Whether paper or online, I just love filling stuff out. If it's paper though and printed in black ink, I need to fill that form out with blue pen so it contrasts against the black ink that the form is printed in. Crazy?

7. I always sing in the car, even now that I have little Charley in my back seat. & I may have said that I will never play any kids music in my car. But that doesn't count if I'm singing kids music to Charley, right? Here I am singing the classic children's song by Coolio, Gangsta's Paradise:

Okay this was pre-baby (well she was still cooking at the time) and in my old car, but I assure you the same lullabying happens now too. Charley loves it.

This list of 7 things literally took me 5 days to come up with. You better have enjoyed it.

And for parts 2 and 3 of this little challenge, I award YOU! And that's counts as your notification too! Have fun!
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Sucker

2011-10-11T12:25:00.002-04:00

The title to this has multiple meanings:

1) I am officially a sucker.
2) This is a post about pacifiers.

So I can stand my ground about wordsy clothing or cartoon character baby things, but I realize I'm not always going to win the fight. Especially once she starts talking and having a mind of her own. But for now at least, you'd think I'd pretty much have my way with everything. She's only 5 1/2 weeks old, after all. But, apparently I was wrong.

So since I'm pretty vain myself, I find cuteness to be of extreme importance with my baby too. For example, last Saturday John was the one to get Charley up and dressed for the day. He put her in a yellow ducky onesie (which I happen to love, by the way) and blue pants. Nothing wrong with either piece on their own, but together they scream, "I'm a boy!" to me. I mean, yellow is the gender neutral color and blue pants only work on a girl if there is at least some girly color in the shirt they are paired with.

I'm a girl, I promise!

I never changed her clothes or told John about my issue with her outfit, but I definitely thought about it. So anyways, yes, I value the importance of a cutely dressed baby.

Part of a well balanced cutely dressed baby is a cute pacifier. I had an entire arsenal of different brands of cute pacifiers ready to be tested out by Miss Charley. Surely she could choose a favorite brand from all of the cute choices I was giving her.

Pick the Mam Charley! What could be cuter than a little birdie on your pacifier which would then match your cute nursery!?

But she had other plans. All of the cute pacifiers were rejected. Blehh, she'd say. Spit them out and make an awful gagging face at me afterwards. I went along for a couple weeks just content with the fact that my baby wasn't going to take a pacifier at all.

But then, there are times when she uses my boob as her pacifier and all I want to do is go to bed and yet unless I give this baby something to suck on, I'm not going to get to go to bed. I guess I could've done what John tried to do while we were out at a store once and she was being fussy - he found a nipple to a bottle in the diaper bag and thought that would suffice as a pacifier. No, John, that's not teasing her at allll.

So I did what I had to do. I went to the store and bought the hideously ugly pacifiers I was trying to stay away from. And you know what? She took that ugly pacifier.

I'm doomed.

My only hope is that this is her "training pacifier" and now that she knows what to do with it, she can go back and enjoy one of the cuter options. Like the birdie one, Charley, hint hint!
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Parenting Report Card

2011-10-05T16:25:00.002-04:00

It's only been one month, but I figured it was a good time to see how I was doing on my personal parenting report card that I have made for myself. If you don't remember, I told you here and here about things I absolutely would not be doing once I was a mommy, and I promised to come back and tell you how it was going so you either would or would not be 'mocking me later.' All I have to say for myself is this: SO WHAT!?

I will just list some of the items here and show/tell you how I've done. Some of the things aren't relevant yet so we will have to revisit this later.

1. I wrote: This one is the most important: I will NEVER, and I mean NEVER own a minivan. UNLESS, I have septuplets or something that simply cannot fit in any other vehicle. Mark. my. words.

Well, John and I have both purchased brand new cars in the last 2 months. If you were a betting person, what would you say the chances are that at least one of these cars is a minivan? Well...

His - 2011 Chevrolet Silverado

Mine - 2011 Honda Pilot

My grade: A+

Not only did I not succumb to the world of minivans when I quickly realized our Honda Civic was too small, but I also went ahead and got the biggest Honda SUV so it could grow with our family and rule out any need to upgrade for a very long time. Unless of course, like I said before, I have septuplets or something. Lord help me if I do...

2. I wrote: My kids will never sleep in the bed with me. Cats are welcome; children get out!

Okay, this one is tricky. You see, Charley does pretty well with letting me put her down while she's still awake at night without crying. But sometimes she does need to be put to sleep first. And what's her favorite way to be put to sleep?

By laying on my chest, of course. And what does a sleeping baby on my chest + 4:00 a.m. equal? Mommy falling asleep too. So, a couple times she has slept on my chest as I've [sort of] slept propped up in the bed. But, in my defense, she has never actually slept ON the sheets themselves, so in that case:

My grade: C

3. I wrote (although I was joking): "You don't know what love is until you lay eyes on your baby." How could I possibly love another human being more than I already love myself?

Easy.

My grade: F

4. I wrote: Strollers are too much trouble. Too big, bulky, don't fit down the aisles of my favorite Juniors' departments. (Just kidding on that last one; although I stayed in Juniors for as long as I could, I did finally find my way to the ladies department). After my kid is able to walk really well, they will be walking. Really well.

I have no excuse for this one, except I was unaware of the awesomeness that existed with certain strollers. I loathe the travel system strollers, and I'm sure that's what I was referring to when I wrote that before. My stroller is so awesome though and I can't wait to use it every single time we go somewhere. (It's the Baby Jogger City Mini + car seat adapter if you happen to be in the market for a stroller!)

Trying to rid myself of some of that butt swelling that happened during pregnancy!

My grade: F

5. I wrote: Showers and bathroom breaks are private time. No kids allowed. This one sounds so obvious when written out that there really shouldn't be any question about it!

So what exactly am I to do when I wake up drenched in sweat (true story...almost every single night), desperately needing a shower, John is at work, and I am the sole caretaker of my sweet lil lady?

Bouncy seat on vibrate in front of the shower of course! She loves it! I still stick to my rule about bathroom breaks though once she is mobile. We'll see how that one goes... ;)

My grade: C

6. I wrote: My facebook profile picture will always at least have me in it. There will never be any confusion when my status says: "I am as drunk as a skunk", and the picture beside it shows a drooling, toothless babyface. Something is just not right about that.

Current Facebook picture:

Me + toothless baby = approved Facebook profile picture

My grade: A

7. I wrote: I will not, under any circumstances, have stick people on my car.

I'm not big on stickers of any sort, and have already removed the car dealership's sticker as well. So you can be sure there are no stick people taking up space on the back of my new car either.

My grade: A

8. I wrote: I am against words on my babies' clothing. There will be no "My Mom Rocks" onesies, bibs, or t-shirts. Words belong in books, blogs and newspapers, and not on clothing.

Ugh. I still hate the words. But, I was given some wordsy gifts and didn't take them (all) back surprisingly. And today, I wanted Charley to wear her little purple pants, and was searching for a onesie to match little purple pants and only one onesie out of the thousands in the stack seemed to match.

The little elephants are actually purple.

I mean, she does love her daddy, but it's not necessary to write it on her clothing. I also love my daddy and wore a plain black shirt today. Gasp! I'm doing my dad a disservice by not proclaiming my love for him on my clothing!

My grade: C (since the wordy clothes really won't get much use as long as I'm dressing her)

9. I wrote: Cartoon characters will not be on my child's clothing or in their nursery. Not even when they get old enough to request their favorite cartoon's apparel. Nope, so sorry.

This is a bigger offense to me than the words, and I have secured a cartoon-character-free home thus far. EXCEPT for one Tinkerbell blanket we were gifted that didn't have a receipt and therefore I couldn't return it. It hasn't gotten any use though at all. And actually, one of my twin nieces politely suggested that she could take it off of my hands if I didn't want it, and I would have given it to her had there been 2 of them.

Therefore,

My grade: A

10. I wrote: I will not blog only about my child. I hope to have a good mixture of what I blog about now, plus baby thrown in here and there. This is Life of Lacey, not Exclusively Life of Lacey's Child.

Gulp. Well, in the time since Charley has been born I have posted 9 blogs, 8 of which were about Charley. But, she's new and I'm sure once her newness wears off we'll get back to our regularly scheduled programming. ;)

My grade: D

So, that's 4 A's, 3 C's, a D and 2 F's. 7 grades are average and above and only 3 were not. I'd say I'm doing pretty good so far and haven't left too much for you to mock me over. Take that, naysayers! And as with any good report card, I think I just earned myself a trip to go out for ice cream!
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Charley Bear: 1 Month

2011-10-03T22:25:00.001-04:00

My little Charley is one month old today! [Well technically tomorrow on the fourth, but I have no patience and am posting this one night early.] I can't believe how fast this first month went, and even more than that, I can't believe my boobs have successfully sustained a human for a full month!

I knew a nickname would come about once our little darling got here. It surprisingly came from an online friend of mine that I "met" through a baby message board. She called her Charley Bear from the very first picture I shared of her, and it has really stuck with us. If you know us in real life or have done enough stalking to know our last name, you realize that it also makes sense considering our last name. If you don't know our last name, I have now just revealed to you that it has something to do with a bear. John, Lacey & Charley Polar? John, Lacey & Charley Cub? John, Lacey & Charley Grizzly? John, Lacey & Charley Yogi? You may never know!

So, given this bear-ness, it only makes sense that I am taking Charley's weekly picture with my beloved Big Bear. This is a bear that I got for Christmas when I was 7 or 8ish, and is the only childhood stuffed animal or toy that I held onto.

So it only makes sense that my Charley Bear loves him too. And she has loved him each week we have taken her picture with him. Here are Charley's weeks 1 through 4:

Her first month consisted of eating, sleeping and pooping. She is really good at all 3 things. She has gained 2 whole pounds since birth, weighing in around 8 pounds these days, up from 6 pounds 2 ounces at birth. She is still wearing mainly just newborn sized clothing and newborn sized diapers, so still a lil thing. But I'm thinking she won't be this little much longer.

She loves being my human baby doll and allows me to dress her up as often as I want with only minimal screaming. Maybe if I would have also held on to one of my baby dolls from childhood I wouldn't be so obsessed with dressing her up. But none of my Cabbage Patch Kids were as cute or quite as fun as Charley.

Happy one month baby girl!

Haiku Thursday

2011-09-29T14:31:00.001-04:00

Source

If you'd like to participate in Haiku Thursday, let me know in my comments so I can come see yours too! And, if you need a little extra help in the poetry department: a haiku is a short poem consisting of three lines; the first line having 5 syllables, the second 7, and the third 5.

This week's haiku actually has a title: Neglect

I miss the old days
Where I was the big star here,

Not her and her feet.

~Tuna

It's not even a good or clear picture of her little foot, but Tuna's face is priceless.

The Things I Do For You

2011-09-28T13:56:00.002-04:00

I have a feeling that this is going to be a regular topic on this blog now that I'm a mommy and (sorta) selfless. Because giving Charley the absolute best I can give her is on the forefront of my mind, and sometimes I am going to have to do some pretty crazy things in order to do that for her. But, I'd say she's worth it.

So, this edition of 'The Things I Do For You' comes from Charley's very first week. I am breastfeeding Charley, and I was well aware that the first few weeks can be toe-curling painful. I will say I was mentally prepared for that aspect of it, even if I wasn't aware just how painful it would be. But regardless, when you are in pain, you are constantly searching for a remedy.

I think Charley was around 4 or 5 days old. She was breastfeeding like a champ, but I wasn't exactly perfect in my technique. When you don't get the baby latched on just right, they can then suck the skin off of your nipples. Yes, OFF of your nipples. It's painful, to say the least. And quite vampire-esque when you take your baby off of your nipple and she's got your blood in the corners of her mouth. I will say that I finally figured out what the heck I was doing and I don't have this issue any longer, and it's funny NOW, but I definitely wasn't laughing then..unless it happened to be opposite day.

So right boob had taken a beating. Lefty wasn't perfect either, but lefty was tougher than righty. Regardless, you need to use both boobs or the one you don't use will get so full of milk that it then hurts of that ailment instead. But in between needing righty, I was on a mission to remedy the skinless, bleedy situation. And this is what I did for you, Charley.

I found information on a very reliable and informative website that suggested a saline solution to ease sore, cracked nipples. It even had the recipe to make your own saline solution on the website and lucky for me I had all of the ingredients: salt & warm water. So I make the solution and read the instructions on how to apply the remedy:

After breastfeeding, soak nipple(s) in a small bowl of warm saline solution for a minute or so--long enough for the saline to get onto all areas of the nipple.

I am to soak my nipples in this solution? Logistically, how am I to make this happen? The first day I did this, my thought was that the only possible way was to do this as I was laying down. And where do you lay down? In the bed of course! And lucky for me, John was already in bed for the evening trying to go to sleep. A (not so) willing helper!

So I take my bowl upstairs, set it in the bed, and lower myself into said bowl with John steadying the bowl as I go.

I successfully dipped nips without any spillage, and it seemed to be working! "I will continue dipping nips until they are healed!", I proclaimed!

Luckily, the next day I must have been less sleep deprived and was thinking more clearly. This day I realized that there was no need to risk a major saline spillage in our bed. I could simply place my bowl on the kitchen counter, and dip my nips this way! It would just look like I was taking a standing-up-nap on the kitchen counter.

And so I continued dipping nips on the kitchen counter for a few days until all was healed. Righty is still a little wimp, but all is well these days with me, Charley, and my nipples.

The End.
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Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

2011-09-28T12:24:00.000-04:00

From my 101 in 1001 list, I not only completed #28: Win something, but I was an over achiever and won lots of somethings.

A couple of months ago I entered a contest on a blog to win a gift certificate for birth announcements or other custom stationary. The lady giving it away was doing so in an effort to drum up business for herself by advertising her products on this blog I was reading. All you had to do to enter was leave a comment on that particular blog post. Easy enough, right?

So, a few days later after the contest ended I was extremely happy to get an email telling me that I had in fact won the credit to her stationary shop and I could pick out whatever I wanted to be custom made from her. At the time, it was right after my baby showers and I needed some thank you cards, so I requested that she design those for me. She did, and then told me that the thank you cards only used up about half of the credit I had won and I could also have birth announcements made with the remaining half. So far I've received the thank you cards and will get the birth announcements soon.

But, winning this contest got me curious. I wondered what the odds were to win a blog contest over say, a radio contest, because most blogs I read don't have nearly the same number of people that would be entering. So, I went back to the blog on which I had won this contest and took note of the number of entrants in the contest I had just won: there were 7. So, my great luck was simply because there weren't many participants and therefore winning had been a bit easy. This got the wheels in my head turning.

Because, if you read many blogs at all, you know that these contests happen ALL of the time. People are always giving things away to drum up readers or drum up buyers for their Etsy shop, etc. I decide that since winning this was so easy, I was going to win lots of other stuff too. Who doesn't love free stuff, after all?

So I did some expert googling, entered some contests on blogs I hadn't even ever visited before, and started winning things left and right. I don't know if this is against some bloggy code of ethics, but, in my defense, I actually did find some new blogs to read by doing this, so the people hosting the contests did in fact drum up new readers. This is how I justify my winnings in my head.

I entered blog giveaways for 2 consecutive days. I probably entered 20 or so contests each day, which took maybe an hour each day. This is what I ended up winning:

First, I won these two ceramic birds from here. Guess who has a bird themed nursery and could use these?

Then, I won a photographer's print here. Coincidentally, when I was running around looking for tape when my water broke, it was to tape this picture to the back of the mat in this frame.

Then I won this monogrammed acrylic tray from this blog which was advertising this Etsy shop.

I make great use of it on my night stand to hold all of my middle of the night essentials.

And my most favoritest winnings: this baby JaR gift basket I won from here. It contains a blanket, two burp cloths, a hooded towel, and a bib and is valued at only $150! Yes, seriously. Apparently this is a hip brand of baby products that celebrities are into, and if you were to buy just the blanket it would cost you $68.

I will say though, that this purple blanket has gotten a ton of use because it is by far the nicest blanket I've ever felt. Charley is getting spoiled by luxury already.

On top of those things, I've also won a couple of gift cards and gift certificates to Etsy shops that I've yet to use. Pretty crazy, right?

So I'd say I successfully crossed this item off of my list. And to think I was originally trying to win $5K from a radio giveaway to complete this item. I mean, who needs $5K when you can have ceramic birds and a acrylic tray!?

Charley's Birth: Part III

2011-09-24T14:53:00.004-04:00

Part I & Part II

So...where were we?

And so the doctor tells me the problem and then decides....

...that I am in fact going to push this baby out. First, she just needed to make a little adjustment.

Because, you see, the doctor had just determined Charley was sunny side up. And, since you know I'm not talking about breakfast, that just means she was face up instead of face down in baby terms. By being in that position, she wasn't able to tuck her head as she was being pushed out, making her "stuck" and thus the reason I had been unsuccessfully pushing for two hours and forty minutes.

Now, it really wasn't as dramatic as I made it out to be, but who doesn't love a good cliffhanger? Basically the doctor came in and determined what the nurses were unable to see. [Actually the nurses did mention that she may be sunny side up a couple of times, but couldn't really tell based on what they could see.] The doctor then stuck her hand up there, grabbed around Charley's head, and flipped her around. She didn't even really tell me what she was doing until after she was done and then I was ready to push once more. I wasn't feeling any less exhausted, but now since something had finally happened, I found a renewed sense of energy and was ready to go again.

[I will admit that I did in fact poop on the table during all of that pushing, and my lovely husband witnessed it and still can look at me in the face afterwards. Now that's love. And, he says it really wasn't much thankfully. (I hadn't eaten in a while so that helped, I'm sure). I was really worried about this aspect of child birth, but when I was in the moment I really did not care one bit.]

And yes, this does mean that all of that pushing and all of the muscle usage that my body endured was for nothing. But, what matters is the end result, and in twenty short minutes after the doctor flipped Charley around, I got my end result.

Charley Jane ~ Born 9/4/11 at 6:58 a.m.

6 pounds 2 ounces and 20" long

I was truly in love, but she was just maybe a little too goopy and sticky at that moment which is the explanation for my facial expression!

I was finally able to push her out after I had already given up on myself. I think there were about seven hundred people in the room at this point and they all cheered me on and helped me do it. It was so surreal and I felt so accomplished. My first thought when they held her up for me to see - "Whoa that is a lot of arms and legs." She was long and lean and beautiful and ours.

John wasn't mentioned much in the story, but he was definitely there the entire time. I am pretty independent apparently and didn't need to squeeze the living daylights out of his hand, or scream obscenities at him. He just hung around and actually watched Charley's birth, and I couldn't have asked for any different of him. That's really all I wanted was his presence. He did cut the cord after her birth and I'm thankful for awesome nurses that grabbed the camera from him and got a picture of that moment that I would have otherwise missed.

After her birth, I then delivered the placenta, and then, if enough stuff hadn't come out of my uterus already that morning, the doctor started sticking her hand back in there and pulling out tennis ball sized blood clots and such. It was fascinating and disgusting at the same time. I guess I'm grateful that she went ahead and took them out then and didn't wait for them to fall out on their own while I was sitting on the toilet later...I may have thought that I had just lost an organ in the toilet if something that size fell outta me!

Finally, she sewed up a first degree tear (I am very lucky that I didn't tear very much and didn't have to deal with the painful recovery in this area afterwards!) and maybe I had just turned wimpy at this point, but the pulling of the string as she was stitching me up was more uncomfortable than child birth.

The hospital strongly encouraged one hour of skin-to-skin time directly after birth and just a little bit of wiping her down. So she was laid on my chest for the next hour and we started to call family members to come back to the hospital to meet her.

The first family member she met after her hour on my chest was Daddy.

My family had all arrived too (minus my sister, bro-in-law and nieces in Florida) and were so excited to meet Miss Charley too. She is so lucky to be loved by so many and she just soaked up the love as she was passed around the room.

One of my favorite pictures from the day - meeting Gamma and Grandaddy.

Meanwhile, I stayed in the hospital bed recovering. I was starving as I had only eaten a small breakfast and some cheese and crackers for lunch the day before. Oh, and maybe 2 or 3 popsicles during labor. When I don't eat for a while, I get really weak and often grumpy. I had just had a brand new, healthy baby so I definitely wasn't grumpy, but my face went extremely pale(r) and it was very evident I needed food NOW. I ordered french toast from the hospital room service and scarfed it down as my family loved on Charley, and also as our new nurse (who we LOVED) took care of Charley.

MMmmm Milk!

We spent the rest of Sunday, all of Monday, and the morning of Tuesday with a camera in our poor baby's face...

....and spent a lot of time with our very welcomed visitors. & then on Tuesday morning they allowed us to leave the hospital with a brand new baby! I'm still questioning the hospital's decision on that as John and I really felt like we had no idea what we were doing!

And that's the story,
of how we came to be,
a family of three.
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Charley's Birth: Part II

2011-09-21T15:07:00.002-04:00

Continued from Part I

We get to the hospital safely and soundly. John's truck also made it safely with not one stain to be seen. I had to control any laughing or sudden movement on the drive as any movement such as that made liquid come shooting out. Quite a bizarre feeling when you are shooting liquid uncontrollably out of your lady bits.

Yes, I mentioned laughing as one of the things I had to restrict on our way to the hospital. You see, on TV when someone's water breaks that cues instant pain, moaning and miserableness. But, not in my case. I was text messaging my sister Christy, calling my parents and other sister Joy (who happened to be in Florida), and talking with John. If I was having contractions, then I must be the most awesomest pain-handler in the world because I didn't feel a thing.

When we get to the hospital, John drops me off at the door and goes to park. I walk in the maternity center and they are expecting me, but, before they could get to me there is another couple trying to check in that did not speak English and the front desk ladies are really struggling with checking them in. I mean, she's pregnant and we are in a maternity center. I think I can pretty safely assume what she's looking to do, so move on outta here people! Excusa! I'm leaking here!

I stand there doing the pee pee dance because the layers are now failing me. I am dripping in the lobby - the same lobby where visitors are in the waiting room waiting to meet new little family members of their own. I avoid eye contact with anyone, except the ladies at the desk. Hello!? Was mopping on your agenda of things to do today?? Because, if you don't get me in a room soon it's going to be!

Finally it's my turn and a nurse takes me to my room. John hadn't made it inside yet (which tells me my "wait" wasn't nearly as long as it felt like it was) so I decide to be like Hansel and Gretel and leave him a trail of amniotic fluid and blood drops to follow and find me. It works, and he and I are in our birthing room for the evening with a nurse. It's 6:40 p.m., and shift change occurs at 7:00 so our nurse is only temporary. It's a good thing, because I don't think that first nurse was the right one for me. In her twenty minutes with us, however, she tells me that I need to go ahead and start Pitocin to get labor started since I'm not having contractions. Had I been uninformed, I guess that's what I would have done. But, I have done my research and know what that means, and I know I don't have to do that yet. I decline to her dismay ("There is a risk of infection, blah blah blah") and luckily when our permanent [and may I say AWESOME!] nurse arrives at 7:00 p.m., she agrees with me and lets me try to get labor started on its own without drugs.

But first I had hooked up to the monitors for an hour to see if I am having contractions and to monitor Charley's heart beat. They tell me I am in fact having contractions and Charley sounds perfect, which is great news to me. I tell myself I AM super-woman and must have such a high pain tolerance. This is going to be a breeze. Bring on the popsicles.

Now, here is my mindset about how I think my birthing experience will go. My mom had 4 babies, all of which came within 4 hours. My sister Christy had 2 babies, each with labors around 3 hours and 45 minutes. I look like them, so clearly I'm about to birth a baby in a few hours as well. As soon as I start eating popsicles and walking the halls of the maternity center, I'm going to have excruciating contractions and Charley is going to join us. It's going to go so quickly that I will not have time for an epidural, so in my mind I decide that I'm having a natural, non-medicated birth because this is how I've envisioned it. NOT because I want to be all warrior-princess-super-mom, but just because I want to prove the nurses and doctors wrong and go way quicker than they think I will. I like being right.

Unfortunately, Charley already likes proving Mama wrong and it didn't happen that way.

My parents, sister, brother & his fiance, and nephew all come to the hospital that night because they too believed I'd go fast. They take turns walking the halls with me until 11:00. At that time, my wonderful nurse Elizabeth and I had a little chat. She had been doing this for a long time, and told me that honestly she didn't think my body was going to get things going on it's own without a little help to get started. At this point it had been 5 hours since my water broke and I believed her since I was thinking Charley would already be with us at this point. I agreed to a small dose of Pitocin to get things started, and sent the family home for the night since it would likely be a full night of laboring before Charley would join us. They said goodbye, John pulled down the murphy bed for himself, and we tried to get some sleep.

Contractions started right away, but I'd say they were still on the lower end of pain. I wasn't sleeping sleeping, but I was getting some rest. Eventually I got a clue. WHAT in the world am I waiting on? Am I afraid of the pain if the Pitocin was upped? I had no birth plan or preference about having a medicated versus non-medicated birth - just whatever got Charley here safely - and so I don't know why I let myself just lay there with puny contractions for so long before I got the show on the road...especially since I already had Pitocin and had thus chosen a medicated birth. Pretty much, if you get Pitocin to help you contract, you typically have to have the epidural too (the drugs that numb you from the waist down) because Pitocin contractions are so much worse than non-drugged contractions. So, if I was going to have to get the epidural anyways, why am I laying there torturing myself with this low dose of Pitocin and labor moving at a snails pace? Turn that baby up!

Finally, after four hours of contractions, (and very shortly after I upped the Pitocin dosage) I asked for the epidural. I had to sit still through 3 contractions while it was placed, but after it was in I was good to go. Only an hour and a half later, my nurse came back to check me and told me I was fully dilated and ready to push. What I heard - "You will have a baby in 20 minutes or so because you are a super-mama and will be able to push this baby out in just a few pushes!"

Again, Charley was out to prove me wrong.

Nurse Elizabeth gives me a quick run down on how to push. "Push like you are peeing, not like you are pooping. You will use those same muscles to get her out." Sure, okay, got it. Let's go.

When the first contraction came and I was ready to push for the first time, I was feeling really confident. I've got this. I'm going to be the best pusher ever and this nurse is going to compare all future births to me and how great I'm going to do. So, contraction came, and she starts counting. "1, 2, 3, 4...", and I start pushing. Only, instead of holding my breath, I am taking a deep breath and then slowly letting it all out. I got my medical breathing techniques confused and must have thought that she was listening to my lungs with a stethoscope instead of me trying to push a baby out. Ooops. We'll try again with the next contraction.

After that little confusion was cleared up, I was feeling good again. I pushed. And pushed. And pushed some more. And Charley was pretending to be a turtle. Coming down a little with each push, and then retreating back into her shell after every contraction. She wasn't permanently coming down any further at all. After about an hour and a half, it was time to call in back up help from another nurse - a nurse we knew from high school and was a friend of ours. Apparently she was the pushing master and was going to help me get this baby out! It's a good thing, because I was getting pretty exhausted.

One of the first positions our friend nurse Jodie had me try was to be on my hands and knees. Sure, yeah, I can do that. Only, remember that whole epidural thing that numbed me from the waist down? Well that included my legs. Dead legs to the extreme and being on my hands and knees meant being supported by these dead legs. And remember that factoid from Part I where I said I had massive butt-water-weight gained during pregnancy? This is the time that I realized just how heavy my butt now was. Turning myself over with the help of the two nurses, and then getting up on my knees was quite the task. But we did it, sort of. I felt like my knees were slowly sliding outwards and towards the edge of the bed and therefore my demise, but somehow I made it through.

In case you needed a visual.

What didn't make it through was Charley through the rest of the birth canal. She didn't make any more progress in this position versus any other position we'd tried. She was stuck, and I was exhausted. At this point I'd been pushing for a little over 2 hours.

After another half hour of pushing, nurse Elizabeth decided it was time to call the doctor. She was on call at the hospital and was sleeping there already, so it was just a matter of waking her up and having her come down to my room. Elizabeth warned me though - the doctor only liked to have people push for three hours maximum, and if still no baby, she typically suggests a C-Section so the baby wouldn't be under too much distress. I may not have had a birth plan, but I definitely did not want a c-section. And as much as I didn't want a c-section, I was exhausted and really didn't care at that point. Just get this [sweet] baby outta me!!

After the doctor came in and checked me out, she saw that there was a problem. There were only 20 minutes left in her three-hour-pushing window, and I wasn't sure that was enough time to push Charley out since I had been trying for so long already. My mindset at this point was to just do whatever. I am soaked with sweat (but still had great hair, mind you!), literally every muscle in my body is exhausted and I'm done making decisions for myself. I basically leave it up to the doctor to just tell me what to do at this point.

And so she tells me the problem and then decides....

Continued in Part III....
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Charley's Birth: Part I

2011-09-19T16:57:00.002-04:00

A little warning to my peeps: I am an over-sharer by nature, and I'm not really going to restrict myself when telling the story of Charley's birth either. If you are weirded out by that type of thing, or are so squeamish that just reading a story about blood and other bodily fluids is going to cause you harm, I'd skip this series if I were you.

And for those of you who are sticking around...a series, you ask? Well, why not drag this out into a 3 part series! One of my favorite birth stories I've ever read was done as a series so I'm going to copy her and do the same. On top of being an over-sharer, I tend to drag a story out. And what better story is there to drag out than a birth story. So, lets start on Saturday, September 3rd, 2011.

[Also, since I don't believe in pictureless blogs, I decided to reenact some scenes in this portion of the story since taking pictures wasn't on the forefront of my mind during all of this.]

It's a typical Saturday in our home. I am 38 weeks pregnant and haven't had the slightest hint of labor starting. In fact, at my appointment on Wednesday of the prior week, I still hadn't made any progress and was maybe a fingertip dilated according to my doctor. For my male readers or even female readers that aren't familiar with pregnancy stuff, let me break that down for you in layman's terms: My doctor shoves her hand UP the canal Charley will soon be coming DOWN, feels around for my cervix, and measures how open or closed my cervix is. Luckily, they have a pretty good feel of what 1 centimeter, 2 centimeters, etc. feels like because shoving a [metric] ruler and a flashlight up there may get a bit crowded and uncomfortable.

Anyways, back to Saturday. I slept in and had an appointment to get my hair cut at 10:00 that morning. My hairdresser is also pregnant and due one week after me, so I made sure to get this haircut scheduled before I had Charley so I wouldn't have to wait for my hairdresser to be back from her maternity leave as well. This may have been the best timed haircut ever.

After I get back home with fabulous hair, John and I start working on some unfinished projects in the nursery and around the house. Around 3:00, we start making a curtain to replace the closet door in the nursery. We spend about an hour measuring fabric, hemming all four sides, and finally hanging the curtain. After the curtain is hung, we use the last bit of fabric leftover from the curtains to make a tieback for the curtain. At this point, our project stalls because we then need a hook in which to attach the tieback to. John mentally starts making a list for Home Depot.

The finished product, after hook is installed.

We both move on to different projects and start cleaning up our house a bit. It's a disaster to say the least. As John works on his different projects, his mental list for Home Depot lengthens and finally he decides to drive the half mile to Home Depot to get what he needs. It's about 4:30 in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, I am wandering around looking for tape. Why is it that you can never find the roll of tape when you need it? I'm sure I'm muttering something about blaming John for misplacing it and I get up from the desk in our bedroom to go to look elsewhere for tape. As I walk by the bathroom door, I feel a pop, and a warm gush flood down my legs. Luckily, the bathroom is 2 leaps to my right and I quickly maneuver myself off of the carpet and onto the lovely laminate [and more importantly non-stainable] flooring of the bathroom.

As I rush over to the toilet, I take notice of the color of the fluid which now coats the bathroom floor and is quickly filling the toilet. It's red. Blood red. Oh. Shit.

So I stay on the toilet for a few minutes because frankly, unless I want my home to be covered in blood, there isn't much else I can do because it is pouring out of me. I'm pretty sure I was saying out loud, "John come home, please. What do I do, what do I do, what do I do???" It's been about 5 minutes and there is no sign of John. I decide I need to make a run for it and go get my cell phone. My cell phone's location: in my purse downstairs.

I feel like there is a lull in the leaking so I decide to run downstairs pantsless. I'm dripping a tiny bit, but that's obviously the least of my worries. I get halfway down the stairs, and thus halfway to my destination and see this:

Door's wide open with just the storm door shut. Again, normally I would not have cared, but we live in a townhouse which means neighbors are awfully close. And said neighbor that is awfully close is having a Labor Day party and has friends over. Said friends are mingling right outside of his door, which, is coincidentally right outside of my door. I think it through, and flashing neighbors was not on my list of things to do today and abort mission. I head back to my thinking throne: the toilet.

This time I realize I need to clothe my bottom half. But to put clothes on would mean that I would then need to have clean clothes to PUT on. Laundry was one of those items on my Saturday to-do list that I hadn't yet got to. So, instead I am forced to shove my big butt in some underwear that no longer fit due to the massive swelling of my butt. Yes, swelling. Surely it was just butt-water-weight from this pregnancy and not butt fat. [Humor me.] On top of squeezing my butt into the too-small undies, I also add 2 pads and finally some pants. Mission is a go and I make a run for it...

I don't have much time as I can feel the blood now soaking through my layers. But I make it to the door first and shut it just in case I decide to run around naked again. Then I grab my phone and call John immediately.

His phone is on the coffee table.

Back to the thinking throne.

At this point I know it's time to just call my doctor. I was instructed that if I ever went into labor to call the doctor first before heading to the hospital so as I sit leaking on the toilet, this is what I do. It's after-hours of course, so finally I get a nurse on the line and she begins asking me questions to determine what is going on with me. I'm feeling better already.

Meanwhile, John finally makes it back home while I'm still chatting it up with the on-call nurse. He begins to climb the stairs and I hear "What is all of this water on the stairs!?" (The stairs have a dark stain on them and so the blood red color wasn't immediately noticeable and he just assumed water.) He then hears my voice and comes into the bathroom to see why 1) am I ignoring his question and 2) I'm talking on the phone on the toilet. He is quickly freaking out after he sees the blood all over the place and just-shy-of-a-scream shouts "WHAT IS GOING ON!?" His worry is all over his face.

Now, I do feel bad about this next part. You see, I'm not a good multi-tasker while on the phone. If I'm on the phone with someone and then the person I'm with tries talking to me simultaneously, I cannot focus. I usually end up ignoring the in-person person because I can only give my full attention to one person at a time, and at this time that person was the nurse on the phone. I could not figure out how to answer poor John's query while still answering questions the nurse was asking me. So he just stood there staring at me and waiting on my reply until I got off the phone. I do feel really bad for letting him stand there and worry, but after I got off the phone, his worry quickly changed to something else as the nurse said,

"Sounds like to me your water broke and you lost your mucous plug simultaneously. Head to the hospital, you are most likely having a baby today."

So, I got off the phone, informed John of our new afternoon project and ran around like a maniac trying to pack a hospital bag. Yeah, I hadn't really done that yet.

Ten minutes later we were on our way to the hospital with a half-assed packed hospital bag, a camera (thank goodness) and me leaking like a faucet while sitting upon two towels in John's brand new truck. Good thing the hospital wasn't too far away because even though we are about to become parents, John is still really worried about the possibility of me staining his brand new truck. Oy vey.

To be continued....
Part 2
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Haiku Thursday

2011-09-15T19:40:00.002-04:00

Mexican food...yum.

I used to prefer tacos.

But now, burritos.

She's not really that long...that swaddle blanket/straight jacket just allows for a lot of growth!

Be Back Soon

2011-09-07T16:22:00.001-04:00

Things are slowly getting back to normal around here and I will be back to fill everyone in on way-too-many details ASAP.

For now, however, meet Miss Charley Jane, born September 4, 2011. She was definitely a heavyweight at a whopping 6 pounds 2 ounces and 20 inches long. In other words, she's a long & lean & skinny little peanut.

We're in love.

Being A Good Listener...So Far

2011-08-29T16:28:00.001-04:00

September is a busy month for a lot of people. It's home to the last holiday of the summer, kids are just starting school, and everybody seems to have a September birthday. Seems like John and I aren't the only ones that really got into the holiday spirit. Ahem.

Given that, I've had several requests that I've had to relay to Charley about when is an appropriate time to join us and be born. We'll start with her due date which is September 17th.

My first request was for Charley to stay put this past weekend, August 26-28, since John decided a trip to see the NASCAR race in Bristol, TN was a good idea to go on when I am 37 WEEKS PREGNANT. But, since I'm telling you that she's still an inside baby, you know that she is being a good listener so far, so that her Daddy was able to do this:

Next, my BFF Amy realized that she may have accidentally scheduled a cruise right around my due date. As in, September 15th - 19th. So, she kindly requested that Charley not be punctual. And if that wasn't enough, she then was supposed to go on a beach trip this past weekend, but due to Hurricane Irene, that has been rescheduled to September 9-11. So, now our calendar is looking like this:

Excluding weekdays, that leaves just one weekend that Charley could come and it's a holiday weekend. AND it contains the holiday LABOR day, which would be awfully ironic if I went into labor on that day. But no, this weekend has been requested to be baby-free as well by my sister Joy. She seemed to have accidentally scheduled a beach trip to Florida that weekend (the 2nd - 6th) so that weekend is out as well.

(I just realized this bit of irony though...Joy was also either in Florida or on her way home from Florida with the girl scouts when I was born and she nearly missed my birth because of it. If Charley does come that weekend, I may contact Alanis and get her to add a verse to her song.)

Next, my dear Mama had a request of her own. She works for a job that you cannot just pick up and walk away from if an emergency comes up during the day. Once she starts her job for the day, she would then need to finish before she'd be allowed to leave, thus making her miss the birth if Charley decides to come in the morning. So her request was that Charley come in the late afternoon, evening, or night.

The little half X represents no morning birthing.

Also, my dad's birthday is September 20th, and my nephew's first birthday is the 13th, and for my own selfish reasons I don't want Charley to have to share those days with them so those days are out. I also had another request not to have her on my coworker Jeff's birthday which would be the awesome birth date of 9-10-11. But, that day had already been taken off of the calendar so I just double Xed it for emphasis.

So, that leaves Charley with ~~a lot of~~ not so many options, all of which I've shown in green.

And if I could add one more request of my baby (I am the mama, after all) I would prefer that she come before her due date and not after, leaving us these options:

The afternoon/evening of September 7th
The afternoon/evening of September 8th
The afternoon/evening of September 12th (full moon this night!)
The afternoon/evening of September 14th

Any of these options not work for you? Giving her 4 options out of the entire month is being pretty generous so I'd be glad to take away a couple of these if I need to. You just let me know and we'll work around your schedule.
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Cooking Up Charley

2011-08-29T13:41:00.002-04:00

As this pregnancy is nearing the end, I wanted to make sure I wrote about how it was for me carrying Miss Charley Jane. Anytime you ask someone a pregnancy related question after their children are here, you get this response, "You know, I don't really remember!". I think that once the baby is here, you seem to sort of forget all of the little details you experienced over the 9 months leading up to that point. So, in case I am up all night with Charley and thinking to myself that I never want to have another child, I can come back here and see how easy this part was for me. Not saying it would be easy if I get pregnant again, but at least it's good to be optimistic!

First Trimester

To the general population, first trimester equals puking your guts out every morning. For me, thankfully, it wasn't that way at all. There was a total of TWO times where I actually puked up food. And ironically neither of those times were in the morning. Take THAT "morning" sickness! [If you are a lover of details, I will tell you that the first time I puked up a strawberry banana smoothie, and the second time was pizza. I would tell you which one tasted better coming back up, but I'm thinking at that point I'd be crossing the TMI line.]

What I did have though, was nausea pretty much all day. Crackers were my friend and toothbrushes were not. Brushing my teeth in the morning would make me puke up that yellow bile in the bottom of your stomach about 50% of the time. [What? Did I cross the TMI line again?] But, I never once called in sick to work, and was very rarely late due to this "morning" sickness. I kept thinking I better suck it up because it was going to get a lot worse and I'd need my sick days, but then it never did. Poo. I should have taken advantage at least a couple of times!

The first trimester ended in mid March, but had I not known exactly when it ended, I wouldn't have realized it. The nausea sort of gradually declined and my energy gradually came back. It was definitely not an immediate change like it is for a lot of other people.

Second Trimester

Second trimester was from mid March until mid June. During this trimester we found out Charley was a girl at our 18 week ultrasound on April 20th. Then, I got a free ultrasound 2 weeks later because a new ultrasound technician needed practice. I am still very paranoid that Charley is not a girl though even with 2 ultrasounds saying she was. The reason? Well, everyone knows how bad I wanted a girl, and it almost seems too good to be true that I got what I wanted. During the first ultrasound we were given pictures of the between-the-legs shot and there was definitely nothing there. But, can't little boys tuck those things out of sight sometimes?

And then, at the next ultrasound, the tech asked me if they told me what I was having at the first ultrasound. My response was exactly this - "Yep. They said I'm having a girl!" And afterwards I wanted to kick myself. Maybe this new ultrasound lady saw something different, but since she was in training she just trusted the judgement of the first ultrasound lady instead and confirmed that it was a girl too. I know I'm being overly paranoid, but the lingering thought won't leave my mind that we may bring home a little Conner in a dress instead of a little Charley.

Other than that, it was business as usual this trimester. No symptoms at all, except some feet swelling, and I eventually learned how to handle that too with extra water intake and elevation. So second trimester was spent at yard sales, a Daytona trip, weddings and a bachelorette party with a little growing belly.

Third Trimester

This is the part that is supposed to be really uncomfortable, exhausting and miserable. I'm happy to report that I'm not really agreeing with that. I have 19 days to go and I have really only been exhausted maybe the last few days, and uncomfortable, sure, but not so much that I would feel the need to verbally complain. I mean, over the weekend John was out of town and I ended up taking a 9:30p.m. trip to Target Friday night, and stayed up until 1:30 a.m. Saturday night at a friends house just chatting it up. I don't think someone super uncomfortable or exhausted would be doing those things!

Walking upstairs is pretty tiring and requires a quick collapse on the bed for a few minutes afterwards. Bending over to pick something up is a definite no-go and only happens if it's something I really need...such as a dropped Cheetoh or something. Only important things, obviously.

My wedding rings have been off for about a week now due to some hand swelling and they still technically fit, but I have a mini panic attack each time I try to get them off and it takes more effort than usual so I just decided to take them off for the rest of the pregnancy. And speaking of swelling, my feet, legs and ankles have perma-swell at this point. It's 90 degrees here today and I am wearing pants that really don't fit me anymore just to hide the fat knees and feet. You could see it in my maternity pictures too, but it seems worse to me now. Fat legs and feet and knees are the worst!

The only thing that has really bothered me is this: random people talking to me. I avoid eye contact at all costs, and wear my best bitch face anytime I'm in public. The combination of those things usually deters the majority of people that I can see are thinking about talking to me, and the few that do miss out on my obvious body language definitely get the point with my short answers. It's not that I don't like talking about my pregnancy (I mean, duh, here I am at 1,057 words and I'm still babbling on) but I don't want to talk about it with strangers. [Okay, I guess I should clarify...strangers IN PERSON, because strangers over the internet don't bother me apparently.] They wouldn't talk to me if I wasn't carrying around this big belly, and pregnancy isn't something so uncommon that it requires a discussion. I mean, there are nearly 7 billion people in the world right now, meaning there were nearly 7 billion pregnancies. It's not all that special. [Although Charley is extra special, so maybe that's why they are wanting to chat it up with me.]

Okay this is getting too long now. Let's wrap this up.

I've gained 42 pounds.

I have no stretch marks on the majority of my tummy (a few at the very bottom), but have them on my sides, inner things, and butt. It's worth noting that originally I was only cocoa buttering my belly, and I know that isn't supposed to do anything, but ironic nonetheless.

I didn't have any major cravings. I liked to eat anything with cinnamon and Mexican food a lot. Guess what I liked before I got pregnant? Yep, cinnamon stuff and Mexican food.

I had an occasional bout of indigestion or heartburn or something. I don't really know the difference or what they are, so I don't know what to call it. Tums always took care of it.

I have had some Toni Braxton Hicks contractions, but only a few a day and had I not read what they were, I would have no idea that was even a contraction. Those kind aren't uncomfortable at all.

I am still sleeping at least 8 hours each night, and rarely if ever get up to pee. I pee more often during the day, but not anything crazy like every hour. I had a strong bladder before pregnancy and it seems to have fared me well!

And as far as Miss Charley's movement....she's a good mover. She moves the most when I'm sitting and it's never been uncomfortable for me. She's never kicked me in the ribs or anything and has been consistent enough that I don't send myself into a panic that she isn't moving enough.

And finally, here I am this weekend:

And that's about it. I think this easy pregnancy has made me unnaturally excited and anxious about contractions and such coming over the next few weeks. I think I'm expecting more of the same, and I'm guessing it's not going to be as easy as these past 9 months. But I can't wait to introduce her to the internet...how do you think my family would feel if I shared a picture of her here before I even invited them in to the hospital room to see her? I mean, you guys are my blog family, how do they expect me to pick one family over the other!?

And now, I'll remove my bitch face and ask if I left anything out. Don't worry, I won't be a meanie and I'll give you a nice answer to your questions! And how many of you that had difficult pregnancies now want to strangle me? Discuss.
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Home Sweet Home - Pre-Baby

2011-08-19T20:11:00.000-04:00

Having a baby changes everything - that much I know. And what better place to document those changes than right here?

I know I'm going to have to revisit my 2 lists (this one and this one) and update you on how well I'm sticking to my "plans". I know there is already one rule I'm breaking for sure, and probably only one or two more AT MOST. (wink wink)

Also, I think it would be pretty fun to go back to my "day in the life" from last March and update for after Charley is here. I'm thinking I should do a day in the life while I'm on maternity leave, and then another day in the life after I go back and am a working Mama.

But, I'd be lying if I said I'm not concerned about the way our house is going to look post-baby. Clutter. Primary colored toys that don't match our decor. Swings. Bouncy seats & Bumbos. High Chairs. And I'm sure lots more that I'm not even prepared for. So, I'm thinking this should be one more thing documented before baby and after baby.

I like our townhouse now...well, I like how it looks. I definitely would prefer to be in something bigger and without neighbors on the other side of the walls, but this is going to have to work for now. There are certainly things in each room that aren't finished or need to be hung, but those are getting pushed to the bottom of the priority list while we finish up Charley's nursery and her bathroom. Something also tells me we aren't going to have as much time to do home improvement stuff after she's here so there is no telling when my lingering projects will get done.

Regardless, here is our home pre-baby. There are only a few rooms in our house and I'm leaving Charley's room out of the tour. We've done a few more things in there that I'm going to share soon so I'm going to skip that room for now.

First up, our living room.

Both cats felt the need to inconspicuously cameo in this picture.

I know a swing will soon be occupying the spot between the stairs and fireplace. Is it too much to ask that this is the only baby-fied change in this room for a while?

The Foyer

We don't really have a foyer, but with the couch situated the way it is I've kind of made one. This should stay the same, right? At most a stroller will be parked by the door from time to time.

The dining area

If you haven't figured it out yet, all of these areas are in the same room.

A high chair will eventually be in that corner, but none of Charley's dining will be at the table for a while, so maybe it's wishful thinking, but I'm hoping this area won't be too baby-fied either? A girl can dream.

The Kitchen

I get asked a lot - yes, we still love our countertops and they have held up really well!

I just shared this room with you not too long ago. I'm seeing bottles drying on the counter once I start pumping. And once she's eating solids, I know little bowls and sippy cups will be all over the place.

Our Bedroom

All of it is IKEA. And I way prefer this view over this next one, which shows...

...John's workout corner. The first evidence of us losing our second bedroom to Charley is his bench and weights "hidden" over there in the corner.

I think this room is going to take the biggest hit. I prefer to hang out in the bedroom over the living room when I'm at home, so Charley will then also be hanging out with me in here. And wherever Charley will be, will also be all of her stuff. There will be a pack and play in here from the beginning, and who knows what other stuff is going to gather by my side of the bed.

So, am I being naive? I pretty much know that I am, so feel free to tell me. And I'll be sure to show you what the house looks like post-baby. The countdown to my due date is at 29 days, so post-baby house should be arriving really soon. I can't say that I'm thrilled about that part, but I think she'll be worth it!

What was the biggest change in your home post-baby? Or, if you don't have any babies, place your bets on which room will be taking the biggest hit!
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Following Suit

2011-08-17T13:11:00.002-04:00

When you get to be a big-time blogger such as myself [I mean, how much bigger can you get than 68 ~~thousand~~ followers and going on my ~~eighty-~~fourth year of blogging], you are required to do one of two things: 1) Become a "professional" photographer**, or 2) Open a shop of some sort and sell some stuff. It's in the original blogging decree that we all signed electronically by just typing in the web address: http://www.blogger.com/.

**Professional photographers can now be defined by anyone with a nice(r) camera and a watermark on their pictures. Bonus points if you can con someone into paying you for your sessions.

So, I do have a nice(r) camera, so one would think I would follow all of the other pros out there and choose option 1. But no, option 1 was too easy (because you know, photography is only a matter of pushing a button) and I like to make things hard on myself. Instead, I chose option two and have been wildly successful selling stuff. In fact, I have had two ~~hundred~~ sales in my shop in just over 1 month of being open. WILDLY successful, I tell you.

So now, it is my moral duty as a blogger to not only pimp myself out on my blog [YO! BUY SOMETHING FROM ME!] but to also make a permanent link to my shop in my sidebar. Done, and done. And yeah, the bird thing came about because after doing Charley's nursery, I am obsessed with all fake birds, and real ones as long as they are from a distance.

In fact, in an ironic situation from this week which will make me even further question if I am making the right decision between "professional" photographer or stuff-seller, all of this happened:

1) I bought a bird-themed camera bag for my nice(r) camera. Every pro has a cool bag, of course.

2) The next day, we sold an item from our Etsy shop.

3) When I went to Paypal to transfer the money we made from the sale into our bank account, I realized that the camera bag I purchased on Paypal credit had yet to be paid for, and the sale we made covered the price of the camera bag almost perfectly, minus $2.08. Ca-razy, right!?

So, was that fate telling me that my silly little shop is only going to fund my "professional" career as a photographer? It's all too much for my little brain! For now I'll stick with stuff-seller. I don't have a watermark, after all.

Bag purchased from this lovely little Etsy shop.

Anyways, all of that to say 1) I (ahem, "we" - since my lovely husband is the seamstress in our business) sell bird mobiles and owl pillows now! & 2) Every household needs these items! And finally 3) Here's to early retirement!
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Tiny Obsession

2011-08-13T21:59:00.004-04:00

Okay so I have a tiny little confession: I may have a tiny obsession with a tiny little game played on a tiny little phone called Tiny Tower. (Don't download it...I'm warning you.) It's just a tiny obsession, so I shouldn't be too ashamed, right? Right??

But even I can see that I may have taken this tiny little obsession to an unhealthy level. I may or may not have created an Excel spreadsheet to assist me in my gaming each day. Is that normal? No?

But let's back up. Maybe I can explain myself.

I have been a gamer since age seven. It was that Christmas that my brother, sisters and I received a Nintendo Entertainment System. My sisters, being a bit older, grew up with a Calico and Atari so I had been exposed to games a little bit before this point, but NES was the latest and greatest and those little lines moving up and down bouncing a ball (square) back and forth had nothing on the little man in red overalls collecting mushrooms and golden coins - lets be perfectly honest. So this is where it began: Christmas 1989.

I know you can't really see it...but the four of us had just opened our Nintendo!

From there, we had Gameboys, a Super Nintendo, (both of which I still own and are in my closet) and then a Nintendo 64. Somewhere in there we also got a PC, which brought a whole different set of games into my life...hello Solitaire and eventually Roller Coaster Tycoon. We didn't spend all day playing or anything like that, but, I have to admit that my brother and I were both really good at video games.

Christmas 1992: The Christmas of the Gameboy

And then these days, my only gaming comes from the Wii (in spurts, I tend to get sick of it for a while and then come back to it months later), very rarely a Facebook game can keep my attention for too long, and my trusty iPhone.

So for a few weeks now I have been playing this game called Tiny Tower on my iPhone. The gist of it is this: You start out with a lobby and some money. You spend your money building floors to your tower, either residences or businesses, which in turn each sell 3 products you must keep in stock and employ using your residents that live on your residential floors. As you make more money, you build new floors. That's the basis, and it's totally not something I would normally be into. It sort of shamefully reminds me of that Farmville crap and those types of games on Facebook...which I despise. Oh, the shame.

But this game has me hooked, and I currently have the tallest tower of any of my fellow tower-building friends. (Okay, well there are only 2 friends that are also playing, but still. My tower RULES!)

So, this is where my spreadsheet comes in to play. One of the tasks you are occasionally given is to find where certain residents are located and when you do so, you are given a dollar! A whole dollar! And seeing as I now have 71 floors of apartments and businesses, finding the residents takes several minutes of scrolling sometimes. So, I made a spreadsheet to document on which floor each resident can be found. That way, when the game tells me that I need to find Marlene Howell to deliver a package to her, I can just flip over to my spreadsheet (which I keep open at all times on my computer during the day) and see that she is on floor 10 and get my dollar. See? It's ingenious right?

So in my defense, I have always been great at video games so it's only appropriate that I use all of my resources to be as successful as possible at this one.

& with these kind of gaming skills, I shall never be beaten in my towering empire. Should I be embarrassed? Do you think less of me? Or maybe you think even better of me that I can so successfully manage a 71 floored skyscraper. I'm probably going to get building owners contacting me to be their property manager as a result of this confession.

I should probably go ahead and add property manager to my resume.
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Unbreak My Heart

2011-08-10T16:37:00.002-04:00

A little math for your Wednesday.

You start by dividing into my husband John's brain and getting a clear picture of his way of thinking and speaking. [Okay, yes, the word should technically be 'diving' and not 'dividing' but then that word doesn't work as well with my little math analogy.]

And now that we can see how his brain computes things, we then add a little Toni Braxton

Plus this, a 34 and a half week pregnant belly (hey, that's me!)

and that equals this coming out of his mouth each time he feels how rock hard my belly gets sometimes:

"Oh, you are having another one of those Toni Braxton Hicks contractions!"

He's a special one.
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Maternity Pictures

2011-08-05T12:39:00.004-04:00

I tried to be patient and wait to receive all of the maternity pictures back before posting this, but I can't take it anymore. My photographer was awesome to be able to get the ones I do have to me as quickly as she did, so I'm not faulting her at all, I just MUST. SHARE. SOMETHING. NOW.

I did share these on Facebook already, so if you are a friend there you may have already seen these. But pretend you didn't and tell me how much you like them one more time, will ya? I had a pity party last night and cried myself to sleep for no good reason (stupid hormones) so I'm in need of some ego boosting. And asking for the compliments will make absolutely no difference to me in genuine-ity.

When my photographer and I were discussing where to take the pictures and what to wear, she suggested cowboy boots and a cotton, summery dress for the pictures we'd be taking in a field with old barns and such. I did not have either of those items, so I ordered the boots from Ebay since authenticity isn't really all that important to me - I don't plan on wrangling a calf any time soon. For the dress though, I instantly pictured a dress in my mind that I wanted to find: blue, flowery, and scrunching around the bust. I hate when I get an idea like that in my head because chances are very slim that you'll ever stumble upon that same thing - especially when you are a cheap-o like myself.

So instead, I purchased this plaid, off white, non-maternity dress from the Target clearance rack to wear with the cowboy boots and called it a day. It was cheap, it looked good with my boots, and I only had to go to one store (which is about 1/2 mile away) to find it. Sold. Plus, I can wear it next summer too since it's not a maternity dress.

But, on the day of the shoot I had a haircut appointment which is a little further from my house. The salon happens to be really close to a Once Upon A Child store that has a small maternity section. I stopped by just to see if they had anything good. And would you believe I found that exact dress I had pictured in my head? For only $10? Crazy huh?

So anyways, these were taken 3 weeks ago at 33 weeks pregnant and the blue dress ones are my absolute favorites so far.

Oh, and you may notice that one of the super cliché maternity pictures is missing. The make-a-heart-out-of-your-hands-and-place-them-on-your-belly pictures are NOT my cup of tea, so I asked that we skip those. I can take some cheese, but come on. Talk about an overdone picture. So if you are upset that I don't have one of those then I'm really sorry. I just couldn't do it.

So, ya like? Can you blame my impatience? I mean, the world NEEDS to see these! My photographer is awesome!

Post Edit: Hey! I'm coming back to this post and editing because I just realized that I didn't mention that this maternity photo session helped me to mark one more thing off of my 101 list: #100: Have professional photos taken. Check!
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My Current Favorites.

2011-08-02T13:30:00.000-04:00

This is a 100% UNoriginal idea stolen from Reagan. I have about eighteen bazillion blogs halfway written and sitting in draft mode that I just can't seem to finish, and yet I see her favorite list today and I was inspired to make my own. It only makes sense, seeing as how she writes one of my favorite blogs to read!

TV Shows

Design Star.

So You Think You Can Dance.

Teen Mom. (I know, I know.)

And, even though it isn't starting until Thursday, let me jump the gun and say Jersey Shore. It's so shameful.

Food

Cinnamon Rolls.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Cinnamon Toast.

French Toast.

(Are we seeing a pattern here?)

Apps

Tiny Tower. (This one should qualify as an obsession at this point...we are way past the 'favorite' classification here.)

Words With Friends.
Hanging With Friends.

Blogs

Reagan's Blob, duh.

Fervent Foodie's Blog. She's local, I just found her, and I'm working my way through her archives!

MODG.

Young House Love.

Clothing

Giant T-Shirts that aren't so giant anymore.

Cotton Stretchy Shorts.

Dresses...only because they don't require pants.

Hand Resting Spot

I mean, it's at the perfect height and her little feet are always moving right there, so clearly she's trying to play, and what kind of mother would I be if I didn't poke back?

Songs

Look At Me Now - Chris Brown - I think I secretly want to learn to sing the really fast verses.

I'm Alive - Kenny Chesney & Dave Matthews - Was a favorite about a year ago, and heard it again recently and re-fell in love. I LOVE Dave Matthews' voice.

To Be With You - Mr. Big - Because, I rarely listen to current music and this one always gets a crank up on the ol' volume knob.

Any current favorites of your own you'd like to share?

Family Shower

2011-07-21T14:10:00.001-04:00

Source

No, not that kind of family shower.

This kind of family shower...

...a baby shower thrown by those lovely people! Sisters & the Mama, and my nieces are in the picture because they're cute!

This was my second baby shower, the first was given at John's work and I would have shared that one with you too but there are no pictures. And since so many of you only come here for the pictures, what fun would that have been? Although I guess I could have improvised like I've done in the past.

Anyways, my sisters and Mama did such a great job and they even made it bird themed to go along with my nursery.

We played a few games, and my only request was to NOT do the melted-chocolate-bar-in-the-diaper game, which they happily obliged to. I hate being put on the spot for silly little shower games myself, so I'm glad that none of the games they chose were of that nature. We played the common game where everyone had to guess the width of my belly using crepe paper,

and in the process I added people to my hate list (those that must have thought I was fat and had the longest crepe paper ever) and my favorite list (those that had crepe paper that barely would have fit around my thigh), but ultimately my BFF-and-might-as-well-be-family Amy won the game. She was pretty much dead on!

The next game was very creative and apparently my sisters told me they were going to do this over a year ago, but I had forgotten so I was surprised. They took a Life of Lacey classic, "Mock Me Later", and turned it into a fill-in-the-blank game. Luckily I had some Life of Lacey fans in attendance and many of the answers were known, but apparently not many people knew the answer to #4:

4. "You don't know what love is until you lay eyes on your baby." How could I possibly love another human being more than I already love myself?

...where "myself" was the blank. There were several people that put "her cats" there instead. Heh. Those furry things? Yeah right! :P

The last game was Baby Shower Bingo which was played as I opened gifts. I was so spoiled in the gift department and just love my family! Not just because they give me gifts (but I do kinda like that part a lot!) but because they are all so thoughtful and generous and entertaining and funny! I am blessed to have such a great family!

And then, when I got home I took everything out of it's gift bag and oohed and aahed over it some more. Charley is one lucky little lady to be born into such a great family!

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Haiku Thursday

2011-07-21T07:16:00.025-04:00

Stretch marks on butt, hips

Means it's time to give up on

My thong bikini.

You're now wondering to yourself if I'm joking, aren't you? Well, I'll give you a hint. There is a joke in there somewhere. Whether it's IF I wear thong bikinis or WHETHER I'm giving them up, I'll never tell!

And since I think no blog post is complete without a picture, I guess I'll share a picture too....

Aww Tuna. You thought I was going to share a picture of my stretch marks in a thong bikini didn't you?

The Nursery

2011-07-18T20:53:00.002-04:00

**Warning: This is a long one!**

I have been itching to share my nursery with the internets, and finally I think I can make it happen. [It's not done yet, but I'm not a very patient person sometimes. My very impatient husband must have rubbed off on me a bit.] Oh, and did I say MY nursery? I meant Charley's. I outgrew mine about 27ish years ago, but have spent so much time hanging out in Charley's that she and I might have turf wars regarding hers when she gets here. But, I just love her room and can sit in there for hours! If only I could fit in her crib....

Anyways, lets start with the basics. The room. John and I live in a 2 bedroom townhouse. That leaves us with one bedroom for us, and one bedroom for anything else; which previously included work-out equipment, computers, and all of John's clothes were in the large, attached walk-in closet. Well now that Charley is on her way, all of that had to be re-homed. There are no "spare" rooms or even "spare" corners any longer, but the baby needs her own room, and that is what we were determined to give her!

The work-out equipment got moved to a closet downstairs, and then moved again to our bedroom...which I'm beyond thrilled about. John's computer got moved to my old desk that is in our bedroom, and mine got moved to a new corner desk in the living room. John's clothes - well, that was the hardest part. He moved them into my already packed closet, and now we share a closet. Until finally, we had a blank slate to start with.

I found a nursery in my googling that I just fell in love with. I had decided on this nursery before we even knew if Charley was a he or a she, and thankfully she was a she because it's pretty girly. I pretty much copied it piece by piece so I can't take hardly any credit for the design. But I loved it so much that I was okay with being a copy cat.

So, from this inspiration room, I borrowed the following ideas:
Blue walls? Check.
Pink curtains? Check.
Owl Pillow? Check.
Ikea Malm Dresser? Check.
Ikea Bookshelf? Smaller than this one, but check.
Bird Mobile? Check.
Tree on wall? Check.

So yeah, besides the bead board on the wall and the light fixture (which I did consider both), I am graciously borrowing this woman's ideas. Thank you for being so darn creative, person! I hope I am giving you enough proper credit!

So here is how my version turned out:

Thanks Dawn for the picture!

And now for how I did it. If you have read Life of Lacey for any amount of time or if you know me personally, you know it's going to have some garage sale finds + craft projects in it. Here's what we did...

FURNITURE
Surprisingly, we bought almost all of the big items new. But we didn't spend a ton of money on it. I cannot believe the amount of money the giant baby stores charge for a "set" of baby furniture. If you bought one of these collections, I'm going to give you my opinion right up front: you wasted your money and just paid Mr. Babies R Us's mortgage for him. But I'm sure your baby won't chew up the crib railing or ruin the finish on any of your furniture, so you should be fine....

I on the other hand, bought a highly rated crib from Wal-Mart for $150 (which included the mattress), and the dresser and bookcase from Ikea for $170 and $70, all in white. I am opting to use a lower dresser in place of a changing table with just a changing pad on top.

But I mentioned that almost all of the items were bought new. We did buy one major furniture piece used - the glider. I have expensive taste when it comes to gliders. I despise the normal wooden gliders that you normally see. I wanted something that looked more like an arm chair, but that still glided instead of rocked. Turns out those types of chairs are around $400-$500. Um, no thank you.

So I had a back up plan which was a white wooden glider that I saw at Once Upon A Child, a second-hand store. It was still the style I despised, but I thought it wasn't quite as bad in white. So I snapped a picture when I saw it just in case it came down to that.

In the meantime, I scoured craigslist every single day just hoping that one of the gliders I loved would pop up on there. And finally one did. I saw the ad maybe 2 hours after it was posted, and the 20 minutes between when I hit send and before she replied were the longest 20 minutes of my life. I had no idea this glider had been so important to me! But, eventually she replied, told me it was from a smoke-free home (whew!) and we took it off of her hands for $100. She also told us that there were multiple people asking about it after I did, but we were first so we got first dibs on it. Thank goodness I was first...I may have cried otherwise!

So, total spent on furniture: $490

BEDDING

Much like the glider, it turns out I have expensive taste here as well. But you know I don't like to spend a lot of money, so in typical Lacey fashion, I didn't.

Ew! Way too matchy!

I knew I wasn't buying one of those gigantic bedding kits that came with a bunch of matchy-matchy stuff that you most likely will not even use. I don't see the need for a comforter, diaper holder, matching lamp, laundry basket, wall hanging, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Ewww. I'm sorry if that's what you used and you liked it. Different strokes for different folks.

So, all I could really find that I just loved was bedding pieces from Pottery Barn Kids. And we all know that PBK = $$$. But, I had convinced myself that since I was only interested in the bumper and crib sheets, that it was okay to buy from PBK because it would still be cheaper to just buy those pieces than one of those giant bedding kits.

So, after picking up our glider, we were in such a good mood for saving that money that we decided to make up for it by stopping in PBK to see if they had the same sheets and bumper from the inspiration room. Turns out, that is an online only line and I'd have to order it there. But, while we were there I spotted a clearance corner and went to check it out. On the very bottom shelf, was a "package" of bedding items that had been used for a display crib that they were now selling for a great discount. It included a sheet, bumper and crib skirt (which I was previously going to make myself) all for $50...and I actually liked the patterns! Just to give you an idea of the savings, the bumper alone in PBK is $90. So $50 for all three is more than 50% off. As you may have guessed, we bought it!

I know one sheet isn't going to cut it, but luckily I have a wonderful sister that has twin girls and she didn't get rid of a thing (it seems) from when they were babies. She gave me probably 5 or 6 sheets for free, so I think we are covered in the sheet department!

Total spent on bedding: $50

CRAFTY STUFF
I'm likely going to post separately about how each of these things were made, but John and I made a great crafting team and were able to make several of the things that I HAD to have. I hired John for my assistant job because he can sew. And sew really well, actually. He once reupholstered our entire boat by hand. Impressive, no?

Anyways, we made the bird mobile hanging over the changing table, the pillows in the glider, the curtains, the book wreath and we painted the tree on the wall. At one point or another, we were planning on buying all of these things, so I'm glad we were able to use our craftiness for some good and save some money. We did buy a heavy, nice fabric for the curtains, but everything else was little to no cost at all.

Curtains consisted of this: Fabric: $70, Hem Tape: $1 at a garage sale, Curtain rod: Already owned, Curtain Clips: $14

The tree on the wall was originally supposed to be a decal that I was going to purchase on Etsy for around $80. But then $80 is quite the purchase for a sticker, and I started getting confident that I could draw and paint the tree myself.

So one Saturday morning, I got out my pencil and started to draw by looking at a picture of the decal I was going to buy. It took me about an hour and a half, and when that I was done I was ready for paint. I bought a few sponge brushes at Home Depot for $2, had John dig out the leftover cabinet paint that was an off-white color, and started painting. Eventually John came in and gave me a break from the ladder and took over and finished up.

Total spent on the tree: $2 for those brushes, and that's it!

The bird mobile we also made. It sells on Etsy for around $60 - $70, but again, didn't want to spend that. We have access to quite a few trees (read: forest) at my parents house, so we chopped down a little tree for the branches upon which the birds sit. We also spent around $10 on buying 9 different printed fabrics for the birds. I cut patterns, John sewed them together, and I stuffed them. John handled attaching them to the branches, and stringing it all together. This may be my most favorite thing in the room.

Total spent on the mobile: $11.50; $10 for the fabric and $1.50 for the eye hooks. Everything else was already owned or free.

The owl pillow and the quilted pillow were really afterthoughts. The birds were made using the 9 different patterned fabrics we purchased and they only used up a very small portion of each piece of fabric, so we decided to make pillows with the leftovers. The owl was first, since there was a very similar one I wanted at PBK for $29. I could have made my own patterns, but I like someone else's patterns better because I know they will work. I googled for "owl pillow pattern", found one I liked for free, cut out the patterns and let my seamstress put it all together.

After that pillow was made and there was still quite a bit of fabric left, I came up with the quilted pillow design on my own - not that it was a complicated design at all. My assistant sewed this for me as well.

Total spent on pillows: $0

The book wreath was actually my Christmas craft from 2011, and it now finally has a home. Underneath it will eventually be two white shelves and a bunch of children's books on them each.

So, in total, we spent $98.50 on crafty stuff.

OTHER STUFF
And finally, here are pictures of the rest of the room and some of the other little details that you can't see in the first picture.

I tried to list where each thing came from, but if I missed something and you are curious, just ask me and I'll let you know where I got it. I figure the inspiration room's owner saved me so much trouble by simply telling me where she got each thing, and so I am going to do the same.

Birdcages: $1 each at various garage sales
Giant White Book Basket: $1, garage sale
Pink Toy Basket: $1, garage sale
Pair of Flower Frames: $1 each, garage sale
Pink Storage Bins: IKEA, $4.99 each
Green shelf: $5, garage sale
Glass Bird Plaque: $12, made at a glass fusing class
White Birds: Free! Won them on a blog giveaway.
Brown Owl: $6, Kohl's
Pottery Barn Frame and Mat: $2, garage sale
Diaper Cake: The Mama made it and was gifted to me at my shower. It's too pretty to take apart yet!
Purple Wire Bird in cage: $6, Target
Snail: Already owned. It was something I made at a paint-your-own-pottery place years ago.
Paint: Behr Premium Plus from Home Depot in colors Airy (ceiling) and Sapphireberry (walls), $100
Light Fixture: Home Depot, $89
Canopy over crib: IKEA, $9.99
Blue Canary Night Light: Amazon.com, a gift from my registry

So, that puts the grand total at... (I'm really afraid to see this number)...
$895.45.

Hey, that's not too bad, I think! I know plenty of people that spend that alone on one piece of their nursery furniture!

So what do you think? You think Charley will love it, or did I just design my 29 year-old self a nursery? Regardless, John and I absolutely love it and the room is just missing one major piece: the baby. 61 days to go; not that we're counting.

As we finish up things here and there, I'll be sure to share them with you too and link them back here. I know we still have a couple of shelves to hang, still need to decorate the top 4 "cubes" in the bookshelf, and decorate and fill the green shelf with diapering supplies. John is also working on painting and finishing Charley's own bathroom which I will then need to decorate as well. Yes, this baby has her own bathroom and large walk-in closet. I'm pretty sure I was 24ish before I even had that! She's gonna be spoiled, that much we know!
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I've Been Replaced

2011-07-13T21:24:00.004-04:00

I know that in 2 months when Charley gets here that I will likely lose my spot as John's #1. But little did I know that I will then be #3, because I've already achieved #2 status.

Each day I get home from work, walk in the door and start talking to my loving husband. Usually John isn't in the front room or anything, but our house is small enough that he can typically hear me wherever he may be. But lately, I've been talking to no one because John has snuck outside to be with his first love after work each day.

All pictures taken through the back door; unbeknownst to John!

Yes, I've been replaced by a tomato plant. He's been cheating on me with...a plant. I'm not sure how I should feel about that.

I hate to see the day that we have a larger backyard and therefore a larger garden. Right now John has one tomato plant in a pot on our back patio. He spends so much time taking care of this one plant that I can't imagine how little attention he'd have left to give me if he had to care for 10 other plants! Would I then be bumped down to #12?? I'm not sure my ego can handle that kind of demotion.
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Attention to Detail

2011-07-11T19:25:00.007-04:00

I'm really into crime shows. If one of my reality shows isn't on, or I've caught up on all of the good stuff in my DVR list, I'm typically channel surfing looking for a crime show like Forensic Files, The First 48, or even just an episode of Dateline. John is a fan too. Besides HGTV, crime shows are the only shows on TV that we can watch together.

Also I should mention that for a brief semester in college, I switched majors to Criminal Justice. I started out as an Accounting major, then decided that was too hard and switched to Finance. So when I was a Finance major, I had to take more Finance classes and less Accounting classes. So my first semester as a Finance major I took Finance 101 (or whatever it was called but basically Finance I) and didn't do so well in it. Partly because I was not focused and skipping classes and partly because I didn't like it. So then I scrapped the whole thing and switched to Criminal Justice because I did love me some crime shows. [If that isn't the dumbest reasoning ever. I also like watching So You Think You Can Dance on TV so does that mean I should have gone to school to be a dancer or choreographer? Um heck no. Have you seen me dance??] Oh, and for an ending to the college story, I eventually screwed my head back on right and switched back to Accounting where I belonged and finished it out.

[Why did I feel the need to share that again? Anyways...]

So, as I'm watching these crime shows, I like to put myself in the shoes of the witnesses. I think to myself, "Man, I'd be such a good witness because I pay so much attention to mindless detail! The investigators would love me!" and things like that. & no, I don't have any trouble carrying my head around each day.

But today on my drive home (where I do my best thinking) I start to consider what I may give police or investigators if I needed to be a witness to something. & I come up with something like this:

Officer: Ma'am can you give me a description of the vehicle?

Me: Of course! It was a darker color, larger-ish car. But, the one thing I really remember about it was that it had a bumper sticker on the back and it was way crooked. I mean, why even put a bumper sticker on your car in the first place, and if you do, are you really going to leave it on there if it's crooked? Oh, and I'm really good with numbers and the license plate had at least one 3 in it.

Officer: Okayyyy. Um, thank you for your description of the car. What about the offender. Do you have a description of him?

Me: Oh you bet! It was a man, pretty tall, lighter-ish skin. Don't ask me his race or weight. But what I did notice was that he was wearing corduroy pants and it's flipping 95 degrees today! Who wears corduroys in the summer! And also his hair was a mess. It was like he was trying to do the messy-chic and ended up with nothing more than bed head instead.

Because, while I may pay a great attention to detail, it's probably not the details that are important. So the sketch of the perpetrator that they would release to the public based on my [most excellent]description would be this:

And the sketch of the getaway car would be this:

So basically, it's a good thing I ended up in Accounting.
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Reinforcing the Pickle Stereotype

2011-07-06T13:10:00.001-04:00

It was totally unintentional, but I may have reinforced the pickles & pregnant lady stereotype over the weekend. I know all pregnant ladies are currently shooting daggers at me because everyone thinks it's so funny that pregnant ladies just CRAVE pickles.

Let me let you in on a little secret if you are one to make this joke: 1) That's not a funny or original thing to say to a pregnant person and 2) It's not even true.

But tell that to the Wendy's drive-thru lady that I encountered over the weekend. She'd tell you otherwise.

What had happened was...

I am a couponer. Not crazy extreme couponer or anything, but there are usually a few really great deals at each store each week that I'll go grab. One week was jars of pickles for free after the coupon. Now, I don't like pickles but John does. So, being a pickle amateur such as myself, and having TWO of the coupons so I was able to get 2 free jars of pickles, I had to make a game time decision on which two types of pickles to buy.

I thought my chances of success would be pretty good if I just bought 2 different types of pickles so at least I could get at least a 50% approval rating from John when I got home, but I was hoping for 100%. Unfortunately, I only got 50%. (For those that need to know details: he likes the sandwich stackers, but said ewww to the bread and butter pickles. Heh. How was I supposed to know?!)

So, over the weekend I was going to visit my Mama and she does like the bread and butter pickles so I thought I'd bring them to her so they won't go to waste. On the way over I stopped at Wendy's to get us each a burger. I paid for our food, got the bag and pulled away. Only then did I notice what was sitting on my center console in plain view for the drive-thru lady along with my big pregnant belly:

That drive-thru lady must have thought that my pregnancy craving for pickles was so intense I needed to carry a full jar of pickles with me everywhere I went. But lady, you don't understand! It's not what it seems! I can explain! I hate pickles!!

Flashback Friday: I used to be a cookie girl.

2011-07-01T17:08:00.004-04:00

A blog I read, The Heir to Blair, is hosting a link-up titled Flashback Friday. Basically, you write your own post about something from your past, go to her blog and link your post up to hers. It's pretty self-explanatory and an easy way to come up with something to blog about when your blog-idea-well has run dry. Therefore, my Flashback Friday is this:

I used to be a cookie girl.

No idea where the glasses came from or why they wound up on my face. Also, please take note of my hair, courtesy of the one and only perm in my lifetime.

Beginning in February of my senior year of high school, me and my best friend CJ both got a job at the mall working at the Great American Cookie Company. We were both shown the ropes pretty quickly, and before long we were both cookie making and cookie decorating experts. I don't think I'll ever have a job that I enjoyed more than this one.

[However, working nights and weekends + the whole minimumish wage = not a job that I could stay at forever. But fun, nonetheless.]

I moved my way up over my few years of working there until I was assistant manager. I loved all of my coworkers, and never dreaded coming straight to work from college. I was in school full time, taking 15 hours a semester, and working 35ish hours a week here. Not because I had to (thanks to the generosity of my parents while I was in school), but just because I wanted to. Nobody could decorate a cookie cake like I could. ;)

No one ever ordered the cow....maybe because having a 16" chocolate chip cookie with a picture of a cow on it is condescending?

If there was some sort of cookie store emergency even today and they needed someone, anyone to come in and open the store and save the cookie day, I could still do it. I still know the morning setup and the cookie "recipes" by heart. 9 years later and the cookie business is still ingrained in my head.

FYI...those giant cookies you see on display are totally rubber. The icing is real though!

I quote "recipes" above because all of the cookies and brownies we sold came in as refrigerated dough. Some of them had toppings added to them, but for the most part we just scooped the dough out and plopped it on a baking sheet and threw it in the oven. I tell you this because if I ever botch a homemade batch of cookies, I don't want you telling me I should be an expert since I used to work here. I am an expert, however, on when is the perfect time to take them out of the oven!

Maybe one day I'll purchase my own cookie company franchise and get back to my one true career love. [Although, that makes me nervous because my metabolism is not quite the same as it was when I worked there in high school and college and could eat cookies for breakfast lunch and dinner and not gain an ounce.] Until that day comes, I'll just reminisce over these pictures that I'm thankful I took and continue boasting that I'm the best cookie decorator there is!

That is 'Wolf Camera' reflected in the glass there. They were across the mall-hall from us!

Now, I'm needing a cookie...perhaps an M&M Double Doozie. Or, a cheesecake brownie. Or, a Chewy Chocolate Supreme. Or....

Or maybe this was a dumb topic to write about when I'm nearly 7 months pregnant and the mere mention of a word such as "cookie" makes me crave them more than ever. I'm sensing a trip to the mall in my very near future. Maybe they'll let me behind the counter and let me give my old gig a whirl for old time's sake! Or maybe they'll let me take a 5 gallon bucket of butter cream icing home with me. Regardless, this flashback has me feeling very nostalgic.

Any flashbacks you'd like to share? Feel free to join me in my trip down memory lane!
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