Someone Get That Girl a Corndog, STAT!!!

So I was on Pinterest today, which is one of my new favorite websites to go on. Anyway, I came across this pin that was probably one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. Here it is:

Wrong. Are you freaking kidding me?!?! That is such bullshit. I have been both skinny and chunker (just ask Katie about my triple chin 'fat Kristin' years) for my size so I feel like I'm in a good position to call bullshit on this pin. First of all, there are lots of things that taste better than skinny feels. Lots. Shall we name a few?! Brownies, ice cream, bread, pasta, peanut butter balls, cheese, pepperoni, tacos, any breakfast food. I could go on and on. Second, did you look at the girl in the picture?! Whoever thinks they are going to be able to look like that (and thinks it looks good) is delusional. My thighs haven't been that thin since I was 3 months old, and I am completely OK with that. I don't need to wear a little bikini to the beach, I'm perfectly happy in my skirt bathing suit. She looks anorexic. This is like the poster-pin for the FATS (Future Anorexic Teenager Society). Wouldn't it be hilarious if there was actually a group called the FATS?! I may have to try to start one. hehe. OK, off topic. I just can't get over how someone would look at this and honestly find motivation in it without making themselves feel like crap. Obviously you are never going to look like her. She is barely a real person! Whatever happened to feeling comfortable in your own body and having a positive self image? What happened to exercising and eating right (not that I eat right at all) to get to your own personal ideal body weight? All I have to say is that whoever came up with this phrase obviously has never had a peppermint chocolate chip milkshake from Chick-fil-A.

Funny Story

As a pre-story to my funny story I have to tell you that we have been kind of doing baby sign language with Alexa and really the only sign that she's picked up on (and obviously the only sign that we have done consistantly) is "all done". Although she does it by throwing her hands up in the air and sometimes wiggling her fingers. She is very proud of herself that she can communicate and tells us that she is all done after every time that she eats.

OK, so Lexi and I were in the mall and we went into a handicapped stall in the bathroom in Macy's so I could bring her stroller into the stall with me when I pee. She was facing me and as I was buttoning my pants I looked over at her. Miss Lexi Lynn was sitting in her stroller with her arms up in the air, mouth wide open smililng and fingers wiggling. Yes, I was all done.

It's a Child!!!

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but sometime in the past month, Alexa has changed from a baby into a little girl. Kind of sad. Look at her! She is like a child! A child with teeth! (She now has two on the bottom, two half way in on the top and another one trying to poke through on the top) Anyway, Alexa and I went to Orlando this past weekend. It was the first time we went somewhere overnight without Nick (he was not happy about it) and my mom met us there. We went shopping and well, went shopping some more. Alexa saw Santa at Downtown Disney! She hated him. Actually, she waved and said hi to him from far away but was terrified when we got up close. But she did like the booklet of movie listings on ABC Family that they gave us on our way out. Books are kind of her thing now. Along with phones. She still talks on the phone any chance she gets and she even does a fake laugh every now and then which I think is hilarious. Mom brought us the non-jogging stroller that she got at a garage sale. I've decided to call it the non-jogging stroller because it is really nice until you start actually jogging with it. At that point it starts shaking like crazy which kind of defeats the whole purpose of it being a jogging stroller. Apparently it was working fine at the garage sale and then my dad started messing with it. So pretty much, it's his fault and he needs to fix it when they all come up for Christmas. Anyway, back to our trip. Alexa liked to walk every now and then and she loved to help push the stroller. She also enjoyed the occasional bird chase through the outlet mall. (please excuse my butt in that picture...I didn't realize how bad those jeans look :/) We also went to Celebration to see the Christmas stuff. Alexa had fun looking at the lights, dancing to the live music and she especially liked the snow! And by snow, I mean soap bubbles that then settle on the ground making a slimy, dirty layer of nasty that some other random children were making 'snow' angels in. Face down. Obviously not future Harvard Alumni. Does anyone else find it an oxymoron to say that soap is dirty? Well, in this case, it was. All in all, it was a good weekend. We came back Sunday morning, I worked Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights and my house is an absolute mess so lots to do tomorrow. Plus I have gotten ZERO Christmas shopping done so lots to do on Friday too. We shall see how much actually gets accomplished.

How many people does it take to get a baby out of a locked car?

Six. Myself, Alexa's teacher, two sheriff deputies, one captain and a lock smith. Yeah, I locked my kid in the car. On accident. Obviously. I had picked Alexa up from day care and she was 'helping' by holding onto my keys. As I was putting her into the car seat she started pressing the buttons on the car keys so I made a comment that was something like 'OK, that's enough with the keys' and took them from her and tossed them into the front seat. I finished buckling her in, got everything situated in the back and closed her door. I tried to open my door and realized that she had pressed the lock button. Oh. Crappers. Of course I ran around the whole car trying all the doors and none of them worked (surprise, surprise) then I tried the trunk because I had just gotten diapers out of there. Perhaps it didn't latch all the way...no such luck. At this point I think it sunk in and I started mildly freaking out. So, I went back into the day care and told them what I did. Everyone was super helpful. One of Alexa's teachers got on the phone with the police station and told them the situation and apparently they were going to send someone right over. OK, so ten minutes later, her teacher and I are still standing outside my car waiting for (and now trash talking) the police guy who was supposedly on his way. Did I mention that the sheriff's office is approximately 2 minutes down the road? No exaggeration. Oh! And when Lexi's teacher was on the phone with the dispatch person they were asking her all these ridiculous questions like: Did you try all the doors? and Are the windows open? Really, people. Do you honestly think we would be calling you if the window was open and I was just able to reach in and unlock the door myself? Anyway, finally, after apparently finishing his lunch, a sheriff deputy showed up. He explained how they are no longer allowed to open cars due to liability reasons (what?! fine, then why are you here?) and he came over to make sure that it wasn't an emergency. I'm sorry, I didn't realize that a baby locked in a car was something that we can all take our time on. No worries. She's fine in there buckled in the car seat with nothing to play with, peeing all through her diaper and breathing in all of her exhaled CO2 as the oxygen level in the car is being slowly but surely depleted. I'm sure she's becoming more and more acidotic as we speak. And if that child looks the least bit lethargic I'm breaking the window. OK, so I didn't say any of that...but I was thinking it. What I did say was that if she was in any distress that window would have been broken ten minutes ago. (meanwhile, Alexa is sitting in her car seat clapping her hands and waving at her teacher) So, long story short(ish), dispatch had called a locksmith, the sheriff department captain showed up to make sure everything was OK. The locksmith was about two minutes behind him, and all of a sudden there were five people surrounding the car trying to get the door open. Lexi's teacher was talking to her and clapping hands, the first cop was on the passenger side doing God knows what, the locksmith was doing his thing on the drivers door, the captain was "helping" the locksmith (and by helping, I mean totally screwing him up) and I was at the hood of the car watching what the locksmith was doing (what? I've never seen someone break into a car before, I was interested in the process!). At this point, all I could think of was the reality show/sitcom that should be based on my family and that this whole scenario would totally be a whole episode! Katie thinks that our family would be perfect for a reality tv show and every so often when something like this happens I think of how it would be on an episode. Kind of strange, but very entertaining. So back to the car...I'm thinking of all this while they are trying to pry my door open and trying my hardest not to laugh. It would be inappropriate. I think I did pretty good although I did have to put my head down and chuckle a few times. They finally got the door open just as the third cop got there (you know, just to make sure everything was alright. It takes them awhile to respond, but eventually, a baby locked in a car is big news to the Wakulla County Sheriff's department.) Alexa was fine, she only cried a little bit when she saw me and couldn't get to me (one of the reasons why I was at the hood and her teacher was talking to her). She had peed through her diaper and onto her car seat but no signs of respiratory acidosis. (One of) the best parts of this story was me telling Nick later on. I didn't call him when it happened because, really, what's the point? He didn't have a spare key, there was nothing that he could have done. (Small back story: the day before when he got home from work I asked him to choose good news or bad news. The bad news was that I dropped a stocking holder on the floor which made a gash in the wood and the good news was that I had a list of things for him to do (what? It was good news to me.)) So the conversation went something like this:

Me: Good news or bad news first?

Nick: Is there actually good news today because a list of things to do is not good news.

Me: Oh no, there's good news. The good news is that she's ok.

Nick: What's the bad news?

Me: I locked Alexa in the car today. (at this point, he silently turned around, walked into our bedroom and closed the door)

Hehehe. No worries, he came out a few minutes later, and after hearing my (obviously, drawn out) explanation, reassured me that it was an accident and could have happened to anyone. He's so nice. Then he proceeded to tell me that I should have called him because he would have come right over and broken the window to get her out. And that is reason #1 why I didn't call him. So, there are 2 morals to this story. #1: have a spare key. #2: hold onto your keys when putting your baby in the car because she just might press the lock button and then you just might throw the keys into the front seat and then you just might close the door without realizing that she had actually pressed the lock button locking her and your keys in the car. It just might happen.

The Fair, Socks and Shit

Do you like my new background?! I know, it's the middle of November and I'm already putting up Christmas stuff. Well, guess what? My house is decorated too! Besides, Christmas is awesome and Thanksgiving is kind of dumb. I mean, I appreciate the concept of being thankful and everything but I'm not a big fan of the food. Stuffing is awesome and potatoes and deserts are equally awesome but I'm not the biggest fan of turkey. And everything always seems to have nuts in it...I don't like nuts. Plus, I feel like Christmas time is so wonderful and the whole idea of not being able to decorate and listen to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving totally cuts down the potential Christmas time. I celebrate Christmas stuff starting November 1st. That's right, I'm one of those people. My Halloween stuff comes down and my Christmas stuff goes right up. I currently have Christmas music CDs in my car that Alexa and I listen to. That's right, you're jealous.

OK, so onto the actual point of this post. These past few weeks have been pretty eventful. One of my old dance students, Katie, came up to visit. We went to the fair and took Alexa into the petting zoo area. I'm not really sure if she liked it or not. I think she was in awe the whole time. She did like the chickens and roosters, though. Of course.

Like my outfit? We went right after dance and it was kind of cold outside. Nick said I looked ridiculous...especially with my Minnie mouse bag. I told him not to be so jealous.

Alexa is walking a lot more. Like, a lot. She does laps all over the house and she even started a little bit of a run, especially when she's holding some one's hand. The only problem is that apparently she only walks around us or somewhere that she feels really comfortable because she doesn't walk at daycare. When I went to go pick her up the other day they were all excited because she took 5 steps. Big deal. Oh well, I guess I should be happy that she is getting comfortable enough at day care to show them her walking skills. Our new word of the week is "sock". She says it when she wants to, which is never when anyone else is listening. But Nick, Katie and Brandi heard her say it so I have witnesses! We have worked on saying "shoe" as well because she keeps pursing her lips and making shhh noises, but whenever she actually tries to say it, it sounds like she's saying shit. Awesome. (I actually think it's pretty funny, but my mom won't) I have this little big bellied toddler walking around the house saying shit! hehehe. You can't tell me that's not even just a little bit funny!

Does a Bear Shit in the Woods?

That's always been the assumption but I bet if I looked in the woods around my house I could answer that question once and for all. That's right, we have a bear. Nick called me at work and told me that he was taking the dogs out at night and saw a bear. We have halogen lights in the back that have motion sensors on them. We always go out there and check for creatures first before taking the dogs out and (thank God) we always keep them close to us. So I guess he checked and everything, he was standing outside with them and he looked up and saw a bear standing about 30 feet away from him! So after he just about crapped his pants, he picked up Minnie and Wolfie (who don't walk as well or listen as well) and told Glynnis to go inside and backed away toward the house. The bear ran into the woods when he started backing away. OK, so he calls me at work and tells me all this. Completely freaks me out. The next night I was at home so we both took them out. As I was watching the side of the house near the driveway I saw the bear run down the entire tree line and into the woods. HOLY SHIT! This is no little bitty bear either. I'm talking about a 250-300 pound bear. No exaggeration! By the way, I forgot to say that the first night was right before garbage day so our can was out by the street and the bear had knocked over the can and pulled garbage out into the woods. Nick cleaned it all up when he saw it the next morning but it just means that he's been roaming all over our property which is 5 acres! OK, so at this point we had to do something about the bear. I named him Barney and then decided that I should only name things that I like so that was pointless. Nick did something a little more productive and called the Florida Wildlife people. He told them about how close the bear got, the garbage episode, our little 10 pound dogs, the fact that we have a 12 month old, etc, etc, etc. And what did the guy on the phone say?! "Well that's what you get for living in bear country" WHAT?! Are you freaking kidding me!? No talk about trapping the bear or anything like that. He said that he would send us a bear package in the mail with a coloring book in it. First of all, my kid just turned 1. She doesn't color yet, you dumb ass. Secondly, do your job and come get this bear out of my yard! I told my friend, Denise, about all this and she couldn't believe it. She said that we practically live in downtown Crawfordville! hahahaha! I'm sorry, anyone who has been to Crawfordville knows that that statement in itself is pretty humerus! We got this "package" the other day and it's a pamphlet and the coloring book that talk all about how lucky we are to live near bears and that we need to appreciate them, blah blah blah. You know what it made me realize? I now know that bears are tied with snakes at the number four spot of things I think should be extinct. They are right below roaches, toads and alligators.

It has now been two weeks since the bear sightings. We haven't had any more issues with our can on garbage day and there's no other sign of him around. We have installed super flood lights that are even brighter then the ones we previously had and Nick brings his gun when we take the dogs out at night, just in case. Let's just all hope that the bear stays away!

Disney and such

I know you have been anxiously awaiting to hear about my exciting life, but you see, I couldn't post anything because for the past week I've been on my deathbed. OK, small exaggeration. It was 5 days with the stomach flu. But Nick told me today that he had never seen me so sick (and he's known me for 16 years, so I was pretty sick). My point...there will be a couple of back to back posts to catch up on what's been happening.

First of all we went to Orlando last weekend to meet up with my parents. It was Katie's birthday so we kicked her out of her apartment and took over for the weekend. She doesn't like her birthday anyways, right Katie?! (Sorry about that) On Saturday we took Alexa to Magic Kingdom. I would put a super cute picture of her smiling and enjoying herself but there isn't one. She wasn't necessarily miserable all day...but I think she didn't know what to make of everything. There were a lot of people there, she met Minnie and Mickey for the first time, she went on a ride, went in the Tiki Room. That's a lot to take in. So her face all day was pretty, well, neutral.See? She just didn't know what to think. Other then her confusion at the large stuffed mice, she had a great weekend! We mainly just hung out, ate, got her pictures taken. Typical stuff that we do. She walked a lot by herself which has started a major walking trend. I decided that I was done counting how many steps she took when a few days ago, I got up to 23. We're just going to go ahead and say that she's walking. But she'll only do it when and where she's comfortable. Which means in her room and outside on the grass. Other places she will hold some one's hand and walk but she won't take those long strolls by herself anywhere else yet.

What else? Oh, her cute and healthy obsession with phones is turning ridiculous. Everything is a phone now and if she sees a phone or someone on a phone she wants it. Oh, and on a related and equally not so cute topic, she now hates the word "no".

One more thing! Alexa started talking!!! Well, kind of. She now says (or kind of says) the following words: Dada, Mama, Rachel (her doll), Jennie (my doll), hi, bye, yeah, ball, doggie, Wolfie (for some reason, Wolfie is 'Wolfie' and the girls are 'doggie'), bottle (have I talked about the weird obsession with water bottles? Who would have ever thought a water bottle could be so entertaining!), and book. OK, so maybe some of them are babbles that just happen to sound kind of like the thing that she's pointing to but whatever, she's close! And the first 8 words she definitely says, for sure. By the way, we are quickly going to change 'yeah' to 'yes'. OK, that's about enough blogging for now, I need to go to sleep. Still recovering from the illness. Seriously! I contemplated going to the ER!!! No joke...

This Week's Adventures

Before I start my real post, I would just like to say happy birthday to Minnie and Glynnis!!! (by the way, I don't know how to spell Glyniss, it's different every time) They turned 11 years old this week, which is crazy. And Minnie told me secretly that she was a little irritated that Alexa was born so close to her birthday. I told her to get over it, I had no control over the situation.

So, Alexa moved into the 1 year old room at day care this week. Big times. It's actually a good thing for her because she's so active and into everything. Now she has a big room to move around in without anyone worrying about her crawling on other babies. The big worry for me was nap time. Hot Stuff still takes two naps a day and is in no hurry to change that any time soon. The 1 year old room only takes one nap a day so you see how that doesn't quite add up. Also, they have nap mats and sleep on their mats on the floor. Lexi is known for her sleepy time acrobatics and generally needs to be contained (you know, in a pack-n-play) for any kind of sleeping activity. So I went to go pick her up yesterday early because I knew that she would be a crazy who couldn't fall asleep on her mat. I walked into the room and she was passed out on her mat on the floor. Her teachers said that she was the first one to fall asleep. She was probably exhausted because she had to stay up until noon! I left and then went back again at 2:15 and she was awake but fussy and clingy so we went home and she took another 2 hour nap in her crib. I usually pick her up early on Mondays and Tuesdays so an extra 2 hour nap in the late afternoon for both of us is just fine with me!

The other thing that has been happening this week is a little girl majorly testing some boundaries. We've already gotten into the temper tantrums where she throws herself around and arches her back and screams. I just put her on the floor and walk away. I tell her that I don't hold arching babies. A few days ago we were all upstairs playing with her tent thing. Here's a picture. It's pretty awesome.

I put up a baby gate at the top of the stairs for obvious reasons but I still didn't want her to touch the gate because I was nervous that it wouldn't be very sturdy. So of course Alexa wanted to touch it and after many "No's" I started to (lightly) slap her hand when I said no. I would like to mention here that she now thinks that the word no is funny and thinks it's a game to do whatever you're telling her not to do. So anyway, after about a minute of that, Nick said that if she touched it again he was going to slap her hand. Well then the drama queen came out. She knelt on the floor holding her hand and crying but she finally stayed away from the gate. For about five minutes. And then she crawled up to it, sat in front of it, looked at me, smiled and smacked her hand onto the gate! Oh my god. I almost had to walk away. If we needed any more confirmation that this is mine and Nick's kid, that was it.

That crazy bitch...Tinkerbell, who did you think I meant?!

I was just searching the internet for a picture of Tinkerbell with a big cross or X through her. You know, to further illustrate for you my dislike. And let me tell you, I have found my people!!! Apparently there is a whole anti-Tinkerbell movement. Well maybe that's a slight exaggeration. But still. There is a facebook page that you could 'like' with a description that says some thing like 'why the obsession with Tinkerbell when she's not even a real princess?!' Exactly!!! I personally think that she is a dirty whore. What? You think this is a family blog?! I talk about boobs here, I think I can use the words dirty whore. Especially when they're true. Seriously, is that the kind of role model you want for your kid?! She steals Minnie's thunder (with all the merchandise they sell with her on it), she hardly has any clothes on and she totally tries to sabotage Peter and Wendy's relationship. Well...maybe not, but still. I'm still not clapping my hands for that bitch! And you can make fun of me for feeling so strongly about a fictional Disney character but I don't really care. One website even cautioned against getting a Tinkerbell tattoo because it's associated with drug use. See, these are the type of people who like Tinkerbell...druggies! By the way, I love Peter Pan, it's one of my favorite Disney movies. I think he was the first red head I've ever loved. Haha. But anyways, it's just that nasty Tinkerbell who I don't like. Hayley told me she was going to save the 3-4 year old ballet Tinkerbell song she has for when Alexa is in her class. I told her that I'd take her out and bring her to the other dance studio. She laughed and thought I was kidding...not so much! Here's a picture of Alexa's princess bath toys with Tink facing the correct way...at the wall.
Hahaha, I hope you've enjoyed my crazy Tinkerbell rantings. This is the craziness that occurs at 5am....two hours left until I get to go home.

Alexa's Birthday Party!!!!

Well, the party event of the century is over. I'm talking about Alexa's first birthday of course. hehehe. We did a bird theme (obviously) with pink and orange and it was super cute. Nick called our house the shrine to Alexa because I pulled out every single picture frame we own and displayed pictures of her first year all over the house. Slightly ridiculous? Sure. But I don't care. I busted out the baking skills and made cupcakes instead of ordering a cake from Publix. Birthdays on a budget...this is how I roll. Plus, the cupcakes are so much easier to serve...no cutting involved...obviously. I used the banner that I made for family vacation and changed out the letters to say "Happy Birthday" and then cut out a bird for each end on my cricut. Oh, and I got those birdhouses at Michael's for $1 each and Nick and I painted them one night. I know, you're jealous of my party planning skills! I wanted to make her a little birdie shirt but mom bought her a 'Birthday Girl' shirt from Target so we just went with that. I did, however, make her a tutu!!!! Definitely one of the easiest things I've ever made. All you do is cut small strips of tulle and tie them around a ribbon. Easy peasy. Lots of family and friends came over to help celebrate and Alexa did great with all the people. I was a little nervous about how she would react to 50 people being in her house because she had been running an off and on fever for a few days before her party. A real fever, it went up to 103.7, so she had been fussy. We had hot dogs and hamburgers plus beans by mom and pasta salad by Carol. Alexa ate her cupcake:Opened her presents:And hung out with her friends:All in all, I think she had a pretty good time. :) She got lots of wonderful presents (did you see the beautiful quilt Aunt Babs made her in the present opening picture?!) but I think she likes this one the best:

Oh! And she finally figured out how to clap her hands. (Yay for milestones she should have met three months ago!!!) And of course now she thinks it's the greatest thing ever and claps every chance she gets. Anyway, the birthday weekend was a success. Carol and George stayed for 4 days (which was great!) but I wish my parents could have stayed longer. Oh well, we are going to see them next weekend in Orlando for a trip to Disney World!!! I can't wait for Alexa to meet the princesses! Speaking of which, have I ever written about my utter dislike for Tinkerbell? That might be worth a post of it's own.

New Goal

I have decided that my new goal in life is to be a professional blogger. Except that I have no idea how to go about doing that. Any suggestions? I suppose I need followers and maybe someone to comment every once and awhile. Hmmmm...anyone want to jump on that? How do you even get paid for blogging? I know some people have ads on their blogs and get paid for a certain number of clicks on the ad but I don't know about all that buisness. I was introduced to The Bloggess last night and her blog is fantastic. Hilarious. Maybe you need to be funny to be a professional blogger. It probably doesn't hurt that she's a writer too. It would probably also be helpful for me to actually post something on a semi-regular basis. I'll work on my part, you work on yours.

In other news, someone has been taking some steps recently (I'll give you a hint, one of her nicknames is 'two feet of dynomite' - more on that some other time). Last weekend we were at a friends house watching the FSU game and Hot Stuff pulled up on me, let go and walked two steps to Nick. (Did I tell you this already? I feel like I have.) Anyway, she hadn't really taken any steps since then...until last night! We were playing in her room and she decided to let go of her bookshelf, stand for a little bit and then walk to me! Two steps again! I'm going to add this to the list of reasons why she's a little OCD like me. One step for each foot. You have to be even. I understand, little baby, I understand. Oh, in semi-related Alexa news, I started thinking this past week about how I can't call her things like 'little baby' or 'the baby' or 'pretty baby' (you get the idea) anymore because her birthday is coming up and after October 1st she technically won't be a baby anymore. That's sad. And I know, I can call her 'baby' all I want even after she's past infancy but I like to be correct in my terminology. I feel like it's appropriate. Here's a picture of the little toddler (it just doesn't sound the same as little baby. Oh my God, am I going to call her 'little school aged girl' when she's 7 or 8?! Maybe I should just stick to 'Hot Stuff') with Nick. Please excuse the nasty FSU-wear. See what a good wife/mom I am, putting my kid in FSU stuff because Nick likes them?! Her dress is actually super cute and I've been trying to find a Gator one like it. If you know where I can find one, please let me know! OK, so small update: the stupid computer I'm on at work won't let me upload a picture onto my blog. Really, people. What good is it going to work if I can't adequately write on my blog?

One Crafty Mama

Why yes, that would be me. Hehe. I've been looking for a chandelier type of thing to hang in Alexa's room above the chair for awhile. I just felt like that wall against the window was a little bare. So I saw this on pottery barn.

I really like the concept and it doesn't include a light (which is good because we don't have wiring there), but I'm just not a butterfly person. You know how some people are butterfly people and some people aren't. I'm just not. I appreciate butterfly people. I have many friends who are butterfly people. I enjoy the periodic butterfly. But I feel like sometimes we forget that they are just pretty bugs. So being that Alexa has a love for birds (that by the way, I find equally disturbing) I tried to search out a similar design with birds instead of butterflies. No such luck. Then came the moment of enlightenment. (A little background here: I always say that I can make things and then I never actually make them. I have told Nick that I can build furniture, sew things, all kinds of stuff. So one of our running jokes is that I say we can't buy ____ item because I can just make it and Nick gives me a look and then brings up the bar I was supposed to build him a few years ago.) So naturally, when I couldn't find a bird chandelier, I said that I would just make one. Obviously. Nick did the usual thing that he does when I talk about making things and I made him stop my Michaels so I could get my supplies. And look at what I made!!!!!I know, you're jealous. Let's just take a moment for you to pull yourself together. OK now? Good. It was super easy. The circle part is a ring that you use to stretch the fabric when cross stitching with skinny dowels hot glued across it. Then I got some high quality fishing line (I know, right, who would have thought there was high quality fishing line?!) and used tiny dots of hot glue to attach them to the dowels and circle thing. Cut out birds and flowers on my Cricut and glued them on. Then we hung it from the ceiling with more fishing line. Easy peasy! I know it's not as full as the Pottery Barn one, but I kind of did that on purpose. And now thanks to my amazing ability to make things you too can create your own bird/flower/butterfly/whatever you want chandelier. Or for, let's say $30, I'll make one for you. :) Here's a picture of it in Alexa's room.

And I realized that I have never posted pics of her completed room so here are the other walls. Please excuse the random bottles on the changing table. They are one step closer to the kitchen. One step closer.

Randomness

Alexa has been sick this week.  :(  No fun.  It started out on Friday with a fever and now the runny nose is here.  We had our second slumber party on the floor on Saturday night which was kind of rough but kind of nice at the same time.  My little cuddle buddy doesn't want to cuddle any more now that she's a big girl who crawls around.  The good thing about her being sick is that now she wants to cuddle again.  She would not go into the crib Saturday night and ended up finally falling asleep straddling me with her head on my chest.  So instead of fighting with her to go into the crib again I just layed down on her floor and we slept there. 

Daycare is going OK I suppose, she seems to like it there.  Getting her to take a nap is hit or miss and she still refuses to take a bottle from any of them.  I guess that's OK because we are trying to wean off the bottle.  She drinks from her sippy cup with only juice or water, refuses formula in it) and eats fine so I'm not worried about it.  The teachers there think she's hilarious because she takes off her pants and her diaper in the pack-n-play when she's supposed to be napping.  Naked baby.  I told her it's not socially acceptable to be naked in public even though she does have a super cute hiney.

You all know about my obcession with feeding Alexa correctly and my ever constant quest to find out what exactly she is supposed to be eating.  So last night I was googling snack ideas and came across this website that had a ton of different things on it, some good and some not so much.  As I was skimming though the posts I came across one where the lady was talking about tofu cubes and soy chips and all kinds of crazy stuff.  Now, I am all for tofu as long as I am not the one who's eating it!  If you like it, great.  More for you and less for me.  Also, my general rule of feeding Alexa is that if it looks like I'm going to have to get something at a different store, it's not worth it.  Also, if it costs more to feed her then it does to feed me, it's not worth it.  I feel like those are pretty good rules.  So anyway, this lady is talking about all these fun nutritious snacks (which probably taste like butt) and at the end she says that she thinks it's important to have the baby eat what the parents eat instead of catering to them with typical "toddler foods" such as cheerios or chicken fingers.  What?  Excuse me?  Cheerios and chicken fingers are a staple item in our house hold!  Alexa eats cheerios for breakfast every day.  Every day.  And I do not think there has been one time in the past 6 1/2 years of our marriage when we did not have a bag of chicken fingers in our freezer.  Nick and I eat chicken fingers and tater tots at least once a week.  You know, that day when he's working late and I worked the night before and that night and no one wants to cook.  Needless to say, I moved on to another website.

Mommy and Me

Alexa and I went to our first Mommy and Me class on Friday. It was a music class held at the hospital that my friend, Dana told me about. Dana and I both grew up in Hollywood. She's a year or two older then me and our brothers are the same age so she was Sean's sister and I was Ricky's sister (which was the just the start me being known as "Ricky's sister". More on that some other time.). Anyway, we both ended up in Tallahassee and both ended up pregnant at the same time. She is one of those random people that I haven't really talked to in years, yet I stalk her on facebook. And apparently she stalks me too which made me feel slightly less awkward and creeperish. So, the point, Alexa and I went to this class. It was at 11:00 which is probably one of the worst times for her schedule so we left here early so that she could nap in the car on the way up to Tallahassee. I actually ended up sitting in the parking lot at Michael's, knitting (yes, I knit. Do you have a problem with that?!) while she finished her nap. Speaking of knitting, I have this hat that I just finished for Nick and it's huge. If you know of anyone who has a monstrous sized head, please let me know because I'll send him a hat. Back to the class. Picture your stereotypical mommy and me teacher complete with guitar and everything. OK, so she was there leading us in song as I took pictures of my kid (and Kaydence) crawling around the room. About half way through the class I realized that I was the only obnoxious one with a camera. Dana was taking some pictures with her phone but that's easier to disguise. Slick. I probably should have been interacting more with Lexi since it was a mommy and me class but you know what, she was way to interested in everything else that's going on. She spent the first 5 minutes with me and then she kept creeping further and further away. Oh, and she was the only one who threw a fit in the class too, of course. They gave out different things for the babies to hold and play with for each song. The first thing was a drum and mallet. When they came around at the end of the song to take it away Alexa was not having that. Sigh. She did better with the other stuff though. All in all I think she had a good time and I had fun. We are going to have Thursdays and Fridays to ourselves so I think it will be a fun thing to do to get us out of the house a little bit. And it's nice that we have a day to recover from daycare/work on Thursday. It's a pay as you go kind of thing so if we don't want to go one week it's not a big deal. Plus it gives me a good excuse to go shopping afterward. I'm already in Tallahassee, I might as well! Here's a picture of Alexa and Kaydence planning their next move.

Our Top 5 Baby Items

Ugh, I've been a bad blogger. Sorry. There are thousands of excuses but I'll spare you and just say that I'm sorry it's been so long...again. So, as (kind of)previously promised, I give you my top five must have baby conveniences. These are of course minus the obvious things like bottles, pacis, cribs, stuff like that. I started thinking about this because a couple of months ago my mom asked me what was the one thing I would recomend to a new mother-to-be that I didn't realize I would need. That kind of got me thinking. And then I asked Nick what he thought and he had completely different ideas that I didn't even consider. So with both of our lists together and again, minus the obvious stuff that everyone has, here is our top 5 list:

5 - Any toy that plays music. I know, this is kind of a cop out, but we really could not live without our music makers. Alexa has known how to turn on the music on her mobile (which is now just the sound box) for months now. She has a sea horse that she also sleeps with that plays music when you press it's belly. Any time I want to get her attention or distract her from crying all I have to do is show her a toy that makes music. Yes, I realize that singing provides lots of music and singing is free (trust me, she gets her fill of me singing. I joke that she thinks her life is a musical because pretty much everything comes in the form of a song) but music makers at least give your voice a rest.

4 - The removable try on our high chair. I realize that most of the trays come off to get the baby out but ours (which is a Chicco) has an extra, clear, plastic tray that snaps onto the top of the main tray. As we have entered the fun and extremely messy phase of self feeding this past month, I have totally come to appreciate that tray thing. It snaps on and off easily and instead of bringing the whole, big, awkward main tray to the sink to be washed you just wash the top tray. The mess is contained and it is fantastic!!!

3 - Wipes warmer. Who wants to have their butt wiped with a cold wipe in the middle of the day, let alone in the middle of the night?! Not I and not my baby!

2 - Pacifier Clip. I find this one funny because we never actually registered for one. Niki gave us one in a pile of hand me downs from Kinley and she even said to me that she never actually used it. Just goes to show you that what works for one person is pointless for another. Now, we've been really good about keeping the paci only for naps and bedtime. However. When a baby is acting a fool in public, the paci comes out real fast. I discovered the wonders of the paci clip at dance. Alexa would sit at the front of the room in a bouncy seat or bumbo while I was teaching and I let her have a paci to keep her relatively quiet. Five minutes later the paci would be on the floor. Nasty. One week I brought the paci clip with me to try it out and it was awesome! I can't tell you how many pacis it saved from the floor on countless trips shopping and at Disney. When my mom asked me the question about the one thing I would reccomend, a paci clip was my answer.

1 - A Video Monitor. By far. We don't even have one of the fancy portable ones or one that has a color monitor or measures the room temperature. Nope, just an obnociously large (I think it's a 6 inch screen) monitor that sits on my bedside table. This is definately the best baby convenience that we own. And my mom thought it was dumb at first. That was until she came up here to baby sit for a week. There is a camera that goes in the baby's room (we have it on the wall above her crib so we can look down on her) and just the one TV looking monitor. Let me tell you that I will get up and walk across the house to look at the monitor before I will walk into that child's room to see if she's really sleeping. We use it to check on her at night. We use it for any time she takes a nap. It's wonderful.

So there it is, our top 5. What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Like I said, I find it interesting that what is trash for someone is a must have for someone else.

My Crib Story

So I completely forgot to write about how we had to drop Alexa's crib down to the lowest level. Before I even begin, let me say that we dropped it down to the middle one months and months ago. Probably when she was about 5 months old. Amanda taught her how to pull herself up in the crib (thanks Mandy.) so we dropped it down then just in case. Since then Alexa is obviously pulling herself up all the time. In fact, when I walk into her room after every nap, she's standing in the corner of her crib facing the door with both elbows on the top and her chin resting on her hands. It's pretty cute. And let's go ahead and use that as a reference to how high the top of the crib came on her. It was about armpit level. So about a month ago (I told you I was late in telling this story) I was laying in bed one morning listening to her talk to herself in her crib. I knew that Nick had gotten up already and he was probably sitting on the couch drinking his coffee and waiting for her to wake up a little more before picking her up. I was facing away from the monitor (more on the video monitor in my next post) and I noticed that her talking changed. It wasn't distressed or anything but something about her little noises changed so I rolled over to peek at her on the monitor. Let me tell you that that child had both arms up on the top of the crib with her right foot also on the top of the crib and was hopping off her left foot to try to jump over. Now let's all take a moment to appreciate that it was relatively early in the morning (not my best time thanks to night shift) and I was still pretty much asleep. I jumped out of bed and I imagine that I looked something like a cross between mom walking to her bed after falling asleep on the couch and those cartoons where the animal's feet are racing but they are not getting anywhere. You know what I'm talking about. I finally got my footing, started running out into the family room yelling "she's trying to get out of the crib!!!!" At that point Nick got of the couch and started running to her room. He reached the door first, yanked it open and Hot Stuff was standing in her crib looking at us and laughing. Needless to say, I picked up the baby while Nick went to get his screwdriver to lower the crib all the way down. I think she may be part monkey.

'How to put up an above ground pool' by Nick and Kristin (mostly Nick)

I love pools. LOVE THEM. To the point that when we were living in Davie, pretty much every day I had off, I was at the pool. Needless to say, living in Crawfordville, I've been in a little bit of a pool shock. I complain about it all the time. So my mom and Nick were at Target the other day and saw a 12 foot pool on an end cap for $32! That's right, you heard me, only thirty two dollars!!! So anyway, on Tuesday we finally had time to assemble the pool. For step by step instructions, please see below.

Before you begin, make sure you kill the grass that will be under your pool. You can do this by any means necessary including but not limited to killer bug spray, bleach in a spray bottle or actual grass killer. (I'll go ahead and save you some time and advise you to just get it over with and buy the damn grass killer...trust me.) Once your grass has turned sufficiently brown, select a date and time to set up your pool. Apparently the best time to do this is in the heat of the day, when it's about 110 degrees outside.

OK, step 1: Make a crop circle. Or in our case, a crop egg. This can most easily be done with a riding lawn mower. You know when it's the right size when you walk outside to find your husband riding in circles laughing his crazy evil laugh! At this point, just go ahead and tell him to stop.

Step 2: Take the huge roll of plastic that you had origionally intended to be the worlds largest slip-n-slide and cut it to fit in your crop circle. (Sorry about the slip-n-slide, Katie. :( I'm sure we can get another super long roll of plastic)



Step 3: Get an increadably small amount of sand and spread it around on top of the plastic to try to level out the ground.

Step 4: Have a long, heated debate with your spouse regarding previously mentioned sand and how, while the concept is good, we are actually doing nothing to level the ground. One can even argue that it made it worse.

Step 5: Lay the pool on top of the plastic/sand combination and according to the instructions, let it sit in the sun. No worries, because you are doing this in the heat of the day, it will only take about 30 seconds for the pool to get almost too hot to touch.

Step 6: Put together the top PVC-like things for the frame of the pool. The last one will be hard to get together but as the instruction manual states: "You can do it!"



Step 7: Attach the leg pieces.

Step 8: Fill with water. Note: at this point feel free to let your baby splash around in the actively filling pool with her clothes on. Why not, right?

Catch Up

Well, so much for blogging every week. Hmm. Well I suppose we should play catch up a little bit. We went down to Hollywood for a week which was super fun. Nick helped his dad out with a little bit of home renovations that they are doing. And by a little bit, I mean that they tore apart their entire house except for the bedrooms. Like, kitchen and bathroom down to the studs, carpet up, craziness. It's going to look great when it's done! The amount of work that Carol and George are doing is increadible and hopefully Nick was able to help put a small dent in it. My 30th birthday was on the Friday so on Saturday, they threw me a suprise party. It was a luau theme and I can honestly say that although I kind of had an idea that there would be a suprise party, it was the biggest suprise that they have ever gotten by me. I'm pretty observant (nosy, whatever).



Anyway, it was a fantastic party!!! Even some of my old dance girls came!



But the highlight, by far, was this cardboard thing. Everyone loved it, especially Tard!



While everyone was setting up for the party, Alexa and I spent the day at Grammy's house. We ate lunch, played, made pizzelle and measured Alexa on "the wall".



What is that in her hand, you ask? That is the large end of the bread loaf we gave her to chew on. And, yes, she ate the whole thing. (How could you go to Grammy's and not eat bread?!)



I just realized that by asking what's in her hand, you could have just as easily answered 'Ricky's teeth'. For some reason the child likes putting her hand in people's mouths. Kind of gross. So, yeah. The party was good. The 4th of July was typical and relatively uneventful. Family, BBQ that kind of stuff. The next day we got Alexa's ears pierced (even though mom didn't want it) by Dr. Alexander. She did great. She cried more when they put the dots on her ears then when she actually pierced them! Crazy baby! You can see one of her ears in this picture. We took it at when we were at breakfast with Nick's dad. Alexa decided to reach over, grab a piece of my french toast and smear it all over her face. Awesome.

Well, head traumas do run in our family...

Before I get into all that...my mom came up last week to hang out and watch Alexa while I was at work. Nick was gone on a guys vacation to a cabin in Georgia with a bunch of well, the guys. They went golfing and white water rafting, drank and played pool. General guy stuff. It was nice for us because Alexa got to spend lots of time with G-ma and I got to hang out with my mom for a few days. Even more exciting is that we are leaving later this morning to visit them for a week. So we get lots of G-ma and Grandpa time (and Uncle Ricky). I know, foreign concept to some people, I actually like my family. My mom took lots of great pictures when she was here (she is not only an awesome photographer, she has a super awesome low light camera which I am totally jealous of that takes fantastic pictures!). Maybe when we get to Hollywood I'll put some up for you to see.

Anyway, back to the head trauma. I was driving to work on Monday night and got a frantic call from Nick (with Alexa screaming in the background) that she had fallen out of her high chair. I guess when he took the tray off and was hooking it onto the back of the chair she leaned forward and the straps unhooked. She fell about three and a half feet onto the wood floor on her head. She never lost consciousness and calmed when Nick picked her up but (after consulting our resident EMT turned RN) I told him to bring her to the ER just to be checked. I have to say, bravo to TMH ER. When I got up to the unit and the day shift nurses found out what happened they called the nursing supervisor who called the ER to let them know that my baby was coming in. At first I didn't want any special treatment for my child, but let me tell you, they were just fantastic! Nick called me when he got into the garage and by the time I got down to the ER, she was already weighed (19.2 lbs), vitals done, history being taken and a minute later we were shown to a room. The charge nurse came and introduced herself, the doctor came in right away, I was impressed. Now, they probably thought we were crazy. Here is this man who is so beside himself with guilt (even though he didn't do anything wrong) that he's not talking, a girl with too-big-for-her scrubs on (they were the only ones I had clean that night) and a baby with a big goose egg on her head and rug burn on her eye who is climbing all over the place laughing and making her hawk cry. That's right, her hawk cry. She was so tired that she was giddy and was hawk crying even with the paci in her mouth. Needless to say, the doc found that she was completely neurologically intact. He offered to do a CT if we wanted but suggested not to so we didn't. He said just to check her periodically through the night to make sure she was still ok. Nick was a little nervous going home with her so they came up to the PICU to hang out with me for awhile. That lasted a whole half hour because Alexa was way to interested in the room decorations and O2 set up to drink a bottle or go to sleep in the hospital crib. Apparently she fell right to sleep in the car on the ride home and when he woke her up at 2am, she was still appropriate. In the morning when I got home the bump on her head was gone and now she just has a black eye with still some nasty scabbed rug burn. So that's the story of Alexa's first (and hopefully last) head trauma/ER visit. Although, as my mom says, "she's a busy girl" so I feel like this is hardly the end of scrapes, bruises and black eyes. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the scabs will be gone by next Tuesday so we can get her nine month pictures taken!

Recital Weekend

So I was reading over my post from last night and I would like to apologize for the mean sarcasm. It was the end of a long shift and my filter was obviously off. To make up for it, here are some pictures of Alexa!!! My recital was last weekend so my parents and Katie came up to see it. These are some random pictures that my mom took.

Alexa picking at the nail in the windowsill. She's kind of obsessed with it.



Nick in the daddy dance. He's the one with the gold shirt on. (They were so funny...and good!!!)



Alexa and I with Hayley and Baye.



Alexa and I outside after the recital. She tried to eat my flowers. In her defense, they were very pretty.



She loves taking a bath and she drinks the water if you put it near her face. Every night we shoot the water at her from the side so she can "practice" drinking out of a water fountain. I can't wait to find a cleanish water fountain for her to try for real!



Minnie and her Grandpa having their special time together. The dogs love it when they come to visit, especially Minnie.



Alexa and Aunt Katie getting into trouble during the recital.



"What? I'm driving here!"

Father's Day Posts, facebook style

Yesterday was Father's Day. I suppose Nick had a good day for his first true Father's Day. He went golfing in the morning and Alexa got him a fryer. You know, one with a rectangle basket like a small version of what they use in restaurants. He tried to use our old fry daddy a few weeks ago and got frustrated that it didn't get hot enough so getting a "real" fryer was near the top of his list of things that he wants (along with an ipad and a projector & screen - hopefully he's fully aware of my cheapness and knows that we are going to have to win the lottery for him to get either of those). Did I mention that he has only fried something twice in the past two years? Not relevant and I'm getting off topic. Sorry. So, Father's Day. I appreciate that everyone loves their fathers, etc. But I have a small issue with everyone proclaiming it on facebook. It's annoying. My newsfeed was twice as long yesterday and all full of crap like 'Happy Father's Day to the greatest dad in the world'. First of all, that's very a subjective statement. Obviously all 50 of you who wrote that can't have the single greatest dad in the world. I realize that you might think that, and that's wonderful, but I feel like proclaiming it on facebook is kind of like telling everyone else that they do NOT have the greatest dad in the world. Are you supposed to 'like' these comments? That's just rough, it's like admitting that you think their dad is in fact greater than your own. And is that seriously how you are telling your dads happy Father's Day? By posting it on facebook? You're really not even going to call him? And is your dad even on facebook because mine is not (although my mom is...she's pretty cool, I know. Oh and don't even get me started on posting comments toward random people who are obviously not on facebook...example: 'I love you Alexa!!!' Seriously, my 8 month old is going to read that?). So assuming that your dad is not, in fact, on facebook, you are then just bragging to the rest of us that you have the single greatest dad ever and our dads all suck. First of all, not true. Second, I really want to know what the appropriate response is. Obviously you are looking for some type of response because lets all get real, getting a response is why you post things on facebook to begin with. So what exactly are the rest of us supposed to say? I believe I will write 'Dislike! My dad is totally better then yours!!! Nanny Nanny Boo Boo!!!!!!'

daddy dance video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xC8DnMYiRY

Dancing, Waving and Eating

I missed my Sunday or Monday blog post this week but I suppose Tuesday night is OK. Our recital was this weekend so my parents and Katie came up to see my dances and (more importantly) to see Nick in the daddy dance. My dances looked pretty good. It's interesting to see the difference between girls who perform all the time (competitions, etc) and girls who perform once a year in the recital. You could tell that the girls up here are completely scared being up on stage. Especially the older ones. They all did a good job, though. The daddy dance was fantastic, as usual. I find it hilarious that they are already planning and giving Hayley suggestions for next year. They all teased Nick for being their "super star" but let me tell you, most of those guys could really dance! Someone put the dance on youtube so I'm going to have to find it and try to link it to this page.

Alexa's new thing this week is waving. She is probably going to be super confused because we wave bye bye but we also wave hello. So I'm sure she has no idea what it means. She hasn't figured out that she has to turn her hand around so she waves at herself. It's kind of cute. :) We're still working on clapping hands and next we are going to start blowing kisses.

Did I talk about her eating last week? She is eating some finger foods like those puff things and yogurt bites but other than that I have no idea what to feed her. Obviously she is still eating her baby food but she goes through at least two tubs of those gerber things per meal. My friend at work told me that I can just give her tiny pieces of whatever we're eating but it still makes me nervous. I know I'm going to mess up and have another incident like with the penut butter! I have no problem with any form of baby care other then what to feed them. It confuses the hell out of me. I've tried to look online and in books and stuff but everything is super vauge. Not only that, everything has relatively conflicting advice. Some places say they should eat what we eat, some places say only baby food. It's all very confusing. I need an Alexa meal plan. That would be perfect. Anyone want to jump on that?!?!

Alexa Update

This week's post is going to be about my little Lexi Lynn (that's her country name...obviously). She has been crawling around the house for a few weeks now. The dogs, who once regarded her as something super cool to always be protecting, are now scared shitless. It's actually kind of sad because they still want to be near her but they are scared at the same time. They stay in the room with us when we are playing but they hide behind me the whole time. Of course Alexa wants to be everywhere they are. If they are laying on one of their beds in the family room, that's where she's crawling to. I kind of feel bad for them sometimes (especially Minnie...she's always been my baby) but I guess they have to get used to it. We always have special time with the dogs after Alexa goes to bed to try to make up for them getting chased around all day. It's kind of funny though how Wolfie doesn't really care about Alexa and Alexa doesn't really care about Wolfie. They pretty much leave each other alone.

So Alexa's new thing to do is to pull up on everything. She no longer wants to crawl because she thinks she can walk. She kind of cruises but only a step or two. It's more Alexa pulling up on something, letting go with one hand and smiling, then letting go with the other hand and falling down. Then she cries until I pick her up but as soon as her little body leaves the floor she smiles. Someone is slightly spoiled.

Her other fun and exciting thing to do is to eat more independently. We give her those puff things and baby yogurt melts every day and she just about has it down so that she gets them into her mouth. This is a huge improvement from a week ago when she was grabbing them and then they were getting lost in her fist and eventually ending up on the floor. She has a sippy cup of water that she drinks with lunch and dinner but I still don't see her getting much out of it. Oh, and we got her one of those fruit holder bag things so she can suck on a piece of fruit without us worrying about her choking on it. She's had watermelon and peaches and thinks they are both fantastic!

My Mid-year Resolutions

For some reason, recently, I've been feeling like I want to do more stuff. I don't know if it's all the blogs I read while I'm at work or what but I'm thinking about making some mid-year resolutions. So. Instead of making a resolution to do everything I've been wanting to do (scrapbook more, learn how to cook, knit a bunch of headbands for Lexi, reorganize my whole house, etc) I became slightly realistic and narrowed it down to two things. I am going to keep my house clean and I am going to write on this blog once a week.

Seems simple, right? OK, you try to keep a house spotless with myself and Nick (two well known mess makers), a baby with tons of toys and three little dogs who like to track in dirt and grass every time they go outside. Not so simple any more is it? Didn't think so. I like to call it "Operation reclaim my house". At least that's what I kept repeating to myself as I scrubbed the kitchen, dining room and family room last Friday instead of taking my usual nap along with Alexa. I have decided that since Amanda moved out last week, we now have the house to ourselves for the first time in almost a year and there is no one to blame but ourselves. I also told myself that I have to stop blaming night shift for my constant tiredness during the day. Maybe not blaming others should be part of my resolution...nope, I should just stick to the two for now. :) Oh, did I mention that on Friday night after my napless day of frantic cleaning I fell asleep on the couch at 9pm and didn't get up until 8:30 the next morning? I just wanted (in a non-blaming night shift kind of a way) put that out there. Anyway, back to the house cleaning. We have this big beautiful house that we built and I want to not act like a fool trying to clean real quick every time before someone comes over. For example, I worked Wednesday night and then Thursday afternoon George and Carol came over. Of course I had been sleeping all morning so I didn't have time to clean and my house wasn't a complete disaster but I was embarrassed. I realize that it was just George and Carol and they really don't care about the state of my house (After all, they along with my parents, Ricky and Katie were the cleaning dream team when Alexa was born. And the house was horrendous then!) but I was still embarrassed. So my goal is to have the house always presentable and ready for company. We'll see how this goes.

The other part of this whole resolution thing is to write a weekly blog. I always think of things that I should put on here and then I just don't do it. Or I feel like I don't have anything interesting to say so then why should I write anything at all since people won't like what I have to say anyways. I have decided that I don't care if you are bored by my weekly updates. And even if it's simply posting a picture of Alexa, I will write at least one post every week. And let's face it, pictures and stories about Lexi are what you really want to see. I have decided to try to blog every Sunday night but if I'm busy then Monday night is acceptable too. Again, we'll see how long this lasts! Wish me luck!!!! :)

Sleepy Thoughts

Before I get into what this post is about, I'd like to state that Alexa is a wonderful and happy baby. She really is. She laughs and wants to play all the time. In fact, the only time that she has ever been truly fussy was after her shots and when she had a cold last week. As far as sleeping is concerned, she has been "sleeping through the night" since she was about 5 weeks old. I put that in quotes because apparently sleeping through the night in baby terms is five hours. In my world, sleeping through the night is at least 8 hours. I'm just saying.

Anyway. We moved Alexa into her room about a month ago and since then she has been waking up in the middle of the night. When I'm home, she'll (sometimes) wake up at around 12:30 just wanting the paci and then at 5:30 to eat. After that she keeps on sleeping until 8:30 at which time we get up for the day. When I'm at work and Nick has her it's a totally different story. Just last night she woke up a total of 8 times for him. That is rediculoso. When I was talking to him on the phone (as I was driving home from work and he was driving to work) he was telling me how he did the exact same things I do but for some reason it doesn't work for him. He even let her try to cry it out one of the times which didn't work. This crying it out thing has now become a hot topic in our house. I have been a firm believer in this for years. Nick, not so much. We have been trying it for the past few weeks and I keep telling him that the baby is safe, it's ok to let her cry, she will fall asleep. Apparently this is not true for my kid. As I have mentioned before, she is about as stubborn as Nick and I are. The other morning she was having a hard time going back to sleep for me and she cried for 45 minutes. It was craziness and she never did just fall asleep. It took Nick going in there and picking her up to finally calm her down (after multiple attempts of trying to stick the paci back in her mouth and roll her over).

So this all prompted me to research online about no cry sleep training. I know, I sound like one of those crazies who breast feeds and has a 'family bed' until their kids are 18. I have been reading about this lady Elizabeth Pantley who wrote the book "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" and I think I might get her book. She talks about sleep training that actually trains the baby to sleep (as opposed to just picking her up every time she wakes up) without letting her scream for 20 minutes. She talks a lot about sleep associations which immediately made me think of the fact that every time Alexa is put on her side (I know, the baby should be back to sleep but who seriously can sleep well on their backs? I've put babies to sleep on their sides for years at work and I was pretty adamant about doing it at home too) with the paci she falls right to sleep. This is a good thing, right? Sure, until she rolls over in the middle of the night and wakes up paciless and on her back. No wonder she can't put herself back to sleep, she's in the wrong position without anything to suck on. All of this has seriously made me second guess my whole put Alexa on her side to sleep thing that worked so well for the first three months of her life. Now I feel like it's back firing on me. I know this is completely against my normal way of thinking but I really feel like the crying it out thing just isn't working for her. Has anyone heard of or tried Pantley's program? Any thoughts or opinions? I'd really love to know what you think!

Playing Catch Up

I was just looking back on my previous posts and I realized that there isn't much of Alexa in the form of pictures, video, etc. Sorry. I know the few people that actually read my blog are more interested in her then me. I don't blame you, she's pretty awesome. So without further ado, I give you..."Alexa's life over the past two months as told in pictures".

Shower Streams

I was just in the shower and I discovered the most entertaining thing ever! (You got to love a blog post that starts with a sentence like that) In case you haven't figured it out already...WARNING! I am once again going to talk about my boobs. I'm sorry, I know no one really wants to hear about it (again) but I've never really had them before and I find them intriguing. So the background to this story is that Alexa is starting to take at least one bottle of formula a day in addition to nursing. When she had formula earlier it filled her up and then she didn't nurse as well and, well the important thing to know is that when I got into the shower I had one side drained and the other side was pretty full. So I was standing there washing my hair and thinking about how much my right boob is going to hurt by morning. Then I thought of one of my nurse friends at Joe D who was nursing at the time and told me that she could shoot milk out of her boob by squeezing it. Well obviously I had to try it and oh does it work! And I must say, for my little boobies I can sure shoot an impressive stream! Plus, now I'm not going to be in so much pain in the morning. Was it an immature thing to do? Yes. Should I have just pumped so that Alexa could have more milk to drink while I'm at work? Probably. Did I have the time of my life playing target practice with Alexa's bath toys? Absolutely!

Why Women Should Never Have Burned Their Bras

For one thing, they provide support that even a small busted individual such as myself can appreciate. Really, who wants to be flopping around all over the place? Not I says Kristin, not I. And while I'm all for womens rights and all that crap, I'd rather just stay at home and be a mom. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely grateful for my education. And being the relatively smart person that I am, I'm glad that I had the opprotunity to go to college, and I'm glad that my oppinion is respected at work, blah blah blah. I can understand why the women's rights people back in the day were all about it. But I have to say, I'm not. Besides, I'm a much better mom then I am a nurse (and I can be a pretty damn good nurse when I want to be). I just wish I could stay at home with Alexa during the day and then teach a bunch of dance classes in the evenings. Who wants to take care of a bunch of sick kids anyways? One of the newer nurses told me that some day Alexa will be proud that her mommy takes care of all these sick children. Ah, young, idealistic new nurses. No offense, but you are so wrong. What will really happen is that Alexa will ask "mommy, why do you have to go take care of those other kids instead of staying with me?" Good question, Lexi. I'll just go to work and be a nurse to all these super sick children and all their nastiness and then bring it right home to Alexa so that she can then get sick and then I'll feel horrible because obviously I was the carrier who gave it to her. And that is my very long drawn out reason of why I should be a stay at home mom.

The Balding Women of Oakwood Trail

Everyone says that when you are pregnant you have this beautiful thick hair. While mine never reached what I thought was it's full potential of thickness, I did notice that it didn't fall out in the shower as much. Little side note for those of you without curly hair: everyone looses hair throughout the day. If you have curly hair, instead of randomly falling out those strands get stuck in the curls, product, etc. so they end up falling out in the shower. The other thing that everyone says is about three months after the baby is born all that thick beautiful hair falls out. Well guess who's going bald?! It's ridiculous. Every time I take a shower there is a clump of hair that falls out. And I mean a clump. It's about the size of a small animal. Perhaps the size of a mouse or what I imagine a baby squirel would be. Nasty. The garbage can in my bathroom is full of hair balls. I feel like if I didn't get the beautiful thick hair, I should not get the thin nasty hair. I realize that at some point in my life I will be practically bald (thank you Lichok family) but I was kind of hoping it would be slightly later.

On to the next balding lady. That would be Alexa. Poor thing was born with two things working against her in the balding category. First, she has a double coulick (sp?) (thank you again, Lichok family) which appears kind of thin on the back/top of her head. And secondly, the kid was born with a bald spot on her occiput. Seriously, that spot that babies get from laying on their back too much, Alexa was born with it. That's just not a good start for her little head. So of course I'm slightly obcessed with the bald spot getting bigger and I don't want her to have a flat head. So she has always been put to sleep on her side (I know, bad mom. I put babies to sleep on their sides at work and I put babies to sleep on their sides at home). Plus, she sleeps on her belly when she takes naps during the day. So now she has a bald spot on the back of her head that's growing from when she's in her car seat, bouncy seat, etc. she has a bald spot on either side of her head from when she sleeps and to top it off her head is growing and her hair is thinning out. Poor thing, the hair is sparse to say the least. Oh well, at least it still lays down flat. :) Hopefully in the next couple months we will both get some new growth. Until then, try not to pay too much attention to the little hair on baldie and baldette.