Category: personal

holiday minibook plans

Hey friends, hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We had a full and happy day eating way too much as we had two dinners to fit in. I’m happy that Meredith was in a wonderful mood despite not napping and having lots of treats. :)

Today I’m holing up at home but trying to be super productive! I’m so thankful for my parents who brought our new bedroom dresser over today. It was free from a friend – hooray. Then my mom played with M. while my dad helped install new curtain rods and switched out all the outlets in our bedroom. Slowly but surely we are making progress!

David and I get a date night tonight (yay!!) but before then I’m trying to get some Christmas decorations put up. This weekend I want to knock out a couple of Project Life spreads and do a little bit of shopping – hopefully most of it online though!

I wanted to quickly share with you what I decided to do for a holiday minibook. I had planned on making my own, but then when I considered all of the other stuff on my plate, I realized that if I tried to make my own this year it probably wouldn’t happen. I still really wanted to do it, and a quick Etsy search made up my mind when I found this book by Petaline Prints. I love it so much and it’s almost exactly what I would have made! I didn’t post photos of the inside because you can see it all at that link. Also FYI, she has a really great blog that I am now following.

I’m not sure yet if I’ll be able to keep up with this book during the holiday season and post updates, or if I’ll be putting it together at the end. I also might change up the cover some more, but then again I’m fine with the simplicity of this. We’ll see – I’m trying to keep things as low-stress as possible! Either way, I’m pretty excited about it.

Hope you’re all enjoying the long weekend! See you next week!

November 29, 2013
holiday to-do list

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I’m super excited about it; it’s such a low-pressure, relaxing holiday. I also love that it ushers in the true holiday season and my mind is already there. As Meredith gets older the activities and traditions of it all are becoming more important to me. This year I’m also trying to stay on top of things and not wait until the last minute like I usually do, mostly because of my increasing fatigue and discomfort. So here’s my list of things to do before Christmas:

+ decide on cards (actually I think I might skip cards this year and just send out birth announcements instead)

+ finalize wish list and send to family

+ buy and wrap all gifts (I really want to do most of the buying online this weekend if I can, but I want to get Meredith’s stocking gifts in person.)

+ decorate the house

+ put up lights outside? (We don’t have any outdoor lights right now, so I’ll probably try to buy some on clearance after Christmas and save this for next year. But I really wish we could have lights outside!)

+ Christmas tree farm fun (going this weekend with David’s family. We visit Santa, ride the train, buy an ornament, and help family cut down a tree since ours is fake.)

+ fill advent calendar (I made it last year and one day I’d love to fill it with handmade ornaments for a special tree, but this year I’m thinking chocolate!)

+ finish my niece Karley’s stocking

+ complete holiday minibook (more on this soon!)

+ see the lights in River Oaks (every year I say we’re going to do this and every year we don’t…but this year I think Meredith can actually enjoy it so I really want to make it happen!)

+ shopping with Dad

+ Messiah singalong with Mom

+ make cookies and drink lots of peppermint mochas (I mean…I’m gaining weight anyway, right?)

November 27, 2013
meredith lately

So Meredith is entering the adorable stage where you can really have almost normal conversations and interactions with her. Yeah she has her frustrating moments of tantrums and throwing things and disobeying but all around she’s pretty great. I don’t want to forget the funny or cute things she says, and thus a new series is born.

After I put a new adorable outfit on her…
Me: Go show daddy how cute you look.
Meredith: (strutting toward him) wookit my cute!

Talking about our plans for the day…
Me: So Mimi is going to pick you up from school and take you to see Pappy later!
Meredith: But no Gigi, Gigi home hedden wit Gah (heaven with God).

At my parents’ house…
Me: Can Grammy change your diaper?
Meredith: Yeah show Grandy da boo-boo on my butt!

When the “Jessie” theme song came on and I started singing to it…
Meredith: (holding her hand up to my face) Not you, mommy.

In the waiting room for the doctor where a little kid & his mom (who had short hair) were right next to us…
Meredith: (pointing at the woman) Daddy!
Me: No, daddy’s at home.
Meredith: (clearly pointing at the woman) A man! A man!
Me: Oh is that a little boy with his mommy?
Meredith: A daddy!
Me: (intently watching TV, ignoring the situation)

Just hanging out in her room…
Me: What’s daddy’s name?
Meredith: Daddy!
Me: What’s mommy’s name?
Meredith: Mommy!
Me: What’s baby brother’s name?
Meredith: Uh…Cici!
Me: …
Meredith: Wanna go to Cici’s! (a local pizza place)

When I was in the shower and she kept opening the curtain, and then I looked out to catch her drinking a can of soda (that she had brought in there)…
Meredith: (looking guilty and mad, pointing at the shower) go to bath!

November 25, 2013
30 weeks + pregnancy to-do list

Symptoms: Oh man, I am just really tired all the time. Of course it’s worse during the week when I’m working but even when I’m just resting over the weekend I never really feel refreshed or energized. Sometimes I get short of breath for no reason, or I feel like the blood has drained out of me. And right now I have a cold that is super annoying. I have aches and pains, mostly in my upper ribs, but they are bearable. Overall I would say that this has been an easier pregnancy than my first, but the fatigue is just way, way worse.

Medical stuff: Not a lot to report really. I passed my glucose tolerance test, and my blood counts are normal now that I’m taking iron. Only thing is…I’m gaining weight fast. Like five pounds in the last two weeks. I think it’s time to make healthier food choices. :-/

Movement: Quite frequent. It’s more like full body rotations and pressure than kicks at this point, but sometimes he will kick upwards sharply and actually hurt me. Meredith never did that! I guess he’s trying to make himself stand out already.

Clothes: All maternity stuff except for my scrub pants. The shirt in the photo above is my favorite. I got it for cheap at Ross and it’s cute and comfortable and not too tight and long. I want more like it.

Preparation: I still have not done anything further. This is getting scary because it’s holiday time so I have that stuff on my plate as well, and significantly less energy for all of it. So to get me on task, here is my official second pregnancy to-do list. The ones that are starred are the absolute musts.

>make the nursery gender neutral (mostly just involves changing out accessories)

>reorganize nursery to fit baby + toddler stuff

>get a new master bedroom dresser, relocate current dresser to guest room to use as kid clothes storage (this might be happening over the weekend)

>acquire a second car seat for each car*

>stock up on newborn and size 1 diapers*

>get baby stuff back from my sister-in-law (but this will wait till the end probably, since she still uses some of it)

>go through our baby stuff and see what can be reused

>choose a name* (I thought we had settled on one, but last night David said it wasn’t sitting well with him, and I’m open to choosing another but I just have no idea what! Who wants to name this baby for me?)

>do maternity leave paperwork*

>prepare birth details: hospital bag, plans for dogs, birthday cake (I’m so not concerned with this stuff right now)

>prep birth announcements (would be nice to do this beforehand)

>get a good pedicure

Am I missing anything big? I mean it would also be nice to get some clothes for him (we have exactly one baby boy outfit) but if it comes down to it he can wear girl clothes. Even though David is really against that. :)

November 22, 2013
quick takes

I can never seem to get these quick takes up before late Friday afternoon. Ah well, let’s knock em out.

one

Remember how I said I was having car trouble? Turns out that while we were away for the weekend and my car was safely stowed away in the garage, some kind of rodent crawled into the engine and starting chewing up wires to the tune of $545. Not cool. I guess that could have happened to any car, but we are still considering trading mine in pretty soon because it’s having more and more problems recently.

two

I had such a relaxing weekend when we were on our mini trip, yet I still felt just as tired when we returned. I’ve regressed back nearly to my first trimester fatigue in wanting to go to sleep at 7:30 every night. I guess that’s just par for the pregnancy course when you have a two-year-old at home.

three

I made a ton of progress on my niece’s stocking but I’m lame and forgot to take a picture. Tonight our church is having a ladies’ craft night (these are my kind of people) and I have been looking forward to it for weeks so hopefully lots more progress to come.

four

Some Meredith updates. One night this week we visited David’s brother and she hung out with her cousin Cameron, who is three, all evening. First of all it is adorable to watch them play together. Second of all, she spilled milk all over her shirt and because I’m a pro parent we didn’t have any backup clothes so she wore one of Cameron’s home. She refused to take it off so she slept in it, and in the morning when I tried to put regular clothes on her she had an epic meltdown. So I sent her to school in it because I pick my battles and I am not willing to die on the hill of toddler fashion.

For example, see the shirt she’s wearing here?

It’s one of her favorites, and it doesn’t matter that it’s almost too small or stained or really cheesy to begin with. She wears it all the time. Anyway, that’s Meredith’s sort-of cousin Stella with her, who came over (along with my brother and his wife) for dinner one night this week. We ate and made s’mores in the fireplace and Meredith followed Stella all over the house playing and the whole time she was sucking on her Tootsie Roll pop. I admired her dedication and she finished the whole thing.

five

So I used to be obsessed with Candy Crush just like everyone else, but then I got stuck on level 65 for months and I refused to pay money to beat it, so I eventually got bored and gave up. I hadn’t opened the app in several months until this week when I decided to play for the heck of it and I beat level 65 on the first try!!! And that is how I’ve come to be obsessed with Candy Crush all over again.

six

I’ve trained Meredith to make my coffee in the morning. It’s a Keurig, so it’s not rocket science, but she knows how to do it all including removing the drip tray to fit my travel mug in, throwing the old pod in the trash, placing a new one, which button to push to get the correct brew, and then to not touch it because it’s “ritty hot.” Usually I supervise her fairly closely but I was in a rush this morning and she was feeling particularly independent so she climbed up on her stool by herself and made me a cup, only I guess she was feeling adventurous and decided to push more buttons mid-brew and ended up turning off the whole thing before the cup was done. So then I ran another cycle using the same pod so the coffee was all diluted and I had to put in a bunch of hot chocolate mix to salvage it. I mean what do you have to do to get good help these days?

seven

Weekend plans: visit a friend and her new baby, get my hair cut, go to the library, have a visit from another friend, and host our church small group for dinner. That last one is stressing me out because our house isn’t super conducive to large gatherings with a bunch of kids so it will take a lot of preparation. Other things I want to get done: document a day in the life, cook some food, prep my holiday minibook, and do a Project Life spread.

Have a good one!

November 15, 2013