Taking a Shower

I love taking a shower with my Nati. It's so interative for her. The sound of the water echoing in the tile, the slight sting of the water against your skin, the warmth of the steam, the smells of the shampoo, the taste of the water when you stick your tongue out, looking at the baby in Daddy's shaving mirror. It's just so much fun for her.

Oh....

and did I mention....



looking at Mommy's silly shower cap?

More Pictures

A few more cute ones from this weekend's trip to the park:



I'm a sucker for a baby in a sun hat.

Miscellaneous Stuff

Haven't posted all week and I've got some new photos and things to show!

We went to Indian Riverside Park on Sunday to let the kids play in the fountain. They had so much fun.


Anilyse


Christian


Natalie

I had her practice sitting up. Hehe.. She was feeling a bit horizontal that day.



And today is my birthday! Big 34! I feel like I'm 60. Nati has had me up at night for a long stretch and it's wearing on me. Anyhoo....

Mom bought me this beauty last night.

I lurve it.

Now I can start taking video of the kids and sending it to "Granny in Tennessee" (that's what the kids actually call her.... they also have a "Grandpa on the Farm". hehe..) and to my family up in Maine! I like that it records directly to DVD. That'll be nice!

Relay Photos

Here are a few photos from Relay on April 25, 2008.

Relay for Life

Tonight is St. Lucie County Chapter of Relay for Life!

This event has always been special to our family. My father was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1999. He underwent surgery and chemo to remove the cancer. All the while, he continued to work full time as a deputy sheriff. He would take his chemo treatment during lunch then head back to work. I get tears in my eyes every year at "Relay" when he participates in the Survivor's Lap when I think how how close we were to loosing him. We have lost many family members to cancer:



My Grandfather "Bimp" (Dad's Dad) - Colon Cancer
My Great Grandfather "Bumpy" (Dad's Grandfather) - Colon Cancer
My Aunt (Dad's sister-in-law) - Colon Cancer
My Grandmother "Nana" (Mom's Mother) - Liver & Bone Cancer

My family has participated in the Relay since Dad was diagnosed. Mom has held a Chair possition on the Board of the local chapter for many years, and each year (on the weekend of my birthday - it makes it so much more special) we gather to remember our family members we lost and to celebrate my Dad.

I'll post some photos from the event this weekend.

Test Bottle #1

Well, after research today, we're going to try the Mam ULTIvent Bottle. It's BPA free, vented and it has very high reviews from breastfeeding moms on various sites I've looked at.



Mam Bottles

The one thing I'm concerned about is the flat nipple. One gal mentioned that her LC didn't care for the flat nipple. Here is her quote:

"The only reason I haven't given these bottles 5 stars is because my Dr. (a breastfeeding medicine specialist) took one look at the nipple and declared that it was detrimental to my attempts to reestablish BF. (I had stopped nursing for medical reasons and had been pumping and giving my daughter expressed breastmilk in these bottles.) She said the reason is that the flat shape of the nipple teaches the baby to keep their tongue further back in the mouth, which can later cause damage to mom's nipple when BF."

I'll have to see if Dr. Punger can weigh in on this one.

I did give Nati a "test suck" on just the nipple and she latched on to it no problem and took a couple of sucks. Mike is going to test it out with her tonight for one feed so we can see how it works before we unleash it upon our daycare provider.

That child is phased by nothing... except when it comes to sleep.

Administrative Professional Day

My boss is a sweetheart. Rumor has it he's taking us all to lunch too. Yummy!

57 Channels and Nothin's On

... at 2 am.

trust me, I know by experience.

or at 3...

or 4...

luckily the local news comes on at 4:45...

and I can start thinking about waking hubby up around 6:00.

BPA

Unfortunately Natalie isn't exclusively breastfed, when I'm at work, she gets bottles of my milk that I pump while at work.

This comes with a myriad of issues - most recently being BPA (bisphenol A).

I use Dr. Browns botles which contain BPA. Also, the bottles I pump into and use for refrigerator temporary storage contain BPA.

I've done some preliminary research and my first reaction was to go buy new bottles. I found a list of non-BPA bottles (all of which are very expensive) and was ready to head to the store with list in hand.

I hate to say this, but I'm just not keen on spending a couple hundred dollars on baby bottles. One reason I initially started breastfeeding was for the cost savings (of course it's not the only reason). I'm not entirely certain on the research at this point, and just have't made up my mind.

Is it horrible that I'm contemplating not switching right away? I mean, what's a couple hundred of dollars if it's my baby's health in question?

Does anyone have any advice / stories / research that I might take into consideration?

4 Months - Take 2

Nati was in a better mood tonight, so I took some more 4 month photos. These turned out much better (especially since I adjusted the settings on my camera!)

Sister Love

Could this be any cuter?

Before and After

I got sick of my hair. I got sick of only having 5 minutes to do something, ANYTHING with it in the morning. I also got sick of Natalie pulling on it.

Before (yea, yea.. it was a self portrait and not very flattering)


And After (yea, yea.. it was a self portrait and not very flattering)




I'm getting new glasses on Wednesday to complete the look.

4 Months Old!

Well, Natalie is 4 months old as of the 20th. My big girl! I tried to take some 4 month photos, but she was a bit uncooperative. Here they are! (I realize I need to stop zooming in so far, but her eyes mesmerize me!)



Oh.. should I mention I got my hair cut? I'll blog about it next...


Then, after nap, we went over to Mom & Dad's house to drown, uh, let the kids play in the pool. I figured Nati was ready to hop in as well.

Oh my gosh, my baby has muffin tops.


She LOVED splashing


And loved swimming around


And I even dunked her (3 times). Don't worry, she loved it. Seriously. She did.


It was a great relaxing weekend.

Two Words - Reverse Cycling

I'm tired and I need to calm Nati down to put her to sleep. She only slept 1-3/4 hours today, and I only slept 1-3/4 hours last night.

'Nuff said.

Four Things Tag

I saw this tag on another blog and thought I'd give it a try.

Four Jobs You've Had in Your Life
Receptionist for a citrus juice company
Project Manager for commercial door & hardware company
Hostest at Applebee's Restaurant
Pre-Construction Coordinator for commercial construction company

Four Movies You've Watched More Than Once
Hairspray
Breakfast at Tiffany
White Christmas
Memoirs of a Geisha

Four Places You've Lived
Bangor, Maine (where I was born)
Pittsfield, Maine (until I was 12)
Ft. Pierce, Florida (apartment rentals before I got married)
Port St. Lucie, Florida (where I live now)

Four TV Shows You're Watching
House
Ugly Betty
America's Next Top Model
Extreme Makeover Home Edition

Four Places You've Been on Vacation
Disney World
New York City
Washington DC
Nashville, TN

Four Things You Love to Eat
Steak
Tiramisu
Fettuccine alfredo
Tuna sushimi

Four Things You're Looking Forward To
Watching my kids grow up
Growing old with my husband
Our next vacation (no plans yet)
Building our dream home in Tennessee

Four Places You Love to Shop
Tuesday Morning
Ross
Macy's
JC Penny

God help me!

I just went to get undressed and into bed and took a good look at the t-shirt I had been wearing all day. It has been spit-up on no more then 3 times, has grungy wet spots on it and the neck has been stretched beyond normal by grabby little hands.

The horror in this lies in the reality that I actually went out shopping in this shirt today. To nice stores - not just Walmart! I don't have a stitch of makeup on and my hair is air-dried and pulled back in a clip.

I look like a Mommy (which is not a bad thing).

God help me to remember that I'm also a woman...and it's ok to take some time to do my hair, put on a bit of foundation and to change my spit-up shirt before I head to SteinMart!

Have I mentioned that I want to get my hair cut short again?

Like this:



Gosh, I was skinny... can I have that figure back too?

Eating Cereal

Well, we're finally starting to feel better. Nati is still getting up every 2 hours at night, and I still have a sinus infection, but I feel somewhat, sort of human for the first time in 2-1/2 weeks.

At the urging of my mother and husband, I decided to give Natalie some rice cereal in the evenings to try to get her to sleep better. I had set in my mind that I was going to wait until she was 6 months, but after weeks of no sleep, I was willing to try anything.

Tonight is the third night I've given it to her, and I have to say, she LOVES it. (and this cereal was given to her AFTER I had already nursed her with a really good feeding! She acts like she hadn't been fed in hours, but she had just eaten, really well!) I'm going to stick with the cereal only at night for quite some time, and not introduce anything else for a few more months. I just don't think her system is ready for it.

But, I have to admit, she looks SO cute with the cereal all over her face!

Miscellaneous Stuff

A few miscellaneous stuff that really doesn't deserve a post of their own!

I got a new carrier for Nati! It's a mei tai and I got it off ebay. I was way too tired and Nati was way too cranky last night to try it out, but I think she'll really like it. Of course I had to get yellow and black - too bad it wasn't stripes!


Here's my desktop on my computer at work for this month. I lurve it! I was lazy and used a template instead of making it myself :)


I found this site today and fell in love with their jewelry.


My birthday is coming up at the end of April, so... um... Mike, Mom... anyone? :)

Wouldn't Nati look adoreable as a necklace charm?

A day at the beach

Well... not entirely, but the title sounds good.

Mike is in Orlando today and tomorrow for an overnight mountain bike trip, so that left Natalie and me with not much to do. So we went shoppping!! We headed to the Garden's mall for a few hours, then on the way home I decided that it was time for Nati's first trip to the beach.

She LOVED it! The wind was blowing through her hair and she had this weird smile on her face the whole time. I was able to get a few people to take our pictures. We really enjoyed ourselves!


What's with my belly in this picture? It FINALLY looks flat again, I swear. I'll blame it on the wind blowing my shirt out.

I Heart Photoshop (Elements)

Why?

Here's why:


Before


After


What's not to love?

Alive - barely

Well, Nati has decided to take full advantage of being brother & sister-less this week and get some good, quality time with Mommy and Daddy. Unfortunately, her timing is a tad off, as she's choosing to do so at 2:30 in the morning.

The past two nights have been horrible. I guess that's what I get for bragging that my 3 month old is sleeping through the night. I've had a total of maybe 6 hours sleep in the past two nights. Mike has slightly more.

My bronchitis is getting slightly better, with a full-on smoker's cough-thing going on today. I haven't been doing my breathing treatments like I should because the albuterol gives me the serious shakes. Nati is coughing a lot more right now too. Poor thing.

Speaking of coughing, and I do feel incredibly humble writing this, I've been following a blog for quite some time now about a new mother and her journey with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). Confessions of a CF Husband is a blog written by Nate (husband and new Daddy) about his wife's journey with CF, birth of their miracle baby girl and her wait for a double lung transplant. His faith in God through all this is unimaginable and so inspiring. Well, millions of prayers have been answered - last night, Tricia received her double lung transplant. Our God is amazing. Go read about his two miracles, Tricia and Gwyneth.

So, today I've been a bit bored at work and have been messing around with photoshop. Here's my newest creation. I really like the edgy look of photos I'm seeing more and more. The problem is that I don't have a lot of photos that warrant an edgy look. So, Nati becomes edgy today: