Belated Birthday

We celebrated my mother's birthday on Friday, again on Sunday and we are going to be celebrating again tonight. Can't celebrate her too much!

She is a wonderful person, one of my best friends, an amazing mother, sister, friend, wife, grandma...the list could go on. We are so glad we live so close to my parents and I'm extremely happy that my kids get to spend as much time with Grandma as they do. I can only hope that Natalie and Philip love me as much as I love her and that they want to hang around me as much as I want to hang around my mama.

Happy Birthday mama!

Tasty apple cake I made - I knew I was forgetting to add something, then halfway through the cooking process, I realized I left the nuts out...which is why they ended up on top.

Getting the candles lit

Action shot

love this look, like "seriously mom, another photo?"

Smile!

Philip started smiling and talking a few weeks ago, but this is one of the first smiles I caught on the camera. He can be so sweet!

This is mid "coo"

almost a full smile

There it is

And in other big news, he rolled over on Sunday night. He was enjoying some tummy time and started to tip, rolled to his side and just kept kicking and moving his arms until he finally made it to his back. Natalie rolled from her tummy to her back when she was three and a half months old, so Philip is clearly going to give her a run for her money in the milestone department.

I mean, seriously...could he be any better looking? I think not

DIY Spice Jar

I was scrolling through a bunch of DIY websites and mommy blogs the other day and came across a mom who made a bunch of spice jars for her daughters play kitchen. This mom bought cute little jars and printed cute little labels and filled each jar with beads that matched the color of the spice. Well, I knew I could do something just as cute and special for Natalie all while helping the environment. Yep, I was going to make "green" spice jars.

While we were at the fabric store buying the headboard fabric, I picked up some little fake pearls that would act as the "spice" in the jars. Next was to figure out what jars to use, which is when the green idea hit me. Whenever I use the last of a specific spice in my spice cupboard I put it to the side of the cupboard to remind myself to buy another bottle of it. I took these empty spice jars, filled them with some fake pearls and then used my hot glue gun to glue them shut.

We now have fake Cloves, Garlic Powder, Cinnamon, Oregano, and Cinnamon Sticks in our play kitchen. And I have enough pearls left over for a few more bottles once we use up the existing real spice.

DIY Headboard

After we got our new bed we needed a headboard and I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars to buy a new one, so I decided to DIY one. I found a few online guides and decided that for this first project I would just make a basic rectangle headboard, easy peasy.

Here is what I did:

1. Taped out the outline on my wall so I knew about how big it would be, then put the pillows on the bed and sat back, was it tall enough? YES. My headboard measures 2 inches wider than the actual bed and is 36 inches tall.

2. Bought the supplies: 1/2 inch plywood (which my dad bought, cut to size and sanded), fabric and batting (which was wide enough & on sale), D hooks, nails & screws . I decided to do two rolls of batting and no foam, only because the store didn't have the foam they had advertised and I wanted to get it done that day. The batting was thick enough so I was happy with it.

3. Lay out the fabric on a big surface - I used my kitchen island, but you could use the floor or a table. Also, iron the fabric if it isn't ironed already. Then lay the batting/foam on top of that and then the plywood on top of that. Here is where I made a slight mistake. I forgot to make sure I had enough fabric on all sides to wrap around the batting and to the other side of the fabric - don't make that mistake.

4. Now, get the staple gun out. Or in my case be glad your dad brought his because you can't figure out how to put staples in your gun. We stretched the fabric around all sides and started to staple every few inches. We stapled the sides first, then the top and then the bottom.

5. After we got all the fabric stapled in place, we placed the "D" hooks onto the back of the headboard. My dad then measured where, based on the "D" hooks we should place the nails for the hooks to hang on. He hammered the nails into the wall, we took a deep breath that the measurements were right and lifted the headboard towards the wall. We hung the headboard on the first try!

6. Take a step back and admire your work; or lay down and rest your head on your wonderful headboard.

So there you have it, a great looking (if I do say so myself) headboard, all made in a few hours.

It came, we fought, it won

No amount of Lysol could keep that little cold Natalie caught from grabbing a hold of Phil and me and dragging us through the mud.

It started two Thursdays ago...

Phil had mentioned that he thought Natalie had a lisp when she was talking, and that night I confirmed that it was a lisp, but it was a cold induced lisp. Then that night, she couldn't fall asleep because she was having trouble breathing through her nose and it really bugged her. She would almost fall asleep and then wake up screaming because of her nose. Phil took the first two hours holding her, then I spent two hours holding her in the recliner while Phil held Philip, then I traded him Philip for Natalie and it was morning soon after that. The next night was better, I bought a new humidifier, baby chest rub, gave her tea and honey and we had her take numerous hot showers so she could take deep breaths of steam. On top of that, she let us suck the gunk out of her nose once or twice and she got pretty good at (finally) using the saline nose spray. While this was going on, I kept repeating, "we won't get sick, we won't get sick" all while spraying anything that could be sprayed with Lysol.

Once Natalie was sick, she ended up sleeping in our room where she was most comfortable, and I took Philip to the basement bedroom, to keep him away from the germs. About four days later, Phil said he felt he was getting sick. Oh no! I immediately started taking Zicam, drinking gallons of green tea, gargling with salt water and drinking plenty of other fluids too to hopefully avoid getting the cold. A few days after he got sick, it hit me too. Now, I don't remember the last time Phil had a cold, and I haven't had a cold in over a year (February 1st 2010 to be exact), so I guess we were both due, but seriously I would rather have the 24 hour stomach flu than have a cold. I was miserable! And to make everything worse, I was still bound and determined to keep Philip healthy so I kept cleaning and started to wear a mask to sleep so I wouldn't breathe on him while I was sleeping. SERIOUSLY, I sleep in a mask. I need to have Phil take a picture so I can show Philip later in life, "This is what I did for you...eat your vegetables".

We are almost all better and knock on wood, Philip still hasn't gotten sick!! Guess the mask is working, that and all the Purell and Lysol we have been using.

Sharing

Our poor little bug has caught a bug...

Natalie has a cold, lucky for her and us it is only about the third cold she has ever had. It hit like a ton of bricks on Thursday night and now we are hoping it leaves as quickly as it came. I've cleaned all the sheets and washed every handle and light switch in the house in the hopes that everyone else, namely baby brother, stays healthy.

Poor Natalie doesn't understand why she can't hold baby brother or why sneezing on him isn't the best idea. All she wants to do is share...

Two Months Old

ALREADY??

Wow, time flies! Philip is two months. We took him to the doctor Thursday morning for his check up and he is growing like a weed! He is 11 pounds 11 ounces (51%) and 23 & 1/2 inches (72%) long...which means that he has gained almost 4 pounds since birth and grown 3 inches!

Before Natalie was born, I asked Phil what type of personality she would have and he said "well, hope it is like mine, because I don't think I could handle two of you." Gotta love his honesty. And he was right, Natalie has a pretty easy going personality, just like her daddy. Which means she is pretty much up for anything, anytime. Stay up late? Okay, sleep in? Okay, No food while we travel? Okay...and we don't have to deal with tantrums (knock on wood). So easy...

Well, I think the opposite is true of Philip...He is totally MY son. He is developing a schedule and let's you know when you aren't doing what he wants when he wants it. If he is hungry - don't mess with him, when he is tired - don't mess with him. He wants to eat, take a bath and go to sleep by 8:30 or 9:00 pm...which is VERY difficult for us, because that is when we are putting Natalie down. He doesn't care, he wants us to accommodate him, which we are trying to do.

I was telling my mom about this schedule he is trying to put us on and how the doctor told us to be ready for tantrums. I said to my mom, "The doctor said that he will throw himself on the ground and freak out...seriously I think he is like me!" My mom said, "yes, sounds like it. When 10:30 rolled around I knew to feed you, otherwise you would scream. When you didn't get your way, you would throw tantrums...in fact there are still marks on the wall from you kicking it." I guess she is telling me what goes around, comes around??

Hope we can adjust our schedule to meet Philip's needs, or that he adjusts his to meet ours :)

love how high his pants are

Back to work

I decided to go back to work when Philip was 8 weeks old, which meant that I started back on Monday. Luckily for me, my boss is great and I'm able to work part time, from home. AND as if that wasn't awesome enough, I get to sort of pick and choose my hours. So basically, I work when I have stuff to do and when I have meetings. This has worked out to be about 4-5 hours a day and is awesome, because I'm still able to take a break when needed, so I can hold Philip or play with Natalie.

One thing I wasn't expecting to happen was that I would have to travel so soon...my first trip is three weeks away. I'll be gone for four nights, and my plan is to take my mom and Philip. I don't think I could leave him at his young age for so long and honestly, he probably wouldn't want me to. I'm hoping to book our tickets some time today...travel with a baby, haven't done that in a while. Hope it all works out.

Sleep

The new king size bed came on Monday and in a word it is heaven! There is finally enough room for 4 people in one bed. When I get around to making the bed again, I'll take a photo to show you the amazing-ness. Also, my dad and I are going to DIY a headboard, which should be exciting. I have measured, found the shape I want, and now I just have to buy the fabric, foam and wood. But, my dad said he is excited to get to work on the project...his retirement has been good to my DIY projects :)

Here are a few of the other exciting things that have been going on around here:

Natalie clearly has my dance gene :)

My parents took Natalie swimming again on Sunday, before she went we braided her hair so it wouldn't get in her eyes. This is the only photo I could take of her...she got SO shy when I pulled out the camera

For good measure, here is a cute (relaxed) Philip in his car seat. Those gorgeous big eyes get me every time.