The Early Weeks

Thank you all for your well wishes on our baby #2 announcement on instagram, facebook and here. We are very excited. I need to catch you up on the latest details regarding pregnancy #2. I am starting the posts later this time around since the holidays crept up and I was trying to get that cute jammie photo announcement ready. The 2nd child syndrome of not being as detailed and more carefree has definitely taken affect (sorry baby #2).  Sunday into Monday I was hit with the most HORRIBLE stomach bug I've ever had. I was throwing up 2-3 times an hour for 9 hours straight. I am so glad that's over. I said I wasn't thrilled to go back to work, but I would have rather done that than be sick like I was.  I started keeping a little record of the early weeks I wanted to post. Of course somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas I took a little time off, but I still wanted to have record of this.

October 10th Week 4: We had only been trying for a few months and I would swear I was getting cramps and even took Advil in anticipation. When AF didn't come the next 2 days I figured I better take a test before the weekend so I would know if I should/could drink. Low and behold 2 lines appeared almost instantaneous. And so our journey with baby #2 begins.

Week 5: I knew my potential sick free days were limited based on pregnancy #1 but was hopeful this pregnancy would be different. I started a gentle prenatal vitamin this week and the day after I had to leave work at lunch and threw up in the car (luckily I had a bag). I contined to throw up 4 more times at home eating nothing. Well of course I think it had to be the new pills and maybe I should have introduced them slower. I resorted back to flinstones as I did with #1 with no relief. First Doctor appt scheduled for Nov.12. 

Week 6: I had to travel to work this week to Destin, FL and although I was looking forward to seeing work people I was also nervous because I require food every 2-3 hours or I won't make it. I'm so thankful David came with me to make sure I got the food I needed. I even tried no vitamins and still felt bad. The best way to explain it is a reallllly bad hangover that doesn't go away all day. The mornings being the worse before you get food, but you don't wanna eat. Everyone was partying and drinking all week and I had to make excuses and be the party pooper but what can ya do. The good thing about an all day hangover is even the sight of drinks makes you ill so no temptation for me. Let's hope this sickness lasts shorter than last time (it was 17 weeks).

Week 7: Pretty much the same morning/all day sickness. I am eating a TON I feel like but it doesn't satisfy my stomach. My stomach seems to be growing faster, well it's just the uterus growing). By the end of the night after dinner, and sometimes when I wear my tighter pants, I have to unbutton.  My friend, Leah texted me and said she had a very realistic dream that I was pregnant with TWINS. It was so bizarre because I haven't talked to Leah in a while and she had NO clue I was pregnant. She has this intuition, I tell ya. Last pregnancy she got me to spill the beans to her around this same time. She's good.

Week 8: I am getting these weird hives/rash on my forehands/arms. I thought it was an allergic reaction to my sweatshirt I had on, like my sleeve was making me itch. It came back the next day when I touched my hand and itched for a second. That was short lived.

Week 9- Here's a quick selfie of the little belly to start off our posts.Yep, I look and feel glorious. Get used to it.

Week 12-

 

Same ole sickness just trying to make it through. 

Week 13

Don't let the polished look fool you, I was still not feeling well. Just had a holiday gathering to go to. The Christmas time was a good distraction with getting ready for parties, guests, and Christmas in general.

You really can't tell I'm pregnant yet. I was eager to the get a belly the first time, but I saw how quickly it progressed so I'm okay with not having one yet. Weekly surveys will begin with week 16 tomorrow. Oh, I'm going to add another poll to the side bar like last time for the gender! We find out January 16th so make sure to put your votes in!

Max Asked Santa for Something Special This Year...

Max asked Santa for a real baby for Christmas... 

Looks like he was a good boy this year, because Santa granted his wish! Baby W #2 is arriving June 2014! We are all very excited. Details in the coming posts. Hope everyone had a great Christmas. We had lots of time with family and we are feeling extremely blessed. 

1st Annual Cookie Exchange

Ever since we moved in the house we said we should have a cookie party because our kitchen island was so big. Well, I opted not to have an all day cooking extravaganza, but to have a cookie exchange where everyone brought cookies they made prior.

 

I have been a bad Christmas blogger and haven't even shown you our fabulous Christmas tree. I love everything about it. Yes, it is that big. I think it's 12 or 14 ft. Yes, it was free so don't go thinking I spent a million dollars on it. We had to string new lights on it, but it was worth it! I love my color scheme of lime green and red with hints of white and other colors. I also still LOVE my homemade tree skirt David and I made a few years ago. I have an issue with stockings. I do not like the ones I have and I look every year for new ones sometimes buying a different set after Christmas. I think I just need to have my mom make them or spend a little more and get long lasting ones.  Anyways, back to the party.

It was a team effort by David, my mom and I to get this party pulled together, but it turned out so great. We set our dining room table up as a display for all the cookies/goodies. I created some height with wrapped present boxes. Of course, my mom made the focal point wreath! Our elf also made his appearance that night.

I had prizes for the best tasting, most creative and most festive cookie.

Decorations.

We hung some ornaments from our top railing and have some garland up there as well. I'll take outside light pictures soon.

I had everyone bake 6 dozen cookies. 1 dozen was to be displayed and eaten by everyone that night. The other 5 dozen were to be packaged in groups of 6 for ease of sharing/taking home. Look at all the wonderful packaging that everyone brought! I was so impressed.

I also had place cards with numbers to go with the cookies so we could easily vote for our favorites. I (as in my mom) made #4, Dark Chocolate chewy gingerbread cookies.

More yummy goodness

We ended up having 16 sets of cookies! We had 3 people not be able to make it, but they still brought over cookies. That is dedication! My mom made # 12- Pecan Mexican Wedding Cookies.

Full table!

I started to take small group pictures of all the guests.

Then decided to go for a group shot.

Since I wasn't in the group shot and Meredith came later we took our own pic. Love that I have so many great neighbors and friends to come celebrate.

Here you can see our food island table (well the aftermath). I made this awesome salad (you really must make it), crock pot meatballs, cheese and crackers, guacamole and chips, mini hotdog & spanikopia (thanks Sams Club). I was trying to keep things light since we were desserting all night, but I went a little overboard. I just like food too much. We drew numbers and lined up in a circle to go around the goodie table to gather our cookies. We did this because with 16 people and 10 sets of each kind of cookie, some of the favorites would be gone faster and it was luck of the draw. It worked out really well and we kept going round and round. Everyone went home with 5 dozen cookies! All the paper goods I used were found via pinterest here. Thanks to all who came and I hope to do it again next year.

Max's 2nd Encounter with Santa!

Shall we take a trip down memory lane for last year's Santa experience. 

 

Max was not a fan of Santa last year...

Or this year! We just went to David's work where someone dressed up as Santa. Santa needs to learn how to open his eyes for photos and a little white eyebrow coloring should have occurred in my opinion. Poor little buddy. We watched other kids go and I could tell he wasn't feeling it, but we had to be bad parents and get the ever adorable screaming kid photo. Maybe next year?

Life Lately

I promise we have been doing things, they just don't seem like enough for 1 post each so I will do a combo to update you on some latest happenings!

 

My friend, Jen is the best! Her whole family is the most kind, caring, fun people you've ever met. She sent me and my sister the best donuts EVER on her latest trip to NY. They're from Herman's farm market that is on the end of our street growing up. Let's not get started about how many great farm markets, food and grocery stores are up north.  Max is trying them for the first time! He loved them.

 

 It's hard to tell, but he has one in his hand. He also needed a haircut (which he got, see photo below). THANK YOU JEN!!

 

We've also been cooking a lot of yummy things. One being this great salad, made out of all cabbage (it really tastes so good). It's called Chinese Chicken Salad. This is a great party salad, side dish or main meal. 

 

I love salads, I am usually hungry 10 mins after eating one, but I would probably choose a salad over a dessert (I know, I'm weird).  I was so proud the other day. We were having a salad and I normally just don't give Max the lettuce and just take out whatever is in there for him to eat. Well, he reached over and started eating the lettuce! He loves salad, definitely my boy.

 

New haircut boy. Bad pic, I know. 

 

Our house is slowly becoming festive for the holidays. Our tree is up and mostly decorated. I'm going back in and putting some deco mesh in and also some frilly do dats. My sister picked up this free wreath last year outside of the antique shop next to hobby lobby. They said Free on a sign and this was the only one they could fit in the car. We stripped it of some bows and my mom WENT TO TOWN on it with some decor from hobby lobby. She put a TON of lights on it and just look at the fun things on the wreath. We intended for it to go outside (we have another wreath similar in size we got on clearance from Sams last year) to go with it, but I love it so much I might keep it inside. The only problem is that I have no clue where to put it. It takes up the whole dining room table. I just love it.

 

So I decided to host a Christmas cookie exchange this year.  It will take place next Saturday and I'm excited. It's not a baking party, it's where people come with already baked cookies. Here is the gist of it: You bake 6 dozen cookies, 1 dozen will be on display for people to eat that night. The other 5 dozen are packaged in groups of 6 cookies. Then everyone goes around the room and selects a stack of 6 cookies (prepacked) and it keeps going until we run out. So depending on the amount of people we have coming everyone will have almost as many as they brought to take home of different varieties!  We just have a LOT to get done before then. Did I mention that we haven't taken our Christmas card photo yet... I have an idea, but lighting sucks in our house and I should have booked a mini-session with someone, but I did not so we will make do at some point.

 

Like I said, holidays are in full swing. I had my first party this past Monday for an ornament exchange. It was in the neighborhood and was really fun. I had a pretty good middle number so was able to steal the ornament on the left and it was frozen after I stole it so it was mine! Mom got this cute one on the right, which they both match my lime green and red tree so I was happy!

 

Since Max has been with my sister this week (he comes home today!!) they've been in charge of our elf. She sent me this photo of him being naughty drinking out of a shot glass. They've having a lot of fun with it and Max loves to find him in the morning. They moved him down to hang with the motorcycle man after this photo, but I thought it was funny. Last night I had the WHOLE house to myself (well Molly was there). This was the first time in I think 2 years that has happened. I made hamburger helper lasagna (yep, no shame), decorated the tree, did some stuff on my laptop, watched some TV and had a great time. I am ready for my buddy to be home though. THANKS to my sister and James!!!! So that's about it for now. I hope to show some holiday decor pics once we finish (hopefully this weekend).

Thanksgiving Break

Long time no post! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday! We went to my sister's house in MS to celebrate Hadley's 1st birthday and Thanksgiving.

 

Max was a great little car rider and learned that he liked twizzlers.

 

We stopped at Chickfila for lunch and Max had a blast playing with tons of other kids that were there. He would follow them and mimic what they were saying. 

Our little turkeys wouldn't sit still and look for a photo so this is pretty much the best we could get. Their shirts came out cute.

 

Our Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without James's fried tasty fried turkey! Thanks to Mom for making most all the delicious sides to go with our meal! 

 

Hadley found her birthday gifts right away under the tree. She went over to one and just started opening. The next thing we know she has her first baby doll open and ready to go! She got a matching dolly stroller, some books and pink big legos. Of course Max had to test everything out. 

 

Max found the wrapping paper rolls and had a roll fight with Uncle James. 

 

It was chilly the first few days we were there so Max was staying bundled and warm. David is just pretending to sleep (or was he?) while we watched a Christmas movie. 

My mom is out of town this week visiting her sisters so Michelle and James graciously offered to watch Max at their house while she was away. I miss him terribly, but love getting photos like these.

Silly kiddos. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving break. I am already counting down the days till Christmas when we all get to hang out again!

5 on Friday! Random Thoughts Edition

I have a few random things to share so I thought I would link up for 5 on Friday! I am so glad it's Friday, but I wish next week was Thanksgiving! Just leaves us more time to plan our feast!

{ONE} I decided to take the plunge into organic eating by joining the Big Organic Garden. It's basically a buying club (it doesn't cost anything to join) and you order by Tuesday and pick up your food on Thursday at a pickup location. The location is literally minutes from my house on my way home so it was a no brainier. It was like I went grocery shopping but didn't do any of the work! This will make it easier for me to plan upcoming meals since I have ingredients already. I went with the medium box of fruit/veggies (you can get mostly fruit or mostly veggie if you wanted). They list the exact number or pound of things you will get so there are no surprises. You can also swap or add things when they have extras that day.  It doesn't seem like a lot when you look but there is 5 apples, 3 oranges, 4 pears, 5 kiwi, 1.5lbs of snap peas, 2 lbs of red potatoes, 2lbs of zucchini, 1 eggplant, 1 head of savoy cabbage, and 1 swiss chard. Almost all is GA grown and I think just the kiwi is USA grown. I also wanted to try roasting a whole pastured chicken (most expensive thing of all) and then also making my own chicken broth. I splurged and also bought 1 lb of grass-fed beef and 2lb of stew meat. Can't you see the lovely beef stew I have going. I'm excited to see what they'll have for next week as it'll be Thanksgiving related (can you say sweet potatoes!)

{TWO} Why has no one forced me to go to Red Robin before? My sister would mention that I needed to go, but not like get there now type of thing. So I was looking for lunch yesterday and decided to venture in. Well, I thought it was like a 5 guys order at the counter thing, but was surprised to see it was a sit down restaurant. Now the burger prices are double the cost of 5 guys, but oh my heavens is it worth it. I almost went to Mexican instead so to compromise I got a burger with bacon and guacamole on it. No shame in my game. It was AMAZING. They have bottomless steak fries as well. I mean seriously, if you haven't tried this place. I will go with you. They also have a full bar with fun drinks (not that I sampled them on a work day, they just looked fun).

 

{THREE} This cutie pie in his nice sweater (also given to him by the neighbor) was a naughty boy last night. After we read books he's been wanting to come hang out with us and have some crackers and water, but we broke him of this a few weeks ago and for some reason he is wanting to do it again. He knows what he wants and when he wants to go to bed. Well, I went to take a shower and David insisted on leaving Max in his crib angry at us. I know we needed to let him cry it out and just go to sleep, but he was PISSED off crying. When I got out I looked at the monitor as he was throwing all his blankets, animals, and pacci out of the crib. The next thing I see is his legs trying to go over and I mention it to David. Well I honestly thought he was just trying to go over and not actually going. So David sprints out and into his room. By the time he gets there he is walking around his room. No thud occurred so he must have just lowered himself down. I don't think he will try to do that on a regular basis, but definitely need to keep an eye out.

{FOUR} I know it's a bit early for some, but the tree is coming out! We got it for free and it is quite large and I recall there being an issue with the lights so we want to see if we can fix them and get a start going on the decorating. We also have a few BIG wreaths that need doctoring up. It'll be interesting to see if our neighbors start their outside decorations. I've mentioned this last year but there are 2 houses on our street that go CRAZY with the decorations and I imagine it takes quite a while to get going. 

 {FIVE} How precious is little Hadley in her 1 year birthday photos!!