Saturday, December 31, 2011

2011 in review

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
A whole heck of a lot....but the main thing...had a baby

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I can't really remember my resolution if I did make one.  However, I am assuming that if I did since I was all consumed at this point with my new pregnancy, it would probably have something to do with have a happy healthy baby.  So in that regard yes.  But my long standing resolution (which is of course the same one for this year is to be more organized) and that one I failed COMPLETELY!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Me! and my friends Diana, Sara, and Jennifer

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My great Uncle died this year, but I wasn't close with him

5. What places did you visit?
No where.  I'm a homebody.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
I would like to have a better grip on things.  I hate the feeling like you are slipping backwards....I only want to go forwards, even if it means starting some things over...just in a different direction.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
July 24 - Leigha is born!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting to 9 cm dilated by myself.  I got to the hospital at 7 cm dilated, but they checked me after I got the epidural and I was at 9, so I'm counting it as 9.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Being a good friend since Leigha was born.  I still haven't really figured out how to put my friends on the front line and manage being a mom at the same time.  Also, I haven't been as good at keeping it all together as I had hoped.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
If you consider the INSANE rash that I got after having Leigha, then yes, but in general, no.

11. What was the best thing you bought? I haven't really bought anything really, except for some clothes for Leigha and a few for myself.


12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I have 2 that go in this category.  Richard.  He was much better than I expected when I was delivering Leigha and that just blew my mind.  Also my mom.  I expected her to be way overbearing this year with having her first grand baby and all, but she has been awesome...she has been my rock and my go to person for advice.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Again, I have 2.  Richard.  I had expectations and dreams and they haven't turned out as I wanted and I am REALLY struggling with this.  Myself.  I wish that I wasn't so moody and that I was able to hold it together more.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Bills and baby stuff.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Leigha.  How could I not?  She is a good baby all in all.  And I don't know how I couldn't not be really excited about my first.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
I'm so horrible with music and titles and singers.  Its really sad.  Although pretty much everyone has listed a song by Adele and the only one that I can think of now because of that is 'rollin in the deep'  At least I think that's what it was called. 

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?Today, sadder...Overall, definitely happier.
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner!  Whooo for remodeling the kitchen...its easy to loose when you don't have a kitchen to cook in LOL  I am currently 20 pounds under pre-pregnancy weight, and I hope to keep going.  I know how good it feels to loose that weight now...and it makes me want to keep going.
c) richer or poorer?Moneywise, poorer (such is life with a baby and getting laid off work)....lifewise Richer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Spend more time with friends and then in the later half, I wish I had taken more naps with Leigha after she was born...I think it would have kept me more sane.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
worrying, and freaking out.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
With our families.  I can't wait till next year when we are hosting!


21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Oh yes, I did... with Leigha, and even more with Richard when I see her with him sometimes when he is playing with her.


22. What was your favorite TV program?
I like Up All Night and Whitney.  And of course my old favs, Big Bang Theory and Rules of Engagement.

23. What was the best book you read?
I haven't read any books this past year sadly :(

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Adele I believe.  I really like her music. 

26. What did you want and get?
A healthy baby.

27. What did you want and not get?
An easy baby.  I thought that they existed, but somehow I am beginning to doubt that. 

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
I got Horrible Bosses for Christmas and that was pretty good.  So was Friends with Benefits, and Just go with It and I also got the Help and I can't wait to watch it. I am sure its a good one too. 

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
My birthday was kind of a blur this year.  I had a 2 week old and I seriously don't remember what went on. Kinda sad for my 30th huh?

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More sleep, more money, more work. 

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Comfy frumpy.  Jeans and an old Tshirt for the majority of my pregnancy, and then after it was lots and lots of yoga pants and sports bras and sweatshirts.

32. What kept you sane?
I'm not!  I really feel like I am loosing it sometimes.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I have discovered the train wreck that is the Kardashian family. They are so beautiful and I am sure that it is all for TV, but they are just so hilarious, I can't help but watch.  And I WANT Kim's hair and Khloe's personality and Kourtney's money sense! LOL

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Giant FAIL on following political issues.  I HATE POLITICS  I think ALL politicians should take a VERY long walk off a short peer and that the government should just start all over with a new way of thinking.

35. Who did you miss?
My grandparents.  My grandma is still alive, but all the others aren't and I really wish that the were because I know they would adore Leigha.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Leigha..HANDS DOWN!

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
I don't think that I did learn a life lesson. 

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I said earlier that I'm bad with music and such, and I'm not lying.  The one that seriously keeps popping in my head is the part of the Adele song 'I could have had it all' but somehow that doesn't really seem appropriate in the grand theme of my life this year.   

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Finally!!! A Richard story!

So if you have ever read my husband's blog, you already know that he likes to post some funny stories about me and my pregnancy and Leigha (some funny and some not so funny to me). And if you haven't read his blog, you need to because it really is hilarious. http://itwasfun.wordpress.com/ He started his blog when we found out we were pregnant (although he switched to Wordpress in the middle of the pregnancy and copied and pasted his past enteries, so if you want to read his from the beginning, you would need to go back to April 2011's entries.

Anyways, because I FINALLY have some good dirt on him, I just HAD to post a good one about him.

Leigha has been teething something fierce lately.  Poor thing is drooling constantly and chewing on ANYTHING she can get in her mouth.  Anyway, last night she was fussy as usual so I handed her off to Richard (nice right? ;) LOL) and went to get the Oragel.  I put some on her gums which quieted her a little.

If you don't have kids and have never been around this stuff it smells like cherries. Well Richard caught a wiff of it and asked me to put some on his gums too so that he could see what would happen and what it would taste like.  So I did of course.

At first he said it tasted pretty good, but he couldn't tell a difference.  He said that it felt like there was toothpaste stuck to his gums that couldn't come off and that it had kinda a gritty feel to it.  I laughed and gathered Leigha up to give her a bath. 

As I was stripping her down Richard comes in the bathroom he looks at me and tells me that he was just drooling a little in the living room and that he couldn't feel his top gums or his tongue (which he licked his gums with) at all.  He was making such funny faces while licking his gums and rubbing them and pulling on his lip.  I started laughing at him uncontrollably.  He said that his top lip felt like it was fat and swollen because it was so numb.  I was rolling on the floor so much that I couldn't hardly give Leigha her bath.

This went on probably for about 15-30 minutes with him describing to me what he was feeling and how he was surprised that it was able to numb his mouth that much since its made for infants.  Then finally he told me that he was getting back to normal, although still felt a little odd, but he could see how Leigha would calm down almost instantly when I would rub it on her gums.

OK, now that I have written all this down, it didn't seem nearly as funny as it did last night, but oh well, maybe someone will have a smile about it at my husband's expense!  :D

MERRY CHRISTMAS if I don't post before then!!

Monday, December 5, 2011

Make it and love it give away

Do you like DIY blogs as much as I do?  One of my fav's is Make it an Love it.  

Right now she is doing a give away for $100 gift certificate to cooking.com. You should check it out and enter if you haven't already because who couldn't love an extra $100 during the holidays to use for Christmas shopping, or for themselves ;)

make it and Love it giveaway

Make it and Love it giveaway
Also as a bonus she gives an awesome recipe for turkey cutlets (which I have used on regular chicken and it is AWESOME!)

Make it and Love it giveaway
Go check it out...now!   ;)
Make it and Love it giveaway

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Four month letter

My dearest Leigha.

So much has happened in this last month.  You have started doing SO. MANY. THINGS now, and in just a short time frame of just a couple of weeks!!!

You are now 15 pounds and 26 inches long.  In the 4 short months that you have been in our lives, you have doubled your birth weight and grown 5 inches!  You are growing like a weed!!!  You are still 75% in weight, but you are now 95% for height.

Doc says that you are definitely teething that he can feel that your gums have gotten much harder and they should be working their way out.  Its only a matter of time, the days of the gummy sweet smiles are numbered.

Last month, you wouldn't roll over, you had just found your hands, but you didn't really seem to interested in them.  You just laid there and didn't do much of anything really.

Now in the past month, you constantly have your hands in your mouth.  You love to suck on your thumb and first and second fingers.  You have them in your mouth so much they are in a constant state of red wrinkly-ness from being wet all the time.  You have begun to talk to me when we are in the car, and speaking of cars, you used to fall asleep in them, any time we went ANYWHERE, and not just long trips, but you used to fall asleep even when we went just to Walmart.

Also in the last month you have found your tongue and your lips.  If you don't have your hands in your mouth you are playing with your tongue, or sucking on your bottom lip, which of course makes you look like the sweetest little cabbage patch doll...someday I am going to catch it on video (you will love that when you are older).

You can now roll from back to front and back again both from either side.  You will do it pretty much any time I put you on the ground.  When you are on your stomach, I also notice that you can hold your head up at a 90 degree angle now and you are really really trying to get your feet to move.  You are constantly trying to kick them to get you to scoot across your play mat. 

You have also started to grab at your toys quite frequently.  You are now never just content to sit and have things near you.  If I am eating or drinking or reading or changing the channel on the TV, you will always grab my hand to try to get what I am holding, into your mouth.

You think that 'horsey rides' are the best thing in the world, the one where the lady, gentleman, and cowboy goes for rides in the morning and the bouncing gets progressively faster.  All I have to do is put you on my knees and sing the song and you break out into the biggest grin which only gets bigger if I actually bounce my legs. 

We have moved you into your own bed at night.  It was really really hard on me at first.  I didn't want to let you go, so we made a bed up on the floor of pillows and blankets and I slept in there for the first few nights.  I didn't want you to be scared because you are never in that room at night with the lights off, and I wanted to show you that when you cried I would still be right there to get you even if I wasn't very close.  It took me several days to finally get up the nerve to leave you in your room all night by yourself.  But it took even longer to clean up the bed.  I still slept in there every once in a while just because I like being close to you.  Its so nice to just cuddle up with you, or go to sleep knowing that I just have to sit up and look in your crib and I can see your cute little self all comfy in your bed.  But now the palate is picked up, even if it is just folded up and stacked at the foot of your bed.

You are now consistently waking up at 3:30 wanting to be fed, and lately after that time you haven't wanted to go back to sleep.  I told your doctor that at your 4 month checkup and he said that we need to start prolonging the amount of time that it takes me to go get you and cutting back on the night feedings because you need to start sleeping through the night.  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this.  Sure this is one of my worst times of the night because I am so tired, but I like it being us.  I may be wrong, but I think that when you are ready to cut out the night feeding, you will let us know.

We are also starting to really be able to tell that you are very ticklish.  You are ticklish on your feet, stomach, neck, and underarms...the usual spots.  You smile and shriek whenever I tickle you there.  You really like to be upside down as well and will throw yourself backwards to look at things upside down, so of course this allows me to tickle your tummy, or zerbert it.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure if you like looking at things upside down, or if you like me tickling your stomach LOL.

You are becoming such a little person, its crazy.  You can really see your personality come out.  You like to be around people (which you get from your Daddy), but at times you like to be by yourself (which you get from me.)  You are in general a very serious baby, but you like to have fun.

I hate that you are growing so fast sweetheart, please slow down and let me enjoy your cuddly littleness just for a while longer.

We love you Beautiful!!!
Mommy