How a Baby has Changed My Life

It's pretty self explanatory that a baby can and will completely change everything about your life. And of course I knew this before we had Amelia, that this little life is completely dependent on us to survive can be pretty daunting.

• Laundry I hate laundry, truly. I guess the actual aspect of putting clothes in the washing machine/dryer isn't that horrible but it is definitely the putting away of clothes..which I am sure for most people. I was notorious for having my laundry hamper packed. But with a baby now, I am much more consistent on laundry now. Because breastfed babies have pretty impressive spills. So you can't just wash four things in the washing machine, so I will add my things/Joe's things with hers and I actually can stay on top of my laundry!
• Errands You think to yourself I need butter, or milk for dinner tonight. Then you start this little debate in your head. Is it really worth it to take your baby out to do this? What time did she eat last? It's too cold. Her car seat doesn't fit in the cart. Drive-throughs are amazing but then you feel bad when you run by taco bell on the way home and you have a crying baby in the back seat who just wants to be home :(
• Amelia likes to be held... a lot. So even just doing the laundry or going to the bathroom can be a challenge when she refused to be set down. The days she takes great naps it's like I don't even know what to do with myself. But there are days when she will only sleep if I am holding her. Honestly, this is what I probably struggle with the most. There are some days when I plan all this stuff I'm going to do and then baby girl isn't having any of it. Even on the days when I work, I come home and want to hold my baby but then I think of all things I need to do like wash her bottles, eat dinner, shower, etc. So it's a struggle but we are adjusting
• Child care It's quite an adjustment to have to always checking our schedules to make sure that one of us is there. Joe is a great and hands on dad with Amelia. He has to take her and pick her up from the baby sitter and he has her on the evenings when I work. Also I have to be on call or go to meetings and all of those have to be covered. Amelia is becoming more a daddy's girl every day.
• It also gives me a daily reminder of how good God is to bless us with Amelia Grace!

PS You can always leave comments...you don't even have to have a blogger account...wink wink


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A Day in the Life

What happens on a Monday when Joe, Amelia, and I spend the day at home? Let's find out.

Amelia wakes up at 4:00 for the first time to eat. She goes back to sleep pretty quickly after I nurse her and change her diaper.

She wakes up again around 7 and we nurse in bed. She seems pretty awake so I lay her in bed with us. She falls asleep again around 8ish and wakes up at 10 when Cooper wakes her. We are up for the day.

I nurse her, change her clothes, and get her ready for the day. I let her play with Daddy for a little bit and I start picking up our bedroom. We decided that today was the day to get the garage in order. Confession time: our garage has been chaos since we moved in in June. He makes several trips to the dumpster, and we finally get the garage to where we both can park! Impressive, right?

I decided that today I was going to try to do all the laundry. Amelia helps me fold clothes in the guest room. Then she starts getting fussy so I nursed her a little and got her to nap. She napped in our bedroom from 11:30-1.

She wakes up and we nurse, change diaper, etc. Then we read some books. I started reading her Story Bible and we got through the Old Testament stories. If only I could read the Bible that fast. We did some tummy time which is like 5 minute max before she's over it. Joe got her asleep again around 2:15 but she only slept until 3. During her nap I get dinner (Three Cheese Penne Pasta Bake) ready for tomorrow so Joe can pop it in the oven tomorrow before I get home from work.

She is pretty fussy in the afternoon so Joe and I trade her off while then start getting dinner ready for tonight. I made Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole, Twice Baked Red Potatoes (I got the recipe pinned on Pinterest), and Green Beans.  I nurse while Joe eats and then we trade. We decide to do her bath early tonight.

She gets her bath at 6:15 and is pretty fussy during. I calm her down and Joe runs to the store to get gas drops since Annie decided to eat all of her gas drops this weekend. There are some interesting colors in her stool outside. She falls asleep when I am rocking her upstairs.

I nurse again at 7:45 and get her in her sleep sack. Joe takes over while I shower. She layed in rock and sleep for a little bit and finally fell asleep a little before 9. As I am typing this, she is snoring next to me. So cute!

My observations from the day: we nursed like every 2 hours which she normally doesn't do. Joe has been sick so hopefully my immunities will help. She has been more fussy the past couple of days and hopefully now that we have mylicon again, she will be happier. And I have my fifth load of laundry in the washing machine right now. I didn't even finish our towels or our sheets. Luckily most of it was Joe's and he folds and puts his own laundry away.

So there you have it, a day in our life. We managed to get the garage parkable, laundry done, bedroom picked up, two meals cooked and snuggles and playing with our baby girl.




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The Working Mother

I went back to work on Monday and entered the realm as a working mother. My entire maternity leave I was practically dreading having to leave my baby, like tearing up thinking about it. I had so many worries going back to work. Like I have said, Amelia likes to be held. Sometimes all day if I would let her. I had only left her for 5 hours at the most, just the Friday before with Joe.

Monday, I nursed Amelia before I left, and she quickly fell back asleep. I had a few minutes just holding her. That's when the tears started. Then I cried on the long way to work. I told myself as I was walking in that I was going to toughen up and stop crying. Ha! I got upstairs and pretty much teared up for a couple of hours. Thankfully my coworkers were awesome and let me cry on their shoulders. I rushed home quickly to be with my baby. She did great for Joe and I was so happy to be home with my baby! 14 hours is a long time!

I was off Tuesday with her and worked 12 hour shifts on Wednesday and Thursday. Now I have a whole new respect for the working mother, especially Wednesday night. Wednesday Amelia went to our baby sitter then went with Joe to youth group. I picked her up from church took her home after 8, had to wash her bottles for the next day, eat dinner, do some laundry, nurse Amelia, get ready for work the next day, get Amelia ready for the babysitter, get her to sleep...the list went on. I went to bed around 11 ish and Amelia woke up at 4 to eat. Since I normally get up at five I just stayed up. Thursday night, I was exhausted! Whew! This week I work three days in a row! Already a little stressed.

But this is where we are right now, my season of life. The blessing though is that I only work 3 days a week; that means four days with my baby. And Joe is off on Mondays so he can watch her if I work on Mondays.



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Amelia's Bird Nursery: Built-In Bookshelves

Did I say before how much I loved the built-in bookshelves in Amelia's nursery in my previous post? Well if I didn't let me say that I love the bookshelves in Amelia's nursery. They make such a huge statement in her room. This was lots of fun to decorate and fill.

The flower picture I got at TJ Maxx on Clearance a couple of years ago. It's hard to tell but I used hand sewed little birdies in the birdcage. I found the pattern here.  You can also see the start of Amelia's small library. We have lots more books to get! Above I love the picture frame with Amelia's hand and foot print.

I made the 'A is for Amelia' print' using photoshop and just printed it at walmart.

I got the personalized blocks from etsy.

The Minnie Mouse was mine when I was little. I found that frame at a flea shop awhile ago and I painted it blue.

I also made the 'birth annoucement' on photoshop. So sweet.

The bird cage photo holder is from Day Spring. I got it super on sale around Christmas and can display more fun pictures.

And of course the window seat. Right now its full of extra wipes and diapers but I know one day it will be full of toys!

I am still tweaking and have a couple of things I would like to change/add but her nursery is my new favorite room in the house!



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Amelia's Bird Nursery

I had so much fun decorating Amelia's Nursery. I even to this day like to go up there and look around.

First, I wanted to share a little background. I started by looking at some of my favorite store for bedding and bookmarked the ones I liked. Then as I was going back through them I noticed that I had bookmarked several birdie nursery beddings. Her theme was starting!

Next I started browsing Pinterest for Bird Nurseries. There were so many cute ideas that I was finding almost too much! My crafty brain was starting. Next I found her adorable bedding from Carousel Designs and it was love at first sight with all the patterns. I love that it was colorful without being too childish. It had my bird theme without being too gimicky and too 'babyish.

I also found this adorable nursery with built ins and of course my brain was churning! Being that Joe and I are so very handy, I decided that we could build it. Ha!! We of course had to find someone to build it. My dreams were starting to become a reality. I spent lots of time looking through the internet, like pinterest and etsy to find just the right stuff but I think I succeeded.

Let's take a tour!

This is a picture of the room when we toured the house. Notice the stained carpet and the lovely border.

This is the wall with her sweet crib. This is what you see as you walk into her nursery. So sweet. The pain is Iconic Sky from Behr. We really debated about painting a girl's nursery blue but I think it works and we could have a lot of pink accents. The crib is from Target and was a gift from my parents.  I love her bedding and the patchwork crib squirt. The bedding absolutely makes the room. The rug is from Target.

One of my favorite parts of the room is the tree mural above her crib. A student in Joe's youth ministry painted it for me. I just showed her a picture and she got it done in an afternoon. I then hung the bird houses as if they were hanging from the tree. I think that this will be really special for Amelia as she grows up and looks up at her tree.

I used my gift cards to purchase her dresser. I looked for a few days for a sturdy white dresser that would work with the crib. I had wanted a wide dresser because I was originally going to use that also a changing table. But with the changing table purchase it was a place to add more cute things!

I also love these bird pictures above her dresser that I got from Land of Nod. It fits the theme and also introduces counting. The set comes with 10 cards so I can always decorate with more.

 Her lamp was from Babies R Us. I have plans to recover the lamp shade.

The dress was one of my baby dresses. I found the frame in the garage and painted it and put scrapbook paper in the back

And of course my favorite part of the room is the built in bookcases and window seat. It makes the room. Joe's Grandma made the window seat cover in the love bird fabric. I love that the curtains are black out curtains for when she does spend the night her in nursery the morning sun won't wake her up. I'll be back with more details about her bookshelves.

I am glad that we got the changing table. It has a hamper and three drawers for convenient storage.  I found the idea for the bird canvas here. It didn't turn out quite how I wanted it to but it works for the space. The 'A' I bought from etsy.

We LOVE her nursery and I had such fun getting it together. What do you think?

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Our Baby Girl is 2 Months!

My baby girl is 2 months old today and what a fast 2 months it has been. When the doctor placed me in my arms right after she was born, I knew I would love her forever and it is true.


We are starting to see more of her personality. When baby girl is hungry, you better watch out. She is definitely a mommy's girl. It is so sweet that I can calm her down when no one can. But we are starting daycare now so she needs to learn to love other people. She is starting to take naps in her swing and going longer stretches of being happily awake and not being held. She generally takes two long naps a day. Getting to sleep at night is starting to get rough again. We start doing our bedtime routine about 7:30 and she usually falls asleep but will wake up 30 minutes later upset. Then we spend the next couple of hours fighting sleep. She still sleeps in our room next to me. She sleeps through the night about every other night with her first stretch is the longest.

 We are starting to see a lot more smiles everyday, usually in the morning after nursing while getting her clothes changed. It's the most beautiful thing ever. We went to the doctor last week and she was 12 lbs 4 ounces (90%) and 23 1/2" (95%). I think she will get her Daddy's height. She got her first set of shots. She of course cried when she got them but was quickly asleep. I on the other hand cried which I was very surprised. I used to do give immunizations almost daily at the Peds office. Maybe Daddy needs to go next time.

She is starting to sit more in her Bumbo seat. She still likes the moby wrap, and I use it if she is especially fussy. She still is exclusively breast fed and has taken pumped milk a few times like a champ.

*likes
Mommy, being held and walking, Smiling, tummy time for 5 minutes but not much longer, going to Daddy, car rides, going on walks in her stroller, and mommy

*dislikes Waiting to be fed, not being held when she wants to, going to bed, waking up, and gas Today as this post is going up, I am starting back to work after 10 weeks off. This is going to be rough on all of us but I know I know it's what we have to do...sigh.

We love you Amelia Grace!


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