Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Remember When

Last weekend Ross and I seemed to say the words "remember when" a lot of times. We were remembering what all was going on this time last year, when Lucy was just almost one month old. Here are a few funny stories we remembered:

Saturday we went to Joplin to visit my sister and her family and before leaving we decided to get a drink from Starbucks. While in the drive-thru line Ross asked me if I remembered the time last year when we were at the same Starbucks drive-thru line and I had to get out of the car with Lucy in her bucket seat and swing her back and forth until Ross got through the line because she was crying so much and she did not like the car sitting still. I remember that very well! It was a hot, sunny day and there were a lot of cars in the line. I felt kind of silly doing that, but it worked and we had a happy baby again once she was asleep!

Sunday morning I reminded Ross of the Sunday last summer that didn't really happen! And by that I mean that we went to church, but might as well shouldn't have because we left almost as soon as we got there! It started on our way to church when we heard Lucy fill her diaper. We could tell that the diaper was going to be very full by the sound of it and we were right. In fact, she pooped through her diaper so I had to change her clothes when we got to church. I was really bummed about that because I had a really cute outfit on her. At that time we were still taking her into church with us and not using the nursery, so we went into church. She was awake so I was holding her while we were singing. As I was holding her she spit up a few times and each time seemed to get worse. She got a lot on me and her. I decided to take her out to the hall because it was just gross. I stayed out there a bit and Ross came out to see if we were okay. When he came out we decided to just call it a day and go home. Fun times. :)

I think the funniest memory we had over the weekend wasn't really a specific memory, but it was funny! Sunday afternoon we went to a friend's house for a BBQ. This is a friend of Ross' from college and there were five couples there, all of us except one couple having kids. There were six kids ranging in age from 13 months to six years old. It was fun, but kind of chaotic at times with all the kids running around. After dinner Reese, a six-year-old, told us it was time for the gymnastics show and we needed to go outside to watch it. Reluctantly, we all made our way outside. We were waiting for the gymnastics show, but little did we know that there was actually a singing show before the gymnastics show. They were playing with a karaoke machine singing "Let It Go" from Frozen. Really, it was chaos! The kids were all running around singing and playing and the adults were trying to talk. All of a sudden, one of the guys looked at us and said, "Remember when we used to hang out at bars?" We had a good laugh at that and I'm still laughing at it today! Although I never hung out with this group when we were in college because I didn't know them yet, I could totally relate to that statement. It is so funny to think about all the changes that have happened in this group and my other groups of friends. Ten years and marriage and kids sure do change things!

Sunday, May 25, 2014

The Toilet Paper Roll Has Been Found

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I teach my class at the gym and am usually more than ready for a shower when I get home. Since I am home alone with Lucy, it can be kind of challenging sometimes to get a shower in. I have some toys that I keep in our bedroom so she can play with them while I shower, and I also shut the bedroom door so she can't get out to play in the hallway. She will go back and forth between playing in our bedroom, the closet hallway, playing in my closet and pulling out all my shoes, and then also playing in the bathroom where the shower is.

Lucy is usually pretty good to entertain herself and doesn't get into anything she shouldn't. We have latches on all the cabinet doors so she can't get into them and sometimes she will just sit by the shower door waiting for me to get out.

Well, last week she discovered a new toy in our bathroom: the toilet paper roll. She unrolled about half of the roll before she got distracted and moved on to something new. I realized she was doing this, but wasn't quite ready to get out of the shower, so I just let her do with it. The way I look at it, it's not harming anything and it allows me to get a shower in, so it's a win-win situation all the way around!



Friday, May 23, 2014

Happy Mother's Day To Me

Happy Mother's Day to me, a few weeks late! I had a great Mother's Day. Saturday night I went out to eat with some new friends from the gym and then Ross and I watched a movie when I got home. We went to church on Sunday and came home and Ross made breakfast for us. Ross makes the best breakfasts!

That afternoon we went out to my parent's house and hung out there for the day. Lucy had fun playing and even got to do a little swimming in the baby pool. We had dinner and then left in time for Lucy to fall asleep in the car. All in all, it was a very nice day...so much different than my first Mother's Day last year.

That Mother's Day I was so tired! Lucy woke up the night before around 3am and I fed her (she was only 2 weeks old at the time) and then she did not go back to sleep until about 9am the next morning. NO. JOKE.! She spent that whole time crying and screaming at us. We had no idea what to do so called the overnight nurse line from our doctor's office. We ended up taking Lucy to the doctor that morning, my first Mother's Day, only to have her fall asleep like right after we made the doctor's appointment! The doctor couldn't figure out what was wrong with Lucy and wondered if she might have reflux. (Side note, she did have reflux and started her on Zantac that week after her two-week checkup.) Lucy was fine the rest of the day and we went out to my parent's house to take a nap while they took care of Lucy!

This year, Lucy slept all night long the night before and the night of Mother's Day. Such a welcome change from one year ago!




 
 

Thursday, May 8, 2014

New Friends and Coffee

I've been working at my new job for about five months now. I teach a boot camp class at a local gym on MWF, 9-10am. This was a new class that started when I started teaching there mid-December. The class has slowly grown from 2 people to an average of about 8 people each day. I am so much enjoying this class! It's great to get paid to work out and it gets me out of the house for a few hours. Lucy does well in the daycare area and can stay in there for up to two hours at a time. It's just a great setup all the way around.

Another plus to the job is new friends! Most of the girls who come know each other from being gym members for a while or having kids in the same class at school. I noticed that they would hang out after class and have coffee in the commons area of the gym. When I realized this, I wanted to join them, but just wasn't brave enough to ask if I could! And I've realized over the years that you just can't force stuff, especially friendships. I so badly wanted to be friends with all these girls, but didn't want to come across as pushy or needy, so held back. I hoped that eventually I would become friends with them, even hang out with them after class.

And one day my hopes came true! One Friday, one of the girls brought a dessert to share after class and invited me to join them. I was so excited about this! And it was perfect because that day my Mom was babysitting Lucy, so I didn't have to worry about her being in the daycare area for a long time. It was so much fun just hanging out with them, and ever since that mid-February day I've been haning out with them having coffee after class. I really look forward to this time and am enjoying the new friendships I've formed. As I mentioned, I can keep Lucy in the daycare area for two hours and I take full advantage of this, as do the girls that I hang out with. Most of them have little ones in the daycare area, too.

Cheers to new friends!

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Happy #4 To Us!

Ross and I have been married for four years now! Our anniversary was Thursday, April 17. I'm a little late in posting about it, but oh well! We had a nice anniversary day. I took Lucy to swim lessons and then to Gumma and Poppy's for her to spend the night with them. Ross and I went to dinner at Jim's Steakhouse and then went mini golfing. It was nice spending time together alone and not having a baby in tow!

I still remember our wedding day like it was yesterday. It was the absolute best wedding ever and one of the best days of my life. I'm so thankful to have found Ross and so thankful for the great, caring, kind, loving husband he is. I am a lucky girl!

We don't give each other big anniversary gifts, but I always get a bracelet from Ross for our anniversary. We started this on our first anniversary and I love the tradition. I have a picture of the bracelets below and here's an explanation of each bracelet:


 
1. The first bracelet (at the top of the picture) was bought on our honeymoon in Cancun, so I guess that's what really started it. I remember the night we bought it...it was the last night we were at our resort and we ate at the restaurant by the pool. It was such a nice night and our food was really good. There were several local vendors set up around the pool and we walked around looking at them after dinner. I saw the bracelet and loved it. It was priced at $20, but we got it down to $10. I bet we could have gotten it a little lower, too, had we tried more!

2.  The second bracelet was bought in Hawaii on our first anniversary trip. Oh, this was absolutely the Best. Vacation. Ever.! We both loved our trip to Hawaii! We found this bracelet at the swap meet held at the Aloha Stadium. It's a huge swap meet with all sorts of Hawaii souvenirs.

3.  The third bracelet was for our second anniversary. We went to Jamaica for that anniversary and I tried to find a bracelet while shopping, but never did. I found this one at Kohls and loved it. Side note: gotta love Kohl's pricing...this bracelet was originally $60 and I got it "on sale" for $12. :)

4.  The fourth bracelet was for our third anniversary. This anniversary was spent in good old Springfield, Mo! April 17, 2013, was one week away from my due date and just 11 days away from Lucy's birthday. Ross bought this bracelet at the $1 Jewelry Galore Store and I love that! He's bought me other jewelry from this store in the past and again, I love it! You can read about it here.

5.  The fifth bracelet is from our fourth anniversary this year. And yes, it's from the $1 Jewelry Galore Store! It's a shell bracelet because we couldn't go to the beach for our anniversary this year so Ross brought the beach to me! He's so good to me!

I look forward to adding to this post with all my future anniversary bracelets. I hope to rack up 50 or more! :)