14 Weeks & Vegas

The day I was officially 14 weeks, we were a day past when we were suppose to close on our house, and taking a weekend trip to vegas with Jared's new company.

Being freshly sprung from bedrest and still recovering from, new car, new job and house in Limbo referring to us as stressed was a HUGE understatement. The trip was probably the worst timing possible but oh so necessary. Having a reason to put on make up and wearing something besides yoga pants was just an added bonus!

Small talk about fantasy football isn't my forte, (and thank the lord neither is it Jared's) but we love to travel, see new sights and eat! All of which Vegas provided.

The highlights of the trip included, eating brunch at the top of the stratosphere:

The food and the views were spectacular. 

Getting to go to Vladimir Kush and Chihuly (two of my favorite artists) galleries on the same day! 

Reading an entire book (Go set a watchman) Poolside

Eating Gordon Ramsay's famous Beef Wellington! 

YES! Worth the hype!!

And the appearance of the bump! (earlier than any of my other pregnancies)

14 weeks 3 days Baby the size of a Lemon

We spent most of our time in work functions and trying not to stress about the house closing still being in limbo! We played 0.17 on penny slots (just to say we gambled in vegas) and took more pictures of things we thought the girls would find interesting than things we were actually interested in.

"dancing fountain" which the girls want to see! 

Ours and the girls' souvenirs

We came home to no news on when we would close on the house, but happy girls and a positive outlook from a much needed break!

stream of consciousness

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow

But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down cobwebs;
Dust go to sleep!

I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.
-Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Last night she fell asleep before bath time, and, the daddy, instead of putting her down just held her. It was precious. She's getting bigger, literally and figuratively, learning new things every day and getting better at crawling that we know in no time at all she'll be fully mobile, running around the house, not wanted to be cuddled and so while we can we just hold her a little longer.


We find ourselves going from 0 to 60 on the weekends, stuffing in as much as they can fit and this weekend was no exception, two more birthday celebrations to add to the list and thanksgiving #1. Addiston succeeded at scaring the life out of me for the first time and I didn't like it. We were at a friends house and she was sleeping in their spare bedroom and rolled off the bed. She has slept there safely before and is fine, but none the less I was an instant wreck and Jared had to console me as much as her. She bounced back in no time and enjoyed me holding her the rest of the evening. Sunday evening we got to hear her laugh harder than she ever has before, to a friend dancing in his kitchen and singing about cottage cheese. She laughed so hard that yesterday she was slightly horse and sounded like an old man whenever she babbled. Love it!


I try to get stuff done, be productive, stay positive. I am fueled by the satisfaction of crossing things off of the to-do list. I love to surprise Jared with little odds and ends I pick up while I'm running errands. I find myself walking him around the house at night saying, "hey look what I did" like a kid showing off my latest art project. I love the weeks where I get everything crossed of my hypothetical lists, and then some. Then there are the days and weeks that I just don't care if the laundry all gets folded and put away or if we eat home cooked meals every night. I find myself wanting to stay in sweats all day, or just holding Addistion because she's a lil fussy and starting to teeth.

Well the last few days have been the latter.

It's taking much longer than I wanted to paint the foyer of our house so I'm gonna admit I'm over it, the insanely high vaulted ceilings over a double stairwell are just gonna have one coat of paint for the foreseeable future and I don't care. The laundry from last week finally got folded today and honestly I don't know why, because it was so wrinkly from sitting in the dryer over the weekend, it probably should have been washed again. Addiston is a breath of fresh air. When I don't really feel like being super mom, she's cool with that, she totally doesn't mind if we just hang out at home and drink coffee till noon, and truth be told, it's happened more than once in the past week.


I am needing this holiday weekend to come. I miss my family. The chaotic way that the kids run in and out of rooms chasing one another and "sharing" toys. The way that there are four conversations going on at a single dinning table and somehow one manages to keep track of and be involved in each of them. The passing around of babies and catching up on the happenings of our individual lives. I'm starting to plant roots here in Nashville, get involved in the community, form meaningful friendships, let people in and while I'm so grateful for a home away from home I have to admit that sometimes it scares me. I always swore that I'd move home, live near my sister and my parents, see them once a week. And while that still may happen Jared and I find ourselves realizing that what we have here is rare. That finding people that love you and pray for you, people who love your baby like one of their own and would go out of their way to help you, isn't something you can duplicate. So Que Sera, Se la Vie who knows what the future holds so for now we're so very thankful for the people who have become our family.


Oh and another book from Dolly!


Enjoy your holiday!

Storytime

Every morning, sometime between her morning cat nap and lunch we have storytime. Typically we read short sweet toddler books, the one's with cardboard pages and typically a mirror or touch and feel addition. Yesterday I wasn't in the mood for one of the cardboard books and picked an old book of mine. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

The Lorax is a family favorite (slight obsesion) and I hadn't read it in quite some time. It is well worn, the pages stained, the corners bent and the binding makes the perfect sing-songy screech, of a book that has been well loved. It is however rather long for a 3 1/2 month old and I figured that I'd have to put it aside half way through and finish it another day. But in an attempt to appease the child inside of me I busted out the Lorax stuffed animal (I told you it was an obsession) that her daddy bought her for valentines day before she was born. She sat and listened to the whole story and then just looked at me afterward like, what it's over? there's no more? What happens next?

So in the mean time I thought I'd document her interest with her new found friend (who speaks for the trees) The Lorax




Why hello there, what are you doing in my chair?


Mom, look I made a new friend!


I think you belong on my lap


hum, you have a beard


I wonder what your beard tastes like


I don't think I like this


Yepp, I like my fingers better than lorax beard!

Fall has arrived

Yesterday morning we surprisingly woke up to blankets pulled up to our chins, and a bitter chill throughout the house. There was dew on the grass and the perfect gray blanket of clouds slowly parted as the morning grew, as if the day were as reluctant to get out from under those covers as we were. And oh how I wanted one of these,

(a perfect cappucino from a cafe in Rome.) But for now it's a memory, tucked away hopefully to re-appear before too long for I long to introduce my children to another culture, but for now my Mr. Coffee will suffice.

We haven't grown accustom to the southern weather yet so we still had our A/C turned on since, oh I don't know last weekend it was in the 90's. So our heat didn't kick in during the polar plunge of temperature overnight and we awoke to a frigid fifty-something degree house, but still among the scurrying to find thick socks and digging out my favorite sweatshirt, the one with the holes in the elbows, I smiled because FALL has arrived!


I love fall and everything that comes with it. The changing of leaves, the smell of fire, warm apple cider, hot cocoa, pumpkin spice anything, turtlenecks, beautiful scarves, homemade soup, thick sweaters, soft sweatshirts, and my new favorite thing, snuggling with my little girl under my parents old green quilt.

After a few loads of laundry in the morning I realized I was getting hungry for lunch. I wanted something warm, like homemade chicken pot pie or a nice solid pot roast. Nothing was thawed out and I didn't know if the little one would have the patience for me to be chopping things in the kitchen for an hour but after a few minutes of searching for ingredients in the pantry and reluctantly discarding a few recipes we decided on loaded potato soup.

She was patient, watching we scrub and chop potatoes, cube cheese, measure and stir constantly cream and a few magical spices. I pretend I'm rachel ray and she is my audience. I explain everything I'm doing and that when she's big enough she will be my designated stirrer and together we will make all sorts of delicious things. oh how I can't wait till she can be my little sous chef! But for now she just sits and watches me, tounge barely peeking out, as she concentrates on what her mama's doing. She's listening, I'll bet ya, she knows exactly whats going on and she's takin notes.


After an hour and a half of mixing and waiting and stirring and waiting, the soup was ready and it was wonderful, carrying with it the sensation of a space-heater warming me all the way through and confirming the choice to cuddle and read sotries the rest of the afternoon with my baby girl while the laundry sat in the dryer waiting till this morning to be folded.

Today we recieved our first book from Dolly Parton. Yes that's right Dolly parton mailed us a book. In Tennessee you can sign up for this program called imagination Library that Dolly Parton created to improve literacy and your child will be mailed a book every month till they are five years old. So for our first book we have,

A classic! Thanks Dolly!

Oh and by the way tomorrow when we go out, she will totally be rockin these,

I can't wait!