Giggles for Mother's Day!

I had a fantastic first Mother's Day. Really a fantastic weekend.

How can I not have a great Mother's Day when I get to spend it with this little butter ball.   

 My weekend started on Friday, as most of them do, because Tyler is off on Fridays. We spent most of the day at home which is just what I needed. I got a little "extra" present unexpectedly at Home Depot...mulch! Not the most glamorous thing, but I loved it! Kinda hard to see in these pictures but it looks great! (please excuse the untrimmed bushes in front of our house, saving that for another day)

I then got my actual Mother's day present in the mail. I LOVE it! Adelaide and Daddy did a good job. It's a necklace with Adelaide's name, her birth stone and a pea pod (b/c I call her my sweet pea)

Saturday morning was started off with breakfast from one of Tyler and I's favorite BBQ places in Mission, RJ's. They serve breakfast on the weekends and we'd never tried it. It was good and it was almost like getting breakfast in bed b/c Tyler went out and brought it back for me! Adelaide and I then went back to Horton that evening to go to the Baptist Church Mother/Daughter banquet with my mom and grandma Sextro. Ashlyn and Aaden were able to come too. It was so fun to have my own daughter at the banquet along with three other generations!

Probably the biggest highlight of the weekend was getting Adelaide to laugh for the first time!! We've been trying to do this for a while, she'd always smile real big but we never got far enough to laugh. This weekend we finally broke through! These pictures really don't do it justice but they're some of my favorite of her so far because she looks sooo happy. It's been so hard to catch those smiles up to this point but she's really starting to do it more and hold on to them. Please notice her shirt "Mommy Adores Me"...so true!

 I'll leave you with a little mommy/daughter moment at bedtime. Adelaide's new bedtime routine includes reading a book every night and she really seems to enjoy it. Daddy and I both enjoy the time too. 

Warm Cheeks

I have decided that one of my favorite parts about being a mommy is getting Adelaide up from a nap and putting her warm cheek up next to mine.  Makes me want to just eat her up. I'm pretty sure I say that at least twice a day. Her cheeks are always just screaming to be kissed...

It doesn't help that every time she wakes up from a nap I see that lovely smile. Who can resist that!!

Attack of the Easter Bunny!!!

  So this being Adelaide's first Easter I really wanted to get her an Easter bunny as a gift. Now this couldn't be just any bunny, I have this grand picture in my head that this bunny is going to be THE stuffed animal for Addy. The one she drags around the house by the ears and the one that I have to wash every now and then because it's been drug through the dirt. The one that by the time she's 10 is missing an eye and has been patched shut in several places. So I found the perfect bunny at the gift shop at work. 

So here is the bunny in the Easter bucket.

 This was Adelaide's reaction to the bunny. I think she likes it. It's obviously about as big as she is but I figure when she's little she can cuddle up with it and use it as a pillow. Hehe!

My thought is that this toy will be in many a picture throughout Adelaide's life. Pictures taken all over the place. So here is the first one, in the backyard with the lovely purple WEEDS that have taken over our grass. Looks nice anyway.

I leave you with a random picture of Addy and Amos napping just because I think it's funny. Since Amos is the other fuzzy animal in Addy's life. Addy was napping and Amos HAD to maneuver his way in between her legs. He literally tapped them out of the way, didn't bother her a bit. 

On the Hunt!

So I've just started my hunt for a job in Kansas City!! We're all very excited about this. Although I love my current job, gas is becoming a killer and the extra time at home will be great. I've decided to take my time since I have a great job now, I want to find another one that I'll like just as well. I'm hoping to finally start in the area of nursing that I wanted to start in post-graduation: Labor and Delivery!! This area of nursing is extremely hard to get in to because it is so specialized. Nurses normally start and never leave so jobs are at a premium, let alone day jobs which is also a must as a sitter from 7-11pm at night would be impossible to find, that and I don't want someone else putting Adelaide to sleep every night. We'll see what happens! I'll be sad to leave all of my friends/co-workers at LMH but excited to make new ones and hopefully have a job helping deliver babies!!! I know I'll find something either way and the change will be great for our family.

Here's my motivation:

Sleeping Woes

So Adelaide will be three months this week! She's starting to get a little personality which makes her awake time much more fun (on a good day). However good days are sometimes hard to come by. She is a fantastic sleeper at night. Goes down at 6:30 sharp almost every night and has started to sleep until around 4ish when she wants to eat and then falls back to sleep until around 7. However we've only had one good day of napping. We're lucky to get a 30 min. nap in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Then she ends up so fussy by the end of the day because she's so tired. She's sort of right between the age where crying for extended periods is a good idea and for a nap, crying for too long seems to defeat the purpose. I feel like we're just being so inconsistent because we've tried so many different things. We're up to letting her cry for 30 min. and did that today but she was still at it. It's so frustrating because I don't want to be so anxious about her sleeping that I don't enjoy when she's awake but I know how valuable sleep is to her and she does so much better when she gets good naps, as do most babies. It's also hard because there are so many opinions about what age and how long you should let your baby cry or if you should let them cry at all. I'm all for letting her cry because if it were up to her she would stay awake all day and she needs to sleep. The book I'm reading is also helpful and I think when she's a month or so older it will be easier to follow to get her on a schedule and I'll be more comfortable with letting her cry longer but at her age it's kind of vague. Anyway, just venting, as I think most first time parents do. Oh well! It can only get better. I'm sure if we keep at it she'll understand eventually. I'm glad I've had the support of some family members and friends to assure me, especially when Addy is crying her lungs out in the background.

New Projects!

So most of you might not know that one of Tyler and I's favorite things to do together is refinish furniture. Nerdy I know but we've done some really cool things that have really added to our house and that we'll keep for years to come, one of them being Addy's dresser which Tyler did a fantastic job on (I wasn't able to help as I was pregnant). We've also done a few side tables, Tyler's office desk, a sofa table, an old shelf thing that we turned into a sort of hutch and a dresser. We recently found a hutch on craigslist for free and thought we'd take advantage of it. It will be one of our biggest projects yet and having a baby around will make it even harder for us to work on it but it should be great when it's done! I think I'm going to paint it white and put some funky wall paper on the back behind the glass doors but I'm not sure yet. It's going to go in my kitchen. I might get some inspiration in my next Do It Yourself magazine.

It has like 4 coats of paint on it that need to be taken off and we'll be replacing the hardware.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions. I'm kind of open to anything!!

Back to Work

Adelaide turned 2 Months this week!! I now know what people mean when they say that time flys!

She's starting to smile and talk more which makes being a parent even more enjoyable. She's also starting to get a little more predictable which makes things a little easier. We finally think we have her formula issues figured out so she's one happy baby.

One downside to her getting older was that I had to go back to work. We agreed on 8 weeks off. Although before I got pregnant I said I would probably never want to be a stay at home mom, I definitely would love to be one now. I cried several times the night before and about halfway to work the next morning. I did get to leave early my first day because we were slow and Tyler was actually sick for the first time in the 8 years I've known him. Of course he would get sick the first day he had to watch Adelaide for an extended period, he did okay though. Although I do have to say that the outfit he picked out for her to wear that day was definitely a "dad" outfit, nothing matched.

Being gone is getting easier and knowing that I'll have a joyful smile to wake up to the next morning helps. The extra money in my paycheck will also be a relief after maternity pay. I just have to think of all of the cute clothes I can buy for Addy with that money! hehe! I do have to say that I'm blessed to be a nurse and only work 3 days a week.

Well, we're really transitioning into our normal life now and still enjoying it. Hoping to maybe get something closer to home for work this summer (gas is a killer right now) and then we'll really be settled in Kansas City which we're all excited about.