Summer Time is Calling Me

It's been a big summer so far; Claire turned 1, I went back to school (for my 3rd college education!), we got a new car, and Claire got the classiest pool ever! No seriously, we bought a kiddie pool for our sweet Claire to be able to play in. I know what you are thinking - little, round, plastic kiddie pool but that wouldn't be any fun for the adults now would it? Instead we got her this pool:

I'll let you make your own judgements about the family in the picture. Anyway, Claire loves it! She wasn't so sure at first and has a little issue each time she gets in but that soon gives way to her having a great time! Did I mention that two adults fit in it with her? Good times!

Isn't her suit adorable? My oldest friend Jennifer's very talented mother gave this to her for her first birthday. She also gave her a terry cloth cover-up with a yellow "C" on it. Too cute!

We also had another baby come and visit us this summer:

Speaking of babies - I want to send a big congratulations to the best neighbor EVER on her big news! I'm so glad I could be there for the "P"ivotal moment ;)

It's been an exciting summer so far to be sure!

Cupcakes!

My secret dream is to be a really successful cake decorator, but there is one problem: I'm not THAT great at it.

I have decided that maybe my medium of choice is just too big. I'm going with something a little more manageable - cupcakes! I don't want to say they are the best you've ever seen but check out some of my work:

Whaddya think? I plan to keep experimenting and I'll post as I go. I've had several people ask me to make cupcakes for them for different events so I've set up an email address to handle those requests: cupcakesbyheather@gmail.com

Let me know if you have an event you'd like to make a little sweeter!

And now that you have seen my cupcakes - here is a picture of my Sweet Muffin:

What - were you expecting something else? ;)

So much for that

So my resolution was to blog more often and I don't think I've written a thing on here since I made that declaration. That is part of my problem; I have really good intentions but my follow through seems to stink! I need help staying on track with things that are going to take more than one or two visits to finish. Advice?

My New Year's Resolution

I am not going to make any grand statements about weight loss or money or anything of that nature. My resolution is to blog more often so my friends that actually read this blog can stop fussing at me :) To that end, there may be a few added quickly that I have been thinking about but haven't gotten around to writing. Maybe a blog update too...

Truly A Sad Day

I know that we want our children to grow up strong and healthy, but do they have to do it so fast?!? Tomorrow Claire will be seven months! I can't believe it. The time really is flying by so fast. Pretty soon she'll be off getting married and leaving me! Okay so that may be a bit dramatic but that is what it feels like. The sad part is the job I had to do yesterday. I took all of her clothes that were too small or the wrong season out of her closet. Look at this:

This picture was after I realized I may need to actually use the changing table before I get these all boxed up. I have to go buy another container now!

Seeing all of those sweet clothes that she will never wear again just breaks my heart. We better have another girl!!

Convenience??

Tonight my husband and I had to go to the dreaded Wal-Mart. Now, we have a new shiny, happy Wal-Mart but we were already on the very busy road the old location was on so for convenience reasons we went to the old store. I'm telling you it wasn't worth it. It was over crowded, had undesirable people there, and worst of all was that after being in line for a few minutes the cashier suddenly said "oh, I'm closed - this is the last transaction" three carts ahead of us. Nice! Not only was the store ridiculous but I was with Dustin. I love my husband a lot but he has this incredible ability to take any process and make it take 40 minutes longer than it needs to. I mean it, he slows everything down. Take right now for instance, I need to bake two loaves of zucchini bread to give Claire's teachers tomorrow and instead I am blogging because he has taken over my whole kitchen making chili that is so stinking spicy that none of his coworkers will even be able to eat it tomorrow. Joy.

I have pictures of the cooking mess but can't find my camera cord. Check back soon!

It really IS the most wonderful time of the year!

I LOVE Christmas. Really, I love Halloween through New Years but I especially love Christmas. Not only is it a time for praise and family, but just the whole holiday season is more magical than the rest of the year. Luckily I have a husband that agrees with me so when I start listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving there are no complaints. We are both big kids when it comes to Christmas and we can't wait to celebrate Claire's very first one.

Every year we go to Helping Hands nursery and buy a tree that was cut down in the mountains and brought to the shop. I love the whole process of picking a tree, bringing it home, putting lights on, and putting on all of the decorations. I really enjoy decorations that tell a story. In fact, the story of our family is told through ornaments on our tree.

We met in 2005

Got engaged in 2006

We got married in 2007

Pregnant in 2008

And now in 2009, we are celebrating Claire's first Christmas!

Our Tree :)

If you could see the bottom of the tree in this picture you would notice a lack of presents. That is due to another tradition: Christmas Eve shopping. Who's with me?!?

Time Keeps on Slipping Into the Future

Can you believe that my sweet little girl will be 6 months old on Monday?!? Isn't that the most ridiculous thing you've heard lately. I just can't believe it! We have hit a couple of milestones to mark the occasion both good and bad. The first good thing is that she has a tooth and a half. The half is because the second one is just barely poking through the gum but it's definitely there. Another good milestone is that she has spoken her first "words." I know you expect it to be "dada" like most babies but I have worked super hard on her and she has started with "mama!" That's right, she is saying mama!! Well she is actually saying mamamama... but you get the idea. I'm trying to make her connect the words to me now. She is so stinking cute. Now for the bad milestone, Claire officially has her first ear ache. Sweet baby. It hurts my heart to see her so sad. She has been on meds for three days now so she is feeling better but it's still so sad. I was told I don't include enough pictures of her on my blog so here ya go! (notice a theme with the chair?)

My First Award!

I got my very first blog award and what did I do?!? I totally slacked off and did nothing at all. I was supposed to write 10 random facts about me and pass the award to 10 other bloggers. Well, I need to increase the amount of blogs I read to do the passing part but here are the random facts:

1. I am slightly obsessed with bleaching my teeth.

2. I have a hard time getting rid of anything. Not quite hoarder status - but close!

3. My secret desire is to be a pastry chef.

4. I wish I had been given the ability to sing.

5. I got braces in third grade and got them off my sophomore year of high school.

6. I still have a giant box with all of my stuffed animals from childhood.

7. I don't like to be home alone at night.

8. I cry at movies - a lot.

9. I LOVE Coke Icees.

10. I wish I could trade bodies with my husband for one day to see how the other half live.

Like I said, the other half of my directions was to send this award on but I don't have enough people to send it to. I will tell you that I love Bakerella's blog. I get a lot of fabulous ideas from there like the cake lollipops I think I posted before. Check it out!

Thank you to my friend over at the Cobia Family for the award!!

Oops or How NOT To Get Ahead in Business

A little back story first. I work for a large health care organization and my department is trying to get a certification from another large organization that will give us some more clout in the world of health care. We missed receiving the certification by one measly little point. Not a big deal you can appeal the decision. So I look at the instructions to appeal and we only have four more days and that is not going to happen. I call the decision maker to find out how to get an extension on the appeal and leave a VERY professional voicemail asking for a return call with the information I need and continue on about my day. Okay so you need to know I have caller ID on my desk phone and I see my hubby's work number come up so I answer the phone H-E-L-L-O to the jello tune (dorky I know), only it's not my husband! He works for the same company as the man I left a message for and the phone numbers all show up the same on caller ID for security purposes. That is right, I sang hello to the decision maker I had called earlier!!! I could have just died right then. My face was immediately on fire and I can imagine what color it was. Jeez. Luckily the man was very amused by my gaff and said that granting my extension shouldn't be a problem. Whew!! I guarantee I will always answer the phone in my "professional" voice from now on. What a day!

Seriously

I know I may be a tad biased but come on people! Cutest. Baby. Ever.

Halloween

So I seriously want to get better at updating my blog. I think about doing it all of the time, I just don't ever do it. So Halloween is over and it's usually one of my favorite holidays (other than Christmas and my birthday) but the hubby and I just didn't get into it this year. Usually we go all out. Here is an example:

The above is a picture of our contest winning costumes two years ago. And also this:

is the pumpkin I carved last year. Like I said, we usually go all out but not so much this year. We didn't even put our costumes on! We couldn't let Claire's first Halloween go totally unnoticed though so here is a picture of her sweet costume:

Isn't she just the cutest glow worm ever?!?! We did have some interesting visitors though. Here is a picture of my sister and two friends dressed as a roller derby team:

Ah yes, Halloween does bring out the freaks! Ha! Only kidding, don't they look spectacular?!?

Anyway, our Halloween was more tame than usual but we have promised to do it up right next year. Just wait and see.

Cookies

Here it is 12:30 Thursday night and I just finished cookies for work tomorrow. October is national Physical Therapy month and I work with PTs so we are bringing desserts tomorrow to celebrate. I'm almost embarrassed to take my cookies in because they did not turn out the way I envisioned them. See for yourself:

Even worse than that is what the kitchen looked like when I finished.

I was not up late alone though. Here is a shot of Riley after I busted her trying to get a cookie off of the table.

Bad dog. Luckily the cookies taste much better than they look. They are super rich though due to the fact there is an entire POUND of butter in them. Delicious!

Never again

We took our darling Claire to the fair yesterday with our friends the Weeks family. I was planning on having a picture of our festivities but since I was so overstimulated and Claire was miserable I didn't get one done. Seriously, I know the fair is always crowded and loud but last night was ridiculous! I don't particularly like to be touched and I was touched, a lot. Granted it was only people bumping into me but I can't stand it! I could never live in a crowded city like New York. It was way too loud for Claire and people were passing her around and she couldn't take it anymore so she cried herself to sleep. Then she woke up again when we ran into some friends (you know who you are) and she cried some more. Poor thing. She was so exhausted that when we got home she slept through her dinner and went right to sleep. The hubs actually had to wake her up to feed her this morning. On a much more positive note: the funnel cake was delicious! Maybe next year it'll be easier when Claire is a little older. We'll see. Maybe.

Adventures with Food

I've been meaning to update for a while now but it seems a lot of my nightly free time is now devoted to Claire's diet. Claire started eating cereal two weeks ago with underwhelming results. Let's just say I now have a video of my daughter crying with food dribbling out of her mouth. Ah the memories. The video looks a lot like this :

Just add sound and tears. Luckily, my friend Jennifer suggested mixing bananas in with the cereal and joy was restored - until green bean time. Oh well, it's a learning process I guess.

We are taking our muffin to the fair tonight so I'll try my best remember to share that event soon.

On Second Thought

Okay, so maybe I was a little bit harsh in my last post about my child care realities. While it is still true that I would much rather spend every moment with my sweet little girl than let someone else keep her, daycare is not the hopeless pit of despair I made it out to be. The teachers (that is what they're called, just don't ask me what they are "teaching" my not quite 4 month old) are wonderful and my little one really likes them. She smiles in the morning when they greet her and that warms my heart. They also give a written report at the end of the day about what she has done while I was toiling away at my job. I wasn't wrong about all of my worries though. My baby rolled over for the first time last week - at daycare! I can't believe I missed it. It is one of the first milestones in her development and I didn't even get to see it. Not only did I miss it but as you can imagine she has not done it since that one time! Mean ole baby. The only other thing I have really not appreciated since daycare started is the cold I've had since Friday. I noticed a runny nose when I picked Claire up last Wednesday but thought it was just the dreaded "daycare nose" I had been warned about. By Friday it was a full blown cold which she was ever so kind to share with Dustin and myself. Fun!

In other baby news: Claire was baptized on Sunday. It was so nice. We had about 20 people there from our family and a couple of friends to witness the event. She wore the baptism dress and small gold cross I wore as a baby and the ring my stepmother, stepsiblings, and niece wore. She also wore a bonnet my mom gave her that will come apart to become Claire's "something old" when the time comes. Cute! Fellow blogger,The Wife, showed me how to add pictures to my blog so as soon as I upload from my camera and also get the pictures from Lanaea, aka my friend that should be a professional photographer, I'll share them.

In other other baby news: My dear friend Jennifer had her baby boy last week! Welcome to the world little Thomas! I am super excited that he is here but sad that I have only seen him for about 45 seconds thanks to the aforementioned cold. Stupid cold. He is so adorable though and I can't wait to hold him again! Congratulations Russ and Jennifer and big sister Maggie!!!

Day Care

Those are suddenly the two ugliest words in the human language. Day care. In one week from tomorrow I will officially be a working mother. It's not a new job or anything I just have to go back from maternity leave. I never thought I'd feel this way. Before I ever even thought of having children I knew I didn't want to be one of those women that gives up their career for their children. Staying home was something that women from my mother's generation did. I have never in my life been more jealous of that generation. For all of my "women forward" thinking I can't get over the fact that I am taking the most precious thing in my life and handing her over to complete strangers to take care of 8 hours a day. That means that those people will spend more time with her over the next few years than I will. That thought makes me sick to my stomach. What if she utters her first words at day care? What if her first steps happen there? What if she doesn't understand where her mommy, who has been spending every moment for twelve weeks with her, went? How am I supposed to get anything accomplished at work while worrying about how she is doing?
People tell you things like "she'll be exposed to more learning opportunities there than she would at home with you" or "it'll be good for her to have other children to interact with" to try to make me feel okay about the situation. The funny thing is I have said those same things to other people to try to make them feel better and I really believed those very things to be true. The real truth is, no matter what my feelings are, I have to work. That is it plain and simple. I have to work. The question then becomes how do I come to terms with my situation and make the best of the time I have with her? Is quality really more important than quantity? I guess I'm on my way to finding that out like it or not.

30

I have been thirty for a week and a day now. I gotta tell you, it's not what I expected. I thought "30" meant being done. Done establishing myself. Done learning who I am. Done wondering what direction my life is going to go. Done. In some ways I guess I am done; I have a wonderful husband, a new baby girl, a good job with a boss I can actually say I respect and admire, a house, a church where I feel I belong and a great family and group of friends. Even in respect to those things I'm not even close to being done.
What I am learning at thirty is that my wonderful husband and I won't ever be done working to make our marriage better. I believe that work will continue our entire lives together. We certainly aren't done making a home for our daughter and we aren't even done having children. I know that I am not done developing my relationship with God and now realize that will be ever evolving. It's fair to assume my current boss will not be my last boss and the place I've worked for over five years may not be where I have my career. I am also not done learning to be a better daughter, sister and friend.
I thought there would be comfort in being done but now I know that the true comfort is that my life is always changing and there will always be more to do until my time on earth is truly done. That may sound like a lot of insight for a week and day but what can I say, I'm thirty.

Shots

I can remember when doing shots was a fun thing with a group of friends. As of yesterday, that memory is completely gone. Now the word has a much sadder meaning. It was my baby girl's two month check-up yesterday and she had to get three shots. I know that they all do fantastic things that are good for her and I know it was harder on me than on her, blah blah blah. Really, it was quite awful. The first shot she took like a champ with just a crazed wide eyed look, the second and third shots were another story. I have never in my life heard a scream like the two that came out of my tiny (11 1/4 lbs) daughter! It was like the whole world was coming to an end and she was the only one that knew it. How sad! She got over it pretty fast after I was able to pick her back up but it was still heart rendering. Luckily we are done with that until her 4 month visit. Poor baby.

In other news, our new bedroom furniture arrives this Thursday just in time for my birthday on Friday! I can't wait. I hope it all fits in our room okay, if not I may just bring the old shot definition back!

Presents

So my neighbor has been after to me to start blogging again. It seems my last post was in 2007 and I'm worried I won't remember why I started this in the first place. Well, my husband and I have a birthday present problem that has inspired me to start again. The problem is that when it comes to birthday presents we are like children. We can never wait until the actual birthday to give our presents to each other. For example, my birthday is next Friday but here I sit typing happily away on my new laptop! It's not just birthdays either, we are like this at every holiday or event. The best part is that we don't think there is anything wrong with this affliction but our family does. They think we have absolutely no will power. I say whatever works and this definitely works for me!