Happy 2 Month Birthday Brooklyn!

Brooklyn,

Wednesday you turned 2 months old. We can't believe we have had you for two whole months already. I can't even remember what things were like without you around. It seems like more than two months. You have brought us such joy in these past 2 months. Your smile makes our hearts melt and we fall in love with you more and more everyday. You make me excited to be a mommy. I miss you everyday when I'm at work and can't wait to get home to see you. You are currently taking 4oz of formula every 3 hours or so. You like to suck on your hand while it's balled up in a fist. You don't like your pacifiers anymore. You sleep better now that we bought swaddling blankets. For the past two nights you have slept straight through the night without waking up! This makes us very happy! I still get up though and go and check to make sure you're breathing. Mommy still worries a bit every once in a while. You are still sleeping in our room - mommy's not ready to send you off to sleep alone yet. You'll have plenty of years for that ahead of you. You have grown out of all things "newborn" size. You are going up to a size 2 diaper as soon as this last bag of size 1's is used up. You can wear most 3-6 month clothes. We aren't sure what you weigh but will find out tomorrow at your 2 month check up where you will also get your first round of shots. I considered doing a delayed vaccination schedule but ultimately decided that getting all of them at the normal time was best for you since I'm around 150 dirty teenagers everyday who are carrying who-knows-what kind of germs on their hands. You have begun throwing little temper tantrums every evening around 7 pm which last anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours. Usually you calm down after you have been swaddled and carried around on your side for a while. Once you calm down from that you are always ready for a bottle. You love to be carried around facing out now. You love looking at things and sometimes get fixated on one thing and it's usually a light or a blank wall. We find this very funny. You smile a lot now and usually in response to us. You love it when I make your legs "run" when you're laying on your back on the bed. This is when you get the closest to actually "laughing". It's so cute! Your little feet are still the cutest feet in the world. I love to kiss them. You love your bumbo seat in small doses since you can't hold yourself up for long periods of time yet. But you still enjoy sitting in it on the coffee table where you can see everything around you. You still make lots of cute little noises when you are sleeping and enjoy rubbing your face into things like my shoulder, pillows, blankets and your hands. We aren't sure what that's about but it's funny and cute! I thank God for you every day and am amazed at what a perfect little creature you are. You thrill us and complete us and we are so happy you came to us this year. We are the luckiest parents in the world. We Love you Brooklyn Alivia!

Here are a couple of pictures of you recently, you cutie pie!

One of your cutest expressions - your smile.

You and your daddy outside on the day of your 2 month birthday.

One of the ways you sleep best now...my little papoose!

You love to sit in your bumbo. You like to be able to see everything.

I posted all these pictures and more on Facebook so if you want to see more pictures, go there! We go for her 2 month check up tomorrow so I'll have more stats on her soon.

Now I'm going to go over to my parents where miss Brooklyn is hanging out. She will be spending the night over there tonight. I need to see her for a little bit before I come home and go to bed. I've been back to work since last Monday and it is EXHAUSTING! I will have another separate post about work on another day. That deserves it's own post!

Thank you notes...

I don't watch the late night shows very often but we watched the Jimmy Fallon show last night and he did this hilarious bit where he wrote out a bunch of Thank You notes to people/companies/random things and they were very sarcastic thank yous and very funny. I was cracking up! So now I'm going to do my own version of it here on my blog. We'll see if it turns into a weekly thing.

Ok, here goes:

Thank you Worthington clothing brand for making me have to buy a skirt two sizes bigger than what I wore before my pregnancy. I know it has nothing to do with the fact that I haven't lost all of my pregnancy weight and that your sizes are just faulty. I appreciate the boost to my self-esteem. I will thoroughly enjoy cutting the tag off so I'm not reminded of what size I'm wearing and so no one else will know either.

Thank you top shelf above my refrigerator for being just far enough back and just high enough to be out of my reach. I can't put anything inside you that I need on a regular basis because I would have to climb a chair to get to you. I love to just look at you though. You look fantastic. Fantastically useless.

Thank you Rowf for putting one of your raw hide bones in every single room of the house. You are so clever. Now you have something to chew on in every room, heaven forbid you go without chewing on something for a while. I love how sticky and soggy they get right after you've been chewing on them for an hour and they stick to fabric and just about everything they touch. It's a nice surprise when I go to pick one up and it slimes my hand. I truly appreciate that... A LOT!

Thank you mail person for brining me awesome junk mail and bills everyday. I know that someday you're going to bring me something truly amazing like a nice big fat check or a free cruise. Those have all probably just gotten lost somewhere and will eventually make it to my nice, black mail box. Until then, I will continue to enjoy carrying in arm-fuls of adds and coupon packets and other useless mail, only to throw it away immediately in my trash.

Thank you credit card company for the nice $35 late fee charge you gave me last month. It was such a nice surprise! I look forward to paying it with great anticipation! What can I do to get one next month as well, because I will be sure to do that. For some reason, I thought you received my payment telepathically when I THOUGHT about sending in the payment and then got distracted by my baby, the food cooking ont he stove, my dog peeing in the house and my husband playing rock band. Please accept my gratitude for being so understanding when I miss a payment by a couple of days. I appreciate the rewards of having a line of credit with your company and look forward to many, many, many more years of paying you off...

Thank you strangers who come up to me and my baby in public and touch her hands and cheeks with your hands. I know you mean the best and that you probably didn't think about the fact that your hands have been all over the place and you're now touching my newborn baby's hands with them and that she will be putting them in her mouth later on and ingesting all your germs. I will happily send you the bill from the doctor's office when this happens.

Thank you shower curtain rod for falling down on a daily basis. The loud sound you make when you fall to the floor is so startling that it gives me the feeling that something horrible and scary is happening. I love waking up to your sound in the middle of the night and thinking someone is breaking into our house. You and the ice maker are great middle-of-the night noise makers who give me lots of great scares. I enjoy that so much.

Thank you black scuff mark on the floor in my room. Your presence is appreciated. I don't know what I would do if you finally washed off during one of my cleaning attempts. I frequently go into the room just to look and make sure you are there. Please let me know if you every leave. We can throw you a party.


So who/what would you like to thank and give your sincere appreciation too? I'm sure I'll have more to come next week after my first week back at school. :=)

Change is in the air...

So I've listed several things I'm wanting to do/change in my life. I figured I would give an update as to what has gotten done so far and what I'm at least attempting to work on getting done.

Quiet time - getting better at it. It totally gets thrown off if Brooklyn has a bad night's sleep and I end up sleeping later and then wake up already behind. I know I should still make the time for it, but I'm not good at that yet. I will get better.

Eating at home more - we're doing better! I did one week's worth of cooking with my e-mealz menu and we went grocery shopping yesterday for another week's worth of menus. I didn't cook one today but I plan on it tomorrow.

Bills - we're current on everything but got a couple of new lab bills from the hospital stay - ugh! We're staying on top of things though. Waylon had some extra school loan money left over after his tuition was paid so we're using some of that to get ahead. I know...naughty.

Savings account/Brooklyn account - the savings account for our vacation is opened. I haven't opened one for Brooklyn yet though. That will happen in the next week hopefully.

De-clutter my house - this will be a long-term goal. We are starting to get things looking more organized though. We went to IKEA today and got a new desk, a coffee table with storage space and two new end tables and lamps to go on it. We also got an area rug for our living room. Everything looks great in it's place and I spent a lot of time today organizing things in the office. I also got something to organize the bills. It's helping. Again though, this will take a while to do.

Putting more time into my Mary Kay - I have definitely stepped it up a notch in this area. I'm going to all the meetings my schedule allows me to. I've also stepped out and approached a couple of people I've never met and gave them my business card. I went to a few neighbors this past week and introduced myself and gave them some samples. I'm trying to drum up some skin care class parties but this is proving to be harder than I thought. People are just so busy these days and I'm not convincing enough I guess. Either way, I'm putting more time and effort into it and that has got to help.

Developing a better relationship with my husband - This is obviously a life long commitment. We HAVE spent more time together and gone on a couple of "dates" to the movies lately. We try to have some alone time every day regardless of what time it is by the time Brooklyn is down and sleeping. 

Exercise - this one I'm putting some extra effort into. I've joined the Watauga rec center and gone to work out 3 times now. Yesterday I got a fit pass which allows me to take the classes they offer. I'm going to start a boot camp class tomorrow that goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5-6. This will work perfectly with my school schedule. School gets out at 3:48 everyday and that gives me time to grade a little after school and then get to the rec center. I'll pick up at least another day during the week, probably Friday and do a normal workout on an aerobic machine. I really want to get in shape and get my figure back that I had several years ago. It's a big expectation but I can do it if I work hard enough and cut out crappy food and eat healthier. 

So there you have my update on how I'm changing my life. 

Brooklyn continues to develop and grow and amazes us every day with he beautiful smile. She is so responsive now to when we talk to her and interact with her. She smiles regularly on purpose and is enjoying looking around and seeing her surroundings a lot more. Her favorite way to be held is facing forward so she can see everything going on. We got her some swaddling blankets and a little thing for her to lay on in her bed that keeps her from rolling over and elevates her head a little. She is sleeping a lot better now, although last night didn't go so well. Tonight she seems to be doing much better and I hope she continues to sleep straight on through till 4am at least. She is so big now and I'm almost positive that by the time we go in for her 2 month check up in a week and a half she is going to be 14 or 15 pounds! I swear the girl is a chunk!! She's also just so long! She's definitely not going to be a small girl. She will be tall and substantial. lol. I feel sorry for her.

I will post pictures of our new living room set up and stuff as soon as we get the old stuff out of the way and things are a bit tidier. Right now it looks a lot better than it did before but it's still not to where I would like it to be.

For now my words will have to be enough to paint the picture in your mind... (smirks

A week from today I will be returning to the work force. As much as I would like to say that I'm completely depressed about it, I can't. Being home all these weeks with Brooklyn and even the several weeks before having her has shown me that I'm not cut out to be a strictly stay at home mom. This doesn't mean that it's still not my goal to be one, I just realize that when I DO become one, I will need something else to do to keep my sanity. A hobby, a group of friends to meet with, a women's Bible study, Mary Kay. I absolutely cannot just stay home all day, every day, and just keep a house and take care of my child. At least not right now. I'm actually looking forward to going back to work and being on a schedule and having something to do that makes me feel a little more productive. Don't get me wrong: spending time with my daughter has been wonderful. The problem is that I don't get anything else around the house done when I'm at home with her. All I do is sit and look at her and hold her and think about all the stuff that needs to be done. But I don't do it. At least not until my mom comes over and takes over watching the baby while I get stuff done.

So here's to me returning to work in a week. I hope my classes are all in order and caught up and settled into their daily routine. If they aren't, I will understand. Sometimes it's hard for a sub to get the routine going for a teacher if it isn't their own routine and they don't know exactly what it's supposed to look and feel like. I look forward to meeting my students and, gasp, teach! lol I never in a million years thought I would be saying this if you asked me about it at the end of school last year. Sigh...things change so quickly....

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As though we don't have enough new stuff to deal with around these parts, we added another one yesterday. We welcomed a beautiful, shiny black lab into our family. He's 1 day older than Brooklyn (I thought that was pretty cool) and he's an absolutely beautiful dog. He is already bigger than Rowf, which isn't hard to be, and he has a very cute personality. His name is Cash. At least for now. This is Waylon's dog and he will be an outside dog. He will also be a catalyst to make Rowf into an outside dog. Now that Rowf has a new friend to play with who will always be outside, Rowf will always be outside too. He doesn't like this idea just yet. He doesn't understand why suddenly he is having to sleep and play outside all day when he was enjoying his domain inside the house. He still thinks he's the big dog around here which will change soon enough once Cash hits a big growth spurt. Rowf won't stand a chance. Cash has obviously never been inside a house because he walks very awkwardly, as though he was afraid the floor was going to fall out from underneath him, when he is inside. Once outside, he runs and frolics like a normal puppy. I think he really thinks these tile floors are the strangest thing he's ever walked on. So this means we're back to puppy training and all that goes with it.

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As we speak, Brooklyn is sleeping snugly and deeply on her new wedge pad and in her new swaddler blanket. I'm not sure why it took me so long to buy both of these things but they seem to be working like a charm with her right now. She has been sleeping for the past hour and a half without so much as a peep! She has been a very fidgety sleeper as I have mentioned before. She would fall asleep only to wake herself up with her startle reflex or she would rub her face alot with her hands and knock her pacifier out of her mouth. Now her hands are tightly wrapped against her body and she is unable to do that anymore!

I'm not sure what is going on with my computer but I have had to re-type some stuff several times and it keeps deleting it!! I must be hitting a button and not realizing it. I'm going to stop here so I don't do it again! I'm tired of typing the same thing over and over again! Grr!

I will be making a post soon that was suggested by my sister. I'm not going to give away what it till be about, BUT, it will be cute and fun and involve pictures. Stay tuned!!

My baby girl turned 7 weeks today. I can't even believe it. She is getting bigger before our eyes. Today I went and did a facial on a friend and saw her beautiful daughter, Katelyn, who was born one day before Brooklyn. Katelyn looked so tiny compared to Brooklyn!! When I saw her, I thought to myself "I have a HUGE baby!!" lol. Granted, Katelyn's mom is a small girl so she'll probably take after her mom and be dainty and delicate. Unfortunately for Brooklyn, she seems to be taking after me. I'm not dainty or delicate in any way. I'm the opposite of that, in fact. I'm tall and large! Brooklyn doesn't stand a chance poor thing...

Currently, Brooklyn can be found smiling a lot! She makes our hearts melt with her beautiful smile. We act a fool around her just to see a little grin. We act a fool either way, but we are really foolish to get a smile from her. She also loves her bouncer so she ends up spending a lot of time in there when we are trying to get stuff done around the house. She is starting to warm up to her swing and has taken a couple of little cat naps in it recently. This makes me happy because the swing is a very nice swing given to me by the cheerleaders last year. Brooklyn has finally fallen into somewhat of a schedule. She wakes up once in the middle of night around 4am and takes a bottle and then will sleep till 8am. Then she'll feed every 2 1/2 - 3 hours after she wakes up in the morning, unless she takes a longer nap. She'll nap several times a day and typically doesn't get put "down" at night until we go to bed, which has ended up being around 1am most nights. This will be changing very quickly when I go back to work. I won't be staying up that late anymore. Her schedule will most like change then and she might get up earlier in the night. Once I'm back at work Waylon will be taking the middle of the night feedings more because he doesn't get up early on Monday, Wednesdays or Fridays. He only has school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and doesn't work till the afternoons. That will be nice when he takes over during the night. Right now, I do most of it, only because he is working and going to school and I'm not really doing anything. lol. 

Brooklyn has been doing a lot better in the digestion area. She is doing a lot better about expelling her gas and having at least one BM a day - today she has had three. I just changed an amazingly messy diaper. She had a very pleased/relieved look on her face after that. 

She's still very fidgety when she is falling asleep or in a lighter stage of sleep. She also likes to suck on her fists a lot. Usually it's when she's hungry, however, she will do it sometimes when she isn't hungry. I think she just likes the taste of her fists. 

She keeps us very entertained now with all her cooing and gurgling and smiling. She stays awake and alert a lot longer now and I think she's really starting to notice her surroundings. She will hold her head up and look around the room when I'm holding her up and it's really cute to see her head bobbing around unsteadily. She's definitely going to develop those neck muscles because she's constantly holding her head up. 

I'm dreading going back to work - let's just get that clear. Apparently my students have done very well for my sub so that makes me feel better about not being there for the first three weeks of school. I've been trying to make it over to school once a week to meet with my sub and see how the kids are doing. It's going to feel weird coming in 3 weeks into the semester but it won't be the first time I've had to do that so at least this time I know what to expect.

Waylon continues to show what a great daddy he is. He loves to spend time with his little girl and talk to her in a silly voice. I love seeing them together.

Here are some recent pictures we've taken of her.

Our little sleeping beauty!

Sorry it took so long for me to finally post again. Things have been busy around here! We had our first women's Bible study this past Monday night and we had an awesome turnout and a great time. I think this study is really going to be a blessing to all of us.

I continue to press forward in my goals. I've already gotten going on two of them this week! I got my rec center membership today and went and had my first workout. I've also stepped out and become more bold in my Mary Kay business. I am going for the free car! That's my new goal in that area so wish me luck!! I will keep you posted as to where I am at reaching that goal. :-)  Anyone who wants to help me to reach that goal just click on my website link on the right sidebar. I'll be more than happy to help you with all your skin care and cosmetic needs. 

We are now going to watch 17 Again. I've already seen it but Waylon hasn't so we rented it. It's so cute and funny. I was excited to watch it again. Zac Efron is quite a cutie...