It Was Bound to Happen

Today I showered, did my make-up, got dressed, and blew my hair dry (which has become a rarity these days). Half way through straightening my hair my straightener stopped working. I ran around frantically looking for another outlet (thinking that was the problem). My hair was half way done, straight on the bottom frizz-frozz on the top. But the red light wouldn't come on. I had to be frumpalicious for the rest of the day.

I found solace in this

and in a hair tie.

Goodbye Chi flat iron... we had a good 5 years together.

Life as I Know It

I had all these random pictures and ideas of things that I wanted to post. I didn't want to write 27 semi-interesting blog posts, so I decided to throw them all together. I had no idea how I was going to relate the pictures to one another, but once they were all uploaded I realized that these pictures show what my life is like as a Mom. So here you go, my day to day life in pictures.

Posing before church

Getting help sorting the laundry

And watching G-money get a huge kick out of it

Feeding time... and attitude. 4 months going on 14?

Gracie playing with her feet during changing time

Attempting to send pictures to Aaron while he is at work

Spending time on the computer only to realize that Grace is trying to escape from her Bumbo

Play time and moments that make you laugh

Taking a "pool day" by getting in our swim suits and hopping in the tub

Loving the water

Realizing that the bumbo isn't the only thing Grace will try to escape from

I'm loving the fact that I get to spend my days with Grace. Its hard, frustrating, entertaining, and wonderful all at the same time.

Christmas Cards

I love Christmas cards. Its one of my favorite things about the holiday season. I actually enjoy getting the mail because I'm excited about who sent cards out that year.

All of my decorations are put away (and have been for weeks) but I can't seem to muster the strength to take my Christmas cards down, maybe by Valentines Day. Maybe.

Dear Milk Based Formula,

I strongly disklike you.

Unlovingly,

Kara

When I called Grace's nurse and told her about the red spots (see previous post) she told me that it was chafing due to the rice cereal. I had a gut instinct that it had nothing to do with the rice cereal and had more to do with the formula. So yesterday I replicated the circumstances and spoon fed Grace, but left the rice cereal out so it was purely formula. About ten minutes into it the red splotches and bumps showed up. And about 30 seconds after that Grace was in the bath. Poor baby.

I'm still breastfeeding but we have now switched to soy formula as our back-up (Thanks to the advice of many wonderful ladies). I have an appointment on the 2nd and I'm interested to see what the doctor thinks.

Resolutions

It's resolution time. To be honest, I don't ever remember making New Years resolutions. I'm sure I thought to myself "Oh in the new year I should do this..." but I don't ever remember actually setting a goal and doing it (even if it was for just the first day or first week). This year I actually thought of goals in December that I wanted to accomplish and narrowed down the results to just two resolutions.

1.) I want to be more honest. Not in the sense that I'm a pathological liar and need help... but stick with me here.

First I want to be more honest with myself in regards to why I'm doing a certain thing or not doing a certain thing. I don't want to make excuses for myself as to why, for example, I'm not doing the dishes when I walk by them. Its not because I'm tired or that I have other things to do, I'm not doing them because I'm lazy and would rather sit on my computer. I want to make myself accountable for the things I'm doing. Does that make sense?

Second, I want to be honest with other people. For example, if I'm mad at Aaron for whatever reason and he asks "Are you upset?" I would like to answer "Yes." There is no reason for him to ask me 9,000 times if I'm mad when clearly I'm acting that way but saying that nothing is wrong. There is no point in beating around the bush. This goes along with situations where people ask me "Do you care if I....(insert something here)?" and I say no, I want the person to believe me. I don't want a situation where they ask "Are you sure?" over and over.

Its kind of an obscure resolution but its one that I definitely want to work on.

2.) I want to/am going to run a half marathon. This is something that I have wanted to do for awhile and I thought that after having Grace this would be a great way to get back into shape. I wanted to make sure that I survived the first week of training before I declared to the world that I was going to do this. Thankfully, I survived. I ran more in this week than any other week of my life. At times I thought that I would die while running, but I'm keeping the pace slow and manageable. I'm pretty excited and insanely scared all at the same time.

With the help of the running schedule Aaron's Dad put together for me:

And the jogging stroller, complete with sleeping baby, that my friend is letting me borrow until I get my own (hopefully).

I think that I'll be ready to run the half marathon by the summer. Keep your fingers crossed.

Heres to you 2010!

You Know What This Means...

Photo Booth pictures can only mean one thing...

We're such a lovely couple

"I give you kisses with my WEE little lips"

Grace face

Santa (aka Mema and Poppy) gave me a Mac for my Christmas present this year. I'm in love.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I am one happy girl.

Once you go Mac, you never go back.

Rice Cereal

At Grace's last appointment our doctor advised us to start giving Grace rice cereal (More so for practice rather than supplementation).

We purchased the proper equipment

And got to work. Grace braced for the challenge

She was a little confused at first, but for the most part she did well. Apparently there was a purple theme to this experience.

She even finished the whole bowl, half of which was in the bottom of her bumbo, but the bowl was empty and thats what counts, right?

Day 2 of the rice cereal was a little different. The day before, I pumped so we were able to mix the rice cereal with breast milk. This day, however, my pump stuff was in the dish washer so we decided to use formula. Grace isn't a huge fan of the taste but I kept feeding it to her. Her neck started to look red and raw. I commented to Aaron that the rice cereal that was running down her face was making her neck chafe. After a few more minutes I noticed that Grace was breaking out in hives and mean looking red spots all over her body and especially under her neck. We stopped feeding her and immediately put her in the tub. Her skin didn't react this way when we mixed the rice cereal with breast milk, so it almost seems like she has some sort of allergy to the formula we got. I took some pictures so that I could show them to my doctor. Sorry Grace, they aren't the most modest.

I threw this one in here because she looked cute. (minus the hair on her arm)

We kept a close eye on her for the rest of the night to make sure that she didn't have any breathing issues (which she didn't), and thankfully the hives went away within 30 minutes.

**Our doctor's nurse informed us that it probably isn't an allergic reaction. It still was a scary weird experience.

I tried the rice cereal with water the next night and she didn't react to it. Have any of your kids had reactions to rice cereal/formula on their skin?

4 Months

Gracie hit her 4 month mark while we were in D.C. for the New Year. I'm a wee bit behind the times so I didn't do my normal photo shoot, but here is one of my favorite pictures of Grace. It was before church, sans dress (for obvious reasons).

4 month stats:

Height- 25 inches- 75th percentile

Weight- 12lbs 8oz- 25th percentile

Her doctor said, "Grace is what you call petite"

So far, I think that 4 months has been my favorite phase so far. Grace is a lot more animated and interactive and we can see a lot more of her personality coming out.

Here are a few things that Gracie has been up to this month

She's learning to ham it up for the camera (or she's a lot easier to coax into hamming it up)

She finally fits into her St. Croix baby bracelet

Her hair looks brown but is actually growing in blond (if you look really closely at the top of her head you can see the blond hair sticking up)

She wakes up happy and loves to "talk" and babble in her crib

Her eyes still haven't settled on a color. Although she does have quite a few brown spots.

They could end up looking like mine

Or perhaps in a surprise turn of events they could look like Aaron's...

She is also starting to eat rice cereal (post to come)

And only rolls over when she is really really mad.

Heres to four months Grace, and to many many more.

2009 In Reveiw

2009 has been a lovely year for our family. Here is a rundown of what happened:

January
We moved to a two bedroom apartment

February
Aaron celebrated his 25th birthday and we announced that we had a little one on the way

March
Mema and Poppy made the trek from D.C. to visit the Bay area (and their favorite kids.... right?)

April
We found out that we had a little girl on the way.

May
I celebrated my 23rd birthday and we made a trip to Utah (Matt and I are the coolest)

June
We went to Beach Week in Virginia Beach. I busted out my first maternity swimsuit

July
We celebrated our first 4th of July in the Bay Area and got excited for our little one to arrive

August
I had my last month of work with Blake and the Zangers

September
Grace Katherine arrived on September 2nd!

October
Grace turned 1 month and celebrated her first Halloween

November
We had Thanksgiving in Phoenix, and I realized that Phoenix is awesome.

December
Gracie celebrated her first Christmas in Utah and first NewYear's in Virginia.

We're really looking forward to the adventures that 2010 has to bring.