whew.

i feel like i am developing narcolepsy. sooo tired these days! and hoping petey will get back to sleeping through the night again once i am done working and dragging him around town in the early hours of the morning!

and yip yip yippee----briana is coming on friday!!!!!

i love mail! and my best gal...

you know that kind of friend....?
the one who knows you so well - sometimes better than you know yourself...
she knows the questions to ask based on the tone of your voice (and the ones to not ask, I suppose)....
that kind of friend who makes you smile and laugh so hard you shoot liquids out your nose....
the gal that you enjoy any kind of day as long as it was spent with her....
the wonder woman whose awesomeness makes you feel awesome just being her friend even though you know you are just stealing her awesomeness...
the lady who, no matter how far away, it feels like she's still your neighbor...
and sometimes you actually think to call her up and invite her over for a slice of fresh baked bread...
and who you desperately WISH you really could have her over to enjoy an afternoon of chatting and sunshine (and fresh baked bread!) on your patio. today...
she always has something new and exciting to share with you....some great discovery you must try...or some story that she's been dying to tell....and its always the best news you've heard all day!
well, i have a bestie who is seriously so full of sunshine its insanity...
SHE is that kind of friend. and she just totally made my day!
alie, my birthday package arrived - and i love it! and i love you, thanks for thinking of me! :)

camouflage baby

daddy is home! just in time for bedtime stories....

which one is your favorite?

i'm sorry. i couldn't decide. so here they (all) are. blowing bubbles. sticking out tongue. skeptical. crazy professor hat flopping off. somewhat surprised. and downright cute. which one do YOU like the most?

a monumental night!

petey rolled over last night for the first time! it was amazing. i got tears in my eyes-i didn't know if it was due to excitement or amazement that he's gotten so big so fast or sadness that reidy wasn't there to see it. luckily for reid, now that he's discovered it, he quite loves to do it! so he'll be seeing him roll...and roll...and roll in the weeks to come (until he discovers the next best thing!).
i'm working on a video to share...

in the meantime, we're enjoying a lovely breeze and bright sunshine coming in through the windows. and this bright sunshine is showing me just how very nasty dirty my windows are - so my next trick will be cleaning them. not all of them, just the ones that we look out....on the first floor. its been quite a productive day and since petey is taking good naps i've gotten busy dusting, vacuuming and scrubbing the downstairs tile. now that my little man is on his way to being mobile (ie: all over the house/floor) i guess its time to pay a bit more attention to the cleaning. by the way, the vacuuming training for baxter is going terribly. any suggestions?

reid's in phoenix/austin again this weekend, hopefully doing lots and lots and lots of flying so he is a) happy and b) well on his way to his quals.

my excitement of the day (other than finally having a clean house) is that i got in the mail, as a present to myself, a cupcake tree! and....some super adorable easter shaped cookie cutters. this will be perfect for my "i get out of the navy soon party". :) yep, i got my orders this week - may 1 and i will be free to say i am petey's mommy every day, all day. woo hoo!!! and yes, briana - we will definitely make "the-best-sugar-cookies-in-the-world" when you are here visiting next weekend and make them in some sweet eastery shapes with those new cutters. can't wait!

oh this melts my heart-

december photo shoot

this is the life!

another day in paradise

we had so much fun on monday playing wedding all day! petey slept through most of it, but made an appearance at the end of our celebratory lunch. :)

now its back to normal around here. we are still wrestling with strange new sleep schedules which i mostly blame on work. he's bouncing back and forth between too much sleep and not enough - and emily and i are doing our best to get him situated right there in the middle of the two extremes. this weekend he did wonderful which makes me blame it all on work and having to wake petey up before he's ready to wake up. only one more month, little man!

for now, we're getting ready for another weekend of "just the three of us" (me, petey and baxter). daddy is going out on cross country again, hoping all his planes work and he gets to go for his sake. for my sake, i really wish baxter would learn how to vacuum to keep up with his shedding. jeesh.

the wedding cake project

my friends got married today.
and i baked them a wedding cake.
this was a HUGE first for me.
i was really nervous!!!

i used Smitten Kitchen's swiss buttercream icing and Bakerella's moist yellow cake. the middle layer of three was the good ol' Goofy cake recipe i've been eating my entire life. yum!

it turned out lovely - except for the missing the timer on the baking of the cakes. darn multi-tasking.

they weren't destroyed, just not quite as perfectly delicious and moist (sorry Ang-that's twice!) as I had hoped. but it looked quite pretty, especially since it was my first time using those fun little cake decorating tuby-things. pardon my pathetic bakers' jargon. :)

petey and reid baked the chocolate layer together.
congratulations to our wonderful friends!

daddy is home!!!

ok, so he had to work today, but still...he's home!
i'm sorry, but this is just too precious. daddy sure does love his boy.

from my little pumpkin

sweet little sign from my petey (thanks adam and emily!) along with flowers - waiting for me when i came to get him after work. what wonderful friends i am blessed with!

the container store coupon

if you are into it, here's a 25% off coupon for the container store from Oprah! :)

its ok

Slow down and enjoy life.
It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast--
you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.
Eddie Cantor

thanks to Ella McDoniels blog for this perfect reminder in the middle of the week that has felt a bit like a perfect storm. my petey is teaching a bit about this too. its ok. its ok if the routine changes. its ok if his new normal is a bit harder than his old normal. its ok if i cuddle and rock instead of hustling and bustling. its ok if i stop and smile at him and tickle his toes instead of....
washing the windows
painting the table
planting new flowers
buying new running shoes
scrubbing the floor
doing the laundry
its all ok. my being-my purpose-my priority is being the best mom to my petey and meeting his needs and giving him love and teaching him trust and helping him learn to to be at ease. and in order to do that, i have to be too.
so a reminder to me. the list on the fridge is a nice reminder when you have some free time. but that's all it is. a reminder of things i want to do. and will get to. some-day.
thanks to everyone who sent lots of love and birthday wishes my way!

disregard the spitup :)

yes, both parents are watching this happen....yes we both saw him spit up but it was too cute to interrupt the video....and yes, i could edit it out but i don't know how yet. so for now, you get the raw, un-cut video footage of baxter deciding petey makes a great pillow and not caring if he gets punched in the face occasionally (and yes, baxter totally positioned himself without any encouragement or supervision). i just love how his little head bobs up and down as petey inhales and exhales. they are best friends. enjoy-

teaching the kiddo healthy sleep habits

this book is totally rocking my world as far as healthy sleep habits for children is concerned. i am learning a TON - specifically how the right kind/duration of sleep at the right times affects all kinds of developmental things - and specifically how parental interference and/or missing the child's sleepiness cues can totally throw off the kids entire sleep cycle, causing them to become chronically fussy and actually making it MORE difficult for them to sleep. i can't stop reading it - except i have to to go play with my petey now. anyway, if you have a little one (and honestly I think adults can benefit from applying some of this information to their OWN sleep schedules) - it addresses premies to high school students, so it totally applies to all "kids"....i totally recommend giving it a read.

someday

ideas for a childrens book i'd like to write someday:

1) baxter and the burrito (family dog meeting new baby)

2) today my two year old got his first job (a mom watching her kid grow up by the second)

3) what is the strange smell in the garage (self-explanatory - and real life situation today! and why do wierd things like this happen when daddy is not home? did i miss the philosophy class on that or something?)


Happy St. Patrick's Day!

somebody looks sleepy

i forgot to post this from last week. i love how you can totally tell when he starts to space out right before bedtime....he is a good snuggler when he gets like this. :) this was just after bathtime. what a sweetie pie.

we miss you, daddy!

the right kind of sunday

all indications are we had just the right kind of slow start to the day.

and now daddy is on the road to Yuma, AZ for the week. we miss him already!

i must say, despite the slow start to the day...i also have to admit that i made myself busy as a bee for a few hours before reid left and got an unhealthy amount of joy from weeding the patio and cleaning the house. its been a long time coming. every time i look outside at the patio or glance at the floor with baxter-fur-balls rolling around...it smacks me in the face - "help, we need some attention here"....but i'm usually toting petey around or getting baxter ready to head for a walk and there's no time to dedicate to killing the weeds or cleaning the toilet. that's just the way it is now. so when i DO get time to get things clean, fur-free, all weeds removed (and prepped for new spring flower planting-yay!), it just sends shivers of giddiness through my happy heart. so, call me sick, but i am totally enjoying lounging around my clean, clean house this afternoon. yippee!

an update on "things"

work is fine. just the right amount of busy and just the right amount of boring and exactly the right amount of anticipation of May 15th. its just fine.

but my oh my, there was no way i could anticipate just HOW MUCH i would miss my little man every day. how much the dread of dropping him off would start creeping into my heart the moment the alarm woke me this morning. how much the sadness would seep through my veins as i watched him playing on his mat alone while i tended to other, unfortunately necessary things at the end of the day. but how much absolute, pure joy would totally overwhelm me every single moment knowing i have this precious, precious gift in my life.

never did i understand what it meant to be a mother. until i was one. and they say "it changes everything". and when they say it, they always say it with an all-knowing chuckle and a secret negative connotation (or that's how i always took it). "enjoy it while you can" they always say. "go see a movie with your husband while you can" they always chant. "sleep now"... but you know, despite all those warnings, i love that he changed everything. absolutely love it. and really, truly - there is no negative connotation. i know that now. every second. every diaper explosion. every bottle leaking milk everywhere moment. every accidental-middle-of-the-night wake up....every sweet sweet cuddle with the babe as he drifts off to sleep midway through his bottle. every big toothless grin that erupts on his face when mommy's face appears before him after work. every sweet baby grip he has on my fingers. every accidental rediscovery of just how perfectly his thumb fits into his mouth and fixes everything. touching his own hair. laughing at his daddy's voice. trying to roll over. talking to anyone who will listen. watching baxter move around the room. its all absolute magic!

and i am so thankful for this gift.

too cute to handle.

age game

one of these babies is 5 months old.
one of them is almost 3 months old.
can you guess who???
(these are the babies from our childbirth class - we had a reunion today!)

our tiny little weekend

daddy is on cross country this weekend, so its just me and my petey-poo (and baxter, of course!). our first adventure of the weekend was a huge extravaganza at the grocery store. petey loved it! he rode along in our baby carrier, peeking out over the shoulder straps, watching all the pretty colored things on the shelves go by as i went through the aisles. unfortunately i forgot my quite extensive shopping list so we have to bop back in for a few things tomorrow.
the rest of the weekend will be pretty quiet and pretty relaxing. for now, while its just me, i am going to take mary ann's advice and put the cleaning off until june when i'm not working anymore. i may change my mind once reid is home and able to pay attention to peter pan, but while its just us i am taking the liberty as recommended. instead, we will sing songs and lay on the floor and watch the world go by together. what fun! :)

daddy thought he was quite clever when arranging this photo...

I survived my first day away from baby

today i went back to work....ugh.
but thanks to adam's wonderful fiance, emily - it was alright.
it was hard. i hated leaving him for the day. but was comforted that he was with a dear friend.
more of the same tomorrow! :)

GOTR-

check out this great after school program - Girls on the Run.
i'm volunteering at a site in Rancho Bernardo twice a week, it is fantastic!
you can easily help support this program in many ways, especially as a running buddy to run a 5K with a young girl at the end of their season. the program is all about instilling self-esteem, building a healthy mental and physical lifestyle and giving these young girls positive adult role models/mentors. i'm having so much fun so far - and petey gets to join the fun too!

then and now

this is 2.5 months old......and the "same" shot at 1 week old.

my oh my.

growing like a weed!

more discoveries

ILL-INI

going to adam and emily's today to watch the illinois basketball game!