Updates Galore

I have been so busy it has been impossible to even get pictures uploaded. Ugh. This one is actually from about a month ago when Cousin Morgan visited. The girls had a matching outfit from a family member that we needed to get a snapshot in. I spend most of that Sunday concocting a studio in my kitchen. The pictures turned out pretty good considering we had a nine month old, a ten month old and a four year old in the shots. The above picture Uncle Wayne photoshopped and spiced up the colors. The look like little angels, or should I say little Reneesemes (only twilight fans will understand!)?

I haven't given a SBD update in like two weeks. Mainly I packed on a few pounds in Vegas so I wanted to give myself a catch up week. I didn't do too bad on vacation. Even switching to Vodka/Soda which is carb free. It took a while to get used to but the taste grew on me. When I did cheat (with the hashbrowns) I tried to limit myself to a bite or two. Michael is still doing great. He even plays basketball a few times a week at lunch. I have been awful about exercising unless you count walking a million miles up and down the strip in Vegas.

Total lost:

Michael: 30 lbs

Stephaine: 18 lbs

We have both been feeling the effects on our wardrobes. Shirts that were impossibly tight on Michael now swallow him and I put on a dress this weekend I had not worn since my high school graduation. It still needed some spanx but I got it on! There is not much left in my closet that I cannot wear. It is awesome. Even my stuff that was small in starting to fit. So we are doing great on the diet front. Still losing. Only one thing might lead to a stall for me. Which brings me to my next update.

I am officially weaning Lily. It is actually quite heartbreaking in some areas. One area it is not? Pumping. Hallelujah I am done. I packed up my pump and all associated supplies last night. Thank god. I won't miss that anymore. Now maybe I can get to bed before 11pm every night. At this point, after my Vegas trip I just don't have much of a supply. The trip killed it.

I have only cut out pumping this week. I would like to continue to nurse her in the morning and evenings but for the past several mornings even after nursing she wants a little more milk so I have had to give her a small bottle of formula. So I am not sure how much longer I will last. That is the part I am sad about. I really enjoy nursing. If I was a stay at home mom I would nurse her as long as possible. I mean not ridiculously long. Who needs a toddler unbuttoning their shirt? But longer than this! I don't think ten months is anything to be ashamed of though. I did better than most of my friends. I know very few that make it a year.

She is eating more and more table food anyway and hardly shows interest in a bottle/me anymore. It wouldn't have been long without the vacation. She is very independent apparently. There isn't much we don't give her at this point. Just the usual no peanuts, honey or eggs. I also don't let her have sugary foods. But pretty much everything else is fair game. She eat two meals a day at daycare and one snack. We wanted to start transitioning her second bottle at daycare to a sippy cup (she gets on bottle and one sippy cup a day there) but with me leaving she regressed a little. It was to be expected. With the weaning I wouldn't be surprised if this gets pushed back a little longer since she will be getting two more bottles a day instead of nursing (if she chooses). So we will wait a few weeks and try again. My goal is to have her at a morning bottle, 2 sippy cups during the day, and one bottle at night before the end of April.

Lily is so close to walking it's not even funny. She is standing for longer periods of time and trying to move her feet but immediately falling. It doesn't dishearten her though. She keeps trying again. She is pretty fast behind her push toys. If only she would figure out how to turn it around! The game of running into walls and turning to look at us to turn is getting old and damaging to my baseboards!

Vocally we have seen some new sounds recently. Including "dawll" which I think is 'ball' and a lot more Mama. She has been saying Mama but usually when upset or randomly. But now? I hear it at least a few times a day. Also a random "th" sound. Not sure what that will turn into. One day I was sure we heard 'Hi' several times but I have not heard it repeated beyond that episode.

Her new favorite game? Catch! Michael and I will toss her a ball (her favorite toy by far) and ask her to throw it back. She proceeds to pick it up and drop it behind her back. It is adorable! I need to get a video of this.

Another random development. She has been peek a boo for a while but I think she recently figured out that we cannot see her unless she can see our eyes. So she 'peeks' around everything to look at you in the eyes. It is too sweet. For example if I lay on the floor with my head laying down in my arms she gets down and peeks under my arms to see me. As soon as our eyes meet her whole face lights up with a smile. That is my favorite game!

This weekend Michael and I are having a yard sale to clean up the house for spring cleaning. Getting rid of some furniture and such to clear room for Lily's mobility. We are getting rid of one of the two beds in our bonus room to make way for the playroom transition. The funny thing is I thought it would be years before she would be ready for that but I am ready to isolate the drama into one area.

This yard sale will including packing up the baby stuff she has outgrown. Including the exersaucer. Oh that thing was a lifesaver and I wish she still tolerated it. But I will be glad to get it out of my floor. I am also packing up our last swing (travel swing). She will not be strapped into anything unless it has food on the tray. She did take to walking around the exersaucer which made it official we were packing it up because it is not stable for that kind of use.

Whew. i know I missed some stuff but they gets you semi caught up. Upcoming? Easter and Michael goes to Vegas.

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Vegas Baby!

Parental Advisory: This is about a bachelorette party in Vegas...so don't be surprised at what you see :)

I got back from the girl's trip to Vegas on Tuesday. I am still not truly recovered from my jet lag nor is my liver fully functioning yet but it was worth it. What was not worth it? The four hour layover I had to save eighty bucks. BOTH WAYS! Ugh.

Luckily I had rented some movies on my iTouch to ease the pain of the time passing. BTW LOVE the new Twilight movie. Well not nearly as much as the book but it was still good and I think they did a good job casting. In addition I also downloaded the audiobooks to help pass the time. It worked. I dreamed of Edward Cullen through the majority of my plane dozing. That is never a bad dream.

We stayed at the Excalibur. We got a really good deal and a free upgrade once we got there. I am all about some medieval times and it has my infamous blackjack table so I was all about staying there. Last time we stayed at Luxor and all the tables were too expensive to gamble at. It was nice because the room was good and the tables were $5 at the Excalibur. Well you could usually find a five dollar table at least.

Overall the trip was fun, even though I more tired now than I was when I left. On average about five hours of sleep per night..not nearly enough for me. The other girls didn't gamble much (like 20 bucks!) so the last night I finally defected to plant myself at my favorite blackjack table for about six hours. Ten vodka sodas, many stumbly bathroom trips, and eighty dollars in chips won me all my spending money back. I left with 300 dollars cash to gamble/shop and came back with 341 dollars. Not bad eh? I think it was worth my MIA status. I had a lot of fun and still was back in the room in bed before 11pm. The earliest of all nights. Of course I had to get up at 4am to catch my flight.

It was SSOOO WINDY the day we went sight seeing. As apparent by our windblown hair. It was like walking in a wind tunnel.

On Saturday night we went to LAX for some celebrity sitings. We danced and danced and bought way to expensive drinks. But I did see Criss Angel. Does that count as a celeb? the other girls totally missed him but I saw him. Yes he is greasy looking.

No my hair did not grow a foot! It's my famous weave. Jessica Simpson Hair do piece. This was our sparkle night. We all tried to wear shiny outfits.

We stood in line for like forty five minutes to get in. It was really cool inside and I love to dance so I had a blast. There is nothing better than not having to talking and just dancing around.

One of our MANY self portraits of the trip. This must have been early in the night...we don't look too sweaty.

Notice the weave is gone? It really started getting itchy! So after we left the club I took it off. Amazingly my hair didn't look horrible. But at this point I had been up about twenty six hours straight and slightly intoxicated so I was about spent.

We also went to a male revue. The Thunder from Down Under was great! My only complaint...we should have upgraded to VIP for the ten extra dollars just to be closer to their hotness. Wow. And they all had accents. Australian accents. mmmmm.....Michele didn't make it much past the show that night. Mainly due to the happy hour we attended from 3-6 with all you can drink beer. Honestly I am surprised any of us made it to the show. If you every go to Vegas go to Blondies sports bar and do their happy hour. Worth it! We ate, we drank, we saw half naked men...does it get any better? This is also the night we dressed her up with "bachelorette attire"

That next morning was breakfast buffet day. Hence the hungover look on my face. I am not sure why in all the pictures we are giving thumbs up....it just sort of started. But this is a farce of a picture the Excalibur advertised with a woman eating at the buffet.

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Lauren Nicole

Love this site! She has great sales and giveaways too.

I think these makeup bags make the perfect bridesmaid gifts, or birthday gifts.

http://laurennicolegifts.blogspot.com/

Happy Shopping!

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SBD Week 4 recap

Michael had a goal from day one....get down to X weight and I am cheating with some sweet fried goodness from Zaxby's (his fav fast food restaurant). Well after a month on not one french fry he got to go eat them today for lunch! Yay for him....I hope he spends the rest of the day on the toilet from them. No that is mean! I am happy for him...although jealous!

Totals as of one month
Michael: 26 pounds
Stephaine 15.1 pounds

As mentioned earlier I reached prebaby weight last week and then some so it was a good week for me as well. I even cheated and had a handful of chips at the Mexican restaurant and a little blooming onion at Outback. Mmmmmm.

I haven't decided what weight I want to reach prior to cheating. Although this weekend I go to Vegas for four days so I def. see some cheating in my future in the form of large amounts of alcohol. I wonder if they have chocolate brownie flavored beer?

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9 Months Old

Lily turned 9 months this week! We celebrated by going to Portrait Innovations for some spring, Easter, and classic portraits made. It didn't go as smoothly as usual. Normally, Lily is smiley and happy and sits pretty, but this time we were not so lucky. I should preface with the fact that this appointment was at 6pm on Tuesday, right after daylight savings time, and we still had not gotten adjusted to the time change. I did everything I could to prepare her to get in a good mood. I fed her dinner at daycare including nursing and green beans. I let her take a half hour nap in the car and even sat in there a little longer so she could sleep. And when we got there she was not in a terrible mood but seemed a little shy (very unusual). It started spiralling out of control when I realized I was out of diapers. Strange since I just stocked the diaper bag. Luckily Michael found one hidden in the car. Then as soon as we set her down to take pictures she started screaming! Don't know why, but she did.

This is the perfect shot of how the shoot went

Maybe she is hungry? Yes that is a puff in her hand in the picture above. So I gave her another six ounce bottle that she scarfed down and about a whole jar of puffs. There are many pictures with a mouthful of puffs showing. It did get a little better. Not much though.








She did seem interested in the bunny. But seeing us sent her into a fit. I think she just wanted to be held. But we got a few good pictures. Not many smiles though. She is normally grinning ear to ear so I was a little disappointed.

I wanted some more classic pictures I could keep up year round so we did some chair and sitting shots. We didn't buy any of the chair shots but I love the "above shots" and got a black and white one to frame.

My favorite! Our version is zoomed in and centered

I loved the background on these! It was very springy and magical! I felt like she needed fairy wings. These are the only ones of her smiling. How did I get her to smile you asked. Well I beat daddy's head with a bell while he had a bucket on it. Don't worry Lily...Daddy in pain makes me smile too.

I bought this dress just for the hat and she wanted nothing to do with it and immediately threw it off. I think it bothered her ears.

9 Month Milestones:

-21 pounds

-Main nutrition is table food. Maybe three to four jars of baby food a week. Before we were doing three to four a day.

-Cruising between furniture and walls

-Clapping (working on high five now)

-DaDa is still favorite word. I think I even heard "No it's DaDa" but who knows :)

-Walking behind push toys

-Started her on small amounts of meat (mainly turkey and ham)

-Gets one bottle and one sippy cup of milk a day. Sippy cup of water with meals. Will hopefully replace the last bottle with a sippy cup in the next month to have her bottle weaned at ten months.

-12 month clothes

-Still cute as a button

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Hello Pre Baby Weight....I've Missed You

I know it's not my usual SBD update day but I gotta give a Holla to officially being back at my PreBaby weight. It took 9 months to put on 55 pounds and it took a birth and 9 months to get it off. To the day! Lily was 9 months on Tuesday.

Yay! (I am doing a happy dance now.) So my total is -13 pounds since I started a month ago.

I will say it redistributes but I am down 1.5 dress sizes and feeling great. I am completely out of maternity clothes. I will be packing those up this weekend. I still have some stuff that doesn't fit because of the "redistribution" but for the most part I can wear it all. And honestly the stuff I can't wear I probably shouldn't be wearing :)

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Boycotting Nickelodeon

I saw an article today that disturbed me concerning Chris Brown and The Kid's Choice awards. In light on the recent incident involving Chris Brown beating the crap out of his girlfriend. (See this detailed account of the event http://images.eonline.com/static/news/ pdf/ cbrownwarrant.pdf ) you would think that they would remove him from the nominations. This is a KIDS role model awards ceremony. Kids look up to these people, hence the reason they get to choose who is up for the award. Instead Nickelodeon released the following statement

"Like all our KCA nominees Chris Brown was nominated by kids several months ago based on his body of work as a performer, and the kids who vote will ultimately decide who wins in the category,"

Basically...the kids picked them so he's staying. I compare this to feeding kids dinner. You let them pick and they choose ice cream. Obviously this is an inappropriate choice for dinner so you remove that option and give more suitable options. That is your job as a parent! Or better yet as an adult. By keeping him in the nominations we are sending the message to our children that the cool, popular boys beat their girlfriends. Worse...that it is okay and you can still win awards and be praised after this sort of behavior. This is an outrage and a horrible message to our daughters and sons.

I for one will boycott this channel if something is not done. I know Lily is not old enough to appreciate the channel but someday she will be. And by then I wonder if they will get their priorities straight about the messages they send to young impressionable kids. With all the other things we have to worry about our kids getting from Hollywood like sexy clothes for young girls, getting pregnant as sixteen (Jamie Lynn?), now I have to worry about her looking up to woman beaters? I am expecting it to get worse as she gets older but channels like Nickelodeon do not make my life as a parent any easier.

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Spring is here!

I think spring has finally arrived! With the warmer weather we decided to spend some much needed time outside for most of Saturday. There was a church consignment sale that morning that I wanted to go to and we had promised our neighbor we would go to his soccer game. We got up bright and early for the busy day.

When we got to the soccer game our friend wasn't even there! Apparently year round schools had to make up their snow day from Monday on a Saturday! WTF?! I would boycott and not go. School on Saturday just ain't right!

But the park he was playing at was right near our house and they had a play yard so we took advantage and spent the morning there with Lily.

She LOVED the swing. Much like she does at our house. She didn't seem to be getting bored with it either. Unfortunately Mommy got bored so we had to switch it up. She just giggled while you pushed her.

The swings made me a little nervous because there is no buckle. She was leaning forward a lot too! But she just held on for dear life and couldn't wipe the smile off her face! I compare it to her sitting in the front of the grocery cart now. She loves that too! It's like a ride to her. She holds on tight and smiles. Oh to be so easily entertained.

We moved on to the slide and fortress looking set. There are never any pictures of Lily and I so it was nice that Michael took some and they actually turned out very pretty! And no I did not slide down that slide! I would have got stuck.

There was a tunnel you crawled through to get to the slide and she did not like it. It is funny because I cannot think of many things she is scared of at all but this tube was one of them. Then when she cried it echoed which scared her more. Eventually we got a picture of her through it. My goal was to get her to crawl though it but no such luck. The best I could do is stand on one side and hold her while she looked at Michael making silly faces at her. She didn't fall for it though. Michael did take her down this big tube slide. We took bets on whether he would get stuck. I guess SBD is working because he got down unharmed and without a fire department call. Lily seemed indifferent as long he was holding her. But then we tried to send her down the little slide and she was not as enthusiastic. The whole time she is reaching for Michael!

This is at the entrance to the tunnel. Notice the distress. Just being near it made her mad as if she knew what was coming!

More Mommy and Me shots! Good job Michael!

I had a lot of shots with my mouth open and laughing. It is obvious we were having a blast!

Towards the end she started getting tired and hungry so we headed back to the house for a break. She konked out for awhile but the woke up ready to go again!

So we called Glen to go to Lake Benson to take our Lab Cesna swimming and he brought his lab Churchill. Cesna loved it! This is the first time we took him to the lake. But we knew he liked water because he tends to jump in my mother's pool. He had no fear and as soon as we let him off the leash he walked right into the water and started swimming.

Lily just hung out in her stroller for the most part. She didn't mind. I think she was still waking up a bit.

Churchill and Cesna would swim out to fetch sticks we found. Cesna is about five whereas Churchill is about 1.5 so the energy was unmatchable. Cesna tried but Churchill would always beat him to the stick. Even if Cesna made it to it he would surrender it to Churchill. He has no backbone but that is why he is so good. Especially with kids!

Lily watching the puppies!

She finally had enough and wanted to be held. But only for the last five to ten minutes. By then Cesna was on his last leg anyone. By the way Churchill was still ready to go. So we headed back with a small detour to the swings.

That night we went to Jenna and Daves for a cookout. Notice Lily's pigtails! haha! Too cute. They look more like horns but this is definitely my new favorite hairdo.

Don't tell Aunt Jenna I just go done chewing on her remote.

Sneaky smile!

Here are some random pictures. Lily climbing over toys. This just shows her mobility. We had to break out the baby gate this weekend for the first time. Mainly because she has shown extreme interest in the dog food and water. The funny thing is she hasn't figured out that we are only putting one up and she could crawl to the other door to get out. It makes is easier on us though!

This is her gnawing on the pack and play. She loves to stand up in it and give you puppy dog eyes do pick her up.

Realizing she shouldn't be chewing on it! Laughing in the face of danger!

Ribbit Ribbit!

Other updates. Tomorrow we have nine months portraits. Unfortunately from the pictures you can see she has a huge sore on her eyebrow. Yes people this was a huge zit. The biggest blackhead known to man. It had been there for months and I thought maybe she was getting a mole (ugh) and then we realized it was a blackhead. It left a hole in her face when the head came out. So not sure how the pictures are going to work out. I might try some make up. We will see.

SBD update:

I didn't have a stellar week. I gained a little but Michael kept losing!

Michael: 21 pounds

Stephaine: 10 pounds

I think it was because I didn't exercise as much this week with our busy schedule. And I did cheat and have some of Brooke's Mac and Cheese on Saturday night. Don't worry it was worth the .2 pounds....haha!

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