Oh, Just Another Little Award :P

I believe I am supposed to reveal some facts that you didn't know about me...I think reveal maybe too strong of a word, we'll go with "share" instead. :) Now forgive me fellow blogger who gave me this little gem, I forgot the guidelines a bit and I only have a few minutes before my baby is done with her bottle...you know how that is. :) So, I think it is 7 facts...and here I go.

1. I was Homeschooled from 7th grade on
I don't think it is a secret, but I am proud of it and I like to "brag" about it when I can. That's right, I am so cool, I can teach myself. ;)

2. I have 5 siblings
Again, not so secret, but it is a big part of who I am, and I think it is important people know I have an awesome, loud, large family. ♥

3. I am addicted to Target
I go there at least 3 times a week. In fact, when shopping for houses, one of the perks of our place is that it is less than 5 mins away from my favorite store...just like our apartment was. :P

4. When my skin gets too cold I break out in hives
Yeah, you read it right. I don't know why really. I has developed over the last 5 years or so...but it doesn't deter me away from loving fall and winter weather.

5. I hate the beach
This girl cannot stand hot, humid weather; sand; salt water; the smell of fish; and not being on solid land. Give me snowy, pine-tree-covered mountains any day and I'll be MUCH happier!

6. I LOVE Bubble Tea
Different places call them different things, but peach black tea with tapioca pearls is quite possibly the best thing ever.

7. I never wanted a job/career that involved sitting in an office.
Teacher
Storm Chaser
Emergency medicine
Screenwriter
Now, I still think about movies all the time, I would love to actually finish a script...maybe that should be a new year's resolution. ;)

Now I know I am supposed to tag people...like, a lot of people, but honestly I am sad and do not have many blog followers. SO, followers, I unofficially tag you all. If you read this, go for it. Keep this cute little acknowledgement going. Thanks again notanothermother...you are pretty awesome ;)

M.LEWIS

3 Days of Christmas

Well, it's done. Another Christmas come and gone.

I love Christmas so much, I am bummed that the day itself flies by so quickly. This year was a whirlwind of traveling around DFW and seeing all sorts of family. Lorelai did so well considering she needs naps and hates her carseat. Here was our holiday schedule:

Friday 23:
11:00am Party at cousin's house
2:00pm Go home for Lorelai to nap
4:30pm Go to Prosper in-laws for "Santa visit" w/ Chris' family
8:00pm DONE






Saturday 24:
10:00am Go to Prosper in-laws to meet Chris' brother & family
12:30pm Meet Granbury in-laws to exchange gifts and have lunch
2:30pm Go home for Lorelai to nap
4:30pm Go to my Grnadmother's for Christmas Eve Dinner (MY FAVORITE!)
8:00pm Go home, hang up stockings, leaves cookies and coffee for Santa, Lorelai's bedtime
9:00pm Put together Lorelai's Santa gift and set up for morning
10:00pm Find out Chris' mom (Prosper in-laws) has come down with a severe stomach flu
(It's here where we decide, as hard as it has, to skip seeing his family the following day)
11:00pm DONE



Sunday 25:
7:00am Stockings and Santa gifts
8:30am Decide to later drop off presents at Prosper in-laws before his brother and family leave town
9:00am Homemade breakfast
9:30am Presents
12:00pm Lunch
12:30 Drop off presents, exchange and open a few on back porch
3:00pm My mom's for presents, family, and dinner
7:00pm Lorelai has had it since she has had only 45mins of napping
7:30pm DONE

It was tiring just trying to remember it all. Of course, more people came down with the stomach flu; Lorelai, father-in-law, and my sister on Monday; My mom, sister Caroline, me, and Chris on Tuesday; brother Jacob and still sister Caroline on Wednesday. As far as today goes, I have heard nothing about more people getting ill. Hopefully it has runs its evil course...and I do mean evil...that thing was fierce and unforgiving for several, several hours. Anyway, that wraps up our Christmas 2011. We have had more issues and such come up today, but I am trying to relax and not let them stress me out. I just pray 2012 will be a little less hectic!

*More pictures on FB in case you missed them ;)




M.LEWIS

All I Want For Christmas Is My Baby's Teeth To Come In

I am not a fan of teething.

Teething turns my cute little baby into an irritable, loud, irrational, inconsolable mess. Not only is it frustrating, but you tend to also feel helpless. Here is this little person that depends on you for everything and you can't make them feel better.
People have highly recommended "teething tablets" but either my child is abnormal or the tablets plays on mind-tricks...in other words, they don't make the slightest difference in the on-going teething saga.
I have heard and tried every suggestion from real-life parents, magazines, and online research...but I think my girly is just destined to be mighty uncomfortable for awhile. I did resort to infant ibuprofen to take the edge off. Go ahead, judge me if you must. I also took her to McDonald's. That's right! I'm one of those "evil" parents that uses medication and partakes in fast food. You know what? It helped...for a little while ;)
I don't mean to complain too much, it has just been an interesting last couple of weeks. Every day is filled with waves of tantrums, screams, and pouts followed by moments of giggles, claps, and smiles. *shrugs*

I am scared of next weekend.

I mean, I of course look forward to Christmas and all its joys, but Lorelai will have to be flexible, mellow, and easy-going from Friday through Sunday without her scheduled naps and down-time...and that scares me. LEL is a schedule baby...by her own doing really. She has never napped too well. She will only nap 2 places: crib and carseat...if the car is moving. She needs about 2 hours of napping during the day in order to keep a "pleasant company" status. Christmas will be a breeze compared to our trip to Colorado in June. LEL sleeping in a hotel? Sitting in a car longer than 10 mins? It's going to be fun.

...Maybe she will be on a "teething break" that week.

Anyway...just had to talk that out. I truly hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season, I know we are (minus what you just read, haha)

Zoning out much, Lorelai? ;)

M.LEWIS  

After All, There's Only 11 More Sleeps Till Christmas

I must say, I appreciate Christmas on an entirely new level now that I have a child. I felt it somewhat last year, but since my baby was 4 weeks old I didn't really spend much time noticing and absorbing my usual holiday festivities.

This year I have a 1 year-old and it is a blast! Sure, she probably won't like looking at Christmas lights too much since it involves sitting in her carseat...but the other things I think she has really loved. She points at the Christmas tree and smiles almost half a dozen times a day; she like tasting the holiday goodies; she enjoys watching the Christmas specials (for the 3 minutes she pay attention to them); she looks adorable in all her holiday outfits...and we haven't even reached the true magic of the season.

This may sound crazy, and I don't want people to misinterpret my words, but I think having a baby has made me love Christmas carols more. I hear verses like "A child sleeping in the night, he will bring us goodness and light" and I do feel differently about them. I put myself in that scenario and it is so touching to me that the whole world felt the joy and promise of this little baby boy. What pride must be felt as a mother, what sense of support and love. I also love the verse "Whom shepards guard and angels sing." It must have been such an honor to have these creatures, heavenly and mortal guard and protect your child. I don't to imply that my baby is the same has Jesus, that it definitely not my intention, I just mean to express my better emotional understanding of the birth of Christ the Lord. I love Christmas Hymns even more now for this reason.

She loves walking with her stroller. She likes taking the TV remote for a walk.

Her manger scene

Giving baby Jesus a kiss

Mother Mary taking care of her baby

Admiring the Christmas tree. We agreed, Lorelai's tree is the prettiest tree ;)

Our tree, 2011

Still counting down the days, Merry Christmas!

M.LEWIS

House Update...Frustration Edition

I love owning a house, seriously, I do...but sometimes I get mighty frustrated with it and the money it costs.

A few days before Lorelai's birthday I decided we should put up the Christmas lights. As I look outside this weekend to constant rain, I am glad we did it a bit early! Anyway, we don't have a large area to decorate so tried to imagine in my mind what "look" we should go for when hanging lights. I like white lights and Chris likes color, so we did both. (I should take a picture to show everyone later) The main issue was this: I really wanted icicle lights to hang on the roof so we went and got 4 boxes @ $11.99 a piece. A little pricey all together, but my dad supplied us with the rest of our lights so that's all we had to buy. Once we were putting up the lights I realized that our front tree is rather large and is stilling holding on to most of its leaves. This makes hanging roof lights rather pointless on half the house. So I thought "Ok, no problem, I will just do it over the garage." I totally forgot that icicle lights s-u-c-k right out of the box. They do not hang down like pretty ice, they clump and bunch and look like a tangled mess. I tried to stretch them out as best I could and started to climb up the ladder to place them. About 2 feet in I decided "no." It looked so tacky, so messy, and I did not want to be that house. I took them down. I did have 2 strands of snowflake lights my dad gave me so Chris and I agreed that would be a much better look for over the garage. Teetering on the ladder I hung all 20 snowflakes and then plugged them in. Now, to be clear, I did check ALL the lights I put up to make sure they worked before I begun this adventure. They did all work...on the ground. For some reason 15 out of the 20 snowflake died from the trip up to the roof. *sigh* I shook them, hit them, yell at them, pleaded to God...but no, nothing worked. Angry, frustrated, cold, and defeated, I went inside to tackle the problem another day.
In the mean time, I went to return the 3 other unopened boxes of icicle lights. I waited in line for 15 mins, upon arriving at the counter I realized I could only return 2 of them because Chris bought some on his card...and I did not have his card. *sigh*
The next day I decided to attempt the broken snowflake lights again. I did have an extra box of 10 snowflakes (Thanks dad!) so I used their spare fuses to test the broken strands. I took down the first row, the fuse didn't help. So I said "Fine, I will just replace this whole strand, whatever." I hung the whole thing and tried the fuse change on the second half-broken stand. No go. *sigh* I took down the whole second strand. I shook them, hit them, screamed at them, tried to bargain with them...and then, miraculously, they all turned on. "QUICK!" I told myself, "HANG THEM!" I put them all back up connected them to the other snowflake and plugged them in...THEY WORKED! All of them. I was happy and thankful for the little miracle...of not loosing my mind...again.

Once the tricky lights were conquered I thought we should finally go get the gas logs for our fireplace. Again, pricey, but this was long-term house upgrade, and it would be nice to use in the winter. Chris and I went to the store, talked to a guy, and purchased a kit. "It's easy, it should take you no more than an hour." the guy said. Ha. Yeah. Right. Not only will our key not reached the gas to turn it on, but our cast iron log starter will not disconnect from the gas line. Will not budge. *sigh* So our nice, warm, new gas log kit is still sitting in the box on the other room while we try to figure out how much we want to mess with the gas, and when we might want to find someone to install it instead.

To top off this week, our heater died. The night of Lorelai's birthday I woke up around 3 am to a pretty chilly house. "Hmm, that's weird." I ignored it for a bit, but I couldn't help but think it was way cooler than I set it. I got up and sure enough, it was like 66. Now, I know some of you might think "You'll live." and you're right...but it still didn't change the fact that my heater wasn't working. I read the heater info, decoded the flashing light, and researched some things on the internet and decided, yeah, I needed to call a repairman. I dug out my old space heater and placed it in Lorelai's room and went back to bed around 5am.
The next morning was Lorelai's 12month appt, but after that I talked to my mom and got the number of a company she recommended. I called and talked to an older woman about my heater, she said they could come to my house the next morning around 10am. It wasn't supposed to get really cold until Sunday, so I figured one more night of chilly air would be do-able.
The next morning 10am came and went, and no repairmen. I called and talked to the woman again around 11am. She said she would "find out where they are and call me right back." Well, 45mins went by (almost noon now) and I was getting rather impatient. She did finally call back and then tried to tell me they didn't need to come out. "All heaters have lights on them." "Yes, but my heat is not coming on...it's getting colder." "Oh....did you try the breaker?" "Yes." "And it didn't help?" "No. That's why I called yesterday morning." "Oh...well, they won't be able to make it out until this afternoon." "Oh. Ok, do we have more of a time-frame than that?" "Like 4 or 5pm...is that ok?" "Well, I guess it will have to be...I need a working heater." "Ok. Sorry."
*sigh* I was pretty frustrated at the whole thing. I left with my chilly baby for a couple hours and came back. They did come around 3:30 and spent about 15mins to fix it. They were nice and efficient and my heater works, but after the confusing and less-than-helpful service I don't think I should have paid them as much as I did...but whatever.

I am trying not to spend any more $ than I need to this week. I still have Christmas presents to buy and bills to pay...not to mention a new HAO payment and new insurance at the beginning of the new year. I am trying not to stress. Really, I am...I don't think it's working too well though. I am thankful for my house, my husband, baby girl, loyal puppy, working heater, and money in the bank...even if it's not as much as I need to feel comfortable. Christmas season is here, and it's not about $ or presents, and that is something that not need be forgotten!

M.LEWIS

Happy Birthday, Dear Lorelai!

Well, we made it. 1 whole year of fun, love, laughs, tears, bumps, bruises, naps, and endless cups of coffee. My little baby girl is now a toddler!

I'd love to say it flew by, and maybe in some ways it did, but mostly it does feel like she has been in our lives for a year now. I think back at the hospital stay, newborn diapers, tiny bodysuits, nursing bras, and multiple hour-long naps and I think "That was forever ago." To remember when I didn't have to pack diapers, wipes, extra bottle, back-up formula, and multiple pacifiers it does seem like a year...and maybe a little more. ;) Though when I think about how big she has gotten, how much she has learned, how much she discovers everyday, it has gone by fast. She seems like a real little kid now, and not so much a baby...which is a weird transition.
She now weighs 21lbs and is 30 1/4 inches tall. She can have "normal" cow's milk now and can munch on peanut butter sandwiches (which we have yet to try). She still only has 2 teeth, lol, but she will add to that on her own time. She brushes those two little teeth each night and hates it when Mama takes over to help. She is starting to point to her nose, mouth, eyes, and ears. She coasts along furniture and is getting more bold on venturing away from the furniture and taking more steps on her own. She can now toss away bottles and drink solely from a sippy cup. She can even order a small kid-friendly (and tooth-less friendly) meals; which means learning to use a fork and spoon. She says "uhbye" and waves we someone leaves and says "lo" when she picks up one of our phones. She recognizes her favorite show and sings along with her own lyrics: "bubbo." She points at things she wants to play with, or even to direct where she wants to go.

Such a journey in a year. It is truly amazing. What's even more amazing...she has never been sick. Not one day. I don't know how we did that, but I am so grateful. I know many other moms have had their little ones sick several times before their 1st birthday. Mostly little icky stomach bugs but I know there are many other moms who have had far greater struggles. That is why this year I am donating to St. Jude's. Though I stress out about $ this time of year, I know those kids and those families need all the donations they can get. I cannot imagine going through what they go through, but I can do what I can.

In case anyone is interested in traveling down memory lane, here is my blog about the arrival of Miss Lorelai Elizabeth Lewis. My little love ♥

Here's to the next year of her life...and our's for that matter. ;)

M.LEWIS