Mothers Day and other stuff

Yesterday was Mothers Day, so happy belated Mothers Day to all the moms that check this out! My Mothers Day... well, kind of wasn't. My parents had a Jessie Willcox Smith print framed for me, and gave it to me as my gift. They used to have it hanging up in their bedroom, but they had it reframed and said it looks like me holding Hannah.


It looks really great hanging up in the living room, I think. John really likes it there too, so it worked out really great. It's appropriate too, because it's hanging right over the Pack 'n' Play!

Otherwise, it was just kind of... a day. We were at my parents house that weekend because the 10th was my dads birthday, so we had a little party for him. Then we did a mothers day breakfast on Sunday. Hannah's Godparents came over to see her, since they hadn't since she was baptized. It was nice to see them. Then our friends Theresa and Chris stopped over so they could meet Hannah and we could meet their new basset hound, Gunther. We went to our friend Sarah L.'s wedding that afternoon. I guess, now I should say she's Sarah N. =) Good thing all of the Sarah's I know aren't marrying people with last names that start with the same letter - I can still identify them as Sarah N (formerly Sarah L), Sarah S (formerly Sarah C), Sarah M, Sara J, etc.

John got me a really sweet card from Hannah, but that was all, so I was a little disappointed. I would have thought he would have tried to give me SOMETHING (flowers, anything!) to show he appreciates everything I do around the house and all the caring for Hannah I do, but I don't think he realizes how much work I do on the days that I'm home. Oh well.

Today, Hannah started on rice cereal. What a hoot! It was hilarious. She seemed to like it the first time around. She could have cared less the second time around. She was more interested in her spoon that time. I took a video of her the first time she tried it.



I took some stills of her also, because the video is pretty long, but it is funny to see her playing with her bowl in the video, and her spoon in the still photos.

Things I've discovered during motherhood

I've decided to start a list of things that either people told me about being a mom, or things that I have discovered on my own, that I have found to be very useful. They are in no particular order of importance, it's just what I thought of as I was writing. Some are practical, some are just facts of motherhood. The tips come solely from my experience, some have a smattering of child development thrown in. Enjoy =)

1. Sleep when the baby sleeps. This definitely is true, as you don't realize how tired you get, even just from getting up once during the night to feed the baby. You need naps. It sounded totally stupid when people would tell me this, but the number of naps I've taken since I became a mom has been more than quadruple what I've taken in the last year.

2. It will get easier. It will. If it didn't, all moms would have long since given up the career.

3. When shopping somewhere you will be using a shopping cart (i.e.: Target, the supermarket), park as close to the cart corral as possible. The last thing you'll want to do is unload your car, put your baby in the car, then have to walk half way across the parking lot to return the cart with the baby in the car. You also won't want to keep the baby with you, walk half way across the parking lot, and then have to carry the baby back to the car. If at all possible, park right next to them. Better yet, park next to the one that's the closest to the entrance/exit. This tip is exceptionally handy when the weather is lousy.

4. You have no idea how in love you'll become with your baby. You'll discover that there is nothing in this world you wouldn't do for your child. Your baby is the cutest thing in the world. You'll want to hold your baby all the time, and smother them with hugs and kisses. The amount of love you feel will make you cry.

5. Read a bedtime story to your child. Read to them anytime! It's an amazing way to bond with them, and it really helps them settle in for the night, and they like to look at the pictures. It's an integral part of our bedtime routine.

6. Set your bedtime routine early, and stick to it. This will become the rock of your day, and your baby will come to expect it. We did this just because it seemed like a good idea, and it's really worked well. We started around 2 or 2 1/2 months, and it's been the best thing we could have done! Even in the most unstructured of days, you'll know that you'll be putting your baby to bed in the same way every night, and s/he can look forward to that quiet time with mommy and/or daddy.

It's late, and I'm sleepy...

But I wanted to be sure to get these pictures posted tonight before I forgot all about it. They are the portraits we had done at Target in Concord last week, on Hannah's 3 month birthday!

Post 300!!!

Very exciting - my 300th blog post!

Today was Sarah Skillin's baby shower, which was great. It was a nice shower and she got some nice gifts. Lots of clothes for little baby-to-be Natalie. I posted photos of the blanket I made her in my Ravelry account, but I will put some up at the end of my post.

Hannah is doing great, we're still waiting on the portraits we had taken, I get to pick them up on the 2nd. I cannot wait to get them, I'm SO excited!!!! Last night she slept from 8pm - 6am, without waking up once. I'm also trying to get pictures organized at home, so I've got to get copies of just about all the photos we have taken at this point so I can get copies of them. That's the problem with digital photos, I like to have the hard copies organized in albums and photo boxes. Lesley (Sarah's mom) gave me a great photo box that I want to get all the photos in. I also need to get copies for the photo albums and stuff too.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. I've been a day ahead of myself since Thursday night, which is great, because I don't go back to work until Tuesday! It's a great realization that I'm not as close to going to work as I thought! =)

Anyway, here are photos from the last few days and from Sarah's shower!




Above - the blanket I made for Sarah as a shower gift. The photos aren't great, but oh well...







Above - Photos from Sarah's shower. She got lots of nice things!



Above - Hannah and her daddy at home! =)

Hannah is 3 months old!

Today was Hannah's 3 month birthday! Usually, I post photos, but today I don't have any. Now, before you call me a slacker, John and I took her to the Target in Concord and we got some awesome professional pictures done! I was so excited, and they came out so great! So, I will share them when they come back next Friday!

That's about all the news from here right now. Keep posted for the new photos next Friday!

An update for an early Friday morning

Sorry, no pictures to share today. But I just figured that since it was so early (4:55am as I sit down to start writing), that I would just share a little about how things are going and what not.

Work has been going well. We had two families move out of the shelter and one family move in. The dynamic will shift, but so far, it seems like all the families are getting along. Hannah still comes to work with me on Thursdays, and goes to her Memé and Pepé's house on Tuesdays. I love only working two days a week, because it's just enough to keep my foot in the door, but it's also enough to make me feel like I have time at home. The biggest thing I love is that I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything major in Hannah's life. It's pretty much an ideal situation. Sometimes I definitely have the days in which I wish that I didn't have to work at all, but two things would come out of that: 1) I'd probably go stir crazy and 2) We'd have to move in order to still be able to save money.

John is on vacation next week, which will be nice. We have a lot of projects to get done around the house while he's home: We need to replace a storm door on our side entrance, rip up some carpeting on our basement stairs, build a banister on the basement stairs, and get some yard work done. I'm mostly concerned about getting the yard work done, and the storm door, but John is more interested in getting the basement stairs done. I don't blame him, but at the same time, that's lower on my priority list because of the simple fact that Hannah isn't mobile yet. If she were, I'd be more concerned about her climbing the stairs and falling off them onto a tile floor.

Hannah is doing well, too. She has a check up today. I can't believe she'll be 3 months old on Monday! John and I talked about going to a portrait studio to get some family portraits done that day too. Since it's supposed to rain, Monday would be a good day to get that done. I've just got to confirm that the place we are planning to go is still where I think it is.

I guess that's about all the news from here.... =)

Hannah's Baptism Photos

They didn't come out great, but I'm waiting on getting some others for another few people that took photos...