week in the life| THURSDAY

I'm a little behind! Here is Thursday's entry. I will post Friday's later this afternoon.

On my way down the stairs, this is what I see. Ugh! I have a rule that the kitchen sink has to be empty and clean before I go to bed at night because I don't want a scene like this to be the first thing I see. However, when I loaded the dishwasher before bed, not everything would fit. So this is what I saw: mixing bowl from the cake I baked (baked in the bowl, in the micro), few bottles, my green cleaning bucket and the clear bucket where I soak Baylee's clothes when she spits up, and a dirty sink. I used to think I wanted a white porceline sink. I was wrong. It gets stained so easily. I usually fill one side up with water, add some bleach, and then let it soak overnight. The next night I do the other side.

Baylee slept in this morning so I did too.

Going in for a "fish kiss"

Caught her mid sneeze

Maddie, our Pom who barks at everything. I really need to finish
making the curtains for the living room.

Feeding station

Rice cereal makes a mess

Love my Shark steamer/vac! This house is 70 years old and has the dust to prove it!

Putting Baylee's laundry away.

Naptime: Going pretty good without the swaddle. She likes sleeping on her side with her leg kicked over. Usually this ends with her being on her stomach.

Mike came home as she was waking from her afternoon nap. He went in to greet her.

Have to clean out my car. Mike posted it on craigslist and someone is coming to look at it.

Cutting coupons and filling my August calendar while watching Project Runway. Mike tries his best not to make side comments about the people on the show.

week in the life| WEDNESDAY

Baylee is sleeping in. It's a good thing because I forgot to make the container of formula last night so I have to make it this morning. I make 28oz which is enough for three bottles and some left over to use in er cereal.

Arriving at the clinic to get immunizations. Two shots. One in each leg.

Stopped and got a French Crueller on the way home

Had to send a fax at FedEx. Would love to stop at Target but it's getting hot. The a/c in the car isn't working so we head home.

She was extremely messy with her cereal today.

Making egg salad for lunch.

I love watching her stretch when I unwrap her swaddle!

I wouldn't recommend marinating chicken in raspberry vinaigrette. It tasted great but looked awful! Good thing I was cutting it up for our salad. (chicken cooked in micro b/c it was too hot to use oven or grill)

Strawberries, almonds, chicken, spring mix, mozz cheese, raspberry vinaigrette  = dinner

Helping Mitchell go through one of his boxes. When we moved into this house (1 1/2 yrs ago), alot of his boxes went into the storage room and have never been unpacked. We are slowly going through his boxes and condensing them to make room for more things to be stored. TOO. MUCH. STUFF.

Falling asleep to the sounds of the rainforest. Baylee goes down at nine and I usually go upstairs to my room at that time. I like that I can hear the rainforest sounds through the monitor. Mike and the boys usually stay up for a few more hours listening to music or watching a movie.

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Random thoughts:

• It took until today for Mike to notice that I was taking picture of unusual things. That was surprising to me because he is one of the most observant people I know.
• I noticed that I am not taking near as many pictures as the other people participating. What you see is what I took. (Some people are taking over 100!)
• I hate taking pictures in our kitchen. With the red walls and the yellow cabinets everything has an orange glow. I can't wait to paint in there!
• I really want to start posting at the end of the day but I am usually so tired that I just go to bed. On the few nights when I wasn't too tired, someone else was on the computer.
• I'm tired of being at home! I wish Mike would fix the a/c in my car so we could go somewhere. Cooler weather would help also!
 

week in the life| TUESDAY

Early this morning I tiptoed downstairs to go to the bathroom. I didn't think Baylee was awake yet and because you have to go through her room to get to the bathroom, I was trying to be as quiet as possible. (Post about her room coming soon!) Of course, as I walked in her room, I peaked over the end of her crib and she was awake! She had gotten both arms out of her swaddle blanket and had maneuvered herself to the opposite end of the bed from where she started. I watched as her little hand reached out and spun a little ball that is attached to her crib mirror. She smiled a big smile and did it again. She had no idea I was watching her. Oh how I wish I'd had the camera with me! It was a moment I was very aware of wanting to capture and even though I don't have a picture, I wanted to write about it so the story will be preserved.
I was curious as to how long she would be content before wanting to get up. I usually don't wake up until I hear her fussing but I know she is usually awake for awhile before that. So, I quietly crept back upstairs and caught another 45 minutes of sleep until she started fussing around 7:00.



I love listening to Baylee's "morning sounds"



While Baylee takes her bottle, I sip my coffee. Lots of hazelnut cream, please! The rest of the house still sleeps.

They are working on the water main beneath our street. Jackhammering before 8:00 this morning.

The morning light from the front door. We usually alway have our front door open, no matter what time of year it is. I love the light that seeps into our living room.

Mike begins making calls to make sure his materials are where they need to be.

When everyone is gone for the day, Baylee and I play on the living room floor. She is looking at a book with photographs in it and is captivated by a photo of her Nonna.

I shower while Baylee plays in her bouncy seat.

Someone on a blog I read this morning made reference to a grilled cheese sandwich. I have been craving one ever since, so we head to Steak n' Shake. Baylee falls asleep in the car but wakes up 15 minutes later when we return home. Although it is her naptime, the short amount of sleep in the car was enough to recharge her engines. For a little while. By 1:00 she is so tired that nothing is making her happy.

I spend from 1:00 to 2:45 trying to calm a crying, fussy, overly tired baby who thinks she already had her nap and doesn't want to go to sleep. She falls asleep at 2:45 and I think I can relax, but she wakes again at 3:00. When I put the paci back in her mouth she falls back asleep. By 3:15 she is deep in slumber and I can get some things done.

I work a little trying to organize my craft table. I get overwhelmed and walk away.

Mike comes home as I'm feeding Baylee her afternoon bottle. He gets down on the floor to play with her while I make dinner. Tonight we are having "Etta Tacos" (named after the lady I got the recipe from who would always make them for church functions when I was growing up.) They contain Heinz 57, A1 steak sauce, worcestershire, and tobasco. They are yummy and have been a favorite around here for a long time.

After dinner and Baylee's bath, some friends stopped by and we walked to the sno cone shop down the street. The sno cones hit the spot on a hot summer night and the fun we had with Alisha, Marc, and Preston was even better.

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I realized that I am really good about taking pictures during the day, but once Mike and the boys get home and things get busy, I tend to forget. 

week in the life| MONDAY

6:43 AM: Wake up to the sounds of Baylee "talking" to herself. I go and get her at 7:00 and bring her upstairs. She relaxes on my bed while I feed her and enjoy my coffee. We relax and watch the morning news until 8.

Head downstairs at 8:00. The stairs are in the kitchen and the window above the sink is one of the first things I see. A spider has made a web on our windowsill overnight. I unload the dishwasher and start a load of laundry. The boys are here and are working with Mike this week. They are getting ready to leave while Baylie and I play on the living room floor.

Our front porch has been looking pretty sad these days. There are spider webs all over our mailbox and old leaves on our welcome mat. I drag out the hose, grab a rag with some pine sol and start wiping everything down. While doing that, I get distracted by the weeds in our flowerbed and start pulling. UGH! I hate that job. Can we just asphalt the front yard?

Feeding Baylee and reading my book.

A very common sight these days.

Exersaucer Time!

I just started reading The Hunger Games series and I can't seem to put it down. Most of Monday is spent with Kindle in hand and every spare moment I have I use to read. Not much of anything else gets done today.

Boxes full of things that I brought home from work. Not sure where I'm going to put them so here they sit: in the walkway bet ween the living room and kitchen

Before bed snack: Strawberries and Marketside Vanilla Fruit Dip from WalMart. Yummm!

Diapers changed: 6
Loads of laundry: 2



Well thats it. That was my Monday. There are a few more pictures on my phone but I will wait and upload them at the end of the week. I'm not sure how I am going to put it all together yet. Right now I'm just focusing on taking pictures and journaling about the day. I'm keeping a notebook close and writing down my thoughts throughout the day. I will share those sometime next week when I show the completed project.

catching up

I need to play catch up. I didn't mean to take that long of a break. I really didn't mean to take a break at all, but life got in the way. So, I will offer a short synopsis of the past month and a half and promise not to be gone so long again.

Baylee and I traveled to Nashville at the end of May. I do not recommend taking a 5 1/2 hour car trip with a 11 week old by yourself. It was difficult. And long. It ended up taking us over 7 hours to get there because I had to stop twice to feed Baylee. It was all worth it when I walked into my mom and dad's house and saw this:

A welcome sign from Hannah and Luke! Evidentally it just said "Welcome Baylee" at first and then they decided to add my name. Ha! I guess I need to get used to being an afterthought.
My mom stayed with us during the month I went back to work so we were there to pick her up. It was a nice coincidence that my niece, Hannah, had her dance recital while I was in town. She is very talented and works so hard all year long, practically living at the dance studio. It was nice to see her perform and enjoy the results of all her practice.

 

Then in June I went back to work. It wasn't too hard to leave the baby knowing I was only going to be working until the end of my contract. It also helped tremendously that my mom  was here with her. I'm so grateful that my mom was willing to leave her life and her home and come stay with us for 5 weeks. Here are some highlights from June & July:

*Baylee and her Nonna, Baylee and her brother

*Baylee discovered the bumbo and all she wants to do now is sit up!

*Her first cowboy hat, first concert (in the park) and her first bite of rice cereal.

*playing in her pool

*watching the 4th of July Parade

The picture of Baylee in her swaddle makes me laugh. She looks like she is camofluaged! I grab at those ladybugs all the time in the dark thinking they are her binky.

Well that is it. June and half of July in a nutshell. The next few days I will be posting about the Week in the Life project that I participate in each year. It starts on Monday and I am so excited!