Not quite the Mother's Day I had in mind....

My plan for today was to get up and go to church as a family, take some pictures while we were all dressed nicely, put Audrey to bed, eat Whataburger for lunch, play with Audrey after her afternoon nap, and then Michel was going to grill us steaks for dinner after Audrey went to bed for the night.

Well...most of that has happened. Last week, Audrey was pretty fussy throughout the day, which is really unusual for her. We'll have a fussy time here and there, but it's not usually daily, let alone several times throughout the day. Friday was by far her crankiest day. Saturday she woke up with a horrendous cough, so I figured that Friday's cranky day was that just-getting-sick yucky day when you have drainage, your throat hurts really bad, etc. So Saturday she was in a pretty good mood, but still had that yucky cough which later turned to a small fever. So by Saturday night we had decided to stay home from church.

So (the grammar Nazi in me is disturbed by how many sentences I'm starting with "so"...sorry Mom!) rather than getting up and getting dressed for church, we got up, got dressed, and went to Legacy E.R. where she was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection, and we were prescribed some antibiotics for her. We've had a bit of a "blast from her past" and somewhat-reverting back to her newborn days because the poor girl is only able to stay awake for about 2 hours at a time before she's falling asleep while playing, or while we're holding her. My daughter is an excellent sleeper, but when she's had good naps, she can stay awake for about 3-4 hours before it's nap/bed time. Needless to say, my first Mother's Day has been filled cuddling a sleepy, sick baby who has LOVED bouncing on my exercise ball. Her poor fever spiked all the way to 103.5 when she woke up from her 2 1/2 hour-long afternoon nap, so we put her in a tepid bath (thanks for the idea, Mom!), and let her soak for a bit, and of course gave her some Tylenol which has only brought it down to 100.0. Hopefully, once these antibiotics get into her system she'll start recovering quickly! I do love my sweet baby snuggles, but it's sad seeing her want to just lay down and cuddle a half hour after waking up from a 2 1/2 hour nap because it's so out of character for her! I did still get my Whataburger for lunch, and I'll be getting a nice steak dinner, so that part of our plans are still able to happen. Also, Michel and Audrey got me a spa gift certificate, and a gift certificate for some awesome house decor I can order online. Michel's pretty good about knowing what I like!

I would definitely still categorize this Mother's Day as a blessed one despite our setbacks. I've still been able to spend it with my sweet little girl, and the most amazing husband ever! I love my little family of 3! I hope all the mothers out there reading this blog have also had a blessed Mother's Day!

Shapin' Up and Slimmin' Down!

I have lost 1.2 pounds since last week! That's pretty amazing considering how badly I ate last weekend! However, since Monday I have gotten better about drinking more water, not drinking coffee (except for today), and not snacking mindlessly. I can tell soooooo much difference in how clothes fit, my stomach is finally starting to shrink, and lots of good things happening around here :) I will be gaining it all back, I'm sure, tomorrow when Michel grills steaks for dinner, and I'll be indulging in some Ben & Jerry's for dessert, but it will be totally worth it! We didn't want to go out for Mother's Day. I can only imagine how ridiculously crowded restaurants will be, and I don't want to be out with an 8-month-old whose tired of waiting, in desperate need of nap, etc.

Anyways, this is also my monthly measurement post. I only measured my waist, hips, and thighs because I was too lazy to measure my calves and biceps. Anyways, I'm pretty happy!

Waist: This month I lost an inch! Total off my waist = 5 inches!
Hips: This month = -1 inch          Total off my hips = 3.5 inches!
Thighs: This month -1/2 inch       Total off my thighs = ~1 inch

Since starting my weight loss journey in October, I have lost a total of 17 pounds and 9.5 inches! I have 10 pounds to reach my goal! I'm really trying to hit my goal by June 10th. I don't think 10 pounds in a month is feasible, but I'm going to give it my best shot! Wish me luck!

And just because it's super adorable, here's a picture I posted on FB showing me wearing some PRE-PREGNANCY clothes!!

Oh my goodness this sweet girl makes me smile! Every picture that she's in has instant cuteness added to it!

Look Whooo Is 8 Months Old!

I'll start off by saying, as I type this, poor girl is in her bed trying to take a nap, and just hacking away. :( This is the third time she's gotten a little cold. Yesterday, she did not feel good. At all. And she let us know it. I think it was probably the crankiest day we've ever had with her, and nothing we did made her feel better. Finally as her afternoon nap approached, Michel took her to the couch and laid down with her on his chest, and that seemed to do the trick. She laid on top of him, sucking her thumb for about 30 minutes before he put her in bed for a nap. Her naps yesterday were really bad, too, which also contributed to her crankiness. She had a hard time sleeping last night (which is incredibly unusual for her), and I thought we would have another cranky day, but luckily she's been pretty easy to make her smile or laugh, and she'll just give me a sad, pitiful whine when she just needs to sit in Mommy's lap, or get some cuddles. Poor baby. :(

Anyways, time with our precious girl is flying by! I can't believe we're 4 short months away from her first birthday! Where does the time go?? Everyday I see her continue to grow, learn, and develop new things. She really is so much fun, and so easy to take places (except for the grocery store...seriously, there will be tears if I have to run in the store...what's up with that??).

Weight/length/head circumference: I don't know. I tried measuring her head circumference the other day and she kept grabbing the tape measurer out of my hand, so I gave up. I tried weighing her, but she doesn't weigh enough for me to set her on the scale and the scale to register. I tried weighing myself first, then weighing myself while holding her, and it would have made her weigh 21 pounds, and I'm pretty sure she's more in the 17lb range, so I didn't think that was accurate.

Sleep: Audrey takes 2 naps a day. Her morning nap is generally around 9 or 9:30 for about 45 minutes to an hour, and her second nap is usually around 1:30 or 2 and lasts about 2 hours (sometimes 2 1/2 if she's really tired). She goes to bed anywhere between 7 and 7:30 and sleeps a full 12 hours.

Eating: She has a bottle 4 times a day and eats about 24-27oz a day (though while she's been sick it's dropped down to about 20-22oz/day), and eats a half to a full container of baby food twice a day.

Clothes: She is wearing 6-9m onesies, pants, and dresses. She has a couple of 9m outfits that she can wear, but if it has pants they're a little long. She should get used to that!

New achievements of the month:
1. Audrey does Pat-a-Cake! It's her own special version of "clapping," but it's super cute!
2. I've been using the signs "more" and "all-done" with her for a couple of months now. She hasn't quite figured out which one is which, but she does know that using her hands gets her what she wants, so I've seen her use "all-done" once or twice, but if she forgets which sign she should be using, she automatically defaults to her "clapping". I'm sure in her mind she's like, "I know I'm supposed to do something with my hands, but I forgot which one, so I'm just gonna clap. It makes Mommy happy." :)
3. She's definitely an independent sitter! If she falls over, it's because she did it purposefully, or was reaching for a toy, and it was further away than she anticipated.

Things she likes:
1. Laying on Daddy's chest
2. Being held
3. Eating solid foods
4. Crinkly toys
5. Pat-a-cake
6. Sleeping when she doesn't feel good

Things she doesn't like:
1. Grocery shopping with Mommy
2. Seeing the bottle, but it doesn't make it to her mouth quickly enough

I feel like I rushed the end, but she woke up about 10 minutes ago, and is calling for me! :)

Happy early Mother's Day! Hopefully I remember to take good pictures and I can blog about it tomorrow!

The many faces of Audrey!

I have a few really cute pictures of Audrey on my phone that I need to do something with, so I'm just posting them here for your viewing pleasure. :)

This girl. She's not even 8 months old, and she is full of personality! For the most part, her personality just makes me smile. But then there are some times. "Those" times. During "those" times I'm not smiling as much, counting down until bedtime, and praying to God to give me patience. Luckily, about 99% of our time together is tons of fun. As long as she has a full belly, and has had sufficient sleep, she's pretty happy....and she loves to make sure people are looking at her, and laughing at her :)

She's trying out her gymnastics skills in her bouncy seat

This girl loves her prunes! Good thing considering she tends to have constipation issues. Prunes clear that right up

We had a play date with one of my old college roomies!

I just ADORE this little outfit! She's so precious!!

Totally inspecting her new swimsuit. We just LOVE swim lessons!

Oh, one more thing about swim lessons. She goes under water so much (purposefully) that now, if I put her on a ledge of some sort (the table, kitchen counter, etc), and pick her up off of it, she automatically closes her eyes and holds her breath!! It's SOOOO funny! I don't think she's realized that she only needs to do that when we're in the pool, but at least I can say that she's already mastered that skill! Love this girl!

MOPS Mondays!

From the time I began attending MOPS in September of 2013, I eagerly looked forward to each and every MOPS Monday. The first time I attended I took a 13-day-old baby with me. My table was a fantastic help to me - they helped me tote all of her stuff from our table to our rooms when we broke off into discussion groups, eagerly held my baby for me so that I could fully attend to the speaker, or even just so that I could eat my breakfast! Every part of MOPS has been a blessing to me - fellowshipping with other moms, having a nice, yummy, hot breakfast each morning (I'm easy to please), delicious coffee (told ya - I'm easy to please!), speakers who have always challenged me, informed me, and definitely blessed me with their words in regards to my role as a Christian wife and a Christian mommy, and so much more. It was sad to say good-bye, but luckily I will see many of the same faces next year. I wish I had thought to take a picture of my group.

Anyways, I received unexpected gifts today that just further proved the blessing that MOPS is to me:

My sweet mentor mom gave each of us Laura Story's CD, Blessings, and told us she wanted to do it because each one of us has been such a blessing to her. I hope she knows how much of a blessing she's been to me. She always sends the sweetest, "thinking of you" e-mails! When Audrey was little, my mentor mom was always one of the ladies who would hold Audrey for me so that I could eat breakfast while it was still hot. It really is those little things that count in the biggest ways.

Our discussion group leader makes kitchen scrubbers that can go in your dishwasher! That way, you don't have a gross dishrag sitting out all the time - just wash the scrubber when you wash your dishes, and then it's clean again!

Last, but certainly not least (this one is probably my favorite), when I went to pick up Audrey from the nursery today, her sweet MOPPETS workers had done a cute craft with them for us!

I can't say enough good things about the MOPPETS workers. They are 2 sweet older ladies who just loved on Audrey for 3 hours so that I could have a little "mom" time. When she was really little, I would usually pick her up and they would be sitting in a rocking chair with her just holding her and rocking her, and loving on her. Now that she's bigger, mobile, and totally uninterested in sitting and rocking, they played with her, took her on stroller rides around the church, somehow usually managed to get a 20-30 minute nap in her (which is ridiculously unusual for her when she's in the church nursery), and always had a cute story for me of something she did that day. Today's story was: Audrey was sitting on the floor playing with some toys, and one of the workers started playing with another baby and got the baby to laugh. Audrey started laughing (even though nobody was doing anything to her!), so the MOPPET lady included Audrey in the game, and told me how much Audrey was just belly-laughing throughout the whole thing! The worker said she'd never heard a baby laugh so hard. It just makes me smile knowing that, while I'm away having some "mommy" time, Audrey is being well-attended to, and having a great time herself!

I will miss my MOPS Mondays, but I'm on the steering committee for next year and we do have several meetings throughout the summer which I'm fine with. I'll be excited to serve in a leadership position and hopefully be a blessing to someone else next year like I feel so many women were to me this year.