7 Months Old!!!

Month seven has so far been my hands down favorite as a mommy.  Harrison has so much personality and I love discovering new things about him every day.  He is able to communicate with me now and he very clearly lets me know what he likes and what he does't like.  He may not be crawling yet, but that doesn't stop him from going where his little heart desires.  My little Einstein can do a 360 on his belly and then roll until he has made it to his destination.  We have finally mastered a wonderful sleep routine (including 10 hours at night and 2 awesome naps during the day).  He drops items on the floor from his highchair simply because he can (and when I do not return the items there is much grunting involved).  He is easily distracted by his daddy and any of our three animals.  He gives wonderfully sloppy kisses.  He waives to say hello and bye-bye and even does a "special" wave Auntie Lolo taught him (see picture below).

Here is a list of Harrison's 7 favorite things right now:

1.   Finger Foods

2.  Back scratches / back massages

3.  Molly, Reese and Eli (in that order)

4.  Grunting

5.  Peek A Boo

6.  Toys that play music

7. Being tickled

Here are some pictures of my precious growing boy.

Nap Time

Giving Kisses

Tickle Time

Kisses From Molly

Here is a video from this morning.  Hope you enjoy his grunting as much as I do!

Here I Come To Save The Day!!!!

The victim......

The attacker.....

The hero..... 

About an hour ago, I had my first real scare as a mommy.  I was cleaning the kitchen as Harrison was napping when I heard the baby monitor begin to beep which meant the monitor had been knocked over.  I went in Harrison's room expecting to see that his head had bumped into the monitor as he napped peacefully.  Instead I was horrified at what I found.  My son's precious chunky leg was caught between the rails of his crib and he was calmly laying on his back holding the baby monitor.  As I walked over to move his leg, my stomach dropped as I realized it was stuck.  The poor boy's thunder thigh was lodged between the rails of his crib and was not budging.  I tried to carefully move his leg up and that is when he started to wail!!  In a frantic panic, I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the trusty can of generic brand PAM.  After greasing up my chunkster, his leg came loose with a little redness to show for his traumatic experience.  

    

He quickly forgot his red knee with a visit from Reese!

Explaining my hiatus.....

So there isn't much to explain other than the fact that I have been extremely busy and much of my downtown has been spent exhausted on the couch trying to squeeze in a little r&r.  I absolutely love spring but it can also be a little overwhelming.  Suddenly there is gorgeous weather to be enjoyed, spring cleaning to be accomplished, yard work and other home projects that have had to wait for a little sunshine, and exercise so that the bathing suit and summer clothes don't seem so intimidating. 

Here is a quick update for the last 10 days:

Yardsales = Awesome Deals.  My sweet friend Lindsay and I got up at the crack of dawn last Saturday in an effort to sniff out amazing bargains.  I scored a brand new InStep jogging stroller for $30 and 2 pair of never-been-worn Clarks for $1 each!  Check out my finds.... 

Not everyone on craigslist is a murderer.  Matt decided it was time to sell his motorcycle so we turned to trusty Craigslist.  After several emails back and forth, a potential buyer asked if they could come out on Wednesday evening to which Matt agreed even though he was scheduled to referee a soccer game.  When he asked me if I could handle the sale my first thought was "My husband is leaving me alone with my baby and some psycho from craigslist".  To make a long story short, the buyers ended up being a sweet young couple.  I immediately clicked with the wife and by the of our meeting, I was asking them to buy the home for sale on our street.  Lesson learned: Give people the benefit of the doubt (not everyone on Craigslist is a murderer!).

Separation Anxiety = Mommy Insanity  As of four days ago, Harrison is now aware of every time I leave the room.  Can you sense my excitement?!?!?! 

Maintaining a house = A LOT OF WORK  Spring time always has me itching to complete a To Do List that has been slowly accumulating over the winter.  Even with a brand new home (it will be four years next week), the maintenance seems never ending.  Although it is a lot of work, you wont hear this happy homeowner complaining!

Boot Camp is kicking my booty!!  I am too tired to say anything else about it :)

What was I thinking?!?

I am not sure exactly what I was thinking, but yes I am paying to have someone yell at me while I work my booty off in an effort to get back in shape.  Today is day three of my boot camp experience.  Along with the pleasure of being yelled at and pushed to my max, I am on a strict diet that coincides with the workouts.  Saturday was orientation and it was quite an experience.  After going through expectations for the next month, I was weighed in and measured (before pictures were taken) and then we headed to the grocery store and I was showed what exactly consists of a healthy diet.  Today is day three of the diet, but last night was my first workout.  HOLY COW!!!  There is a reason I don't work out.  I almost didn't make it to the car, my poor knees were buckling and I almost kissed the pavement.  Getting out of bed this morning was a struggle, but picking Harrison up out of his crib is when I realized the extent of my pains.  I just keep reminding myself that pain is good!  Being sore is a constant reminder that I am on my way back into my old clothes.  What is my motivation?  My closet full of clothes just begging to be worn.  I am determined to be reacquainted with my skinnier self.  I miss her so much :) 

As far as the diet goes, I am not doing anything crazy.  No calorie, carb or fat gram counting.  I am simply trying to eat more natural and less processed food.  Breakfast options include eggs, whole grain oatmeal (without the good stuff....butter and brown sugar) yogurt and fruit.  I can snack on unroasted, unsalted nuts, fruit, yogurt and cheese.  For lunch I eat some lean meat (chicken or tuna is what I have been having) with a spinach salad and some cottage cheese.  Dinner options are lean meat or fish (Sergeant Kyle prefers salmon for dinner) with a sweet potato and asparagus.  All day long I can munch on green veggies until my tummy is content.  I have also given up all soft drinks (including my beloved diet coke) for water (I throw in a little Chrystal Light to mix things up a bit every now and then).  Here are some of the adjustments I am making to my diet....

Eat this                                                              Not this

                                   

 

Before and After

Before

After (Tip, don't attempt stripes your first try.  My mistake!!)

I LOVE to do home projects.  I am convinced if I had the right tools, I could do anything!  I finished recovering a chair last night and thought  would share some of my favorite before and afters with you.  I wish I had the time/money/space to do more.  It is a fun creative outlet for me, but also it is such a feeling of accomplishment once the project is finished. 

My Peddler's Mall find

After some serious sanding, stripping, and painting!  With the help of brick tiles, 2 x 4s, and plywood it made a beautiful faux fireplace.

The Kitchen Before (Well, after I painted the walls and cabinets, but before I tiled.)

The Kitchen After.  These are 1"x1" glass tiles.  I wasn't too bad, I really enjoyed it!

Teal Mobile

The "Teal Mobile"

For those of you in the Louisville area, there is a (fairly) new amazing radio station.  100.5 GenX Radio is my new "go to" station whenever I am in my car.  This radio station instantaneously awakens a feeling of nostalgia.  Today I was driving home listening to this fantastic station and "Bye Bye Bye" came on.  Immediately I am back in my Teal Mobile driving to school or Hometown Pizza.  I can smell crayons (yes, that car smelled like crayons for some reason) and I am back in my fabulous CAL uniform.  This is a picture of my first baby.  There could not have been a more perfect car for me at that stage in my life; I loved it!  Now I cruise around in my "mom" car and listen to more Baby Einstein than I do music with words, but I could not be happier (see picture below of my precious cargo to understand why).  I can always daydream about rocking out to Britney Spears, right?  

My "mom" car

My precious cargo

This little piggie went to market

Somehow my poor boy got mommy's feet.  No, not my normal feet....my swollen pregnant feet.  The child has never worn a pair of shoes a day in his life because his feet are so fat.  Yesterday I was trying to put some precious white shoes (to complete his adorable Easter ensemble.  See yesterday's post) on the blobs that are his feet, and I just had to laugh.  It was like a scene out of Cinderella when the ugly step sisters were trying to shove the glass slipper on their over sized feet.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE his little sausage toes.  Here are some pictures for you to compare HD's feet to my feet when I was 8 months prego (somehow they managed to get even larger the following month!!)

Happy Easter

Today Matt and I journeyed to Danville with Harrison and my sister Lauren to spend Easter with my grandmother, Mimi.  We visited her church and enjoyed a wonderful Easter service and then headed back to her house for a delicious lunch.  We then celebrated Mimi's birthday (which was yesterday) with presents and a scrumptious lemon meringue pie.  Here are some pictures from our afternoon....

Drum roll please......

It's official, we are going to Alaska!!!  Matt, Harrison and I are going to visit my sister Courtney and Ryan this summer.  I just booked our plane tickets and I can not tell you how psyched I am.  I miss my sister so much and I can not wait for her to show me where she lives.  It is a bonus that she lives in the gorgeous state of Alaska.  Anyone who knows me knows how much I love the outdoors and wildlife.  I am looking forward to some amazing hiking and sitings of some unbelievable creatures.  I think I am going to need another memory card 'cause I'm gonna go picture crazy!!!  (Can you tell I am excited?)  I am hoping to come home with some pictures similar to these....

 

Hi. My name is Danielle and I have an addiction.

I make lists.  I make a list for everything.  It helps keep me sane.  It is my way of decluttering my brain.  Once I have my list made I can relax.  The problem I have run into a couple of times is the madness that comes over me when I misplace a list.  It seems like there would be a better way to keep track of things, but so far I have not found one.  I have lists on my refrigerator, in my wallet, in my jewelry box, in my car, in a notebook, in my Bible, in my sock drawer.  I am telling you, it is a little crazy. 

Here is a list of some of my lists:

Grocery
To Do
Honey Do
Christmas Gift Ideas
Movies I want to see
Favorite Bible verses
Packing (for vacations)
Baby Names
Places I want to visit
Books I want to read
Blog post ideas
Home projects
Blogs to check
And then I have a list to prioritize my lists.  Not really (although now that I think about it, that isn't such a bad idea).