China Cabinet and Uchi recap

I got the stuff in the china cabinet. I'd still like to rearrange the stuff on the shelves a bit, but I love how it looks overall. I'm so happy with it!

We had a fabulous time at Uchi last night, the food was A-mazing, but we spent a bit more than we intended to. We ordered the Chef's special, which is "market rate" and it was a higher market rate than I bargained for! Oh well, how often do you have your 10th anniversary?

I neglected to take any pictures, of course, but we were wearing pretty much the same thing as when we went to Damon and Shanna's wedding Saturday, but dressed down a bit. So you can imagine we looked a bit like this:And now we're on day two of our eleventh year. Time sure flies when you're having fun!

10 Years!

Today marks 10 years since I married the most amazing man on earth. My best friend and the father of my children. In honor of this occasion, I actually scanned in a few of our wedding photos. Please forgive the poor quality, I must not have set it to the correct resolution. But our scanner is in a cabinet in a corner of our bedroom right under Tim's desk, so I don't want to bug him again to re-do it.We're so young and so shiny, (I wish someone had told me to re-powder my face). Tim had just turned 22 and I was two weeks shy of my 22nd birthday. I'd known that I wanted to marry him since the first week we knew each other, and so we were ecstatic that the day was finally here.

I've known our 10th anniversary was coming for sometime, of course, and I had planned to write a long post about it, but, of course, life got in the way. To celebrate, we're going to Uchi tonight (my mom was awesome enough to come to town to watch the girls since the other grandparents are on their own vacation), and I'm going to drink too much Saki. You know this is a special occasion when I'm willing to actually use some precious milk, aka liquid gold, for it. Yay for the pump n' dump;)

New China Cabinet

No time to blog lately, but I wanted to share the new china cabinet we got off Craig's List yesterday. It's Drexel Declaration, manufactured in June of 1958, solid Walnut and the price was right. It's a little more traditional than our usual style, but it has nice clean lines and if we ever find the perfect china cabinet, we can easily resell it. I LOVE the lines in the wood. Now I just need to put all the stuff that is currently sitting on our dining table in it!

Stella in her Spring Program

I took a rather long video of Stella's Spring Program Tuesday. They sang the song she sings at least a snippet of almost every day: Dinosaurs Marching. It's really funny because here, Stella does all the motions, but she doesn't sing any of it until the end. It looks to me like she's looking around trying to find me, and at the very end (probably around the 1:20 mark), she sees me and smiles and it's so cute it just makes me melt! Stella can be so independent you think she's like "Mommy who?", so moments like this make a Mommy all warm and fuzzy.


Tim couldn't make it, so I'm SOOO glad I asked a grandmother I was sitting next to to keep an eye on Etta while I made my way to the front to get this video. If I'd stayed in the back where I was because of the giant stroller, I would barely have been able to see her and I certainly couldn't have gotten any pictures. (I did ask someone to watch Etta, though, instead of just walking off and abandoning my baby in her stroller like the two women in front of me. Seriously, I have no idea where those mamas went! And some man was looking in their strollers. Kind of creepy!)

We finally did Tummy Time and play time with Etta last night. And boy is she a pro at it. Etta played the little foot chimes immediately and for a long time. Stella loves it too. Just check out this adorable photo of them together.Stella also kept Etta entertained by talking to her and showing her her Barbies while I got ready. So cute!

Bye Bye Pacifier!

Stella has only had 2 pacifiers left for some time now. Then it became one, and the one she had left had a tear in it, so it was definitely a deficient pacifier. So we'd decided, and she had agreed, to have this coming Thursday night be her last night with a pacifier. We'd already been talking about the Binky Fairy and a Binky prize. Then today I noticed that her one remaining pacifier had a big gaping hole in it and various rips. Not very safe, she'd probably already swallowed some plastic. So I decided I'd talk to Tim and we could decide to either get her another binky, or end Binky time early. Unfortunately, I forgot that she needed her binky for naptime AND bedtime, so at about 20 minutes before her nap, Tim and I decided she was giving her binky up a little ahead of schedule. And effective immediately. Since it was raining, we couldn't hang the binky in a bag in a tree for the Binky Fairy, so she and I went out on the front porch and hung it in a bag on one of the branches we have in a pot out there.

We talked about how the Binky Fairy would give her a small prize, and then we would take her to the Build a Bear Workshop and she could make a stuffed animal and name him Binky. She was very excited. And, shockingly, she went to sleep without any trouble. I thought I'd have to make a super-quick trip to the toy store during her nap, but it was raining cats and dogs outside, so I found a bag of prizes that I'd used when she was potty training and found that I'd added some of our stocking stuffers to it. So the Binky Fairy brought a slinky, bubbles, and a toy airplane. Luckily, because she's only 3, Stella found this bounty to be the coolest thing ever and kept talking about how the Binky Fairy had brought her this awesome stuff. Then she couldn't stop talking about going to the Build a Bear Workshop and building a bear and naming him Binky. I tried to tell her we could go another day, since it was still pouring outside, but kids don't understand waiting. So as soon as Tim got off work (luckily it had stopped raining by then), we headed to the mall to make her new friend.
Giving Binky a bath and brushing his hair. She did this for a long time.
She thought it was most amazing place she'd ever seen and selected a monkey, who she then put in a firefighter suit. Originally the monkey was a boy, but as we were leaving the mall, she declared him a girl firefighter, and of course we told her girls can be firefighters too. So she's sleeping with Binky the Girl Firefighter, her new best friend. She thinks her doll is way cooler than pacifiers. YES! Dressing Binky in her Firefighter suit.

Eating Dinner together.

Now is the time of night when I go crash on the couch. Today was rough, but tomorrow will be rougher: it's the first day I have to do the whole drop Tim off at work/ take Stella to school/ pick Tim up from work thing with two. And tomorrow has the added bonus that we have to take Tim to work early because Stella is having her Spring Program at school, which I'm staying for but Tim can't because he has a meeting at work. We're trying to get out of the house by 7:30am. God help us all!

House Numerology

I just did the House Numerology for my house. Because I'm silly like that. And this was what I came up with:

House Number 1
The positive energy vibration of this house is that a House number 1 creates good energy and has many positive vibrations. This house caries with it an inventive energy that needs someone who likes to set trends. Lots of sunlight is a must for this positive vibration to occur. If you are lacking in natural sunlight, then I would suggest getting some natural lighting light bulbs.
This house can evoke selfishness and snobbery. It is also suggested that you keep an eye on the candles in this house for One houses are prone to fires. Make sure you fire alarm batteries are always up to date, even better, get the wired fire alarms.

Positive Colour Suggestions: Yellow, Gold, and Orange.

"Prone to Fires"? That's pretty scary! Of course, I don't really believe in any of this, except for fun, but it still freaks you out a little!

Get your house's numerology here.

Rain, Rain Go Away...

So it's been raining yesterday and today. The days I'd planned to get out in the weather and have some fun with the family, especially since Etta hit the all-important mark of 4 weeks yesterday. But then it started storming. We need the rain, so I'm trying to not be too bummed about it, but it really would be nice to be out enjoying Spring rather than cooped up inside. That way Stella and Etta could be riding in the new stroller that came this morning, rather than Stella pushing it around the house with her dolls in it and pretending like she's going to the park.

Luckily, Stella still has fun, even in the rain:
I was looking at a website for suggestions for things to do on a rainy day, and there was a picture of a little girl spinning with an umbrella. Stella decided she wanted to do that and headed out, umbrella in hand.

We braved the weather to go out to lunch because we promised Stella, and after all of us napped, Stella and I enjoyed some hot chocolate.

How do children always get these food and drink mustaches while us adults never do?

This happened Wednesday, but Stella gave Etta a bottle. I was realizing that we needed to give her bottles every week or so so that she doesn't forget and stop taking a bottle, so we decided this would be a fun opportunity for Stella to help. She did a really great job and seemed to really enjoy it:

And now, since this has mostly been a Stella post, a really cute 4-week picture of Etta:


I guess Stella's sick of the rain, she has declared that it is sunny outside (it most certainly is not) and that she wants to take Etta to see the chickens. Time for some distraction!

Quick Re-cap

I'm going to borrow the bulletpoint style from Kelli because that's all I have time for these days!

-Last Monday (April 6th), we went to the doctor for Etta's 2 week check-up. Her stats as of then:
Height: 21 inches (75th percentile. Obviously they didn't stretch her out all the way at the hospital.)
Weight: 7 lbs, 8.6 oz (25th percentile. I never thought I would have a baby in the 25th percentile in anything! There is nothing wrong with ANY percentile as long as a kiddo is healthy, but after having Stella, the super-chub, you just assume all subsequent chillins will take the same route. But it's pretty cool to have such a different experience this time. That said, I'm sure Etta will be a super-chub in no time!)
Head: 14cm, 50th percentile. I think that's exactly the same as Stella.
Overall, a clean bill of health from Dr. P!

Not too excited about leaving for her first walk
-This past Sunday, Etta had her first walk and first outing to the park. She was pretty unimpressed, but Stella had a great time, and it was a beautiful day. Being Easter, there were a ton of family parties in the park. Say what you will about our neighborhood, but its inhabitants know how to throw a party!

Chillin' on the bench with Daddy


-Monday, my maids came. My house was immaculate! I felt like we should just cover everything with plastic and move! Of course, we didn't, and by the end of the day Stella had already gotten footprints on the wood floor in the entry way, but the house still looks awesome. All the scrubbing and dusting is going to last for a while. And we have DUST-FREE BASEBOARDS! Awesome. We also took Etta for her first meal out, to McDonald's for breakfast. Then we spent the rest of the morning outside while the maids cleaned. It was very nice.

-We took out the bushes on the back patio and planted some new plants and it looks gorgeous. Our view is now completely unobstructed by those hideous bushes. We had to live with them for a while, though for me to be sure that they needed to go.

Before outside: (the only picture I could find quickly was from before we bought the house.)
After (obviously, we've made other changes as well, namely painting the house and the solar screens):It'll look even better once we re-do the pieces of wood surrounding the beds (we're going to probably paint them the same color as the house), and when the plants start taking off.

Before Inside:

After inside:
-I ordered a sit and stand stroller from Amazon last night. It's the Joovy Caboose and has really great reviews and was on sale, so I decided to go for it. The trip to the park Sunday convinced me that when I was by myself I needed a way to get both Stella and Etta to the park. We don't have sidewalks in most of our neighborhood, so it's important that Stella is contained.

I spent way too much time getting the perfect picture for the plants portion of this post, so I'd better get going if I want to get anything done today! It's back to normal life, as my mom is gone this week so we're having to do our laundry ourselves and procure food for ourselves. If you saw our pantry, you would realize we're doing terribly at this second thing!

Playing Dress-Up

Stella donned her full dress-up outfit she got from her MeMe and Pappy for her birthday this morning while playing with MeMe. It's so cute I had to share!

My Memory sucks!

I am trying to write my birth story and I shouldn't have waited so long. I don't remember stuff! I'm going to have to get Tim and my Mom to verify my facts. I did, however, FINALLY get the birth announcements completed. They just have to go in the mail. Hopefully it won't take me too long to do that!

A big difference between mothering one and mothering two

-This morning I chose reading "If I Ran the Zoo" to Stella over getting a little more much-needed sleep. (Hence the 2nd cup of coffee I am enjoying right now.)
-I let the dishes sit in the sink, or the floor go unvacuumed and play with my eldest daughter.
-If she asks me to do something with her, as long as I'm not feeding Etta, I do it. Not in five minutes, not later, but then.

And Stella is happy with these little interactions, even if they only last the length of a book. She understands Mommy is busy with Etta a lot of the time, and just spending a few minutes reading to Stella or playing with her or talking with her, is enough to make her feel special. That's awesome.

I guess I'm just saying that I value my relationship with her even more than I did before. Friday we went shopping, just the two of us, and had such a nice time. Even though we could only go for about an hour because Etta never stops eating;) Stella tried on clothes in the dressing room for the first time "because she's a big girl" (as she said). And Saturday, all three of us had breakfast tacos and just hung out enjoying the chatterings of a 3-year-old while Etta slept in the pack n' play in another room.

I think our lives may get a bit more messy, but it's going to be worth every speck of dust:)

(Of course, next week my fantastic, stupendous, wonderful, beautiful, sisters, Caroline and Christine, are getting me a maid. A MAID! YAY! So we're just doing the bare minimum not to drown in clutter, but leaving any big jobs for then. And my mother is here again this week, vaccuuming while I speak so I can sit and write this post, plus Tim has been wonderful about cleaning too, so we've been very fortunate!)

I cannot tell you how happy I am to be a family of 4. It's like my heart swelled again and I have more love and more happiness than I ever thought possible. I'm such a blessed and lucky woman!

Don't you have anything better to do

Than eat? Etta is unfortunately one of those "eat around the clock" babies. The longest she goes between feedings is two hours and when she does eat, she just sort of hangs out there forever. This is getting a bit tiresome, I have to admit. Stella went 3 hours between feedings, pretty much from the get-go and even though she'd nurse for an hour and a half at each feeding, somehow that seemed easier, I don't know why. I thought I was going to have to nurse Etta again just a few minutes ago, but she calmed down just being held and then passed out in the Moby. So maybe I can eek just a few more minutes out before I'm attached again!

Because of all this time that Etta demands to be fed, I have given up any hope of returning to normal life yet. I have resigned myself to having my focus be simply feeding Etta, sleeping and eating. It's not a very exciting existence, but I guess it's what I've got to do for at least a little while longer! So if you see Etta or Stella (or me!) in some bizarre outfits, you can assume I still haven't had time to do laundry! I think the hardest part is that Stella and Tim tool around and seem to be having so much fun, but Stella doesn't really want much to do with me. She adores Etta, but I'm chopped liver. Oh well, I guess that's to be expected!

Stella and Etta

My expectations of Stella's behavior with her sister have been far exceeded. Stella is just the sweetest big sister, always gently kissing Etta, wanting to see her first thing in the morning and first thing after her nap. In fact yesterday, she was like, "bring in baby sister" as soon as she woke up from her nap and I said that I had her and she just broke out into a wide grin when she saw Etta. She wants to hold her several times a day (of course heavily helped by us). I'm surprised because I thought she wouldn't find a newborn very exciting, but I was wrong. When we change Etta's diaper, Stella's right there with her step stool to help. If I need something, Stella will get it for me. And Etta is already enamored of her big sister. Seeing them together is so amazing!
Already sharing a joke.
Right now she's whining that she wants us to give Etta a bath immediately. We're planning to do it this morning, but at a more leisurely pace. Waiting is not a 3-year-old's strong suit, though.

I feel so behind, I have a 1,001 pictures to go through, but eventually they will be on smugmug, I promise! I also need to write my birth story before I forget it all. As I was telling Tim yesterday, it's so hard to transistion back to normal life after having a baby.

Good Family Photo from the Hospital!

I got Tim's Mom's pictures from the hospital and thankfully she got a good one of the four of us. I knew someone out of all those cameras had to have gotten a good shot!

Tim's Interview at the Austinist

Tim got interviewed by the Austinist today about Time Steps. Check it out.

I've got Two Hands Again!

Today after Etta's first Dr's appointment, we went by Austin Baby to get me a sling. I had planned on getting the Zolowear Ring sling based on people's recommendations. I was originally going to order one online because it was cheaper, but decided I would at least try the Zolowear to see if Etta liked a ring sling before I ordered one. I tried a zolowear on and Etta seemed to like it just fine, but I thought my shoulder hurt a little. Plus I still felt like it was too difficult to be sure that the baby's airway wasn't constricted. And the $89 price tag was holding me back a little. So I decided to try a Moby Wrap sling just to see, especially since that's what Courtney got for Oscar. Oh my gosh, I LOVED it! I'd always been intimidated by the wrap slings, they just seem so complex, but after Erin (owner of Austin Baby) helped me put it on once, I was able to do it again all by myself. Etta was totally comfortable in it, she was upright and therefore her nose and mouth were completely unblocked, I could see her face at all times, and her weight was so evenly distributed I had no discomfort whatsoever. I ate lunch with Etta strapped to my chest, I was actually able to help Stella put her toys away, and right now I am typing this post with both hands while looking down at my sweet baby. And I can't believe the $39 price tag. Two thumbs up!

As far as the doctor's visit, everything went great. Dr. Patil said Etta was perfect in every way, and gaining weight like a champ. She's already back up to 7 lbs, 1.4 oz. She was 6 lbs, 14 oz Sunday when she left the hospital. Now after a good nursing session, I am feeling like I'm about to pass out. It's nap time, folks!

Stella's 3!

It's hard to believe Stella turned 3 today. It seems like just yesterday she was like this:

And here she is today looking so grown up:
My baby's a big girl! Unfortunately I am very tired, way too tired to wax poetic about the situation. Got a new baby to feed!

Oh, and in other news, I never even got a chance to profess my love for the IPod Touch before it futzed out on me today. It really sucks because I was using it to record all of Etta's feeding times. Hopefully we can get it replaced tomorrow without sending it off. What kind of electronic breaks after 5 days?

Hospital photos

They took some really cute photos at the hospital. I was planning to not get any, but we actually got prints of a couple. We couldn't resist! These are all of them, for "Web Viewing Only", obviously.

She's Here!

Our sweet baby daughter made her grand entrance yesterday! Etta Mae Thomas was born at 4:03pm Friday, March 20th. She weighed 7 lbs, 7oz and was 19 inches long.

She was indeed born on my father's (her Pappy's) birthday. He was very excited about his birthday present and I think it made it easier to be half-way around the globe and not able to see her until she's a month old. If you are wondering where we came up with her name, we just really loved the name Etta, and her middle name is after my grandmother, my father's mother, Frances May and her mother, Edna May! Well, feeding time is upon us again, so I need to go.

Unfortunately, our family photo didn't turn out so well. Too many cameras at once! But we'll try again today!

Today seems like a good day to have a baby

First day of Spring, my Dad's birthday (Stella was due March 19th and I think he was really disappointed she didn't arrive on his birthday), a Friday. Plus we already have a doctor's appointment at 9:45, in 3 hours. Plus now the Unbearables will have to stay together because I will miss their final show tonight! But I know I have been wrong before. A few times, but I really think this is it. All those contractions that I thought were painful - HA! Man, was I a pansy. I forgot what real labor felt like!

Assuming this is real labor. Which I'm going ahead and assuming because I am an optimist. Today at least.

If it is not real labor, I will be able to let the world know relatively quickly after my appointment because Tim got me an IPod Touch yesterday! It's my early push present. He says he got it for me early so that I could stop thinking about all these damn contractions I've been having. Very sweet. I really haven't figured out how to use it, and the thing that finally pushed me over the edge about wanting to get it is that there is an app that times contractions. Really. Although I can't get it right now because Tim's asleep (as he should be, as we all should be at 6:40am), and he must have changed the wireless password because the old one is not working. So for now I'm recording these %^%**&)*( things on the same purple pad of paper with the same black ballpoint pen I've been using all week. No technology is being used. Well, other than the fact that I'm blogging that I'm in labor. I should get Twitter real fast and then I can Twitter my labor. Would it make me feel better if I could let the world know I was in severe pain every few minutes?

By the way, does anybody know how, after you sync your IPOD with ITunes, to delete certain albums off your Ipod that you may not want on there? With my old mini, I never used the sync all feature, I just added individual albums because it was only 4 GB. My Touch is 32 GB (although I was disappointed to discover that it really only holds slightly less than 30 gigs), so I can fit almost all of our music on it. That was my biggest requirement if I got a new Ipod, I was tired of having to pick albums every once in a while and load my ipod up. I always waited too long to do it and it always took too long to do.

I can't help but feel a wee bit guilty about spending this much money on an electronic gadget, but I am trying to look at it as stimulating the economy. And we are so fortunate right now to be in a really good place (in fact, Tim just got a raise. I know, don't hit us!), so there's really no reason to go overboard on being frugal. I am naturally frugal in the first place, but you hear about all this belt-tightening and think, "I should go on the belt-tightening band wagon!" Luckily, babies are natural belt-tighteners, you have no time to do anything or go anywhere!

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed that we meet BabyBean today!