Sunday Grunts

Fair Warning- this is another loopy post due to the effects of Percocet in my system.

Today is Sunday.

And what a Sunday it was!!

Last night David offered to take Emily for the whole night! I was very happy to oblige him.  I'm not sure I even fake protested....  When that happens my night goes like this:  I go to bed at 10.  I play on my phone for an hour just because I can, then I sleep until one when I wake up and pump.  I sleep again until 4 when I wake up and pump, and again at 7.  Then by 9 am David has come in to drop off Emily so he can get a solid block of sleep.

To a lot of people that isn't a happy night.  Waking up 3 times for 45 minutes each time when the baby is being taken care of by someone else? Crazy I know.  But the ladies just don't let me go longer, they wake me up and are ready to pop by then.  (Normally I pump every 2 hours but I allow myself the extra bit at night).

Now, the stipulation for a whole night alone is that David can ask for help at any time.  Last night I fell asleep at 1030, woke up at 1230, woke up at 430 and then again at 515 when David came in, unceremoniously put Emily on my pillow and gave me a pleading look that said "Help me my wonderful wife because our child has kept me awake too much."   Being the gracious wife that I am I smiled and told him to go get some rest.  And thus began my day. 

Emily was given to me because she was grunting.  Now, I'm not sure if I've said this yet but she is not a cooing baby- she's a grunting baby.  She grunts and growls (and if she started barking I wouldn't even blink) and yells and occasionally cries but she's only ever coo'ed a handful of times.  She coos all day long and sometimes even when she sleeps.  Which was the case.  She grunted as David handed her to me and proceeded to grunt loudly enough to keep me awake for the next two hours.  At 615 my alarm went off.  Which was wrong because it was set for 715.  And I thought, maybe that's because it was daylight savings today? Nope.  Couldn't be that reason because of two things: 1. My iPhone updated itself to the right time all on its own  and 2. We went forward an hour. Which means that my head said it was 515 and my phone was just stupid.  =)

Anyway, I pumped, fed the baby, took a shower (which she mercifully slept through), got dressed and then woke David at 745 for church.  While he "hit the snooze" (because yes I am that nice) I picked up Em to wash her hair at the sink so she wouldn't be greasy for her adoring fans.  She slept as I picked her up, slept as I wet down her hair, slept as I washed and dried it and only woke when I changed her diaper with a cold wipe.   And then she grunted/whined at me.  

We made it to church on time. 9 am.  Unfortunately I cannot say the same for half the congregation.  There were quite a few empty seats that filled slowly throughout the service.  Emily spent the entire time grunting loudly- everyone around us kept turning to her and giggling at us.  David tried to stifle her a bit with the binky but the grunting comes from her throat and she just grunts anyway with the bink in.

During Sunday school she grunted.    A lot.  One of the ladies named her the "grunty baby."  It is both funny and mildly embarrassing.  But hey, what can you do?  No guilt here.  (Guilt- that's my next post someday).

During Relief Society she was finally in the arms of her adoring fans.  She fell asleep in my lap and as another woman sat down she commented on how beautiful Em was and how much she loved her hair (that's Em's biggest compliment, her fantastic hair).  I offered the let her hold the baby and she jumped at the chance.  The moment Emily was in this woman's lap, she decided to fart.  

Seriously.

We had just spent TWO hours annoying the world and the she just lets one rip right on a woman who has been very nice to us.  This woman just laughed, as did BOTH rows around us.  And everyone spent the first ten minutes of the lesson ignoring what was happening and smiling at Emily instead.   That baby sure played it up.  She showed off how she holds her head so well.  She did her cute "I'm yawning" face and noises.  She grunted and groaned and yelled for her admirers.  She even spit up a little and had everyone remembering when their babies did that.  

I'm telling you, this kid is a ham.

Speaking of, what in the world does that even mean? Does a ham purposefully attract attention?

So she grunted for three hours this morning.  Grunted through three hours of church, and then grunted all afternoon at my friend S's house.

S hosted us and another couple over today for an adult/child/infant CPR and first aid class taught by her mother's husband.  He is a very nice man named A.  A is an EMT and teaches this class all the time, but never for free like he did for us.  It was a lot of fun, and was nice and relaxed.  So relaxed in fact that we were there from 2 until 7pm.  The three hour class took five, but that was just fine.  Except for Emily and her grunting.  She grunted through the only two bottles that I brought.  She grunted when anyone held her. She grunted in the swing.  She grunted at the floor.  She grunted at the couch.  And when she was hungry again she grunted at my boob- and then spit up all over it.

She is currently in her bassinet downstairs with David, grunting in her sleep.

And I am upstairs.  And about to have a lovely three hour sleep while he takes the first shift.  Extra lovely from my medicine I had to take because all of those CPR chest compressions brought back my shoulder pain (tendonitis really really SUCKS and doesn't seem to ever go away).  The shoulder has been flaring up the last couple weeks, probably from carrying the goober around all the time.  Yesterday I cleaned the house (not only is my house clean, my kitchen is now SANITARY.  that's right, eat your hearts out.  No really, go for it because it's only going to stay this way for another week or so).  That scrubbing made my shoulder sore but today really did me in.  Speaking of, I need to let it rest and typing this very long post cannot be helping it.  

So I shall say Adieu.

Or Achoo.

They're rather similar in my opinion.

I never can hear the word Adieu without thinking of the Sound of Music and that song the whole family sings- "So long, farewell.... Adieu Adieu to you and you and youuuuu.....  Gooood byeeeee"

5 Weeks Old

A Recipe:

One beautiful baby

One DSLR camera

One assistant /husband

One black $6 walmart sheet

One white $6 walmart sheet

One strobe light

One photographer/ mom

It's been awhile!

Hello dear readers, I hope you haven't given up on me.
This pregnancy is taking all of my energy and then some!

This photo was at 34 Weeks

I'm 36 weeks along today, yay! And we're scheduled for induction on Jan 6th.  That's two weeks from tomorrow.  But I wouldn't complain if she made an early appearance as I'm rather done with being pregnant.

Anyway, I'll be updating everyone via this blog for the most part.  One can only do so many phone calls to so many people once she's born.

Here she is back in October

And here's our most recent, from Dec 14th.

Babies! AHHHHHHH

This blog has two parts.  No, let's make it three.

Part One:
I'm tired of my job and looking forward to the day when I don't work there anymore.

Part Two:
That day is coming up in a few months because as most of you know already, we're going to have a baby! YAY! today was day #1 of my 2nd trimester, I'm now 14 weeks and due January 19.

I was laying on my back today and felt the giant baby lump for the first time.  It's like a big rock just under my belly button, and it makes me feel like I finally have proof! Yes, we have ultrasound photos and heard the heartbeat again yesterday, but I can find this myself! Only when I'm laying all the way back though.  One step at a time I guess!

David says I can't put ultrasound photos on facebook because it's creepy when people do so.  And while I agree, I make exceptions for blogs...

My baby's first photo shoot, and trust me, there are hundreds in it's future.

(I say it, but my family says "she."  As if they "know")

Part Three:

For  Mother's Day (which I know was awhile ago) I made my mom the most awesome sheep ever! The pattern is by Delicious Crochet  I bought a pack of their patterns on Etsy.  The Llama I gave to my mother in law because she enjoys making them and has been admiring him for awhile (don't you just love his sherpa hat?).  And the Sheep I decided to craft myself for my mom.   

I learned a few things: 1. Their patterns make HUGE dolls.  They're a solid 15 inches high, and I had to go buy yarn THREE times.  2.  Their patterns are very well written  3.  I love love LOVE the look of the crochet loops.  4. I used almost an entire bag of stuffing for the sheep. But totally worth it.

I also made my own Granny with their pattern, but need to find photos of it to share.  And next on my list is the Lion pattern.  The last pattern in the group that I bought is Grandpa.  I'll get to him at some point!

Family Visits!

My Mom was here in March and I never did put those photos up, so here they are!

And about a week ago, David's family was here too! We all had a great time at the Aquarium and Beach.  It's hard to beat good company and free food, thanks for buying us dinner Happy Mom!

 They had the coolest giant tank full of fish and a  sea turtle and 4 SHARKS!

 My little Sisters in law watching all the fish go by.

"taking on the Jellies man..."

MY FAVORITE part of the visit were the baby sea turtles. it does NOT get any cuter than that.

And of course, the beach....

A great way to end a fun visit.

I love my family

This post is dedicated to my parents who bought me and my husband and my brother and his girlfriend a cruise.

 Here I am crocheting on deck! David is asleep behind me.  My mom taught me a few things with knitting on the ship.  I can now cast on and... something else.  But I'm not gonna lie, I totally like the crochet hook better.

 Our ship, the Carnival Fantasy!

 Big family photo in New Orleans. (We stopped there on the way to Mobile where we shipped off)

 Lunch in Cozumel.

 Viva la Mexico and it's random photo stuff.

 as my mother says, This is what happens when you have to wait too long for your food at dinner on the ship.

 El Castillo, Mayan Ruins, SO COOL

 At the ruins

 I named him Sydney the Pirate Koala. He plays bingo.

 Gotta LOVE LOVE LOVE good photos on board.

The holidays are over, but the work is not!

Why hello there bloggers!  It's been awhile since we've connected hasn't it?  But that's okay! Because today is a day for photos and other creative moments.

First, Christmas.  It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work.  In my previous post you can see our $2 Christmas tree.  We never did take a photo in front of it together, but we did roll it up to save for next year.  We're thinking it's gonna work out as a fun tradition.  That is, if we manage to have enough construction paper because, geez that used a lot of it.

Of course, what do you expect when you make it over 4 feet tall?

Christmas was a wonderful time to be thrifty, and I am excited about two present ideas this year.  One, was not fully my idea. I was looking on Google to try and find a fun present to give that didn't cost a lot of money and I found a suggestion to give a 'movie night.'  The person who suggested it said to put a blanket, some popcorn and candy, and a movie into a pretty basket (and any other things  you might associate with a movie night).  And I thought that was a super idea, so I went for it!  A few family members received our thrifty gifts and they were well received.  We picked movies from the Walmart bins (and had a GREAT time digging and picking them out), and I used fabric paint to decorate a fleece blanket.  Then we split up a few boxes of popcorn, and BAM! Awesome non-expensive family-friendly present.   It made me happy.

It wasn't until Christmas day that we had to come up with our second idea.  It seems we were part of a cousin-exchange and my husband forgot.  Whoops.  With guilty hearts we used the new gift we recieved (Pyrex mixing bowls with lids! So very useful), and tried to find a gift to give.

Thus, when the stores were open again we were back at Walmart.  And I had an Idea! (Yes, capital I.  Idea!)  I swear there was a lightbulb above my head that clicked on with a *Bing* and began shining away.  The gift had to be shipped, and as I learned with the first presents (whose shipping was incredibly close to the actual gift cost) it needed to be light weight.  We bought two throw pillows and another fleece blanket and took them home to personalize.

I crocheted a few coordinated colored flowers, sewed them on, and BAM!  Custom made throw pillows and blanket.  Shipping cost? Too much as always, but better than the cost of shipping a blender.  And, the thought behind it made it shine that much better.  Especially since it's going to show up two weeks late.

Here are photos!

 

David's job was to make the card, and this is the adorable one he made.

Less than a week later we had another plan.  This time we were headed to Raleigh (a good 2.5 to 3 hour drive) to see the new movie Avatar at an IMAX theater.  I'll admit, I thought David was over the top to come up with this idea.  I mean, why not just watch it in a normal theater like normal people?  But nope.  Such is this man.  The movie wasnt until 10pm and we arrived (two friends in tow) at about 5 pm.  With time to kill we decided to eat out (Cheesecake Factory!) and then explore the local mall.  Which was absolutely beautiful and had all of my favorite stores ( I miss you Victoria's Secret), including....

THE LEGO STORE!

That's right folks, an entire store of LEGOS! They had sets of PEOPLE, they had a whole wall of PIECES separated by type and color (my organizationally anal dream!!)  and they had a cake mold.  It was silicon and red and in the shape of a lego man.  David's friend went to buy something at the front of the store for a family member and came back with the mold for us as well!

Now, if you knew my man and his family you would know that they can't do anything the easy way.  David decided that not only must we make his friend a lego cake (which I am very much pro doing as a thank you), but he decided that all the parts must be the right color.  Thus the trial and error ensued.  There was icing everywhere.  Bowls with blue, red, and yellow cake all over the place.  And tape.  Because it became my job to figure out how to block the colors from running all over.

Our first attempt?

Looked like this:

Notice the smiling face.  And the awesome color separation!

Of course, there ended up being a catch.

As David proceeded to tell me, "Jess, we can't ice this"

"Why not?" I asked.

"You'll lose all the details! You wont see the face or anything."

Thus, dear reader, notice the little white dots along Lego man's feet?  That's icing.  Which was pushed into the cake using a giant needle syringe that we found in the cooking section at our favorite store.  Well, it's basically our only store.... stupid empty little town.  But that's neither here nor there.

Now, the best part of this Lego cake was eating it! AND we even had left over batter. Which I put together to make us a rainbow cake. It was beautiful.

Wanna see?

 

Unfortunately it wasn't exactly even.  Lol.  I blame the cake, and not my pouring skills.

Anyway, more soon. I have a lot of crochet projects to show off and link to! Hooray!
Until next time....

I'm finally home.

Hello good readers!  How I have missed you.  Especially since I've moved to a place where my only friends are available digitally.  I don't know what I'd do without my phone and my laptop keeping me in touch back home.

So David is home! Score!
He's happy to be back, and we're happy to finally get this married thing underway.  And I'd say we're doing a fairly good job of it.  Nothing is perfect of course, but I'm proud of us for figuring it out.  Also, he eats my cooking, and that's really a good basis for things.  =)

I'm not really a bad cook, but I'm not a great one.  Something to aspire to I guess.  Also, hamburger from the *only* walmart in this town doesnt really rock.  I wouldnt recommend it.

So we have a new place! YAY!  It's a townhouse right outside of base. David's commute is only about 5 minutes and on a day when I'm SUPER bored I can totally walk places.   ...  I do mean SUPER bored though, let's be honest, I'm not a walker.

There are two downsides that I can see to living really close to base.  One are the fly overs.  I dont know what kind of plane, nor do I really care, but it's rather loud and goes over the house once or twice a day.  Except for today.  Who knows what the heck they're doing today, but the planes have gone by at LEAST ten times in the last three hours.  Which isn't terribly annoying, it's just.... not normal! =)  The other downside to living this close to base is the lack of a town.  I'd barely refer to it in that way, maybe it's more of a village.  And rather than tell you what we DON'T have here, it's a much shorter list to tell you what we have.
1. Marine base
2. Food lion (grocery store)
3. Super Walmart
4. Subway x2
5. Post office
6. Ham's (which I think is a restaurant)
7. Haircut places x10+  (the men get their haircut weekly. If I could learn how to do it I'd make some cash)
8. Strip clubs/ Topless bars x5 (Where there are men, there are dirty places)
9. ABC liquor
10. Holiday Inn (or some hotel, very small)
11. A baptist church at every turn (As David says, North Carolina thinks it's the south)
12. Rite Aid (drugstore, think Walgreens)
13. And of course a very minimal smattering of fast food places.

Thirty minutes in one direction I have a "mall" and a Target (!) and thirty the other way is a beach and a Michaels (!).  The end.

If I live through this, it will be only through internet shopping.

So let's talk about our new place! Yay!
It's absolutely gorgeous, we signed the lease the day we walked through it.  We have three bed rooms and 2.5 bathrooms.  I know! It's so awesome! Some of the rooms are even PAINTED not white!  Score! that's rare in a rental.  The living room is green, the kitchen is red and yellow, the half bath is brown, and our master bath is blue!  Colors make me happy.

Let me take you on a photo tour! Two things to keep in mind.  1. I used my iphone camera and it doesn't like low light, so some of the photos are blurry.  2. I didn't clean, because David's got stuff everywhere as he just emptied out his Iraq stuff to organize.  And besides, if I keep waiting until this place is clean, the photos will never be taken. =)

So... Welcome!

The view from our porch

Master Bedroom and pretty new dresser!

  

Master Bath (Mine!)

Guest Bath (Davids)

An empty bedroom! Because all my crap is still back home!

And now we head downstairs...

The Living Room (Full of David's Iraq stuff)

Our kitchen is a thing of beauty...

  

New table!

This is the 'pretty' view outside our back door...

The end!

Oh! David's home from work, bye all!