A day in the life

I don't know if there is such a thing as an average day, but here is a full day in my life! Thursday, June 9th, 2011.

7:00. I wake up to my iPhone. Time to get up!


Listen to the monitor. Sometimes I swear Penny hears my alarm. Today, I hear a single peep, but no crying. Then silence. She's been doing so well with sleep, so about half the time I don't even have to feed her before work! It makes me a little sad that I don't get to see her before work, but the one time I made the mistake of checking on her, she totally woke up. Blame it on having an old house with creaky doors and floors.


I make myself some breakfast, two frozen blueberry waffles and some hot tea. I turn on the TV and watch A Baby Story while I eat. I was going to watch Saved by the Bell but it was one of the old ones with Miss Bliss and I'm not into it today.


7:30 rolls around and I brush my teeth, get dressed, and put on some makeup. I hear another peep, but then nothing. I have a feeling she might wake up early today.


All ready! I hurry up and leave because I'm always afraid Penny will wake up right when I need to leave. It's easier to leave her without seeing her (and her seeing me).


8:00. Time for work! I won't go into detail here because I don't want to blog about work. Computer stuff, basically.


11:00 I start getting hungry, so I go ahead and eat lunch. Meant to take a picture, but I didn't remember until I was done! Cheese sandwich on an onion roll and some pasta salad. Carb-y lunch but we're trying to save money and that's what we had. I do a little Googling on my lunch break and find out all the construction going on in a shopping center near my house is for a new CVS. Kind of a boring development but it could be worse. I also call Cory to check in. Penny's happy and sleeping. She did wake up early today though!

After lunch, it's back to work. At 2:00, Cory sends me a text with this picture:

Asleep in the Bumbo. She must have been having so much fun she wore herself out.

5:00. Time to go home! Looks like I left my hot tea in the cupholder this morning instead of bringing it into work. Oops! It's still hot, but not really in a good way anymore. Haha.


This is what greets me when I come home:


Cory sets about making dinner, which is parmesan noodles and garlic bread. I eat dinner while nursing and then Penny gets a bottle (she's using a big bottle now!).

After dinner, Penny has some playtime and I get a little knitting in. She's really starting to grab toys now! It makes her look so much more independent.


A little after 8:00, Kim, Jeff and Katie come over. Kim and I get in a nighttime run (so much cooler than right after work in the sweltering heat). It wasn't pretty, so no pictures - sorry!

When we get back, we all hang out for a little while and then they go home. Cory and I put Penny to bed around 10, and then watch a little TV before showering and going to bed. Last thing I do is get a screen capture to remember what time I turned the lights out to go to sleep:


Good night!

Weekend at Nonie's

Penny and I had a great time at my mom's this past weekend. Cory and Jeff went with some buddies on a white water rafting trip, so Kim and I decided it would be a great weekend to stay at our mom's and have that garage sale we've been meaning to have. It was great to get rid of some things, make a little money, and spend quality time with the girls!


We started off Friday with the guys heading off on their trip and me heading off to work. Kim kindly took a vacation day to stay home with Katie and Penny. I know Penny had fun because Kim was sending me pictures, like this cute one above here. When I got off work, we got everyone in the car and headed south to Mom's house, Kim with the kids and me with the SUV full of stuff. I don't know who was more uncomfortable, Kim with two antsy kids, or me driving with a mattress on my shoulder! We made it, though, had a yummy dinner, and set about sorting, tagging, and setting up everything to sell the next day.

Bright and early the next morning (5:30!), we woke up and starting putting everything out on the driveway. We got quite the early crowd, since it was going to reach almost 100 degrees later that day. I had to run up and feed Penny around 8, and she made this lovely face as she fell asleep:


I crept back downstairs to help with the sale, but it didn't last long. Penny hung out with us most of the rest of that morning, but she slept and it wasn't too hot, since it was early. We sold quite a few things, which was great! We didn't sell this guy, though - too bad!

We cleaned up (it was so HOT outside, but we did it!) and I think it took all the energy out of us. By the time we finally got to eat dinner, it was about 9pm. After that, Kim and Katie headed back home, but not before Katie worked on a puzzle with us, and showed us how to eat an ice cream cone:


Penny and I slept over one more night at my mom's. I was greeted by this smiling face in the morning!


We had a lovely, relaxed day with Nonie, visiting, working on the puzzle, and I did a little knitting. It was nice to have the quality time together. We got home Sunday afternoon just in time to see Daddy! It was a great weekend!

Three months

Our sweet Penny turned three months old on June 2nd. This month went by so quickly! She really started smiling a lot and showing us her sweet personality.


Her two month checkup went so well. She's gaining weight and growing strong. She was always great at holding her head up, but now she's a pro, and is constantly pushing with her legs to stand up on our laps. She almost always prefers to be sitting up or standing instead of laying down.


This was also the month she really started sleeping through the night! She's done so well, generally waking up once to eat and going back to sleep, but this month she started sleeping from 9 or 10 at night to anywhere from 5:30 to even 9:30! It made me a little sad that I didn't always get to see her in the morning, but it's allowing me to push back my wake up time and get a little more sleep, so I can see some benefit. :-)


We've started to use the Bumbo seat with her more often, and get her used to the idea of sitting up on her own. She's also really started to notice the TV, uh oh! She's become so alert and aware of her surroundings. She's constantly looking around.


It's been a great month. We're so proud of our little sweetie girl!

Wordless Wednesday

Penny's first baseball game

Last Tuesday, 5/31, we took Penny to her first baseball game! My work invited all of us and our families to go to a Redbirds game, and I figured why not? It was at night, so we didn't have to worry about sun exposure, which helped a lot.


Penny was so well behaved, which was a miracle considering how hot it was (90s). Poor thing probably got a little dehydrated. She was sweaty for sure. We fed her more often than usual, and that kept her happy. We wore her to and from the game in the Snugli (like a Baby Bjorn), and had her on our laps the rest of the time. My biggest fear was looking out for foul balls, but we were fine! The Redbirds even won the game. We all had a great time (though I will never wear jeans to a game in that heat again)!

Memorial Day weekend

Better late than never, right? I kept putting off blogging about our Memorial Day weekend because it was a long one. I took off work Friday and Tuesday, so we spent a long weekend in Louisiana with Cory's family. Thursday afternoon, Cory and Penny swung by my work to pick me up, and we were on our way!


We had packed sandwiches for us, and bottles for Penny, so we only had to stop once for gas on the way. Penny was great as usual, and slept most of the time. We got there a little after 11pm and hung out for a little while before going to bed.


Friday, we got up and put Penny in a cute outfit (a Katie hand-me-down), and went to eat lunch at Izzo's, one of our favorite burrito places and a usual stop for us when we visit. On the way back we got snowballs (like snow cones but the ice is super fine, like snow). Mine was coconut flavored with soft serve vanilla ice cream in the middle. Delicious!


Later that night, we went to La Fonda, where the food was good as usual, and the service was odd and slow (also as usual). A family tradition.


The next day was Cory's cousin's wedding. It was at the nearby church which had recently been renovated - so pretty! My friend Christy was in the wedding and it was great to see her and her mom. Penny wore a dress that I had originally bought for Katie, and that Katie wore to our wedding two years ago.


Later, we had dinner with our friends Adrian and Jessica, and they came over and visited with us and Penny after we ate. Then, we put the baby to bed and got to go out! We met some friends at one of our old college bars for a few drinks. We stayed and visited until almost 2am. It was great. That was definitely a Sunday morning I was glad to hand the baby over to MawMaw and go back to bed! Really, though, we are so lucky that Penny is sleeping through the night. Being an early riser is okay if you've had some continuous sleep. :-)


Sunday was a lazy day for us. I think we had lunch around the house and then Cory's mom, Penny, and I went to Target. I also got in a little work on this:


That night we went to Parrain's for dinner, which was just okay, but reminded me I want to try to recreate their cole slaw. It is just a little sweet, but mustardy and peppery, and it has peanuts in it! That plus their huge onion rings might have been my favorite part of the meal. :-) We also went to visit Cory's grandparents at their house. It was great to see them and visit for a while.

Monday was Memorial Day, so we mostly ate and visited with people. We had lunch at La Carreta (Cory's family loves Mexican food, for sure!), and then went to meet Cory's godmother. Cory had not seen her in a long time, and she had never met me or Penny. Then, Christy came over to see Penny. Once she left, we took Penny to our friend Matt's parents' house so she could meet them. We ended the night with a cookout and some yummy food!

Tuesday was hard. We had to leave early because we had things to do when we got back home. We had breakfast and then packed up the car. I think Cory's mom didn't want to let go of Penny! We had such a great time, it was really hard to leave. We are so glad our little girl is such a great traveler, though!

Nicknames

Penny has a lot of great nicknames so far. Our family is a little silly, so we are constantly coming up with new nicknames.

our sweet pea, at two weeks

Of course, Penny is a nickname, too! Here are some of the names we've called our little Penelope:

- Penny
- Penny Pen
- Pen Pen (my mom and Katie love using this one)
- P
- sweet pea
- sweet potato
- little P
- Munch (because of the face she would make when she was eating)
- Scrunchie
- our little Tiny Tine (also a nickname for Katie when she was little)
- Pennzill and Penzoil (from Kim)
- Penny poo poos on (from Katie)

I'm sure this list will grow and change as she gets older. She is such a sweet girl!

Lara's birthday cupcakes

I've done some baking here and there on the side for people. It's really fun and sometimes brings me a little pocket money. I haven't started the baking gig back up yet since having Penny, but I thought I'd try to rustle up something for my friend's birthday. Her favorite is yellow cake with chocolate icing, so to make it easy on myself I thought I'd do a box cake with custom decorations.

I had some candy melts (like the kind you get at the craft store), basically like white chocolate. I melted them down in the microwave, poured the melted mixture into a squeeze bottle, and drew cursive L's on waxed paper. I let them set overnight, and the next day baked up the cupcakes. Once the cupcakes were cooled and iced, I decorated each one with some sprinkles and perched an L on the top. The finished product got a little melty and messy on the way to the party, but they still turned out pretty cute!

Happy birthday, Lara!

FO: Maxi top/dress

I'm really into knitting dresses right now. Here's the Maxi top/dress pattern from Ravelry. This one is for Penny, and because the pattern scales to a lot of different sizes, I'm now working on one for Katie in a different color! I used Berrocco Vintage yarn in Fondant and Limone.

Two months

Our second month with Penny was pretty eventful! Cory and I celebrated our second anniversary when she was just over a month old. That day was full of adventure - severe storms knocked out the power at our house and a great deal of the city, including the restaurant where we had planned to eat dinner. Everything ended up fine, though, and we did make it out to eat and celebrate. One of the most exciting things happened earlier that day; Penny rolled over for the first time! With no electricity, we decided to do a little tummy time, and she rolled from front to back. We were so proud and surprised. We thought it might be a fluke, but she did it several more times in the following weeks, so we just have a very active girl!

One of the best parts about this month was that Penny really started to gain weight and fill out this month. We had been taking her to the pediatrician every two weeks to monitor her progress, and by her two month checkup, she was up to nine pounds! We really started to get the feedings down, and lost our fear of formula, and she is getting the right combination to gain weight and still get the benefits of breastmilk. She started sleeping better, and we began to get into a better routine. She slept so well, she was only getting up once in the middle of the night! She had some baby acne, but it mostly cleared up by the time she turned two months.

Better sleeping habits made for a great transition back to work. I went back to work in the middle of April, and Cory started staying home with her. He has done so well with her, and it makes it so much easier on me to know Penny is with her daddy. It definitely takes teamwork and patience, and every day isn't perfect, but we are getting there. The hardest part is feeling like you never get a break, but I think it's that way with a baby no matter what the daytime arrangement is.

We took Penny to her first wedding, and she wore a dress that I wore when I was little. I'm so glad I thought to get a picture of her in it, even if it was at the end of the night!

We started to get some smiles this month, too! My sister took this great photo of Penny that we used on her birth announcement. She's about six weeks old here.

She also had her first Easter! She wore a dress and bonnet that Cory's Aunt Shiela gave her.

Two months old and growing fast!

One month

Penny's first month came with a steep learning curve. The first few days were blissed out, a blur of cuddling, visiting, feeding, and changing. She was so little, so she really swam in most newborn clothes. It was cold in March, so we kept her in sleep n' plays mostly (like footie pajamas). Her coming home outfit was one that I bought her, a white pajama with shamrocks on it, since she was due on St. Patrick's Day. We are so lucky that Penny has an older cousin, though - she already had a huge wardrobe to choose from!






Cory's parents (her MawMaw and PawPaw) came up for the birth, and her MawMaw stayed with us for a week! It was so nice having her here, and she got lots of quality time in with the baby. The second week, my mom (her Nonie) came every week day and helped clean, cook, and take care of Penny. She wasn't short on attention, for sure! Cory and I are so lucky to have great parents and so much help.









She has been sleeping in her crib since the first night she came home, so we wouldn't have to transition her into it. During the day, though, she napped wherever was convenient, like her swing or the pack n' play. She was always pretty happy and calm, unless she was hungry. Although it turns out, she was hungrier than we thought. At her two week appointment, she was still down 12 ounces from her birth weight. At four weeks, she was still 6 ounces under birth weight, so we started adding in some formula, and she instantly started sleeping better.





Toward the end of March, we made our first road trip as a new family! We went to Louisiana to see Cory's family, and go to our friend Adrian's wedding (Cory was a groomsman). She did wonderfully in the car, and MawMaw babysat her for us two nights in a row! The rehearsal dinner and wedding were so much fun, and it was really great to introduce Penny to everyone. She also came with us to Cory's cousin's birthday party, and to his grandparents' house. She is a great little traveler.

Here she is with my Nana and Papa:

One month old!

Expectations vs. Reality

On having a baby:

Expectations: You won't know all the answers. Duh.
Reality: Most of the time you know all the possible answers, and have no idea which is the right one, and every time you ask someone for advice it will be different. You will trust your pediatrician, but you will still wonder if you're doing the right thing.

Expectations: Falling totally in love with my baby, instantly.
Reality: Being instantly wowed by my baby, but taking a while for the deeper bond to develop.

Expectations: Not getting enough sleep.
Reality: Getting even less sleep than that.

Expectations: Being a parent would be fun.
Reality: Seeing my husband become a parent would be powerfully emotional (and fun!).

Expectations: Being an emotional wreck the first week back at work.
Reality: Being glad to have an outlet for adult conversation, and a full paycheck again.

Expectations: Being a "different mom" who wasn't part of that exclusive "mommy club" that seems to exist.
Reality: Being glad to have friends who have been through the early stages of motherhood already to know I wasn't alone in my frustrations about parenting, and to share in the joys that seem mundane outside of that perspective.

Expectations: Wanting to break out of the house often, and socialize as much as possible (with baby).
Reality: Being torn between being sad for not being invited to many events (wanting to socialize) and trying to keep the baby on a good sleeping schedule (wanting to stay home).

Expectations: Breastfeeding would either work or it wouldn't, and I would adjust accordingly.
Reality: Breastfeeding sort of works, and we do a combo of nursing and formula.

Expectations: Seeing her smile would brighten up any bad day.
Reality: Even better than expectations.

Penny's Birth Story

I want to go ahead and write this down before I forget the details (and I'm sure I have forgotten some already). I had a wonderful pregnancy. I felt so happy all the time. I wasn't sick much and didn't gain much weight. It had taken us a while to get pregnant so I was grateful for every day of it.

Toward the end, my blood pressure started to go up. It never turned into pre-eclampsia, but I did have a couple of short stays in the hospital for testing (a couple of hours at 35 weeks 6 days, and a couple of days at 36 weeks 6 days). I was on bedrest from the first hospital visit until delivery, and eventually put on medication for my blood pressure. Penny looked great at every ultrasound, but they were monitoring me very closely. Finally, my doctor said it was time to go ahead and induce at 37 weeks, 6 days. I was due on March 17 (St. Patrick's Day!), but Wednesday, March 2 at 4 am found me and Cory in the lobby of our hospital, checking in to have our baby!

I got called back around 4:30, and they hooked me up to an IV, checked me, and strapped on the monitors. I was worried about getting any pain meds too early because I was trying to avoid a C-section if the induction didn't go well, so I didn't get any right away. I wasn't feeling any pain that early, anyway. I was really shaky because I was so nervous - this wasn't how I had pictured having my baby! My nurses were really great, though, and Cory was so supportive. I made him take notes so I would remember when everything happened, and he acted as liaison for all the communications with friends and family.

By around 8am, the doctor came by and broke my water. After that, the contractions really picked up! I was starting to have to breathe through them. They told me it would take 20 minutes for an anesthesiologist to get to the room to have an epidural, and just to let them know when I was ready. I still held off for a while. I really wanted to experience labor for myself. The best way I was able to describe it that day was, "it feels like my uterus is in a trash compactor." Haha! My personal goal was to make it at least halfway dilated, and then if I was miserable I would get the epidural. I had to get to the personal point where it was scarier not to get it than to get it. The contractions got a lot stronger, and after getting checked again, I went ahead and got it. It took on the left side stronger than the right, but they rolled me on my side and it evened out.

Around 10am or so, the family started coming to the hospital and asking to visit. I had been worried about them all seeing me in a lot of pain, but since I had already had the epidural, I let them in. Cory's family had come up from Louisiana the day before, so we had all the grandparents there, plus my grandparents, my sister and her husband, Cory's brother, and our friend Sarah. It was a full house! Everybody came and hung out for a while, and around 12pm I think, I got checked again and I was already at 8cm. I told everyone I wanted to take a nap to rest up for what was coming up, but we all kept talking and visiting, and an hour later, I was ready to go! So much for that nap!

The doctor told the nurses to get ready and have me practice push while she went back over to her office to continue her regular schedule of office visits. Little did she know I didn't need much practice! They had me push for about five minutes and Penny just came right on down! They called the doctor back, and then I had to wait and not push while we waited for her to come back. Once she got in, it was all business. Another 10-15 minutes of pushing, and at 1:41 pm, out came our little girl! I immediately started crying, and they put her on my chest. Ten fingers, ten toes, beautiful and healthy and pink. 6 pounds, 13 ounces.

My blood pressure improved as soon as I delivered, so we both went home on time and in great shape. Our little family. :-)

photo by Charbonnet Photography.

FO: Elenka dress

I'm going to start posting some of the things I'm knitting. I've been bad in the past about not finishing a few projects, so I figure I'll post things as I finish them. FO means "finished object," and I just recently finished knitting the Elenka dress from Knitty for my niece, Katie. It's made with a cotton yarn called Cotton-Ease.

Here's the final product - this was a really fun pattern and went quickly!

Changing gears a little...

So, it has been a really long time since I've blogged! I've been getting multiple requests to start blogging again, and I have a really great reason.

photo by Charbonnet Photography

Penelope Ann

born 3/2/2011 at 1:41 pm

We love our Penny so much! Look for more posts soon!

Making a wedding cake, part 1

Recently I was asked to make a wedding cake for my friends, Chris and Beth (hey guys!). I hope they don't mind me writing about it here! I thought it might be interesting to other people to see just what goes into making a big, layered cake, and it might also turn out to be a great outlet for me to record what I learned to be a better baker in the future.

I went to get the ingredients last night, so the plan is to do all the baking tonight and tomorrow night, do the icing and initial setup Friday, and final assembly and decorations Saturday. It's going to be a hectic week!

The main thing I had to figure out before getting started was how to schedule the baking. I only have a few pans, so I'll need to reuse them. I first wrote down everything I needed to mix and bake:



Next, I wrote down each batch I would need to bake, and what pan would be needed. I moved the batches around until I came up with a schedule that would allow each cake to cool while a different pan was being used.

The main thing I have to figure out in the next two days is the cake board situation. I think some people make a base out of plywood, but I think that might be more than is needed here. I'm planning to transport the layers separately anyway, and just assemble on site a few hours before the reception, so I might just double layer the regular cardboard cake boards. It's going to be two very busy nights, but it will be fun, too!

Edit: I forgot when I wrote this that I will actually be doing a 9x9 middle layer of vanilla, not 8x8. So the schedule is a little different, but the concept is the same! The cake will be a 12-9-6 three tiered cake, for even proportions.

Little things

Now that we've been in our house for over half a year, I'm definitely starting to notice a few things that need a little improvement. While our budget doesn't allow for major renovations or anything, I can't wait to make a few tweaks here and there.

- Fixing the latch on our gate. We've gone as far as taking the old one off (not a big problem, as it was mostly broken), but we have the new one and haven't put it on yet. We may be investing in a drill soon; I think it will come in handy for more than just this project.

- Putting trash cans in every room of the house. This one is really minor, but I've noticed there are a couple of rooms where trash seems to accumulate because it doesn't have an immediate place to go.

- Hanging things on the wall. We have a couple of things, but our den and living room have pretty much nothing at all. Also related...

- Hanging some window treatments. We have nice blinds on all the windows, but I'd like something soft and modern to frame them up a little.

- Refinishing the kitchen cabinets. Our cabinets need repainting, and they have nickel bathroom drawer pulls as handles. I'd like to change those out.

- Gardening! I generally think of myself as having a black thumb, but we have a couple of really nice hydrangea bushes, with a lot of weeds growing around them. They would look so much nicer weeded and surrounded by fresh mulch!

We will have to do some major projects in the next few years (roof, possibly plumbing), but while we're still paying off other debts, I think it's a great time to tackle some of these other jobs.

Checking in

Well, it's been two and a half months since we got married, and I thought maybe it was time for an update. Plenty of things have changed in that time - the temperature is hitting 99 instead of a mild 70, the humidity is out in full force, my hydrangeas are in bloom, and the house is more organized. One thing I have noticed that hasn't changed is our relationship, for the most part. There are subtle changes, like the fact that we get to call each other husband and wife, and the fact that we are realizing that we come first to each other, instead of relying more on our own families. I do feel a lot more like Cory and I are really our own family.

Really, being married has so far been really fun, and nothing crazy! The wedding was a blast, and the honeymoon was relaxing and calm, as I hoped it would be. Really, I have thought here and there about picking the blog back up, but I'm not sure what to write about. I'd really like my blog to have a focus. I tend to have my hand in so many different projects, I'm wondering if anyone would have any interest in reading about them. Coming up in the future, I'll be making a wedding cake, and hopefully learning to use my sewing machine, as well as getting myself into a little gardening. Plus, I am always doing little things here or there. We'll see.

For now, I leave you with one of my favorite wedding pictures:

3. Last minute details

I'm still running around, trying to get a few last minute things done. Cory picked up his tux yesterday. I need to get him some black socks and me some pantyhose. I worked on signs for the bar and the guestbook today, and I still need to pack for the honeymoon and put together an emergency bridal kit (safety pins, band-aids, etc.). We are meeting our DJ tonight, but I am keeping the music a secret until after the wedding. I wrapped the gifts for our parents last night.

It's slowly starting to sink in that I am actually getting married this weekend!

Now if only the forecast would stay nice, and the pollen would just go away! No sinus problems for a month and now I've got a runny nose. Yuck!