Menu Monday

The only meal from last week that we didn't make was the meatloaf, and that was because Justin ended up being gone the night we were going to have that (which ended up being Friday after all my re-arranging), so Claire & I just had deli sandwiches and we'll have meatloaf this week instead. Claire ended up being sick all of Saturday and not totally back to normal on Sunday so she didn't eat much either of those days. And my mom was awesome and brought us lunch on Sunday!

Menu Monday

We mostly followed the plan last week. Well, we had to rearrange because I forgot to pull stuff out of the freezer, but we ate all the right meals. On Saturday we ended up doing leftovers night instead of waffles because we had SOOOO many leftovers.


When I was asking Justin what he wanted to eat this week he said, "Meatloaf, loaf of meat, and meat loaf." Instead we're having meat loaf once and them homemade meat balls using the same recipe. And after I wrote this out on my tablet, I decided to switch Wednesday & Friday, that's why there is an arrow there.

Day in the Life - March 20th

Day in the Life for March happened to be a Thursday. It was also Spring Break which means we ended up having Anaya for part of the week which means she was here for Day in the Life.


Right now I get up twice most nights to nurse Ryder & put him back to bed. Usually around 1-2 and 5-6, sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later, it just depends on how he feels. I do not pump at home, but I do pump three times a day while I'm at work.


Justin went to get Anaya today, so I took a few of pictures of her & Justin playing with Ryder. Then they handed him off to me and he promptly pooped and it went all up his back which resulted in me giving him a bath.


After I got him dressed again we sat on the bench at the diningroom table and swayed while he slept and I looked at Target on my phone. Justin & Anaya messed around with the computers in the basement.


I told Claire that I would help her count her money. She wanted to buy a Rainbow Dash "People Pony" (Equestria Girl), so we were figuring out if she had enough money to buy one (she did), but we weren't going to get one that night. Then she played the iPad some more.


Ryder played on his play mat for a little while - he LOVES the mirror. Justin made us the rare evening pot of coffee.


Claire likes to sit in the rocking chair in Ryder's room. Then she brought me the iPad because she needed up with her My Little Pony game. And Ryder laid on the floor and wiggled around.


I played with Ryder and made him have some tummy time. He usually LOVES tummy time but today he just wasn't in the mood and screamed as soon as I got him rolled over.


Anaya had a friend over to spend the night - but I didn't take any pictures of them. Claire wanted to go outside with them, but I wasn't letting her since Justin & I weren't out there. So she stood at the window, eating an Oreo, hollering at Anaya to come inside. Then it was time to put Ryder to bed. I like how my pictures start & end with my holding Ryder after getting him to sleep, because that is truly so much of what my time at home consists of having.

Project Life 2014 - Week 1

Week 1: January 1-5


This is the first week of the year. Ryder wasn't born yet, both of the girls were still on break from school and Anaya spent most of the week at our house. It snowed a few inches and it was REALLY REALLY cold.

This year, instead of using date cards, I'm picking a picture for the upper left corner that I can put a date on. I really love this look. I have completed 7 weeks so far using this "date overlay" and I love the look of it. I'm also switching to mostly using the plain colored journaling cards that came with the Seafoam kit. I like them a lot and wish that I had more colors of them - I may end up making some of my own.

And this is why I try so hard to keep up with my Project Life albums. There is a not a week that goes by that Claire doesn't ask to look at picture books. She specifically asked to look at the ones of her as a "Big Girl" and Hudson (her cousin).

Menu Monday

I really need to start menu planning again...and actually FOLLOWING the menu plan. A lot of the time, if Justin decides that he doesn't want to eat dinner, I end up just making Claire a pb&j sandwich and then I eat some leftovers, or something. But I never eat enough...or I don't eat anything that is actually a meal - 4 warm-ish pancakes & a piece of bread with some peanut butter is not really dinner - and then I end up grumpy later. So, dinner needs to actually happen every night.

Ryder at 2 Months

Ryder is TWO months old already?! It kind of like, how is he already 2 months and really, he's ONLY 2 months! Because it feels like we've had him so much longer than two months.


We haven't had his 2 month check-up yet, so I won't have an "official" weight until Tuesday. But according to the not-so-accurate method of weighing us together and then just weighing me, he weighs somewhere between 13 & 14 pounds. And he is getting long too. He's already wearing 3-6 month clothing, which at Carter's is just called 6 month clothing. We need to finish off our box of size 1 diapers, and then we'll probably move on to size 2 diapers.

I've been back at work for 2.5 weeks. We're settling into a pretty good routine - some days are definitely better than others. Most days, he wakes up somewhere between 4:30am and 6:00am to eat, then he'll usually go back to sleep. By the end of the day the routine is usually completely shot. I try to get him to bed between 8 and 9, but then sometimes he falls asleep at 7 only to be up again at 9 and stays up until 11.

We thought he had a dairy allergy like his daddy & Claire, but now I'm not so sure. I have added some dairy back into my diet and he doesn't seem to be any fussier or have any more difficulty than when I wasn't eating any dairy. But I'm still limiting it to be on the safe side - except for today when I ate Cheesecake at my mom's and then made a pasta dish with a creamy cheesey sauce. We'll see how he is tomorrow with all that dairy in me...

He is lifting his head up so much now. And he smiles for us - especially for Justin. He kind of giggles. He LOVES making faces at the baby in the mirror. He has a magical ability to poop up his back and pee up his front at the same time - that results in him having a bath. However, for the most part, he LIKES baths. He is sometimes unhappy after the bath but probably just because he is cold.


Love this little boy and so excited to see him grow!

Portrait Project / February

Day in the Life - February 20th

Better late than never...right?

I knew on February 20th that I was doing Day in the Life. I reminded myself on the 19th...then I got up on the 20th and promptly forgot until about 9am when Justin got back from taking Claire to school and brought me breakfast from McDonalds. So I have no pictures of Claire getting ready in the morning which is too bad since this is the last week day Day in the Life that I will be home for, the rest will either be weekends or days while I'm at work. After eating breakfast, Ryder had some floor time and I folded laundry.


Then I got Ryder ready and we went to run errands. We had to get a prescription, go to the bank, put gas in my car, and go to the grocery store. We also went to my work to introduce Ryder to my co-workers. I didn't take any pictures while we were there though.


In the afternoon, Ryder & I took a big long nap, so I don't really have any pictures of that either. I woke up when my mom called to tell me that she was here with my grandma to visit Ryder. They loved on the baby for a while.


We hung around the house. Claire quite literally hung off the couch to watch her afternoon cartoons when she got home from school.


Dinner for Claire. I rocked Ryder for a little while.


Claire took a bath and wanted me to sit in there with her. Since Ryder wasn't in the mood to go to sleep, he got to sit in the bathroom too.


Claire wanted to play the Wii after her bath, so I ended up playing Mario Kart while holding Ryder...and I still got 1st place. I did a lot of laundry today also.


Then it was Claire's bedtime - brushing teeth & reading a book.


And that was our Day in the Life in February.

Ryder at 1 Month

Back on February 15, Ryder was 1 Month old!


He didn't have his 1 month check-up until the 21st, so almost an entire week later. But we did go to a Breastfeeding Support Group on the 18th where they weighed him. On Tuesday, the 18th, he weighed 11 lbs, 12 oz. Then I fed him and learned that he ate about 4.5 ounces in a feeding (or at least in that feeding). On Friday, the 21st, at his 1 month check up he weighed 12 lbs, 5 oz. On Tuesday, he had just woken up from a 3-hr nap and hadn't eaten yet; on Friday, he had eaten before we went to the doctor's office.

He measured 22.25" at his doctor's appointment. So he is definitely a growing boy! He can lift his head up pretty well. He has started making eye contact, although he isn't smiling yet - social smiles, he sometimes smiles when he poohs & in his sleep, but not as a reaction to people around him. But he should start doing that within the next few weeks.

Loving this little boy.

Project Life : 2014 Cover Page

This year, I am not buying a core kit. At least I am not currently planning to buy a core kit. I have so many bits and pieces of my other 4 core kits, plus a mini kit and I bought some baby boy things (not PL, but a different company) that I just can't bring myself to buy ANOTHER core kit just so I can have the title page cards and the page title/date cards. I figure if I decide I need the ones to go on each page, I can buy the digital set of just those cards and print them for less than a core kit.

I ended up using Cathy Zielsky's free 2013 title cards. I just opened them up in Photoshop and downloaded a font (Multicolore) that was similar to the one she used and changed them to be for 2014 & the colors to be more to my liking. I'm not entirely sure about the "You Are Here" card. I made that one myself and I like it in theory, but I'm not loving it in the spread. I made it before I downloaded Cathy's stuff, so maybe if I redo it to look more like her kit I will like it better. I stamped our address on it (blurred out) using my return address stamp that I bought myself for Christmas. I love that thing.


I ended up using two pictures that I took about part way through January in order to include Ryder. I was having a hard time deciding what to do about the list of family members too. Because, technically, on January 1st, Ryder wasn't born yet. But he was born on January 15th which is close enough that the album will include many (many many many) pictures of him. I changed them to black and white in Photoshop because I liked it better that way for the title page.

Hello March - Currently

Well, I don't know what happened to February. I was on maternity leave for the entire month, so you'd think I would have PLENTY of time to write...I guess I was busy cuddling a baby instead. And watching Netflix. I watched a lot of Netflix while I was home. And now I'm back at work...it is amazing how quickly 6 weeks flew by.

I have some back-blogging that I plan to do: Day of the Life - February, Ryder @ 1 Month, Portrait Project - February, some Project Life 2014 pages, and probably a few other things that I'm forgetting. For now, here's a picture of what life looked like while I was on maternity leave and a list of what is currently going on around here.


Currently:

watching Friday Night Lights (season 2)

reading The Chase by Janet Evanovich

listening to Ryder sleeping (restlessly) & Claire playing the iPad

making Peanut Butter Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips

feeling tired

planning what else needs to be done around here

loving being back at work, even though I miss being home

list uses the prompts from rukristin's Currently cards