Monday!!

No fancy title. I couldn't think of one. They can't all be creative, right? :)

Today was back to work again. My hours on Monday are typically 9 - 1 but today they got jumbled up a little bit. I worked until noon and then again from 1-3. There was a client call I needed to be on so I had to adjust the schedule a little bit. Nugget was great, as usual. There have only been two instances since I went back to work part time where she's started screaming, literally two minutes before I need to get on the phone for a call. Ug. Fortunately I've been able to calm her down both times, enough that I could get on the call. Of course it's meant keeping her on my lap, while she sleeps for an hour or more, but she's quiet!!! And I get to cuddle some! :)

Today we took some more pictures. I realized that more than a week went by that I didn't take any pictures so I needed to hop to and get some more taken. The last couple of days we've been experimenting with bows so that's brought on a whole new array of photo opportunities.

The little changes I've seen from day to day or week to week are so neat. Yesterday I was thinking about how when we first brought her home from the hospital she reallly didn't like laying on her back. It was the evilest of evil. Now, that's one of her favorite positions. In fact sometimes when I'm holding her she just wants to be laying down with me looking/playing with her versus being held. Heaven forbid you look away though. No ma'am. Not okay with that. She wants your undivided attention.

Tonight we went out for dinner with Lolly, Patrick and Marie. I had a really nice time. It's been a while since we've all been out together. Lolly closed on her new house today. YAY!!!!

Oh, and the footprint I took yesterday of Katherine using Crayola modeling clay turned out pretty good!!! Tonight I wrote the date and what not on it so we could save it. I bought some more modeling clay so we can continue to take foot and hand prints as she grows. And it's a cheap way to do it! The little boxes you get for baby foot/hand prints are $15 - $20 for one set. I bought a box with 6 packages for $6. Woohoo!!!!

Busy Sunday

Today we had quite a busy day! Yesterday we spent the day at home doing some things around the house. Stephen worked on installing the Sirius radio that was in my Pilot in his truck and I spent some time hanging out with our Nugget. She had a really good day yesterday with only a few melt downs. She gets herself into quite a tizzy. Last night Stephen applied his Dr Karp tactics and had her calmed down within a minute or so. Generally I can calm her down within a minute or two by holding, rocking and shushing her -- Dr Karp tactic as well. :) Both work great! We LOVE LOVE LOVE Dr Karp.

Today we went out for breakfast and then did some shopping. Stephen hasn't been out shopping with us in a while since we usually do it while he's at work. I think we wore him out. We went to Kohls to get Stephen some new sandals. He needed some new ones for vacation in October. We were also able to find a bathing suit and shirt for him too! All of course on clearance -- ever the Aleksza fruggle-ness continues. I had a return of a couple of outfits I'd bought for Katherine that she's not going to end up being able to wear. They're still too big and they're summer outfits so I decided to return them instead of having nice new clothes that she's never worn just go into a box.

After that we went to Carters. I do so love that store. I was able to get a bunch of fall/winter clothes for Katherine on sale and with a coupon. Woohoo!!! It's amazing how you can get so sucked into buying baby clothes. I've been totally sucked in. I admit. I comfort myself with saying that at least I do it on clearance and with a coupon. I will say though that every time you go there you get another coupon for the following month and I feel a need to go back to use it. It's a coupon for 20% off your whole sale + I shop the clearance/discount racks. What a bargain!!!! I don't know, but I'm assuming that she'll need at least two outfits per day to take to daycare. And I don't know that I'll be able to do as much laundry as I'm doing now so I figure she needs a bit more clothes. I realized too after sorting all of her clothes that she's pretty good on the summer-ish clothes - she really needed more of the fall/winter type of clothes. So that's what I was shopping for today. They had really cute fleece outfits that I got for her. I can't wait to put them on her. Dress up!!!!

After that we went to BJs and Walmart to get some grocery things. Generally Stephen's finished after three stores so, that we made it to four was rather impressive. :) What a sport!!!

We were home by about 3:30-ish in time for her mid-afternoon feeding. I'm hoping that the napping she did while we were out today wasn't so much that she won't sleep tonight. She's slept for the last 3-4 nights straight through until between 6 and 7am. She goes to bed generally between 9 and 10. Some nights closer to 9 and other closer to 10. Tonight is a closer to 10 because she was playing a bit in the bathtub. :)

Tonight I made the appointment for us to go have our first family picture taken. We're going on Thursday to a place called Picture Innovation. One of our friends took her grandchildren there and had gorgeous pictures taken. Plus you get the pictures right after they're taken - which is a big bonus. The ones we had taken at JCPenny took WEEKS to come in. Agonizing. Especially when you want the pictures to send out to people. Ug!!! And the place we're going to had a great deal for $9.95... You get a bunch of pictures. I'm excited to have pictures of the three of us. We only have two right now. One from just after she was born when Stephen was holding Katherine and I was in the background (not really a "family photo") and another from her baptism that's a little blurry. So I'm really excited to take these. Here's hoping she's in a good mood!! We're going at 5pm so I hope to feed her a bit before then so she won't be starving (generally she eats again at around 6:30-ish) and hopefully that'll make her a little happier too. :)

I think I just heard Stephen put Katherine in her crib. We're going to finish watching a Harry Potter movie. I think we're now only 5 movies behind. :)

The start...

A co-worker asked this evening if we had a blog... Curious I thought. Why not? It would be an easy place for us to jot things down to share with family and friends. Off I go to search for a place to host a free blog. And here we are!

What to write, what to write... today I sent out some pictures that I took yesterday of Katherine. I'm trying to get her to spend more time on her tummy and yesterday I propped her on her Boppy. It seems to help her stay on her tummy a little longer and she actually smiles occassionally that way. When she's directly on her tummy - there's no smiling! In fact, it's more like a lot of screaming and tears. Ug.

We continue to see that morning is still her happy time. The last few nights she's been sleeping all the way through the night. Now, after saying that, I'm sure tonight she'll be up multiple times. :-/ We've been putting her to bed between 9:30 and 10:00pm and she's been waking up at around 7am. Pretty good for a 2.5 month old!! We're amazed! (And feeling quite blessed that she's such a good sleeper... We think that's a genetic thing!)

Tonight Stephen and I were talking about going back to work and how that's working out for me. I do work my hours each day and for the most part Katherine sleeps through that time and/or plays in her bouncy. There are moments, like today at one point, that I feel like I am neglecting her because she doesn't have 100% of my focus.

This weekend I'm going to try to schedule an appointment at one of the picture places so that we can get some baptism photos taken. OR I'm going to try again to take some pictures ourselves. I really want some of her all dressed up. And if I'm lucky maybe she'll even smile!!!! Now THAT would be a golden shot! She gets a little distracted by cameras though and forgets she's looking at you and smiling and starts staring at the camera. Then you can't get her focus back. I'm trying to figure out whether she just loves shiney objects (poor daddy & boyfriend... diamond girl) or whether she just likes to get her picture taken (again poor daddy and boyfriend).