I don't know about you guys...but I am so happy to know that the weekend is only 2 days away!  It's been a crazy week between work and moving and the baby!  

Anyway, here's my Wednesday randoms for ya...

• Sneak peek of our new kitchen!  Seriously, can I just brag on my husband for a minute?  He has literally done this entire kitchen (not to mention the whole house) all by himself.  He's painted all the cabinets, installed that beautiful sink, did the subway tile backsplash, is installing the flooring at the moment.  He built a pantry for us and a gorgeous storage bench in the breakfast nook.  It honestly makes me shake my head at how capable he is.  But anyway, here's a shot of the sink side!  Everything in the kitchen is done except for the flooring - see that pretty dark brown on the floor?  Love that wood, it's got a rustic "beat up" look to it - and installing the appliances.
  Speaking of appliances, we've purchased all the appliances for the kitchen and I am in looove with them!  I'll do a post on them this week cause I'm so excited for them AND the deal that we got!  

• An update that is probably only exciting or significant to other Moms, Hadley has slept through the night for three nights in a row now!  I'm not sure what happened cause we're not feeding her anymore during the day, but she's been sleeping from about 10pm until 6am.  She did wake up at 4am this morning but I was able to get her back to sleep easily.
  Starting next week we'll be putting her in her crib at night.  Momma is sad cause I now can see how some women never want to do this!  I never understood that but oh my word...I sure do now.  However, now that I purchased my Angelcare Monitor I'm not freaking out quite so badly about her being in her crib all night, all alone.  
• And because I like to show off my gorgeous girl, here's a picture I got of her yesterday.  We are in serious love with her chubbiness. 

• This week has been pretty stressful with the move coming up, plus it just seems that we have a million other things we're trying to get figured out right now. Add in work, trying to get the house ready, taking care of Hadley pretty much by myself for 16 hours a day, I am maxed.  Last night when my peanut was with her Grandma, I drove straight to WalMart and picked up this bottle of wine.  It's become one of my favorites and for $6, you can't beat it!  

West Elm, I love you

I never was a really big fan of West Elm until recently.  I think I always pictured their decor as being more modern and "cold", so I always gravitated more towards Pottery Barn and Ballard Designs.  But in my search for a "drum pendant light" on Google I was led to West Elm and lo and behold...I have a new favorite!

Now, I would say that 50% of their products are not my style - they really are that minimalist, modern decor that doesn't fit in the with the warm, country chic look that I love.  BUT.  I've found a few things that I loooove so I thought I'd share.

First up, the drum pendant that will make its home over our dining room table...

I am in love - LOVE - with this light.  It's huge (25" in diameter) and the shade is covered with a beautiful linen that is hard to see in the picture.  It will look great in our  new house!  

Next up is our bedding that I ordered!  Our current duvet is nice enough but it's tan, and that just doesn't go well with the (amazingly gorgeous) bed that Brad built for us when we got married!  A quick pic of it for reference --

See how the bedding just blends into the wood?  So here's what I ordered...

It was on final clearance and I got it for a steal, considering we needed a King size.  I debated on this because it is a little more modern, and I initially envisioned an off-white duvet with a fisherman knit blanket at the foot of the bed...more of a Pottery Barn look.  However, due to the heaviness of the bed and how it could potentially look cabin-like (which is NOT my favorite decor style at all) I felt like something with a little cleaner lines would balance it out.  Plus, like I said, it was on clearance so if a year down the road I find something better this would store away perfectly to go on a guest bed one day.  (PS - I got our initials on the shams and an 'H' on the duvet)

And on to my Wish List...

This would go perfectly on our couch...match our Ralph Lauren grainsack pillows well!  (Another great TJ Maxx purchase!)

Okay, who am I?  This would so normally not be my style but lately I've been loving the geometric look of the native patterns that are popular in clothing and home decor.  I think the navy+teal+cream just goes perfectly together and is warm enough to not look overly busy.

Bathroom hand towels.  As much as I love a "warm" look I am a sucker for wide stripes.  Not a fan of that large graphic monogram but on these, you can get traditional monogramming.

Again, a native (Aztec?) print pillow

Another Aztec print pillow, love the linen casing

These throws...I die.  Love the mushroom stripe throw, as well as the blue bordered stripe throw!

And finally their Chunk Tassel Throw, which comes in at a reasonable $79, versus PB's  Fisherman Knit Throw that costs $99-$149.  

Happy 2 Months, Hadley!

Weight/Height/Head:  At 8 weeks old she weighed 12lbs 8oz (80th percentile) and was 22.75 inches long (forget this percentile, I think 65th or so?)  Her head was 38cm, I believe.  

Hair:  Still dark brown in the back and on top it's finally starting to grow in light brown/blonde.  Definitely has some curl to it right now.  

Eyes: Still a darker blue but lightening up all the time

Diapers: Size 1

Clothes: We're starting to retire the Newborn size.  She will occasionally wear Newborn but it's usually a fight to get her arms in it and I hate the struggle, so she's wearing it less and less.  She's in a pair of Newborn pants right now and they're definitely too small, ha!  She's mainly wearing 0-3 months.

Eating: We're still nursing and doing formula.  She doesn't nurse for too long, maybe 15 minutes total and that's both sides.  She's consistently eating about 4oz of formula every 3 hours, sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less.  It's hard for me to get a completely accurate idea of how much she's eating since I nurse her prior to giving her a bottle. 

Sleeping: She's doing alright.  She currently wakes up around 2-3am and then again at 5-6am.  We're currently trying to wean her off her 2-3am feeding and it's not going well :)  My strategy has been to try to get a full 4.5oz bottle in her around 11pm in the hopes that it will help her sleep, but so far that hasn't done it.  Her doctor said that at this point she's probably waking up out of habit rather than hunger - cause let's face it, the girl is a little chunker - so we could let her cry it out for about 10 minutes.  We've tried that and it didn't work too well, but that's hard to do when she's sleeping in our room.  We're also planning to move her to her crib when we move in 2 weeks.  Pray for momma, I'm not ready to put my baby in another room all night!  

Milestones:  We've had a lot more this month!  She's starting to smile when we interact with her, her eyes can follow you or a toy if you move it slowly in front of her.  She's holding her neck up by herself now and can pull her head up (mostly) if you pull her up from a laying position.  She can hold her neck up at a 45 degree angle if she's laying on her tummy.  

Here's a few recent pictures from the iPhone...

Dozing on my pillow.  How cute are those little slippers??

Love her little side eye and furrowed brow

She's too sweet.

My very most favorite picture of her!

After a bottle, she was passed out.  Love how there's no shame in a double chin for babies :)

This is when I know she's really tired - she'll fall asleep while being burped.   Too cute.

And for a comparison...crazy, those were the same size onesies and Baby Legs!

The last day...and other stuff

Today is my last day of maternity leave.  It hurts my heart to think about it.  I know that I am SO blessed to have a job where I can work from home and keep Hadley with me, but it will still change things so much.  I can't express how much I've loved the last 8 weeks - being able to focus on my baby and my home, having flexibility to go on walks and see Brad in the afternoons, having lazy mornings on the couch with the baby girl.  But.  I know it's not going to be forever - though it will still be a while - before I can stay home with her, so I'm trying to focus on that fact, and also on the fact that I've got a great job with a great boss who understands that being a work-from-home momma comes with some unique situations and doesn't expect me to be nailed to my desk from 8-5 every day.

So here's my random thoughts for the day....

• I'm trying to get Hadley on a schedule during the day and I just have to say that I have no clue what I'm doing.  No clue how much she should be sleeping, how much she should be awake.  I've kind of been just following her lead - when she seems sleepy I put her down, and if she's bright eyed then I let her stay up.  I started reading Secrets of the Baby Whisperer so I'm hoping that will help me a bit with figuring her out.  
• I got Hadley's announcements this week!  They're probably a little late, but hello, I just had a baby.  I purchased them thru Etsy and was able to print them myself at WalMart, and I was super impressed at the quality.  As soon as I get them all mailed out I will post them.
• Brad got our big sink put in yesterday at the new house!  We're hoping to put in a black kitchen faucet but have you ever tried to find a reasonably priced black kitchen faucet?  Yeah, they don't really exist.  Anyway...here's a little pic...

• And finally, a couple pics of my girl - 

This was during one of our "morning snuggles" - still in bed :)  Also, please note the lack of hair on her head...kills me!  There's actually little hairs that come to the front and I can see hair follicles but just no hair to speak of :)  Also, we still can't figure out who she looks like.  

This was from our newborn photo shoot with a great local photographer, Barb Ray.  Her website is www.thrubarbslens.com.  So sweet...almost went with this one for the announcement but chose a different one at the last minute ;)  

Happy Friday!

Um...I can't fit in my pants

Okay.  I'm about to get real.

I can't fit in my pants.

Not a big surprise considering I just birthed a baby 6 weeks ago...and I would laugh at any other woman who expected to do otherwise (and if you're one of those women who did fit in their pants sooner than 6 weeks...go fly a kite), but it's funny how that just doesn't matter when it's YOUR butt that can't fit into your pants.

I swear that post-pregnancy is the WORST for your self-esteem when it comes to your body.  Prior to getting pregnant, I felt pretty good about myself.  I ate pretty well, worked out often and I could see the results of it.  But then I got pregnant and suddenly I couldn't fit in my pants anymore, but who cares because I have this cute little belly!  And it was so fun getting dressed in tight shirts and little belts that cinched just above it to show it off.  Towards the end the belly definitely is not your favorite...but then you have the baby and you downright despise it.

I used to get up and get dressed easily, do my hair and makeup and get out the door in a reasonable amount of time.  Now, I spend 95% of my "getting ready" time on trying to find something to wear.  All of my pants fit, but just enough where I can't button them comfortably.  All of my shirts - bought for a girl with a flat stomach - fit, but I have this new little fat roll that spills over my pants.  The pants that are just a little too tight.  Which looks really bad, by the way.

So here I am, with this new body that I have NO clue what to do with.  I don't want to buy clothes at this new size because I'm determined not to stay here, although now that I have the baby I'm not sure when I'll actually get to the gym, especially because my husband isn't home until 6ish most nights and by that point I'm ready for a bath, dinner and bed.  But on the other hand, I'm sick of getting up and pulling my whole closet and dresser out in an attempt to find something that I don't feel incredibly large and uncomfortable in.  And maybe I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should, but I just want the "old me" back!  But with the baby, of course :)

The first early morning

It's 7:55am and this might be the first time in 6 weeks that I've been up and awake before 9am.  Sounds pitiful but getting up 3x a night to feed your newborn really takes it out of you.  However, I start back to work next week and am trying to get into a routine of getting up before 7...things that used to be so easy are suddenly SO not that easy!

Anyway, I've got my little mug of coffee, listening to the Civil Wars and enjoying my view of the fall leaves outside on this cold (29 degrees!) morning.  We've made a few purchases for the house so I thought I would share them...

The first is this barn light that we purchased from The Barn Light Electric Co.  Brad and I both had a vision of having a gooseneck barn light hanging over our mirror/medicine cabinet in the bathroom.  Here's a couple of our inspiration pictures:

We're really excited to see how it will look!  We had to do some debating on the diameter of the shade, I wanted a bigger shade but Brad felt like a big one would look silly in a small bathroom...so we went with his decision and got the 12" shade.  Hopefully it won't look too small.

The other thing we purchased this past weekend was the long awaited farmhouse sink from Ikea.  This is the Ikea Domsjo Double Bowl Sink.

And an inspiration picture with the sink...

So, that's about it so far.  OH - and the last great thing is that this past weekend we were at Home Depot and when Brad was checking out I wandered over to their Clearance Section, mainly b/c Hadley was fussing and walking with her was all that would calm her down.  Anyway, sitting right in their clearance room was this refrigerator:

Also known as my DREAM refrigerator.  Well, a french door refrigerator (any brand, LG was my favorite but this is a Maytag) was my dream fridge, but because they're pretty pricey I was going to (happily) settle for a bottom freezer with a single fridge door.  So this fridge is sitting there, looking pretty perfect, but there's no price tag on it.  We had them check, and because the woman who had purchased it didn't like it in her kitchen brought it back they had to sell it in the clearance section, and it turns out that we could purchase it for $1300 and it's normally a $2500 fridge.  WHAT.  They actually had it getting repaired when we were there cause a compressor or something wasn't working, but we're pretty sure we're going to go back and get it this week when it's back from being repaired.

Needless to say, I am absolutely dying to get into our new place!