We have literally not stopped going since last month...and I am ready for it all to slow down!  Except that it's not really going to, with Brad's birthday, our 4th anniversary and Hadley's 1st birthday all coming up.  So...oh well.  All good things!

Here's some randoms to wrap up the week with:

• This last weekend Brad's family had a big 'ol party/reunion and we managed to get a picture together!  Not our best but hey, I will take it.  And seriously, how beautiful is his parents house at night?  PS - I really need to take my sunglasses off when I'm outside once in a while, I have a wicked tan line on my nose.  #fail

• I seriously love my Fridays as a SAHM.  I spend Mon-Thurs doing housework, grocery shopping, errands, etc, but when Friday rolls around I take it easy and it is sooooo nice.  For Hadley's morning nap I sat on our screened-in porch and read a book with my coffee, and now I'm blogging and about to have some Apple Cider while I read.  Again.  Also another reason why I'm not quite ready to go for baby #2.
• We've been cloth-diapering full time for a week now and I gotta say, I love it.  Even not having a diaper sprayer (ick.  I definitely ordered one yesterday).  But I really love how clean and natural it feels.  I still need to work out a diaper pail, right now I'm using a PUL waterproof laundry bag from TJ Maxx that works fine but I need to put it IN something so I'm not smelling that nursing home smell.  Cause that is just yucky. 
• My garden is coming right along!  On the left is zucchini and yellow squash, and the right is a variety of tomatoes.  I've been putting fish emulsion fertilizer on them (thanks Carrie!) and today did a bit of organic fertilizer.  I have a fair amount of blooms but very little veggies, so I'm hoping that this next month it'll pick up!  [I also have another bed to the right of this that has peppers, squash and cucumbers in it]

• And finally, this has been happening lately...

Not too often but enough where we need to tighten up the reins.  I was always a die-hard "baby will NEVER EVER NEVER SLEEP IN OUR BED" and here I am.  It's mainly been due to life being so dang busy lately and not having much of a routine, so we've struggled with bedtime a little bit.  We don't keep her out late very often but if there's important things going on (ie, family is in town, birthdays/parties/etc) then she works around our schedule, and thought we sometimes pay for it (like in this scenario) it usually works just fine and then we don't feel like those parents who never do anything cause they can't leave the house after 7.  

Hadley's due to be up from her nap any time now so I'm gonna take advantage of the last few minutes and read a bit!  Happy Friday :)

5 On Friday

1 - Carter's Clearance Sale is going on right now and this Momma racked up!  I mainly bought zip-up jammies for the fall and a few rompers, but I did find this sweet little outfit for $8:

2 - I shared this picture on my Instagram the other day, but you know how I was saying that Hadley turns around in the shopping cart the whole time?  Proof:

3 - So lately I've been thinking that fall and winter is fast approaching.  Yes, this is a horribly depressing thought but unfortunately where I live you can't bank on summer being anytime past the middle of September.  With that being said, I am in MAJOR need of some kind of indoor hobby to keep me from going crazy this winter.  I'm open to any and all suggestions!  

4 - I just bought this stuff for my hair and I.LOVE.IT.  

It's pricey at $25 a bottle, but I'm the type to buy one or two higher-priced items and use them religiously, thus getting my money's worth.  Anyway, this stuff works wonders if you have thin, straight hair.  I use it before blow-drying my hair and it's seriously like it takes each strand of hair and puffs it up.  Also, the cream isn't too heavy and you only need a tiny, tiny bit!  

5 - I've been drinking water like crazy this week.  I hate it but I guess I don't hate it as MUCH as before.  I mainly am doing it because I'm trying to figure out if my fingers really did grow while I was pregnant and if I should get my wedding ring re-sized, or if I'm just carrying water weight.  Since I've been guzzling water for about 3 days now and I don't notice any difference...I'm going with re-sizing :(   Drinking out of this little cup has made me a tiny bit more enthused for water:

It looks really tiny here but yeah, it basically holds like an ounce of water.  Can't get yourself too overwhelmed now :)  

Happy Friday and cheers to the weekend!

Teething Hell and Other Things

So I'm thinking that little H is cutting some kind of teeth right now.  I have no clue which ones cause she clamps her mouth right up when I try to feel her gums, but I'm thinking it's her incisors on the bottom (are those still called the incisors?)  At any rate, she has slept absolutely terribly for the past two nights and days and I'm tempted to take a picture of my living room to show you the state of our chaos lately but I'm too embarrassed.  The only thing I was able to get done today was making our bed.  That's it.  The good news is that in telling Brad about our day when he got home, he said, "Just think about when you had to work and having days like these."  Totally put it in perspective.

Anyway.  Today we spent the day fighting those dang teeth which meant that nap times went kaput, which meant that my only hope of getting her to sleep was driving.  So we got in the car and drove to the next town over and visited an antique store - AKA a really a big junk yard where everything is way overpriced - where I picked up this wire locker-room-style basket:

Brad's got a "Honey Do" list a mile long and one of those things is to build us a new coffee table.  We have some caster wheels to use on the new table, and I was thinking about doing a shelf on the bottom that we could put this basket on?  I would probably spray paint it black and "rough it up" some.

After we drove there and she slept maybe...30 minutes total during the two hours we were gone (I mean it when I say that she wasn't having NOTHIN' to do with napping), we met up with my SIL and another girlfriend (and all their kids) at the local beach.  It was the last thing I felt like doing but I knew it would tire Hadley out, which it did.  She came home and slept for an hour and a half, thank the Lord.

Tonight we took a little stroll to McDonald's so I could get a Diet Coke.  I loooove me some DC.  I'm actually partial to Coke but since I ate my weight in Trader Joe's Windmill cookies and Cookie Butter two days ago, I'm sticking to calorie free things at the moment.

On another note, this is a constant view for me, and I love it.  Love those little chubby thighs and tan baby feet.  And yes, she is totally in her diaper and a tank top.

And that's pretty much it for today.  There's nothing on the agenda for tomorrow, which is great because we need some time to recover from today - assuming tomorrow is a better day!  Let's cross our fingers.

Happy 10 Months, Hadley!

This is the best "10 Month" picture I could get of her. Seriously.  She is WAY too on the move these days!

Still my snuggly sweet baby

A familiar place for her!  

Weight/Height/Head:  The last time I weighed her she was 23 pounds!  At her 9 month appointment she had dropped in the height percentile, down to the 50ish %.  Her head is also pretty small, that was in the 20th %.  

Hair:  It's blonde!  Light blonde and curly.  It's the sweetest thing.    

Eyes: Bright blue.  We get constant remarks on her eyes when we're out and about.

Diapers: Size 4.  Pretty sure we're making the switch to cloth diapers!  I have no idea how to explain the sizing on those things.

Clothes: Oh man, she's all over the board.  She wore a 9 month Carter's onesie to bed last night, but has a pair of 2T leggings (admittedly they're capris and she wears them as pants, but they fit perfectly).  She wears 12 month size dresses, 18 month size pants.  Some 24mo pants fit. 

Eating: Still doing 3-4 bottles a day.  Trying to replace the mid-day bottles with sippy cups.  She's also consistently eating 2 meals a day, most days 3 meals.  For breakfast we'll do Cheerios, bananas, frozen waffles, blueberries, eggs, etc.  Lunch and dinner is usually whatever I'm having, but if that's not the case, she'll eat sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, black/white beans, noodles, broccoli, chicken, meatballs (we're only giving her organic or local meat right now), Back to Nature mac & cheese, etc etc.  She really eats anything and I let her try everything - today I was making zucchini egg cups and had her sitting on the counter while I got it together.  I was cutting up the Vidalia onions for it and she reached over and grabbed a few...and I let her.  She wasn't a fan, obviously...but now she knows :)   

Sleeping: Sleep is "eh".  She takes 2 naps a day, her morning nap between 9 and 9:30 and her afternoon nap between 1 and 1:30.  She usually goes to bed around 8-8:30, though I'm thinking that's a little late considering her early afternoon nap.  She naps LITERALLY one hour.  No joke, I could practically set a clock by it.  Most nights she sleeps all night and wakes up around 4-5am, which coincidentally is when it starts getting light outside.  And about once a week she wakes up crying in the middle of the night, though that is starting to taper off.  (But when Mom goes to bed at 11:30-midnight every night, I guess waking up at 4am would feel like the middle of the night...need to do something about that awful bedtime).

Milestones:  Nothing huge this month, just a number of little things!  

• Says "Mama" though I'm not sure if it's actually directed to me or just a sound she's making?  She does it often when she's whining so I'm somewhat inclined to believe that it's to me :)  
• Standing by herself!  Yesterday I was visiting with my sister-in-law while Hadley played and I happened to glance over at her and she was standing and holding onto a stroller.  I watched her as she took her hands off and balanced for a second, then would put her hands back and then take them off again.  It was the cutest thing to watch her discover something new.  Afterwards she looked back at us with the PROUDEST smile on her face.  We cheered and clapped like crazy for her and she just lit up like the 4th of July :)  
• This isn't so much a milestone but I'm definitely noticing a lot more dexterity and comprehension on her part - figuring out toys that in the past she didn't really play with because she didn't "get" them (like stacking rings).  She picks up tiny pieces of food very easily, etc.  
• Had her first overnight away!  Brad and I went to a concert and got home late so she stayed with her Auntie.  She did super well and I was ready to pick her up at 7am the next day, ha :)  
• Got her second tooth on the bottom and also her top two front teeth!

I say this every month, but she really is the sweetest, happiest baby and such a joy to be around.  She's never met a stranger, will let anyone hold her and has a smile for everyone.  She's got such an adventurous spirit (that she definitely didn't get from me, ha!) - I will often catch her standing on top of the dishwasher door, or trying to climb in and out of the bath, climb stairs, stand on top of things that aren't meant to be stood on :)  I even see this in little things like at the grocery store, she rarely is facing me in the cart - she is usually turned around, looking to see where we're going.  She is so independent, plays so well by herself, and unless she's tired or cranky she could care less if I'm not around.  I do feel a challenge to be the kind of Mom that will encourage this independence - I want her to be this way SO badly, but she's also my baby girl and I feel like I will always want her near me.  But that's not healthy and my prayer is always going to be that God will teach me to "let her go" and trust Him to be her great Protector.  

You really don't think your heart can love them anymore but somehow it does grow each day.  Her and her daddy are my greatest and most undeserved blessings and I am SO thankful for them!

Slowing down

I'm playing catch up!  We've been way too dang busy lately.  So...

The 4th of July is my very favorite holiday.  Better than Christmas, better than my birthday, better than Thanksgiving.  For us, it's always meant being on the lake, good friends and good drinks, and an easy day with great food.  This year did not disappoint!

My best friend came to visit from Illinois and stayed out at our favorite local resort, so this last week Hadley and I were at the beach almost every single day.  It was heaven.  Granted, my best friend has three kids and with my one, it wasn't the most relaxing time, but still - we were in the sun, on the lake.  Can't beat it!

For the 4th, we rented a pontoon for the day and spent the day completely on the lake.  The weather was absolutely perfect: hot and sunny with a cool breeze.  That night we all cleaned up and headed into town to watch the fireworks.  It looked like something out of a movie - you see so many people that you know, everyone's camped out on the elementary school lawn, the local ice cream shop has a stand with a mile-long line, there's music and a baseball game beforehand....so classic and all-American!  We weren't sure how Hadley would handle it considering they don't start til 10pm here (that's about the time that it gets really dark), and it was so funny because literally the minute they started she fell asleep!

Here's some pictures from the day...

On the pontoon!  FYI, we did have a baby life jacket for Hadley :)

The night of the fireworks, sporting our red/white/blue!  PS, love my window boxes!  

Me with my little firecracker while waiting for the fireworks! She wasn't having nothin' to do with that bow, by the way.  

This last weekend, we drove down to Minneapolis to celebrate a girlfriend's recent wedding.  Funny story, I was an au pair in Stockholm, Sweden a few years ago and towards the end of my time there this girlfriend of mine asked about getting her own job as an au pair there.  I attempted to hook her up with a family there that I knew, but that fell through and she ended up getting a job with a different Swedish family.  She came right after I left, and ended up falling in love with the family and the Swedish culture.  Fast forward four years or so - I'm sure you can imagine where this is going - she met a wonderful, amazing man and they were married last month in Sweden!  This girl is a die-hard romantic and was so incredibly patient while waiting for her fairytale man, and believe me, I think she found him!

Anyway, since they were married in Sweden she did a reception in Minneapolis for her American friends and family.  On Sunday they did a boat cruise on Lake Minnetonka and it was so beautiful!  I didn't get any pictures of the boat cruise itself - taking a 10 month old on a 3 hr boat cruise was a little tough, at one point I had her pushing a chair in circles on the top deck, ha - but I did get a couple photos of us!

Okay, how ridiculously adorbs is that striped bow?  No joke, I could live in nautical themed clothing!  I have to add that I definitely curled my hair for this occasion but by the time the boat cruise was over, the 91 degree weather (absolutely scorching for us sensitive northerners) had wilted it to a complete mess.  Hence the side ponytail.  And also why Hadley is neither smiling nor looks very interested.  The second we got off the boat and put her in the stroller, she passed out and slept right through me changing her out of her sweaty clothes and putting her in the carseat!  That's tired right there.

So now I have about eleventy billion bags to unpack and put away from our one-and-a-half days gone.  Having a child will do that, I guess.  Happy Monday!