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Friday, December 28, 2007

I've been out of commission due to the holiday hustle and bustle. I will however have updates to post soon! I'll put up the latest belly picture, a before and after fence reconstruction, nursery updates, any maybe some more. I need to charge the camera and get going.

Label Maker!
Oh and I received a lovely label maker for Christmas. I've been on a rampage labeling everything. I had no idea how much I would want/use one of these things until I got it. This has come in REALLY handy since I've been trying to organize Marisabelle's room. I bought a bunch of these glass jars at Ikea to help sort things, but to also keep things neat and aesthetically pleasing. (Ask me again after 3 months of no sleep to see if I care about aesthetics.) But seriously, I'm going to finish up in her room today and then I'll move on to organizing the beast of all beasts: our home office/spare bedroom. Since I do like to do crafts, I have quite a bit of stuff here and there. A lot of it is in those plastic sorting bins. I love 'em and I know where I keep my stuff, but sometimes when someone comes over and wants to make a card, they can't find things. This is especially difficult for my husband when he gets a whim to hand craft a simple card. He never knows where I keep things, so he gets deterred from any crafting. That makes me sad because he can be quite creative when he wants to be. I digress...I absolutely love my label maker!

Cricut
We bought my MIL a Cricut for Christmas. I think she really liked it and can't wait to use it. Unfortunately, be booked it out of Kansas too early to play with it. Heck, we didn't even take it out of the packaging. It came with the basic George cartridge and overlay, but I knew she'd need at least one more. I found the Alphalicious on ebay for a lot better price than I'd EVER seen it in stores. Well, 'lo and behold, Michael's has their Cricut cartridges on sale for $49.99. If it isn't in stock, they will issue a raincheck to honor that price and the raincheck never expires! We are headed back there today to get rainchecks for the rest of the ones they do not have in stock. They are regularly priced at $89.99, so this is a really great deal!


Glider and Ottoman
And lastly, we finally purchased the glider/ottoman combo for the nursery. I didn't want a fancy schmancy super deluxe chair. I just needed something that was easy to clean, went with the rest of the furniture pieces, and was durable during the feedings. It is very difficult to find them in the ebony color, but Target.com carried it, so we went ahead an ordered it. I'm a bit ticked off that I had to pay shipping on it and that I didn't take advantage of the 15% off they were offering. I did find a 10% off coupon code, so that eased the burden enough to cover the taxes on it, but oh well. Still pissed about the shipping. And I swear, if they offer free shipping in the next week, that'll just be another reason for Target to go on my sh*tlist. Don't even get me started on their return policy! sheesh!

Sinus Drain & Jars

Friday, December 21, 2007

For the past two weeks I've been having a sinus battle. This weather is making my sinuses all kinds of wonky so I don't know what to do. Every morning I expect to wake up with full on sinus pain, followed by me blowing my nose, followed by an entire morning of sneezing and sniffling. This is how it goes. I normally deal with this during spring, not winter. It's so bizarre. Well, this week, I expressed my disdain of mucus with the massage therapist. She suggested that I continue with my light therapy, but to see if they would laser my sinuses as well. She relayed that information onto the physical therapy girl. Moments later, there I was with this stem/wand being slightly pressed to my forehead in circular motions. I figured, why not, this couldn't hurt.
The next morning, I actually slept until my alarm woke me up. No middle of the night drainage. No sneezing early. It was awesome! I still have some sinus drainage and I still sneeze, but it isn't near to the degree it was just days ago. Amazing!!

Also, I feel kinda bad that I didn't get to make my usual food jars as gifts. I normally try really hard to do these and I honestly thought that I would've had some time to do that, but I didn't. Someone asked what I put in them. I have the recipes somewhere. Here is the template for the tags of each jar:

I normally have it in a Word document. If you are interested in the recipes, I can dig them up and I'll forward them on.


I also baked lemon poppyseed cake in a jar and handed them out as favors at my last birthday party. They were a hit and oh so yummy and moist! I love jars. They are so functional.


Baby Stuff

Thursday, December 20, 2007

I had a wonderful email conversation with someone yesterday and finally prompted me to go out and buy the rest of the essentials needed for Mari. We've made the decision to try to be health and environmentally conscious, but realistic at the same time. If we had an infinite source of income, as well as availability of products, then life would be really great. But, we're going to try at least and here are some things that we've researched and what we're gonna do:

G Diapers
First, we decided to go with G Diapers. We will still use Pampers Swaddlers for her when we travel, but we are really going to try to stick to the G Diapering system as our primary source. I first read about these diapers on Pink Ric Rac's blog and became instantly intrigued. We received a diaper cake from the hostesses from one of our showers made solely from the small and medium diapers. Last night I finally bought the starter kit and demonstrated to Don how to use them. I seriously need to bring my baby doll around so he can practice. He felt confident enough b/c he'd watch the video online, but never having changed an actual diaper, he didn't know how a wiggling baby would be. I guess we'll find out soon enough, huh? The only place I've been able to find these locally are at Whole Foods. I haven't compared the Whole Foods price to the online price yet, but I did compare the online price to Huggies brand diapers and they were actually cheaper and you got more diapers. Oh and Don said he's going to attempt to compost the pee diapers. So, we'll see if they really go away after 50 - 150 days. (Starter kit was $24.99...$2 less than online)
Born Free Bottles
I'd heard of these bottles before and had them on the back burner in my brain because I'd not seen them anywhere. I was actually going to place an order on Amazon for them to be in by the end of January. Well, yesterday when I was at Whole Foods, they had a two pack of these bottles and I thought, how great is that??? I went ahead and bought those as well. We are going to use the Avent bottling system, but try and use the Born Free bottles as much as possible, though. They are relatively the same size, so I think we'll be able to use a lot of the same sterilizing equipment and traveling pieces. I plan to get more than two, but for now that's a good start. Especially since I hope to nurse her for those 3 months that I'm home with her. Of course I'll pump some so Don can experience the joy of late night feedings as well. (about $10.99, I think)

California Baby Products
Like us, the baby will probably have some extremely sensitive skin and won't take kindly to scented soaps and soothers. All natural products free from harsh chemicals and dyes. Even when I was a kid, the Johnson & Johnson brand irritated my skin. I had to use this special soap that I later learned was all natural and prescribed by my doctor. It was on OTC soap, but still, I remember my mom having to go to a specific grocery store to get it. With that said, we're going to try the California Baby products to see how he likes them. I hope her skin reacts favorably to them and isn't has reactive like mine was. Man, I totally remember how uncomfortable life was every time I took a bath or if Mom changed laundry detergents. (the sample kit was about $13)

Burt's Bees Diaper Ointment
All babies get a diaper rash at some point in their lives. It is just inevitable. I'd read about Boudreaux's Butt Paste and seemed intrigued enough by it, but wondered if Burt's Bees made something too. Sure enough, they had a small sample pack of the diaper ointment, soothing apricot oil, and lotion. It smelled pretty good and I tried it on my own skin and there wasn't any irritation. (the sample pack was about $6)


Zoya Nail Polish
Well, this last one is for me. I came across this nail polish while in Whole Foods and wish I would've found it earlier in my pregnancy. Maybe I actually would've been painting my fingernails this whole time. I've missed looking at color on my hands! So I treated myself to a lovely shade of indigo. I'll paint my nails tonight and for the first time in 8 months, my hands will look familiar again. I liked that it didn't smell like most nail polishes since it is Toluene, Formaldehyde, and DBP free. I'm excited, almost to the point to where I want to go and get a manicure, but I'll wait until my mother-in-law is in town. We'll get all dolled up and fancy for the new year. (about $6)
So that's it. That was my adventure to Whole Foods (except the Burt's Bee's stuff was purchased at Target). I know we still have a long way to go to get to a really healthy lifestyle free of the random chemicals and stuff, but this is definitely a start. I'm of similar mentality to John Mayer: Another Kind of Green a mix of being green, but more like green light, I guess like a diet green. Hey, baby steps, right?
Have a Merry Christmas!

Holiday Meme in honor or Pink Ric Rac

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Part 1: Gifts
Do you have a favorite gift that you love to give?
I love giving Don his gift. I literally spend from July up to Thanksgiving day thinking of the "perfect" gift for him. I love his reaction when he opens it. It always makes my heart melt!

If you’re making gifts this year, what are you making? (Post photos if you have some!)
I'm not making any gifts this year. About a week ago when I was watching my niece and nephew, I did make my niece a small purse for her to carry her Kleenex in. I forgot to take a picture of it. If she has it around this weekend, I will definitely take a pic.

Do you have any good stories about handcrafted gifts you’ve given or received?
ha ha!! One year I spent two weekends in search of beautiful rocks, which I turned around and painted and gave as paper weights. C'mon, I was 8...

Do you have any great gift compilation ideas (a grouping of gifts just perfect for certain recipients?)
My mother-in-law is a scrapbooker/quilter/crafter extraordinaire, so this year I'm giving her a series of gifts that relate to scrapbooking (with the exception of the pajamas that we give her every year). Most of the gifts surround the Cricut that we bought.

Name one thing on your personal wish list.
If money were no object, I would really love a fancy lens for my new-ish camera. Either that or an actual organized space for my half of our office.

Do you make and sell things that would make fantastic gifts?
No, I no longer have the time. Between work and personal life, I have maybe an hour out of the week and it takes me about an hour to plan those things. In the past, I used to make these really soft baby blankets for all of my friends who were expecting. And I always love giving gifts in jars!

Part 2: Traditions
What is your favorite family holiday tradition?
This isn't necessarily a tradition, but I loved waking up on Christmas day and all of us staying in our PJs waiting for mom to get the family Bible out so we could do the reading of the Christmas story before opening gifts. And inevitably, some of the gifts weren't wrapped, they had a tiny piece of newspaper covering the label of what the gift was. This was especially hilarious one year when we got a sleeping bag. The entire sleeping bag was exposed, but not the label! LOL!! Ahh...that was awesome.

Have you started any new traditions with your family that you didn’t practice growing up?
Don and I exchange our personal gifts to one another early. Then we do my side of the family's Christmas a week before actual Christmas. Then, we do my husband's side of the family during Christmas.

What do you love most about the holiday season?
I love the quiet time with family.

What do you like least about the holiday season?
Definitely the commercialism of it all and screaming kids demanding a really expensive gift and the parents giving in, but then they scoff at the Salvation Army bell ringers.

What is your favorite holiday food?
cookies or tamales

Do you have a great recipe to share?
Nah, not really. I just tend to make random things during this time of year.
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