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Author: Andi

18 Weeks…Yesterday

Posted on June 20, 2012June 21, 2012 by Andi

Yesterday I was 18 weeks along with Baby #2. I called Maddie “Thumper” when I was pregnant with her because she was such an active little thing. Well, it turns out, Baby #2 is no different. For a couple weeks now, I have felt some sporadic kicks and movements. Yesterday morning, though, I was laying on my back before I got out of bed in the morning and Baby #2 was kicking so hard I saw my stomach move! It was so cute! I forgot how cool it is to see that movement.

Baby #2 needs a nick name now. Anyone have any suggestions? I’ve been thinking, but I keep going back to “Kangaroo” or “Roo”. It’s the only thing I can think of that kicks. Smile 

And here’s a little belly picture for you that I took yesterday. I find it fascinating that I am bigger earlier along this time. But it’s fun because I felt pregnant much faster this time around!

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It’s not a great picture, but you can see my belly! Just a couple more weeks and we get to find out if my little Roo is a boy or a girl!

*Update* This baby was so active tonight that I thought I would see if Chuck could feel the kicks. Sure enough! His comment was “wow, that is one strong little baby!” Ha! So very true. He wasn’t able to feel Maddie kicking until I was 20-something weeks. I was so happy he was able to feel the baby so early. I like that he can feel a tiny bit of what I feel all day long. Smile

Andi_2_0

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City Select

Posted on June 19, 2012April 5, 2016 by Andi

After lots of research and looking in person, we bought a new stroller for when Baby #2 gets here. We purchased this beauty.

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A friend of mine has one and she loves it. I know when I said it was for Baby #2, you probably assumed that it holds two kids. OH IT DOES! Look at what this bad boy can do!

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Yeah. How sweet is that?! I wanted it in black, so I have to wait until they get it in the store to pick it up. I don’t NEED it right now, but I am so excited to get the call that it arrived! As soon as I get it, I’ll be sure to get some action shots of Maddie in it. Smile 

Andi_2_0

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Ball Toy

Posted on June 18, 2012June 17, 2012 by Andi

A friend was having a garage sale, so Maddie and I meandered over to see what they had. One of the things I bought was this ball toy. It has four balls and when you hit a button, air shoots the balls up. It’s pretty amusing to watch Maddie with it. Here are a few outtakes of her playing with it.

She was trying to figure out how it worked.

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Then tried to get one of the balls.

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I love how hard she is concentrating carrying the toy across the room.

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She’s so careful when she tries to get the ball out.

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Sweet girl!

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She likes feeling the air come out of the toy.

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I just love her eyelashes in this one. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the toy. Smile

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Andi_2_0

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Maddie’s New Room

Posted on June 17, 2012June 17, 2012 by Andi

I have been dying to switch Maddie into her new room. We decided to move her because the room we are moving her to is above the garage and has two outside walls. So it is colder in the winter. Something Maddie can handle just fine, but not the best for a newborn. I did a little post about moving all the junk out of the new room a while back.

After finally moving everything out, Chuck and I did some new furniture shopping. After getting frustrated looking for something new and not finding something we liked (good quality, but not quite as expensive as Maddie’s furniture), we gave up and moved her furniture into the new room. We have just put off shopping for the new baby for now. Smile 

So I worked my butt off a few days and moved all the stuff into Maddie’s room. I moved everything but the big chair, because that needed to be moved from downstairs. (Our neighbor helped with that.) 

I have some in-progress pictures, but that isn’t any fun! So here is her room 99% finished!

This is standing in the doorway.

This is standing in the closet.

The changing table…I’m standing between the chair and crib. The baby monitor is stacked on boxes and a trash can right now. We didn’t want to mount it to the wall until we were happy with the room arrangement.

The movers under the crib legs still need to be removed. I had been moving things around the room and left them there until I was sure I liked things the way they were.

Here’s a close-up of her reading nook. She likes to sit with the bear and read books or play with her toys.

Here is the big chair I moved to her room. It used to be in the living room, but all of Maddie’s toys have kind of taken over the living room. So it only made sense to get rid of the chair to open it up a bit more.

Maddie playing in her room. She likes to sit on the blanket with her dolls and toys.

Here is a closer picture of the stick on alphabet I put between her windows. I am really happy with them. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to put there, but these are perfect!

And here’s a shot of her closet. A lot of stuff was just left in her old room since it will be used for Baby #2. So I only brought things into her new room that she actually needs. (And no, she doesn’t need a ladder. I just haven’t moved that out of the closet yet.)

There you have it. A tour of Maddie’s new room. She really likes it. We play in there a lot and her playroom is right outside the door, so she takes toys from there into the room all the time. I love how it turned out. I’m actually getting a little excited to start working on the baby’s room, but we won’t do anything in there until we find out if Baby #2 is a boy or a girl. (Just a couple short weeks!)

Andi_2_0

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Teavana

Posted on June 16, 2012April 5, 2016 by Andi

A friend of mine has raved about Teavana, so the other day I was in the store getting a gift for someone and I thought I would try out some things. I’ve never found a tea I like, but I would like to like it. I tasted a sweet tea they had as a sample and I was sold!

So I went home and made a cup. It was awful! There’s no getting around that. So I started asking my tea drinking friends what I did wrong. First guess was my water was too hot. So I made another glass with slightly cooler water. It was better. Still bland, though. A couple days later, I tried some more with a friend. I steeped it longer and used more tea. Success!

So now that I have found a way I actually like drinking it, I am so excited about it! So here is what I got.

I got a mixture of Strawberry Lemonade Herbal Tea and Blueberry Bliss Rooibos Tea.

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Then I also got Strawberry Lemonade mixed with Wild Orange Blossom Herbal Tea after talking to Morgan (a sales associate at Teavana) who likes the sweet tea just like I do!

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I need to tell you how yummy these smell. I want to eat them right out of the jar. That would be weird, I know, but I want to. Smile 

I also got Perfect Tea Maker. Wow. This thing is cool!

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You put your tea inside and pour water over it. I also got some rock sugar to sweeten the tea and I add that in to the tea maker with the tea. Then you let it steep. When you are ready, you put it over any cup/mug and it has a quick release on the bottom so the tea comes out the bottom without any leaves or anything in your glass. SO cool!

Here are some pictures of my tea I took yesterday with my phone. It looks like a ton of tea in there but it was only a couple scoops. The tea rehydrates and get huge in the water.

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And here is when I am putting it in the cup.

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And look at the pretty color!

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Ok…this picture wasn’t very pretty. But it was a really deep pink in person. Smile 

So there you have it. My failed, then successful attempts at tea. Do you like tea? What are your favorites? Do you like it sweetened or any way you can get it?

Andi_2_0

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Maddie Randomness

Posted on June 15, 2012June 15, 2012 by Andi

I have a number of pictures that don’t really need their own post, but I wanted to make sure I got them on here some day. So here’s a bunch of random photos for your enjoyment.

Maddie has been getting teeth for what seems like months. She loves ice cubes. She likes to hold on to them, eat them, play with them in a cup….she especially likes them when it’s warm outside.

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I recently bought Maddie a water table off CraigsList and Maddie loves it. Most of the water ended up outside of the table and her favorite thing to do was to dump the water out by the cupful!

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One day, Maddie threw her biggest tantrum yet. She threw herself around like a fish out of water, wailing at everything. Eventually, she got really mad and went into the dining room to cry for while. After her tantrum, she decided she was done and decided she loved me again. Then proceeded to eat my lunch. I had to get a picture of her tantrum.

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I took Maddie and one of our neighbor boys to the zoo. Maddie loves these boys and they just love her. It’s so cute. It’s a bad picture, but Jackson was so proud to be helping Maddie out at the zoo!

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Maddie LOVED the cotton candy! Not that I was surprised by this at all! Smile

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Andi_2_0

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Some Days

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Andi

Some days your toddler will yell at you about everything.

Some days your toddler won’t want to eat lunch.

And some days the only way to get your toddler to eat lunch is to give in and let them hold their doll so they will at least eat strawberries for lunch.

And the Cabbage Patch Kid was mine. Her name is (amusingly) “Maddie Jeanie.” Smile

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Sarah’s Key

Posted on May 23, 2012May 29, 2012 by Andi

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Last night we met for book club. The book we read was Sarah’s Key. It seemed to be a big hit with everyone. Here is a summary.

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family’s apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France’s past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl’s ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d’Hiv’, to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah’s past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

It was a touching story that really made you think about and remember the events of the past. It was a pretty quick read. Many of my friends said they didn’t want to put it down. If you need a new book to read, I think we would all recommend this one.

Happy reading!

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The BIG Pillow

Posted on May 18, 2012May 29, 2012 by Andi

Chuck’s wonderful mother, Linda, tackled another project I have wanted done. We went to a friends’ house one night and they have this HUGE pillow on the floor for their kids to play on. She sent me the information on it and I knew I was too cheap to pay for something like that. So I wrangled Linda’s help. We picked out the material and she went to work! Last weekend, I brought over the stuffing for it and we filled it up! Check out how awesome it turned out!

And look at how perfectly she lined up the edges!

And here’s the zipper she added. Please excuse my creepy hand.

And you would never know it, but she actually has a seam in the top and bottom somewhere because the material was only 55” and I was really hoping for a 60”ish pillow. So she made it bigger for me! She rocks!

It’s hard to tell how big it is, so here’s a picture of Maddie sitting on it. Not great pictures, but you can get a better idea of the size!

So now we have a big pillow for Chuck and Maddie to rough-house on! They love it! Thanks Linda for tackling all my sewing projects for me!

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15 Months Old

Posted on May 16, 2012May 16, 2012 by Andi

We just went to Maddie’s 15 month check up. The doctor was quite impressed by her. (I’m happy even if the doctor tells that to everyone!) She was 32” tall (long?) and weighed 19 pounds 7.5 ounces. She’s just a tiny little thing. Well, tall and tiny. It’s a challenge to find pants. She is long, but her waist is small. Maybe she would fatten up a little if she ever stopped moving. Smile 

Maddie has learned to climb on things. She can’t quite get on the couch, but she did learn (just yesterday) how to get on the couch by climbing up the speaker next to the couch. She giggles at herself and is oh so proud. Smile She will also climb up if she moves a toy near the couch to use as a step.

Maddie is growing up so fast. She is learning something new every day. Just yesterday, we video taped this new trick she learned….after one try, she had it down!

Maddie is a little sponge these days. She tries to repeat or copy everything. I need to make a list of all the things she says, so here seems like a good place to do that. Smile

* Words (16): mama, dada, hi, uh oh, oh no, up, down (dahn), wheee (eeeee), no (usually “no no no no”), banana (balalala), puppy (pa), duck (da), book (buh), bow, waffle (ahhh bah), baby (babeee – just learned that one today and hasn’t stopped saying it)

* Signs (5): more (points at one palm), all done (wipes hands together), diaper (scratching motion), please (rubs chest/stomach), drink (extends arm and waves hand wildly)

* Animal noises (10): cow (oooo), pig (snorts), monkey (ahh ahh), owl (ooo ooo), bear/lion (growls/roars), lizard (sticks her tongue out repeatedly), sheep (ba ba), snake (shh noise), rooster (oodle oodle oo), fish (makes a fish face)

* Other: can point to her head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, belly, lifts her shirt up for belly button, waves bye, shakes head “no,” blows kisses, if we say “GOAL” she sticks her arm out like the refs do, sticks her arms up for “touchdown” instead of “so big,” sees something with its mouth open – she imitates it.

* Just learned but not consistent: worm (wiggles), cat (mew mew), if I ask her “where is mommy’s baby?” or “where does mommy have a baby?”, she will point at my stomach. So cute!

I am sure I forgot some of the things she can say, but it’s hard to remember them all. I feel better getting a list written down somewhere to look back on one day.

Maddie loves to throw things away and will hold our hand now.

Ok, enough bragging….here are a couple pictures.

GOAL!

Belly Button!

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