Gabe 0.5

Gabe always looks stunned the early morning hours.  9.4.11

I must gush that he is such a good baby.  Hardly fussy and sleeps well.  He is a quiet observer of life (for the time being) and he loves his sister.  It is so funny how she will run up to him and yell, "Hi, Gabe!" in her sweet 2 year old voice full of enthusiasm.   His eyes perk up and a giant grin appears across his face.  Now that he's a bit older he'll start to paw at Amaya's face and she'll just squeal and then Gabe starts doing his Chewey noise (cause he sounds like he's from StarWars).  He totally caught on to jumping in the jumper, and the only reason we limit his time in there is that Amaya wants to get in there too, and it for sure will snap if she gets in there - and she throws a major meltdown if we say no - so we try not to instigate the jealousy.

We had a fun summer and loved having Daddy around.  Daddy has returned to work and it has been about a month now, and the stress totally wears on him.  It is so hard to watch your husband hate what he gets up to do each day.  We are looking for solutions, but the economy and our location add difficulty to an already daunting task. So, hopefully things are looking up in the next few weeks and maybe stress won't comsume D for a while.  I miss my happy-go-lucky husband.

The kids are doing really well and Amaya has a wonderful energy about her.  I seem to be busy all the time even with not having much on my plate. 

That was a pretty darn good weekend.

This weekend was like a make-up for Mother's Day.  See, for my second official Mother's Day, my stomach pulled one of its fun little surprises and wanted me to lose a few pounds.  I was sick and couldn't eat.  And not to ruin the spirit of Mother's Day and to take advantage of the offer to get my favorite pizza - we attempted to go out to lunch.  Needless to say, it didn't stay down.
Feeling much better now, Saturday was an unspoken make-up.  At least it was for me.  Dave could probably say that it was just another day at home, but to get the whole day with him helping me out and cooking for me, was heaven.
He made a glorious serving of french toast for myself and Amaya.  Amaya was even an angel by pooping in the potty for the first time right after breakfast!  (I guess that double the fiber bread I've been buying really does work).
We relaxed with the computer and just basically did nothing.  And when it came time for dinner, he cooked again, making one of my favorites (there are many) - chicken picatta.  I love the lemon butter sauce.  Its a bit heavy, but soooo good once in a while.  And Saturday night, we took a quick walk down to our park to check out the movie they were putting on - The Tooth Fairy, starring The Rock.  We didn't stay long, nor were we planning on it - we just wanted to see what the turn out was.
And then on Sunday, one of my closest friends returned to her home after being away for 4 months.  We got to hang out and go out to dinner!  Its fun to have her back, since being close to my friends is one of the reasons we moved from Chandler out to QC.

Since we went out to dinner and ordered something cheesy, we are currently discussing getting our butts in gear and starting the post-pregnancy workout plan.  I need others to keep me accountable.  Not necessarily with the working out part, once I'm working out, I feel that I deserve to eat whatever I want - that's where I fail.  Eating - I love many types of food, and a lot of them aren't good for me.  So, believe it or not, I'm excited to get on the bandwagon.  And having the help of friends who live close by, will hopefully only enable my success.

Pinterest Luuuuuv

I heart Pinterest!

Its a cool place to collect ideas and inspiration for virtually anything.  It makes me happy to see images of things I want/need or inspire me in one place.

www.pinterest.com/johannajane

Well, Now what?

So, its been a looooong time since last adding to this.  Since then, we bought a house, moved and had a baby.   I am seriously going to start adding to this thing more often, pinky swear.

So our new baby is hitting the 8 week mark tomorrow, and he is starting to smile and attempt vocalization. I'm not saying he's brilliant or anything, but I swear he is already talking to me.  Gabe was big at birth, just like Amaya, weighing in at officially 9 lbs  .06 oz.  However, he didn't look much like his sister until about a week ago when the cheeks came in.  That's right, he got Amaya's chub.  I love it... Seems like we will have another little chunker on our hands.  Here is a picture of Amaya at 6 months for reference.

I love just looking at her hands!  

Gabe resembles Amaya in a way which looks nothing like her.  Similar features, but different colors so to speak.  He has reddish hair and blue eyes and my pale skin.  Amaya looks more like Dave with his dashing darker countenance.  This is a pic right after he was born.  We never got a great picture of all of us at the hospital - it was past Amaya's bedtime and we know she wasn't sure what was going on.


Anyways, life for us has changed quite a bit and as we head indoors for the hot summer season, we look forward to spending a lot of time together as a family.  We do not get to do a lot of that during the school year with Dave being so busy trying to keep up with 20 something students, parents and school officials.

Also, I am hoping with the summer season, I will get to finish some projects in the works and start new ones.   There is a long list of hopefuls.  I really really want to finish painting the kitchen - I was bummed the other day when I attempted this and realized with our current ladder and my short arms, I couldn't reach the corners behind the cabinets.  So, I wasn't going to start the process and then leave patches of white behind where it was obvious I couldn't reach - maybe Dave's long arms could do it someday - or maybe we can get a taller ladder...

Amaya's room still needs to get her pretty coat of purple paint up.  I picked a Ben Moore color called porcelain.  It looks nothing like the swatch - its way more lavender.  I figured it was a more mature grey/purple that Amaya could grow into as she gets older.

Also, after much deliberation, I 'm going to be moving Gabe's room back to the office.  I just think the garage door is way too loud and grinding.  It may not be an issue later, but now with Dave leaving so early in the am (when school starts back up in August) and the sleep patterns of an infant, I think its for the best.  I'm going to miss the view from our computer though, it looks right over our backyard and across the wash.
There is way more to this list, and I will post (pinky swear) as I get 'er done.   But this week has already been a success, so to speak - I painted the downstairs bathroom!  Granted its the same color as the upstairs guest bathroom - but its a step in getting rid of this ugly pale grey semi-gloss paint throughout the house.  I painted it Urban Mist by Behr.  It looks really blue in the tiny space, but I'm going to dull it down with silver accessories and light-medium grey artwork.

Everything in this house looks so much brighter once its on the walls.  Once I showed Dave, he was like, this is going to take some getting used to.  It looks great upstairs with lots of natural light, but in the tiny cave of a bathroom, its really really blue - not so grey and calming.  

And I guess I can consider today a success, because I finished a blog post!  Haha!  Someday this may become natural... 

Tomorrow, I get to take Gabe's official 8 week photo!  Even though he won't be 2 months until the 18th - he turns 8 weeks on Fri the 13th!  

Projection on Projects

Here is a list of projects I would like to do for the new house, or simple Christmas presents...or for fun

Small projects I think I can complete this month include:
Amaya's hand cross-stitched for ornaments
Homemade calendar with personalized quotes for our new kitchen or office
Hand designed glasses, a la glass pen.
And if we actually manage to close on the new house...
Get some new bedding in a charcoal gray color or shades of gray from light to dark - like these

painting Amaya's room purple

painting BB's room blue/gray with cool vertical stripes in green, orange, white and navy (I swear this looks good in my head and not like a circus tent). 

Big projects that involve much more than a trip to Michael's and a tiny house including a summer with a husband who has his days off:

farmhouse table
console table
making the head and footboard for our bed

I don't necessarily think its a great idea to publish all of this incase I fail epically, keeping a running tally on a piece of paper does not always work in my favor.  And if I know that it is out there for someone else to read and potentially ask about...it may just put a fire under my ass.

You put in, I take out.

Yesterday's packing adventures were more of a misadventure.   I realized the nature of a toddler beast once she is able to grab stuff we never allow her to play with, i.e., old cassette tapes which Dave collects.  I felt like the bad mommy having to redirect her over and over again when all she was feeling was tremendous joy at her new found (dangerous) playthings.
Although, she was great at unpacking as I moved from room to room looking for random cds that have been placed throughout the house over the years, in my attempt to keep the boxes pure and organized.  I will have to use this to my advantage at an unknown later date.
Today, back in the adventure zone, I will tackle her room, which shouldn't be too hard.  She is used to spending time in there, and I have already managed to organize her old clothes into SpaceBags according to size.  I will just throw those into a plastic bag and save them for friends' future babies.  Garbage bags with label tags will hopefully abound today.  Closets beware!

Okie Dokie

Well, I thought I'd start this off with a cheery title, reminiscent of a lovely German fellow Dave and I got to know in Boston.  Brilliant man, he was, (studying the brain at one of the most prestigious institutes there is) he had a strange grasp of this phrase and overused it to the point of obsession.  "Okie Dokie, lets go for coffee", he might say.  It makes me laugh a little in my brain whenever I hear it, so I thought I'd share.  And so it begins...
Well, this is not my first attempt at this.  In fact, around New Years, I started writing and dropped the ball.  Not a huge surprise for me.  Follow through is not my strong point.  Anyways, after having a rough spring and traveling a bit over the summer, I feel as though I've successfully made it to a point where I may be capable of dedicating a little time each week to writing out the events and emotions of my life.  As I stated above, this is to document milestones and kinda be like a diary of sorts for my family.  I don't know where this is going, or what it may or may not evolve into.  I may be feeling a bit of post-Thanksgiving nostalgia as Christmas is upon us with all of its "cheery" music, twinkling lights and shiny new material possessions.  Who knows?
Well, what I do know is that I have an amazing 16 month old daughter who makes me laugh everyday.  I have a new little boy on the way and a husband who is supportive through (most) of my mood swings and stress induced craziness.  (some of them really are completely irrational, fighting over facebook, really?  oh yeah - it happened...)   Throw in there the stress of potentially moving into a new home over the holidays to all of this and its a firestorm of anticipation, stress, anxiety and giddy happiness!

Patient people we are, we made it through 95% of a short sale process, and hopefully the bank doesn't drop the ball in the last 2 weeks.  Also, over the course of the final 2 weeks of the home purchase, add traveling across country on a 12 hour journey back to the frigid Northeast, single with a toddler and being 6 months pregnant.  I don't mean to sound sarcastic, but I have a lot to look forward to.

Anyways, I am hoping to start packing up the old home this week, in a calm and organized manner.  Excel spreadsheet and sharpie in hand...hopefully, while baby numero uno is fast asleep for that precious 2 hour nap in the afternoon.  We have been planning on moving since the summer, but I am superstitious and feel like everything will fall through if I have everything set to go.  So far it has worked in our favor and the house price has dropped in that time so our payments will be significantly lower (SCORE!).   Wish me luck as I begin to dig through old cabinets and tip top garage shelves.  Who knows what I may find or where I may "wind up" (that's my overused phrase, BTW - you may hear it a lot).