two cute gardeners

Yesterday morning Robert and Audrey were outside repotting our little basil plant, and I had to run out and take some pictures!  Aren't they the cutest?  Check out that SAD, wilted bush next to our shed.  It has been so hot and dry here.  We finally got some rain this evening, but it didn't feel like much.  

Things have been quiet over here because real life is NOISY right now!  So much going on.  Robert's parents came to visit us for the 4th of July, and his grandparents came over yesterday to meet Audrey for the first time.  We went out to dinner and she had her first high chair experience at a restaurant... It wasn't too bad!  We learned some lessons for next time. :) 

This week is looking to be pretty exciting as well.  A friend who hasn't seen Audrey for a few months is coming to dinner tomorrow night, and on Friday we're going to see Fiona Apple at the Ryman Auditorium!  I'm really looking forward to it!  If you haven't heard her new album, it's amazing.  It took a few listens to click for me, but then I became somewhat obsessive about it.  Current favorite music!!  And the Ryman is the best place for concerts - it's where we saw the Pixies and Arcade Fire a couple of years ago.  We're having a really nice summer so far!

7 months!

Let me just overload you with some cuteness.  Audrey has been getting REALLY fun lately.  She has so much personality and energy.  Last Friday she turned 7 months old!  Every single month we marvel at how quickly it's passing.

She's sweet and cuddly right after naps.  She eats a TON of food.  We recently increased the amount of solids we give her and it has been helping so much in the last few days.  It's not like we were underfeeding her, but she apparently wasn't getting full enough to sleep for very long.  Since she started having finger foods in addition to purees at every meal, she has been taking just two looong naps a day.  Just like one of those babies I've been reading about in books! :)  I'm hoping it's a pattern that sticks.

I can make Audrey laugh just by widening my eyes at her.  We stare into each others eyes and laugh about the silliest things. She has also been experimenting with shrieking... which is cute when she's doing it for fun, and alarming when she's upset (and babies can go from fun to upset really quickly... I think she overwhelms herself sometimes).  We have a play date tomorrow and I'm hoping she doesn't get in a screamy mood.

I feel like we've become pretty good friends.  We understand each other, most of the time.  She's even started listening to me on occasion (or so it seems) when I ask her to come back to me or not to knock something over.  She also gets quiet and seems a little excited when I ask her if she wants to eat.  She also got VERY excited when Robert came home today.  She wanted to go to him and hug for a long time! 

She crawls, she climbs, she edges around furniture, and I get the feeling she'd be up and running everywhere if she could only figure it out.  This evening before bed she kicked her legs for about 5 minutes straight.  This girl has ENERGY.  She knows how to wear us out!

We have so much to look forward to in the upcoming month!  Audrey is going to get 3 visits from her grandparents.  Hooray for good baby stuff!  We've been enjoying being a family of 3 lately.

Father's Day, a little late

Just as I'd expected, Robert is turning out to be pretty much the cutest dad ever.  KNEW IT.  You can read about his first Father's Day here!  We tried to make the day special for him and had a really good time doing some major relaxing at home.

Audrey will be 7 months old on Friday!  As far as babies go, I think she's.... a jock.  I don't even know how it happened, but she is so crazy physically advanced.  Part of me loves it, because she is basically already a toddler.  Part of me is terrified, because she is an almost-7 month old who can almost walk.  Which means LOTS of accidents, because she doesn't understand gravity at all.  She takes her falls pretty well, but this morning she launched herself over the side of our bed before I could grab her, and it was scary seeing her little body crumple between the wall and bed.  So scary.  But luckily she seems to be fine!  And I spent the rest of the day with at least one hand on her at all time.  Really; I couldn't even get out of my pajamas until noon.  She has a little bump on her head but has been acting completely normal... 

Audrey is a little wild thing.  I feel so happy when I see bits of her personality emerging.  Even if I'm imagining them -- like this morning when I asked her for a kiss and she sort of licked my cheek so I cheered YAY for her and it looked like she was clapping.  She totally doesn't know how to give kisses or clap yet, but I know she will soon and I am so excited about everything that's ahead for her!!

good morning!

I think Audrey read my last blog post and decided to give us a break.  She's been sleeping through the night since then!  (But PLEASE, baby, don't read this and go the other way again.)  It makes such a huge difference... I've been in the best mood ever for the last few days.  Now when she wakes up around 5 or 5:30 to eat, if she won't go back to sleep in her crib, I put her in our bed and we snuggle a while.  Sometimes she falls asleep for an hour or two, which is awesome.  Sometimes not, which is okay too.  Nothing better to wake you up than a little baby crawling all over you.

Robert got in on the cuddling too, and he brought some of our favorite cookbooks because we were working on the menu for next week.

Here's Audrey loving on the Joy the Baker Cookbook.  It's THE BEST.  (Like, every time we look through that book we go a little bit nuts.  We've made so many of her recipes!)  Do you know JTB?  She's kind of our imaginary best friend around here.  She's just the coolest. We listen to her podcast every Thursday too!  It's seriously entertaining stuff.

Happy Wednesday!

roadtripping baby

Tiny baby napping in huge hotel bed

We are back from our little road trip to Memphis!  It went SO much better than I could have imagined!  I had no idea what to expect from Audrey when it came to the long car drive (about 3 and a half hours) and sleeping out of town.  But Audrey seems to have inherited my love of a good road trip, and she seemed pleased as punch to be in the car.  I'm sure it helped that Robert was in the back seat with her, ready to do anything necessary to make her happy!  We only stopped for lunch on the way there and back -- no other emergencies.

This is going to sound incredibly cheesy, but I feel like we came back a stronger family, more prepared for anything!  It was like a trust exercise out in the wilderness.  Sort of.  Sort of not.  I learned that I did not need to pack quite so much, though I should have had extra pants handy: we did have one little leak, which resulted in Audrey not wearing pants for the rest of the day.. oops.)  Once we got to Robert's parents' house, I learned a lot about letting go of control, and letting other people enjoy caring for Audrey.  There's just this overwhelming urge to do EVERYTHING for her, but I had to accept that her grandparents have that too, and since they don't get as much time with her I should welcome the break and let them go at it.  So I did!  Once we saw that she went down for a nap easily there (in her pack 'n play), and was having a blast playing with everyone, we.... let her stay the night!  Without us!

And OH what an awful night it was.  Not for Audrey - she slept great!  Robert and I were a mess.  We were awake at midnight, at 4 a.m., wondering what she was up to, if she was okay, if she was sleeping.  We made ourselves stay in bed until 5:30 and then got up to get ready and go see her!!  So much for a restful night alone, huh?  There was nothing to be worried about -- her grandparents took great care of her -- but we just can't relax unless we can hear her breathing, I guess.  I hope we get over that soon!

All in all it was a great weekend, and I will be posting more pictures and details soon!  Audrey had a lot of firsts, and Robert had a nice birthday!

I love my little family

My two favorite people!

It seems really lucky that I get to live with my two favorite people in the world and see them all the time.  I'll admit that Audrey has not always been in the Top 2.  But she is definitely there now!  She actually cheered me up this morning when I was feeling down; she has become a REAL person!  Hanging out with a newborn can leave you a little lonely, but once the baby knows how to smile and laugh and practically crawl into your lap...  She is definitely very dear to me. We tell each other jokes by growling and making puppy noises.  Yesterday, "woof" was the funniest thing she'd ever heard.

And ohmigosh, I can't even brag about Robert enough.  I won't even try.  But look, he wrote me this story for Mother's Day.  We read it over breakfast (homemade cinnamon rolls!) and it totally made me cry.  You don't have to read it, and I don't even know if it will be impressive to anyone else because it's so personal (and also steeped in duck metaphors).  But it was just the sweetest thing ever.  I am so lucky to have found this guy.  Where did he even come from!?  He's probably not even human.

Sorry for posting about mother's day twice in a row!  I had something else planned but it kind of fell through... Maybe later! 

P.S.!!  That necklace I'm wearing?  Robert also got me two wooden teething necklaces from here so that I can wear jewelry now (and it's totally fine if Audrey tries to eat it)!  Pretty neat!

P.P.S. Robert doesn't just happen to be an amazing gift-giver...  I requested both the necklaces and a story!  (And he was sweet enough to oblige.)  I like to give hints about what I want.  Only way you'll ever get it.  :) 

Happy Mother's Day!

BABY HUUUUUGS!

It's my first Mother's Day!  So far, it's a pretty good day.  Robert has been 100% on board with making things easy and fun for me.  Audrey didn't get the memo.  But I suppose I can forgive her.... She is awfully cute.

Mother's Day was always one of those holidays that I didn't appreciate as a kid.  What's in it for me?  Seemed like a waste!  HAHA.  It wasn't until I had a baby that I suddenly realized how hard mothers work.  It actually overwhelmed me, in the early days, to think about all the mothers before me having to go through such hardships.  Babies are HARD WORK.  It sounds obvious, but I never really quite understood until I was dealing with one 24/7.  She is a total treasure, but man.... I deserve presents.  And treats!  And pampering!

I'm totally on board with Mother's Day now.  Happy Mama's Day to all of you out there with little ones!  And those of you who aren't moms... don't forget to appreciate your own!  She worked hard to take care of you.

my two favorite monkeys

Practicing for warmer weather - sailor hat!

Helping make cinnamon rolls on Saturday morning.

There they go...

Sometimes I happen upon the most amazing scenes.  Yesterday evening I left Robert and Audrey to their own devices while I took a nice long shower.  When I got out, I found them in the living room... Robert was pushing Audrey around in her stroller, singing to her and watching Michael Jackson's This Is It.

I can't imagine anything more hilarious than that.  I love these two so much! 

Goals for the New Year

Another year is almost over! So much has changed, but it hardly feels like any time has passed at all since this time last year. It’s scary how quickly a year can pass, isn’t it? If you’re not careful, it can go by without accomplishing anything. Most of 2011 for me was consumed by pregnancy and all the planning, dreaming and doctor’s appointments that go along with it. My biggest goal for the year was to take care of myself and have a healthy baby, and I totally did that! It’s a big deal, so I’m patting myself on the back. Way to go, me!

I don’t really do resolutions, because we all know that those are made to be broken. But I do like to have some basic goals and dreams for the year, things I can look forward to and aim for. To quote Sylvia Plath, “We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward; the poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine…”

Here are my goals for 2012! In no particular order of importance…

• Get less squishy. Yeah, I had a baby a month ago. I gained 30 pounds during pregnancy and have already lost just about all of it. But things are just not the same! I’m a fairly lazy person, so I’m not going to push myself very hard, but I would like to work on firming up a bit.
• Be a better friend, family member, and neighbor. I want to keep in touch more with people. Having a baby has brought me so much closer to my parents, because they want a lot of updates and I need a lot of support! I want to keep that up, and also remember to reach out to friends. I’m a bit of a loner, and Robert and I tend to isolate ourselves and live in our own little world (we're such a duprass). I want to nourish and build our support system, because sometimes we need other people! Also…
• Make some friends who have children. We don’t have any! I’d like some future friends for baby, plus it’s always nice to talk to other mothers about things. (Because childless friends only want to hear so much about diapers and sleepless nights!)
• Remember to use my creative outlets. I want to find the time to blog regularly, keep up with my own personal journal and do a few little craft projects! Nothing too ambitious.  Maybe take a few photos that don't feature a baby.
• Enjoy every baby moment. This one sort of goes without saying, but I thought I’d say it anyway… I know the next year will fly as quickly as this one, and Audrey is going to go through so many changes! And on top of that…
• Enjoy every moment with Robert! I always knew that I didn’t want our relationship to get lost in the confusion of parenting, and so far we’ve been keeping it real. True, we don’t get as much quality time alone, but it’s the little moments that count. I always thought “date nights” sounded stupid, but now I feel like we’re due a few. I wouldn’t have survived the last few weeks without him. He has taken such good care of me!! Let me boast a little more: while I was recovering from giving birth he took over all the household chores, cooked and fed me (sometimes literally) 3 meals a day, and has been 100% involved in every bit of baby care. Plus he has big muscles. Haha. Seriously, though, I never want to stop letting him know every day how super in love with him I am.

Okay, I’ll stop before this gets out of control. What are your goals for the new year? Do you have lofty aspirations or do you keep it simple?

best friends forever!

bear in the mail

When I got home from work yesterday, there was a package for me. It was from Robert's mom. We were pretty curious about what it could be...


And I was somewhat confused until I read the letter she sent along. This is Bear - a stuffed animal that belonged to Robert when he was little. It's obviously supposed to be a monkey, but he called it Bear. That makes sense to me, because it doesn't even have a monkey tail! I can understand getting it confused with a bear.


She said that Bear needs some stitching, but after seeing Toy Story 3 she thought that Robert might want him back. Isn't that the sweetest thing? She also sent along some great little pictures.


You can see Bear was missing an eye for a while. And he's wearing one of Robert's t-shirts -- isn't that considerate?


Robert told me he's "totally embarrassed" of what he's wearing in these pictures. ha ha ha!! I like it. I think I married into a really cute family.

mother's day: a dinosaur story

Today is Mother's Day here in America! Perhaps in some other places, too: it's hard to keep up with all of the different holidays. Anyhow, if it's Mother's Day where you live, remember to show your mom some appreciation! Here is my post from last year, complete with some cute photos of my mom from the '70s. This year I'm going to do something a little different. Honestly, I just want to show you some dinosaur pictures. And I figured this could somehow fall under the category of motherly things.

During the weekend of the great flood, Robert and I spent our indoors time hatching a dinosaur egg that some friends gave to us. What follows is the photo log we made so we could keep everyone updated with the latest happenings of the baby dino. Robert took about half of these pictures. Enjoy!

The experiment began Friday night. Dino egg went into the water.

This is how it looked when we woke up Saturday.

Things began happening fairly quickly.

We ate some scrambled eggs. A little pink dinosaur looked on in wonder.

Around 10 a.m., something began to emerge!

An eye appeared around noon.

Around 3 p.m. we saw what it's head sort of looked like!

Just an hour later we saw a smile!

5 p.m. - nothing much was happening, but Robert started picking at the egg.

We had strawberry pancakes for dinner. YUM! I could eat breakfast foods for every meal. Sometimes I do.

Just before we went to bed Saturday night... we'd been chipping at the egg again. Impatient!

Next morning: you can see his neck grew longer!

Sunday, 2 p.m.: A little more peeling away at the egg revealed his lumpy legs.

2 hours later: we finally took him out of the egg shell and let him just soak some more, hoping his tail and legs would get longer.

His legs got a little chunkier, but never longer! And the tail stayed stubby. After a couple days of extra soaking, we decided he was done growing. He's all dried out now!

In other news, I began working on Friday! It's just a 2-week temporary position, but already it feels so nice to keep busy all day. A little hectic after not working full-time in almost a year and a half... but I'm enjoying it! I'm still adjusting to the time constraints and not being online all day, so I may be a little scarce around here. Just a warning-- If you don't hear from me for a bit, you know what I'm up to: getting paper cuts!

As far as post-flood updates, things are going fine around our house. Still may need some roof repairs, and we're still under water restrictions [which is still driving me crazy because it means cutting back on doing dishes and laundry], but things are otherwise fine! That's just my case, however. Can't forget that there are still people in the Nashville area (and other places) who are without homes because of the flood!

baby goats

Here are some pictures of what I was doing last Friday! Back in November, Robert and I had our first little farm tour at Noble Springs Dairy. Now that the weather is warming up, I knew it would be the perfect place to take my mom when she came to visit. My dad was also in town, but he was here for business and kept himself busy with meetings. We got in some quality time, but there were a couple of days when it was mainly just me and my mom hanging around - which she loved! :)

We spent a whole afternoon on the farm [thank you, thank you, thank you, Justyne!], and it was basically heaven. Gorgeous weather, friendly happy animals. Friendly, happy people!

Speckled chicken!

Horse with grassy green lips!

Mini graveyard from the 1800s?

Now for the main event: BABY GOATS. I've been wanting to see them for a few weeks, and Robert is jealous that he hasn't met them yet. I wish they could come over and romp in our backyard. They're so adorable and full of energy.

We got to help feed them!

There is nothing so serene as feeding baby goats.

And the milky lips after they eat... TOO CUTE!