Ava Loves Sock Monkey.

My lovely grandmother sent Ava a sock monkey (as well as three gorgeous dresses!) for part of her birthday present. She warned me that A might not like it initially, given it's exaggerated facial features, so not to be surprised if she wasn't into it. I'll let you judge for yourself how A felt about it:

These are for me?!

Inspecting...

Going in for a kiss on this big ol' lips!

Aww...

I love you, Sock Monkey!

Ava's Blankie.

This weekend, while in San Antonio, our friends gave us a personalized blankie for A. This couldn't come at a better time because I'm trying to get her attached to a lovey for when we (someday) transition her to her own bed/room. Anyhow, she loves it! Check it out:

It's so soft and fluffy, and she likes to fall asleep with it between her and I while I'm snuggling her and nursing her. Too cute! Thanks, Vanessa and Jamie!

Sippy Cup!

Ava received this as part of a present in the mail the other day from her pen pal, baby Jack :) She knew exactly what to do with it! Aren't instincts fascinating???

I Heart Friday.

Lots to tell today!

First off, today has been a great day :) I got a TON done -

*First, my car hadn't been washed since before Ava was born. Actually it was significantly before, if we're being honest, so S, Ava and I ran over to Arbor Car Wash, a local place that does a great job and offers $2 off their already cheap hand wash service ($13 before the discount!) if you're a frequent customer, aka if you've been there EVER. My car is now vacuumed out, squeaky clean, sweet-smelling as the day we bought it. I LOVE that feeling! If you're a fellow Austinite, click here for coupons!

*Second, I took Ava and S to the fountains up at the Arboretum where you can feed the ducks/geese and have a picnic, so that was really nice. It's been hitting 80 for the past three days straight, so we've been taking full advantage and getting to do all sorts of fun stuff. More on that later.


*Third, I paid all the bills I had due through mid-April, with the exception of our April mortgage, which always puts me in a good mood. When I was young I liked nothing more than spending. Now, I like nothing more than remaining debt-free and SAVING!!

*Did I mention it's been 80 degrees for three days? And mid-to-low 70's prior? By all accounts, the weather's here to stay during the next week, which brings me to:

SPRING BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I graduated from UT, I thought my days of observing Spring Break were long gone. I spent my last college Spring Break in NYC, living it up like the wild child I once was, half celebrating my upcoming graduation and half mourning the loss of what is one of my favorite weeks of the year.

Luckily for me, when I took my job with the D's, I quickly realized I would be getting that precious, sun-filled week back! This is the second year in a row I've been off for the entire week while the D's go away to Florida, and I can think of absolutely nothing I could enjoy more than having a week to spend just me and little A. On the agenda?

*Spring cleaning (I know it's sick, but this is something I actually enjoy!)
*Long walks/runs on Town Lake & Lake Pflugerville in the gorgeous sunshine
*Ava's three-month pictures (a couple weeks early, but I'm a busy working mom most weeks!)
*Planting spring flowers in the front flower beds and pulling weeds (not looking forward to that second part, but it'll look so much better!)
*A trip to SA to introduce Ava to our "family"
*Zilker Park Kite Festival this Sunday
*SXSW!!!! (As much of it as I can with a baby strapped to me!)
*Visiting daddy at the office!
*Laying around the house, cooing and staring at each other and just generally enjoying being a mommy!

I cannot wait! It's such a nice feeling to not have anywhere to be until the 22nd! Believe it or not, there are actually even MORE reasons why I'm in such a good mood. First off, I stumbled into Babies R Us earlier realizing I needed to nurse and hadn't planned very well around that, and so in we went to the Mother's Lounge. Clearly their design team is genius, since as I walked to the back of the store to the lounge, I passed by many, many, MANY great sales, and ended up picking A up a few cutie patooty outfits! Two are 3-6 months, and boy they look huge! I can't believe she'll be wearing them soon!



What's that you say? I have a spoiled little bebe? I know, but how can you not spoil this:


In case that surprise sale wasn't good enough, I came home to two packages:

Ava's Easter basket:



(any clue how to get the wrinkles out?!?)

and...

HER BOOK!!!! Yay!

(Sorry, Ashlie - I stole your catchphrase for my subtitle. Hope you don't mind!!!)



I think I'm still a bit high from the endorphins of taking two separate three-mile walks yesterday - one around Town Lake, and the other around Lake Pflugerville with one of my mommy blogger friends! So exciting :)

Hope everyone else's Friday has gone as fantastically :)!!

Ava's Baby Book.

I am notorious for keeping really detailed and crafty scrapbooks. I started them my first semester of college, and now have close to 15 books all filed away with pictures, keepsakes, plane tickets, foreign travel, and, most recently, pregnancy! In this same vein, I wanted to make keepsakes for Ava, especially while she's little and growing so quickly, and so I turned to Blurb for a little help (Thanks, Jen, for sharing this idea on your blog!)!

I spent several hours yesterday morning and afternoon working on a keepsake book for Ava, made entirely from this blog! I started at my first post, and went through to the announcement that she was here, with the last page containing her newborn pictures. It was so easy to use and format, and though it took me a few minutes to get the hang of it, I'm so glad I personalized it and added picture captions, etc. It was WELL worth my time. The book is over 200 pages, containing most of my relevant entries (I omitted some whose gist was, "Get this G-D baby out of me!!!", as well as the very few that had nothing to do with Ava or pregnancy...), 266 full color photos, all her sonogram pictures, and more! AND...are you ready for this? It only cost $70!!!!! That's far less than it would've cost me to print that many photos and buy the materials to make a far lower-quality scrapbook by hand. Not to mention it would've taken several weeks, not hours! I cannot wait to get it in the mail!

Baby Blanket!

This past Monday we received the absolute greatest Christmas gift for Baby B in the mail: a homemade baby blanket!!!

Here it is, in all it's glory:


I LOVE IT! Thank you so much to one of Baby B's great-grandmothers, Granny Wendy! It's gorgeous and perfect and oh-so-fitting!

Diaper Shower/Happy Hour

A couple weeks back, I received an email from one of D's coworkers asking if I'd be okay with them throwing us a diaper shower & happy hour at Trudy's, one of my absolute favorite restaurants! Would I be okay with it? HECK YEAH!

It was set up to be a surprise for D, since she knew that being the type of person he is that he wouldn't want anyone to go out of their way or do anything special for him, but she figured if she got me in on it that he'd be happy with it in the end. Boy was she right! There were so many times that the surprise could've been ruined, but in the end, even having ran into a coworker while parking the car, we managed to pull it off and he was completely and totally in the dark :) I'm pretty proud of myself for not having spilled the beans...there were a few times where I almost told him out of either sheer excitement, or fear that he might be mad...the only surprise I've ever had a hand in since we've been together was the baby (which, for the record, was a huge surprise to both of us!) :)

Anyhow, the shower was amazing! Having heard in passing about our previous shower and knowing that we were pretty stocked full of baby gear, everyone brought packs of diapers - almost 900 total in sizes ranging from NB-4. We now have over 1300 diapers waiting for Baby B's arrival...while I'm sure we'll have to buy some packs here and there, I think it's a safe bet we're pretty set for the time being! We have the most size 1 & 2, which is great, and I cannot even imagine the Pampers Gifts to Grow points we've accumulated now!

Also, D's coworkers are fantastic! I've met them a handful of times, and know some better than others, but they were so wonderful and generous and interested, and I think that their support is really important to D. I know that having the D's on my side has been extremely helpful, so I'm so very grateful to them for having done this for us and being so supportive - they're truly amazing and I am so very, very blessed and thankful!

Here are some pics, including the most badass Longhorn diaper wreath EVER (made by some of his office-mates), and evidence suggesting Baby B is the most spoiled child ever...oops.

This is what nearly 900 diapers looks like:


And an up-close shot of the magnificent diaper wreath:




Stacks of diapers/clothes/baby gear:


Holy moly! That's just the size 1/2 diapers, and the NB & some 0-3 mos. clothes. I think it's safe for me to stop shopping now...

Belated Shower Gifts!

This came in the mail yesterday from my aunt Denae, and we love them! I've seen a lot of babies loving on these dolls, and I'm excited to have one for Baby B. She had those booties/slippers made for Baby B - pretty nifty, huh?

New Stuff Since Yesterday!

You'd think that in a 24-hour period, this list would be small. It's actually quite huge.

First off, here's the latest nursery update:

Oh yeah, those are curtains! I'm so psyched. $15 at Target. Cha-ching!

Then, seeing as how I was off early and celebrating and already at Target, I decided today would be the day I finally got my stuff together on her bathroom. Here's the update there:


While these pictures suck, thanks to awkward bathroom angles, I love love love this set. In the end I decided to go with this so that a.) it wouldn't be all kid-ded out, since that's really, really not my style, and b.) I got that robe and matching washcloths at my shower and loved them, and decided since I like EVERYTHING to match to go with a multi-print, multi-color theme. I love it! Now I just need to paint :)

Lastly, but also very exciting, my diaper bag came in the mail last night!!!
It's fantastic :) I will definitely be a hip mama, and haven't seen anything like it ever before in person, so that's exciting also! It's also much larger than I imagined, and will hold just about everything, with a matching diapee & wipee pouch and thermal bottle insulator to boot:

The only thing we need now (which the emergency card in the diaper bag so graciously reminded me this afternoon) is a name! Not going to be in a post 24 hours from now, though, I can tell you that!

Baby Swing!

This was a baby shower gift from the D's, the wonderful family I work for :) So cute, and arrived just in time for my mom and I to set it up together - yay!

Baby's First Ralph Lauren :)

Thank you, Greener family, for this oh-so-adorable outfit! Can't wait to see her in it!!

Our First Baby Shower Gift!

My baby shower is coming up this Saturday (I know it's early, but that's when my mom could fly in to Austin, so that's that!), and we've received and put together out first present. Here it is, in all it's glory:

Thank you SO much, grandma & grandpa (Baby B's Nana & Papa)!!!!!! This is absolutely wonderful and extremely useful! Loving the colors as well - it matches our bedroom comforter perfectly, and is gender neutral in case I decide to ever put myself through this again and we end up with a boy...not looking likely, though!

It also has a removable changing table that inserts, but that's not shown here because we couldn't get the cats to stay off of it for long enough to snap a picture, and I'm trying to not get cat hair on any of her things :)

THANK YOU!!!!

I Won a Onesie!

Yep, you read that right. I WON something. Maybe Baby B's luck is rubbing off on me :)

A big thank you to Grow, Bean, Grow, one of the fantastic blogs I read daily, in partnership with Lil'Bagoo's merchandise at Etsy for holding the giveaway!

Here's a picture of the onesie I've won...so perfect for Texas!
Happy Saturday, everyone!

Starting to love UPS!

I am SO incredibly blessed. First off, D's coworkers rock my world with all the Texas garb. Here's the newest addition:You know I've already started reading her that book, so she can recognize terms like Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium, Bevo & Hook 'Em. I think we have a future Longhorn on our hands :)

Then, on top of that, one of my girlfriends, a wonderful family I babysit for, and my lovely aunt have sent me all of this:While I desperately need a dresser, there isn't much else I am needing in order to fill it! What's great is that it's all in varying sizes, so she won't be the most stylish baby on the block for the first three months of her life and then...naked. She'll have clothes for quite some time. Thank you to everyone! You all rock.

Too bad my own wardrobe sucks these days. I'm in a very strange adjustment period, where the last of my non-maternity clothes may be pushing it these days. I probably have two weeks, max, before I'm fully into maternity clothes. Until then, though, I'm making do. Maternity clothes are just SO terrible.

In other news, I've been swimming three times this week..in public. IN A BIKINI. Go me. Rocking the baby bump, since the alternative is a maternity swimsuit, and that just ain't me. Hoping to rock the bump for a while...this is Austin, after all. I'm seldom anywhere where you can't find another pregnant woman bearing her beautiful belly as well ;)

Presents from Grandma & Grandpa!

Thanks, Mom & Dad!!!

(Note: It is SO strange to be referring to my mom as grandma. Weird. It is equally strange to be referring to my dad as grandpa, but for an entirely different reason!)

Our Little Longhorn!

One of D's coworkers and friends brought us this gift yesterday, and I LOVE it!!! So cute!

Perfect timing, too, since I had every intention of hauling myself to the Coop this weekend and initiating baby into the club :) Thanks Delilah!

First Baby Presents!!

First off, STUPID. INSOMNIA.!!!!!!!!!!

Second, yesterday I got my first two baby (and mommy!) presents in the mail. What a fantastic surprise!!!!!!!!!!!
Baby officially has it's first outfit, a cute little yellow number that says, "I love mommy" Heck, yeah. Also, a little whale bath scrubbie...very cute! I cannot wait to know the sex so not only can I paint the room, but I can also do the bathroom up all cute! 18 days to go! Thank you, Granny Wendy!!!!!!!!!

I also got a package from my kickass friend T, who had a baby last year around the same time I'll have this little one, and has been ENDLESSLY helpful in the advice/sympathy department. She sent me some kick ass mommy books (loving them ALREADY!!), baby's first book - Five Little Monkeys - and a little blue blanket/lovey animal. SO cute. I've been feeling a bit...nervous and overwhelmed...lately, and these two packages totally squelched that and reminded me how much I have to look forward to! THANK YOU!!!!!!! (Baby says thank you also...I know by my increased appetite that woke me up in the middle of the night for some cocoa krispies :) )

AHHH! My baby has things!!!!! How adorable :)