Hey laaaadies! It's Thursday. As in, nearly Friday. And this week has gotten better with each passing day. So, to celebrate, let's have a little giveaway, shall we?
Who wants to win $45 dollars to spend at CSN stores? I sure would, so I'm guessing you might! CSN Stores has been gracious enough to offer one of my lucky readers a $45 certificate to any of their over 200+ stores. Just head on over to check out their amazing shops, which sell anything from modern furniture for a little mommy splurge, baby gear for any upcoming first (or second, third, etc) Christmas gifts you may need, or quality briefcases for the handsome man in your life!
So, let's get started, shall we?
To enter, just head on over to CSN stores and leave me a comment letting me know what you'd like to spend your $45 on if you win! It's that simple.
For additional entries (leave an additional separate comment for each!):
-Follow my blog via Google Friend Connect
-Follow me on Twitter - @unexpexpectbaby
-Follow my Celeb news on twitter - @brijtaylor
-Leave a comment on any of my Gather or Pampers posts - 1 entry per comment!
-Grab my button!
That's it! Good luck, ladies!
This giveaway will close on 11/17 at 5PM CST. For disclosure information, click here.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Baby Steps Part II.
A's walking is really coming along, and I'm so insanely proud I just had to share more video footage:
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Perspective.
Earlier today, as I was driving and relishing in my bad day, I was creating a post in my head, complaining about how things had gone wrong all day thus far. Complaining about breaking a wine glass at 8AM and then stepping on a shard of glass. Complaining about my lost, broken and forgotten sunglasses (respectively) and the bright morning sun in the car. Complaining about how I got Ava's bright orange antibiotics all over my favorite shirt. How I can't find a pediatric allergist that takes our insurance. I could practically *feel* my blood pressure rising with every passing mile. And then, something changed.
Now I'm not one to get all in your face religious. You all know I've been on my own spiritual journey, but believe to each their own. What I take comfort in may not work for you, and so why push it on you? Not my style. That being said, I'm gonna drop the G word in this post, so watch yourself!
I decided that, much like an addict facing temptation, it would be helpful to say the serenity prayer. And from that, I decided, why not continue to say a little prayer of thanks. And it went something like this:
Thank you, God, for my beautiful family. My daughter, who is my world. My job, for which I am eternally grateful in this economy. My extended family, my "in-laws", my car and home and all of the things that I've been blessed with and use to provide for my family. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for that one May day where I made the most important decision of my life. I can never thank you enough for my sweet, sweet baby girl. I am so abundantly blessed to just be in her presence, not to mention the ways in which she's changed me, made me - and us - stronger and better. Thank you God for the strength you gave me that day, to know the right thing to do, to put me on the path to where I am now. Thank you for my baby. For all the decisions I ever made in the past 26 years that somehow landed me hear. I am so, amazingly blessed. Please help me to be strong, and courageous, and to always remember that despite the little things that go wrong, that they shall pass, and I will continue to be surrounded by the overwhelmingly amazing things. In the name of Jesus Christ, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. Amen."
My day took such a nice turn for the better after that :)
So thank you, God.
Now I'm not one to get all in your face religious. You all know I've been on my own spiritual journey, but believe to each their own. What I take comfort in may not work for you, and so why push it on you? Not my style. That being said, I'm gonna drop the G word in this post, so watch yourself!
I decided that, much like an addict facing temptation, it would be helpful to say the serenity prayer. And from that, I decided, why not continue to say a little prayer of thanks. And it went something like this:
Thank you, God, for my beautiful family. My daughter, who is my world. My job, for which I am eternally grateful in this economy. My extended family, my "in-laws", my car and home and all of the things that I've been blessed with and use to provide for my family. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for that one May day where I made the most important decision of my life. I can never thank you enough for my sweet, sweet baby girl. I am so abundantly blessed to just be in her presence, not to mention the ways in which she's changed me, made me - and us - stronger and better. Thank you God for the strength you gave me that day, to know the right thing to do, to put me on the path to where I am now. Thank you for my baby. For all the decisions I ever made in the past 26 years that somehow landed me hear. I am so, amazingly blessed. Please help me to be strong, and courageous, and to always remember that despite the little things that go wrong, that they shall pass, and I will continue to be surrounded by the overwhelmingly amazing things. In the name of Jesus Christ, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. Amen."
My day took such a nice turn for the better after that :)
So thank you, God.
One Sad Mama.
I may be overreacting. Maybe. One can never tell when they're in the midst of a stressful situation and particularly when it involves their baby. That being said, I may not, and I'd prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to the health of my child. So here goes.
I *think* - think being the hopeful word here - that she may be reactive to eggs. While it's clearly nothing she's reacted to in my milk before, though I eat eggs somewhat infrequently, I gave her scrambled eggs for the first time yesterday and she had FOUR blowouts. Same exact reaction she has to dairy. I'm thankful of course that the reactions aren't anaphylactic, as a.) this is obvious less severe and b.) she's likely to outgrow them both, but eggs and dairy? SERIOUSLY??!?!?! My poor little munchkin.
Rather than sitting here on the verge of tears feeling sorry for her and myself, I'm making a ton of calls to local allergists, hoping to find a pediatric allergist that accepts our insurance. It's surprisingly tricky. I thought I'd done my due diligence and found one, but turns out he doesn't see children under the age of two. Really? Ugh.
Anyhow, I had better get back to my research and calls! I'll keep y'all updated, and hopefully we'll find one and get seen this week! Cross your fingers!
I *think* - think being the hopeful word here - that she may be reactive to eggs. While it's clearly nothing she's reacted to in my milk before, though I eat eggs somewhat infrequently, I gave her scrambled eggs for the first time yesterday and she had FOUR blowouts. Same exact reaction she has to dairy. I'm thankful of course that the reactions aren't anaphylactic, as a.) this is obvious less severe and b.) she's likely to outgrow them both, but eggs and dairy? SERIOUSLY??!?!?! My poor little munchkin.
Rather than sitting here on the verge of tears feeling sorry for her and myself, I'm making a ton of calls to local allergists, hoping to find a pediatric allergist that accepts our insurance. It's surprisingly tricky. I thought I'd done my due diligence and found one, but turns out he doesn't see children under the age of two. Really? Ugh.
Anyhow, I had better get back to my research and calls! I'll keep y'all updated, and hopefully we'll find one and get seen this week! Cross your fingers!
Sunday, November 7, 2010
A Quick Update.
Whew...how have four days gone by since my last post? Geez, time flies.
We've been up to a lot of cool and exciting stuff, and this mama has been pulling some major OT at work! I actually offered to step in for the D's so that they could go to New Orleans for their tenth wedding anniversary, and so I was at work from Friday morning to Saturday late night, hauling 3 little girls to basketball practices, basketball games and birthday parties, as well as trying to get (and keep!) the house clean, bake brownies for Mr. D's birthday Saturday, and generally not lose it after something like 40 straight hours at work. It went well considering how stressful it could've been, but I'm glad it's over. Definitely not feeling like I got much of a weekend, though!
Then, there was this pesky little time change. Normally I'm down with the whole "fall back", taking full advantage of that extra hour of sleep, but Ava didn't get the memo, and woke up early just the same. To top it off, her nap schedule has been all over the place today, with her falling asleep in D's arms before she'd even had breakfast, and then napping again right before we were supposed to head out to run errands. Oh well - A's nap takes precedence over just about anything, since it directly correlates to my sanity!
After she woke up from her second nap, we ran some errands, including hitting up Toys R Us to start on A's Christmas and birthday shopping! Considering the two are days apart, I think we're going to be better off starting our purchasing out early like this in order to spread it out a bit, but we knew that we wanted something extra special for her birthday, and we just couldn't wait to pick it up for her! Check out what we got our little lady for her first birthday:
Awesome, right? We got an insane deal on it, between a merchandise credit we had, a $20 off sale and a 20% off coupon that came on our mailer! We're planning to do this for her birthday, and then the rest of the things going for Christmas/stocking stuffers/Santa :) I'm so excited!!!!
In less exciting news, A had a reaction to the yogurt we tried with her, which makes me super sad. I've been easing dairy back in - sometimes successfully, less successfully with other forms - and it's gone well enough that the doc suggested that we could try yogurt with her, as the milk protein is the most broken down in yogurt. We tried it, in a very small amount of YoBaby! Yogurt Blends, and the poor doll had diarrhea for over 24 hours. As such, no dairy for her - or I again!! - until after 1 year. Anyone have any good vegan frosting recipes to pass my way to accompany her vegan chocolate birthday cake?!
A's still on her antibiotics, and let me pass a little tip along to those of you who may also have a baby who isn't down with the refrigerated antibiotics. A is a champ medicine taker when it comes to Motrin, etc, but anything the doc prescribes, she fights like hell. So...at my wits end, I've started taking it out of the fridge an hour before she needs to take it in the dropper, and letting it settle to room temp. Voila! She takes it just fine!
Alright, that's enough update for now - time to go cuddle my little baby bear! Hope you all had a great weekend!
We've been up to a lot of cool and exciting stuff, and this mama has been pulling some major OT at work! I actually offered to step in for the D's so that they could go to New Orleans for their tenth wedding anniversary, and so I was at work from Friday morning to Saturday late night, hauling 3 little girls to basketball practices, basketball games and birthday parties, as well as trying to get (and keep!) the house clean, bake brownies for Mr. D's birthday Saturday, and generally not lose it after something like 40 straight hours at work. It went well considering how stressful it could've been, but I'm glad it's over. Definitely not feeling like I got much of a weekend, though!
Then, there was this pesky little time change. Normally I'm down with the whole "fall back", taking full advantage of that extra hour of sleep, but Ava didn't get the memo, and woke up early just the same. To top it off, her nap schedule has been all over the place today, with her falling asleep in D's arms before she'd even had breakfast, and then napping again right before we were supposed to head out to run errands. Oh well - A's nap takes precedence over just about anything, since it directly correlates to my sanity!
After she woke up from her second nap, we ran some errands, including hitting up Toys R Us to start on A's Christmas and birthday shopping! Considering the two are days apart, I think we're going to be better off starting our purchasing out early like this in order to spread it out a bit, but we knew that we wanted something extra special for her birthday, and we just couldn't wait to pick it up for her! Check out what we got our little lady for her first birthday:
Awesome, right? We got an insane deal on it, between a merchandise credit we had, a $20 off sale and a 20% off coupon that came on our mailer! We're planning to do this for her birthday, and then the rest of the things going for Christmas/stocking stuffers/Santa :) I'm so excited!!!!
In less exciting news, A had a reaction to the yogurt we tried with her, which makes me super sad. I've been easing dairy back in - sometimes successfully, less successfully with other forms - and it's gone well enough that the doc suggested that we could try yogurt with her, as the milk protein is the most broken down in yogurt. We tried it, in a very small amount of YoBaby! Yogurt Blends, and the poor doll had diarrhea for over 24 hours. As such, no dairy for her - or I again!! - until after 1 year. Anyone have any good vegan frosting recipes to pass my way to accompany her vegan chocolate birthday cake?!
A's still on her antibiotics, and let me pass a little tip along to those of you who may also have a baby who isn't down with the refrigerated antibiotics. A is a champ medicine taker when it comes to Motrin, etc, but anything the doc prescribes, she fights like hell. So...at my wits end, I've started taking it out of the fridge an hour before she needs to take it in the dropper, and letting it settle to room temp. Voila! She takes it just fine!
Alright, that's enough update for now - time to go cuddle my little baby bear! Hope you all had a great weekend!
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