Life lately...

Sitting here and trying to keep Natalie entertained with Handy Manny and AWAY from the ipad. It's been harder and harder to get on technology because Natalie begs me to "hold it". (I have to confess that I give in A LOT because it's so easy to pull up episodes of Handy Manny or the Cinderella movie on youtube. And when I do that, I sometimes have the chance of actually getting something done!) I am thinking about redoing the blog and actually blogging more. I enjoy reading so many blogs, and my favorite thing about those blogs are the consistent and interesting updates. I can claim neither of those over here, but I am hoping that will soon change when my macbook is revived from the dead. Don't get me started on all the problems I've had with that contraption lately. Now it's a glitch in the keyboard. Ergh. Updates. Well, I am still pregnant. I guess it's been about six or seven weeks since I've updated since my last pregnancy week was week 14. Well, I am 21 weeks along now with another little GIRL! We are pretty much 100% settled on the name Brooklyn and are looking forward for the adventures two little girls bring. I am somewhat dragging my feet on thinking about her nursery because we have to get Natalie a new bedroom set and get her all settled in new furniture since Brooklyn will be using her crib and changing table. Brandon doesn't want to paint our guest room, so Brook's room will be a nice green. I'm thinking elephants as a theme, but I just don't know. I was so gung ho with Natalie's room. I think my perception has changed since Natalie started hating her crib at just past a year. She goes in her room to play, and that's about it. It's a cute room-- I just wish she'd actually sleep in there! Her favorite place is curled up between mom and dad. Our queen bed is starting to feel like a twin with my growing belly and our sweaty bedhog of a child. I will post more as I think of interesting things. And I might *gasp* actually add pictures. For now, you pretty much know where to find me on facebook or instagram:mommyjami. ;)

Love for my kids... love for all the kids...

I never knew how much I would possibly change when I became a mom. Looking through pictures of my sweet Natalie brings tears to my eyes, and I'm thankful for every moment I've had with her. She brings so much undeniable joy, sometimes my heart begins to hurt with heavy love for her!

As I carry a new child within me, I wonder on all the ways I will grow as a mom, and I pray continually for the health and happiness of my children. There are so many sad stories circulating around, tales of death and loss and sickness and  grieving parents, and my heart stings and burns each time I hear a new story. I cannot fathom that sort of pain, nor do I ever want to. 

My husband thinks I google these things just to carry around fear in my heart, but I read these things on my facebook, hear them on the news. And each time I say a prayer for comfort, for healing, for Jesus to come soon. Parents shouldn't have to bury their babies. Babies and children should not get sick with cancer or be born with holes in their hearts. Babies should not be left in car seats and forgotten. Mommies shouldn't hold their lifeless babies in their arms after normal pregnancies. And babies shouldn't die in their cribs. They should not be struck by a vehicle in their own driveway. Children should not go missing and be found later, tortured, raped, killed.  This is the stuff that burns me up and leaves me breathless. WHY?

God, I ask for protection for my children. Both of them who are living. You have one with you in heaven, a baby I never knew, a child that I'm hoping I will one day meet and know. I ask for love and comfort to rain down on the mommies and daddies who are mourning the loss of their precious babies. The desire of my heart is for no harm to come to my children. I don't want harm to come to anyone else's child either. I crave a world where all of that is passed away, where we don't have to worry anymore, and a thank you so much for the blessing of children.

Natalie makes me laugh. So much. She is a little spitfire. She's rough and tumble, messy, and loud. She sings "Twinkle, Twinkle" at the top of her lungs. She's clumsy (bless her) and rambunctious and full of energy and life. She is obsessed with her tiger stickers and constantly slaps away pretend spiders "Spy toes!" She drags pillows around like they're blankets and calls her pacifier a "looler". She gives hard hugs. She won't let me get in her nose to get boogers. World War 3 always ensues over the boogers. :) Each morning, when she wakes up, I get the run down of her massive vocabulary. Sometimes when I'm having a hard time sleeping, I think of all the words, numbers, and colors she knows already. I'm amazed. I am so blessed and thankful, and I do not take my sweet child for granted. God knew exactly what we needed when He gave us our beautiful girl. ;)

Pregnancy Update: Week 14

I think my last pregnancy related update was thinking that maybe there were two babies inside of me instead of just one? Anyhow, we got that figured out. One baby. One ornery, nauseating baby. I don't mean to say that about the *baby*, just the pregnancy.

This pregnancy has been exhausting. I basically had it made my first pregnancy because, although I was sick and tired a lot of the time, I didn't have a little one to tend to. You can't lay around all day when you're chasing, entertaining, and cleaning up after a very busy and energetic toddler.

Symptoms:

Well, I am officially out of the first trimester, so I'm hoping some of the dreaded symptoms will finally take their leave. I think I have been nauseated since week four of this pregnancy. I begged for Zofran (an anti-nausea medication) at my eight week visit, saw some improvement, and then didn't like the breakthrough effects. When it worked, it worked just fine to keep nausea at bay. When it didn't work, it reaaallly didn't work, and all that nausea it had prevented to a certain point came crashing down on me in all its glory. Not fun. Hugging a toilet all day while your little girl is running circles around you is not fun.

No weight gain. Praise the heavens! I would suspect that it's due to the nausea and such. I'm currently thankful for this. I gained too much during my last pregnancy and kept too much on before getting pregnant this time.

Oily skin and hair. Holy puberty batman... it looks like I dumped a container of Crisco on my head and face and then followed that with olive oil.

Dead tiredness. I haz no energy at all.

Smells. My house smells like a dead animal.

Anyhow, we'll be finding out the sex of the baby sometime in October... so until then...Wish me good pregnancy vibes and energetic thoughts! 

Pictures that make me smile...

In going through my facebook albums, I have found a couple of gems that just make me smile.




Natalie, holding her dad's boxers, for instance. ;)


The awesome old man face. ;) 
I don't know what my hair was doing that day, but I love this pic more than words!


Hahaha! My little teether and drooler.



My mom made her this Dorothy costume for Halloween.




Thanks, Natalie, for doing drugs in this picture.



A better one of just us. Made the turkey onesie. ;)


She loves stuffed animals more than I can possibly describe.


Natalie and her twin, my sweet mom.


Maternity leave was the best. I miss it.



Bath time! (Calm down, cheeks! I am holding the camera that has survived being dropped in the ocean. Doesn't it look great for that kind of abuse?!) 

I remember being so freaked the freak out by this.






So teeny.



The night before I was induced. SWOLLEN.



AWW. <33333


What a fun trip with our inlaws pre-pregnancy.

I think he was a little overdone here.


Trina, you are sooo pretty! Even when you are making crazy faces!!


The great food tour of North Carolina... all we did was eat on that trip.





I forgot he looked like this that summer-- haha!





OMG, Dad and I LOVED MY OLD BATHROOM.



I'M EXPERIENCING MAD HAIR ENVY FROM YEARS PAST.



THAT TIME MY HUSBAND WAS A LUMBERJACK. HAHA.



We were just little babies when we got married.



And he could lift me! (WAH!)



Dating in college. BABIES!


That time I tried to show Brandon that I was proficient in Irish step dancing. HAH. I loved that dress... so very much and WOW, Brandon was a slob in college.


Once more-- babies. And what kind of shirt am I wearing?


SKELETOR.



I was obsessed with that dress. Seriously. 




The time I was the Twilight book for Halloween... hahaha.


All in all, some fun pics throughout the years...what a fun blast to the past. ;)

Random spurts of motherhood.

So. . . I've been attempting to get reorganized in every aspect of my life. LOL. I don't know why I have to laugh at that, but, if you know me, you know I'm one of those who often flies by the seat of my pants. I do just enough organization to get by. I don't look at calendars. I buy planners, and they sit around prettily until I'm doing a cleaning haul, the year's already half-way gone, and then they're disposed of until I see another cute planner on deep clearance at Target. That is me. I hate that about myself. I'm too relaxed. But... now I have a child whom I'm responsible for. I have to keep up with her doctor's visits, her iron supplement, her care schedule.

And oh my goodness-- can we just talk about how more than a year's flown by since I had Natalie? This time last year I was probably holed away in our master bedroom watching the Voice, eating lean cuisines, and crying while rocking Natalie. I don't feel like an old pro when it comes to motherhood by any means, but I sure have relaxed. I've hit another roadblock, though. Natalie's walking. My child... my teeny baby...is standing on her wobbly little legs and walking. Not just walking. Running. It's what nightmares are made of. I don't have baby gates assembled. I don't have latches on cabinet doors. I do well to keep my floor swept and mopped, and now she's WALKING ON IT and leaving piles of toys, utensils, whatever in her wake as she reaches for the dvd player so she can push buttons.

And she's TALKING. Like, full on sentences. Okay, so maybe "Hey baby." isn't what you would typically describe as a sentence, but I can understand her. She's a little mimic. I have to be careful around her when I stub my toe or drop something or bang my head on her highchair. She soaks it all in like a little sponge.

Anyhow, back to organizing my thoughts. Did you like that nice little Natalie tangent?I did!

So, these are the areas I need to get a hold of in the near future:
Cabinets ( I need to latch them and reorganize them-- the makeup cabinet in our master bathroom is a treasure trove of 'no-no's)
Shower ( I just need to legitimately clean our shower. It frightens me.)
Yard (I cannot bear it. We bought a house that requires major landscaping, and I'm bound and determined to rip out our backyard while Brandon's on his mission trip. Speaking of, I need to get quotes on yardwork from some local companies.)
Floors ( I need to mop... and I need to clean our carpet.)
Glasses ( I need to buy a new pair of glasses to replace the ones Natalie hurled across the hardwood)
Teeth cleaning ( I need to make an appointment desperately. Desperately.)

One of these days, I'm gonna get with it and do a before and after series of my house. I know a lot of you think I keep my house reasonably tidy, but y'all need to see the evil that lurks behind closed doors when you've got a toddler. :) 

Natalie's First Birthday (belated)

So, once again, I have neglected my little corner of the internet. :) I'm thinking of redesigning my blog. Maybe that'll put me in the mood to actually update, but we all know that's NOT going to happen, so yeah.

This is going to be just a picture post because I really need to play catch up.

Remember Natalie was going to have a birthday, and I was going to do an amazing picture post of all the cool stuff I made? Well, I only took a few pictures because I was so darn busy getting everything ready for her little party. Due to her love affair with the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse since the tiny age of five months, we decided on a Minnie theme. I armed myself with a whole lot of Pinterest ideas and got to cracking. I stretched the same $30 over and over again for decorations so Brandon wouldn't kill me.



This was her Minnie banner in progress.



This was her high chair banner before she ripped it to shreds with her little feet. ;)

My mom made her smash cake. Out of this world cute!

She fed me some cake. :) 
And then Daddy had to join in.


Before the cake massacre. I added buttons to her dress to make a Minnie head. Cheap, cheap, cheap. I'm cheap.

Photography (professional) by our uncle Chris.
We had a really fun day and about forty people packed into our downstairs. I ran out of food, but I didn't realize it because we were having a blast!!! YAY! Natalie got some really cool gifts, and we got to see all the people we love in the same place!


And then the day after her party came her 12 month shots! BOO! As you can see, I am totally compassionate. 

Just call me a stage mother...

Trying to fill up the next ten minutes with a lot of BLAHBLAHBLAH because I am nervous, y'all. On a whim, I started googling child talent agencies because I want to use my kid as a cashcow. Just kidding. I just want to see how it all works, you know? I think Natalie's pretty cute, especially when I see all of these baby models in catalogs and what not. I always think to myself, "Natalie could do that!" I know... it all sounds obnoxious when you type it out, but it's very innocent.

Here's the thing. I think it's better to have experience in the event you decide you want to do something. For instance, when I was in middle school and high school, I loved the idea of performing on Broadway. I was a musical theatre dork, for lack of better words. I was a loser, but I was passionate in my loserdom. Anyhow, I feel like I would have pursued this world of musical theatre if I had a dance background or musical background from an early age. Since I started dance class (begrudginly) at the age of eight, I didn't have the skills or drive of someone who had started at, oh, age three. I was scared and shy and awkward. I didn't pick up on stuff as quickly as the others. I embarrassed myself, so I quit trying.

I wish my mom had enrolled me in stuff at an earlier age. I would have been more well-rounded when the time came for my interests to blossom. Now, Natalie can shove this experience out the door if something more appealing comes her way as she grows older and develops her own uniqueness, but for now-- I'm going to pull the mom-card and see where this goes. I would never force her into something she hates, but I want her to have fun. And no, I would never be a dance mom or a serious stage mother. I'm really not competitive at all; I am nervous easily, so this really is something fun to try for us... I want Natalie to love the arts as much as I do, but her life is hers to live. Believe me, I've seen too many Lifetime movies where this scenario has gone horribly wrong! :)

Anyhow, I got a callback from a talent agency and am discussing possible representation for Natalie. If this goes as far as a Dollar General circular, I'll be happy. ;) I just think it would be something cool to tell her as she gets older. Anyhow, it's 1:00 and my heart's in my stomach as I'm about to make this call! Wish us luck!!

Organization of brain matter..

Okay, so typing in the words "brain matter" grosses me out. :/

Anywho, Natalie's party is a week from today, and I'm just checking in to get my thoughts organized. Losing an hour of sleep hasn't really helped me, and tomorrow I have to be at work at 7am, which is really 6am, and I'm just not mentally prepared for functioning that early even though I woke up at 4 am yesterday and was able to keep going until 11pm. You following me?

So, I found some pretty cute balloons for Natalie's party and plenty of tablescape inspiration on pinterest. (ah, I love pinterest. it's such a vicious cycle with me. I could go for hours with no food or water if I have a laptop with pinterest pulled up infront of me...)

The tricker is I don't want to drop the cash on a helium tank because I'm pretty sure I only have 12 balloons, not thirty... and you can have balloon overload. So I am going to be that obnoxious girl calling Party City as soon as they open to inquire about balloon blow up rates for balloons purchased outside their store. I hope to goodness gracious they don't have a weird policy. I'd be extremely grateful if they charged me like $5 to blow up 12 balloons because...yeah, that would be kind of them.

I'm probably going to throw things together extremely last minute, but I do like to have some semblance of a plan. I'm excited. Can you tell?

Brandon has given me $100 for the rest of this party, and I gotta make it last. Like I said in one of my previous posts, the invites alone were $30! :/ Never again. Generic invites next year. (probably not--next year is Handy Manny!! Do your kids watch that show? Pencil up my ear material, but the good thing is Natalie will probably be bilingual..)

So, with that being said..
balloons + balloon inflating charge
food
letters for highchair banner $2.99 at Joann's
scrapbook paper

I think I have everything else already taken care of.

I *think* I can make it work. Ya'll ain't never known a cheapskate like this one. I am a Dollar Tree addict.

In other news, I'm going to attempt to make one of these beauties today. I need a wreath form. My front door is nekkid.

Mine will be grey with bright flowers. I know it will not be this pretty. I'm not even going to pretend that something like this can come from my hands... I will probaby realize why these girls on etsy are charging $40 for something like this. I would love this for Natalie's door to her room... sigh. I just can't find felt in these colors and don't want to stand in line to have 1/8 yard of felt wool cut at the fabric store...

And in other other news, I have a date with a pile of yard debris that's cluttering up our backyard. We live in the city and can't acquire a burn permit, so I have to shovel all of it into my dad's truck bed and haul it to my parent's house to burn. I'm not looking forward to it, but I am so excited to have my yard back and looking good so the neighbors can stop talking and pointing. :) Just kidding. I have really nice neighbors.

New facebook site!

If you are in the market for some cute, gently used baby clothes, please visit my consignment site on facebook- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003610958884.

(Natalie's Closet 2x because I'm a loser and don't know how to set up a facebook page when not using a real first and last name..)

I am probably the last mom on the planet to start one of these fun online consignment stores, but I work full time and don't have much access to the computer. After some careful deliberation, I have decided it's in our best interest to get rid of some of Natalie's clothes to make room for more, duh. ;)

Kids grow so quickly-- why pay retail?!

Seriously, I salivate when I hear the words "clearance", "yard sale" or "consignment". It's like music to my cheapwad ears.

Okay, it's 11pm, and I have officially been ignoring my husband for, oh, three hours... so bye bye!

Hi!

So... I'm still working on Natalie's Minnie birthday party, slowly, but surely. I had hopes of it being a big ordeal, but then I got tired and just have run out of time to plan it. I don't want to be the overwhelmed hostess, so I think it's going to be a relatively simple affair.
The above are beauties off of etsy, and they were probably the most expensive part of the party. They were $12 to design, $5 to print out at Walgreens,$10 for stamps, and $3 for envelopes. I had to buy some clearance party invites from Target to find the right size envelopes. $30 for invites wasn't exactly what I was planning to drop, so I'm having to scrimp in other areas. So... basically I just paid the money to get people there so I can serve them crackers! I kid, I kid. Really, it's mostly family and only a couple of friends here and there, so it really was unnecessary, but you only turn one once, and it's mostly for the parents. :) And just so you know, there's more of the invitation than that, but I didn't want all of the crazies out there crashing our party so we've cut the address off.

We're going to have cupcakes, and my mom's making a fondant smash cake for Natalie. I'm making a banner from a cute tutorial I found on pinterest, and I have some other things up my sleeve that will take place the night before the party. I work best under pressure. I have also taken three days off before the party to plan, but we all know that means I'll be sitting around in my pjs playing with Natalie. ;)

OH... and another somewhat unrelated update, I have found the beautiful wonder that is Smocked Auctions. It's a facebook page based out of Texas where smocked dresses are sold for half off retail. There's only a select number of clothes in each size, so you have to pretty much act like a rabid dog to bid and win. I think I won a dress tonight for Natalie, and I'm kind of having buyer's remorse because I don't have $40 to spend on a dress she'll wear once. If you want to see a real life soap opera, tune into Smocked Auctions Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 8:30 CST. Grown women whining about not winning clothes for their babies, drama, drama, drama! You just have to roll with the punches, ladies, and wish for the best! I may or may not have won, but, trust me, I'm in more trouble for winning than for losing! :)

And that's all. Baby's asleep, and I'm about to go cuddle with my kindle!!