Baby Lime

Well my anxiety filled two weeks has passed and after the longest doctors appointment of my life, baby lime (size, not name) is happy and healthy. Minor complications lead to an early ultrasound and -wala! - there was our little peanut on the screen. Big head, big belly, and little arms and legs were swimming all around. Heartbeat was a steady 156 and after shedding a little tear of happiness, we were sent home with a couple pictures and a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. The doctor does want me to take it easy for a couple weeks but besides that, everything is perfect. Next appointment is in a couple months and we should of know the sex then!

I will leave you with a picture of our little lime.

Hello baby!

Happy Eleven Months Marlee!

The countdown has started to Marlee's big one year old birthday party! She is now eleven months old and I have starting feeling a bit nostalgic about her getting so big. I started packing up her clothes that are too small and kissing her baby months goodbye. At this time last year, we were counting down the days to her arrival - to the moment that I would meet the little peanut that has been growing in my belly - to make our family bigger by one sassy, beautiful, funny, joyful baby girl. And here I am counting down the days to her birthday.

Que secret, silent sobbing

This month Marlee has learned to give kisses, give high fives, and clap her hands. Although she is currently on a kisses strike, (I see you kiss your bear Marlee so I know you still know how to do it!) it is so adorable and I love every drooly one. She is walking more and more everyday. If she would take her time and stop laughing hysterically, she would be a pro! Her hair is super curly and she has three teeth -two bottom and one on the top. She is perfect in my eyes.

Here is her second to last birthday photo shoot!

It was a very giggling one. 

It is impossible to see her smile and not smile myself. 

Is It Nap Time Yet?

I feel like this is my life motto lately. I literally wake up and the first thing I do is plan my next nap time.

 

Not literally. Marlee demands attention waaay before I get any actual intelligent thought in my head.

 

Lately I have not been sleeping well. And of course my anxiety is at all time high because of this. Or maybe my lack of sleep is because of the anxiety? Either way, they are directly correlated and its sucking me dry. I am either too hot, or too cold, or uncomfortable, or have a bad dream that I can't shake quick enough to fall back asleep.

 

My OB appointment for baby number 2 was last Thursday and I have been having anxiety ever since I scheduled this appointment. I am not even sure why I feel this way. I am having way more symptoms then I did with Marlee but still don't 'feel' pregnant. I have the textbook nausea (just barely), fatigue, cravings, and bloating. I obviously have take several pregnancy tests and the doctor confirmed it - I'm pregnant! - but I feel different. So I was so anxious to finally get to hear a heartbeat at my appointment - maybe just so it would feel more real!

 

Well we did the 20 question interrogation as usual - 'Second baby?' 'Any symptoms?' 'Any bleeding?' 'Do you smoke?' 'Is Dad healthy?' 'How was the birth of baby number one?' Etc etc. Then we had to do the exam and she said we would try to hear the heartbeat since I was 'thin' and almost 10 weeks along (I was nine weeks and 4 days). So she applied the cold gel and waved the magic wand but there was nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

 

It was hard. Really hard. She said it was too early. I knew it was too early. But I wanted to hear it so bad. I was waiting and praying and hoping for a beat. She asked if I wanted an ultrasound but I declined. My husband was not there and I did not want to get all upset over nothing. It was too early. I just have to wait two more weeks and she said I could come back to hear it. Just because we could not hear it does not mean that there is not one.

 

But my anxiety is not at bay. I am restless and secretly distraught. I need to snap out of it and realize that we didn't even go to our first appointment with Marlee till after 12 weeks. Everything just felt so much more real with her.

 

Now that my anxiety is out there, maybe my anxiety will subside for a bit. A little release of emotions. My next appointment is the 26th which is a little over a week away. I should be pretty busy between now and then so my mind will be full - hopefully.

 

Here's to busy schedules and even busier minds!

Happy Ten Months Marlee!

Marlee has finally hit double digit months! (On May 23rd - a bit late!)

She is blossoming into a full of energy and curious little nugget. 

Marlee now has TWO teeth - both on the bottom. She loves to open and close things - such as drawers, cabinets, and books. She is standing all by herself and even takes a couple steps every now and then. Her laugh is so contagious and she knows it. She is going to be quiet the little ham. It is very obvious that she gets her personality from her dad. 

Besides being read to, swimming in the tub, and watching Disney, my baby girl loves to eat. Which makes this Italian momma very happy. There is very, very few things that she does not like. Strawberries being on that list but I think it is more of a texture issue rather than taste. 

We are loving the nice weather and being able to get outside for walks and playing in the grass. This summer is going to be loaded with fun!

Now some pictures!

Thanks to Nick for helping with her attention!

Marlee also helped plant the garden which will be the next post! See you soon!

Quick Hello!

I am the worst blogger ever! 

This child is kicking my ass though! 

Sleep > blogging. 

But I do have 2 posts in the works, I just need to finish and post. 

I will leave you with a picture of my little fishy in the pool!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Is it really only the 16th of May?

Longest month ever!

Or maybe just the busiest?

First let's talk Marlee. She finally has a tooth! And took three steps! Three! Nick and I were both there to witness it and I was so in awe over the monumental milestone. She also is starting to say a couple words. She hasn't really learned how to use them but 'thank you', 'uh oh', and 'duck' have all been heard from her mouth. She even said 'no' at the grocery store but she sang it beautifully. Instead of a terrible 'no', she turned it into a 'no, no, no, no, no, nooo'. Pretty sure she can make anything sound cute. 

Mother's Day was last Sunday and it was amazing! My first time as a mother and it just felt right. I was exhausted and possibly a little grouchy from lack of sleep BUT it was great. I loved all the family time and being able to celebrate with all the wonderful mothers in my life. 

I did a little crafting for the grandmothers too which looked like this:

Last post I talked a little about food planning and trying to make a budget. The budget went wonderfully and knowing exactly what I was going to make each day was a lifesaver. My husband didn't have to ask 14,000 times 'What's for dinner?' which helped with my sanity also. 

The actual cooking part didn't exactly go as planned...

Let me just say that I love to cook. Even though I love to cook, does not mean that I am necessarily good at it. Pizza - check. Pasta and meatballs - check. Chocolate chip cookies - check. Anything outside of that, I like my recipes. I also love my crockpot. Top ten invention ever. Ever!

With that being said, here are a couple examples from my dinner list that did not go quite as planned. 

Day two was chicken tetrazzini and while the recipe was a bit more involved then what I like (Have you ever tried to whisk flour and milk continuously while your 9 month old rips through the kitchen? Accident waiting to happen.), it was delicious and my family ate it up. So of course I took pictures to show everyone.

Mmmm cheesy goodness.

What this pictures doesn't show you is that I still had the top burner on. 

So while I situated Marlee in her highchair and set the table and of course took some pictures, my dinner was burning. The whole left side of the casserole was black. 

Black. Black. Black. 

Fml. 

On Friday, we had steak carnitas. It was fantastic. Absolutely recommend and will be trying them again. Unfortunately, my crockpot is apparently super-duper and while I thought they would be ready to go after the baseball game, my meat was a little over cooked. Ok a lot overcooked. Isaac wanted to know why we were having beef jerky for dinner. 

He literally said this people. 

Still ate it. 

And my final fail for the week can only be explained via picture.

That would be my crockpot. After the overcooked steak carnitas incident, I need to do a little extra soaking. Well the next day, I did some scrubbing and it slipped out of my hands. 

Dead. 

RIP Crockpot. 

Ok so I know I am not winning MasterChef anytime soon but my family is fed. Grilled cheese will always be a staple of a our family meals. 

Besides the Mother's Day crafting, I also made a shirt for Marlee to wear. Have you ever done iron on letters? That shit is hard. We had to re-iron half way through the day!

I was going to see if anyone actually reads the shirt but this proved to be ineffective - by both of my families. Lead to some pretty funny responses though :)

Yes, Marlee will be a big sister in January. 

Marlee and Me will soon become Marlee and Us. 

Budget Time - Starting with Food

The hubby and I decided that it was time to take another look at our budget since the old car payment was out and the new car payment is in - including increasing insurance, cable, etc. 

After taking a look at last month and doing all those fun little calculations of income vs outcome, the number one thing I wanted to tackle was our food bill. We spend approximately $500 dollars a month on our grocery bill. This does not include any eating out we do. 

$500!

With two adults, one half-time child, and one baby. 

I blame Marlee. She is eating us out of house and home. 

But seriously, something had to be done. And considering I am the main meal planning, grocery shopper, cooking lady - I needed to take a good look at the next couple weeks. I took a day to write down two weeks of meals, write the list of items I needed, and even collected a couple coupons for my shopping trip.

(Ok confession, Giant Eagle just sends me coupons. I do not go out and find them.)

My goal was to knock off approximately two hundred dollars from my shopping trips. I wanted to keep each trip close to $150 and with planning every two weeks, we could have a $300 grocery shopping bill. That extra $200 dollars we saved could go to savings - maybe. We are bad at saving too. Focusing on groceries though!

So my meal plan for the next two weeks is as follows:

Tuesday: Frozen Pizza 

Wednesday: Chicken Tetrazinni

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: Grilled Cheese

Saturday: Steak Carnitas with rice

Sunday: Honey Lime Tilapia with asparagus

Monday: BBQ Pulled Pork

Tuesday: Leftovers

Wednesday: Spaghetti and Meatballs

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: Sausage and Potatoes

Saturday: Leftovers

Sunday: Breakfast for Dinner

Monday: Grilled Cheese

Purple days are the days I work. I try to do something easy on those days since sleep is really my main priority. I provided links to all the recipes since I am a bit of a Pinterest addict and I get most of my recipes from there. If I do find that something is extra delicious and my family loved it, I will do a more detailed post on it. 

Feel free to use some of these recipes! My other blog friends deserve all the credit for posting such delicious meals!

Update!: Nick and I went to the store and the bill came to $135! Fifteen dollars under budget! I used the Giant Eagle coupons and saved $16 which put us under the target $150. I was so excited and Nick was amazed with my skills. I actually did surprise myself too.