Lucky Number 13!

Time just keeps flying by. Lexi is 13 months now! She had some really big milestones this month. Lexi is walking!!! Wow!! She just started about a week and a half ago and she's getting so good! When she started out, she'd hold on to the couch and then take about 3 or 4 running steps towards me and then dive into my arms. She's working on slowing her steps down and is really getting good at balancing. Sometimes she'll stand up, take a tiny step, and then smile at me. Like she's saying "Did you see that, mom?!" Love that girl! I'm so proud of her!!

Lexi is obsessed with books! She's constantly bringing me books to read to her and flipping though the pages.

She is also walking backwards with her puppy walker. She'll push it forward into the coffee table or something, get stuck, and normally she'd say "Ah!" to KJ or I to get her turned back around. But now she's doing some problem solving on her own. She'll back the puppy up and try to steer around the table. 

 

This girl loves to climb! If something is in her way, she climbs over it. She loves to climb over Colby-Jack especially! He's been really good with her. He lets her do a lot to him without getting grumpy. She pulls his fur (we work constantly on "gentle touches"), steps on him and over him, and he lays there and takes it. He's a good pup. 

This pic pretty much sums up our attempt at a "photo Shoot" this month! She never sits still any more!

A few other things Lexi is doing, she can put her little people in their chairs. She can press the button on Violet's belly to make her talk. She's also working on her shape sorter. At Christmas time she got a FP shape sorter and we've found it to be pretty worthless. She figured out right a way that if you take to top off you can put the shapes in with out having to put them through the holes. What a dumb design! I was able to find a different one on Amazon in the "old school" design that doesn't come apart easily. I got her the Green Toys Shape Sorter. It's made 100% from recycled milk jugs, so you can feel good about it's environmental impact, or whatever. Lexi gets frustrated easily trying to get the shapes in, but we're working on it.

13 Months, what what!!

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe

12 Whole Months!

So, my little Lexi is 12 months old now! She had one big milestone this month. She can do unassisted standing!! She lets go all the time and can wave and even dance at the same time! I think this girl is going to be walking in no time! She also has started to sit herself down on a chair or step like a big girl. 

Lexi loves to play hide and seek and peek a boo. Sometimes when I have her on the changing table (when she lets me put her on the changing table! ha!) she'll lift her shirt up over her face and play peek a boo with me. One of her favorite things to do lately is "hiding". I'll sit on the floor and she'll go behind me to hide and then I'll say "Where is Lexi? Where did she go??" And she'll giggle and peek around my shoulder. Then I say "Oh there you are!" She loves it! She laughs and hides again. 

I started taking Lexi to story time at the library a few weeks ago. They sing songs, do nursery rhymes, and read stories. We both have a fun time. It took me a while to find a program for her age group. Our local library only has programs for ages 3 and up. We had to go to a library in the next major town over, which is a half hour away, to find anything for young toddlers and babies. It's kind of a pain, but I think it's worth it. We go every Friday morning now. I'm hoping to get her into swim lessons in a few weeks, also.

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe

Happy Birthday!!!

Today is Lexi's birthday! Can you believe it?? It's crazy that I have a one year old now! Welcome to toddlerhood! 

The birthday party went really well this afternoon. This morning I noticed Lexi got one heck of a birthday present... Her top two middle teeth decided to make their big entrance! Fun fun! (And that explains why she was so fussy while doing errands yesterday...) I expected her to be a mess, she even bit her tongue at one point :(  , but she was a total champ during the party. 

Things were a little hectic getting ready. KJ asked his sister if she would be able to come over like an hour early to help set up. We thought she was going to, but she couldn't make it into town early enough. So it was just the two of us trying to do everything and wrangle Lexi at the same time. We were even up until 2am the night before making food and decorating and we only got done just in time.


 

The only thing I would have done differently would have been the cupcakes. I love making everything from scratch, and the recipe I used came out wonderfully. I will definitely be keeping that one around. But for the decorations, I tried to make my own marshmallow fondant. Big mistake! I wanted to save money and making my own was the cheapest choice.

Three options I should have done instead of making my own: 

A) Bought the fondant I saw on clearance, in the colors I wanted, for $6 and gone from there. 

B) Paid $70 for 3 dozen cupcakes from a bakery (I priced it out, but just couldn't justify the cash... Now I can!)

C) Nixed the fondant all together and just done colored buttercream frosting.

Any one of those options would have been 10x better than making it myself. Never again! And it's not even that the recipe was hard or complicated. It was very straight forward. It was just very time consuming and a total bitch to kneed and dye. And quite honestly, my decorations didn't come out looking all that great. Yeah... Never again.

We had a good turn out for the party, lots of family came. All we basically did was eat, do the smash cake, and open presents. We had it from 12-2pm and two hours was just the right amount of time. Lexi was pretty subdued with her smash cake. I didn't think she's go crazy with it, but she really just wanted to squish it. She squished the frosting, the cake, and the decorations. She tasted some, and I think she liked it, but didn't eat a ton. Hey, whatever. 

The food went over pretty well. At our parties, I always try to serve food that is flavorful, healthy, and interesting. I get so board when I go to a cookout and all they have to eat are greasy burgers and uninspired potato salad. In today's world of Martha Stewart, the Food Network, Rachel Ray, and now Pinterest, you can do better than that.... But I can always count on KJ's mom's side to be unadventurous eaters. I had a platter of deli meats (honey maple ham, cracked pepper turkey, buffalo chicken) and cheeses (Vermont cheddar, provolone, roasted garlic), a variety of buns (chibotta, poppy seed, wheat) and spreads (spicy brown mustard, yellow mustard, chipotle mayo, garlic and herb mayo). I thought everything sounded really yummy and covered all the bases of what people like. But of course, KJ's grandma complained that I didn't have Isley's chipped ham (I think Isley's is a Pittsburgh thing, but is super greasy, cheap ham. Their commercial says, "chipping the ham makes it taste fresher... Hammier" *barf*), American cheese, white rolls, or full fat plain mayo. Umm, yuck! Live a little grandma! It's not 1950 any more... Ugh, I get so annoyed by her... For many reasons other than boring sandwiches.

This child got so many gifts! A few of her favorites were a FP Little People Happy Sounds Home, Leapfrog My Pal Violet, FP Little People building blocks, and Leap Frog Pottsy. I seriously love the Pottsy toy... "I like it spicy!" lol

KJ and I got her a table and chair set, some soft play fruits and veggies, a step stool, and I made her a rag doll with matching dresses.

It was a really nice day and I'm so happy to say, I have a one year old :)

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe

Party Prep!

The KJ house is in full prep mode for Lexi's first birthday and Pintrest is helping out a ton! I've gotten so many good ideas for easy decorations and dishes to make. We're doing a "Little Birdie" theme. I had a hard time coming up with a theme at first because, I mean, Lexi is only 1. It's not like she has all of these outside interests and hobbies. She eats, sleeps (on occasion! Ha!), and plays with her toys. I don't let her watch a lot of TV and even when I do put it on she's not super interested in it. So, I went searching for some inspiration and found the perfect cupcake tree in all the right colors... And our birdie theme was born! 

Here's the invitations I made:

I want to make the majority of the food "Lexi friendly". Meaning things that she can eat and incorporate some of her favorites. So, the meal plan is sandwiches, pasta salad, fruit salad, sweet potato fries with dipping sauce, cheese and cracker tray (MIL is bringing), and homemade cupcakes. I'm also going to make a healthy smash cake. Drinks will be blueberry punch, iced tea, and bottled water.

For decorations, I wanted something inexpensive and easy, but still with a lot of pop. I found these great tissue paper pom-poms and made up a bunch to hang around. I made them in pink, white, purple, green, and yellow.

KJ and I went to Ikea last month and I scored some napkins and cups on clearance that just so happened to go with our color scheme. I also made some birthday banners. One says "Happy 1st Birthday Alexis" and the other is of her monthly photos. I'm really happy with how they turned out. 

I still have to make Thank You notes, but that will be a project for next week.

I think we'll have an ok turn out for the party. It'll be mostly family. It seems like Saturday is a busy day all around. All of our friends with kids who we invited were busy doing other things that day. I'm bummed there won't be any other babies for Lexi to play with at her party. I really need to find this girl some more friends... I was going to make up these nice favor bags for the kidos with healthy squeeze packs snacks and an age appropriate toy in them. I was also going to do a "toddler food" tray with cheese, graham crackers, dried cranberries, and blueberries. But I guess there's no need to do that now :(

Here is my to do list for the rest of the week... You know how I love lists when I get stressed! Haha!

To do for Lexi's party:

Wednesday:

Clean fridge

Wrap presents

Clean up basement

Finish chairs (my chalk paint chair project, more on that later!)

  Wax

Thursday:

Clean up deck

Weed

Wipe down door

Vacuum everywhere 

Touch up paint in living room

Friday:

Clean bathrooms

Take pictures and get printed

Make fruit salad

Make pasta salad

Prep fries

Make cup cakes and smash cake

  Bake

  Frost

  Fondont

Go shopping

Dust

Saturday:

Wipe down tables and chairs

Vacuum

Put up decorations

Bake fries

Arrange meat and cheese tray

Arrange condiment tray

Make dipping sauce

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe

Naps... What are Those??

I read a post the other day from a mom with a truly earth shattering decision to make. (pairiphasing) "Should I let my daughter play quietly in her crib after she wakes up from her 2 hour nap, or should I go and get her? Because she'll just contently play by herself for up to 40 mins after she wakes."

I wanted to punchabitch... Really? That's your biggest dilemma in life? "My daughter naps too effing much"??? And "What to do with almost 3 hours a day, all to myself"?? Ugh!!

Oh if only Lexi would nap... Here is a list of the things I could do if Lexi napped for 3 hours every day:

*Have time to sew and craft and have an Etsy shop full of things to sell

*Make a gourmet home cooked meal for dinner every night 

*Paint all of the things in the house that I want to refinish

*The house would be frigging spotless

*This blog would be updated more than once a month (ha!) and I might actually post my posts on the day that I wright them, instead of three weeks later and have to change the post date on every single one of them

*Our dogs would be well groomed

*The yard would be well manicured

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe

11 Sweet Months!!

Lexi is 11 months today! In one more month I will have a one year old! Holy cow!! How on earth did that happen?? 

Lexi has had some pretty big milestones this month. She's now an excellent cruiser and gets around all over the place. She loves to walk around with her FP Stride to Ride puppy. She also has mastered crawling!! She's adorable. She'll follow me from room to room around the house. She's goes slow still, but is getting speedier by the day! She pulls up on everything, too. The coffee table, chairs, the couch, her toy box, the baby gate, the wall. She also has started to let go from time to time. She stood all on her own about a week ago for 7 seconds! I was so proud of her!! 

She's getting more adventurous. She'll crawl away from me to go exploring. She really is turning into more of a little girl rather than my little baby. 

Separation anxiety has really set in the past few weeks. It's gotten so bad that if she can't see me she flips out. I can't leave the room with out her, even just to refill my water glass. She's on stroller strike because she can't see me or touch me. I'm really trying to get her attached to a lovie of some sort. I've been sleeping with some of her stuffed animals and small blankets to make them smell like me in hopes that it might entice her to adopt one. I haven't slept with so many stuffed animals since I was 15 lol! Also, because the stroller is a no go, I'm not able to get out and jog with her like I was :( sucks... I have come to terms with the fact that to be in a happy mommy mood, I need my caffeine and morning jog. Mommy gets annoyed quickly if not... Staying at home isn't all sunshine and roses, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love my girl and I'm so stinking proud of her!!

 
 
 
 

Lots of Love, 

KJsbabe

Buyers Remorse

I feel like everything I've bought lately... I really didn't want. I'll buy something and then later say, "wow, this really isn't what I wanted". I ordered two things for my birthday and once they came in the mail I right away didn't like them. 

I was on the search for shoes. I wanted something that would be comfortable like a sneaker, something that I could walk a ways in and feel supported. But I also wanted them to be cute and stylish and to go with a bunch of different outfits. I found these Pumpa shoes on Amazon and they looked like they were exactly what I was looking for. They came in the other day and they are so not what I wanted. They're cute, but really uncomfortable. I'm super disappointed. These will be getting returned...

On my birthday I decided to treat myself a little a bought a skirt on Zulliy. It looked really cool in the picture, kind of more daring print wise than I usually go for, and I was looking for something I could wear to Lexi's birthday party. It came in the mail the other day and again, so not what I wanted. First of all, I paid $30 for the thing and it has a surged hemline, it's not even nicely finished, or lined for that matter. Pretty chinsy quality for the money. I've bought nicer things on clearance at Walmart... And then the print... It looked much more dark purple in the picture on line. This thing is like, bright red, orange, and pink! Way more wild than I usually wear. Ugh... And of course Zulliy doesn't do returns. I don't know what I'm going to do with it.

And do you know what else is annoying?? Every time I type the word "of" on my phone, it changes it to "if". Same with "so" and "do". Ugh!! 

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe