Thank you Bertolli...

You have made my life so much easier over the last few months...but I think our relationship has come to an end, or at least we are going to have to scale it back a bit Don't get me wrong. You are delicious and the fact that you only take 10 mins to cook at times, makes me very happy. I am just ready to move on to bigger and better.

No really. These things have been amazing and are so simple to make. It is the perfect portion size for Zig and I and most only take 10 minutes to cook. The ones we really like take about an hour, but they are really delicious. I am just so ready to start cooking again. I LOVE to cook. Seriously love it, but when I was pregnant food just never sounded good to me (unless of course it was covered in chocolate.) So I am ready to get back into the kitchen. It will take a bit more planning on my part, but pretty soon Emily will be big enough to go in her jumparoo or exersaucer and she can be in the kitchen with us while we cook. I may have to start small, but it will be better for us to have a home cooked meal over a processed meal in a bag or take out. I have already been trying to plan out what I am going to make! I am so excited! Now I am by no means a gourmet chef, but I am really good at following recipes and am a serious cooking blog stalker. My absolute favorite cooking blog is the Pioneer Woman. She makes amazing food and I love that she puts up so many pictures because it really helps you visualize the process. I have never made something I didn't love from this site. We made this on the Superbowl Sunday and I made it again this weekend at Zig's request. It is awesome and even better left over.

In Emily news, she is doing great at daycare. She is napping great and her teacher, Miss Michelle, said she is really good at putting herself to sleep if they put her down for a nap. She has stayed pretty much on the same schedule that she set for herself when we were home together too and she still sleeps well at night so far. These were things I was worried about, but she is doing awesome! And Zig is doing an amazing job of getting her ready for school and dropping her off. I don't know if I mentioned this yet or not, but there are only 4 babies in the infant room right now, and one of those babies is my friend Jess's son and he will be moving to the 1 year old room in April, leaving only 3, so she gets plenty of attention. I don't think they have anyone set to start again for a few months based on how the deposits were paid. That makes it really nice! Emily is getting really strong and she is loving sitting up more and more (assisted of course.) She loves to sit in her little bumbo seat and if she is awake and being held she prefers to sit up in your lap instead of laying down. She is super happy and full of smiles and loves to talk. I can't get enough of her when I get home. I don't want to let her out of my sight.

Work is going well for me. I am really busy so it makes the days fly by. Getting up at 4:45 to get ready is a little rough though. I actually think I fell asleep at 8:00 last night. I know it will take some getting used to, but it is all worth it to be able to have the day off on Fridays so Emmy and I can have some girl time.

Well, that's it for the updates. Wish me luck on my cooking crusade! Here is a pic of Em in her bumbo. I will have to post some better ones later, but I had this on my phone. She doesn't look it in this picture, but she really likes it!

First day of school

So today is the day. I got up early and got ready as quietly as possible. I snuck out at about 5:50 this morning and it honestly has been a super busy day, so that is a good thing. I am that crazy mom who called to check on their baby, but she is doing great! She has been there since 7:30 and she has already had her first meal and a 1 hour nap. Miss Stephanie says she is being a good little girl (not that we thought she would be otherwise). It is hard, but I am getting by. Just wanted to post an update. Dad did a good job getting his little girl ready for her first day! Here is a picture from her first day of school.

Wordless Wednesday

I am a wreck...

amI am a serious, serious wreck. I have 6 days left before I have to go back to work. I knew it was going to be hard, just not this hard. I dreading going back to work. Not because I don't love my job, because I really do, but because I don't want to leave Emily. I am so happy with the daycare and I know she is in good hands, but I want to snuggle with her and talk to her and see her sweet little smiles. Those are MY sweet little smiles and now I have to share them with a stranger. In the beginning, I was bored, and even now we don't do a lot, but just being with her makes me happy. There are tears on my keyboard even as I type this, imagine what I am going to be like on Monday morning when I leave for the day. Break out the box of kleenex! I just don't want to miss a second of her life. It is for the best. She will make tons of friends, she will develop more quickly being around other kids and teachers, than she would if she was home with me, and she is going to get sick...but I am ok with it because in the long run, it will build her immune system and really the benefits will out weigh the occasional sniffle and cough. I am just not ready...these last 11 1/2 weeks flew by. Let's be honest, I am not wired to be a stay at home mom. It takes a special and amazing person to do that, I just know that I would get bored (and fat because I graze the pantry all.day.long!) Being away will make each hour that I am with her, so much more special and counting down the minutes till I see her again, will make the day go by faster. Zig bought me this sweet little necklace for v-day that is really special. A tiny dainty ladybug. It means a lot because it reminds me of what I am working so hard for, my little girl...my little ladybug. It will help me get through the day...Thanks babe!

The mommy do

Let me just say that before I had Emily, I always vowed I would not be one of those women who changed their look drastically just because they were a mom now, and would likely have limited time to get ready for the day. I planned to stick to this vow when I went to see my hairdresser last week, but let's just say she had other plans. My hair was long...too long, so when she asked how much I wanted taken off, I told her I wanted it to be to the middle of my back, which was about 2-3 inches. Well about an hour and 7 inches later, my hair now rests just below my shoulders. To some this is still long. To me, this is the shortest my hair has been in about 5 years. I love my hair dresser. She has always done what she wants, but this has never been a big deal because I have never had a bad hair cut when I see her. She has been cutting my hair since I was 12 and she knows me pretty well. I have cried twice in these 15 years. Once 5 years ago when she hacked my hair off and once last week. I was in utter shock. I am not saying I hate this haircut, it is just very different than what I am used to. So I leave you with my unintentional mommy do....

My child is a drool monster....

Seriously, it's like she decided to stop swallowing her spit. I honestly think she does it just so I will wipe her face because every time I do, she gets this huge grin on her face. She constantly has a little spit bubble drool beard. I never thought I would one day think that drool was cute...

She is super smiley these days and she is constantly cooing. I love watching her change everyday! I would say for about 90% of the day she is super happy and smiling, but the evenings she tends to have a witching hour where she is a giant grump. I love to go in her room and undo the swaddle because she just smiles and talks. She is so happy to see me after a long stretch of sleep. We had 2 nights in a row of her sleeping from 9-7 and then another night from 8-5:45. By definition, she is sleeping through the night. I love it, although I am getting used to sleeping 9 hour stretches again, which is going to make getting up at 5 for work really rough. We will see how it goes! We have been giving bottles on the weekends to try and figure out how many oz. she needs for daycare and it seems (and I hope this is true) that when she takes bottles during the day, and I just nurse her to bed, that this is when she is getting the longest stretches of sleep. Ideally I would love to put her down around 8 and then have her sleep till 7, when Zig will wake her up to feed and get her ready for daycare. I will have already been at work for an hour at that point.

I am getting some serious anxiety though because I only have less than a week and a half left of leave. Have I seriously been off work for almost 3 months! That is crazy! Our plan is for me to work from 6-4:30 Monday through Thursday and have Friday's off. Zig will take her to daycare at 7:30 and I will will pick her up at 4:30. I think its a pretty good plan...I am just praying I can get my butt out of bed that early in the morning!

Wordless Wednesday

If the suns not up...neither am I

I almost had a heart attack this morning. Zig was in the shower and someone started to ring the doorbell. Compulsively. Like over and over and over. The dogs were barking and all I could think was someone is going to wake up the baby and I am going to flip out. Half asleep I run down stairs fling the door open forgetting that the alarm is armed. It starts beeping (it has a delay on some doors before the actual alarm sounds)and the dogs won't shut up. All the while lady at the door is telling me a ton of smoke is coming out of the chimney and she thought our house was on fire. Dogs still barking. Abby runs outside because she thinks she is tough. I am restraining Bodhi and he is FLAILING in my arms. Alarm still beeping, just about to go off. I tell the lady (I am still half asleep by the way) that our pellet stove just lit and that is why it is smoking. I can only imagine what this lady thought because I have always told Zig when it first lights, through our big window in the front of the house it really looks like its on fire. I start yelling at Abby to get in the house so I can try and run to turn the alarm off before it starts to get really loud ( I didn't make it by the way) and I don't even think I told the lady thank you. I am an a hole. She was probably thinking that I was 12 and wondering where my parents were. AND the baby didn't wake up at all! She was sound asleep when I came back upstairs. I feel like a jerk. I really hope I told the woman thank you. The whole thing didn't really register till I fully woke up about 5 mins later. I did run back out to say thank you just as she was driving off, but she didn't see me. My goal is to figure out what house she lives in and to go thank her. Way too much commotion before 6 am.