How To Keep Sleep Consistent When Days are Longer
15 hours ago
Bye Bye Bassinet
So today was a bittersweet moment for me: I passed on the bassinet. Sure Gabbie has been sleeping in her crib for almost 3 weeks now, but as I was taking it apart to put in my trunk, I was a little sad and happy all together.
Two weeks ago I emailed my friend Jessica to see about meeting up so she could borrow the bassinet that I had borrowed from Brittany. Brittany's EXACT instructions are, "Do not bring baby stuff back into my house until we are about to have another..." Good for me - I get to borrow all her stuff.
Anyway...we weren't able to meet up and the plan was to see each other next week. Her little one was due in 4 weeks, so we had time....or so we thought. Melina Rose was born yesterday!! I went to see them today in the hospital, which was so bittersweet: in just 9 short weeks, Gabbie's no longer the newest addition to our group. I can't believe it. Even more shocking was to see how big Gabbie seemed next to the little 6 pound 6 ounce Melina.
We are SO excited for Jessica and Antonio - so many of us have been praying for this amazing family.
So as I drove to the hospital and gave over the bassinet, it was a little bittersweet: in amazement of how quickly the past 2 months have gone by yet so excited for Gabbie to have a new little friend.
A picture of Gabbie at just 2 weeks old with her little cousins Hayden and Caleb peeking in for the first time. Look how tiny!
And now, little Melina will be there too: 
Today has been a heavy day with not only the excitement of Melina's arrival, but some sad news about a good friend I worked with in Chattanooga. She's the same age as me and was diagnosed last week with Hodgkin's' Lymphoma. Please remember her, her husband and little boy in your prayers - she's a fighter (all five feet two inches of her!) and I have NO doubt she will beat it.
If anything, I hope you take a few extra minutes to love on your spouse and kids tonight and make sure everyone you love knows it.
Happy 80th Birthday!
This past week was very eventful for us! Gabbie and I left on Wednesday to see our good friends Chad and Gena in Knoxville. We spent the night with them on our way to North Carolina and it was great. Gena is expecting Ariana in November - she has about 6 weeks left, so it was really great to spend some time with them. They are going to be great parents - they have Ari's little nursery all decked out ready to go for her arrival. Being there made it feel as if it had been AGES since I was at that point: pregnant and showing off the nursery just waiting for Gabbie to make her entrance into our world.
We put Gabbie in Ari's bumbo for the first time - she loved it. 
The morning we left for NC, Chad helped me out by entertaining Gabbie and she loved it! Chad is going to be a great daddy. 
After about a 5 hour road trip, we made it to my grandparents house and they got to meet Gabbie for the first time! We had a great weekend celebrating my grandfather's 80th birthday. It was more a family reunion than anything else, so that was really neat.
Here are a few great pictures from the weekend - Gabbie did sooo great all weekend. She slept well in her pack n play and even did great in the hotel room with Brent and I. Hopefully this will stay true throughout her little life :)
This is an awesome cake that my mom made! It was completely her idea - she baked all the pieces and Jen and I helped her assemble it. I thought it turned out amazing. My grandfather was a carpenter and now does a lot of wood work, so we made it to look like his "shop."
Papaw has always called Jennifer, Casey and I his "chickadees" so we made tshirts that said Happy Birthday Papaw on the front then we had Chickadee and our number on the back. Jen's the oldest, she was #1 Brittany and Gabbie are the youngest so they are #4 and #5. 
The night before the party we were at the church pretty late getting everything set up. Needless to say my dad was POOPED and took a little cat nap in a chair.
My Mamaw and Papaw holding Gabbie. It's kind of surreal to see a picture of YOUR grandparents holding your baby. I can't wait to tell her all the neat things that they did for me growing up. We always had so much fun at their house!
This is my great-aunt Mary meeting Gabbie for the first time.
Our entire crazy family: the last time we took this about 10 years ago there were only 10 people TOTAL in the picture! We have been blessed to have a great family!
61 Days
I know I know, it gets frustrating to keep hearing, "I can't believe it's been XX number of days/weeks/months" But seriously - time is flying!
Today our little lamb had her 2 month doctor's appointment, which means the dreaded SHOTS. UGH. I didn't realize how tough it would be on .... me. Yes, me. Man it was tough. I mean she cries at home of course but a few seconds after that first shot hit her leg, her face and cry was something I'd never seen and WOW I was done! I am supposed to comfort HER - what about someone comforting me?! Just telling people about it upsets me again. WOW - heart.breaker.
Anyway, back to her - the important one. She weighs 10 lbs 14 oz and is 22 inches long (at her 2 week appointment was 8lb 12 oz and 19 3/4" long). She is in the 50% percentile for both height and weight. Which before I had her, I had NO clue what that meant. Basically if you had 100 babies, 50 are heavier and 50 are lighter than her. So she's doing great. She's right on the growth chart where she should be. My doctor is shocked to say the least that Gabbie is sleeping about 9 hours every night straight through until morning. Her exact words: "You're lucky, but don't be surprised if that changes when she's 7-9 months old." Funny, I've read that somewhere that people would say "you're lucky"....
Here's a sweet picture of my little pea once we got home - she was tuckered out from her shots and big day (probably the children's Tylenol didn't help either):
Zumba
What the heck is Zumba??
"A Zumba workout mixes body sculpting movements with dance steps derived from cumbia, merengue, salsa, reggaeton, hip hop, mambo, rumba, flamenco, and calypso and Salsaton. The routines feature aerobic interval training with a combination of fast and slow rhythms. It targets areas such as the glutes, legs, arms, abdominals, and the heart. A Zumba class is typically not formulaic in that instructors often add on their own music choices and choreographies to make their class presentation locally unique." (wiki)
Ok so random post I'm sure that's what you're thinking, but of course it's not that random. A few weeks ago my neighbor across the street told me about her Zumba class that she goes to at the rec center where we are members. 2 weeks ago I got released from my doctor to start doing full fledge workouts, so I decided to try out this Zumba thing. I was definitely in for a surprise, but I had already arranged for Brent to watch Gabbie, I was in my gear, it was all set up for me to go...no...matter...what.
My class started with this spunky little 5'4" blonde girl with pig tails, a pink bandana around her forehead, black tank top with "I HEART ZUMBA" and HOT pink pants with ZUMBA! down the leg walked to the front of the room and introduced herself as the instructor. (if you want to purchase your own wardrobe of Zumba attire, check it out here....seriously. I saw this before the class - I should have known this was not normal)
I thought things would be ok by the looks of the girls in the class - there was definitely a diverse age and athletic ability in the crowd so I figured I'd be ok.
Well let's just skip the narration and instead I'll present you with this video - after your amazement over the girl in the front wears off, pay close attention to the woman in the very back with the white shirt and black pants. Notice she is rarely in step with the instructor - that was definitely me... (by the way this is just from YouTube. Apparantly Zumba is a HUGE craze so there are videos all over the internet. Why in the world I didn't think to look there FIRST before the class, I'm not sure. This is pretty much the EXACT same dance steps and music we did. All the same moves...everything...literally...)
If you know me very well, you know I'm not really the "following dance steps" kind of girl but more of the "lift weights together" kind of girl when it comes to group exercise. I did meet a nice girl beside me in the class who encouraged me to come back that it did actually get easier. I'm not sure I could however given that I pretty much laughed the entire time. But hey - at least I got my heart rate up and broke a really good sweat and provided you all with a good laugh and visual!
Groceries, Visitors and Milestones
I forgot to post my awesome grocery deals from last week. I actually did enough shopping for 2 weeks since I went over my weekly budget. I usually spend $100 a week on stockpiling - this week's bill was about $140 so I decided to forgo shopping this week. Here's a picture of all the stuff I got. I went to both Kroger and Publix and saved $36.24 at Publix and $34.84 at Kroger. Kroger had an awesome deal on fish this week - buy one get one free so that put me over my budget big time, but it was definitely worth it.
I know that in 2008 it seemed as if pretty much everyone I knew was pregnant or had just had a baby. This past year as I was pregnant it felt the same way! It really does seem like we're in a baby boom, but maybe it's just because I'm at that age where everyone I know is of baby-bearing age! Anyway, this past weekend we celebrated at a couple's baby shower for our good friends the Garza's who are expecting their first little bambino in November. Jessica and I joke because of our UTC girls group (there are six of us total), she and I are the oldest and were the last to get married and the last to have babies in our group. We are sooo excited for these guys as they welcome their little bundle of joy. The shower was here in Nashville but all of the UTC gang came up for the big event. It was kind of a 'no kids' kind of thing, but Gabriella got to tag along. She literally slept in her car seat in the corner for most of the night until she got hungry and was ready for her own hot dog and hamburger. Here are a few pics from the evening (the guys were all there, I just failed to get a group picture of them):
Group Shot: (l-r) Jessica, Melissa, Me, Kristi with Gabbie and Brittany
I love how Gabbie's looking up at Kristi in this picture kind of like "wooow who are you?"
Mel, Kristi and Brittany
These are my current favorite wardrobe item of Gabbie's and this was her first outing to wear them: They are soo dang cute. 
There aren't too many guys who ask to hold a baby - especially a little girl - but Nathan is totally baby crazy and loves Gabbie. I think she loved him too! This is a super sweet picture. I think if Nathan and Kristi have a little girl next time around she will DEFINITELY be a Daddy's girl. If you've been an Opp Knocker for a while you know I've been working on cakes since we moved here almost 2 years ago. I am really trying to get things off the ground with A Cake Boutique and this past week was very promising. I had two cake orders come in with several more trickling in. One cake was for Brent's work. They had customer service week with a logo that his boss wanted on a cake. This was something I had never done before so I was little hesitant to do it. Here's the outcome: 
I also did a birthday cake for a 2 year old of a mutual friend. All she told me was "baseball" so I ran with it and this was the outcome:
On Sunday Pop-pop and Ti Ti came in town for a day trip. We went to downtown Franklin to eat at Monell's and walk around the town and then came back to our house for a great little visit. Here are a few pics of Gabbie with Pop pop and Ti Ti:
Brad and Casey also have a new addition to their family. I should have a better introduction than this, but here she is: Pinkie. She's about 8 weeks old now - Casey got her for her birthday 2 weeks ago. She weighs a whopping 2 1/2 pounds:
And then, finally here are a few pictures that I took today of Gabbie. I'm trying to do better about taking pictures every few days since she keeps changing so much. She will be 2 months old this Thursday and I cannot believe it! We go to her doctor for her 2 month appointment which unfortunately means....shots :(
Yes, that's a pacifier. I've gone back and forth about giving her one for a few weeks now. She really really likes sucking her thumb but can't always find it to get her in her mouth (it's really cute). I started the paci a few days ago only right at nap times, but if she loses it after she's in the crib I don't put it back in. We'll see which one wins: thumb or paci. 
She has always loved having her hands rolled up in fists. Not only is her facial expression priceless in this picture, but I love that her hands are in little fists. Too cute!
Oh yeah and finally - I almost forgot - Gabbie started sleeping through the night last Friday. It was really funny - I put her in her nursery for the first time at night. She woke up around 3am like she always does, cried for about 30 minutes then went back to sleep. The only problem was that she would not wake up the next morning for her feedings. I just knew we would have a rough Saturday night but we didn't. She slept all the way through the night and has been sleeping through the night since then! YAY Thank you Babywise!!That's all for now. Hopefully I have diversified this posting enough so you guys don't get tired of just reading about Gabbie.
Thoughts to Ponder...
Three things you can't recover: The stone...after the throw. The words...after they're said. The time...after it's lost. The love...after it's gone.
Beauty: How do we compete?
Someone had this posted on FaceBook and I really liked it. I thought I'd put it on here and see what comments it generates.
Maybe it's because I have a daughter now and I have to only imagine how I get to teach her about her self esteem and self image while battling with the way our culture establishes the definition of beauty. I know she will be beautiful, but it takes a while for all of us to learn it for ourselves.
This is VERY telling...
Our Life Update
These past few weeks have been interesting to say the least. I've started several different blog posts only to delete them because it wasn't coming out the way it used to. For whatever reasons I've had "issues" getting my words together lately and this past week I've just come to the conclusion that I am officially suffering from what's best known as "Mommy Brain." That's right. I have bad case. I was fortunate to not have the first stage of this disease: "Pregnancy Brain" but I think the combination of sleeping in 2 hour increments as well as being deprived of adult conversation on a regular basis has adversely affected my vocabulary. But I've definitely decided the best cure are regular blog posts and not just all about Gabbie. Even though I'm sure there are enough of our Opp Knockers who wouldn't mind that is our only topic, I am determined to not allow this to become all about Gabbie.
I will start by doing a quick update on our life over the past few weeks!
We've been SOO fortunate to have so many friends and family come visit us, bring us dinner, and just make sure we're surviving. Our first week was a lot of fun. Really - it was. Brent and I were by ourselves for the entire week just figuring it out. The second week, my mom came in and stayed with us treating us like royalty. She did our laundry, cleaned our house - everything. It was incredible.
Since then, my sister and her family have come for visits and so have our best friends - the Moncriefs. Brent's parents stopped in on their way to the airport for an overnight visit as well as his sister and her family for a 24 hour trip.
Bottom line: we have come to realize we are so extremely blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family who have cared enough about us and our newest addition to come visit us and love on us and shower us with MORE Than enough gifts and treats.
I am still amazed at the outpouring of gifts by our neighbors, friends and family.
Gabbie is growing more and more every day! It truly is amazing. She will be 7 weeks old this upcoming Saturday which is unbelievable to me. I just am shocked to think it's gone by so quickly. She's doing some great milestones already like holding up her head when she's on her tummy and actually this past week, she rolled from her tummy onto her back for the first time. I know people won't believe me, but thankfully my best friend, Brittany was there to witness the whole thing. It was incredible. This week I decided to break out the camera and catch the acrobats on video - check it out:
Everyone keeps asking if I am enjoying staying at home and the answer is a big fat YES. I love it. I do have to go back to work on December 7th and I am not in countdown mode or anything - I am just relishing every single second I have with Gabbie between now and then.
I've also been working on establishing my cake business. If you've been an Opp Knocker for a while, you know that I started doing cakes right after we moved to Nashville way back when. Well I realized I really enjoy it and people ask all the time for cakes, so I unofficially started a business: A Cake Boutique. I'm working on my website right now and hope to have it up and running in the next few weeks.
We have some exciting things coming up including a trip to North Carolina for my grandfather's 80th birthday. This will be a fun road trip - a whopping 8 hours for us! I'm sure my little roadie will be fine. Then in November we're heading to every southerner's favorite beach: Panama City. No, not for a big family reunion but to cheer on our favorite Ironman as he competes in his second race. This will be Gabbie's first Ironman, but I'm sure her BFF Ada will show her the ropes! (remember we went to Louisville last year with Ada who was just a few months old at that time)
Gabbie and I have one road trip under our belt already as we traveled home last week for a ROARING good time 1st birthday for our buddy Owen. She did really well in the car and we had a great time at Mammaw and Pappaw's house.
Other than that, we're thoroughly enjoying this AMAZING fall weather. Thanks again to everyone for checking in on us, coming to visit and sending us amazing food and gifts!
Now, for your viewing pleasure, here are a few pictures from the past 2 weeks:
I usually let her swing for a few minutes before going down for a nap, but today was the first time she's ever fallen asleep in it. One minute I can hear her smacking on her fingers and hand, the next it's complete silence. I look over at her and she's SOUND asleep. I love how she falls asleep with her hands up in the air.
I was trying to sit her up to take a picture of this cute outfit and send it to the person who gave it to me. You can tell by the look on her face that she's really happy about the situation...3 seconds later she was crying. But hey - she's still my cute little cupcake!
She LOVES lying on her tummy. In fact I had her lying on her side in her crib for her nap. When I went to wake up her she was completely on her tummy sound asleep. (No worries all you people out there who are about to tell me that's not a safe way for her to sleep. I know this. Believe me after I got over the cuteness of it, I was a little panicked about the fact she was on her tummy.)
Fiona is always very concerned about Gabbie. She's really good about not licking her face or hands - I know it may not look like it in this picture, but she's not even touching Gabbie - just checking her out for me. 
I love her feet. They change so much every week I keep trying to remember to take pictures to remember them every day. Aren't they sweet?? Hopefully I'll have this picture to show her when she's in her twenties and her feet aren't so cute anymore after years of stomped toes in basketball, or dragging her foot as a pitcher, or wearing high heels WAY too much :)
And some pics from the Chattanooga trip:
My mom - she gets a little excited to hold Gabbie if you can't tell...
Sorry, Jen. Not a great shot of you, but I LOVE this face on Gabbie. She's yawning but it looks like she's in shock over something Jennifer said. I love it!
Gabbie looks so big in this picture compared to Brittany...
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