Columbus, MS

So we figured we should try and get out more while James was off since Hadley requires a little more attention than I feel comfortable doing alone. She just really hates her car seat these days, I'm hoping this passes soon but we'll see. We had some great weather so we ventured out to the riverwalk here in downtown Columbus, Mississippi. No it's nothing like the famous San Antonio river walk, but it is a nice walking trail. It's a 1.25 mile trail and there were lots of people walking the day we went.

Ignore the blurriness. Also ignore the giant mud pit that is behind me. It looks as though the hydrant exploded water everywhere the cap was off....  PS I don't care for the moby wrap that much... I wish I did, but it's just soooooo long with all that material and idk... She doesn't seem to mind it that much but hates when I tuck her head.

look at her precious face when she fell asleep in it

We also explored a downtown restaurant called Huck's Place. My sister went when they were in town checking out houses for us and recommended it. It doesn't feel like you'

re in Columbus. It has a Charleston feel. It's a great two story restaurant and you can overlook the restaurant and street. It's family friendly which we have to look for now! Hadley did ok... she got cranky because she was tired, luckily we could stand and rock her because we were upstairs with ample space. 

Here's a cool review about it someone did, with pictures and a menu if you care to glance. We look forward to the many festivals Columbus has to offer and hope to get out and explore more too. 

Vehicle

So a couple of things are going down lately. I have sold my car. Don't be too sad because my mom's buying it! I always wanted a different vehicle and she always loved mine, so it was a perfect fit! She needs a car that can hold babies in the back! Her small Tiberon would not even hold a car seat. She has agreed to our price and one other stipulation.... she must refer to the car as its name. Jack or Jack Jack. and no, not all cars need girl names. He got his name because James said "wow your car is so nimble, it has tight turns". I was like who seriously says nimble, jack be nimble jack be quick.. and ever since them, we say go jack jack goooo (like when we do a tight u-turn and we're not sure we can make it). We haven't met a turn he couldn't take. I've had this car for 5 years or so and the mileage is still great (living in small towns has its advantages, plus they say toyotas don't even start driving until you hit 100k- which we are still not even close to).

JACK

I'm glad I will still get to see Jack :) so now that brings us to the question.... WHAT VEHICLE SHOULD I GET?! We are followers of Dave Ramsey who says never buy new.... because they lose their value the minute you drive away- which I get but I'm having trouble finding what I want in the used department. I want barely used.... I don't want it to be a previous rental car because people say they beat those down. You can get accident checks on any used so I'm not too worried about that. I want mine to have all the works though. We've saved up for it so I want it to have all its bells and whistles. Throw in some seat heaters, sun roof, electric seat movers, gps, you know- the basics :)

I want a smaller SUV type car similar to the size of the Rav4 (Jack). I wanted a car that I could put Hadley's carseat in the back middle (for best safety) but I'm finding that to be more difficult (we won't get into seat belts and latch systems). Gotta have good trunk room still for strollers and suitcases for when we go on road trips. I'm leaning towards Chevy Equinox..... RECOMMEND A VEHICLE IN THE COMMENTS SECTION TO HELP ME OUT!

kitchen reno update

James has been busy working on the kitchen while he has days off. He's been busy prepping the area for sanding and painting. He also cleared everything out from the cabinets. He is now onto the sanding part and hopes to be putting the primer on later today. He's doing a great job!

I am busy taking care of Hadley while all this is going on, some days I wish we could switch tasks, while other days I'm happy to be doing what I'm doing. Some days Miss. Hadley can be super fussy but other times she's super happy. On one of her super fussy times I told James we were switching and he gladly accepted. I was all taping up the paper for the kitchen when he came in later and redid it all.... he has issues with things like that so turns out he did not want me to quit my day job.

We got a call saying our flooring we ordered was in so now we are just waiting for the installer to schedule a time to come and do it! Unfortunately the 7 day forecast looked a lot like rain and they can't install hardwoods in rain (too much moisture for them) so maybe the carpet will be going in first. We'll see!

plastic to keep the sand particles out or in

everything from food cabinets...... can't wait to reorganize.... NOT

sanded area- looking good! 

So far so good, ready for this to be over, well ready for the flooring to be in because I know what a hassle it will be for two days or so. It will look great though.

Does she look like herself?

What do you think, do you think Hadley looks like herself in the womb?

 All I know is that she's super cute in all photos :)

Hadley is 2 months old!

Hadley Emilia is already 2 months old. Everyone always says time flies and I'll agree! Although it did seem to stand still say in the middle of the night when she was screaming her head off haha

STATS: She weighs 10 pounds 10 ounces and is 23 1/4 inches and 38 cm (14.94 in) head circumference
They did not give me the specific percentiles so I went home and we analyzed a chart to the best of our abilities, here's what we came up with:
based on her age
Length = 75th percentile (where is she getting her height?!) 
Weight = 45th percentile
Head Circumference = closer to the 10th percentile
height to length comparison- she is a skinny minny! around the 5th percentile
Diapers- size 1

Eyes- more of the grey than blue, pretty sure they're slowing turning brown like ours

Clothing- she's been out of the newborn clothes at about a month, she is probably too long for her 0-3 month sleepers but we're still squeezing her in :) 

 It's been a roller coaster ride with our pretty princess. I will say the good always out weighs the bad, but it hasn't been all rainbows and butterflies :). I'm going to give it to you real because I want to look back on the actual truth. I left you at the 1 month update where Hadley she had a rough go at night. I think she was going through growth spurts where she wanted to eat constantly, which is to be expected. plus she probably had day and night confusion. I am happy to report she is doing MUCH better at night. Week 7 day 4 (I'm not keeping track or anything haha) she slept 5 hours, fed then slept 3 more! That was a HUGE change from what she was doing which was seriously like 15 minutes of sleep all night. It was bad, we call those the "dark days". The dark days were pretty much from week 3-7. It was a long trying time, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. She was pleasant most the day but night hit and she was just a different baby. So what was the magic that made her start sleeping at night..... A SWING. We have a mamaroo that she didn't really care for and I know my sister raves about her swing. BIG shout out to her, she is the reason we sleep. I didn't want to be the mom where she relies on her swing so much that crib sleeping is a problem.... well couple things I've learned.

1. never say never when it comes to parenting- when it comes to getting maybe an hour a sleep a night, YOU WILL DO ANYTHING
2. she's only 2 months old, it's ok if she sleeps in her swing
3. as she gets older things are progressing and clicking more
4. also- just when you think she's developed a pattern, she switches
5. never wake a sleeping baby no matter where they're sleeping (per request of our pediatrician who is the only pediatrician in the county! we traveled to a different town smaller than ours because of the wait times at the local pediatricians). He is ok with us swing sleeping her until she's ready to make the full crib transition.

Fisher price my little snug a bunny (INVEST IN ONE IF YOU ARE HAVING A BABY)

Fast forward to now and my big girl two month is sleeping at night A LOT (yes in her swing- but who cares). The past three nights she has slept 7-8 HOURS at a stretch! seriously! whose kid is this. She doesn't wake for a feeding either. She stirs quite a bit at the end but never fully wakes. We are having some big issues actually settling her down for sleep though. I am pretty much on demand feeding her during the day which works out to me breast feeding her every 2.5-3 hours. She LOVES eating, whether she's screaming or calm, hungry or not, she will always eat. We give her a bath between 8:30-9:30 (wherever it works out) and try to settle her in to sleep. Lately she's been fighting the put down a lot. It's taken us a good 2 hours or so and sometimes multiple feedings to calm her to sleep. It's not a huge deal because she's been doing those crazy long sleep stretches, it's just puzzling.

We are crib napping her every time during the day to try and get her transition over fully. At night though she isn't having the crib because she isn't having the swing either. We try 3 times for the crib at night before we give up. We also try the swing about 15 times before she's actually sleeping. I know that I will probably write this and she will stop doing all these things or do the opposite. The crib napping is going pretty good. She settles down very easy for her naps. Hadley's not sleeping very long nap stretches maybe 30 minutes at a time in there, we've been getting longer with some hour long naps, but we're taking baby steps. She eats then plays on her play mat for a while and then we settle in for a nap. She's increasing her awake time and is usually VERY happy. She smiles a lot and this time it's not because she's dreaming.

Loving her play mat

She's very alert and is very interested in looking at us to smile. I'm enjoying her at her awake time especially now that she's happy. She does get fussy but usually it's when she's supposed to be napping. We've been out to Lowes a bunch with her (due to house renovations) and she's done pretty well. She's not loving the car seat anymore or the car, but once we take her out to hold her, she falls asleep. When Hadley's fussy we go stand in the spare bathroom and turn the fan on. She LOVES it. Sometimes she goes from irately screaming to the next second sound asleep. It's funny and reassuring that we have something that really works. We have a sound machine we use that sounds just like that fan but it does not have that same affect.

and we're done :)

As I reflect on the past 2 months, I'm glad we're progressing forward. She's really developing a personality and I can't wait for her to hit more milestones. I love her more and more each day, she's just so cute!

one month on left two month on right

Wordless Wednesday

Look at my pretty princess. She's two months old already. Ok I guess this wasn't totally wordless. Stay tuned Friday for her 2 month update. Her appointment is on Thursday. Until then look at her newborn photos that I did not put up last time!

Pendants and sink renovation

Well we are well under way on the kitchen renovation. We've actually changed our mind on some things that I mentioned last blog post. Let's start with that. I thought about what our goal was here. This is not our forever home, it's our home for the next 3-4 years. Although we feel we got a good deal, we did not under pay by a lot. Meaning, we can't pour a lot of money into the house and feel comfortable about not losing money. I feel good about putting some money into it because I like to live in luxury :) and I'll be able to enjoy it. At the same time, we don't want to make choices that are unnecessary. The housing area we are in is not over the top on upgrades so we are going to plan accordingly. I have to have stainless steel appliances so we aren't going to compromise on that. So what we decided to do was keep our existing cabinets and to paint them WHITE. We also decided to do that project ourselves but contract out the flooring. We should have someone here by Tuesday to give us an estimate on the wood floor and carpet. Below is a step by step view of the sink transformation haha.

before

during

during

after! 

Don't you just love the faucet. You pull it down and it sprays all around. I really wanted an under-mounted sink but with everything I mentioned above, it wasn't going to be possible due to us not changing the countertops. I think it looks great and it's a good second best option. The rounded corners really give it some nice character.

The pictures below are of our new pendant lights over the island, actually it's a peninsula because it touches on one side haha. I taught that to my second graders, yes they wanted them to know the difference between the two.

during

tada! 

There wasn't any lighting there before because it was cabinets! Refer back to the post where I showed them. I went with more silver/stainless look because I'm anticipating the appliances we will be getting at some point. I can't wait until we get the white on the cabinets. We aren't in any rush to do them but we want to get the bottom base boards painted before the flooring goes in. It's really coming together nice. I was able to cook nicely in there and it's starting to really feel like home :). 

House renovations

We knew when we bought our current house that we wanted to do renovations. We weren't sure the extent of it but I think we have that sorted out now. I'd really like to do a full renovation in some areas but I know that since we'll be selling it in a couple of years that it isn't the smartest idea. So here is what we decided we would tackle. The kitchen cabinets over the island needed to come down and that's already been done. We couldn't stand it even a couple days. When we had family in town, the boys got right to work.

before

during

after

Draw your attention to the ceiling. It used to have a long gross fluorescent light and James took that out and replaced it with 3 stainless recessed lighting. You will also notice the cabinets over the island are gone, so it's nice an open. Next to go is that weird wood part over the sink. Also on the list is to get all new stainless steel appliances and a cabinet makeover. I THINK we've decided to order sanded cabinet door faces only. We want to do an antiqued white (cream looking) color. We looked into getting all new cabinets and we just don't think that's the right idea, we don't want to overspend for the area also. James is pretty confident he can do a nice looking painted cabinet the way I want it, I just want to pay someone to do it because I know it will take a while (we're still negotiating).

We decided to change the flooring also. The tile that is there is just all scratched up and I'm not digging it. We will be putting in wood flooring in the kitchen and adding it to part of the living room then extending it through the hallway. Right now there is a lot of OLDER carpet in the living room and hall areas. There is already hardwood already in the foyer and dining room that we wanted to put in the rest of the areas I just mentioned, but we've run into a snag. IT'S DISCONTINUED, just our luck. They don't make it anymore. So it looks like we'll have to replace the existing floors because I want it to all flow smoothly. Not ideal but what can you do. I don't want a light wood floor and although I'm really drawn to dark wood, I have to keep telling myself NO because been there done that. It looks really great but the foot prints and dirt...... just not practical. So I've decided that we should do a medium color. I like these that I saw from pinterest. 

I am picking out pendant lights today and then we are getting someone to come in to match the ceiling to smooth it over where the previous lights were. I hope to be picking out flooring soon (including new carpeting in the bedrooms and part of the living room) and ordering cabinet doors. James has some days off that he's taking so we figured we'd knock out the renovations sooner rather than later, that way we can enjoy it for longer. So what do you guys think?

bits and pieces of Hadley's nursery

Happy new year everyone! I am a bit behind on blogging but having an 8 week old (what!?!?) yes I know everyone always says, wow time flies, and yes I concur. I will not focus on baby girl Hadley this post but a quick update. Things went from bad to worse to MUCH BETTER. and she's still as cute as ever :)

We had a whirl wind couple of weeks here. We got into town and immediately had family visiting. We had three separate groups in and out. Saturday was the first day we were in this house with out any visitors since we moved it. Although it was nice and uneventful.... we realized it was just us to do EVERYTHING. It was also the first time I picked up a dirty dish, I didn't even know where things were in the cabinets. We got back into the swing of things and I even made dinner! 

We miss having all the family help and company around. They helped with the baby, cooking, cleaning, unpacking, laundry, house renovations and putting Hadley's nursery together. We are very thankful and couldn't ask for better family!

I don't have time to write all the details I would like (Miss. Hadley is stirring in her swing right now) so I will leave you with bits and pieces. Once we get it finished, I will take a picture of the room as a whole and will include the details of where I got things etc. So for now, enjoy the sneak preview.

don't mind the sun, I couldn't get that right
cute curtains my mom made! more to come on the fabric, but white curtains
then she sewed the chevron fabric on the bottom

Mirrored dresser from pier 1

closet- james and his brother added another row of hanging/shelf
and we got a great storage area. it's messy but it's now more organized
with hot pink bins.

BEAUTIFUL crib bedding made by an etsy company (http://www.etsy.com/shop/RockyTopDesign)
Pillows courtesy of my mom and sister
and YES I know not to leave ANYTHING in the crib when the baby is in there :)

The chair has now gone in the room and it's almost all pieced together. We almost had an issue with the  wall color where it looked highlighter yellow. We were just about to go get different paint and start over until I thought of something. Turns out, it was the light bulbs they had in the light that really did a number on what the color looked like. So we all like it now. We are going to add square moldings around the room underneath the chair rail. I'd love to know what you think, so feel free to comment!

Christmas Crafts

It was a good thing my pregnancy nesting happened because I decided back in October to do our christmas crafts. We have started doing home made gifts the last couple years and it's really taken off. With Hadley's arrival on November 11th, I would have had no time to complete them. I got the ideas from pinterest and I did most of the work myself. They seem to be a hit! I will include a picture of my sister in law's craft that was also awesome. My advice for anyone who wants to do homemade crafts for christmas, start them NOW :)

Post it note holder

I got the plastic photo frame holder from hobby lobby and or dollar store. The rest is scrap book paper and ribbon.

Shadow box christmas bells

I got the shadow boxes from hobby lobby (only get them at 50 percent off). The bells, ribbon, and paper were all from hobby lobby as well (50 percent off christmas items). I used stickers instead of vinyl because I can NEVER find it (and most people have a machine that cuts it or they order it).

They turned out great. I hope my recipients think so as well. 

Marla made rice snowmen, how cute are they! We stuck ours up on the mantel and they made great decorations.

So sorry about the BAD photo quality, our internet at the new house is REALLY bad and I can't get my photos to upload to the blog so I had to take a picture of my computer then email it to myself (don't ask!)