Baby's First Books!!!

One of my very good friends, Nicole, could not make it to my baby shower so she sent her gift early! I of course could not wait until the baby shower and opened it early :)

Thank you so much Nicole! We love it and I can't wait to read them to Thor and then have Thor read them to us!

Baby Items!

I have accumulated some more things that I thought I would share!

First an early baby shower gift:

Spiderman Diaper cake!

Excuse the mess...

I love it and Brian loves it! We haven't dissected it yet....I figure Mom may want to bring it to the Shower as decoration or something. It has little baby lotion, baby shampoo, spider man toys and it even has little baby son glasses! Like father like son!

My friend Jason's, from work, wife gave me an edition of Parenting Magazine. Within that magazine there was a coupon and that coupon lead to two more coupons. The coupons were for a car seat cover, nursing cover and sling. All I had to pay was shipping. Each item was worth between $45-$50 and I got all three and paid less then $40 in shipping.

First is the Car Seat Cover. This is possibly my favorite of the three. Very well made, looks good and definitely worth the sale price and shipping.

The second is the nursing cover. I also think it would be worth more then the shipping I paid. Maybe not the full sticker price...that will be determined when I actually put it to use but I definitely would have paid more then just shipping for it. I also love the pattern I chose. The top is adjustable and made like an apron which I like....easy to adjust. The top portion of the cover is rigid and creates a hole between the cover and me so I can look down and see the baby which I think is going to be a good feature as well.

I am standing when I will be typically sitting so it may not be sitting just right.

and finally the wrap. Probably my least favorite. Still glad I have it but I don't think it is worth more then what I paid for shipping. Again, we shall see when I actually have Thor. Also, the current position is for newborns and I am using Baby as a model....Baby is bigger then a newborn. I would try the 6 month carrying position but Baby is just a doll and doesn't hold on like a real six month old :)

All good things must come to an end....

Brian and I had a wonderful vacation with each other. We get everything we wanted to get done and more. Well, almost everything. While we were in Charleston we were supposed to go on a boat cruise but it started raining so we decided to skip that. I was starting not to feel so great and have typically not done well on boats when the weather is bad so I didn't want to ruin the experience by possibly getting sick. So we still have to do that when the weather is nicer. We went on a carriage ride which was really fun and our horse, Mr. Bill, was the best. He had the best personality! Our carpets, wood and tile are so clean. Almost everything is put back in its place and we are settling back in to normal life.

We have purchased tickets to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra in Greenville for this upcoming November. We are really excited about that. We got the section we wanted as well! The key to Trans Siberian is that you dont want to be on the floor because it will be hard to see the stage and the people as they walk above you. This show is just about the visual lights as it is the sound. You also dont want to be to high or to far on the other side of the arena. You also dont want to be right on one side next to the stage. The musicians spend a lot of time on the stage but they also walk out into the audience a bit and if your right by the stage you will miss what they do in the audience. We think the best area is the lower level one block in from the stage. so not 101 but 102 in our case. We were in section 103 which was great especially since we didnt know what we were about to experience so we are very close to where we were before but just a bit closer to the stage so we can see them on stage better but not so close to the stage where we cant see what they do in the audience. We are SO excited about this trip. We love Trans Siberian Orchestra.

Work is going well. Exciting really but I will post about that when everything is all said and done. Monday was a bit rough as a first day back. Nothing really bad happened but it was a LONG day. We had mandatory overtime so i ended up with a 12 hour day. This week is flying by and there is mandatory overtime this Saturday and next so yay extra money!!! Brian's student loans will be paid off that much sooner.

We did come to the decision regarding extra money towards house vs student loans but that deserves a post in itself. I am pleased we came to a decision and can start working with that in mind.

I am starting to get ready for Christmas. I have all the Christmas cards ready I just need the letters and those will be ready to be sent out. I also have about half of the Christmas gifts that I just need to order. I still need to make the other portion and of course mail them out.

I started the photo book detailing the house being built but that book is going to be exhausting as the pictures have to go in a specific order and remembering the order and finding the appropriate pictures is draining. I have them organized by week but not by location within the week, hind sight is 20X20. I am going to work on that more after all Christmas gifts are ordered/sent.

Wedding album is back on hold as the two books my mom gave are not going to work. One is broken (I am hoping its a fluke and not to come of the books I have already made) and the other is partially full with more pictures of me! I am going to use the rest of that book to put random pictures I have been saving.

I think that is it....tomorrow I am hoping to post more about Mr. Bill and later this week about our house vs student loan decision.

Wedding present finished!

Brian and I received many many many wonderful wedding presents. We are very grateful to everyone who gave us them. Some of those gifts were in the form of cash. With that cash we paid off a student loan which is a huge weight off our shoulders....one less bill to pay, way less interest over time...always a good thing to pay something off.

With the rest of the money (yes, we had money left over....people were VERY generous) we decided to do a house project. We wanted that project to be something that we needed to get done rather then just wanting to get done. We wanted to put the money to the best use possible. If we were going to "waste" money it should be our own not other peoples. My mom also gave me a wonderful idea that I would send a picture of the finished product to those wonderful, overly generous people that gave us the money. So I kept a list of all who gave us money to send a picture of the finished product to. And I put it in a safe place. So safe, I cannot find it at the moment. Could have thrown it out but I have not given up looking for it yet. I may look like a feminine (I hope!) version of my dad but I am definitely my mom's daughter. So hopefully I will be able sending out old fashioned photo's soon but for now this will have to do.

So what project did we chose to do with the wedding money?

Putting blinds up with trim. We have 15 windows of various sizes and I think every house needs some kind of window treatment but you definitely do with a house in the south. We knew what we wanted but we could not afford that and frankly, I am not sure the house would be worth the investment. It took us a while to figure out what we could do. We ended up getting basic white blinds from Home Depot, had them cut to size and used trim to hide the top portion of the blinds.

I did not take very good before, during, and after but you will get the idea I am sure.

Before we had either nothing up on the walls or curtains on tension rods:

Before

There are no during pictures. We spent a LONG time waiting for the trim to be put up. We wanted our bookcases done before we added more work to our friends "To Do" list.

And so we skip right to the end:

That is what it looks like with the blinds closed which they always are. With them open....

These are the windows in the breakfast nook you are seeing but all of our windows are like this.

The process took a LOT longer then we thought....not counting the time we were waiting for the bookcases to be done to even start the trim portion. We also started the spice rack process this weekend. The made to order doors had come in so we were going to have them painted and put on this weekend but we are still waiting on the doors. A project we thought was going to take 1 day has taken 3 but so far we are loving the results. What do you think?

Next project? Back splash in the kitchen and finishing the spice rack so stay tuned.....

I feel sick weird

For the first time in in my my 5 years of working I left work early. I have never taken a sick day, left work early or anything. Even in college I never skipped classes. The last time I can remember not going to school or work was Junior of High School when I had Scarlett Fever and that was only because the Head Master and my mom made me stay home. I do not stay home from work unless it is a paid holiday, a weekend without overtime or a well in advance planned vacation. I am that associate who comes to work not feeling great but that's only because me not feeling great is me having a sinus infection or an ear infection which are not contagious. Outside of my nose and ears, I am fortunately very healthy.

Today has been weird though

At work I felt feverish, had a headache, was achy and I felt like I was colder then everyone else at work (the AC was on so everyone was cold...I felt like I was in a freezer). If I wasn't on the phones full time I could have pulled through. But I was struggling with the phone calls (figuring out insurance claims can be hard when your feeling 100% let alone when your not feeling like yourself) and our call volume is so high that I knew I couldn't sign off to do other projects as I would just be called back onto the phones so my manager let me leave early. I wont have to use any vacation time or have any unscheduled leave because I will have made up the hours but this just means I will have 2 hours of overtime rather then 9.

On the way home I ate my lunch and started to feel slightly better. At home I started to eat cashews and started a bit better then at about 1:30 I had pasta with red sauce. Then I had some crackers and I had chinese for dinner.  Food made it better but I still feel very weird.

 I no longer feel feverish but I still don't feel right. I feel dizzy but not, nauseous but not. almost loopy, I am having trouble thinking straight it seems. The next few days will be interesting. I had planned on having a post on how BMI sucks and about the goose that has laid eggs nearby but that will have to wait for my brain to stop spinning.

On a sweet note, Brian bought me a get well ducky :)

My presents came!

I mentioned in another post how I had some gift cards that I finally redeemed and I wanted to show post them!

I got these all on sale and I love them. I am not sure if I would like them as much if they were full price but lucky for me they weren't! I felt I didn't have enough adult jewelry so I was looking to get some. It is hard because I am allergic to metal but I always want to accessories my outfits and never feel like I have anything to do that with. Hopefully my purchases will help me accomplish that goal!

I got these from Coldwater Creek

I got these from JJill

I love them and I cannot wait until I have an occasion to wear them!

A Christmas present arrived!

My mom had gotten me a gift certificate to Gumps (a high end company selling housewares, etc) for Christmas and I just go around to picking out what I wanted and they came today!!!!

I first got these Geese salt and pepper shakers!

Aren't they cute!

I also got a couple Wedgewood ornaments. I have a, fake apparently, Wedgewood container that I keep jewelery which I love so when I saw these I knew I had to get them!

It say's "Bless This House"

I can't wait for Christmas where I can hang them!

My 27th Birthday Party!

I was thrown a wonderful birthday part by the girls at work on the 20th! Remember the people I went to see the haunted house with back in October? These are the same girls! We have plans for nearly every month to get together! January they threw me a birthday/bachelorette party, in February I am hosting a wine tasting while doing wii Zumba/Lets Dance, in March Sherry and Janet are throwing a St Patty's day party and that is as far as we have gotten so far. I am having so much fun and I am so glad I met these girls. They are so helpful at work and so fun to be with after! I finally feel like an actual adult since I have a social life now!

Anyway we first met at a sushi place in the area that Anna and I live (Anna and I are basically neighbors). I did not try the sushi but I had the hibachi plate with a tnt roll (tnt roll=fried sushi) which was very yummy! I did not get any pictures but Anna advised that I should get a small even though we were there to pig out and boy was she right! The small was more then enough, hard for me to imagine what a large would be. Anna and Kelly had the same thing I did and Janet and Sherry had various sushi rolls. Everyone enjoyed their meals and I am excited to take Brian there!

We did have some drama though! Kelly showed up one week early and then Janet and Sherry showed up at the wrong location on the 20th! The restaurant is called King Kong sushi and there are two locations, one at Broadway and one where I live. Well, they went to the Broadway one. Anna, who was orchestrating the whole thing, was so embarrassed that she didn't make the location clear enough but it was definitely a good laugh. I think Anna did make it clear enough and Janet and Sherry were just so excited to come they didnt pay much attention. I have done that MANY a time and as far as I was concerned it only made the night better as we had something to laugh about as soon as Anna realized no one was mad at her :)

After dinner we all drove to Anna's house. Her house is so cute and she really is almost our neighbors. Our neighborhoods touch and if there weren't two houses in the way I could walk to her house. I thought we were just going for a glass of wine and girl talk but they planned an actual party with a cake and presents! I even got to practice my proper southern poses. ALL southern girls put their hands on their hips in pictures....us northern girls haven't really figured out what to do with our hands so when Janet, Anna and I take a picture together it is quite comical as it is clear that I am NOT a southern girl. Janet was awesome and took pictures for me!

Anna and Sherry opening the wine

Kelly (Left) and Sherry (Right)

Me showing off Anna's present!

Me and Janet...I am trying to figure out how to hold a glass of wine and put my hand on my hip

Sherry and I

Sherry being funny and me with my southern belle look

Me blowing out the candles on the cake Anna made me!

Me buy the presents and decorations!

Me opening Kelly's present

Me laughing at Sherry's present :)

Me and Kelly's present!

I had a wonderful time! The girls are all so sweet and funny. The evenings go buy so fast but I love how we all found each other. If any of the girls are reading this: Thank you! The gifts and cake were unnecessary but greatly appreciated! Can not thank you girls enough!

Christmas List!

So yes, I know it isn't even Halloween yet but if the stores can start decorating for Christmas can't I compile a list for what I would like? As always, no one is ever obligated to get me anything let alone what I ask for but I do know several family appreciate my lists as they tend to want to get me something more then cash but also want to get me something I actually want/need. I may be adding on to this but I don't think I will. My Christmas list is short because most of the material things are on our registry.

More footed pajama's! I have one pair with penguins with a blue background and I love them and to keep them in good condition I should have another pair or two! I would still want a size 6 and I don't necessarily care about drop seat.

Hoods are amazing and so are rubber duckies!

My preferred footed pajama website is Pajama City.com


I do need a fair amount of clothes. I need new work clothes and work out clothes and should update my regular wear clothes. However, because of my new found activity level I am not sure on sizing. So store specific gift cards are great. Some specific stores would be Victoria's Secret, Old Navy/Gap, and Dressbarn, footlocker or another store that sells New Balance sneakers (I don't know size, my feet have also shrunk) and Express. Probably the easiest outfits to buy and send me would be work out gear. I do know I am a medium in yoga pants which are my preferred workout pants long or short. I am a medium on top as well especially if it is a tank top type shirt. I also need socks! I like the ankle cut socks.

Any Visa/American Express gift cards or cash will be used to for house projects. Maybe tiling the floors, maybe painting a room. Any and all would be appreciated and great but if you want to give a universal gift certificate/cash for me to spend on the clothes above just know that it won't be. I have an awful time spending cash on myself. Once I get cash it goes into savings and never gets touched. It will be tough for me to spend it on the house so it definitely will not be used for clothes, etc. However if you want to help towards making our house a home, cash or Visa/American Express gifts cards would be greatly appreciated.

Brian spoils me :)

As he should ;)

Ha ha no really he does. He has always been the king of presents and surprises. No matter how hard I try my gifts always fall short it seems. He is always grateful and loves them but I am, for the first time in my life, "losing" in the best gift department. Often he seems to know me and what I want better then I do..which I suppose is a good thing. One of my favorite presents is an Add-A-Pearl necklace. I have several (I don't want to get off the couch to count) pearls now. I get them usually on a holiday like my birthday or Christmas but I also get them somewhat randomly like after Brian got out of the hospital. I love my Add-A-Pearl necklace and can't wait until I have enough to connect and put it in a frame and hang it (it is too special for me to wear and risk breaking).

I wanted to share and document some of my other favorite presents:

Brian got me this Snoopy for our first Christmas together. He is always calling me snoopy (I try not too...) and it is become one of our "things". I walked in to a new dresser (we were not living together at this point) to keep some clothes at his place and a Snoopy doll. This one represents the first big step in Brian's and my relationship.

Brian gave me this Penguin awhile back, neither of us can remember when. I think it was a birthday present. He is big and fluffy and squishy. I love Penguins! I call them Pen Pens and would love to have one as a pet (they are so cute!) For the longest time it stood between the bed and the corner of the room watching over us protecting us in his sleep.

This was this years Easter present. Easter Snoopy! Easter Snoopy sits on big Snoopy's lap on my dresser Brian got me.

Brian got me this fuzzy cow after he graduated college. I love cows too and nick name them Moo Cows (I swear I am 26 not 5) but Brian calls them Poo Cows. He got the "Poo Cows" from when we went to Brookgreen Gardens and visited their "zoo" and the cow pasture smelled of Poo. Don't worry, I correct Brian every time he calls the "Poo Cow". :)

This fluffy ducky I got the week after the cow. Brian made the mistake of finding it and mentioning that they were discontinuing it. I love ducks as well and had a blast when my High School made the AP Biology students get baby ducks and raise them. I was the number 1 babysitter and still wish I could figure out a way to have one of my own now. When I heard that A) the company made a duck and B) that the Duck was being discontinued I asked Brian to get me it. I kept reminding him and all of a sudden a box came in the mail for me :)

Right now all three squishy animals share our double bed. The penguin is by my head as it is smaller, then the cow and then the duck. My plan is that when we have kids, each child will get an animal. I like gender neutral themes so it should work. Baby number 1 will get a duck theme so they will have the squishy duck, some rubber duckies (some Caroline gave me and one is from Ireland), and a wooden toy duck that one of my favorite homeowners gave me (otherwise known as Momma Cohen). I am thinking a light green paint for the walls. Baby #2 will get a cow theme with the squishy cow with maybe a light yellow for the color and Baby #3 will have a penguin theme and get the squishy penguin and a light blue for the walls. As we get closer to baby #2 and 3 I will gain accessories :) Don't want to get too ahead of ourselves. Baby #4 I am still unsure of...maybe Snoopy themed? Again don't want to get ahead of myself :)

I just think it would be so sweet if our babies loved on the same stuffed animals I loved on. And isn't that how you find a perfect theme for anything? Find something you love and design around that? I think I may even have some things from my own childhood that I could incorporate and hopefully I can get some stuff from Brian's too.

But in the mean time they keep me warm and away from the cold wall :)