14 Days of Valentine's

I'm sure we've all been looking on Pinterest for Valentine's gifts and tons of them! I came across this little DIY project & knew immediately I had to do it!

I've never done a 'countdown' to any type of holiday,

but this has me hooked 

& I think I'll have one for them now!

I admit..I cheated a little bit..a lot of these items we had laying around the house already (banana, apple, soda & frame) but everything else I had to go buy. Hey, it's cheap and fun! 

Starting on February 1st I will give an item to my hubby & 

it will continue through Valentine's Day! How fun, right? 

Here they are:

 "You have 'o fish ally' stolen my heart"

 "I'm bananas for you"

 "I think you are 'soda' amazing"

"Life would be un 'bear' able without you"

"I would be so 'mix' ed up without you"

"Thanks for 'sticking' by my side"

"I wouldn't 'chews' anyone but you"

And I have two more, but we will keep them private...if you know what I mean. ;)

Our trip to the zoo

I don't know if many of you remember our horrible (okay, maybe not so horrible because we were accompanied by good friends) zoo trip last year in Chicago. It was literally like 100* and you would think us Floridians would be used to it by now. It was SO incredibly hot & just stupid- the dumb boys wanted to go to the zoo while us girls wanted to hit up a water park..obviously the boys won & never again will they.

So today we decided to try the zoo again. It was in the mid 70s so it was perfect to be outside.

Minus the fact that Rylee must have came in contact with a stomach bug. She woke up and her crib, her & everything else was covered in chunks of puke. I even had a picture to show you guys (ha ha) but decided to spare you the grossness. I fed her milk and she threw all of that up so that's when I decided to call the pedi & he told me just to get her on the B.R.A.T diet & see how it goes. She went down for a 2 hour nap and woke up fine. On the way to the zoo she decides to throw up again. Luckily I had a change of clothes for her (normally I forget.)

We ended up buying a annual pass because it just made sense. We obviously can't stay at the zoo all day long when we go because Rylee would be a disaster. So now Rylee & I can go and take a guest free! They actually ended up giving us 2 additional passes good until March because a lot of their stuff was closed today for some reason. Score! And during the month of September they have a program where we can get into MOSI & The Aquarium for free, too! I'm excited! 

Anyways..

 She loved the carousel!

And please don't tell this child what to do. 

She thinks she rules the world. 

This is reason #20920932 while my crackberry is about to hit the sack.

She started getting super cranky and 

we found this water spot so we let her play &

I totally forgot her bathing suit AND water shoes! 

What kind of mama am I?!

She's going to be my water baby!

Then we fed the goats! She loved it! 

They licked her hand all over & she just sat there..ha ha. 

I think she's used to all the licking that Diesel does. 

(and yes, we definitely sanitized after!)  :)

PS. I'm only 4 followers away from a giveaway!

I love lacey

I really love the way these look on my nails, but I wasn't so thrilled with them. I've used the Sally Hansen strips before & they worked perfect, but these aren't wanting to stay on! They were coming off the same day I put them on. :( I even used a clear coat, but I still love them.

PS. These are "I love Lacey."

I did it...yep I did.

 I can't stop wearing my nursing tanks. They're so comfy! HA HA.

Chopped my hair off! AH! 

It's a lot shorter!

I think I did it to piss Jeremy off more than anything.

He never notices when I get my hair done (and he knows when I go) he always says "it looks the same." So this time I decided to do something a little more drastic. He didn't notice for about 15 minutes then he finally says "what the hell..where's your hair?!" ha ha. He's not too happy, but it'll grow back, right?! :)

Inspirational.

A friend of mine posted this in our mommy group the other day and it's a really good read. It is 100% of what the truth really is & even if you have 1, 2, 3 or 4 babies- you should read this.

Read now!

A few quotes out of it that I really love:

"My dear, it is hard.  You’re not being a wuss or a whiner when you feel like your life is hard."

"Some of the difficulties were just practical:  I didn’t know what I was doing, had to learn everything.  People pushed me around because I was young and inexperienced.  But even worse were the emotional struggles of learning to be a mother."

"When I had only one child, I truly suffered during those long, long, long days in our little apartment, no one but the two of us, baby and me, dealing with each other all day long.  I invented errands and dawdled and took the long way home, but still had hours and hours to fill before I would hear my husband’s key in the door."

"My husband didn’t know how to help me.  I didn’t know how to ask for help.  My husband had become a father, and I adored him for it.  My husband got to leave the house every day, and sleep every night.  He got to go to the bathroom alone.  I hated him for it."

 Doesn't this just speak volumes? I'm pretty sure we've all felt that way one day or another. It's hard, tiring, draining & challenging, but there is no other way I'd love for my life to be right now.

A 9 pounder!

This past weekend we decided to take the boat out since it was so nice and do a little riding around. Well, we ride..Jeremy fishes. I wish I could fish, but when we take Rylee I have to make sure she doesn't go overboard (which I'm sure she would easily do since she loves the water.) The whole time she was trying to lean over the side of the boat to get in. Silly girl didn't realize the water was 64 degrees.

And guess what we caught?!

Okay..well..Jeremy actually caught it, 

but he wouldn't give me the pole! butt wipe.

I'm taking credit & of course we had to pose. 

He hasn't caught a fish this big in a reallllly long time.

 Too bad it couldn't have been on a tournament day.

Rylee LOVED touching the fish! She kept wanting to grab it. Ha ha. 

I think we have ourselves a little fisherwoman on our hands. :) 

Daddy will be proud.

Pinterest is making me crazy

Am I the only one that spends all day long on pinterest? 

Okay, maybe not all day long, but at least an hour..

and then another hour making a list of supplies I need for the stuff I'm going to make...

and then hours and hours making it.

Our new project is this:

Eeek! 

Hubby should be done this week. 

Thank god because I'm getting sick of looking at all of her animals laying around everywhere.

And I can't get enough of finding yummy recipes.

I made this soup a while back. 

It is SO, SO, SO good! 

And this one was a bunch of recipes compiled into one. YUM!

I do have one complaint though. 

Why does everyone think you have to cook chicken in the crock pot for 6-7 hours? 

Every single chicken recipe I've made (so far) I've had to cut the cooking time in half.

Rain, rain

The other day it was raining and Rylee was begging to go outside. 

So what do we do?

We let her go, duh!

And guess what?

She LOVED it.

Nail files!

I never used the Sally Hansen nail strips before until Jen bought me some for Christmas. I love them! They're so easy to put on & last a while. I did these for Christmas. :) And yes, I haven't done them since..that's what happens when you never have time for yourself anymore.

 And this was the first time that I've had my toenails painted black & I love it! I'm usually more into bright colors, but decided to do something different. Now I want to get my nails painted black! Maybe that's a little much?

While she was at nanas..

Last week my mom watched Rylee for a few hours. I figured she was going to be slightly cranky since it was her nap time when she went over there. 

Nana cooked her a yummy lunch and she ATE it ALL.

(Mac & Cheese and Tomatoes & rice)

I don't think my kid will be a picky eater except for meat. She hates any type of meat & will spit it out. My girl sure loves some fish though. YUM!

Nana said she was having fun at about 12:30 and then the next text I get is this:

and then this..

About an hour later I ask if she's still sleeping and she sent this:

I guess we can say a day at nanas is hard work!

(Disclaimer: Pictures suck because my moms phone suck)

Grapes, sunglasses & playing

Why does my kid not nap for more than 1 hour now?

Why does she not nap more than 1x a day?

AHHH!

She is sleeping from 7:30pm-8am so maybe I shouldn't complain, 

but I do miss those 2-3 hour naps.

You know how I always talk about her and her sunglasses- 

well here's proof as to how much she really loves them.

Have I mentioned how much she LOVES grapes now?

She just ate an entire bag within a week.

 I am so happy we got this from a family friend because she LOVES being outside. Every morning after breakfast she'll go to the sliding glass door & go "uh uh" which means 'go outside'- lol she's silly.

Blood drawn=pitiful baby

Today we had to get Rylee's blood drawn.

BLAH.

It was pitiful. 

She is loving her sunglasses.

They tied her arm down & 

that's when the screaming started.

I told the guy:

"if you don't get it on the 1st try you can forget about doing it again." 

I felt bad after I told him that because 

I'm pretty sure it only made him more nervous-

oh well.

He understood if he was a parent & if not?  

He will get over it.

He managed to get it on the 1st try so I was a happy mama.

And she screamed. 

My poor baby.

Thank god that part is over with.

On a happier note...I turned around for 2 seconds today &

this is how I found her. 

She is getting so crazy!

Her 16 month well check didn't...

We had Rylee's 16 month check up today. She had 2 shots. :( She didn't scream too bad & as soon as I put her shoes on she was okay. She's a little fighter...and a bit of a drama queen, but if she wasn't then she wouldn't be my kid. :P

excuse the mess. she obviously didn't want to hear us talking anymore.

She is 23.6 lbs and 31 inches! She's getting so big. What happened to my 7lb 7oz 19 inch newborn?! It's exciting & sad at the same time. She's at such a fun age, but I miss her being so little.

Blowing bubbles/spitting (new her obsession)

The doctor heard a heart murmur in her today. There's a lot of information about them and most of the stuff I'm finding is saying that most murmurs are 'normal' and not to worry, but there's always that one abnormal one and I can't help but to think about the bad stuff. Most of them close up on their own so let's hope that's the case with hers. She has an echocardiogram scheduled for the 24th so hopefully we will know more then.

Then...the doctor came in & remeasured her head and said "it's pretty big." She was in the 50th percentile for head growth at her 12 month check up & now she's almost off the charts. :/ We have to go back in 6 weeks to measure again & hopefully it has slowed down or hasn't grew at all. I'm nervous about this. He asked if our families have big heads, but I don't think there's anyone 'out of the ordinary' with a big noggin. There's a lot of bad stuff that could come out of this, but I'm not even googling about it because I'm trying to stay positive & not get stressed.

Our Monday didn't start out that well... :/