Wednesday, April 25, 2012

ISR Lessons

I have been contemplating for a while now on what swim lessons to get for Rylee. 
Your traditional swim lessons or ISR lessons?

I started researching long & hard, asked a bunch of people that had done ISR before what their experience was like.

ISR won me over.

A brief background:
Thousands of Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) lessons are taught every day worldwide as part of our commitment to prevent pediatric drowning. The commitment we made to parents over 45 years ago, to reach the next child before he or she reaches the water alone, is honored daily to achieve our mission that Not One More Child Drowns.
 Founded by Harvey Barnett, Ph.D., in 1966, ISR endeavored to put an end to a preventable tragedy…childhood drowning. Barnett witnessed the aftermath of this tragedy after a neighbor’s 9-month-old son reached the water alone. From that point on, Barnett vowed to do everything possible to ensure that Not One More Child Drowns. A behavioral scientist by trade, Barnett adapted his theoretical knowledge of learning to pioneer the ISR Self-Rescue™ method used today to teach infants and young children to save themselves should they reach the water alone. What began as one man’s mission has transformed into a worldwide organization. To date, ISR has 790 documented cases of children using ISR’s survival swimming techniques to save themselves from drowning.


Now do you see why ISR won me over? 
ISR= Infant Survival Rescue


I want Rylee to be able to save herself if (god forbid) she fell in the pool or decided to jump in. With her having these lessons I'm starting to feel completely comfortable. This is only her 2nd week, but she's doing so well! The instructor has made comments on how well she does when she's floating & how she holds her breath when she should under water. It's amazing! I wish I would have had these lessons when I was a toddler.


It's a 6 week course for beginners & every year you should sign up for a refresher course, that length depends on how much your child has retained from the previous lessons. It's only a 10 minute class, which is AWESOME! 


These instructors have over 60 hours of in water training plus a crap load of additional training/testing that are nationally certified. 


Go here to find an instructor near you and read more about it.

Here is a short video of her lessons so far, I'll definitely post an update video when we're done!
 

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Alabama 2012

We left on Friday at 5am- we actually left on time, which I didn't think would happen.

Rylee was a complete angel on the 12 hour car drive! She literally slept and if she wasn't sleeping she was playing in her car seat. We really couldn't have asked for a better drive.

I'll just cut to the point & say the sleeping situation was horrible, absolutely horrible. She refused to sleep in her pack & play. We tried for 2 nights in a row & both nights she had a full on bloody murder scream for 1 hour. As soon as I laid her in bed with me, she was out. This continued for 9 straight days & even including nap time. The bed we had was a full size bed- so Jeremy had to sleep on the pull out couch because there was no way we could all fit on a full size! I was lacking so much sleep the entire time we were there. 

She was pretty cranky the entire 9 days too. I'm sure a lot of it was due to the fact that her schedule was jacked up big time. She didn't have her normal toys like she does here at home & nothing was the same. Going out to dinner every single night became old..quick. 

We've traveled with her before & it was nothing like this. I've heard this is such a hard time to travel with toddlers. I'm thinking they're right. When we went to D.C. & Boca Raton last year she was an angel! Slept in her PnP  & was completely fine. 

My advice: if you're planning on traveling with a baby- do it while they're young because it was A LOT easier for us when she was younger compared to now.

I'm hoping it will become easier once she gets over this weird stage she's in- here's to hoping since we're flying this summer out west & will be gone for 7 days. 

Overall, it was a fun trip minus the lack of sleep & the constant whining. 
We met up with some awesome friends from my October 2010 group!

Rylee found her 1st boyfriend.
She seriously was attached to his side the entire time! He loved it, too. ;)

We went to the park a lot & she was being naughty and wouldn't walk away from the water & ended up getting soaked.

 We had a little Easter egg hunt for them at the park!

We drove up to Nashville & went to the zoo!

Here she met V.


Monday, April 23, 2012

Liebster Award



I have no idea what this means, but Chelsea who gave me this award says it means "favorite" in German- I'll go ahead & trust her. :)

I'm flattered that I've been given this award. 

I've had a hard time choosing who to pass it along to, but then someone just popped into my head!

Jody over at Keeping up with Kennedy. Go meet her!

The Liebster Blog Award criteria:
The Liebster Award is for up-and-coming bloggers (200 followers or less) that you think deserve recognition for their fabulous blogging abilities.

How the process works...

Each nominee should:
  • Choose blogs to give the Liebster Award to.
  •  Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
  •  Post the award on your blog.
  •  List the bloggers you gave the award to with links to their sites.
  •  Leave a comment on their blogs to let them know they's received the award.
  •  Share five random facts about yourself. 

5 random facts:
  • I wish I could stop going to the bathroom every 30 minutes.
  •  I sort of want to sleep.
  • I've sort of started baby nursery shopping.
  • My body aches.
  • I need a pedicure.

11 weeks

Can I just say that I suck?! 

I have been sleeping like crazy, but tonight I plan on getting caught up...that is, if the sleepy bug doesn't hit me. 


Food: Still no aversions (let's hope that's gone with now),  I'm still craving Coke 0 and I have no idea why! I'm a water drinker 100% of the time.

Sleep: EXHAUSTED! I need my energy back! I'm back to sleeping when Rylee goes to bed/naps.

Clothes:  I can still button my pants, but it hurts so I just leave them unbuttoned. Shirts are fine- a few are getting snug around the belly.

We go next Monday for our first ultrasound! Weeee. I never had to wait this long with Rylee!


Tuesday, April 17, 2012

18 months

I can't believe my girl is a year and a half!
Actually, 18.5 months now since this post has been delayed for a couple weeks.
Her words include: dada, mama, dog, bye bye, papa, uh oh & d dil (diesel)

She's a champ at sleeping- between 12-13 hours a night & about one 2ish hour nap a day.

She's smart & knows what you mean when you tell her to do something:
  • If you tell her "let's brush your teeth" she runs to the bathroom & sits in her little corner waiting.
  • If you ask her "where's your juice/sippy" she looks all over for it until her little eyes find it.
  • If you tell her "let's go outside" she finds her shoes & tries to put them on- then she'll go get my shoes & hand them to me. 
  • If you say "let's get dinner/lunch/breakfast" she runs over to her high chair & wants in it.
 
 I really can't believe how much she already understands. She loves to help me wash clothes, put dishes away or clean up. She also loves to make a huge mess, too.

Only 6 more months to plan her 2nd birthday! AH!!

Monday, April 16, 2012

9/10 weeks

Wow..I'm so far behind. I plan on getting caught up- just not sure when.

I didn't do a bump update last week since we were on the road to Alabama.





I'm finally in the double digits!!

Food: everything is sounding good! I'm wanting to drink more soda & that's very unusual for me since I ONLY ever drink water. Coke 0 tastes so amazing.

Symptoms: Nothing really except the spurs of nausea that come up sometimes. Thankfully, the all day nausea has passed.

Clothes: I bought my 1st maternity shirt the other day! I probably won't need it for a little while, but it was only $8 with free shipping & super cute too!

Sleep: It's starting to become better. I'm not waking up all hours at night and not being able to fall back asleep, but the constant peeing is annoying.



Thursday, April 12, 2012

I'm alive..sort of.

I'm still here...alive...but barely..only kidding..sort of.

This "vacation" may be the death of me..ha ha.

I'll be back once I get a free minute (which hasn't came to quickly here in the past few days.)

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Guest post: Jennifer

Hi readers! I'm happy to guest post for Danielle while she is on vacation. (Lucky duck takes at least one a year! Danielle- can I be adopted into your clan?) My name is Jennifer and I blog over at Starving, Insatiable (personal blog) and Mangiamo! (food blog). Lately, I've been a Pinterest fool. I live in a condo with my boyfriend. The condo has no storage, a poor layout, small bathrooms and is pretty much in disarray, but finally (after 5 years), we are renovating! I've found that when finding inspiration, I tend to pin the rooms of my dreams and not necessarily rooms that I could actually do in my place. Oh well- they are nice to look at and hope to have one day, right?! Since I know Danielle is also always looking for her next home improvement, I thought I'd share some of those rooms that I would love to have!



                                                                                  Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

This open shelving is so nice! I'd love for this look to be realistic for the condo, but not only am I lazy enough to not want to keep up appearances, but we are just lacking the extra room.



Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

In this kitchen, I love the cabinet door with the glass. I definitely do intend to incorporate at least one cabinet like this into my future kitchen. Something so simple really opens up the space and adds some elegance. Aside from that, I love the yellow walls, the light wood floor and the decoration!
Again, like everything else, our dining room area is teeny. I'm leaning more towards having a medium-sized breakfast nook as opposed to a rectangular table so there is more space to navigate from kitchen to dining to living rooms. I've pinned the following 2 dining areas:



Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest



Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest



Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

I love the soft colors!




I would seriously love to come home to a bedroom like this, windows and all.
Our living room is about the only room that we can work with a little bit. As soon as I get my boyfriend to move his unused 225-gallon fish tank out of the way, I can concentrate on really bringing the living room together. Here are my inspirations.



Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest



Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest
If I said my bathrooms were an eyesore, it would be an understatement. This is going to be the biggest renovation we have in store for us. We need to maximize our small space with storage options without looking cluttered.



Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

The "mantel" above the sink is great for storing, as the picture shows, cotton balls and other small things you use semi-regularly. The mirror in the medicine cabinet creates the illusion that the bathroom is bigger than it actually is.



Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

I LOVE this idea of open shelving on either side of the sink. I could do so much with this.
Home Office
::sigh:: Again, no storage space in our condo. We don't have any closets besides our clothes closets...no linen, storage or even pantry! I work from home so it's important for me to have a nice home office for great productivity and efficiency. I would like to work a lot more if my home office was organized like this one:



Source: bhg.com via Jennifer on Pinterest
Not only could I always fill up a bookshelf with the amount of books I have, but I just love the storage bins and again, the open shelving.
Now, are there any home improvements/dream rooms you want to make happen?


Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Guest post: Megan!

I'm happy to introduce you to Megan! Go check out her blog because you will love her. :)



I am so excited to guest post for Danielle while she is away!! I decided for my guest post, I would share with you some (out of the 200) pictures from our first family vacation!
For our first family vacation we went and stayed for a week in Naples, Florida!


Our first full day we went to The Naples Zoo and then an outlet mall about 40 minutes outside of Naples.



The next day we did a pool day! Olivia LOVED the water!

The day after that we went to The Naples Pier and went to the shoppes

The day after this we did a day in Naples going to the shoppes in downtown Naples, and hung out by the pool. Jer also went golfing! The picture taken below was Olivia right before she rolled over for the first time!

On this day we went to Ft. Myers to visit some friends!

Another pool day at the condo we were staying at!

On our last day! We took some pictures outside the house before catching our plane!

Our first family vacation was AMAZING, so relaxing and fun!! This was the first time Jer and I had this much time off together since my maternity leave! It was nice to just be a family of 3 with no interruptions! :)
Thank you Danielle for letting me guest post! It was fun to relive these memories! I hope everyone will come say "Hello!" :)

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