Birthday Festivities

We had a great weekend with Margot. Her party was so much fun and she seemed to have a blast. Sadly I didn't really get pictures of the decorations that I worked so hard on. I'm hoping Morgan got some. However here is a peek at Margot's first birthday weekend.

 We went out to dinner Friday night. Margot had lots of fun playing with her new dinosaur puzzle.

All dressed up and having so much fun playing with toys.

 Margot sharing with Rose, the fellow birthday girl.

 Birth to three babies!

 Not really a fan of the birthday hat.

 Margot and Rose enjoy some birthday cupcakes

 The best family shot we got

 A very special Raggedy Anne doll made just for Margot by her Grammy

 "oh I just love my friend Matheson so much"

 Margot and Raggedy Anne have a picnic

"Never mind all of my new toys...I am going to pull every single clean towel out of the drawer and put them on the dirty kitchen floor! So much fun!"

I survived

When I was pregnant I read a memoir that started with a woman's pregnancy and ended at her son's first birthday. The book spoke of that time period, pregnancy to the first year, as one era, more specifically one huge transition. Overtime I have found that resonates with me. In three days Margot will turn one. I can say all of the cliche's feel very true right now. I can't believe how fast the year has gone by. I am amazed by how much Margot has changed. Here she is at 2 days old and again last weekend playing with dinosaurs at laughing planet.

But the things that strike me most about this year is how much I have changed. I don't think anything in my life as been as life changing as motherhood.

I am a particularly selfish person. I want what I want when I want it. And to be frank I'm pretty good at getting what I want. You can just imagine how fun I must have been to parent. But today what I want has fallen so far down the list of priorities. Not that I don't still think it--I do. Today I am having my photo taken for the newspaper and this morning I wanted to get up and spend time choosing my outfit, accessories and doing my hair and makeup. What happened...??? Margot woke up early and would not let me put her down and I threw on the first thing I found that passed for photos and didn't do my hair the way I wanted. This is just one of so many examples that all come back to one thing, Margot's needs come first and that's okay. My capacity to get over myself, let go of my wants and just be content doing whatever needs done shocks me. I know it comes from the grace of God and for all the love I have for Margot. And who knew I could be so patient?! Patience has never been a strength of mine. A friend once told me never to pray for patience because God will answer your prayer by testing your patience to the limit. Well, somewhere around the time I had Margot I must have prayed for patience....Yet I am amazed at how patient I am today.

I survived!!! Seriously this is how I feel about this year. I feel like I'm just now emerging from this crazy fog that was pregnancy (ugh), crazy postpartum time, nursing hell, never ever sleeping, more nursing hell, returning to work and my life becoming so crazy I can barely function, teething, sleep training, sickness, never ever sleeping, and some more not sleeping...you get the picture. But today I feel somewhat on top of things. I have the energy to plan an over the top birthday party and a holiday cocktail party, I occasionally read books, and I enjoy my husband and baby. Sure our life is still on the crazy side. We work too much and have too little time to do everything. But I am starting to feel like me again (or a new much more mature, responsible and patient me).

I love being a Mom. Really I love it. And I think I just realized this. I've been so focused on nursing and lack of sleep and this and that and every little detail of everything. But now that I'm stepping back and I realize that I love this. I love getting home with Margot and just playing with her until bed time. I love reading her books, and taking her to the grocery store and singing her silly songs. I love how she smiles at me and hugs me so tight at the end of the day. I love picking out her little outfits and making her a tepee to play in. It's just so fun to have this sweet funny little person to hang out with.

Sometimes I feel a little (okay, really) sappy about how big and grown up my baby is. But mostly I just feel really grateful that we are at this place. I am excited to celebrate on Saturday. We will be celebrating Margot and how amazing she is but we will also celebrating the fact that Chris and I survived year one. 

Happy

I am so happy this morning.

I love fall and it's a gorgeous day. I am wearing my favorite orange and tan striped fall sweater and drinking pumpkin spice goodness from Starbucks.

Margot is wearing the cutest outfit today, really I could die from the cuteness.

We all got up on time this morning and I was even early to work where I am feeling quite caught up.

I'm having lunch with a friend today.

And I'm going to share this great recipe with you all that we loved. It was super easy and fast.

You can find the original recipe here. I only made a few modifications. I added red bell peppers and fresh basil so there were more veggies. And it truly was a 30 minute meal.

election day

yes it is election day...

I love election day. Although I am always slightly disappointed that I don't get to actually go the polls to vote. Oregon has mail in ballots which you either mail in or drop off at designated drop boxes. This means I'm deprived of the I voted sticker and the awesome baby photo op with the I voted sticker.

Regardless, I love politics, I love elections season, I love election day, I love to vote and I love to watch copious amounts of election day news coverage which is what I plan to do tonight.

My husband and I voted differently on almost every single state wide ballot measure somehow we are still married but we have had a lot of debates in our house over the past few months. We are however voting the same for president. Thank goodness. Otherwise it might have gotten pretty ugly.

In my perfect world we would host an election night little party. We would invite some friends, eat red and blue food and have great drinks. However our lack of decent TV, cable and time means this is not happening. In 2016 we are going to have a great party! Regardless of how we celebrate today and in the future I want Margot to grow up with a lot of excitement around elections and voting. I want her to look back at it as a special and fun day, even if it's just because some of her friends came over and there was funny colored food!

Happy election day to all! 

Friday Randomness

• With one successful craft under my belt I suddenly like crafts and am going to try to make Margot a tepee for her birthday present. I'm also thinking about some holiday crafts.
• my parents considered naming me Whitney. In fact they had a deal that if I was born with red hair (my dad is a red head) I'd be named Whitney and if I had brown hair I would be named Laura. I have a hard time imagining myself as a Whitney.
• This Saturday is the last out door farmers market. I am sad. Taking Margot to the farmers Market has become one of my favorite things to do
• I am working on printing photos of Margot. I have taken almost 1500 photos since she was born and I think I'm going to print about 700. It's funny because growing up we had one photo album of my first year of life that had around 150 photos. I used to think it was so crazy that my Mother took 150 photos of me in one year and now...
• With Halloween behind us I'm really getting into the holiday spirit. Last year we were barely functioning at Christmas time due to a wee one who hated to sleep but this year I am feeling more human and am up for some good old fashioned holiday fun, decorating, x-mas trees, making cookies and wrapping presents.

A Day in the Life

When Margot was 4 months old I did a post on a day in our life. I was looking back at her monthly posts to pull pictures for her birthday party and I couldn't help but laugh at that post. I laugh because that day seems so much easier yet at the time I know I felt it was really hard. It just goes to show how fast babies change and grow. Also that post was before Chris started at the firm when he worked much more normal hours. So here is a day in the life with our now 11 month old. This was one day last week.

5:00 am: Chris' alarm goes off and he gets in the shower. Margot starts fussing and I go get her and bring her back to our bed to nurse. Margot is wide awake after nursing never mind that it is 5:20am. Chris gets dressed and leaves for work. I Change her and put her on the floor where she promptly crawls over to my shoes and starts pulling every single one off of the shoe rack. I get dressed (I usually shower at night otherwise there is no guarantee I'll get a shower) and fix my hair. Margot has now moved on to pulling all of the laundry out of the hamper. Margot and I make the bed and but away all the shoes and laundry before getting her dressed. Then we head to the kitchen were she sits at her high chair with some cheerios and I make my tea and grab my lunch.

6:20 am: I cart Margot, her bag, my bag and my hot cup of tea out to the car and we leave. I drink my tea and listen to NPR on the way in. Margot jabbers to herself and her doll francie making sure to squeal as loudly as possible during all the moments of the news I really want to hear.

6:40 am: we get to my Mom's. I nurse Margot and put on make up (which I now keep in my bag).

7:25 am: I park downtown where I have a board meeting for Better Eugene Springfield Transit (BEST) a non profit board I'm on.

9:15 am-12pm: I get to work, eat my breakfast (yogurt and granola which I keep at work). I deal with email, phone calls. I work on some testimony due at city council by 5pm. I also work on a power point for a presentation I'm making at our board of directors next week.

12:00 pm: I run back to my Mom's where I nurse Margot and eat some lunch.

1pm: Back at work for a couple hours then a couple meetings in the afternoon.

5pm: I go pick up Margot. She nurses then we pack her things and get her into the car. We leave Mom's about 5:30 and listen to NPR on the way home.

5:45: I put Margot in the high chair with her dinner. Tonight it's some left over meat loaf and roasted sweet potatoes and apples. I unload the dishwasher and get our dinner going (bangers and mash with braised cabbage).

6:10 Margot is now throwing food on the floor and laughing. I clean her up and put her on the floor with some toys. That works for about 10 minutes then she starts pulling herself up on my legs and saying ma ma, ma ma, I pick her up and thankfully Chris walks in at 6:30 and I can finish up dinner. we eat in the family room while she plays. Every few minutes she comes over to my plate for bites. She's like a little puppy when it comes to food on my plate.

6:50 We help her put away her toys and Chris reads her a few bedtime books while I load the dishwasher

7:00pm I take Margot into her room put on her pj's and nurse her to sleep.

7:30pm I rotate laundry and do the rest of the dishes. Then Chris and I settle on the couch. We read for a while and then watch Colbert and Stewart online.

9:00pm I take a shower and we go to bed 

Happy Halloween

From our little dinosaur...

 So sometimes in motherhood I fail utterly. Take for example the time I didn't realize Margot would react to her vaccinations and Chris and I went on a date night and came home to a baby burning up with temperature.

 But sometimes I do rock the Mom thing. This Halloween...I rocked it by making Margot this awesome dinosaur costume. I mean how cool is this?! She's the cutest dinosaur I've ever seen. Best of all I only spent $12 making her costume (well $12 dollars and 4 hours). I also completely made it up. No pattern, no pintrest, just my imagination. And it was really easy.

 So here's how to make your kid a really cool dinosaur costume. Get fleece in three color's A half a yard in the primary color and 1/4 yard in the other two colors is more than enough. Get two large buttons (I pulled these out of my Mom's button box.

 Fold your green fleece in half. Then find a jumper one size bigger then baby's current size (I think for a boy overalls or shortalls would work in a pinch). For Margot I used a 18 month jumper she has. Lay the jumper on the fleece and cut around it making two matching pieces. Just make sure the "back" pieces has longer shoulder straps to button onto button holes. Take the back piece and cut it in half. Cut spikes out of your two contrasting colors. Then you will sew the spikes into the back of the jumper. I added a tail which also had spikes.

Once your spikes are sewn in you can sew the sides of your two pieces together. Sew buttons onto the front and cut button holes onto back. For the bottom measure out leg holes (I used a pair of Margot's leggings to as a rough guide). You are going to sew up the bottom leaving two leg holes. I tucked and pinned the fabric to hem it and then sewed it up. Lastly for a cap use a winter hat as a rough guide. Cut out two matching hat pieces and sew them together with spikes in the middle. Add some straps and you are done. Margot is wearing her costume over leggings and a long sleep tee she already had. If you wanted to give this costume a more finished look you could hem the arm holes, neck and hat or trim them with matching yarn. However given it's a Halloween costume it doesn't really need to be as finished as a traditional outfit. I had a blast making her costume and can't wait to do it again next year.