My First Mother's Day...

This is the smile that makes me LOVE being a mum.


Happy Mother's Day to my mom, my step-mom, my grandmom and all the other fab moms out there :) Also, shout out to my cousins/step-sisters/friends who will become moms in 2011!

We had a lovely day today, although the weather wasn't ideal. We slept until 7:30, little man ate, we walked Stella and headed to brunch at Panera with Ben's mom. I got a chocolate chip bagel with cream cheese and a Chai Tea Latte (mmmmmm.) Afterwards, we headed to my favorite place on that side of town - Target. Where I splurged on two dresses (that actually fit!) for Amie's graduation and Daphne's wedding. I exchanged the adorable striped outfit Ben bought for a larger one, and got some other cute baby clothes - his first pair of overalls!

My amazing husband had left me two cards, the outfit, and a gift certificate for a massage in the dresser drawer - what a sweetie. Can't wait for the massage in a few weeks!

We played, we napped, we skyped with Ben, my mom, my dad, we walked Stella... all in all, a lovely day if you ask me! I used to love weekends. Now, I think that's an understatement. I'm obsessed with them. Here's to making it through another 5-day work week.....



"When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child." ~Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty

“If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?” - Milton Berle

Oliver's First Date.

Today, Oliver, Stella and I went across town to visit Lauren, Meredith and Micah Merkle. Meredith (born last September) was the first baby Oliver has played with, and Micah was the first cat Stella has seen up close! Here are some pictures from our afternoon:

Oliver wasn't a charmer... we showed up (he slept in the car for 30 minutes) and began spitting up everywhere. Nice first impression, eh? Then, after I changed his onesie (as you can see in the photos, he's wearing two different outfits) he managed a HUGE poop. I guess he wanted to see what Meredith's room and changing table looked like!

Stella and Micah had a fun time chasing each other around... Micah wanted to keep his eye on her at all times, and Stella wanted to sniff him. Luckily, he's declawed (front claws) so I wasn't too concerned with the potential damage.

All in all, a successful meeting!

Off to bed, Mother's Day tomorrow - hoping to start it off with a good trail run :)

Easter Weekend

Saturday afternoon we were very brave. We took Oliver on his first airplane ride!

After battling through an hour and a half of traffic on I-95 (people looking at the tornado path and damage, really - come on!), we got to RDU and they checked us in, albeit a bit late. Somewhere between checking in and running to our gate they gave our seats away. Could it have had anything to do with the fact that they put Oliver into the system as a lap child when we checked in? I hope not.

In any event, we waited it out and (somehow!) got onto the next flight to LaGuardia. Oliver was great on the plane, despite my nervousness. (Want a good article about kids on planes? Check out our friend, Vicki's blog article HERE!) He had a bottle on the way up which popped his ears, and on the way down he let out two loud screams and it was done! Hooray!

We rushed to change and get to dinner, where we surprised my step-dad for his 65th Birthday. It was also the first time Ollie got to meet Aunt Amie (below), Aunt Sarah (farther below), Uncle Mike and Aunt Ali. He also got to see his grandparents and great grandma again!

Aunt Amie (aka A-squared)

Aunt Sarah home from college for the weekend.


It was great to see everyone, we had a great Easter brunch (with a killer dessert table!) and I even had TWO... count 'em... two! pieces of sushi :) such a rebel.

We saw some family friends, went to the house Ben will be living in beginning in a few weeks, walked around the club, and began speaking to someone about where we'll be living. It's starting to seem a bit more real. Just a bit.

Here's my little man in his Easter outfit (from Old Navy), how cute? :)

Such a little stud!

Such a little "nugget" (as Amie would say), especially compared to Sarah's penguin!

9 weeks old and 2 month check-up

This morning we had Oliver's 2 month check-up. He weighs a whopping 10.8 pounds (10-25%ile), and is 23 inches long (50%ile) and has a 41cm head circumference (75%ile). So he's a string bean with a big head. They also gave him three shots (and cute little Scooby Doo band-aids) and one oral vaccine - I think it's been messing with his stomach. Either that, the infant ibuprofen, or the new Vitamin D supplements (which smell AWFUL!).

We also had a mini-photo shoot in between projectile spit-ups (three sweaters of mine later...)

Smiles!

Lookie! I got it! I may have taken about 30 pictures, but I snapped two pretty good ones of little man smiling in his lamb swing. Maybe it was my funny noises, Stella's funny face, or he was laughing at Khloe and Lamar on DVR :)

Also - check out the latest video about our school along with some others in N.C. - an interview with 5 month pregnant me and some shots of my students.

Click here for video!

April 16, 2011

Yesterday it poured. We heard thunder and saw lightning. No clue that there was a tornado less than two miles from our house.

Around 4pm we lost power, but it was restored today by 3pm. Last night we headed up toward Lillington, we couldn't go into Fayetteville because they closed Ramsey St. We heard rumblings about a tornado, and an 18-wheeler overturning. We grabbed some dinner, and picked up a styrofoam cooler and two bags of ice in order to transfer the "liquid gold" from our freezer to Kristin and Brian's freezer (thanks guys!) and headed home to get some sleep. Oliver had his diaper changed by flashlight/glow stick.

We ventured out this morning, to shower and get some food, and saw the craziness that had passed through down the road. The Goodyear Tire plant had an entire wall ripped off, the fence was battered, and 100-ft trees were uprooted. Insane!

Those are bleachers from the Pine Forest H.S. baseball field across the road.


This poor house had a For Sale sign in front. Not a whole lot left to sell.

Feeling pretty lucky about now...

Play time with Stella

This afternoon we had a grand old time playing with our two babies. They were both fed, happy, and wanted some Mommy and Daddy time. This was a great opportunity to play as well as snap some pictures (and video from the earlier post!)

I love this photo (above) because it shows the incredible difference between the size of Stella's paw and Oliver's head... they're getting very used to each other, although Stella will be shocked at how quickly Ollie grows and how much more of her he will be able to handle in the coming months.


Once Stella gets situated (with a bit of help from one of us), she loves watching Oliver play on the floor. She thinks she's protecting him. This one is great just because they were both looking at Ben taking the picture!

Today he was wearing shorts.... well... they are 6 month shorts (the only ones we had clean), so they looked more like stylish gaucho pants. Anyway, Stella thought this was an open invitation to insert her snout into his shorts and sniff. Strongly discouraged.

Tonight is our first night in a new type of diaper - aimed at overnight protection, so we'll see what time little man goes until.... we've been pretty good at stretching meal times out to about 4 hours. I had to wake him at 8:15 to feed him tonight, he'd been asleep the whole time we were walking and while we went grocery shopping!