A Day In The Life - Fall 2016

Robert and Amy are 26 years old, Sarah is 14 months, and Mittens is 4.5 years old!

Monday | October 10, 2016

4:41 am - Mittens starts meowing outside our door.  I get out of bed to feed her.  She's supposed to wait until 7:00, but Sarah hasn't been feeling well lately, and I don't want to risk Mittens waking her up.

7:22 am - Sarah wakes up, so it's time for us to get out of bed, too.  She's starving and has the world's heaviest wet diaper.  I hold her for a bit while Robert gets breakfast going.  

7:40 am - I drink coffee, Sarah and I share a smoothie, and I eat some frozen waffles.  Our coffee has been tasting weird lately.  Do we need a new coffee maker?  Sarah begs for some pieces, and she gets it.  She seems pretty miserable.  She's had a cough and runny nose for over a week, but now she's also teething her top canines, so we give her some Orajel.

8:00 am - Sarah and I play on the couch while Robert gets ready for the day.  She wipes lots of smoothie and snot on me.  Thanks, Sarah.

8:15 am - Sarah's really into coloring these days, and she's figured out how to get out the paper from her table.  It's everywhere in no time.  I kind of don't care because this means I can finish my coffee slowly.

8:40 am - Change a dirty diaper.  Is that what had been bothering her?  Now it's time for me to finally get ready for the day which only takes about 5 minutes.  It's a ponytail and no makeup day.  Sarah digs through the cabinets while I get ready.  So helpful!

9:00 am - Our Parent Educator comes over today for our monthly appointment.  Sarah has her annual assessment and gets high marks.  We're going to work on challenging her to learn how to zip and unzip things, twist lids on and off, and stack taller block towers.  The whole time Sarah seems off balance, isn't walking well, and is pretty frustrated.  When Gina starts packing up Sarah says Bye and can't wait for her to leave so she can sleep.

10:00 am - Tuck Sarah for a nap.  We're thinking about cutting back to one nap a day, but now isn't the time.  We need to finish the battle of the bottle first.

10:10 am - I put a new recipe in the crock pot, sun dried tomato chicken.  Hope it's a winner!  Anything that I can dump in and forget for a few hours typically has potential.

10:15 am - Check the computer and pet Mittens while she rests next to me.  She comes out once Sarah goes away. ;)  They like each other quite a bit, but Sarah can still be a bit much for Mittens to handle at times.

10:30 am - I'm attempting to read more and spend less time on my phone when I have down town, so I've checked out a couple of books from the city library.  For the Love has been good so far, and it's nice to get a little break in the middle of my day.

10:45 am - Sarah is awake and needs a diaper change and a snack.  I talk to Sarah's pediatrician's office, and they think Sarah has been sick long enough and needs to come in, so we'll come in at 2:15.  We get ready to head up to the church to help Robert clean out the student refrigerator and pantry.

11:15 am - We swing by the library to return a book and head to the church.  Seeing Robert makes Sarah perk up!  Robert holds Sarah while I organize the fridge and pantry.  We don't have enough time to finish everything, so I'll have to come back again to help organize the cabinets.

12:00 pm - We need to head home so we can eat lunch and so Robert can head to his weekly staff meeting.

12:10 pm - Oh my goodness, our trees are gorgeous!  This is our first fall in our neighborhood, and there are so many beautiful red maple trees.  We have the prettiest tree, in my humble opinion.

12:15 pm - I'm so hungry.  Sarah and I both have peanut butter sandwiches, and she enjoys mixing together her pumpkin and apple sauce and dipping her sandwich in it.  Gross.  She's so messy, so we might as well turn this into bath time.

12:45 pm - Another dirty diaper!  I'm just glad it happened before she was in the tub.  Sarah enjoys sticking foam letters to the bath tub.  Why does she insist on standing the whole time she's in the tub these days?

1:00 pm - Sarah needs a new outfit after her peanut buttery lunch.  She's majorly clingy and needs big time Mommy snuggles, so we are making the most of it and read several books.  The touch and feel books and the book that Neighs are big hits.

1:38 pm - We go outside to check the mail, and I realize that we don't have any because it's Columbus Day.  Darn.

1:40 pm - Leave for the doctor.  I know it's risky putting Sarah in the car right now because it's nap time, but this was the only time Dr. Toth could see her.

1:54 pm - Yep, Sarah fell asleep.  I carefully get her out of the car and manage to keep her asleep while we wait.  She's totally out of it when she wakes up and there are bright lights and a nurse talking to her.

2:15 pm - Sarah has a double ear infection.  I didn't see this coming.  She hasn't had a fever at all, and she's never had an ear infection before.  Since Sarah is already on medicine for her VUR we're going to wait and see if she develops a fever or starts tugging at her ears, and if she does Dr. Toth will prescribe something else.  (Spoiler alert...she gets a fever.)

2:40 pm - We're driving home, and I have my fingers crossed that we can both take naps when we get home.

2:55 pm - I tuck Sarah in feeling positive she's exhausted.  I quickly water the flowers, re-fill the bird feeder, and throw some clothes in the washing machine.

3:00 pm - Sarah is screaming and standing up, so I rock her and give her some Motrin.  I can tell she's so miserable.  She's groaning with her eyes closed, and I can't tell if she's actually awake or asleep.

3:48 pm - I finally give up on naps happening.  It's going to be a long afternoon.

4:00 pm - We FaceTime my mom for a bit.  She feels very sorry for Sarah and is going to take off work tomorrow to be with Sarah and me.  Hallelujah!

4:25 pm - I throw the clothes in the dryer, put cloth diapers in the washing machine, pick up a bit, and run the dry mop over the floors.

4:45 pm - Sarah sits in her high chair watching me chop carrots and cauliflower to go with dinner.  I'm so thankful we've finally reached the point where she's content watching me for a few minutes.

4:50 pm - Start the diapers on their second cycle.

5:00 pm - We're in the countdown for Robert to get home for the night and decide to play outside while we anxiously await his arrival home.  Sarah loves the crunchy leaves and playing with our pumpkins.  She takes the watering can from the garage and walks it around the house to the house.  She's been watching and observing us!

5:20 pm - Robert is home!!!

5:25 pm - Robert changes clothes, and we head out for a walk.  I'm so thankful for this cool fall weather.  Sarah's head starts drooping, and she's out hard.  Poor thing!

5:55 pm - We get home and tuck Sarah in for the night.  Please let her sleep through the night!  I switch the diapers over to their third and final cycle.

6:20 pm - We sit down for dinner outside on the deck, and Sarah immediately wakes up and starts crying.  No!!!  Thankfully, she fell back asleep after a couple of minutes.  And dinner was a hit!  Robert and I hang the diapers outside on the clothes line.

6:50 pm - I want to clean the garage this weekend, but Robert is feeling ambitious and wants to do it tonight so we can have the weekend free.  We had several boxes to put up in the attic and needed to rearrange stuff to be able to get in and out of our cars more easily.  We pump up the jams and get to work.

8:00 pm - I finally get to take a shower.  So refreshing!

8:10 pm - Time to veg out and watch Army Wives.  I never expected myself to love a Lifetime show, but I'm totally enjoying watching it on Netflix.

9:40 pm - I have to get up and go to bed.  I wash my face and brush my teeth, and then realize I never put new sheets on the bed.  This seems to happen every time.

10:00 pm - I squeeze in two more chapters of my book.

10:20 pm - So tired.  Must sleep.

7:05 am - Alarm goes off, and I realize Sarah slept through the night!

Outdoor Home Projects

We have had outdoor projects galore since we bought our house.  Because we bought our house in December, there wasn't much curb appeal with the trees lacking leaves and the grass being dormant.  Here you go:

Before:

After:

With it being December, we couldn't do a ton in the grass department, but we did plant some seed and raked up old leaves and grass.  It's frustrating, but this is definitely going to be a multi-year process.  I wish we could afford it and had the time to blitz it and do it all at once, but there's no rush, I suppose.  It's just that so many families in our neighborhood have gorgeous yards, that I get envious, but that's a personal problem that I need to work on.  We still need to grade the backyard.  There's a low spot in the middle from where the previous owners had an above ground pool.  It stays really damp there and makes the grass grow incredibly thick.  Robert removed an old stump in our backyard several months ago, and this weekend he removed the gravel that had been around it.  Maybe next year we can aerate the yard, kill out the weeds, and put down seed.

We have a couple of quick and low cost/free projects coming up in the coming weeks.  Pepaw came over to replace the weather stripping on our garage door this week.  We might do a bit of trimming/pruning soon.  I also have some flower bulbs to plant.  I'm excited to see them pop up next spring!

When we were buying the house and got it inspected the inspector said that the gutters needed to be cleaned out, and he was very right.  The previous owners got a new roof a couple of years ago, and we needed to remove a lot of the sandy grains that had come off of the shingles.  The two maple trees had also dropped seeds that were sprouting up all over the place in the gutters.  Our down spouts were incredibly clogged so the water just flowed over the gutters.  Thanks to Robert, they're now in tip top shape and draining properly.

The previous owners also had satellite TV.  We don't, and so we didn't need the satellite on our roof.  Robert removed it and sealed up the holes with tar caulking, and it looks so nice to have it gone.

Two other small projects were re-caulking around the windows and doors and removing some wood scraps that were in the crawl space.

Robert has gotten a bit of experience with electrical work thanks to our new house, and one of his projects was to replace the light on the deck.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but the old light was too tall for the space and was pushing upward into the awning.

Before:

After:

So at some point, a previous owner or builder was obsessed with gravel.  Our River Birch had gravel all around it.  I'm sure it looked good at one point many years ago, but the gravel had gotten spread up and the weed barrier was very ratty, so Robert dug it up in the spring.  It was such back-breaking work, and I don't envy him.  Unfortunately, there is our tree as well as three neighbors' trees that prevent grass from growing well here.  We planted seed, but it really didn't take, so we'll have to try something else.  Like I said, it's a multi-year thing.

So this is what our backyard looked like at the beginning.  The darker soil is where we graded the yard a bit to take care of the low spot from the old pool.

One weekend Robert and my dad power washed the deck, fence, swing, and table.  We didn't stain the fence since it belongs to our three neighbors, but I did stain the swing, table, and deck, and they look so much better now!

Swing - Half power washed, half dirty - Such a big difference even before the new stain!

Clean deck!

Continuing with the theme of tons of gravel, the front bed was full of it.  Robert removed the gravel, we put down some fresh soil, and mulched it.  Some hostas, irises, and a hydrangea randomly popped up which was pretty fun.  We also added a crepe myrtle, viburnum, three fire bushes, three azalea bushes, and two lilies.  See the oxidized pot below?  The former owner was a band director, and that's a timpani drum.  Memaw and Pepaw cleaned it up for us, and now it's shiny copper.  There's one in the front and one in the back.

Stained the table and swing.  Robert moved these pavers from the back to the front to create a bit of a front porch swing feel.

Stained our part of the fence.  Also pulled out this mulberry tree that had started growing right up next to the house.

I don't seem to have an after picture yet, but here's a before for you.  There was a hole in the garage wall that Pepaw helped us patched up.  I'm sure you can imagine what it looks like now that it's been patched.

These zinnias did so well after we planted them from seeds!

We made a little flower bed by our deck, and Memaw gave us some of her daisies.  They ended up doing really well!

Rose of Sharon in the backyard

The door was forest green to begin with, but I wanted it to be brighter, so we used Mom and Dad's leftover paint from their front door and painted ours and put on new hardware.  Robert also made shutters from the front window and used the same paint.

I'm so pleased with this little arrangement!

So like I said, the grass didn't do well back here, but at least we have a nice pot of flowers.  Better luck next year.

Sarah's First Birthday Party

Sarah turned one on Friday, August 5, and we enjoyed celebrating all weekend!  On Friday morning we got her from her crib while singing Happy Birthday to her, and she was so pumped!  We had decided to have her big party the next day so that out of town family could get to our house more easily, but on Sarah's actual birthday we went to Bolivar to have dinner with my parents, Memaw and Pepaw, Jim and Taylor, and Ray.  Sarah got to open a couple of presents, and she enjoyed the wrapping paper and tissue paper.  This was also the opening day of my mom's Little Free Library, and that was so cool!  The town newspaper even came and did a big article about it.  We ended the day by lighting a floating lantern in Sarah's honor.  Those things are so fun to watch!

On Saturday we had Sarah's big party!  I think we had about 18 people that included Sarah's grandparents, aunts and uncles, and some great grandparents.  It was so perfect!  The color scheme was pink and gold.  I got invitations on Etsy, and they said She Leaves a Little Sparkle Wherever She Goes.  I loved the color scheme, but you know how glitter is.  We were able to clean up the cold glitter from some of the decorations, but we ended up throwing them out afterward instead of attempting to keep them.  Let me show you some of the decorations.

Robert cut out a 1 on foam board, and I made tissue paper poms and hot glued them on.  I've had these windows since I used them as wedding decorations with our engagement pictures in them.  Sarah's party was the perfect motivation for printing some photos with her in them.

The glitter sign.  Cute but messy.  Mom had Memaw make Sarah an "S" pillow out of one of my old childhood outfits.  Too cute!  We also put out several of Sarah's toys and mementos from her first year like her bunny that we used to announce her gender, her blanket and hat from the hospital, pink flowers in gold vases, and twine with pink and gold ribbons tied to it hanging from the doorway.  Note the map of the states Sarah visited her first here.  We've added Iowa and Nebraska since then.

My favorite decoration was Sarah's head shot banner.  We'd taken monthly pictures of Sarah, so we printed out just the heads and made little birthday hats for them and glued them two some twine.  It's so interesting to have all the comparison shots together, and she also had some pretty funny faces.  I'd recommend this craft to anybody!

The party was at 2:00, and we served watermelon, chips with dip, pigs in a blanket, pink cupcakes, and iced tea.  I made the cupcakes from a mix, and they turned out well.

Sarah's outfit was off the charts adorable!  Mom made it with Aunt Pam when they visited each other in June.  I asked for gold, pink, and a tutu, and they took it from there.

Complete with a cupcake with one candle on the booty!

The party was very casual because it was family, and one year olds don't really do structured activities. ;)  But we did eat snacks, watch a slideshow, open presents, and eat  cupcakes.  We had made a slideshow of pictures from Sarah's first year, and we finally recorded the song that Robert wrote after Sarah was born and played it along with two other songs for the slideshow.  Sarah enjoyed helping to open the presents, and it's been a lot of fun having new big girl toys to play with at home.  She definitely knew what to do with the cupcake, and I'd say she ate about half of it.  It was her first dessert and her first real sugary treat.  It was a hit!