Almost July?

How is it almost July? How will my first born be three in two months? How is my baby almost seven months old?

Life is good we are settling into our new home loving the space and enjoying decorating it. The crazy days of my broken foot, 3 month old/toddler, house on the market and moving are behind us. When we were in the thick of those crazy times we just kept powering through. Now on the other side life is settling out.

The kids are great, the way they own my heart is incredible. Lately after Craig and I put them to bed we have been sneaking back in watching them sleep in awe of their beauty. They are both in really good ages/stages and we are in a good rhythm.

Celine's weight is up in the 25% range and she is hitting all her milestones early. She is still up almost every night anywhere from 1-3xs, which can be tiring with work but I know how fleeting this stage is and I don't mind. When I go in to her room her smile is huge and she shakes with excitement, the second I pick her up she nestles into my neck and I am in heaven. She is very weary of others holding her. She is not afraid to let you know she is not happy but the second she is in my arms she is all smiles again. She is eating solids and I have started to give her a sippy more for training then anything else.

Reece over the last two months has developed quite the imagination. The winters obsession with superheroes has slowly transitioned to one of royalty, knights, kings, princesses, queens, vikings, castles are all his favorite to play. We used to call him prince Reece of West Seattle, he has now changed regions and is now prince Reece of Finn Hill. He is so smart, scary smart and everyday I fall more in love with him. He is eager to help and loves being a big brother. Skippy John Jones are some of his favorite books and he still has a musical love of Bob Marley. We went to Cannon Beach two weekends ago and he flew his first kite.

I am aware everyday how fortunate I am right now. Life is good, everyone has their health and our worries are small. Craig and I will be celebrating six years of marriage next month and ten years in each others life this fall. I think about how fast time flys often, as much as I love each of my children's ages/stages I am in no rush for time to go by or to reach some next milestone. I just want to enjoy every moment I am given.

I feel very blessed.

22 Days

It has been 22 days since I have posted on this little blog of mine. Those last 22 days have been packed full of living and updating this blog has taken a backseat.

Here are some highlights:

• We celebrated a beautiful boy we love Miller's first birthday.
• We lived in a furnished rental house that included a backyard park, Reece loved this! I however was not so in love with the rental lets just say it was a little dirtier then  I like to keep my home...
• We celebrated Mothers Day entertaining both sides of our entire family with sprinklers and BBQ.
• We signed the purchase papers to our new home and got to celebrate with drinks with just Craig and I! This was the first time since the night before Celine was born that we have gotten away by ourselves. It was only for an hour but it was amazing, we both wanted to stay at the Bellevue Daniels all night.
• I got to take off my stupid boot and put on flats!
• We moved out of the rental house and moved into our new home!
• We have now been in our new house for almost two weeks and we are LOVING it! We are by no means settled but we are getting there.

These last couple months have been super trying but we are now on the other side and I am really proud of us for making all of it happen. Moving with two kids two and under, a broken foot while going back to work from maternity leave and hiring a new nanny was challenging...Thinking back to the days where I would have to pack both kids up in the rain/snow and leave the house several times a day for a showing with 15 minutes notice to clean/feed/diaper change and I don't know how we did it but we did and all of the hard work was worth it.

Where did the baby go?

7 Months



 One Year

A  Year and a Half

I am now back at work, I was looking through my pictures I have saved on my work laptop and found these. I honestly feel like where has my baby gone with Reece, I can still feel him in my arms and smell his sweet newborn smell when I close my eyes. I love this age he is at now but honestly can't believe how fast time has gone by.

Reece will be three at the end of August, I feel like he was just born. His new thing is praying at night, his sweet little voice saying prayers for our family and friends is honestly one of my parenting highlights. Last night he wanted to say his prayers four times before he finally asked if we could cuddle. He will say Mommy will you cuddle me, sometimes I have a hard time going to sleep. I talk to him about what he is thinking about and his answer goes something like this.

Bunkbeds (our rental has them and he is sleeping in them)

Baby Sis

Ice Cream

Daddy

Dragons

Bubbles

The Park

A,B,C's

Colors and Shapes

Poo Poo

Treats

The New House

A Big Boy Bike

God

Nigh Nigh Time

My Buzz

Christmas

The Easter Bunny

Mommy

Our Family

This little boy is just taking it all in, so much change for him over the last year. New Sister, New Nanny, New House, my broken foot, Mommy back to work. I am so proud of his resiliance, it is something I want to make sure and instill in my children. I am so lucky to be his Mother.



Home is where the heart is

Currently we are homeless, we have sold our home but our purchase on our new home doesn't go through until the 18th. We are settled into our rental and this little family is pretty darn excited for what is to come! We have been looking forward to this transition for almost a year, working hard and spending most of our free time making it happen.

Nostalgic

Spending our last weekend in our house we brought our babies home to has me feeling a little nostalgic. In the last decade Craig and I have built a wonderful life together. We are coming up on six years of marriage, have two beautiful children and still want to end most days together.

I love you Craig Logan Miller (you will probably never read this), you drive me crazy, you are a great Dad, you are a hard worker, you are funny when you want to be, you are trust worthy, honest, reliable, kind, you love your family and friends and always want to do the right thing, you hate to shop but when you do you splurge and prefer quality over quantity, you get stressed out easy, you can be very romantic and practical at the same time, you could do the same routine forever and never get sick of it, I worry about your health because I want to hold your hand when we're old, you are my home, you feel safe, I trust you, I feel like you have always been the one, you fall asleep watching TV every night, you are very messy but you can pick up a house faster than anyone I know, you leave cabinets open and toilet paper rolls empty but never forget to add a stop on the way home from work to pick up something we need, you usually want to read stories to Reece at night and do special voices just for him that Celine and I listen to on the monitor, you can fix anything, build anything, you are an old soul, you are handsome, you have the best skin color ever and tan in 5 minutes, you love to vacation but hate to be lazy, you are adventurous and restless, you love all the TV shows I hate but now watch with you, you are super ticklish and don't like anyone to tickle you but Reece, you have beautiful kind eyes, you are a bad driver and I get carsick whenever I ride with you, you are fiercely loyal to your friends, you are an early bird, you don't notice the details, you are very responsible, you love life and have taught me a lot about the frailty of it, you yell when your upset and apologize when you are wrong, you are my everything.

Looking forward to making a million more memories with you in our next home. I love you. We moved into our home as carefree newlyweds and we are leaving as a family.

Skinny miny

Celine had her four month well check today, she will be five months on the fifth...we are a little late.

Her appointment got delayed due to my foot. We found out that our little peanut is just that, little. 12lbs - 7% for weight and 50% for height. Dr. suggested we start feeding her purees, oh the food fun begins!

Next Tuesday I go back to work.
Next Friday we move out of our house into a two week rental.
In three weeks we move into our new home and hopefully I also start to get to wear a real shoe.

Spring weekend

This weekend we packed all morning, napped midday, played in the afternoon sun and spent one evening catching up on Mad Men and one catching up with friends.

Weekly Groceries

I love to know what groceries people buy, I feel like we get often get stuck in the same rut and end up eating the same meals. Growing up quality was a huge focus, eating healthy was the standard. I remember driving from Woodinville to the Kirkland PCC with my Mom in the nineties, sitting outside the store with my girlfriends eating their whole fruit popsicles complaining about them. We rarely had processed food in the house and if we did it was hidden and used as a treat in our homemade lunches. I would have never thought that years later I would eat like that by choice. I try to focus on feeding my family low processed foods and mostly buy organic for our meats, dairy and some fruits and vegetables.

Below is our order for the week, delivered by Amazon Fresh. Amazon Fresh is amazing in a pinch, with my broken foot it has been standard around here for the last month. Prices are more expensive then chain grocers but I find I do a better job of meal planning because I order on my IPad while digging through the kitchen. We also get all of our milk delivered weekly.

With the below we will probably only eat out one time this week, Craig brings his lunch everyday as well. This way we have better control over quality of ingredients and portions.

Dinners will be spaghetti with turkey meatballs and salad, homemade (buy wheat panko and spritz with olive oil in the oven) chicken fingers with sweet potatoes, chicken sausage pitas filled with veggies and hummus and salmon with broccoli and wheat rice.

I also try to fill the fridge with lots of fruits and vegetables. I wash and cut them all up in advance so they are easily accessible. Most breakfasts and lunches are filled with them. My weaknesses are seltzer water and Naked juice mixed or alone and dark chocolate peppermint patties (frozen).

Heading Northeast

Inspection went off without a hitch, we are on the official countdown 20 days till we hand over the keys to the new owners. Sold sign is up and we have started packing.

Our nanny starts TOMORROW and I am super excited about her. She emailed me today to ask me if I minded if she brought home made play dough. Love her already!

In other news my first birthday goal regarding finding a place we can live for the next 10 years can be checked! We found the perfect home (below) for our family in Finn Hill. To make it even better our nanny found herself a perfect home in Ravenna only 10 miles away! I have to admit hiring a nanny who was moving home from Florida while we may or may not be moving could have gone terribly wrong but it didn't thankfully.

We move into or new house in 31 days so we will be moving in with family for 11 days in between our sale and purchase.

I go back to work in 16 days, I am actually excited. With Reece I went back full time so it is nice to just be heading back part time this time. I am looking forward to the balance and I miss my work friends.

I am still no weight bearing with my broken foot, totally sucks. I want to throw my crutches and scooter in front of a freight train then take the broken pieces and cover them with gas and light them on fire. I go back to the doctor in 7 days.

Lots going on around here...

Pending...birthday goals

36 days
30 showings

We are officially pending inspection! Closing if all goes smoothly will be May 7th, I return to work May 9th. Inspection is today, fingers crossed...Hoping that it is a good omen that the inspection is happening on my birthday.

Taking after Meghan @ Meme and Lulu I am going to share a couple of my goals for the year.



Find a new place to live that we can spend at least the next ten years in, don't settle

Get into a good exercise routine, make my families health our priority

Take more pictures and finally create all the albums I need too

Date night once a month starting when I go back to work

Continue to love my job, but remember its just advertising

Go away with Craig for a long weekend at least once

Have a couple wine nights with girlfriends

Teach my children kindness and manners

Work on creating the best balance I can

Spend as much time outside as I can

Live in the moment, be present

Learn something new everyday

Tell the people I love that I do

Go skiing this winter

Drink lots of water

2 family vacations

Listen

Pray

Happy Four Months

It is hard to believe that you are already four months old. I keep waiting for you to go through a fussy stage but it hasn't reared its head yet (besides the car). You have been quite the trooper over the last month, with the house showings and my broken foot you have really been learning the art of going with the flow. You are still an incredible sleeper, however just this last week you have started getting up once a night again. I blame this new night owl on four month sleep regression, fingers crossed it will work itself out. 

You are talking up a storm, you squeal with delight at the sight of yourself in your swings mirror (such a girl). You are always smiling ear to ear (except in the car again) and laugh when I blow air on your face, raspberries or laugh. You are totally into your hands, your Momma is a hand talker I worry that you may be also. You are also rolling from your tummy to your back. 

I want to stop time but I also know it just keeps getting better and better...

Metatarsal #5 Update

We are 11 days out from the very inconvenient accident. I went back to the doctor today...no surgery (WAHOO) but no progress. The Dr. didn't really expect to see much at this point but we should by my next visit. 3 more weeks of no weight baring on my foot at a minimum. Upping vitamin D and calcium intake dramatically to hopefully help healing.

A couple days into this whole thing Craig said it is exhausting being me, he is working over time for sure. The only upside is watching him be an amazing Dad to the kids, I have realized he deserves more credit then i sometimes give. I have also realized that maybe he just needed me to step back and give him more space to fill. Before Reece was born the best advice I was given was to never correct the way your partner parents. Give them room to discover their way, you may learn from them. While I have done a good job of this through the years with little tasks this is the first time I have really completely stepped back, I can honestly say this has been a blessing in all of this I have found. Appreciation has grown in both directions.

My Mom worked her booty off taking care of all of us last week. She was incredible and we are very grateful. I spent my first day alone taking care of the kids on Monday thanks to my new scooter. Tuesday Craig worked a half day so he could stay home with the kids while I drove myself to my appointment. Tomorrow through the rest of the week my StepMom is going to keep us company during the day while my brother is in school and next week Craig's mother will visit.

We are close to hiring our nanny, I feel really good about it. Hopefully she will start early to help out and get acclimated. Until then when you need a laugh think about me and my scooter. Taking care of 2, 2 and under from one leg and 4 wheels.

Spring Shopping

I go back to work in a month so I have started shopping to spruce up my spring/summer wardrobe. Throughout my pregnancy and to this point I haven't really bought to much for myself clothing wise. I have mostly just survived on maternity clothes leftover from Reece, borrowed maternity clothing, larger sizes (during my pregnancy) and older pre pregnancy (post pregnancy) items till now. It's a fun treat to window shop, plan then splurge a little.

I love Zara for both the kids and I, their shoes, jackets and anything for Celine are my weaknesses. Taking a look at sizing measurements at places like Zara for older girls and Crewcuts can be a huge cost saver and can allow for some more unique pieces you won't see on very many people. Often I find that most blouses, coats and shoes fit me well however bottoms and most dresses aren't cut for my body.

All of the below is currently things I am swooning over at Zara.