Soooo my child!

So today Juliana and I were headed to ... you guessed it, Walmart ... again! I brought some cheerios for me as a snack in the car and some for her in the store to keep her happy. She saw mine and obviously wanted hers sooner rather than later so I kept reaching back and handing her a few. I look in the mirror at her and what do I see? At almost the exact same time we are both shoving the whole handful of cheerios in our mouths! Why eat them one at a time? Is this my child or what?!!

Making Curtains...

3 down, 2 to go. Already I like not looking at my neighbors!

Who Knew?

So major thanks to my friend Cori who was talking to me while I was at Lowe's which forced me to peruse around a little bit before checking out. I found these awesome curtains that make a world of difference in my living room and in pulling everything together! The other curtains were so heavy that the room was always dark, now I can save on electricity since these make the room bright all day long! And they are totally me :)

Papa Comes to Visit

Grandpa Poole came to visit us for the day and Juliana was soooo excited!
Here is his reading to here during bathtime, she loved that :)

Can you tell she loves books?! He was reading to her when...

...she thought a different book looked better and...

...decided to just do it herself. Wonder where she got that from?! GRIN

We had a blast with Papa for the day. I loved the break and being able to take a nice, long shower! Juliana loved seeing someone else besides me :) She just wanted to love on her papa the whole time!

Just Wanted To Share My Current Fav Photo

Designer's Nightmare

Ok, so those of you who know me now that I design kitchens. (if you didn't know that then please check out www.designbybam.com) Naturally you would think I would know exactly what my design style is. Thing is, I am really good at adapting to my client's design styles but I don't have one of my own. This entry has nothing to do about Juliana but if you want to attempt to help me out, please keep reading and see what you can do. I am at my wits end!

So this is our new home... yeah. ok, so i have all this room (almost double what we had in d.c.! can you imagine!) and am trying to figure out the best layout and colors.


Here was the original view from the front door.

Not as much change came as I thought when I added the curtains

Living Room, love my couch I designed but having trouble mixing it with the antique couch we just inherited, which I love too!

Thought about adding a horizontal stripe around the entire room to help bring both areas together.


What the room looked like before the antique furniture.

How the room circles around, keep this in mind when you see the following pics.

Bland, Bland, Bland kitchen!

Thinking about this to brighten up since I can't change any of the freakin white stuff!
Our screened in porch. Door on left goes into "antique room". Door straight ahead goes into kitchen. Ideally would like to use this space in both winter and summer months without enclosing (since we don't own the home yet) for a couple reasons. One, we use the A&M fridge as our beverage fridge and access on both a day to day basis and when people come over (which is often). Also, have thought about hanging really cool outdoor curtains to close in the space but you can say goodbye to the sun if I do that!

Stairs to playroom and office. Loved these letter so much I bought more to make the alphabet. And what luck to find such a cool valance, which I used as a tent thing as you go upstairs.

Playroom as it is now. Not happy with how bland it still is.

Some ideas I had. Wouldn't do orange, maybe pink or green. Also, don't know if I could paint my own tree or buy the thing they used. AND... my office is right there so I have to paint my office a color to coordinate or it will look funny. Sigh...

Light makes a room so can't decide if I should paint a bright color like the green since I don't have good lighting or if I should install more lighting (even though we are renting)

HELP!

We decided to eat our lunch outside today since the weather was still so nice. I'm trying to get Juliana to not dump her plate upside down, outside was probably not a good place to try that but she did pretty well!

We've had a few chaotic days lately. Juliana had a reaction to her MMR shot she received. It started with a low grade fever, then nasty diapers, then a rash. Being the worry wart I am I of course got very concerned and ended up taking her in to get checked out. Apparently she actually got rubella for the shot, which is why we had such a nasty rash among everything else. She acts fine just more cranky than usual, fun huh?!



So we had our friend Carter come over for a few hours and play so his mommy and daddy could take his sisters ice skating for V-Day. We went on a walk, played in the driveway, had a snack and rounded out our playdate reading books together. Afterwards, Juliana (and her rash) were starting to flare up again so we took some benadryl and...

My Marriage is Fireproof, is Yours?

The movie FIREPROOF in AWESOME! Everyone should go out and support this film. I am excited to be going to a 'Fireproof Your Marriage" Conference at a local church and then getting the awesome chance to see Warren Barfield in concert! I am also excited to announce I got a copy of the Love Dare book from the movie and a sticker for my car which I proudly display that reads "My Marriage is FIREPROOF". Have no clue what I'm talking about?... find your local RedBox, pay $1 and rent the movie!

New Toy

I happened across this toy at Walmart on clearance after realizing Juliana would not play with the car she got for her birthday unless I was pushing her in it and needing to work in the garage. What a life saver. Good thing she doesn't quite get how to scoot in it herself so she stay put... FOR NOW!!

Love You Mom!

A very good friend of mine is a single mom of 2 and her mom just passed away. My heart aches for her because I know her mom has been her rock through all the terrible things she has been though. I try to be a good friend but it doesn't replace a mom and it sucks I had to move away.

Times like these make you reflect on what you have. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my mom for all she has done to help me. She was there to put my apartment together in Keller so I would have a "home" to welcome Juliana to, she has helped me moved... countless times, and when I have no energy to unpack she is there to encourage... not to mention she was like Juliana's nanny for a while there :) so, thank you mom! I love you <3


And to my dear friend Cori, here is a song I'm sure your mom is singing from heaven. Love you like my sis,
-BAM-

http://www.playlist.com/playlist/15065934603

Lyrics
A Mother's Prayer

I pray you'll be my eyes
And watch her where she goes
And help her to be wise
Help me to let go

Every mother's prayer
Every child knows
Lead her to a place
Guide her with your grace
To a place where she'll be safe

I pray she finds your light
And holds it in her heart
As darkness falls each night
Remind her where you are

Every mother's prayer
Every child knows
Need to find a place
Guide her with your grace
Give her faith so she'll be safe

Lead her to a place
Guide her with your grace
To a place where she'll be safe

February 11th and 75 degrees outside!!

The weather here is GORGEOUS!! Unfortunately I am expecting we will either have a late winter or a HOT summer! At least Jonathan is getting nice weather while he is gone and not sleeping in snow like 2 weeks ago :)

So Juliana and I have been taking the opportunity to play outside as much as possible. We got to take all her xmas/bday gifts like her playset, wagon and car outside for the first time. Here are some photos from today..MOM & GEOFF!! (grin)


Ok, this face means trouble! You better not flash that sly look at boys!!

Someone please tell this girl to pay attention to the road and get off the phone!

I want to go shopping

The house was suddenly very quiet so I decided to see what Juliana was up to. (you know they are up to no good when the house is quiet!) She had decided to go into my purse and find her gift card to Toysrus from Uncle Geoff and Aunt Heather from xmas. When I asked her what she was doing she started babbling as if to say "Why have we not gone shopping yet mommy?"

I can do it on my own

We tried banana a while back and Jules had zero interest in it. Last week she saw me eating one so I cut a piece off but that wasn't good enough...

We've had a couple beautiful days lately which are supposed to continue through the week. It has given us the opportunity to be outside and meet our new friends on the street. We are lucky enough to have a 15 month old little girl next door, a 2 year old little girl 2 houses down and another 2 year old little girl across the street! Here is Juliana playing in the sun yesterday, she liked to sit on the front porch and clap her hands in the sun. Must be like her mommy and love the sunshine! Daddy left today for 2 weeks so we are getting a refresher course on it being just the girls before he leaves for 2 months.

12 Month Doctor Visit

Well we certainly have our hands full with Miss Juliana :) She is as stubborn as her mommy and daddy COMBINED, those of you who know us well know what that means! She is currently still only 19 lbs which is 15%-25% in weight which is good, at least we aren't dropping weight as we try to move to big people food. She is 29" tall which is the 50% for height, that just means she is slowing down in how tall she is growing.

She still isn't sleeping well, partly due to night terrors and party due to the conditioned habit of waking from reflux. Her reflux is much better but we still are on medication. We tried to take her off the medicine but within 2 or 3 days she was puking again soooo.... the saga continues, but at least we don't puke as much! We are still struggling to get into a routine but hope that starting preschool soon will help with that. We are thankful to have found a great christian based preschool that has cameras in the room so parents can go online anytime and see their kid! That will definitely help put my mind at ease knowing I can check in on her anytime :) Jonathan leaves Monday for a few weeks and I am worried about how Juliana will react. She is very much a daddy's girl right now and is starting to realize when he is and isn't home.

As far as what she's into right now, she LOVES books and music. She dances to all sorts of music we play for her. I will have to take a video soon to share with you. I'm pretty sure she has the attention span of our dog since she doesn't play with anything longer than a few seconds before she's on to the next thing :) She has the energy of a squirrel or something, always bouncing from one thing to the next!

We are teaching her sign language and just found a class on post for baby sign language so we hope to get into the next class. I really want her to learn that so she can communicate with us better, plus it is supposed to help them in school in the future. Not to mention it's a good second language to know; I wish I knew it since I have worked with 2 deaf clients before so maybe I'll take a class too!

I guess that's it for now, I'm surprised she let me type this much!

Apple Turkey Loaf

So I tried my hand at making healthy food for Juliana. I went out and bought all the ingredients to make her Apple Turkey Sticks. I bought the leanest ground turkey I could find, organic applesauce, organic carrots, organic eggs, the whole shebang. I puree the carrots in my magic bullet and prepare this thing with love for Juliana. It looked gross but sounded good. I baked it like a meatloaf then tried to serve it to her. I also made her steamed zucchini (her fav!). I am thinking this is gonna be great! So we get it all put together for her and what does she do?

Ok, these diapers ROCK! Juliana usually gets so wet in the middle of the night that I have been having to change her while she sleeps! One night she got so wet that her diaper exploded like she had been in a swimming pool so at 5 something in the morning we were hosing her off in the sink. These new natural diapers are almost too good... she didn't feel as wet as in the others so we have changed a few 10 lbs diapers by accident. I'd rather that than another explosion!!!

Diapers To Try

Jonathan and I found natural diapers at the commissary (Walmart & Target too) for the same price as others like Pampers. They are called Natural Choice (although 7th Generation & Nature Baby makes some too). While I commend my friends who use cloth diapers, I would get too sick to my stomach to use them so I am now using these diapers in an effort to help our planet, so it is not trashed for Juliana when she is my age. If you think about the number of babies and kids using diapers it is astounding, so here is my 2 cents to help encourage others to at least try these diapers.