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Contrary to popular belief, I am actually posting this month, other than my NaBloPoMo stuff. Here are just some of the things I have going on:

1. Bud had his recital and we trick or treated on Friday. Fun was had by all and no, I have not yet uploaded photos. I will though. Minnie Mouse, Cinderella and Bumblebee were super cute.
2. Bud is not doing well without wearing a pull up at night. I am at a loss as to what to do—the theory was to give him 2 weeks of sleeping in pee soaked clothes and he would train himself to get up—because who wants to sleep in a cold, wet bed. Apparently, he does. Nothing wakes this kid up. Then, this morning, he was staring off in to space in the living room as I was telling him to get his wet clothes off. He looks at me and tells me he was just finishing peeing. He wasn’t still asleep or anything like that; he blatantly peed in his already wet clothes. Hub talked to the doctor today, since the big kids had their flu shots, and she told him we were doing the right thing and to let it keep going and by no means should we put him back in pull ups. I’m tired of washing sheets though, that is for sure. I am at a loss.
3. Liv laughs all the time. It is the greatest sound in the world.
4. When I asked Lucy today why she kept growing; why sh wasn’t my baby anymore she told me it was because she needed to grow big and be a mom. She can’t wait to be a mom just like me. And it warms my heart.
5. I VOTED!!
6. I need to get something off of my chest but I’m not sure that I want to write about it. I’m having a really hard time right now, not knowing how to deal with a certain situation. I’m struggling. This is a situation that used to affect my life on a daily basis, that has recently reared it’s ugly head again. And while it has far less of an impact on me now, I am aware of this “situation” and am being worn down by it. (Cryptic much???) I don’t know. I probably just need to write about it and be done with it, and feel better. It’s tough. Sometimes I hate being a grown up.
7. And now I’m going home!

Today, my darling girl turned 3 months old. It’s odd, how even though I’ve done this twice before, I am surprised at how quickly the time flies. She is an excellent baby, as far as babies go.

She completely goes with our flow; she does whatever it is we do, from Tae Kwon Do to pumpkin picking (even though she sleeps through a lot of it).

She laughs all the time now, and coos and giggles. She loves to blow bubbles:

She loves to stand:

And just be all around cute:

I love sitting with her at night after the big kids have gone to bed. She “talks” to me for a good half hour before she eats and goes to sleep for the night. She doesn’t even mind when I call her Hannie Fannie Banannie.

It’s been a happy happy 3 months baby girl. I love you!!

I hate this time of year; when it starts getting cold and dark. It is dark when I get up in the morning and dark as I drive home from work. I feel cold and lethargic; depressed almost. I hurry to turn on every light in the house in the early evening, hoping that the bright lights will bring me out of my funk. Sometimes, it even works.

I think that I’ll be spending a lot of time in my kitchen this winter. After 6+ months of work, it is finally nearing completion; just needing the new floor, trim, and backsplash. This past weekend, as I overhauled our bedroom, Hub painted it a delicious shade of yellow. It is a Martha Stewart shade called “Sewing Basket”. It looks kind of muted here, but against the blue speckled counters and bright white cupboards and wainscot, it pops.

(the only color I’ve used from this swatch is the sewing basket–the rest of the kitchen is bright blue and white)

I have never been so in love with a room before, and let me tell you, I am head over heels for our new and improved kitchen. I’ll take a photo for you soon, I promise.

With all of the painting and cleaning going on over the weekend, we never actually carved pumpkins, so we are doing that tonight when I get home. Hopefully, the baby will cooperate. She has been an absolute beast in the evenings because she refuses to sleep during the day. Yesterday she was so tired that she cried herself to sleep in about 2 minutes while I was making her bottle. She never ate, and slept until 7:30 this morning, when she was ravenous. She’s being good for Hub so far, but I do hope she sleeps a little bit since he worked late last night.

I’m looking forward to the festivities this week will bring. I took Friday off since the kids have a Halloween parade at school, and the big kids are having parties, Bud’s class is putting on a little recital (the are singing Thriller), and then we need to cram some dinner in to them before we head out for trick or treating. Our street still isn’t done, so I’m not sure how this will all go, but the kids are excited anyway. My parents are going to come out as well, as long as the weather is good.

Before we know it, it will be Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Bud will be turning 5. !!5!! I’m stressing out already.

Today was the perfect kind of morning, not so cold out that the house was an ice box, but cool enough where it was perfect to snuggle down with the baby on the couch, under a fleecy blanket while I nursed her. The cats flanked us on both sides with their loud “good morning” purrs and I laid my head back and relaxed, stealing a few more minutes of sleep before the day actually began.

I love the calm of morning in our house, though it usually turns to chaos pretty quickly. It seems like I have all the time in the world and then suddenly I have 30 minutes to shower and dress, dress and feed the kids, pack bags for the day and then run out the door. Then, OH NO!! I need gas, or I’ve forgotten my coffee. Hub wooed me this morning with talk of a pumpkin muffin, which he’d left in his van for me so I didn’t eat. I was so excited……then when I left the house I realized he’d parked around the corner because our street is still under construction. I didn’t have time to walk to and from his van and back in the house still to drop off his keys IN HEELS, so I threw his keys back in the house in a fit and headed off to work. I arrived 5 minutes late after stopping for a bagel and filling my $.99 refill cup at Dunkin.

Five minutes late is kind of my story. It seems that no matter how much I prepare, no matter how much I do the night before, I am always running 5 minutes behind. Something crazy comes up, or my brain has crapped out and I’ve forgotten something really important—like that the baby is out of diapers. Sometimes I just spend too much time lollygagging with the kids; stealing one last kiss or sniffing one last head. Maybe I’m sharing a story with Hub, or more likely doling out instructions for his days home with them.

Last night, upon returning home from Target, I sat with Bud and Lucy at the dinner table to make a chart to track Bud’s night time potty progress. (We are working on it again) We had the glitter, markers paint and stickers out and set to work on our project. We made Lucy a chart as well, because she wanted one not because she needs one for anything, and she sat coloring and filling it up with stickers. Bud wrote his last name in huge letters and selected stickers to put in the squares for the days that had already passed. Liv sat in the bouncy, giggling and watching us all. For a minute I thought “Could I do this? Could I do this every day with them?” and for the first time since becoming a parent, I had the twinge of “I’d really love to stay home with them.”

It’s not realistic, and besides, Bud and Lucy are nearly school aged. I don’t know how I’d feel about giving Liv and any future child(ren) and opportunity that Bud and Lucy didn’t have, to be home with me full time…and there’s also the financial impact to consider. And health insurance and so many other things.

It will probably never happen, but it’s nice to think about.

And it wouldn’t even matter if I was running 5 minutes behind.

It’s snowing today, which means that all of Western New York has forgotten how to drive. It also means that I was hunting for winter coats and the car seat cover at T-Minus 30 seconds this morning. Of course, I was late to work. Hub thought I was overreacting; that the kids would be fine in their sweatshirts. For the love of God, it is SNOWING.

I also remembered this morning that I donated my winter coat at the end of last season—because I hated it. I went to Kohls on my lunch break today because I had giftcards and birthday money; I found a good one.

I’ve been on the phone with my OB/GYN every day this week so far, to discuss birth control. I was going to have the Mirena placed, however, completely chickened out. The instances are like 1 in 10,000 women, but I can’t take the chance of uterine puncture or something going wrong and needing a hysterectomy. I’m being silly, I know. I was wishy washy about BC after Lucy was born as well and ended up not using anything. I don’t want to go that route again for sure, but I don’t know what I feel like doing. I have never had any issues with the pill, so that’s a good option. The dr. also suggested Implanon, which seems pretty good and it also doesn’t interfere with breast feeding. We’ll see though.

My milk supply has gone down as it is, due in part to returning to work and secondly to getting my period. It typically does go down based on these 2 events, but I have never gotten my period so soon before. This is actually the second time, and Liv just turned 12 weeks old. A bunch of garbage if you ask me. Based on these events though, I had to buy a can of formula yesterday, which was really like a punch in the gut. Liv takes 3 5-ounce bottles when I am at work and I have only been pumping about 9 ounces for the last week or so. I’ve depleted my freezer supply, so yesterday, there we were. I’m ok with it; giving her as much breast milk as I can and then doing the supplementing, but I wish it would have been a longer road. I’m lucky that my thyroid issues haven’t prevented me from nursing all together according to the lactation consultant I spoke to.

Since she was about 8 weeks old, coinciding with me going back to work, we’ve given her a bottle of formula at bed time; the regular Enfamil though, after she nurses. We’ve noticed more and more that it’s left her gassy and a bit “moody”, so yesterday I bought the Enfamil Gentlease which has 1/5 of the lactose and is partially broken down. She still spit up a bit last night but seemed a bit calmer when I laid her down. I’m hoping that she just has a sensitive stomach and will not be following in my childhood milk allergy footsteps. We’ll continue to watch her and see if this helps.

Hmm, any other women’s issues I need to bring up today? Nope. Other than the fact that I am still 30. Here are some photos from my party:

The Beautiful Lucy

Hub and ME

My Brother M and Liv

SIL and Liv

Bud and Me

Dad and Lucy

Mom and Bud

My Brothers and Me

Me and my baby brother

Hub and Balloons (FIL next to him)

Every Columbus Day Weekend, we travel to Letchworth State Park, which is a gigantic park set around a gorge. The scenery is breathtaking. We never know what the weather will have in store for us—snow, rain, extreme heat, but we go no matter what. In 2005 we began taking photos near Wolf Creek on a set of stone stairs. We found ourselves there again in 2006 and took another set of photos—one of which actually was our Christmas card that year. It has become a tradition now, and will be for as long as we can keep it up.

These are the photos since 2005—some of you may have seen them before—but here they are anyway:

2005

2006

2007

2008

Aaaaah, so my last post. Yeah. Hub and my BFF threw me a surprise party yesterday. Most of my family and friends were there. There was bowling, and cake and pizza and music and many wonderful gifts. I couldn’t have asked for a better day; it was truly amazing. I’m not getting rid of my last post because it was how I felt in the moment. I’m starting to think now though, that 30 might not be so bad.

Which brings me to my NaBloPoMo idea for this year—30 years in 30 days. I won’t lie, I saw this somewhere last year, but having just begun my 31st year, I thought I’d have a go at documenting some events from 1978 through 2008 and really commemorating my 30 years on this earth. Fun, right? Maybe we’ll even have some photos of me through the years.

I’m hoping to have photos of the party soon to show you the over-the-top decorations, my sweater festooned with several obnoxious, flashing buttons, as well as a gigantic dunce of a party hat…oh, and Lucy wearing her hat in a unicorn-y fashion (ALL DAY). Clearly, I wasn’t prepared with my camera. Hub did a pretty good job of keeping it a secret, though I did begin to suspect when he turned the volume way down on a phone call he took Saturday (his phone volume is always THRU THE ROOF!) and the shifty weird way he was behaving yesterday morning. I’m glad I took a shower and at least put on some mascara!

Yes, I am loved. And it was a great day.