Why Is It That....?

I was perusing my drafts and found this one sitting and waiting to be published from many many months ago.

Why Is It That.....

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.....when people talk to you about your pregnancy, and you tell them the things you're experiencing (after they ask), do they (9 times out of 10) follow it up with "Oh well just wait until..." and it's almost always something scary. Can we keep it positive please?

.....you always crave something that you don't have at home?

....or ChikFilA on a Sunday?

......people who never respond to your emails are the first ones to expect you to respond to theirs ASAP?

....tv shows always go on hiatus when I actually have time to sit down and watch them without the DVR?

....the day that I have 40 bags to carry to my car is the day that it's pouring down rain?

....some people feel the need to ask really intrusive questions? For example, a male coworker of mine brought his girlfriend to a work party over the weekend and on Monday an older female coworker commented about how nice she was, and then followed it up with "why doesn't she have a ring on her finger?" They'd been dating a few months, and he is 23 years old. That aside, it's still inappropriate. 

.....the night I'm the most exhausted and in need of a solid night of sleep, is the night that baby gets a cold and is up multiple times? 

#whyyyyyyyy

Weekending On Time

Do your eyes deceive you?? Yes, it's me actually posting on a Monday with my weekend highlights! 

This weekend was jam packed with highlights, which included:

~Grabbing dinner and bringing it home, and getting to have the cutest little hand hold mine on the drive back

~Passing out on the couch somewhere between 8 and 830 because I'm old. And I'm a mom. With a baby who was sick this past week. Thank goodness I got that extra sleep in because that sick baby was up at 4:30am needing some extra mommy comfort due to her cold.

~Saturday Cooper had an appointment to get his hair did, and he came back looking super handsome!

~We spent the morning in our PJ's, and introduced Ella to the jumperoo, which she finally fit into, and really seemed to enjoy it!

~In the afternoon we took advantage of the nice weather and took a family walk around the neighborhood

~In the early evening, our friend Wendy came over to babysit Ella while MG and I went out on a date night. We've had them here and there when family is around to watch Ella, but this was our first time leaving her with someone who wasn't family. Luckily little miss went down to bed easily and mom and dad hit the town! 

~We tried out a new-to-us restaurant called Succotash, which is inspired by South Carolina cuisine. MG and I ordered yummy drinks, the pimento cheese fundido for an appetizer (oh my word it was mouth watering)  and two delicious main courses

    

   

 ~After dinner, we walked around National Harbor since the weather was nice, stopped in a shop to get our friend some chocolate covered pretzels to thank her for watching Ella, and then made our way home.

~When we got home, we stayed up and hung out with our friend for a while before she headed home. Unfortunately Ella woke up between 1-2 am, coughing and had a tough time going to bed.

~Sunday morning we had a pancake breakfast and ran errands, and Ella slept for 2 hours!! All the praise hands!

~We did another family walk in the afternoon, watched football (MG and I both pulled out a win for our fantasy football teams, and I'm now 6-0!), and thennnnnn Ella rolled over from her back to her tummy for the first time!

the look of success!

~We had Chipotle for dinner, Facetimed with our Minnesota friends after their Vikings win, and finished off Sunday night being lazy and relaxing into the week ahead!

This is one of those weekends I'd do all over again (minus the middle of the night wake ups and a baby with a cold)! :) 

Hoping your weekend was just as nice, too!!

Weekly Wins: sick boobies

I'll explain the title in a sec, don't worry :)
Happy Friday the 13th, loves! I can't believe it's already mid-October and Halloween is right around the corner....craziness!

This week has been a bit of a doozy for us. Ella came down with a cold from daycare (again), and on Tuesday afternoon I noticed a couple of lumps from clogged ducts after pumping at work. I spent 2 hours trying any and every trick under the sun to get it out because I've had mastitis once and NEVER want it again. It was still there. 

Tuesday night also brought Ella puking all over me for the first time. So I've been inducted into that club now. Between a full, painful boob, worrying about my sick baby, and feeling like my throat was getting scratchy, I didn't have the best night of sleep, so we stayed home on Wednesday together. This was basically me:

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I made it to the OB in the afternoon and she basically told me I had a clog and if it didn't get unclogged, I'd get mastitis. Well, thank you Captain Obvious!

Despite allllllll of that, there have still been some wins for the week, thank goodness!! It's always good to focus on the positives instead of the negatives which is why I started writing these weekly win posts back in June. Here are some this week:

~Ella seems to be feeling better, and even when she's sick, she still offers up lots of smiles. 

~Even though I had to take a day off of work, it gave me a full day of time with my Ella, which is something I miss. We also spent the day in true lazy, sick-day form with jammies, cuddles and trashy tv.

~Lecithin. Say what? Lecithin is a vitamin that apparently thins your milk when breastfeeding, helping to unclog ducts. They are also the size of a horse tranquilizer and you have to take FOUR of them every day (gag), but within the first night of using them, my boob hurt less and I think I'm on the mend (please, baby Jesus!!). So yeah, Lecithin is on my win list for sure this week!

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~Date night tomorrow night! My friend is coming to watch Ella while MG and I enjoy a night out just the two of us! Happy to get some just us time together :)

~I got these skinny jeans, and a cute top at Lucky this weekend for $45 total! #score

the shirt is SO soft and it's this pretty light lavender color

~These flowers that my SIL brought to Ella's baptism. They remind me of a sunset and just make me smile

~I discovered the best eye shadow primer, and SUPER cheap (I used to be an Urban Decay girl, but not once they switched to that dumb wand). Milani on Amazon, less than $6! It works even better than the UD one. Go get you some!

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~The Imagine Dragons CD is giving me life the last couple of weeks! Been streaming it on Amazon Prime Music when driving and loving it!

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~baby giggles

~One last summer treat before Rita's closed for the season

~How much our youngest niece loves our baby girl

On that note, I'm off to make it through today and thennnnnnn, after this week,

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Have a good one!

My Best Friend's Wedding

It's about time that I got my act together and posted pics from my best friend's wedding now that the professional photos are back!

On Friday morning (Sept 4th) MG and I woke up at 5am in Ocean City NJ to catch the ferry (because going on 95 S on a Friday towards a beach town is no bueno). The ferry was a really nice experience and made the journey that much more relaxing.

We got into VA Beach around 1pm and had some down time before the rehearsal.

The rehearsal was at a gorgeous country club on the water!

 

We had the rehearsal dinner afterwards and got to spend time just chatting, catching up, and relaxing before the big day

The next morning I was up early and headed over to Genna's parents house (which is insanely gorgeous btw) for hair and make up. We had yummy lunch from Taste Unlimited--my favorite when I'm in the VA Beach area.

our cute and comfy Bridesmaids shirts

Before we knew it, it was 2pm and we had to head over to the country club and get ourselves together, and get our girl into her gorgeous dress. 

I mean, how stunning is she?

 

We took photos before the wedding ceremony which turned out gorgeous--the colors of the flowers and dresses, and the background just worked so well!

 

 

Love this girl!

They did a first look and the photos were adorable--here's one of my faves:

Before the wedding ceremony, they signed the ketubah (which is part of a Jewish wedding--sort of like vows written down), and I was Genna's witness

Then we lined up and got ready to get our girl hitched! The ceremony was quick, the weather was beautiful, and everything went off without a hitch!

 

Then it was time for cocktails, dinner, and party time! My handsome husband and I enjoyed our baby free evening :)

At the end of all of the eating, drinking, and dancing, we sent off the bride and groom on a boat ride--

Sorry for the picture overload, but there were so many good ones to choose from that I just included a bunch!
I'm so happy that my best friend found her partner. Seeing her with him, she was so at ease and so herself that it just made me happy watching them together.
Genna, thank you for having me be a part of your special day. I love you so much and am still so incredibly happy for you! 

{WHW}: Ella's Baptism weekend

Happy Wednesday, friends! 

With it being a long weekend over here, it meant that it took me extra long to get my act together for the week this week (surprise surprise!), so I'm sharing our weekend in PA for Ella's baptism  today!

The weekend had lots of highlights which included:

~Leaving Friday night and having miss Ella bear sleep the whole ride up through some super annoying traffic, and going back down in a Pack and Play after being super smiley and wiiiiiide awake when we got to MG's parents' house

~Unfortunately for us, several of our family members were involved in a dragon boat race in Philadelphia, so MG, my MIL, mom, Ella and myself had a low key morning to ourselves. We had lunch together and then checked out a pumpkin patch/farm nearby. Ella was engrossed in everything around her, eyes wide open in the Ergo carrier the whole time. We even picked out the perfect Ella-sized pumpkin for her :)

~Saturday evening my SIL and two nieces joined all of us for some cheesesteaks ordered in and some quality catch up time. My BIL dropped by later to say hi....and to love on the dogs haha

~Sunday morning we were up and at 'em for Ella's baptism. Even though it wasn't until 1pm there are still always a million moving parts with a baby, and a family of 14+

~We made it to the church after Ella had two smaller naps for the morning (thank goodness she got in the second one or it would have been ugly) and we ended up being the only family there for the baptism so we got a private ceremony just to ourselves. Ella cooperated all the way up until the verrrrrrry end, thankfully. I'll let the pictures do the talking:

The special part of this baptism gown is that it's been worn by all of Ella's cousins and is embroidered with each of their initials and baptism date. It's been 11 years since it was worn, but still special as ever.

Ella got a little upset at this point because she wanted to eat the monsignor's hand lol

Ella and her godparents

the cousins, minus the oldest

~We made our way back to my in-law's house where we'd had food ordered for the family, and my SIL brought the most adorable cupcake cross cake. It was noisy and busy and just the way I like it with this family--always so much fun!

~Around 6 we got ourselves packed up, got Ella fed and changed into her jammies and his the road home. Luckily traffic was much better than on the way up and we made good time.

~Ella went down again once we got home, but was up around 11:15 with a stuffy nose. We'd found out earlier that day that one of the boys at daycare had croup, so this was likely the result of that. Luckily with some Tylenol and some more milk, she went down for the night and got in some good sleep.

So, now we battle our third cold since August 20th. I'm praying I can avoid getting this one, but I'm resigning myself to the fact that it's likely going to happen between breastfeeding, being sneezed on and spit up on....and not being able to resist kissing that adorable face. Just thankful it happened when we were home and not when we were in PA.

All in all, the weekend was a lot of fun, and definitely filled with love and blessings for our little girl.

Now it's your turn to link up and share what's hap-"pinning" with you!