Meet baby #2 (only 9 months late!)

Hi everyone!!! It's been so long since I logged on here and updated! I am happy to announce that baby number two made it's way into the world and it was a BOY! Our little Drew (who was a huge 9 lbs 2 oz no wonder I was tired and sore all the time!) I'm not even going to lie and say I was instantly happy when we found out because well, I wasn't. I had wanted a girl pretty badly. But the minute I saw that sweet little face and heard those amazing cries I couldn't have imagined it any other way! It's funny sometimes I look at him and realize he was the baby I had dreamt of in my head the entire time I was pregnant with Brooke he just came later! (Not that I don't love Brooke or wasn't happy with who she is) It's funny how things like that worked, I had convinced myself Brooke was a boy and would look alot like Drew did, but she was a girl with this light hair ha ha and then I am pregnant a second time and dream of this sweet second little girl and end up with my dark hair light eye drew drew!
He's already 9 months old I can't believe it! It seems like yesterday I went into the hospital with contractions (only to be told I would be "tucked in" for the night since I was scheduled for c-section in the morning). It was a LONG night! He's crawling and eating regular foods and trying to talk and gaining so much personality! I love watching how Brooke interacts with him and how he watches her to learn new things. (some unwanted) It's something new each and every day and I'm so thankful for it!
I also wanted to comment on a personal goal, I had mentioned awhile back about getting serious and losing weight and I am happy to announce that just before getting pregnant I had dropped 29 lbs! It was like I was a whole new person! While I gained basically all of it back with pregnancy (remember I had a 9lb baby!) I was a few lbs off of my pre-pregnancy weight about a week after delivery! I gave myself some time to recover, and nurse without ever even thinking of counting a calorie or cutting back. I wanted to make sure I gave the most and best I could to Drew with nursing! Now that he's 9 months old (and still nursing) he's eating a lot more table foods and drinks some water here and there I feel my supply is built up and he's getting plenty so back on the calorie counting wagon I go! It's been about 2 weeks (I'm only cutting about 250 calories a day to lose a half lb a week) but somehow my body must have been jump started because I'm already down another 5 lbs! That's 34 lbs lost! Here's hoping the next 20 lbs go away just as quickly! I'm not really sure what my goal is yet, I'm not as obsessed by the number on the scale as the way I look and feel!
Anyways I hope you all enjoyed my little update and if your reading this shortly after it's been posted have a happy loving valentines day! If not I hope you have a great day!

<3
Rachel

Before baby 2

Hi everyone! All 1 person who will visit here today ha ha! Sorry I haven't written in so long! Finding time has not been a strong suit of mine lately! A 2 year old is hard to keep up with!! I didn't even write her a second birthday post! Mostly because I got pregnant again!! Baby number two woo hoo! Ha ha! This little one isn't expected till April (only 2 1/2 months or so away) but my body doesn't seem to handle pregnancy so well. I get sick in the beginning, super tired the whole way thru and very achy at the end. I end up doing months of work in a week or 2 when I can find the energy and my body doesn't kill me for it! I wish I could be one of those super women who have no symptoms other than a bigger belly! Oh well we're all different for a reason I suppose! I hope you will all keep checking back and see if I post, someday when my babies are older I'd like to make this a more regular thing! We shall see.. anyways thanks again to those of you who keep checking in!! I will try to remember to write about baby when he/she arrives!

<3

Rachel

Feeling Good and hopefully starting to look it too!

So as of right now I have honestly lost 15 lbs!! I've never lost more than 6 or 7 lbs in my entire life! It's strange to see the numbers keep going down, I know it's because I'm eating way better than ever before and cutting my calories every day to reach that 1 lb a week goal.. but to see the numbers shrinking on the scale still shocks me ha h! And I finally felt like I may have seen a difference too, today my mom and I went to basket bingo, we didn't win anything, but I felt like I did. Before I left and I was doing the dreaded deciding what to wear process, I was going to a few of my "staple" shirts and almost felt like they were too loose! And the shorts I choose to wear fit! I haven't felt comfortable in those shorts since I bought them. I used to wear them anyways with a flow-y top so it wasn't noticeable that they were tight.. but today it didn't matter! They went on and I could slide a finger between me and the waistband! Let's hope the next 15 come off just as easy as these last 15 have!

Anyways I had said I would write after the boyscout carnival and as I'm sure anyone could have predicted, I did not. But we did do very well this year it was very very exciting! Our take home this year was:

- a doll and basket of homemade doll clothing (Brooke was VERY happy mommy won that for her)
-2 passes to the Children's Museum (sounds like a free summer activity since we aren't vacationing!)
-4 coupons for extra value meals at McDonald's (we get the 20 piece nugget meal and split fries making it worth 4 free dinners for us, add a dollar menu chicken for Brooke and our family eats for a dollar!)
-a Wendy's value meal coupon
-a tee shirt for a local bar
-a hat (my dad snagged that one)
-2 free sundae coupons for valley dairy
-a $25 gift certificate to the Springfield Grille
-my dad won for Brooke a basket with a blanket, baby doll, and 2 outfits that were too small for her
-my dad also won and gave us 2 tickets to learnerville speedway (sounds like a date night!)

AND....

- a TV!!! I was so shocked when they said my name for the TV but so very happy! We didn't really have a use for it at our house, so within a week we found a buyer for it and collected 200 dollars instead!

All in all I believe we won around 300-350 dollars worth of prizes!! Not bad considering we only spent around 60-80! It's been too long now for me to remember actual dollar amounts ha ha! Brooke also had a good time playing the children's game's at a quarter a piece and with her tickets brought home..

-a giant coloring book
-crayons
-a hula hoop
-bracelets
-a hair tie
-a fishing bobber

After all that winning I can't help but feel like I used all my luck there and was why I did not win at the basket bingo today ha ha!

The next few weeks coming up are going to be busy ones so I more than likely won't have time to be writing, we will be going to camp the weekend of memorial day, and the week after that we're going across the state to visit Ed and Lisa for Kevin's college graduation party! I'm VERY excited to be going and visiting them we haven't been to there house since about last year! I'm not as excited for the 5 hour car ride with a year and a half old, so I had my parents dig out there portable DVD player, bought some new crayons and coloring books, and got some new regular books at a yard sale that she hasn't seen. Hopefully all of the combined will keep her happily occupied in her car seat and not sleeping since we wont be driving at night and anyone with children will tell you that sleeping 5 hours in the afternoon will not make for a pleasant night ha ha.

So to close, I wish all of you who are graduating this year luck and success in your futures! And to everyone, I hope your all enjoying the beginning of beautiful weather!


<3
Rachel

Long time, no write..

Oops! Seems life caught up with me and writing a blog was just the last thing I could keep track of doing. I'm sure a lot of you mommas out there know what I'm talking about. Now that my 17 month and 2 week old toddler (super crazy that she's almost a year and a half I know!) is a VERY active mobile demanding but sweet loving and adorable little human; "me" time is nearly impossible to come across. Except at night and by then even sitting online is tiring! Plus I've had less time for computers because I've been getting up off my butt and exercising! Not nearly as much as I should be, but everyone has to start somewhere! We recently upgraded to I phones and I think it has honestly changed my life. Seems crazy to say a phone changes your life but it has! I downloaded an app called the My Fitness Pal (anyone who can download it I highly recommend it). It mostly helps to count calories, you put your info in, standard things like height weight and goal weight and your activity level and it sets how many calories a day you should be eating to lose your desired weight (I have mine set to 1 lb a week). You can scan bar codes to get direct information from the products themselves or search the database to find homemade or restaurant food options! The added movement to my life and actually caring about what I put in my body is changing me inside and most importantly out, I have been logging in for 3 weeks and have already lost about 9 lbs!! Go me! I am sure I will post more when I reach bigger  goals! I'm not looking for the numbers to fall away over night, I realize that it took MANY years of terrible habits to get this way, and will more than likely take at least a year to fix them.


Changing topics, this weekend will be very exciting on Saturday we will be attending our church Spring Fling! Last year I had to miss out on it because it is an adult only day and I had a tiny nursing baby. With the purchase of our tickets we will get free food free drinks free beer (which I wont be partaking in because beer is so disgusting to me ha ha) and a chance to win many prizes in the raffle with a grand prize of 5,000!  Here's hoping for A prize even if it's an extra Chinese auction basket! Then on Sunday it's the boy scout carnival! I posted about it last year and about how much I LOVE it. Seriously a highlight of my year! (specially if we win big again!) I've been saving my extra grocery money and have my birthday money held back! If we win a lot or big at either place I will try hard to write about it!

To write a little update about my currently sleeping soundly baby girl, she really is growing way too fast! Besides walking and running she is also CLIMBING! We can't leave a chair pulled out without her trying to type on the computer or grab something off the table! She loves to dance and spin in circles! She also likes to do this "stand on her head" move where she looks at you upside down threw her legs and laughs! She giggles SO cute! And she talks! A LOT! But I love it and am excited for the days we can talk about all kinds of things together! She still calls my sister Aunt Ba Ba some things just stick I guess! She calls our dog Bindi either dog dog or BiBi. I love when she says Biiii Biiiiii and then makes kissing noises and tries to snap her fingers to call the dog to her! The dog still chooses to ignore her as much as possible. She loves playing with her baby and other babies and I just recently gave her my old doll I had named Daughter when I was little! It feels good to see my little girl loving the doll I had loved! She still wont sleep in her crib, I finally gave up and got fed up with her kicking my back if she slept with us, so now she sleeps on her crib mattress on the floor next to my bed.. she has her own space but is still in an arms reach of me. We both win ha ha. She LOVES animals, her favorite show is an older show called Zoboomafoo which we can only watch on On Demand so we watch the same 4 episodes every single day! She can't say Zoboomafoo or Zobo, she calls it A Boo Boo or abooboofoo, which is cute but when you've already watched 2 in a row her persistent little a boo boo's are hard to take ha ha. She loves to spot the "hop hops" in the yard or on walks, she calls almost all birds ducks ha ha and she loves to look for kitty's at grandad's house! She just got a sandbox for Easter and loves it. Now she wants to go outside every day to play in it! Even if it's a little too cold! She went down her little slide all by her self for the very first time the other day, she climbed up without a worry but then was scared to go down! When she finally did I was so proud of her and she was proud of herself too she yelled yay and clapped her hands! Every day she is learning something new and I feel truly blessed to get to experience it!


Night all!


<3
Rachel
(I don't currently have spring pictures loaded into my computer.. so enjoy a few winter-y ones ha ha)

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas seemed to sneak up on me last minute! I had all the major things ready but somehow I still felt caught unaware! Oh well everything ended up really nice. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and I wish you all a VERY happy New Year <3

<3
Rachel

My Baby- A look back thru her FIRST YEAR!

I just wanted to put all her pictures in one place.. a little time line of her first year!


Happy Birthday Baby - Newborn!

1 Month old!-

2 months old!-

3 months old!-

4 months old (and mommy finally found a spot to take monthly photos)-

5 months old!-

6 months old!-

7 months old!-

8 months old!-

9 months old!-

10 months old!-

11 months old!-

And finally 12 months old aka 1 full year! I love you baby!-

It's been a great first year as a mom and I can not wait for the many exciting years to come raising my sweet baby!

<3
Rachel

October was so BUSY!

As I had suspected all along October was by far the busiest month! Worrying about my birthday, Halloween, and Brooke's early November birthday made there SO much to do! But I loved every second of it! First off I want to post about the adorable wreath I made this year. It was a project from last year that I bought stuff for but never completed. Why I don't know because it was SO easy! Here's what I did..

First I took a piece of foam board and cut a square hole in the center!

Next I took leaves off a fall garland I bought on sale last year and I hot glued them individually to the foam board

I hot glued a fall ribbon from Target's dollar spot a few years ago to the corner of the board and continued adding leaves till it looked to my satisfaction! Then I simply hung it on the wall!

I love it! Anyways, here are some of the adorable pictures from our fall/Halloween season this year!

And then came my baby's first birthday!!!!!!!! I don't want her to grow up!! Here are some of the details of her VERY planned cowgirl party ha ha!

Everyone loved it! Here are some of the party pictures!

Now that that's all over with I'm kind of waiting out Thanksgiving which was never a real favorite for me, and am super excited for Black Friday to start off my Christmas Season!! I love this time of year and the decorations that come with it! My goal this year is to be decorated, cards done and ready to be mailed and shopping done by the first week of December. Will I get there? Doubt it! Ha ha but it's always good to have goals! Hopefully it wont take me months to post again! Love you all who read this!



<3
Rachel