Pages

Thursday, February 23, 2012

A Room With A View

Pantry cupboad to hold YY's books.
This little lamb is great!  It makes four different noises: heart beat, rain, ocean, and whale, and it has a timer.  We use the heart beat at bedtime.
I am apparently on a roll today (as far as posting goes)!  I thought I would share some pictures of YY's room.  We didn't know if we were having a boy or girl, so we wanted a theme that was gender neutral (#1- didn't know the gender, #2- we will eventually have one or two other children sharing that room with YY), fun, and something that would grow with our children.  We went with outerspace!  You will notice a spaceship with a tiny blurred Cat in the Hat.  The planets (which includes Pluto), constellations (labeled until we have them memorized), stars on the dresser, and moons and stars on the ceiling all glow in the dark.
Man on the moon.  I thought about Americana theme as well, so I combined the two themes.
Outerspace just isn't complete without aliens.
Most of the murial.  Yes, until mid-September we had concrete floors in our house.
We changed the color.  In the book it is red and white.
The rest of the murial.







You will see a desk lamp that we use at night if we have to get up with YY.   We make homemade baby wipes.  There are toys, clothes, lotion, soap, etc. in the containers and baskets.  Some are still empty, but I'm sure we will fill them as time goes on.  Since we have a huge shop connected to our house, we move clothes, diapers, etc. into storage in the shop as he grows out of things; I'm currently in process of doing this which is why some things are just out of place.  I still have the baby shower guest book (an outerspace scrapbook page), picture frame, and shadow box to hang.  The piggy bank came from a craft store.  I bought scrapbooking stickers to put YY's name on it, as well as some star stickers.  I use the space under the crib for storing things like current diapers, etc.  Since I had no idea what brand to buy for diapers, I started buying different brands with coupons while I was still pregnant.

FYI I am having issues getting the pictures to format how I want them to and put them where I want to, which is why they aren't in a very organized manner.  Maybe it's just the blogger rather than the blog.  I just thought I would share.  :)

Update

Obviously, a MAJOR update is needed.

First, Gossamer/Cousin It now has a gender and a name.  We were blessed with a wonderful baby boy at the beginning of 2012, YY.  I dreamed I would have a big, hairy, chunky baby, and that is exactly what I got; I just didn't imagine a baby as big as he was.  He has his daddy's handsome (that's not a biased opinion) looks, and the only two things YY has that I had as a baby was a full head of dark hair and chunky cheeks.  Oh, let us not forget that I was a 9 lb. 4 oz. baby with a 15.75 in. head, and YY was 10 lb. 4 oz. with a 15 in. head.  He was born after my due date 21 lbs. with him, if you can believe it, but when we finally got home from the hospital I was actually 10 lbs. less then than what I weighed right before I got pregnant.  And like the other times I have lost weight in the passed, I gained it all back, and I've always gained the lost weight plus more; hopefully that doesn't happen this time, but if it does, it won't be the end of the world because I'm happy just the way that I am.  That's all that matters.


The back of YY's head.  Look at all that hair!  He was a little stuck, so he had to be vacuumed out in a hurry, hence the sore.



Look at his adorable little big footies with our wedding rings.  His feet were so big that they barely fit on the stickers that the hospital put his footprints on.


The evening after his birth, YY was diagnosed with sepsis and took a helicopter ride to a WONDERFUL hospital.  All I will say about that who scary experience is that we spent a week with a group of wonderful doctors and nurses; we are so grateful to them all.  We thank God that he is now healthy and weighs over 14 lbs. now.  Apparently it is common for babies to get sepsis (infection in the blood that can lead to many other problems if not caught in time), but it was something I've never heard of until he was diagnosed.  Anyways, we are VERY happy to have him home; it was hard to leave his side in the hospital when we went out for food or to go to sleep.

It's amazing, being a parent.  All I think about is YY, and what I feel is best for him.  I love him so much, and I can't help but kiss his chunky little cheekies all the time.  Right now, he LOVES to snuggle with his mommy.  I wish that he will always want to snuggle with me.  I don't want him snuggling with any other girls (exceptions to the rule: grandmas, aunts, older and new baby cousins), which is why he's not allowed to date until he's at least 50 years old.  I know... that's not going to happen.  A mommy can dream though, can't she?


I bought him to little outfits last week, the first clothes I've even bought for him.  He is already wearing 6 month clothes!  Anyways, one of the outfits I bought him was a red onesie with a pair of blue and white striped overalls.  If you grew up in a rural community, you know exactly what I'm talking about, but if you didn't, below you will find a picture.  They are the cutest things ever.  I told my dad that he needs to take YY and me to the sale barn with him.  The sale barn is full of old farmers with blue and white striped overalls, not to mention they make very tasty food!

YY in his overalls.  Yes, I cropped out his face.

Moving on to non-baby related stuff....
I believe I have not told you about our cat, our outdoor only cat.  We brought home a four week old male kitten ("my cat") in June.  He came from a farm; the farm that had the chickens we bought (Yes, we have chickens, but that is a whole post in itself that will have to be disussed later).  I wanted a name that went with the dogs name (in case you've forgotten, his name is Nitro).  After some thinking, we decided to name him Glycerin.  Very fitting, right?  Glycerin is an all black cat with just a few (we're talking 5 or 6) white hair on his neck, head, and belly.  He is a beautiful cat.  I have to tell you this, M hates cats.  However, he loves Glycerin, even though M will never admit it.  Glycerin is part parrot, dog, cat, and lion.  As a kitten, anytime somebody pulled into the driveway he would hunch down in the grass to hide and pounce out at your toes like a lion.  He sits on M's shoulder while he walks around outside or in the shop to do stuff, just like a parrot.  He is a great mouser, like every cat should be.  He always loves to ride in the vehicle, like a dog.  We like to take little drives together as a family when it is nice outside.  Nitro will ride in the back of the pick up, and Glycerin will ride on the dashboard; that his his preferred spot.  M won't admit it, but when Glycerin does die some day he will cry like a little baby, just as much as me.  This is the kicker... In January we took Glycerin to the vet to be neutered; I believe it was a Wednesday.  Thursday morning, I got a phone call from one of the gals that works there (my former 4-H leader).  She asked me if anybody had called me the afternoon before.  I told her they had not.  She replied, "Well, Glycerin is a girl.  The vet opened her up and said, 'This cat has ovaries!'"  Moral of the story: even though you have checked the gender of cat's a million times, you could be wrong.  In my defense, we got her at about four weeks of age, M thought she was a boy too, and neither of us payed any attention after that. 
My oldest sister got a new cookbook a while back, and recently, I spent a brief amount of time looking through it.  Well, I fell in love with it and had to find one for myself.  The cookbook is called Dining on a Dime by Tawra Kellam and Jill Cooper.  They have a website called Living on a Dime.  The cookbook can be ordered there, or you can buy a used one cheaper somewhere else like I did.  If you are trying to save money, this is the book for you!  It doesn't have just recipes in it.  There are things like homemade baby wipes, homemade laundry detergant, mixes that can go in a jar, cleaning tips and strategies, and so much more.

Speaking of cleaning, baking soda rocks my world!  (Something else my big sis showed me.)  So far I have used it to clean my really dirty pans while doing the dishes, and it is great for cleaning on the stove top.  I love to cook and bake, but I tend to make a VERY big mess on the stove when I do; M is good at that too. The baking soda does wonders for cleaning the grease and goop that is stuck to the stove off.  What other uses have you found for baking soda, besides baking?

I must add one more update to my update.  I have apprently been hiding in a hole; I guess that's what happens when you are on maternity leave and hardly go anywhere.  Until my oldest sister told me about Pinterest a couple weeks ago, I had never even heard of it.  Well, now I am on it all the time.  I love all the ideas I find, especially the ideas for cakes and saving space.  I find it way more interesting and useful than Facebook, with the exception of the Facebook page for my lil home baking business.  Needless to say, I am in love with Pinterest, and M can blame my sig bister (my family's weird way of saying "big sister") for that.