Things to Remember: Norah (a little over) 2.5 years, Asher (almost) 6 months

Norah:

You are absolutely HYSTERICAL. 

Any time you want to command your Dad to do something you scream "WILL!!!!" It sounds more like you're saying "whale".

A funny exchange we had yesterday...

Me: My neck's been sore.

N: Where?

Me: Along the back and left side.

N: No, where's the dinosaur???

I wish I had a notebook with my constantly to write down all the hilarious things you say.

You hate posed photos these days, and make the silliest faces when we tell you to "say cheese". Hence no super awesome photos of you in this post. Sorry kid.

You've recently entered into the phase where you're obsessed with all things princesses and dress up. It is completely adorable, but you also love trucks, ambulances, etc.

We have failed at taking away your pacifier, but you do now sleep in a toddler bed vs a crib. Baby steps.

You're going to start preschool in the fall and I think you're going to love it.

You are so, so smart. You remember the names of all the people who live in the houses we pass on our walks. The ones we know of course. You know the name of our street, the town we live, the schools you'll go to, and even remember directions on how to get to certain places. You're so curious and you can just tell your little wheels are turning trying to figure out how the world works.

Asher:

You are THE smiliest, sweetest, baby. Everyone comments on how handsome and sweet you are. I cannot get enough of your sweet cheeks.

You have really chunked up lately and I think you're going to end up being WAY bigger than your sister comparatively.

I am honestly in shock that the first half year of your life has gone by. It has been so different than your sisters in so many ways. I love seeing your little personality shine through and we are so happy you're growing so well.

You LOVE to eat. You take down baby food like a champ, and I can't wait until you can eat solids, as you frequently try and take them from us when we're eating as a family.

Both:

You two are wildly in love with each other. Norah, you literally have to be dragged out of your brother's room more often than not when we're trying to put him to sleep. You love to help take care of him, share with (and steal from) him, and are always concerned about how he's feeling.

Asher, you light up every time you see your big sister. She brings out giggles and smiles from you like no one else can.

Norah, you were sleeping in until 9am or so most mornings, but those days have come to an end. You're both up around 6:30am these days, so our days have drastically changed (and gotten longer). I really think you can just sense Asher and I are up and about and you don't want to miss out on anything.

You both are truly the lights of my life and make me want to be a better person every day. I can't wait to see all the adventures that are in store for us, and I know the rest of this year will be even better than the first half!

checking in

I have no idea how it's been so many weeks since I last posted. I had (and still have) such solid intentions when it comes to updating this blog, but life keeps happening. Our days are so full of play time, endless snacks, play dates, enjoying the weather, walking around town, and errands. Our evenings are full of trying to cram in quality time with Dad after work, cooking, chores, and the bedtime saga. And our nights are full of the constant balance that is having adult time vs getting as much sleep as possible. And don't forget lots of wake ups to tend to a hungry baby, and sometimes a toddler request.

By the time the end of the day comes, I am just too beat to write a coherent post. I feel like we're coming into our own as a family of four though, so hopefully my energy level changes soon. This summer has already been filled with so many days I want to remember, and Asher has grown and changed so much in his almost six months of life.

Here's to hopefully being back at the blog life soon!

Asher 11 Weeks

Not exactly a normal time to write an update, but here we are. Asher buddy, you are everything my heart needed and more. I have a hard time imagining babies as people until they start to get a little bit of a personality, sit up, etc., but I can already tell that you are going to be so silly and sweet. Just like your sister, except this week, when she is acting like a total (almost) threenager. You are usually so, so happy, and really only cry when you are tired or hungry. I know it's early and so much can and will change, but I genuinely think you're going to be the sweetest little guy.

You have literally doubled in size since birth, going from the six pound range to the twelve pound range in just two short months. You have the chunkiest little face, huge blue eyes, dark hair, and the sweetest smile. You're an incredibly cute baby and I know you will be the apple of my eye. I always thought of your sister as my best friend, more like a sidekick. I know you will always be the baby. At this point I am 99% confident in saying that you are our last child, and it really feels like you're the perfect completion to this family.

You definitely get less physical attention (being held, rocked) than I'd like due to how crazy our schedules can be, but it's probably teaching you a little independence, and we are sure to get plenty of snuggles and cuddles when we can.

You LOVE your mobile, swing, rock and play, baths, being sung to/talked to, mirrors, and being outside. You don't love tummy time, but will tolerate it. Honestly the only things you hate are being hungry or tired, which is all babies, and all people really, so who can blame you.

You met all your milestones at your two month appointment as far as gaining weight, tracking light, etc. Still measuring on the smaller side of things height and weight wise, but you look like a "normal" size to me, so I'm happy.

N on the left, A on the right. Two months. Near twins!

You are taking roughly 4 naps a day, and eating about 5 times a day, and 2 more times in the middle of the night. I think your sister dropped her night feedings all together around this time, so I am hoping you'll drop down to at least one. I know all babies are different through so trying not to expect you to do what she did. Breastfeeding is going much better with you than it did with her and we hope that continues. You sleep in your crib at night, but we've been using the swings for naps. That is honestly because it works and mom is too lazy to deal with another transition right now, but we plan to institute crib naps at three months. Or try to at least.

We love you buddy!

Fall Pictures

These pictures are old news, but I wanted to share them just to have included in the blog, and also because I LOVE them. I found this photographer randomly on Facebook, and cannot wait to use her again down the road. These photos served as our 2016 fall family pictures, as well as maternity pictures, and Norah's two year pictures. #threebirdsonestone. These are also what we used for our 2016 Christmas card. Here are some of our favorites.

Cannot get over the beauty in this child!

what we've been up to

For today I thought I'd share a few things I've been up to since basically disappearing from the blog world.

1. getting involved

The past year(ish), I've been involved with our city's Junior League, as well as our neighborhoods parenting group. Both have been so rewarding, and really helped me fill my time with meaningful, adult activities, without being too much of a strain on my schedule.

I love Junior League because service and giving back is extremely important to me, and it doesnt hurt that so many amazing women are a part of the organization. I am truly in awe of most of them. The parenting group also has service opportunities, puts on a Christmas event for our town, hosts several other family events throughout the year, and has a lot of social opportunities. It's been great to always have something on the calendar to make sure we're creating lots of traditions and memories for our kiddos.

2. working smarter not harder

Or so I like to think. We not rely on Green Bean Delivery, Click List, and Amazon Subscribe and Save for a lot of our grocery and household items. I actually don't hate taking two kids to the store. What I hate, is lugging 20 bags of groceries into the house, while managing 2 kids. And then putting them away, when it's usually lunch and/or nap time. Hard pass. These services have been a God send. Honorable mention to the OrderUp app which has provided me many a delicious meal when I was too lazy or too tired to prepare anything for myself after handling the kids.

3. date nights

We aren't the type of couple who never goes out, but we certainly aren't the type of couple to do weekly dates or anything like that. Lately more than ever Will and I have both realized we were never spending any time alone together. When the kids were asleep we'd be doing separate chores, or one of us were asleep. So for 2017 I wanted to make it a point for us to go on AT LEAST one date night a month, with no kids. So far this year we've managed to watch a basketball game to gather at a bar, go out to dinner to Sotto, have lunch at Yard House, and we have tickets to go see a play at the Cincinnati Shakespeare company later this month. Hoping we can keep this tradition going all year.

4. friend nights (or days)

Another thing I wanted to make sure we started being mindful of this year was maintaining friendships. I am pretty good about scheduling girls nights, lunches, etc. I actually even have a girls trip on the books in April (hallelujah). I really believe that a) it takes a village and I truly value my friendships and b) parents need time to have fun in order to continue to be good parents. Will however is more selfless and always sacrifices his weekends to do what I want to do, work in the yard, etc. I told him to make a point of scheduling time with his friends as much as he can, even if it's just a quick lunch while the kids are asleep on a Saturday. He's listened and I think it's something that will really improve our lives if we can keep it up.

Terrible picture, but the only one we've captured from any of our dates. 

5. two two and under

Parenting two kids is NO JOKE. Two sets of diapers to change. Two baths. Two bedtimes. Two times the crying. Luckily both my kids are generally pretty happy, and I have help most of the times I truly need it. All I can say is I've never been more humbled by an experience in my life. You think you are a level headed, in control person? Come take care of a toddler and a newborn alone for a few days and then talk to me. An entire post on how we've been doing in this arena soon.

Happy Friday! Linking up with Smidge of This.

Kitchen Renovation: The After

Disclaimer: I am terrible at taking pictures, but you'll get the idea.

The after! I am so, so happy with the way this kitchen turned out. Lets get to some details. I linked as many things as I could remember throughout the post. Before post HERE, and during post HERE.

I mentioned previously I would consider changing two things if I could go back in time. One is the depth of our farm sink. I wish it was deeper so it met the cabinets underneath, rather than there being several inches of space between the cabinets and the sink. We also could have just made those cabinets higher, as they were custom. That was a miscommunication between myself and the builder.

Our dishwasher is Bosch, and we love it. I especially like that it has a red light that shines on the floor when it is running, and that there's no obvious handle or buttons for little fingers and hands to be tempted by. The pendant light above the sink is from Shades of Light. The faucet and sink are Kohler. Our floors are an engineered hardwood, and they look great, along with being very appropriate for a house with dogs who ruin everything. Our countertops are quartz, and the backsplash is a Bianco Carrara marble tile.

The paint color is Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams. 

The eat in area light fixture is also from shades of light. I love how this little nook turned out. Norah loves eating there and looking out the window at the squirrels and birds.

Open shelving from Ballard Designs. I think this really adds to the room, and provides much needed storage.

Our cabinet knobs are from Amazon and the drawer pulls are from Restoration Hardware. Artwork by Norah ;)

Lets talk about this refrigerator. It is a GE Cafe series, and has a built in Keurig. You heard that right. All products I am mentioning are linked, but I recommend specifically checking this link out to see how amazing it is. It also lets you "brew" hot water for tea, cooking, etc. This has been a huge space saver for us on the countertops, as our Keurig was huge.

Our microwave and range are also Bosch. The other thing I might change is how high our microwave is. Not sure how it rounded out to be this high, but people always comment on it. Will is 6'2 and I am 5'11, so it doesn't bother us. But it might be an issue for a smaller person. I like these appliances too, but it drives me slightly insane that the microwave makes such a loud closing sound when you shut it. This is probably just me being paranoid because there's always a sleeping kiddo somewhere in the house.

 

And that's about it! Happy to answer any questions if you've got them. 

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Kitchen Renovation: The During

The official planning of our kitchen started in January of last year (2016). The contractor took measurements of everything, found out as much as they could about our existing electrical, plumbing, and structure, and then drew up a plan for us. I liked it, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted. We kept all of their ideas in place, aside from moving one section of cabinets and the refrigerator. This caused us to have to close up a window, which most people would probably think is insane, but I really wanted a triangular placement of the sink, stove, and refrigerator. Plus, the space is small and we already have 5 other windows in the room. Honestly, there wasn't room for much creativity in the overall plans because the space is relatively small to begin with, and we had a stairwell, chimney, and back door to work around.

Over the next couple of months we made selections. I selected the countertops, cabinets, and floors through our builder and their vendors. The hardware, light fixtures, appliances, plumbing fixtures, sink, back door, paint color, and backsplash were all me. I did a lot of internet research, took a lot of trips to visit various stores that sold the above, and watched a lot of HGTV. But mostly, I just picked what I liked. Since all of the selections were made over a long period of time, I was a little afraid they wouldn't all look good once together, but luckily for me they did. In our previous two homes I'd made some design choices that I look back on and seriously regret, but this time, we finally found our groove. Honorable mention to Will who selected and installed the pantry shelving, and who installed the open shelving I bought.

Demolition began in April, and our kitchen was finished in July, so the whole thing took about 3.5 months. It pretty much went down like this.

Demolition and clean up. Let me tell you, it was really fun having a napping toddler and dogs that are terrified of loud noises during all of this. #not. Well worth the stress though!

Leveling the floor (the eat in area was a step down from the rest of the kitchen).

Making the ceiling one height, drywalling the drop ceiling.

Fixing the structure below our back door (surprise cost - insert mad face emoji).

Framing, insulating, drywall.

Updating the electrical.

Flooring installed.

Cabinet installation.

Countertops, appliances, plumbing, hardware, and backsplash installed.

Painting.

Throw in a few inspections and there you have it. I'll post one more kitchen update with more detail on the selections we made, and the after photos!

Kitchen Renovation: The Before

It's been about six months since our kitchen renovation was 100% complete. We still don't have blinds, so I guess 99% complete. Why we haven't gotten around to getting window treatments after all the other work we put into that room, I don't know. Just one of those things I guess? Anyway, we've had plenty of time to enjoy it and I can honestly say there are only two things I *might* change about what we had done. And even those are fairly minor. It'll take me a bit to document the entire process, so I thought I'd start with the before.

A little background. We started our home search knowing we wanted to find a place we could redo the kitchen. I would have been fine if we'd stumbled upon a house that already had a great kitchen, but deep down, I really wanted to create our own from scratch. When we decided to make an offer on our new house, we knew the kitchen was a dump, but that was OK, because we wanted to fix it up anyway.

We didn't account for just how much of a dump it actually was, or for the fact that we'd be living in it for several months before the work actually got started. #contractordelays This was a terrible experience, but on the plus side, we had time to live in the "before" kitchen long enough to really know what we wanted the "after" kitchen to look like. It also made us appreciate the new kitchen A LOT more when it was completed. Which by the way, about 3.5 months from start to finish, 7 months after we moved in. So we spent 3.5 months with a dilapidated kitchen, and 3.5 months with no kitchen at all.

Here are a few pictures from the home listing when bought our house. To some it may not look that bad, but trust me... it was bad. The cabinets were ancient, and in terrible condition. The floor was made out of what I can only describe as vinyl tile. The appliances were falling apart. Literally. The refrigerator had tape on the inside holding the shelves up, and the oven handle broke off the second time I tried to bake something. Oh, and every single surface was pretty much ancient and/or filthy.

No counter space next to the stove, or between the stove or the refrigerator. Weird microwave box area above the stove. Useless soffits.

This weird nook of wasted space drove me crazy. No cabinets, no furniture, what is the point? And don't get me started on that peninsula.

Former screened in porch turned interior kitchen space. Clearly no one was actually eating in there though, so again, wasted space. Also, this "room" was a step down from the rest of the kitchen. AKA a death trap for toddlers and clumsy people like me. This area was also very poorly insulated and completely FREEZING cold in the winter. And two more words: drop ceiling. Bleh.

I'd been saving images for months and months of inspiration for our new kitchen. This pinterest board was my best friend. Here are a couple of the pictures I went back to most when trying to envision how we'd turn the above into my dream kitchen.

I've lived in brand new homes, homes that were over 100 years old, and everything in-between. There is good and bad on both ends. One of the "bad" things about having an older home is that you really don't know who did what when, whether or not they did it right, and what the heck you're going to find behind the walls or under the floors when you go to make a change.

While we found plenty of surprises, it could have been worse. Next I hope to post pictures of our during, the drawing our contractor worked up for the new kitchen, the drawing after I made changes, and more about our process in general.

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surviving a major renovation... with a toddler... while pregnant

Yes, you read that right. It was never our intent to have our kitchen renovation, basement renovation, and the first several months of my pregnancy overlap. Unfortunately our kitchen got started late, our basement got started early (and took much longer than expected), and before you knew it we were expecting baby number two. Living through a renovation when you're at home all day with a toddler and two dogs is tough, so I wanted to share a few things that helped us get by.

This was part of the basement waterproofing process. One of MANY truckloads full of yuck that got removed from the house.

1. Get your pets out of the house.

Whether this be for a few minutes or a few days, do what you can. Our dogs were surprisingly well behaved considering we had men in and out of the house several times a day, and our yard was monopolized by construction equipment rendering it unusable for doggy bathroom breaks or play time. I made it a point to strap Norah into the Ergo and walk them, even if it was just for a few minutes, as many times a day as I could. When my belly got too big to wear Norah, we'd load up and hit the dog park for as long as I could wrangle everyone. It was a juggling act, but it was necessary. We also bought a daycare package so they could spend entire days away from the chaos. I'd definitely budget daycare and/or occasional boarding into your renovation budget if you have active animals. Or find a friend or family member that will take them off your hands. We completely under-estimated the amount of coming and going contractors would be doing, and how much they'd need our back yard to work in.

2. Plan to eat out. A lot.

I was incredibly niave going into our kitchen reno and thought we'd still be able to eat dinners at home. Breakfast and lunch was doable, but dinner was almost impossible. While we still had some appliance use, with no counter space, a tiny refrigerator, and several stints without power, our dinner time meal options were really limited. Not to mention, after dealing with the crazy all day, I just didn't feel like doing all the juggling that it took to prepare a decent meal. I wish I'd done more research and planning to get healthy, affordable dinners out planned for my family. We relied on fast food one too many times simply because my lofty goals of planning out weeks and weeks of crock pot meals weren't met.

3. Accept help.

We were lucky enough to have several friends and family invite us over for meals, or just to get out of the house. This is something I said no to a lot just because I hate to be a burden, but in retrospect, that was a mistake. People  offer because they want to help, and it really does make a difference.

4. Have a Plan B.

I had no clue how much construction on our home would interrupt our routine. Turns out, power tools are LOUD and power and/or water often needs to be shut off during major renovations. This was of course ALWAYS during nap time, which was my worst nightmare. Luckily, we had a crib set up at Will's parents. It wasn't ideal to drive 20 min away just to take a nap, but I was happy we had the option.

5. Have the right permits.

This is probably obvious/self explanatory. I won't elaborate, but trust me. When the inspector comes wrapping at your door one morning asking to look around and threatens to shut down your whole operation, you'll wish you were more prepared.

Those are probably my four biggest nuggets of advice that no one gave me before we started on our reno journey. Hoping to share before and after pics soon!

End to the Radio Silence

It's been almost exactly one year since I've blogged. There have been several times over the past twelve months that I've considered resurrecting this bad boy. I wanted to track our move and home renovation. I wanted to track my second pregnancy. I wanted to track that pregnancy even more when it became "high risk". I wanted to write about how it felt to find out or second child was a boy, and how we picked his name, and tell his birth story. I've wanted to write about how we've managed to do a lot of the above with me as a one woman show, as Will's job kept him on the road many, many nights. But as each day passed, any time I got a few free minutes, I was too tired either mentally or physically to share any of the above, or all the things that have happened in-between. I hope to eventually (soon) share about everything I previously mentioned, but today, I am just going to share about the right now.

Right now, it is 2:00pm. I have an eight week old baby boy sleeping on my chest, and I'm taking my first minute to myself to recoup since 7:00am. The big girl is upstairs (hopefully) napping, and the dogs are somewhere probably getting their muddy paw prints all over my floors. The weather in Cincinnati has been incredibly spring like, so along with the warm temperatures, that means rain.

I feel now that we're about two months into this "family of four" thing, I can speak about it with a bit of certainty. The only question I've been asked more in the last two months more than "How is the baby?" is "How are things with two?". HA. That is hard to answer. It depends what moment you're talking about. It's insane. It's a circus. It's hard, daunting, overwhelming, suffocating, and flat out HARD. But it's also so fulfilling. It is a joy like you can never imagine. It's completing, beautiful, humbling, hilarious, and the biggest learning experience I've ever been through.

So, so many tears have been shed. I've been peed on dozens of times. Three today actually. I've had to ignore one of my children's cries to attend to the other's needs more times than I'm comfortable with. I've broken down to my husband about my kids, to my friends about my husband and my kids, and to my kids about how I wish I was more like Daniel Tiger's mom. I've felt like an insane person. I've felt like the luckiest person alive. My marriage has changed (for the better). A lot has happened in the last several weeks, and I hope one day I can articulate on this blog what a crazy time in our lives this has been. But for now, just know that two kids is crazy, and hopefully, this blog is back in a action!