So This is the Good Life....

Christmas 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 03:59:00 +0000

It was a fantastic Christmas! It was so fun watching Raegan's excitement over her gifts (especially the Santa gift), and watching Ava take it all in.

Checking out Ava's Santa gift

Raegan did a flailing crazy dance over her Barbie gymnastics set. :)

She was so excited!

Ava liked her walker.

I see you photobombing, Radar.

#avassillyfaces

Silly brother.

I love watching the three of them together. <3 p="">

The bow was just as exciting at the rattle. ;)

Some Christmas morning reality - Raegan pouting while her siblings watch on.

And the cute, less realistic picture.

Trash is fun too!

Presents at Grandma J's house

Lowe's Build and Grow Workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 14 Dec 2014 04:32:00 +0000

Raegan and I had a blast building a Christmas train at Lowe's this morning. For every workshop your child attends, they get a patch for their apron. I'm super excited to sign up for more and get Raegan All The Patches. :)

Family Picture Outtakes

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 14 Dec 2014 04:03:00 +0000

We had our family pictures taken in mid-October by Thomas Gray. We got some amazing photos, but I think I love the silly photos just as much as the beautiful ones that made our Christmas card and our living room wall. They all show the kids' personalities so much, and they are perfect!

Changes

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 03:23:00 +0000

It seems like every day Ava is changing. I think my favorite time during the baby months is like 8 months-16 or 18 months. There are so many changes, and I love watching all the wonder on their faces as they discover new things about the world. Really, I love every month of the baby months, but the mobile infant stage was so fun with Raegan and I'm excited for it with Ava too.

Ava is basically crawling. She can crawl 5 or 6 paces before she plops down and goes back to army crawling. I think she realizes that she can move so much faster by army crawling so that's her default. On Wednesday last week she pulled herself up on her toy box. It's not tall enough for her to have been completely standing up, but she had her legs straight with her butt up in the air. :) And this Sunday she finally (after practicing all weekend) mastered going from crawling to sitting, or sitting to crawling. She so badly wants to be mobile and keep up with the big kids.

Lots of babbling - bah bah, ma ma, da da, and a scolding sounding one that sound likes blah blah blah. Her favorite thing to do these days is shake her head no whenever we ask her a question. It's hilarious. I love this silly girl so much.

Raegan-isms

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 02:56:00 +0000

Some gems from Raegan to remember:

Talking about how she's going to get her own house someday: "Because you're older than me so you'll die first Mom." I told her that was still a ways off and she said, "No Mom. You're really old. I bet it happens soon."

After I took braids out of her hair, it was really poofy. I said, "Raegan you've got some 80's hair going on. You need to leave the 80's to me and your dad since we were born then." She said, "Mom, I don't even know what you are saying to me right now."

Showing me a sparkly bead, "Mom, look at this really special thing I found when I was not napping during nap time today."

My girl is such a character!

Silly Faces

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 02:57:00 +0000

Ava is quite the talker these days. And she loves her tongue. She's always sticking it out and curling it up and down. She's such a silly, happy girl. Anytime I get out my phone to take a picture of her, she gets very quiet and focused on my phone. I've handed it to her a few times and she instantly grabs it and gets super excited about it. It's amazing that she stayed on her back long enough for me to take these pictures. She's always rolling over to her stomach and she's getting really good at holding her head up. Several times she's rolled three or four times continuously, and I've found her several feet away from where she started off at. We wonder if she won't be a little quicker to crawl than Raegan was, but who knows. I'm okay with not having to babyproof for awhile longer. :)

New Room

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 02:49:00 +0000

Finally, finally this week we got Raegan moved into her new room. There's still a few things we need to get out of the old room, and we need to paint the dresser for Raegan's new room still, but basically she's moved in. She was super, super excited to sleep in her big girl bed Saturday evening for the first time. There's so much more room for her to play, and I've been working hard to organize it so that it can stay tidy (ish).

Bonus picture: Raegan as a walrus. :) Love my goofy girl.

Mastered!

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 02:45:00 +0000

Well, I think we've got the front wrap cross carry mastered. I've been watching videos on YouTube for a hip carry that I want to try this coming week.

Look at those blue, blue eyes!

Highs and Lows

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 20:24:00 +0000

Raegan. So much personality wrapped up into four short years. She brings me so much joy, and so many challenges at the same time.

She's always been a bit high strung, a bit more needy than the norm. I didn't realize exactly how needy of a baby she was until Ava came along. Caring for Baby Ava is simple. She's laid back, she's happy most of the time, she's already pretty much on a schedule at not quite four months. People tell me that first babies are like that because you as a first time parent project your insecurities and worries onto your firstborn. I think there is a lot of truth in that, but I think Raegan was going to be this way regardless of anything I did.

2014 has been a challenging year as far as raising Raegan has gone. Starting about November or December last year, she started to demonstrate some new behaviors. In talking with other moms of four year olds, and from my own experience of four year old girls getting ready to head to kindergarten, I know it's not abnormal. I've seen it in action in plenty of other four year olds. When I see a mom at the store being sassed by a child that looks to be about four, I just want to hug her and say, "I'm in your club. I know." Four is hard. Everyone talks about two and three. No. Just no. Four is the trial by fire. And no one talks about how hard four is. I think it's because we all though they should be over these behaviors by now, and no one wants to admit that their four year old is throwing tantrums. And screaming at you. And throwing and kicking things. Obviously we have the added factor of Raegan no longer being the center of the universe with the addition of Ava. She loves Ava. Crazy, unconditional love. She never says a thing against her. But I would say there are a lot more attention seeking behaviors now, and a lot of them directed towards me. A lot of insecurities about her new place in our family. I'm trying as hard as I can to be patient, to be reassuring, to do the right thing, but some days. Oh, some days I just want to turn on the TV all day so that I can have a break.

But with the bad comes the good. Raegan feels everything. EVERYTHING. Deeply, vividly, intensely. So when things are WRONG AND BAD, they are the epitome of WRONG and BAD and no one will ever understand how painful her life is as it ends. But when things are good, they aren't just good. They are AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL and THE BEST. And for this, I wouldn't change her for the world. Because even though her lows are low (so, so low) and challenging to deal with, her highs are so high. She is so excited about every small thing. She is so thankful for everything you give her or do for her. I hear daily that I am the best cooker. She is still thanking me for her new pink sparkly shoes a week later. Raegan is so joyous and so easily excited, and has so many plans for her life.

So I'll take this trial. This walk through the desert. I hope I can support her and help her to the extent that she'll come out of the challenging stage a better person. That she'll learn lessons that will stay with her, and become more mature in her emotions and behavior. But I wouldn't change Raegan for the world. Because maybe one day my little girl won't throw fits, but she also won't have stars in her eyes over everything. She'll become older and not see the world through the rose colored sparkly glasses that she does now. I'm going to try my hardest to help her keep her intensity and joy, and hopefully some of her emotion will smooth out a little.

It's quite the rollercoaster, parenting is. We'll see what comes next as we take the next hill towards five years old and kindergarten.

3 Month Pictures, Take Two

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 20:17:00 +0000

Why are you stuffing me in this doll bed again, Mommy?

Blankets are delicious!

I love the concentration on her face in this one.

Hehe

Her life is hard, y'all.

My favorite

Look at my blankie!

This one makes me giggle. It doesn't even look like her really.

#avassillyfaces

She loves her family!

3 Month Pictures, Take One

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 20:52:00 +0000

Take One of Ava's 3 month pictures! :)

I kind of like this one. We're going to revisit this pose again, because this is the doll bed that my Grandpa made my mom when she was little. So there's all kinds of significance for me in getting a picture of Ava with this, since she'll never know my Grandpa. :(

I thought she was going to cut us at this point :D

Can you look this cute while being so serious?

Daddy, WHY does Mommy put me in cloth diapers?

Wearing my Baby

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 04:24:00 +0000

I just love wearing Ava. And my woven finally came, so now I've got tons of new carries to try out. I need to try a back carry with Raegan sometime. I think she'll get a big kick out of that.

I promise Ava loves being worn, even though she looks highly unimpressed in the one picture. :) She really loves sucking on the straps right now. I need to get on making those suck pads....

Puppy love

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 25 May 2014 00:37:00 +0000

Ava loves the puppy that came in her Easter basket. If I lay it out on a blanket with other toys, it's the one she always reaches for. Yesterday she finally figured out how to bring it up to her mouth. She was pretty pleased with herself. :)

Babywearing

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sat, 24 May 2014 21:27:00 +0000

I have become totally obsessed with babywearing. Oh my goodness. Why didn't I do this with Raegan? Actually, I did have a sling when Raegan was tiny, but it hurt my back so I barely used it. Thank God too, because they've since been recalled due to infant death while using them. I had that exact same one picture in the link too. I've never been more thankful that pregnancy gives me such a weak back and core. :)

But babywearing with good quality wraps and carriers? Magic. Pure magic. A friend of mine sent me her Moby Wrap and once I figured it out, it was amazing. Perfect for a tiny new little squishy that just wants to be on her mama all the time. The website says that you can use a Moby up to 35 pounds, but I cannot see how that is possible (neither can anyone else in the babywearing world, from what I've read!). Already at 11 pounds Ava is almost too heavy for it. The stretchiness makes it a great wrap to learn with, but the passes don't hold very well because of that same stretchiness.

About a month ago I purchased a Baby Hawk Mei Tai off of the Babywearing on a Budget page on Facebook. (Side note: this page and The Babywearing Swap are addictive. I limit myself to only looking at them for a few minutes each time I nurse. It's a rabbit hole, I tell you.) I got a really good price on my MT, and it's as good as new. I love it. Loooooove it. I'm curious to see how it holds up once Ava is a toddler, and I'm eager to try a back carry with it, but for now I am super happy with it with the front carry. It was a much easier learning curve than the Moby (seriously, Ava and I were both in tears the first few times I tried her in the Moby) and it doesn't sag hardly at all. The back panel comes up high enough that I don't worry about her head flopping at all, and she was starting to hate me tucking her head into one of the pockets of the Moby. I really want to find some material that contrasts well with it so I can make some strap protectors, because Ava already loves to suck on the side straps. I can't see me wanting to sell it anytime soon, but I would like to keep it in good condition and not have to wash it constantly.

Next up I'm going to get a woven wrap. Oh, if only we had money so I could Buy All The Wraps.

There are so many options. So, so many. I've decided that since we don't have All The Money I can't buy them all, so I'm going to get one of each. Meaning, one Mei Tai, one ring sling, one soft structured carrier (preferably a Tula) and one woven. Actually, I've decided it's completely acceptable for me to get two wovens, because I need a shorty too. HA! Justification, thou art my friend. :) So here's the long wrap I desperately, desperately want:

Erna im Wunderland = one true love

This wrap. Oh, this wrap. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. I really really hope that it's as beautiful and vibrant in person as it is on screen. I have someone to buy it from, so it will be mine soon. I am going to be crushed if it's not All That. What I really want to do is wrap with it for like a year then send it off to be converted into a Tula-type carrier. With ears. ;)

So yeah, babywearing. It's my jam. And Raegan really likes it because it means she gets to ride in the stroller. Silly girl.

Tummy Time

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sat, 24 May 2014 20:50:00 +0000

Ava really doesn't care for tummy time. I honestly don't know a single person who says, "Oh yeah, my baby loves tummy time." I've read that actually babies that are worn don't need as much tummy time because they are building neck strength from being in an upright position wrapped against you. And I totally believe that, because unless she's sleeping, Ava loves sitting up straight and looking around at everything while I wear her.

But I do make sure that she is getting some tummy time. Our Boppy pillow helps with that, because she doesn't have to do all the work herself and she can still see some things. Here's a few pictures I took of her in it the other day.

I added the bow to make it all "photography" like, but I should have thought about a better background. Oh well. :)

Milestones

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 21 May 2014 15:41:00 +0000

Ava has discovered her hands during this past week. She's been sucking on them since day one, but this last week she's figured out how to reach out for other things. She will stare really intently at her toys for a while, then swat in their direction. Sometimes she makes contact and even grabs on. She loves the toys I've attached to her car seat and spends a lot of her time in the car staring intently at them and trying to get them.

Finally, she's starting to get into somewhat of a napping schedule. If I swaddle her before I feed her, she'll usually take a long morning nap. With picking up the kids in the afternoon, the swaddling doesn't always happen, so she'll usually take a few short afternoon cat naps and one early in the evening. For the last two nights Ava has slept through the night (until 5:00 or 6:00 a.m.) which just amazes me! I hope that this will keep up once I go back to work to make that transition a little easier. :)

Here's a few pictures of my gorgeous blue eyed girl....

Happy Baby

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Fri, 16 May 2014 17:08:00 +0000

Ava has been changing and growing so much this month. She's such a happy baby - always giving us smiles. Sometimes she'll be starting to fuss about something (usually because she's getting hungry) and if she makes eye contact with one of us she'll stop fussing, give us a smile, then start fussing again. It's really cute.

Her eyes are definitely blue, and I think she's going to be a little blondie. Sometimes in certain lighting her hair has a tint of red to it, so maybe she'll be a strawberry blonde. She already has more hair than Raegan did at this age - it's coming in so fast now.

Ava is an amazing sleeper. She usually goes to sleep around 8:30, and I wake her up around 9:30 or 10:00 to eat. Then she'll sleep until 2:00 or 3:00, then go back to sleep until around 6:00. And on Mother's Day, she slept from 10:30-6:45! It was amazing - best Mother's Day present EVER!

Cloth diapers are still going great. No problems with washing, and Ava hasn't had a single diaper rash yet. I'm trying out some cloth wipes now (my husband officially thinks I'm insane) and I really like the solution I found at the cloth diaper store in Wichita. That place is amazing - so many choices for accessories. I am starting to understand why people end up with so many cloth diapers. I'm eyeballing some bamboo velour fitteds right now because I'm curious to try something new.

Selfie of me and my girlies from Mother's Day

Update on the girls

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 04 May 2014 03:33:00 +0000

Ava's 2 month check up was on April 24th. She was 9 lbs 12 oz (10 percentile for weight) and 23 1/2 inches (50th percentile for height.) Just like big sister was, and still is - tall and skinny. Doctor said she's not worried about her weight because she was 5th percentile at her 2 week appointment, so she's slowly moving up the curve. We know she has reflux, and we know that I have slow gaining babies. And Ava is alert and meeting milestones, so we'll just continue on with breastfeeding and she'll grow at her own pace.

I've been so blessed to have two amazing doctors when the girls are babies (Raegan's pediatrician was the best, but sadly she passed away when Raegan was 4 months old). It's so wonderful to have a doctor that understands breastfeeding and how breastfed babies gain weight, and who doesn't push formula on us. It's really important to me to have exclusively breastfed babies, and it helps to have a supportive doctor.

Ava has really just come alive in the last two weeks. She's started putting her hands in her mouth a lot, with a little bit of thumb sucking. She's starting trying to swat at and kick the toys in her play mat, and she looks at and tries to reach for the toy on her carseat handle. She smiles all the time, and we're starting get a lot of little "heh heh" laughs with her smiles. It's funny because sometimes she'll be upset (either tired or upset tummy) and she'll be mid fuss and make eye contact with one of us and start smiling. She'll smile real big then start fussing again during her smile. It makes me laugh every time.

Ava loves Big Sis and watches Raegan all the time. It takes me back to when Raegan was a baby and used to watch Zane all the time. Zane is really good with Ava too. He's such a good big brother.

Raegan is doing amazing with reading. She finished all of the beginning reader books at school and is able to read simple sentence books. She's starting to write a lot more, and will try to write out words with inventive spelling. It's really cute, and I know from my job that she's making progress in her writing development. I'm excited to see how far she goes next year doing kindergarten at Montessori school. The fact that she's staying at her school for kindergarten has helped keep all my feels about her going to kindergarten at bay. It's not quite as much, "Oh my baby!" as I think it would be if we were going to kindergarten round up and enrolling her in public school.

The egress window is FINALLY in, and Luke started painting this weekend. I'm hoping that by the end of the month we have all of the kids moved to their new rooms and there can be some order in the house again. I think that we could probably put Ava in her crib for at least part of the night once that room is hers, but I'm just not ready for that yet. She's doing a fantastic job of sleeping about half the night in her cradle in our room (something Raegan never did!) and she's so little still that I like having her close to me. Plus, I kind of like listening to her little snores and wuffles before I fall asleep at night. :)

6 weeks old!

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 16:45:00 +0000

Today Ava is 6 weeks old! I can't believe she's already been a part of our family for so long. If I were taking a "standard" maternity leave I would be at work right now. Ugh. That just sounds awful. I'm so glad I'm staying home until August.

Last week was a big week for Ava. Monday marked her first cold and first non well check visit to the doctor. Raegan wasn't sick until she was much older, so Ava had me a little worried. She had a fever of 100.2 Sunday evening (100.4 is when you take them in when they are that young) and was really congested. Our doctor said she is just fine - her lungs sound good and her ears are clear, so I just need to keep an eye on her at this point.

Monday was also Ava's first time to roll over from tummy to back. She was doing tummy time after supper and as she was rocking back and forth I said, "You're just going to roll over, aren't you?" Then BAM! over she went. It was pretty exciting.

Wednesday, Ava started giving us intentional smiles. There were a couple times the week before where Luke and I thought she was smiling intentionally, but Wednesday it was obvious, and she kept doing it. She's such a pretty baby, but she just lights up when she smiles.

She's still sleeping well. Between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. she usually wakes up twice, but sometimes I get blessed and she only wakes up once. She wants to nurse pretty frequently in the evening, but I'll take that tradeoff for being able to sleep decently at night. She's quite the grumbler though and usually will spend at least 30 minutes after her second night feeding groaning and grumbling. Right now I can laugh about it, but it's not quite that funny when I'm trying to get back to sleep....

Cloth diapering is going well. I'm still not using them at night, but her legs are still so skinny I'm afraid she'll leak out the sides with them on for an extended time. They work pretty well during the day - I've only had a few blow outs, but they would have wrecked a disposable too, so not bad. Mainly I'm using my Flips and prefolds, but I do have a few newborn all in ones that I'm using too. Laundry hasn't been a problem yet, and I'm hoping I can get Luke to hang me a laundry line soon so we don't have all these diapers hanging around the house to dry.

Ava fell asleep during tummy time yesterday. And then proceeded to sleep for over an hour. But she won't sleep in her cradle. Silly girl!

Fall Photo Shoot

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 04:08:00 +0000

Luke and I have an agreement that every other year we do family pictures. We did the last one in 2011, which means that this year is the year to do them. But since I am a *nice* wife, I told him we could skip this year because I really want a family picture next year with Baby included. I could have done them two years in a row, I suppose. But we're quickly running out of time for me to not feel like huge uncomfortable mess, so I'm okay with skipping this year.

I still wanted a nice picture of the kids together for our Christmas cards, and I wanted to get a couple pictures of Raegan and I featuring my baby bump. I didn't get any nice pictures of myself when I was pregnant with Raegan, and I still kick myself over that. I think I only have one or two pictures during my pregnancy that someone else took of me and aren't just me taking my own picture. :(

And because we are in Super High Gear Money Saving Mode right now, I borrowed my friend Christina's super fancy camera and Luke and I took pictures ourselves on the campus of the local college. I feel like we got so many great ones that I just can't decide which to use. And which to blow up and frame in our house. I do know that I'm going to go the do-it-yourself photography route more often from now on. And try to figure out how in the world to pinch even more pennies so I can get my own fancy camera.

Here's the results....

We are bad parents for taking this picture and laughing about it....

Our Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 03:24:00 +0000

Raegan got a wooden "ghoul bus" kit from school that her and Daddy put together Friday evening. She gets to use a hammer sometimes at school and she did quite well with it for this project too.

As seen on my walk on Saturday afternoon. I just love fall so much!

A very early Sunday morning art project. Because Daylight Savings Time means nothing to a four year old.

Sunday afternoon trip to the library. I've been trying to get back in the habit of taking Raegan again weekly and our weekends have been slow enough lately that we've been managing. We've found some fantastic new books to read (including "The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog" and "Into the Castle") and Raegan gets to play with some different toys. She did this alphabetic order puzzle completely by herself. Which really doesn't surprise me, since she was able to do alphabetic order last year in preschool. But it's always nice to see the results of preschool, you know? :)

And while I'm talking about Raegan's learning, she's really starting to take off with reading and sounding out words. Yesterday while we were reading a book before supper, she sounded out and read "bed", "hug" and "bag", all of which were words that I had never had her try to sound out before. And she didn't even struggle - it was just a smooth sound out then she said the word. And last week she brought home a sheet where she had written numbers 11-19 and has shown us how she can count by 10s. Sometimes she just blows me away!

Pumpkin Carving

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 03:10:00 +0000

One of the activities we did in my classroom the week before Halloween was cut open a pumpkin to see and feel what was inside. I'm one of those boring teachers that wants almost everything to be a learning experience, so we didn't carve the pumpkin in class. Seriously, what does a group of 3 year olds get out of watching me carve a face on a pumpkin? Nothing. But I digress....

So I brought the pumpkin home that evening and Raegan helped me clean it out and carve a face on it. She was a little grossed out by touching the guts (she wouldn't really do it at all last year, so this year was a big improvement) but she was really into getting to use the small knife to help carve the face. :)

I love the mouth open face she has when she is really concentrating on something!

Baby Update

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 03:05:00 +0000

Today marks 23 weeks for Baby Girl. According to what I looked up on the internet, she should weigh just over a pound and be a little more than 11 inches long. Apparently that's the size of a large mango. She's a mover and a shaker just like her big sister was - in the evenings she really gets to moving around. I've been able to see my stomach move a few times, and Luke was able to feel her kick at about 21 weeks. Raegan always asks to feel her kick, but it's always during a time when she's still, so we've only had luck with that once so far. She pulled her hand away real quick and looked at me like it was the craziest thing ever. :)

I'm doing really well, although I'm definitely a lot more tired with this pregnancy than I remember being with Raegan. So far my feet have only swollen up twice, and both evenings were after I had to sit at inservice training all day long. I've had a couple bouts of heartburn (a little earlier this time than with Raegan - boo!) but I think I've identified the trigger as chocolate (double boo!). Last time it was peanut butter that always bothered me the most. Apparently I have super weird heartburn triggers. My cravings right now are All The Melty Cheeses and Special K. I would add Mexican food to the list, but I always want Mexican food pregnant or not, so I feel like it doesn't really even count.

I've had some luck in gathering up baby things. A gal I used to work with sold me her changing table, swing and activity mat, so we have some basic baby furniture and gear. (We still had the crib and high chair from Raegan, so there's that too.) A girl I went to high school with had a garage sale and I was able to snag enough 3-6 month clothing that I really shouldn't need anything else in those sizes. I also bought 6 cloth diapers off of her, and 6 more at a huge sale at our local cloth diaper store, so I'm well on my way to a good stockpile. I'm not really worried about newborn or 0-3 month clothing, because that's what people always get you at your baby shower. So really at this point my main focuses are the carseat, stroller, breastpump, and finishing up my diaper stash. Everything I've read says I should plan on at least 20 diapers to be able to do laundry every other day. I want to get a few more soon, but then I really want to wait and see what works best out of what I have then buy more of those. I've gone with either All In Ones or the kind you stuff with an insert (why can I never remember what those are called?!) just to make life easier for my daycare provider. I'm excited to use cloth this time and I'm really hoping that they save us as much money as I'm planning on.

Insurance company has been called and I got the lowdown on how much our out of pocket on the birth should be. Last time all we had was a super minimal hospital bill because I had my own insurance plus my husbands (we had gone that route because of the fertility treatment I was doing, to try to minimize those costs). So I definitely wanted to get an idea of what it was going to run us this time. We already have it covered by the savings that I've been doing, but I'm going to go ahead and keep socking as much as possible away every month to help buy some of our "big ticket" purchases still. As long as the Affordable Health Care Act doesn't ruin my insurance in January, then we should be good to go as far as the hospital bill. And I'm slowly siphoning out more and more money every two weeks when my husband gets paid to get us used to not having all that money going to daycare. At least we won't have to start paying daycare for two kids until July. Give us a little more time to get used to that punch in the gut. :)

So all is well with Mommy and Baby. Hoping the rest of the pregnancy continues to be as low key and easy as this one has been so far.

Dress Up Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 03:07:00 +0000

Zane is cleaning out his room, due to the fact that he will be moving to the basement before Baby comes along. Raegan had a blast tonight playing with all his old cars and dressing up in his old costumes. It was so cute to see a miniature Star Wars character!

Pumpkin PaZooLa

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 04:29:00 +0000

Today we went to Pumpkin PaZooLa at Rolling Hills with my mother in law. It was busy, but the beauty of a zoo is it's so spread out you don't really notice the crowds. With the event there were some games and bouncy houses, and Raegan got to pick a free pumpkin to take home with her. It was a gorgeous afternoon too!