8 Months!

Our baby girl is not such a baby anymore!  Each month Charlotte is changing and growing up so much.  This month Charlotte has more teeth coming in, she is beginning to crawl and she "talks" ALL the time.  She says "ba ba" and does a backwards wave.  Every time we put Charlotte on the ground sitting she throws herself forward on all fours and rocks back and forth.  I'm pretty sure she's about to hit the ground running. 

Charlotte loves her food and her favorites so far are asparagus and sweet potatoes.  When she doesn't like something she shakes her head back and forth really fast.  It's so funny.  She is in size 4 diapers and 12 months clothes and growing quickly!  Charlotte has also made a habit of falling asleep while eating.  She will be going full force and then just pass out white eating.  I keep trying to video her but have only gotten pictures this time.

First pedicure!  She couldn't stop staring at her feet when they were painted.

Why are babies in sunglasses so funny?

We have so many toys and she loves playing with kitchen utensils

Loving being outside on the porch!

Charlotte also confessed her love for Owen on his first birthday.  I can't wait to show pictures of them at their wedding one day!  Doesn't everyone try and set up their kids?

Owen was impressed, I promise! I think he was just a little shocked at first!

We have such a happy baby and she smiles all the time.  When Charlotte smiles she smiles with her entire body.  I love that gummy grin that is about to not be so gummy anymore!  Happy 3/4 of a year baby girl!  

How are me and the CEO of Yahoo similar?

Well, it's definitely not the $300 million net worth (I wish!) but we were both hired while pregnant.  I've been reading articles about Marissa Mayer and her new role at Yahoo.  She is 37 and is now the CEO of Yahoo (previously Google) and is 6 months pregnant.  I am blown away at all the articles about her new role and mostly her pregnancy.  If a man was hired would he have to reveal that his wife was pregnant?  Apparently Marissa is taking a "working" pregnancy leave for a few weeks. I think it's a shame that she feels that she can't take a normal amount of time off to bond with her baby, but hey, to each their own.

As I wrote about before, I was pregnant while interviewing.  When I was hired I was 6 months pregnant. When interviewing, I really thought that they knew.  I was large and in charge and didn't really hide my pregnancy.  Ok, maybe I did purchase some maternity spanx.  (Note: Do NOT put these on in front of your husband. He will want to help because you are struggling to put them on and then you start sweating because you are very pregnant and don't understand how to fit your body into the tightest thing you have ever been in your entire life.) Anyway, I didn't say during my interview "hey, I'm pregnant, but I promise I'll work really really hard and do a great job." I just thought they could tell.  Well, after I was offered the job I disclosed my pregnancy and found out that they did not know...they had no idea I was pregnant, let alone six months pregnant.  It was so awkward.  My boss at the time was furious that I didn't tell her I was pregnant.  She said I would have been able to "sell my way through it".  Yeah right.  When I started my job there I acted like I wasn't bursting with baby and could hardly walk without being in pain. She said I was the nicest pregnant person ever and that I never complained. Why in the world would I complain to my boss?  I hated that I had to refer to my pregnancy/Charlotte as a "condition" or "my circumstance".  Looking back, I'm not sure if I would do that again...not disclose my pregnancy. I knew I wanted the job, and I knew that I would compromise it if I told them I was pregnant.  They thought I wouldn't come back after having Charlotte but clearly, I'm back.  It's tough being a woman in the workplace and trying to "do it all". Is there even such thing as doing it all?  Well, I'll keep trying.  Anyway, here's a picture of my "situation" that is now over 7 months old. 

Blast from the past

While my dad was here we reenacted my favorite picture of him and I.  Well, we didn't reenact it that would be kind of weird...Charlotte and him did.  Definitely a keepsake!

Everyone says that Charlotte looks just like Dan...Doesn't she look a little like me?  I did give birth to her! 

7 Months!

Today Charlotte is 7 months old!  Every month as I am writing this I think that the previous month has been the best so far.  How can it keep getting better and better?  This past month we have had tons of visitors and took a little family vacay down to the Hill Country.  Anyway, here is our little cutie at 7 months. 

Charlotte is the smiley, giggle queen ALL day...until the camera comes out.  You should have seen Dan trying to get her to smile while we took this picture.  I guess she wasn't in the mood to show her huge, open mouth smile today. 

At Charlotte's 6 months check up she was right under 18 pounds and I think she's probably around 19-20 pounds now.  Heavy enough to make my back hurt carrying her around in her car seat!  We started solids around 5 months and have made it through most fruits and vegetables.  I've been making her food mainly because I really like to cook and it is so easy!  So far she loves sweet potatoes, spinach, avocado, peaches and bananas.  Peas have made her break out into a rash but went away after a bath.  I really want Charlotte to not be a picky eater so I want to introduce her to everything! 

This past month Charlotte has really gotten into giggling and yelling.  She has discovered that she can make her voice go in different pitches and likes to test it out often.  She laughs really hard at the ceiling fan.  Who knew a fan could be so entertaining. 

Charlotte had lots of visitors this past month.  My brother came in for a week and stayed with us which I loved.  We had so much fun when he was here.  My Dad came to visit and my mom's side of the family was in town for a while also.  It was like a big family reunion!

Kade was great at helping Charlotte nap

She smiled big for the camera this day!

The ultimate stare down between Charlotte and Taylor

Since the summer hasn't been too crazy hot we have been able to spend some time outside.  We have this pool that we buy every summer for $20.  Make fun of us all you want but it is awesome.  It's huge and I could float in it.  Charlotte loves it.  When Kade was in town Rebecca brought her kiddos over to play and swim.  It was such a fun week being with both sides of the family.  I'm need to get better about taking pictures of everyone and not just Charlotte! 

Somehow Dan was talked into getting into the pool to hold the girls while we took pictures...he's such a good sport!

Rebecca and Taylor (4 months)

Family pic at our pool

Trying to get a pictures of all the kids.  Impossible.

Chase! (almost 4)

My Dad, Kade and I on my Dad's birthday

My mom and Charlotte

Charlotte was sitting on the floor playing with Taylor's feet. So cute.

Kade, the baby whisperer, holding Taylor.

Charlotte loves to sit in my lap while I put on makeup.  She just sits there and watches

Uncle Kade and Charlotte.  He's a great uncle!

Happy 4th of July!

   At Charlotte's school for her 4th of July Parade.  She fell asleep in the middle of it!  

 

 This month has been really busy but it has been great to see so many people.  Next month Charlotte will get to stay with my mom for a week so Dan and I can go to Italy.  I'm sure she will be spoiled rotten when we get back!

"Oh you just wait..."

From the moment I got pregnant to now to tomorrow and the day after that everyone is full of advice.  Whether it is advice for being pregnant or parenting people offer their advice.  During all of these times I have leaned on my friends a lot.  It's nice to have people that are in the same stage of life as I am.  Anyway, when I was pregnant people were saying "oh just wait, you won't get any sleep after your baby is born". Now that we are through the "no sleep" stage, it's "oh just wait, teething is terrible." Next it's, the terrible two's and so on.  We have even had people warn us about teenage years.  Dan and I take it with a grain of salt and try to just smile.  We made it through the newborn phase, we have started the teething stage and there are many more stages to come but we will deal with them as they come.  Why do people have to be so negative?  Every stage is a short period of time in the grand scheme of things.  What good will it do for me to worry about Charlotte's teenage years now?  Right now we will enjoy our little munchkin and all her stages of life.

House Update: The Playroom!

We have now been in our house for 3 months.  It feels like so much longer than that though!  We have done a few changes to the house and the most recent one was Charlotte's playroom. There is a room off of the living room that is the first room you see when you walk into our house.  I'm not sure what to call it.  I normally end up calling it the library because of the shelves that line the walls but really it's our play room.  When we bought the house I wasn't sure what to do with this room.  It has wood paneling that is actually pretty.  (It really is, I promise!) The ceiling is curved and painted white.  Our fireplace is in this room so I guess it could be called our family room.  We didn't have a fireplace in our old house so I am looking forward to using it this winter.  Dan and I have a different style that a lot of people.  We make quick decisions and luckily Dan trusts my ideas even when I second guess myself. 

Anyway...I had been on the lookout for a cool couch for this room.  I had tossed around the idea of putting in two club chairs but decided on a couch so that it could hold more people.  We actually use this room and I wanted something comfortable.  I searched for weeks for the perfect piece of furniture.  I found an awesome chesterfield sofa but it was $6,000.  Yeah right, no way would I spend that on a couch for a playroom.

 I ended up finding a couch on Craigslist by searching "tufted" every few weeks.  When we got it home I thought "oh my gosh, this thing is hideous, what did we do." It was super heavy and smelled like wet dog.  We got it in the house and I immediately threw a blanket over it because it was such an eyesore.  Even though I bought it with the intention on recovering it I couldn't look at it until I had a plan.  Our friends had left us a small wing back chair that I wanted to recover also. 

After fabric shopping several times I finally found the perfect fabric for the couch and chair.  I have recovered furniture before and it's almost more difficult when you have more choices.  Now that I have rambled on about these two pieces of furniture here are the pictures. 

Before...

After

 

 

 

Before

After

View from our front door

I'm really happy with how everything turned out!  It's amazing what a little color can do! 

Charlotte loves her new playroom!

Happy Daddy's Day!

We had an awesome Father's Day yesterday.  We just had a low key day at home and then dinner with family at night.  Happy Father's Day to my Dad and to my wonderful hubby.

6 Months!

Our little lady is 6 months old!  This month has brought on the most changes in Charlotte and has been so fun.  She has her two bottom teeth and she can sit up on her own!  I cannot tell you how amazing it is to sit her on the floor with toys and she actually plays!  I don't feel like she is just laying there all the time now. She has done really well with teething and doesn't seem bothered by her two little teeth.  The only time she has gotten upset was when she bit down on her hand really hard.  Those teeth are sharp! 

 

We go to the doctor Tuesday and I'm anxious to hear how much she has grown in the past two months.  She seems HUGE to me and my arm now gets sore from carrying her around.  She seems bigger than the other babies in her class but no one seems to be surprised.  I mean, look at how huge Dan was when he was born.

 

We have had several play dates this month too.  Adrienne and I have been getting Owen and Charlotte together to play.  It is nice that they can kind of play together now instead of just lay there and look at each other.  It was really funny because they would play on their own and then look up and realize that there was someone else there and they would reach out and touch each other.  Pretty cute.  

 We also had Sawyer and Tara over to play when they were in town this weekend.  Sawyer is 15 days older than Charlotte.  She seemed so much older!  She was scooting all over the place.  It was really fun to have our little girls play together.  I call Tara all the time with questions because she and I are normally going through the same thing with our girls because they are so close in age.

This was Tara and I both 8 months pregnant.  

Tara and I with Sawyer and Charlotte.  I promise they were smiling all afternoon!

 This month we also had our first house visitors.  Dan's parents came to visit from Colorado and spent a week with us.  They couldn't believe how much Charlotte had grown and changed.  Charlotte played hooky from school while they were here and enjoyed the one on one attention she got all week.  She was exhausted when Grandma and Grandpa left!  I used to love it when my grandparents came to visit and I know that Charlotte is always going to love having her special visitors come into town.

Happy 6 months baby girl!  You are going to be a year old before we know it!  We cherish every single day with you and you are truly the joy of our lives!