I'm laughing so hard right now...

I don't fully know what occurred to create the below images, I will have to update that part later. My mom sent me these pictures at work and I can't stop snickering. I also think it's funny that instead of immediately removing the pacifier (could that have been comfortable?) she stopped to take a photograph of it. And for that I am thankful.

There is the aftermath. I had no idea a pacifier could suction to the skin in such a way. I will have to try this on my own skin when I get home. Hopefully the mark is not forever!

Just for Fun

Here are some fun pictures of Cason being a big boy.

Hello Lover.

Carrie Bradshaw said it to a pair of Manolo's and I said it when I saw this diaper bag.

Diaper bags are like purses, right? You should have 1 for every occasion. I had a perfectly good, beautiful diaper bag but when I saw this one I had to have it. It's by Dwell- the real Dwell, not the Target Dwell. I feel that a modern diaper bag that represents my personal style will help me look like I have it all together. It should draw the attention away from my messy hair, lack of makeup, pants that don't fit and spitup on my shirt.

Two diaper bags will come in handy when he starts going to daycare since it will need some different things in there every day. The other one is also my "formal" diaper bag and will go better with a basic black dress and this one is my "sporty" diaper bag and will go better with jeans. Love it!

Stupid Mommy Mistake

This will be a continuing column since there have been and will be, so many.

So, I came home the other day and all of Cason's toys were on the floor. Since we have dogs and I didn't know how much the toys had been played with, I decided to sterilize them. I have these handy dandy microwaveable steam bags that sterilize anything in 1.5 mins. You just place the objects in the bag, add a bit of water, and zap for the right amount of time. I had only used them for pacifiers, bottles, and pump equipment but I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to do the toys.

I placed them all in the microwave and started the time. Only about 30 seconds in to it I hear a pop. Hmmmm, what is that I wonder. It took me another 30 seconds to stop the microwave because I realized what it was. You know those toys that you put in the freezer when they are teething? Well, when it is not frozen, it is a gel inside of those. When it goes in the microwave, the gel explodes! So now, instead of cleaning the toys, I have now covered them all in some sort of possibly poisonous gel.

Here is a picture of the toy after "the incident". Should have known not to put that sort of toy in a microwave. Silly Catherine!

Yummy Dinner

I love being able to have dinner at home that I have actually cooked. I didn't totally do this whole meal but right now, it counts. Mom had made a tortilla soup which i added chips, sour cream, and cheese to the top. Here is mike enjoying the soup.

THEN I made bruchetta with fresh tomatoes from the garden and fresh basil from the garden and some artisan bread I got on sale. Just chop some tomatoes and basil, sprinkle with salt and EVOO and a little Parmesan. Brown bread in broiler and eat. I'm trying to spend less money on food so this dish was super cheap. I don't know as much about saving money on food but you can check out Lindas Blog for some real tips.

Here is Cason enjoying watching us eat and wearing his favorite outfit. Hope he's smart enough to get a scholarship!

Photoshoot

My brother is a photographer in Dallas so I took Cason over for a photoshoot. It was a lot of fun and Cason was in a great mood. I have much respect for photographers who shoot babies becuase they do not want to cooperate. Cason kept blinking every time the camera flashed, he never seemed to get used to it. I'll have more to show later but here is one of the cute ones.And here Cason is with his uncle Crisco. I think this is how Chris feels most of the time when he's holding Cason. Photography lights make a huge difference to my basic camera skills here. maybe i need a studio so i can properly photograph my child!

Um, I don't need YOU to make me feel stupid too Mr. Chase Mortgage guy

I feel stupid enough without you every day as I try to raise a child with no idea what I'm doing.

I called Chase yesterday to ask about Refinancing our house. We have lived in it for 2-1/2 years and I hear the interest rates have gone down and you can "refinance" and get a lower interest rate and your mothly payment will go down. That was my basic understanding of the process. I talked to a nice pre-qualification guy first and gave him my info and he said I would qualify and passed me off to the real mortgage guy. The conversation went something like this:

"Hello Mrs. Harvey, let me see if i can help you. What does your house appraise for?"

I told him.

"Um, you don't qualify for this"

"Why Not?"

"You don't have enough equity in your home"

"What do you mean?"

"There is not enough equity in your home to qualify for this"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are saying, I was just told I qualified and now you are telling me that we don't. Can you explain further?"

"The equity in your home is not great enough for you to qualify" obivously annoyed at this point.

I wanted to say: "look, i'm an interior designer, not a finance major, i do not understand what you are telling me, you might as well be speaking french, please explain what equity is and how i get more of it. I cannot be the only person in the world who does not understand this!"

But i said: "are you saying I need to have owned the house for longer or made more payments?"

"yes"

"but I owe less than it is worth, we have paid the balance down"

"yeah, like $15,000" might has well been followed by duh, idiot lady, it's amazing they let you buy a house with your obivous lack of knowledge of how this process works. Do you have a degree in stupidity. Please let me off the phone so i can help someone who actually knows what's up.

I thought $15,000 sounded like a lot. I thought that since i had made faithful on time payments for the past 30 months that I deserved to be able to refinance based on good behavior. i thought that since I owed less than the house was worth that was a good thing.

"so there's nothing else i can do?

"no"

Ugh. I know, many of you are laughing and think i'm an idiot too BUT you are doing it behind my back and that is better, I will never know about it. This guy could have just explained what "equity" meant is 2nd grader terms and we would have all gotten through this much easier. I'm so glad i didn't major in finance, we would be bankrupt by now, clearly I don't have a talent for it.

So dear house, we will continue paying the same amount for you as always. Maybe I can get my student loans suspended since I had a baby. I can imagine how that conversation would go.

"i'd like to suspend my student loans please"

"why"

"i had a baby"

"do you still have a job?"

"yes"

"then why exactly should i suspend your loans?"

"i can't stop buying the baby dwell clothes at target, i could buy many more if i didn't have these pesky student loan payments hanging around"

"are you serious?"

"yes mam, i am"

Another Cute Outfit

I shouldn't be allowed in Target alone... especially when the new Dwell stuff is out. I LOVE this one. I accidentally bought 2. Well, not accidentally exactly. I got 2 becuase i thought they were different. Dwell puts their clothes in a box so the stripes that were showing on each one were different therefore i thought the 2 outfits were different. I get them home and they are the same, but i still love them so I'm going to keep them. I have GOT to stop buying baby clothes. I have a mom and sister for that!

Toy headed towards mouth....

And success!!!

I'm watching him on the monitor trying to roll over. He's sooooo close and it's so fun to watch him practice on his own. I go in and help every once in awhile but there's something cool about seeing him learn that trick on his own.

Outfit

I just liked this outfit (it's different than the one in previous post). It has long sleeves which isn't great for 100 degree weather but I figured the grocery store would be cold. It was, but the car getting us there and back wasn't.


-- Post From My iPhone

This is what happens...

When you don't strap your 4 month old in the swing. He's never needed strapping in before but I guess when you want out bad enough...



-- Post From My iPhone

Fat and Bald

Just like an old man, Cason is going bald and getting fat. So sad. Hopefully the new hair will grow in soon. Here's some of the latest photos to catch up. Most are from my cell phone camera so I won't be winning any photography awards but at least I have some photos!

Lets review....

Hair

No Hair.

There's just a strip of hair left down the center, like a mowhawk except it won't stand up!

As you can tell, our favorite activity is playing with our feet or putting things in our mouth. Earlier today he got his toes within 1/2" from his mouth but never got them in. So cute!



Yes, that's cereal he's getting in a spoon. "But he's not 4 months yet, it's against the rules". Oh well, he will live. He gets about a tsp. every day that i feel like giving it to him. Hopes are that he would sleep longer but I don't know that it's helped yet.

When he's not holding his feet he likes to look at them or kick things with them or kick people with them. I think he's quite impressed with what those little feet can do!

Boot Camp- The Schedule

For those who are curious, here is my daily/weekly schedule.

Morning
Quiet Time
Eat Breakfast
Pack Lunch
Start 1 load of Laundry
Unload Dishwasher

Evening
Wash Pump Equipment
Empty Dryer and Put clothes away
Check Den for Trash
Pick out Clothes for tomorrow
Get bottles ready
Sort through trash and deliver to proper place
Put clothes on dresser away


Sunday:
File Paperwork
Sterilize pacifiers
Go for a walk
Family Time 9:30-10:00

Tuesday:
Go for a walk
Family Time 9:30-10:00

Thursday:
Go for a walk
Family Time 9:30-10:00

Saturday:
Get everything ready for church

This is just my version, Mike has some other things on his list... but not near as much. :-) Some of these things I already do regularly, some of them I don't and need the reminder. This list will be posted where I can check it every morning and evening as a reminder. I'm sure there will be things that get added along the way but this is a start. What's not on here is Casons new schedule. I wake up at 6:30, get ready, wake him up at 7:30, play with him (while eating breakfast and unloading the dishwasher) feed him at 8:00 and I'm out the door to work. He still is getting up at some point between 3 and 5 to eat so this usually works out well. For the past 4 days we have been within 30 minutes of this each morning. I also have his last feeding at 9 and put him straight to bed. If he's not ready to go he goes in his crib to watch his ocean wonders machine. When he gets fussy DADDY gets to rock him to sleep (mommy is in bed or finishing her list!).

"Family time" on the list above is just some designated Mike and Catherine time where we are not allowed to watch TV (or have it on) unless it is a show we are both watching together. Again, seems silly to have to write this in but you would be surprised how hard it is for us to hang out anymore. We are both busy with work or Cason and if we aren't doing those things we want to sleep. I think we need some time to hang out, play wii, or talk about the next house project.

Have I done my whole list tonight? Well, not exactly. It's been a wierd week becuase Mike is out of town. So I'm going to bed and we will start fresh in the morning!

Back to Church- Update

This week I made it to church for the 9:30 service, with everything i needed (including Bible and cell phone), got starbucks, got Cason to the nursery and made it in the sanctuary before many of my fellow sunday school classmates (if you are 9 months pregnant i'll give you a pass). I should get an award. I didn't make it to Sunday School becuase I had to go feed him at 11 but we will get it down eventually.

After he ate we went to see mike off to camp. I'm headed to McKinney to stay with mom and dad so I won't get lonely.

More pictures soon, I promise!

Baby Boot Camp- Week 1

Somethings got to give. I'm quickly headed down the path of becoming an insane person and I would really rather avoid that. So, we are about to put our family through boot camp and shape this place up. Gone are the days of my sweet baby sleeping through car rides and being easy to tote around. It's no longer ok for my house to be a disaster and take-out be our only form of nutrition. How much longer can I use "I have a newborn" as an excuse?

I snuck away to a pedicure 2 weeks ago and had some much needed alone time. I took a journal and wrote down all the areas of my life which I felt were currently out of control. Then, I wrote down some way in which I could make it better. I'm going to slowly start implementing those ideas so that I can survive and be a nice person- currently I'm not doing either.

So, this first week we are working on schedule. I read 3 months was when you could start "sleep training" and 3 months came 2 weeks ago to it's probably about time I get started. Even through this holiday weekend, alarms will be set and I will be waking Cason up at the same time each morning, and putting him to bed at the same time each night, and feeding him on a schedule and closely watching his nap routine to see how it fits in. That way, whether I'm at work or at home, he will have some consistency. The rest of the plan is a bit harder. Since currently very little is getting done around the household, Mike and I are both going to have daily lists for morning and night. Maybe someday these things will become routine but for now, a list is what I'm aiming for. Since I can currently remember nothing my night list will include things like "pick out clothes, get pump stuff ready, gather everything needed for work"; and my morning list will include "make lunch (and take it with you), play with Cason, unload the dishwasher, start a load of laundry". All things that the average person can remember to do but I am struggling with.

Pray for us, this isn't going to be easy. Of course, I eventually want to be flexible with Cason and not be driven by his bedtime or nap time, but until we get a basic routine established, I'm going to be pretty rigid.

Stay tuned for more tales of Baby Boot Camp.