The last couple of weeks...

What a couple of weeks it has been.

My baby girl turned one. We miraculously all survived the first year. Not without many tears, sleepless nights, bumped heads, and temper tantrums. But we survived it none-the-less.

As we celebrated Heidi's birth we discovered that we're going to be parents of two in less than 8 months. I'm not going to lie and say that it wasn't a mixture of shock and fear when we found out. We'd been planning on starting to try for a second within the next couple of months (being as my life revolves around the school schedule), but Baby Bee and God had some other plan. Now that it has sunk in for 10 days or so, I'm pretty damn excited. Ever since Heidi was born I've wanted my children to be close in age. We're still kind of doing all the baby stuff. I'm somewhat embarassed to say we haven't even put away one single toy that Heidi has had since birth, they're all still out in the toy bins. Why put them away now? In my defense, the baby swing and bouncy seat and bassinet have been put away for a while now. Along with the bins and bins of too small baby girl clothes.

I know that it's wrong to really want one gender of kid over the other, but I really want another girl. I'll be pleased as punch with a little boy, but how I would love for Heidi to have a sister like I have had three wonderful sisters. And since we're two and through, this is her only chance for one!

So that's that.

I also went on and returned from a fabulous girls' vacation. I went to St. Augustine, Florida with Emily, Casey, and Aletha for three and a half days. We had a great time seeing the ocean (being knocked over by giant waves), visiting the shops, going on a ghost tour, seeing the old Fort, and my favorite the Eco-tour we went on (a boat tour with great info about birds and some dolphin sightings). I had such a great time, slept in until 9am! But was happy to return home to my baby girl and my wonderful hubs who I missed so much.

Let's hope August is a little less eventful...

Meet Blatz

Last night Josh and I were walking with the girls and Heidi and talking about something or other and he starts talking about someone named "Blatz."

Him: "Blatz this, Blatz that."

Me: Who the heck is Blatz?

Him: He's the black cat in our yard. He eats off the stoop. I've almost gotten him to come to me.

Apparently Josh has adopted a stray cat, and named him Blatz. He is feeding Blatz food on the back step over night. I'm getting ready for bed last night and hear Josh out the back door..."here Kitty, kitty, kitty!"

He comes in and says the dogs scared him away. Her away. Apparently Josh's friend Blatz is a girl.

Me: Josh has a pet cat.

Him: Yeah, I do.

Strange.

What a year...

What a year it has been. 365 days ago, Josh and I were setting off for a walk with the puppies. My stomach was beyond the point of "can't see your feet." But I was feeling okay. I'd been having mild contractions for a few hours, but being a first-timer, had no idea if it was the real deal. Little did I know, that less than 12 hours later I'd be holding my little love in my arms. What a year it has been.

It has gone so quickly. Yet, I feel like Heidi has always been a part of our lives. She has challenged me in so many ways. Two super-laidback, go-with-the-flow people, somehow got this feisty, stubborn, impatient (okay, she comes by that honestly) little girl. And I wouldn't trade her for all of the calm, quiet babies in the world. So many days I am exhausted from the attention that she craves, and then she looks at me and zooms in for a baby open-mouthed kiss, or slaps my leg, or cuddles in and I think that this baby is the perfect one for me. Lord knows there have been many posts in the past about terrible days we've had, and I'm sure there will be more in the future. But heaven help me if I'm not still head-over-heels in love with this little girl. If I wouldn't move Heaven and Earth for her. The last year has changed my life in so many ways, and all of them good. Every. Single. One.

And now, a timeline. How the heck did we get here?

We started here...



Spent many days here:


But so much more time here:




And then one day, we woke up here:



My tiny baby girl, who had to be bounced every night, who hated eating, who we thought would never crawl...turned into a toddler. She turned into a little girl who's crawling 90 miles an hour (across gravel no less). Who's babbling and shrieking. Still impatient and stubborn. But still so sweet and amazing.

And still with crazy crazy hair:



Happy birthday eve, Heidi Jean. Thanks for the best year of my life.

No, Heidi, we don't live outside

But how she loved the five days that we did.

We went camping with my mom, my sister, and her kids for five days over the 4th of July weekend. We are true tent campers, and Heidi just loved sleeping outside in the tent and getting to play outside all day long. She's been kind of cranky since we got home and I think it's because she really thought we had moved to the great outdoors for good.

Here she is on day 1, getting good and dirty. By day 2 pretty much all the dirt had been stuck to one kid or another. The next 4 days were not as dirty...


Chillin' in a chair. She loved to climb in and out of the chairs. And dirty. She got a bath in the sink this night...


In the morning (all bundled) using the stroller as a makeshift walker.


Swinging on the 4th of July (see her red, white, and blue!)


Crawling in the sand with her cousins...She was not a fan of the dunk in the ice water lake that it took to get all the sand off.


Hello to my fans:


She thought cousin Triston was the funniest. Or maybe it was cousin Seth and his crazy dancing:


Couldn't convince her to come through the tunnel, but she liked looking at me through it.


Modeling a visor that Aunt Laura made:


And such a little lady. I thought it was hilarious how she sat with her ankles crossed like this. She loved Kaileigh's little chair, she could get in and out of it by herself:


You can see, not a tear or sad face in sight. If I had to rate her favorite things of the camping trip they were probably:

• Sleeping with mama on the air mattress
• Fireworks
• Crawling on cement
• Playing outside all day
• Chair climbing
• Cookies in the high chair stroller
• Crawling around in the tent

With the least favorite being a tie between: swimming and bug bites.

My new wheels :)

Anyone who knows me knows that I've been dreaming about a new car for years. Years. Before I can show you my fabulous new car, it's only fair to my past cars to do a little recap.

After driving my parents' Chevy Cavalier in high school and going off to college without a car, I stumbled upon a terrific 1993 Plymouth Sundance owned by a friend of a friend of my brother, or something like that. Luckily I had some extra scholarship money in the bank and justifying this purchase as a school expense, I was behind the wheel of my first car. Seriously, I loved that car. I have a picture of it somewhere, but not on this computer. At any rate, it was white, four door, just a tiny little peanut of a car. I never had a problem with it the wh ole three years that I drove it. I sold it to my cousin for $800 and she got a couple months out of it before it was retired to I don't know where.

I would have probably kept driving the old Sundance, but Josh's grandma wasn't able to drive anymore and said that I could have her car as a wedding present. Meet the 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Grey, 4 door, afghans in the back. I'm pretty sure the Oldsmobile didn't even have a tape deck, but it did have air conditioning and automatic windows (both step-ups from the Sundance). I'm pretty sure back in 1990 this baby was a steal.

I probably would have kept driving the Oldsmobile even longer than I did, which was really only a year, but having a V6 in it, that baby didn't get very good gas mileage. Seeing as how I was driving over an hour every day to and from school, we needed something more fuel efficient. Once again, the planets aligned and I happened upon a gift vehicle. Josh's parents were getting their 1997 Mazda 626 back from his brother who had totalled it out in Tennessee rear-ending someone. It didn't really have much damage, just the front end was a little smashed in. They gifted it to me (that's right, my second free car!). The Mazda and I have had many good years together, from driving back-and-forth to school for 2 years, to getting my first job, to bringing Heidi home from the hospital (woah, I teared up a little bit there). Some not so good times, like when the hood flew up on the interstate, but luckily those were few and far between.

We did not trade the Mazda in, she's now Josh's work vehicle, hauling the dogs vehicle, etc.

But me...I've finally gotten my new car. A 2009 Toyota Rav4 4x4. I went in to the dealership intending to buy a used 2009 that they had with 11,000 miles on it, but didn't like the interior (which was already stained and a strange pattern) or the small tired. Then we drove a 2008 that was blue, so pretty, we liked the interior much better but had 31,000 miles on it already and was only 4,000 cheaper than the new. We went to look at the new and when we did the math with my college discount ($1,000, only on a new vehicle), the Grand Opening sale they had going on, and the better financing, the new was just the obvious choice. Once Josh got over his panic, we signed the papers and brought her home.

Name still pending. Give me your ideas ;)

So this is love...

What the he** just happened here?

There is simply no way for me to accurately put into words what happened tonight. Or to make it as funny in print as it was in real life. Although, I don't know if funny is the right way to describe it.

It all started out perfectly normal. Heidi and I went along with Josh to get his haircut. We usually go because my aunt cuts his hair so we can visit and Heidi can get her little bangs trimmed. His haircut was at 5, Heidi had a little snack before we left, and I imagined we'd just high-tail it back home afterwards, have dinner and a bath, and call it a night. As we're leaving my aunt says, "so where's dinner tonight?" and I said "probably at home, we ate out last night."

Then as we're walking out to the car, Josh starts complaining about how hungry he is. I say "well, we can eat somewhere if you want to." He says, "it doesn't matter." [This is totally his comment for everything, he never says yes or no.] Again he says how hungry he is, so I'm like, whatever, I'll just get a taco at Taco Bell and then we'll get home.

So, we go to Taco Bell, eat in so that Heidi can eat with us, and as we're eating we have this conversation:
Him: I get to get a lunch for tomorrow [sidenote: he always gets a lunch when we go to Viking which is right next door to the Taco Bell].
Me: Can't you just make a sandwich with stuff we have at home
He's looking all sad.
Me: But then you wouldn't have a dessert cup
Him: Well, I guess I don't have to get one.

We finish eating, and we're heading out to the car to go home and he says, "Heidi and I will just walk over there?" Me "okay." So apparently he does want to get a lunch. I get in the car and drive over and he walks over with Heidi. We go in and he's complaining that Heidi is heavy so I tell him to put her in a cart and we go over to where the lunches are and I tell him to pick one out...

Him: I get to get one?
Me: Why do you think we're here?
Him: you said I couldn't have one.
Me: Just go pick something out. Why do you think we're here?
Him: Just go get your other stuff.
Me: What other stuff? I don't have anything to get? We came here to get you a lunch?
Him: What do you mean?
Me: We're here only to get you a lunch, I don't need groceries, I'm getting them tomorrow!

Seriously, it's not that funny in print. Probably because I left out me calling him an idiot 500 times and a lady in the grocery store turning and laughing at me calling him an idiot. For more backstory, I will say that I told Josh earlier this week that I'm not going grocery shopping until Thursday because I'm getting fruit and stuff for camping this weekend and don't want it to go bad. Today is not Thursday. Never at any point in the night did I make mention of getting groceries. But apparently Josh has had it in his head all day that we were, since he even told a guy at work that we were going to get groceries tonight.

And more backstory. There were several times during the course of this whole deal that I was going to say, "seriously, we're going to go there just to get you a sandwich?" but I didn't because I'm a nice wife. Had we all driven over instead of walking, I would have just had him go in by himself, since we only needed the lunch. And Josh says that if he'd known we didn't need groceries he wouldn't have wanted to eat out, we could have just gone home. *sigh*

Needless to say, it was just Communication Breakdown 101. We laughed pretty much all the way home at how it all went so wrong.