art & band aides

My posts are so sporadic and weird...

We spent a pretty relaxing weekend at home. I had shoots on Friday and Saturday and other than that, we did a lot of nothing!

We went out to dinner with friends on Friday night - it was fun!

It's so nice to get out and enjoy a meal where you aren't constantly thinking of creative ways to entertain a two year old... she's pretty over sorting bags of sugar and splenda... and the salt and pepper lost its appeal months ago...

Anywho, while we were out to dinner, a fabulous babysitter (recommended from the Hoot fam), took care of Chappell. She is super patient, and our child loves her - so it's pretty great. To make her even more awesome, she is an Abrakadoodle art teacher! So every time she comes over I try to get some art supplies or play dough together for the two of them to play with.

This time, Chappell drew a picture of me!??

Margaret (the babysitter) swears that she didn't help Chappell at all. It has a face, two eyes (with X's for pupils... scary???) a nose, mouth and hair (looks like a buzz cut).

I was quite impressed! Margaret said that she was shocked she could even draw a circle.

I need to take a picture of her masterpiece and post it.

Saturday, Reed took Chappell to the pool while I went to my shoot.

When I met Chaps and Reed at the pool, I noticed that Chappell had a pretty bad rash where a Tinkerbelle band aide had been...

Turns out, she's allergic to band aide glue?

Anyone else ever heard of this?

I told my mom about it (because she's probably the only other person on this planet who cares), and guess what? Mimi's allergic to band aide glue and tape as well.

So there ya have it.

But how do I explain to a two year old who loves band aides more than anything else in the world, that she can't wear them anymore?

My mom said she should be fine if she only wears them for short amounts of time...

UMMM, OK?? You try ripping band aides off of this kid.

Tell me how that goes.

Countdown to gender identification... T-minus 3 days... eeeeeeeek!!!!

Little Mermaid

Straight up

14 weeks, 4 days

For documentations sake... I felt the baby move for the first time today!

A week or so ago I thought I felt "flutters," but I wasn't really sure...

But today - I'm sure.

I had sort of forgotten that weird, internal-twisty feeling... I felt it for the first time about an hour ago when I was leaning way back in a chair... I was talking to Reed on the phone. I've been getting some work done on the computer for the past 30 minutes and I've felt it a couple more times.

There's no mistaking it when you've felt it before!

This is actually real!

So weird.

14 Weeks

I'm such a bad blogger...

So, I'm currently 14 weeks pregnant.

Chappell's at school right now... so I've been editing like a mad wo-man... I had my daily cup O joe and I actually have a little bit of energy right now.

Life in general has been kind of hard for me lately because my business has gotten pretty busy (which is great!) but Chappell has been on summer break.

She was out of school for an entire month, but is now back two days a week until fall.

She usually goes three mornings a week, but I'll take two days over nothing at all! I miss her when she's gone, but I just can't get much done when she's at home.

I refuse to be one of those moms who works on the computer while she's home and awake... so, my work time is limited to her nap time and after she goes to sleep at night.

Don't-cha worry-- I haven't missed a deadline yet, but I'm just wiped. I'm way too ummmmm, errrr, anal (??) to let things slack when it comes to my little bizzznass.

SO, wanna know what is slacking??

My housekeeping... my appearance...

BUT, my kid is happy and so are my clients! So I guess that's a good thing, right?

Pregnancy wise-- here's an update:

I was really sick from weeks 6 to 11. Since then I've been feeling much better.

I've had a couple bad days since then... but it really hasn't been that bad. With Chappell I was sick from weeks 7-8 to week 14. I guess I got off a little easier this time.

Everything looked great with the baby a couple of weeks ago at my 12 week appointment. We got another ultrasound and got to see the baby moving his/her arms and feet all over the place. It was so cool to see!

Yesterday, I called and asked if we could buy an extra ultrasound at my next appointment (16 weeks) to try and find out the sex. They agreed, so it looks like we will find out August 3rd.

Any guesses?

Not like anyone even reads this anymore... which leads me to another topic... I'm thinking of setting the blog to private.

Little Chappy update:

Chappell is so hilarious, and awesome-- in our opinion, anyways.

She is so smart... it's ridiculous. I mean, I'm not surprised... her dad is freakishly smart (like perfect ACT score smart)... and so is she.

I'M IN FOR IT.

Her vocabulary is out of this world.

She is complimented for her manners all the time... whenever we leave some one's house (or the grocery store, or a restaurant) she tells everyone, "thank you for having me!" -- it's really cute. She's very good about remembering "please" and "thank you."

She's still going to bed between 7:30 and 8, but she's been waking up around 6:30 for the past couple of months or so. Perfect timing, right? I miss those 8 am wake up yells... 6:30 is way too early for this girl.

Speaking of sleep, she's still sleeping in her crib. She has a crib tent, so she's not going anywhere... and seems perfectly content in the crib... I'm thinking I'll put her in a big girl bed in October or November. To give her a month or so to adjust before the new baby gets here.

Chappell asks me often, "Are you my best friend, mommy?? You are my best friend." MELT.

Although this age is absolutely the most fun thus far-- it can also be the most difficult.

At times I find myself pulling my hair out. When Chappell turned two, (and in the months that followed), I couldn't understand why people talked about the "terrible twos" so much. But the closer we got to two and a half, I started to realize why...

She's still a great little girl, and is wonderful most of the time... BUT, she's testing me more and more these days.

And I'm pretty sure her intelligence just makes it worse.

We have meltdowns more frequently these days. And that just stinks.

I hate coming down on her so much, but I know it's something I have to do... I rather fix it now than when she's 12.

Enough for now... peace out, folks.