"Fragile" Handle with care

So I know that parent hood is going to come with many scary moments. I know how fragile my angel is and how lucky I am to have her. Well, last night confirmed it for me.

We were at Sams Club shopping and Raegan now likes to sit in the basket part of the cart instead of up front. We were shopping and I stopped pushing the cart. Next thing I know Raegan leans over the cart and in slow motion I see her fall out of the cart. Her head is much heavier than everything else and when she leaned out of the cart she tumbled over the side. She basically flipped all the way over and luckily landed on her back. She cried for about a minute and then was okay. She acted normal. She walked, laughed and wanted some ice cream. Me being a paranoid mom was thinking about what would happen later in the evening so we took her to the urgent care center to get looked at. Dr. said she was fine.

I cant believe this happend. From here on out, Raegan will be strapped in the shopping cart.

29 days

OH NO!!! Only 29 days to go and she will officially be 1. My little princess will turn one on 1/11. I am so sad about this. As much as I look forward to the future and what it will bring for her and us I am so sad that the past is gone. I want that little helpless baby to hold. I want her first giggle again, her first smile again. I want them all back because they just went way to fast for me.

Who is this "man"?

Who is the plump man in the red and white suit? The man with the snow white hair and beard? The man with the sleigh and reindeer? To me as a kid he was the toy guy. The best person in the world.

We took Raegan to Disneyland last weekend. She loved it. Such a stimulation overload for her but I think she enjoyed every minute of it. And Santa was there so we took her to see Santa. She was fine with the big stranger dressed in red. Just looked at us like why did you set me on this strange mans lap but overall she did very well.

As much as the above pictures is very cute. Raegan wasn't looking at the camera. I wanted a Christmas Card picture of Raegan looking at the camera so we decided to dress her in red and white and take her to the mall. The Santa at the mall looked very similar to the Santa at Disneyland, so why did we get pictures like this.....

Well...needless to say she did not enjoy this experience. I thought it was kind of funny so I was snapping pictures. Pretty funny that even with a screaming child on his lap Santa still had a big smile. I guess we will settle for the Disneyland picture with Santa. However, I am considering putting one of these on my Christmas cards as well.

Adventures in Frugal Land

I have been trying my best to remain frugal. Save money for nicer things. Well...to me a nice thing is a really good camera. So I have been frequently visiting this website called myfrugaladventures.com. It is awesome. This is what I purchased yesterday for a grand total of $9.79. That is a $25.20 cent savings. AMAZING!!

pictured above are 13 name brand items that I got for an average of .75 cents each. You can not beat that. I have to say that being frugal and looking for deals is addicting. I love it now. I am not sure my husband appreciates it yet because this is how a conversation with me goes.

Him: do you want to go to lunch somewhere.

Me: sure, where do you want to go.

Him: I dont care

Me: well let me see what I have a coupon for.

HA HA HA....I try to use coupons every opportunity that I can. Why not? In these days it is good to save your money and be frugal. I am so excited. Its time for me to go look for coupons.

Planning a birthday party while remaining frugal

So I am learning to be more frugal. Thanks to a little help from some websites I have visited. Here is my latest frugal adventure.

I am currently planning for Raegan's first birthday party. We are having a My Little Pony themed party. I already bought the outfit on Ebay. It was only $25 and it is super cute.

So to match her outfit I wanted a really cute party hat. I had seen them on Etsy before and they are pretty pricey. I pride myself on being a pretty crafty person. I guess I get that from my mom who can pretty much do anything crafty. Paint, sew, you name it. She can do it. So I went to Michaels and bought the stuff to make the hat myself. Here is what it looks like and to make it much better. Supples for it only cost me around $5. Now that is frugal. I saved myself $20.

Now if I can only figure out a way to save on the Pizza that we planning on buying for everyone. I do not plan this to be a small birthday party. I think my list is at 30 people right now. Unfortunately it is cold in January when her birthday comes so we can not do a bbq outside somewhere. I need to have it at the pizza parlor this year and I wouldnt feel right if I didnt buy the pizza for all. Oh well...Thats an expense I will just have to make. I am so happy to be planning her first birthday but at the same time I am sad that I am already planning this. My baby is going to be one in 3 short months.

Frugal

I consider myself to be a frugal person. I try to find the best deals. I dont always by name brands because 98% of the time the off brand is just as good. But I want to be super frugal. I know it takes a lot of time and some practice. I want to clip coupons and be that women who goes to the grocery store and walks out with $100 in grocery for $20. How is it done? I have tried it before. I can never find the right coupons. Where do you find coupons? I frequently visit this website called myfrugaladventures.com . This is a great site. If you havent checked it out yet, do so. I have saved about $30 since looking at her site but the lady that runs this site is the person I want to be. She always shows her purchases and how much she spends on them. It's amazing. I want to be that person.

What will I do with the savings that I get? I want a new camera. Not just a throw it in your purse camera. I want a really nice camera. You know the Lexus of all camera's that is probably between $500 and $600. In order to get that I need to save. So coupon clipping here I come.

Come and Gone

Here it is November 2nd. Another month has come and gone. The last 9 months of my life have been just that, Come and Gone. Way to quickly for my liking. My baby girl will be 10 months old very soon. Gone are the days where she used to just lay in my arms and sleep, gone are the days where she would just look into your eyes and smile because you are looking at her. She is very close to being a toddler instead of my little baby. She wants to be on the floor moving instead of being held by me, she now looks back and smiles at me as she is heading towards the entertainment center where she knows she should not be and now our house looks like a daycare because of all the toys to keep her occupied.

Why is it the times that you wish life would just stroll along and take its time really goes by super fast. I wanted the first year of my Princesses life to just slowly go on. I feel as if it went so quickly

This weekend was fun. We celebrated Halloween with friends. I dressed Raegan up and she lasted about 10 minutes before falling asleep for the rest of the night. She looked really cute though.



She was my precious little kitten. So now Halloween has come and gone and took the month of October with it. And now we come to November and Thanksgiving. I am sure it will come and go just as quickly as the past 9 months have.

Small town

I grew up in a very small town. A town where you know everyone in the town. A town where you went to school with the same kids from kindergarten through graduation from high school. I loved living in a small town at the time.

When I was 18 I wanted out of that small town. I left and moved about an hour away to a larger town. I miss the small town atmosphere and really wish I could move back to a little town. I want one smaller than I grew up in though. You know the one horse town. The towns with one stop light and one main street that everyone hangs out on Friday nights. I like the Gilmore Girls town. I know thats not a real town but only a television set on a studio in Los Angeles but thats what I want. Thats where I would love to raise my little girl. I know she would probably dislike me when she was older and bored because there was nothing for her to do,but I think when she is older she will realize what she had was good.

Back from my dream beacause I know that will never happen. I have married a city boy. A man who would never leave the big city for a small town.

This weekend I go back to the past. I will be visiting my small town for the day. I am sure I will run into a lot of old high school friends because a lot of them are still there. I look forward to Saturday.

Hire a Photographer

We took our little pumpkin to the pumpkin patch this weekend. It is so cute. She was dressed in little butterfly wings and a tutu. Everyone stared and pointed at how cute the little baby was. As a parent that always makes you feel good.

I took some pretty good pictures of her but I told my husband from now on we are going to have to have a photographer on staff whenever we go anywhere. I am always behind the camera so there are about 1/3 of the pictures with me and the family as there are with Jason and Raegan. We never really have a picture of the three of us unless you call the close up head shots of the three of us family pictures. You know the picture when you cram together and hubby has his arm straight out trying to center all three of us in the picture. So from now on we hire a photographer. Yay!!! probably not going to happen but its a good thought.

I leave you with pictures of our fun Saturday afternoon.

Sorry. Cant figure out how to put the pictures underneath but here they are anyway.

It's been awhile

It has been awile since my last post. I find myself to busy to get on and blog. I find myself unsure of what to write about that might be interesting.

I have a 9 month baby on my hands. She is precious as ever and has just started yelling mama at everything. Standing at my legs wanting to be held and yells mama mama. How can I not pick her up after hearing her say mama. I have to admit she is mildly spoiled. Mildly is saying the least. She is quite spoiled. Its hard not to.

She crawls, pulls up and has 8 teeth. She is moving right along. I love her so much and wish she would not grow up so fast but at the same time I can wait for the future. It will be so much fun.

You know your a mom when....

*you just put on clean clothes and now there is spit up on them and you wont change because in an hour there will be more spit up.
*you have wet spots on your shirt that are not from water.
*an exploding poopy diaper doesnt make you gag
*you dont yell at someone when they fart on you.
*you talk in a baby voice to almost everyone you meet.
*you find yourself swaying even when your not rocking the baby.
and the list could go on and on. i wouldnt change it for the world.

She truly is an angel

I knew she was an angel. Her bottom is now confirming that for me. As she lays in my arms sleeping, I look at my little angel and I know how fortunate I am to have her.

My Smile

I wake up at 6am every morning and start work at 6:15am. I work from home so I dont have to get all prettied up and go somewhere. Raegan is usually still sleeping but sometimes she wakes up when I lay her on the couch,

The best part of my day is when I hear her get fussy and I walk in there and as soon as she sees me she has the biggest smile. Her mommy smile. I know that smile is just for me. I love knowing that I am the first one she sees everyday and the first one she smiles at. I am so thankful I get to work from home and do not have to send her to daycare so they can see all her firsts before me.

My Birth Story

I know...3 months later but I decided I need to write it out before I forget how everything happend. if reading please realize some parts may be TMI for you.

It was Saturday January 9th. 10 days before my estimated due date through my dr's office. 4 days before my estimated due date in my eyes. You see, based on the time everything happend and my last menstrual cycle I had my due date as January 13th. My dr's office however had my due date as January 19th based on the size of my little bean.

So 4 days before my due date my husband wants to drive to San Luis Obispo with some friends and do a tour of Hearst Castle. I was excited and was all for it. I called our friends, booked our tour tickets online and we were all set to go. About an hour after all of this I thought, huh, maybe I should check with my Dr and see if I should do a tour like this. After a phone call to the Dr I was told by an advise nurse that I really shouldn't do it. The tour had a lot of walking and many steps to climb. In addition there was not a hospital close by if anything happend. against my Dr's advise I did the tour. You see I was beginning to get uncomfortable in my pregnancy and was looking for a way to progress my labor. I rationalized it in my head with the fact that I had been active through out the pregnancy and I have had no complications. Besides being very hot and a little dizzy in some parts of the tour, I survived. Afterwards we went and had lunch and then headed home.

When we got home is when I saw the first signs that Raegan would be coming. I used the restroom and I finally saw parts of the mucous plug. This happend all night Saturday night. Sunday rolls around and more signs that Raegan was coming. Now on top of the mucuos plug I was starting to see bloody show. It appears that my Hearst Castle tour was becoming a success. Our neighbors came over on Sunday and I told them I am having this baby soon. Probably tomorrow.

Its 2 am on Monday January 11th. I get up to go the restroom or shall I say roll out of the bed because I am huge at this point. Thats when I felt it. A burst of water, my water had broke. Thank the lord I made it to the restroom prior to any leakage and it all ended up on the linoleom in the bathroom. Not as much of a mess to clean up. I opened the door and told Jason, " I am calling the hospital. I think my water just broke". I called the hospital and they said to come in and they could check to make sure it had broke. Adrenaline is running now and I can't believe that this might be the day. Of course vanity also kicks in and I tell Jason. I am taking a shower. I don't want to be dirty when there is going to be so much activity surrounding my body. I shower, blow dry my hair and put on a little bit of makeup. I really do not know what bit of good any of this did. You would say the same thing if you saw the pictures of me after giving birth. So Jason and I head to the hospital at about 2:45 am.

We get to the hospital and they put me in the beautiful hospital gown. They get me all wired up and check me and yes my water did break. We are having a baby. Its about 3:30 now and I contemplate who I am going to text message to let them know. First there are the priority people. Moms, Aunt Linda (who is enjoying her vacation at Walt Disney World), sisters, and close friends who gave permission to text in the middle of the night. Next, when should we let our work know. Since I was due in at 6 am and it was currently 4 am I texted my boss to let her know. Okay everyone has been notified its time to relax.

Relax?? Not possible. For me anyway. 4:30ish they hook me up to pitocin and shortly after is when the contractions start. They were not strong....yet. My 6 foot 3 husband tries to curl up and sleep on a couch that is probably 5 and 1/2 feet in length but I heard a few snores coming from him. I could not sleep. Aside from my mind wandering like crazy the pitocin had started making the contractions stronger. My mom came over around 8:30-9:00 and Jason went home to shower and grab our bags. (no I did'nt take them with me. I wasn't sure they were going to keep me there). We only live 15-20 minutes from the hospital so he wasn't going to miss anything.

A few hours into the pitocin and the contraction had gotten stronger to where I needed some kind of medicine. They came in and put something in my IV. That made it better for about 45 minutes at a time. I think I got about 3 of these shots before I was in tears the contractions were so bad. If they had'nt been in my back I don't think it would be as bad. I asked for the epidural. Unfortunately the anesthesiologist was assisting in a c-section and it would be about 30-45 minutes. Now, that does'nt sound very long but to someone who is crying because the pain is bad that is a looong time. Finally they get there. They send all of my family out of the room to perform the epidural. My luck, I get someone who is in training and it probably took about 10 minutes longer than it should have taken to get it. It was about 12:30 when I got the epidural. They warned me of the side affects and that it could cause the babies heartbeat to go down and my blood pressure to go up. About 5-10 min after I got it I started feeling really naseous and hot. That when all of a sudden 3 nurses and the Dr come into the room and make me move into a different position and make me take oxygen. It had done to me what they said it might do. They had to put a medication in my IV to get everything okay again.

Can you say relief. Ohhhhh....I was in heaven after the epidural. While it felt really nice to not feel the contractions, it felt really weird to not feel anything from my waist down. I asked the nurse, how am I going to be able to push my baby out if I can't feel anything. I mean I could not even move my legs at all. Now I know what it feels like to be paralyzed. My mind wanted them to move but they were not moving.

From about 12:30 to 5:10 we were just waiting, waiting for anything to happen. That is when the nurse checked me and she said it was time. I could start pushing. Remember I can't move my legs. How am I going to do this, I thought. Good thing I had my husband, my mom and mother in law there. My mom and husband each held a leg for me and my mother in law was the photographer.

I digress a little. Throughout my whole pregnancy I said everyone is going to be above my shoulders. I don't want anyone looking when the baby is coming out. You will see her when they get her out. Well...when you are in the heat of everything, it all goes out the door. I had everyone up in my business. I did however warn my mother in law that there were to be no pictures in that vicinity.

Back to pushing. The Dr comes in and I start to push. Now who ever thought that 10 seconds was such a long time. It took for ever to hold my breath and push for 10 second counts. I really think the nurse was counting extra slow. The Dr. though I was a pro. She did'nt realize this was my first baby because I was so good at it. Let me just say I did a lot of practicing while watching the Baby stories on TLC for 9 months. I pushed for about 4 rounds of pushing and Raegan Rae was born at 5:36.

I also need to point out that I said I did not want my baby put on my chest after I had her because I did not want to mess with all the blood and gross stuff. Now that was a lie also. I loved it when they put her on my chest after she was born. She laid there and cried. She was beautiful. She had already scratched her face and everything. The moved her to the warmer and cleaned her up. It was love at first site.

My Little Miracle

It is days like today that make me look at my beautiful little baby girl while she is sleeping and realize how blessed I am. Days when I hear bad news about another mother losing her most precious gift, her child. My baby is my world and every time I look at her I realize how lucky I am.

I look at her in amazement every day. I can't believe she is mine. I am her mother and will always be her mother. I hope she understands how much I truly love and adore her.