Baby's Only Sweat Lodge (An Exclusive Club For Members)

Happy Valentines Day out there, but as you can tell from the title, this post is about something much more exciting!!! I may go all over the place with this (I've been up since 2:30 ish this morning), so try to stick with me...

Let me start by saying that David and I purchased an expensive space heater for Malarie's room at the beginning of winter. You know, one with all the bells and whistles, any cost is worth it for her safety! It has a timer setting, the ability to pick the temp. (not just low or high) and awesome safety features (e.g. if it gets knocked over it will automatically shut itself off). Well, last night I was exhausted as I haven't been sleeping well lately (I think we need a new bed). I was putting Malarie to bed, doing the usual routine; turning on the night light, the space heater (and timer), and her fan before placing her in her crib and kissing her goodnight.

Malarie sleeps through the night, so when she woke up SCREAMING at around 2:30 this morning, I thought it was a bit strange... David got up to feed her (we switch off weeks since she is bottle fed). He'd been up with her for a while and she was still screaming (when I say screaming, I don't mean just crying, I mean bloody murder type screaming). Then my mind started running..."something is really wrong, maybe she got her arm or leg caught in her crib and when she rolled over pulled something out of socket..or could she have broken something?" I freaked myself out enough to get up and investigate myself. David was out in the hall making her bottle and so I asked him what was wrong with her. He said "It's 100 degrees in her room, you didn't set the temperature" CRAP!! I felt awful. We opened her window and put the fan up to it to cool down the room. She was drinking her bottle and I hung around because I wanted to hold her and tell her how sorry I was. David told me I could go back to bed, but I couldn't so he went to bed while I changed her diaper and cuddled her a bit. By this time, she was WIDE awake and smiling at me, wanting to play. Although I really wanted to stay up with her, I put her back to bed and left her door cracked (just in case) and went in to bed. (It's worth noting here that she was asleep again within 15 min or so, I wasn't so lucky)

I knew she was fine because she wasn't lethargic or anything, but as I lay back in bed I asked David "Do you think she's going to be OK?" he replied "yeah". "But what about those babies that get left in cars in the summer and they die of heat exhaustion?" I asked. "She's fine, she drank and we cooled her and the room down, she's fine". I just needed to hear it again. Needless to say, I could not go back to sleep, my mind was reeling with the "how could you?" and "what if?"s. Malarie will be giving up her membership to the sweat lodge.

It's a good thing Malarie is resilient; she has to be, she has a dumb ol' mom who tried to make her sweat to death! On the up side, my boss said that she'll always have this as an out later in life "yeah, but Mom, remember that one night when you tried to bake me while I slept..." :) Oh the joys and terrors of being a parent!

Toilet Trauma!

I'm not sure if every mom has a moment like this or not, but here we go: Tonight while David was at Scouts, I was playing with Malarie and then had to pee really bad. So I picked Mal up and headed upstairs. I laid her down on our bed (in the middle with her feet toward the side of the bed, so that she wouldn't roll off) and went into the bathroom. I left the door open that connects the bathroom to our bedroom so that I could keep an eye on Malarie and talk to her so she'd know she wasn't alone. Well, much to my dismay as I started to slow down, but still mid stream, Malarie started rolling over and over and over! I almost had a heart attack and had to jump off the toilet to make sure she didn't roll off the end of the bed- you get the idea, peed down my legs a bit and in my pants! BUT I saved the baby, I'm sure I get a few points for that...right? Lesson learned, next time she's going on the floor!!

Project Basement

As some of you may already know when we bought out house there were two bedrooms (tiny bedrooms, in fact the closets were so narrow a regular sized hanger couldn't fit in it) and a nice sized bathroom. Why were they so tiny you might be thinking... well the previous owners had 5 kids and so they threw up some walls to give them some more bedroom space...we will not be having that same issue, so David and I have always thought that we wanted to "tear down this wall" and that wall for that matter and make a family room (which is in the original plan for the house). That way we can have toys out and about and they aren't right when guests walk in (our front room was the only gathering space, and it's literally right at the entrance of our home). I'll show you a couple pics:

 

From this angle, I'm not sure that you can adequately see how small these rooms are (the one with the hole in the closet was the smallest and that hole is how David started tearing down the walls...with a swift kick through the wall!), Amy can vouch for how small they are as she lived in the bigger of the two before she got married (too bad for you we didn't do any of this sooner!) Now I'm going to be completely honest with you, I didn't participate very much in the demo, that David ran with, with great zeal might I add... now it took a little longer for the clean up! :)

 

One wall down...

There we go, any takers want to guess how long this mess sat there? A little over a month! Yep, as it turns out, it is much funner to destroy things than it is to clean up after...who'd of thought? Well, we finally decided that it was time to clean up our hot mess, and the Saturday of my birthday (last Saturday) we bit the bullet and put our noses to the grind. This is where David let me play a role :) Ha ha, he'll gladly share that I complained a whole lot though, I just am not used to manual labor, and that stuff is HEAVY to haul load after load upstairs and throw in the back of the truck! BUT, we did it in about 4 hours including taking it all to the dump! And voi la (I don't really know how to spell in French, but you get the idea):

 

We are really excited about this space now! You can see by the marks in the carpet (or non-carpet) how small the "bedrooms" really were... We'll see how long it will take us to get it completely refinished, but we are happy with it for now, and little by little we'll get this space just right!

Raise The Roof

It's kind of difficult to blog during the week when I work, and so I completely forgot to share the great news. I got a pretty significant raise at work as of January 1st. I really enjoy my job (I work for the County's Election Division doing Spanish translations among many other things), and I LOVE that I have a job where my hard work is recognized. I really feel like I am a contributing member of the team and that all my efforts don't go unnoticed!

Busy Saturday

Yesterday we went to my mom's house to celebrate her and my younger brother, Brady's, birthdays (his is on the 4th and hers on the 5th). I made a german chocolate cake (mom's fave). Friday night on the way home from a wedding reception, I had David run into Harmon's to get the cake mix, frosting, and a tiny carrot cake for Brady (he doesn't like german chocolate, and whereas I don't like carrot, he only got a smidgeon, and I wasn't willing to make a full cake- I'm really nice, I know) while I stayed in the car with Mal since she was fast asleep. Flash forward to lazy Saturday morning, and I decide around 11 am to make the cake (we were meeting at mom's at 1), I start getting the mix and frosting out of the bag when I see that the cake mix is sugar free? Oh, no! This is going to be an awful disaster... I know, I won't tell anyone it's sugar free until after they've had a bite. David came in the kitchen and I asked "Sweetie, did you mean to get a sugar free cake mix?" as I'm holding up the box for him to see (I knew there was no way he meant to do it). He got a little deflated and said "Oh, no, I just saw that (the Pilsbury logo) and that (the flavor of the cake which was devil's food)" to which I replied "You didn't notice the MUCH larger letters in between saying sugar free?" We both laughed. We're at the party and I'm getting ever anxious for the cake, as we all got our respective pieces and start eating, my mind was BLOWN!!! The cake was delicious, and by delicious I mean there was absolutely no difference in taste.... my mind was at ease and then I dropped the bomb to everyone. Mom thought I was kidding for a bit, but it was true the cake was sugar free! Yum, although I still won't buy sugar free moving forward because I feel like artificial sweeteners aren't the best for you. However, if you're interested, try it, it's surprisingly delicious. As my birthday is on the 13th mom and Max gave me my birthday present early... a year membership to Elase Spa (which is a school), but basically I get to go in once a month and get a facial, pedicure or other treatment that I choose from my list for free (well, not free, they paid for it for me) so this year will be a year of pampered bliss!!

Then since CeCe is in town, a girl's night was in order! 

Sheena, Kristin, CeCe and I went to the Cheesecake Factory for some good food and even better company (we missed Emily and Kayla)! I love these girls and although we don't get together often, it is always SO fun when we do! You ladies rock! It was so funny because Sheena got there first and then CeCe and I arrived and we were waiting in their TINY waiting area where you are always in the way no matter where you are standing. So Sheena backed up and stood in the midst of this tree thing they had in the corner so we all could get a little out of the way. We thought it was a great idea and felt a little less in the middle of everything. Then when Kristin got there she called because she didn't see us up front and had made her way toward the back. I told her where we were and she quickly met up with us. She said that she should've seen us because as she was walking in some guy was talking about how funny it was "that the tall one was in the tree"! I thought that was hilarious! They probably thought that the short one (yours truly) was a jerk for making the tall girl be in the tree when I wouldn't have even been affected by it at all. Ha ha! It was a great night. I can't wait to visit Cece in Grenada or for the next girl's outing!

Pinteresting? Or Not?

I just have to get his second post in because I have been meaning to mention this for a little bit. I signed up for Pinterest, but I just don't get it! It seems to be the equivalent of opening the "door" to Google and just browsing everything just in case you might find something you never knew you thought you might be interested it. Don't get it...

Healthy Happy New Year!

Isn't everyone supposed to make a renewed resolution to exercise more, eat healthier, focus on what's most important, be a better person etc. etc... Well, check out my new under desk bike! It has nothing to do with a new years resolution, but it seemed to coincide (more or less) with the new year and so I thought I'd post about it. You may be thinking to yourself "Wowzers! How do I get my hands on such a contraption?" Well my friends, you can get a beauty like this for under $30 at any geriatric website! Ha ha, I'm not kidding! I got this from healthyliving.com or activeliving.com (can't remember which), but the whole site was devoted to old folks. I got it shortly before Christmas, and have been able to use it at work...success! Now I'm not saying that I race the Tour de France or anything, it's just something to help keep me more active while just sitting all day!

Now, on to the New Years bit. I have to say that it is SO hard for me to want to stay up to ring in the new year (call it the geriatric soul inside me). David and I had a quiet night at home watching movies, I didn't think I'd actually make it to midnight, but I did... it was very uneventful and I was SPENT today because of it!! I'm convinced that I wasted all my good energy in college pulling all-nighters like no one's business.

2012 was a great year for us, not without it's challenges, but over all wonderful. Our little Malarie has changed our lives for the better and these past 6 months have flown by.

She is the cutest little thing and we so look forward to all the many memories we will have with her this coming year (and the new tax break is just an added bonus)!

If you look closely, you can now see her 1st tooth. She's also getting her second right next to the first! We also found Malarie's first rifle while we were at Scheels this weekend:

 

So much fun, we are going to have such great adventures.

David and I were joking about what the other's new year's resolution should be. David said to me "Your resolution is to not be a dragon lady to me in 2013" to which I replied "I'd LOVE to have that be my resolution, but whereas 2013 is the year of the dragon that isn't going to happen". Ha ha! This year is going to be GREAT!!