Day in the Life

Sometimes, when you are a stay-at-home-mom, people ask you what you do all day.  And most of the time, I have no idea.  So I decided I'd keep track of a day.  Obviously not all days are the same.  Sometimes the toddler goes rogue and refuses a nap.  Sometimes we actually leave the house (okay, most days we actually leave the house).  And the above picture is from a "go to church" day, which are completely crazy and have no schedule at all.  But this was a standard at home day.

6:30- both kids start stirring in their cribs.  I lay as still as possible and hope they will go back to sleep.  

7 - Toddler is officially up for the day.  Change diaper, play, say goodbye to John.  

8 - Baby wakes up.  Breakfast for everyone!  This involves gathering all of the food for myself and toddler, putting him in his high chair, and then settling in to feed baby while toddler and I eat.  

8:30 - put baby down for nap, clean up toddler and kitchen, read books with toddler

9:30 - baby wakes up.  He plays on the floor while toddler insists we read the Easter bunny book 10 times.  Just for the record, it's November.  Not Easter time.   

10 - fold laundry, talk to my sister on the phone, toddler watches neighbor tree get chopped down and helps sort socks.  He also helps unfold laundry that I have folded, but he really loves carrying it to his room to put away, and doesn't realize that he's messing it up.  

11 - make a few phone calls, trim everyone's nails

11:15 - baby takes second nap

11:18 - just kidding!  Wakes up and wants to eat.  

11:36 - nap two take two - success!

11:45 - lunch for toddler and me

12:30 - baby wakes up. 

12:35 - clean up toddler and kitchen

12:45 - FaceTime with niece

1:15 - toddler naptime

1:30 - start some laundry in the washer.  

1:45 - grumpy baby!  Snuggle him until he falls asleep.  I'm slightly worried he would wake up if I put him in the crib, and also just want baby snuggles, so I just hold him for this nap.  

3:15 - everyone is awake and crying and needs mommy right now!  Put baby down, go get toddler, situate everyone on the couch so I can feed baby and snuggle toddler.  

3:45 - read books and play

4 - put baby car seat back together after taking it all apart to wash.  (Note - realize I put the straps in wrong the next day when we are running late to go somewhere and I have to take the whole thing apart again)

4:30 - read a few more books, clean up a little bit

4:45 - baby needs to nap but doesn't want to! Naps get harder as the day goes on.  

5 - make dinner.  Baby in bouncy seat and toddler in high chair watch me.  Toddler desperately wants to help, but can't be trusted with a hot stove!  

6 - John gets home and everyone is happy.  He and toddler eat dinner.  I feed hungry sleepy grumpy baby.  

6:30 - I eat dinner while John plays with the kids. 

7:45 - baby falls asleep.  We are at that stage where we are not quite sure if this is a nap or bedtime.  

8 - toddler goes to sleep.  I go to take a shower.  

9 -  Baby wakes up!  Wants to eat and play for a little bit.

10 - Baby back to bed.  

Usually once both kids are in bed, we clean up the kitchen and the living room.  Sometimes we watch a show, but sometimes I'm just tired and it needs to be my bedtime, too!  It's pretty exhausting taking care of these guys, but I mostly love it!  I mean...

Feelin' 32

My birthday was a few weeks ago, and this is what I wore for family dinner and celebration.  We just went to my favorite restaurant, and then back to our house for cake and presents.  The toddler refused to nap that day, but fell asleep in the car and took a little nap on my lap at the restaurant.  He's so busy these days, it was kind of the perfect birthday present to get some snuggles.  I'm such a mom now.

Cardigan & Skirt: Old Navy
Top: Gap factory
Shoes: JCrew Factory

Family Birthday

This is what I wore for our family celebration of John's birthday.  I love this dress, even though it's maternity.  I'll probably just keep wearing it anyway, okay?  Cool.

I think we had a pretty good time for the birthday.  We went to dinner, and then came back to our house for presents and dessert.

We have this problem when getting dressed to go places.  I dressed myself and the baby.  John dressed himself and the toddler.  And we accidentally matched each other.  I don't want to be one of those obnoxiously matchy families, but it just happens sometimes.

Cardigan: Limited
Dress: Loft
Shoes: Target

Date Night

John's birthday was a couple weeks ago, and we finally had a kid-free date night!  It's been a few months, since before Baby2 showed up, so it was nice to have some time away from the babies.  I was slightly nervous leaving them, but once we got to dinner, I wasn't too distracted.  We had a fun, low-key evening.  Just ate dinner, hung out at Barnes and Noble for a bit, and then went to a movie.  Bookstores were one of our favorite places to go on dates before we had kids, so it was fun to just wander around and look at things.  We found this book and basically read the whole thing.  It's funny, I promise.  And the author has a blog, which you should probably read, too.  

Anyway, I also learned an important and difficult lesson.  Maltesers might look like Whoppers, but are actually gross.  That's $4 I won't get back.  

If we look a little tired, it's because I forgot to take pictures until after the movie.  So it was past midnight, which is way past my bedtime.  

Top: Old Navy

Cardi and Jeans: Gap factory

Shoes: JCF

Goodbye Shorts

Shorts season is coming to an end, so I better get more pants that fit soon!  I've been wearing these shorts a lot this whole summer and really thanking past self for buying a few pairs of shorts when I was pregnant in the winter the first time around.  These shorts were less than $5 and I've worn them roughly a million times.  Okay, that might be an exaggeration.  But probably 50-100 times is accurate.  That's a pretty great cost per wear, especially for a maternity item!

I wore this a couple weeks ago when my sister was in town.  John had a conference, and my sister was planning to visit sometime this fall, so I was super excited that it worked out for her to come while he was gone.  I'm sure I would have managed on my own with the baby and the toddler, but having my sister here made it SO MUCH EASIER!  We had a lot of fun while she was here, going to the zoo and the outlet mall, and the boys loved her.  I was actually a little mad, because Baby2 was smiling at her so much more than he smiles at me!  Not cool, baby!

Tee: Guster concert
Cardigan: Old Navy
Shorts: Loft maternity
Shoes: Sperry

Family Date

Now that we have kids, John and I sing a lot of silly songs, and then have arguments about lyrics or meaning of the songs.  Case in point:

It's raining, it's pouring

The old man is snoring

He went to bed, bumped his head, and didn't wake up in the morning.

We were singing this song the other day and John said, "why isn't anyone concerned? This guy probably has a concussion."

I'm like "No, I think he's dead..."

Being parents has just really changed our topics of conversations. It also makes dinner dates more interesting.  I wore this outfit a couple weekends ago when we decided to take the whole family to the Cheesecake Factory.  The boys did pretty good, but it's always a gamble.  The little one pretty much slept the whole time.  The big one mostly just stared at a kid one table over.

We took a few family pictures when we got home.  Here's one where we are all looking at the camera, at least!

Shirt: Loft
Shorts: Loft (maternity)
Shoes: Sperry

Sunday Best

This is my new dress.  I wore it to church on Sunday, and unbelievably got to sit through the whole service and all of Sunday School!  Baby2 was awake but happy and smiling at me for most of the sermon, so I'm not entirely sure I heard much of it, but hey, it's better than sitting back in the nursery!
Dress & Cardigan: Old Navy
Belt: Madden
Shoes: Target

The Awkward Phase

Fall is sort of here, at least some days, so I tentatively pulled out my jeans from last fall.  You know, the ones that I searched and searched for, and then barely got to wear before I was pregnant again.  Miracle of miracles, they fit!  I was shocked because I still have about 15 extra pounds to get rid of.  

I think I have generally had a pretty healthy body image, but being pregnant for 18 of the last 24 months has sure taken a toll!  I don't even know how to dress myself anymore.  I managed to go shopping this week with both boys, which is an adventure.  My main goal was to find some tops that would be cute and easy to throw on with jeans or shorts.  Most of my shirts are a little snug right now, and would likely start rumors of a baby 3.  Or at least I feel self-conscious in them.  I need higher necklines, because I'm always carrying a kid that inevitably makes my perfectly modest shirt a little scandalous.  Shouldn't be too hard to find some cute, higher-necked tops, right?  Wrong!  I tried on a lot of shirts, and ended up buying one.  And a random dress, because I just can't help myself sometimes.  

So anyway, I kind of want to throw out my entire closet and start from scratch, but as my shopping outing suggests, that wouldn't solve the problem.  I need to remember that it took 9 months and a lot of ice cream to grow each baby, so I'm not going to go back to my old body in 2 (or ever, let's be honest here).  

In the meantime, I should probably start exercising again, and maybe cut back on the ice cream.

Tee & Jeans: Gap
Cardigan: JCF
Shoes: Target

Police Encounter

I'm pretty much a rule-follower, so I haven't gotten into very much trouble in my life.  Whenever I think I might be in trouble with an authority figure, I kind of panic, frequently cry.  A few years ago, I got pulled over for not stopping long enough at a stop sign (I stopped, I am 100% sure he was just bored), and the conversation went something like this:

Police Officer: Miss, are you crying?
Me:  *sniff sniff* NO *sniff sniff*   yes

Another time, I got caught at a checkpoint because my registration had expired over a year prior, but the reminder thing got lost in the mail, and I never thought about renewing it.  Oops!

So you can see my run-ins with the law have been pretty rare and pretty lame.  Until this past weekend...  (dun dun dun)

We went to dinner and it's always a bit of an ordeal getting all the kids and the bag and our to-go drinks into the car.  As I was backing out, there was a police car that looked like it was waiting for my spot, but then they were motioning all crazy to me, and I totally panicked.  I didn't know if they wanted me to go or stay or what.  I just pulled back into my spot, while John was like "what are you doing??"  The cops pulled up further and hollered at me "There's a drink on your roof!  That's a party foul!"  Ohhhhh, that makes sense.  My life of crime continues.

(this is what I happened to be wearing that day)

Shirt: Old Navy Maternity
Jacket: JCF
Shorts: Loft maternity
Shoes: Sperry

Forty Weeks

So these pictures are from the night before Baby2 was born.  We are talking like 10 hours before, if you really want to know.  I was exactly 40 weeks pregnant, and fairly sure baby wasn't coming any time soon.  We went out to dinner because I was not in the mood to cook anything, and since it was in the 90s all week, my number one priority was staying as cool as possible.  I honestly don't know how people survived without air conditioning!

When we got home, I figured we should take some pictures.  I didn't know these would be our last family pictures before Baby2.

Smiles!  

2 out of 3 smiles

Poor kid!  He didn't know his parents are about to flee in the middle of the night and come back with a baby brother!

Top: H&M Mama
Skirt: Old Navy
Sandals: Target

36 Weeks

It's the final countdown!  I'm looking at my last few weeks of pregnancy and as I keep saying, time is a funny thing.  It's all going too fast and too slow.  This is from a couple weeks ago when we went out for a Friday night dinner.  I remembered this skirt that I wore last year on the day before Mr. Baby was born, and thought "hey, I can wear that non-maternity skirt even when I'm hugely pregnant!  And then it's too big when I'm not pregnant!  Maybe in all my free time after baby2 is born, I can take it in a bit (kidding, kidding).

In addition to time playing tricks on me, so is my level of busyness.  I feel like we are always running from one thing to the next, but then I can't figure out what we do all the time.  John and I have big lists of things we want to accomplish before baby arrives, but that's not very interesting, just cleaning and organizing, and getting baby2's room set up.  I'm also trying to hang out with friends a bit, because I know that will be more difficult with 2 kids.

Anyway, happy late 4th of July to everyone.  We just barely survived all the neighborhood fireworks.  I'm officially the grumpy pregnant lady with a 1 year old who wanted to call the police at exactly 11:01 each night and report everyone who was still shooting off fireworks.  I didn't do it, but I sure had mean thoughts about it.

Top: Target maternity
Skirt: Loft
Sandals: Love Culture

Weekly Hello

Checking in from the hottest June I can remember.  We just keep having these 90+ degree days, and I think I might die.  These pics are just from a week ago.  We went out to dinner for my SIL's birthday, and then came back to our house for presents and cupcakes and played Harry Potter Clue.  It was more complicated than regular clue.  John and I were a team because it only allows for 5 players.  We had a lot of trouble with our dice rolls, and doors being closed (one of the HP differences), so we only got to make 1 guess!  But we were still very good detectives and knew the person and the weapon, so I felt like we did okay.

I've been the worst at taking outfit photos.  I mean, I am pretty casual most days, but I get dressed nicer on Sundays and never remember to take pictures.  We also had a wedding about a week ago, and of course, I didn't get any pictures.  Poor second baby is already getting less documentation.

Plus it's harder to take pictures of myself when I have a little helper.  He is very very interested in the tripod and wants to knock it over.   Or he wants to go diving off the deck stairs, or find something dangerous to play with.  Punishment involves being featured in a picture.

Top: ON Maternity
Skirt: ON
Sandals: Target

Snake Skirt

How is June halfway over already?  I'm not ready for July to be here, because that means Baby2 is coming very very soon.  Yikes!  I need to get my act together!

Here's another outfit from a month ago.  I was 30 weeks at the time, and am 34 now.  Maybe I've just forgotten how big I was last time, but I feel significantly more enormous right now than I remember feeling during my last pregnancy.  And I can't really imagine was 6 more weeks is going to be like.

We've been pretty busy lately, with visitors and appointments and weddings and birthdays, and then just general stuff like when can I make it to the grocery store when it's 100 degrees outside??  And I was really hoping for a pleasant summer.  NOPE!

Cardigan: JCF
Tee: Target
Skirt: H&M
Shoes: Target

Paisley shorts

These shorts were a favorite last summer, both before and after Mr. Baby was born.  I've already worn them a bunch again this summer.  But I've learned that when you are due in July, you need more shorts and tank tops than when you are due in May, so I've had to do some additional maternity shopping.  And I'm also much bigger this time around, so some of my maternity shorts are getting uncomfortable.  Not cool!  Luckily, these seem to have plenty of stretch, so I think they should last me through.  6 more weeks!!

Cardi: JCF
Tank: Kohl's maternity
Shorts: Loft maternity
Sandals: Target

Orange Blouse

Well, I'm still about a month behind on posting outfits.  This was from early April when we went out to dinner with John's mom and grandpa.  I, of course, took the opportunity to wear one of my maternity box clothing items.  I don't love this orange blouse, but it was something different to wear. Plus we went to dinner at my favorite restaurant, so that was fun!

ETA:  I'm totally cheating and linking up with Third Thursday Threads, because I can't be trusted to pay attention and actually post the theme on the proper day.  But white jeans from last Friday seems recent enough, right?

Jacket: JCF
Top: Lilac via Bella Gravida
Jeans: ON Maternity
Shoes: Target

Floral Blouse

Can you tell that I have no creativity anymore?  I mean, these post titles are truly inspired.  Honestly, when I'm editing pictures and starting posts, I just label them with the item of clothing I'm wearing, and then I usually end up changing the title at some point.  But then there's now, where I don't have much to say.  I wore this outfit to go out to dinner with my 2 favorite guys.  This blouse was another favorite from Bella Gravida, even though it didn't quite fit properly.  It was fine for a couple hours, and I felt very pretty!

Cardigan: Gap outlet
Top: Olian via Bella Gravida
Jeans: ON Maternity
Shoes; JCF

Elevator Etiquette

Can I just complain for a minute?  Since having a baby, I need to use elevators.  Once you actually FIND the elevator (which is generally hidden in the furthest darkest corner of whatever building you happen to be in), you have to deal with other people who are also using it.  

The number one problem I have with the other elevator patrons is that they stand with their strollers RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DOOR.  I think they don't realize that whoever is in the elevator might need to get out, before they can get in.  And then they look annoyed when I am like "um, excuse me.. can I sneak past you there..."  This is not rocket science, you guys!  If I stay on the elevator with my stroller, you won't fit.  Just stand to the side and we can all get on with our lives much faster. 

Another common issue is that the people on the elevator are slooooooow getting off, and then the doors close before the new people can board.  Just consider holding the door when you see a pregnant lady with a baby in a stroller.  It's the nice thing to do.

And once we are all on the elevator, if you must stand in front of the buttons, maybe ask the other riders what floor they need?  It's not hard.  

Someday I will use an escalator or stairs again.  But until that day, I just request some common courtesy.  I don't think it's too much to ask.  Of course, the rude elevator patrons probably aren't reading this, are they?  

Cardigan: Loft

Tee: Target maternity

Jeans: Old Navy Maternity

Shoes: Sperry

Easter

When we planned our trip to Richmond, the best week to go happened to fall over Easter weekend.  Sunday ended up being kind of cold and rainy, but we still had a great day.  We went to church, had a delicious lunch, and then an indoor Easter egg hunt.  The kids found all but 3 eggs, and the grownups couldn't remember where else we had hidden them, so I suspect my sister will find them someday.  Then we put some cheerios in bigger eggs for Mr. Baby and hid them in the middle of the room.  He loved it!  Of course, he was more excited about shaking them to make fun noises than opening them to eat the treat, but that's okay.  Plus he got a big chocolate bunny which I graciously volunteered to eat for him.  

My niece was coaching me on model poses during outfit picture time.  I think I should listen to her advice more often, because I look SO COOL.  

And then I convinced her to join me.  It wasn't very hard.  

And then we lured everyone else out (except my brother-in-law) for some more pictures.  

Cousins!

Girl picture

Smiths

My dress is from Bella Gravida.  It was definitely my most favorite item when I was adding things to my wish list, so I was pretty excited when I got the notice that I'd be receiving it just in time for Easter.  It fit kind of weird up on top, but nothing too noticeable.  I was hoping it would be perfect and I could wear it to my other sister's wedding in May, but alas, it was not.  My search for the perfect maternity dress continues.  It's frustrating, because you can be tall, or you can be pregnant, but good luck if you are both!  

Cardigan: JCF
Dress: ASOS via Bella Gravida

Shoe: Old Navy (similar)

Doctors and Duck Ponds

I wore this a couple weeks ago for my big exciting ultrasound.  John and Mr. Baby came with, and then they went and ate lunch at the duck pond nearby while I had my appointment.  And then I got lunch and found them.  Incidentally, these shoes are not that comfortable for walking around a duck pond.  

Ultrasounds are so weird and so incredible.  We got to see Baby2 doing all his crazy moves, and he stubbornly kept his legs in front of his face so our 3D face  pictures look like he has toes growing out of his forehead.  The tech assured us he doesn't. 

FYI, I won't be posting any ultrasound pics.  I guess I just feel like photos taken of the inside of me shouldn't be on the Internet.  Even though u/s pics pretty much all look the same!  

Jacket: JCF

Tank: ON maternity

Skirt:   Via Bella Gravida

Shoes: ON

Bugs and Bugs

Last week, it was randomly summer one day, and I was happy to dig out my shorts!  My legs just like to live out in the world, so winter is not my friend.  I also figured it was an appropriate time of year to wear floral print, even if I do kind of hate the bugs that are also included on this shirt.  John was surprised that I would wear a shirt with bugs on it, and I confessed I would not have bought it if I'd have noticed, but it was only like $4, so I'm not too upset about it.

Mr. Baby and I went to a park to have lunch with John.  It was so easy last summer when Mr. Baby would just lay on the blanket where we put him.  Now he wants to crawl off into the grass, eat some leaves, wave sticks around, steal our french fries.  He's a very busy child these days.  There were some ladybugs that came to visit us, so we were trying to show Mr. Baby.  He promptly tried to eat them, so that experiment was short-lived.  And I realized I am now the type of woman who will purposely touch a bug, in order to share the wonder of nature with my child.  What has happened to me???

Shirt: Old Navy (similar)
Shorts: Gap maternity (similar)
Shoes: Sperry (similar)