A Little Princess

I have to admit that my two year old has already fallen into the princess trap. I completely blame it one her princess undies (it was those or Dora- I chose the less of two evils) and the princess episode of Olivia. I suppose I'm not helping the cause though. I did buy her a princess potty in hopes of her wanting to use it which she doesn't but that's a different post all together. I might have also bought her a princess dress because she kept ripping my dresses out of my closet and wanting to wear them so she could look like a princess. Her wearing my dresses wasn't very convenient because she was constantly tripping and falling over them so when I saw that Zulily had nice quality princess dresses for sale for $12.95 I couldn't pass it up.

I know that "princess culture" is kind of controversial because let's face it, they aren't the best role models for growing girls. I'm on the fence with this. While I agree with a lot of the points made by the princess protesters, I also think that princess stuff can be fun for a little girl. I think that as long as your children know that it's just for fun and not reality than there is no harm in it. Aubs also is a big fan of playing with her cousin's trucks, jumping in puddles, playing catch and other general childhood activities that have no emphasis on glamour or beauty.

So why am I telling you all this? Aubs had a prince and princess party at her school last week and I got some pretty cute pictures. Since it's summer, her preschool has been having fun themed weeks. I think this week is dinosaurs.







Aubs first dance with a boy- Daddy didn't wasn't a huge fan of these.




Still dancing after everyone else at the party left in search of toys.


*Side note- Aubs hasn't been wearing her glasses because she broke them and we are waiting on her new pair. The testy 2 year old refuses to wear the other two pairs that we have for her.

That's Not My Name

Inappropriate but oh so funny

Source: bmadisms.blogspot.com via Bob on Pinterest

Like I have mentioned before, I think we have finally settled on a name for baby girl #2. If you think I'm revealing it now- you're mistaken. What fun would that be? What I thought I would do is give you the names that we liked but are not using. I'm always interested in everyone's name list so I thought it would be fun to share mine. Feel free to steal these glorious naming options.

Charlotte- This actually wasn't a contender this time around but it was such a strong contender in the first round that I thought I would share it anyway. When I was pregnant with Aubrey I was pretty set on naming her Charlotte and then nicknaming her Charlie almost right up until we found out we were having a girl. Then I got cold feet about it because I thought it was going to become super popular. Turns out that Aubrey is more popular than Charlotte so the jokes on me. The reason we didn't consider it at all this time around is because if there is a (slim) chance that we decide to try for #3 and it's a boy we will name him Joseph Charles after my husband and then nickname him Charlie because the thought of having two Joeys in the house drives me crazy.

Piper- If I had not opened my mouth about baby girl's name than her name would have most likely been Piper. I have loved Piper forever but the hubs wasn't too keen on it the 1st go around. Since Aubrey was pretty much his choice, he gave me more wiggle room this time and was okay with Piper. Unfortunately his family showed extreme distaste for the name. While I know that it's my kid and my choice, it didn't feel right for me anymore because our close family seemed to so strongly hate it. For the record- my mom loved it and is still a little pissed we're not using it.

Tessa- This is another leftover from my first pregnancy. I loved it but Joey did not. One of the things that I really liked about it was that it sounded cute with my middle name Tyler. I thought it would be kind of nice for her to have the same middle name as me. Everyone else seemed to like the name too but in the end I decided that I liked it way more two years ago than I like it now.

Hadley- I just really thought this was a cute name. I heard it for the first time in a movie The Upside of Anger and had been keeping it in my back pocket ever since. I have also been seeing the name a lot more lately so maybe it will become popular.

Zoe- We were pretty sure that we were going to go with this name after Piper was ruled out. We went about a month thinking that this was going to be our choice. My big concern with it is that it is getting really popular, I think because of actress Zooey Deschanel. The kicker that made me change my mind is that Zoe sounds way too close to Joey which is my husband's name. He goes by Joe but I call him Joey and to have a Joey and a Zoe in the house would drive me bananas. My mom brought this up to me, I think she was just trying to get me to switch back to Piper but I'm glad that she made the point regardless.

There you have it- my close call baby names. You'll have to wait until September(or maybe August) to know the name we chose. I will let you know that it isn't a very popular name, it falls somewhere in the 300s as far as popularity in the U.S. goes.

What are your "almost" baby names?

Currently

I haven't done a currently post in awhile so I figured I'd link up with Harvesting Kale and This Amazing Day to let you know what's currently going on with me.



Enjoying My last few weeks as a mama of one. I can't believe Aubs isn't going to be my only little one very soon. I am just trying to soak up our last days alone together. It's rough though because I am huge and tired but I just keep holding on to the thought that these moments will soon be gone.

Learning I love the horizontal striped walls that have been all over the internet and decided that I would give it a shot in the nursery. What I didn't take into consideration is that most of those striped walls out there are in bathrooms, not along 12 foot walls. Yeah so I'm learning that painting really long horizontal stripes is difficult and frustrating. I am also learning that I do DIY projects best on my own, I wanted to kill my husband last night when we were taping everything off.

Inspired New baby girl has inspired us to do a bunch of home improvements. I thinks it because we know that we soon won't have the time to get them done. It's also made me become more creative and crafty again. I've been doing lots of little crafts for the girl's rooms and playroom and I also have a lot more that I plan on getting done before the little one arrives.

Becoming Huge! Obviously... we can tack on sluggish and overly tired. Let't throw in overwhelmed for good measure.

Indulging Iced Chai Tea Lattes with nonfat milk from Starbucks are my current weakness. They are also my go to stress reliever these days. Also I have been eating ice cream more than I probably should. My current favorite is Bluebell's Century Sundae. It's vanilla ice cream with chocolate, caramel, whipped topping and maraschino cherries- so ridiculous.


Click the button below and check out what everyone else is up too.

34 Weeks

Only 6 weeks left! Ahhh- so crazy, we are counting down weeks not months here. Six weeks seems like no time at all considering how fast my weeks usually seem to go by. I mean, it's already Wednesday. Crunch time I suppose. We are almost done painting the nursery and I just need to find a rug, some curtains and a chair cover that I like and that don't cost a fortune. I tend to have expensive taste and I completely blame that on my mother (thanks Mom)! As far as "stuff" goes, I have everything I need or at least ordered that I wanted to have before she arrives, except the pack n' play which my mother inlaw is buying us. I ordered a few things that I have been putting off today- new tubes and shields for my breast pump(glamorous, huh?), a miracle blanket(our Godsend with Aubs) and a nursing nightgown for the hospital. I'm not usually a nightgown kind of girl but I want to take the hospital gown off as soon as possible and pants/shorts aren't very convenient when you have midwives coming in and checking out your area every 12 hours or so, TMI?

Other than having everything ready, I'm really just trying to mentally prepare for this. Not that I even really think that it's possible to mentally prepare for something like this. I guess like I said before, my biggest worry is how Aubrey is going to handle such a huge change. I hate that I might be the one who is responsible for her feelings getting hurt. I kind of want to delete that last sentence because it sounds so stupid but I really don't know how else to word it. I guess I just have to keep reminding myself that the adjustment period will pass and in the end Aubs won't be able to imagine life without her little sister.

Water Babies

My husband's step-sister Christina was in town this weekend so we spend lots of time with family. Florida in the summer is obviously hot and right now is the time where it's getting uncomfortably hot. If you want to hang outdoors for awhile, water is a must. Thankfully the kids are complete water babies- I mean Aubs is a Pisces after all.

On Saturday we headed down to our new favorite beach, Pass-A-Grille and did a little swimming and lounging. I actually think it is getting to the point where it's too hot to hang out on the beach for long until at least September. I got one heck of a sunburn and I was wearing SPF 50. I didn't reapply after going in the water but usually I don't burn- I know, stupid considering it's mid-July. Aubs would not get out of the water. Thankfully there was lots of us there to take turns holding her for pretty much the entire 4 hours that we were there. The other kiddos had fun playing in the water and the sand. Unfortunately the sand doesn't interest Aubs in the least.










Aubs couldn't be bothered with pictures that day. The only time she came out of the water was to consume her weight in watermelon and grapes.


Last night we headed over to my mother inlaws house to say goodbye to Christina and have a good meal. The beginning of the evening also included lots of water for the kids. Aubs is a maniac- it's so cute to see her interact with her cousins and try to copy everything they do.

















Linking up with The Paper Mama

Toddlers are Funny

Toddlers are so funny. Aubrey is a great age where she is just doing stuff that cracks us up all the time. Of course she still makes me want to tear my hair out 10 times a day but at least she cute, right? Here is some of the stuff she's been up to.

~You see the sunnies she has on in that picture. She put them on while I was packing our beach bag and didn't take them off until we got back home from the beach. A total of about 3 1/2 hours.

~She likes to say that things are "soooo beautiful!" Usually she uses in in the right context but the other right we ordered take out she was eating chicken fingers with ranch dressing. She dipped one of her pieces of chicken in an obscene amount of ranch and then proceeded to hold it as high as she could in the air and yelled, "SOOOO BEAUTFIUL!!!"

~Like I have said before she likes to do everything I do which includes shaving. I am often doing a quick leg shave before leaving the house because I forget or am too lazy to do it in the shower. Aubrey now "needs" to shave too so I give her my eyelash curler and she does her thing.

~The guy who built the cabinets in our kitchen closet name is Paul and he happens to be bald. Now every time Aubs sees a bald guy she says, "Hi Paul". She must have done this to at least 3 different men when we were at the beach the other day.

~She can spell her name by saying the letters out loud now and she gets so excited about it. She gets super offended if you don't clap and yell, "Yay" every single time.

~She puts stickers on my belly and says they're for her sister.

I think that's about it for all her cutest at the moment but I'm sure I will be back with more in a couple of weeks.

DIY- Kaleidoscope Letters

I have had these cardboard letters sitting in a bag on the floor of our spare room for almost a year now. My original plan was to cover them with fabric by stapling it to the back. I decided that with the curves of the letters this would be kind of difficult and probably not come out the way I had envisioned it. Then I decided I would mod podge the fabric on. Again after thinking it through I thought that it wouldn't look that great and the task would probably be difficult. So there they sat in a Joann Fabric bag until they recently got evicted to make room for the new baby.

It was crunch time, I either had to get rid of these over-sized cardboard letters or actually make something with them. I got my inspiration for these letter from this quilt that I wanted for Aubs but decided was too expensive and a tissue paper bottle craft I used to do as a camp counselor in high school. I'm happy to report that they turned out way cuter than I had expected.

Here's What You Need:

3D Cardboard Letters (wood would probably work too)
White Spray Paint
Tissue Paper in a variety of colors
Mod Podge
An Old Paint Brush


First you will want to spray paint your letters white so that the tissue paper colors will really pop once they become semi-transparent from the mod podge. Don't worry I did this outside while wearing a paint mask and no I didn't take pictures of me wearing it.


Next you need to cut a bunch of circles out of tissue paper. I left the tissue paper folded as it came in the package and then used a shot glass as my template to trace the circles. By keeping the paper folded, I was able to cut a multiple circles at once.




After you have cut the amount of circles that you think you need (depends on the size of your letters and the length of your word), you can start mod podging them to your letters. Using your paintbrush cover a small area of a letter in mod podge and start laying the circles down, overlapping the edges as little bit- venn diagram style. Once you have laid a out a few circles, coat them with a thin layer of mod podge. Try to keep your brush strokes going in one direction because it will have a cleaner look when it dries. Continue to do this until all of your letters are completely covered. I found that it is easier to do the face of the letters first and then go back and do the sides.


Lay letters flat to dry on newspaper. I let mine dry overnight because I did the project late at night but hey will probably dry in completely a lot sooner than that if you are antsy. Once all the letters are dry and no longer tacky you can go ahead and hang them up. If you go with the cardboard letters you can use double sided tape or glue tabs to hang them because they are so light. They are a fun addition to any room and they look especially cute my girl's playroom.

33 Weeks

Alright, first things first. I think we have finally decided on a name for the little one. I'm not bananas about the middle name that we have picked out because it very run of the mill and I was hoping to stay away from that. The problem is that we can't find too many names that we like that flow nice as a middle name so we are settling. Although it is a beautiful name so I'm just going to suck it up and forget that probably 50% of girls born in the last 5 years mother's also thought it was a beautiful middle name. I'm not ready to reveal it yet though because that would make it seem too set in stone. I like that we have nothing with her name on it so there is some wiggle room at the end if we decide to go with something else. When I was pregnant with Aubrey we had a bunch of stuff with her name on it so on days that I was doubting her name, I felt a little bit stuck. I am kind of dying to get one of these necklaces with all of our names on it but I suppose I can wait.

As far as pregnancy goes, I continue to get more and more uncomfortable. This baby is all up in my ribs at all times of the day. She is still quite the mover too. Although one of the common symptoms of having an anterior placenta is feeling less movement, I have not experienced that yet. I still feel her more than I ever felt Aubrey. I double checked with my midwife on complications with the anterior placenta and she assured me that it shouldn't be an issue because it wasn't low lying. Her exact words were, "The placenta has to go somewhere." I have also been having some slightly painful pressure at times and minor braxton hicks contractions. Maybe this means she'll come a week or so early? Keep your fingers crossed for me on that one!

Just Keep Swimming

In the beginning of the summer, which weather wise for you non-Floridians is late April/early May, Aubs wanted nothing to do with the water. We were kind of shocked by this because last year she had loved it. I guess the 6 month gap where we didn't take her in at all really screwed up her confidence.

The ocean was her first big "back in the water" milestone. As soon as saw her friend of equal stature Kingston go in, she was all for it too. You can tell by my post last week that there is no keeping her out of the water once we are at the beach. We were actually there today and I can barely move now because I was jumping waves holding her in the water. Not a smart move when you're 8 months pregnant. Now I know what to do and where to go if I want to make myself go into labor a couple of weeks early.

The pool was a different story. She was not having it at all. We pretty much had to drag her in screaming and then when we finally got her in her would cling to us like there was no tomorrow. By clinging I mean actual marks around our necks from her gripping on so hard. We were pretty unsuccessful about getting her to go in until last weekend. Out of nowhere she started letting go and trying to swim on her own, well with floaties but you know what I mean. She also decided that it would be fun to jump off the high part of the patio by the hot tub into the pool. Needless to say we have been in the pool almost everyday since last Friday.

Alphabet Sensory Tub

Aubrey is an absolute ace with her alphabet. She can sing her ABCs and identify every letter. She knows the sounds that most of the letters make and she is now starting to associate letter sounds with words. Last week when my husband came out of our bedroom in the morning Aubs shouted, "D for Daddy" out of nowhere. We do a number of activities that involve the alphabet but one of the most fun is our alphabet sensory tub.

I was cleaning out my cabinets a few months ago and found that nearly a whole container of Quaker oats had expired. I felt bad just dumping them out and then remembered seeing oats used in a sensory table on a blog somewhere. I had been meaning to put some sensory activities together for Aubrey so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. We don't have a sensory table so I dug out a huge Tupperware that I use for Christmas cookies and pretty much Christmas cookies alone because the Tupperware is that big. I put in the oats and felt like it wasn't full enough so I used another container of unexpired oats to bring it up to a level I was happy with. Why do I have two large containers of oats? Beats me, I was probably food shopping and thought that oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (my favorite) sounded good. I then decided to up the ante and add magnetic letters to the mix.





Aubs loves playing with this. Here are some of the activities we do using this sensory tub:

~ Have child find letters and tell you what letters they are
~ Talk about the sounds each letter makes
~ Name words that begin with each letter pulled
~ Name the colors of each letter
~ Group letters according to color or have them find all the letters that are a specific color
~ Help them spell out small words or their name by finding each letter one by one
~ Find letters in the order of the alphabet
~ Just have fun with some plastic cups and sand shovels digging around in the sensory box.