The Laundry Room

Decorating a house takes a LOT of time, money, and energy. I think I have finished 1 room... The laundry room. It has taken me about 3 months just to get the laundry room in a finished state, so who knows how long it will take to get the whole house in a finished state.... it will probably never happen :)

Anyways, for those of you who are interested, I thought I'd post a few pictures of my laundry room. I love it. I know you are probably thinking, 'why in the world would you spend time decorating your laundry room???' Well, I guess there are a couple of reasons 1. why not? 2. it was a small space so it seemed like something that wouldn't take forever to complete 3. I had a vision.

I painted stripes on the wall... inspired by my very creative friend, Christiane. The darker color was the color that was already on the walls, so I just measured and taped the stripes and painted the lighter color. My SIL Susie helped me do the actual painting, which was fun to do together and made it go by much more quickly! The photo on the wall is a picture I took in a laundromat in Jackson, GA. I spray painted a peice of fiberboard a metalic brown color and then modpodged the photo to it. I was very pleased with how it turned out!

The Laundry room sign is vinyl lettering. I ordered it from an etsy shop. I just applied it to the wall and it adds a pop of color and a bit of humor to keep me smiling while I am doing my laundry! ha!

The laundry room is pretty small so it was hard to get a picture far enough out of the whole thing. I also have a lime green rug on the floor to add a bit more color to the room. It was a fun room make over! Next up, the kids' bathroom!

9 months

Annabelle is 9 months old. This really doesn't seem possible to me. It is amazing how the 9 months that I carry a baby seems close to an eternity, whereas, for me the first 9 months of Annabelle's life seemed to have happened in a blink. Just doesn't seem fair.... I have enjoyed every moment though. I looove babies!

Annabelle's weight at her 9 month check up: 15lbs 6oz, which is 5th percentile.
Height: 27 inches, 25th percentile.
Her growth curve slightly declined from her 6 month appointment, so they have told me to let her eat as often as she wants to. fun times! ;)

Sleeping Habits:
Ever since Annabelle starting teething, about 2 weeks ago, she has decided she doesn't want to sleep through the night. It was a nice 2 month stretch where I was getting solid nights of sleep, but it is not so anymore. She is waking up atleast once, sometimes 2 or 3 times. ugh. Let's get this back to how it was sweet Annabelle. Although, I will always admit, I love the sweet sleepy moments in the middle of the night when she is cuddly and will sleep on my shoulder... she won't do this otherwise.
She is taking 2 naps during the day, each one is up to 2 hours long. She takes nap around 10am and 2:30pm. Shealways lets me know when she is ready for her naps and she goes right to sleep most of the time.

Eating Habits:
Annabelle basically wants nothing to do with baby food. She wants to eat whatever we are eating. She will eat pretty much anything I give her that is 'real' food. She seems to be eating a lot, so I am not sure why she is not gaining weight better. She isn't as interested in nursing as she once was. She nurses really well in the morning and at night, but during the day she is too busy and/or too interested in what everyone else is eating to be into nursing. Her favorite foods right now are 'mum mums', peas, and spinach pancakes. She also likes cheerios, pickles, french fries, and chicken.

New discoveries/development:
Annabelle is not crawling yet, but she is scooting some and seems to get to where she wants to go (within a short distance) somehow. She is a very busy girl, she is going to be into everything once she gets moving. I am enjoying these immobile days while they last. Her two front, bottom teeth have broken through. Soon she will have a toothy smile I am sure. She has started saying 'dada'. Whether or not it is in relation to Mark, we are not sure. She will say it when we ask her to. Its pretty cute. We are also working on the signs for 'more' and 'all done'. She is doing them some and it is really cute. She will also make a kissy face and sound when told to 'blow kisses'. Also very cute. She is developing such a personality and it is so fun to watch. Such a sweet girl and definitely a Mama's girl at this point.

Places I went:
We went on a family vacation to TN & NC (as mentioned in previous blog post). We had a great time and Annabelle did great on the trip. She also made it to SC while we were on our travels. Annabelle has started a music class, which is held at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. It is a music class for babies where they are able to play with little musical instruments - like shakers, etc.- and do little baby activities, 'sing' baby songs. It is really cute and Annabelle seems to love it. She bops up and down and grins really big pretty much the whole time. I am enjoying watching her enjoy it!

Between months 8 & 9, we had several out of town visitors. First was Mommy's friend, Jenny, from graduate school at Ohio State. She came and stayed with us for several days and we did lots of fun things! The kids loved her and we were all sad to see her go back to CA. Next was Mommy's friend, Courtney from undergraduate nursing school at University of Kentucky. She is also loved by the kiddos and again we were sad to see her go. Next was Daddy's sister, Susie, and her friend Sarah. They came to run the Atlanta - Brookhaven 1/2 Marathon with Mommy. We had a great time with them here and again, the kids loved having them around. Its so fun to have visitors!

Happy Girl!

My silly girl often rides around in the stroller with her leg straight up like this..

Jonah wanted to be in a picture with her :)

Annabelle @ 9 months

Jenny with Annabelle

Jenny with Jonah & Annabelle

 

Happy 9 months my SWEET Annabelle! Mommy loves you!

Mountain City, TN

I don't think I ever thought I would go to Mountain City, Tennessee on vacation, but I did. We just got back from a great trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains. We stayed in a cabin owned by a friend of my aunts and it was perfect. We loved it. The view from the cabin was great! Based on the cabin and the view, you would think you were somewhere much more exotic than Tennessee.

We left on Monday, late afternoon, when Mark got off from work, so we stopped for the night in Asheville, NC. We did a few things in Asheville on Tuesday before continuing on our trip. Asheville is a cute town, we really liked it!

One of our stops in Asheville was Double D's Coffee and Desserts. I have to say, the coffee wasn't anything to write home about, but the experience was worth it. Jonah thought it was soooo cool that we were eating in the bus.

Annabelle was excited to be in the bus :)

Jonah loving on his sister. <3 p="p">

On our way to the cabin, we stopped for dinner in Mountain City at a pizza place.... The pizza was mediocre. The main event at dinner was jonah losing his dinner at the table. At this point, day 1 of vacation, I thought we were in for at least a day or two of illness, but luckily, Jonah only threw up one more time and then he was over whatever bug he caught. Fortunately, no one else ever got sick. We made it to the cabin in time to watch the sunset -- the picture above is the view from the cabin at sunset and the picutre below is the early morning/sunrise view. It was gorgeous.

 

On Wednesday, we went to Linville Caverns. Jonah was pretty excited about seeing the inside of a mountain. The tour of the caverns was quite interesting. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Here I am drinking 'cave water'. Apparently the water that runs through the caverns is purified by the limestone inside, so it is safe to drink... at least that is what the tour guide told us and for some reason, I trusted her. Tasted ok to me :)

The fam inside Linville Caverns

After the caverns we went to a little town called Blowing Rock. It was a very cute little town. We walked around and went in several of the shops. The time in Blowing Rock ended with playing in the park where we found this scarecrow and took a couple pictures of the kiddos.

After Blowing Rock, we went to a gem mine. Jonah was apprehensive at first - didn't want to get his hands dirty or wet... I know, what is wrong with him?? Anyways, he finally decided he wanted to do this and had a lot of fun doing it. He found several pretty rocks, the most notable was a fairly large amethyst gem. He is going to take it for 'show and tell' at school tomorrow. He's excited to tell his friends and teachers about his mountain vacation.

 

On Thursday, our first stop was Grandfather Mountain. It has a mile high suspension bridge. I was not too thrilled to walk over it, but I did it. Jonah thought it was pretty cool to be up so high. He and Mark 'explored' all around the top of the mountain (very carefully - at my request). Annabelle rode around on my back and was content most of the time. I have realized that because Annabelle is not a city baby, like Jonah was, she certainly isn't used to riding around in the carrier. Jonah was always content in the carrier, but he was used to it. I must admit I miss having the need to use the carrier. I enjoyed that part of city life -- always having the baby close and snuggly during transit.

 

On Friday we went to an Amusement Park called 'Tweensy Railroad'. It was perfect for Jonah. Of course, as most of you know, Jonah loves trains. There were many train themed rides and activities, so he was fully in his element.

 Tweensy had a little petting zoo where you could feed the animals. Jonah was really into this, he has been apprehensive with petting zoos before, so it was fun to see him really enjoying it. He got very tickled by the deer who were continually 'fighting' over the food. Annabelle seems to love animals. Anytime she sees an animal she starts shrieking and kicking her legs... its really quite cute. She was constantly reaching for the goats and wanted to be a part of the action.

 

Mark put some of the food up on Jonah's head and the llama ate right off the top of his head. It was quite amusing and Jonah thought it was great.

This is one of the rides Jonah finally decided to ride. We tried to convince him he would like it (although, I honestly wasn't sure he was). Well, once he got on it, he loved it and yelled to me the entire ride 'I told you it'd be fun mommy!' He would not let me correct him and tell him that I was the one who told him that he'd enjoy it. We rode it more than once :)

                                      

 

Here we are on the actual train. It was a short ride on a steam engine that included a cowboy and indian show. It was enjoyable but a bit hokey and possibly scary for younger kids. Jonah just enjoyed being on the train.

Here is another ride that we finally convinced Jonah to ride. He wasn't sure about riding something by himself, but once he finally got on, he liked it and I think he was pretty proud of himself for getting on it.

 

Me and Annabelle on another little train ride.

 

 

Another fall photo op :)

 

On Saturday morning, we packed our stuff up in the cabin and headed out. We had a hotel again in Asheville to break the drive up. We had a couple of planned stops along the way. The first stop was a hike at Linville Falls. This was probably my favorite part of the trip. It was about a 3 ish mile hike (round trip). Jonah walked some and rode in the pack some. Annabelle did better in the carrier on this hike as long as we kept moving.

                             You can't see it, but Linville Falls is in the picture behind us. :-)

 

Linville Falls

During the hike we found this tree stump and sat the kids on it to take a picture. I told Jonah to hold onto annabelle like he loved her and this is what he did. That boy loves his sister. Its so cute!

Here's one of the whole fam. Although the kids aren't looking at the camera, I think its pretty cute that they are looking at each other and smiling. <3 p="p">

 

After Linville Falls we drove to Mt. Mitchell state park in hopes of driving to the top of this mountain around sunset. Mt. Mitchell is the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi river. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get to the top of the mountain. There was a pretty bad accident that involved a SUV and a motorcycle with 2 people on it. The accident was blocking the road so that no one could come down or go up the mountain. The people involved in the accident were injured severely enough to necessitate a life flight to the hospital. We watched 2 helicopters land, load the injured people and then take off. We hope and pray that those injured are going to have a full recovery after this accident.

Here are a couple of shots of the sunset from close to the top of Mt. Mitchell

Another stop at a waterfall, 'Looking Glass Falls', that was close to the side a road, we didn't really have to hike to get to this one.

                                                

 

This was on the way home on Sunday. We wore Jonah out! :)

 

 

8 months

Annabelle turned 8 months old on September 14. The time is flying. I just love having a baby, so I am hanging on to every minute!

No Peds appt at 8 months, but I weighed her myself.
Weight: 15 lbs 2 oz.

Sleeping habits:
Annabelle is finally, solidly sleeping through the night! yay!! I am pretty happy about this. It has really helped to be in our own house and for her to have her own room. I bought a video monitor which I loooove. Its almost as comforting as having her right beside me. Because Annabelle is a second child, her napping schedule has been much more flexible and 'on the go' than Jonah's. She definitely is still napping about 2x's/day. She will usually take one long nap and one short nap each day. She is turning into a much better sleeper than she was the first 7 months!

Eating habits:
Annabelle is also becoming a better eater. She really doesn't care for baby food, meaning the blended up stuff, but she will eat pretty much anything that I give her that is soft and/or dissolvable. Puffs are her new favorite thing. She gets very excited when I pull them out of the pantry. She is also still nursing. She is nursing 4-5 times per day... we have a loose schedule we use, but she more or less nurses when she wants to. As much as I have tried to have her be a scheduled baby, she does not want to be. I didn't understand when moms would say that about their babies when I had Jonah and he was SO easy to get on a schedule, but now I fully understand this. Apparently it is just not her personality to be on a schedule. We will see how this plays out in her future :) She still won't take a bottle either, so she is pretty tied to Mommy.

New discoveries/development:
Annabelle has started waving and clapping this month. It is SO cute! I just love it. She is so proud of herself and she gives the biggest grin when she does it. She is not crawling yet, but when she does, which I don't think will be too long, I believe she is going to be into everything. Jonah was never really a baby that got into things he shouldn't, but I think Annabelle is really going to keep me on my toes. She already reaches and graps for anything that is in her sight. One morning I was holding her and eating a plain eggo waffle. I got distracted and before I knew it she had pulled that waffle out of my hand and stuffed half of it in her mouth. She had a big grin on her face about it too! ha!
. She can move across the floor by laying on her back and pushing with her feet or laying on her tummy and pushing with her arms. Annabelle is also eating puffs independently, so she is mastering the pincer grasp.

Places I went:
Just after Annabelle turned 7 months old (so btwn 7-8 months) her great grandmother, whom she is named after, Eulabelle Yvonne, passed away. Annabelle, Jonah and Mommy went down to Gordon, GA for a few days right after 'Mamaw's' passing to be with family, my parents. We then drove to Sandersville, GA, where my Grandmother lived a majority of her life, for the funeral. At the funeral, Annabelle was able to meet many great aunts, uncles, and cousins. As sad as a funeral is, it is always nice to get to see distant family. I personally wish it didn't take a funeral to get us all together.

Jonah started school during this month, so Annabelle has been toted to and from Jonah's school a lot this month. She is a trooper though, and goes with the flow pretty well. Aunt Susie came to visit us, which was a lot of fun for us all!

Annabelle is such a sweet, special little girl. It is so much fun to watch her personality develop. She is so loving and so much fun to be around. Thank you Jesus for our blessing!