1 month already?!

It's funny, when you have your first child, your life revolves around them and you change your schedule to suit theirs. "Oh no, we have to be at xxx time, it's nap time" or "it's lunch time". BUT when you add more kids to the mix, they just have to fit right in. Sure, it may be nap time for baby, but it's also time to pick big sis up from school OR drive her to ballet OR it's the absolute only time to get to the grocery. That's what the snap n go's are for anyway, right?  I swear, Jillie lived (and mainly napped) in my Ergo baby carrier (which is awesome by the way).

That all being said, I can not believe Lizzie is a month old already!! I ask myself where the time went... but I know exactly; the holidays. She was born, then 10 days later we drove up to Georgia and had Christmas, then drove home, then it was New Years, and now we are trying to get a routine going.
 
Speaking of "fitting right in" to the schedule, at 1 month Lizzie has already:
- been to her first ballet practice AND recital
- been to TWO birthday parties
- celebrated TWO holidays; Christmas and New Years
- been on a 9 hour road trip and visited another state
- visited the park 5 times
- "played" at the mall (ok, so I use "played" a bit roughly)
Not to mention all the grocery, walmart, target...

She's doing pretty well and the girls LOVE "their little sissy" so much. She's beginning to be more alert and awake just in the past few days which is awesome; however her being awake around 7 is interfering with dinner making (we're going to have a little talk... lol).

Her night time sleeping is hit or miss, but last night she DID sleep from 11ish to 5:30am -- Go Lizzie!

1 week

2 weeks

3 weeks

 4 weeks

 

Plans for month 2 include some of the same PLUS Junior League meetings, Busch Gardens and Disney World, AND move into our NEW HOUSE!!

Palmolive Fresh Infusions ::. Review

Have you heard of Influenster? It's a website I am signed up for an based on my interests and stage of life (college student, mom, athlete) I may be chosed to try out new products. It's really neat; check it out here and if it interests you let me know by email and I'll send you an invite (if I have any left).

Anyway, I got a new influenster package in the mail yesterday.

ok... boring picture

I knew I had a "special complimentary shipment from Influenster featuring a new premium dish soap" (according to an email I received the other day) so I was super excited to open it (yes, I know it's a cleaning product, but it's still fun!) As I opened it I was completed surprised by the size of these bottles... even through the packaging material; definitely not "Sample" sized.

Upon further review, I see that these new Palmolive Fresh Infusions bottles are full sized at 16oz each (larger than the current bottle that is sitting by my sink) and way more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

The three scents that I received are Lemon Thyme (yellow), Lime Basil (green), and Ginger White Tea (pink). So far my favorite is the Ginger White Tea, but the Lemon Thyme runs a close second (I love the smell of lemon in the kitchen).

So far I'm super impressed with this product, both with the new bottle and the creative scent combinations. Way to go Palmolive!

Next up... let's see how this soap cleans!

Weekly Meal Plan #53

Phew! I think I am sort of getting back in to the swing of things from having baby #3, followed by traveling to Georgia a week later for Christmas... followed by New Years Eve a week later! I can't believe that I have a 4 week old (as of tomorrow).

Anyway, I have finally put together a meal plan! I hope you get some inspiration.

Sunday
Mushroom Chicken Bake

Monday
Lemon Garlic Shrimp

Tuesday
Eye of Round Roast

Wednesday
Philly Cheesesteak Pizza

Thursday
Asparagus Stuffed Pork Tenderloin (sale)

Friday
mmm, not sure if hubby will be home for dinner. If not, it's breakfast for dinner!! if so, I'll have to come up with a plan :)

Fun new Christmas (or NYE) tradition!

So my brother surprised the family with the following as a fun new Christmas tradition this year... but I think it would be a great NYE tradition as well!



src

On Christmas eve after dinner, he brought out a box of Floating Sky Lanterns and half a dozen permanent markers and presented each couple with their own lantern (the kids all shared one as well). We were given the instruction to write down our wishes/hopes/goals for the upcoming year on them.



Uncle Andy helping the girls with their list

 The kids list included a trip to Disney, the beach, visiting cousins, Busch Gardens, and other fun excursions. The couples' lists had some more "grown up" hopes and dreams on them. The first item on our list was a NEW HOUSE! PS... we have had an offer on this one house for A WHOLE YEAR. Granted we have looked at other houses in the meanwhile, this house seems to have come full circle so we are hoping with everything we have that this house goes through... and soon! Hubby wanted some more solid expansion plans for his business, and I just wanted to have more date nights and family date events.

Once all the lists were completed, we headed down to the dock to light them off.

How it works is you swing the lantern around (carefully) to get a little bit of air in it and then you light the wick at the bottom and wait until it inflates.

Once you begin to feel the lantern "pull" then you are ready to let it fly and you just let go.

It was a really neat and fun family thing to do!

Elizabeth is HERE!!

After seeing my {revised} due date of December 6-8th come and go I was scheduled to be induced on 12/12/12... how fun is that?! Fortunately... or unfortunately (my mom was really looking forward to 12/12/12/) I started regular contractions on the 11th, so when we got to the hospital at 6pm that night to prep for the following days induction, I was already "halfway there" and having regular contractions.

So instead of hanging around all night, my doc came in and decided to break my water to get the ball rolling.

A couple hours, one Christmas movie (Last Holiday), and one too-late left-side-of-body epidural later, our Lizzie decided to join this world at 10:29 pm on 12/11/12.

The next day was full of the typical boring hospital stuff...

... but the girls got to come and meet their new baby sister! They were thrilled!

After staying in the hospital for a total of 24 hours, we left on 12/12/12 at 6:30pm to head home as a family of 5.

I'm hoping these girls become the best of friends!! So far so good.

It's hard to believe I have a (few hours shy of a) 1 week old!

And here is the last belly shot of this pregnancy :)

Waiting on baby... and crossing off some Christmas to-dos

Here we are... on the last day of my due date range (Dec 6-8)... and NO baby! It's so funny how babies come on their own terms. My 1st was 1 days early and my 2nd was 4 days early. C'mon rugrat, lets go... I've got Christmas to recover for!

Although, my original due date was the 12th... so I think my doc just goofed in updating my due date.

WHILE we've been waiting, we've been running around running errands and knocking some items off of our Christmas To-Do list. We have:

Mailed Christmas letters to Santa at Macy's

Gotten all festive and taken pictures with Santa (and around the yard)

And Decorated some cookies (I have to admit, I am such a perfectionist when it comes to my Christmas cookies I have a hard time letting the girls help... this way they can get as creative [Read: messy] as they want!)

One of these days #3 will make her appearance!

Decorating? Just add greenery!

Ok, as I am STILL waiting for baby to arrive (ok, ok, I'm not even at my due date yet but both other girls were early, so I'm impatient!), I am finishing up some decorating and I wanted to share another small tip!

This year is different; we are in limbo with moving (although we got an update yesterday) so a lot of our stuff is in boxes from when we thought we were FOR SURE moving, so I don't have my usual stuff out. So I was a little worried that my mantle wouldn't look right for Christmas.

Also, we took down our HUGE wall unit where I put my Christmas village and various other Christmas decor is no longer available. AND since we didn't take all of our Christmas decorations down from the attic I am missing some of my prized decorations, bleh. 

That said, here is our mantle (PS, this is the picture from the "Stocking Hanging tip" post). I have a mixture of red and gold glass balls in a globe vase, some red candles, and shiny gold reindeer.

Not too shabby. Actually, somewhat festive.

BUT, just add some live greenery and look what a difference it makes...

 

Here is our full mantle, I don't have a lot of Christmas stuff up, but with the greenery it looks super festive. Plus, it smells awesome and then after the holidays we get to burn the trimmings in the fire place. Win-win. 

 

 

I used the trimmings from our live tree, but you can either go buy some trimmings from places that sell trees OR run by lowes and go through the dumpster by their trees (I did that last year to get some extra trimmings).

Linking up: Our Delightful Home , Sarahndipities, Keeping it Simple