Blog BlogLovin Instagram Pinterest

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Weekend Roundup


I realize it's Tuesday and weekend roundups are typically written on Sunday night, but honestly the way this week has gone already it feels like it's Sunday all over again.  Does that make sense?  Maybe not.

Anyway, we spent this past weekend at home and it was glorious.  I think I've mentioned before that I had big decorating plans for our house when we bought it, but shortly after moving in and buying a few necessary pieces of furniture, we found out I was pregnant and all of our time and energy went to all things baby.  Poor, neglected house!  One of our new years' resolutions was to go room by room giving face lifts (within reason), and to not move on to another room until the room we started was how we wanted it (at least for the time being).  We have so many small projects that we want to complete that otherwise we'd be overwhelmed!  Not major projects, mind you, since our home was (thankfully) new construction, but little things here and there (which are time consuming and add up, from a cost standpoint).  The room we decided to tackle first (over the weekend) was the dining room.  I'll dedicate a separate post to before and after photos (we still need a few small finishing touches!), but here are a few sneak peaks of our progress, in case you care (I'm so excited/proud of the end result that I can't wait to share it!).


Side note: painting/face lifting your house is a serious chore with a little babe.  I was exhausted at the end of the weekend!  Here is the break down (with photos!) of how we got it all done:


Friday: Getting my supplies ready.

Color samples on the wall.  In case you care, we went with "O" on the ceiling and "F" on the walls.
 Friday night, after L went to bed, we taped the room and ceiling.

The tray ceiling was a real b-word, if you're pickin' up what I'm puttin' down.

Saturday during L's morning nap, we painted the ceiling.  We painted the walls during her afternoon nap.

Saturday during the afternoon nap: almost done!

Our reward.

Dan and Layla relaxing and admiring our handiwork.
Layla was not amused by the painting.
Saturday night, after L went to bed, we touched the paint up.  

Finished (paint) product.
We spent Sunday accessorizing some (took a trip to the mall to pick out a curtain rod, ironed the curtains and hung them, hung the new chandelier, moved the furniture back in, etc.).  Glamorous weekend, eh?  Seriously though, even though we were tired we both really enjoyed working on a project together and not killing each other in the process, and we felt like we had a super productive weekend when it was all said and done.

That's all of the sneak peaks I'll give you for now, but the finished product will be well worth the wait I can assure you.  It looks like a whole new room - it's amazing what some paint and a few accessories can do!  Shout out to my bestie Sheila for all of her advice.  Y'all should check her out, she's fab.  
 
In other exciting news, we got some snow over the weekend!  Remember when it snowed iced around L's birthday and she seemed to be amused by it?  Wellll let's just say that was NOT the case this time around.  This time, we got some actual snow.  It snowed in big, thick, beautiful flakes, and it snowed for a few hours.  It was actually perfect, because it accumulated some but then melted before it could cause too much damage.  Anyway, L really liked admiring it from inside:


...so you can understand why I was super excited to take her outside to see what she thought.  At first I thought she'd be ok...


...until she wasn't.  Oops.



Does the fact that I love this photo make me a bad mother?
Dear Lilly, I hate to be a mean Mommy, but you're gonna have to suck it up because there are a lot of winter mountain trips in your future.  :-)

In unrelated news, thanks to everyone who has been checking in our sweet girl.  The breathing treatments that we have been giving her appeared to make L's cough slightly better, but as of Monday morning the cough was still pretty terrible, and still in her chest.  Considering the cough is over two weeks old now, and she was pretty pitiful in general, I decided to take her back to the doctor just to check on things.

My poor sick baby :-(

Honestly, throughout this whole ordeal L hasn't really acted much different for the  most part (aside from the obvious runny nose and hacking up a lung every 2 minutes).  She's been fussy at times, her appetite has been diminished and she's slept a lot more, but to be as sick as she is, she's still been pretty happy.  Anyway, I'm glad I took her back to the doctor because as I suspected, the sickness progressed.  Whatever she had has turned into a bacterial infection that is basically just festering (Dr. V's word) in her chest.  Dr. V said she hesitates to call it pneumonia, but that that's what it is - albeit a mild case.  She also has a very mild ear infection (I wondered about this because she fought nap time and bed time some over the weekend.  I could tell she was tired but she would stand up in her crib and fuss and lay her head on the crib, still standing up.  She normally doesn't fight naps/bed so I was sure she didn't feel well!).  So, we've added an antibiotic to the mix (in addition to the breathing treatments), and we're heading back to the doctor on Thursday to check in and make sure it's working.  I guess the good news is that L only really fought me on breathing treatments for 2 days...now she'll sit still in my lap like a good girl and take them like a champ.  The even better news is that I can already tell a difference in her cough and general demeanor since she started the antibiotics, so fingers crossed that it means she's on the mend!




So I guess that catches me up (with the exception of the birthday party blog, which I PROMISE is coming...maybe not this week but next).  Hope you all had an enjoyable weekend as well!

Sarah

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day, friends!  The Baum household does not make a huge deal over this holiday (Dan is of the belief that it's a holiday made up by greeting card companies...how original, hehehe!), but I say it's an excellent excuse to dress in lots of pretty pink.  :-)  Lilly had two Valentines Day outfits, so she wore one yesterday - thanks, Grandma Susie (As usual, I couldn't narrow down the pics so I'll just post a million bunch.  Also please forgive the fact that these were taken in our bathroom, oy.)!




Caught!






I had good intentions of making heart-shaped pancakes or waffles this morning, but L woke up earlier than normal which threw a wrench in our morning routine and I ran out of time (It's a lot harder to get ready when you're having to distract a one-year-old in the process!).  I substituted with chocolate Greek yogurt that Daddy bought at the store, which Lilly was not upset about.  :-)

Dan surprised us tonight with flowers for both of his girls!  Lilies for Lilly, and roses for Mommy.  We love them!








Last night when I saw all of my Mommy friends posting on Facebook about the fun things they were doing with/for their kiddies today, I started to worry that I was a terrible mother for not at least getting Lilly a card.  In order to ease my guilt, I made one.  Nothing fancy, but I assume she liked it since she tried to eat it.  :-)




After we put L to bed, Dan made us a delicious feast of steak, sweet potatoes and broccoli.  The man surely knows the way to my heart - the sweet potato was my jam as I haven't had a starch in over two weeks!.  The one glass of wine I allowed myself wasn't so bad, either.  ;-)  All in all, I'd say it was a pretty perfect day for our little family.


Hope your Valentines Day was fabulous as well!

Sarah

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

My New Archnemesis

Is arch nemesis one word or two?  Anyway, meet my new archenemies:


What's that you ask?  A baby aero chamber and an inhaler.  Let me back up...

Lilly caught a little cold at the end of the week before last.  The little girl of the family that we nanny share with attends pre-school five half-days a week, and as a result, shares a lot germs.  I know sickness happens, especially during this time of year when there is a ton of crap going around anyway, so it's normally no big deal.  Additionally, Lilly still seems to be working on molars and as I have mentioned before, a lot of her teething symptoms are the same as cold symptoms (runny nose, low-grade fever), so it's sometimes hard to tell whether she is actually ill or just teething.  Anyway, last week Lilly developed a cough.  Again, no big deal, it wasn't too bad and she wasn't coughing consistently.  She never really ran a fever and seemed to feel fine so I didn't think much of it.  On Sunday, her cough worsened.  Where as it had been kind of dry and infrequent before, it was more frequent and sounded like it was breaking up.  I assumed this meant her body was trying to flush the cold out and thought it was a good thing.  She coughed a lot during her sleep on Sunday night and when she woke up yesterday morning she sounded pretty bad, so I called the doctor to see whether I should bring her in.

I spoke with the nurse, gave her Lilly's symptoms, etc. and asked her what she thought.  I have no problem taking L to the doctor, but I also hate spending the co-pay and the however long the wait is that day at the doctor for them to say, "it's just a cold, nothing you can do, give her Tylenol every four hours."  In other words, I wanted to make sure I wasn't being neurotic taking her in for no reason.  The nurse told me that a lot of times if babies are teething in addition to a cold (yes), they don't know that they are supposed to cough to clear out all of that fluid, so the drool + drainage from the cold leads to congestion.  She told me to keep an eye on L, and if she started running a high fever or if the cough lasted longer than 10 days to bring her in.  She told me also to pay attention to her appetite (it had decreased some) and to try to get  her to drink water (she did not drink as much as normal and therefore didn't have any super wet diapers yesterday, which is also rare).

Last night was terrible.  The poor child laid in bed for 3 hours wide awake after I put her down because she was coughing so hard she couldn't fall asleep.  Any of you who have been around her for bed time know that that's a rare occurrence - she normally talks to herself for a few minutes and then is out with no problem for the rest of the night.  Last night, I had to go in three times to try to console her.  Finally, on the third time, I took in some more medicine and her water and rocked her for a little while and that did the trick.  She didn't wake up during the night but she coughed all night long, and the cough started to sound worse and worse.  When she woke up this morning, not only was her cough worse, but she had started wheezing terribly when breathing.  

I called the doctor and was able to get Lilly an appointment for first thing this morning, and thank the Lord I did.  Dr. V was not happy with the wheezing at all, and they immediately started running all sorts of tests to monitor L's oxygen levels and check for pneumonia.  All of this, of course, made Mommy super nervous, since pneumonia in babies L's age can be fatal.  They determined that she did not have pneumonia or an ear infection (thank you Lord!).  Essentially, L's cold settled in her lungs and turned into a terrible respiratory infection.  The doctor was shocked with the amount of fluid/the sound of her wheeze that L didn't have an ear infection, too.  The result is that we now have to give Lilly breathing treatments until she's better using this handy contraption:


Did I mention that I hate the aforementioned contraption?  Lilly HATES the breathing treatments.  It took three of us at the doctor to administer the first one:  I pinned her limbs, Carney tried to distract her/helped pin limbs, and the nurse administered the treatment to show us how to do it.  We basically have to put the mask up to L's face, puff the inhaler once, wait for her to take 6 screams/cries breaths, wait one minute, and repeat four times, 5-6 times/day (decreasing as she gets better).  Dr. V told us that the medicine in the inhaler doesn't work on a lot of children as young as Lilly, but they always try it to see, so I am thankful it works for her even though it is hard to administer.  She cries big pitiful crocodile tears the whole time, and right about the time she starts to calm down (during the one-minute break in between puffs), we have to give her another dose.  It is not too hard with 2 people, but I am not looking forward to having to administer it by myself tomorrow night (Dan has a work dinner).  Did I mention that most pharmacies do not carrie aero masks small enough for babies without having to special order?  What a disaster my morning was.

My pitiful girl had a rough day:


But when we got home, Lilly had a birthday present from Aunt Sheila that she is super excited about:

Can't wait to rock this during football season!  Thanks, Auntie Sheils!

Then, her bestie sent her a picture text that made her whole night:

Cutest thing ever?  I think so.

The moral of this story is to trust your instincts.  I'm so glad I didn't wait it out a few more days thinking that the cough was just breaking up.  It's easy to second-guess yourself, at least in my experience.  Lilly honestly did not really even act like she was feeling badly - she just looked pitiful, if that makes sense.  I could tell the cough/wheezing were different this morning, so I took her in, and I'm so glad I did.

SO...here's to surviving the next few days of breathing treatments!  Wish me luck tomorrow night when I'm on my own.  Carney had to do it today and said it wasn't easy but she survived, so hopefully I will have the same experience.

Hope your Tuesday was less eventful than ours was!  :-)

Sarah

Monday, February 11, 2013

Happy (Belated) Christmas!

Eeeek!  I know that this post is beyond overdue, but I knew if I didn't blog Christmas prior to first birthday party I'd never get it documented.  

We took about a million quite a few photographs, so I went through and chose 38 some of my favorites to share.  I think it will be easier to just do that with minimal long-windedness from me!  I realized as I was going through these that the video we took is probably much better, but I don't have the energy to make it into a pretty movie currently so photos will have to do.  :-)  So, sit back and enjoy the ride!

On the 22nd, we left Raleigh and headed to Lake Norman to celebrate Hadley's First Birthday.  I somehow did not take a single photo there but hop on over to Steph's blog to see how much fun we had!  We left Lake Norman in the late afternoon on the 22nd and headed to Greenville, SC to visit Dan's brother's family.  We had our Christmas celebration with Dan's side of the family in Greenville, SC on the 23rd:

Lilly and her cousin Erica.  L loves her cousins, but she LOVES her some Erica.  

I think Erica loves her, too.

Opening presents!



Presents are seriously exciting.  And by presents, I mean wrapping paper.  But she really loves her ball popper.  Thanks Uncle Chris, Aunt Andrea, Ryan, Erica and Ian!

She also loves the Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube from Aunt Mere and Uncle Mikey.

Testing out her new ride from Grandma Susie and Papa, with Erica's help.

The leggings/thunder thighs!



Grandma love!


Reading one of her new books with Aunt Mere...

...and giggling.  Lots of giggling.


I know that we took some family photos but I honestly have no idea where they are.  :-(  I'm pretty sure someone else took them.  

On the afternoon of the 23rd, we headed to Charlotte for Christmas festivities with my family:

Happy girl playing with her new toys on the morning of Christmas Eve!  She LOVES the Little People Animal Sounds Farm that her bestie gave her.

Uncle Jeff came by to say hello!

Christmas Eve with my Dad's family

The whole family on Christmas morning.  I LOVE the "matching PJs" tradition and can't WAIT to continue it with Lilly and my NEPHEW Mason (!!!). 

Thanks Grandmommy and Paw Paw for my ball pit!

Being silly with PawPaw on Christmas morning.



More presents!


I realize this picture is of pretty much nothing, but I am slightly obsessed with these PJs and wanted to document how cute they are.  :-)

Sit-to-stand walker from Santa


Playing with Grandmommy

Santa?  I know him!

Daddy helping L check out her zebra activity center.  Thanks Uncle Josh, Aunt Katy and Aunt Sydney!

After breakfast/Lilly's morning nap, we all got ready and headed to Asheboro, NC to spend Christmas afternoon with my Mom's family.  I always look forward to my Papa reading the Christmas story, which I got on video but not in photos.  And the food...the food!  It's like Thanksgiving Part 2 and it is DELICIOUS.  Lilly agreed. I didn't take too many fun photos at Granny & Papa's, mainly video, but here are a few cute photos of Lilly playing with her second cousin, Layla:





Because no post is ever short, ever complete without my long-windedness, I did learn a few things this Christmas:
  1. All of that traveling is tough!  Beginning Christmas 2014 (when L is a little older), we will likely not do any traveling until the afternoon of the 25th.  It is hard to tote around so much stuff.
  2. Lilly is spoiled rotten!  She is so loved by so many, and we are SO grateful, trust me, but what is shown here is not even half of what the child got for Christmas.  We had to steal borrow my parents' car top carrier to get it all home!  
  3. Speaking of aforementioned rotten-ness, I learned from Christmas and L's birthday to save some of her toys while she doesn't know the difference.  When she gets bored with a few toys (which is very common at her age), I put them into hiding and bring out a few she hasn't seen before.  I begin to rotate in toys that she has seen before but has forgotten about and voila...Christmas and birthday all year long!
We had such a wonderful and blessed holiday, and I can't wait for many more to come.  


Merry Christmas!

Love, 

The Baums



More from The Baum Squad:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...