It's a start...

Ok....We're starting with the best thing that Home Depot had to kill roaches. If it doesn't work, then I'll be asking our managers to get rid of them. Sometimes it's more difficult being related to managers because I always feel bad asking them to fix things. That's why we're going to start out with our bug killing spray. I just pray that it works even though I'm skeptical since cockroaches are the heartiest bug ever.

I can't handle roaches. I don't even want to wait until Claire can crawl around and possibly eat them. They poop. That means there could be poop on the floor and I don't want to be around that let alone have Claire crawl around on it. Sick! Barf! Disgusting! Sometimes I don't like renting. If I had my own house, I would have called pest control a month ago.

Grossed Out

Ok, so I'm slightly embarrassed to confess this, but I'm completely grossed out. We have cockroaches in our apartment. GROSS!!!!! I hate them! Now, I am kind of a neat freak and a very clean person, so I guess I'm trying not to really peg this "disaster" on myself. We were playing Ticket to Ride last night and there's the little critter crawling across our game. It was pretty tiny....about the size of a pencil eraser, but SICK!!! Brian squished one about a month ago in our sink too.

Herein lies the problem. I want to call our managers and have them fumigate the entire disgusting place, but Brian doesn't seem to think there's a problem. He doesn't really want to do anything about it. I'm so grossed out that I'd rather move. I want to disinfect our entire apartment. Clean everything. Call the bug people and get them out of here. He doesn't agree. He served his mission in Mexico where they're like 6 inches long, so these little ones don't bother him that much.

What's a girl to do?

Cutest Dress Ever

Yes, I still get all giddy over the clothes Claire has, so don't be surprised if I post pictures just because her outfit is cute. My friend Sarah gave me this one and Claire even smiled for the picture. :)

I like this picture because this is how she sleeps every night. Maybe she'll be a football fan since she looks like she's signaling a field goal. Cutie!

Happy 24th Birthday

I turn 24 tomorrow! Really? Am I really getting that old? Well, my goal was to have a baby before I turned 24. Mission accomplished. Next goal is to have another baby before I'm 26. We'll see how that one goes.

So, as you know, Brian and I cannot ever wait for the actual event date to give gifts. Christmas gifts are opened all throughout December and birthday gifts are usually a few days early as well. This year is no exception, so I got my gift on Saturday instead of Monday, my actual b-day. He came home yesterday and told me that I needed to check our car cd player because it's not working. Darn....it really is broken. However, Brian kept telling me to pick new music to put in there. The whole time I'm just thinking, "Why would I pick out new music when we can't load anything?" So, I go to humor him and open the glove box to get the cd's. On top was a card addressed to myself and an express gift card. I slowly and quietly closed the glove box because I didn't think I was supposed to see that until Monday. I looked at Brian, who is smiling, and ask if I was supposed to see that already, and he said yes. So, I got a gift card to Express from my in-laws and a Banana Republic one from Brian. Two of my most favorite stores! I haven't gone shopping for clothes since October! It's so much fun to not have a basketball sticking out of my body! I had a blast! I got a pretty sweater from Express (sorry, couldn't get the picture to copy) and this from Banana:

Of course I wear that with my garments sticking out of the straps. Kidding! I got a beautiful black cardigan to go over it as well. Trust me, it looks better on and it looks way better with a cardigan than in the picture. There is a sweet girl, Makelle, that works at Banana. I just love her. I met her last year and we chatted a lot over a shirt that we liked that Brian hated. Since I would go into the store almost every Saturday she came to know who I was. She's adorable. Anyway, every time I go in we chat a little bit about our lives and she usually gives us some sort of deal or tells us of the upcoming specials. So, yesterday she gave us 30 percent off of our entire purchase and an extra $10 off the cardigan just for the heck of it. It's all about who you know! Thanks Makelle!!! I just love her!

Tonight we're trying to make crab legs for the first time ever. Yum!!! I love crab! Then tomorrow, my overly-obsessed-about-grilling husband is making steak. Yum! I'm excited! Sometimes I think birthdays are all about the food. :) Maybe I'll even sneak a bite of chocolate ice cream. Just one bite though. So far I've had a wonderful Birthday weekend!

4 weeks

So, I was always feeling bad or stupid that I didn't have ANYTHING else to talk about except my new baby and being a new mom. Just about 10 minutes ago I realized that, you know what, that's my life and that's okay if that's all I talk about. People talk about their lives, and this is mine. Guess you don't have to read about it if you don't want to and I can just post til my heart's content. :)

Oh my goodness!!! Can you believe she's 4 weeks old already. I can't! I just can't believe how fast time goes! She's soooo much fun and I love spending all day with her. I also love to watch Brian being a great dad. He's so excited that she's getting older because that means she's becoming less "fragile". Silly. He watched the birthing process. He should know that her head's not going to roll off of her body and that, even though she's upset, she will stop crying eventually. :) I always said that I didn't want to have girls, just boys. Boy, how naive was I? If all my girls are this cute, I could have a bunch. I'm still hoping for a couple boys too though. :)

Here she is just a few hours old

Here she is at 4 weeks old. Nice and CHUBBY!! Look at that double chin!

This last picture actually makes me sooo happy. She has only ever smiled in her sleep, but yesterday I told her that she should "smile super big for her mommy" and this was the result that I got. I was so excited! We can't wait until she's smiling and giggling all the time.

I thought I'd try and upload some video of her, but it wouldn't work. I'll try later.

Random

First off, I am SHOCKED that Claire is taking a nap today! She is usually up for a big part of the day. Thanks to this nap, I was able to do some laundry, make banana bread, clean up the house, and blog! Phew. Finally got something done around here.

We blessed Claire last week on the 15th. It was a beautiful blessing and she looked darling in her blessing dress. Thank goodness she made it through sacrament meeting before peeing all over it. :) Crisis averted. She has a throwing up problem sometimes when I overfeed her, so I was grateful she didn't throw up all over it. No, I'm not talking spit up....it's vomit. HUGE amounts of spit-up if you will. Sorry that I don't have an ounce gauge on my body to tell me to stop feeding her. If my body would just regulate better and not have so much blasted food for her. Well, thank goodness it's too much instead of not enough. Also, Brian's grandma thought she'd make things more interesting for the day and fainted twice while we were outside taking pictures. Not gonna lie, it scared me to death. She is cold all the time, so she thinks that in this 100 degree weather she has to dress for a blizzard. Thermal garments, a long sleeve dress, and a blazer. I would pass out too. When we got her into the car, Uncle Brent started dabbing her with water to try and get her to cool down. She didn't know what was going on and just asked why he was making her all wet. Oh Grandma... :) Thank goodness she's okay and it was fun to have so much family there for the blessing.

Claire is now a little over 3 weeks old and she has a typical case of baby acne. No, it's not cute and I wish it would go away. However, I don't like how everyone has to say, "Oh my, what's wrong with her face?" Nothing's wrong with her face, doofus. They're called zits. Ever heard of them? I wouldn't go up to you and say, "My goodness, what's that thing protruding from your forehead?" now would I? No. Claire's adorable and there's nothing wrong with her face. It just takes a little time to clear up. Little protective I guess.

I now fit into all of my clothes and I'm down to my pre-pregnancy weight. Wahoo. Took me 3 weeks, but after being pregnant for that long, it seemed like forever. I'm grateful for my clothes that button up! Now I have to get down to my pre-marriage weight as my goal. 10 lbs to go!

As I was driving home from my mom's last Friday, I popped in some wonderful Michael Buble. I sure love his music. I think my mom and I should go to a concert next time he's in town. :) So, you know how certain smells remind you of past memories? Well, I think it's crazy that music does the same thing. Every time I listen to Mr. Buble, the same old smells and memories come back and the music is always related to a person. Buble reminds me of driving up to Rexburg by myself to see an old friend. He's a good person to listen to on the boring road to Rexburg that's for sure. Relient K reminds me of driving through the canyon with Bethany while being frustrated over the whole Dan and Brian dating situation. (Oh dear!) All American Rejects and Ataris = high school. Missy Higgins = all things related to Brian. Funny how songs rarely bring on new memories as you listen to them over and over. They always make me think of the same old things. So, while listening and thinking about all these things (since most of them reminded me of past boyfriends), I'd just have to say that I'm so darn thankful that I married Brian. I'm convinced that I could have married anyone and been pretty happy, but I'm glad he came around and chose me. Don't get me wrong, I still think I dated some pretty great guys, but I think Brian is just that wonderful that he tops the list. Maybe I'm biased... :)

Here are some pictures from the blessing.

Brian's parents

Brian's extended family

My extended family

The Great Grandparents and Grandparents

My parents

Lucky, Lucky Me

First off, I have to say how wonderful my mom is! Thank goodness for mom's to help you after having a baby! I don't know what I would do without her. She comes down, cleans my house, hangs out with me, and makes sure that I don't lift a finger on chores. The other day I told her that I missed her and that we seriously need to have a Harry Potter marathon. I also told her that Claire missed her. Those were really the magic words. She came down right after work, we made cookies together, she got to snuggle my cute little girl....but we have yet to start our Harry Potter marathon. I love her.

Second reason why I'm so lucky, and I do have to brag about this, is that little baby Claire sleeps through the night. Gasp! What? Yes, that's right. She goes to sleep around 9 or 10, wakes up once around 4 to eat and then goes right back to sleep until she wakes up at 8:30. She's such a gem! Thank goodness for sleep! I don't know how people do it when their kids are up all night! She did that for a couple days and I was sooooo tired. Good job to mom's that can do that. Lots of people ask me how my sleep is coming or they tell me that someday I will sleep again. Well, my sleep is coming just fine and I'm loving it. She has had a couple of rough days though where she has been awake for 5+ hours straight. That's like an eternity in newborn time! She gets soooooooo cranky! I spent more than 4 hours yesterday trying to get her to sleep. Finally I put her in her car seat/stroller and drove it around our apartment since it was raining outside and she fell asleep. I'll never understand why people fight to stay awake. I love sleeping!

The only reason I will count myself an unlucky soul is because I have not had a taste of chocolate in 3 weeks! THREE WEEKS!!!! Never in my life have I even gone one week without chocolate! I'm dying. However, I would rather omit chocolate from my life for a while than have a screaming, colic-y baby! I miss it's wonderful taste as it melts in my mouth. Ah....someday. Guess for now this new "diet" is helping my figure? Maybe.

Deflated Balloon

Let's talk about pregnancy for just a second. It's true that EVERYONE looks smaller to you when you're pregnant because you feel like the most ginormous balloon on the face of the earth. Well, I thought being pregnant was pretty darn fun and I did enjoy it most of the time....probably up until I couldn't roll over in bed without waking up and putting a lot of effort into it. Now lets go back to before I was pregnant. I didn't exactly feel skinny...ever. I was always trying to do new exercises or work off that extra 5-10 lbs. Never worked and I was always unsatisfied with how I looked, how my clothes fit, or that I wasn't as skinny as that girl crossing the street. However, since I have had the baby, my whole perspective has changed. I still do not fit in my jeans without having a world record muffin top (but I can button them up and I was happy about that), nor do my clothes fit as well as they once did, but every time I pass the mirror I think to myself, "My goodness! I'm skinny again! Crazy! Just last week I was HUGE!" It's great! Maybe I should just get pregnant every time I beat myself up for looking 5 lbs heavier than normal. Turns my brain right around. I don't know how long this frame of mind lasts, but I like it. I like thinking that I look nice and lean even when my pants don't fit quite right. It's a nice feeling. :) Nothing like being a deflated balloon!

Where'd the time go?

Oh my goodness, what a week! I can't believe that it's almost been one whole week since Claire was born. I feel like the hospital stay was just one big day instead of three and with all of the visitors we've had, the week has just flown by. We're doing so wonderful! We're adjusting to being new parents, which is still so weird to me at times, and we're just soaking up every smile, cry, and sleeping moment. I am so happy to have her and I try not to get too sad knowing that she will grow up. I think that's the hardest part for me so far....I don't want her to grow up. I want to go back to last Wednesday to being induced and have her all over again. Crazy? Maybe, but it was absolutely magical and I would do it one hundred times over again to get that overwhelming brand new mom feeling again. Don't get me wrong, I still feel like a brand new mom, but there is something so special about seeing your new baby for the very first time with the anticipation of spending every moment with her. I love her!

So, funny hospital story (funny now that it's over at least). Brian was a total space cadet while we were in the hospital. He was so overwhelmed with being a new dad that he wasn't quite in his right frame of mind. He came home and got in the shower with his glasses on for one, looked like a deer in the headlights most of the time, and started is daddy worrying from the first minute she got here. So, we're just chilling in the hospital on Friday morning and he puts his hands up and gasps, "I lost my wedding ring!" Now, Brian is ALWAYS taking his ring off to play with it, so it came to no surprise to me. He looked at home, nothing. Labor and delivery room, nothing. Lost and found, nothing. We started looking through pictures to see if he had it on. The only pictures we had were of the delivery room and in both pictures his ring finger was covered up, but my mom went through hers and saw it in some of them, so we knew it had to be in our mother-baby room since he went no where after that. So, Saturday morning, we packed everything up, said countless prayers to find it, but we still weren't finding anything in our stuff or around the room. Last place to look, the trash. Yes, he found his ring in one of the trash cans. THANK GOODNESS that prayers are answered! What a relief. I told him that he cannot ever take it off his finger again.

Brian is the cutest dad ever! It's so darling to hear him say, "I love you" to her all the time and then turn to me to tell me that she is so cute. I love being a mom and I'm so glad that we get to be parents! Here are some pictures from Claire at home! We love her!!

One of my favorites!!!

We had to get a picture with the "Claire Bear" that we got her. :)