Wordless Wednesday #3

Anthony is here!

My fluid levels were low so they decided to take him out early. It was a great experience as far as surgeries go, I had an excellent anesthesiologist, great surgeon and the nurses at the hospital were wonderful. As much as I have complained about having that insurance company , my experience at that hospital was wonderful. Although the other hospital had way better food. LMAO

Anyway Anthony weighed in at 7 lbs 13 ounces and 20 inches long. He looks just like Amelia. Everyone in the operating room commented on his hair when he came out. :-)

He is healthy, didn't lose any weight in the hospital, and is eating like a champ. He eats, sleeps and poops. It's great! I am still tired and sore, but doing pretty well all in all. We are already getting one 4 or 5 hour stretch of sleeping at night. Go baby go! :-)

Amelia is in love with her little brother and is doing a great job of leaving him alone so far. She gets her stool and stands on it next to the bassinet so she can see what he's doing, but she's pretty good at not touching unless we say it's okay.

I'm crossing my fingers that he stays such an easy baby. I was worried that something was wrong with him because he just eats and sleeps, but apparently that's normal in the first few days of life! LOL Nothing like my little Amelia who screamed at me for the first weeks/months of her life. :-)

Baby Anthony has arrived. We're still in the hospital. Amelia came to visit today and is in love with her brother. We should be going home tomorrow, I'll post more then.

Wilmington NC Self Storage

We all have extra stuff that we need to keep, but just don't have room for. Whether it's antiques, furniture, baby stuff or your Christmas decorations, we've all go stuff. We just don't all have the extra room for it.

If you're in the North Carolina area, and you're looking for a self storage place, go visit wilmington nc self storage.

The prices are great ( much lower than what we pay for our storage unit!) and they also have specials running right now on a few sizes of units. For as little as $42 a month, you can have the peace of mind of knowing your things are secure. With 24 hour access to the facility you can get to your belongings whenever you need to. They also have excellent security with recorded video surveillance and gates that require a code to access. There is onsite resident management, as well as many other great features. If you're looking for a place to keep your belongings safe, go to Extra Attic.

Where do you sleep?

I know I've mentioned before that part way through this pregnancy, Jeff and I decided we needed a new bed. We've needed one for a while, but me being pregnant and uncomfortable made it all the more clear how much we needed one. Since we were getting a new mattress anyway, we decided to upgrade to a King size bed, which means we need a new bed frame. I haven't picked out a frame yet, but I have begun researching, and I found the Quality Oak Beds at Time4Sleep.



Besides all the great oak beds that they carry, Time4Sleep carries some great kids beds too. I love the pink jeep bed and the fire truck bed. Too bad they don't make those in king size! Although I'm sure Amelia, or in a few years, Anthony would love to have a bed like that.

So if you're in the market for a new bed, you should go visit the bedmakers at Time4Sleep.com

Amelia doesn't understand why we can't go out and play today. This is why. Those aren't clouds. It would be clear today if not for the smoke. It's good that the winds are dying down, but it means the smoke just sits over the fires. These pictures are SE of us which is where the Santiago fire is. Doesn't it almost look like it should be sunset or something? I took these at noon today. It's about 95 degrees our right now too, and I think the humidity is around 10 percent.

Wordless Wednesday #2 This is what happens when Amelia finds a freshly baked chocolate cake on top of the stove.

Amelia discovered a cake that I had made earlier that day. I was in the other room and thought she was asleep. Ooops! Oh well at least she had a tasty snack today. :-)

Black-Friday.net

Shopping is one of my favorite hobbies, especially when it involves a good sale!

I just found the coolest website for anyone who likes shopping and likes a bargain. It's called black-friday.net. Basically we all love the deals that are available on Black Friday( also known as the day after Thanksgiving), but who wants to circle the mall for 2 hours to find parking, at 5 AM and then get in a fist fight to get the last TV that's on sale.(Yes that actually happened to a friend of mine!)

If you go visit this site, you can see the ads for the biggest shopping day of the year, before they are normally made public. You can also sign up to get an email reminder when the ads are updated. Then once you have accessed the ads, you can even go online and make the purchases, so you don't have to brave the crazy stores to make your purchase. It's a win win situation for everyone!

I will be checking out Macy's Ads as well as Old Navy's Deals

So if you are like me, and love shopping but hate the craziness then go visit www.black-friday.net. And if you're feeling really nice, you can pick up a gift or two for me!

oops

I made the mistake earlier of not closing my garage door. I didn't realize how yucky the air was until I went out into my garage a few hours later and found that everything was covered in a layer of ash from the fires. I guess I'll be washing that clean basket of laundry that's sitting on top of the washer again.

Furniturefromhome.com

I love furniture. Someday Jeff and I will have a huge house in the middle of nowhere that we can fill with beautiful furniture and accessories. Until we win lotto, we have to be content with buying a few wonderful things that we love. We having a dining room furniture set that Jeff loves. It's not my favorite though. I'd love to able to buy a new set from furniturefromhome.com. They have a great selection and great prices. If you're looking for dining furniture or a formal dining room set you should go to their site.

They also have some gorgeous sleigh beds. We recently bought a new king size bed, but haven't gotten a headboard yet. I'd love it if Santa brought me one of the beautiful pieces of furniture from Furniturefromhome.com

I can dream right?

Costumes

Posting this for my mom, these are the costumes we got today for the girls. Aren't they cute? Thanks Kathy for going to the disney store with me. I actually bought two costumes for Amelia as well, but didn't take pictures of them. They are for Christmas, I got her tinkerbell and a sleeping beauty costume. I really wanted to get her the Ariel costume, but they just didn't have it in a small enough size for Amelia. The one she is trying on is for one of my cousins kids, she is taller than Amelia.

Amusement parks

If you know me at all, you probably know that we live 10 minutes from Disneyland, and that we go there a lot. We spend a lot of money every year so we can go whenever we want, and if we stay for 15 minutes, that's okay, we can go back next week.

I just heard about another amusement park that sounds pretty cool. It's across the pond, so my chances of going there anytime soon are slim, but it still seems cool!

The park is called Pleasure Beach Blackpool and is modeled after American style amusement parks. It was started in 1896 and has in the same location since. It features Europe's tallest fastest rollercoaster, The Pepsi Max Big One. It also has Valhalla, the world's biggest dark ride which opened 2000.

Another thing that looks great is the Blackpool Restaurant called White Tower.

38 Weeks

Here's a 38 week belly shot. I'd have a better shot if I'd remember to do these pictures when jeff was home. :-)

Preggo stats so far,

Total weight gain: 14 pounds
Total trips to Labor and Delivery: 3
Total ultrasounds so far: At least 15
Number of times we've confirmed he's a boy: At least 6 or 7
Trips to Babies R Us: Way too many!
Days until the c Section: 13


That's all I can think of for now. I'll leave you with a picture of Amelia in the car. Ain't she cute??

Car seats

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm kind of a nut about car seat safety. I have been known to give people car seats so that they have a safe seat for their kids. When we found out I was pregnant again, I had to research car seats again, since it had been a few years since I had an infant. Not to mention, I didn't have an infant seat any more. I spent a lot of time researching car seats. Some of the best seats out there, are made by Britax. One of my favorites is the Britax Marathon. It's basically the Rolls Royce of the car seat world. Britax is known for being one of the safest seats out there, and the Marathon doesn't disapoint. It's a convertible seat that has a 5 point harness that goes up to 65 pounds, (much higher than most other seats on the market. ) It can also be rear facing until 33 pounds, which is the safest way for small children to be in the car. The cost is higher than some other seats, but your kids can use this seat for so much longer, that I think the Marathon is worth the extra cost.

If you're looking for a new car seat that will last from the time your baby comes home from the hospital until they are in school, you should look at the Britax Marathon.

Fires-updated

Click on the picture to see it more clearly. It looks cloudy doesn't it? It's not. It would be a clear day if not for the smoke.



Look at the palm trees blowing in the wind...

There are about a dozen wildfires burning around Southern California today. At least 3 of my friends in different areas have had to evactuate so far. In Seven counties, the governor has declared a state of emergency. We aren't in direct danger where we are, there was one fire in Orange but it has burned further South and is not threatening us. But, it's hot, and it's windy and smokey. Even with the house all closed up I can smell the smoke. I just went out in the garage for something and it's even worse smelling out there.

We've had winds at 30-40 miles an hour with gusts in some places up to 80 or 90 miles an hour! There are trees down, people without power, and 100's of thousands of people have had to evacuate.

So if you're the praying sort say a little prayer for all the people who have already lost their homes and for the ones who still don't know if they will have a home to go back to. Otherwise, send some good thoughts our way.

I took some pictures of the nasty sky earlier but can't find the camera cord to upload them. I'll be back when I find the camera cord.

When I grow up...

When you were a little kid what did you want to be when you grew up? I knew from the ripe old age of 4 that I was going to be a doctor. There are pictures of me on my 4th birthday with this cute little doctor's kit. I had glasses and a pen and a stethoscope that all sat in a nice little doctor's bag. From then on, I was going to be a doctor.

Somewhere around middle school, I figured out that there were some drawbacks to being a doctor. There was lots and lots of school, and lots and lots of money involved. Not to mention, you'd have to survive anatomy classes that involved dissecting things. ( I hated 7th grade science because we had to dissect a worm. How was I going to study a cadaver in med school?)

I was lucky that when I was in college, I sort of fell into a career I really enjoyed. I started off majoring in computer science, and ended up taking a class called math for elementary teachers. With that class I had to do some work experience. I ended up working at a preschool, changed my degree to Early Childhood Education and started teaching preschool after I graduated. From there I moved into nannying and the rest is history!

Mailbox Security

When I was a kid, I lived in a very rural area. Nothing like the place I now call home. Since it was such a rural area, it was normal to see mailboxes along the side of a country road, with no houses in sight. Because of this, it was not uncommon to go out one morning and find your mailbox was in pieces or gone altogether. There was a "game" played by young teenagers called mailbox baseball. I won't give you all the details, but lets just say it involved sitting in the back of a truck and driving along the side of the road with a baseball bat.

Unfortunately it was also not uncommon to have people get into your mail. Back then all of the mailboxes were cheap plastic stuck on a small piece of wood in the mud. I have found a website that has a great product to combat the teenagers in rural areas with too much time on their hands.

Now there are locking mailboxes available to keep people out of your mailbox.

Over the river and through the woods...

Next summer Anthony will be old enough to travel and the kids and I will make our annual trek to Oregon to visit all of my family. I have sworn off flying ever again with a toddler, so we will be driving. I actually really enjoy the trip up North. I have always loved to drive and go off on adventures. I'm not sure how much fun it will be with a baby, but that's okay.

Anyway I have decided that this year when we make the trip, we will actually stop along the way and do some touristy stuff, and see some sights that we normally drive right past. Amelia is getting older, and she is starting to enjoy some of those sorts of things.

So as the summer gets closer, I will be using the travel guide at RealTravel.com to plan our trip. I can go on that website and see what other travelers have said about trips in that area. I will be able to plan our trip based on other people's reviews, and blogs about travel. I think it will be beneficial to plan my trip based on other travelers reviews.

So far I think we will probably stop somewhere near Mount Shasta, it's a beautiful place and it's a great halfway point. I haven't decided yet where the rest of our adventure will take us.

One more

quick post before bed. There is one thing about being pregnant that I will miss. That's the movement. My baby boy has his head down in my pelvis and his little butt is just above my belly button. And he kicks me all day long. But every one of those little kicks lets me know he's doing well in there. Knowing that this is my last pregnancy, I know I won't be feeling those movements again after his birth. I'm good with that, two kiddos is good for me. But I might miss those kicks and flutters just a little.