Almost Walking!

Claire is growing and doing new things so fast I can hardly keep up!  She is very close to walking now!  This month she has really fine tuned the ability to stand straight up without holding onto anything.  She's becoming quite the chatterbox and the louder the better!!  She finds lots of things funny now and giggles more and more!  Check out some of her new talents!!


Almost Walking! from Kristen Crawford on Vimeo.

Mommy Makeover Time

I have never been the most fashionable person.

That doesn't mean that I belong in a "What Not to Wear" episode either though.  When I was a teenager I was typically into the current teenage fashions and for the time I did pretty well at fitting in and staying current.  Of course they were the current TEENAGE fashions so looking back they weren't good.  I enjoyed shopping as an adult and get a serious high every time I make a significant purchase, doesn't matter if it's in person or on-line.  I love it.   I was always one of those people who said I would neeevvvveerrrrr have the look of the stressed out, overly tired mom once I became a mom.

But, then I actually became a mom.

I can personally attest that the exhausted mom look is really all you can do in those first 6 months or even further.  Wash my hair everyday?  Is that a joke??  I slept 15 minutes past the absolute latest time I could get up and make it to work on time.  Something appears on my pants...."What is THAT???".  After inspection it appears to be a mixture of spit-up and Gerber peaches. Ca-raaaaaap. At that point I should get back out of the car, go in the house and change, but I'm now 30 minutes late.  *think, think, think* AHA!  BABY WIPES!!  They work miracles, I plan on carrying them around with me forever now, even when all of my children have gray hair.  After scrubbing all I can with the baby wipe the huge wet spot on my pants looks way better than what was previously there so that is considered my small victory for the day.  This kind of routine has been more common than not lately in my life!

So....it's time for a Mommy make-over!

Nothing drastic of course.  I burned through ebay 2 weeks ago and Claire is pretty set on clothes for the rest of the summer and beginning of fall so now I'm turning my attention on getting myself a few new things.  I haven't been shopping for myself in quite a while.  I've bought a few things here and there but that just doesn't count. :)  While in Target the other night I spotted both of these:

 So, naturally, I had my lovely husband buy them for me!  The only jewelry I've been wearing daily lately are my wedding rings so it was nice to wear something new and different.  You don't realize how something as small as a new pair of earrings can make you feel so much better.  So this is my public reminder to myself to take the time to do something nice for yourself every now and then!

Just a tip:  If I've been up really late at night with a teething baby I'll take a bath right after she goes to sleep.  The warm water relaxes me and I usually fall asleep for a few minutes.  (Multi-tasking!)  Then I put my hair up so it will still be wet enough to style properly the next morning. :)

The Faces of August (so far...)

Familiar

Claire has been teething over the past 2 months.  As every mother knows that is not a very fun process.  Of course we don't get much sleep but they are miserable until those sharp teeth finally poke through swollen and sore gums.

This morning she was awake around 5am.  She went down at 9:30pm so I was happy she slept that long.  As I was holding her half awake and doing the now familiar routine of making her bottle I woke up enough to really look at her.  The last time we were doing this routine on a nightly basis she was a tiny infant.  A tiny infant who didn't know that mommy was working as fast as she could to get that bottle ready and in her mouth.  While she never was a screamer, but would whimper and squirm until that bottle hit her mouth.  

But this morning at 5am, my now 10 month old was watching me without making a sound.  Her hair is long enough to have "bed head" now and she had the same glassy-eyed look on her face as I did.  The one that says "I do NOT want to be awake yet!".  She know knows that once I screw the nipple back on, put the cap on and start to shake that the bottle is ready.  She starts reaching for it once she hears me shake it the first time. We know each other now.  We aren't the same tiny infant and brand new mommy who are both trying to figure out what we need to do and who are both secretly a little scared of what the other is going to do.  We are now the best of buddies.  She knows that I will get her what she needs and I know what she needs without even really thinking about it. 

I walked over to the same chair we always sit in, grabbed her blankie and cuddled until her bottle was done.  She then reached for her pacifier, rolled back into me and went straight to sleep.  

This familiar routine will be one of the things I miss the most after it's done.

Wedding Pictures

Our Wedding pictures are in!! We had such a wonderful day thanks to all of our Family and Friends! It would not have been possible without all of you. We love you so much!!
  (Click on the picture to see the entire album)

Playing with Grandpa

Watch how much fun one little girl can have with a balloon and her Grandpa... :)

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to our family blog!  I plan on posting our many adventures and daily life here so go ahead and bookmark this now so you won't forget us. :)  Check out The Family page to know who we are.  I want to have a place to document our lives because as everyone knows, it goes by so fast.  I want to try to remember where we were in that moment.  Especially with a baby girl growing up so fast!!  I'm getting ready to break into the photography world so expect to hear a lot about that.  And then the ever popular subject of loosing wight, humph.  Yes, we plan on doing that too!  Maybe having this will force us since other people will be reading about it (yikes!!).  I (Kristen) will be the primary writer here, maybe I can talk my husband into putting in a few posts here and there. ;)  I'll leave you with the prettiest thing I ever did see: