Gonna be gone for awhile...

I know what you are all thinking "like that's new," but hey at least I'm telling you ahead of time. After feeling rather under the weather, and then spending three days in the hospital, my doctor has concluded that I am NOT preeclamptic (phew) but I do have rather high blood pressure so I have been sentenced to complete bed rest for as long as I can keep this baby in. We have thankfully just passed the 32 week mark which is when little man was born so Shane and I are feeling optimistic, and like every week we get after that is truly a gift.

I don't know when I will be on again, but I will try to post updates when I can. Thanks to all my friends and family for your support.

In honor of Ms. Rowling

My husband thinks that we have a house elf. To confirm this I asked him as pleasantly as I could yesterday what magic elf he thought was coming through and cleaning up his dishes each morning. Now this man isn't stupid and that's why I love him of course. He paused looked at me and said, "It isn't an elf its a princess." Thanks...I think, but put your dishes in the sink o.k.

Our vacation at home

Last week Shane took the whole week (and the Thursday and Friday before that) off of work. I was worried at first that we would not be able to find enough things to do and that we would regret not using the vacation time to go somewhere exotic and expensive, but I was so very wrong. Our vacation at home was bliss I absolutely loved it.

Thursday we dusted off the four wheeler and went for a ride, grandpa was gracious enough to let us borrow his too and we had a great time. Little man looked especially cute in his helmet that made his head appear to be roughly four times its actual size, and yes its the sunglasses again could the kid be any more stylin'?

Friday we embarked on a camping trip with friends, it was so fun. Little man literally just rolled in the dirt for two days...he was in heaven. I am happy to say that he also slept like a champ in his own little sleeping bag, which made the trip much more pleasant for mommy and daddy.

Wednesday was spent doing all of the usual Fourth of July activities. Parades were watched, barbecues were attended, and fireworks were seen. Little man was a little upset with all of the loud noises until Shane came up with this plan...

That man o' mine he is a genius. Little man loved his "headphones" and instead of spending the entire time during the fireworks huddled in terror on our laps, he actually got a little bored during the show...eh, what can ya do?

We spent alot of days just at home too, we took naps, we ate out, we went on bike rides, it was fabulous.

For a finale to our vacation at home we headed to cache valley on Saturday. Logan is where Shane and I met, and dated. We both went to and graduated from college there. It is also where we spent our first years of marriage. It is where our first house is, and it is where the mountains are. For these reasons we love Logan, and we love to visit it. We decided to go down there for the annual "cruise in" a fun classic car show, but while we were there we visited some of our other favorite spots, and even ate at our most favorite Chinese place YU-MEEE. We took the time to drive up Logan canyon and visit Tony's Grove. This was probably one of my favorite things on our visit, because I love the mountains. I grew up in Salt Lake City at the base of the mountains, and I LOVE the mountains. I honestly can say that being surrounded by mountains makes me feel so comforted, much like I imagine little man feels about his blankie. Yes I can live without them, but when I am near them I just want to wrap them around me and take a nap. Seriously I love the mountains (did I mention that I love the mountains). After I'd soaked up some nature time we made our way back down to the valley and watched the main street car parade. Now I already told you what I love, but Shane loves something else entirely (besides me of course) Shane love cars. He LOVES them, so he was in heaven watching all of the meticulously painted, souped up, washed daily by hand, costs more than we want to know cars go up and down the street for two hours. Little man liked it too although some of the cars were a bit loud for his taste.

We had so much fun altogether, and all of us were sad when Shane had to go back to work on Monday, ah such is life.

ABC's and accessorizing...

So guess who is taking a nap in his big boy bed right now? You got it, the little man is snoozing away, we haven't taken out the crib yet, just moved the bed in and he loves it so I guess we'll cross our fingers and hope this takes.

In other news I took this cute video of Bugaboo the other day. He loves to sing the ABC's sure he doesn't get ALL the letters, but for sure the cuteness of the glasses make up for it.

Creative Play Anyone?

So a few weeks ago I was so proud of myself, because I put together some really cute file folder games. You know some lovely laminated games on file folders with pieces that Velcro right to it. The kind that the same ladies who have color coordinated snack cups at church have. I was very proud of myself, and even more proud when Bugaboo found them and became enthralled playing with them. So enraptured was he by the new found games that I thought I could sneak away for a few minutes to clean the kitchen floor. Little did I know but in that time Bugaboo had found a new and even better feature of the little game pieces.

Yes they do stick quite nicely to a diaper, don't they?
In my defense I must say that Bugaboo does not spend all day in his diaper everyday, this was a special occasion inspired by this post over at Total Mom Haircut. We had a few minutes earlier been creating masterpieces with water paint.
I tell ya, he's not just a genius he is a creative genius.

Still getting older

So today I am getting ready to teach my class and I look in the mirror to make sure I look professional and grown up, so that people will take me seriously as I'm doling out parenting advice, and I saw it. There it was hanging out right out at the top my head like it had a right to be there or something. It was just looking at me, taunting me, waving lazily at my youth as it slid one more inch away down the slippery slope of life. And what you ask did I do about this intruder in my hair. This one single, wiry GRAY hair, I reached up and forcefully yanked it out. I will not be beaten that easily.

Huh?

So I just found out that it is time for my TEN year high school reunion, huh!?! When did that happen? I mean how can that be I'm only 22 right?...oh wait, and its not like I have a bunch of kids and live in the suburbs...oh wait.

O.K. fine I'm not as young as I used to be, at least I am proud of all I've accomplished in the last ten years, and I don't have to feel the pressures of all the high school social games anymore. Now, could somebody come over and watch my kid for the next few weeks, I have to write, and publish a best selling novel, or cure cancer before June 9th.

The Long Absence

So I know that I haven't been a good blogger for quite some time now. I have know one to blame, but myself, but well I just haven't felt quite up to it.

Fist there was this:

And that then there was two months of puking and feeling like a zombie, where I just didn't feel like doing anything.

And then The puking went away, but I still didn't feel like doing anything. And I mean NOTHING. The laundry was piling up, and I didn't care, I was even too apathetic to argue with SHane about what we should name the new bundle of joy. As far as I was concerned it didn't even feel like a bundle of joy. It was a strange feeling, and after a few weeks I started to worry that there was something wrong. I talked to my doctor, she thought the hormones were making me a little depressed, she prescribed drugs. I was scared of the drugs, not for me, but for the baby, what if they weren't good for this little one growing inside of me. I fretted about it all day. Then I prayed about it. That morning I woke up at four a.m. I couldn't sleep so I set up on the couch and flipped on the T.V. The discovery channel had some show about adoption on, this poor family had to wait four months to get there adopted baby from India. It was touching. Then I watched two episodes of A Baby Story. I felt happy for the happy families that were having babies, but I thought to myself 'they don't know what I know about childbirth. THey don't know that something can go wrong.' If you want the back story go here. That's when it hit me. That's why I was apathetic, that's why I didn't want to get to excited, this pregnancy was scaring me to death, and I didn't even know it. Deep down in the recesses of my brain, I was protecting myself by not getting to attached to this pregnancy. And then a new softly spoken little thought entered my head it said 'Nicole, what went so wrong?' And I thought of my little two year old bugaboo up in his little bed, sleeping. Yes he came two months early, and yes it was scary, but we did it, he's ok, he's a miracle.

It was like a magic pill...way better than the stuff my doctor prescribed. Realizing I had some major trauma and fear lingering in my past, helped me to face it, and when I faced it I saw that it really wasn't so scary. I can handle this, and I am so excited for this baby now.

I have felt tons better this last week or so, and I even have the laundry almost caught up. I can't promise I'll be a better blogger, I'm doing it on my own schedule, but I hope I'll be able to write more often...ok I'll at least post when the baby gets here.

And just for fun here is Bugaboo sleeping, isn't that the sweetest thing you've eva seen?

Babies Again

These were the most beautiful pictures of Shelah's new baby that I got the pleasure of making into announcements. Its actually been a few week since these were made, but I am just now getting a chance to post them here and in the gallery on the Song Bird website.









Isn't she the most divine little baby? I think that these have been some of my most favorite announcements to work on.

And remember if any of you folks out there need announcements, don't forget that I give lovely discounts to my bloggy friends...

Daddy's Boy

This was the scene this morning when Shane tried to use the bathroom by himself.
This...

and then this...

That little boy loves his dad, which is one of the many priceless and immeasurable benefits of parenting, unfortunately for Shane peaceful bathroom breaks are not also included in this benefits package.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Ok this morning I am feeling seriously grumpy...why you ask? Oh you bet I am going to tell you. First of all Bugaboo thought that it would be totally awesome if he woke up at the crack of dawn, yeah kid that was AWESOME. Then I had to spend my morning cleaning up the mess from the dinner that I made last night just before I ran out the door to go to work. GRRRR!

Do any of you moms out there feel like Sisyphus the Greek who was condemned by the Gods to continually roll a great boulder to the top of a hill only to watch it roll back down again? Only instead of a boulder its a big ol' pile of laundry, and unlike Sisyphus you don't get to roll it up the hill in peace you have to do it with a toddler attached to one leg.

Love that boy

So last night we're driving in the car, Bugaboo is engaging in his usually torrent of nonsense jabber inter-mingled with some words I can recognize. Then he stops he is quiet for a minute and then says to me "lub you Mommy." He has never said this to me before so I fight back the tears and say "I love you too."

"Tankyou, mama." Is his reply.

I'm ba-ack...did you miss me?

Ok don't answer that.

Seriously I know its been forever, but really I've been swamped. First Shane was gone for two weeks, then there was Christmas, then we went on vacation, then Bugaboo got pneumonia, (which I totally know how to spell because I wrote about it two months ago when I had it), and actually that was while we were on vacation, so we got a bonus of seeing the San Diego urgent care, and all of its lovely locals. Things really have been busy.

First of all Christmas: I think its been a long time since I have been this excited for a Christmas. Last year Bugaboo's favorite Christmas activity was eating the wrapping paper, this year was so different, this year will forever be known as the "Year of the Trains." About six weeks ago. Bugaboo started showing an especial affection for trains, and especially yep you guessed it...Thomas. I don't know how this happened, but the boy is obsessed. When he wakes up in the morning the first thing he says to me it "trains!" The boys loves trains. So Christmas was so fun because well he LOVED the presents that we got him. I could barely sleep on Christmas eve I was excited myself to see him open the gifts it was a wonderful magical morning. Bugaboo spent the entire morning playing with his new trains, and was the most pleasant happy boy all day long, he even went down for a nap without complaining, although he did have to take one of his new trains with him.

So after Christmas we went on a trip. Shane has been traveling with work so much lately that we decided it would be a good idea to finally take advantage of all the vacation time that he has accrued and have some family time. We headed off to the much sunnier than Idaho shores of San Diego. Bugaboo was a star on the plane. We went to Sea World which was a hit. We hit the beach which was sandy and salty and lovely. The only bump in the road was the morning that we woke up to the sound of Bugaboo wheezing and struggling to breath. Let me tell you how quickly a fun trip can into something frightening, and also how much I hate my insurance. Seriously Aetna when someone calls you to say that they are in a strange city, and they do not know where even a hospital is, and her child is struggling to breathe, and could you please direct us to an emergency room on your ridiculous preferred provider list, even the ignorant fourteen-year-old that you have answering the phone should have at least offered me some sympathy after he proved to be thoroughly useless in finding me a doctor. An "I'm sorry I can't help you more," would have even been better than the, "Uh...like, I don't know," that I got. But I digress...We did find Bugaboo a doctor and after four hours in the urgent care department with a very sad little boy we were sent home with antibiotics. We stayed in the rest of the day, but by the next day Bugaboo was doing much better *phew* he seemed almost completely back to his normal self, so we ventured out and even spent about two hours at the zoo. We did the speed tour of the zoo, which meant we basically visited only the animals that we don't have at the local zoo. I really wanted a Koala bear for a pet, but alas its like illegal or something. Even with the illness it was a nice trip. We came home feeling refreshed, that is until I saw the pile of laundry we had made. Oh well, back to real life.

Since then I've just been playing catch up with my life, sorry my bloggy friends that I haven't been around I will try to do much better.

Bugaboo and the Tunnel

We love trains

Babies Again

Just finished these announcements for a friend. What a cute little baby.

The top one is the one that she decided to print. That was my favorite too. I love it when the the song bird gets orders, it makes me feel cool, and less worn-out-mommy-ish. Not that being the worn out mommy isn't a good thing to be too, its just nice to have a change now and then.

Christmas Memories

Wow! Still swamped...not that I am looking for sympathy from any of you folks. Yeah I read your blogs I know you all have your Christmas shopping done, your decorations up, your blog written in, and you are just as busy as me. I am in awe of all of you. So I know I don't deserve any sympathy, just wanted to explain the long absence. I don't even really have time to post today, but oh, this is such a cute story I have to document it.

SO the other day I did get the Christmas tree up, and pulled out some of the other decorations. I did most of the work while Bugaboo was napping, so when he woke up he was enraptured by all of the new things in his world. He was immediately drawn to my nativity, which I had put on the coffee table. Since Bugaboo usually claims all of the real estate on the coffee table for himself I thought we might have some issues. I carefully explaiend to him that this was Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus, and they were very nice to look at, but we couldn't play with them, becasue they were very special and we had to treat them nicely. Bugaboo was so sweet he got his face as close as he could to the Holy Family and exclaimed a reverently awed "ohhh." I thought it might work, I might get to keep my centerpiece the way it was, and soon we moved on to putting ornaments on the tree. Bugaboo started helping me decorate the Christmas tree (if you can call anything that an almost two year old does helping). He was really digging seeing all the ornaments. Then we pulled out the little lamb ornament. The little lamb ornament, is one of my favorite ornaments. My dad gave it to me a few years ago, because all growing up on our Christmas tree every year there was the "little blue lamb" ornament. The little blue lamb was small, its body was about the size of a jelly bean, and mishapen, but it was very special. That ornament was special because my dad had made it when he was little with his dad. The little legs on the lamb were the most bizarre thing about it. They were all different sizes and not shaped at all like a lamb's legs should be. My dad explained to me that when they made it they cooked it in the oven to harden it, but it cooked too long and the legs burned a little. But it was still really special, because they had made it together. My dad's dad had a lot of issues in his life and consequently wasn't the father he could have or should have been. I always got the immpression that making the little blue lamb was one of the few activities that my dad remembered doing with his dad. The little blue lamb was special I think because it was sort of symbol of my dad's relationship with his dad, it was a piece of his history. So every year us kids would decorate the Christmas tree and save the little blue lamb for my dad, and he would put it on the tree every year, because it was his special ornament. So a few years ago my dad bought six little lamb toys and made them into oranments for his children. My lamb is much healthier looking than the little blue lamb, as is my relationship with my dad. Whenever I look at my little lamb ornament I think about my dad, and what a good man he is despite the many challenges he faced in his childhood, and I appreciate him for being a good dad. So when we pulled out the little lamb ornament this year I was happy when I saw that Bugaboo loved it too. He of course wanted to play with it, so I let him for a few minutes and then talked him into putting it on the tree. So the little lamb was on the tree and I moved on to other things.

I was busy with some other decorating project when I noticed Bugaboo pull the lamb off the tree. He thought that I wasn't watching as he playfully trotted the lamb over to the Nativity. I was pretty sure that in a few seconds I would be forcefully pulling the Baby Jesus and the lamb ornament from my toddlers fingers while he screamed over the injustice, and I tried to find a new place for my nativity, but instead of intervening prematurely, I just observed. Bugaboo put the lamb right on the Baby Jesus, it looked like he was having the lamb nibble on Baby Jesus. I thought to myself "Oh, I'm pretty sure this is not appropriate, and we even just talked about how these figure were special and needed to be treated nicely." As I was resigning to the fact that I really couldn't expect my toddler to understand why these figures should be treated reverently, Bugaboo made a little smooch sound for the lamb then I understood, the lamb wasn't nibbling he was giving Baby Jesus kisses. Then the lamb moved to Mary and gave her a little kiss too, and then Joseph also was gently kissed by the lamb. Then the lamb trotted back to the tree. It was one of the sweetest Christmas moments I have ever experienced, my little Bugaboo for a brief second was a shepherd with one little special lamb, adoring the Christ child. I love Christmas becuase of memories like this.

Christmas is coming

And oh I love the holiday season, but I am swamped trying to get ready early for the holiday season. So I will blog again soon...as soon as things calm down in the Notes household, I PROMISE.

Update

Thanks ladies, I really appreciated everyone's sympathy on that last post, its been a crazy month, but November is looking better, we're all healthy right now so I'm hoping for the best.

Things have been crazy here at our house the last few days, so I haven't been able to blog. I am still pretty swamped so this just a quick note, since this is one of those things I don't want to forget...

Bugaboo has been talking for quite awhile now, but its just been in the last few weeks that he has switched from mimicry (sp?) to actually using those words to comunicate and tell me what he needs/wants. Its wonderful, I never knew how useful the words milk, juice, cheese, up, down, more, all done, and poop are. Funny... the things that parenting teaches you to appreciate.

Health Report

Ok, in the last month, Bugaboo and I have been to the doctor's office five times, and also spent about six hours in the emergency room one lovely morning. Collectively we have had four ear infections, a sinus infection, one enduring case of pneumonia, and now the new member to our not so exclusive ailment club one splotchy case of Roseola. Roseola! I had to look it up on the internet, because I didn't know what it was. Basically it is a virus (translation: when red spots break out all over your child who has had a fever for three days, you freak out rush him to the doctor, on the verge of tears only to have the doctor tell you to take your incredibly irritable toddler home and give him tylenol because there's nothing they can do for a virus except collect your $20 co-pay on your way out of the office).

Seriously! winter is just getting started and we are already having serious health issues, I am scared for the rest of the season...I guess we better go get our flu shots and stock up on vitamin c, does anyone else having any suggestions?

Thoughts on Learning

So I have been working on the website again. I have been getting a lot of hits, on the site, but not a lot of orders, and I decided that maybe people are a little intimidated at having to pay for a product that they have never even seen. So I changed things up a bit and made it so that customers can submit an order and I will make them a proof and then they can choose whether to purchase it or not after they have viewed the finished proof and made any changes that they want to. It will create a little bit more work for me, but I think in the long run it will be worth it. To implement this new plan I had to learn more programming skills, and I admit it right now my order form is pretty barebones, but I am learning how to write new scripts and I hope that I will have an even better website soon. If any of you lovely folks out there have constructive critisism for me on the website I would love to hear it.

I am so proud of myself, and learning new things makes me feel so good. I feel like as a mother sometimes (perhaps as a result of all of the Teletubbies' episodes I've watched) my brain power gets a little dull. This website has really made me feel empowered because I built all of it by myself. If I didn't know how to do something, I learned. A year ago I never would have thought that I could do this, and now I can, and with all this I think an amazing thing happened...I got better at learning. Just like any other skill I have found that learning is a skill, a skill that is powered not by intelligence, or talent or anything fabulous and unique like that, it is powered completely by will, desire, and hard work.