eBay, eBay, eBay

I have a new found love!!! Ebay became a part of my life about two weeks ago and it was like love at first sight or a better term in this case is love at first sell. The love, the passion, the obsession I feel for it is like no other. It reminds me of the days when I was 18 and fell in love with Clay. You know…you have those constant butterflies and you can barely stand to be away from each other. We were so in love that we even called each other “Bunt” and I hate pet names. You may ask where in the world did we come up with such a ridiculous pet name such as bunt. Well, here’s how it was derived…

Somehow we started calling each other bunny…I have no idea why and I’m pretty embarrassed to admit this. It then went to bunnty with a “T”. The T was added as my childhood friends and I had this second language where we added a T to every word that had a N in it so tunta, dinnter, bunnty, etc, etc. Trust me…we had some fun with this back in the day. So I carried this language on to college and this is how Clay and I came up with Bunt. Pretty obnoxious, huh!!! Well we did it and Clay is going to kill me for telling it.

Back to my love for Ebay….It is really a riot!!! Ever since I received my “free money” I’m obsessed with this Ebay thing. Now I look at everything I own in a very different way. More objectively I guess. Any time I put on an outfit or when I’m just sitting around at the house, I think “Do I REALLY like this or is it put to better use on Ebay? Will I ever REALLY wear it or should I Ebay it? This has seriously changed my thought process on everything. For example, On Saturday we went to dinner and I was wearing a really cute dress (so I thought). About 1 hour into the evening I decided I HATED the way the dress looked on me. The entire evening I couldn’t quit thinking about getting home and ripping the dress off. When I was finally able to rip it off, I knew I wouldn’t wear it again but thought I could possibly save it for when I’m pregnant again (always thinking ahead). Then Ebay came to mind…I thought “Um no…that’s useless….I’ll Ebay it!!!” First thing Monday the dress was on Ebay. You gotta love it!!!

Ebay has now become a second job for me. Seriously!!! It can be a lot of work but it’s worth it. I made $200 last week just like that. So now you can see why it would be easy to get obsessed with it. Especially when energy costs are sky high and all expenses continue to go up. This will help pay for our $450 electricity bill and the $750 in a/c repairs that we have to get today. Ouch!!! Thank goodness for Ebay.

Attached are some pictures that Clay took of Lo on Sunday playing in the grass. We love hanging out outside in the evenings with baby Lo. Clay is getting real good at this photography thing. I wish I could attach all 50 pictures he took of her so you could get a good feel but that may be a little obnoxious. Of course I’ve noted to myself that if you put a baby in the grass, she will get attacked by bugs. They steer clear of me but not Lola. They ate her up. Poor thing…she had several little bug bites on her little body. Thank goodness it didn’t bother her and they went away quickly. Otherwise, I would have had one of those “I’m a terrible mother” moments. I hate those!

I’m off to get an egg sandwich now. I’ve been running all week so need to pump some protein into my body. I can taste it now…

Throw out the rocking chairs

Throw out the rocking chairs b/c I've got something even better....a YOGA BALL!!!

Let me back up a little....I know I use the term "when I was pregnant" a lot in this blog but you obviously think about what type of parents you want to be and you also think about what "parenting tools" (interesting term) that you want to use in your every day life most during pregnancy. Well, when I was choosing a chair for the nursery I decided not to go with a rocker for two reasons: 1) I didn't want to get in the habit of rocking Lola to sleep as I didn't want to create another habit.... Does this make sense? I guess I should clarify....I wanted Lola to learn how to put herself to sleep. What I didn't want was a 1 year old baby that I would still have to rock to sleep b/c she never learned to fall to sleep on her own. Does this make sense now? AND 2) I wanted a modern and cool chair in the nursery and a rocker did not fit the criteria. I'm pretty certain #2 was the deal breaker b/c I really had something specific picked out in my mind.

With this said, I still like to snuggle and rock baby Lola sometimes but I don't have a rocker. So how do the rocker and yoga ball correlate? Well, my yoga ball is my rocker. Why is the yoga ball better than a rocker??? One main reason is that you are getting a core work-out while rocking your baby. So, way to shoot two birds with one stone...quality time with baby plus an ab work-out all in one. Woohoo!!! With the yoga ball, new mothers can't make the excuse that they don't have time to work-out b/c this is a great solution to the time issue.

Another reason why we really love the yoga ball is it can be fun for the baby too. We'll get on it in the afternoon and play what we like to call "Bouncety, Bouncety, Bouncety Bounce". It goes a little something like this "Bouncety, bouncety, bouncety, bounce. Up down up down all around" and you repeat again. Say that three times fast....kind of fun! It drives Clay CRAZY b/c the rhyme is a little obnoxious but Lo LOVES it. I mean she giggles and giggles and giggles. So, I love that I'm able to play with baby Lola and get a fabulous ab work-out all at once. I really feel like my post-baby mushy belly is FINALLY starting to tone up and I'm sure that yoga ball has a lot to do with it. Of course, it's taken 6 months but at least we're finally starting to see some results.

Oh, also the yoga ball is great during pregnancy. Actually, this is when I decided to invest in one. Since you can't do hard core crunches and really get those abs working during pregnancy, this is a great substitute. All you have to do is sit on the ball and you're working your core. How fabulous is that! So I would sit on it while watching TV or just hanging out. Now this is what I call an easy work-out that's worthwhile!!!

Innovations for modern parents

I just had to go pick up more bottles. It seems like every morning when I go to fix the bottles to take to school for Lo I'm ALWAYS out. I finally decided I'm fed up with constantly washing bottles so I'll just invest in more.

I mentioned in a blog below about the importance of getting bottles that are BPA free. I love the Dr. Brown's glass bottles but you just can't find them right now. I tried to order some three months ago and they're still not here. Due to the backorder, I've had to explore and find other "must have" bottles.

I know it sounds crazy but we really like the glass bottle best. Old school...right? I've found that I like the Evenflo glass bottle which is only $9.99 for 6. You don't get much cheaper than that!!! Another plastic bottle that is BPA free is the Born Free bottle. They're $26.99 for 3 so they aren't the best deal in town but I figure we'll give them a shot. Lola has been attempting to hold the bottle when she eats. Right now, it's easier for her to hold a plastic bottle (for obvious reasons) so we'll see how she likes the Born Free bottle. I'll keep you updated on my review.

As I was exploring around for bottles, I "accidently" stumbled onto a really great website - http://www.booninc.com/ that I'm obsessed with now. I actually want one of everything!!! Their motto is "Innovations for modern parents". Clay and I LOVE modern so this is the site for us!I've seen some of their products at different boutiques and I believe Target also carry some of it but the website shows even more. I fell in love with their clothing line....very modern but also fun and funky at the same time. And, the best part is they are very reasonably priced. I attached a couple of pics. I was able to find some of the onsies and they are adorable...modern & fabulous...love them!!! You really can't have enough onsies...especially when you live in Big D which is blazing HOT right now.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Check in Monday for more fun!!!

Out with the old, in with the new

One of Lola's favorite things has been her playmat. It has been great with keeping her entertained for long periods of time (in baby terms) and it also seems to teach her to play on her own. You know....developing that independence so she can be a strong woman one day.

Well, as you know, Lo is a big girl. Over the past couple weeks she's been having a hard time with the playmat that we love so dearly as her body basically takes over the entire thing. When she would try to turn over onto her belly, her legs would get stuck on parts of it and the toys hanging down from the top would be in her face, etc....it's been pretty pitiful. Plus, she would get real frustrated that she couldn't move on it...the girl is ready to get to crawling. But, no fear, I've found something new and improved. It's time to throw out the old playmat (or actually put it away until child #2 rolls around) and bring in the new mat made for big girls.

This is one of my best finds yet!!! Must Have #8 . Check out this ADORABLE playmat that I found at Ikea (http://www.ikea.com/) for next to nothing. Seriously, it doesn't get much cuter than this. This is like the Taj Mahal of playmats. Lola LOVES it!!! When we first put her on it, it was like she had died and gone to heaven. She was fascinated by all the little things that surrounded her. She is able to pull and tug and grab and push all the little motifs on the mat. It also makes sounds and has different textures that help stimulate the senses which is great for baby development, motor skills and helps develop their desire to explore.

Plus, due to the "antislip material" Lola is able to move all around now....get some good traction and go. We've had this mat for less than a week and she is already rolling from one side to the other, turning, getting up on her arms and knees better and more. Seriously, this girl is ready to rock the crawl. I have a feeling it could be any week now so we're ready to get geared up and start child proofing (BTW...we have no clue where to begin with the childproofing thing so I'm sure this will be quite an experience...it's all about trial and error...right?).

Oh, and I must add one last great thing about this mat....at the end of the night, you can fold it up and put it away. As many of you know I don't like baby "stuff" laying around everywhere. I especially don't want it all over my "adult" living room. So I love things that I can put away at the end of the night. This is just that....LOVE IT!!!

Here's a great quote I heard the other day that for some reason made me giggle. I'm not sure why b/c it is sooooo goofy but it did so I thought I would share.

"When cheese gets it's picture taken, what does it say?" George Carlin

Yep, started giggling again when I typed it out....he,he,he.

She's a serious gal

Lola has started this new thing where she will get a real serious face and just starts talking or I guess babbling is a better term. It's almost as if she is telling a story....a serious one that is. It seems like the camera is never around when you need it but on Friday my luck was different. I was able to get to the camera quickly and caught some video of Lo babbling. It's really cute....check out the serious face...funny, funny!

Over the past month or so, Lo has been squeeling and giving us the aahhs and ga-ga noises but she has really started making noises that are more clear....she loves Ls, Bs and Ms right now. Since she has discovered this new language it seems it's constant babble. When I say constant, I mean literally ALL THE TIME! It's very cute but sometimes at 6:30 a.m. or at 10:00 p.m. it's not quite as cute as all we want to do is SLEEP. Clay and I have figured out that if we pretend like we're sleeping, she'll eventually stop and go back to sleep with us. I'm not sure if this is mean but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get some sleep.

Clay and I have always had very strong feelings about our kids speaking a second language. All the research shows that the most important time to expose your kids to a second language is from the time a baby is born until they are three as this is a key time in their brain development. So, when we were searching for day-cares this was something that was very important to us. Luckily, the wonderful teachers that we love oh so much at Lola's day-care speak spanish to her during the day. We also have Uncle Benny who is bilingual so any time he's around we put the pressure on him to only speak spanish to Lo. When he's speaking to her in spanish, she is just fascinated.

Of course, when Lola is not at day-care or when Uncle Benny is not around, we still want to expose her to a second language. Unfortunately, Clay nor I can speak another language so we have CDs with spanish songs, books in spanish and Clay speaks fake French to her. Yes, I said fake french. It's greatness! Our only concern with this is that Lola will not actually pick up spanish or english first but will soon be speaking fake french. Who knows....maybe she already is speaking fake french in the video. I'll have to record Clay and see what you think.

Attached is a great website that gives good facts about the pros to babies being exposed to second language.

http://www.babyclassroom.com/article-language-second.html

Chocolate makes me nauseous!!!

Ok. We have a major problem. Or at least I think it may be a problem....you tell me. So I've developed this great love for chocolate. Specifically, any chocolate that is mixed with peanut butter or some sort of nut which would include peanut m&ms, reese's peanut butter cups, butterfinger, etc. The funny thing is that I was never a big chocolate person before or during pregnancy. Now, HUGE chocolate freak....obsess over it and gotta have.

Of course yesterday I seemed to take it to a new level....I ate so much chocolate (basically couldn't stop) that I made myself nauseous....literally felt like I needed to run to the bathroom and throw up more than once. Is this a problem? I'm sure the three diet cokes I had on top of the chocolate didn't help the nauseating feeling. The worst part of all of this was I fixed a nice healthy lunch to bring to work and was going to top it off with some nutritious grapes. Well, I ate all of that plus 2 slices of chocolate cake (cut big slices), 2 hand fulls of peanut m&ms and a butterfinger (not readily accessible...actually had to walk to the vending machine for this one). Then due to my guilty conscious kicking in, I spent all night feeling really bad about the chocolate feast. I did what most people do and said to myself "Tomorrow I will be good and only eat healthy...NO CHOCOLATE". Yea, that lasted about an hour this morning before I was heading to the vending machine for some Famous Amos cookies...HUH!!! Seriously...this is ridiculous!!! What's the deal with this? For now, I'm attributing it to all the running I've been doing but I fear I can only use this as an excuse for a limited amount of time. I really frustrate myself sometimes.

Today I've posted a pic of Clay and Lo. I feel like I'm constantly spending so much time blabbing about myself and Lola on this blog that Clay kind of gets the shaft. It's not that he isn't a huge part of our every day but it's basically b/c I always have too much to say about myself...i.e. my obsession with chocolate. So, due to this, I wanted to throw a pic in of Clay and his baby girl. I'm telling ya...he is so in love with this child...it is the sweetest thing!!!

It's a heat wave

Oh the heat this year....this is almost too much for me to handle. It is so HOT...and the heat wave seemed to come early this year. Maybe I'm wrong about this and just don't remember how hot summers are in Big D. Am I wrong? Either way I seem to be complaining about it all the time which I hate but I really can't get over it. To make matters worse, our house doesn't cool down very well. I'm not sure but I'm assuming it's the floor to ceiling windows that surround our living room. It's been rough for us as it doesn't get much cooler than 80 degrees in our house during the day and our a/c is running constantly so you can imagine what our electicity bill looks like. It's all very depressing. We're having the a/c checked out tomorrow and we're also going to look into the e film that insulates windows and supposedly keeps the heat out....we'll see. In the meantime, I guess we'll continue to sweat it out and have jaw dropping electricity bills. I can't wait for September to get here...

We had a fabulous weekend. Lola sat up on her own....we were so happy for her!!! It's funny how it happened....we were sitting on the playmat playing, I let go and she just stayed. I couldn't believe it. I yelled for Clay to come in and see. We immediately started clapping and praising her for tackling a new milestone. When we did this, she got all excited, started waving the arms uncontrollably and toppled over. It was too cute! I'm going to try to catch some video of it this evening. Hopefully I'll be able to post something tomorrow.

Attached are some pics of Lo playing in her exersaucer. When we were registering, I wasn't so sure about the exersaucer thing. I was fearful that all of this "stuff" that you are "suppose" to get was too much for the baby and they aren't ever forced to play on their own, therefore, limiting their imagination and their ability to entertain themselves. But I've quickly found that we love the exersaucer (must have #7) and so does Lola. Unlike the baby swing, we're ok with putting her in the exersaucer b/c she is able to explore and learn and at the same time we're able to get things done around the house. When we're not playing with Lo, she basically goes back and forth between the playmat and exersaucer. She really loves them and they're both great for developmental reasons....way to hit two birds with one stone!!!

Other than that, not much more to say today. Hopefully tomorrow will bring more fun.

Oh no....additional hair loss!!!

OK...I mentioned yesterday how sad I was that Lola was losing her hair in spots. Well, I forgot to mention that I'm also massively losing my hair. It has seriously gotten out of control!!! So basically our entire household is shedding. You have Lo, then me and of course Lady Bird and Bella. I feel like we live in one ball of hair right now. Well, it's actually not that bad but my hair loss is pretty severe.

My fabulous hairstylist Sara from Rocket Science Salon had pre-warned me about the hair loss when I was pregnant. She said "FYI...when the baby is about 3 months old, you'll start losing tons of hair". This really didn't happen when Lo was 3 months so I thought that I had dodged the bullet and this wouldn't happen to me. Nope....not so lucky....it started happening about a month ago. Seriously...if I run my fingers through my hair when it's wet, a hand full of hair comes out. It's terrible!!! My hair is already thin enough so this is the last thing I need. Not only that, but it's really obnoxious having to clean it up all the time. HUH!!! The things we have to go through.....

So, I did some research on this. Here's the deal...."they say" that a newborns hormone levels drop after birth which causes them to lose hair. It appears that new madres also lose large amounts of hair for the same reason. Well, "large" amounts is not a good term for my condition. I would say "enormous" amounts is a better term in this situation. I'm wondering how long this hair loss will last b/c I just can't afford to lose much. Oh my!!!

Attached is an adorable little pic of miss Lola with her second favorite toy.....her #1 fav toy being her toes of course. Some good friends of ours, Trey & Amy, put together a great little packet of their "must have" baby items. One of their "must haves" are these fun colorful rings. They're great...you can clip them together in all kinds of fun shapes. Well, we have found that this is also one of Lola's favorite things. It's really amazing how the most simple things such a rings entertain a baby so much. So this is my Must Have #6. She loves them and has them with her at all times!!!

Our little contortionist

Lola turned 5 months this past Thursday. Since her 4 month appointment, she has gained 1 lb. She now weighs 17.4 lbs....big girl!!! One of my favorite things about this stage is Lo's love for her toes. It is seriously the cutest thing! Throw out the toys b/c all we need are toes...she is always reaching for those suckers. We were taking a bath the other day and she was putting her little body in the funniest positions trying to reach for the toes...so cute!!! I posted some of the pics. How in the world does she get herself in these positions. She's our little contortionist.

We had a fabulous 4th of July weekend. We had lunch with Uncle Adam & Aunt Brana on Thursday and then packed up to head out to Baird to visit the grandparents. As we loaded up and got in the car, Lola experienced her first inconsolable breakdown. This baby rarely cries so it was quite a challenge for us. During the process of trying to calm her, I felt like I was on the verge of a breakdown due to her breakdown....poor Clay having to deal with us! We were finally able to get her to calm down and we hit the road. Over the weekend, she continued to act a little fussy. When we got back to Big D on Saturday we decided to take her temp....this was also a new experience for us. Well, I guess she caught what I had as it turns out she was running 102 temperature. This explained the random breakdown on Thursday...poor baby girl wasn't feeling good.

Oh, and another very depressing thing....Lo is losing her hair! Oh no!!! I've been very depressed about this and it's been very hard for me to deal with lately. She has bald patches on random places on her head. I know this is normal for babies but I just love her hair so much and don't want it to go away. I read today that they should stop losing the hair around 6 months so I really hope she doesn't lose anymore. Keep your fingers crossed.