Nursery fun!

I can't believe I still haven't posted pictures of Lola's room/ Gainesy's nursery. We're about to move Gaines to his crib so I figure there's no better time than now to reveal the new and improved room!

Below is a pic of Lola's bed that she loves oh so much! We have FINALLY hit a point where 1) she'll go to sleep on her own. Yea! Up until now, we would have to lay in bed with Lo until she fell asleep. This could take up to an hour (or more). Now we can take her up, give her a kiss and leave her on her own to fall asleep. It only took 2 years and 8 months to get here but whatever...we made it. Woohoo! Of course, she won't do this without her magical ladybug that projects the stars and moon on the ceiling. This is a "must have" for us! In addition to this, she also started sleeping most of the night in her room. She'll usually come in our room between 4:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. What an improvement!!!

Love, love, love the bold animal print pillows that I found on sale at Anthropology (my fav store...my nemesis). It was the deal of the century...such a fab find! The pillows really make the bed fabuloso! Don't you think??? I had the shams made to help pull together the nursery and Lo's bed. I think they turned out great!

Lola is constantly playing with everything on these shelves. Although they can get messy, I prefer shelves over toy boxes. There will be days where every book, doll, truck, etc is spread across the room but it's all about everything being on the child's level where they can see it and use it.

Here is the nursery area. Kind of shoved in the corner. Seems everything with the second child is a second thought....right??? Well, in this case, it was actually the inspiration for the entire room. We used Lola's baby bed and chair but did a complete make-over of both.

I had Gaines's bedding made at http://www.pickleboots.com/ and am thrilled how it all turned out. Please ignore the skirt hanging incorrectly. I have to say I'm a bit frustrated that Clay never lifted the bed. I wanted it to all look just perfect but oh well....I figure at this point there is no point in lifting the bed as Gaines will soon be sitting up on his own, then standing and we would have to lower again so I cut him a break this round.

We used this same chair in Lola's nursery and I had it recovered for Gaines. I found this chair at a thrift store in Dallas for $15 dollars. Steal of a deal!

Another angle....Looking out. Needless to say, haven't gotten much use out of the changing table this round. Not a big fan of walking up and down stairs to change a diaper. So, I decided to make it into a home for all of Lola's stuffed animals. Works great! On the flip side, since I haven't been using a changing table, I usually use the couch to change Gaines. This means lots of pee has sprayed all over the couch more than once....Resolve to the rescue! BTW...how do you avoid this with boys??? I can't tell you how many times I've been sprayed. Fun fun times!

There are no words....

Below is Lola's Fall 2010 school picture.

For this, my friends, there are no words...nothing, zilch, nada...I'm flat out speechless! I mean aren't you speechless too?????

When I dropped Lo off at school yesterday morning, I was thrilled to see a sign posted noting "Picture Pick-Up October 18th from 3:00 - 6:00 p.m." As you know, I always look forward to the school pictures as they never seem to let me down on the "how goofy can we get" front. This round of pics definitely kept to the same theme. When I picked up the pictures, I went to Lola's classroom to show her. They were playing outside and her eyes immediately lit up and I could tell she loved them! I was hoping that the flashing of the pictures would get her to skidaddle out of school faster as Gaines was on the verge of a complete hunger melt down...not so much...she proceeded to take the pics all around that school showing them to all "her friends". I mean she went to every class and would flash them up for all the kids to see. Strangely, all the kids would gather to look at the show Lola was putting on...they mostly just stared at the pictures...for several minutes....then some would say they liked them with great excitement...some without excitement...and even one said he didn't like them (obviously he's in his terrible twos). She would then say "Mommy, I want to show them the other ones" and she would once again hold them up for all "her friends" to see the second sheet of pictures. It was really cute! She was obviously VERY proud of these pictures. So, when Clay got home I hesitated to show him the pictures while Lola was still awake but I couldn't wait. Plus, I wanted to see the pure happiness on Lo's face again when showing her father. I had to preface "Lola loves these pictures" trying to give him a HUGE hint not to freak out over them in front of her. He managed not to freak but definitely didn't show much excitement over them...he actually couldn't even fake it this time. Just because I have no words doesn't mean Clay doesn't have something to say about this picture....

Now that Lola has quickly grown into a little toddler she has learned to think on her own more than ever and she has developed strong opinions about what she likes and wants to do. For example, she loves dancing and has now started dance classes which is a complete riot (more on this in a future blog). Clay was initially concerned about the dance classes as he wanted to make sure it was all in fun and not too "serious". His main concern is that Lola is a little girl and he wants to keep her that way. He doesn't want her to grow up too fast or be forced to do so. With this, he wants to make sure all the activities she participates in are for a little girl and not for a teenager for example. He's the same way about the things she wants to play with or how she dresses or even how she wants to dress up during play time. If she wants to dress up like a fairy... well that's fine as it's a little girl's fantasy to be a fairy and involves using her imagination. HOWEVER, if she wants to dress up like a cheerleader (or if she's dressed up like a cheerleader as she was by this photography studio) then that's no good to him as he feels it's taking the little girl out of her and trying to make her into a teenager.

Ok...I get it! I get what he's saying and agree to some extent. But, I think this picture is harmless and is more humorous than anything else. Clay, on the other hand, is highly offended that 1) The photo studio even did this at all as he feels it's completely inappropriate for a 2 1/2 year old and 2) If they were going to dress her up, he feels they should have asked our permission. Again, I get what he's saying but it's a one time thing and really I don't feel it's worth getting all bent out of shape about. I think this is DEFINITELY a father/daughter thing so I also find sweetness in it. BUT, gosh....we're dealing with a 2 1/2 year old here...can you imagine what it will be like at age 10 when she gets into things like High School Musical or whatever the equivalent will be by then (DREAD IT!) or age 12 OR 16 for goodness sake. I'm thinking we have a long battle in front of us with this whole deal. Although I get a bit irritated at times when Clay gets so serious about things like this that seem to be harmless and kind of fun (or funny), I do understand and love that he's so compassionate about Lola and keeping her true to who she is...a little girl.

So, Gainesy is clearly going through a growth spurt allowing me to type two blogs in one week. Woohoo! He's eating non-stop (4 oz every hour to two hours) but also sleeping. This is a first!!! He's actually eating so much that I decided to call the doctor to make sure it's normal. I mean he has literally gone from newborn clothes straight to 3-6 month clothes in a matter of a week and a half. Not even kidding! We completely skipped the 0-3 month size. Craziness!!! The doc seems to think it's fine for now as he's clearly not overweight and is probably just trying to catch up. However, she did note 40 oz a day may be a little much for an 11 week old....you think?!?!?!?! We have a doc appt on Thursday so I'll be interested to see how he's moved up on the growth scale. I would be willing to bet he's now sitting in the 50 - 75th percentile. More to come on our growing little nugget...

A breath of fresh air...

I know it's been a while (once again). I'm not going to go on and on about how I have no time as that would just be obnoxious! Right?!?!? I absolutely can't believe it's almost been a month since my last post. I actually miss writing more than you know but it's just one of those things that I'm having to put on hold right now so I can focus on what's most important...family. During this period of time where there is a lack of writing, I'm really hoping I haven't lost any of my fellow blog readers. I will be returning to work soon (2 weeks to be exact) and ironically should manage to find more time to blog.

Lets move on to what's been happening in the Odom world. Oh, the crazy Odom world! I must say there is never lack of entertainment in this house. I guess it keeps life interesting! Last week we were able to get away for a family vacation. Boy, how we needed this! We all loaded up in the Passat (not quite sure how we all still fit in this coche) to head down to South Padre Island. It was great to catch a breath of fresh air in more than one way. The obvious way was just to get away, be with family and be out in the openness of the beach and ocean. It was beautiful (even if it was South Padre) and very relaxing. After much distress heading up to this trip, it was nice to get out there and try to free my mind (not always easy I must say). It was also nice just to get out of this stuffy house. Doing the same thing every day becomes a bit daunting to me. Unfortunately, once I go back to work, this will get even worse as I'll be back to the same monotonous work routine. I spent some time trying to figure out how can I make it all more interesting and not so monotonous. Also, how will I fit it all in...work, family time, exercise, friends, me time, etc. Plus, I don't want to just fit it in but I want to fit it in and do it all well. Is this possible?!?!?!? While in SPI, I think Clay was doing the same thing....trying to figure out exactly what he wants to do with his career and what he wants out of life. I guess these are questions we all battle as adults. As Clay and I contemplated life, Lola, on the other hand, was just in hog heaven! That child love, love, loves the beach, ocean, swimming...all of it! It was so great to see so much joy in her eyes every morning when she woke up. Gaines...well... he didn't really have much of an opinion. We just put him in long sleeves and pants and tried to keep him out of the sun. He definitely caught up on sleep which leads me to believe he'll be back to no sleep this week but we'll see. So far so good as he is sleeping now allowing me to type this blog. Thanks Gainesy! Of course, as I sit here I fear every little rustle over there in the cradle. When I hear this smallest peep I tense up and think "OH NO...my blog time is over".

To make the trip even better, it just so happened that some of our long time best friends were there at the same time. This made the trip just that much better. It seems I had hit a point where I really needed to be surrounded by friends who know me well and truly care about not only me but us as a family. It was great to be able to tell all without judgement, get advice and just have a good ol' time. Below are some of the moments we were able to catch on camera.

This fabulous site was our home away from home for a week!

This was the jist of it for Gainsey! At least he got some R&R.

Lola, Isabel & Caroline. She talks about these girls pretty much non-stop. It's real cute seeing her follow them around.

Isabel, Caroline and Gaines.

There was lots of digging and making of sand castles.

Lo has become quite the little swimmer. She has no fear in the water! These are her new shades. She feels very confident in them.

Lola has been asking to go kite flying for months now. Glad she was finally able to fly one on her own.

We went back to the Sea Turtle Conservatory. Very inspiring I have to say! Definitely makes me feel like I should be doing something more meaningful work wise.

I forgot to mention there was a shark siting. Actually two sharks. Not even kidding...our friend Mark saw them with his own eyes. YIKES!!! This kept me in the shallowest of shallow waters. I'm not a big fan of sharks.

BTW... I didn't make it through writing this blog without Gaines waking. At one point I found myself trying to upload pictures while feeding Gaines. Somehow I accomplished this task. I was able to free one hand by using my chin to hold the bottle in Gaines' mouth. Oh yea. This is what I have to do to get a blog posted. I also had to forgo exercise and a shower for today but I'm happy that I'm actually about to push "Publish Post" for the first time in a while. Not an easy task! Now I have to unpack, wash clothes, get the house put back together and scrub this place clean to get ready for my parents coming in town this weekend. Yes, all of this will take the full week. Also, it's time to reorganize the closets and get the fall clothes out...YEA!