A Half-Day In the Life With 2 Kids

I won't bury the lead. The worst thing about having 2 kids is how much laundry we're having to do these days. The rest of the hard things I realize are only a phase.

Kennedy and I don't really like to post "bad" things pertaining to our kids. For me, I don't want it to ever be misconstrued that I don't enjoy my kids. I also don't want to give people the wrong idea about what kind of kids they are. They're amazing kids who do amazing and adorable things, who are also human and do "bad" things every once in a while too. So there's that for anyone who was wondering.

Anyway, if you're wanting to know what it's like having 2 kids now (11 weeks and 1 day in), here it is!

7:15 am - I woke up in Savannah's room. I'm so thankful we have a bed in there. She's been congested the last few days, so I've ended up sleeping in her room every night around the 3rd time she wakes up to eat. You read that right - THE THIRD TIME.

I hear a loud BANG BANG BANG followed by our idiot dog barking to be let out of our room. Kennedy left for work earlier and shut them in there.

When I get up and go in our room, there's an overwhelming smell of dog poo. Check all corners and find it politely placed atop a pile of clothes Kennedy intends to take to the dry cleaners. Also, where there's poo, there's pee. I clean it up.

7:30 am - Take a shower and get dressed before I go get Campbell up. He's been awake for about 30 min, but thankfully he just lays in his crib talking/singing til someone comes and gets him.

8:30 am - We finally make it all the way downstairs (after getting everyone dressed/feeding Savannah) to get breakfast for C & me, and treats for the dogs.

Cece barfs on the floor. I clean it up.

Savannah goes to sleep in the swing for a couple of hours and Campbell and I spend time playing, watching Cookie Monster videos on YouTube, Facetiming Stephanie and Audrey, and doing stickers.

10:45 am - Feed Savannah while Campbell watches Sesame Street. Thank you, Lord, for Sesame Street (and PBS Kids in general.)

11:15 am - After packing up some snacks for C, I've decided we will go on a walk. (Thanks Stephanie, for the inspiration!) Campbell agreed to sit in the stroller, and I carry Baby S in the K'Tan. Zac Brown Band station on Pandora, hiyo!

Off we go. Oh look over there, Campbell! Look at that giant bird - OH MY G-- nevermind! Look away! Look at that tree over there!

(At this point, I witnessed the murder of a live chipmunk by what I believe was a broad-winged hawk. You better believe I googled Indiana birds of prey to identify the culprit.)

At any rate, I will never be able to get the image of a live chipmunk squirming for dear life in this hawk's talons - being carried to its nest atop a neighbors chimney.

Later in the walk I was attacked by a bee or wasp. LITERALLY ATTACKED. It tried to burrow into my ponytail several times, despite my incessant shrieking and swatting. I ended up sprinting down the sidewalk wearing Savannah in the K'Tan and pushing Campbell in the stroller.

When things settled down, I looked back and there was a woman watching the whole thing, probably thinking I was some crazy person who had kidnapped 2 kids and taken them for a stroller joy-ride.

That settles it, I'm not meant to be active or work out in any capacity.

12:00 pm - Get home, finish feeding lunch to Campbell, get Pioneer Woman's Dr Pepper Pulled Pork going in the crock pot. I. Am. Superwoman!!!

12:30 pm - Mid-feeding of Savannah, my legs start to feel warm. I look down and she has that glazed over look in her eye. Then I hear it.

So now I can add getting pooped on to my list: "Bodily Fluids I've Had To Clean Up Today That Do Not Belong To Me".

The bright side is that 3 days ago, Campbell threw up all over the couch, so I took off every tufted cover and washed them. I swore off bare couches after that, so there were blankets draped over everything. It's SO much easier to wash a blanket than a tufted couch cushion, lemmetellyou.

So, bathtime it is. Upstairs we all go! (And have you had to get a toddler anywhere in a hurry? It doesn't happen. Unless your hands are full and you're in a parking lot or next to a busy street. Then all of a sudden they're an Olympic-caliber sprinter.)

Savannah gets a bath and some clean clothes while Campbell watches SuperWhy and eats Cheerios on our bed. (Did I already thank the Lord for PBS Kids?)

Carry Savannah over to our bed to find Campbell pulling all the wipes out of the wipes container one-by-one. UGH. I hate when he does that. Rookie mistake for leaving them within reach.

But OH MY GOSH, all that poop and pee and throw up is worth it, because this:

Unsolicited, Campbell crawls across the bed to Savannah and lays his head on her belly. After a reminder for him to be gentle fell on deaf ears, I had to pull that love-muffin off his sister and those pictures happened.

12:50 pm - NAP TIME. Read a book. Campbell's down. Boom.

1:00 pm - NAP TIME. Rock this girl. Say some SHHHHs. Savannah's down. BOOM.

Go downstairs. Eat a sandwich. Turn on House M.D. Savannah's awake (15 minutes. New record!)

Aaaaaand that's a half-day in the life with 2 kids now. It's rough. It's exhausting. It's hilarious and infuriating. It's a circus over here!

20 things to do while you wait to have a baby

In case you missed it, I'm still pregnant. No, I'm not overdue. My due date is next Wednesday. But I feel like I should've had a baby by now. I mean, other people around me are just sneezing and going into labor early, (I'm looking at you, Kara L.)

But you know what? That just gives me more time to "get ready" for this baby - a.k.a. do things to fill my time. Here's my list, that I continue to add to every day.

1. Pluck my eyebrows - (Wouldn't you know it? Pregnancy really does make your eyesight worse. Guess I haven't gotten that close to a mirror in a while.)

2. Wipe all the kitchen cabinets and baseboards down with clorox wipes.

3. Clean out and reorganize every single closet in the house (11 total!)

4. Make a list of all the dinners I know how to cook.

5. Take remnants from an unfinished sweater knitting project of my late grandmother's (Lita) and stitch them together for a very sentimental baby blanket.

6. Measure, level, tape and paint stripes on the wall in the half bathroom.

7. Coax the husband into building shelves for the half bathroom.

8. Spoil/snuggle/read to/ do as many fun things as possible with your firstborn while he still has  undivided attention. (Including, but not limited to giving him almost anything he wants and making a big deal out of small finger injuries and also rocking him like a baby.)

9. Use this Pinterest stain remover recipe to get stains out of a huge load of baby laundry. (P.S. It really works!!!)

10. Take aforementioned baby clothes and dye them all new colors to more appropriately fit into a girl's wardrobe.

11. Cook dinner every night this week!

12. Get a pedicure.

13. Write and mail some thank you notes.

14. Sell a bunch of your stuff that was previously taking up room in all those closets you cleaned out a few days ago (HELLO fun money!)

15. Start 2 new shows to marathon watch (The Good Wife and Bates Motel, if you're wanting some new shows to start!)

16. Deep clean all the bathrooms in your house!

17. Mentally redecorate your master bedroom.

18. Shower twice a day (Why even? This has quadrupled my weekly average!)

19. EAT A BUNCH WHILE YOU STILL CAN (aka Carb-load.)

20. Organize all baby clothes by size, then type of clothing (including making labels for other people to follow.)

Nursery Reveal!

I'M DONE.

Now to just sit and wait for the actual baby to get here! I might even have a little time left to make some DIY baby headbands or DIY baby onesies. Or sleep.

Anyway friends, here's this girl's nursery (unless she turns out to be a boy, in which case I'll have some tweaking to do.) I'll (mostly) let pictures speak for themselves. Also, expect to read some bragging on my part, since I DIY'd a lot of this nursery like an insane person.

I made the bedding myself. The skirt is an antique quilt top (unfinished quilt) that I got on Etsy. I took part of it apart and backed it with an old white sheet I already had. It's in 3 pieces (the front panel, and 2 shorter side panels.) I still have a ton leftover to use elsewhere. 

I also made 2 crib sheets from clearance fabric at JoAnn. All together, the bedding cost well under $50.

OH YEAH, and I knitted that coral baby blanket AND made a new boppy cover. 

(For the record, I'm bragging because I put a lot of work into the nursery, not because I think it's better than any other nursery.)

Here's an iphone pic of the crib with the other sheet I made, in case you were wondering what it looked like!

Here's a little hanging rack that Kennedy and I made. It's just a piece of antique stamped tin that we hammered around a 1x4, then screwed some mismatched knobs into it. The tin came from Kennedy's mom, the knobs came from Hobby Lobby.

I painted this antique dresser with Annie Sloan's chalk paint and replaced the knobs with some glass pulls from Hobby Lobby. 

I sewed the changing table cover (easiest sewing project of the entire nursery!)

Above the table is an old trough that was previously attached to an antique window frame I've had forever. It stuck out pretty far from the wall when it was attached to the window, so didn't fit in a lot of places. I finally figured out I could just unscrew them from each other and this became the perfect thing to hang in the big blank space above the changing table. 

I painted the flowers inside so it would have the look of a flower box. Probably going to use the inside of that shelf to keep certain things out of reach of C (diaper creams, etc.)

Also, I attached a bunch of hooks to the underside so now I have a place to keep baby headbands!

I brought C's little yellow rocker in here so he would have a place to sit if he wanted. So far, he likes to come in here and move the chair to different spots in the room. Fine by me! Hopefully he'll be this good at entertaining himself for a bit when the baby comes.

My old Glenda the Good Witch figurine is perched over the crib. 

Hope you enjoyed the tour! Leave a comment if you have any questions!

Baby Girl Nursery Mood Board

Guess what! I'm a little over 6 weeks away from my due date, which simultaneously seems forever away and way too close for comfort. Pregnancy this time around isn't such a walk in the park, which, if you've spent any amount of time in my presence lately, you've heard me complain.

I'm sure I can attribute most of the discomfort and exhaustion to this little 2 year old bundle of joy.

C's 2nd birthday - He loves having the 'Happy Birthday' song sung to him.

The nursery is well under way, but I haven't really shared any of what we're doing yet. Mostly because I was just gonna quit blogging all together, but then when I tried to pick out fabrics, I realized I just needed to make a mood board or something so I can organize my vision.

I've never made a mood board before, but I see them all over Pinterest, so why not give it a go??

First, let's start with what this room looked like before it went into the nursery transition. 

This was just one of our guest rooms before. And before the walls were mud colored, they were actually pepto bismol pink! So really all I did in there before was paint. Glad I didn't do much else because we ended up changing everything, but also, I wish I had because this is usually the room my Mother-in-law stays in when she visits, and it wasn't all that cute. :-/

Now behold, my very first ever mood board!!!

I'm feeling kind of awkward about naming a nursery theme, but whatevs. YOLO. The paint color we chose is Cactus Blossom by Olympic from Lowe's. Reads a little more minty at night, but it could be the lightbulbs we have? The color on the board is pretty true to real life during the day.

1) Martha Stewart Sunburst Mirror from Home Depot - can be found here. Already had this in our bedroom before we moved, but couldn't make it work in this house. Works perfectly with some of the other accents I'll be putting in the room.

2) Prints from Katie Daisy's Etsy shop - TheWheatfield - I am obsessssssssed with everything in this shop. I want to plaster all the walls in my house with her watercolors. Kennedy probably definitely wouldn't allow that. I got 2 prints for Christmas from my Secret Santa Sister-in-law, Stephanie. Ordered a 3rd a couple of weeks ago and waiting on it to arrive...

3) Swivel Rocker/Recliner by Best Chairs Storytime Series - Can find a local vendor here. We bought ours from Decor4Kids (a local kids furniture store in Indy), and if you're in the area, BUY FROM THEM. The customer service was phenomenal. 

4) White Jenny Lind style crib by DaVinci - bought it on Amazon. Just arrived today, so it's still in the box. I'll let you know what I think about it...

5) Knit Pouf Ottoman - Walmart! Of all places. I haven't ordered this yet, but at only $39, I'm thinking I can't get too disappointed. I don't really need an ottoman, since the chair is a recliner, but I need a little more color, and this will allow me to rock while having my feet up. I'm not all that much of a fan of rocking ottomans, since I feel like you end up having to work harder...

I'm also going off of this nursery I found on Pinterest for the crib bedding, (hence the fabric swatches above.)

UPDATE: image via

For some reason I took a screenshot of the pin with my phone, but then forgot to Pin it, so I need to look for the original source. Still searching for that perfect floral pattern for the crib skirt. It's like a Holy Grail hunt, hence my need to mood board it.

Now on to some progress pictures!

Kennedy took down the old chair rail and installed our "signature" board and batten, that seems to show up in all our houses. Then he painted the top half with Olympic Cactus Blossom while I stayed in the other room and watched Once Upon A Time on Netflix.

This is the view from the door. The empty wall space is where the crib will go (for now). Still wrestling over the layout of the room, as I have insisted we have a full-sized bed in there. (It's a white antique iron bed frame that we already had, and I believe every nursery needs a bed if there is room for it. Can't tell you how many nights I ended up falling asleep in Campbell's nursery those first 6 months!)

C decided the room was missing a Halloween pumpkin full of matchbox cars.

Here's the antique Craigslist dresser that I repainted in Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint in Paris Grey. I replaced the knobs with some pink glass pulls from Hobby Lobby. This will be the changing table (gotta get that TV outta there...)

So that's what I have so far! I still need to find curtains, as well as THE PERFECT floral fabric for the crib skirt. I'm also making a little something to hang over the changing table, and planning on doing that this weekend while we're snowed in YET AGAIN. The rest is just hanging stuff on the walls! Then I can move on to organizing the closet and buying diapers and all the un-fun stuff that comes with preparing for a newborn.

Hope to be back soon with another update!

"Catching up...Gotcha...I caught you..up...I dunno"

Couldn't think of what to title this post, so I asked Kennedy. That title was his contribution. I love that guy.

BREAKING NEWS: 5 minutes ago, I deleted Candy Crush from my phone. I read this blog post from Lil Blue Boo and was like, yeah, Candy Crush is literally wasting hours of my life. Eff it! I'm gonna delete it. Then I did it right then and there before I could talk myself out of it.

Miracle of all miracles, here I am blogging again. Coincidence? I think not!

I actually have a lot of things to share as of late, in the form of multiple blog posts, but I've been completely unmotivated. Now I have one less excuse to not do anything.

First of all, we found out the gender of our baby on Monday. See if you can guess what the baby is by the end of this blog post!

Kennedy took C-buddy to the trampoline park on Friday morning. He took the day off for this. He was EXCITED. Then, when they got there, Campbell hurt his leg during a jump and they had to leave. It was devastating for Kennedy, because their fun plans got ruined. Then, devastating because C would no longer walk, and it appeared bearing any weight on his leg was extremely painful. So, our pediatrician referred us to an orthopedic clinic. An X-ray later, C is now rockin' a little blue boot.

Sad.

He's adjusting well, especially since we started referring to it as his Cookie Monster foot. He'll stomp his cast and say "Cookie foot! Cookie foot!" Oh, how I love that kid.

In other news, I've been spending my time hunched over my sewing machine this past week, in preparation for Halloween. Campbell will be a robot. Here's a sneak peek:

This is from earlier today. I wanted him to try it on to make sure it fit over his cast, and he wouldn't take it off. He even has the robot arm movements down.

I plan to write a separate blog post about his little costume and what I used to make it. Plus maybe some action shots. The whole thing cost a little under $10 which was a MAJOR plus to me.

ALSO, more stuff came up on my sewing to-do list, including, but not limited to, many many things for the new baby. I bought my first few yards of fabric for the little banana-sized fetus this week, so I can make some flannel receiving blankets. These are the only pieces I could find that didn't have ice skating penguins on them. I'm ready for the winter seasonal items to GO.

I'm obsessed with that science lab fabric up top.

This morning, my little family and I trekked out to Old Navy to begin buying ridiculous amounts of clothes for the baby. Clearance section HOLLA!

I'm also excited to learn how to make a lot of baby clothes. Maybe Santa will bring me a serger for Christmas? Maybe not, he was kind of a creep last year.

Normally, I highly protest infants wearing shoes. But then I saw those little gold sandals and I thought, "Self, it would be a sin not to buy these." And thou shalt not sin, amiright?

Can you guess what kind of baby I'm having?