Saturday, January 28, 2012

Charlotte discovers Max's door...

We have been waiting for the day when Charlotte decided to follow what Max does and go through his little cat door that we have for him. The day finally came :)


"Is anyone looking?"

"I'm making a break for it."

"Wait, what do I do now??"

"Ummm, Dad? I'm stuck! And the floor is wet!"

"Dad! Help me!"

"Oh my gosh! This is tough. I can't get back in!"

"Ok, so that's what it feels like. I'm not doing that again."

She really hasn't felt the need to try it again... thus far. :) She's hilarious. Max just sat back and gave her a look like "you look ridiculous."

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Charlotte's Week Without Mommy

January 9th was my first day back at Trident Medical Center. My last night of work that I had worked prior to this point was December 26, 2010. After that I was put on bedrest until I delivered Charlotte. My FMLA from Trident was up at the end of March so instead of going back to work, I decided I would stay home with my precious little angel. So I had resigned April 14, 2011. I decided that I wanted to go back to work to keep my license active but I didn't want to work all of the time... mostly because we don't have family here to watch my crazy kid while I would sleep during the day. So I decided to go back to the place that I had been for over 6 years and just start back up where I left off... and work 2 nights per month. In order to do that, I had to do 7 days of hospital orientation... all in a row. SO, I enlisted the help of the grandparents of my kid...

When I asked my mom and Alex's parents if they could watch Charlotte, naturally it was a no brainer. They all jumped at the chance. Not having family that is local is hard bc I don't have a built in babysitter. But mom was able to work it out with her schedule to come down Sunday through Wednesday and the Jackson came down Wednesday through Friday. 

 I had to be at orientation every morning around 7:30 or 8 and would get done anywhere from noon to 4:30... just depending on the day. It was nice to get back to the nursing world and talk about nursing stuff. Naturally Charlotte was in love with all of her one on one attention. She called all of the shots while I was working... naturally. She was even a good sleeper for her grandparents... something she does not always excel at with her momma.

It was so nice having so much help. The house was always straightened up and clean. We had a few home cooked meals and mom even made enough of her meals for us to freeze for future nights. Alex was home until Thursday evening. He had to go to drill that night so I had the weekend without him. Laundry was caught up, the dishes were clean, the floors were vacuumed. It was amazing. I felt like a waste of space since I wasn't really doing any of it. So I actually went to bed every night around 8:30. Mom slept with her door open and she got up with Charlotte each night if she woke up.


It was a hard week for me emotionally. I've never left Charlotte for that long. Yes we have had a few babysitters here and there and mom and dad have watched her while Alex and I have gone on a few dates. But I've never left her days in a row for entire daytime periods. I texted/called a few times a day but made myself limit how much I would text. I know that other people are capable of caring for her, but when you are all by yourself a lot and your husband works a lot of hours, it's hard to give up the control to other people. It 's hard to even just let people help you. I'm an independent lady and most days I have the thought in my head that I need to accept any of the challenges and accomplish all of this difficult stuff on my own... no help.

I was so grateful to have them come and spend time with Charlotte. She loved it. I cried everyday on my way to work. BUT I know this was good for both of us.

 On Monday and Tuesday during my orientation, my fabulously amazing friend Niki watched Charlotte. At the time she was almost 8 months pregnant and had a 17 month old of her own. However, both of our kids are better when they are together. So Niki had 2 full days with my little crazy girl. She said she loved it and so did Charlotte's boyfriend, Gavin. It was so cute dropping her off at Niki's in her jammies :)

Charlotte loved all of her quality time with everyone. She loves to show off and this was the perfect week to do it!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

11 Months Old!

 Date: January 8, 2012

Weight: Somewhere around 18 lbs or so.

Height: Taller than the couch :)

Teeth:  WE HAVE ONE TOOTH!! It popped through January 6th. She started working on it on New Year's Eve. She started running a fever that got up to 103. She had a faint rash on her trunk, diarrhea (sorry if that grosses you out) and a diaper rash. She was crabby and cranky the entire week that Aunt Mary and Uncle Chad were here. FINALLY about 30 minutes after they left to drive home, we found that her tooth had broken through. So she has ONE bottom right tooth. YAY!

Clothes: Charlotte wears mostly 9 and 12 month clothing even though they are too long and sometimes too big around the waist. Her 6 month pants are finally getting a bit too short. She still looks so petite :) We def need to get wearing all of her warm 12 month clothes before the weather really heats up around here. It's been such a warm winter this year that she hasn't been wearing any crazy warm clothes down here.



Naps: I laugh at the word naps. I laugh when people ask me what time her nap is or tell me that we can work around Charlotte's nap time. Most of the time I think, "What nap?" But really she does need two naps a day... one nap about 2-3 hours after she wakes up and the other anytime between 2 and 4 in the afternoon. Some naps are 2 hours, some are 30 minutes. Yes, I need to be a stickler on them but we just make due. I mean, this is a bonus to her for having a stay at home mom, ya know?

Sleeping: Well, Charlotte goes to bed at 8 pm (unless she requests to go to bed earlier by being a bit of a crabby pants) and she usually wakes up anywhere from 5 am to 8 am. If she does an early wake up, she gets a bottle and goes back to sleep. She still has a habit of getting up in the middle of the night to say "hi" a few times a week. It really just varies. We are working on it. I just can't stand to hear her scream. It breaks my heart and gives me anxiety.

Health: Our healthy little girl just keeps trucking. She hasn't been "sick" yet. Up to this point, she hasn't had an eczema outbreak in months. Her first tooth brought her first real fever (noncontagious) and a runny nose. She's never had a runny nose. It kind of grossed me out a bit. But she's still fabulous. I do have to say thank you to the Soy formula we've had her on the last few months for helping regulate her bowels. Poor thing still has a sensitive tummy but she is doing much better than she did the first 6 months of her life.


Food: My little "fat girl" at heart. Charlotte LOVES to eat. She shovels it in... 2,3,4,5 at a time. She doesn't mess around. Her favorite foods include any fruits (especially fresh ones), Cheerios, anything sweet, Mac N Cheese, Bagels, any type of bread, anything mommy and daddy are eating, cucumbers, goldfish, and any carb. She is not a fan of vegetables. We still try to get her to eat them but I also give her a juice called "Fruitables" that has fruits and vegetables in it. She loves her juice and whatever drink mommy and daddy are drinking. She takes 3 bottles per day usually. Each of them are 6 ounces. If we give her more than 6 ounces then she spits up. It's a bit ridic and gross when she spits up these days... because it's more like actual vomit. Yuck. She LOVES her bottles.

On the Move: Charlotte does not like to sit still. She is constantly moving... however, she is not walking. I mean, why walk when you can just crawl places :) She crawls and crawls and crawls. I sometimes forget how fast she can crawl and before I know it, she's made it across the house and I can't find her. She cruises everywhere as well. However, once she reaches the end of the couch, the table, etc., she lets go and drops down and crawls. Every once in awhile, once in a blue moon really, she will attempt to take 2-5 steps toward something. She's just a very cautious little peanut. She pushes her little walking toys all over the place, even runs behind them. While we were in Illinois, she learned how to navigate stairs. There is one step between my parent's kitchen and family and she had to learn how to go up and down it. Daddy taught her how to do it. Within a day, she was going up and down it like crazy and started mastering their big stair case. So, we finally bought a gate for our house because she learned how to do the stairs at our house. She loves books, her new baby dolls, her school bus. She loves getting into cabinets, playing with her little activity table, and she continues to LOVE to be outside no matter what the weather or what time of day.



Friends and Events: In the last month, Charlotte had a lot of firsts. Her first Christmas, first New Year's Eve party, first tooth, first time getting to actually play with some of her friends (like Grayden and Addelyn), first time meeting her new cousin Kyla, first for many foods and drinks, first carnival ride, first time meeting Santa, first snowfall, etc.. She learns something new every single day. It's amazing to see how much she changes with the blink of an eye. Naturally in our month of crazy holidays and travelling, we still made time to see her boyfriend, Gavin. There's always time for Gavin in Charlotte's book :) She was able to play with all of her Weber second and third cousins at Christmas at Grandma Ann's house. It was such a busy month for us and for her and her growth.


She still has her own reservations about "new people" or "strangers". She LOVES to talk to them, but actually going to them or with them is a different story. The best time to try to get her to go to you is when there is alot of stimulation going on around you. Then she is so busy trying to soak it all in that she doesn't realize she isn't with Alex or I.

As I write this, she is already 12.5 months old. It's weird looking back at how much she has changed from then until now.


And time just keeps passing....and she just keeps growing...

Thursday, January 5, 2012

A Visit from Aunt Mary and Uncle Chad

The day that Auntie Kate and baby Ella left our house was the same day that Aunt Mary and Uncle Chad came to visit. They drove through the night and made it to our house around noon. We were so excited to see them!

Charlotte is a bit hesitant about Chad. She has been since our visit to Illinois in October. Even when we visited in December, she still wasn't quite sure what to make of him. Since the way to her heart is food, Chad would feed her her favorite foods in hopes that she would like him.

"As long as daddy is standing here with me, I will be fine."
I love all of the bed head going on in this picture.

Our beautiful baby girl was cutting her first tooth this week. We got her lots of ice from Sonic this week. She loved sitting in her ducky bath tub to eat it.

Daddy thought of putting her in the tub so as not to make a mess....(those of you that know Alex are not surprised by this.)

So we had 4 free hibachi dinners at Myabis so Alex and I decided to take Chad and Mary for hibachi. Chad had never experienced hibachi. We ordered sushi and a few appetizers along with our hibachi. Well, we had gotten our vegetables and rice with our hibachi when the fire alarms started going off. The only way to get them to stop sounding was to turn off all of the gas in the building. SO they had to give us a raincheck for our dinner and everything that we had already ordered and eaten would be free. We had already consumed about $80 worth of food. It was ALL free. Crazy.

Prior to the fire alarms, we were able to get a few pictures. I look amazing in this picture. Can you tell I felt so terrible in this picture????

Chad was loving his first hibachi dinner experience until it was so rudely interrupted.

Snuggle time with my angel.

Isn't she sweet??? Teething brings out the snuggle bug in her.

Daddy wants to play :)

FLYING!!

Charlotte loves her Aunt Bare.

How much do you love her little Sketchers??? We knew we needed to get her some real shoes. She looks so sweet.

On their last day of their visit, we went to the outlet mall. My crabby little friend had no idea who was pushing her while Mary and I were browsing in the store.

Chad finally got to hold Charlotte!!! He started trying on Monday and she finally gave in on Friday afternoon.

He was so excited to hold her that when his mom called to talk to him about something, he told her he would have to call her back bc Charlotte was finally letting him hold her. It was so cute.

One last bath with Aunt Mary before she has to leave.

Charlotte is the only one who uses this large bathtub :) Toys everywhere in it.

It was nice having help during bath time :)

We loved our visit with Mary and Chad. It was nice have help but it was also very relaxing. We didn't do anything crazy, we just hung out. But we had a lot of fun.

Thanks for driving all that way and thanks for helping with everything! We love and miss you guys more than you know :)

Monday, January 2, 2012

Our Last Visit from Auntie Kate and Ella :(


We had a WILD AND CRAZY New Year's Eve :) Typical for us these days. Kate and Ella came down from Greenville. We went to Alysia and Lee's casa for a celebration. They made homemade pizza. IT WAS DELICIOUS. :) They also had homemade red velvet cake. What can I say, we all love the food. We spent the evening playing a dance game on one of their game systems (the one that senses your movements and you don't have to hold a controller or anything.) It was so fabulous. I LOVED IT! Even though I felt like a trainwreck from the pregnancy, I still loved it.

We made it home from the Price househould a few minutes before midnight. With the babies in bed FAST asleep, Kate, Alex and I rang in the New Year with Sparkling Grape Juice and Alex had a beer. A few minutes later, we were all fast asleep as well. Oh the life of being a crazy parent.

New Year's Day was our last full day with Kate and Ella so we spent it downtown. We went to Wild Wing for lunch then went on a carriage tour. Kate really wanted to make sure she got to do the carriage tour before leaving the dirty South.

Kate loves her some horses!

Charlotte was so excited to see the horses!

Waiting for our carriage to arrive. Check out how pumped Ella was. She was so pumped that she was sleeping... until the carriage ride started. Then she decided it was time to wake up and eat.

Just taking a stroll with daddy...

We love Charleston.

In celebration of our last slumber party with Aunti Kate and Ella for awhile, we decided that Charlotte should have her first whole oreo... (she sampled a bit of one the night before thanks to Aunt Lee, but she had her first whole one... or two)

She was WIRED after her oreo!!

We absolutely hate goodbyes... so we said "see you later".

Charlotte loves baby Ella (or "eww-wa" as Charlotte says)

We do hate saying goodbye but we know it's not forever. We loved our last few nights with them. In Ella's short 3.5 months of life, I think we have had 4 slumber parties with her and Auntie Kate.

So as of January 22nd, they have been in San Diego, CA with their hubby/daddy, Drew (Alex's best friend of all time). We really miss them like crazy but weekly phones calls and lots of pics make it easier. We love you guys and can't wait to come visit.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

A Beautiful Mess

So, just wanted to post a photo of my living room. This is what it looks like everyday around early evening... minus the clean laundry piles in the background... I do laundry like once a week so it looks THIS bad once a week. But isn't this glorious :) And to think it is almost always cleaned up by the time Alex gets home. 

Monday, December 26, 2011

Great Grandma and Grandpa came to visit!

On December 26th, my Grandma and Grandpa Schumann came to visit us. They had been in North Carolina visiting my aunt, uncle, and cousins so they made the 6 hour drive down to visit us. Since Grandma was diagnosed with liver cancer last November, she hasn't made the trip to North Carolina. Her medicine that she takes everyday makes her feel pretty crappy however, she had been having so many good days that she decided to make the trip! Everyone was so proud of her for getting out of the house and getting out of town. She did amazing on the trip. Naturally on the last morning, as they were leaving my house, she started to feel a bit yucky. We figured it would happen at some point but luckily it was the very last day!

Charlotte is so funny. Sometimes she doesn't warm up to people for awhile, sometimes it's right away. She usually warms up to Grandma right away and this time she did again. Grandpa on the other hand it took a bit longer. However he did find the way to her heart. He wore a path on the wood floor in our kitchen, dining room, foyer from pushing her in circles on her zebra and in our new tricycle she had gotten the day before.


He also had some treats for her when he needed a break from pushing her. He really does know the way to her heart... movement and food.

Ignore the creepy look on my kid's face.

I love this one. Grandma and Grandpa Great look so proud!

Naturally, presents were involved and someone had to be in the middle of it all.

I love this picture. It looks like they are discussing the present.

I love this one too... Grandma loves her blinged out nail file, Charlotte looks confused, and Grandpa is in awe of the bling on the nail file.

Not only is he a wonderful husband, fabulous grandpa, and a mayor, he also makes one heck of a meatloaf :) Every fabulous cook needs an apron :) He loved his gift from us.

A few more hugs before bedtime.


It was so great seeing Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma had never been to our house so we were able to show her our humble abode. Grandpa visited us last March when he stopped by with mom. He knew right where to find everything :) I made them dinner and we all hung out for a bit. Grandma had trouble sleeping and our computers and internet were not working properly. The next morning they got up nice and early for their long trip back. It was so great to see them and spend time with them. We miss them everyday.

One other huge thing is that Charlotte took her first unassisted steps the day they came. She was trying to get close to make and walked two steps without holding onto something. I was so proud of her!!!!!!!