Category Archives: A Picture Worth 1000 Words

(Solid) Food Fight!

Today, we finally decided to give Lucas his first taste of solid food. He was getting so interested in my food that I started to feel like I was teasing a puppy by eating my lunch in front of him. So before I felt like a bad mom who starves her kid, I decided that it was time to put something other than my boob in his mouth.

He was not interested.

And I had enough sense to take his shirt off and put him in a seat that’s easy to clean because I may as well have just stood back and thrown the food all over him. He probably would have eaten the same amount. But it’s not like it matters anyway since he threw it all up 20 minutes later. So maybe we’ll just try again in a few days

Once A Sun Devil…

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I’m not sure if I posted it yet or not, but Angel and I finally got our Michigan license plates in the mail.

A little background- my adorable husband ordered a custom license plate in Arizona saying “GO B1UE” to represent the University of Michigan. So when we moved here, I jokingly told him that if he gets a UofM license plate in Arizona, than I get an ASU plate in Michigan. So that’s exactly what happened. I have to represent the University that gave me both a BS and an MBA so that I can stay home and sew and talk to my baby about his poopy diapers. You know those stories about people with a Masters degree who don’t use it? Yep. Living the dream.

Domestic Goddess- Now With An Etsy Shop!

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I had a busy afternoon while Lucas was down for a long nap that I’m no doubt going to be paying for at 5am tomorrow.

First, I hung all of the photos and art that I’ve been stacking up in the Living Room:

Do your best to ignore the empty frames. I ordered prints the other day and they should hopefully be here soon.

Next, I made this awesome craft as inspired from Pinterest:

When I was done, I was so proud of myself, that I added it to the art/photo wall on the stairs that I started earlier:

And when I was done with that, i made dinner complete with fresh bread from the bread machine. Susie Homemaker? I believe so, today!

I posted a picture on Facebook of my Arizona artwork and so many people told me to open an Etsy shop between my crafts, baby shoes, embroidery, and diaper cakes… so I did! You can find it at: http://www.Etsy.com/shop/RavishingRivas

I mostly just decided to sell things so that I can continue to afford all of my crafts and sewing and am not planning on selling enough that I’m busy making things for other people instead of making them for my adorable baby boy.

Crafting, and Crafting, and Crafting- Oh, My!

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I am a domestic goddess.

The last two days I’ve finally broken into the embroidery machine that Angel got for me while we were living in our crap castle. Remember that place? Yeah, unfortunately so do I. So anyway, I spent a long evening trying to figure out how to use it, and from my first masterpiece, I was hooked!

Not bad for the first try

A few burp cloths later….

… And I was running out of things to embroider and colors of thread. So I ordered more thread from my beloved Amazon and moved on to another sewing project: more baby TOMS!!!

Seriously, I love these things! The bottom photo is the toddler version that has Velcro instead of elastic and are slightly larger than my fingernail so they are easier to sew. And the black ones I assembly lined and about 20 minutes into it I felt a little bit like I was working in a Nike sweat shop.

And then because I was running out of things to sew or people to sew them for, I moved back to my embroidery machine to make more designs for when my thread arrives tomorrow.

When I was done with that, I set myself loose on my house with my P-touch label maker.

When everything in the house was either embroidered or labeled, my brain told me that I should go for a run but then my ass was all like “dude, chill, this couch is really comfy.” So I sat down with my baby and his custom burp cloths and watched trashy TV until it was dinner time and I realized that there wasn’t anything to make because the food in the fridge had expired. So I just did my go-to of spaghetti and patted myself on the back for leaving the craft room long enough to make food. You go, me!

Aaaaaand then I unjammed the vacuum from all of the hair that it’s been sucking up. Maybe it’s the prenatal vitamins that I started taking again, or maybe it’s the 5 inches of hair that I cut off, or maybe it’s just that I stopped showering so my hair never comes out of a pony tail long enough for me to recognize that it’s still falling out, but I’m not shedding at a chemo patient pace anymore. Seeing that it cut waaaaaay back the second that I got home from my haircut, I’m just going to chalk it all up as my long, old, color damaged, hair telling me that it was totally time to pop a vitamin and cut it off.

I’m going to go embroider a pair of Angel’s underwear now (just because I can) so I’m done with the blog. But before I go, allow me to plaster my webpage with photos of my child.

Oh my goodness, I love this little dude!

“Did Daddy dress you this morning?”

The Michigan boys getting ready to watch the final four game

I don’t know why all of the Michigan photos. I guess it was theme week in our house

Dog: still boy’s best friend

I’ll be available to sign autographs in the Kalamazoo area Monday.

My Week

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Well, I’ve been sick for a little more than a week, and haven’t left the house very often as a result. In fact, the last time that I did leave was on Easter and only to go to Urgent Care. Yep, it’s been a great week and not really the memorable first Easter that I wanted to share with my little man. Obviously, he didn’t know any different but that’s not the point. Ugh. Mom fail.

I still feel like crap, but at one point I had a fever, the dog was throwing up, and Angel was suffering from food poisoning while Lucas was screaming and coughing. A family who shares everything. That’s what we’ve become.

In odd news, I’m losing hair by the handful over here. Seriously. By. The. Handful. Maybe I’m taking chemotherapy that I wasn’t aware of, because it’s scary the amount of hair that’s coming out of my head at the rate that it is. I should be bald by the end of the month. Secretly I’m hoping that it’s just the end of the drop in all of the crazy pregnancy stuff since they say that you stop losing hair when you’re pregnant because of the hormones and you lose it all after you have the baby. I mean, it’s bad enough over here that even the house cleaner made a comment about how worried she was about the amount of hair I was losing. Yeah. I’m not kidding.

And speaking of the end of all of these crazy pregnancy things, I’m happy to report that I finally put myself on the scale and I’m under my pre-pregnancy weight. Having never lifted a weight or started a diet. Go me! That doesn’t, however, mean that I don’t look like I’m carrying around a flotation device around my belly still and have boobs out to here. Why doesn’t anyone tell you these things? In my mom’s defense, she did try and I stupidly thought to myself “but I’ll be different” and I’m here to shout it to the blogging world: No. You won’t. What was flat will now be round, what was small will now stick out, and what was perky you will now trip over. “But you’ll have this little baby that makes it all worth it” or strongly suggest surrogacy to anyone who asks- which they don’t but they totally should.

Do you boobs hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?

Can you tie them in a knot? Can you tie them in a bow?

Can you throw them over your shoulder and then feed your son a 7 course meal that will only hold him over for 3 hours before he starts screaming for more because he doesn’t know how much of a job this is?

Do your boobs hang low?

And since I’m already talking about my boobs, I’m going to throw out into the world that my son now BITES and PINCHES. Yep and yep. It doesn’t matter if I yell at him, flick him in the mouth, stop feeding him, or call him names (yes, I have done these all). Now I can tell when he’s about to and I look at him and say “don’t you even think about it!” and then he either smiles at me, or gets this devious look in his eyes, bites me, and then smiles while I’m yelling. He knows exactly what he’s doing. That little punk. But my 6 month goal of breastfeeding is in serious jeopardy over here unless he stops immediately because this is no longer enjoyable and I don’t want to hate my baby and we’re on that path when he bites me every few hours and then started pinching this afternoon.

As a result of being sick, I don’t have a ton of photos to share for my week, but I do have a few while I was feeling under the weather and before I was hit by the proverbial Mac Truck of sickness. I’ll type morewhen I feel like I’m not knocking on death’s door.

At the Chicago Bulls game with the family

The car ride home from Chicago. Molly has decided that Lucas is okay and can stay in the family

The car ride home from Chicago. Once again, proof that dogs take on the personality of their owners.

Morning play time

Morning nap in our (still) unfurnished family room with his butt up in the air. Sidenote: our new couches should be here the first week in may- FINALLY

we’re still working on sitting

Getting ready for Easter

Proof that there IS sun in Michigan. Even if it was only for a day. Angel took us to South Haven, which is a small beach town on Lake Michigan for the day. We walked around the shops, had lunch, and spent some time soaking up the vitamin D that we so miss from Arizona

Baby’s first Easter basket!

Sick Momma with her babies keeping her company on the couch

Look at all of these colors!

But MOM, are you SEEING these colors?!

My little Easter bunny with his little Easter basket (thanks for the outfit, Grandma!)

First Easter

Angel got me a desk for my craft room and it’s finally done!! So here is my craft room in all of its crafty perfection

The first output from my new craft room: baby TOMS (which are shoes) for a friend of mine who is expecting any minute now! Even made with custom tags for Liesel (what they will name her). Between these and my diaper cakes, I should open an Etsy shop

My Week According to My iPhone

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That’s cool, I don’t need any luck

That’s more like it

It appears that my genius child is on the fast track to crawling. I believe that my days of setting him down and walking away are now numbered

We have a little bit of an attitude this morning, do we?

What you can’t see, is that he’s staring at the TV while he eats the chair of his jumper

…and then we had a dinner guest join us at the table! Every night now, Lucas sits in his highchair at the table with us for dinner. Not too long now and he’ll get something other than milk

Play, play, play, play, play, crash.

He got his shots at his 4 month well visit at the doctor so we spent all day Monday in our jammies cuddling in the big bed and watching the DVR and taking baby Tylenol every 4 hours (a little but for baby, a lot a bit for mommy).

Lucas thought diaper changes were too easy, so he started rolling over when we set him down. Thoughtful of him to add a new challenge to a poopy diaper

If you can’t have fun with your kids, they are of no use to you for at least 18 years.

Uncle Miguel bought Lucas an “Oball” that he loooooooves. In fact, he loves it so much that he plays with it, sleeps with it, and we had to find a way to attach it to his car seat so he can travel with it. If we ever loose this, we’re in trouble

A little morning play time on the floor

Best. Sheets. Ever. (baby not included). Have you ever tried to change a crib sheet in the middle of the night? Or at 2 o’clock in the daylight? Doesn’t matter when it is, you have to take everything out of the crib and the sides, physically pull the whole mattress out, and then change the sheet and try to get the mattress in without shifting the bedskirt or the baby monitor sensor that goes below our mattress. It’s a 2 person job. But then I found this gem that changed my life. It’s a big pocket that goes around the whole mattress with a zipper around the outside. Now all I do is reach in the crib, unzip the top and zip a new one on. Why doesn’t anyone ever gift these at baby showers?! I’m giving it every time now. Moms: after the first time you’re forced to change a crib sheet in the middle of the night, do yourself a favor.

I started scrapbooking again! I’m still looking for a desk, but that hasn’t stopped me from spending some quality time doing what I love alone during nap times.

And then it snowed, which is really weird because it never does that here (eyeroll)

Giggles!

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Lucas now giggles. Absorb this cuteness:

Soak it in, people. I made that.

Playing Catch Up

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So it’s been a few weeks since I posed. As Angel would probably point out to me when I mention that I didn’t have time for something “but you’ve been home all day?” I suppose the boxes containing all of my belongings and a 3 month old baby who now is awake more often than asleep have been zapping all of my time.

So I’m flipping through the photos on my phone to try to remember what I did the last two weeks, and here’s something funny to point out: photos of myself to prove to Angel that I took a shower that day. Welcome to stay-at-home-motherhood!

A few important and note-worthy things about the new house. 1. I made a coffee bar in the kitchen. It hasn’t taken long for Angel to love it as much as I do (thank you, Pinterest), and now we probably spend more time there then anywhere else in the house. Well, at least I do from 9-noon when I’m up with the baby:

Next, Molly has learned that both the front windows are her height and that we have chipmunks in our yard. It’s a loud combination and she’ll sit here by the hour during the day waiting for them:

Next, she’s also learned the new house alarm beeps. In our house in Arizona the beep for the garage door was different but she knew that it meant we were home. In this house there’s no garage door beep, so she’ll wait for him by the front window (above) and then when she sees his car pull into the driveway, she immediately runs to wait by the garage door because DAD’S HOME!

I think it’s pretty adorable.

We finally finished putting up the plastic chicken wire inside our fence since it appears that Molly was small enough to get through the iron picket fence that was there. Now that she has a yard and a bed that she recognizes, I think she’s starting to finally realize that this is now home.

I’ve been unpacking boxes like crazy and still have a few rooms and a basement left. A few days of putting Lucas on the floor so I could unpack boxes to his screaming soundtrack, I decided “screw it” and baby and I spent a day in jammies cuddling in bed that we both deserved:

And as it turned out, Mommy desperately needed the day of baby cuddles and I didn’t realize it until the day was over. I felt guilty for not getting anything that I needed to done, but those baby cuddles aren’t going to be around forever and those boxes are.

Then we hit the road!

Molly freaked out a little more than usual when we pulled out the suitcases to pack, but Angel’s brother came in from Ann Arbor to watch her and she loooooves him! I started packing and got these in the mail:

Which I took as their way of saying “hey, we hear that you’re going to be flying alone with a 3 month old. We’re really sorry about that.”

The three of us went to Arizona for a wedding of two people who’s first date was actually our wedding! We stayed with a couple of our friends in Chandler and the evening of the wedding Lucas had his first babysitter(s)! We had Paul and Michelle babysit for a few hours so that we had our first opportunity away from Lucas since this whole adventure started. It was weird to not have the baby, but it was so nice to have a break for a few hours.

Unfortunately, I had a super short stay in Arizona and I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time with everyone who I wanted to! We got in very late on Thursday night, and I left Saturday afternoon with a wedding in between.

On Saturday morning I convinced Angel to wake up early so that we could go take family photos with Brooke from Keki Photography (if you need a photographer in the Phoenix area, I love her!):

Annnnnnd then I realized that a white patterned scarf over a white shirt makes me look about 20 pounds heavier. Awesome. Anyway though, the photos are adorable and I love my little family!

After a quick lunch with my brother and sister-in-law, Lucas and I were off on our own to Colorado!

I was so nervous to fly by myself with Lucas and so sad to be leaving Arizona without seeing everyone I wanted to or spending as much time with them as I would like that I just started crying when Angel dropped me off. My poopball must have known that I was nervous to fly with him, because as soon as we got on the plane, he curled in his knees and fell asleep in my lap and stayed that way all through the flight and the Denver airport!

He loves his little carrier, which makes my life at least 1,000 times easier.

In Colorado, everyone was excited to see Lucas and I didn’t even have to pick up my own child one time that I was there

Except maybe their dog, who was a little confused why she couldn’t play with the tiny human

Lucas and I got some good naps in during the afternoons when it was quiet. And by the end of the week he started something new: a preference to Mommy. There were a few times that he was fussy while my parents were holding him and then as soon as I took him he was calm. He also couldn’t fall asleep one afternoon until he grabbed onto my hand. Mommy’s not leaving you, little dude!

Since this adorable trend can’t last forever, I started replacing my hand with a security blanket and it seems to do the trick:

That trip was also too short, and I cried when I left Colorado as well. It’s not easy being on my own here. on the way back, I had a layover in St. Paul and was able to pick up another Starbucks mug for my collection

Lucas and I were having a great time in our hour layover. He was sound asleep and I was debating when I should wake him up and give him the bottle that I made because nursing when I’m alone in public I would have to charge admission to to pay the bail when I was arrested for public nudity. And then they announced that our flight was delayed by 2 hours and I called Delta every name in the book (in my head, naturally). Lucas must read my mind because this is the time that he decided to have a public melt down. So I took out the bottle, tried to feed him, and wouldn’t you guess that he chose this time to decide he didn’t want to drink from a bottle anymore. I kept trying because it’s not like I could just whip out a boob there at the gate, but Lucas kept screaming like I was killing him and everyone started looking at me and thinking “Oh my God, I hope I’m not sitting net to her.” Screw you all, seriously. He’s a very good child current tantrum aside.

There was nowhere in that airport to feed him, so I ended up sitting on the floor of the family restroom for 20 minutes feeding my child. Ugh. And gross. Those are the words that come to mind.

But after he ate, he was his adorable self again and I put his blanket on the floor of the gate area and let him lay there and play with his toys while everyone looked at me like “There’s a mom that has her shit together!” Or something equally flattering, I imagine.

Once I was home, life got back to normal. Lucas didn’t think he was as adorable as I did in his Mickey onesie:

And that just made me laugh. So like a good mom I took pictures of him screaming at me and sent them to my mom and Angel and anyone else who I thought would appreciate them and not call CPS on me.

I asked Angel to unpack his closet and he asks me “What’s left to unpack?” I appreciate that he doesn’t see messes, that’s really going to come in handy as soon as our munchkin puts momentum behind his movements

For one last photo for the post, I was unpacking the craft room that I negotiated in the move and it was nap time for Lucas. So I put him on the little futon in the room and went about my business and a few minutes later Molly found a spot for her afternoon nap as well. Dog: Man’s best friend.There’s just so much adorableness going on in that picture, I’m not sure where to start.

So that’s what I’ve been up to according to my iPhone photo album.

Happy Valentine’s Day

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Just for the record, Lucas fell asleep an hour ago and I’ve spent the whole time trying to figure out how to use this new computer so that I could actually update my blog and not the 3 photos and 5 words that you all got a few days ago. My last personal computer was purchased in 2002 and didn’t have wireless internet and “Windows Home” and the work computer that I had been using was rocking Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2007. Now that I’m on Windows 8 with Office 2013, I feel like I’ve been driving a 1976 VW Beetle for years and Angel just handed me the keys to a Lexus with self parking capabilities. I know this machine can do so much more then I’m giving it credit for, but I’m spending hours trying to figure out where the gas cap is.

So an hour later, I at least know how to edit my photos and add my little website tag to them, which is more then I had the other day after I spent 30 minutes in Photoshop trying to open a file.

Two days ago, I took my little pooper to our “new” house and we got the keys!

I was excited to talk to the homeowner because she was a stay at home mom who was apparently extremely involved in mom groups and I wanted to pick her brain about where these such groups meet. A few minutes later, I learned that the group she was involved in was through her church and was a bible study with an elaborate day care that takes your kids for an hour or two while you’re in the study group. That’s not quite what I had in mind as a “mom group” so I politely passed and decided that I would just Google my options as soon as I learn how to use the internet on this computer.

Yesterday I went back to the house with Pooper and we had a few ladies from La-Z-Boy come by to measure the living room and give us some options for a couch to replace the disgustingly dirty one that came with Angel when I acquired him. Bachelor couch is not dog and baby friendly and we’ve been so impressed with the rocker from La-Z-Boy that we have in the nursery (or storage, whatever) that we decided to go see what they had. I’m pretty sure that the ladies didn’t take us seriously, but that’s the theme for this crap hole that we’ve moved to. Perhaps I’m just in the wrong parts of town (which is possible because I don’t know any better yet), but everyone looks at me and automatically assumes that I’m a struggling teen mom playing house. Most of the time it doesn’t get to me, but some times I just can’t take the looks and whispers because Angel and I have worked really hard for what we have and the ability for me to comfortably be a stay at home mom. But I digress. So yesterday when the ladies were leaving the house, the one was trying to see how serious we were about purchasing a couch and asked what our budget was and immediately started talking to me about financing options. When I said “I don’t think we’re interested in financing. We would just pay cash.” She was trying to suppress a laugh and then spent 15 minutes asking me how old I was without actually coming out to ask. I finally said “I’m 28.” and she replies with a “Wow! You look great!” And you look old. What’s your point? If I wasn’t getting this kind of discriminating looks and comments everywhere I went here like I’m living way beyond my means for purchasing both spaghetti noodles and spaghetti sauce at the same time I may actually be offended by the way that the lady was acting. But instead, I think I’m just (sadly) getting used to it since we’ve moved here. I miss the area we lived in and friends that we had who were all in the same position. I’ve never felt like I was in an elite income bracket until I moved here and it’s a really uncomfortable feeling. And then I get mad for feeling uncomfortable for what I have because again, we’ve worked really hard! So I just turn the other cheek and then try not to be snobby because I hate people like that, but it’s hard not to come across that way when the lady from La-Z-Boy is standing in my living room asking me how old I am and commenting on how nice the house is. Listen, bitch, sell me a couch or get out of my house. This feeling is really what I’m struggling the most with here and I hope it gets better when we move into the house which is supposed to be in a nice area full of families and stay at home moms.

In a lighter note, Lucas has been waking me up earlier and earlier and refusing to go back to sleep. Going are the days of sleeping until 10 and feeding him and going back to sleep. This morning I was looking for the snooze button on my human alarm clock and spent 5 minutes pressing his forehead but he wouldn’t shut up and go back to sleep. I’m going to have to take this back to the store.

So instead, I got up, made coffee, and dared to put Lucas in his Valentine’s Day outfit early. I call this a “dare” because he’s been blowing out his diaper and staining his clothes nearly every day. Angel and I assume this is a sign that we either forgot how to properly put on baby diapers, or Lucas is outgrowing them. I’m guessing option 2, so we’re going to finish up what we have, and then finally move on from the newborn diapers. In the mean time, here’s a photo of Lucas on his first Valentine’s Day (before he poops out of the outfit) while he lays on a changing pad without a cover because he pooped all over that and it’s in the washer. At this point, a drop cloth would be more appropriate for my house.

Angel is taking the three of us to dinner tonight in Kalamazoo and I’ll be sure to tell you all about it tomorrow because I need more practice on this computer and because I don’t have much else to do while I’m living in temp housing.

<—– Look what I learned how to do!