Category Archives: Domestic Goddess

There Is A Season (Turn, Turn, Turn)

It was a change so suble that I wouldn’t have even noticed it if my husband hadn’t mentioned it to me earlier in the evening.

“He’s getting older,” he said, “you probably shouldn’t kiss him on the lips any more”

Is he really that old? I thought.

And then at bed time, my nearly 3 year old told me: “Kiss me on the cheek”

Did anyone else hear that? That was the sound of a Mom’s heart breaking. It was so quiet and so subtle that you only hear it if you’re listening for it, and you only listen when you know that it exists. It was the first time that my son has vocalized that he is too old for something that Mom has been doing. So are these now only okay when you’re sick, or have we grown out of those, too? So where is the line now drawn? Is it only bedtime? Is it forever (an ever, amen)? Or was this just a one night thing? Oh please let it be a one night thing.

In the spirit of my kids growing up, Joshua started sleeping 10 hours a night this week. Didn’t I just give birth to him?!

Except that was apparently 2 MONTHS ago! Why didn’t time fly like this when I was knocked up?! 2 nights ago, he started sleeping for 10 hours and this is the face of someone who just slept 10 hours:

And THIS is someone who really, really, really appreciated that:

However, since then, he’s a lot less smiles and a lot more of this:

It would appear that my kid is going through his very first legitimate growth spurt that is a pain in my ass. He’s sleeping through the night like my favorite child, but now he’s eating all of the time during the day, really fussy when I set him down, and some days he almost isn’t my favorite child. But he can’t ask “why?” yet, so most days he still is. Except that my house is a mess, I have a “To Do” list 6 miles long, and I would love to be able to set him down 3 days into this.

And because I’m not even going to pretend to try to catch you up on the last 2 months of my life with 2 kids that I’ve been MIA on my blog, I’ll instead just tell you that this last week we joined Angel on his audit in Chicago. We took the boys to the Shedd Aquarium with our friends who live there, went to the Nature Center, and generally had a great week while Daddy worked.

Aaaaand there’s 2 months in one blog post, that doesn’t even begin what I’ve been up to for 2 months. To summarize, my life is run by an army of tiny men, who I’ve created.

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we were discharged early because I’m feeling so well and Joshua is going so great!

Suburgatory

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My poor sidekick hasn’t gotten a break on the teething front. It’s been one right after the other and his stupid teeth spent some time going up and down (and up and down, and up and down, and I think you get the idea) looking for the most annoying way to make their final appearance. So I’ve spent the better part of 2 weeks keeping my son high as a kite on baby Tylenol and Oragel. Right when the teething stopped, we lost a nap and spent a week learning how to live on a 2 nap schedule, which Lucas has decided is just as annoying as his teeth. I think he’s done giving me a teeny, tiny middle finger every nap time and he’s back to slobbering like a rabid dog. So one can conclude that angering Mommy is his entertainment every day, or a third tooth is on its way in that teeny, tiny mouth of his.

In the midst of this teething fest, we took Lucas to the beach and into the lake. It was soooo much fun, but unfortunately was extremely windy so the sand became little death pellets that I had to shield Lucas from. Other then that, he loved the water and Daddy was laughing with him in the waves, which melts my little Mommy heart. You know what else melts my heart? This face and those sunglasses!

I miss the days that Lucas was in a car seat and would just sleep when we took him to dinner with us. Those days are quickly becoming a faint memory. If I leave him in his car seat now he flips out on me and when he’s in a high chair or cart that really only lasts about 30 seconds before he wants to be held or to eat or to be entertained. It really makes things more difficult and our restaurant choices down to just loud bars with high chairs (see: Buffalo Wild Wings). I used to take him to dinner, set him on a seat, and never hear a peep out of him thinking that I didn’t understand why all of these parents said it was so hard to go out with children. And then Lucas learned how to scream and I started carrying around a plethora of toys in my diaper bag and cringing at the thought of being in quiet places.

On Friday night Angel’s coworker offered to babysit Lucas for the night and who are we to pass up some free babysitting? May God strike down anyone who passes up free babysitting. So Angel took me to dinner a movie. Last time we went on a real date like that, I had Lucas 9 months later. After Despicable Me 2 and some sushi rolls, we went to Target to get baby formula and wine and rolled our eyes at the parents who’s children were throwing a fit in the toy aisle. Haha, suckers.

We’re in the land of solid foods. He wants to eat the peaches right out of our hands

literally

Watermelon, avocado, ground turkey- he’s on it. And I imagine that I’ll stop worrying about him choking on his food 6 years from never. It’s best to feed him while totally naked and right before bath time on a tile floor. Little man is meeeeeeessssssssssy!!

He probably got 2 of these into his mouth. 3 max.

Last night Angel went to the Taste of Kalamazoo with some old college friends, and since I have a 13 pound sidekick with an 8:30 bedtime I agreed to stay home and implement an 8:30 bedtime for Momma. I’m not sure when my fear of the night developed because I spent years living alone, but somewhere along the way I started freaking out when the sun goes down. There’s no way that sound coming from the freezer is the ice maker. It’s someone who froze ice cubes in their own freezer, broke into my house, and went to fill my ice maker before he comes upstairs to KILL ME. Clearly. And I don’t believe in ghosts but when the sun goes down I’m a little bit more open minded.

And in my blogging hiatus, my little dude turned 8 months old. High five for successfully keeping him happy and healthy for 8 months! (I’ve pretty much given up on monthly photos at this point because this is all I get)

At one point, my little man threw a 20 minute fit because I put clothes on him, thinking that it was too cold to let him keep playing in just a diaper. He totally disagreed, and was crawling all over the floor screaming, crying, and throwing himself on the ground. I was holding out to let him finish because really, who’s the adult here? But you can’t win them all, so I gave up and took his clothes back off and he instantly got quiet and started smiling. Yeah, well, don’t get used to this. You won’t always get your way

I can’t complain though. My little sidekick is happy and healthy and absolutely adorable

I may be biased.

Who Needs A Clean House, Anyway?

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Instead of doing laundry, cleaning, washing dishes, running errands, or anything else that needs to be done from the last two weeks of neglect, I’ve decided to spend some more me time doing what I want instead.

I finally put together Lucas’ shadow box and hung it on his nursery wall:

Then, I made some mugs to send one to Erica:

Embroidered a new burp cloth for Lucas:

And I did all of this instead of putting away mounds of laundry or cleaning up the mess in the room formerly known as my family room:

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.