Kelly

Wearing her new shades...

My sister is the perfect person to take to the mall. She will make sure you don’t buy something that looks stupid. She will speak up if you’re overcharged in the food court. She will run back into Spencer’s to find the toy your toddler threw on the scummy floor. She will veer and dodge through heavy traffic so you can get your $0.51 cone at McDonalds on the way home. She is smart and funny. Her heart is huge. She was my maid of honor – and she rocked it. I love my sister…

I Am The Mother Of A Toddler

Grandma's are the best at tickling!

One night we tucked in a baby, and then the next morning we woke up with a kid. At least that’s what it felt like. When I picked him up out of his high chair after dinner tonight and propped him on my hip, I realized I was holding a child, not a baby. His weight was enough to make me lean to the other side to compensate. And when I look at this picture I see a little boy. Look at those long legs and arms! This was taken the day of his one year check up. He weighed in at 21 lbs and 5 oz. He is 30 inches tall! On the charts he’s average height and lean, not that it matters.

I say this every month, but this is my favorite age yet.

How to Save $100 a Year

My husband was starting to look a little too cute this weekend, so it was time for a haircut. It costs about $10 for Eric to get his hair cut at one of the discount salons around here, so it’s not extravagantly expensive, but considering he basically gets it shaved off, why spend the money?

It curls... if we let it get much longer it would "fro"

A few years ago we spent a little over $30 on a Wahl Clippers set kind of like this one. It has served us well, especially considering it paid for itself after just 3 haircuts.

Cutting your husband’s hair is not as intimidating as it sounds. I was nervous the first time, but the kit we bought came with a great instructional DVD and the actual clippers are pretty foolproof. I use the size 4 comb all over his head first.

If it's warm, I cut his hair outside to skip cleanup.

Then I take the size 2 comb and clip the sides, fading up into the top by bending my wrist at the end of each stroke. Finally, I use the right and left ear pieces to clip around his ears, and lose the comb altogether to shave the back of his neck and clean up the sideburns.

Tah-dah!

I like the way the back of his head feels after I cut his hair. I told him I was going to write on my blog that it feels like peach fuzz, but he didn’t think that sounded manly enough. So we mutually agreed that officially, it feels like the coat of a black stallion.

And of course we need a token shot of Micah, who was watching the whole time from his premier seating area (the pack -n- play).

And yes, his binkie is purple.

Do you cut your family’s hair? Do you use clippers or do you get really creative (brave) with the scissors?

Gorgeous Christine!

Eric’s younger sister agreed to model for me this afternoon, since I wanted to get in some practice taking portraits with my new camera (also to build up my portfolio for future use).  We went to the forest preserve and park down the road from her house for the first part of the shoot, and for the second part, we went to downtown Rockton, which had a beautiful gazebo and old buildings that make for great backgrounds. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day. (I didn’t even edit these because I just loved how they turned out!)

And because it’s too hard to pick favorites and I don’t want this post to be a mile long, here is a slide show of more of my favorites (including those above)…

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I took well over 200 shots and most of them turned out wonderful – I have to say, it’s pretty easy to take good pictures when your subject is Miss Christine! I will probably apply some filters and special effects to some of these and see how they look. We’ll have to frame a few in time for mother’s day, don’t you think?

Now I am on the hunt for more “test subjects.” Any volunteers?

Riding in Style

As you can see, the little dude loves riding in the car. It’s like a roller coaster ride for him when he can see everything. That kid never liked riding in the car until we moved him into his “big boy” seat. Now that he can see all the action, he’s all about cruising. Do your kids like to ride in the car or do they pitch a fit as soon as the seat belt clicks?

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It’s Here!

Today I got my replacement for the Infantino Sling Rider that was recently recalled. I had bought the carrier when Micah was a newborn and I only used it a few times since it always seemed like he would cry when he was in it. It was also a pain to adjust. It always seemed like it held him in a really weird position. If I wore it high up so that he was almost upright, it was a little better, but I had to hold it there, defeating the purpose of wearing a sling. I usually put Micah in my homemade Moby wrap. He loved riding around in that wrap, and it was easy to wear him in a variety of positions as he grew. The only drawback was the time it took to put on the wrap, put him in, take him out and get the wrap off without ending up in a knot.

Anyway, Infantino was offering a few different options for a replacement product. I chose to get a shopping cart/restaurant high chair cover and a toy.

How cute is this pattern?

Right after I took this photo, Micah walked up, grabbed the toy and started playing with it. I think he approves of my choice!

I’m pretty impressed. Not only did Infantino own up, but they delivered a replacement very quickly. It only took a few weeks, and considering the popularity of their sling rider, I’m sure they were getting tons of orders for replacements when the recall came out.

Has anyone else taken Infantino up on their offer to replace the recalled Sling Rider? What did you choose for your replacement?

Little Bedtime Conversations

I think Micah has begun to pick up on the little things I do, and one of them is the quiet way I talk to him at bedtime. Now that he sleeps in his big boy bed (a twin mattress on the floor), we snuggle side by side while gazing at the plastic constellations on his ceiling until he drifts to sleep. He’ll reach over and touch my face very gently with his tiny fingers and speak very softly in his baby language, as though he’s telling me stories about his day. He’ll sigh, roll back and forth a few times, plop his head down a few different ways (sometimes on my head), grab my face some more, play with my fingers, chatter some more…. this goes on for about twenty minutes and finally he’ll fall silent, fast asleep. I wish I had a little recorder to capture his tiny high pitched voice. “Da da da da, go! na na na guh guh! dee dee tee tee…”

Spoonfulls

Today I cheered and clapped while my little man used his own spoon to eat applesauce all by himself for the very first time. Who knew utensils could be so exciting!

Scoop...

Yum!

Embracing Ordinariness

In an e-mail I recently received from my good friend Chrystal, the tail end of a quote she shared really stuck out at me: “…embracing any ordinariness that God permits.” (The quote is from the book, Silent Songs of Worship: God’s Tabernacle Within Us by Terri L. Terry. (On a completely random tangent, I just had to laugh at the thought of this author introducing herself… “Hi, I’m Terri Terry.”)

The author was talking about the secret to true humility, which is the secret to true worship.

Just after reading that one quote, I’m itching to get my hands on that book and read it. One reason being I know I have a big problem with humility. I don’t naturally embrace the ordinary in myself – I chase after the opposite. I have a desire to elevate myself above others by showing off or hiding my flaws and oddities… this is not a good thing nor something I am proud of! It’s a desire I want to get rid of. In fact, all too often I find myself mentally scolding, “Kim, the only reason you want to share that story is to draw attention to yourself, so don’t share it.” I could go on and on about how it stems from an old desire for popularity in the face of blah blah blah. It doesn’t matter.

So, I want to begin embracing the ordinary in myself – publicly on this blog – in an effort to humiliate myself…. er… become humble. (Isn’t that the same thing to some extent?) Am I going to regret this? Haha. Maybe.

I was going to kick off this humbling experience by sharing something…. but my son is KNOCKING on his door, which means he woke up from his nap and it’s time to visit daddy at work for lunch.

Until next time… embrace your ordinariness! (And if you do so on your blog, send me the link and I will share it here.)

The Big Party

The morning of Micah’s big party, I told Eric, “This is right up there with our wedding.” That was, of course, code for, “make sure nothing bad happens, otherwise I might just cry.” I had no reason to worry, however. The day turned out to be a huge success. I had a blast. Very few tears were shed. Tantrums were avoided. I was amazed at how well Micah handled all of the excitement. More than anything, I felt so blessed to have so many friends and family members there to celebrate my FIRST child’s FIRST birthday.

One thing I definitely do not regret is keeping things simple. Initially, I had a lot of plans for things like favors and elaborate decorations, but I decided to skip those things to save both time and myself from extra stress. In the end I realized they likely would have gone unnoticed anyway.

It was a lot of fun watching him open gifts. At Christmas, he really didn’t know what was going on, but this weekend he really caught on to the whole concept of these colorful boxes being full of toys just for HIM.

I made Micah this shirt using nothing more than my ink jet printer, iron-on transfer paper and a basic white toddler t-shirt (they come in a pack of five). The party theme started out as “Puppy,” but as I changed plans, I realized the only puppy item left was this shirt. Eh, that’s okay. 🙂 I love the shirt anyway!

My neighbor and friend Lindsay made this cute cake for Micah. He was very suspicious of the cake and hardly ate any of it. He doesn’t seem to be that crazy about sweets in general. He prefers chicken and veggies or spaghetti. That’s fine with me!

Rest of the photos are on Facebook for those of you who know me. Enjoy!