What do I do all day?

I have time to finally blog a little because it is 7:50am and Savannah is still sleeping. Since the baby inside likes to wake me up now before 7am, it gives me some time to relax before I start my day. I thought I would share some thoughts about what a day in the life of me is and what I accomplish in a day/week. This is how I learned to be a stay at home mom. Life never gets boring or lonely.

Today I would much rather call in sick. My sinuses are acting up like crazy. I'm guessing either its from Savannah drooling on me and insisting on giving me kisses all the time like daddy does or from all the crops coming out of the field. Maybe its from both. It's a rainy day here so that means that I am not going anywhere. When you have a toddler that walks all on their own and you have no place you are forced to be at, you will wait for the sun to shine again. But anyways, I'm getting off track. I would love to call in sick today but the list of things that should get done just don't stop because mommy doesn't feel well. Savannah desperately needs a bath, her diapers changed, to be fed, and for someone to entertain her. Thats just the basics. Our fridge decided to start leaking last night...YES our BRAND new, 6 week old fridge is leaking. GRR. I will be calling the service men today to have them schedule sometime to look at it. In the meantime, I am maintaining a small puddle of water and discouraging a small toddler to stay out of it. I need to call the Subura dealership to schedule an oil change which I'm so glad I proscrastinated on now because I just received two emails about recalls on my car that also need fixed. I now only have to go there once instead of twice. Proscratination paid off that time. We are all out of bread so I will be baking a loaf of bread today with my nifty bread machine. Switching out two more outlets to white instead of ivory in Savannah's soon to be bedroom. Hopefully installing a new ceiling fan in her room if the directions don't take me forever to read. Dishes, laundry, and paying some bills are also on the top of my list. Grocery shopping needs to get done but I will wait for it to stop raining before I do that. Well there's my list of things to do today. Who gets bored? Savannah is now up and my day is off to the running. First I will have a cup of hot chocolate.

It gets better and better

It has been over a month since I blogged. We have been very busy in the Raiders house which included a trip to Grandma and Grandpa's in Green Bay. People have told me with parenting that each stage gets better. This stage so far I would have to say is one of my favorites. The things that Savannah discovers on a daily basis is so inspiring to me too. I love all the peeks, squeals, and chasing around. Don't get me wrong, its very exhausting at the end of the day especially as I will get bigger eventually. Last night I was woken up by Savannah stirring in her bed and whimpering so I went in to check on her. I know some parents tell me to just let her be and let her put herself back to sleep but I am not that type of person to just fall back to sleep without checking to make sure everything is ok. I went in to find that she had leaked through her diaper and was laying in wet and coldness. I picked her up to change her pj's, diaper, and bedding. It was 4am and I was smiling because God had chosen me to be her mom. I don't mind getting up in the middle of the night. I know its for such a short time and I will miss those nighttime snuggles soon. I enjoy the times now that she brings me a book and climbs on my lap to read her a story. It always helps me to get my mind back into perspective on what's important in life. I'm so excited to bring the next member of our family home and see Savannah interact with her new sibling. Yes I do face the anxiety of how Savannah will handle not being the center of attention anymore but I know we will all adjust just fine in time. I can't wait to see what the next stage and the next one and the next one after that will bring. Being a parent is truly one of the best gifts you can receive in this life.

My lil helper

Today as I did the dishes, swept the floor, and made the meals I had this little shadow behind me. Savannah is just hitting the stage of "monkey see, monkey do." It is fun to have a little helper despite the fact that she sometimes makes more work for me than when I started. Now when I open the dishwasher to unload it, I quickly scan it for knives and anything that she can hurt herself with. Waving the knife at me once was more than enough "help" for me. She is getting the concept of the dust pan but not fully yet. She usually sits herself down in my pile with the dust pan next to her picking up the pile with her fingers. After she loses patience with how long its taking she stands up and wiggles her butt walking around the kitchen dispersing "the pile" that she just got done sitting in. Sweep the floor once more. She now wants me to hold her when I'm cooking so she can see whats going on up there and what I am making. I am trying to get into the habit of turning on the oven light when I bake so she can watch it bake.

Savannah has also become quite the handyman. She watches daddy go around using screwdrivers and hammers. When a tool absentmindedly gets left within her reach she wastes no time to use her assisting skills. She has to always be at our feet trying to figure out just exactly what we are doing. It's so much fun watching her little brain work and try to discover new things. It tells me that she's grasping things and wanting to learn. Now if I could only teach her to put the laundry away instead of taking it out.

It's a Wonderful Life

So we are on our 3rd week of having our stuff. You would think that everything would be put in its place and the place would be free of boxes. Umm I would call those people, wrong! The garage finally got organized this weekend enough to squeeze my car in there. Once we have our garage sale and sell our extra lawn mower, it all should fit. The landscaping in the front of the house is looking gorgeous. The previous owners had some overgrown bushes and vines in the front which we tore up to plant some beautiful flowering plants. We also repainted the front door and shutters. Lots and lots of projects. It is such a joy to be able to own a house again and not rent. We don't have to ask a landlord if its ok to paint a wall. Our money is actually going towards paying down a house instead of paying the guy who owns the house. Jeff and I have always just been more into the buying of a house instead of renting. Thats just who we are.

Everything is not all in its place partially because we are still waiting for a few things to be fixed. Our king size sleigh bed frame was broke when they were loading it in Massachusetts. Therefore, I have two fairly good size pieces of furniture just hanging out against my wall making it hard to hang stuff up. I also need to still paint Savannah's room and the nursery eventually. I want to pick out the bedding before I paint either room because I'm only painting them once! We are hoping to borrow a bassinet for the baby to sleep in our room until Savannah turns 2 where she will be upgraded to a big girl bed.

Savannah now is a 15 month old. I have no idea how that happened but somehow she grew up. She is a very talkative little girl. I can only understand a few words she says but nevertheless she has a lot to say. I fear that I'm going to have a very vocal little one once she gets the words out so I can understand them. I think in her baby jibberish that she has said mama a couple times. My neighbors were there to witness it and I asked them if they heard what I heard. They said I think that's what she said. I've only waited 8 months for her to say mama after saying dada at 6 months. It's about time! She has also picked up the trait of hitting mommy. When I tell her no she wants to run over and hit me now. She also walks around pointing her pointer finger mumbling off when I scold her. It's so hard not to laugh when she does that. Jeff and I have to remind ourselves that she is acting just like a 15 month old should. When she refuses to get in the shopping cart its because she's learned to walk so she's expressing her independence. Good for her. Tough for mommy and daddy! Soon enough we will understand just how much we underestimated what "having our hands full" really means.

Jeff had a great week last week for sales. He is on the road quite a bit traveling to Dayton, Columbus, Indiana, and northern Kentucky. He comes home usually at night with only having to do one overnight so far. He said that he is pretty much building this territory up from scratch. A good learning experience for someone coming out of training.

This pregnancy is going pretty smoothly. No major bumps so far. I have just been struggling with taking my prenatal vitamin. Either forgetting to take it or getting sick from taking it. That happened in the first trimester with Savannah too. Just have to last another week or so until I am feeling better...hopefully or at least partially normal again. All the sacrifice is worth it in the end when your holding that bundle of joy.

Another move over?

After waiting over two weeks for our stuff to arrive to our new location, the moving truck finally pulled up to our house. Jeff and I breathed a sigh of relief to finally have our stuff and begin to make our house a home. That was until the driver announced that he couldn't fit all of our stuff on the semi. Yes! They had to leave 30 boxes in Massachusetts. Now as I unpack the other boxes, I am slowly realizing which boxes were left behind. We hopefully will be getting the remainder of our things back to us by this weekend. Lets all keep our fingers crosses on that one and that nothing comes up missing. We are very grateful however, to have the things we do have. I enjoyed a great night of sleep on a bed for the first time in 2 weeks.

This move was definitely a difficult move. I'm not as motivated to get things unpacked this time around. My pregnancy is making me very tired lately and I can't wait for second trimester to kick in so I have some energy again. This time around, I can't just place Savannah in one spot and come back to check on her. I'm constantly checking on her to see what she's gotten into or if she's closed the door on herself to a room. She is also to the age where she realizes something is different and gets very clingy. Carrying her around the house is a lot of work and when I sit down to hold her she just wants to wiggle so much making that uncomfortable too. It makes it really hard to get things done with a toddler now.

I had my first doctor appointment last Wednesday also. The doctor said that everything looks good. We saw a strong heartbeat on the ultrasound and saw our little bear cub. Seeing a baby on the screen never ceases to amaze me.

Updating the blog

I haven't had much time to blog lately with it being summer and all the craziness of a move coming up. We finally got word today that packers will be coming to pack our stuff up on Friday and the loaders will be here on Saturday. Saturday night we will load up both our cars and hit the road for Philadelphia for our first stop then it will be on to Pittsburgh to visit some more family. I'm not quite as apprehensive about this trip as I was with the first one. I am still a little because Savannah and I will be riding solo in one car while Jeff drives the other one. We decided to take two cars because of the amount of stuff we need to take. Things that the moving company won't take plus a weeks worth of stuff for Jeff, Savannah and I. We barely were able to get everything in the car when we drove out here and with Savannah's reach getting a little out of hand we decided not to load the backseat as much this time. I was having visions of her pulling boxes/bags of stuff on her and me trying to maneuver in the backseat to fix it.

I have been feeling really good with this pregnancy. Besides the swollen/bloated abdomen, at times I wouldn't even remember I was pregnant. I find myself having to remind myself that I am. With Savannah, I had a constant nauseous state hanging over me. It is quite contrary with this one. It almost makes me a little nervous that somethings wrong because I feel so ok. Jeff told me that I'm probably not as tired because I have so much on my mind right now preparing for the move. I'm guessing that I will be crashing any day.

When we first arrived in Massachusetts I knew that we wouldn't be staying here long and that it was a temporary move. Little did I know that "temporary" meant unpack your times to look at them for a few months only to pack them back up. I find myself resenting our current place more and more each day as I grow more anxious to get settled into our new house. I'm ready to have everything organized and be able to kick my feet up. Maybe I will get all my nesting out so I won't feel like doing it for a few more months. I highly doubt it but I can dream.

I will leave you with the wee bump picture. One of the things I am shocked about with this pregnancy is how fast I stuck out. It may not seem much to some people but with certain jeans the bump refuses to let them button.

A new life begins

Savannah has brought Jeff and I so much joy in our lives. Watching her grow up and explore new things is one of the greatest things that either one of us has experienced. I have thought long and hard about when the appropriate time to share with everyone our exciting news and I feel that God is telling me to rejoice in the gift he has given us. As of today, I am 6 weeks pregnant. Savannah will be a great big sister. We know that the world is not perfect and things could still happen but we also know that God wants us to rejoice when he blesses us with something. We should not worry about things that could happen tomorrow but live in today and rejoice for today. Thats always easier to say then do but nevertheless, that is the standard we should live by. Jeff and I already are talking to the baby and telling him/her about their sister and how much we love both of them. I just can't wait for February now!