2011 in Review

January -- In the middle of the month we worked on our bathroom remodel.  On January 31st we learned that our lives were about to change in a big way.  We found out we were pregnant!

February -- On the 5th I celebrated my 25th birthday by getting new tires on my Malibu.  Near the end of the month we met my obstetrician and had our first look at our little peanut.

March -- I slept through most of March.  Seriously.  I got home from work at 3PM and was asleep before 7PM for the entire month.  It was the only real symptom I had my first trimester.  It started suddenly and ended suddenly sometime in April.

April -- I made it to the second trimester!  This is also the month we took the plunge and bought new furniture.  We had been shopping for dining room furniture for three years and finally found a set we both liked.  We also bought a new sofa.

May -- This month we made a quick one day trip to Missouri for the hubs' little brother's wedding.  It's also the month we headed to the radiology department at the hospital for our anatomy scan.  I was convinced the baby was a girl, so imagine my surprise when the ultrasound tech told us it was a boy!

June -- This is the month where our garage door died.  We bought a new door and installed it ourselves.  Yes, we.  People were appalled when I mentioned that I was five months pregnant and helped my husband install a garage door.  Oops.  We also celebrated our third wedding anniversary on the 21st.

July -- This month marked the end of my second trimester.  It's also the month I went PRN at work.  Being a CNA involves a lot of physical labor and it was taking its toll on my body.  I also managed to fail my one-hour glucose screening.  I cried SO much at my appointment when I found out.  My poor obstetrician didn't know what to think.  On the 29th we celebrated my husband's 27th birthday.  He's getting so old!

August -- We really started building up our cloth diaper stash in August.  I wanted to do cloth as a way to save money and the hubs agreed because well... he spoils me.  We also started buying baby gear for our little guy.

September -- We went apple picking for the first time!  I also started to get uncomfortable near the end of the month as the ligaments started to relax in my pelvis.  I was also the size of a house by this time.

October -- This was a b-u-s-y month.  Sort of.  A lot of hurry-up-and-wait.  We finally finished the nursery a couple of weeks before the baby was due.  The Hubs would frequently find me sitting in there in the evenings talking to my belly.  It's my favorite room in the house.  After my due date I made the difficult decision to be induced.  A mere 24 hours after starting the induction process, our son, Gene, was born!

November -- My little man turned one month old on the 19th.  How is that possible?  We celebrated his first Thanksgiving with friends since I had a c-section and wasn't ready to travel yet.  I also opened up about my struggles with breastfeeding.

December -- We took Gene to meet Santa Claus.  We also celebrated our first Christmas as a family of three.  Gene is the best gift we have received this year.

Swagbucks!

I am a stay-at-home-mom so I'm paid in smiles and baby giggles rather than cash in my pocket.  Unfortunately, stores don't accept giggles as a valid form of payment for merchandise. 

That's where Swagbucks comes in.  I know I've mentioned it a couple of times, but I love it and wanted to take a minute to talk about it.  Again.

Swagbucks is an online search engine that allows you to earn points (called Swagbucks) that you can use to purchase prizes in their store.  I always use my bucks to buy Amazon gift cards.  I used the gift cards I purchased over the summer to buy cloth diapers before G arrived.  

By the time Christmas was near I had earned another $70 in Amazon gift cards.  I put them toward the Kindle Fire I bought for the hubs for Christmas.  It was a huge help.  Since December 1st I've already earned enough Swagbucks to get $30 in Amazon gift cards (they have other cards available, Amazon is just my favorite) just from searching.

Signing up is simple.  Just click on the banner above to register.  If you sign up before the end of the year, you can use the code HOLIDAYSWAG to earn an extra 100 Swagbucks.  It must be entered during the registration process to work.

What are you waiting for?  Go!  Search!  Win!

Christmas 2011

Christmas is busy for us.  It seems like everyone wants to have a gathering at their house that we go to.  This year we had Gene and everyone wanted to see him.

He had a meltdown 5 seconds after I took this photo

We opened gifts with in-laws at breakfast...

Four generations with Genes at each end

...spent time with my family before lunch...

All of the grandkids and great-grandkids

...and had lunch with more in-laws.

We had a great time seeing everyone, but traveling with an infant is exhausting!  He essentially missed all of his naps while we were gone.  It made for one fussy baby and a very frazzled Mama.

To: Gene From: Your Parents

Since he's so little this year, we didn't buy G a lot for Christmas.

He only had two gifts under the tree from us.

One we purchased.

One I made.

Pajama Gene

I love the idea of opening new pajamas on Christmas Eve, so I picked up a pair for Gene at Tar-jay.  He looked adorable and cozy in them.  Next year I'll make sure there are pajamas under the tree for everyone, but this year I ran out of time.

The gift I made for him was a blanket.  It's a simple fleece blanket.  It's camouflage on one side and don't-shoot-me orange on the other.  The hubs picked the fabric out back in September.  Raging carpal tunnel followed by giving birth and adjusting to motherhood delayed me from sewing it until December.  Just in time for Christmas!

The smile on his face shows that he clearly loves the blanket and that makes his daddy happy.

Reading List 2011

If you remember from the beginning of the year, I announced that I was going to read 75 books in 2011.

But then I got pregnant and went to bed by 7PM for the better part of three months.

In June I set up a Goodreads account and started tracking my reading progress.  Fortunately I'd been listing the books here on my blog so I was able to add them as well.  Unfortunately, I realized that my goal of 75 books was out of reach, especially considering I was about to give birth, so I changed my goal to 50.  

By some miracle, I was able to reach my reading goal.  In fact, I surpassed my reading goal.

By one book.

Here's the reading list for 2011...

1. The MacGregors: Serena & Cain -- Nora Roberts

2. Sundays at Tiffany's -- James Patterson

3. This is Where I Leave You -- Jonathan Tropper

4. O'Hurley's Return -- Nora Roberts

5. Marley & Me -- John Grogan

6. Firefly Lane -- Kristin Hannah

7. The Trials of the Honorable F. Darcy -- Sara Angelini

8. The Wedding -- Nicholas Sparks

9. The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels -- Ree Drummond

10. Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone -- JK Rowling

11. Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story -- Isabel Gillies

12. What to Expect When You're Expecting -- Heidi Murkoff

13. Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later -- Francine Pascal

14. The Covenant -- Beverly Lewis

15. The Betrayal -- Beverly Lewis

16. The Sacrifice -- Beverly Lewis

17. The Prodigal -- Beverly Lewis

18. The Revelation -- Beverly Lewis

19. The Judgement -- Beverly Lewis

20. Fahrenheit 451 -- Ray Bradbury

21. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers -- Mary Roach

22. The Backyard Homestead -- Carleen Madigan

23. Shopaholic Takes Manhattan -- Sophie Kinsella

24. The Secret -- Beverly Lewis

25. The Missing -- Beverly Lewis

26. The Telling -- Beverly Lewis

27. The Pioneer Woman Cooks -- Ree Drummond

28. The Parting -- Beverly Lewis

29. The Forbidden -- Beverly Lewis

30. The Longing -- Beverly Lewis

31. Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince -- JK Rowling

32. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows -- JK Rowling

33. Wicked: The Life & Times of the Wicked Witch of the West -- Gregory Maguire

34. PS, I Love You -- Cecilia Ahern

35. The Complete Serger Handbook -- Chris James

36. The Mercy -- Beverly Lewis

37. Ina May's Guide to Childbirth -- Ina May Gaskin

38. Quidditch Through the Ages -- JK Rowling

39. Beauty & the Beast -- Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont

40. The Debutante Divorcee -- Plum Sykes

41. Go the F*ck to Sleep -- Adam Mansbach

42. The Five Love Languages -- Gary Chapman

43. True Colors -- Kristin Hannah

44. The Pact -- Jodi Picoult

45. Change of Heart -- Jodi Picoult

46. Understanding Exposure -- Bryan Peterson

47. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress -- Rhoda Janzen

48. Something Borrowed -- Emily Giffin

49. The Friday Night Knitting Club -- Kate Jacobs

50. Knit Two -- Kate Jacobs

51. Knit the Season -- Kate Jacobs

So there you have it.  Those are all of the books I read this year.  To follow along next year, add me as your friend on Goodreads.

Gene Meets Gene

The hubs and I grew up in Missouri (we were neighbors!) and spent the holiday weekend there with family.

One of the things I was most looking forward to this weekend was introducing G to my grandparents.  They are two of my favorite people and I was so excited to take G over to their house..

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but G is named after my grandpa.  He was so tickled when he heard that we were naming our little boy Gene.  Other members of our family are named after him, but it's always their middle name.  We're the first in our family to use grandpa's first name as the first name of our child.

Gene with his Great-Grandpa Gene

My grandparents were over-the-moon excited to meet G.  In typical G fashion, my baby looked at everything except the person who was holding him.  My grandpa mentioned it, so I held G while he talked to him and made faces.  G thought he was silly.

G & Great-Grandma Nona

Unfortunately we didn't get to stay very long at their house.  A certain baby's routine was thrown off by the trip and completely skipped his afternoon nap.  He wasn't much fun for the next three hours...

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Crafty Christmas

We spent Thanksgiving at a friend's house this year.  Just after lunch, the hubs pointed out an interesting piece of artwork hanging in their upstairs hallway.  It was a large canvas covered in melted crayons.  We asked her about it and found out she made it herself from something she saw on Pinterest.

I looked up the particular pin she was referring to and the hubs and I decided that we wanted to make one for G's nursery.

So we did.

(I use "we" loosely here.  I bought the supplies and hubs decided to make it without my help.)

We organized the crayons by color and lined them up...

Then attached them to the canvas with hot glue...

Hubs' favorite part was melting the crayons.  I was surprised that the hair dryer got hot enough to melt crayons, but glad because it meant not buying something special to use. :)

I love the bright colors.  It'll look great in the nursery!

Mama's Work is Never Done

A couple of weeks ago the hubs and I had the following conversation:

Hubs: So how do you like staying at home with the baby?

Me: I love it!

Hubs: Is it the best job you've ever had?

Me: It is, except I have to work nights and weekends.

We were joking around, but it's true.  This is my job and I love it, but I'm "on-call" 24/7.  There's always something that needs done, whether it be folding laundry, fixing a meal, or snuggling with my little guy. 

I've accepted the fact that my house is never going to be as clean as it was before G was born.  There's very little chance of all of my laundry being clean at once.  The dogs may not be fed until 4:30PM.

But that's okay.  Even though this is the toughest job I've ever had, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Two Months

My sweet little man

How is it possible that my little baby is already two months old?  

Wasn't I just discharged from the hospital like, last week?

No?  Okay.

So my sweet baby Gene is two months old and will be nine weeks old on Wednesday.  Time is flying by, but I am having a blast.  He does the most adorable things now.  He smiles all the time.  In the mornings after he fusses for a couple of minutes he'll look at me with the biggest grin on his face as if he's saying, "Good morning, mama!  Let's play!"  He also likes to "talk" to me.  It's just the coolest thing because we're communicating.  It melts my heart.  He coos at me, I coo at him, and then we keep doing it.  It goes on for several minutes before he stops.

He also has some not-so-cute things he does.  He's not a huge fan of naps right now.  He definitely fights them.  I can rock him to sleep but the second I lay him in the crib he wakes up.  Sometimes he'll nap well in his swing, but other times he won't.  I have driven around town to get him to fall asleep, only to have him wake up the second I put the car in park.  So the nap routine is definitely a work in progress.  Hopefully things continue to improve.

I'm not sure on his weight, but his two month Well Baby checkup is Thursday.  At his one month appointment he was 8lbs 7.6oz.  He eats enough that I'm sure he's gained, though people tell me all the time how tiny he is.  Seriously.  A woman at Tar-jay asked if he was two weeks old the other day. 

So we'll see.  No matter what he weighs he has still brought nothing but immense joy into our lives.  What did we ever do without him?

Learning

Things I've learned from my son:

 -- I may not get to eat my dinner when it's hot, but at least I have food to eat every night.

-- Showering each day is a luxury, not a necessity.

-- Tiny people can produce a lot more poop than should be possible.

 

-- I love him more than anything in the world and continue to love him more each day.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I just wanted to let you know about some big changes coming to the blog in 2012, some of which are already in place.

Name Change

Yes, I have changed the name of my blog.  You are now looking at the blog of the Cheerful Homemaker.  My old name didn't really tell you what the blog was about and left me in a permanent identity crisis.  Hopefully the new name will make things a bit more clear as to what niche my blog will fit into.

New URL

Oh yes.  After wanting to for quite some time, I've gone ahead and purchased a domain name.  I feel so fancy.  I actually considered moving my blog over to WordPress and even set up an account, but it wasn't as user-friendly as Blogger.  I've been messing around with it for more than a week and still had no idea what I was doing, so I scrapped the idea and bought CheerfulHomemaker.com through Google.

"Spring Cleaning"

With the new year, new name, and new URL, I'm considering starting from scratch.  This means I may be removing a large chunk of my old posts.  I may recycle some of the ideas from my old posts and rewrite some things, but I haven't decided yet.

New Look

It's going to look pretty rough around here while I work on things, but bear with me.  I'm hoping to have everything set up and ready to go on January 1st.  I'll still post, but it may only be a couple of times a week.  With Gene and Christmas coming up, I've got a lot to do between now and the end of the year.

I hope you'll stick around.  You'll automatically be directed to my new URL if you type in the old one, but you'll likely need to add my new web address to your Google Reader.  Don't worry, you won't lose me!

Birthdays

Before I got pregnant with Gene, I never really thought about my own mortality. Death was something that happened to old people. I was young and healthy, why think about dying?

But then this little guy showed up and he changed everything.


He's made me want to change.

I want to eat a healthier diet.

I want to get regular checkups with my doctor.

I want to be there to watch him grow up, to see what kind of man he will become.

I want more time with my family.

Because of this little tiny person, I look at my life through new eyes. With the new year I want to be a new me. Not only for him, but for myself. So many illnesses can be prevented by simply making better choices.

Won't you make better choices? We could all use more birthdays.



This post is sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

Christmas Movies & Music

I love that time between Thanksgiving and New Year's when Christmas music and movies are played over and over and over again.  My Pandora is currently set to a Christmas only station.  If we had cable, I would be watching enough Christmas movies to make my husband sick.

I've heard a lot of Michael Buble on my Pandora station and just love his voice.  I'm hoping that Santa remembers that I asked for this and brings it to me for Christmas.  It's a lot more fun opening something someone else bought than to go and buy it for yourself.

This is one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies.  I actually own a bunch of Charlie Brown holiday movies.  I especially love the sad Christmas tree.  In fact, I bought one a few years ago. We may have to get this movie out soon and watch it.

I'm linking up to Andrea from My Chihuahua Bites for her weekly 2 on Tuesday link party.  She is having a giveaway this week!

He's Making a List...

Gene met Santa Claus!

Santa told us that getting to snuggle with such a sweet, tiny baby was a treat and thanked us for bringing him out.

We're just wondering what Gene asked Santa to bring him for Christmas!

Hey Cloth Diaper Mamas!

Looking for an opportunity to review cloth diaper related products?  Midnight Mommy is looking for product testers!  Click here for more information.

Hell Hath No Fury...

These three are definitely on Santa's Naughty List this year.

Why, you ask?  How could three pooches as cute and innocent looking as these possibly find their way to the dark side?

Easy.

They woke this little guy up from his nap.

How could such precious puppies wake Mama's little man from the ever sacred nap?

They came into the nursery and started barking at me.

These dogs are not Lassie and Timmy certainly hadn't fallen down the well.

They're just evil.

So Santa is bringing them zero gifts this year.  Not even a lump of coal!

Nap Time

We are big fans of napping here in our house.  We nap, Gene naps, even the dogs nap.

Who am I kidding?  The dogs nap all the time.  

They generally nap in one of two places -- the crate or the cube bed.

Today, however, I was walking through the living room and spotted a brown blob in the most peculiar place.

This is okay, right ma?

That is Re-Pete.  He determined that the best place to nap this morning would be between the boppy and pillow I use while feeding the baby.  They are perched on the stool I rest my feet on.

I'm not sure if I should tell him to get down or praise him for his napping creativity.

Tasty Thursday -- Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti

I will be the first to admit that I am not the best cook in the world.  I can bake like it's nobody's business, but when it comes to real food I'm not so skilled.  I've found plenty of recipes I want to try, but with my sub-par cooking abilities and my husband's blatant refusal to eat certain foods, it's difficult to find ones to try.

I stumbled across Mommy's Kitchen a couple of weeks ago while searching for a Thanksgiving appetizer recipe.  She has a lot of delicious looking dishes on her blog and the directions are clear and easy to follow.  She even has tons of pictures for dummies like myself.

The other day I made her Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti.  It's incredible.  While it was a bit time-consuming, the dish was easy to make.  I will definitely be making it again, though I will do one thing different.  I'll make it in two 8X8 pans so that I can freeze one, as this recipe makes enough to feed an army.  I've been eating leftovers for lunch for the last four days. 

If you decide to try it, let me know how you like it!