3 Months In Living with a Toddler and Infant

Well, we made it through the first 3 months. And what an emotional roller coaster. It's a little crazy that Ana is now 3 months. Time has been crazy where some days it crawled along and others days zoomed by. Either way, it's been a learning experience and here's what I learned.

A Not So Natural Childbirth

So 2 1/2 years ago I posted about my childbirth experience with Emily. And it was a pretty "uneventful" experience. Everything happened as it should have. Well.... it has been the COMPLETE opposite with Ana. It was definitely a whole lot worse than with Emily. This just goes to show that every pregnancy and labor experience is different even with the same mother.

Last Post of 2015 (Christmas, 3rd Trimester Update, and Name Reveal!)

Merry Christmas, everyone!

We didn't do anything big this year because of #2, but we did do some things for Emily to make Christmas fun for her. I took today off as cook so I didn't make anything fancy to eat. Instead we concentrated on making sure Emily enjoyed opening her presents and playing with her new toys. And as she naps from the excitement this morning, I'm taking this time to give you guys an update on things since things will start to get really hectic once 2016 (!) arrives.

Emily's present area

It's a HUGE Update!

Things are staying busy here at the Lyons' house. And as autumn has finally arrived (although I will miss summer), I figure I would do a summary of what has happened this past season since my last update in July.

And It's A.....

So I had my 2nd trimester ultrasound a couple of days ago. Which means it's the cool one where you see them take measurements of everything. We were really looking forward to this one. It's something David and I can enjoy together where I don't feel bad for taking him to an appointment where nothing really happens. Haha! To be fair, listening to #2's heartbeat is always great but my visits haven't been very long or interesting; which is a good thing because it means everything is normal. And normal is good!

20 Weeks (definitely bigger than the first time)

#2

The #2 refers to the fact that I am pregnant again! I actually announced it a couple months ago because I wanted to announce it on my birthday. A few have also gone by since I passed the first trimester, but I wanted to talk about it to update everyone. (Since I know you're all so curious.)

18 weeks

The New Home Sweet Home

So there's a good reason I haven't posted anything for a while (again). We were in the process of buying and selling homes! It was a whirlwind of prepping for showings, seeing houses and dealing with 2 closings within a month. It was a tad hectic here.

But Sue! You haven't been in your house for very long. Correct. We have lived at house for 2 years once we finally moved, but certain circumstances had us consider moving now.

Update in Life

Happy Easter friends!

It's Been a While!

It's been several months since my last post. Nothing incredible major happened in that time. It was more like a bunch of little events that piled up onto each other and it's harder to get back on track with a toddler.


So, what happened?

We traveled to the Tampa Bay area to visit the in-laws and friends and go to a wedding.

Emily and grandpa

We celebrated Christmas with a very sick baby.

Not fun.

We celebrated my mom's birthday by flying my parents here for a week. My sister and her boyfriend also flew in to celebrate.

Birthday dinner: lasagna, salad, cheesecake

Emily got sick... again, but not as bad as Christmas.

David got sick. I got through all the sickness with a mild cold, whew!

And here we are today, with me having the time to catch up!

So, hopefully, I will be a little more consistent with my posts. I have some recipes to share, show crafts that I have completed, and share baby knowledge, like, we're sleep training Emily right now to transition easily when Daylight Savings begins. Also, I want to share the stuff that I'm watching or reading because I love talking about them! Like, right now, I am watching the second season of Game of Thrones. I'm only done with the first episode but it's really good! Good first episode for a season.

Crossing fingers guys!

1 Year Retropsection

So~~~~ My baby is one!! Seriously, where has the time gone? And in the 6 months since my last update, Emily has changed so much... again!

We had a great first birthday with my parents flying in to celebrate. I got a cake for Emily and we had a traditional setting with fruits and rice cakes.My mom even borrowed a hanbok (traditional Korean dress) from a friend for Emily to wear.

Happy birthday!

Pancake Weekend

Yay life! But as long as I'm doing something interesting, forgetting to blog is okay. 

So, how this happened....

Pancake Cake

Traveling Alone for a Breastfeeding Mom

It's been so long since my last post. Oh, life. But I really wanted to post about my adventure traveling alone and pumping.

So, a few weeks ago, my book club celebrated our 5 year anniversary. And we planned a weekend trip to a house in Virginia. It was a wonderful time but underlying with some stress.

Birthday Brunch

This past weekend was my birthday! And as birthday weekends go, this one was pretty good. It included my family, friends, video games and a 5k.

First birthday with my family!

Chalk Art Festival

It's been so long since I posted about an outing. Even though Emily is still on 2 naps, it's at a pretty consistent time so if we plan things well, we can maximize how long we are about to be out. Her first nap is always short so I don't feel too bad if she falls asleep in her stroller but I do want her to be home for her second nap because that is the long one.

I found out that the Chalk Art Festival was happening this weekend so we decided to head over downtown to look at the chalk art. This definitely reminded me of the Festival of the Masters at Downtown Disney. Obviously, this one was only chalk art but the Festival of the Masters also had chalk artists at work. Of course we went Sunday because that's when a majority of the art would be complete.

I'm so glad we went. The weather was perfect, Emily was in a good mood, and the art was fantastic.

Artists hard at work

Mother's Day 5k

Sometimes I feel like "Hallmark" holidays are a little much. Especially, if someone gets really bent out of shape if they aren't given an expensive gift or something. But, Mother's Day is a nice little holiday to take a day and really appreciate someone you love and I do like that about these kinds of holidays.

Pre-Baby Body (Not So Much)

There are a lot of websites/blogs about going back to the pre-baby body. Just perusing Pinterest and reading the descriptions, they usually say, "Lose weight in 6 weeks!" or "How I Lost All My Baby Weight Doing (Insert exercises here)". I was never a fan of dieting and doing a specific exercise to get a specific result for losing weight. I am more about living a healthy lifestyle by eating well and staying active and fit.

So after 7 months, I'm finally going to talk about getting back to being fit. It's still an ongoing process but I want others to know that there shouldn't be any pressure in losing that baby fat and going back to you "pre-baby self". Because, honestly, there is no going back to your pre-baby body...

6 Month Retrospection

Unbelievable, but Emily is now 6 months old. What happened to the time!? When I think back, there are moments when time was just inching along and it was going to be forever until bedtime. Then there are moments where I can't believe a week whizzed by and I'm not sure what I did in that time.

Whenever I have a moment to myself (it actually happens now!), I sometimes think back to how we have grown individually and as a family.

So here it is, a look back to the last 6 months

My 6-month old! ;.;

Sleepy Time

Remember when I said breastfeeding was the hardest thing ever? Well, here's hardest thing ever #2, sleep. Sleep is the next hardest thing. At first, it doesn't seem like a big deal because newborns sleep all the time and young infants sleep a lot and their sleep doesn't need to be regulated. For the most part they just need to sleep a lot.

That was the case with Emily at first. She ate, slept, pooped around the clock with little issue (except during her growth spurts; those are awful).

Sleeping at the hospital

Sleeping at home (That was her "nope-nope" face)

Then a couple months later she wouldn't nap really well. And then she hit 4 months and everything kind of went down the drain. She was going through sleep regression and having a growth spurt at the same time. I think was also in her wonder week period, so lovely. It was not a fun time and for a week we were not happy campers; mom and dad were exhausted and baby was grumpy. She also decided that she would not sleep as well as she used to.

That's when I decided that it was time to sleep train. So here's been our journey so far.

Photos of a sleeping baby never gets old

Watch All the TV Shows!

So, this blog hasn't been much in the way of "hippie" or "geek" lately. A lot of baby related posts though. Which makes sense since it has been my life the past 4.5 months. However, I wanted to share the TV shows that I have been able to watch during this time.

"But Sue, how do you find the time with an infant?"

Simple. I watch TV while I breastfeed. I love watching her feed but it tends to get boring when she feeds for an hour... or more. There's only so much I can take with just staring at her feed. I do read as well but that requires me to strain my neck so I can't do it for a long period of time. And it's hard to focus on words in the middle of the night during a night feed when my eyes are bleary from waking up suddenly.

So since I started getting the hang of breastfeeding, I took to watching a whole lot of TV. And now that she is getting bigger and her tummy can take in more milk and she's in daycare, the amount of TV I have been watching decreased. Which I am okay with. It makes it feel like things are going back to normal for me.

I figure this was a great time to share which shows I have been watching these last 4 months.

Christmas Tradition

Merry Christmas everyone!

Even though we are having a very lowkey Christmas this year, I am very excited. This will be our first Christmas together as a family. Last year was our first Christmas as a married couple but we traveled for Christmas so we did put up a tree or anything. And we did not have Emily so this is our first Christmas where we can start new traditions together.