And Now We Are Three

It's been a little over two weeks since Mr. Aiden made his debut. The past two weeks have been a bit of a blur, an amazing, tiring, wonderful, stressful blur. I am slowly getting used to life as a new Mommy. Getting used to not getting a whole lot done other than baby cuddles, constant feeding and diaper changes and grabbing a few minutes of sleep here and there. It's getting easier. I am slowly learning his cues and signals, learning not to jump up at every sound he makes, learning to do things one handed and learning how to function on a lot less sleep. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Around Here

Have you missed me?
Here's what's been going on around here the past couple of weeks.
Shawn and I celebrated our 5th anniversary with a couple of days in Sedona:


While we were away, our niece made her arrival a little bit early. Welcome to the world Miss Camryn!


Dog sitting this cute girl:


Making some progress on the baby's room:


Doing lots of baby laundry and putting things away:


Doing a little scrapping:


Getting a new computer (after mine was out for repairs for weeks) and finally being able to upload and edit photos from the past few months. Here's a little glimpse at the baby shower photos I finally got edited today:


And last but not least, waiting patiently (or not so patiently) for Baby Benaim to arrive.

The First 10 of the Summer

Martha Stewart

1. The crib is finally up. Though the casters don't fit, so I need to call the manufacturer and hopefully get new ones. Without them, the crib is a little bit short.

2. Got my new teaching certificate yesterday...I'm official and no longer an "intern" teacher.

3. Had an OB appointment today. All is good with baby Benaim. Just a few more weeks to go.

4. Feeling huge, even though everyone says I'm small for almost 37 weeks.

5. Enjoyed some lemon pancakes for breakfast today with Michelle. Yum!

6. Looking forward to our 5th anniversary on Thursday.

7. Got new pj's, new curtains (to replace the ones the dry cleaner ruined) and a polka dot nursing bra at Target today.

8. Purchased this print from John Golden's etsy store for the baby's room today. Hooray for coupon codes!


9. Spending a lot of time pinning recipes on my pinterest food board, yet we ordered pizza tonight because I didn't feel like cooking. Well, really because I didn't feel like grocery shopping and pickings are slim around here unless you want cereal, popsicles or cheese.

10. Not thrilled about the heat wave around here. Supposed to be 111 or something ridiculous tomorrow. While I'm loving many things about summer, the heat is definitely not one of them. Late pregnancy and heat are not a good pair, unless my giant belly is floating in a pool.

Happy first day of summer!

Musical Interlude

These Days

She cooks when she's motivated. She tried a couple new recipes this week from her growing collection on pinterest. Early this week she made this:

Spinach Artichoke Pasta

and tonight she tried this:

Gnocchi with Pesto, Green Beans and Ricotta

Both were easy and quite tasty.

She writes a million and five thank you notes for all the wonderful baby goods she's received.

She learns about Core Knowledge (3 day training last week) and DIBELS (I voluntarily signed up for this training happening on Wednesday, I'm crazy I know).

She waits impatiently for her husband to take care of a few things so she can work on the baby's room.

She worries about getting her to do list done before the little one arrives.

She wastes a lot of time playing Words With Friends and surfing blogs and pinterest.

She works on finishing her last class for her teaching certificate and her portfolio for grad school.

She scraps and takes bad photos of her layouts:




She is grateful to have more time on her hands so she can rest and relax a bit.

Rest and Relaxation

This weekend was the first time in a very long time that I tried my best to do very little. For the past year I have been going none stop, it's a little bit tough for me to relax. I still have a lengthy to do list and plenty that needs to be done before the baby comes, but decided this weekend, my first official weekend on summer break, should be all about relaxing. I did manage to get the laundry done (mostly), go to the grocery store and finish 2 assignments for my last post bacc class (have a midterm to take this week, so they had to be done), but other than that I tried my best to relax and have fun. Here's few highlights of mission relaxation:

• Much of my weekend was spent on the couch or propped up on pillows in bed.
• I spent lots of time on the ipad, a lot of it spent googling blogs I wanted to catch up on since I am still without my laptop and my trusty bookmarks.
• pinterest
• Finished 2 books that have been sitting in my pile partially read for weeks...this one and this one. Kind of a giant contrast in style and information, but both worth reading. Next up, I read and/or finish one of the fiction books in my pile.
• Attempted to tackle my magazine pile and read 2 issues of Martha Stewart Living, an issue of Whole Living, one Ready Made and an American Baby. I also managed to purge a couple old issues I had in a pile because I had a few pages ear marked for tearing out. I still have tons of Elle Decors to get too, as well as a the newest issues of Living, Ready Made and Whole Living. I'm a sucker for magazines.....
• Knit and unknit several rows on the stripey baby blanket. I should not knit when I'm sleepy and ready for bed.
• Was asleep around 9pm both Friday and Saturday night. Exhausted much?
• Cuddled the dog we were dog sitting for the weekend.
• Went to see this movie with Shawn on Sunday. Funny, but not as crazy and hilarious as the first one:

• Ate tons of fruit. We came home from the store with cantaloupe, raspberries, peaches, red cherries and white cherries. LOVE summer fruit.
• Watched a few shows in my giant backlog on Tivo...Army Wives, Criminal Minds, Bones, Glee....still have more Glee, Top Chef, Grey's and Brothers and Sisters to watch.
• Went to the mall yesterday to get Shawn some new clothes. Managed to purchase about 5 maternity tank tops from Forever 21 (gotta love the prices for clothes I'll only wear another couple months) and got some undies (as mine are starting to be uncomfortable) and checked out lovely nursing bras at Motherhood Maternity.
• Ordered the rocking chair and a few necessities off my amazon list that I had not received as gifts.
  
• Speaking of gifts, went through my school shower gifts and tried to make nice little piles....baby's room is still just a bunch of gift piles....

80% of the above items were done in pj's or lounging clothes from the couch or my bed. Felt good. I'm trying to take it easy the rest of this week, though my week is starting to fill up with to do's and activities, including scrapping with Miss Ally, IKEA with Shawn and a movie with my mom. In fact, I'd better get off the computer and get myself out the door to my OB appointment and go take my midterm (getting it over with)....

Hope your weekend was as relaxing as mine.

Happy Tuesday!

It's Tuesday

and I'm actually writing a Tuesday 10.....

1. The screen on my laptop died this weekend. Which means, my commuter boots up fine, but all I see is a black screen. Fab. The good news: the manufacturer has agreed to repair. The bad news: the computer must be shipped to them for repairs and will take a couple weeks. The really bad news: this means all my files, which I need for grad school assignments are inaccessible right now. Ugh!

2. School is out in 1.5 days, which means I have only a few days left of work.....and because I'll be on maternity leave when school starts, after Friday, I won't work again until October!

3. It's hot. Pregnant Erin really does not like the heat. So looking forward to my last couple weeks in JULY. I think I'll need lots of ice cream.

4. Looking forward to my school baby shower tomorrow.

5. Still haven't purchased thank you gifts for my classroom aides yet....i've not got much time, but I keep wavering about what to do for them.

6. I'm currently sitting in the dark. Shawn's got a bad migraine and I'm too tired to go into another room.

7. Looking forward to working on the baby's room soon. I keep having dreams that he comes home and his room is still just piles of stuff.

8. I'm kind of disappointed I haven't had any real cravings. There are definitely foods I prefer these days, but nothing I've had to have.

9. I am in need of a pajama day. One where I not only stay in my pajamas, I do nothing productive at all. I'm thinking Saturday might be a good day for this. Can't work on school any way with my current computer situation.

10. I'm thinking an early bed time tonight sounds good. I'm pretty non functional right now...thinking bed and an episode of Weeds sounds like a plan.

Happy Tuesday!

PS The situation with my computer means I likely won't be posting pictures any time soon. I know I promised baby shower photos.