Celebrating being ONE

As this post has taken 10 days to create, it'll be a picture-caption post to describe Sterling's special day

First up, was a shamrock green pancake for our St. Patty's baby...ooohhhh

While Sterling was taking her morning nap, we decorated.  We decided to decorate later so Xander would have a place to eat at the table without everything in his way

We didn't wrap all of her presents and sat some of the unwrapped  stuff on her table.  She loved the sunglasses from her Opa!

After nap, Sterling and I went to pick up her balloon bouquet and came home to play with them

While she was playing with her ballons, I started decorating the cakes

Snuggles

We ate pork cutlets for dinner with butter noodles...yummy!  After dinner we opened presents

very cool!  Bitty Baby from Nana!

aaawwwww...my first cabbage patch from Nana!

2 of her presents from us, a very much needed pair of shoes that fit and stay on and then a personalized backpack that I can see coming in very handy during our move.  She also got 4 summer outfits (dresses) and 3 books from us.

List of loot:

From Nana & Papa:  

American Girl Bitty Baby

My First Cabbage Patch

From Opa: 

my first babiators sunglasses (seriously the cutest. thing. ever!!!)

2 dresses

package of hair clips/bands

2 packs of tights

pack of socks

From Grandma: 

2 outfits

my first Bible

barrettes/headbands

stuffed ABC's giraffe

From Auntie Stacy:

Fitness CD (you LOVE this CD!!!)  You're a little dancer!

From Auntie Renee:

$50 gift card to Gymboree (mommy's favorite store to buy from!)

Updated to add a gift received from Grandma's friend Georgia:

2 dresses

After gifts, we read the cards...I guess we did this backwards.  We should have read them first...oops!

Then it was time for CAKE!  We sang happy birthday as she touched and stared at the cake wondering what she's supposed to do

Not quite sure what to think, but brother loved helping eat it

yummy...but later we noticed she broke out on her face again, right on the tip of her nose.  

Clean up time, then stories and bed!  What a day!

What an amazing first year this little girl has brought to our family.  She's truly a blessing and the best gift He can give and loved oh-so-very much!!  Love you little girl!!

 Have a great day!

Sewing

I had more fun sewing today.  Lots accomplished.

So, I mostly did monograms today.  I had the purple and turquoise long sleeve shirts that I wanted to get done because we only have a few more months where she can wear them.  Then the other 3 shirts are going to go with some skirts I'd bought on clearance.  I decided to make matching bibs because have I ever told y'all how much I HATE having my babies cute shirts hidden by a stupid bib?  Well, I do!  All the cute tops you buy in the store always get covered up and I've always hated it.  So, my solution was wonderful...for now :)  

Now, let's talk Xander's shirt.  ha!  Oh, I just laugh when I look at it.  It turned out fine, minus the cut I accidentally slit when trimming around the tack down.  The awesome part about it, when the satin stitch went over the borders, it grabbed the loose part I cut.  Awesome!  Sucky that I cut it though.  haha!

I still haven't taken pictures of the work I did last week.  It was Easter shirts.  They wore one set on Monday and will wear another set tomorrow.  Maybe I'll be able to grab a picture of the one tomorrow and after the other ones get clean, I'll remember to?

I'm hoping to post pictures from Sterling's birthday celebration tomorrow.

Have a great day!

Happy 1st Birthday Sterling

Covered in cake and icing,
your smile stretched ear to ear.
A single candle celebrates,
the joy of your first year.

We sing Happy Birthday,
you play midst wrap and bows.
We marvel at how you touched our lives,
just one year ago.

I remember the first time I held you,

kissed your head, whispered your name.
you've changed our lives forever,
Our hearts will never be the same.

As a child you'll love this day,
for all the sweets and presents too.
As parents we'll love your day,
for the gift we got was you.

Each year we'll add another candle,
so proud to see you grow.
But always with the memory,
of your first day long ago.

~~Unknown

I found this poem and found it to be so perfect for our baby girl.

Sterling...You came into our lives as a surprise and keeps surprising us every day since.  I can't imagine our lives without you and what a blessing you've been!  You have never been the quiet one, very vocal when you want something.  But you LOVE to sleep.  When you were a baby you'd fall asleep anywhere, not so much anymore though.  I thought it was the sweetest thing.  You'd fall asleep in daddy's and papa Jim's arms while sitting up.  The cutest thing ever!  You've grown so fast.  You outweigh your brother and were as tall as him 4 months ago.  Brother had a growth spurt I think because he's winning now.  Whenever we are out people always think you and your brother are twins because you are so big.  You took your first plane ride over the summer to attend your uncles wedding in MN.  It was beautiful and you were able to meet lots and lots of mommy's family.  After visiting mommy's family, we met daddy's parents in NC.  You give mommy the sweetest and wettest kisses ever.  I love them so much.  I ask you if you love me and you nod your head yes.  You're seriously the sweetest kid around!  I could eat you up!  You love your pacifier, soft cuddly blankets, and the little scout dog to listen to as you fall asleep.  You're a great eater.  No more baby foods for you!  You may have an allergy to something, possibly eggs, as your face turns red and swells about 5 minutes after you eat things with them in it.  You're not walking yet, but you cruise and scoot around on your butt really, really fast.  Soon though, very soon.  Your 1st year went so fast.

We love you so SO much, Sterling!  

~mama and dada

Have a great day!

Birthday Eve

It's the day before our little princess turns ONE!  A day to do whatever and have fun!

I spent the first 3 hours of our morning completing our taxes.  Fun!  And I'm so glad I went with a tax accountant this year.  Our taxes were so complicated this year because we had to amend last years, plus do this years with the finalization of the adoption.  There was NO way that I wanted to attempt them.  It may have costed an extreme amount to get them done, but it's well worth it knowing they are done right and if we get audited (which many adoption tax returns do), i can rest assure they are accurate.  This is one huge weight lifted off my shoulders and am so glad to be done.  Move check!

While I was gone, Sterling took a nap and woke up about 15 minutes after I returned.  She's so happy today!  We played for about 2 hours while brother slept.  It's always so much fun to have one on one with each kid.  Xander gets his while Sissy sleeps.  

First up on the task was to practice showing "I'm ONE".  She did it put planted her finger on her forehead, silly goose!

Such a happy baby with so much slobber

Batting her eyes

Playing Peek-a-boo, it's her favorite to do behind the computer and pop out

BOO!

Ball practice

Then brother woke up from his nap, they played and I wrapped presents, and Sissy went down for her second nap.  While she napped, I was organizing documents for the move.  I guess getting the taxes done has set me into gear and it's time to get things organized.  

Xander and I went to McDonalds to get dinner.  Ate.  Cleaned up.

Made Sterling's cake.  Will do the decorating tomorrow, I'm so excited, I just hope it turns out as cute as I'm hoping.  According to hubs, there's no need to decorate, wrap presents, have cake, nothing.  She won't know.  Um, excuse me.  I know!  It's her day and I'm going to make it a big deal.  We are doing things a bit different from Xander's 1st birthday, but I think it will be just as special.

I cleaned up the kitchen while the kids got their pjs on.  Xander snuck in the kitchen and stole a cupcake off the counter and when I went to take it from him, he shoved it in his mouth!!!  Wow!  Sneaky little boy already.

And then it was playtime again...

Being goofballs

Love these two!

Silly faces

This boy right here, well he loves pictures lately, but this is the face I typically get..."cheese!"

LOVE

AAAAAHHHHHHHH

And now the kids are sleeping.  The cake is cooling.  Hubs and I are watching Compliance.  Tomorrow I have big plans for a very special little girl.  She may have went to bed in boy pajamas, but tomorrow she's going to wake up the birthday girl!

Have a great day!

Better bum

Sterling's bum is MUCH better today.  I caked on paste on her bumper last night and today it was clear!  So far today we have not had any runny poopies.  Good day!

That's all.

Have a great day!

The bad

Horrible mother alert...

Having a cold and being all stuffed up is not good when you have babies.  My poor Sterling has had the poopies today and I didn't know the first one so I'm not sure how long she sat in it.  I feel HORRIBLE!  Her bottom is so very red, almost blistered, and warm to the touch.  Again, I feel extremely HORRIBLE!  I wish I could smell so I would have known.  The thing with Sterling is she won't "let you know" when she's went poopy, she'll just sit in it unless you smell it.  Good thing for her, her poopies have ALWAYS stunk and she's usually changed right away, except for poor old today.  After she had the first poopy, I left her pants off so I could see the sides of her diaper to know.  It's worked, but I've also been consistent with checking since then.  Now I'm just not sure what is causing this.  Is it the new milk switch?  Is it teething (she is drooling like a running faucet)?  She acts fine, eats fine, and drinks fine.  I'm lost.  She's not bothered when she's wiped cleaned.  Tomorrow I'm going to let her be diaper free for 15 minutes every hour, just to let her bottom have air and hopefully heal faster.  

I told hubs tonight that he should stay home tomorrow to smell for her poopies for me :)  It's a long shot, but it was worth a try.  Maybe Xander can learn to smell her for me, lol?  He would tell me she "pee-peed".  

I did cave in and get some good meds today.  I even got some good stuff for the kids.  This waking up at 4 every morning having a coughing attack for 2 hours is getting old!  I took my meds about an hour and half ago and so far, no difference, boo!!  Still coughing crazy.  I just hope maybe it will clear my congestion and I can smell tomorrow...pray for me!  Thanks!

Hope you are having a great day!

Formula's gone and then some!

I SO excited to announce that we are done with baby formula.  We had a constant 23.5 months using the stuff and I'm excited to have that extra money back in our pockets!  Today will be Sterling's first day without any formula.  We did the gradual decrease method I used with Xander for Sterling as well.  The past week she has been at 2 ounces of formula and the rest whole milk and has done well.  She did throw up yesterday afternoon, but I'm not sure if that's from being sick or from the whole milk.  I'm thinking being sick.  When I was a kid, I was allergic to milk, so it's in the back of my head and keeping an eye on her.  But, like I said, so far so good!

Baby girl is also turning ONE on Sunday!  We're not having a party, just decorating and celebrating as a family, like we did with Xander.  Keeping it simple and at home.  We may decide to have a party for both of them later, but haven't decided yet.

I worked on more applique yesterday.  Fun times.  I finished a birthday shirt for Sterling.  Nothing fancy, just simple, but still cute.  I also finished 2 Easter shirts for Sterling and 1 for Xander.  I started working on Xander a big brother shirt, but hubby came home and I had to put it all away.  He's a guy that does not like the mess that comes along with my fun projects.  I'll post pictures later, I'm thinking I'm going to do more work today.

Yesterday we had an unexpected snow storm.  It left about 6 inches, closing schools early and releasing work personnel early.  Because we live on base, Nick is the lucky one to be the last to leave work on these days.  Which is fine by me, especially when i have a project going on.

The kids and I have been sick for 8 days now.  Nick stayed home from work on Monday to "help", but I'm not too sure he helped much.  Saturday was my worst day.  I woke up around 1 am to the stomach bug.  I was miserable all day.  My sweet hubby wouldn't go out to get me some meds, because he's that guy that also don't like crowds and people, so I had to suffer through the day because I couldn't trust my stomach to leave the house and get some myself.  For the past 2 days I've had a terrible cough.  It's keeping him up at night and tired during the day.  Pay back, lol!  It seems around 4 am is when I start having a terrible cough attack and it don't stop.  Nothing helps.  I'm too stubborn to go to the doctor though, so it's my own fault.  I just feel that you should only go to the doctor if it's severe because anytime we go to the doctors we always come back worse than we went.

We're making progress with Sterling walking.  She's letting go for a few seconds and has even taken 3 steps without holding on.  I'm hoping she'll be walking by Easter because we're having an Easter egg hunt with our friends and I think it would be cute if she was walking to find her eggs.  But if not, she'll still be the cutest thing scooting on her butt...and ruining her cute Easter dress.

Move update:  We received our lease agreement on the home we will be renting.  Just have to sign and send it back, but I think it's a done deal.  Check!

Have a great day!

Where do I start?

I'm so behind on updating, I don't even know where to begin.  In other words, a totally random post with lots of ramblings.

(made 2 of these)

On the 28th, I worked on appliques.  I got 4 shirts done in 5 hours, not too bad for a beginner.  

Hubby thinks we don't take enough pictures of Sterling and she'll feel left out so he grabbed the camera and started snapping

Our most recent discovery is when Sterling eats pancakes with syrup, she breaks out in a rash around her mouth.  I recently started using bisquick as the batter since I'm trying to get rid of things, and so we're not sure if it's the syrup or the batter?

cheeser!

we are always practicing walking, but this girl will not take a step on her own yet.  In her own time!  Maybe in the next month?  She'll be ONE next weekend!

On Tuesday we headed to our crafty friends house and her and I made BIG bow holders for the girls.  When I get to the states I plan to put a nicer frame on Sterling's   This was the only large frame I had and it's a cheapo.  But it works!   And it's cute!  I'm using this big one for all the bows we don't use on a weekly basis and the smaller one I made awhile ago for our frequently used bows.

I haven't been a great picture taker lately.  I should start snapping them from my ipod, then maybe they'd be more frequent?

Move update:  We found a house!  We will be signing the lease this weekend.  It's beautiful and I'm already in love with it and the area!  The couple we will be renting from are very helpful in giving us any information we ask for.  We won't be living on the base, YAH!!!  Base living is nice here, but I'm SO done with it!  4 months left!  Excitement all around!  Oh, and the most awesome part of the move...we will have our first house guests about 3 weeks after we move in!  AWESOME!!!  We may not have all of our furniture yet, but it will still be awesome and a fun weekend!  Can't wait to see you Stacy & family!!!!

There's SO much to do for/before the move.  1st, we have to get our taxes done...nightmare!  2nd, I have to finish this class i'm in...not so fun!  3rd, I have to file and shred...boring!  4th, I have to start purging, donating, and throwing things out...now that's fun!!  5th, I have to separate our shipments...bulk shipment (slow shipment), unaccompanied baggage shipment (fast shipment), and stuff we hand carry...NOT fun at all!    6th, I have to gather all our documents to hand carry.  7th, we have to ship our cars.  I'm shipping mine early so we have it when we get there.  And while doing all this, I still have to keep the kids on their same schedule (for the most part) so they are not thrown off and have meltdowns every day.  We will most likely be without the bulk of our stuff for 2 months here, if things go according to plans...which we all know is very unlikely with the military.  Oh well, our lives will continue during this move.  Having fun along the way :)

I've emailed Xander's birth mom twice in the last month and have not gotten a response from either.  The first one was just letting her know that we received our notification of where we will be moving and the most recent one, I want to try to set up a visit in the fall.  Since we're moving in July and she's having a baby in July, I think the fall would be best.  But, she hasn't responded yet, bummer!  Because the distance between us will be a 20 hour drive, I suggested to meet half way and we can make it a fun weekend.  I really hope she responds and wants to visit with Xander.  Speaking of birth mom, for mother's day this year, I am making her a photobook of Xander's favorite things.  I'm excited and hope she will love it just as much!

We're gearing up for another trip in 3 weeks.  This time we're going to the Netherlands.  I really want to see the tulip gardens this year.  They are a huge attraction here and I forgot last year, so this is my chance.  We have to start planning that trip since we'll be there 4 days and that's all I know so far, lol.  

This week has been yucky.  The weather has been amazing, but the kids and I have been sick :(.  I think it's all colds.  The kids had fevers on Tuesday afternoon.  Woke up Wednesday and Xander was fever clear but Sterling's was actually higher, 101.6.  She woke up today fever free and so far has kept it away.  However...she is a monster and uber grabby today.  I had to run out to the store to pick up some baby gift bags...we're giving away ALL of Sterling's stuff, yah!!.  (I've been having a hard time letting her stuff go, it's just too cute)  Then we also had to go to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for dinner tonight.  Well the whole hour we were out was torture.  She screamed screamed and screamed.  Then of course Xander had to start chiming in.  Ahhhhh, the joys of being sick and having to run out.  I was talking to one of the ladies at the store and she said a lot of people are sick right now.  Hopefully everyone will be feeling well so we can go to our friends next week and paint some Easter canvas'.  Fun!

Well there's our happenings and thoughts

Have a great day!