These are MY girls!!!!

These are some of my favorite people in the entire world! So much of what you see of my life now is a result of the Lord using Erin (holding Matney) to reach out to me. She got me into in a Bible Study with this group of girls and we have been through SO SO much together. They are also the ones who introduced me to and encouraged me to date Jared. I LOVE them!

Clockwise from left: Abby (Rose's daughter) holding Conner Audrey's son, Erin and Matney, Erica, Jen, Gina, Susan, Rose, me, Audrey

Meet the Mommies!!!!

You've met the kids in our playgroup and now here are the mommies! Most of the girls came over on Sunday night and we made squash and sweet potato baby food for our growing munchkins. Jared I got up Sat. morning and went to the Farmer's Market where a very nice lady sold us 8 butternut squash out of the back of her truck. Then we got 10lbs of sweet potatoes at Whole Foods where the lady checking us out looked at me very funny! I baked the food Sunday afternoon and we peeled, chopped and pureed it Sunday night. I wish I'd taken pictures of the giant piles of sweet potaotes and squash but M was determined to play with the girls and stayed up 3 hours past her bedtime. Hauling her around in the sling made me forget the camera. Poor Jared, he had all these women in his house and I made him get right in the middle of it and take these pictures!

HA! The funniest part of the whole night was captured on film...I had the scraper thing in my hand and was talking. Obviously I wasn't paying attention to M in the sling because all of a sudden the play group mommies were laughing. Matney had pulled the scraper to her mouth and was licking away! I guess she likes squash! She made a mess but it was too darn funny not to let her keep eating. I guess we know who will lick the beaters when she grows up!

So proud of my husband

Jared and I were talking a couple of weeks ago about the efforts made in this house to "go green"...changing cleaning products, taking cloth sacks to the store when we shop, using cloth rags instead of paper towels, etc. He mentioned that his office recycles their paper and I asked about aluminum cans since I know they go through lots of them. When he said that they did not recycle cans I said he should go speak to the person in charge of that and get it started. And then I forgot all about the conversation until today when he forwarded me this email:

From: Jared W. Heald
To: staceysheald@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2008 9:39:29 AM
Subject: FW: SAVE THE EARTH ONE CAN AT A TIME

Just doing my part to help you in your going green effort.

From: Judy A. Sullivan
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2008 9:32 AM
To: Firm
Subject: SAVE THE EARTH ONE CAN AT A TIME

At the request and assistance of Jared Heald we have placed a recycle bin in the large kitchen for aluminum cans. Please rinse your cans prior to placing them in the recycle bin to avoid drawing bugs. Thank you for recycling.
Judy A. Sullivan Firm Administrator

And I am so impressed!

Bananas!

Ok, this first picture has nothing to do with bananas but she's just too stinkin' cute!
We have been trying M on rice cereal and she won't open her mouth to eat. I tried making it with formula, tried it with water and tried making it with apple juice and still nothing. I haven't pushed her because I don't want to make her hate the sight of a spoon.
This morning we had a really ripe banana that I didn't want to throw away so I mashed it up and took it to her thinking she was going to refuse it also. I WAS WRONG! She loved it!!!
What a mess! I thought she was done so I took the bib off and cleaned her up...and she went nuts!
So, she got to eat more without the bib and we went right upstairs and in the bath! Bananas are a hit!!!

All by myself!!!

This is the dress that I made for M at my friend Gina's last week.
I came home and decided to try on my own to see if I could do it...and it was a success! I did forget to buy ribbon for the top and just stuck white in to see what it looked like. I will admit that for every stitch I sewed I took at least 50% of them out and had to redo it but still....not too shabby!!!
Here are both dresses side by side. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself!

Disaster EVERYWHERE

In a previous post I mentioned that the night had been a DISASTER and here is just a little bit of why.
Before Matney went to bed she had a bath. Her baby bath tub sits on the bathroom counter top and has a plug on the bottom to drain the water. I moved it over the sink after she was out, pulled the plug and knocked it right OFF the counter top when I turned to walk out. The ENTIRE bathtub of water went EVERYWHERE. Even the trash can had an inch of water in the bottom.
Then I had to go downstairs and clean up another mess....I am making Matney's baby food (more on that later). Basically you make it and freeze it in ice cube trays, which are equal to one serving at this age, and then put the frozen cubes in zip lock bags. I had apples in ice cube tray the other day and tried to stack them in the freezer. What I didn't know is that unless the trays are turned opposite ways they do not stack...they just collapse into each other. So, I bet you can guess what happened. Yep, when I opened the freezer to take them out I looked and looked because I knew I'd made three trays and I could only find two. Then I noticed that everything had a strange frozen liquid look to it and there were apples EVERYWHERE. So, after M went to bed I had to unload the entire freezer, wash off everything and repack it. Who knew?!?!?
Then, while cleaning the freezer M woke up screaming and I tried to make a bottle...and forgot to put in a liner so when I scooped the formula into the bottle it just fell straight onto the floor. The same floor with sticky apple mess EVERYWHERE.
Jared was watching baseball laughing at me the whole time and NOT impressed that I didn't know about ice cube trays but I've never lived anywhere without an ice maker!

The start of unloading the freezer. Notice that as it got warmer juice was melting and dripping onto the floor. Notice all the frozen juice.
Just a big mess!!!

After everything got cleaned up I still had to go take a shower because earlier I'd been playing airplane with M and she spit up. I almost didn't get my head out of the way in time!! UGH!!! Some days just shouldn't be so hard!!!

Just for Sassy!

Aunt Sassy, Mattie Rose wanted me to write this note to you since she isn't big enough to do it by herself. We love you too!!!!

Creativity and Accomplishment!!!

I will have to post another time about the 10 reasons tonight has been a disaster but this will make me feel better for now. I spent Monday at my friend Gina's house and she taught me to sew. I'm certainly not a champ yet but I sewed this entire dress for Matney all by myself. I am so proud. I LOVE being home all day with her but setting out to learn something new and accomplishing it was a great feeling. Work used to be that way. I'd meet people and over the next couple months watch their house be transformed as it was built. Now, I change poopy diapers and tickle feet which I wouldn't trade for anything but it was nice to do something for me!
THANKS GINA!!!!

Note...obviously in the day for me I did not get up and get all pretty to go to Gina's. Another reason I love her! Sewing in sweats was awesome!

Matney and Daddy

I wish that I had had the camera upstairs on Sunday morning. These are fuzzy because I took them with my phone but still sweet. I got out of the shower to Jared and Matney on our bed reading Sports Illustrated. She seemed interested.

Weekday mornings I plop Matney with me in the bathroom and she watches herself in the mirror while I get ready. Sunday she was totally focused on watching her daddy! (And yes, I know the Bumbo doesn't go on the counter and no, I never walk away from her while she's up there. I'm an overprotective nutcase about things like that and she's safe. Just wanted to put that out there for those that are wondering!)

You can take the girl out of Warner Robins but you can't take the Warner Robins out of the girl!!!

Just wanted to share my redneck haircut. Kitchen scissors and all. Actually, I like it!

A fun Saturday!

Jared had to work today so Matney got to hang out with mom. This is M playing with a dragon puppet. I tried to get it from all angles so you could see what she's "eating"!

My child only wanted to eat the tongue of the puppet. She goes for anything red!

Matney went with Mom to Erica's shower for baby Blaire. She wore her pretty dress from her friend Margo in CT and everyone thought she was so cute! They did not however think she was so sweet. This precious baby refused to take a nap and was slightly beastly until we put her in the sling and gave her a bottle!

REAL FOOD!!!

Matney had her 4 month dr appointment this week. She got 4 shots and 1 oral vaccine...poor baby! She is 25" tall (72nd percentile) and weighs 14lbs 10oz (68th percentile). Her dr. said that she is doing great. I asked him about her lack of sleep and he said that some babies just don't sleep and that it seems like we got one of those! AGH!!! I wanted a solution. I did talk to him about the Amby bed and he said he'd had patients have great success with them so give it a try. He also said we could start trying real food and see what she thinks. This is our first attempt at rice cereal.




She didn't hate it, didn't love it. She did swallow really well so we'll try again soon!

Hat Play Group

This week was hat week for play group. Here are all the munchkins in their hats. Notice the change, Matney is not screaming in any of the pictures. She was in a great mood the entire afternoon. YEA!!!!

Amby Baby Bed update

If you remember this is where we left Matney last time...hanging from the Amby Baby Jump Jump. Isn't she cute???
And this is where Matney was this afternoon. Yes, you understand it right. Matney IS TAKING NAPS!!! If I put her in the hammock she'll sleep. She sleeps at night, only waking to eat and she takes naps during the day. She'll sleep about 20-30 minutes a couple times a day. We've only had it a couple days so I hesitate to speak too soon but so far it is INCREDIBLE!!!
This is a picture of it in her room. The hammock hangs from a spring. When she moves, it moves, just as if someone was rocking her. Also, when you place her in it the sides come up close to her (they are mesh and away from her face by the foam mattress) and is all cozy.
This is Mantey just waking up from her nap this afternoon.
What a precious baby! Now we just need to work on sleeping through the night without bottles!