K.P. 6-month pictures!

Our Nanny Jennifer's sister Lara takes wonderful pictures. I saw some pictures she had taken of her nephew and I asked if she would come over and take some of K.P. She came yesterday and they turned out sooo good! She is a fabulous photographer. I told her she needs to do this for a living. Here are some of her pictures:

Isn't he cute!

Venting about something I find ridiculous

Ok, so I've heard that Barack Obama is announcing his V.P. candidate via text message. Really? Are you serious? What a gimmick. That is probably the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Seriously, I mean, we're talking about running for President of the United States...not running for prom king.

What's next, voting on or passing legislation via text message? (Oh wait, I forgot that Obama doesn't actually even vote on legislation let alone pass anything...) What does he actually do? The only thing I know he's going to do is raise my taxes by about 60% percent and I can tell you right now that I'm not interested.

Why, oh why is Hillary still not in the race....

10 Reaons I Am OK with Turning 30!

As you all probably already know, I am turning 30 next week! I have been very anxious about it all year but lately I've been feeling better about it. I decided to make a list of some of the things that I will like about being 30. Although there are plenty of reasons that 30 is great, here are my top 10:

10. I no longer have to worry about being compared to 20-somethings (instead of the old 20-something now I'm the young & fresh 30-something)

9. I will feel like I have more authority and respect at work (even if it is not true)

8. I can look great "for my age"

7. I will no longer feel out of place at fancy restaurants (I sometimes felt too young to be eating there -- don't really know why)

6. I am more financially secure

5. I actually still believe that I look like I'm in my 20's :)

4. I'm no longer expected to know what is "hip" or "cool" (but I get props when I do :))

3. I can justify spending money on expensive face creams (b/c that's what you do when you're old)

2. I feel good knowing I am smarter than my "younger" friends (b/c we all know we get older and wiser)

1. I get to go to Vegas and celebrate with my friends!

K.P.'s first taste of veggies -- Carrots

As you may know, we started feeding K.P. cereal several weeks ago. He really loves it -- so much that sometimes I have to make him 2 bowls! I didn't really want to start any other sort of food (veggies, fruits, etc.) until he was 6 months old but people kept bugging me about it so I gave in and went to the store and bought carrots, sweet potatoes and squash. My doctor recommends starting with vegetables before fruits because he says that babies tend to not want veggies once they've had fruits. He also recommends that I make my own food. Although I promised him I would try, I went straight to the store and bought Gerber products. Shhh...don't tell him :)

I decided that Sunday would be the day to start. We got K.P. in his chair and the camera ready. It didn't take long for us to realize that he HATED them. At first he just kept spitting it back out, but by the end (see second video) he was making faces and gagging/coughing. Of course, I kept trying to feed it to him which just made it worse. It got even worse a half hour after he ate the carrots because he decided to throw up his entire dinner. He was also up all night with an upset stomach. Great.

That is the last time I go against my gut instinct and let other people convince me to do something with my child! I really didn't feel like I should give him the carrots yet but people kept saying he needed them. Now, where were those people in the middle of the night?

This first video is his first couple of bites. He's not too excited about them but he isn't acting like he hates them....yet.

This second video shows how much he is NOT enjoying his carrots. I love how he clearly does not like them yet he keeps opening his mouth.

We also went to brunch at Onion Creek on Sunday. It was a great day to be outside because the weather was nice and a lot cooler than it has been lately. Here's a quick video of K.P. sitting on the table at brunch!

Galleria Shopping and Lunch at The Cheesecake Factory

My wonderful husband went shopping with me this weekend. I really wanted to go because it was tax free weekend. However, I was bummed to learn that none of the items I was going to purchase were tax free! Apparently all items over $100 are not eligible for the tax free special. Darn! Anyways, for those of you who know my husband you know how much he hates to shop so it was especially sweet of him to go with me and extra special because we knew the mall would be packed. One reason he went was so he could help out with K.P. while I was shopping. I really needed a new pair of jeans and it is so much easier to not have to drag K.P. into dressing rooms with me. He was also going because he was buying my birthday present! I got a wallet to match my Louis Vuitton purse. NICE! Now I am complete. ha ha. Andrew also snuck off for a while on a secret errand. He said it had something to do with my anniversary present. I have no idea what he was doing but I'm excited about the surprise.

Andrew's friend Sam and his girlfriend Jessica met us for a late lunch/early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. The food was great and we had a great time. btw: the cheesecake factory is a great place to take kids because it is so loud (during the day at least). K.P. was really good but even if he wasn't I doubt anyone would have noticed. I, of course, ate way too much (cocktails, appetizer, entree, dessert, dessert coffee). So much for my diet :)

Here is a video from our lunch.

Overall it was a great day! I got my jeans, my wallet and we had a great meal with friends. We finished the night off with watching Michael Phelps win his 8th gold medal. I wish every day could be Saturday!

A week with Nana

Nana has been watching K.P. this whole week while Nanny Jennifer is camping in California. This means he has been totally spoiled all week. I'm sure he misses Nanny Jennifer but I know he enjoyed his time with Nana. PawPaw visited one afternoon as well (he came and fixed all of our upstairs plumbing so now our guests will have hot water and a shower that drains -- thank you PawPaw!)

Here are a couple of videos from the week:

K.P. has been learning to stand up and hold on to things to keep himself standing. As you can see from the video, Nana was afraid he was going to fall so she wouldn't get too far away from him.

PawPaw was playing a little game with K.P. and he was really laughing. We only caught the end of the game but you can see what they were doing.

Our Little Giggle Monster

They say that laughter is good for the heart, that it reduces stress and that, overall, it has great health benefits. While Andrew and I are pretty good at making each other laugh, nothing is greater than hearing K.P.'s laughter, especially when you are the one who is making him laugh. I think a baby's laugh is one of the greatest sounds on this earth. It makes my day to see him smile...my life to hear him laugh.

Nothing makes K.P. laugh more than giving him kisses on his neck. Here are a couple of recent videos of each of us making our little guy laugh...so cute!

Mommy making him laugh...

Daddy making him laugh...

Forget rolling over -- K.P. is learning to sit-up!

For the last month or so, we have been trying to work on K.P. rolling over. It's funny because he just doesn't seem interested. We know he can do it because we've seen him...but not often. Lately it seems as though he will actually start crawling before he gets into rolling over. He already scoots around in circles on his stomach and scoots forward when I place toys outside of his reach. And last week we realized that apparently he is more interested in sitting up than rolling over! I was playing with him and I pulled him up to a sitting position and he just sat there...by himself! At first he would fall over if he reached for something but within 2 days he had learned to balance himself and now he will sit for quite a while.




Here are some videos of him sitting up and playing with some new toys!

K.P.'s Sleeping Habits and his Love of Blankets

Ever since he was little we have wrapped K.P. in a blanket when he sleeps. When he was first born we would swaddle him tightly but as time passed we got to where we would just swaddle him from the waist down. On the very first night we took K.P. home from the hospital I woke up in the middle of the night to look over at him and he had worked his hands out of his blanket and pulled it up over his face. Being a paranoid new mother, I, of course, was sure he had suffocated himself and I flew out of bed and jerked the blanket down to see if he was breathing. Of course he was fine. And this began the battle between the paranoid mother and the blanket. K.P. loves his blanket and he loves it to cover his face when he sleeps. As I just mentioned, at first this drove me crazy, as I was constantly checking on him to see if he was breathing. I would wait until he was asleep and then pull the blanket away from his face. Within 20 minutes he would have pulled it back up again. I've come to realize he is just going to do this. That this is how he likes to sleep.

You might be asking why I don't just do away with the blankets all together. The answer is simple. He won't sleep without one. And he won't sleep without one covering his face. I'm sure it is my own fault in some way but now I feel it is too late to break the habit. To make myself sleep better, I bought some blankets that are pretty easy to breathe through. They are a light knit and have a really soft texture (I think that's why he likes them). Yes, I've tried them all out. I've actually laid down and piled them on my face to make sure I can breathe :)

Here are some pictures I took this afternoon. The first picture is how I found him when I went to check on him. The second picture is after I pulled the blanket away from his face. The third picture is about 20 minutes later where he had pulled the blanket right back over his face.

Losing that extra baby weight (because I didn't have a 50lb baby...)

Recently, several people have commented on how good I looked and asked how I've been able to lose my baby weight so quickly. The compliments are nice because I have been pretty dedicated and it is great to know that my diligence has paid off. I had never been faced with having to lose a lot of weight before and I was pretty nervous about it. I approached my pregnancy with the "I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want" attitude. It was great when I was pregnant but when I didn't birth a 50lb baby I realized that I was going to have to lose some weight on my own. Scary!

I have actually worked pretty hard but I chalk my success up to several things:

1. Breastfeeding - did you know you burn 300-500 calories a day when you breastfeed? I had been told about all of the health benefits for the baby but I was sold when I learned this little fact. It was one of the primary reasons I was determined to breastfeed for at least 6 months.

2. Food - when you are breastfeeding you really are not supposed to cut calories because your baby needs milk full of fatty calories to grow big and strong. I held strongly to that rule the first 6 weeks and continued to eat whatever I wanted. However, I quickly learned that although the baby did need calories, I should try to make them healthy calories -- not french-fried calories. When K.P. was about 2-months-old I started gradually eating better but not necessarily less. Eating less was too hard because you are starving when you first start breastfeeding. You really do need the extra calories for energy -- otherwise you will be running ragged. At 2 months, I eased into a diet of sorts and did little things like limited myself to only 1 diet coke a day, started snacking on fruit instead of crackers or chips and limited myself to a certain number of calories or a range of calories a day. I also cut back on fast food. I don't think I had any fast food for about 1.5 months. Even now, I only get it occasionally (although I still really really really love it). Overall, it is not about dieting but about lifestyle choices, I made a conscious decision to change the way I eat. For example, Andrew just picked up Wendy's for lunch and although nothing sounded better, I sadly declined and ate a turkey sandwich and sugar free chocolate pudding snack. Note: not eating fast food can cause one to experience moments of depression -- especially when one's spouse chooses to eat it in front of her :).

3. Exercise - I should have put this at #2 because I started exercising before I started working on my diet. At about 5 weeks after K.P. was born I started walking. It was hard at first -- I would only walk for about 10-15 minutes around my neighborhood and call it a day. I then found a walking buddy in Jen (a friend who had a baby Charlie 1-month after K.P.). A buddy is the best because Jen and I would walk 4-6 miles a day. It was GREAT because we would talk the whole time and it never felt like exercising. Unfortunately I had to go back to work so we haven't been able to keep up our walks but it was ESSENTIAL to getting me started with my workouts. Since I've started working a workout is harder to fit in but I still try to walk 2-3 miles several times a week and I also try to fit in 3 or 4 days of pilates. I bought a great pilates video titled "Cardio Pilates" at Target and it has done wonders for my body. The walking helps with general cardio but the pilates video has really helped flatten my stomach (which I never in a million years thought would happen after having K.P.). I definitely recommend it to anyone trying to tone up their middle section or "powerhouse" (to those who have already done a pilates class).

4. Family Support - one of the best things about trying to exercise and eat better is that I have the support of Andrew. He and I are both trying to exercise and lost weight and we encourage each other -- it really helps to have that support system. It makes all of the difference in the world to have your spouse right there with you. It would be much more difficult if he were eating cheeseburgers every day while I ate a Lean Cuisine (however, there are moments where we torture (challenge?) each other -- see above statement about Wendys). We set goals for ourselves and have weekly weigh-ins and reward ourselves when we reach our goals. We are both competitive people so contests work really well for us :)

5. Goals - I think one of the most important things is having small goals -- goals that are not necessarily focused on weight. When I first started I would set a goal of how many work outs I wanted to do a week. I did not focus on how much I weighed or how much weight I wanted to lose -- I knew that would come with the workouts. I then set goals for food (e.g. 1 diet coke a day; no more kolaches for breakfast; only apples for a snack; a certain range of calories allowed for a day). I would try the goals for 1 week. Once I saw results I was hooked on the changes and would implement more for the next week...then the next. I think it was key to not focus on weight at the beginning, only the lifestyle changes I was trying to make.

6. Motivation - Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight knows that it is a mind thing. If your head is not in it, it just isn't going to happen. You have to be motivated. Over the last couple of years my motivation has definitely been lacking. However, this year is different for 2 reasons: 1) I had a baby and 2) I am turning 30! Both of these things coupled together gave me the motivation that I had been lacking in the past. I made a goal to lose the weight by the time I went to Vegas to celebrate my 30th birthday. I may be turning 30 but I'm going to do so fabulously :)

7. Good genes - Although I have worked hard and been disciplined, I must also give some credit to the fact that I have been blessed with good metabolism. I've always been slender and have been able to maintain my weight. I think that has to do with genetics so thank you Mom, Dad or whatever distant relative I may have inherited this trait from. I really appreciate it!

Waiting/Wasting time waiting on Hurricane Edouardo

For those of us who have lived in Texas and specifically, the Gulf Coast area our entire lives, we don't exactly get too worked up over hurricanes or the potential threat of hurricanes. However, when Katrina hit several years ago that all changed. It used to be that the threat of a hurricane meant no school or work, and that was great news....a day off...yay! I guess it was because no hurricane did more than tear down trees or knock out the electricity in my neighborhood. When I was a kid it was just exciting. Not really sure why...I guess I've just strangely always liked storms. Anyways, before Katrina I don't think I ever appreciated the destruction that a hurricane could leave behind. I guess because none had ever left that type of destruction so close to home before.

The distaster that was Katrina left the city of Houston in a panicked frenzy when hurricane Rita threatened our city. Although the hurricane itself did not leave a path of destruction, one was created as we remembered what happened only several weeks before in New Orleans and city officials urged us to evacuate the city. It was a nightmare. I returned home from a fabulous vacation in Cabo San Lucas only to find the city in a frenzy. Gas was completely sold out and everyone was fleeing. I didn't stress too much as I was supposed to head to Austin for the Austin City Limits Music festival anyways. However, after 8 hours on the road and having only made it 10 miles down I-10, I realized I wasn't going to make it out of the city, let alone all the way to Austin. We ended up staying at a friend's mom's house in Katy (thank you Jen's mom!) and just hung out and waited for the hurricane....and waited....and waited. We got nothing. It didn't even RAIN! Ok...to be fair, the wind picked up a bit and we had a nice breeze. What a waste.

Because of the evacuation nightmare that occurred in Houston during Rita, city officials have made it their mission in life to make the city prepare...or scare the city into preparation. For the last several years I have driven past large billboards with the message "It's Hurricane Season, Fill Up Your Tanks!" or "Storm Forming in Gulf, Be Prepared!." Come on...you all have seen them. You all know what I'm talking about. I guess they just don't want to say that they didn't warn everyone but sometimes it seems a little premature. I think the city is just hurricane-shy at this point. But I guess it works. Just last week as I was grocery shopping I started thinking about hurricane season so I felt the need to be prepared. By be prepared I mean that I bought 3 large packs of water, about 20 cans of raviolis and batteries. I didn't even know what I was buying the batteries for but I bought them.

What is her point, you ask? I've said all of this to say this:

I found out just yesterday that there is a tropical storm/potential hurricane forming in the Gulf. I checked the weather today and saw that it was true so I immediately felt the need to leave work early to prepare. Prepare for what, I don't know. Just prepare. So, I've been home since 3:30....preparing. I washed the dishes, put my car in the garage and now Andrew and I are sitting on the couch watching tv. We are very prepared. So far, it looks like a beautiful evening. I guess we will just have to wait until the morning to see if we are prepared enough.

My guess is, it might rain a little and wind will blow. However, I've got my batteries so I'll be ok :)

Happy 5-month Birthday K.P.!

K.P. turned 5-months old on Saturday. I cannot believe how fast he is growing. He is changing and getting bigger every day! Andrew and I were going to the Astros game that night and K.P. stayed the night at Grandma and Grandpa Slanias. I put him in his Astros shirt and baseball hat for the game. He must have been good luck because the Astros won in extra innings!

Grandparents are the best!

Throughout my pregnancy I had many people tell me to do everything I ever wanted to do (vacation, see a movie, etc.) before I had the baby, because after he was born, they would explain, I would never be able to do anything without him. The notion kind of worried me but I was so excited about having a baby so I didn't let things like that distract my excitement. A month or so before K.P. was born I had a friend (who at the time had 1 daughter, now she has a newborn son too!) tell me that all she wanted to do was go on vacation and be able to sit by the beach or pool at sunset and have a cocktail drink with an umbrella in it. She said she had not done anything like that in 3 years because she had her 3-year-old daughter and her daughter always went with them on vacation and had to be in bed by the time sunset rolled around and she obviously couldn't leave her daugher in the room alone to go boozing down by the beach. I felt really sorry for her. All of the sudden I had a couple of panic attacks at the thought of never being able to vacation and drink cocktails at sunset again. I was having flashbacks and remembering all of those warnings from people before I got pregnant. However, one key factor in her story is that she and her husband are Houston transplants. They are both from Omaha, Nebraska and neither have family in town. Our situation is distinctly different. Both of our families live in Houston or a Houston suburb and are no more than a 30-minute drive.

After hearing her story and then having K.P. I realized how lucky I was to have mine and Andrew's parents living so close. It also makes me realize how lucky K.P. is to have such wonderful grandparents who love him and who are eager to share his life. I feel grateful and blessed that he will grow up knowing his grandparents as they will be a constant presence in his every day life activies. They will be at his practices, soccer and baseball games, school programs and every birthday. They will be there on the weekends for Saturday outings or Sunday brunch or dinner. They will just always be there. They will always be there will open arms and unconditional love.

And they have already been there. Ever since K.P. was about 3 or 4 weeks old, Andrew and I have been able to take 1 night out of the week to go to dinner and have a date night. There is always at least one grandparent who is eagerly volunteering to watch him. It has been really nice to be able to be alone with each other, even if it is for a couple of hours. As he gets older, the outings have gotten longer and we've even had a couple of overnight vacations where K.P. stayed with a grandparent. We went to St. Louis earlier this summer for a wedding and are going to Las Vegas for my 30th birthday on Labor Day weekend. Neither of these trips would have been possible if we did not have the support of such wonderful grandparents.

The idea came for this post because Grandma Slania volunteered to keep K.P. this Saturday night so Andrew and I could have a night out (she also wanted to have a trial run before Labor Day weekend). This will be his first overnight stay with Grandparent Slanias and I think he will have a great time. I really hope he sleeps well so he is invited back :)

I just want to take this time to thank all of our grandparents. Your support and love for K.P. is the greatest thing in the world. There is nothing that makes a mom feel better than to have others love their child the way they do. I think K.P. is the luckiest boy in the world to have so many people who love him.

I was flipping through the pictures in my camera and I found all of these pictures of the grandparents holding K.P. during the first couple of weeks after he was born. I love looking at how proud and happy the grandparents are of their little grandson.