Almost Walking...

Doing laps in the Kitchen.

Pictures

I just uploaded new pictures on snapfish: www.harbormarie.snapfish.com.  I also ordered the pictures from her 4th month through her 8th month - 750 pictures!  That's an average of 150 pictures that I take of the child every month.  The sick part... I actually take the time to put every single picture into a photo album.  The albums hold about 300 pictures if I get extra pages - it took two books to do months 0-3.  At this rate, I'm going to be broke due to the fact that all our money has been spent on pictures!

On top of this – we just had our family pictures taken (www.jimmysphoto.com/comstock) They are great, but I just realized that it’s going to cost a small fortune to get the ones ordered that we want! 

I think we need to go into the picture business!

Teeth & Tools

Harbor got her first tooth the other day – on my birthday to be exact!  What a great surprise!  Luckily, it hasn’t had too much of an effect on her nursing.  I’m sure the day will come, but it’s still pretty low close to her gums. 

For my birthday, Kevin got me tools and a new toolbox for the house – I was very impressed with his creative idea!  I’ve been talking about wanting one since he’s stole all my tools and taken them out to the garage, but I was very surprised that he actually got them for me.  We also are getting fish for our saltwater tank – it’s been sitting there for years without fish, so it will be nice to have some life in the tank.  We actually went to get some last Saturday, but just got to come home with some live rock… ever since we’ve put it into the tank, algae has been growing like crazy!  Hopefully we’ll be able to bring some fish home this weekend.

My parents gave me cash (and a delicious steak and crab leg dinner)!  I’m having a hard time deciding exactly what I’m getting with it, but the theme is most likely going to be kitchen tools / quilting accessories / indoor gardening stuff.  Hopefully I’ll figure it out soon.

 

Something else new – Harbor has started eating dog food!  Maverick’s dishes are raised, so she loves to pull herself up on them.  I’ve been stopping her and digging handfuls of dog food out of her mouth, but I’ve given up.  If she things that the dog food tastes that much better than her food, she can have at it!  

She’s also started standing on her own.  Just for a few seconds (up to 10 seconds so far), but it’s a start.  She’s still only about 8 and a half months old – I’m worried she’s going to be walking soon!

Eating Much More and A Trip To the Zoo...

So, Harbor turned 8 months old on Saturday.  I can’t believe how fast it’s gone, how much she’s growing, and how much she’s changed in the past 8 months.  One difference we’ve noticed is her eating habits.  We started feeding her “real” food (ie – something else besides breast milk) around her 6 month birthday.  She was really interested in it for a couple days and ate about a tablespoon of food once a day.  Then, we had an incident… she threw up one day after her nap and then wanted nothing to do with “real” food.  After a few weeks of trying, we decided to let her take her food strike and sopped feeding her for a week (“real” food, that is – she got plenty of breast milk… don’t worry, we don’t starve our child!).  We then started feeding her again, and it worked… sometimes.  She just seemed to be very inconsistent with her interest in eating. 

Anyway – in the past week or so, we’ve noticed a huge difference.  All of the sudden she’s eating 3 times a day and she gobbles down more than I could have ever imagined!  It’s much more fun to feed a baby that is actually interested in eating!  I’m sure we have many more ups and downs to go through in the feeding process, but for now, we’re on a definite up!

 

On Saturday, we made our first trip to the zoo!  I can’t believe that we’ve lived here for over two years now and I’ve never made it to the zoo… Granted, we went on a Saturday and it was packed (I kept telling Kevin… “we’re self employed and make our own schedule – next time we’re coming on a week day!”), we still had a great time.  Harbor especially liked watching the elephant and the large cats – anything big enough that she could actually pay attention to.  We were there for over three hours and she was awake the entire time – although she did fall asleep as we were walking through the parking lot on the way home. 

 

Anyway – it was nice to get to do something fun over the weekend… we’ve come to realize that most of our two years here have been spent working, moving, or just catching up.  It’s a lot of work to move across the country, start a company, and have a baby!  All worth it, of course, just much different than the life we used to live. 

A little under cooked, and far over due!

Ok, I am fully aware that I’m way behind on this whole blog thing… well – life happened!  I think the last time I actually wrote was back in January, before Harbor came into the world, and well, she’s almost 8 months old now!  So, as for my blogging – it’s been far over due since I’ve written. 

As for Harbor – she came out a little under cooked.  At least as far as timing goes – she was 3 weeks early!  What a surprise she was!

Thankfully, we were blessed with a perfectly healthy, happy, baby girl.  She’s such a joy, and has been ever since she came out!  The home birth went great, although Harbor almost made her appearance before Jean, our wonderful midwife made it to our house!  I’ll share more details later, but for now, hopefully I can redeem myself by sharing plenty of pictures to document the past 8 months. 

 

Go to:

http://harbormarie.snapfish.com/snapfish

 

If you’re not already a member of snapfish, I think you may have to create an account, but it’s free and a great site! 

 

Hopefully, I’ll be back soon – feel free to bug me if I don’t follow through!

 

It's Getting Close!

So, it's been a really, really long time since I've blogged!  What can I say, things have been crazy.  Probably too crazy and it's gotten me into some trouble...  Just about two months ago, Kevin and I decided to change our route and go with a home birth for our baby.  After much extensive research, consideration, and prayer, we decided that this was the best choice for our family.  We found the greatest midwife and have been amazed at the difference in care we've received with her compared to our previous OB. 

I've had some issues with swelling (first in my feet, then in my legs, now, pretty much in all of my body) and the doctors didn't seam to be all that concerned with it.  Our midwife on the other hand, recognizes that it's a sign of me becoming pre-eclamptic and has been very concerned.  She has been great about researching my situation and has tried to continuously come up with different things for me to try to make things better.  Doing everything from dropping down to 3 days a week at work and taking it easy (being lazy) to increasing my protein intake to 150 grams a day; many different supplements and vitamins; and I even just started getting acupuncture.  We finally started to see a decrease in the swelling this morning after my first acupuncture appointment yesterday.  Let's hope and pray that our efforts pay off and that we get to stick with a home birth. 

Among all this work, I've also had to get my blood drawn a few more times than what I had anticipated with pregnancy (I was hoping for only once).  The good news, is that it's become a much less traumatic experience for me.  I used to pass out or have to lay down for about a half hour afterwards before I could do anything – it pretty much ruined my whole day.  I've now gotten to be a pro and I'm in and out of the lab in no time. 

I can think of about 20 more things that I'd love to talk about, but I think I'll keep it short and hopefully write again sometime soon. 

I'm in my 36th week, so let's hope that things get better and go smoothly for the next 4 weeks or so.  We can't wait to meet our baby in the near future!

something to blog about...

Evil woman drivers! 

To begin with, I have to say that I truly feel that Denver is full of the worst drivers ever!  Since we've moved here, I've been amazed at the people out on the road.  I've driven in Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York - but nothing compares to the greater Denver area!  Everyone seams to have somewhere to go that is WAY more important than anyone else on the road, either that, or their just out right mean! 

Anyway, I'm on my way home from work, trying to merge off the highway... there was a orange car next to me on the right, so I patiently sit there with my blinker on and slow down to merge in behind the car.  As I'm waiting, the car behind us comes flying up in the right lane and cuts me off from merging over.  Now, had I not had my blinker on for the last two minutes, and had I not been slowing down to move over, and had she been behind the orange car the whole time, I possibly could have understood her behavior.  Because she seamed to have the specific goal of cutting me off for no good reason, I honk my horn at her and continue to merge to the right (maybe for some crazy reason she really didn't see me).  She decides to honk back and hold her position.  I reluctantly backed down and slid in behind her... almost missing my exit because of her unnecessary actions.  I don't understand what would possess someone to act in this manner... obviously she had somewhere super important to go, although it seamed that she was just trying to frustrate me!