The Kate Box: February 2011

Monday, February 28, 2011

Take Two

It finally happened this weekend! Our anniversary date had taken a "snow check" back at the beginning of the month as we were getting two feet of snow, and this weekend the plans finally came to life. Wes and I spent the night away by ourselves for the first time since the arrival of sweet girl back in September. And I should say that it was quite the success. We made it to Conway by 6:30 on Friday night, and we all crashed fairly early. Mom and I did some fun shopping on Saturday morning, Wes, Reese, and I made a few visits, and then it was time. Wes and I left for the big city and had an amazing time. We stayed at The Capital Hotel which is a must if you are ever in the area. We checked in and had a few hours until dinner time. I took an extra long bath, got ready slowly, and then we enjoyed a glass of wine at the hotel bar before heading to Brave New Restaurant. What next? Our first movie since September, and good thing I chose the flick. We went to see The King's Speech, and then it won the Oscar for Best Picture the next night. Good planning on my part. And a fabulous movie I might add.

Anywho, we had breakfast at Ashley's the next morning before heading back to see sweet pea. Such a fun reunion! And the fun wasn't over! One of my great friends from high school is having a baby girl in a month, and my mom hosted her shower at our house yesterday afternoon. I absolutely loved getting to catch up with friends I don't get to see nearly enough. So, after a full weekend, we loaded up the car in the typical fashion. A bit more coming back with us than going down on Friday. Mom packed us some frozen meals for this week in a cooler and sent me back with more smocked dresses for Miss Reese to wear now that the weather is turning, some really fun new clothes she had picked up since I had seen her the last time, and dinner to go. What. A. Weekend. I think we need to do this again. SOON.

B-Dubette on Saturday before we left her with Mopsy and Popsy. She was pretty great.

Breakfast at Ashley's at The Capital.

The super cute school themed baby shower. Christin is a first grade teacher at the same elementary school I went to when I was a wee little one.

I have LOTS of great detailed shots, but I may do a specific post about it later.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

WWWW

Okay, so I think I need some motivation to get out of my oh-so-comfy workout pants, nursing tanks, and cardigans/zip-up jackets. Anyone with me? I don't follow too many blogs of people I don't know, but one of the ideas I've seen on a stranger's blog is What I Wore Wednesdays. You take pictures of yourself every day and then post them all on Wednesdays. Oh my. I'm kind of nervous right now just thinking about it. I mean, I love getting dressed up and putting outfits together, but I haven't had to do it daily in such a long time, and I'm a bit afraid my wardrobe isn't "in style" anymore. Plus, I have to nurse this baby every three hours or so, and that makes things a bit tricky. I'm going to give it a try, but I'm not promising that it will go well or that I'll remember each week. And I'm not going to post a picture of my outfit right now because I'm still in pajama pants, a nursing tank, and a zip-up jacket. See? I need this challenge. To make it even that more exciting, I've turned it into What WE Wore Wednesdays. I'll photograph Reese AND me. So fun! She ends up in her pajamas often because she needs something on her feet while she sleeps, and she kicks off her socks with ease. Footed pj's are her version of my workout pants and cardigan. With that said, I'm going to go get some "real" clothes on right now. Well, after I attempt to feed Reese some green beans and pears and get her down for another nap.

Anyone want to join me in this silly project? Maybe I can get some outfit ideas from you fashionable ladies.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Guests

One of my dearest friends, MP, is counting down the days until her husband comes home from overseas. I think we are in the low 70's at this point. I don't know Tim's official title, but he flies those big C-130's delivering all sorts of things to places these things need to go. This is his second deployment, and his first was during their engagement. Now they are happily married, and MP is holding down the fort with their new beagle, Ellie, until he comes home. I absolutely cannot imagine Wes being gone that long, and MP has been so honest in how difficult it is for her to have the love of her life gone for months at a time. Our moms are great friends as well, and we have talked to Ms. Pattie and MP about a fun trip up here to do some shopping and eating for quite some time. It finally happened this weekend!

MP, Mom, and Ms. Pattie met Reese and me in Fayetteville at Riffraff around 10:30 on Friday morning to start off our day together. We each made a fun purchase, and then we headed to a fun flea market before eating at one of my favorite's--Hammontree's. We strolled down West Avenue after lunch going to a few more sweet stores, and then Reese declared it was naptime. It was so fun just to lounge around together for a few hours at the house, and of course it was really good for Reese. We then strapped her back in her carseat for round 2--northern NWA (my hood). Off to Signed, Sealed, and Delivered we went. These women went crazy in there! As I nursed Reese out in the car, the ladies did some damage to their wallets. And of course Mom got me something. This really fun spring bunny got me so ready for the flowers to bloom and the sun to shine long enough for me to bust out the shorts and sandals. Mom couldn't wait to show off Bentonville, so we drove around showing Ms. Pattie and MP some of our favorite places. I think Mom secretly wants to move up here. :) We had dinner at Table Mesa and then settled in for the night. After some homemade bran muffins and fruit on Saturday morning, I left Reese with Wes, and we all found lots to love at True Treasures. I came home with a white stoneware bottle, an old white window, a green candelabra, and two of my favorite French Market candles. The Conwegians (Conway folks) made a few more stops after dropping me off at home and then headed back to central Arkansas. It was such a wonderful time. Mary-Phillip is one of those people you just love to be around, and I hope this short trip helped her spirits while Tim is away.

The weekend didn't stop there either...I stepped in for the high school cheer coach and coached a game on Saturday afternoon, and then our great LR friends, Bradford, Carrie, and Walker, come over for pizza that night. We mostly speculated how our Florida trip will turn out in a month and a half. During the first week of April, we are heading to the beach together, and it's going to be interesting. I'm just glad we don't have too many expectations.

Okay, that's enough I guess. We didn't take one single picture this weekend besides Reese's five month pictures. We were all just having way too much fun being together, and I enjoyed showing off the place I now call home.

Happy Monday. And Happy Presidents' Day.

(Just because I don't like posting without a picture. This is Mary-Phillip and me on her wedding day last June!)

Saturday, February 19, 2011

FIVE.

FIVE MONTHS. That’s how long my world has been rocked. Five months (and one day) ago, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into, but little did I know what was on the road ahead of me. As a friend who had twin boys just a week before me said on her blog yesterday, we thought things we never thought possible in that first month. It was tough. Waaaay tougher than I ever imagined. As the days and now months pass, I can look back at that first month (or maybe first two) and breathe. This girl has stolen my heart, and I am more in love every day.It’s absolutely crazy. Those days and weeks of feeling so helpless are gone, and I now can attack, and hopefully conquer, each hurdle with confidence. I’m not saying I know all the answers, don’t have a million questions, or that I’ll get it right the first time (my friends from church are nodding their heads here), but I am confident that I’m the mother I need to be and the mother God called me to be.

Okay, so onto Reese Peese’s FIVE MONTH BIRTHDAY. I think a lot has happened in the past month regarding RRW’s development.

*Reese goes to bed between 6:30 and 7:00 at night. I still dreamfeed her between 9:30 and 10:30, and then she sleeps until close to 7:00 a.m.

*According to her rate of growth between 2 and 4 months, I am guessing that she weighs a little less than 16 pounds.

*Sweet girl is rolling from back to front and front to back.

*RRW can sit up unassisted for a little while before toppling to the side, forwards, or backwards.

*We started to introduce solids about three weeks ago, and she has had BAD gas and a bit of constipation. At the moment, we are backing off until her little system gets back to normal per nurse’s request.

*Naps. Ahhhhh. She takes them! She naps from around 8-10, a shorter nap sometime between 11 and 1, and then from 2-4ish. I have to pacify her sometimes, but she’s really getting the hang of it. The fourth nap is now completely gone which is what led to her earlier bedtime. Loving the new schedule!

*This is more of a question. B-Dubette is still swaddled. I unswaddle one arm at each nap, but she pretty much lies on the free arm as I prop her up on her side. Also, during her dreamfeed, I loosen her swaddle so she can get her arms out whenever she wants during the night. So, we are making progress of some sort, but I’m now stuck on what to try next. I’m trying to wean the swaddle. Any suggestions?!? If Reese gets her hand free, she immediately puts it near her face and pulls out her pacifier, which leads to crying. Hmmmm.

*Sweet girl is a happy girl. She is pretty content all the time unless she’s gassy or tired. Her smile is still absolutely contagious, and her laugh is to die for. Oh my. She talks when she wants to, but she’s generally a quiet baby. Content, I presume.

*Newest trick: Blowing raspberries. I didn't know what people were talking about when they said "blowing raspberries," but I get it now. Why is it called that? Anyways...Reese has woken up the past two nights around 3am just talking and blowing raspberries, and then she proceeds to show off her new trick all day long.

Now for the pictures...

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Ahhhh.

What a beautiful weekend. The snow is melting, and although it looks like we live in Minnesota with the big snow piles on the side of the roads, we are heading into a week of 50s and 60s. Wes, Reese, Emmett, and I just got back from a walk around the neighborhood, too. It's just so nice to be out of the house without wearing snow boots and ski pants. Enjoy some pictures of our day today. Reese is rolling around all over the floor, jumping up and down, and enjoying some much better rest.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Underestimating

Oops. As many blogs out there are reporting, the snowfall yesterday was a bit underestimated. When I fell asleep on Tuesday night, I thought we were going to get between 3-6 inches of snow and that it really wasn't going to start coming down until about noon on Wednesday. I held off on my milk run because I figured Wes could get out in the morning or sometime during the day to get a few staples for our pantry and frig. Ha. After Wes brought Reese to me around 7:20, he opened the curtains in our room, and it appeared that there was a lot of snow out there. However, I had just woken up, and I thought maybe my vision was a little off. I checked my phone to see an update that 6-10 inches were expected. That made a bit more sense, but that snow was coming down hard. As the morning went on, I heard we were going to get 12-20+ inches. That was more like it. My little southern Bentonville, USA got 20 inches of snow in a record amount of time. We have 22 inches on our deck, and Wes was stuck for about 45 minutes this morning trying to get out of our driveway. I just got the call that he and about four co-workers had made it to the office. Dedicated. (Or he just forgot his power cord for his laptop Tuesday night and was having to work from home on our laptop that doesn't have all of his files and such on it.) No, he really is dedicated to his job, and it's much easier to concentrate and get work done at the office. Reese and I can be quite distracting. Go figure.

Onto some updates:

Since Sunday night, Reese has been rolling both ways and entertaining herself with her new trick pretty well. Turns out she likes being on her belly when she can put herself there. She's actually rolling around on the floor as we speak. Reese Peeese also LOVES attention and demands it if everyone isn't looking at her. A little whine turns into a huge smile when someone glances her way. Pretty cute right now, but I can see it turning into something not so cute in the near future. She's also really starting to pay attention to Emmett. He walks by, and she just stares and grins, tracking him as he moves across the room. Oh, and we started what I like to call "sleep bootcamp" on Sunday night. I feed her the "dreamfeed" between 10-11, put her back to bed, shut her door, shut my door, turn the sound off the monitor, and go to sleep. I go get her up when she wakes anywhere in the 7:00 hour or later. She cried several times the first night but put herself back down each time pretty quickly. So I realized that when I go in just once to put a pacifier in or soothe her, she will cry and cry and cry (we have let her cry for a couple of hours at a time) until we go back in to help her. No more. We are done with the going into soothe her at night, and it's working!! Last night, she woke up once to get her arms totally free from the swaddle blanket and then fell back asleep until 7. Hallelujah! Last thing...I made my first Pioneer Woman recipe last night, and it was a huge success. Chicken tortilla soup on a snowy night is a wonderful idea in case you were wondering. Our big batch of marbled chocolate banana bread is vanishing, and the double chocolate chip cookies from yesterday afternoon are disappearing. I'm loving this great excuse to bake and cook. If only I could get that milk I need to make some snow ice cream and have with my cookies I would be good to go. Hopefully Wes can stop somewhere on his way home today.

Okay, enough of the updates. Onto the pictures...

Reese and her cousin Marion are four months and one day apart, future BFF's, and have great fashion sense. On accident, they have this matching sleeper, so when they finally got together on Monday night, we had a little photo shoot.

Hey, friend. I can't wait to play with you.

The 22 inches of snow on our deck.

Our sweet home covered in and surrounded by two feet of snow.

Wes and Emmett exploring the snow at the end of our driveway/street/whatever that is. Everything kind of blends together.

Posing on the ledge of our driveway.

A look at our snow covered street.

The top of our driveway and a look at the other side of our street.

Our poor bushes. They aren't used to this.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Moo

In honor of our neighbor, the good state of Texas, and her hosting of the Super Bowl today, I decided we needed to dress the part. Reese got all fancied up in her Moo Cow dress, and I put on my corduroys, boots, red gingham shirt, and denim jacket. I must say that we were pretty dadgum cute this morning at church. Reese definitely stole the show, and I was only part of the cute couple because I was holding her. Wes didn't totally join in on the fun, but he did wear a plaid shirt. I called ourselves the "modern southern family" as we piled into our car and headed down the road. Denim is coming back, right? I could have sworn I saw it somewhere on J.Crew.

Update on anniversary celebration...Wes and I took Reese to our next door neighbors' house last night, put her to sleep on Jon and Amy's bed, and went to Ruth's Chris for an amazing dinner. It really was such an incredible evening to get away and have such great conversation with the love of my life and be surrounded by really, really good food.

Alright, go enjoy Super Bowl Sunday. It's always the weekend of our anniversary. In fact, it was the day after our wedding, and we made a pallet on our apartment floor to enjoy some meaty cheese dip (the same recipe I'm making in a few hours to take to a party tonight) while taking in the Super Bowl as newlyweds. (I was still in college, so we had a delayed honeymoon during Spring Break...I went to class two days after I got married.) Oh, and Big Cedar created an ice sculpture a few years ago to celebrate the Super Bowl while we were there celebrating our anniversary. It's a fun event to share the weekend with although I'm not the biggest NFL fan.

Go Packers. Go Steelers. I really don't care, but I need to decide in the next few hours who I'm rooting for to make the game more exciting.

Friday, February 4, 2011

JK

Just Kidding. Ha. We aren't going anywhere this weekend. In the back of my mind, I knew it was a possibility, but I didn't want to believe it. It started snowing in central Arkansas early this morning, and it's now snowing here. Again. And guess what? It's supposed to snow more Sunday and Monday. So that means Wes and I are celebrating our anniversary at home for the first time. No Big Cedar. No Kansas City. No Hilton Branson Landing. No Capital Hotel. Just a little Bentonville, USA. I was sad, and I actually cried this morning because I realized I wasn't going to get my night away, PLUS we had just ended the third really rough night in a row. However, let me stress that I am now sitting with a huge smile on my face in front of a nice roaring fire in the living room, with my groom home for a four-day weekend, and a napping baby in her crib. I think a large part of what was behind those tears was due to a bad case of cabin fever. I don't usually go stir crazy, but after looking at the 7-day forecast, I told Wes we were going somewhere today. Anywhere. He offered to make me pancakes, but I said we were going OUT for breakfast. To Mimi's Cafe we went, and it was delicious. A banana chocolate-chip muffin, a vegetable egg white frittata, and orange juice. Yummo.

The snow is beautiful, and I was ready to get out in it when we got back home. We bundled up sweet pea, grabbed my camera, and headed outside to see more snow falling. We had a quick photo shoot, and I plan on going for a short stroll after all of the snow is on the ground and none is in the air.

Enjoy the weekend! And happy FIVE years to my absolutely amazing groom. He's one heck of a husband and father. Oh, I just get giddy and giggle thinking about the man I married five years ago today. With that plaid shirt, boots, jeans, and North Face cap on today, I think he's just as much of a hunk as when I semi-stalked him back in the 10th grade.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Stuck

Along with everyone else here in NWA (and really a majority of the country), I'm stuck inside peering out at the 6-8 inches of snow that covers everything in sight. (This picture was taken at the beginning of the snowfall, and I just felt sorry for this sweet little bird looking inside our warm home.)

You should remember that just six days ago it was 70+ outside, and I wore a tank top on our walk.

Reese was sweating in her "cozy cover."

The layers of snow and ice on the roads appear to be getting thinner, but I haven't ventured out of the house since my Monday morning Walmart run, so I really don't know anything about road conditions besides what Wes reports. Apparently we are supposed to get a light snow tomorrow and 1-4 more inches Sunday night and Monday morning. Nine snow days were added to the school calendar last year if I remember correctly, and it looks like we may get close to that this year, too. (I still get the texts from my old assistant principal when our school district closes, so I feel like I'm still in the know.) I've used a new recipe for dinner, attempted a new daily schedule with Reese that doesn't seem to mesh well with her likings (two REALLY rough nights have followed this new daily routine), eaten lots of dark chocolate, done a workout video, and started packing for our weekend away. You read that correctly. A weekend AWAY from Reese. I'm nervous. Pray now if you will. Not only is Reese very picky about who puts her down, but she refuses a bottle every other time we offer one, and she has started this new cry that makes me think she's in pain with gas or something uncomfortable. It's our FIFTH anniversary tomorrow, and Wes and I are leaving Reese with my parents for a night. We are heading to The Capital Hotel in LR, out to a very nice dinner, and back to the hotel for a restful, full night's sleep for the first time in over four months. I'm praying that it works well, but we will only be 30 minutes away if I end up being needed. Regardless, I get to celebrate being married to the love of my life and spend time with my incredible family. At the very least, we can make it to dinner, right?! :)

Happy weekend! I'm definitely glad this weather didn't show up five years ago. I'm pretty sure it was in the 50s without a cloud in the sky.

Yep, it was beautiful.

And tomorrow will be beautiful as well. I'll be getting unstuck from the house, and I'll get to spend the entire 24 hours with my groom. It will be a beautiful day.