Bear with me...

I'm still working on some housekeeping issues around here!  Hopefully pretty soon I'll have the kinks worked out.

This Week

So!  I had my very first Mother's Day this last week.  It was a beautiful day - sunny and chilly, but we made the best of it.  Brad went and got McDonald's for breakfast (at my request, ha) and him and Hadley came back with some pretty flowers for me.  That morning we went with our church to one of the local nursing homes and delivered flowers and muffins to the mommas - both staff and residents - there.  It was a really special time that blessed many women, myself included, and also made me proud to be a part of a church that takes loving the community seriously.

Later that day we got coffee at the coffee shop and just drove around, which might sound silly but is one of my favorite things to do with Brad and Hadley.  We just drive, look at houses and talk and she usually sleeps :)  We also stopped at a nursery and looked at plants since my Mother's Day gift from Brad is going to be a raised bed garden.  We ended the day with a walk where I made sure to get a picture of me and Hadley...

I will save all the sentimental stuff because I know it's all been said, but really, from the very bottom of my heart, I am just so thankful that God made me this baby's Momma.  My wise stepmom always talks about how God gave us the children He gave us for a reason, just like we got the parents we were given for a reason.  I am always so humbled that God gave me Hadley.  She's my very best girl.

In other news, this girl is MOVING - I can't even begin to count how many times I say, "Hadley, no!" when she tries to pull up for the six millionth time on the TV stand (I have nightmares of the TV falling on her, we're mounting it on the wall soon!) or having to go get her from the other room when she crawls out of eyesight.  This stage is just crazy, I am forever afraid she's going to get into something that she shouldn't and hurt herself or swallow some minute thing on the floor (like one of Brad's itty bitty fishing flies, those things are ridiculously tiny) or lose her balance and hit her head.  But then you go to bed at night and realize that God had to give you grace in there somewhere to not lose your mind over the constant minding of your child.    I know that every stage comes with its ups and downs but I particularly feel that the first month or so of mobility is especially trying on new parents!  Relatedly...I am okay if she doesn't walk til she's 4 ;)

One of her favorite places to perch, the dishwasher -

Couldn't decide which one I liked better...so I posted them both.  Brad always calls her his little 'bear cub'.  I think that's so cute, and so dang fitting. 

Such a happy girl!

Hadley with her Uncle Sam, one of Brad's 4 younger brothers

Her favorite.place.to.stand - the coffee table.  Pretty much any time of any day you can find her in this position :)

I gotta say...I'm happy tomorrow is Friday!  It's been one of those weeks where every day felt like the following day - meaning, all day today I kept thinking it was Friday.  Hate those kind of days...but happy the real deal is here!

When the Thermometer Says 104

It's official: we're dealing with our first ear infection.  Not just one ear infection, but two.  And it seriously came out of left field.

It all started this past Saturday, though over the last week I think there were signs of sickness that I attributed to teething.  (She finally got her 1st tooth, which was exciting but HELLO CRANKY CHILD).  Anyway, Saturday afternoon I had laid down with her to take a little nap and when we woke up I noticed that she felt unusually warm.  I took her temp with the ear thermometer and it said 101.3.  I gave her a half dose of Tylenol and checked it a half hour later, and it was up to 102 degrees.  I gave her the rest of the Tylenol and put her in a lukewarm bath.  She seemed fine in the bath, was playing and generally well-spirited, so we went on with our night.

Because she had been feverish I put her in bed with us so I would know quickly if she was hot, and sure enough, around 5am I woke up to a burning hot baby.  Absolutely burning up.  I didn't even take her temp because I knew it would just scare me and make me run to the ER.  I got her up, gave her another dosage of Tylenol and a little bottle - which she ate - and we went back to bed.

The next morning - Sunday - we woke up and she seemed just fine.  Playful, happy, etc.  We decided it would be okay to go to church, especially because we had missed so much lately due to being out of town.  Around 11:30 she started to get warm again, and by the time we got home she was burning up.  This time I did take her temp using the ear thermometer (side note - I normally use a tiny rectal thermometer cause I don't like the guessing game with ear/digital thermometers, but used the ear thermometer this time).  The temp came up 106 degrees. My blood froze.  We gave her the Tylenol again and I quickly called my best friend who is a Physician's Assistant.  She said to take her temp with the digital thermometer under her arm, which came up 103 (102 + 1 degree).  Still super high but said we could just alternate Tylenol and Ibuprofen and wait until Monday to call the doctor, especially since there didn't seem to be any other symptoms.  In the meantime I decided to throw away the ear thermometer.

Sunday we alternated the meds and by that night she was her happy playful self.  I held off on giving her the next dosage when I put her to bed, hoping the virus was just a 24 hour thing that had passed.  We weren't that lucky, though, and Sunday at midnight we woke up yet again with another raging 103 degree fever.  It had been 24 hours of high, high fevers, but what scared me the most at that moment was her demeanor.  She was almost listless - eyes were a little glassy, she just laid in my arms not looking at me while I rocked her.  That was when I woke Brad up and said that we were going to the ER. I knew he was a little resistant but was also concerned.  We got all dressed and were getting ready to leave and it was like, all of a sudden, the medicine kicked in and Happy Hadley was back.  Her eyes cleared up, she became alert and even started smiling at Brad.  I texted my best friend and she said that we could take her in if we wanted but that if it were her, she would wait until Monday morning.  So because of that, but mostly because of her improved behavior, I said we could wait til  the morning to take her in.  We got back in bed, said a prayer over her, and went to sleep.

At 8am on the nose I called my clinic and got her in for a 10:30 appointment, which was really good because when I got her up, her temp was at 104.  I gave her the Tylenol and we proceeded to have a rough morning full of puking up her bottle, crying, and an unsuccessful attempt at a bath before we finally went to the doctor.  By that time she was in a much better mood due to the Tylenol.  As soon as the PA came in he looked at her ears and sure enough, both were flaming red, according to him.  He wrote her a prescription for the Amoxicillin, which I got filled and administered ASAP!  For the record, she had been pulling on her ears a tiny bit, but she's also done that in the past and it was nothing, so that wasn't really an indicator for me.    One clue that it was possibly her ears was that she hadn't been eating her whole bottle in one sitting - she would break off often.  However, I attributed it to teething.  Also she hated being laid down to change her diaper or clothes and would cry every.single.time.  Both of those things are symptoms of ear issues.

So there you have it, our crazy weekend with a pitiful baby girl.  I do have to admit that I'm proud of myself that I didn't just run her into the ER, which was my fighting instinct pretty much the whole time.  I definitely believe there's a time to do that (if her temp would've gotten to 104 I would've gone in right away), but I tried to use my common sense and trust that those around me - like my best friend who is a PA and a momma of 3 - knew what they were talking about.  And now we won't have to pay an emergency room bill, thank the Lord.

Once we got home from the doctor I stripped her down - it's finally a warm day! - and let her sleep in my arms.  There's something about when they're sick, they seem to sleep much better when they're snuggled up with you (even though it's tough when they're running a fever.  But she wasn't when I took this).

Here's to hoping for better days ahead!

Friday Confessionals

Just gotta keep it real sometimes...

• I hate texting people back.  Not because I don't want to talk to them, but because I find it so cumbersome on my iPhone.  That, my friends, is the peak of laziness because iPhone is seriously magical in that it can detect whatever word you're trying to say when you type "rpwzkwq"
  
• I only wash my hair about every 2-3 days.  It really doesn't get greasy, and the last day I just throw it in a ponytail.  It styles so much better that way.  And since we're on that topic, I hate washing my face at night.  The good news is that I don't wear a lot of makeup most days and when I do it's usually a BB cream so it's pretty light.  But still...
  
• I could eat Hidden Valley ranch dressing - the kind you mix up, NOT the kind you buy - by the spoonful.  Along with sour cream.  I always get a little bite in of my Great Value Light Sour Cream whenever I've got it out for something (that is my most favorite sour cream, seriously tastes better than any full-fat, name brand sour cream, no joke)
  
• There's been a pile of clothes/blankets/burp rags/sunscreen/headbands/junk sitting outside of Hadley's room for a week now.  Everytime I think to put it away I'm either about to put her down for a nap or bed.  The sad part?  It's four feet from my desk that I set at all day, every day
  
• I feel so accomplished when I drink one glass of water in a day.  One. That's how much I dislike it.
  
• I love celebrity gossip and can pretty much tell you who most actors and musicians are, along with their current gossip.  Funny cause I don't really even like watching movies or TV shows (except for Hart of Dixie or Nashville, and I really don't follow the celebs on those shows, ha)

Happy Friday!

This Happy Home

I've got a new design and a new name for the blog - life changes and so it makes sense our blog would change as well, no?!

Welcome to This Happy Home!

SensatioNail Gel Nail Polish Review

There was a time in my life where I would spend serious money on my nails - I would get acrylics, gel nails, pedicures, manicures, etc etc.  Usually it would cost about $50 for a manicure and pedicure, and the sad thing is that I was so happy to do it because there was a certain high in having my nails "done".  It made me feel like, if my nails are done, I can look a little sloppy but still feel "put together".  So every two weeks I would be at the little nail place in my town, dropping my (or probably Brad's) hard-earned money on gussyin' up my nails.

But then we had a baby and though our income didn't change, the belt had to tighten.  I started filtering out the needs vs. wants and realizing that most of my needs were actually wants and they weren't necessary.  (See, this is why I think it's smart to wait a little while to have kids. You can spend what you want, whenever you want prior to kids with little guilt.  Afterwards it just changes things.)  As you can imagine, my $50 nail treatments were a "want" and quickly got cut out.  So now I paint my own toenails (though I will definitely splurge here and there on pedicures) and my own nails, and though they never ever look as good as they would having them done professionally, I'm okay with that because when I do it? It's free.  Free=good.

The gel nail polish popularity is nothing new to me; I've been reading about women getting that done for a while now.  I've had it done at my nail place, and every time they only lasted about a week before I could peel them right off.  It always made me mad to spend the money on something that's supposed to last and then never would.  But then I started reading online about SensatioNail, a gel polish kit that you can do at home.  I almost fell over in the makeup aisle at our little WalMart when I actually saw it on the shelf (our WalMart is TERRIBLE, they only get the most functional, boring items).  I had some Christmas money burning a hole in my purse so I snatched it up that day and let me tell you...it was $50 well spent.

How it Works
It's amazing how simple it is to use the kit.  Here are the steps you follow -

1 - Buff top of nails with file provided
2 - Swipe provided cleanser over each nail
3 - Apply Gel Primer, let air dry (dries quickly)
4 - Apply Gel Base & Top Coat, "cure" under lamp for 30 sec
5 - Apply 1 layer of Color Gel Polish, cure under lamp for 60 sec
6 - Apply 2nd layer of Color Gel Polish, cure under lamp for 60 sec
7 - Apply Gel Base & Top Coat, cure for 30 sec
8 - Swipe cleanser over each nail to remove moisture layer

And that's it.  Each hand takes about 5 minutes and you're done.  I've used it twice now and am always amazed at how quick it is and how nice my nails look afterward.  The last time I did it my nails lasted about 10 days before the outgrowth started making them look a little gross.  At that point I just put cotton balls soaked with nail polish remover on top of my nails, wrapped them with foil and waited 10 minutes to remove the polish.  I had to scrape the polish off after they were done soaking, and I will admit that it does seems a little damaging to do that, but it's the only way to get it off and within a day or so my nails looked and felt fine.

Tips/Additional Points -

• One thing I'm still trying to figure out is how to get maximum shine on my nails after I wipe off the moisture layer.  This last time they looked dull right after I did that, so I did another thin layer of the Top Coat and cured it for 30 seconds, but I don't think that made much of a difference.  What I've concluded is that they look a little dull right after cleansing but they do "shine up" the next day.  
• When I first bought the kit they only had about 5-7 color options, which was a bummer.  However, at MY WalMart (miracle of miracles) they had added another 5 or so colors recently, which really excited me.  I purchased the Babydoll Pink, which is what I'm wearing in my photos. 
• The kit itself is about $50 and they say that it will give you 10 complete manicures.  Not sure how they figure that, guess we'll see what runs out first?  But considering that getting a gel manicure just once in a salon is $30, it pays to buy this and DIY.  The nail polishes are pricey at $9.99.  
• I did watch a YouTube video that said you can use your own regular nail polishes on it, you just have to let the color coats dry completely before applying the SensatioNail top coat and curing. Though I don't really have the time to dry wet fingernails now that I have an infant that's into everything, it is good to know that it's an option.
• Putting your hands in water for bathing, dishes, etc doesn't affect the shine at all.  Awesome, right?
• As you'll see in my pics I didn't trim my cuticles before I applied it and I wish I would have.  It makes a huge difference in how neat & clean it looks, so I advise doing that!

Here's everything you need, from left to right - the Gel Cleanser, Primer, Base & Top Coat and Polish.  Then there's the lamp.

I almost didn't include a picture of my nails because my cuticles are so bad!  And I have a pet peeve of people posting pictures of their nail polish when it clearly is smudged and messy.  But anyway - the polish itself is light, looks shiny, no?

Here's a better pic of how shiny it is.  It looks like this for at least 10 days!

I almost feel silly even saying this cause I only have like 10 people that read this blog, but I was not compensated for providing this review - I just really love this product and think that, if you love having pretty nails but don't want to spend the money on it every couple weeks, this is a great purchase for you!  Let me know if you've done it and loved it or hated it!

Pics from the iPhone

Totally random, but does anybody else get so happy when you have all the ingredients on-hand to make something you've been craving?  I've been dying for some chicken fried rice lately, and I actually had everything to make it.  You better believe I ate the whole bag of boil-in-a-bag brown rice...

Anyway.  I do have plans to get back to blogging more but for now it's just difficult with home, work and a baby.  Soon!  Until then...here's some pictures from my phone -

Little Miss had a nurse visit for a shot yesterday - always makes me a little sad when she's so happy before she gets the shot.  This is definitely a 'before' photo, though she only cried for a second when she got the shot.  Anyway - how cute is her little outfit??  Lately I've been on a consignment/thrift store kick, and I was able to get that Baby Gap sweater for $4 and the gold sandals for $1.  Winning.  (And do you not just want to eat those little thighs up)

Love, love, love mornings where she sits happily next to her toy basket and just plays.  Momma gets so much done!

We live super close to a grocery store and since last night the weather was beautiful AND cause we have a snow storm on the way (no lie) we decided to take a short walk to pick up bacon and beer.  Haha - no really.  We were grilling burgers and Brad wanted some beer so off we went.  We just shoved the beer in the stroller...keepin' it real!  

Hadley is pulling up on anything she can.  This would be her high chair ...which I also might add was parked right next to my desk cause we were having one of those days.  

I bought that yellow stripe shirt from Baby Gap when I was still pregnant with Hadley and I remember thinking, "Gosh, she probably won't wear this til she's at least 1."  And here she is sporting it at 8 months.  Anyway, we're stripe girls around here.