Bathroom Revamp and some randomness

We've lived here for over 2 1/2 years, and our basement bathroom has looked like this the entire time. These pictures do not do justice to the amount of dirt and grime on every surface, floor, shower, sink, walls, baseboard, ceiling, you name it. Zach has used this bathroom as his bike shop - the only thing that has ever showered in here are his bikes. So my project over the past 2 weeks has been to get it to the point where I wouldn't be completely embarrassed to let someone use it. It was harder then I thought to juggle working on it and keeping Aubrey happy, but I'm proud to say I basically did this project on my own from start to finish.

These mirrors were a fun and pretty easy project. Ikea has unfinished wood mirrors for $1.99, so super cheap, and believe me, they appear elsewhere in my house. I'd rate decorating the mirrors a 4 in difficulty. I add a point for everytime I irreversibly messed up or threw something.

Aubrey seems to do something new everyday. Her latest development is army crawling, maybe not quite army crawling yet, but more of a full body wiggly spasm, but it works. I've yet to get her to crawl to one of her many bright toys, but put something dangerous in front of her, a plastic bag, paper, choking hazards, rat poison, toys made in china, and she is motivated. You can't tell here, but she pants like a little puppy the whole time she's moving, so cute!

We went to one of my favorite events this weekend, a soup contest! I've had it on the calendar since last year. I guess the word got out about how great this is, because the lines were way too long. It's just not as fun when you have to wait 10 minutes for each and every spoonful of soup. So the new word is, this event is no fun, please don't come next year, my friends and I will be there, but hopefully you won't. Doesn't Aubrey look enormous here?

Grandparents, this post is for you!

My favorite part about my 7 month old is how she is watching her interact with others. Some highlights from this week...

My friend Linda had a baby girl named Natalie exactly 1 week before Aubrey was born. Here they are together, just a few weeks old, cute, but not super interesting.

Here they are now!Linda, I wish you weren't moving so soon so we could see them grow together!

Aubrey and Lulu have also started to play together, at least, Lulu brings her toys to Aubrey, tail wagging and excited for a game of fetch or tugowar.

Too cute not to share.

Aubsession

Pretty much the only time I hop to people’s blogs that I don’t know is when I can’t sleep. How far removed I end up from my own site is directly proportional to how long I’ve been up for. If I end up on the site of a friend of a friend of a friend of my friend, you can bet it’s 4 am, I’m eating ice cream, and begrudging Zach for being asleep. On one of these nights I stumbled across a site of a married couple who are expecting their first baby. Their blog is pretty entertaining albeit a little bit shocking at times. One of the husband’s posts has had me thinking for a few weeks.

“As I have previously stated, the majority of this blogs readers are females who write blogs of their own to keep grandparents and others up to date on what is happening with their kid. I do not want this blog to turn into a scrap booking project. You will never see pictures of the baby’s first poop or discussions about whether Carter’s or Baby Gap has cuter onesies. I think that having a kid and a boring blog are not mutually exclusive, therefore I will still be posting my thoughts from time-to-time trying to offend people and keep the blog lighthearted.”

Touché – he pretty much pegged me. By the way, Baby Gap has cuter onesies. But I see his point, I remember being like that prebaby. At many a baby shower, I would sit in complete boredom while people shared labor stories, critiqued Happy Feet and made comments like – cucumber and ginseng wet wipes are the best! Words would be thrown around that I had never heard, meconium, pitocen, lanolin….I promised myself that I would avoid these mom conversations, that I wouldn’t let these things define me, that I would be MELANIE first, who was also a mom, and not a MOM who was named Melanie. But you should hear me now – I might as well open my conversations with “What’s your labor story?” I feel like I’m part of this exclusive club whose language I can finally understand! And I’m eager to finally be able to join in those “boring” conversations. “There’s a great sale and Janie and Jack!” “Pampers Swaddlers are the best diapers!” “The Peg Perego Aria it totally worth the extra money.” “Yah-huh – babies can have yogurt before a year.”

The comment that having a kid and a boring blog not being mutually exclusive and my prebaby baby shower thoughts are what has kept me from posting about Aubrey this past month. I was trying to find aspects of my life that were fun and interesting that didn’t involve Aubrey, to see if I had a life outside of momhood. But….I’ve found that having a baby and not writing about her and having a boring blog are also not mutually exclusive, at least in my case, so I’ll go back to posting about Aubrey whenever the urge hits (which is often). And you know what? It’s okay. It’s okay to be obsessed with my adorable little girl, to constantly post about her and assume people are as interested in her as I am. She’s the cheese to my macaroni, why fight it? Anyways, that guy also made fun of large flower headbands, so maybe he’s not as credible as I first thought!

So here are all the things I’ve been dying to share about Aubrey…


The flatness on the back of her head is gone and her bald spot is beginning to disappear

She can sit up for a long time on her own

She has a tooth! Tooth O if you’re a dentist

She’s eating all the first foods, which I am not enjoying. Carrot spit up is ruining her outfits, I go through tubs of oxiclean trying to salvage.

She is super talkative, lots of da-da

When I take something away from her that she’s playing with (like my cell phone or paper) she throws a full on fit – starts crying until I give it back to her. She’s not even 7 months, she seems too young to have developed such an attitude. The only thing I take comfort in is that she’s too young for that attitude to be a result of faulty parenting techniques by me, it must just be her personality. Actually, that’s not comforting at all.

She’s starting the army crawl, just a little

She loves to giggle


Aubrey fell asleep in her carseat at church a few weeks ago - she never falls asleep anywhere she can see people, so this was unusual and she fell asleep in the cutest way!

Lion King!

Thursday night I ventured downtown with some girl friends to see the Lion King. It was a fun night in a lot of ways, no kids, no husbands :), nice dinner, theater, and going downtown, which I rarely do. I don't think any of us were that impressed with the restaurant (Palomino) but the ambiance was nice. I think the more I pay for food the less impressed I am. I've never raved over a dinner that I've paid more then $14 for, but I will dream about $2 chick-fil-a nuggets for months after. My ideal restaurant would have white table linens, at least 3 forks, crystal glasses, and a chick-fil-a menu. The show was worth the money (way better then Beauty and the Beast). And a girls night is always therapeutic!

I seem to be the only one trying to look buddy-buddy in this picture.

We look a little more like friends in this one!