Christmas in Oregon!

My mom had a great idea to do an ornament exchange, white elephant style...here is the one given to Boston at the end of the night.

All the Corley's...Larsons..some Blakes ...and Friends!

Tev and her ornament...coincidentally, it was a little man, with a heart on his pants...meant to be!

Reindeer Ben

Tev and the hot pocket...at least that is what she calls him.

Me enjoying my 1 month old...much more alert now :) PS. he slept 9 hours Christmas eve night...it was his present to us! Already such a thoughtful little guy.

My little Xmas baby...

So much fun to have him during this holiday season...here are a few pics taken in the last few weeks.

Would not be Christmas without the laughter of Uncle Steve...here he is making baby faces.

Thanks Daddy for feeding me :)

Cutting down our Christmas Tree...I think it was 20 degrees or something that day, Boston is in my pouch, I was trying to keep him and me warm :)

Baby's first bath...

Okay so I am a little late...he is a month old now (well on Thursday) and obviously he took his first bath a couple weeks ago, but hey you know how it goes. Turns out the bath is almost his favorite thing besides of course my boobs :) In fact he takes one almost every day, when he explodes all over the place...my life is so fun now.

Our little Boss...

So he finally arrived on Thanksgiving about 5pm. My brother says that we were both popping turkeys out of the oven at the same time. He was 10 pounds, 4oz. and 22.5 inches long. All went well with the pushing only 37 minutes...although it was a whole different story with the labor part. I will not go into the whole long 2 day story, but in short, I had to have three different epidurals because they were not working and some local (toes to torsoe) sort of old school style epidural, that lasted only 2 hours. I did not get much relief and pretty much felt like it was by default natural childbirth. Not fun...until he finally came.

We call him Boss, short for Boston around here these days because that is what he is...the boss!
It has been the hardest adjustment of my life and I never knew how real sleep deprivation is. But I have to admit, I was an emotional mess for the first three days, partly because my milk was not coming in....now 6 days later, milk still not here, but is showing signs (finally have some colustrum) of arriving soon. Little Boston got jaundice and so we had to get the bili-blanket and have him wear it for two days...he is much better now and he finally got to eat with some formula.

I am adapting a little better everyday to the less sleep factor, we are all sleeping a little longer and better due to him having some food in him now. Ben has been amazing and very much a team player in our little family. He may not have the mothering instinct that I do, but he loves to bond with Boston and is the bottle making, diaper changing pro around here :) Thank you honey!

Here are a few pics for my friends that have not seen him yet...I am sure there will be plenty more coming soon.

Are we ready...?????

So in the final weeks before the baby arrives...we ask ourselves, are we ready? Since my first instict is to scream no, I have to somehow justify that we are ready in some ways...

Nursery...check...and on a very tight budget which is a fun challenge for me!

Dresser $25 (goodwill)-repainted, new knobs-Corner shelf $20 (craigslist)-Bench $40 (ikea)- recoverd, paintings ($30 for canvas and my time)

My nursing nook...for now...Chair $75 (craigslist), curtains $4 (goodwill), Bookshelf $25 (craigslist), lamp $29 (my fav piece! marshalls)

Clothes...???? Well they are washed and organized. I just can't put a price on having a fashionable baby boy. Diaper bag packed and ready to go...where? I have no idea, I guess I have to learn to leave the house with the baby? And thank you Mom, for the first baby gift back when we found out, the bouncy.

Crib $100 (craigslist), Bedding probably around $40 and my time, Boston flags ($20 of embroidery)


Carseat in car...check

Car...check...I know it seems silly that this makes me feel ready, but we only have one car and if you saw my earlier post my jeep was injured...happy to replace it with the #1 saftey rated car, the Acura MDX. Good thing we saved in the nursery...

Graduating Cake Class...

My sister and I took a cake decorating class at Micheals Craft store for 4 weeks. I missed a week, but my teacher told my sister that I had talent and nothing to worry about. Too funny!
Anyways we graduated last week, I even got a little certificate and everything. My favorite part every week was taking the cake home to eat it. I love cake :) It was fun to hang out with my sis too, we are always so busy even though we only live 10 minutes apart.

Week 2 cake, we learned the star filler method.

Me and my week 4 cake

Week 4 cake, we mastered the "Wilton" rose and writing, it was no ones birthday or anything so I wrote Happy Un-birthday. Fun times!

Mourning Tippy...

Many of you might have seen my facebook post of a very important lesson learned this week.
About a month or two ago, I hit a pole, backed into it after a wedding I coordinated in downtown Portland. It was a long day and the dang thing was camouflaged. Well it did not do much damage, could not even really tell. Just could not open the back door very well, cause the tire was pushed in. So I procrastinated getting it fixed cause I did not want to make a claim, after getting an estimate and with a total of about $1200 worth of damage, we decided to make a claim about 2 weeks ago. Made the appointment for the body shop and rental car for 4pm on Monday (last week).
Ben came home Monday at about 2pm. Looked at me with sad eyes and said "honey, I got in an accident with the Jeep" after asking about his well being we went to look at the damage on the front end this time. He had rear ended a lady and I won't go into his story or driving skills...
I said no big deal, we are going to the body shop anyways, they will just fix both. Separate claims were made and by the way, you pay a deductible for each claim, not per year as I had thought. So we were looking at about $1000. Bummer.
Well, it just gets worse because our body shop called us a day later and said the damage for the 1st claim was up to $2200 after exploring a little more and the 2nd was around $4800. Because the claims/damage was too be fixed at the same time, did not matter that they were separate claims, that an adjuster needed to come out and determine if the car was worth fixing or totalled. Worth fixing...YES, tippy is worth fixing, she is paid off, we had just gotten brand new brakes, roters (the week before mind you), tires and a lifetime of alignments! We have only one car, no payments and a baby coming in 4 weeks...we do not need the stress of buying a new car.

Thursday, 1pm Tippy was declared dead and totalled....WHAT!!!
It was the most unexpected thing and I cried for hours. Maybe I just needed a good cry, maybe I am just pregnant and hormonal, maybe I am pissed I waited so long to get the back fixed, maybe I am mad at Ben for ruining my car, maybe I just really loved that car and wanted to keep it for much, much longer, for free! I am not sure but, she is gone.

Two days later...I was okay and had let go (after calling the adjuster and our agent at least 5 times to try and save her in anyway possible). We test drove some cars Saturday and our leaning towards a Subaru Tribeca, but we will see.

For now, I can only remember the good times in that car. The representation of my single years, trips to Seattle, many moves, fun times having Ben start driving her and me freaking out that we were going to tip over, a trip to California, the coast, Canada...So goodbye for now my devoted jeep, I loved and will always remember you.