Confessions Of A Scrapaholic

Back to our Regularly Scheduled Programming

My blog has been fairly baby-centric lately (OK, so that is pretty much all I post about) and I plan to change that. There are other things happening around me after all. One very fun thing that I am proud to be a part of is Heather Ann's design team. It is such an honor. Heather has put together a fantastic Heather Ann Designs Shutterfly website for the holidays. Each day will feature an inspirational project for the holidays. She started it off today with an amazing recipe book.

Click here to view this photo book.

Isn't it gorgeous? It almost makes me want to cook. Ha! You can create one just like this using her recipe quick pages found here and here. Make sure to visit the site each day for new holiday gift ideas and inspiration. I am so in the holiday spirit I can hardly stand it. Seriously. Our Christmas tree box is sitting in our living room ready to be assembled.

Top Secret:
I haven't told you my Christmas tree plan. Brilliant if I do say so myself. While we are in Spokane for the Thanksgiving holiday, Becky and her husband Todd are going to come over and put the tree up for us and place our Christmas elf, Flea, in the tree. Zoë is going to FLIP when she sees it. Can you imagine? Obviously WE couldn't have done it. As far as Zoë knows it will be Flea the Christmas Elf working his magic. I cannot wait. I of course will be ready with my video camera when we walk in the door to capture her reaction. Eeek! I am so excited.

My Baby and Her Baby

Quite a few of my friends have been taking monthly baby+bear photos of their newborns. I think that is just the cutest idea and fully intend on copying it, but with a twist, Eden+baby doll. Zoë brought her a soft and cuddly baby doll at the hospital and Eden loves it. I have been taking the photos but slacked off on the whole posting to the blog thing. Oops. I need to get these monthly milestones posted before I forget. Time goes so quickly with newborns. You kind of forget when they learned each new skill or tried something new unless you write it down.

Looking at these pictures I think I need to choose a new location for the photo shoots. The dark leather chair doesn't really show you Eden's hair. She has SO much of it. She actually has pigtails in the two month pictures but you can't see them. Grrrrr.

Eden is the sweetest sleepiest baby. We actually took her to the doctor because she was sleeping so much and thought there must me something wrong with her (she was awake for about 3 hours a day, tops.) As it turns out Eden's sleepiness was completely normal, unlike her sister who had to be moving constantly. She caught her first cold at one week old (thank you preschool germs) and again at three weeks old. Around three weeks old she also started having problems with gas and was VERY uncomfortable. Despite that, she is still as sweet as can be. The sleepiness makes it almost impossible to nurse her, so instead I am pumping. Joy.

The gas problems seem to be under control, but now Eden is suffering from acid reflux. My poor little baby. Sleeping in her vibrating chair seems to remedy the situation. The doctor put her on Zantac and prescribed a sleeping wedge (which Eden hates and refuses to sleep on.) She started smiling at 6 weeks old and give us all big smiles when she wakes up. She is awake for longer periods during the day and sleeps for longer periods at night, usually waking around 11pm and 3am for a bottle then goes right back to sleep, God bless her. She LOVES bath time. We actually had to place her baby tub inside the larger bath tub because she spashes so much and gets water everywhere. The also is a huge fan of her floor play mat. She stares up at the animals and swats at them. Speaking of staring up at things, she will sit in her vibrating chair (in her crib) and watch her mobile spin around for a good twenty minutes at a time.

Double Take

I have mentioned that Eden looks exactly like Zoë did when she was a baby. When most people hear that they think, "Sure they do. Siblings often look alike." While that is true, I don't think you can truly appreciate what I am saying without photographic evidence. With the exception of Eden's curly afro hair, they are seriously twins. (Click to enlarge)

Crazy, isn't it!?!

I will post again soon, I promise. All of my free time lately has been spent working on home movies and decorating the house. Both are starting to come together.

Quick & Easy and So Sweet

I saw a layout similar to this in an issue of Creating Keepsakes a while back and immediately put it on my must scrap list. Babies grow up so quickly, I wanted something tangible to remind me how tiny my girls were when they were first born. I created Eden's first then whipped one up for Zoë as well. We can't have her feeling left out. I picked up my prints at Costco today and they look AMAZING. I would absolutely recommend this to anybody. Imagine opening up your scrapbook and staring at a life sized baby! Sooo sweet.

I've got to say, Zoë's baby book is getting as much attention lately as Eden's. Some of her first layouts are on the chopping block. I have already redone one page and plan on reworking about five more. Before you give me too much grief, they were some of the last paper layouts I did. And yes, they are that bad.

A Little of This, A Little of That...

First up, my review of Jillian Michael's: Fitness Ultimatum. It's pretty cool! I have been doing it for a few days now and am most definitely sore. Our house has about a zillion stairs (alright, that may be a slight exaggeration) and I am feeling each and every one of them at the moment. The game does seem to have it's glitches though, or I am not doing it right (also entirely possible.) In the game you alternate between running and other activities such as rowing a boat, jumping on tires, etc. When you are doing each activity there is a status bar on the screen for the Wii-mote and Balance Board. When you are doing the exercise correctly each of the bars light up. Thus far I have only succeeded in doing that during the running phase of the game. There is one exercise, punching and kicking a punching bag, that I swear I am doing correctly, and NOTHING happens. Not a thing. Not a single blip on the status bars. Obviously I still need some practice. In all honesty though, I have a lot more fun playing Wii Fit. My favorite is the hoola-hoop game. I am going to have abs of steel in no time if I keep that up. :)

Next up, some baby talk. I am fairly certain that Eden is suffering from acid reflux. I found a wonderful online resource last night which provides everything you could ever want to know about acid reflux in infants. I took Eden to the doctor this morning with my research in hand and her many symptoms highlighted. I am sure the invention of Google is both a blessing and a curse for doctors. The doctor wrote Eden a prescription and recommended a sleeping wedge. I am thrilled about the sleeping wedge. I may have mentioned this before but Eden sleeps terribly on her back. She much prefers being semi-upright in her vibrating chair. I thought she was just being a stinker about sleeping in her bassinet because she had become accustomed to her chair, but now I think it is because being flat makes her so uncomfortable. I didn't realize there were actual medical grade wedges that you could buy. The wimpy wedges at local stores are little more than a glorified pillow. I was unable to find one locally but found a fantastic online store with quite the selection of wedges. Ours should be here by Monday. Until then, I am content to let Eden sleep in her chair. We did that last night and she slept until 4:00am, ate, then went happily right back to sleep until 8:30am. Good baby.

And now to my other baby, I created a layout the other night with some of my very favorite photos of Zoë. I used the same template by Jen Caputo that I did to make Eden's hat layout. I love the design. I will definitely be using this one again and again.

And in other exciting news, well maybe not for you, but DEFINITELY for me. I get to keep my nanny, Becky, until March. She is like an angel. I am grateful for her each and every day. Kelly decided that since his work schedule is showing no signs of slowing down (as in he is still working until around 3am almost everyday) we should keep Becky around to help me. I love that man.