Father's Day came a little early....

Well, Father's Day came a little early at our house. I had a fun scavenger hunt I wanted to do and with our crazy schedules today would be the only day I could do it. Plus, I was super excited about Chris's gift, so the sooner the better. I'm no good with secrets. I've had his gift for the last two weeks and have been dying to tell him. I'm the girl at Christmas who tells everybody their gifts before they open them. I just can't handle the excitement. I asked Chris what he wanted for Father's Day and he tells me a gas hedge trimmer. A gas hedge trimmer...really? For a first Father's Day? I wanted to get him something he could have forever and every time he looked at it he would be reminded what a wonderful daddy he is. 

This morning while E was playing I started working on the scavenger hunt. I picked nine different locations to send Chris. Surprisingly, it only took about thirty minutes. It was actually a lot of fun coming up with clues. A couple I stole off of the internet. I made sure the locations were far apart. I wanted Chris to have to travel all over the place to get this grand prize. Here are the clues.

This was the first clue on the garage door. 

The clue on the TV.

The clue in the MAN room.

The clue on the grill.

The clue in E's play zone.

The clue on the washer.

The clue on E's crib.

Front door clue.

Last and final clue.

Tadaaaaaaa!

Chris was super surprised. I told him he had a surprise when he got home from work, but he had no clue the extent of the surprise. 

Chris's grin after reading his first clue.

E was taking a nap during the scavenger hunt.

And he found it :)

His face says it all.

It's an iPad. Chris has been talking about wanting an iPad forever. But he wouldn't ever get one because he didn't want to spend that money on himself. I thought it would be a perfect first Father's Day gift. 

Happy early Father's Day!

E and I love you!

Lions, and Tigers, and Diarrhea OH MY!

Ok folks it's about to get real up in this mug. The joy of a blog is you can click off any time you see fit. This option is at your disposal. I am a medical professional, talking about awkward bodily functions has no effect on me whatsoever, and honestly it never has. I am warped. Everybody farts, craps, burps, vomits, etc. Anybody that knows me knows I have a jacked up stomach. JACKED up. I've attempted to have it fixed. I diagnosed myself and everything. IBS. I carried myself to the doctor, and what did he do? Shoved a finger up my butt "checking my tone." I was forever scarred. I know my tone is fine, if it wasn't wouldn't I be crapping myself all the time? Not my issue. And his recommendation, take a fiber pill a day and come back in a week. Uhm, yeah, no. I paid you $50 to shove your finger up my hind end and tell me to take a fiber pill. Oh yeah and come back and pay me $50 again next week so I can do who knows what to you. I can live with my wretched stomach. Anything's worth not going through that process again. 

Anywhooooooo, back to what this blog post is really about. E inherited my ridiculous GI system. And teething does not help it by any means. I thought the whole diarrhea part of teething came before the actual teeth came in. So when E popped his first tooth I thought "Oh happy days, E didn't have the diarrhea symptom." (I know, I'm completely clueless to this parenting thing- I'm working on it.) WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. E had just woken up from a nap. Chris was at work. (of course, because this stuff never happens to him.) I decide to try him in his swing with a movie playing. He was extremely content. Clue number one something was probably wrong. He stayed in his swing for about an hour. Way out of his norm. Usually each station lasts him about 30-45 minutes. I decided it would be a good opportunity to stick my head out the door to check on some rugs that were drying on the back fence. When I returned back inside (I was literally gone five seconds) E was fussing. Not wailing, but fussing. I go and check out the scene. This is what I see......

Me being the undercover blonde, thinks "Oh my gosh poor baby threw up on himself." I picked him up, holding him as far away as possible. And think "Wow, he smells like sh*t." No, no, can't be. Go in a little closer, for a more accurate sniff. Yep, that's crap, not throw up. What the hellllllllll! I never thought this was possible. I thought baby diarrhea was just a little squirt, not like grown folks diarrhea. I survey more of the scene, only to realize it's all the way up his back. As well as in a seeping pool in the bottom of the swing. In my head I'm thinking "what do I do, what do I do?" The extremely intellectual Brandi says "BATHTUB!" After texting multiple people this picture and posting it to FB (completely inappropriate), I slide off the onesie from top to bottom and trash that rancid thing. No, I refuse to wash it and let him wear it again. That onesie will forever be tainted with E's teething diarrhea. One of my work friends (did I mention I have the most amazing coworkers ever!) found this picture of a onesie on Pinterest. This describes my child to a T. I wonder if they have adult sizes in this for me ;)

One tooth down, nineteen to go. YIKES!

The joys of teething

E GOT HIS FIRST TOOTH LAST NIGHT!

And it was quite traumatic for him and me both.

It only took Mommy four hours to figure it out. 

I picked E up after work around 4:00. He was in a super weird mood. Usually he's excited to see me and playful. Yesterday he was unimpressed by my appearance and fidgety and fussy. Nothing was making him happy. He'd been in a weird mood for the last couple of days, very clingy. But I blamed it on his six month shots. The doctor said six month shots were pretty awful. Weird for his moodiness to last two days, but possible. Usually if he's in a funk we can pick him up and walk him around and he snaps out of it. Not yesterday. Chris lucked out and was at the fire station last night. Isn't that amazing how that works? I chalked up his abnormal moodiness to being tired. So once we got home I put him down for a nap. He slept about an hour and woke up crying. COMPLETELY abnormal for little man. He usually wakes up bright eyed, bushy tailed. When I fed him he fussed during his whole meal. Feeding time is usually a peaceful time, E loves to eat! Red flag should've gone up then. His crying was intermittent, so I thought maybe his tummy hurt. After he finished his meal he was fairly easy to console. So we played for about 45 minutes, that's when the tears really started to flow. I picked him up and tried to calm him down, but NOTHING was working. I became frantic at this point. I started crying. It is the worst feeling hearing your baby screaming in pain and you can't console him. I called my mom (usually my saving grace). She answers, couldn't hear a single thing I was saying because I was crying with E. Finally she made out what I was saying and she suggested a warm bath. Why didn't I think of that?! Bath time came early. Once in the bath E calmed down. I did our usual routine. Soapy up, cleaned face, cleaned ears, felt for teeth. In that last little step I realized the root of all E's pain. A tooth had popped through his little gums. So unexpected. I make a ritual every night to check his gums. I noticed a couple of weeks ago that in the front of this gums I could see teeth coming in. But during our usual nightly gum checks I never felt any bumps. It's like it magically appeared over night. Definitely not what I expected. Being a new mommy all I'd heard is that their gums will swell, they will get bumpy, and usually they'll have diarrhea. So I was patiently waiting for the last two. I was going to be prepared...wrong. Poor baby. I felt like the worst mommy ever. How could I not think of that? I promise next time it will be the first thing I check. 

Show us your kitchen

Well it's kitchen time on Kelly's Korner. The kitchen was a huge reason why we bought our house. Our kitchen in our old house was tiny with no cabinet space and on top of that we had no pantry. We love how open our kitchen is now. There is no separation between our living room, dining room, and kitchen. It feels so spacey. And it's perfect for get togethers. My husband painted this huge combination of rooms before E got here, and boy was it quite a task. I love the color now. Before it was a gray/blue and with the cabinets and countertops the same color it was too much. There are a couple of things I would change (counter tops, flooring), but overall I love my kitchen. 

The countertop space is wonderful. I would like to change our cabinet knobs, but that will come with time. Right now I'm so busy with E, the cabinet knobs are the last thing on my list. 

 When Chris and I got married instead of registering for fancy china (we are sooooo not those people), I registered for FiestaWare. It's funky and fun, more of our personalities. Besides, I honestly don't have a place to put real china. Chris gave me this mixer for my birthday a couple of years back. I wanted it so bad. I've only used it about twenty times. I barely bake anymore :(

 

This is our island/bar. We usually eat here.

I call this the "nook." It's just a small space where we store E's bottles and bills/mail.

I love this little corner table. I could not figure out what to put in this weird little spot and it looked plain with nothing in it. Luckily my mom found this adorable table. Fits perfectly!

These are my favorite items in my kitchen. I love old stuff. Especially stuff passed down from my grandma. These are two of my great grandmother's plates. So special.  

My mom got me this weaved basket on vacation in the Bahamas. Love it. I love handmade things as well.

Chris's MeMaw collected beer steins. When she passed we got these. Such a friendly reminder of such a wonderful woman.

A Pinterest creation by my mom. Super cheap and super easy.

E has to have his own area in every room. This is his feeding station. 

Don't judge.....my pantry is out of control cluttered. Another task on my to do list. I love the smore maker hanging on the door. Haven't used it yet, but I got it at Paula Dean's restaurant in Savannah, Georgia.

Life with more than one kid

Yesterday I had a go at the life of having more than one kid. I watched my niece and nephew for about eight hours. It gave me hope, that yes, I could possibly not go insane raising more than one kid. Which  my niece and nephew are amazingly well behaved kids. So that definitely made it easier. 

They were dropped off at 7:00. E was awake. He looked at them like What are y'all doing here?! E and KiKi played in the floor for a little while. And Parker had breakfast in bed with cartoons playing. After about 45 minutes E got tired, so I laid him down for a nap. I was so afraid the kids were going to wake him up. But they didn't. They played Wii quietly. Key word quietly. I had to threaten them a couple of times, but they weren't out of control loud. I think when your baby is sleeping EVERYTHING is loud. Once E woke up, they played some more. The kids finally got bored with E and decided it was time to go outside. Some of the kid's good friends live a couple of houses down from us, so they went and played with them for a little while. All in all it was a good day. I was super busy and always running around doing something- feeding E, fixing breakfast, consoling E, cleaning up breakfast, changing E, fixing lunch, etc. But it was fun! I love spending time with those kiddos. And I love how much they love E. I can't wait until E gets a little older and can actually play with them. He is so enthralled with them right now. He watches every move they make. He's lucky to have such wonderful cousins.

Another part of our day not mentioned yet, were E's six month shots. YUCK! No fun. I had a ton of questions for the doctor. What's this on his face, What's this on his arm, Am I feeding him enough milk, When can I introduce meats, and on and on and on. She gave me answers, so that was reassuring. E hated the doctor looking in his ears. Screamed bloody murder. E is now 16 pounds 4 ounces and 26 inches long. His head is in the 70 percentile. Little boy's got a big head :) Everything checked out great. Such a blessing to have a healthy baby. The next part was the dreaded shots. And they were horrible. He cried a real cry (not that whine cry). And it broke my heart. His face turned beat red. For some reason these shots were worse for Mama this go round. All the previous time he's gotten shots he'd cry, but he'd stop immediately after the shot was over. This time the whole time he was looking at me like "Save me Mommy, save me." You could tell he was hurting. Now that he's more aware of what is going on, shot time sucks royally. By the time it was bath/bed time, he was ready. He'd had a long day.

E and KiKi

Parker insisted on not having his picture taken. I even let him have breakfast in bed, and still no picture.

When I see E compared to KiKi, that's when I can really tell he's growing. He looks huge here!

Here's a picture of how small he used to be in her arms. 

Parker set up boot camp on E's play tiles. 

The Great Pregnancy Debate

In the last couple of weeks I have had numerous conversations about pregnancy (not really sure why, but I have). And most of the ladies I talked to pretty much hated being pregnant. I absolutely loved it. I loved every minute of it, even the eight weeks of morning all day sickness. The sickness that you feel the need to vomit every five minutes, but can't quite make yourself do it. I will fight the urge to vomit all day long. My husband is the opposite, he practically coughs hard enough and he can vomit. Not this sister. I remember as bizarre as it was, some of the only times I threw up were when my mom cooked. I LOVE my mom's cooking, but apparently my growing fetus didn't. It became an ongoing joke around my parent's house. Once I got over being all day sick, it was smooth sailing. I slept a lot, I ate a lot, I researched a lot. I loved being able to eat whatever/whenever and not care how much weight I gained or where that food attached itself to. I am one of those people who could stay in my bed all day, so evening naps and sleeping in late was my cup of tea. I was constantly researching everything I possibly could about my baby. I knew what size of fruit/vegetable he was for every week. I have an amazingly sweet friend, Allison (super baker/cook), who made me something every week based upon what fruit/vegetable baby E was that week. I've long forgotten about all of the aches and pains and frequent urges to urinate. All of that is a distant memory. (Kindof like me saying I was going to wait a long time to have another kid, IF ANY.) I can definitely see myself now having another kid in a couple of years. I can endure three months of boot camp again. But I want to let E have his baby time and have time to spoil him and give him all of my attention.

The part of pregnancy that I loved the most, was when little peanut E would move and punch and kick in my belly. There is something so magical about having a baby grow inside of you. How can this six pound baby come from one egg and one sperm? It's one of the many reasons I know there is a God. A loving, caring God. A God that granted me the blessing of having E.

Every good and perfect gift is from above

James 1:17

Show us your home

Kelly @ www.kellyskornerblog.com is starting a show us your homes tour. So I thought it would be fun to participate! I have a modest, plain old home. Nothing special. But it's a comfy home and I love it. Today is show your living room...so here it is.

This is our mantle. I wish I had a larger, more distinguished mantle. I think huge, elaborate mantles are a staple of Southern homes. 

Love, love, love these bookshelves. They provide so much storage. But also collect clutter and dust.

This is E's own little area of the living room. This is where he does most of his playing, and boy does he like to play!

These are the recliners. Best furniture purchase EVER. We bought these shortly after E was born. We wanted something that would rock and also recline. 

Our end table. I love that it's round. My mom got this for me this past Christmas. 

The big comfy couch. This couch is the best nap couch every. You practically sink right into it. I hate our rug, hopefully in the next year I will be getting another one. I need something bigger for when E starts crawling. Ceramic tile is not head friendly.

I love this little nook. This is Chris's little dedicated spot. 

Glass vases are so simple, but dress up our mantle. 

I found these at Kirkland's a long time ago, right after Chris and I got married. And I'm sure they will grace every wall of any house we have. I love wrought iron.

By far my favorite piece of all. This clock separates our living room from our kitchen. The clock doesn't work, but it's such a fun decoration.