Trying to keep up with this....

So, I want to try to update this a little more often than I have been. Once every 3 or 4 months is not going to cut it.

Right now, I'm watching Alice sitting in her bouncer, with a blanket that she pulled up under her chin, while watching Doc McStuffins and drinking from her sippy cup. Where has the time gone. She is growing up so fast. I feel like I haven't been able to spend the type of time with her that I want. I've decided that now that she is a little older and can do more stuff, it's time to start doing some crafts with her. My goal for this week is to do a print with her feet and make it into some type of drawing...a butterfly or something. I want to get more pics of these things so that she has these when she gets older. There aren't many pics of me when I was a baby and I always wished there were more. Not to say I don't have a gazillion pics of Alice,  but I want more than just her sitting in her bouncer.

She was babbling when I took this pic. Lol.

It's been hard this winter. I've wanted to go outside with her and the weather has just not allowed that. Now that spring is around the corner, I feel like it opens a door to so many activities we can do together. We are planning to go camping with my husband's parents and brother on Memorial Day weekend. I think that will be awesome! I can't wait.

I've started "shopping" for Alice's birthday this summer. I've been looking online and saving things I find that would be great for the party. We are doing a strawberry theme. My husband calls her "Ichigo" which means strawberry in Japanese. He's been studying Japanese for about 2 1/2 years. We started calling her this when I was still pregnant with her and it stuck. We actually brought her home from the hospital in a strawberry outfit.

She wasn't happy here.

Anyway, I'm trying to get a bunch of craft ideas for little ones so that I can do more with her. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

~Mrs. C.

Crawling, baby food, and teething.

Time has gotten away from me and Alice is now 7 MONTHS OLD! She's getting so big. She has recently started (somewhat) crawling and just last week, she called me "Mama" and my husband "Dada"!  I can't believe how fast time is going.

Alice is LOVING getting to try new foods. She loves just about everything except peas and bananas. She's got two bottom teeth in and is working on those pesky top ones now. We recently got her a amber teething necklace, which seems to be helping a bit. She still occasionally needs some meds, but not as often.

I'm so happy that the warm weather is just around the corner, cause we definitely need to get out and enjoy some sunshine. I can't wait to take her swimming and all that fun stuff. We are going to try to sign her up for swim lessons this summer. They have one type of class in which they teach the babies how to float and swim to safety if they fall in a pool or whatever, and I thought that was really cool. It's called Infant Swim Self Rescue.

On another topic, my job recently cut hours....like, drastically. I work as a housekeeper at a local hospital, and since I had Alice, I went to an on-call status. This was ok because I was still getting about 26-30 hours a week and got the hours I needed. Now, they have chopped all on call (per diem) hours to ZERO. Yep. So I have no income coming in. I knew this was coming, but didn't know it would be completely nothing. I went in and tried to hand in my resignation so I could work somewhere else. My boss asked me to stay. I caved and figured, "Well, if hours do come up, I can get them." So far, I've gotten nothing.

Now, 2 months ago, when I first heard that hours were going to be cut, I started planning on opening my own cleaning business. Then the rumors became more definite. Then I started working on getting it opened. Two weeks ago I got my papers in the mail saying my business was officially registered as an LLC in the state of NH. The next day, all hours were cut.

I feel like this is a sign. I don't usually base things upon "signs", but this seems to be working out more and more each day. I have hit bumps along the way, and then things just...work out. At one point, I was like, "I've used every bit of money that I saved for this, and I still need things." Then randomly, on my last paycheck, I got a bonus from when I worked full-time last year. Today I am in the process of getting my small business insurance and getting bonded. After that, I'm all set to work.

Anyway, wanted to update on everything going on. Go here to see a great video of Alice that I took the other day (she says, "Hi, Mama" in it!). And here are some pics from the past couple months...

Alice doing her best Wilford Brimley impression.

Yeah, so I had 3 months of pics to share. At least I didn't post them all. :)

~Mrs. C.