- B's a FAJA! -

Super late post, again...................

...but I love these pics, so better late than never! 

Happy first Father's Day to my awesome hubby!!!  

I have never loved you more than in the moment when you first held Harper! You were so overjoyed and proud to share your new little girl with the world, and I will never forget our first day as a family of three. 

I love watching you and Bear interact every day! She is one lucky little gal to have such a sweet, dedicated, involved daddy who tells stories...gives airplane rides through the house...reads books...feeds bottles...partakes in bath time...and even changes diaper bombs!  <---Father of the Year right thur! I know you are just chomping at the bit for her to be old enough to take part in all your hobbies [mmmmmhm, I see you salivating over that bike buggy every time you walk through the basement!], but I love how you meet her where she is now and don't miss a second of her baby milestones!  Hope your first Father's Day was the best day yet; you are so loved! 

...See? :)

Harper and I are soooo lucky to have you as a perfect patriarch for our little fam, and we love you so much!!!  

Can you believe you're really a faja?!?!  Yep, it's fo rizzle.

Happy first Father's Day! Hugs and kisses from da Harpster... She'll always be your little girl! :) <3

- Candid Camera -

Another edition of a whole bunch of random snapshots and no good stories to explain them...  2 months turned into 3 months like zip zap zoo, and all the sudden I have a BIG GIRL on my hands!  

*****

- #candidcamera:  VOLUME II -

[April 13 -- May 13] 

a) Hey there, TWO MONTHS! 

b) Either someone has a needle stuck in my voodoo doll or maybeee it's just a short little phase that will hopefully pass VERY soon, but the only way to settle down a raging bear these days is to take her outside. It somehow immediately nixes a tear-filled scream fest.  On this glorious/particularly fussy day, I relocated a kitchen chair to the deck and paid my mom $20 to sit out there with Baby Bear for an hour! Just an hour! Just kidding. Or am I...

c) Snoozin' through the weekly grocery shopping trip. Baby ain't picky; she knows that eating from Momma's kitchen is the best! 

d) Kicks and punches for being promoted to the BIG BED after 6am breakfast.

e) My new trick! ...Or maybe just a fluke. 

f) A very favorite place to nap...

g) I love my big cousin, Melody! 

h) All amped up for Cinco Cinco Cinco! 

i) Grandma Resa and her two grandbabies! Dawwwww.

j) Just me in my little bed! Harper sleeps in pack-n-play in our bedroom every night.  We used to try to swaddle her all the time, but every night would end in a brawling of limbs... Baby advice-givers and know-it-alls: you were sooo so wrong about OUR baby! This girl hates her arms swaddled in and will ONLY sleep soundly/comfortably in this adorable position! <3

k) I'm 2.5 months old and already sooo embarrassed to be pictured with my dorky mom. Someone help!

l) Crazy hair fresh out of the sink! 

m) I tried reallll hard how to teach the nugget how to win a man's heart over with homemade Italian dinners, but nope... I suppose cooking class shalt commence at a later date! #housewifeintraining ...but... #snoozingonthejob

n) Back to bed for post-breakfast snuggle-sleep time! Harper likes to get niiiice and close...

o) Happy baptism and welcome to God's family, Harper Cecilia! 

*****

- TWO months... -

How awful of a mom am I that H-Bug is 3.5 months old this week and I am juuuust now penning her 2 month posts? 

Pretty awful.

But it's ok.

No time for excuses! [But if you really want to read them [[which you probably don't]] thennnnn they're right hurr.]

Hello, 2 months! 

I can barely remember this far back [early-onset Alzheimer's? Please no.], but it appears that you began smiling and watching your animal mobiles? ...Great work!!!  These must've been your biggest milestones since the chalkboard made a special mention of them! ;)  At your well-child checkup, the pediatrician told us that you've been 50th percentile for weight and 50th percentile for height at every appointment since birth; but this month, you jumped to 90th for weight [and stayed at 50th for height].  Get it, girl!  We love your chubby little cheeks and roll-tastic [not-so-]little thighs!  Also if I recall correctly, we switched you to size 2 diapers riiiight at the 2-month mark [because blowouts are only fun for like.....never].  You still love your swing, but you also REALLY love your changing table!  Daddy always takes you in for a diaper change and tells you how much you "LOVE being attended to on that thing." ...He is extremely whipped and smitten now, too.  I think you have him right where you want him, which is perfect because you're definitely a daddy's girl!  Every morning, you wake up around 6am to eat breakfast.  And then after you eat and poop and get a dry diaper, you get promoted to the BIG bed and snuggle-sleep with momma until 9am-ish.  [Thank you for not making me be up for good at 6am! I love you so much for that!!!]  Annnnd the last thing that my shriveled up old momma brain recollects is that being stripped down to a diapey and having nakey time to kick allllll around is your new favorite thing!  Your shirt says it all: you sure are bee-utiful!!! :) 

You are so much fun, Harper Bug, and we love watching you learn and grow and discover new things every day! 

xoxox :-* :-*

- A weekend for showers [in every sense of the term...] -

Our life as of late has been a fast-paced blur of jumping from one event to the next.  This momma's been back to 12-hour night shift slavery nursing for a couple weeks now [that was a suuuuper fast 12 weeks, no?!], and the few free minutes I have to myself every day are very groggily/wisely spent washing the bare minimum of laundry and dishes that we need to survive.  Excuses excuses excuses, but here's what it very simply comes down to:  why waste time on the blog when I don't even waste time to shower? 

Welp...

...That mentality shalt be no mo'!  [Why?  Because showers can always wait......doyyy. ;) ]  But actually: the blog is our little family's diary, and I always love love LOVE to read back!  Some day long and far away, I'll come back to see what happened in June 2015...and..........there will be nothing archived when actually LOTS of things happened.  And so, back-tracking/catch-up blogging is for another day; today, I'm starting in the here and now.  

[Harper be like: MOM, no one currrrs, get on with the show...]

Ho-kayyy, baby.

Today, we are "recovering" from a very long, fun-packed weekend at the Raymond 4th of July celebration!  My grandma has the "open-door policy" house on the corner of town that has hosted the entire family on this weekend for as long as I can remember. In between walking back to Grandma's house for food and non-porta-potty bathroom breaks and maybe even an occasional nap, we normally spend the weekend entertaining ourselves uptown at the carnival + stage events.  This year was EXTRA special, as my cousin and her husband road-tripped their brannnnnd new [1 month old today!] baby home from Minnesota to meet our crazy fam!  Saturday night after the parade, we took the babes on a stroller cruise down Main Street to experience their first gamble at Bossy Bingo.  <---What is that, you ask?! Oh, just a little small-town farm-town game where you a) buy a numbered ticket and b) stand around a gated in area where you c) watch a cow get out of a trailer and d) hope it takes a sh*t on your square so that e) you are the lucky winner of $500!!! ...Yes, this is a for real thing.  [Do you metropolitan-ites know what a cow is?  Ooooo, ok, just checking.] As crazy as it sounds, our grandma is a very frequent winner of Bossy Bingo!  Maybe it's the luck of the Irish?  Or maybeeee it's just because this weekend "the 4th be with her!"

[Harper still thinks I'm boring.  Have your toothpicks poked through your eyelids yet?  Let's talk about that new baby... Everybody loves to see pics of a baby...]

Logan, meet Harper!  I hate it that these two will grow up living so far away from each other! :(  [...And the remnants of Bossy Bingo pictured on da right!]

Besides playing Bossy Bingo, Harper also met Kylie + snuck in lotsss of snuggle time with Grandma and Great Grandma! 

Sunday was a reallyyyy rainy day; and while the men stupidly golfed through the downpour, the women more appropriately responded to the forecast by throwing Theresa and Logan a SHOWER [pun intended, hahhhh, so not even funny].  Love these little buddies in their carseats! 

Shower hostesses with their niece and great nephew! 

THESE COOKIES... Oh man.  Good thing I allot myself about 4,000 extra calories per day and brush it off like, "I'm breastfeeding, bro..." because:  hello new favorite snack. 

Shower fun all around! 

And cousins, cousins, everywhere!!  Big family events are so much fun now that we are starting to have little families of our own!  [Lotsssss of great cousins missing, but we needed a pic of the ones who made it to the shower.]

^^Note Harper's bottle that I used for smiling bait...  It's all fun and games 'til the baby cries; and man, oh MAN, did she cry!!! Not sure what the dealio was, but Harper Bear was NOT a happy camper at the shower and definitely made her presence known!  Minus a little nap on the bed and another catnap on her Great Aunt Margy's shoulder, the Bear was either eating...or crying...or crying...or crying even louder... :(  Awfulness.  I hope her cousins still want to hang out with her next time we come around!!!

Thanks to our wonderful family for a great weekend!!! We loved catching up with all of you and are especiallyyyy sad to see little Logan go! :(   

Safe travels, everyone!  Can't wait to see you again soon! :)

- Big Momma's FIRST M-Day -

Wellllllp, now that it's damn near Father's Day, I guess I should go ahead and rewind to:

May 10, 2015:  my first Mother's Day! 

I'm a mother, what what?!?!?

My thoughts on being a momma are still so humble jumbled.  Mother's Day came and went like any other normal day, but as I reminisce back on last month's memories and photos it's STILL so surreal to think that I'm a mother.  Delicate and forgiving and beautiful and joyful and trusting and tender and loving and feminine and embracing and steadfast and cultivating and and and and annnnnnd... <--- ALL qualities that I bunch up together and stuff into one fluffy little person that we traditionally call "MOM."  I don't think the fact that I'm a mother has sunk in yet, and maybe it never will; I doubt I'll ever be able to fully wrap my head around how unworthy I am of the big important fun special GIANT job God gave me to raise a beautifulllll little baby girl.  

Holy profoundness! 

Today, I decided to see if Google could help me put some words to the awesomeness of a "mother":

But nope.  Big fat fail.  [#1, yes.  #2, I'd like to always hope that's not the type of "mother" I am.............]

Whatever.

Enjoying a very special cup today while I go through pics + reminisce on my very FIRST Mother's Day!  [Yes, I made my own gift... Go ahead and judge me real good!]

M-Day 2015 started off with 10:15am Mass with my family + brunch at our house.  Pic credited to the dear [onlooking] husbands, because even on Mother's Day there is plenty of dish-washing and cooking to be done by the mommas... 

Resa's first "Grandmother's Day!"

Time to feast...

...and then open gifts! Harper made some special surprises for her grandmas.  [Ditto on the gifts for her Grandma Ann, but she was celebrating M-Day in New Orleans!]

Thennnn we enjoyed a lovely afternoon at Copper Dock Winery!  [All of us were there, but again, onlooking fathers...]  Harper loves to be outside! 

Heading home.....but not before cleaning up a suuuuper stinky explosion of the poopy sort.  Yes, it definitely takes three people to change a diaper of that caliber after an afternoon of wine chugging. :/

Happy Mother's Day to my momma and all the other beautiful mothers out there!!! You are so loved and appreciated!!!

- Bottoms up! -

Prettttty sure this year was the first time I've ever celebrated Cinco de Mayo when the milk supply tops the margarita supply, but there's a first for everything eh? ;)

I loved being pregnant alongside some of my very best L&D nurse friends, and I love even more now that our babies are all similar ages and will grow up together!  It's so much fun for all of us to discuss the babies' milestones and send pictures back and forth that we thought it would be a good idea to get all the new mommas and babies together for a Cinco party.......BUT.......we had .n.o..i.d.e.a. how chaotic it would be!!!  So many babies!!! We could barely carry on a conversation with each other without this baby pooping or that baby puking or two or three babies crying...

...So for the lack of conversation, thank goodness there are photos that sum up our night!  ;) 

Bottoms up, bay-bay!  [Milk bottles, that is...] 

JR meets his future wife! We have been waiting for this moment for 7 weeks!!!

Milk coma x 2.  [They really do love each other though.]

If arranged marriage was still a thang [or is it?], these two would FO SHO be tying the knot in about 20-25 years.  

Harper hangin' with the big girls! 

I spy FOUR crying babies!!!  Cinco: you have a new game face...

...but I have to admit, it's pretty damn cute and I like it. I like it a lot.

Cheers!