Official

Its official! We are moving to Ann Arbor on August 16th. Our computer recently broke and all I have to write with is my cell phone! So pardon the errors please. I promise a full update soon!

Sickness and sleeping

Grace has a sinus infection. Explains alot of the beast! But she also isnt going to sleep for us at night. This is very frustrating! Before the 4thpaper of july we would guve her a bottle and rock her right to sleep, then we went to Ryans parents and thay went out the window! Now that shes home she wants nothing to do with sleep intil 11 at night! Um no way when I get up for work at 4am!!!! The last few nights she just eants to roll around in bed with me and play with my hair until she finally passes out. She is obsessed with hair, but iy gets annoying when shes pulling my hair out! We need help of ehat to do. Letting her cry it out isnt really a thing I like. She gets eay to worked up to the point of ahaking and cant breath ahea crying so hard. So any other suggestions are greatly aporeciated! For now Im hoping this Omnicef kicks the shit out of her sinus infection and my sweet girl will be back :)

Bullet point update

• Our computer screen is broken and I swear is possesd by a demon!
• Grace turned 1 on 5-29! Her party was a success and fun was had by all. Update on that later this week! I sucked at taking pics that day though :(
• She is currently 13 months old. She is 30 inches tall and only 20lbs.
• Says momma, dadda, hi, bye, no no no, yes, owl, bow wow, gunner, water, baba, ball, bird, arf arf. If she sees a lion or tiger she growls. She loves to say no no no before doing something that is a no no! She is oh so sassy!
• Loves hiking with her daddy.
• She has a new found love of a pacifier.
• Loves anything that is fruit and may possibly be a vegetarian at the age of 1.
• My mom and aunt Wendy came to visit us in June for my cousins wedding. It was a great time and Grace was obsessed with my mom, or as she says nana. The two were inseperable. Both were very sad to say goodbye.
• We are 90% sure we are moving to Ann Arbor. I am having major stress about this. We have no idea where we are livign yet and having a hard time find a suitable living space. Not to mention leaving everything behind here and Lake Superior!
• Grace has been sick and teething for the last few weeks. This has been awful!!! We finally brought her in to the doctor and we decided to do blood work. She was pissed! For 30 minutes after she kept pointing to her princess band aid and saying ooohhhh while whining. Results came back as a virus. She also is getting 2 bottom molars. This has been the death of us!
• I put my 3 week notice in at my work and officially will be done august 3rd!
• Wedding planning has begun again and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed.

More to come later this week when I actualy have a day off and the sassy girl is napping!

Lazy!!

I will update soon! Things have been very busy around here!!

11 months

Grace turned 11 months old on April 29th! Seriously how? I know I say this every month but seriously time is going by way to fast for my liking. She will be 12 months in 19 days! Wow!!! We will be having a party for her the first weekend of June. Our theme is April showers bring May flowers. I found everything in the $1 bins at Target! Love those things! I haven't gotten around to taking her 11 month onesie pics yet. This house has been dealing with a very nasty cold that is going around.

Grace is getting so good at walking. Shes still clumsy but walks more than she crawls now! She loves climbing things. She trys to climb the baby gate all of the time. She is getting her molars I'm pretty sure. I felt some big bumps in her gums and with the way she drools I wouldn't be surprised.

She babbles more than ever as of recent! She says mama baba, Gunner, Dada, Ugh OHHH, Buhbye and lots of things that I don't understand. I love hearing her little voice. Her Ugh ohh kills me. She makes the perfect O face while saying it! She also waves when saying Buhbye.

Eating has been a challenge the last few weeks along with sleeping! She only eats a few bites and then is done. And she is completely over any purees. I would say her favorite thing to eat is definitely black beans. I switcher her over to toddler formula so hopefully that way she will get the calories she needs. I'm trying to give her a sippy cup all day long to have and then just 3 bottles through out the day. This has been a challenge when she wont eat. I really would like her to get down to just one bottle at night when she turns 12 months. Sleeping has also been a big challenge lately. I don't know what is going on. She was sleeping great and then all of a sudden she has been getting up multiple times a night. Trying to get her to go to sleep has been a nightmare! Lots of car ride has been the only trick :(

The next moth or so is going to be super busy for us but I'm excited to actually have fun things to do. Next weekend we have a wedding! My mom is coming from Florida on June 14th. I am beyond excited to see her and I know she cant wait to see Grace. My cousin gets married on the 16th and that should be a lot of fun. Its finally starting to warm up again around here so things are looking up!

 Gigi and I hanging out

 Sleepy bunny

 Playing in the back yard

 Backwards in her walker!

What things looked like a year ago! OMG



Time sure does Fly!

Seriously time has been going by so fast lately! Or maybe Ive just been to busy. Its been so nice to have yesterday and today off and spend it with Grace. I sure with the weather was nice though so we could go for walks outside. Life has been crazy but good. Love my little family even when its chaos! Here is a very long bulleted post. Hopefully next time I will actually have time to write a real post that isn't full of random things!

• Grace is 10 1/2 months old. How did this happen? She is going to be 1 next month! ahhhh. I have all the decorations for her birthday party. We are doing May flowers theme. Hopefully April showers don't stray into May! I found pretty much all of the stuff in the Target $1 bins and on clearance from Easter. God I love those bins!! Now I'm just waiting on my work to get the damn schedule out!!

• Grace is walking! She has been since the end of March, but she is really good now. She is very clumsy when tired though. Last night she fell and of course went head first into the end table. She scratched her nose up and it was even a little bloody inside. Poor baby. It doesn't help either that she has Ryan's "swelling disease." We don't actually know what else to call it but Ryan has it really bad. If anything touches him with any kind of force he instantly turns red and his skin swells up! Its very weird and interesting at the same time ha ha. Well we have noticed that Grace has a form of this too. She gets very red and swollen but I don't think its as bad as Ryan's. So usually when she falls it looks worse than it actually is!!

• She says Mama all the time. I think its her favorite word! She also says Dada, hi, bye, cat and gaa. I think that means Gunner; our cat. She also speaks and yells a lot of gibberish. Overall shes a pretty vocal girl.

• She just got her 8th tooth. 4 on top and 4 on the bottom. She likes to bite Ryan with them ha ha! I also think she is working on some molars :( The girl has some severe teething symptoms going on still.

• She loves her toys and books. She loves being read to and looking at the pages. She also lovesss animals. She loves our cat so much and usually flattens him to a pancake whenever he is around. She is obsessed with dogs. They are so funny to her but as soon as the come close she hides her face so that they wont lick her. She hates licks!

• Girl has a very stubborn personality! I don't know where she gets that from ;) She throws some major temper tantrums now! Its actually quite funny to see. Ryan and I never give back into her either we just see her throw her self back and snicker to ourselves. We try to let her figure things out on her own when shes doing a task. She cries when frustrated and then we help her. I want her to be independent with things and not rely on us for everything like many kids these days!

• Ive been working pretty much full time for the last month or so. It is so draining. I'm hoping that since we have hired 3 new people I can go back to my part time status. I really have been missing my daughter lately and work is always a shit show to say the least!

• I had my first girls night out (GNO) in a very long time! Oh my god was it needed!! My 3 very best friends from High School all were in town. We usually get together once a year. Alley, Danielle, Heather and I have all been friends since our freshman year or earlier! We have a great bond and its like we never left on when we get together! The first night of getting together for drinks usually end up into a crazy night! We are all so excited to see each other and it usually turns into lots of drinks and yelling at each other to speak ha ha. It was so nice to get out and have adult female interaction. It is also an added bonus that it was with these girls!

• Wedding planning is starting to come along. I have 485 days til August 16th! This may seem like along time to other, but at the rate of how fast this past year went by its not so long to me! We think we finally have a ceremony site figured out. I have to set up some meeting with cake makers and florists. I'm glad I have a leg up on this stuff because if i was doing it all at once I could see how stressful it really could be! I feel really good about everything right now. I like taking one item at a time and researching all my options and choosing the best one for us. I like to keep things cheap but get a great venue. Like cake for instance, were just going to eat it what is the point of getting this big dramatic 5 tiered cake for $3000? Personally I don't get it, but to each your own! I just want a simple inexpensive cake that tastes amazing. I have some local bakers that I'm very interested in. So we will see :)

So excited!!

My best friend is back in the USA!!!!! Allison Harlow has been in Norway for the past 8 months with her fiance Ryan. Ryan was playing professional hockey for a team in Norway and she was lucky enough to be able to join him. I haven't seen her since August. Even  though I will still not see her for a few more days I'm so happy that she is on US soil!

Alley and I have known each other since 6th grade. All though we were not fans of each other that first year in middle school! Arch rivals if you may. ha ha! 7th grade was a different story on the other hand. this began the year of us being inseparable. We had chore together and once we got over the rivalry we instantly hit it off. The first time we hung out we all went to dinner at 3 Amigos (Mexican) restaurant and went to "The Club". I say The Club with quotes because it was suppose to be a night club for underage kids. It was super lame to say the least!

Over the years we would be together every day and then go months without hanging out. We always talked every day at school though. We went down separate paths in High School. Alley became the outgoing cheerleader who was popular. I was more quiet and hung out with older kids and liked to party. Our senior year all of us kind of realized that we wouldn't see each other every day and started hanging out alot more. That summer came with a lot of drama but in the end she was my best friend.

End of August she went off to Michigan State University and I stayed at home and went to Northern Michigan University. Every holiday that she came home we made an effort to see each other even if it would only be an hour. Alley double majored at MSU and became a very talented interior designer. She moved to Chicago and lived there for a few years. She met Ryan while visiting her sister and brother in law in California and I'm pretty sure it was Love at first sight! She moved to Grand Rapids to be closer to him but still wasn't any closer to me. Both cities are about an 8 hour drive from Marquette. Than Ryan decided to go play hockey in Norway and her job said it was OK for her to work abroad! Lucky lady :) Long distance sucks for relationships! So this meant I got to have her home for a few weeks before she took off. This was the most we had seen each other in years and I cherished every minute of it that I could.

Alley recently started up her own business. A online interior design consultant company. I could not be more happy and proud of her. She is an incredibly talented designer. If you are in need of a fresh new look for any room you should check out her company: www.curiodesignstudio.com

Long story short I am beyond excited to finally see her!! I cant wait to go wedding dress shopping for her and just have girls time with her and catch up. Getting the text from her tonight saying USA! USA! instantly put the biggest smile on my face! Knowing that we can be apart for months on end and always go back to where things left off is not something you get with everyone. I feel lucky to know her and to be able to say she is my best friend!

Weekend

I'm so excited to go to Oshkosh today! My friend Krysta lives there with her husband Jeremy and two kids Arianna and Brady. Krysta and I have been friends for about 5 years or so. We both worked at Upfront and Company together and have been friends ever since! She is standing in my wedding and I stood in hers. She moved to Oshkosh this past fall and I miss her every day. It is going to be so nice to see her and have the kids all play together.

While in Oshkosh I am also going to Davids Bridal. I have found a few dresses that I really like online so I cant wait to actually try them on. I don't want to spend a ton of money on a dress I'm going to wear for one day, but I want it to be beautiful! I also found a couple of bridesmaid dresses that are cute and cant really tell what the fabric looks like on the computer so it will be nice to see them in person!

Update

So we are moved into our new house! Soooooo extremely stressed out though. I hate moving and packing and unpacking! Its so much harder to do with a very mobile and active 9 month old! Not to mention the girl that was living in the house before us did not clean or anything when she moved out. She also had a big black dog which equals lots of black dog hair in every crevice!!!

We also decided that the entire inside of the house needs to be painted! The walls were all one color and in very bad shape. The trim is white throughout the House and that was black and chipped in so many spots. So that is also added stress that I brought on myself, but I want to be happy with the place I'm living!! We have 3 bedrooms in the house and they are all super tiny so its not that bad I guess. We painted one of the rooms a very light yellow and it will be Graces play room and also the room I get ready in when I work. I usually have to wake up at 4am when I work at 5 so its nice to have my own spot. We also painted Graces room a very light pink. I'm going to do the bathroom this weekend! It is by far the worst of the walls in the house.

I haven't had much time to workout either!! So I will do a weight loss Wednesday post next week when I actually work out and see if I have lost any pounds. I do feel like I gained some muscle and lost some of the fat on my thighs so that's a plus :) I will also update on Grace since she is 9 1/2 months and I never got around to her 9 month post! And lots of pictures of the house and G!!

Moving

We are moving! I hate packing and actually moving the stuff though. We will be staying at my grandparents for 2 weeks and then moving into a house we are renting! I cant wait to be in a house and not an apartment. Our apartment was so expensive and we were busting at the seems with all of our stuff. Our new house has lots of storage and I couldn't be happier with it. I will be with out Internet for a couple of weeks so I will update as soon as I can!!

Weight Loss Wednesday

This is the start of a weekly post about finally loosing the rest of the baby weight I gained! I have been lazy and less than motivated for way to many months now. Before I got pregnant with Grace I always teetered between 118 and 125 pounds. Both were the low and high end of my weight spectrum. I am 5'3" so if I put on any weight you could easily tell. At my last doctors appointment I weighed in at 135. Grace is going to be 9 months old next week so I think its definatly time to get rid of the last 15 pounds. I maybe setting the bar high on that goal but I am certainly going to try.
Over the weekend Ryan and I signed ourselves up for YMCA memberships and I bought a new pair of running shoes. I am in love with my shoes. I cant take credit for finding them because Ryan was actually the one to spot them. But now that I have new shoes and a membership that I am paying for I have to get my moneys worth! My other big motivation is fitting into old clothes without a muffing top and trying on wedding dresses and looking hot! Muffin tops and thunder thighs are so not attractive to most people. Im going to be honest each week about whether or not I lost weight. Hopefully this will also push me to get off my lazy butt!

Week 1:  135 pounds

My new Nikes <3

Also here is a few pics of Gracie on Valentines day :)

Um what are these things mom?

Flowers from my love! My favorite flowers!

Grace was obsessed with the roses and loved to feel them.

Family

Sorry this video is sideways and probably not the best quality. Ryan took it on his droid. Today I experienced a defining moment in life. I already knew this but today really solidified it. FAMILY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN MY LIFE!! Especially my daughter Grace. Today I was basically told that my job is more important than anything else in my life and that it didn't matter if I had no one to take care of my daughter. If they need me to work an extra 8 hours of over time that day I would have to stay. This is not what I want for a job.
I was working full time working my ass off! I was doing the work of 3 people and pregnant. Needless to say I was so run down and stresses out from all of this I was told at 36 weeks that I was no longer aloud to work and if I did it was half days only! 3 days later I went into labor. Grace was born 4 weeks early and was healthy besides a scare when she came out of her not breathing and bad jaundice. I'm thankful for that but I realized that I didn't want to work like that any longer.
 While I was on maternity leave I found another job that I would be working a .8 rather than a 1.0 or full time. I was so happy about this and I felt the anxiety fall right off. Fast forward 6 months into the future to what was said to me today. I just couldnt believe it. I truly like my job and the people I work with but I will never put my job before my family! Ever. I work short staffed every day and I do work over my pointage every week. I think today I was just done! That feeling of dread and anxiety has slowly been creeping back into my body. I dont want to feel that again. Today I decided that I will be actively pursuing another job. Maybe I will never be truly happy anywhere, maybe I will. But I owe it to myself and my family to be happy with my job!

We set a date!!

So we set a date for our wedding! We are getting married on Friday August 16th, 2013. Im glad we decided to wait a little while on getting married. In our town it is very hard to find venues if you dont have more than a year til your wedding. Our town is small and everything tends to book up right away. i didnt want to be rushing to do anything and this way we can save money and take our time to plan our dream wedding! We put our deposits down on the Holiday Inn for the reception, Double Trouble DJs for our music and ET Images for our photographer.
The Holiday Inn is getting a make over in the next few months and will be getting rid of the ugly wall paper on the walls and new carpet. I was told everything will be more modern. I dont think anyone really looks at these things anyways so Im not to worried! Double Trouble DJs are twin brothers who started their buisness while in college. I can remember going to parties and them playing music and then to bars where they were the entertainment! They are the best in town and really know how to get everyone up and moving. We are also renting there photo/video booth for the night. ET Images is Ryans cousin Emma! She is a 17 year old High School student who has a passion for photography! She did our family photos and Graces 4 month pics. She has a great eye and takes beautiful photos so Im glad she is family and I can book her for our big day!
We still have yet to decide on a ceremony site though. Our theme is a beachy feel so we are hoping to do something outside. I would love to have a beach ceremony but that may not be an option so we have some other sites in mind. The only problem is right now is that everything is covered in snow so its hard to picture what we want at the moment! Im not to worried about it though. Marquette is a beautiful place and its surrounded by water so we have plenty of options!
Next month we are taking a trip to Oshkosh, WI to visit a few of our friends that live there. While there I am goign to try on dresses with a few of my bridesmaids. I am sooo excited to do this! Im hoping I can loose a few pounds of this baby weight before. I have an idea in my mind of what I want so Im hoping I will find the dress! And maybe the girls will find bridesmaid dresses they like. Im thinking of a blue color for the girls but that could all change! Over all I am very excited to finally begin planning. I know I have 18 months of time til the big day but Im excited to have the time to put our own personal touches on everything.

8 months!

Grace turned 8 months on January 29th. Seriously its going by so fast! She is on the move. She has no fear and thinks she can walk. This has involved many falls and its to the point that she doesn't even cry when she hits her head on things anymore. Grace is teething again so we have been dealing with one whiny girl! She also prefers her mama and cries mommmmm when she wants me. Its cute but I'm starting to get exhausted from her always only wanting me to do everything.  I love her little smile though when she sees me and how cuddly she is with me!

A little about me Part 1

Hi I'm Mandi and this is my new blog! I have been reading blogs for years but never actually had the guts to make my own. Well now that I have an 8 month old and just got engaged I figured this is the time! I may not be the best writer or great with grammar so please keep that in mind :)

So to start off Ill tell you a little about me and my family. I'm 27 years old and live in a small town called Marquette, Michigan. I have a love/hate relationship with this place! I love the summers for being on Lake Superior but I hate the winters for the same reason. I work at the hospital here in the Lab. I had Grace May 29,2011 and she is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Ryan and I met in April of 2011 and immediately had a connection. He lived in Ann Arbor at the time and I was in Marquette. He was up for the next to weekends only for NITs basketball. After the second weekend we started talking everyday for hours. 3 weeks after meeting he asked me to meet him in Traverse City with his entire family to see him. After that we were officially dating and spent the rest of the summer driving either for him to Marquette or me to Ann Arbor. Our entire relationship moved pretty fast but I don't regret a thing. I knew he was the one and he felt the same way!

One weekend in October we decided to meet halfway in Mackinaw City to so we could see each other. His mom would be coming through on Saturday on her way home from Kalamazoo and we could all do dinner and hang out. Ryan is originally from Baraga, Michigan and his 3 oldest siblings all lived in Kalamazoo at the time. So the weekend came and went and it was time to say goodbye. I always hated Sundays because it was time to leave and I knew I wouldn't get to see him for another 2 or 3 weeks. I had been having really sore boobs for about a week and didn't think much of it. I was talking to my friend Krysta about this when I got home and she suggested I take a pregnancy test because that was her first symptom when she was pregnant. So I went to Shopko and picked one up. I thought yeah right I'm not pregnant and peed on the test. Literally 1 second later it was positive!!! I was in shock. There is no way this could be true. Ryan and I had only been dating for 6 months what are we going to do?