Zandertine

I had to throw this in there, because its so Z. She loves to blow her nose. She spotted the kleenex and then I got about 45 shots of her blowing her nose.

Sick Valentine's

The whole family has taken turns being sick this week, with Z and I getting the tail end starting on Friday night, best Valentine's ever! Z started throwing up first, and I about an hour after. Good times, good times. My favorite moment, was when I was holding her as she is puking in a bucket and then thinking she is done I set it down. She starts puking again, so I quickly grab the bucket again (a little too quick) and it splatters fresh puke across both of our faces. She wasn't a fan, but quit frankly neither was I.  Thankfully she is super sweet and easy to love. She spent the entire weekend only wanting to be cuddled by mom, and watch Barney's for hours on end. Loved the cuddling, but Barney got old real fast!

And this cute boy kept busy by building this!

Mine!

Calvin has been so busy with his Legos over the break. He is rebuilding all his old Ninjago sets. We had all his Legos organized by colors in different sacks, but we are close to the end, he just has a few things left to build. Along the way its been a challenge trying to keep Z away from the Legos, of course she wants in on the action too.  As we are building, we have come across some missing pieces, so I have been having Calvin circle the missing pieces in the catalog so I can order them.

It's Sunday morning and only Zander is up right now. She is playing at her little desk and I hear her open it
then she gets down off the chair and comes to me and holds out her hand and says, "Mine."

"Mine."

I can see a flash of what appears to be Legos.

I say, "Zander let me see."

She shakes her head no and pulls her hand away and says, "Mine."

Finally, after going back and forth she lets me see and sure enough, little girl has been hoarding Calvin's Legos in her desk. How they learn to be a stinker at such a young age is beyond me, but dang being a stinker at that age is super cute.

The Epitome of Calvin and Z's relationship...

This boy adores his sister...unfortunately, she doesn't quite feel the same way about him.

Reasons you should never reenact pinterest photos...Rani edition

My friend Nat found this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariellecalderon/reasons-you-should-never-reenact-pinterest-photos And thought of me, so I thought I'd share my own Pinterest reenactments:

 So I loved this idea, but since I'm not a photographer, I wasn't willing to spend the money on a mini ladder or 6 crib mattresses with cute bedding. Instead I attempted the look by cheaping out with just pillows and quilts...and it shows!

I feel in love with this sweet picture on Pinterest and just knew this was going to be the sibling shot that I wanted to get, however age gap does seem to make a difference here. Instead of being a sweet little photo, I have something slightly creepy of the kiddee pornish variety.

And then we have the Christmas shots...

How do you get your little baby to hold the edge of the box so cute and peak out? I don't know! My baby didn't want to cooperate at all, and this was the best shot. She didn't want to look at me, and she kept slipping back down inside the box, and ya, this just wasn't working at all.

Then I tried the wrapped up light thing...ya again, I'm not a photographer clearly.

This one actually wasn't too unsuccessful  however...after taking the time to kiss her all over with my darkest lipstick, those dang lips didn't show up at all. I kept one real lip on her (top right corner on her forehead), that was the brightest one! So I had to photoshop the rest on. I could have spent more time, and manipulated the lips more to make them look more realistic, but meh...sometimes I just get lazy I guess. Oh, by the way, my baby hates smiling for pictures too.

Then for my favorite...yes I did try the cute baby in a pumpkin. And YES, she hated it!

Stay tuned for more Pinterest reenactments coming your way soon!

Newborn Pics

Here are some of the newborn pics I took. FYI, I highly, highly recommend getting a professional to take your newborn baby pics,and believe me when I say this...They earn every penny!

First, I will mention, newborn skin is really blotchy, and shows EVERYTHING, so what your photographer doesn't mention, is the hours they spend photoshopping just the skin alone. Next, when you are photographer/nurser/mom/trying to work vigorously during your little one's deepest sleep under bright lights, in the room being heated with a space heater (because all the websites mention its important to keep that little naked body warm to keep it asleep), and your thyroid is probably way out of whack because you no longer have one and you just had a baby, so who knows what dose of meds you should be on...let me just say sweating is an understatement here.

So let me start with my uber photoshopped best shots.

Baby in a Box Showing But Crack = Baby in a box showing that her bum didn't get wiped quite good enough after her last poo. This required lots of photoshopping.

I liked this setup, however I couldn't get the hand out from in front of her face, when I finally did she moved her entire body into an unflattering position, then she peed all over the blanket.

The next are pretty sweet, and just required lots of skin deblotching and diaper marks to be taken out.

Now lets go to the ones that didn't work:


This basket one was taken 1 week previous to the one above. First, its amazing how much a baby grows in a week. But the problem with week 1 basket photos, is that she woke up! And since Zander spent the first two months of her life cross-eyed, you can see why these shots weren't working out so great.

So one week later, I try again...

My how my baby grew, so fitting in the basket became much harder, I tried everything, including my foot thinking I would just try to photoshop it out, but then I realize that would look dumb because then she would look like her head was just floating there. I got 1 basket shot out of 400.

Then I tried this cute idea I found on Pinterest, only it was with a sibling pair that had a smaller age gap between them, so even though Calvin is wearing jeans, it looks a bit creepy perverted maybe kiddee pornish.

See I swear, wearing jeans.

And last we have the "Princess and the Pea." The idea is there, but as you can see, the execution was lacking.

Zander Professional Hospital Pic

Hospital pics! This amazing hat and booties was made by my uber talented cousin Chrissy!

More random first week or two shots...

Random Zander Pics in first week

Zander Grace

We were lucky enough to finally welcome this sweet baby girl into our lives on July 17, 2012 at 5:30 pm. Much to my relief, she actually came a day before her scheduled c-section. As many of you know, I've been a bit worried this pregnancy, with my past radiation and previous issues, so when my doctor scheduled her c-section for a Wednesday, as happy as I was to get her here I had my worries with that particular day.  Sensible me tells me I'm dumb, but superstitious me didn't one more thing to worry about...what is that you may ask? It all comes down to the Monday's child poem:

Mondays child is fair of face, 

Tuesdays child is full of grace,

Wednesdays child is full of woe,

Thursdays child has far to go,

Fridays child is loving and giving,

Saturdays child works hard for his living,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Stupid poem has one bad day to be born on, and it was Wednesday, but clearly this girl had plans of her own and didn't want her mom to worry. And I was so happy she came on Tuesday, that that is how Zander Grace got her middle name!

I was really bad at taking tummy pics this pregnancy, mostly since on more than one occassion people assumed I was having twins, so Jill hurried and snapped one just before I was heading into surgery. Warning,  some pictures are not for the faint of heart, although I hope by putting in black and white you don't realize what is blood :)