Travis & Wendy's Wedding

Some people know about my love for photography. I have a bit of a passion for it. It's not really about the money for me but more of the art part of it. So as small gift, if permited, I always ask my cousins if it's okay if I take pictures of them on their wedding day. There is something about the beauty of the day that inspires me. I love romance and I love weddings and I love all the emotions you see flying around. Parents full of pride, brides full of excitment, grooms full of nerves. All of these things truely inspire me. So I asked Auntie Marilyn if would think Travis would mind me taking pictures. Well it turned out that they wouldn't mind at all. So here are a few of my favorites. I am no pro or anything...but it sure is fun for me.

Slideshow: Travis & Wendy's Wedding - Slideshow

Fun Weekend all Around

We had a great week and even greater weekend. It so beautiful outside. Sandro told me to plan the day out. So I made a list of things I wanted to do. We went for a walk around White Rock Lake, Half Priced Books, and Whole Foods (the new one in Dallas). I had been obsessing about the cupcakes at whole foods for about a week. They have a cupcake bar where you can customize the cupcake of your choice. It was so yummy. I normally don't eat sweet things but there is something about a good cupcake you can't resist.

It was one of the best weekends ever. Then Sunday we we planted flowers and got a raspberry and blackberry tree planted (both on sale for $5 dollars each.) Next weekend we are going to Canton. The baby loves to go new places. Though it seems to a make her a little exhausted. This weekend she slept till 6:50 Saturday and 7:50 on Sunday. Knocking on wood here. Perhaps she is getting used to this whole sleeping in thing. I actually woke up before she did on Sunday.

She has been absolutely adorable this week. She seems like she is wanting to do things more independently lately. Lets just call her Miss Independent. For instance she is all about rolling over now. She can do so quickly. I need to get it on film. Then in the bathtub she wants to lift herself up instead of depending on her seat. I think in no time she will be sitting up on her own. She also likes to eat from this contraption that Grandma Vesna got her. It looks like a paci but it's a net thing that holds the banana. She hates to eat from a spoon but she sure as heck going to to suck the banana out of this thing. Whatever works right!

One thing I hear about her is that she is a really good baby. The only time she fuses is when she is hungry. (Or tired) Other than that she is a pretty happy baby. She loves to play and she loves to swing and she loves to eat. Happy healthy baby. Oh and to add..that letter I wrote last week...well she helped me out with the P.S. ... She is all about her schedule. :)

Pictures of the week:

Sophia getting ready for her bath. Super happy...

Trying to eat her washcloth

Okay..well I can't get the washcloth..how about my foot!

Her new favorite thing to do at the moment

See I like the banana this way Mama.

Daddy and Sophia at the Whole Foods. Sophia is focusing really hard.

The new Whole Foods. FYI..you can't take pictures at whole foods. I got asked by Security not to do it. They can bite me.
My beautiful well deserved Custom cupcake.

Daddy waiting on me to take pictures of White Rock.

Letter to Sophia

Dear Sophia,

Lately I sit wondering how you doing at the daycare. You are on my mind constantly. It makes the time we do spend with each very special. Lately you have been having conversations with me in your own way. Your little babble and your bubbles you blow make me smile all day long. Yesterday we went on a walk around the neighborhood. I was half way down the block before you were passed out. You are so beautiful to watch when your sleeping.

I have noticed that your favorite time in the evening is bath time. You love to play in the water. You even like when I pore water on your head with the little orange whale. You smile and close your eyes and just soak it all in. Then you try to chew on your feet or your wash cloth. I hate having to take you out. After bath time daddy suctions your nose and does the saline drops. You HATE the saline drops but it's keeping your allergies far away. You cry to mama and in a few seconds you forget about the drops and begin smiling again.

You amaze me little girl. Your so amazed by everything you see. So truly advanced for your ripe young age of 5.5 months. I look at you and can't believe that I help create such a beautiful child. People say things like you look like this person or that person but all I see is the most beautiful child I have ever seen in my life. You humble me sweet girl.

With the most love imaginable,
Mama

P.S. Can we work out a compromise with you waking me up at 3 a.m.? Mommy wants you to grow but she also likes her sleep. ;)

Snow in March..Really?

So this last weekend we went to Oklahoma to go to my cousin's Travis wedding. It was such a beautiful week. It had appeared that spring has sprung. However, we ended up in a blizzard. Traveling with a baby is hard enough but add traveling to a new place during a snow storm and not having any idea where to go just to hang out for a few hours is really not the way you want to spend your time. We ultimately just parked our self near the wedding location and stayed in the car. It really was that bad. The wedding was beautiful and I captured a ton of great shots. However, we had to leave before the receipt ion was over just to get home barely before 10 p.m.

Sophia was very well behaved despite the bad weather. We slowly starting her on solids. Last week it was banana's. She did really well according to the daycare ladies. They do have to feed her bottle between bits. This week we are doing organic apples. Sandro blended one up so well it was like apple sauce. She ate almost the entire apple yesterday. I have brought some rice cereal and banana to school daycare today. They seems to be really helping Sophia not completely reject food like she did from me. I am kinda taken advantage of it because I don't like to see Sophia upset. Yesterday I let Vesna feed her the apple and she did really well. Hopefully this trend continues.

Sophia is starting to show her personality. I am loving every second of it. Just hanging out with her is becoming fun. She has a thing for grabbing and pulling my hair. Really if she see something that looks interesting she grabs for her it and puts it in her mouth to taste it. It's really comical sometimes. Like I was trying to get ready in the morning and Sandro holds her next to my hair trying to get her to pull my hair which she ultimately does. She is intrigued by just about anything she sees. She really loves the ceiling fan for some reason.

Pictures of the week:

This was Sophia St. Patty's outfit. Notice the green onsie and green socks. Really she didn't have much green stuff. This is the best I could do. I wish I got her a green outfit. ;)

Sophia was going after Aunt Marilyn's fingers at the wedding reception.

Behaving in her carseat at the wedding. She slept through the whole thing.

Great Grandma Ericka holding Sophia.

Daddy taking care of Sophia while mom was shooting pictures. He is a such a good daddy.

Auntie Marilyn and Baby Sophia.

Daddy playing airplane with Sophia.

She was in her walker but she wanted her toys on the exesaucer.

Daddy showing off his two loves..his trees and his babygirl.

Grandma Zdenko and Grandma Vesna is helping Sophia open the gift from Great Grandma Erika.

Sophia thinks it was tasty..oh wait..fun to play with .

Lessons Learned

We have been super busy lately. This Saturday we learned that we may have gotten jipped pretty badly from the place we bought the Altima. Basically when we negotiated the deal we where told that it would be a 36 month lease. We where paying a pretty hefty amount for a 36 month lease but we figured at the time this is fine because we where carpooling and we only really needed the one car. At the time it made sense. However, we later learned that dealership actually made it in a 63 month lease and basically took advantage of their customer. North Texas Nissan (Corinth) ... google it and you will see that we where part of a scam. Once Sandro realized that it was in fact a 63 month lease we decided immediately that we had to go buy a car and figure out how to get out of a upside down situation. Lets just say we where naive and we learned a very valuable lesson. That lesson is to read the fine print before you sign anything. We where lucky and where able to find a Nissan Cube (pictures to follow next week) since it was a 2009 it was dramatically dropped in price. We where able to work a deal where we can purchase this (NO MORE LEASING) and still be paying $100 less a month. Savings upwards to almost $20k on a lease that was screwing us. It's not uber fancy but it will make a great commuter car because it's excellent on gas and it seats 4 very comfortably. It doesn't have much of a trunk but really you don't need that much if it's a commuter car and all. Plus we have a truck for the big projects that needs more trunk space. I can't believe we where able to complete this all in 6 hours. I was so happy that Sandro was able to solve the problem so quick and that the negotiating skills worked really well in this situation. We were very happy to get ourselves out of this mess and happy we got a brand new car that is a great warranty and extended warranty.

As for Sophia. She is been doing awesome. She turned 5 months yesterday Being that I was getting a lot of pressure about the whole feeding solids thing we decided to give it a try. So far Sophia is not a fan. We tried rice cereal and she hated it. But I think I went about it all wrong and that is why she was so angry with even trying it. I don't blame her. It tastes nasty. So I tried a banana last night because from what I read breastfeed babies tend to like banana because of their natural sweetness. I feed her with my finger this time. She made the most funny face when I put my finger in her mouth (she chews on my fingers all the time) however this time she got the bitter beer face. It was so cute. She smacked her lips and was looking at me like I had lost my mind putting that in her mouth. I guess this is going to be a slow process. ;)

Aunt Amber and Uncle Scott came to have dinner with us. Sophia was pretty exhausted so she passed out by like 8 or so. Well this is not a normal routine. Every night she either takes a nap on daddy or stays up till like 8:00-8:15. We give her a bath and then feed her one last time. Well we didn't give her the normal bath she is used to. She wakes up at 2:30 hunger (not normal since she has been sleeping through the night for about 2 weeks now) I feed her. Then she wakes up 2 hours later screaming. We tried everything to calm her down. This was not normal for her at all. Sandro says lets take off all her clothes and see if they are bothering her. Well we did...still crying hysterically. Sandro takes her into the restroom to inspect. Well she stops crying. She didn't get her bath...so we decided that is perhaps why she was upset. We bathe her and no more tears. She falls back asleep within 10 mins of her bath and doesn't wake up till 8. Lesson learned here is that we have to continue to follow the routine. Break the routine and trouble comes.

Pictures of the week:

Sandro new tree. It's Apple.

A side view. We also got a Nectarine but it was too dark to capture.

Sophia dancing and singing with daddy.

She wants to stand by herself.

Daddy, I want your lips.

I want to suck my thumb through my shirt mommy.

Auntie Amber holding Sophia

Yum! Yum! Sides provided by Auntie Amber. Lovely yummy meal!

Letter to Sophia

Dear Sophia,

I want to tell you that you are my world and I love you with my heart. I was scared at first being a mommy and thought for sure that I would fail miserably. However, you have taught me so much already and you haven't even been around that long. I am thankful for your smiles and your giggles and all those times you have fallen alseep in my arms. Your unconditional love and need for mommy just touches my soul in ways you will never realize.

Today a family I haven't met lost their baby girl to cancer just a few moments ago. I sit here at my desk unable to focus and near tears. I can not imagine you not in my life. I pinged (via MSN Messenger) your father and he said he wouldn't know what to if you where taken away from us. You are our world now. You are the reason we get up in the morning. You are everything that matters in life.

Daily I crave your tender cheeks for squeezing and your squeals of delight as you stare and attempt to have a conversation with your green bunny. I love to watch you grow and to see your curosity on everything you have never seen before. You amaze me lovely girl.

With the strongest love imaginable,
Mama

Why I love our Daycare

Lets just say that why I get a little sad sometimes thinking about leaving Sophia all day. Sandro and I started to carpool again. The good thing is that I get to see Sophia both to pick her up and then to drop her off. The bad thing is about an hour of our evening disappears. I am honestly okay with this. I much rather see Sophia off for the day and be able to pick her up in the evenings. Everyone morning Roya, her morning daycare teacher, is there to greet us. She has the most genuine smile and immediately goes to see Sophia and smiles and ahhh’s her for a moment. Very friendly and you can tell she cares about Sophia as if it’s her own. Then in the afternoons the other daycare teacher, Karen, is there always there with a bubbly personality telling me about the day and giving me a mini play by play of all that Sophia did for that day. They always write down what times she eats and naps. They tell me how advanced she is and how they tend to compare other babies to her. There is a baby there that was born 3 days after Sophia and she is no where near where Sophia is with her development. Sophia is already showing signs of what 6-7 months do. Every time we pick her up she sees us and gives us the biggest smile. I am extremely lucky that Sophia’s grandma works at the daycare. From what her teachers tell me Grandma Vesna clocks out for lunch and immediately comes to see Sophia. I know that Sophia’s is getting special treatment. She even gets to go outside in the playground with grandma on nice days. No other babies get to do that. Ultimately I am happy with my choice to put her in daycare and I am thrilled she seems happy to go there. I honestly do not have any regrets.

Sophia is becoming much more aware of her surroundings and it’s getting very difficult for her to rest during the day. I am totally fine with this but during the weekend this can be hard for mommy and daddy to put her down and get stuff done. Yesterday for instance she didn’t nap but for maybe an hour total. She just wanted to play and play. She giggled for me yesterday as I was rocking her high in the recliner. But then she didn’t want to be put down. She just wants to be held (well to be supported) while she stands on my lap and plays with her toys. She also eats so much most days. I am truly amazed. Now knock on some wood for me here…She slept through the night now for 7 days. Well from ~8:30-5:00~. That to me is an accomplishment. This weekend she did wake us up at 4:45 and 5:30…but today we had to wake her up for daycare. It seems she is adjusting well to the schedule. We just need to keep it up.

So far my new cleaning routine is working out nicely. Less for me to do on the weekends and the house is look far much better. It’s not at 100% but I feel better about how it looks. I don’t feel as much crazy overload pressure as I was feeling. I also worked out 5 times last week. While I am not seeing a ton of movement on the scale but I do feel so much better about my body and how I fit into clothes. I just need to continue to focus on the positives.

Excuse my excessive pictures today. :) I couldn't help it!

My first Valentine from Sophia...

See her little handprints on the back...she was sloppy with her left hand.

Sitting in her highchair. Last time she screamed when we tried this. Now she actually enjoyed it. I have to convince that her toys aren't eatable.

I think she was passing gas in the water...hehehe Where did those bubbles comes from?

Waking up daddy and mommy at 4:45 can wear a girl out. This is while Sandro and I where getting ready after her early alarm.

Trying out the new carrier that she loves. She always falls alseep in the contraption. Though mommy has a heck of time getting it off her.

Choosing the right outfit for school pictures can be hard. This is the outfit Grandma Vesna made her. The arms and legs are too long..and the hat is too small.
Nana gave her this one.
But she looks darn cute in the one too.
Okay mom..no more already. (notice the purple socks that Nana gave her)

Focus on What YOU can Control

Last week was a little uneventful. It went by so quickly that if you blink you may have missed it. The positives of the week is that Sophia slept through the night for 3 days last week. Of course two last week she didn't want to go back to sleep because she loves her mobile a little too much. So I took Sandro's suggestion and decided not to turn on the mobile when I put her back to sleep after eating. Well it worked. Even if she is wide awake..she soothes her self to sleep without the mobile. This is wonderful.

Yesterday the daycare ladies said she had a fever. 101 to be exact. To me that is fairly normal for Sophia. I did measure her temp when we got home and it was 99.8 or so. So maybe it dropped. She did seem a little more moody than normal. I personally think she is teething. She loves to suck on my fingers and chew. It seems to help with the pain for a little while. She also loves a cold wash cloth and her chilled chew toy. However, last night she slept the whole night again. Sometimes I hear her in the middle of the night talking but I have learned not to jump and come to her rescue and she will get louder if she needs me. I did check on her 2-3 times last night because I had bit of the mama's worry. She was snoring with her arms spread apart laying on her back. I think she loves her crib sometimes. Her place of peace and relaxation. Her music always playing softly in the background and her Humidifier just going and going.

So I have noticed that I have been getting a little depressed about not losing weight at all. Exactly the scale appears to be going the opposite direction. I don't know what's wrong. However, I have to be willing to accept this fact for the time being and hide my scale. I can tell you that since I started my new job I have been working out consistently. I also recently started going to work out 4-5 times a week. Two of those days I do weights. Still no progress according to my scale. Then I stop and ask myself...how do I feel? Do I have more energy? Yes. Do I feel more comfortable in my clothes? Yes..well that is progress. The scale is my enemy at the moment and I just need to focus on what I can control. Which is the food I consume and keep on working out.

Another thing getting me down is cleaning my house. I just feel so overwelmed when I get home in the evenings that I just don't have the energy. Honestly I just want to go home and turn on the TV and get absorbed into a different world most nights. This to me is just a sign of depression so I have set up a new cleaning schedule to help me keep organized and my house a cleaner enviroment. I think it will help just do a little bit a day and not feel like it's a huge task to conquer on the weekends. 30-40 mins of the night focused on cleaning. I think/hope I can handle that. To help me be more accountable here is a copy of my cleaning schedule. Of course it's not going to be prefect. But at least it's a start to trying to get more use out of my time. It's just a way for me to take charge of this issue that is bothering me and not letting it overrule my mind making me depressed. Taking charge makes me feel better about it.

Pictures of the week:

Sandro really wants to plant fruit trees in our back yard. This is the first of three. It's a pear tree. I would really like a precan tree but they are too expensive and will probably be too big for our back yard. Sandro is very happy with his first fruit tree.

Sophia is in love with her toys at the moment. She can't get enough. Here she is playing with two toys. Oh and her outfit..well it's 6 to 9 months. Holy crap..she is growing.

Her feet stick out of the mat most times. :)

She loves her bunny that Grandma Vesna gave her. We haven't named him yet but I am covinced he is her BFF for life.

Chewing on her teether. She likes it so much.