Friday Favorites

I finally got on the Clarisonic wagon thanks to my birth and generous parents! I've been wanting for one of these things for awhile, and my mom delivered! So far I've loved it. It's a little soon to say if it's making a visible difference in my skin, but it does feel really good after I use it. Fresh and clean!

Some e-cards just never get old. This one struck me as particularly funny ;)

I've been whipping up some baby food for the freezer in preparation for the girl, and it's so much fun to me for some weird reason! The Baby Bullet makes it way easy. So far I've made gluten free oatmeal, organic peas, green beans, and sweet potatoes!

I know coconut is one of those things that most people either love or hate, but if you're a lover of it like I am, then GO GET THIS. Immediately. It makes my taste-buds so very happy.

I came across these containers at Marshall's last weekend, and I couldn't resist them. My poor husband probably feels like an elementary school kid with the lunches I make him!

Even though Rob has been hard at work for several weeks, tonight marks the true beginning of football season. The Temple Wildcats are taking on Round Rock tonight.

GO CATS!!

Here's our 2012 program picture...our first one as a family of 3! Jaqs, of course, wouldn't crack a smile. Can't blame her...she didn't have mom, dad, or any of her grandparents to entertain. And it was in the middle of her "nap-time."

I'm a little hesitant to reveal my goofy baby voice here, but I dare you to watch this video and NOT smile. If you can do it, then you have no soul! Kidding....sorta.

Have an excellent holiday weekend!

incredibly easy DIYs

At one of my baby showers, this adorably shabby frame was hanging on the door with an "Oh Baby!" scroll across it. Seen here:

We had it on our front door for awhile, but it's been hanging empty and lonely on a wall in our guest room for the last several months. I don't spend much time in there, so I kinda forgot about it, really. I finally got around to doing something with it a few weeks ago, so I wanted to pretend I was crafty and share it with y'all!

 I stapled 3 rows of jute to the back of the frame, printed off some pictures plus one cute little printable I found on Pinterest (where else?), then attached the pictures with mini clothespins. Voila! I love it! It will be so easy to update here and there as well.

 I also glued jute around a wine bottle to add to the table beside the guest bed:

Both of these projects were super simple and inexpensive. It's kind of a stretch to even call them "DIYs" because a 4 year old could literally do it. Although, I did withstand a pretty legit hot glue-gun burn from the wine bottle project, so maybe a 4 year old shouldn't be left unsupervised with that one ;)

cheeseball & chiro

If you follow me on Instagram (@ktgalu) then you've seen these pictures (sorry)....if you don't, well, you should be if you love cute baby overload. 

That's pretty much what's filling up my feed.

Anyway, Jaqs is one happy girl, and I'm so thankful for that! Her whole face smiles, and sometimes her grins are so big they make her whole body squirm with glee! I can't not smile back at her when she gives me these cheeseball grins...even when she's supposed to be napping ;)

dripping sweet

jumping is fun!

loves to be on the go

have you seen this baby in the mirror?!

On another note, after all the advice I got about taking Jaqs to the chiropractor for reflux, I made an appointment. That's something I never, in a million years, thought I'd say. I've never been to one myself, so it's never even occurred to me, but I started researching it online, and wow! There are tons of success stories with chiropractic therapy. We had a consultation this morning, and the doctor said Jaqs has some misaligned areas in her back and neck. We have another appointment tomorrow afternoon to start some adjustments on her, so if you wouldn't mind, would you please say a prayer that it goes well and that this will give her some relief from her acid reflux? I would be forever grateful.

Hope you have a great Wednesday!

a quarter of a century

We had such a fun weekend! Grammie was here to hang out with her girls because my birthday was Sunday. Unfortunately G-Pop had to work so he couldn't party with us. We woke up to a happy baby girl on Saturday morning! She is so smiley ALL the time, but the mornings are especially precious. We had some errands to run, so we got the girl dressed and headed out the door. But not without taking a handful of pictures first...

 Her cuteness is too much to bear sometimes...I mean, look at her! 

Maybe I'm partial. Maybe.

When we got home my brother and sister-in-law arrived, so we had lunch and just hung out while Jaqs was napping. Rob got off work mid-afternoon, so after baby got up we went to Waco for dinner at one of my favorites!

love my fam

those sugar cheeks are irresistible 

aunt cole & uncle kb

My wonderful mama treated us to Pei Wei....YUMMY. Can't go wrong!

After dinner, we came back home for a gluten free Texas sheet cake...oh my goodness! It was delicious. Of course, anything with excessive butter is bound to be good, right?

I also got some awesome presents...woohoo! Birthday gifts are always fun.

 Sunday was my actual birthday, so we had a big breakfast at home and enjoyed some more time together. Rob had to leave for work around lunchtime, so Grammie hung out with us for a bit longer before she had to leave.

That evening my lovely girlfriends took me to dinner since all our guys were working! It was so much fun, and with 6 littles it was one lively party! :) Wouldn't have it any other way! Jaqs was taking herself a little catnap when we arrived, so she got to be the center of attention when she woke up. I thought this picture was too cute to pass up!

J baby was excited to see daddy when he got off after dinner!

It's funny how 25 used to seem so 'mature' to me, and now here I am. I guess I'm a full blown grown up, huh? ;) I think this will be one awesome year! My number one birthday wish came true in my girl, so I just don't see how this year couldn't be a success!

Thank you to my wonderful family and friends for making my birthday such a fun day! And thank you all for the facebook messages, texts, tweets, etc.

I definitely felt the love.

CHEERS to 25!

baby reflux

Wow, this week has been rough, y'all. I think I mentioned in Jaqs' last monthly update that she has reflux, which is heartbreaking, but she has been doing so well on her Zantac. She's been happy, eating great, and content afterwards. All that changed this week. My poor angel girl has been suffering, and it has been heart wrenching to see her in pain.

sometimes I feel this way about football, too ;)

She hasn't been resting well during the day, and has logged a lot of hours in my arms in the last few days. Poor girl is hoarse from so much crying :'( The picture on the right shows how she's been spending her afternoons...I guess this is the only way that feels good on her tum.

 Thankfully, when she does take a nap on me, she always wakes up feeling better. And I have to admit, I have missed her sleeping on my chest like she did as a newborn babe!

I'm happy to report that today has been a MUCH better day! Her pedi upped her dosage of Zantac to 1 mL twice a day. She woke up happy, took a (short) morning nap and is napping in her crib right now...HALLELUJAH! She was definitely still uncomfortable while she ate, but I'm thankful she's resting and not spending the afternoon upset.

Have any of you experienced reflux with your little ones?? If you have any advice or words of wisdom, I'd love to hear what you have to say! I'm nervous about going forward with solids as I definitely don't want to rock the boat and make her miserable, but I have heard they can also help.

If you'd rather e-mail me, I'd love to chat!

klgalusha {at} gmail {dot} com

Thanks so much!

check-up & help

We had the girl's 4 month check-up on Monday! Dr. F said she's a healthy baby and is right on track with milestones and development...music to a momma's ears! The shots were, as always, heartbreaking, but thankfully Jaqs never ran a fever and was back to her happy self after a nap. Praise the Lord for that!

Jaqs is weighing in at 13 lbs, 11 oz and is 24 in long. Puts her in the 50th percentile for both.

I'm obsessed with this baby girl's eyes.

I love it when she blinks slow, almost like she's batting her eyes at me. 

 She's wanting to sit all the time now...too big! She much prefers the support of mom or dad over her Bumbo, so we spend a lot of time holding her up :)

Jaqs had an awesome time with the paper on this particular visit...she crumpled it up under her little feet over, and over...and over. Simple pleasures!

And in other news, we're going to need to start some 'nap-training' around here.

If you have any advice on the subject, PLEASE help a girl out and dish it. I've been hoping the back-and-forth would stop and it wouldn't be necessary, but here we are. Seriously, any help would be SO appreciated!

insta-weekend

Hi friends! How were your weekends??

Our besties Jerrod & Julie were supposed to come stay with us this weekend, but unfortunately Julie ended up getting pretty sick, so they couldn't make it. We were bummed, but totally understood and were glad to keep the sickies away from Jaqs. Hopefully we can reschedule soon because we love having them come visit!

So instead of spending Friday waiting for our buds, Jaqsy and I just played, ran some errands, and waited for daddy to get home to spend his last weekend off with us!

errand running will wear a girl out!

On Friday evening, I handed the bambino off to her daddy after dinner, and I went over to my friend Cassi's house for a girls' night! We had Mary Kay makeovers and just spent some quality time together. We had a great time! Nights with friends are so necessary, and they're really good for the soul. I've learned that being a mommy can kind of cause you to let other things slip by the way-side, but it's so important to nurture your relationships. It's really easy to let yourself become a hermit when working around nap-times, etc., but that can make you a little crazy, too!

On Saturday morning, Rob woke me up with my sweet girl's face in mine...is there anything better? We had some family time 'talking' in bed and getting woken up before we decided to head up to the school. The locker-rooms and offices have been given a facelift, and an all new weight room was added over the summer, so Rob wanted to give me the tour. If you're interested in seeing it, just click over to the Temple Football blog.

Can you tell how impressed Jaqs was with daddy's new office?!?! ;)

And on a side note, my baby-daddy is a stud. Just saying.

 After we got home, we practiced our newfound rolling skills before it was nap-time!

After the angel baby got up from her afternoon nap, we headed over to Waco to spend a couple hours. I wanted to hit up Carter's and eat at Pei Wei. I had never been to a Carter's store because, well, I've never needed to go to one before, but I loved it! I need to go back...right now. They had an addition 30% off all their clearance, so I stocked up on comfies in bigger sizes for baby girl. I didn't even get to look at the cutesy stuff because there was so much, and my 2 sidekicks were getting impatient ;) Anyway, I got ALL of this for $40!! I was pretty happy with that. Jaqs mostly wears onesies when we're just at home, and theirs are by far our favorites! So soft and easy to get on and off.

Sunday was mostly spent just hanging out. I made one of my favorites, gluten free chicken spaghetti! Mmmm, I'm already excited to eat the leftovers for lunch ;)

We also had program pictures, so Jaqsy girl was looking all sporty in her Wildcat garb. How cute are her little feet in her tennies?! I die.

Program pictures only mean one thing...the season is upon us. 2-a-days are here, and daddy will now be gone from home 7 days a week. So sad! We're trying to put on our brave faces, but truth be told, it's always a little hard to get into the swing of things. Of course, this year will bring a whole new aspect with the addition of our bundle, but we will certainly get through it! The days will be a little longer for all of us, but it will make our time together that much sweeter! And of course, there's nothing quite like Friday Night Football!!

Rob--

You are an awesome daddy, and we are so grateful for all the hard work you put in both on and off the field. Thank you for providing for us and giving me the opportunity to be at home with our girl. We know there will be long days, but we also know that you'll be coming home to us each night (or morning). Good luck this season! Go CATS!!

We love you!!

outtakes & a new trick!

Taking monthly pictures of Jaqs is always fun and a bit of a challenge!

We had some cute outtakes this time that I just had to share..

"are we really doing this again, mom?"

"ah! i love this baby!"

"mmmm...i think i'll eat her foot..."

"achoo!"

"maybe if i pretend to be asleep she'll stop..."

"i'm not loooooking!"

And in other news, I mentioned yesterday that Jaqs was getting close to rolling over. She did it that very same day! August 7th goes down in the baby book (aka the blog) that baby girl rolled from her belly to her back for the first time! YAY angel! We're so proud!

Have a happy Wednesday, y'all!