Instagram Update

Of course they all involve Sadie...

Ready to meet her teachers

Busy on her playmat

Looking like a bunny in her bouncy seat

Sweet pup waiting for her baby to wake up

Morning Snuggles with Harvey Bear

Watching tv with daddy

Meeting Marianne

Saturday fun

All ready for church

Representing mommy and daddy's alma maters

Meeting a sweet boy

And here's a video with her current way of talking.  I think she is discovering all the sounds her voice can make

Bow Holder

Little girl has lots of bows.  I had started them off in a box, but had to dump out the box each time I was getting her ready.  I had seen a lot of these bow holders on pinterest, so decide to make my own.  This was a cheap project!

You'll need:
*a Frame
*ribbon
*paint
*hot glue
*cup hooks

 I bought an unfinished frame from Hobby Lobby and painted it the same grey that 3 of her walls are.  If you have a frame already, you would save on a bulk of the cost.
Then I cut the ribbon to fit the opening of the frame and used a dot of hot glue at the top and bottom to pull the ribbon tight and glue it down.

 I had a letter "S" in my craft drawer, so I added it to the bow holder.  Then I screwed in the cup hooks on the bottom (some went in really easily and some were tough..this step tried my patience).  The good news is that once the cup hooks were in, I was finished.  I just added a picture hanger on the back, added the bows and hung it up.

 The bow holder is a perfect decoration for her closet and makes accessorizing so much easier!

Sadie's school

Sadie had her first day of school last Monday.  She did a wonderful job!  Tears were shed when we left, but not by her.  We had a few night time sleep adjustments.  She had previously been sleeping in an 8-10 hour stretch to begin with, but last week she had quite a few more wake ups during the night.  It got better as the week went on.  I'm hoping we can get back to normal nights soon!

In the beautiful dress my mom made for her first day (the adorable monkey has its own backpack to go to school too!)

This is one of her teachers

I adjusted as the week went on as well, but could not wait until the weekend to have time with my baby girl.  It was so weird to have someone else responsible for her.  I missed my Sadie!
Just as I was inundated with guilt about fulfilling my roles as mother and teacher and feeling inadequate in both arenas, a friend passed along this wonderful blog post.  I am focusing on the quality of time with my Sadiebug and not the quantity.

Crockpot Cheese Tortellini

I was looking for easy and yummy meals so that I could keep up with my cooking as the school year began.  I tried this one out the other day.  It was delicious and made A LOT!

Crockpot Cheese Tortellini

from Little Fellows

Ingredients:
1 (19oz) bag of frozen cheese tortellini (I couldn't find frozen, so I used boxed cheese tortellini)
1 small bag of fresh spinach (I used about half of a 5 oz package, but more is better!)
2 (14.5 oz) cans of Italian style diced tomatoes, drained
1 block (8 oz) of cream cheese or neufchatel (less fat)
1 lb. of ground sausage or chicken/turkey sausage browned
4 cups of chicken broth 

Brown the sausage and put all ingredients in crockpot,
chunking up the cream cheese.
Cook on low for 4-6 hrs.

Serves 4-6 

Working

When I was still pregnant with Sadie, I made the decision to go back to work after having her.  I knew it would be difficult, but had not idea how difficult.

Teaching is my calling.  When I was a little girl, I would line up my stuffed animals and teach them who knows what.  I also stood up on the stage at a dance recital when I was little and started telling the other girls what to do...  So I guess bossy people are made to teach? : )  Seriously though, I've always wanted to be a teacher (aside from a small lapse of time when I wanted to be a lawyer).  I started teaching out of college and have loved it enough to want to get my masters that I spent my last 2 years completing to one day take on a different administrative role in education.  I love working with children, I love helping them learn new things and seeing the "lightbulb" go off when they get it and are proud of themselves.

And then my Sadiebug came.  And I love her more than I could have possibly imagined.  More than teaching, more than chocolate, more than running or diet coke.  A LOT.  

And then people started asking, "Are you going back to work?"  Which obviously, my answer was "yes" to the question.  What a mixed "yes" I am giving.  Yes, I am going back to my sweet students to love on them, teach them and try my best to share the love of Christ through my actions.  To be their stability, their consistency and to have someone to believe in them when no one else does.  But this means that my sweet baby girl will not be with me all day which kills me.  She will be loved by her teachers.

I've been told its not the quantity of time that you spend with your children, but the quality.  So although I am losing hours with her each day, my time with her will need to be more intentional.

Please pray for me tomorrow as I take my sweet baby girl to be cared for by others, as I lose time with her each day and as I adjust to being a working adult once again.  Please pray for the students who will come to school in one week, that they may have my full focus when I am with them.

Date Night

Cody and I had our first date night in about 3 months thanks to these sweet friends babysitting!

The next night I got to go out for girls' night!

Such great breaks and quality time, but I am ready to stay home with my little one and soak up every last second we have together before schools begins again!

Southwestern Quinoa Salad

I've been intrigued by Quinoa, mainly because it is not pronounced at all like it looks.  When I see the word, I think Quin-o-uh, right?  But that's not right, it is pronounced "Keen-wa" (our box has the pronunciation on it, that's why I bought that box...).  Via Pinterest, I found a recipe to try.

Southwest Quinoa Salad
from Clean Eating

Serves: 8
Makes: 8 cups

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
• Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained
• 1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted, or 1 tsp ground cumin
• High-heat cooking oil (such as sunflower, safflower, peanut or grape seed oil), as needed to lightly coat grill grate
• 2 cobs fresh corn, husks and silk removed (or 1 1/4 cups frozen corn, thawed)
• 1 cup cooked black beans, drained
• 1 plum tomato, diced
• 1 zucchini or yellow zucchini squash, diced
• 1/4 cup finely chopped red onion

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. In a small bowl, whisk lemon juice, olive oil, cilantro, salt and pepper; set aside.
2. In a saucepan, bring 2 cups water to a boil; add quinoa and cumin. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until liquid is absorbed, about 12 minutes. Remove pan from heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Uncover, fluff with a fork and let cool for at least 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, heat an outdoor grill to medium-high and lightly oil grate with cooking oil. Add corn, close lid and grill, turning once, until tender and lightly charred, 10 to 15 minutes. (Alternatively, boil cobs in a large pot of simmering water. Cover and cook until tender, 6 to 10 minutes.) Let corn cool, then cut kernels from cob.
4. In a large bowl, combine quinoa, corn kernels, beans, tomato, zucchini and onion. Pour lemon-cilantro dressing over top and toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate salad for at least 1 hour to allow flavors to meld, or up to 2 days.

Also, look at this delicious pulled pork the husband made this weekend

3 months

Sadie is 3 months old

 

 

At 3 month she:

*weighs 12 lbs 7oz

*constantly has her hands in her mouth (see above pictures)

*grabs on to most things she sees and puts them in her mouth (please have clean hands around her : )

*goos and talks more and more

*has found the yelling volume on her happy voice

*better head control

*can roll to her back from her tummy (but not all the time)

*sometimes likes tummy time, other times hates it

*sleeps 8 hours at a time at night

*loves playing tickle games

*gets excited about a lot of things

*loves music whether toys or singing

*likes sitting up with us

*could stare in a mirror all the time

*the fan obsession is at an all time high

*likes to hold hands

*eyes are turning green in the middle

*hair is starting to grow back in, this time a lighter brown

DIY Nursing Cover

Sometimes you have to nurse in "public."  Maybe not public, public, but not in your house and for those situations you need a nursing cover.  I have two different kinds.  I have the one from Udder Covers that looks like this and which you can obtain for free with the code PJbaby (you only pay shipping).  I used this one in the hospital, but am apparently not coordinated enough for the loop that adjusts it in the back. I still have it and hope to give it another try soon.

And then there's this kind from Covered Goods that we got when it came up on Groopdealz. 

It is currently my favorite, because it is basically a shirt without arms, much easier to figure out : ) I decided that it would be nice to have more than one, but didn't want to spend the $30 that it costs regular price, so I figured out how to make them.  It is so easy!

You will need
*1 yd of jersey knit (I like the way that it turned out with the heavier jersey knit)
*thread
*a sewing machine if you do not have fear of the bobbin and want to finish it in like 15 minutes (obviously I have bobbin issues..)

Fold your yard of jersey knit in half and then pin along the bottom, the open side and the slants that go up towards the neck (I got to cheat b/c I could use my own as a pattern).

 Cut off excess material (but do not cut the fold, that's like a freebie side).  Then sew the slanted sides up to the neck and the open side.  I did not hem the neck or the bottom of the cover (don't tell my mom, she would be appalled). 

Turn it inside out and you are finished! Easy, right? The first one took me about 3 hours, but that does account for feeding Sadie, play time, diaper changes and bouncing to sleep...so it should take you about 25 minutes on the first one, more like 10-15 if you use a sewing machine. 

The best non-baby items for Baby

Parenthood makes you innovative.  You need the baby to stop crying and be happy, so when the pile of baby toys/products don't work, you turn to anything else you can find. : )

1. The Fan
Really any kind of fan, a ceiling fan, a portable stroller fan, it just has to rotate.  I even took a video of our fan for use when were are not around one.  Here you go.  You're welcome to use it.

2. Exercise Ball
As I stated in my last post, Sadie is a bouncer, not a rocker most of the time.  Bouncing is exhausting, unless of course you have an exercise ball.

3. Mirror
On one of the weekly updates from the Bump, it referred to a baby that week as an itty bitty narcissist.  So true! While I may grimace seeing my own reflection in the mirror, little girl LOVES to see herself. : )  (The iPhone turned around..like to take a "selfie" can also serve as a mirror when you misplace yours. )

Those are our big three for her right now developmentally.  If you have kiddos, what do you use to keep them entertained?

A new understanding

Sadie likes to bounce, not rock to calm down/sleep.  Sometimes she likes to rock, but mainly she likes to bounce. We blame this on my running with her while I was pregnant (which I would do again in a heartbeat).  Regardless, your arms get tired of bouncing her sometimes, so we have brought down the big exercise ball from upstairs to sit on to bounce.  It works wonders!




Yesterday when I was bouncing her, I was singing typical children songs until I realized that she really didn't know those were children songs and I could not sing the twinkle twinkle little star/ABC tune one more time (little girl loves it, I even did as much of the ABC song in Spanish that I could remember).  So as I was thinking about what I wanted to sing her, I thought about hymns.  Sadie will not grow up with them. (Sing a hymn to her if you see her!)   I feel like this might be the beginning of a "back in my day" explanation that I have for her when she gets older.  In our church as with most churches now, we have these wonderful praise and worship songs, so she will not open her hymnal to page whatever to sing on Sunday mornings.    This realization made me sad.  So being a good Baptist I started with number 2 from baptist hymnal and sang a few other hymns too.

When I was singing "How Great Thou Art," and got to the third verse (I don't know the second b/c Baptists only sing verses 1,3 and 4), I absolutely broke down in tears.  



"And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!"

I didn't think about it until I sang it, but there I was holding my child.  My sweet baby girl that I prayed for so much.  My sweet baby girl that I worked so hard to bring healthy into this world.  My sweet baby girl that I could watch sleep for hours, would do whatever I have to in order to keep her safe, who has taught me to love beyond anything I knew I could and I am singing about how God willingly gave His Son for us.   I couldn't fathom before the sacrifice that was made for us.  Yes, I appreciated it and was thankful beyond measure, but to hold my own child and think about what actually happened, to hold my own child and think of the faith of Abraham bringing Isaac to the altar.  Y'all, it got real.  Today, my understanding has changed, my point of view is so different and my appreciation for that ultimate Sacrifice has grown.  How true these words are today.

"Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!"

Sadie's hip

At each appointment from birth on, babies are checked using (from what I can tell) is called the Ortolani test and Barlow maneuver.  Basically, they move your babies legs around  and bend them up.  Sadie's leg movement did not raise a red flag until her 2-month appointment.  Our pediatrician heard a right hip click and continued checking to make sure that it was there.   She then referred us to an orthopedic surgeon who we went to see a few weeks later.  I, of course, was expecting nothing to be wrong with her little hip.  Once we saw the ortho though, he confirmed that he also heard a hip click and wanted us to get an ultrasound of both hips to check them out (their bones are not yet dense enough for an x-ray).  The ultrasound confirmed that her right hip was not in place like it needed to be, but it was not out of place which of course would have been more severe.  I cannot remember whether he actually used the words hip dysplasia or not, so I'm just going to keep referring to it as a right hip click. 

Since she is under 6 months old, the treatment option that the doctor chose to help her hip get back to where it needs to be and grow correctly, was the pavlik harness.   The harness can come off for diaper changes and bath time, but other than that, she wears it all the time.

The wonderful things are that 1- her hip does not hurt her, 2- the harness does not hurt or bother her, 3- this was caught early enough that hopefully this treatment option will fix her little hip.

Please being praying for proper development of her hip and selfishly, I am praying for her hip to "heal" quickly.  As a mom, that appointment day was filled with lots of tears from me, but I know that she is so little that she will not remember this.  We go back to the doctor in about 2 weeks, so hopefully we will have good news of improvement at that appointment. 

Sadie's first day in the harness (a few weeks ago)

Instagram Update

Being home for 3 months with a precious subject has left me to taking tons of pictures.  Instagram has basically become my best friend so that I can share how cute Sadie is.  Here are her latest insta pics.  (If you wan an overload of Sadie pics too, you can follow me @sbsage).

Little girl was 12 weeks yesterday! Such happy mornings!

tummy time got a little lazy when she found the tv...

 Her reaction to seeing herself

 Walking with a fan because it is so stinking hot here

 Sweet teeny hands that are grabbing onto everything and trying to put everything in her mouth

 Holding her bottle on our walk (b/c her arms were enough supported by the carrier

 It took me long enough, but I finally bit the bullet and Sadie is now sleeping in her crib.  She is doing great!

 Crazy morning stretches