Mommin' It Up!

January 6, 2011

Things I Love Thursday: Favorite Christmas Gifts

We’ve had a week or so to digest all the craziness that is Christmas, and I was just thinking about a couple things I’ve ~~become obsessed with~~ come to love during that time… hence this post! Here are a few of my favorite Christmas presents:

Cotton Modal Crew Top from Lands’ End. I got one of these a few weeks ago to wear under a sweater, and the first time I put it on, I told Andy I wanted one in every color. The next day, I got an email from LE announcing a sale, so I bought myself one in (almost) every color. A couple days later, two packages from LE were on my doorstep. I opened them both right up… and they both contained the exact same thing – this shirt in every color. I thought LE accidentally sent my order twice until I looked at the shipping labels – one was addressed to me and one was addressed to Andy. He had ordered them as a Christmas present! So I ended up with like 10 of these shirts – in duplicate colors – and I loved them so much that I kept them ALL. They are that wonderful. They’re perfect for wearing on their own or layering, and I think I’ve worn one just about every day since Christmas.

iPad Keyboard Dock. Andy also ordered this for me, and it was a complete surprise. I vaguely knew docks existed, but I had never really considered getting one. However, I LOVE it. It’s so handy – I just pop the iPad on top of the keyboard and it’s good to go. It makes emailing/blogging/whatever on the iPad much, much easier, and since my iPad has 3G, that means I could do all those things while driving down the highway (well, Andy was driving) on an after-Christmas road trip. It was a beautiful thing.

Money. I’ve got some Christmas money that is burning a hole in my pocket… which is really the point of my post – to get ideas of what I should buy with it!

So… what Christmas presents did YOU love this year?

To read more Things I Love Thursday posts, visit the Diaper Diaries!

January 5, 2011January 4, 2011

The first rough day

Yesterday was my first rough day with baby Jonah. There have been rough nights, but mostly he has been really easy during the day. Yesterday? Not so much! Even with Joshua in school all day and Sophie in preschool all morning, AND my mom there to help me all day, I had my hands more than full with a super-fussy, unhappy boy. He had really never been like that before and I was at a loss for what to do for him!

After a couple diaper changes I ascertained that his lack of poop was probably the problem. Kiddo had something he was trying to work out and while up ’til yesterday he had been a super pooper, he just couldn’t make it happen.

So I held him and nursed him and swaddled him and rocked him. My mom held him and rocked him. He slept fitfully off and on, waking to wail and cry again. It was exhausting. I got out my Sleepy Wrap and figured out how to get him in it in the late afternoon. That helped for awhile. Then around 5, he had a really good nursing session and sometime soon after that, he made a magic poop! Ok, I don’t really think it was magical, but it made him happy! And then an hour or so later he made another one. I have never been so happy about poop in my life. Except for maybe when Sophie finally decided to start pooping on the potty.

But anyhoo. It was a long, long day of frustration and exhaustion for both of us. Again, I would not have survived without my mom there. I literally did NOTHING all day but take care of the baby and read a million books to Sophie while I held him. That is all that could be accomplished. And it left me totally spent.

I love my sweet baby boy, but I am looking forward to where we’ll be 10 weeks from now…at least to where I hope we’ll be!

January 4, 2011

Picture Perfect

Last week I embarked on a project to finally get our digital pictures organized and to print picture books. I had purchased a groupon for a photo book, and I planned to do one per year for 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Here’s the problem. Our pictures are completely disorganized! Well, that is the main problem. Other problems include the fact that our camera is CRAP and therefore so are all of our pictures, and also if you looked at our pictures, you would think my husband is a single dad (who takes his kids to do really fun stuff) because their mom is nowhere to be seen! AND, it became clear to me that we don’t take nearly enough pictures. The everyday moments are the important ones, and that’s what we miss (other than what we catch on our cell phones, ha).

Anyway, back to the disorganization. First of all, our pictures are spread out among at least four computers and three online archives. They are not all in one place. And frankly, I’m sure I forget where some of them are. Also, they are in no particular order, the file names are meaningless, and there are a dozen terrible pictures for every good one.

After a ton of work, I finally got the last couple of years organized on Flickr, and grouped into sets and collections. However, there are more where those came from! And I know Flickr isn’t a good long-term solution, and I need to have them backed up on something that’s in our possession.

I know it sounds silly, but this whole thing is causing me some serious anxiety, so always, I am turning to all of you smart people!

How do you organize your digital photos?

How do you back them up?

How do you print/display them? In actual old school photo albums, photo books or do you just let them live on your computer?

How do you weed out the bad pictures?

How do you make sure you are capturing your kids’ childhood on film and/or video?

I think this all boils down to that last question. I am terrified I am letting our memories disappear.