Kids – Page 4 – All Kinds of Happy

Ada’s First Birthday Party

Published on September 21, 2014March 31, 2017 by stephaniemagsLeave a comment

Ada’s first birthday was a huge success and so much fun! We had everyone over to our house, and because the weather wasn’t looking good, we moved everything inside, luckily we have a big house because it was a huge guest list. I think there were at least 80 people in my house! The Bills game was on, so we had 2 TVs set up, the back room turned into the room for all the kids and babies and the front room ended up being more of the grown up who didn’t have kids. Worked out perfect.

I did a huge taco bar in order to feed that many people without breaking the bank and it was a huge hit. We had everything you could think of for tacos and nachos . Dan’s mom did the cake for us, and I made a few other little snack things for people to pick at.

Ada had a special cupcake to eat and I think she really enjoyed everyone singing Happy Birthday to her.

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the party yesterday.

First Birthday Photo Shoot

Published on September 14, 2014March 31, 2017 by stephaniemagsLeave a comment

I am so excited to share some of Ada’s first birthday pictures we recently did. I am so happy with how they came out and cannot be more excited to get ready for her First Birthday next weekend! I can’t believe how fast this year flew by and that she is already one. More to come on this topic! The photos we’re all done by Dan’s Cousin Ashley May Photo, who has done a great job with all of Ada’s first year photos, and we are so grateful to have a photographer in the family!

A day with friends

Published on August 24, 2014March 31, 2017 by stephaniemagsLeave a comment

Every year since I was 16 my friends from high school and I have gone to our friends dad’s place out on a small lake in Batavia, NY. This year was the 11th year (I think) that we have been going, and I was so excited to introduce Ada to a place where my friends and I have made sooo many memories! Since this particular camping trip is a bit reckless and rowdy, we didn’t feel it was appropriate to spend the night, but we thought we would drive up and spend the day at the lake with everyone. I was sad to not get to spend the night, since it’s always a good time, but I’m also not really good at late nights or drinking anymore, and since there are few things worse then having to be a parent and being hungover, I tend to limit myself. Despite not spending the night, we had a great day. Ada even took a nice long nap for me in the stroller so I could enjoy the afternoon with my friends.

Cody's Cabin Cody's Cabin (2) Codys Cabin (4) Cody's Cabin (5) Cody's Cabin (3)

I think she enjoyed herself, she was the first of our second generation to make an appearance at this annual party, which was kinda cool. Next year Dan and I will be sure to get a sitter though!

My Favorite Holiday

Published on July 6, 2014March 31, 2017 by stephaniemagsLeave a comment

Every year on the 4th of July we go to my friend Jill’s house for a pool party. For now, we’re the only ones with a kid, Ada is still pretty young so it wasn’t too much of an issue, but next year we’re going to have to do something different. I look forward to this pool party so much every year because it just screams summertime! It’s always beautiful weather, hot and sunny and ALL our friends come over to play. We play games in the park across the street from her and then walk over to her house and grill burgers, snack and drink beer until it’s time to walk to the fireworks. This is just the 4th of July for us!

Having Ada was different this year but still fun since she is at that age where everyone just loves to play with her and hold her. She isn’t mobile on her own yet so we just played in the grass, walked around the park and then let her splash around in the pool.
We decided to forego the walk down to watch the fireworks and instead met up with Ada’s friend Abby and did something a bit more child friendly. We still went to watch the fireworks, but we drove somewhere else, and just parked off the side of a parking lot so we could make a quick escape. Both the girls fell asleep before the fireworks ended anyway!

Ada’s first Easter & a photo shoot

Published on June 5, 2014March 31, 2017 by stephaniemagsLeave a comment

I’m a little behind on posting these, but Ada had a great first Easter, she got her first Easter basket, which I am obsessed with, I found it here on Etsy, and had fun pulling out all the stuff. She just got some little things this year, since she doesn’t know the difference. But I had fun putting something together for her anyway.

In her basket she got an Easter book, the Sesame Street cell phone, some little bunny socks, a little bunny onesie and a sippy cup (that she won’t be using for awhile still)

We had our first wedding of the year at the end of May, which was for one of my closest friends from High School, so it was a ton of fun to have so much of our gang all in town and back together. It was also Ada’s first wedding. We just brought her to the ceremony and to the middle party, then she got dropped off at Nana and Grandpa’s house so we could go to the reception.

The weather has been so nice out lately that I did a little photo shoot with my two favorite people out in the front yard.

6 Month Photo Shoot

Published on March 25, 2014March 31, 2017 by stephaniemagsLeave a comment

I am so lucky to have an amazing photographer in the family that I can call for a photo shoot whenever I want one! Enjoy my little Ada’s 6 month photos!! I can’t believe she’s 6 months already! Where has the time gone??

Blue headband from CaliandMeBoutique – Navy TuTu from Target

St. Paddy’s hair bow is from TuttaBellaBoutique

Navy headband is from CaliandMeBoutique

Almost 6 Months

Published on March 20, 2014March 31, 2017 by stephaniemagsLeave a comment

Its hard to believe Ada is almost 6 months old. I was just reading back on my post from when she was just one month and it was so amazing to read my thoughts during that time. Those first four weeks were definitely some of the most challenging times and its funny now because we feel like she’s been with us forever. 6 months isn’t that long but we really can’t even remember what life was like before Ada was part of it. I wanted to try and go back a little and recall some special moments since that post!

Meet Barrett, this is my girlfriends beautiful baby boy who was born just 5 weeks before Ada. This photo is from one of their first play dates together! They are going to be the best of friends, but Bear’s mommy and Ada’s daddy are cousins, so we will need to remind these two as they grow up that they are related to one another!!

Ada’s first Halloween she was my little lady bug! She did such a great job playing the part too, just look at those little bug dimples!

She continues to absolutely love bath time, and I still swear by the fact that she sleeps better when she has a bath. She’s been such a great sleeper, from 8 weeks right through Christmas we were getting a solid 10 hours a night, every single night. We back tracked a little over the holidays but I think we had her schedule all out of whack with all the holiday parties and house guests!

Little peanut is such a chill baby, she loves just hanging out on the couch with mom and dad after work, now that she’s a little older she likes to lay by herself on the couch and not so much with one of us, she’s snuggly but I think she likes her freedom too. After being held for too long baby girl just likes to stretch out and play on the floor or couch!

This girl LOVES football! Whenever we needed a distraction we put her in front of a football game! Lucky for us she was born during football season! We’re hoping she doesn’t have her Daddy’s temper when it comes to the Bills losing. (She better learn that the Bills never win and she shouldn’t get her hopes up!)

Finally below are some pictures from Ada’s first Christmas! Even though she was still so little at Christmas, it was amazing to see her expressions for everything. She loved all the lights on the Christmas tree, and she was so amazed Christmas morning, we sat her in the Bumbo seat and opened presents with her, my favorite one is her expression when we opened her Elf on the Shelf (below). I also did my best to do a Christmas Photo shoot with her in her outfit. I did this a few weeks before Christmas with the intention of doing a Christmas card, and I captured some of her first great big smiles, the one below was one of my favorites, you can almost hear what a happy baby she is!

Little Ada’s Birth Story

Published on February 11, 2014March 31, 2017 by stephaniemagsLeave a comment

So this post has been a long time coming but I thought I would share the details of the Little Ada’s entrance into the world. Before I go on, I have to say this was not nearly as bad as so many women make it out to be and especially not as bad as it looks on TV and in movies. Now I might be in the minority and my second child may give me some serious pay back, but Ada’s birth was one of the best experiences of my life.

I’ll start out by saying that I didn’t like being pregnant, I felt out of control, and more out of shape then I ever had in my entire life. I am not one of those women who “Loved being pregnant” and “Can’t wait to do it again”. I felt fat and slugglish and found myself counting down the days until I could have my body back, but I wouldn’t change anything in the world for my little Ada! My original due date was October 7th and if you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that I had a scheduled c-section for September 30th (1 week early) because baby girl was thought to be breech, but on September 22 (1 day shy of two weeks to go) Ada decided she was ready!

We had just gotten home from dinner at my sister’s that Saturday night. I had felt fine all day and all night, and had no idea what was coming. I buzzed around and cleaned the whole house earlier that day, I mean really cleaned the house. I dusted, scrubbed the bathroom, even cleaned out every nook and cranny in the refrigerator. (Maybe that should have been my first clue – I hear nesting gets out of control at the end) We got home that night around 10:30 and I started complaining that the “braxton hicks” I had been getting nearly all of my pregnancy were really bad, so I started timing them and they were all over the place like they usually were. 10 minutes, 17 minutes, 6 minutes, 20 minutes and on and on. Finally around midnight or so, we decided to go up to bed. Hubby went right out, but I was up for the night. The contractions were getting worse, but still bouncing all over. I got back up and went to get a drink of water, back to bed, up to go to the bathroom, back to bed, downstairs to straighten up the living room (I dunno why? It was already clean.) I just couldn’t sleep and couldn’t get comfortable that night. Back to bed I went, started dozing off, woke up 8 minutes later with severe pain, dozed off, looked at the clock 8 minutes gone by, closed my eyes, opened them 8 minutes later. Finally around 2:30am I decided I needed to wake up my husband. He told me to call the doctor, but I was fine at that point, so I said “No I’ll wait a little longer” 8 minutes later, yelling in pain, “ok, ok I’ll call” pain went away, I’m fine, lets just wait, its 2 in the morning I don’t want to call just yet. 8 minutes later screaming in pain, “ok I”ll call!” I finally called and explained that I know I wasn’t supposed to call until they were 5 minutes apart but I had a scheduled c-section in a week and wasn’t sure what to do. The on call doctor (Dr. Trevette) called me back a few minutes later and said to head to the hospital just to get checked out. So my husband and I looked at each other and said okay I guess this is happening. Dan started frantically running around, what do we need? Where is the bag? Where’s the car seat? (We hadn’t even figured out how to put the car seat in yet.) I decided at that point that I needed to straighten my hair, before we left, so while Dan ran around crazy gathering things and texting our parents I casually stood in the bathroom straightening my hair, delaying the inevitable. Finally we were off and I was admitted shortly after 3am. I was admitted right away due to the fact that we thought baby was breech and I’d be getting a c-section, the only thing I had prepared for. They got me all set up on machines and what not and while Dan was in the bathroom dressing in his scrubs, they did a sono on me. Turned out that baby girl had flipped over and was ready to come into the world the right way!

They had to do some convincing on my part to have her naturally since I was really not prepared at all for that to happen. I finally agreed only if I could have an epidural, which of course they administered right away. Dan had to leave the room and the very sweet nurse stood in front of me and held my hand while I got the epidural, much of this I hardly even remember since I feel like it all happened so fast. I was already 4 cm when they admitted me and it was the middle of the night. Once I had the drugs they turned off the lights and everyone left. They told me to sleep. Haha. I sent emails to my co-workers, I had about 8 different group texts going with friends and family. The last thing I was able to do was sleep, yes I was comfortable and wasn’t really feeling any pain at all, but this wasn’t supposed to happen this early, I just kept thinking about the baby, what I hadn’t finished doing yet and a billion other things. It was a good rest time, but no sleep.

They came in to check on us every half hour or so, they would check the machines, adjust the monitors etc. Probably around 7am or so they decided to come in and break my water, only to find that it had broke on its own. Then maybe an hour and half later I had to ask them to check me again because I really felt like she was coming out, and she sure was!! They asked me around 10am if I wanted to try a few practice pushes to see where we were at, so I did. STOP! They needed the doctor in the room, she was really coming soon. So I waited, the doctor came in and had me push again. STOP! She needed her scrubs on, this baby was coming now! After about 20-25 minutes of pushing at 10:26am I held a beautiful baby girl in my arms!!

The rest of the day was a compete blur, I had not slept in over 24 hours, we were moved from one room to the next, and had people coming and going all day long. They moved us from the labor and delivery room shortly before 1:00pm, I know this was the exact time, because my husband was very concerned that we were going to miss the start of the Bills game. We couldn’t figure out how to get cable on the TV in our new room and also, I couldn’t find my baby! I asked 2 different nurses if I could see my baby and both of them went off to find her! We had family all waiting in the waiting room for us and I refused to let anyone in until I got to see and hold my baby myself for awhile. They did finally wheel her in, and we had to try breastfeeding before they let anyone in anyway. Here’s a few more photos of my beauty just minutes after birth.

They put her footprint on daddy’s hand

That first night was a doozy, I was beginning to get delirious after lack of sleep, at this point I was going on nearly 36 hours of being awake, and the constant visitors and disruptions from nurses, oh and the fact that I just gave birth to a human, was really wearing on me. Once the night came and everyone had left then they would bring the baby in to me every 2 hours to feed. 2 hours goes by really fast! We had to send her down to the nursery because we just needed to get a little rest, I could tell as long as she was in our room we were never going to sleep. This is where I kept seeing my husband when I finally called a nurse…..

Its hard not to just stare at her all the time. We are so in love in with her and now cannot even remember what life was like before she was here! Its hard to believe 4 months have already gone by, when they say time flies they aren’t kidding. I feel like I will be planning her first birthday before I know it!

Its a big adjustment having a baby around all the time. It really is a rough first few weeks, lack of sleep and emotional meltdowns just skim the surface. I had a few break downs in those early days when we were trying to figure each other out. Breastfeeding is by far the hardest part, sleep came eventually, and thanks to my awesome husband we worked out schedules so we both could sleep, but that breastfeeding thing is still my biggest enemy. I’ve gone to exclusive pumping because I just couldn’t get the hang of making sure she was getting enough and me producing enough both for her and to store so we could actually leave the house for more then 2 hours. Ada is such a good baby and I cannot complain about a thing, I think we’ve had it really easy both with the birth and even in the months that have followed, she’s been sleeping through the night since 8 weeks when I put her in her crib in her own room and has been there ever since, we’ve had a few rough nights recently and I’m sure there are more rough ones ahead. I’ll finish this post with our first family photo! As well as a beautiful family photo we had done for Christmas!

Top 10 Favorite Baby Items

Published on January 3, 2014March 31, 2017 by stephaniemagsLeave a comment

So I know I promised a birth story blog, and I should really do that before I start forgetting details, but it turns out having a baby and working full time is pretty time consuming. I went back to work right after Thanksgiving and with the holidays and friends in town and everything else in between I haven’t even thought about the blog lately. Since that story will take time to write (and re-live) I thought I’d do a quick post with some of my most favorite baby items so far. This will also be my shopping list for future friends having babies since these were my life savors!! So if your one of my friends reading this, expect to get this stuff! 🙂

1. Aden+Anis Swaddle Blankets – I’ve only found these in a 4 pack, and they are almost $40 which seems like a lot for blankets but I figured they are only about $10 per blanket and it was great to have 4 of them, one was always clean. These are the BEST swaddle blankets because they are big enough that you don’t have to have the perfect swaddle wrap, you can do it real quick and nice and tight. It worked best for us because little Ada didn’t like her arms swaddled so those wraps with Velcro didn’t really work for us.

2. PJ’s with zippers!!! I don’t even know why newborn jammies come with snaps, they are a nightmare to figure out in the middle of the night. Newborn PJs with mittens and zippers were the best. A lot of our jammies that had mittens only had snaps and the ones with zippers didn’t have mittens, so she wore the same ones a lot! If you can find both, buy multiple pairs. As she gets older the snaps that only go down one leg are okay, and we don’t need the mittens anymore, but forget those silly PJ’s that you have to match up snaps in the crotch, we left them undone half the time because we were only gonna take them off again in 20 minutes!

3. Fisherprice Rock N’ Play – This is the exact one from Target that we got, I thought the colors were awesome, but more then that this little cradle was our favorite place for her. She slept in this for the first 4 weeks when she was too little to lay in the cradle that was in our room (she would just flop over in her little burrito roll) This kept her nice and snug and sitting up right a little bit. It was also perfect to transport up and down the stairs if she fell asleep and we didn’t want to disturb her. During the day I could set her down, she would nap there and even now she’ll just chill in there. It goes up to 25 lbs. so it will be with us for a little while longer. We got good use out of this one!

4. Vera Bradley Bottle Caddy – I got this little gem for free when I bought my diaper bag and its awesome!! It only holds one bottle which is all you need a lot of the time. I actually froze some yogurt in a tiny round tupperware container and I toss that in the bottom to use as an ice pack.

5. Vera Bradley Convertible Diaper Bag – Speaking of the bottle caddy, I will say this is the best diaper bag! I actually don’t use the one I registered for because it was ridiculously small. This one holds everything I need! I look forward to the day when I can just throw some stuff in my purse, but for now while we travel heavy and for packing her up when she’s with the grandmas all day while I work, this has all the room I need for plenty of diapers, changes of clothes, bottles, burp clothes, toys etc… and anything else I can jam in there. The best part is it comes in plain black if you’re not into the Vera Bradley style. This bag is worth every penny even though it seems kinda pricey!

6. Halo Sleep Sacks – This is what we put her to bed in every single night. When she was a newborn we did do the swaddle, but once she started waking herself up just trying to bust out of it, we deiced it was time to try a sleep sack. Since she was born at the end of September, most of her infancy has been in cooler and now freezing cold weather, so these fleece blankets keep her nice and toasty without putting a blanket in her crib. They come in 4 sizes, so she can keep growing into them. We’ve already moved up to the second size, we’ll probably continue using these at least until the summer time. Again something else that has worked at night time and I will not stop doing what I do as long as she’s sleeping through the night.

7. “Blankey”– So this is not exactly the one we have, we have a white lamb but its as close as I could find. A friend bought this for her at a specialty gift shop and from what I can tell this already is going to be her attachment item. At 3 months she loves to just hold on to it and loves to play with (and chew) the ribbon around its neck, and its small enough to throw in that awesome diaper bag or tuck into her car seat. I may be encouraging this to be that item a little bit too because its so cute!

8. Sound Machine – This is the one we have but it comes in a million brands and varieties. Its the idea of the sound machine that puts it on my list. It has several different sounds, white noise, rain, ocean etc. and the volume knob is how you turn it on an off so you can gradually increase or decrease. We’ve used this thing every night since she’s been home, whether it calms her or not I will never know, but she’s been sleeping through the night since 8 weeks so I won’t stop using it now.

9. Organic Cotton Washable Nursing Pads – I don’t know who got me these specific ones or where they found them around here, but here’s a link to some on Amazon. These were the best!! They were so soft (and got softer with each wash) They fit right inside your bra comfortably and absorb everything during those first few weeks of breastfeeding. The disposable ones were way to rough on sore nips, these actually just feel like part of your bra which makes you feel just a little normal again, and the best part is they are re-useable!

10. Dishwasher Basket This is the one we have, but I think any of the million varieties would work. I didn’t use this for the first month or two because we were strictly breastfeeding and I wasn’t going through bottles that much, but now that I am exclusively pumping, I go through bottles, nipples and pump parts like crazy. This thing can hold almost all my bottle pieces in one load and when I don’t feel like hand washing all that stuff, its fantastic to throw it all in the basket and be done with it. Also, along this line is the Boon Grass, which I also love for when I do hand wash everything. All the little pieces fit nicely on here.I originally registered for the lawn but took it back because it was so big, the grass has more then enough space and doesn’t take up your whole counter.

So there you have it, in no particular order, my top 10 list! I could probably do another post with my thoughts on other items that we found useful, and I could also probably do a post of things I found to be a waste of money. As new moms we think we need everything out there and while a lot of the things have been created to make life easier, there are a lot of things that we really don’t need. My best advice, Don’t open, take off tags or use everything before baby arrives, wait and see what you’re baby and you really need.

And to finish, a few pictures of my love bug because she’s just too cute not to have some in every post!!

Sitting around watching some TV

Ready to watch the last Bills game!

All smiles on Christmas day!

One Month already!!

Published on October 21, 2013March 31, 2017 by stephaniemagsLeave a comment

I am sorry for disappearing but its a lot harder to blog with a newborn! I thought I would write a quick post about how our first month has been! I finally feel like we are coming out of our funk and getting the hang of it. I feel better and we’re starting to get our rhythm down. The first week was really hard. We didn’t get any sleep, we had people constantly wanting to come over and breastfeeding just took up all my time. I felt like thats all we were doing, every 2 hours and it took us at least a half hour to feed. By the time we were done it felt like it was time to do it all over again. Even now I still feel like life revolves around feeding her. Honestly if it weren’t for the breastfeeding everything would have been a lot easier, probably why so many people stop, but I’m glad we’re fighting through because now it is starting to get easier and its nice to always have her food with us when we’re out if she gets fussy! 🙂

She has been an amazing baby, she is so easily comforted when she cries. Its either a messy diaper, hunger or she just wants to be held and fortunately she’s one of those babies that once she falls asleep we can easily put her down and walk away. She is a really good sleeper, she even gave us a full 8 hours when she was 3 weeks! (we haven’t had another one of those yet, but I’ll take what I can get) She did sleep 6 last night, and she’s starting to go a solid 4-4.5 at night which is so nice.

She loves taking baths, and I think the nights we give her a bath are the nights she sleeps for longer periods of time (which means we’re upping the number of baths we give her now!) Dan and I now do walk-a-bouts all over the house, sometimes she fusses like crazy if we sit, but as soon as we start walking around she is fine. Good thing we have a big house now! She is a great eater, she has been right from the beginning. She was 6 lb. 13 oz when she was born and dropped down to 6 lb. 4 oz when we left the hospital, the next day when we went to the pediatrician she had gained 1 oz. and by her 1 week appt. she was back up to her birth weight, the doctor said a lot of babies take several weeks to get back up, so we know she’s eating well. Now at one month I can’t wait to see how much she weighs, we go to the doctor on Wednesday! I’m guessing at least 8 pounds now. Still a little peanut, but to me she seems soo much bigger already!!

Here’s a little photo shoot covering her first four weeks……

I have gone photo crazy with her so here are a few of my favorites from the first month. Again I will share her birth story when I get some time, I have a ton of photos that my amazing hubby managed to capture in the moment so I will share those soon!