April: Concerts, Anniversaries and Tummy Time

April was my first full month back at work, albeit still part-time.  It was a busy month, nonetheless.

On April 10, we took Amelia on her first road trip, to visit our friend Eric in Philadelphia.  While we were down there, I met up with some friends to see Andrew McMahon:

 

The concert was amazing, a mix of Something Corporate, Jack's Mannequin, and his new solo stuff.  

Oh yeah, and I made out with Eric's chinchilla, Mittens:

 

Amelia turned 2 months old on the 10th, but this picture was taken the following day, since we spent the 10th in Philly:

As of her two-month appointment, she was 23 1/2 inches long, which they told me was 90th percentile for height.  She clearly does not get her height from me!

On the 22nd, Glen and I celebrated 7 years of marriage with our traditional trip to Minado, which has an amazing sushi buffet.

I love that picture above.  Three of my favorite things: My husband, my daughter, and all-you-can-eat sushi!

And even though Amelia's been holding up her head pretty consistently since she was a few weeks old, we finally figured out the trick to tear-free tummy time:

It seems that propped up on the Boppy, in the crib is the way to go.  This past Sunday, we tried it without the Boppy, and she rolled from her stomach to her back twice! 

In other news, I've been debating downgrading my jewelry business to a hobby, because clearly once I go back to work 10 weeks from now, I will have even less than the currently-almost-nonexistent free time I have now.  For the past 3 years, I ran it as a business, complete with sales tax returns each quarter and a Schedule C each year.  

At this point, based on this IRS publication, I don't think it really qualifies as a business, since I'm not really able to put much time and effort into it and I don't depend on the income to make a living since I already have two other jobs!  The hassle of filing quarterly sales tax returns and filling out a Schedule C doesn't seem worth it as this point, but I still want to continue to make and sell jewelry as a creative outlet.  If I report it as hobby income, I could still deduct certain expenses, I just couldn't claim a loss.  Potentially having to pay slightly more taxes feels worth it to me since I'd have more free time, and right now time is more important to me than saving a few bucks!  

A Tour of Amelia's Nursery

Finally, I'm taking time to post the long-awaited tour of Amelia's nursery!  

But first, here's a semi-recent picture of Amelia:

Ok, it's actually from three weeks ago, and since she's only eight weeks old, I guess it's not really that recent.  But I think it's pretty darn cute!

But on to the tour:

Here's a birth sampler my mom made and had framed for the nursery.  It's currently hanging on the door:

Here the "before" shot of the corner of the room that functioned as my office space:

And here are a couple of shots of it now:

My mom made the pillows and crib skirt, since I couldn't find any sets I liked.  The wall decal is from the Etsy shop Quirkee Walls.  All those thin, wispy sections of the branch made it pretty difficult to get up, but I think it was totally worth it!

Here's a close-up:

 

And Amelia's bookcase:

She's already got quite the library!  Yes, that is a current picture, and yes, Go the F**k to Sleep is still prominently displayed.  I promise I will put it somewhere else before she learns to read. ;-)

Here's a before shot of the other side of the room, which functioned more or less as a guess room, what with the futon and all:

And here it is, looking slightly to the right:

You can see the curtains my mom made, which match the crib skirt and pillows.  The glider is from my mother-in-law, and that little black table from the "before" picture found a home next to it.  That's where I keep water, snacks, and burp clothes for all those late-night nursing sessions.

The changing table is now fully stocked with cloth diapers, covers, and wet bags.  

The lamp in the "before" picture also found a home in Amelia's nursery, I put it on the dresser:

And no, the picture in the frame is not Amelia, it's the one that came with the frame... although since I took this picture, I DID put a picture of her in it!

Amelia seems to love all the birds in her nursery.  She'll lie on the changing table, babbling and smiling at the curtains, and she does the same with the decal when she's in her crib.  It's absurdly cute.  We tend to leave her on her changing table for awhile after diaper changes are done, just because it's so entertaining!

One Month!

That's how long it's been since my last post. 

It's also how old Amelia is now!  Crazy!

Anyway, as promised, here are the 39-week belly pictures:

Posing in the nursery.  I was totally using the crib to hang maternity clothes.

Belly close-up!  Hard to believe that's Amelia in there!

Amelia is a super easy baby most of the time, we just need to work on getting longer stretches of sleep at night.  Part of the problem is that she seems to like to sleep on her stomach (during the day she will often take naps on her stomach, lying on my chest), but she is not a fan of sleeping on her back.  Once she can roll to her stomach on her own, I think we'll be golden.

And of course, she's super adorable all the time.  Here's one of my favorite pictures of her, at 10 days old:

There are a TON of pictures of her on Glen's website, but first you have to get through the many, many pictures he took of Amelia's stuffed robot, Mr. Toyboto - Glen took him on a comedy tour in Nebraska this past week, and it seems Mr. Toyboto may have a drinking problem. ;-)

Amelia, Elvis and I have been spending a good chunk of that time at my parents' house, since I'm not quite ready to deal with caring for a new baby and a dog (the functional equivalent of a toddler) on my own.  Right now Amelia and Elvis are napping together on my mom, and I can't end this post without sharing:

Seriously, I have the cutest kids, furry and otherwise. ;-)

Meet Amelia Grace!

I promise a longer post soon, but I just wanted to pop in here really quick to say that Amelia Grace was born at 4:05pm on February 10, weighing in at 7lbs 5oz, 21 3/4" long.

I can't believe all that hair!  I was completely bald when I was born, so I don't know where that came from.

When I get a chance I'll post the final belly pictures, as well as a final reveal of the nursery.

In the meantime, here's a picture of her from today, wearing her "Daddy's Little Lady" outfit, waiting for her daddy to get home from work:

Get it? Because there are ladybugs on it!

Also, you can read Glen's story about Amelia's birth here, and read his article on Geekosystem about how we chose her name here.

Nursery Sneak Peek

This isn't the official office-to-nursery before and after post - partly because the nursery isn't *quite* done yet and partly because the battery for my actual camera died, so I had to take these pictures on my phone.  I really do need to do something about that first issue though, because today marks 38 weeks!!  Seriously, this baby could show up any day now.  Eek!

Since we're going to be cloth diapering, we needed a spot for wet bags.  I decided the best thing would be to hang them from a hook on the wall rather than using a diaper pail.  The room is small, and Elvis likes to root through garbage, so a solution that takes up less floor space while keeping those tempting dirty diapers out of our dog's reach was called for:

And of course, the hook has birds on it - have to keep with the theme we accidentally stumbled upon!  You can't really tell in the picture above, but the green wet bag has birds on it as well.  And of course we had to work paw prints in somewhere!  We also have a diaper cover in the same paw print material.

Here's a little glimpse of the changing table and dresser:

Yes, I left the picture of the baby that came with the picture frame.  I wanted to put an ultrasound picture in there, but they didn't fit since the ultrasounds are all landscape and the picture frame is portrait and I'm apparently too lazy to come up with a solution.  The baskets below the changing pad are full of cloth diapering supplies: pocket diapers on the left, prefolds in the middle, and prefold covers on the right. 

And of course, this kid already has a bunch of books:

Not pictured above: The piles of maternity clothes and (to Glen's amusement) a prominently displayed copy of Go the F**k to Sleep, both of which will find new homes after baby arrives. ;-)

Right now the crib is serving as storage space, but there's some pretty neat stuff in there, so I thought I'd share:

• No story behind the activity gym, the crib was just a convenient place to put it for now.  Although if you look closely, the dog on the left makes me think of a blue version of Elvis.  
• My mom made the bird pillows from extra curtain/crib skirt fabric.  Initially they'll be used to create a cozy little reading area next to the bookcase, and later as decorative pillows when we convert the crib to a toddler bed.  
• The baby doll is about to get passed down to a third generation.  She belonged to my mom when she was a little girl, then she belonged to me, and now she'll be passed along to our firstborn. 
• The pillow in the middle and the blanket on the right - this is really neat.  The pillow was embroidered by my mom when I was born, the blanket was embroidered by Glen's aunt.  They have the exact same animal characters on them.  I'm telling you, it was fate!!

Today I was out picking up some last-minute clothes to fill in the minimal gaps in Stormageddon's wardrobe, and came across this onesie:

I was so, SO tempted to get it, because it's amazing the amount of unsolicited advice expecting parents receive, and I imagine it only gets worse once the baby arrives.  I resisted the urge to buy the snarky onesie and went with the more practical options of newborn and 0-3 month sized leggings (one of two aforementioned wardrobe gaps) to be worn with onesies. 

And because no post would be complete at this point without a picture of Elvis snuggling with Stormageddon:

With any luck, I'll have a proper before-and-after post because Stormageddon's arrival, but I won't make promises, especially since that arrival could occur tomorrow or 3 weeks from now... There's a real possibility that in the before-and-after post, the baby doll pictured above will be replaced by a real baby.  Madness!