Herbal Remedy

So again it's been a while since I posted. But I've been incredibly busy. I finally found a legitimate work-from-home job! I just go online and find email addresses and websites of contractors and put them on a spreadsheet. It's working out really great because I can do it any time. So if by a miracle I get Claire to take a decent nap, I can work on it then. If not, I can just do it once we put Claire to bed.

We had a wonderful Easter weekend. Friday night we went to the Fergus side of the family's annual Easter Potluck out in Dayton. It's always so nice to see them since we don't get to see them that often. Saturday we had lunch at my parents house (homemade pizza, yummy) and I arranged an Easter egg hunt for my nephews and niece. I'm not sure who had more fun, me putting it together and hiding the eggs or the kids going and looking for them. It'll be super fun next year when baby Claire can join in. Saturday evening we had a easter/birthday get-together with Levi's Mom's family. We always have a great time with them too. The food was to die for, we ate way too much as usual. Claire got some wonderful presents from her grandparents and we got her an Easter dress which I just realized we haven't put her in yet, oops. Sunday was General Conference, which for those of you that don't know is when we get to listen to the counsel of the leaders of our church on TV. It happens twice a year and it was pretty cool that this year it just happened to fall on Easter. It was our first (hopefully annual) ConferenceBowl with some friends. That was super fun and good food!

What do you guys think of the new blog design? My friend Lacey suggested that we get a new design and after going through a dozen of them that wouldn't work (maybe someone knows why it keeps cutting the sides off? Levi said it might be because we don't have a widescreen monitor) I finally found one that didn't get too cut off.

So we've been borrowing an exersaucer from a friend and Claire really likes it so last week we decided to buy her one from Craiglist. It's really neat, it has a bar that has some hangy-down type toys and I thought I was getting a good deal at $40 (originally over $100, I know ridiculous right!?). Well after looking it over I told the nice lady I'd take it. The minute I got it in the car Levi said it smelled like smoke, which I hadn't noticed because of an always-stuffed-up nose, but no big deal I was going to clean it up anyway. After getting it home I started scrubbing it down and noticed that in every little nook and cranny there was caked-in dirt, grime, whatever you want to call it. So I now have a toothbrush out cleaning each individual toy very meticulously. Then I get to a toy that has ribbon and notice tiny dark spots all over it. I tried to convince myself that it was just dirt but Levi confirmed my fears... MOLD!!! All the plush toys and the toys with any ribbon on them (6 total) are affected. I had to take apart all these gizmos and gadgets (I think it lights up when certain ones are pulled) to get the toys out. So as we speak they are soaking in a vinegar bath and after that they will be going into the washing machine on hot with extra stain remover followed by the dryer (we'll see if my Google search on how to clean mold out of fabrics/stuffed animals worked). So about now I'm wishing I would have just bought Claire a new ghetto-off-brand-not-quite-as-cool one from Walmart that sells for $40-$50. I'm not even sure after cleaning all this that I'll even want to risk putting her in it. But if they don't come clean I'll just buy new toys and try to get them into the mechanism. And I'll probably end up spending way more, ahh irritating!

So on to less stressful projects. We decided to start an herb garden. I've been cooking super delicious meals lately (Rosemary Roasted Pork Tenderloin, South of the Border Meatloaf, Asian Pork & Noodle Skillet, Amazing Lasagna, just to name a few) and I've been spending so much on herbs. The only fresh Rosemary I could find was labeled organic and for this tiny little box it was like $4! So we went to the Wilco Farmstore today and bought 6 terracotta pots & saucers, potting soil and seeds for Rosemary, Basil, Oregano, Cilantro, Chives and Parsley all for $16, thank you Levi's discount. And we got them all planted, I'm so excited. I'm just hoping I don't kill them like the love fern Levi gave me when we were dating, the easter lily we got free with our Christmas tree the first year we were married or the supposedly un-killable cactus we bought a couple years ago. Good thing I've had much better luck keeping a husband, dog and baby alive!

Claire's favorite things to do:
Almost getting her knees underneath her
Grabbing anything within reach
Suck on/play with her toes
Squealing/screeching so ear-piercingly loud we're considering investing in aviator ear muffs
Almost sitting on her own, she's hasn't quite got the balancing thing yet
Loves to stand with us holding her up
Laughs hysterically at Roxcy, raspberries being blown on her tummy or us talking in silly voices
Playing in her exersaucer or tummy time mat
Looking at everything, she doesn't miss a thing
Rolling all over the place

Spring is Here!

I’m such a slacker! It’s been over 2 weeks since my last posting. I’ll try to remember all that happened but leave out the boring stuff, so here goes.

Last week I got a job. It was a work from home job that I had found on Craigslist. It was only 10 hours a week and it was supposed to be half of what I made at my full time job, so I didn’t think it could get anymore perfect. The job was an appointment setter, and it was a whole lot more telemarketer-like than I was expecting. Not to mention super boring. But the real problem was that I wasn’t able to get Claire to nap for more than like 15 min at a time. I’m pretty bummed that it didn’t work out but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. So we are currently trying to get the house cleaned up and getting rid of stuff so I can start watching kids here. I’m thinking about doing the whole shi-bang and becoming a licensed daycare. It’s crazy though how much lower the going rates are down here compared to Washington County. In Washington County it’s $3-4/hour, in Salem $2-3/hour but $3 is considered pretty high. But I think that it would help considerably with making ends meet and it would be fun because I just love kids.

Claire had her 4 month appointment last Thursday. It had to be postponed 2 weeks past her actual 4 month mark (it seems like her doctor’s always out). So she was a whole 27 inches long (99th percentile!!!), 15 lbs 13.5 ounces (84th percentile) and head circumference 41.5 cm (55th percentile). Levi keeps calling her a little pea head but I think it’s just that most babies have heads that are too gigantic for their bodies and hers is just proportional. I knew she had to be pretty tall; people think she’s 6 months. She had 1 oral vaccine and 2 shots and again she did much worse with the oral one. She kept coughing it out and spitting it all over the nurse. So the nurse would give her a tiny squirt then I would shove her binky in her mouth super quick and we did that like 10 times. The Doc said everything looked good and that Claire is advanced for her age, like we didn’t already know that. ;)

Today we went and grabbed Subway and then went to the park in front of the State Capitol building. It was such a beautiful day today. This was the first time Claire was outside in short sleeves! The park was gorgeous with all the pretty flowers in bloom and the fountains. We ate lunch, walked around, took pictures and played with the baby. It felt glorious to have to sun on our skin again. I’m so ready to not look albino! Claire loved the flowers, I held her close to them and she grabbed some and pulled them off the stems, oops.

Also Levi’s brother, Logan left on his mission. He reported to the Missionary Training Center (aka MTC) in Provo, Utah on March 10. He’ll spend 3 weeks there learning everything he needs to know to be a successful missionary. Then he’ll travel on to the Jacksonville Florida Mission where he’ll spend 2 years. Levi set up a really nice blog that he’ll update with the letters Logan writes. Here’s a link to it http://sites.google.com/site/elderfergus/. As sad as it is that he’s gone, we’re so proud of him and we know he’ll be an excellent missionary.

This week I borrowed the book “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” from a friend and oh my goodness is it a miracle worker! Claire went from taking two 15-30 min naps to now taking 3-4 hour long naps. I was getting so frazzled that I wasn’t able to get anything done during the day, that book is so amazing. I recommend it to all parents, even if your child doesn’t have sleep problems it talks about all about the brain, sleep cycles, when to cut naps out, etc; it’s really neat.
I haven’t read a single non-baby-related book since we had Claire. I guess that’s what parenthood does to you, it makes you boring lol. Levi and I actually went out last night. My Mom came down yesterday (we went shopping; so fun) and spent the night so she could watch Claire. We went with a group of our church friends to Laser Tag. We hadn’t played in years, it was such a blast. And then we went back and hung out at a friend’s house. We have made such great friends in this ward. We ended up staying out till almost 1 AM. It was a much needed date night though! It felt so weird not hauling around 50 lbs worth of baby stuff; we kept feeling like we were forgetting something.

Well I better get to bed otherwise we might not make it to church tomorrow.

I tried to add a couple really cute pics of Claire and Levi but it wasn't working for some reason, hmm...

Squealing, Teething & Lots of Drool

Claire has learned to do the highest pitch, loudest squeal. Seriously, it is an absolutely ear-piercing, window-shattering kind of squeal. It cracks us up for the first 5 or 10 minutes but after an hour and a half we start searching for the ear plugs! We tried videotaping it but it's just not quite the same as being 2 ft from her.

Last Saturday Claire rolled from her back to her tummy, I'm not sure I can count it though. She did have the advantage of being on a bed that was not even. We spent the night at Dan & Lacey's and we were up trying to help Lacey decide on what paint for the guest room (aka our room ;) ) After Claire & me were sitting on the bed a while Lacey discovered there were wheels on one end of the bed but not on the other. So Claire rolled a little downhill.

While we were up there we walked up at Washington Park (up by the zoo) and it was so fun and such a gorgeous day for it. I didn't realize how huge Washington Park is. It seemed to go on for ever. We started at the Rose Gardens and walked down to the Holocaust Memorial (which I had no idea existed). It was so nice to be outside!

Claire is still teething and boy, oh boy, am I ready for those little teeth to pop through! She is still sleeping super awesome at night (about 10 hours worth of awesomeness!!!) but it has been super hard to get her to sleep. And she hasn't taken very good naps which also adds to the crankiness. But thank goodness for those teething tablets and tylenol!

Claire has found her feet and they must taste yummy! It's so cute, she'll grab her feet and then roll to one side or the other. I could just watch her all day. She also thinks that a gloworm looks suspiciously like a boob. She sucks on it's face, it's so funny! We gave her her first taste of food a couple nights ago. She tasted whip cream and chocolate pudding and wasn't too thrilled about either. We took a video of it but I can't get it to post, darn. I'll try again tomorrow.