11 months of baby bliss

Today is a big day....today baby cheeks is 11 months old! Samantha has grown so much lately that I can hardly believe it. She has had trouble gaining weight, still a tiny 17 pounds (5 of it in those cheeks alone), but she defiantly has a big personality to make up for her petite frame. She loves feeding herself, giving kisses, laughing, talking, jumping, swimming and crawling. Lately Samantha has really been coming out of her shell so to speak. She is incredibly loud everywhere and anywhere, but not screaming, just happy and loud "talking". She has also begun to assert herself and even throw a few fits. She is an active little handful, and a true joy to be around. I cannot believe that baby cheeks is almost a toddler cheeks! Today I am filled with pride and a touch of sadness...they really do grow too fast.


I tried to get a good picture of her today but as I'm sure you can imagine, getting an 11month old to hold still for pictures is nearly impossible ;)


P.S. Still no teeth?! I find this adorable...can't wait to see her first pearly white!

Am I a bad person?

During this amazingly stressful time in my life I often find my self thinking things that I just can't bear to say out loud or doing things that I would never admit doing, and I repeatedly ask my husband this: "Am I a bad person if....(insert awful thought here)?

So here we go, you be the judge blogging world.

Am I a bad person if...

-I frequently eat an entire Totinos pizza for lunch?
-I stalk people on Facebook with great pleasure?
-I harshly judge said stalkees pictures?
-I am extremely jealous of every one's adorable babies that seem to be arriving everyday now?
-I don't think it's that hard to get my damn coffee order right at Starbucks?
-I can't stand telling people I am a nanny anymore or defending my "career" choice?
-I have vivid dreams of strangling the people who owned our house before us?
-I love my cat more than my dog?
-I tell my husband that I did all the ironing when I really took it to the dry cleaners?
-I can't stand certain members of my family?
-I repeatedly list working out as a favourite activity but I can't remember the last time I did so?
-I constantly tell people what they want to hear, then come home and tell my husband what i really think?
-I pretend that I have will power and a stomach flu was not the reason for my smaller pre wedding figure?

I'm not too bad am I?

Yoga Cheeks

Being the super cool and trendy baby that she is, Samantha has been taking Baby Yoga since about 3 months old. We have made some fabulous friends throughout the course of the class and we love going every week! Sam has even "graduated" from Itsy Bitsy Yoga to Tots Yoga with some of her younger friends to follow shortly. Here are some pictures from our last Itsy Bitsy class a few weeks ago and some older yoga pics as well.

Sophia and Samantha on their yoga mats

Sam in the downward dog lol

All the beautiful Mommas and sweet babies

Sam and Sophia again

Tired of pictures

So many babies!

Our class keeps growing and growing!

I love that Hayden is holding Sam's hand!

Hope you enjoyed a little baby love! Namaste!

Ceiling Progress

While we were away (trip blog to come) the contractor came to resurface our ceilings and some of our walls, as well as add a new door and frame to the laundry room to garage door and install some new fans. Here are some of the pictures that he sent to us while on vacation. I love that he took the time to keep us updated. The final product is AMAZING...I will post some before and after photos as soon as I get them uploaded!

Lots of joint compound....used to make the ceilings flat

Some crazy stuff man

Prepping the floor in one of the guest rooms

Prepped and ready to go

Master bedroom ready to go

Entry way sans wallpaper and popcorn ceilings...about to be re textured

Guest bathroom ready to go

Beginning the 4 day process...

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Our new steel door!!!!

Flat kitchen ceiling!!!!!!

Flat living room walls!!!!!

Flat master bedroom ceilings!!!!!

The ceilings still look a little odd because they need to be primed and painted...but still they are amazing and a vast vast improvement. This week we are also having the carpet replaced in all the bedrooms! Those pictures to come as well. Once again, to save even more money (story of my life lol) we will be priming and painting ourselves as well as re caulking doorways (and a million other things) and painting walls and woodwork. We are going to start this weekend. One room at a time starting with the master bedroom and bathroom. Wish me luck!

Renovation Update

This weekend, and the past 3 weekends in general have been hellacious around the Mixon house. We have been working tirelessly to remove our awful popcorn ceilings. It is a messy and difficult job but to save about a dollar per square foot we have decided to remove it ourselves (that about $1,700 for those of you who think we are nuts). We also took off all of the wallpaper our selves which was even harder than the ceilings.

In case anyone out there is curious here is how you remove popcorn ceilings:

1. Fill a fine sprayer with a solution of 1 gallon water and 2 cups vinegar. (oh yeah my house reeks on vinegar now)

2. Spray the ceilings in 3x3 sections until soaking wet (but not too wet, so that you don't ruin the drywall).

3. Use a ceiling scraper or putty knife to scrape off the texture, reveling clean dry wall underneath.

4. Snap at your husband numerous times throughout the process and swear over and over again that the next house you buy will be brand new.

This is by far the messiest thing I have ever done, we have swept and mopped about 10 times and we have yet to rid our house of the dust. All in all it took us 3 weekends to do our entire house. I want to kill myself...but it was worth it because all we have to do now is sit back and let the contractor do his thing (re-texture the ceilings to a smooth finish) The contractor starts Wednesday and we are leaving for the week to go to Philly so hopefully we will be coming back to a whole new house!

Here are some pictures of the process:

Living Room Before

Holy Mess!

Matt working away

Glamorous right?

I will post more pictures later, they are too shocking to keep all to myself ;)

The Cove

I'm not up on my soap box much, well not on my blog anyway. But please please please watch this movie and please please please visit this website and please please please try to do what you can to not support such an awful industry. I'm not asking you to donate your money, or time...just care and don't support dolphin swims or shows etc.

http://www.thecovemovie.com/

I personally will NOT be swimming with the dolphins while on our Caribbean cruise in August. I really wanted to, I loved the idea and looked forward to such a fabulous experience. I mean can you imagine? Swimming with dolphins? However I had no idea what was really going on. My heart hurts for theses animals. We are all gods creatures and dolphins are one of his most amazing creations...I cannot bare to see what is happening to them.

I know we are all entitled to our own opinion and some of you may not agree with me on this one. So I am sorry if you do not agree, but I was moved to tears (I cried for hours) by watching The Cove and I just had to tell you all about it.

Water Babies

Several posts ago I promised pictures from our pool play date. Today I will deliver! Last week when the weather was just right baby cheeks and I played "beach bunnies" with our very best friends Sharon and Ayden. We both love them so much and could play with them everyday...ok we DO play with them everyday :)

Dressed and ready to go.

This is when they began to squeal with delight!

Sharon got this water play mat from One Step Ahead...awesome toy.

Pure baby joy!

We turned the water off for a bit so they could play together. Sam decided that she wanted Ayden to "come here now!"

"gimmie those sunglasses!"

Happy Ayden Bear

And then the baby lips turned blue so it was time to get out.

Drying off with a snuggle.

Ayden and Mommy.

Samantha and KK

More playing...this time slightly rough ;)

I'm pretty sure Sam took the sunglasses right out of Ayden's hand 2 seconds before this picture was taken. I love that Ayden is so upset and Sam is like "what did I do?"

My sweet baby cheeks...with a slight wardrobe malfunction ;)

Trying to get one of us all together...take one.

Take two! Incredibly flattering ;)

Not even 2 minutes after getting home this is what Sam looked like...guess all the pool fun wore her out!

She barely kept her eyes open through a diaper change, and clearly there was no getting clothes on this baby.

Hope you enjoyed these sweet photos as much as I do...come on everyone loves a baby in a bikini?!?!