Big Move

Most of you who are reading this probably already knew that. :)  But, to make it "blog official," we are moving to Ohio in January!  Matt interviewed for a position (External Wholesaler) the week of Halloween, and we have been waiting ever since to hear the final decision.  Matt officially accepted the offer this week.  It's an answer to prayer in many ways, and I am so proud of him!

When we moved to Florida, Matt's main goal was to work as an Internal Wholesaler for a couple of years and then apply for an External Wholesaling position.  We had no idea what regions of the country would open up for this position.  We moved to Florida because that is where we felt like God was leading us, so we figured He would work out the rest when the time was right.  My biggest fear?  Well, I had total confidence that Matt would be able to achieve his goal.  But, my biggest worry was that we would end up moving to a random city that felt totally foreign to me...with no family around...and, my husband travelling during the week while I stay at home with our infant.  This fear haunted me.  But, I was finally able to surrender it to the Lord and trust Matt that he wouldn't lead our family some place we shouldn't go.  After all, moving to Florida was a pretty drastic change for us and God provided for all of our needs--not only that, but we have really enjoyed our time here too! 

All that to say, we are very thankful we get to move to Ohio.  It's in the Midwest, where we want to raise our family, and it's in driving distance to both of our families.  (We will be living equidistant from both families!).  We will still be moving to a new city and won't have family in our town.  So, yes, there will be some challenges and room for adjustment too.  But, I suppose that is the case with any big move!


I had no role in giving the Ohio State paci to Quinn.  If you have concerns please take them up with Matt!

At this point, we have some ideas of the areas where we want to look for a place to live.  We plan to make a mini trip to Ohio while we are visiting my family for Christmas.  We got connected with a realtor through one of my sister's friends, and will meet with him to get some help.  Since we will be moving shortly after Christmas we will just be renting for now.  I am actually really excited to explore a new city, try new local restaurants, hear Midwestern accents everywhere I go, and experience the four seasons again.  I have been pulling out all of my winter gear from the boxes in our garage.  I am excited for a change in wardrobe.  I never really mastered how to put together an "outfit" in Florida.

There is plenty to worry about, but I am so over worrying.  We are just trusting that the Lord will work out all of the details, and are excited for this new chapter!  Oh, and Christmas?  Yeah, the timing could be a little better.  Between Quinn teething and this move, I have been very distracted.  It doesn't quite feel like Christmas time to me.  We will be visiting my family next week, so I am banking on that trip to get me in the Christmas spirit (ie. my mother's traditional tin filled with a wild assortment of baked goods, seeing friends and family, going to the Nutcracker, Christmas Eve and Day with my family, snow, hmmm--I'm sure there will be more!)

Thanksgiving 2013

I'm feeling pretty blogged out these days.  But, I had to make sure to post these pictures from Thanksgiving up north with the McCauleys.  Thanks, Aunt Katherine for about 90% of these pictures!

Quinn did really well with the traveling.  We had very early morning flights because we figured it would be easier with Quinn, plus the fact that we were traveling with the rest of America.  We actually only had 38 people on our flight to NY!  Quinn did very well on both flights!

We had the whole clan at Matt's parents' house!

 

 

Did I mention how much snow they had??!  I hadn't seen that much snow since we moved to Florida two years ago!  Matt and I did some shoveling Thanksgiving night...we were feeling a little stir crazy/fat.  ;)

 

 Quinn was asleep when everyone arrived to eat on Thanksgiving day.  This was her reaction to everyone after she woke up...love her sweet post nap face!

 Oh, and Quinn had some stranger anxiety while we were there.  This was a first! She would start to cry when we handed her off to someone else, or just simply stepped out of the room for a mere 10 seconds!  The only way she would let people hold her was if they told her "they were looking for the kitty."  (Sorry, Molly!)  She started to warm up after a couple of days.  I guess she really knows all of the people we interact with in Florida, and needs to spend more time with her extended family!  The square lip...everyone said Matt had the exact same look when he was a baby... :)

 The first grandchild getting a lot of attention. 

 It was definitely a fun and freezing trip!  I also enjoyed getting away one night with Matt to go see the Hunger Games!  I didn't really enjoy our last night when Quinn was up about every 1.5 hours and would only sleep on me...followed by a 4 am wake up to go to the airport...and more crying in the car.  I guess that is just how it goes!  But, Quinn now has two top teeth that are emerging quite nicely as a result! :)

 

ten months

We are in the double digits!  Quinn turned 10 months old this week!

 

 

  

Quinn has changed so much in the past month.  This is what she has been up to...

Pulling herself up from sitting to standing.  It was quite a surprise to look in the monitor one day to see her standing up, while banging her hand on the side of the crib and squealing.  Recently, she found the monitor and pulled it off the side of the crib.  It was pretty funny to watch her staring into it.

Eating three meals a day.  One day, Quinn seemed very interested in finger foods.  So, I gave her more of a variety, and ever since she has been eating primarily whatever we eat--just cut up into smaller pieces.  She also transitioned to three 8 oz. bottles at each meal time, with snacks and water in between. 

She still only has her bottom two teeth, but we can see the top two are coming in!

Speaking of water, Quinn also learned how to drink from a sippy cup.  She used to just naw on it.  One day I drank from the sippy cup to show her how to use it--not really expecting her to understand--then she took it from me and started to drink from it on her own!

Quinn continues to sleep through the night.  The time change this month didn't throw us off too bad.  We tried to prep her a week before by holding her evening bottle off a little later each night.  After about a week, she started to sleep a little later.  But, it has still taken some time to get her totally adjusted to the time change. 

Quinn takes two naps a day.  She consistently takes a nap at 9am.  Although, the length of her morning nap seems to be getting shorter.  Then she takes another nap around 1 pm.  This nap has been all over the place lately.  Sometimes she plays in her crib for 30 minutes before going to sleep, and other times she goes right down. 

We had fun dressing Q up as a little indian princess for Halloween.  We trick or treated for about 15 minutes just for the sake of it.  She totally rocked her costume! :)

Quinn continues to come alive around other kids.  Every time she sees another kid at the store or when we are with friends, she starts squealing and smiling like crazy!  You can't really see her bubbliness from these pictures, but it definitely comes out in person. 

Now that Quinn is on the move (and also aware of the stairs...), we try to get out a lot more during the day to keep her entertained.  We are always looking for little things to do between and after naps.     It's been a lot of fun!  Quinn brings so much JOY to our lives!

RUFFLED ZIPPER POUCHES

I just added these zipper pouches to Lemon Bee.  Check them out!

a day in the life

I thought it would be fun to document what a day looks like around here.  Everyone says "long days, short years," and I think it would be fun to have this post to look back on in a few years.  So here goes nothing!

6:10 AM  My alarm goes off.  I slowly get out of bed, brush my teeth, and head down stairs to make coffee and a little breakfast.  By about 6:30, I sit down to get caffeinated and do my devotions before Quinn gets up.  She usually starts to wake up around 6:30, but is content to play in her crib until I get her at 7 am. 

7:00 AM Quinn gets up for the day!  She drinks an 8 oz. bottle and is a happy camper.  I change her diaper and get her dressed.  We "chat" and give each other kisses, and then I bring her downstairs for "independent play time/squeeze in some time to finish my devotions and wake up."  Q plays with her toys in her playpen for about 20 minutes and nibbles on some cheerios.

Somewhere in between here I get dressed and put on make up and check my e-mail.

8:00 AM Breakfast.  Quinn is pretty much done with baby food.  Last week she just totally moved on to finger foods!  This girl is hungry too.  I am making full on meals for her.  A slice of buttered toast, scrambled eggs, cut up fruit...it's an event.

8:30 AM Walk.  At this point, I can't wait to get outside of the house.  So, we always try to go on a walk, even if it's only 10 minutes.

9:00 AM Nap.  Beacon snuck into Quinn's room as I was putting her down, and as I was searching for him under her crib, Quinn pulled herself up on the side of the crib and started laughing at me.  It was really cute.  During nap, I usually update our blog, respond to e-mails, work on Lemon Bee, and don't do laundry like I should.

11:00 AM Quinn gets up from nap and drinks a bottle.  Sometimes she wakes up earlier and just plays until I get her at 11.  When I walked into her room, look at who I found sleeping on the changing pad....

Since we had no pressing errands or places to be, we ate a quick lunch and went on a long walk.  We are getting some more cooler days lately in Florida...which it means it was in the mid 70s, low 80s :)

1:00 PM Nap.  After about 45 minutes of Quinn messing around in her crib (in which I was making banana chocolate chip muffins--GF), followed by her learning how to stand up in it...I relented to getting her out.

                                     

2:30 PM Quinn is totally happy with skipping her nap, and learned how to climb ALL of the stairs in our house...supervised, of course!

3:00 PM Quinn drinks a bottle and goes down for a nap.  Success!  I worked on Lemon  Bee, cleaned up around the house, and changed clothes since we had plans to go to dinner with Daddy!

5:30 PM Quinn finally woke up from her nap. I couldn't believe how long she slept!  Climbing the stairs before nap time must have helped!  We quickly got our things together and went to Chipotle to meet Matt for dinner.

7:00 PM Came home from dinner and got Quinn changed into her PJs, read her some books, and fed her a bottle.

 

All done!  Time to relax!

This was definitely a more quiet day for us.  Usually we have some sort of activity during the day.  But, hopefully I will enjoy looking back and remembering our simple days together!



early bird gets the worm!

Check out this little sale going on at Lemon Bee.  Ends Wednesday!

halloween 2013

It was so fun to get into Halloween this year with little Quinn.  We dressed her up as an Indian Princess.  (Thank you, Pinterest!)  I made her outfit, and to our dismay Beacon really loved the tutu.  He ended up eating some of the tulle and got really sick.  He wasn't eating or going the bathroom, so we had to feed him cat food with a syringe (eeww) so that he would go to the bathroom.  Well, thankfully he did...5 minutes before we were having friends over for dinner.  Double ewww.  Let's just say we confirmed that he did indeed eat part of Quinn's tutu.  And, he is feeling much better now. 

We really enjoyed our church's fall festival.  There were 21 bounce houses, food trucks, and "trunk or treat."  The weather was perfect too!

The picture below is from last year with my friend Amy.  Our girls are 4 days apart :)

This year was much better, in my opinion!



My little princess.

We went to a few houses on Halloween night.  Quinn executed grabbing the candy out of the candy bowls very well.  Her favorite?  Nerds.  The best rattle ever.

 

Hope you had a happy Halloween.  Now, let the official holiday season begin!! 

 

 

 

fall in florida

We are finally getting some cooler weather in Florida!  I can wear a sweatshirt in the morning, and by afternoon jeans and t-shirt are perfect!  It's wonderful.  We have been enjoying this weather to say the very least!

We have been trying to get out of the house a lot more lately.  Quinn gets pretty bored at home.  She loved going to the park and staring at all of the big kids!

 We have been layering up more than usual for our morning walks.

We had fun going to the farmers market over the weekend.  

 

Quinn had her first professional haircut.  It took a whopping 5 minutes.  We take hair very seriously in our family as you can see in the pictures :) Quinn did pretty well.  When Lea started to cut, Quinn panicked a little.  But, we kept her distracted with little toys like combs and iPhones.

We went to the Food & Wine Festival at Epcot for the first time with some friends.  It was fun to try such a wide variety of foods.