adorable little fingers

My baby can use her hands! She grabs and holds on to everything now. Some of her favorites are my hair, crinkly toys, burp rags, fingers, the dog, the carseat cover and her bottle. Also, she can hold the bottle in her mouth... sort of!

She still needs help keeping it in her mouth.

 Oh yeah, that's me in the robe. I wear it all the time because it is warm and snuggly. 

Party Favors!

My mom had a dinner party last weekend. She wanted to eat on the china and sit in the dining room.  So we called it a dinner party because...... we're fancy like that.  We even ate cornish hens! I originally thought it was sort of a birthday party for her since it was close to her birthday. So I made a little party favor that contained a few of my mom's favorite things. It wasn't really a birthday party, but she was the hostess of the mostest. My paper crafting magazine gave me the inspiration for the favor. It was pretty easy to make and I liked how it turned out. I took this picture in my mom's dining room. Love you, mom!

A new job

About a year ago, I gave a new teletherapy company my contact information. They contacted me around Christmas time because they needed someone with an Indiana license. I interviewed, asked my questions and talked to Adam about possibly working 2 days a week. I thought it would be nice to have the extra money and it would be a way to keep my feet in the water.

But what about Claire? I didn't want to leave her and I worried about pumping and having enough to feed her. Earlier in the year, my friend Michelle said she would watch Claire if I went back to work next year and then graciously offered to come to my house (with Claire's boyfriend in tow) to watch her here after the tele therapy position became available. (THANK YOU, MICHELLE!) I also talked to the high school girls across the street who are home schooled if they would be able to fit some babysitting into their schedule. They decided on Fridays they could come over and split the day. Perfect! Work from home? In-home day care? I can handle this.

I signed the contract. Since then, I've been assigned six students who attend an Indiana virtual school to do therapy over the web platform my company created and to do evaluations in person with students in northern Indiana. I finished the training and am currently scheduling my students.

I hope it goes well. Wish me luck!

crafty follow up

I emailed my favorite blogger (Young House Love) about my tea wheel because I know she drinks tea and she wrote me back this:


So charming! I love it!

xoxo,
s

Totally made my day! I feel like I talked to a celebrity. 

Craftiness

I've been crafting up a storm!!!!!

I led craft club this month and of course used pinterst as my inspiration. We made this burlap banner for Valentine's day and stuffed paper hearts from classic love stories. Don't mind the cardboard in my fireplace meant to discourage the dog from trying to go through the fireplace.

My mom was here this weekend and I couldn't wait to give her the birthday present. It is a tea bag wreath or wheel to display/store all of her tea bags she got for Christmas! She put it in her office because we couldn't find a good wall spot in the kitchen and she drinks her tea upstairs while she's working from home during the day. It looks better with her tea bags than in the close up picture I took at my house. 

I also made some tile coasters (bought for $5 at the Habitat for Humanity Restore) with Claire's 3 month pictures as favors at her baptism party. I took a "in process" picture and an after picture. They could be used as coasters (modge podged, acrylic sprayed and felt feet on the bottom) or just as cute pictures to display. 

I've got a few more crafts up my sleeve for this month that
I hope to get done. What have you made this month?

Too big

What a week of firsts over at House of Houghtons!

First of all, she has a tooth! Her bottom right tooth has arrived. No wonder she was crabby, not sleeping, drooling and chewing on everything. We thought, no way, too early. The range is usually 4-7 months or you'll read a lot of places 6 months on average. She is just a little over 3 months!

She can roll over from back to front and front to back and one time she did a 360 roll. Of course, she wouldn't do it for company this weekend, but rolled over like 10 times in a row for Adam last night.

She had her first babysitting session for my new job with the girl across the street.

She had her baptism on Sunday.

She went to Shipshewana for the first time (ok, now I'm stretching to find firsts).

My baby is growing up and I just want to keep her little forever! Although, this is a pretty fun age..... bittersweet!

FYI: I pinned the "in and out" picture on interest, one Natalie took, and somehow it started "trending" and got 416 repins, a bunch of likes and comments! Then I pinned the pumpkin maternity picture, which in my opinion is the best one and no repins. My theory is that you just have to pin it at the right time for it to show up in the feed and people start repinning it so that it stays in the newsfeed thingy for awhile. Within minutes of me uploading it, it got most of its activity.

The Curious Case of Claire Bear

My baby is curious, as curious as can be.

She always liked looking at lights, but now that her eyesight has developed, she's so alert, focused, head up and watching everything. I think this contributes to the no sleep problem.

She used to sleep in the moby wrap with her head against my chest and now she has her head propped up, taking everything in. She used to sleep in the carseat at the store and now she cries if her little carseat cover is up because she wants to be able to look around.

She likes to watch t.v. which makes me nervous that she is turning into a couch potato already. The American College of Pediatrics recommends zero screen time before a baby's 2nd birthday!! This video of Claire takes awhile to load, but it should work. I had a lot of trouble posting it. If you watch it full screen, it will be blurry.

 She is having problems nursing,too. If she isn't tired, she'll eat some, throw her head back, smile at me and coo and then eat a little, throw head back, smile and repeat. The t.v. and computer can distract her while eating, too. Somedays I have to cover her eyes and force her to finish eating or it would take forever!

She is happiest if she can see me, but if I walk out of the room she might throw a fit or just coo to herself.

We'll figure out this sleeping thing sometime and being curious will be a good thing later in life!

Ground Hog Day

Happy Ground Hog Day!

This year it is going to be 46 degrees out! Last year on this day, we had 25 inches of snow and I had a snow day from school. Adam and I shoveled and snowblowed the driveway at the wee hours of the morning and still couldn't get out of the driveway. We had to call the hospital's Hummer service to come pick up Adam and he was late to work.

That was a pretty memorable event, but pales in comparison to another event, a positive pregnancy test! It was pretty early to take the test and we weren't sure if the result was accurate, but we were hoping that subsequent tests would show the same reading.

I took this picture (oh to be that size again!) on Ground Hog Day.

and stayed inside all day, hibernating and dreaming of what this little nugget would look like!