Teething is Evil

I am so ready for this tooth to be down and to stop hurting my sweet baby! She won't nap today and if she does it's for 20-30 minutes before she's awake again and crying in pain. I have tried ibuprofen, Hylands Teething Tablets, frozen teething rings, and partially frozen wet wash cloths and nothing is giving her more than a little bit of a reprieve. I feel so awful for her and awful for me too because I have no clean underwear and I can't seem to even get a load of laundry done! Haha!

I've been successful in distracting her for short amounts of time with soft foods and loud obnoxious toys, but like I said it's only a short distraction and she realizes it hurts again. I wish I could just kiss her and make her pain go away but she doesn't even want to snuggle me :(

first birthday sneak peak!

So here's a small sneak peak at one of the things I've made for Kaylee's birthday party! I'm really proud of this, it's my first tutu and I LOVED making it. Seriously thinking about starting up an Etsy shop with all the things I've been making.... hmmmm?

I do still want to add a pretty bow or something to fancy it up a bit, but how pretty is my little pumpkin going to be in this?!

Earthquake!

I was just starting to wake up from a nap and the earth started shaking! I was telling S to stop shaking the bed and I looked around and no one was with me in the room. Ladies and Gentleman we just felt an earthquake all the way in Pennsylvania! CRAZY! Apparently a 5.9 magnitude earthquake just hit Virginia and we felt tremors all the way up here. Woke the baby up and everything she was crying in her crib.


Anyways, here's the pacifier leash that I made! So proud of it. Lots of posts to come this week on all the things I've been making!

3 teeth, birthdays, and a black eye!

Yesterday my parents came up in the morning so that my dad could see K-bug. They played on the floor with her for an hour or more! She loved it! While they were playing K started grinding her teeth so Grammie stuck her finger in there and found out Bug broke her 3rd tooth through! She now has two bottom ones and the top right. She's getting so big, I can't stand it!

In the afternoon we went up to Aunt A's house with the family to celebrate S's dads 63rd birthday! (If you're reading this HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!) Lots of yummy food and a pretty good cake made by yours truly! K loves playing with her cousins, they have so much fun together, plus the big kids love getting together too!

A Word of Caution:  you my blog friends... never ever get in the way of a 20 month old boy and his  

flying plastic toy microphone of doom!!

Or this is what you'll end up with...

Haha! My poor nephew didn't want to share his toys and decided to chuck his toy across the room which caught me right on the bone above my eye! OUCH!

Spaghetti, yard sales, and Aunt Sissy!

Num Num Num!

 Bug got to have her first taste of spaghetti this week! My goodness it was hilarious! Needless to say she went straight to the tub after she was done!


Yard sales are AWESOME! We were heading out today when a friend/neighbor dropped in and was telling us about a yard sale some friends of hers from church were having up the road so we stopped up and checked it out. So happy I did. We got K-bug a mini kitchen that's in really good shape for two dollars (it was missing one small toy) and we also got her a little toolbox where you bop the shapes with a hammer and it tells you the shape and color! They're so cute and she loves them both!

Of course her favorite thing to do is sit on top of it! LOL

This past week S's sister came up from down-state to help watch Ian's kids while his wife was out of town and she got to spend some time here snuggling Bug. They adore one another!

Love!

Aunt Sissy showed me how to do the "Itsy Bitsy Spider"!

OUCH!

I had a tooth pulled today and all I have to say is OUCH! It was hurting me for weeks earlier this summer so I had a temporary filling put in until the oral surgeon could see me, and today I finally got it pulled! I know relief will finally be here in a couple of days but right now, it really stinking hurts!

K-bug stayed here at the house with her Grammie while I went to have work on my tooth done. They took some pictures so I could see. 

Getting very brave!

Checking out all the toys in my new toy box!

Riding on my new toy Grammie brought for me!

10 months old

10 months old today! Can you believe it? Where has the time gone? Our little princess is getting so big, I cannot believe her birthday is TWO months away! AHHHHH!!!

K-bug has so much personality! She's overall a very happy baby. Always full of smiles and giggles! Bug's been eating off my plate for the last month or so. She loves green beans, carrots, peas, and just about any kind of meat or fruit. She absolutely LOVES Cheerios and really hates wax (yellow) beans! She gets really mad at me if I try to give them to her! Haha!

She loves walking around with you holding her hands. She's getting closer and closer to walking every day. She's started letting go of things but hasn't gotten brave enough to really let go yet. Well until tonight that is! She let go of the coffee table and turned to grab my exercise ball. She promptly fell on her butt, but I was proud she's getting so brave!

looking cool in her giraffe shades!

She is getting really interested in her toys that do things. She has a barn that makes animal sounds when you press it, a baby doll that plays peek-a-boo and a train the moves and plays music, she always picks one of these three things over any other toy she has!

She's been working on her 3rd tooth. The top right one is swollen and she's been chewing on anything and everything she can get her mouth on! I have to say I would be OK with it waiting a bit longer. Breastfeeding was a bit uncomfortable when she got her bottom two teeth, not sure how it's going to feel with 3 or more!

K's starting to grow more and more hair. It's still not long enough to put a bow in or even a little ponytail but at least it's growing! Sometimes I think she'll be 2 before I can but a bow in her hair! We own many, many headbands because nothing drives me more nuts than people calling her a boy in the store! She can be dressed in all pink and they still say "he's so cute"! It happens a lot less often when she's got a big headband on her head!

Two more months til her first birthday... guess I better get planning!

waiting for the blood test results.

Waiting... who the 'eff invented the concept of waiting!?

If you have already read my previous post you know that we had to have blood drawn to find out how elevated the lead levels are in K-Bug's blood. Well we are still waiting. Yes, I know they told us it could take as long as 6 weeks, but honestly this is killing me. I sit here in our home looking at every surface that has paint and wonder if there's lead paint there. I am compiling list after list of things that need to be removed from the house and re-done, things that we have to hire to have someone come in and take care of, and lists of contractors who are qualified to do the job. My mind is reeling and my heart is breaking that my house, the home that we have created for our daughter is poisoning her.

How.

How did I let this happen? I knew the dangers of lead paint, I knew that we lived in a house that was built well before 1978, I should have done more to protect her. I should have thought. I wasn't thinking though, I wasn't thinking that lead dust can be more dangerous than the actual paint chips, I wasn't thinking that all the lovely old furniture we have in our house could pose a risk, and I certainly wasn't thinking that even surfaces that were covered up with new paint could still cause problems.

Wait.

I keep getting told by everyone that I should just wait. Wait until we know the results. Wait, she may not have lead poisoning. Wait, you don't have to get worked up just yet. I can't follow this train of thought. MY HOUSE IS POISONING MY CHILD! I don't care if it's slightly, moderately, or severely. It. Is. Still. Happening. And I'm not letting it continue to happen, and I'm not about to bring another child into this house until it's fixed and I'm not exposing K and the rest of us to this. Things have to go and things have to change.

Game Plan.

Well, this is the problem now isn't it. Like I said, I have my lists. I've started removing things that I can remove, but that can only carry me so far. I am a dairy farmers wife. A dairy farmers wife who stays home and raises our daughter. In case you haven't noticed lately... farmers make NOTHING. We don't have the money to go ripping things apart and changing our house. We've spent the last year or so praying to God that this gas-well comes sooner, rather than later and we can afford to tear things down and start over. I have flipped flopped over that idea since S brought it up awhile back. Tear it down and start over, or try to restore and retain the history this house has. But not anymore, now everything's changed.

Drowning.

I can't catch my breath. I feel like I'm drowning. I don't know which way is up, and I certainly don't know where to go from here. All I know is I have to keep moving forward. I have to do everything in my power to make sure she's not breathing this stuff. Get the things out that can be removed and figure out how to change the things that can't be simply removed.

I'm not guaranteeing that this post makes any sense. Mostly I needed it out. I've been randomly bursting into tears every time I think about it, or sit down to plan. I needed it out there, in front of me. If any of you out there have experience with lead poisoning please speak up. Let me pick your brain, offer advice. Anything. Thank you!

Blood Work and Photos!

Just before we left for vacation we got a phone call from the doctors office saying that at Bugs nine month appointment when they did her finger prick and blood test they found elevated levels of lead in her blood. So we had to take her to the hospital and have blood drawn so they can do a more through test. Naturally I was very nervous and made S take the morning off from field work to go with me. I wasn't sure how Bug would take it and I wasn't sure how I would take it either! 

Of course my little trooper had to prove me wrong! She sat there like a big girl with mommy holding her and watched every move the nurses made. When the stuck her with the needle I had to look away with tears in my eyes but not Bug, she just watched everything they were doing and never even flinched! When they were done the nurses put a pretty Dora band-aid on her arm that matched her outfit and couldn't stop gushing over how they never had a baby that didn't cry!

Here's Bug with her band-aid trophy!

Monday afternoon we went to have dinner with our neighbor and friend, Dee. She invited us and the in-laws over to celebrate the end of first cutting! We had an amazing meal and dessert, Thanks Dee! Afterwards we all sat on the porch talking and somehow ended up with an impromptu photo shoot of Bug! We had a blast taking pictures of her, I can't wait to get some of this printed out and blown up! Too cute!

Bug and Dee smelling the posies!

She's always biting or sucking on the bottom lip!

Pretty girl!

Sitting on Miss Dee's big rock!

Think she'll grow up to help me in the garden?

Rocking on the porch chair with MomMom!

Mommy's beautiful girl!

first vacation!

The Bug and I just got back from a little mini-vacation to visit my friend Kaity and her kids in Newport News, Virginia. My mom and I went down together and took a 5 day weekend. We split the 8 hour drive over two days because we weren't sure how Bug would like being in the car for so long, I'm very grateful we did. She did not like loathed being in the car seat for more than about two hours at a time and even then I had to sit in the back seat and play with her or feed her snacks. Mind you this may not seem so bad, except for the simple fact that I get EXTREMELY car sick! 

But we managed and we had a great two days! We relaxed on Thursday after we got there and just enjoyed watching the kids play together, then went to the kids Vacation Bible School performance that night. Then Friday morning we got up early to beat the heat and hit the beach for a couple hours. Then drove to Williamsburg to see the Yankee Candle Store and DQ. Overall it was a great vacation, Bug didn't sleep much and I was up about every 2 hours trying to get her back to sleep, but a good time was had by all nevertheless!

Bug playing with her friend Emy at the beach.

Us with Kaity and her oldest Lexi.

She loved walking on the sand and squishing it between her toes!

Haha! She splashed herself in the face!

We missed daddy terribly!

Two of my favorite girls, Lexi and Emy.

Playing at the hotel on the way home.

Bug kept giving kisses to the baby in the mirror at the h!