Being a stay at home mommy!

I know it has been way to long since I last wrote. It has been so very busy around here lately. My mom just left, she was here for a few days and I know that her and Stella enjoyed their time together. We visited Newaygo (our family cottage & lake), it was a lot of fun, Hunter got to roam around the woods and Stella also got to spend time with her great grandma & great aunt & great great aunt.

I can't get over how fast Stella is growing. She will be 6 months on Monday. She is the size of a 1 yr old! She can roll over both ways and kind of scoot around. One thing I notice about her (which apparently was the same for me all my childhood) is that she ALWAYS needs a circus! She gets bored very easily with things and wants to move on to the next thing or be picked up and changed positions. She makes this ugggggh Noise over and over again when she is done with the scenery or the current activity lol. It is hilarious but at the same time kinda annoying. She takes after her daddy, I think she might have ADHD as well. =)

After much discussion about whether I should go back to work part time or not we have decided that I need to be a stay at home mommy. I have always toyed with the concept but never fully embraced it as my job description until this week! I am so excited about being there for every milestone, knowing that I am providing the best care possible for our daughter, and calling myself a true "homemaker".

I am saving us so much money but not having to pay for childcare or a cleaner. My days consist of caring for Stella & our doggie Hunter. I cook, clean, do laundry, exercise, go for walks with Stella strapped to me, do our grocery and other shopping, do gardening, Stella & I signed up for mommy & me swimming lessons that start in July & also there is a playgroup that meets once a week that we are going to start going to. Part of my job description is to also manage our finances & pay the bills, bargain shop, cut out coupons and fun stuff like that. I also watch one of my old daycare kids 3 nights per month when her mom works the night shift. I get some play money from Rob each week that I can spend how I want, and I use our debit card for things we "need". It is a great arrangement. I am so happy with our life and I feel truly blessed that we are able to live how we want and that I am able to care for our child exclusively.

I have also gone on a health eating kick & exercise religiously. I feel so energized and happier, more full of life. It is also a lot cheaper to eat healthy with groceries than to eat poorly with drive ins and take out! I will be tracking my progress on here as we go, so far I have lost 12 lbs in 4 weeks!

Stella's Baptism

This Easter Stella was baptised with her cousin Quinn. The weekend was beautiful and the girls were little angels, it went very well. Stella had her hands clasped together the whole time like she was saying her prayers. =)
I am very lucky to have such a good little girl, I love her very much. I am going to start taking her to church one Sunday a month. I would like to get her involved in the Catholic church and am anxious to find one I like in the Kingston area.

Mommy's first scare!

Stella started out with what seemed to just be the common cold. A couple days later I noticed she was severely congested and sounded horrible! When she would cough she would sometimes choke on the phlegm and turn bright red and be gagging so much she would stop breathing for a few seconds! I was in such a panick! She also would start wheezing so badly that you could hear her from another room away!

It seemed to me like she was perhaps having asthma attacks. I took her into Kingston General Hospital a few evenings back and she was admitted right away with the triage nurse saying "infant under resperatory distress here!", that made me so terrified to hear that!

They hooked her up to a nebulizer with asthma medication in it, and it seemed to help a lot so they sent us home... saying it was probably just a cold that got in her chest and it will go away in a few days...

Something just didn't sit right with me on calling it just a COLD! The symptoms started to come back and so did the wheezing, I took her back in the next morning and asked for them to please look into it further, of course the wheezing stopped by the time I brought her in so they said again "JUST A COLD!"

When I brought her home it got worse and I decided to take her into our other hospital in Kingston called "Hotel Dieu" it has an emerg outpatient department just for pediatrics (this is the place I should of taken her all along, but I totally forgot about it.) The doc came in right away and knew what it was just by listening to her! She said its RSV, which is a resperatory virus.... It can be quite dangerious for infants so they sent us home with an inhaler with a mask attached to it to give to infants and I am to give it to her every 4 hours or so throughout her cold.....

IT IS GETTING MUCH BETTER, WE DON'T HEAR HER WHEEZE AT ALL ANYMORE. I asked if this could be asthma and she said yes, it could be however they do not diagnose asthma to infants or kids under 5 just because it could be so many other things, so if she has this same cough and wheezing problem with every cold or allergy she has until she is about 4 or 5 then it probably is asthma, so we will have to wait and see.

Stella's first plane experience!

We had our first vacation to Florida as a family unit this early March 2010.
We knew the weather wouldn't be GREAT since we were still going in late winter, but never could we have guessed all that would go wrong!

Stella was an absolute DREAM on the flights, her ears didn't bother her one bit and she slept pretty much the entire time both ways. The problems we had were with the airline company we chose "United Airlines".... (and also some other problems along the way.. here is our story) Please people, let me vent here.

We left for our flight from Kingston to depart in Syracuse, NY to Washington DC, to then connect to Tampa, FL..... On the way to the border we realized we forgot to drop off our house key at Rob's parents house since his dad was going to work on the renovations of our basement while we were gone. We were already 20 min down the 401 then turned back around.....

Then we left the 2nd time after dropping off the key and once we got to the border we were "randomly selected" for the day to have our car searched and to go in the building and be interrogated by police while they played 20 questions for about 45 minutes (meanwhile Stella was getting fussy so I had to go into their bathroom to breastfeed and change her diaper.)

Then we finally took off and while going through security at the airport they had to search the stroller and carset base really well so in the meantime the bins got discombobulated going through the xray machine so we forgot our infant backpack carrier thing....

Then our plane was delayed 15 min. so we were afraid we would somehow miss our connecting flight in Washington, D.C..... We got to Washington and their airport is a freaking ZOO!! It is soo spread apart, we had to take 2 shuttle buses, and go up and down escalators and take elevators with the stroller.... and of course I had to take 5 min to change Stella's diaper.... we were literally RUNNING TO OUR GATE.... and when we got to it they were JUST CLOSING THE DOORS, AND WOULDN'T LET US ON!!!! I was RAGING!

Well, if you know me well enough, I HATE CONFRONTATION, but if something really gets me HOT I will LOSE IT AND GO APE SH*T... this was one of those times. I ran to customer service and gave the lady a piece of my mind, told her it was the first time we were traveling with an infant and made it impossible to get here on time, and that United should of not of given us this itinerary because it was set up to fail. She gave us nights accommodations and the nearest Holiday INN and 2 meal vouchers to use at the hotel, our flight was scheduled for 5am the next day... it was already 12am.

So then we were given horrible directions to get to where the shuttle bus would pick us up to go to our hotel, we finally find it and have to wait on the curb in the cold for 30 minutes at midnight until our shuttle finally came... I was crying because Stella was crying because she was hungry and a bit chilly, and I hate to see her suffering. We were a mess!

The next morning we have to wake up at 4am to catch our flight.... 4 hours later.
We finally make it, but now we have problems with the rental car. Robert didn't realize he had to have the $300 for the car plus another $300 for liability available on a credit card, instead he had $300 on credit and $300 cash or debit... they wouldn't work with us on that so he had to leave Stella and I at the car rental place and take a shuttle back to the airport to use the atm to take $600 cash out to rent the damn car.... FINALLY WE GET TO MOM'S BEACH HOUSE...... (while we were there the air mattress we were staying on popped so we had to buy a new one.)

Then the trip home...... connecting flight in Chicago was delayed 2.5 HOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we were already 2 hours to wait at the connecting airport, so we waited a total of 4.5 hours in the Chicago airport for the next flight... once we get to Syracuse MY BAG WASN'T THERE!! someone stole my expensive luggage with all of Stella and I's stuff in it....

HOME NOW AND PISSED. NEVER GOING ON VACATION AGAIN!!! I DON'T THINK ANYONE CAN TOP THIS OF WORST EVER EXPERIENCES TRAVELING...

When she smiles....

My favorite thing in the whole world is seeing my little girl smile. Someone told me that it feels like they are "pulling on your heart strings" (I can't take credit for that saying, but it is 100% true!) Some days are smilier than others, and boy do I ever like the smilier ones! Sometimes she will just burst out with a smile while she is awake and even when she is asleep. But other times I probe her to smile by talking in a high squeaky voice, playing peek-a-boo, making funny blowing and clicking noises, tickling her feet and belly, touching her nose and saying "boop boop"... anyways it must be humorous to witness me going through the hoops to get her to smile but the effort put into getting a smile is worth every second!
Sometimes if you get her really going her mouth will get so wide with a grin that you can see her gums as she lets out these gurgling giggles that at times will turn into a full blown laugh! =) It is the greatest gift ever!!
Since I was a little girl my mom use to say I had a dolphin giggle. It always stuck with me and Robert agreed so he nicknamed me "the giggler". I am giggler #1 and he nicknamed Stella giggler #2, and all the kids we have to follow will be #3,#4 depending on how many kids we have!
I now have an obsession with dolphins since this is what our family is named after =)

THE GIGGLERS ARE NOW SIGNING OFF....

I'm an AUNTIE!!!

Welcome to the world Quinn Michelle Windsor... 7lbs. 13 oz!! Beautiful and healthy baby girl. My brother and sister in law, Richard & Robyn gave birth to their first child on Feb. 17 2009 around 5am! I am so happy to be an aunt and very excited in the closeness of Quinn & Stella's ages! They will be very close friends and cousins. It will be neat to see them grow, play & learn together. Quinn even has webbed toes that run in the Windsor side of the family! HOW CUTE!! I our next child has webbed toes too!! LOL


PROUD MOTHER OF STELLA ROSE WINDSOR AND PROUD AUNT OF QUINN MICHELLE WINDSOR!!

Chubby Chicken

Or as Robert likes to say "butterball turkey with arms"... Our little girl had her 2 month appointment a couple days ago and at 7 1/2 weeks she weighs 13 lbs. 14 oz... The doc looked it up and apparently she is in the 99th percentile for her weight, 93rd percentile for her length and 90th percentile for her head circumfrance....

My mom says I must have cream of wheat breastmilk. This is absolutly amazing since you cannot overfeed a breastfed baby, so she is just naturally built this way. The doctor also said that babies that weigh more than their peers are more than likely going to be tall, it doesn't have anything to do with their weight later in life.... So she is going to be a tall girl, like her daddy, maybe she will be a model. Obviously this gene didn't come from my side of the family lol.

She is doing great, sleeping a lot more at night. Lately she just needs a feeding before bed, and another one around 2am and then not another one until morning time (7ish)... We are getting better, but we decided to keep her in the cradle in our room until she is sleeping through the night and doesnt need a middle of the night feeding, so probably in April or so...

We are planning a trip to Florida beginning of March, we are looking forward to it and hope that Stella won't mind the plane ride. We hope it warms up in Florida for our trip because there has been freezing warnings there the last few weeks!

ANYWAYS.... WE LOVE OUR CHUBBY CHICKEN... OUR GIGGLER #2!! =)