New chapters...

On Saturday my baby brother gets married. Little Ross Peter Hanson is getting married...well, he's not so little (he's a strapping, burly Norwegian) but he will always be my little brother. Did we always get along? No. It took me moving away to college to really get our brother/sister friendship going and I am so thankful it did. It all started with smoking cigars on old lawn chairs in our backyard when I was home for the summer. He is a thoughtful, giving, incredibly caring man who adores his nephew like crazy. We are so excited for him and to officially welcome Lindsay, his bride, into our family!

Now on to the...hmmm...part that I'm not really looking forward to: driving for 9 hours with a 4 month old baby, two mutts, a car full of stuff, and being away for two weeks. It should be an interesting time and I'm sure there will be many posts!


Ross toasting us at our wedding


The four cousins singing "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" at my wedding



Blurry Rossy Peter


Big sister, little brother

Master of time...

Since becoming a mother, I've found that time flies by faster than it ever did before. Seriously, my baby boy is now four months old, I have deadlines floating over me that need to be done...oh...now, and I feel like I have to clean my house every half hour because it just gets dirty all over again. Several years ago, when I would hear mothers talk about how they had so much to do, I must admit that I thought, "You are home all day...how can you NOT get things done? It's all about time management." If I could travel back through time, I'd give myself a swift slap across the back of the head...several times in fact.

I am a lover of lists. I have many of them. One of them being my "deep cleaning" list, which has taken a back burner due to the fact that I haven't had time to really dig into it. But yesterday, Marcus was off on a job site and I was going to try to get some work done while the baby slept. For some reason at about 10AM the power went out for almost two hours. I have no idea why. So without any power, internet or other forms of entertainment available, I took Isaac upstairs, put him in his swing and we went to work on the closet. The "great purge" came upon me and I got rid of more than half of my clothes to give to Goodwill. Oooohhh, it feels sooo good!! I got rid of shoes, shirts, old skirts, tee shirts, you name it. I decided I wanted to start over with my wardrobe and have made another list (imagine that!) of things that I want to get to make life a little simpler in the clothing department. I hate shopping, so this will be a long endevor.

So right now, my little one is sleeping so soundly in his swing. I'm enjoying the last of my coffee and waiting for my sweet friend, Simone, to come over for a walk around Radnor Lake. Bliss...

Ehhh, what time is it??

I have reluctantly become a morning person. Not that I have mastered this fine art, but getting up at 5:30AM or 6:00AM isn't as painful as it used to be. Granted, I still have the harsh burn of morning in my eyes when I first hear that little baby cry coming through the monitor, but I get up quite eagerly to see my precious son. Who wouldn't want to see that sweet little face?? This morning I walked into his room and he was having a lovely conversation with either himself or his beloved mobile that hangs over his bed. When I loomed over his bed and said good morning, he looked over at me with a huge smile and started kicking like I was the most exciting thing he has ever laid eyes on. I know this phase won't last forever, so I'll soak it up as much as I can now :)

So now it is nearly 9:00AM and I feel like I've already gotten a lot done. Another reason to love early mornings! Thankfully Isaac's asleep, I can get some work done, and we can have an enjoyable day!

Bad Taste...

I'm the first to admit that I have bad taste in movies. Truth be told, I really don't have a certain "taste" in movies, per say. Marcus is the movie buff in the family and constantly teases me about how I like to watch poorly scripted movies from when I was a kid and movies that probably average a 2.5 star rating. At least I admit it.

Currently I have National Treasure: Book of Secrets on, mainly as background noise, while the baby sleeps in his swing. It's Sunday morning and I really don't want to get rolling on cleaning the house quite yet. So I thought a poorly acted movie was in order. Someone should tell Nicolas Cage that he REALLY needs sideburns. Really.

So this is me...wasting some time. Marcus' parents are coming into town next week and I'm using that as motivation to get the guest bedroom back in order. I started working on it yesterday but Isaac wanting nothing to do with it and was quite fussy. I think I'll feel quite ambitious later on today, but as of right now, not so much.

So here is to wasting a Sunday morning on bad movies!

Big steps...

I'm about to take a big step...we are going to leave Isaac with a babysitter on Thursday! AHHHH!!! Granted, we are still looking for said babysitter, but we are only going to ask someone that we have known for a while and not some random 14 year old. Seriously, I have NO idea what parents were thinking when they hired ME to babysit at 13 or 14! Maybe it was the fact that they only paid me $1 or $2 dollars an hour...seriously.

I think it helps that it will only be for 2-3 hours. I just might blow a gasket if it goes longer than that.

Light sleeper...

I'm walking rather quietly this morning because Isaac has been napping very lightly today. By now he has usually taken a good three hour nap swaying back and forth in his swing, but not today. It's funny because he does not nap well in his crib during the day, but sleeps quite peacefully in there at night. Not sure how that came about, but we are OK with it. My thought is, if he sleeps well in the swing during the day, let him sleep in the swing!

For the last three nights he has been waking up at around midnight, which is vary rare for him. Usually he sleeps from 7:30PM till at least 2:30AM when he eats and then sleeps till about 6:30AM. When he's gotten up at midnight, it's not a full awake kind of thing...rather we stick the binky back in his mouth and he instantly drifts back to sleep. He does this twice within a half hour of each other and then he's out. Marcus and I have a system down where he gets up with him first and feeds him a bottle and I get up with him in the morning. Works pretty well for us. A few weeks ago Isaac actually slept through the night. Has it happened since then? No. BUT there IS hope!!! I know he can and will do it again.

Some of my most precious memories with my son have been when I nurse him to sleep at night. While I haven't read much in regards to parenting (I'm a "mother's instinct" kind of gal) most of the books say not to rock your baby to sleep, but it is one of my treasured times with Isaac. We read "Goodnight Moon" which, believe it or not, he loves even at three months. His eyes fix on the page, his little mouth puckers up and his chubby arms and legs start moving with excitement. We read a prayer from his little prayer book and then he eats. While he's eating and drifting off to sleep, I pray over him. I'm normally not a very emotional gal, but this time brings about tears of complete and overwhelming love that I cannot explain. It's in this beautiful time that I tell those "experts" to take a hike and I will certainly rock my son to sleep. I wouldn't trade that time for the world.

Our house feels very homey today. Not that it doesn't normally, but the main level is tidy (although I do need to vacuum...this dog hair is out of control!) and I'm slow cooking a pot roast for dinner tonight, per the request of my husband. He loves my pot roast, which makes me feel rather domesticated. If he has roast somewhere else, he always leans over and says, "Yours is so much better." Ahh, never thought that would make me so happy :)

The cool baby music mix...

I think I might have hit on something. Today I mentioned on Facebook that I was making a mix for Isaac because Marcus & I refuse to have annoying kid music enter our house. Several friends asked what songs we were going to include and thought it was a great idea. That got me thinking...I should post the list here! This won't be the first or the last of the mixes, so when I start a new one I'll post what is included.

So far we have been focusing on the classical CDs that we have and playing whatever we feel like listening to in the car. I'm not sure if a lot parents feel like they have to buy the horrid Elmo or Barney CDs that most kids are "supposed" to listen to, but this parent is not.

This is a mellow mix of sorts, mainly an easy introduction for Isaac's sweet little ears. Hopefully this will be the beginning of his stellar musical taste :)

1.) Radiohead "How To Disappear Completely"
2.) Band of Horses "No One's Gonna Love You More Than I Do"
3.) The Bees "Starry Gazey Pie"
4.) Damien Rice "Cannonball"
5.) Elbow "Scattered Black and Whites"
6.) Ephemera "Air"
7.) The Innocence Mission "Tomorrow On The Runway"
8.) Joseph Arther "Redemption's Son"
9.) Judson Spence "His Love Never Quits"
10.) Kings Of Convenience "Homesick"
11.) Massive Attack "Teardrop"
12.) Ray LaMontagne "Be Here Now"
13.) The Sundays "Wild Horses"
14.) Gary Jules "Mad World"

Random collection, yes. BUT they are some of my favorites, so I thought that would be a good introduction from good old Mom. I plan on adding many more, but this is a good start.