friday blurbs

Katrina: 
I can't believe its been 5 years already since Katrina happened. Its pretty crazy to me how quickly the years march by. HERE's a little slideshow of then and now pictures, very interesting. So much progress, but still work to be done.

Snickers: 
I'm eating one because I can! Lol. I'm finally allowed to eat peanuts and peanut products again! Oh how I've missed my peanut butter.  :-)  I'm trying to ease back in and not go too crazy right away, but its hard because I just want to eat everything I've been missing for the past 6 months. (Gwen's doc recommends breastfeeding moms avoid peanut products for the first 6 months of breastfeeding... since peanuts is one of the biggest allergens, and earlier exposure increases the likelihood of a reaction.)

Gwen obviously can't have peanut products for a while yet still, but I'm glad that I can. And in the meantime, Gwen got to try another new food last night: sweet potatoes. The verdict is still out, but we'll see. 

Three-Day Weekend: 
I have a 3-day weekend ahead, since next week is the week that Gwen's daycare is closed. I took off Monday, and Trav is doing the rest of the week! I'm looking forward to my day with my girl. And we are going to head to lunch with Deb & the twins. Should be fun. And the 4-day work week that follows will be nice too... especially since that is followed by another 3-day weekend and another 4-day work week (thanks to Labor day). Now that's my kind of work schedule.

Cleaning: 
Trav and I decided to make a plan to keep things cleaner around our house. The dust and dog hair had been getting ahead of us, since at the end of a long day the last thing we want to do it spend tons of time cleaning, and then when the weekend would roll around it would seem so insurmountable and we would want the chance to relax. So, we decided that we would each do 10 minutes of straightening/cleaning a night, whatever we wanted, and every weekend we would split up the vacuuming (someone does upstairs, the other person does downstairs). Its only been a week so far, but its working out nicely. Sometimes I only do the 10 minutes, but other times I start something and just want to finish it, so I just keep going. Since its my choice it doesn't feel like such an energy drainer, and I feel accomplished afterward.

I've already finished sorting out the clothes that don't fit Gwen anymore and packed them away (until we either have another baby or decide that we aren't having another baby), hung up all the clothes in my closet that had ended up laying over a basket on our bedroom floor (and in the process, pulled out a small stack of things to give away), and put away a bunch Gwen's clothes. Tonight I plan to clean the toilet and shower.

Girl on the Move: 
The above is especially important now that Gwen is a girl on the move (don't need her sweeping the floor with her belly!). She's still not hand over hand crawling, but she is so close and she can still definitely get across the room. She pulls herself up to hands and knees, slides a knee forward and uses it to push herself forward (back onto her tummy), then repeat. This morning she went from her playmat to Trav's dresser to his shoes (see below for diagram).

That's our little mover and shaker!  :-)

Sniffles and Scratchy Throats: 
Gwen has had the sniffles for a few days. Just a bit of a runny nose. Thankfully it doesn't seem to be bothering her, except when it makes it a little harder to breathe while breastfeeding. She's still in a great mood despite it, and other then putting saline drops up her nose twice a day (and using the boogie sucker as needed), life goes on as normal.
Now I woke up with a scratchy throat yesterday, and I'm hoping that I didn't get her sniffles, but that its just from going back and forth between A/C and fans. I did get her cold at the beginning of summer, and it was no fun at all.

Roots: 
Just for fun I signed up for a free 14-day trial of Ancestry.com, and used to it trace some of my family. I've already traced two lines back to Wales, one from Pembrokeshire, another from Aberdare (both are in the south):

And both look beautiful!

One of those lines I only had to go back to my mom's great grandfather to find where it came from... the other, I had to go about 10 generations! We've been here for a while...

I also traced another line back to Donegal, Ireland:

Fun!


And now, back to work!! Have a great weekend!