Exhausted

I started working on July 2 and I'm already worn out....emotionally, physically, and mentally. Its not so bad, the people are nice and all but I HATE, HATE, HATE leaving Scotty. =( I wont even tell you how many times I've cried since I've started. Its quite depressing.

I've been very busy with that so I apologize about my lack of blogging. I get to work between 8 and 9 and don't get done with work until 7 p.m. so after the drive, I get to see my baby for about 1-1.5 hours a day. Anyways, I'm going to move on otherwise I will get emotional again.

Baby Scotty is 100% done with nursing and is exclusively drinking out of a sippy cup and is doing quite well. He can sometimes drink out of a regular cup or a cup with a straw but that's a work in progress. He is crawling around though he can't get his belly off the ground yet. But let me tell ya, that doesn't stop him from getting into things. Scott has taken his vacation this week so he is playing "stay at home dad." We had plans to go to the UP for our vacation but with the new job thing, all of those plans were cancelled. *Damn Job!!!!!* Anyways, that is all for now I think......

Scotty getting a bath....too cute! =)

Graduation

Well I'm officially graduated and I haven't read anything in the past two weeks other than trash magazines (US Weekly, OK Magazine, Star, etc.). Oh how I miss them! Anyways, here are some pictures of the festivities:


Scott, Scotty and myself.


The family.



My two aunts who joined (my Aunt Sylv on the left and Aunt Shiela on the right)


Me and my pops at my house following the ceremony.

And just a side note: I didn't get "hooded" like normal places do for your masters degree. I guess I kind of got hooded by the lady at the registration desk for the graduates because I needed help with mine but that was about the extent of it. Guess I'll have to get a PhD if I want to formally be hooded. *sigh*

It's been a while

This past weekend we all packed up and headed to Traverse City (my mom met us there as well). Friday was a late night of driving but we had all day Saturday and Sunday to hang out. Saturday morning we got up bright and early to go to the farmers market...its Scott and my tradition. My wonderful hubby even bought me flowers.

Saturday evening we went to Boone's Long Lake Inn for a steak dinner where I was planning on having my celebratory cocktail for finishing my MBA on Thursday. I debated and debated, carefully examining the drink menu and finally decided on.......a shirley temple. Again, lame I know but thats just how it goes.

Sunday, we visited with my Aunt Shiela, Aunt Olive, and Uncle Kenny and celebrated Father's Day. Baby Scotty got his dad some new sandals, a picture frame, cologne, and a book on raising boys.

Monday thru Wednesday I went with my mom up to Sault Ste Marie to stay with my sister for a couple of days and the boys (Scott and my dad) went home to work. In the Soo we watched my niece and nephew, Amber and Kyle, and shuttled them to all of their summer camps and extra-curricular activities. We also went out one night to Applebee's for my a friend's birthday.

Grandma and baby Scotty at Applebee's.

Amber, Myself, and Kyle at Applebee's.

For the rest of the week I will be making my final preparations for graduation, which is this Saturday. My house needs to be cleaned, I need to go grocery shopping for food and such. Its just going to be a crazy couple of days. I picked up my cap/gown/hood today which is cool, except I'm an idiot and can't figure out how to wear the hood. Also on the agenda for this week is Scott and I have decided to combine our finances. Yes I know its been almost 2 years that we've been married, living together for 2 years but we just haven't done it. Its going to be quite an adjustment but a necessary one. Any-who I must be getting to my cleaning and such. I will post graduation/graduation party pictures soon. My plan is to go out on the night of graduation but I might be lame and stay home....again! I guess that's what happens when you get old and have a family. =)

Pfew!

I AM DONE!!!!!!!!!!! It's official. I just got home from my last exam. I should be celebrating or doing something wild but I am so tired from non-stop studying for the last couple of days that I'm just going to watch some TV and go to bed. Lame I know....but I'm getting old.

My two loves!

Scotty wearing the Packer outfit Great-Grandma Mantila bought for him. Soooooo cute!

Last Week of School

This week is my last week of school. I have exam review tonight and then two exams (Wednesday and Thursday). I can't believe the end is near. =) However, I have A LOT of work ahead of me with back to back exams....and they're not going to be easy. *sigh*

YAY for growing!!!

Scotty has finally decided to grow. We are quite excited!!!! He weights 16 lbs 14 oz and is 27.5 inches long, both of which put him at the 25th percentile. =) His pediatrician said everything is looking good so just keep doing what we're doing.

Opie also had a doctor appointment yesterday and opie is down 3 pounds which is good news. He could lose another pound or two but other than that he is healthy as a horse....an old horse. So yesterday was quite an exciting day for everyone's doctor visits.

P.S.

This is my third day in a row running. Me and the baby take a 40 minute run every morning. My legs aren't too sore surprisingly but I'm much more out of shape than I anticipated. Its a work in progress I suppose. Tomorrow I will take a break from running and rollerblade instead. =)

The latest...

Well I have ANOTHER room-mate. There is this bee that some how broke into my house and is living in my basement. I'm deathly afraid of all bugs but especially bees. Any-who, he lives in my basement but I'm too afraid to kill him because if I'm unsuccessful, he will sting me. He's been living down there for about a month now and he doesn't take up too much space so I suppose I will leave him even though he scares me.

Other than that, things here are pretty low key. I'm trying to get the baby drinking formula from a bottle/cup and that isn't working out so well. I unofficially got a job and start July 2 so we REALLY need to get this taken care of. I really enjoy nursing and would like to continue but with a job it may be too hard. Plus I dont want to have to take "pumping" breaks. Next week I have a dr appointment so I will ask the pediatrician some advice/tips. Normally I wouldn't have a well-baby visit until he is 9 months but since he is so small they wanted to see him at 6 weeks rather than the full 12. Usually this is the time when babies' growth slows down a bit and they just want to monitor that since he is only in the 4th percentile. He just doesn't have the room to slow down like other babies. I will keep ya posted on how that goes.

Here's a picture of Scotty playing at Aunt Sara & Uncle Todd's house.

Trip to South Haven

Today when Scott got home from Traverse City, we packed up and took the baby for his first trip to South Haven. It's about 40 minutes straight west from our house on Lake Michigan. We spent the day walking the beach/pier, driving around looking at "dream houses", and even had a little snack at our favorite ice cream stop. Little Ike (Scotty) loved watching the waves when we were walking on the beach. All in all a good day to spend as a family, minus Opie.

Memorial Day Weekend

For memorial day, we decided to go to spend the 3 day weekend at our house in Traverse City. Saturday I met my parents, sister, and Aunt Shiela in Gaylord to have lunch and do some shopping. Our first stop was to visit my mom's brothers grave site. Here are a few pictures from that.....





Then Sunday, we took baby Scotty on his first Kayak ride....the first of many. =) He really enjoyed it. He rode with daddy in his Baby Bjorn. We took a mid-way pit stop on an island, had some snacks and played with Opie.



Scotty had so much fun that he fell asleep on the second half of the ride.

Anyways, that was all that happened this weekend. Can't wait to get back up there to go down the river again.

Spring is HERE!!!!!!!

79 Degrees, Sunshining, and BEAUTIFUL!!!! With Baby Scotty being born in October (and in Michigan) he is just getting his first few glimpses of the outdoors. He absolutely loves to go outside. He likes the feeling of the sun on his face and the wind blowing through his hair...or what he has for hair anyways. =)

With it being so nice today, we've spent a lot of time outdoors and with my crazy obsession...here are the pictures of my boys.

Too cute!!!!

Two of his favorites: outside and Opie. He loves to watch Opie play ball. They're good brothers.

This just cracks me up. Crazy whispies.

Chief Opium Blackhair...aka. Opie =)

Faux Graduation

Here are some random pictures from my MBA Graduation Reception.

Accepting my certificate from the president of Haworth College of Business.

Group shot of the Spring/Summer Graduates.

p.s. - Don't judge me. I'm still trying to lose some poundage...and these pictures do NOT reflect that. =(

p.s. ......go WINGS!

1st Mother's Day

This past weekend I celebrated my first "official" mother's day. (I've celebrated in the past as a mother to a dog and an expectant mother). For the weekend, my dad, baby Scotty and I went to meet my mom at my sister's house in Sault Ste Marie. Scott stayed home to celebrate mother's day with his mom.

Saturday was a VERY laid back day. We mostly sat around. My sister had a wedding to go to and my parents went to watch the new Star Trek movie. It was nice to have absolutely nothing to do all day long. Scotty rarely gets rocked to sleep. When he was first born, that was the only way he would take a nap so I got to enjoy holding/loving on him quite a bit and we would frequently take naps together. (It was also a stressful time b/c he would always want to sleep with me in the same bed and I was scared of squishing him) Anyways, he actually let me hold him until he went to sleep so it was nice to be able to take a nap together like we did several months ago. =) I think that was my best Mother's day present.

Sunday, it was my mom's choice of where she wanted to eat for mother's day. She picked this random Chinese buffet. Kind of random, but I will never turn down a Chinese buffet. So that was how I celebrated my first mother's day.

And as always, some fun pictures...

Bad, Bad Girl

I'm in class.....bored....not listening much less taking notes. Can you tell its my last semester?

Last First Day of School

I just got done with my last first day of school. (And by the way, I was 10 minutes late. Ooops.) I'm so ready to be done. I have two more classes to complete...Business Strategy and International Management. THEN I'M FREE!!!!!!! I've been going to school for 18 years straight. I'm excited to catch up on some scrapbooking and dare I say, reading for pleasure.

But until then I will keep studying, doing homework, group projects, and ugh....exams.

6th Month Check-up

Here are the result of Scotty's 6th Month Check-up:

Height - 25.75 inches 25th percentile
Weight - 14 lbs 4th percentile

Poor thing is quite petite. And the sad thing is that usually babies growth slows down during the 6 to 9 month period. He is quite low on his growth chart but hopefully he follows behind at a steady pace. I guess we all can't have nice plump babies. There has to be a few lean ones in the bunch. =)

MATT GIRAUD FOR NEXT AMERICAN IDOL!

Everyone should watch American Idol tonight and vote for Matt Giraud. Not only is Matt from Kalamazoo but he used to play in the lounge at the restaurant I used to work at, Zazios. The other day he made a comment when our Mayor, Bobby Hopewell, was on the show about Bobby being there when he couldn't get 10 people to watch him. I was like "Hm, I remember that...I was there!!!" Anyways, he is absolutely amazing and everyone should vote for him. Ontop of being extremely talented, he's super nice and down to earth. Just an all around good guy.

Settling In

My dad's first full week of work started yesterday. We are doing good settling in. My dad is completely unpacked. He drove my mom just north of Lansing on Sunday to meet up with her friend, Sara, to drive back to the UP. We will see her Mother's Day weekend at my sister's in Sault Ste Marie. My hubby left for Houston lastnight. He is there for some "sales force" training or something. Hopefully he will have a good time, learn a lot and meet up with his friend Rob Brown who lives in Houston. I'm lonely but at least I have my dad here to keep me company.

Other than that, things here are pretty quiet. Scotty has his 6 month check up tomorrow. Hopefully he will have gained some weight. At his last couple appointments he has been below the 5th percentile for his weight. He seems to be more plump so hopefully he has grown a bit. Anyways, that is it for now. Hopefully this rain will stop and we will get some more spring-time weather.

Traveling

Just spoke with my parents. They are having a little lunch right now at Wendy's in Marquette....which means they have another 8 hours of driving left. Yuck! So it should be a late night for everyone.

Tomorrow I have my business school graduation reception. I officially don't graduate until June 27 but they only have 2 business school receptions per year so I get grouped with everyone who's graduating in April, June and August. Hopefully it wont be too, too boring. I do need to figure out something to wear....aka. I need to see if anything fits me. In the invitation they recommended that men wear jackets so I need to dress up. However, I haven't worn any of my "dress-up" clothes since before I was pregnant so we'll see how that goes. I may be running to the store tomorrow to throw something together last minute. =(

Also, tomorrow is my dad's first day at the new job. I'm super excited for him. It will be a nice change of pace and a new challenge. Its unforunate that the next two days are supposed to get into the 80's and my dad will be stuck inside. Oh well. Scotty, Grandma Gerry and myself will be enjoying the sunshine.

We love prunes!!!

....enough said. =)

Nothing New...

Things here are pretty un-eventful. We had a couple of AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL days but it is now pouring rain....which means I have time to write on my bloggy-poo.

Saturday we had a garage sale; trying to rid ourselves of some of our junk. We did absolutely no advertising except 4 signs that Scott put out 6:00 a.m. the morning of the sale. We do however live in a pretty busy neighborhood so we figured we would get some traffic that way. Anyways, it turned out amazing. We had a steady flow of traffic the entire day and made $400. I dont know how much people usually make at garage sales but I thought that was pretty darn good. And more importantly, we have less "stuff" sitting in boxes. Overall, it was a success and hope to do another one this summer. Scotty also had fun getting to play outside all day!

Now onto my next project, converting our office into a bedroom for my pops. I've relocated all of my computer things so I have yet to tackle our closet of misc. items. So that is on my to-do list for the next couple of days.

WOOHOO!!!

If you haven't already....congratulate my pops! =)

Happy Easter!

We had a great Easter weekend. My parents and my sister and her two kids, Amber and Kyle, came down to my house to celebrate Easter. Our first order of business was to go over to Detroit on Friday to watch the pistons game. I was a bit nervous about bringing little Scotty to the pistons game but it all worked out. He really enjoyed watching all the different people and there was just so much action going on he was entertained all night. Here he is sitting with his Grandpa John watching the pistons beat New Jersey.

We spent the night in Detroit and on Saturday we went to visit my cousin Josette and her family. Everyone got to meet baby Scott for the first time so that was fun. Our visit was quite short because we had to get back to Kalamazoo to cook for our Easter dinner. My mom, sister and I stayed up until 2 a.m.! Easter was good. Baby Scott received 3 easter baskets; one from mom/dad and one from each set of grandparents (lucky kid!) Here are a few pictures from his first easter:

.....I ate way too much this weekend so my "weight loss" isn't quite going the way I would've like it to. (Damn holidays!!!)

Update....

Nothing too exciting going on here. Scott is super sick however. He got this really bad cold/flu and had to go to the doctor on Monday. With his recent promotion, he switched departments so we had to switch our insurance. They said there would be no overlap but we still haven't gotten our new insurance card/information yet (he got the promotion 2 months ago). So after I took Scott to the doctor, I dropped him off at home to go get his prescriptions filled. When I went to pick them up, the pharmacist told me my bill was over $200!!!!! I about fell over. He said that our insurance was "invalid" or something crazy. I didn't buy them because I knew we had some insurance that would cover them. Anyways, for two days Scott has been on the phone yelling at people from Blue Cross. Poor thing is sick as a dog and the pharmacy and the insurance company are giving him 10 different answers about what is going on. Anyways, this afternoon he finally got everything straightened out and got his prescriptions filled. He took what he was supposed to and......the prescriptions have made him very nauseated so he is back in bed. Poor thing!

Here is a funny picture of the baby:

My dad was in Minneapolis visiting my grandma and on a shopping expedition with my Aunt Mavis, he found these socks. They are "smart wool" so they are supposed to keep his feet nice and toasty. They are quite big so they will also be keeping his knee-caps toasty! =) These are pretty fancy I thought.

Well that is it for now.

Goals...

So I didn't make any new years resolutions; I rarely do. But I'm in the mood for some change so I decided to set a few goals for myself. More like a check-list I suppose. Anyways, here it goes.

1. Lose some poundage. I have officially lost all my pregnancy weight. YIPEE!!!! But things aren't quite where they used to be. Plus I could afford to lose more weight. My pre-pregnancy weight wasn't necessarily ideal. So....my goal is 10 lbs. by my birthday (July 21).

2. Organize my office. This is my line for when people visit, "You know how people have a junk drawer? Well I have a junk room!" But no more! I want to get all this crap out of here that gets absolutely no use. I also need to find a better system of organizing the stuff I do use. This one may take a while.

3. Catch up on my scrapbooking. I'm currently....5 years behind. I have a few things put together here and there but I really need to get working on that. I've invested sooooooo much money in all of my scrapbooking things. Also, I don't have a baby book or that sort of thing from when I was born so I want Baby Scotty to have all of his baby stuff together in one place. Plus its just fun and relieves some stress.

Anyways, those are just some things that I'm working on or hope to be working on. Wish me luck!

Lost a friend

Lastnight a friend of mine passed away. =( Being as young as we are, you would think it was in an automobile accident or something like that. My friend just turned 23 two months ago. A month after turning 23 he was dianosed with stage 4 colon caner. Just last week he decided to let all of his friends know of his situation. I drove to Ann Arbor the next day to go visit him but because of his condition they were not allowing any visitors. The doctors/nurses said that it would take too long to stabalize him after the excitement of having visitors. I did however get to meet his father, which was nice.

Anyways, lastnight he passed away. Its simply crazy. I will probably be traveling over to the east side sometime in the near future to attend his funeral. Things like this really make you realize how important it is to stay in touch.

Following in my family's footsteps

So I have recently been inspired by my Aunt Kathleen. My hubby and I have (slowly) been working on some home improvement projects to our home in Traverse City. So.... I have decided to share some before and after pictures. Keep in mind however that our budget for such renovations is quite limited at this point in time but we are doing what we can. Plus my Aunt Kass is much more experienced with this sort of thing...much more fancy. =) Finally, a post about something other than baby Scott. Funny how much life has changed. Anyways, here we go....

This is a before picture of the downstairs large bedroom. The walls were really beat up. Scott living here as a bachelor, the house got very little decorating. Also, because our house is on the river with there being a high water table, we do not have a basement so the circuit breaker box was in the master. Lovely!

This here is the "in-progress" picture. You can see my lovely husband decided to lend a helping hand to my project. Obviously we could not do much about the circuit breaker pannel and its location so as an attempt to make it look less-horrible, we painted it the same color as the walls to mask it a bit.

Here is my kinda-finished project. We are going to paint the trim and doors white once the weather decides to cooperate. I like how the natural wood trim looks with the color but we kind of have a theme going throughout the house, plus the white blinds don't look so great with the wood trim. Also, I want to refinish some of the furniture we are using in there. But this is a HUGE improvement. So that was my weekend.

Spring Pictures

So I mentioned in my last post (which seems like forever ago) about how I was disappointed with my picture taking experience at JCPennys. Lucky for me, I have a cute kid who takes pretty cute pictures regardless of the crappy photographers. haha. Anyways, here is two of my favorites =)

Things here are good. This past weekend we went to Sault Ste Marie, MI where my sister and her family live. We went to see my niece, Amber's Ice show. Interesting thing happened during the afternoon performance. The zamboni came out to clean the ice at intermission and caught on fire. The driver quickly jumped off to put out the fire, started the zamboni again and the thing made this big explosion sound and caught fire again. It was crazy. In all of my days hanging around the ice arenas, I've never seen a zamboni catch fire. My parents also came to see Amber's Ice show so that was nice to see them. Though they could care less about seeing me, it was more to see little Scotty.

slacking...

So i'm not really good at this blogging thing. Oh well. I'm making somewhat of an effort I suppose. Nothing new going on here. I recently got little Scottys pictures done...last Friday. I went to JCPenny because they had these really great coupons however I guess the old saying "you get what you pay for" is 110% true. The staff wasn't very friendly at all. They only used 2 backgrounds, plain white and plain black. And there were only a couple of pictures that I just couldn't live without. Last time we had his pictures taken (at Sears), it killed me not to purchase them all. The lady who took his picture there was also sooooooooo nice and helpful. She gave me as much time as I needed to pick out the pictures and package I wanted. So.....next time I will be going back to Sears.

For the baby shower my dad bought little Scotty this cute little car walker. We recently got it out and put it together and he just LOVES it! Its so cute! It really looks like a little car. It has a leather seat with "GT" embroidered on it. haha. Here are a few pictures of him hanging out in it.

Anyways, that is it for now. I will try to do better this week.

Getting started

Well I have never blogged before and until recently, haven't read any. However with my new found freedom, I will jot some things down here just for fun. Even if nobody reads this, I can use this to get some things off my chest. =) I guess that is really all I can think of to write right now. I will work on writing some more interesting things as time goes by.