PCOS + Baby Weight = Square One....

It was about this time two years ago that I decided to prepare to go off BC by getting my butt in gear and educating myself in how to treat my PCOS naturally.   Check out this site if you have never heard of pcos: http://pcosdiva.com.  Knowing that if I wasn't successful there was a chance we would deal with infertility was a pretty good motivator for me so I changed my diet, starting taking Apple Cider Vinegar daily to stabilize my blood sugar levels, and took up an aerobic class once a week.... And it worked! I dropped around 15 lbs or so and when I went off my BC my cycles were about 40 days rather than the previous 90! Much improved:)

Nothing feels better than having that goal and succeeding, even getting pregnant very soon after going off BC and having a wonderful pregnancy and delivery...only to find out that pcos was still plaguing me! Little did I know that my syndrome affected my milk supply, and since I was unaware this was a symptom, I did nothing beforehand to combat it and was unable to fully breastfeed- we do half/half with formula but I can say I'm proud of fighting for all that I have(pumping for a month and going on herbs/drugs) BUT had I known during pregnancy it was an issue I would have been able to do a lot more and possibly had more success. I was fairly sad and embarrassed by my inability to completely provide for Carlee for the first couple of months and really paid no attention to what my diet and postpartum life was doing to my body and now - five months postpartum - my pcos is back full force!

Now, I feel I am back right where I was two years ago physically...you know, except now I have a baby to cheer me up:) But nevertheless, I am about 15-20 lbs from where my cycles returned to normal last time and has get to have a period since delivery...and so the journey starts again! I find its harder not to snack when I'm home throughout the day but am ready to start getting down to business again! Now, any friends reading this...your job is to yell 'NO' anytime I reach for my beloved chips;)

Thanks for listening guys, any thoughts, encouragement or advice is very welcome!

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Summer Break and a Kitchen Update!

Hey there followers,
Is there anyone left?? I am having SO much fun being home with my little girl and keeping up to date here has fallen aside unfortunately! The LO is now five months old! She rolls, she sits, she 'talks', she is too cute!

 Boef (dutch for 'little rascal') just hanging out in her camp chair.

Sitting up all by herself!

and a touched up photo of Boef.....so cute!












And to her mom's excitement, last week she learned that sleeping for longer than 40 minutes at a time during the day is A-OK! She now sleeps for about 2 hours at naptime and I get to do some cleaning and such around the house for the first time! SO EXCITED!

And speaking of getting things done around the house, five months after doing the kitchen reno seen here, the knobs arrived and were installed! And at a HUGE deal as well.  We hit up a place in Maine while I was home in NB for a bit that sells their knobs for a dollar a piece!  Compared to the 4-5 dollar price tag here, I was pretty proud of my good find!  The selection wasn't amazing but good enough for me:)

And just to remind you, here's the before:

Perhaps a little more in this century now:) We are so pleased with the transformation!

Well, here we are having a massive heat advisory for tomorrow!! Gotta go find a pool to lounge in!

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Royal Inspiration

No, I wasn't one of those who got up at 3am to watch the Royal wedding, even though the time coincided with when Carlee got me up to eat...I definitely thought sleep to be more important!  But in the morning I did sit and watch the recaps and the live kiss on the balcony - who can resist dreaming as watching a real live princess??

Well, when I received the invitation to an English tea for next week I was inspired by all these royal attendees to make my own fascinator to wear to the event! In about ten minutes and for one dollar I created this:

My supplies included a glue gun, flowers from the dollar store and some tulle(I used a corner of my wedding veil for this).  Simple cut off the stems of the flowers and glue them in whatever arrangement you like on any headband you may have lying around. I trimmed back some of the flowers as well so they weren't so big on top.

And that's it! I think it looks better in person but not bad for a first try I thought!  Should be fun to wear to the tea next week:)

Have yourselves a great weekend!

And of course I'll part with another picture of my cutie!

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Homemade Baby Mobile

So it doesn't twirl on its own or make fun noises like a fancy storebought one, but I couldn't love the whimsical feel of my baby girl's mobile - and now perhaps someday she'll actually notice it as well:)

Remember what it looks like from my last post?

A very simple design - I searched the dollar store to find the top piece...can you guess??? Its a fruit holder turned upside down! Perfect:)  Then I used my fancy new cricket machine and cut out all different sizes and colors of circles of cardstock.  To attach them I stole some fishing line from the hubby and glued the paper around the fishing line. Attach it at the top and voila!

You have yourself a cute mobile for baby to stare at:) Easy as that!


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A little Nursery Reveal

So, yes, I'm still here and alive:)  My dear baby ran into trouble gaining weight since I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome which can effect your milk supply - therefore the girl has to take breastmilk and formula to get enough each feeding...Thankfully I have the best baby and she could care less what is going in her mouth, long as its food!  But they had me doing all kinds of crazy pumping and herbs and drugs to try to fix the problem...but that's a story for another day!

TODAYYY, I am finally going to show you the final pictures of her little nursery.  You have seen tidbits of the theme but here's it all put together.  Sorry I don't have a magical camera or much skill but you get the gist:)

Take a look:

And there you have it....my sweet little girl's room...and now she is awake and crying so off I go but I'll leave you with a picture of how she is looking these days:)

All gussied up for her baptism day:

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Announcing....

the arrival of our sweet little girl, Carlee Alexa.

Yes, as you may have guessed based on my long absence, our little girl has arrived and we are now a busy household of three, four if you include my mom staying with us since her arrival:)

On February 23rd, at 12:49 our little girl came in a bit of a rush....arriving at the hospital about 30 minutes before she arrived!  My contractions were all over the place during the night, very irregular and I was unsure this was even the real thing but by 10:30am they were getting pretty intense, even though they were still only about 20-25 seconds long, and we finally asked to have an assessment with the midwife to see how things were progressing.  When we arrived for the assessment I was already 7-8 cm dilated and it was a good thing their office is beside the hospital...we quickly went over and walked right into the delivery room as they told me to try not to push, ha, right!  It took them a bit to get things set up but once I could push she was out within a few contractions and we have our little girl!

Here are some pics of our little sweetie now!

Forgive me as I take some time settling in with our little girl...I look forward to catching up in the blog world soon!

Krista...and Carlee:)

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Ridiculous Railing Redo

Remember back for a moment to those houses in the 70's....what's the worst?  The wood paneling? The ridiculous amount of mustard colored things? The crazy designs on the flooring?

Well, I would suggest that this railing rivals them all:

Ewwwww.

alright, I'll give you the carpet is not that great either but at leasts its not green or plaid like the basement....so we'll deal with that later.

But seriously...what is with that railing? Random splotches of white and gold? How does that even happen?  Well, we agreed that there really was no way to make this railing compliment the room....BUT it could at least try to stop detracting from it, right?

Some white paint and my mom's patience for a few hours and here's what we are left with:)

We settled on.."well, its better, right?"

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