Updated

Hello world..

 here's what you missed in the last 5 months

For Halloween 2016, W was a rainbow ( I made the costume), P was partly cloudy with a chance of rain ( or he had his head in the clouds) and I was a thunderstorm ( not pictured)

 

W wearing my sisters dress from when she was a baby

 

 My batman princess :)

 

Biggest news of the new year, we made another baby coming June 2017. Look for updates.

 

Enjoying hiking and family days outside in the California sun

 

W being a big girl and exploring at the old LA zoo site

 

IT'S A BOY!!!

 

Little miss  carrying her baby on a hike.

And W started her first day of preschool. 

Looks like you are mostly up to date.  

~ Steph ~

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Oversharer: The truth about Breastfeeding

Around Willows birthday I shared "our" ( I say our, because it was my body who did the birthing) birth story and everyone loved my over sharing so this "series/post" for all of your over sharers out there. 

This is all my opinion and what I have experienced through this process and was written intermittently during the process
Warning: this post is about breastfeeding and may or may not include pictures, fyi

Since birth, I have breastfed my little Willow.
She latched immediately and than we ran into multiple problems



When I held my breast my nipples would invert, thus making it hard for her to latch on. When a nurse saw this she recommended a nipple Shield. She measured me and gave me several. When the lactation consultant (LC) made her rounds she double checked and also approved the use of the shield to start off with and wean from there. In the hospital you have a ton of support available and we learned a lot and tried not to get frustrated. Especially that babies don't actually need any food for the first couple days, so the colostrum you do have before your milk comes in, is enough.

We were discharged on a Tuesday and had to go back to the pediatrician on Wednesday for a weight and jaundice check. Turns out my milk had not come in and Willow was losing a lot of weight and her bilirubin (jaundice) levels were high, which was concerning and we needed to start supplementing. This started the first of many internal fights of why my body was not goo enough to not be able to feed my baby without help. The next day we had a follow up weight check and she gained 4 oz from all that formula. From that day on we supplemented. Let me tell you that that little formula made me feel awful and I hated the fact that I was not given the full opportunity to try 100%. Granted I could have said no, but I was scared. Even as a nure when it is your baby or your body it is a very scary thought to think about.



A week later Miss W and I spent days naked and just did nurse ins. I took fenugreek, drank tea and baked cookies. It helped here and there, but the only thing that improved things was the amount of feedings I was having. Some days we gave her more formula than others and some days, mainly when P was away, she didn't get any. Still til this day she usually gets at least one bottle of formula before bed.



I am a modern women and have slowly come to the conclusion that I can not have everything. Every ounce I give my daughter is better than nothing. I have been back to work for over  a month now and pumping sucks. Again I was back to eating cookies, drinking tea and taking supplements. I changed the amount and frequency I was pumping. Last night I pumped 10 whole ounces while at work, I know women who do not have a problem with supply and that is not a lot, but it is a huge improvement for me from the 5-7 ounces I was pumping.

As time went on breastfeeding and pumping became second nature, but I still felt tied down by it. We started solids just shy of 6 months and that made her very happy. Willow weaned herself from the breast around 9 months. When I say she weaned herself she would scream at me when I would put her on so we stopped. I still follow her cues and take her lead. It was amazing to go as long as we did and that makes me happy. I am glad that I could provide for her for that long. At her 12 month visit she is 90-95th% in height, weight and head circumference so we can not complain.


How was your breastfeeding journey?

Date night: Book of Mormon

It seems like forever ago, It was actually January 21st. 

We were both home P said lets do something and I said find something for us to do.

Well, he stumbled across the musical, Book of Mormon as an option.

If you didn't know they do a lottery before every performance to fill the open seats. 

If you win the lottery it is $25 (cash only) and they give you a seat, pretty good for a musical)

We found this out when P lived in Chicago, but was never chosen.

We also planned a free dinner concert plan just incase we didn't get tickets. 

So we headed out to Hollywood and crossed our fingers.

We filled out our ballots with those little tiny pencils you can barely write with 

and took a seat on the floor  of the beautiful foyer. 

Well, they did the lottery and little did we know if was opening night.

They just kept drawing which seemed like 40+ names. 

They finally drew P's name and boom we were in!

YAY! it was so exciting.

We took out our handy dandy yelp out and found an awsome gastro pub that had pizzas & salads,
( I don't remember the name but its across the street from Amoeba)

which we probably would have never found. 

Than headed back over to the show.

Little did we know that our seats were in the FIRST ROW, it was so cool to see them sweat and spit as they sang, it made them more human.

It was not what I was expecting, I am not sure what I was expecting.

BUT, I absolutely loved it.

Go team Arnold. :)

Date night: Vegas

Back in January, ( P's birthday to be exact)

We had an opportunity to fly to Vegas for free for dinner 

So a few people from his work hoped in the plane and off we went

The air port in Vegas is parallel to the strip and these are photos from when we were landing

We landed and promptly went to dinner at Tommy Bahamas. We didn't have a lot of time since we were picking up P's boss who was flying to Vegas that night. 

And than we came home. It was a pretty fun last minute birthday dinner instead of going to Disneyland as planned.

Have you ever done anything crazy, last minute? 

Dear hubby

I love you for your sweetness.

I love you for your patience. 

I love you for the faith you have in me.

I love you for your ability to calm me down.

I love you for your thoughtfulness.

P, I love you more and more everyday and I am so glad I get to have adventures with my best friend. You made my week by seeing your face for 10 minutes and the roses, ah the roses. You made several women jealous at the airport today. The roses may look like how I feel, but the beautiful smell is still there. 

I love you. 

I have been obsessed with the movie Pitch perfect (you won't like it, don't watch it) ,but this song just hits home and reminds me of you

Cups by Anna Kendrick

I got my ticket for the long way round

Two bottle of whiskey for the way
And I sure would like some sweet company
And I'm leaving tomorrow, what do you say

When I'm gone (x2)
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me by my hair
You're gonna miss me everywhere, oh
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone

When I'm gone (x2)
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me by my hair
You're gonna miss me everywhere, oh
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone

I got my ticket for the long way round
The one with the prettiest of views
It's got mountains
It's got rivers

It's got sights to give you shivers
But I'm sure it'd be prettier with you

When I'm gone (x2)
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me by my walk
You're gonna miss me by my talk, ohYou're gonna miss me when I'm gone

When I'm gone (x2)
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me by my walk
You're gonna miss me talk, oh
Oh you're sure gonna miss me when I'm gone

When I'm gone (x2)
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me by my hair
You're gonna miss me everywhere, oh
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone.

The year of cotton

I can remember 2 years ago, I was rolling around bed and unable to sleep.

Before my big day. The day that I would always remember. 

It's been 2 years and I would be lying if I said it was all rainbows and unicorns. 

This past year was better than the first though. 

We both have had 3 jobs in these past 2 years, now that we are both at comfortable positions and moving forward in our careers it feels better and stress levels are down. 

I also feel like we are getting more comfortable with each other and able to understand each other more. 

I can not wait to spend the rest of my life with P.

Being an adult can be really hard at times, but it is nice to be able to explore the world and go on adventures with your best friend. Lif

Mini Vaca: PR

P and I had 3 days off together and we wanted to go somewhere we haven't been

So, we went to.. Puerto Rico

IT WAS AMAZING!

We used the website airbnb.com to rent a room in a condo and rented a car for the experience

We went to the beach

 Lighthouse at teh forts

Tiny island off the coast where they use to keep leppers

The coast

Pretty view

Coast

cannon

to the forts

Old San Juan

Kayaking from our backyard to the ocean 

(sorry no pictures of that due to wet phones)

the rain forrest

Our serious faces.. haha

Have you taken any vacations lately? where'd you go? 

Our Honeymoon

I know its been almost two years since P and I went on our honeymoon, but I realized the other day as I was rumaging through stuff that I did not post anything about our honeymoon.. oops. 

Well, here you go..

Where did we go: Excellence resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; Adult all inclusive

How did you pick: (Our only) Friend recomendation

Who did you go through: The Excellence website here; I was originally going to go through travelocity but I had issues booking the tickets and than when I called, I could not understand them, so I had enough.

How long were you there: Sunday to Saturday

What did you do: Our resort had activities set up from about 6 am to about 10pm every day, that you could choose to participate in. Some of the activities included: horse back riding, intro scuba diving, snorkeling, canoing in the ocean, volleyball (sand and pool) and other misc. games.

Best part: All the activities and because its all adults, mostly couples, so its easy to set up dates for later in the evening. 

Worse part: The non-ethnic food left little to be desired

Did you buy anything: We tipped when we felt appropriate or when someone would go out of there way for us. An older man was trimming the palm trees and he was knocking off the cocunuts (a liability) and he cam down opened one up with a machetti for us and we drank out of it.. so cool. We wanted to go scuba diving, we took the intro class (free) than learned about the other intracacies once we paid to go and went off to another resort and went. I freaked out as soon as I got in the ocean, but our instructor from our resort only worried about us and took my hand, calmed me down and we went. I had a blast. We also brought bread and bananas with us and watched as the fished engulfed us.. so cool. We bought small trinkets to bring back with us as well.

Was it weird being in a foreign coutry: In the Dominican Republic they speak spanish and I knew enough to get by but almost everyone on the resort knew english.

We met some pretty amazing people on our honeymoon and had a great week there.

I would highly recommend going there.

I was not paid or perked to write this post and 100% of this post is my own opinion.

St. Louis

This past weekend I went to visit P in St Louis.

It was time and I have not been there in my adult life.

We got dinner and headed to the city museum

If you have never been you walk in to a massive indoor playground with sensory overload of sounds and sites everywhere. You don't get a map and are encouraged to explore.

We walked to the right and the first thing I saw was spiral tube that went into a tree and the first the thing that popped in my head, was can I climb up this?
Well, I did and yes it was encouraged.

I was exploring into this dark abyss when I found a whole I squeezed myself through than ducked onto my knees where than I found a door into "the caves"

It opened up to this wide area of spiral staircases and slides (see bottom )

We found out it use to be a shoe factory and the slides use to be used to send the shoes down 10 stories.

There are cracks and crevices everywhere and some of them you can't fit into, but it was fun trying.

Overall, it was awsome time and we both had a great date. 

Any fun places you've been lately?