19 Months!

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Kenley is 19 months on the 19th!

I have done a poor job of making mental notes this month,
probably due to my severe pregnancy brain, but here are a few highlights.

Kenley can now say her last name! We noticed this last week after she repeated it back to us
nearly perfectly. A couple days ago, her report from school said she was saying it there too.
I asked her teachers about it and they said they call the kids by their full name sometimes,
so she’s been hearing it a lot. We’re now working on putting all her names together.

One major change is that we have now been in a big girl bed for almost a month now.
Due to our pediatrician’s recommendations and the impending arrival of our second child,
we thought it’s now or never. Kenley has done insanely well. So much so that Greg actually said,
“it’s not this easy is it??”. She knows when it’s bed time and most days she’s too tired to even think
about getting up after we’ve put her down. This week has been somewhat challenging,
but she also has had a bad cold, and it’s been nothing that we couldn’t handle.
She still gets up at the crack of dawn some days (joy) but usually will play in her room,
and occasionally try to open the door or knock on it…you know, so we know she’s in there?
Naps are a little more difficult since it’s broad daylight and there are a lot of distractions
in her room, so it’s a crap shoot each day to see how it will go.
I will note that she has been sleeping on a cot during nap time at school since she turned one,
so I am sure that helped in this transition process.
I am also sure that we aren’t out of the woods yet and she may still regress,
but I can say that we are pleased so far with the transition to the big girl bed!

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Just in the past week, Kenley seems so old to me. Like, a legit toddler.
I think it may be that her hair is getting so long! All of a sudden, she has a full head of
blondish-strawberry-blondish curly hair. Including bangs in her face at times…
She has been asking for pigtails recently, but doesn’t leave them in too long,
so we tried a ponytail, and it may be the cutest thing ever… She leaves it in too, which is fun.

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Another new thing this month is sorry…or “soooo-rry”.
We have been asking her to say it after she hits someone, usually in the face and she has caught on.
She will say it whenever she does something she knows she’s not supposed to do,
but, hasn’t quite realized that she shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. I guess that will come.

While we have been watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for several months, it was usually background noise,
as she wouldn’t really be interested in sitting in one place for an extended period of time.
She identifies the characters and loves the songs, but just recently she has really been into actually watching the episode.
She will sit in her big green chair, sometimes with a snack, and watch,
laughing and calling for “Toodles” throughout the show.
While we don’t want her sitting in front of the TV for hours of the day, an episode here and there when we need to get
stuff done around the house, or cook dinner, is nice. It helps that it is somewhat educational too, right?

I’m sure there is a lot more I should be writing about, but that’s all for now!
Happy 19th months Kenley Dee…Gilbertson!

Michael + Karolina

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I’m not sure if you remember my engagement photo session with Michael & Karolina since it’s been so long,
but in honor of their wedding weekend, I thought I would finally share their photos!

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We had their session in Winter Park right off Park Ave. and at the Winter Park Farmer’s Market.
I had such a fun time taking their pictures and I am so honored that they put their trust in me for this session.

Congratulations Michael & Karolina!

16 Weeks {Round 2}

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I’m not sure how it’s possible, but this pregnancy is going so quickly, but so incredibly slow at the same time.
By my belly, I feel like I should be a couple weeks further along than I actually am,
but at the same time, I still can’t believe I’m already in my second trimester.
My body is continually changing. Belly is growing, growing, growing; and
my completely deflated-post-breastfeeding boobs have inflated again, so I may be on the hunt for new bras very soon.
I’ve had some odd aches and pains, but overall, I’m feeling really good.

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I am back to eating everything, thank goodness, and I feel like I can eat all day long…
Then, I immediately regret eating said food because I am so full.
I have had more cravings this time around.
Peanut butter on anything, pretzels, apples, bananas, rice cakes, pancakes…anything!
We are not juice drinkers in our house and I didn’t really grow up drinking juice.
I’m always so aware of how much sugar is in it, so I don’t really ever have the desire to drink it…
until I’m pregnant. Last time I drank a lot of apple juice. This time, it’s anything,
apple juice, orange juice, orange juice with mango, V8 Splash, strawberry banana! I love it.
I have also cut a few things out of my diet completely, which has been somewhat sad.
Alcohol (obviously), caffeine (for the most part), deli meat (sad), and raw sushi.
I’ve been craving coffee lately, so I will have some decaf iced coffee and it totally hits the spot.
We are pretty big (diet) soda drinkers, so I have really laid off that immensely.
I basically think about food all day long, and I’m ok with that.

I had my 16 week appointment yesterday and everything looks good.
I’m gaining weight and little baby G2′s heart rate was 149 bpm.
I haven’t felt any movement yet, but I’m anxiously waiting to!

The past two weeks I’ve went for at least one run… I think just one run each week,
but I ran 2 miles each time, with a short break at the one mile marker.
I feel so good once I get out and run and it’s honestly not that difficult.
Hopefully I’ll be able to keep it up.
I’m only running outside with Greg and only pushing the stroller during the time to walk,
so it helps having a support system and not pushing a 35 lbs+ stroller.
Still haven’t made it to yoga yet, but maybe next week.

Until next time!

Impromptu Guest Bath Update

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I knew that somewhere down the road we wanted to paint the cabinets in our bathrooms,
but I really had no timetable on that project, so I added it our (3 page) running to-do list.
Much to my surprise, Home Depot was running a special online for the small
Rustoleum Cabinet Restoration Kit in Espresso - half off!! The whole kit was only $40 and free shipping.

Once it arrived, it sat in our bathroom for a good month before we even opened it.
It got neglected much like several other house projects over the last few months, which is fine.
Randomly, a couple weeks ago, we decided to get moving on the guest (and only) bathroom upstairs.
It’s a full bath, but the vanity is small, so we knew it’d be perfect to use these cabinets as a test.
Of course, we decided to do this just 5 days before we had visitors coming into town,
I guess that’s just what we needed. We must work well under pressure.

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This is what the boring bathroom looked like when we moved in.
We threw up the shower curtain from our old guest bathroom for the time being
since we had family in town very soon after we moved in.
Randomly, over Christmas break, we were shopping at Homegoods for some other items,
and walked out with a shower curtain, bath mats, decor, and the other bathroom essentials.

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Even with those items, the bathroom needed more. In comes fixing up the vanity!

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I cannot begin to explain how easy the cabinet transformation kit was to work with.
The cabinets ended up taking about 4 days because we were working on them after work.
We stopped after the first two steps because we didn’t feel it needed the protective or shiny coats.

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The kit really does transform the cabinets. I am obsessed with how good they look!
To add to it, we decided to frame out the mirror, because you know how we love to frame mirrors.
We used two 1x4s and stained them with the kit so they would match the cabinets perfectly.
The fact that the picture frames matched is just an added bonus.

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Since we were so close to being done with the bathroom,
the final piece was to get rid of the builder grade vanity light, since I despise them.
We purchased a brushed nickel 3-light bath light on Amazon
because we couldn’t decide on anything Lowe’s had to offer, and we couldn’t beat the price on Amazon.

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I love how much better the bathroom looks with darker cabinets!

my weekend in photos

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happy saturday morning from the walking towel dog.

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after debating for a while about getting our front landscaping done, we finally bit the bullet.

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holy cow, we are so excited. i’m too embarrassed to show you what it looked like before, but you can imagine the hot mess.

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while work was being done on the outside, i was doing work on the inside.
i am thrilled that our never ending laundry room projects are finally done!

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i was literally craving iced coffee all day on saturday. i finally made some around 7pm.
it was worth the wait.

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she loved wearing my cozy socks.

someone loved the mother’s day card i got from daddy. we danced a lot this morning.

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i will spare you photos of my wonderful food today, but every single meal i had was delicious.
kenley was in shock of our milkshake, but obviously loved it. how could she not? look at that thing!

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if she could be outside all day long, she definitely would.

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our only attempt at a picture today, i’ll take it.

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we had a great, relaxing weekend, napping whenever kenley decided to take a nap,
and not worrying about doing anything.
i had a wonderful mother’s day with my two favorite people.
how was your weekend?

happy mother’s day to all those wonderful mommies out there!

my weekend in photos

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we had visitors this weekend! maggi & greg were here from pittsburgh!

Date night! #friendlyconfines #inorlando #notchicago

we hit up friendly confines friday night for some good food and the pens game.

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saturday included pedis with the girls.

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and some serious party decorating.

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so happy to have this girl here.

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mango margaritas to celebrate cinco de mayo! virgin for me, lots of tequila for everyone else.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! #latergram

kenley loved cinco de mayo and all the chips that were involved.

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this is what our sunday morning consisted of.
she pulled out every single pant, short, and skirt, tried to put it on, then threw it.
why do i feel this is a prelude for 15 years from now.

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we had such a fun weekend with friends & our amazing visitors,
celebrating cinco de mayo!

how was your weekend?

First Trimester {Round 2}

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First, a huge thanks to all the messages of congratulations, well wishes, and love on here, Twitter, and Instagram.

As I welcome this second trimester with open arms, I wanted to give you a wee bit more details, rather than just dropping a bomb on you like I did Monday. We have gotten such mixed reactions to our pregnancy announcement, both “yeah I figured it was coming” to “wow!”. We actually were the latter ourselves. Completely surprised. Looking back, it obviously wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities, we just didn’t think it would happen so soon. After the first pregnancy test (on Saturday, March 2nd), we sat at breakfast in shock. I proceeded to take two more tests the following days…you know, just to be sure. There was some confusion with our due date, originally October 21st (which was Kenley’s due date), now October 30th, and we’ve already had two ultrasounds to see the tiny little nugget.

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This pregnancy has definitely been different. For about three to four weeks, I was nauseous 24/7. I never threw up (knocking on wood right now), but I almost felt like I would feel better if I did. Everything smelled, sounded, and tasted horrible. On top of that, I was and am insanely thirsty…all…the…time. Which means I’m drinking a lot of water, which is great, but then I have to pee…all…day…long and all night long, which is fun for no one.

Last time, I took a nap almost every day after work…oh the luxury of being able to nap. This time around, it hasn’t been as easy, but there have been times that I would take a nap after Kenley goes to bed and end up sleeping on the couch until I just moved into the bed for the night. Other times, Greg has played with Kenley when I absolutely had to lay down for 30 minutes to survive the rest of the day. On the weekends, I am fully back into the “sleep when the baby toddler sleeps” mode, which is really only like an hour nowadays.

Speaking of… Greg has been the glue that has held our family together the past 8-10 weeks. He literally has sprayed almost every diaper, made every breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all of us, did loads and loads of laundry, etc. He literally did it all when I was feeling absolutely horrible. There were days that I couldn’t even think straight because I felt so miserable, so I cannot tell you enough how amazing it was to just not worry about anything other than dropping Kenley off at school and getting through the work day. Of course, he will say that it’s his job, but regardless, I appreciate it.

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While I was squeezing myself into regular clothes as long as possible last time, I was pretty much in maternity clothes by 10-11 weeks this time. I swear to you that I had a belly at 10 weeks. It’s amazing how fast that thing pops out the second time around. I am soaking up every minute of stretchy pants. My maternity wardrobe has already grown because I have no idea how I survived last time around, I swear I must have worn a tank top every day. My previous job was a lot more casual, so I have already picked up 3-4 pairs of pants and a couple dresses on sale or clearance with our beloved Banana Republic card (read: Gap & Old Navy). If you have suggestions for cute maternity clothes that aren’t too expensive, let me know.

I have had several people ask me if I’m still running. I am proud to say that I ran one mile (at 12 weeks) right after the bombing at the Boston Marathon. It felt like the right thing to do, to get out and run. I fully plan to start running jogging again very soon. One of my biggest regrets during my pregnancy with Kenley was not exercising much. My doctor said to keep my heart beat around 120 (which is basically only walking), and that’s what I did. Since the half marathon, I feel like I am in much better shape now and at my last appointment, my doctor gave me the ok to do some jogging. So I intend to do just that. I am looking for a couple 5K races to run before it gets too hot. I did a little bit of a prenatal yoga DVD I had the last time around, but I am hoping to finally make it to a prenatal yoga class that is not too far from our house (so I really have no excuse).

I am hoping to write a little bit more about my pregnancy experience this time around. Looking back, I didn’t write as much about my experience as I thought I did… and it’s crazy how quickly you forget the little things, so I’m hoping to change that. There is also a good possibility that this could be the last pregnancy for us, so I want to soak it up. If pregnancy posts aren’t for you, feel free to skip those days. We are excited to start planning another nursery…this time a gender neutral nursery, even though I have no idea where to even start. The looks of the nursery right now gives me anxiety, so I just keep the door shut.

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This turned into quite the post, but you are now caught up to speed on what’s been happening around here the last three months. Now that I’m feeling like a normal person again, I’m hoping to better keep up with the blog and start back on some house projects now that we have somewhat of a deadline coming up this fall!

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