Santa, round 2.

Santa, round 2., originally uploaded by Makclair.

We had success!!!

Saturday Santa came to Publix (grocery store, for you non-Southerners) and Connor just marched right up to Santa, said "Hi, Santa" hopped up in his lap, and showed him some trucks. He would do well when we're not having to pay for an overpriced 5x7 at the mall. He actually sat in Santa's lap again after we did our grocery shopping and told him he wanted "trucks and choo-choos" for Christmas. Good thing , because that's what he's getting!!!

P.S. Santa, we can tell your beard is fake :)

Starting to look a lot like Christmas!

I realized that I haven't posted any pictures of the holiday decorating yet!- We put up the outdoors stuff a couple of weekends ago. We have a mini tree with lights upstairs in the bonus room window, lighted garland around the front door and wreaths on the windows that light up at night. I think every year we'll probably do a little bit more. Last year we barely decorated outside. I think we were too used to being in an apartment.

This isn't a great pic because all the lights are blurry- but the sky looks neat :)



Garland around the front door- I think i'm going to look for some more after Christmas on clearance to make it thicker next year.


(just realized we still have our pumpkins out there, haha)


The rosemary bush- i call it my "charlie brown tree" but I think it looks good with lights.


I found this cute flag at Hobby Lobby, but sadly it blew away in a tornado storm (seriously). :(



Our countertop nativity- please excuse any mess in the background-


Fireplace/mantle with stockings.
The reindeer are our stocking holders, but somebody is nosy, so we put them lower this year.


I have to brag about these little trees- I got them both for 12 dollars! I got a printable coupon at CVS for 10 off any of the 29.99 boxed pre-lit trees. So these were 29.99 for the 2pack, but they were on sale for 22. Then I got 10 off that - so 12 dollars for both of them! Next year we'll probably put them on the front porch, but since I didn't want to reconfigure the cords out there , I just put them in the entryway.



Connor's mini tree in his room


Finally got some presents under the tree!

Picture with Santa

santa, originally uploaded by Makclair.

Last Wednesday, we had Connor's 2 year old well check, and Patrick ended up taking a furlough day so that we could spend the day together (it was my regular day off).

First we started at the doctor- my big boy measured out at 28lbs, 12 oz (60%ile) and 36 inches long (88%ile). I knew he had grown, but WOW! No wonder all his pants are too short. Everything was great- He just had to get his flu shot and barely cried. Then we were off!

We went to the mall and straight to see Santa! Since it was early, we didn't have a line at all, although this probably backfired because Connor didn't get to watch any other kids sit in Santa's lap before him. I had hoped he would sit nicely in Santa's lap, but as soon as we walked up to him, Mr. Clingy came out and refused to let go of me. So we made a last minute decision to just all join in and get the picture together to avoid a tantrum. He still didn't smile, but at least he didn't cry!

Our next stop was Toys R Us- we were sneaky parents and picked up a few things that he didn't see us buying, and he got Emily the Tank Engine as a special treat after his checkup. He was very possessive and almost refused to let the cashier scan it but he did let her.

Finally, we went out for a quick lunch at Stax's Omega (Connor had a meat and 3- haha!) . And then home for a nap!!!

Christmas card preview- Thanks Shutterfly!

Modern Cranberry Ribbon Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly.com for elegant Christmas photo cards.

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Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

It's been 2 years since he entered our lives and nothing has been the same since!!!

wahoo!

I added a new background :)

So what have I been up to?

Putting up the Christmas tree AND new curtains!



Goodbye ugly vertical blinds!



And bribing a certain toddler to take Christmas pictures- this is the best out of like 100.




and working of course....HELLO WINTER. Fun times.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.....

Ok, I know it is just barely November, but Christmas is almost here! Almost time to put my Christmas music box on my blog, almost time to start wrapping surprises, almost time to get the tree and decorations down from the attic, ect. I'm already burning my Mistletoe candle!!! And another thing- almost time to start working on Christmas cards!
I'm loving these adorable Christmas cards at Shutterfly !

How cute is this? Or this? Or this? I can't decide. All I have decided is that I'll just choose a great picture and upload it to Shutterfly in a flash. Then it is super easy to edit the picture- crop it a little, maybe make it black and white. Then pick a design that I love, maybe even choose more than one picture for my card! And then lickedy-split, Christmas cards are DONE! And they'll arrive at my house soon afterwards thanks to their quick shipping. One less thing on my list!


I'm not sure if the hardest part will be deciding on a card, or getting this little person to actually smile for a normal picture:



Head on over to Shutterfly to check out the cards!

What have we been up to???

So we went to the apple orchard/pumpkin patch a couple of weekends ago, and I just uploaded a few pictures to my computer- so here is a preview to compare last year to this year! Look at that tiny baby and now a little boy! Still loves his camo pants! More pics to come!

I was on call 4/7 days two weeks ago so I didn't do too much exciting (although fortunately it was a pretty quiet week of call ). So nothing really to report. And no pictures.




Then last week I went to a week long training course to become a Certified Lactation Counselor- this is one of the first steps for my eventual goal to become a IBCLC (lactation consultant) - I really have been looking forward to this for a long time!

I learned SO much during that week- the teachers did a great job and I met lots of fun women! I missed my boys, and I know they missed me, but I hope that the things I learned will make a difference for the moms in my practice and it makes it totally worth it for me. It is so fulfilling as a pediatrician to help a mom through difficult times and help her meet her goals.

Of course it will be another 6-8 weeks till I find out if I actually passed my test!!!

October 6, 2010 7:05 PM

So i have a million pics I need to blog- but I'm posting a quick video from my phone- this is Connor playing with his "see and say" the other night. Remember this toy, 80's babies??? Anyway, if you listen you can hear him saying the sounds the animals make.....

(pause the music at the bottom of my page :)

Halloween Costume is Here!!!

Last year Connor was a monkey- a very adorable little monkey of course.

We were trying to decide what for him to do this year, as he is blissfully unable to make too many preferences about his costume right now (and this will soon change :)

I have a friend whose son Jackson was a dragon last year- this was the costume I really wanted for Connor last year that had been sold out.

So guess who is borrowing it this year?? Me of course!!!!

We got it in the mail this morning, and he demanded to try it on immediately. It fits perfectly!

My little dragon-boy

Wings and tail.

the tail sticks out in the back.

he really liked the claws, btw.

Oh and please excuse the weird picture sizes- i'm learning to blog directly from picasa.

He's obsessed ....with trucks!!!!

At dentist, originally uploaded by Makclair.

Our son is obsessed these days with trucks.

It used to be dogs- everything for the last few months was woof-woof. He would see a stuffed animal- woofwoof. See a dog- woofwoof. Cat-woofwoof. Animals at the zoo- woofwoof. Well, finally I think he figured it out. Now, large animals - Mewwwww (moo). This includes large dogs, much to our embarassment when he moo-ed at several great danes downtown last weekend. Their owners didn't seem to mind. He also calls small animals "tats" (ha) which means cats, and this includes small dogs. In between animals are still woof-woofs, but he's starting to say dog. I learned about this way of thinking when I was in college in child development (and can't remember what it is called, but it is interesting to see it play out in your own kid!)

So now we're obsessed with the trucks. He's always loved those little tonka trucks- he owns basically an entire fleet of vehicles. He also loves his school bus and sometimes the smaller trucks get to ride in the school bus. Now he's saying "truck" more often and he uses it for everything.
In the morning he's talking about truck-truck which is daddy's car . When we're going somewhere in my car (honda pilot) he calls it truck-truck-truck and he prefers my car as I guess it is more truck-like. He points to riding lawnmowers and regular lawnmowers and yells TRUCK!. One of the more exciting mornings of his life so far was going to my office when he was sick with a fever (to get a strep test) but the garbage truck happened to be there and he actually got to witness the dumpster being dumped in action. He would not stop talking about the "dump truck!"

So anyway, I have completely re-vamped my ideas for his birthday party now. I originally was going to do Yo-Gabba-Gabba (google it) because he loves the music. Well, now we have mr-truck-obsessed. We're doing a truck theme party! Yes, I know it is in Dec, but you know how busy work is at that time of year, so i'm already starting the planning. We'll do truck decorations, a truck cake and I think it will be super cute. Very boy-ish.

I've already started finding ideas!
Wouldn't these be awesome party hats??

I feel like this design is a little too big boy for him, but it is the only thing I can really find.

Or this one?????

What do you think???

Fall is (almost) here!!!

So, it is September, as hard as it is to believe!!!
Finally starting to cool down a little, can actually enjoy the outdoors these days, pumpkins starting to appear at the grocery store and thinking about the apple orchard. Of course, it is full swing on strep/colds/sinus infections/allergies/school avoidance these days as well!!!!

But back to the good stuff:

I've gone ahead and started decorating for Fall. At this time last year I was studying for boards so I didn't really do a lot as far as putting up stuff this time of year. But I've already started this year!!!

I've had this wreath forever- since I lived in that old house in downtown Macon- and it has held up pretty well. I got it at Hobby Lobby originally, i think.



On our mantle, I put up some autumnal garland, a glass jar of cinnamon sticks, apple-cinnamon potpouri and I got a super cute little pumpkin picture frame! ((((HobbyLobby))))

This is our "candy bucket" but I think i'm going to put some pinecones in it for now. The last thing we need is a bucket of candy sitting there for the next 6 weeks!!!


Still to come- I want to get a few more outdoorsy type decorations- maybe some mums next to our front door, a hay bale and a scarecrow:)

Labor Day Weekend Update

I'm working all weekend/on call so I hope I have nothing exciting to share about this weekend- Last weekend was Labor Day and we were all off from school/work so we did a lot of fun things. I'm a little behind on uploading pics, so i'll go ahead and write this post, and then add in more pics or write an update blog when I get more pics up!

We grilled out several times over the weekend- we did burgers/sweet potato fries/grilled corn and then the next night we did London Broil on the grill- Yum!

This boy loves sweet potato fries!

We spent a lot of time just hangin out, reading, dancing at home. Connor just got this new book (yo gabba gabba -Party in my tummy). He has tons of books, but currently he's obsessed with this one and any book of his that has trucks in it- especially Richard Scarry's "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go")

I also got a little bit crafty and made my first diaper wreath for a coworker who is due with a little boy. I need to attach a few little things on here, but i'm pretty happy with my first creation.

We also stayed busy over the weekend- attended a birthday party for Connor's classmate Peyton and we went Cleveland Park/downtown twice and also went to the zoo!!! More pics to come!

cvs deals this week! (Saved about 60%)

cvs deals this week!, originally uploaded by Makclair.

So i've been holding on to an aveeno raincheck for a long time, waiting for them to get more diaper cream and lotion in stock so I could use it. Finally! I would have preferred to get all diaper cream (the aveeno kind is MAGIC!) but i had some printable coupons that were about to expire. So I had to get other stuff which we can definately use as well.

Deals: 2 pack body wash 3.99 with one ECB offer - $2 coupon from the red machine= 1.99 with one ECB back.
Gummy Vitamins:7.50 BOGO and 1.00 coupon off each bottle.
Gain soap:1.39 - free coupon = FREE
Aveeno baby products: Raincheck for 3.99 and buy 20/get 10 back in ECB. Plus I had three printable coupons for 1.00.
I had only 1.99 in ecb to spend

Total 31 something and I got 11 back in ECB. sweet!

All for 16.90 at Publix! Saved 32 dollars!! (65%)

All for 16.90, originally uploaded by Makclair.

I haven't posted a good savings wrap up on my blog lately, but I took a pic with my phone and wanted to share it!

I caught all these deals on the last day of the sale this past weekend at Publix.

Right guard men's Deodorant- normally 3.99 each, on sale BOGO so 2.00 each. Then I had 1.50 off each printable coupons- which made them 50 cents each!

Huggies Wipes- normally 19.99 for the big box- I had a 5.00 off store coupon as well as a 2.00 manufactuer's coupon- which made it 12.99.

Huggies Wipes (3 normal sized packs)- normally 6.99 and I had a 2.00 off store coupon as well as a 2.00 off manufactuer's coupon, making it 2.99.

Campbell's soup- normally 2.40, on sale for 1.19 and then I had a 1.00 off coupon- 19cents!

This made a total of 21.90, and I have a mail in rebate for a 5 dollar publix gc for the diapers/wipes! Net of 16.90 for all!

Clean carpet!!!

Hello out there!!! Anybody?
I've been terrible about blogging, I realized that the last post was 2 months ago! So i'm going to try to get back on the game asap!!! And here we go- I have a lot to catch up on!

This weekend, we had lots to do-

First, Saturday morning we met up with a friend Janis and her husband and daughter Hannah at Cleveland Park. We've never played there before as it has been So So Hot lately, but we found out that Connor loves it!





Connor and Hannah after our walk:



We had a great lunch out together as a family at Copper River and then went to the grocery store and picked up a Rug Doctor.


Now, lately i've been feeling really grossed out by our carpet. we have discussions back and forth. Should we just rip it out and put in hardwoods? get tile throughout? Just leave it because Connor is messy? Put in new carpet? Hire stanley steamer?
So after all that we've just lived with the nasty carpet for months. It continues to get grosser as we have *someone* who insists on spilling things constantly.
Well i finally gave up and we were going to spend the money to have professionals clean the carpet, but I decided to give the Rug Doctor a try- so of course I found a coupon online, and off to Publix we went! Renting the machine was easy and was only 20 bucks after the coupon. I did buy some cleaning solution as well, but later on I ended up having more success with oxyclean. It took several hours and a lot of physical labor as you have to constantly empty and fill the machine. BUT- it got our carpet really clean, and i'm very happy. I'm not embarassed of our carpet anymore!!!!





Sunday afternoon after we returned the rug doctor, I met another friend at Barnes and Noble for coffee, then we came home and trimmed branches in the yard. We actually ended up tearing down this horrible dead bush that was in the edge of our yard , and i'm sure our neighbors will send us a thank you card. LOL.
Connor colored with sidewalk chalk and then ran around hitting bushes with cut branches.


A busy weekend, but not all good :

Unfortunately, there was some poison ivy buried in that old bush- so I just made my husband a doctor's appointment :)

Weekend Bathroom Makeover !

june 014, originally uploaded by Makclair.

I did my bathroom makeover this weekend....I used this shower curtain as the inspiration, and painted all the walls Twilight blue (behr paint plus primer). Then i added the matching accessories and ta-da.

Now to change out the light fixture, and i'm going to frame out the mirror with white trim.

So far, I love it- Such an improvement!

june 019, originally uploaded by Makclair.

My "custom" decorations :)

Mommy's helper, originally uploaded by Makclair.

Somebody really liked the paint rollers....

june 017, originally uploaded by Makclair.

New bathroom color on right. Twilight blue by behr.

New bathroom color on right. Twilight blue by behr., originally uploaded by Makclair.

I have been planning out redoing our guest bathroom- I was inspired by this shower curtain (thank you Walmart!!!) I wanted to pick a color that coordinated with the lightest blue for that bathroom, and my first three attempts (the horizontal stripes) were total FAILS. Obviously they didn't work well with the curtain . So i've been researching online, playing around and looking at paint swatches. I got this paint color today, Twilight Blue and will be painting this weekend!!!
Next step, new mirror and light fixture in there. Then I will finish it out with chocolate brown bath mat and towels.

Our big boy!

cool!
Originally uploaded by Makclair

Connor is growing up!

He had his 18 month old well check last week. He was 26lbs , 11 oz and 33 inches long. He had to get 2 shots, but we're finished with his routine immunizations till 4 years old- YAY!

He's saying all kinds of words now, starting to say phrases like "what you doing?" and loves to dance to music.
He will move up to the Toddler 2 class at daycare in the next few weeks and loves to bring home art projects from school.

He's already been in the pool several times this summer since our vacation, but I haven't gotten any pictures yet. I got him this sprinkler for our yard to help cool down in the summer heat and he thinks it is pretty fun.

Our Hilton Head Vacation

I'm going to post some pictures, but there are a lot more on my flickr photostream . So run over there and you can see lots of pics from our trip.

Anyway, we had been planning this trip for a while...the last "vacation" Patrick and I have taken was a little trip down to St. Simons when I was 5 weeks pregnant with C. Let me tell you, I was SICK already and it was cold and rainy. Still nice to get away, but I have been in NEED of some beach time. We did go to a conference in Myrtle Beach 2 summers ago, but to me a vacation isn't getting up at 6 to attend lectures all morning. NO!!!

So, we randomly picked Hilton Head Island and found a condo and had faith that it would be great, and it was!!! We used VRBO to rent our 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo. It was incredible.

This is our view from the living room:

It is a little blurry, but yeah, PERFECT view of the beach.

The kitchen was great, had everything we needed. Connor had his own bedroom and bathroom so we had plenty of room to spread out. The balcony was perfect and we ate almost every meal out there. We rented a condo in Palmetto Dunes, and will certainly be back there. Message me for more details.

Connor's first walk on the beach:


He loved playing in the sand:


and the surf...


Isn't this the sweetest???


One night we actually met up for dinner with a couple of my residency friends and their spouses and we learned something...Connor loves corn on the cob!!!!


We did a lot of eating in HHI, as evidenced by this photo:


This was Connor's breakfast at Stacks Pancake House, but he didn't eat it all :)

Our best beach photo- it was sunny!



Connor was a good napper every afternoon which led to a lot of this:


Anyway, it was a great trip, and we can't wait to go back!!!!!