A Peek at the Poulsens

As I am sitting here watching Harry Potter 6 (we WILL make it through all eight movies by the end of the month!!) I realized that we haven't been on much of a blogging streak lately. I see all the cute posts by my cute friends and think "dang I should post more often" but actually, I think things are fine the way they are. We blog when we have something to blog about (which is usually at least once a week) and then spend the rest of our time raising our beautiful daughter and having fun together. It's important to not get caught up in trying to remember every little thing (something that plagues me daily, it seems...I panic when I realize I don't remember every detail about Natalie at 5 months, for example) - it's more than adequate to only write some of the memories down. We will always remember this time with fondness, and any specific record is extra. I'm so glad that we will always have this blog as a record (and our pictures and personal journals) - I...

No matter what time we put Natsby to bed, it seems like she always wakes up in the same 6:45-7:00am window and then is ready for her morning nap sometimes as early as 8:30. I came to the conclusions that: a) she must be waking up at the same time because of the light from her window and b) her morning "nap" really is just an extension of her night's sleep because she is waking up too early at least she ALWAYS wakes up with a smile Enter black-out curtain. THE BEST. It was an $11 Shopko buy, just a basic red curtain that blocks out most of the light, and I "hung" it up with push pins. A rinky fix for, wait for it...an HOUR+ more of sleep! And this is just the first day, so our hopes are high. She slept from 7:20pm to 8:00am. Austin and I showered, got ready, ate breakfast, and were still waiting for her to wake up! We went in her room to make sure she was all right, so she probably would slept even longer. Now her naps have shifted to a more appropriate...

Since our last Harry Potter Month post we haven't been as celebratory (blimey!) mostly due to the fact that Austin started school again (boo, less family time!...yay, getting closer to finishing!) and we aren't eating sugary treats, meaning no more fun recipes like pumpkin pasties. We'll cook up something creative by the end of the month though, no worries. in the fashion of Ron's Christmas sweaters What we HAVE been doing (because don't you fret, HPM is still in full swing) is reading our excerpts every night (tonight is book four for the third go 'round) and, drumroll please... illustrating our own ABRIDGED VERSION! We giggled late into the night drawing these hilarious(ly bad) pictures of our favorite scenes in the Sorcerer's Stone. We are planning on doing one abridgement per HPM, so Chamber of Secrets will be next year. We can't decide what to do about sharing them with our children, however...we don't want the endings to be reveale...

I'm sitting here draped over the couch in dire need of a shower and full from my toasted pb&j (complete with homemade jam), loving the sound of nap silence and admiring my freshly vacuumed floors. And I'm HAPPY. : ) she LOVES pressing buttons, so the laptop is her version of heaven nakie natalie. can't get enough. I don't have a whole lot of physical pregnancy issues or even less unpleasant side effects, but at this stage in the game I am one hormonal pipe bomb waiting to explode - one TIIIIIINY little thing can make me rude for the whole rest of the night. A completely, non-important, totally get-overable thing that normally wouldn't even make me think twice can turn me into the wicked witch of Lincoln. I was in one of those moods when we got home last night and I don't know what triggered it this time, but I was so annoyed (at everything and nothing) and cranky and whiny and NASTY. It's like all my nice, happy feelings are destroyed in a ti...

#1: My baby is almost ONE! #2: I'm having ANOTHER baby, like, soon!  trying to escape With Natalie taking steps here and there and becoming more independent and more intelligent, it's easy to forget that she was ever a newborn. She is so SMART: she knows where I keep certain things such as the sponges under the kitchen sink, and she returns to places where she remembers having fun (like the cable box that she has figured out how to turn on and off). She knows when she's doing something I wouldn't want her to do (i.e. playing with the cords behind the lamp) and loves feeding herself and exploring new textures. Last night she was crying in her crib and I could have sworn she was saying "mama, mama" to try to get me to come in to her room. ...it worked : )  practicing with the spoon (she LOVES strawberries...we go through them like candy around here) I had my 28week2day appointment today and everything was normal except at the end my doctor said,...