Busy Day!

 Yesterday Nadia slept too much during the day - particularly in the early evening. We went on our first walk as a family of three yesterday afternoon. Paul carried her in the Snugli. It was her first time being in the Snugli. Boy am I out of shape! I think we went about 2 miles RT and that was enough for me. I will gradually build myself up to our usual route. Unfortunately whatever calorie benefit I got from the walk was probably cancelled out by dinner at Applebee's as they were having the 3 course deal for $9.99 which I couldn't resist as I love their chocolate mousse. :-) It was really nice to have dinner out though. It felt like the first time in along time that Paul and I could have a long conversation together about this and that. She slept through the walk, Applebee's and Walmart so that was too much sleeping in the late afternoon/early evening. Thanfully Paul stayed up with her from 9:30pm - 12:30am so I could get some sleep. I fed her when she woke up at 1:15am and again at 2:15, 3:00, etc. So it wasn't a great night, but since Paul stayed up with her those first 3 hours that meant I did get a decent amount of sleep altogether.

Anyhow today was a busy day as Paul's mom and niece came over for about 90 minutes this morning during which time they babysat Nadia so I could do some cleaning for the party. Brandi also helped me some with cleaning, and they gave Nadia a bath so she'd be ready for her pictures. Then I took Nadia with me to my hair appt. My beautician wanted to meet Nadia. She gave me a baby gift - how sweet and unexpected! Paul came and got her part way through the appt (I called him) as she wasn't sleeping well in the car seat that I brought into the beauty salon. I got home and changed really quickly and then we left for the photo appt at Sears.

Nadia had been screaming at home when Daddy changed her diaper and her clothes (maybe in part bc he had her dress on backwards? LOL), but she was a GEM for the photos. She was sleepy so her eyes weren't always open, but she was very good and we only needed to use the pacifier to help her stop crying at the very end. Then she slept while we picked out which photos to purchase. It was hard to decide. The special effects they do to the photos were nice but too pricey in our opinion so we narrowed it down to just the regular ones. I had a coupon to get one 10x13, one 8x10, two 5x7, 8 wallets, and 16 mini's for $10 total which seemed like a good deal, but all of those had to be from the same pose. We ended up picking one where she was lying on a white blanket with her eyes open (total body shot). I had ironed her dress that morning, but it wrinkles easily. I should have waited until we got to Sears to put it on her. Lesson learned! The peter pan collar also was a challenge to keep down (didn't want it hiding her face!) so again lesson learned; I will stick with dresses without a collar for future photo shoots. The other shots I really liked were one of Paul kissing her, one of her hand wrapped around one of my fingers, and one of me looking down at her. Paul really liked this close up photo of just her face (her eyes were opened for that one also). So we ended up buying for ourselves (we'll give most of the other photos away to friends and family) one sheet that is a collage. The big picture is of the three of us (not the best of Paul but they only took one shot of that pose of the three of us), and then on the right there are three different small photos. The top one will be of Paul kissing Nadia, the middle one the close up of her face that was Paul's favorite, and the bottom one of myself & Nadia. They had taken two poses of me with Nadia and surprisingly they both were nice (I usually don't like pics of myself). The collage was $30 so that was our splurge, but I think it will be really nice. So altogether we spent $42.38 which wasn't too bad considering the first packages we were offered started at $120 and went up from there! I figure we can do the hand photo at home. They also had one of her feet in Paul's hands which we could pose ourselves as well.

I think I'll take her either back to Sears or to Walmart in late November for a Christmas photo. She'll be 5 months old then. Wow. I remember someone told me that she almost had the "perfect birthday." This person said that the perfect birthday is 6-25 as it's exactly 6 months before/after Christmas. It is nice to have more separation between Christmas and one's bday. Paul's bday is Jan 3 and that's not the greatest day to have one's bday although not as bad as my friend, Sharon, whose bday is December 25.