March Sponser - Delirious Rhapsody

I'm Deanna! I'm a stay at home mama of two crazy little boys. I collect gnomes and have an unnatural obsession with Colin Meloy. Hopefully my blog will make you laugh. It might make you cry, and every once in a while it may make you want to punch me in the face. Suck it up, because this is my blog, and meanies will not be tolerated. No, seriously, I am actually the most passive person you might never meet. On my blog you will find my weekly features: Topical Tuesday, What I Wore Wednesday, Gage Says and My Stories. Mixed in you will see some crafts and recipes, as well as your typical mommy rant. I'm sarcastic, yet loveable. And I hope you'll stick around for a bit! I'm a vagabond at heart, and a daydreamer throughout my soul. Come join me on my little journey to maintain what's left of my sanity!

Delirious Rhapsody Blog

March Sponsor - All of Our Love

Hi! My name is Lindsay, and my little space on the internet is called All of Our Love. While I've been blogging for a few years, I am just getting my feet wet, and would love to share my blog with you.

 I am a 27 year old "mommy blogger" to two boys--ages 7 and 5. My blog is undergoing a major overhaul right now, but in the meantime, I'm blogging about my days with all three of my boys and sharing my photography. In the coming weeks, I will be unveiling new features that I hope will be fun and exciting for my readers. I hope you'll check out All of Our Love and stick around for the changes-while you're there, drop me a line and say hello! I love to know who's reading. See you soon!

Blog - Photography - Tumblr

Chloe, my Darling

My little Chlo Worm is becoming more and more independent each day. I am not gonna lie, I love it! She seems much happier now that she can get around on her own and reach things that she wants rather than point and get upset that we don't understand what she is pointing at. Although, she is now able to reach things on our bathroom counter that she wasn't able to do before. And she has been able to open the front door...so we have to take extra precautions.  We noticed a huge change in her attitude since she has been able to walk on her own and it has been such a blessing! Now she wants to walk EVERYWHERE. She even will walk in circles over and over around our couch (which sits in the middle of our living room). She is such a cutie and her little waddle walk is adorable.

At her last doctors visit they said she was now 26 pounds and is ______ tall. She wears size 18 mo-24mo clothing and size 5 shoes. She is still in size 4 diapers, but is moving up soon, I'm sure. Her little chunky legs are getting more slender now that she is walking more (tear!). She talks her own little baby talk and she has the cutest little girl voice. She loves to make funny faces and stick her tongue out. Her favorite toys are her little Legos and her bath crayons. She LOVES the bath and is always pointing to it and tries to get in. She has been drawing and coloring up a storm, luckily only on the paper and table. I am still waiting for the day that I come home to find crayons all over the walls!

Her schedule is still unpredictable. She goes to sleep anytime between 8:00pm-11:00pm depending on what she did that day and how long her naps were. She typically wakes up around 7:00am, the same time we do, so it's great for us. She takes a nap at the sitters right after lunch (if only she would do that on weekends!). At around 8:00pm we dim the lights in the house and start to settle down. We turn on a family friendly movie, although she prefers movies with real people, and she sits there with us or quietly plays on the couch until she gets sleepy. It's been a great wind down period that she is used to now, finally!

She drinks 3 bottles of  whole milk a day, about 24 ounces. She is still an incredibly picky eater and will not touch her veggies or apples (I don't understand the apples, they are my fave!) but with our new sneaky cookbook that I will talk about later, she will be eating them everyday from now on, weather she knows it or not. haha. She still loves bananas, scrambled eggs and chicken nuggets and has now added string cheese, pizza, goldfishies and honey nut cheerios to her list of fave foods. We try to mix it up, we really do, but she never goes for it. Supposedly she eats everything and anything at the sitters (which is great because they serve all kinds of yummy all organic dishes!)

In the past month she has suffered a couple colds, an ear infection and then a double ear infection. :( With the help of medicines and lots of love and care (and days off work from Mom & Dad) she is back to normal and is her happy go lucky self again! 

Well, that's the update on her... how are your beautiful children (or furkids) doing?

Moby Wrap?

Another question for you moms ( and dads) out there... What are you thoughts/experiences with the Moby Wrap?

I have been contemplating for a while if i should get one for the new baby. Some I have talked to about them swear by it. I am not sure if the cost is worth it though. My concern with the Moby is that I will have trouble wrapping it by myself since there is so much going on.

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We already have a Baby Bjorn and I am wondering if i need another carrier. I do remember my back hurting from not having any lower back support with the Baby Bjorn. Also, there is a minimum weight and height for the Baby Bjorn and I remember we couldn't use it right away with Chloe. Plus, all the babies look so comfortable in the pictures with the Moby Wrap.

Isn't this picture with the Grandma so cute?
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Anyone want to chime in and let me know their thoughts on the product?

Btw, totally listened to you all about the My Brest Friend vs the Boppy and I ended up getting one, i can tell just by seeing it in person that its going to help much more! Thank you for all the advice!

ten more...

okay, here are 10 more random facts about me... in case the past 70 weren't enough for you.

71. I own a sewing machine, but barely sew. I love to sew and make things, it just comes down to a matter of time. I have plenty of instructional sewing books and patterns and really fun ideas in my idea book of things I want to make, but because of the lack of time, those things never come to fruition. My friend even teaches a class on sewing at a local university, so I might just buck up and take it so I don't have any more excuses.


72. I love bananas (as does Chloe) but I can't stand banana flavored things. James is allergic to Bananas, but he can eat the fake banana flavoring stuff just fine and loves it, so it works out well for us.

73. I make a mean pasta salad, or so I hear. I actually put a lot of things in it that James and I don't really like (meaning vegetables), but others seem to love it and request for me to make it when we do potlucks. So I must be doing something right!


74. When I was in 5th grade, I had a story I wrote published in a book of stories through our school. I don't know how this happened, but when I found the story in the publication, it said the author was Michael Pervert. I was crushed. I am sure someone that it was a funny joke. Now I can laugh at it, but at the time it was pretty sucky.

75. I love Monopoly and Scrabble, but everyone in my family refuses to play them with me because I always win. I don't think its fair. I am not cocky or anything about it, I just really love strategy and word games and it sucks when no one wants to play with you. I am also really obsessed with skip-bo.

76. My favorite flowers are peonies and magnolias. I just love how big and voluminous they are. They are also charming and very feminine.

77. I'm really interested in the Holocaust history. I've devoured tons of books and information on it. I've met a survivor who wrote a book when I was in middle school. I like to visit Jewish/Holocaust museums in different cities too. I really don't know why I am so obsessed about it, it is a sad but interesting time in history.


78. I love Quentin Tarantino films. He is so creative and has an awesome sense of humor. Good thinks James loves his work too. I especially love Kill Bill.


79. My absolute favorite director is M. Night Shyamalan. His movies always have a twist in the end that I never see coming. (Which is great because I usually am good at calling out things that are going to happen in a movie and it's nice to be surprised once in a while). His movies are thoughtful and creative and not too scary for me. We own all of his movies.

80. Speaking of movies, we have almost 300 dvds in our collection. I know because I actually keep an excel spreadsheet of them. Yes, I am overly organized, but its so we don't double buy a movie. I hardly ever pay full price for them, we mostly purchase them for $10 and under. Too bad blu rays are becoming more popular... or maybe not too mad since that will mean dvds will be cheaper, yay! I am blu rays taking over won't stop us since we still have a VHS player and collect them as well. Anyone else still use VHS?

Music Monday - The Honey Trees

This adorable little duo is called The Honey Trees. I remember being in love with them way back when. I love her sweet voice. Hope you enjoy!

website - puchase cd

I am down with the sickness...

I am sorry this blog has been lacking somewhat lately, although I promise there is a legitimate reason. 

My little family has been going through a lot lately in the world of illnesses. Chloe has had a double ear infection, then a respiratory virus for about two weeks now. We have had her on antibiotics and that seemed to take care of the ears, until a week later we found one one of her ears didn't heal completely and we had to give her stronger antibiotics. This has all happened in the last 3 weeks... now it seems the ear is bothering her AGAIN.  What is really strange is she will seem fine until Friday, then she will wake up with puffy eyes, runny nose and start to have a fever... I don't know what to do anymore. We have taken her to the doctors 3 times in the past three weeks. :( I am wondering if taking her to daycare is a good thing, that is the only place I think she may be getting sick over and over again?

On top of it all, I got Chloe's cold/virus on the way to Boston. I have been battling against it ever since last Wednesday and it doesn't seem to let up. I have already called in sick 2 times since I have been back to work  from the trip. Since I was sick on the plane, I ended up getting terrible ear pain and plugged ears. The pressure is still here even after almost a week. Trust me, I know why babies scream on planes, this hurts! 

To make matters any more worse, I have gone to urgent care twice and ended up in the emergency room, all within the past 4 days.  I have had crazy heart palpitations and shortness of breath, which they thought could be a blood clot due to my pregnancy, the lengthy flight I just had, and the Sudafed I was taking to try and clear the cold. Thank God that checked out to be all clear, but now I am left with the same problems and nothing I can do about it but to rest, relax and not take any meds. It's hard to just sit through the pain not being able to do anything about it. Especially when I need to take care of my sick little girl at the same time.  

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James has definitely been super dad of the house these past 3 weeks and is helping out tremendously. Thank you BL! I just feel sucky, sick and useless which is a horrible combination. We are holding on to the fact that we know God is our healer and this is something that will pass (it just seems like forever now).  

I guess I am writing all of this just to ask,

Can you all please pray for me/us? We could really use healing and patience!  

trying to finish these up...

I totally forgot all about the 100 random facts about me... I'm sharing 10 at a time. here is 10 more. btw, It's really hard to come up with 100 random facts about yourself....

61. I love Taco Bell. It's funny, I used to hate it, with a passion, but now that is one of the things I want to eat all the time. James has always loved it so now that I do too he is very happy about that.  Could be a pregnancy thing, I don't know.  I hope not for James' sake. I know it's not REAL Mexican food, and we have plenty of that around here too, but since I have been pregnant I always choose Taco Bell over real taco shops. At least I know that when we move they might not have good Mexican food, but they do have Taco Bell!


62. I always have to have nail polish on my toes. Doesn't matter if it is chipping as long as I know some color is there. It's really weird. I feel naked with out it. I have felt like this ever since I was in High School. I used to change my polish all the time to match my outfits too... ya, that was when I didn't have a full time job or a family, and I can't believe I ever had the time to do that. My nails on my hands are a different story. I hardly ever have polish on them. I can't stand when the polish on my hands are chipped and I definitely don't have the time to keep up with that!


63. I curl my hair every. single. day. I curl it with a straightener too! My hair is naturally stick straight and I can't stand it on me. Mainly because I have this thing about my big ears popping out from my hair. I also love loose waves, they are romantic, fun and girly! I am actually debating on getting a body perm or whatever its called. I am sure it would save me so much time!


64. Speaking of perms, I had a perm when I was 14. I wanted one so bad because my mom has always permed her hair for as long as I can remember. I don't have any pictures of this, but I promise you I looked like a poodle. And I remember the chemicals smelled like cat pee and I couldn't stand it!


65. I don't care for Chinese food. All I like is orange chicken (sometimes) and fried rice. And this is not a pregnancy thing. I have never really cared for it. I feel bad because James loves it and he would eat it everyday if he could. Of course, I veto that very very often. But I guess it's like how James hates Italian food, so I guess we're even.


66. I've been on one mission trip out of the country. My old church partnered with Amore Ministries in Mexico. We went out there and built houses for the very poor. It was an awesome experience that I would love to do again. I can't wait until the kids are old enough to take on mission trips!


67. My dream was to join Peace Corps. Then I met James and couldn't bare to part from him. Funny thing is I told James when we were dating not to get too attached to me because I was joining the peace corps and going to leave. Looks like God had other plans for me. We could always join together when we are older and the kids have moved out.


68. I can't play guitar because of my pinkies. I tried having James teach me, but my pinky is too crooked and I can't reach the 6th string. I am going to try a 4 strong bass instead. haha.


69. Up until this past Christmas I had the same cell phone number for 10 years.  To me, that is a pretty good accomplishment. It was pretty hard getting used to a new number. And I am one of those people who regularly goes through my phone and deletes numbers of those I don't really talk to anymore, just easier for me to navigate when trying to find someone... Now those people who never throw out numbers that I have met in the past 10 years will never be able to get a hold of me again... oh no! Bummer thing is that whoever had my new number before me is on multiple telemarketing list and I have get around 1-2 a day! It's so annoying!


70. I've been to Maui 3 times in my life. I have stayed in the same little town all three times and loved it. I went there first on a family vacation. Second when I graduated college and some friends of mine lived there and 3rd on our honeymoon. It is such a great place to vacation too. Family friendly but can be very romantic! If you ever get the chance to go, make sure you take the road to Hana. Breathtaking views and hidden exclusive waterfalls and hiking trails!

Music Monday - The Snake The Cross The Crown

I know I have mentioned them before, probably numerous times. I love them so much! Apparently, there is a documentary about them that has won numerous awards...

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any official music videos, but at least you can hear what they sound like if you are not familiar with them. 

myspace music - purchase cd- documentary

Boston so far...

Don't you just love when your pregnant and you sneeze so hard that you pee a little? Ya, i don't either. Especially while your out sight seeing and you have to beeline to the bathroom.

I ended up catching that horrible respiratory virus that chloe has. It just hit me on the 2nd flight over here and i have been pretty miserable ever since. Not only do i have a cold, but my left ear got clogged from the flight and i had a horrible piercing pain in that ear all yesterday and last night. Thank God that healed up when i awoke today. Luckily i can take sudafed and low grade tylenol for the virus which is starting to help. So i can finally start enjoying this beautiful city.

I pretty much stayed in the hotel all afternoon and night and tried to sleep it off, so there wasn't much going on as far as enjoying the city, but today we went to Faneuil park and North Market. it has been really cold out, but i am so glad we went! The buildings are beautiful! I live all the brick! I cant wait to go to freedom trail tomorrow after the show.

Please pray for a fast recovery for both chloe and myself. Especially since i have been looking forward to this trip for 9 months and want to make the best of it.