Terrible Friday, fun Saturday, busy Sunday & nice Monday.

This weekend was crazy busy! 

Friday was terrible. I woke up with a really intense migraine that would not go away. I think Colleen could sense something wasn't right with me, because she was (mostly) well behaved. Her tooth seems to be bothering her less and less, so she's starting to seem like her old self again. So she played with her toys quietly and really enjoyed watching tv. We don't have cable and the tv is rarely on during the day. So it was a real treat for her and it was pretty cute to see her sit so quietly during some of the shows.

Thankfully, Justin was home by 1:30pm. His schedule is always all over the place and that can be terrible, but also pretty fantastic. On Friday it was FANTASTIC!!

I still had a headache when I woke up Saturday, but I sucked it up and we headed to the beach house! It was a busy day because we had to bring up the crib we bought at Ikea a few weeks ago, wait for the new mattresses to be delivered and celebrate our cousin's 1st birthday! Little Alex actually turned 1 last week, but was in Florida so we had a mini get together to help celebrate.

We somehow managed to fit a huge Crib box & mattress in our car. Look at that cutie in the mirror!

Colleen and Alex up to no good.

Opening gifts. The house was full of chaos with 5 adults, 2 kids and 2 dogs but I loved it so much!

Not a bad view for the day!

It was a fun and tiring day! The minute after we got in the car, Colleen fell asleep.  We got home and had dinner and just relaxed.

Still had a headache on Sunday, but it went away quickly once I got up and had coffee.

I've been feeling kind of crummy about my body lately so I decided to stop feeling bad for myself and do something about it and go to the gym. I had an incredible workout and felt so good afterwards! I really need to start going more often. 

After the gym, I fed Colleen lunch and got us ready to go out while Justin mowed the yard. Colleen is growing quickly and was in need of clothes, so while Justin did yard work, C and I headed to the outlets in Maine.

Carter's and Osh Kosh were having a huge sale and even had 20% off sale items. I always do well when they have these sales and scored $531 worth of clothes for only $147! I purposely bought bigger sizes so Colleen could grown into them and we could get more bang for our buck.

Our bounty with a funny girl. 

In Osh Kosh. Colleen usually hates hats, but loved this one! Too bad they didn't have one in her size!

We got home and Justin was working on installing the cat door to the basement. Colleen loved watching him work.

Making sure Dada does a good job.

The most exciting moment of the day was when Colleen decided to stand up on her own. When she saw how excited we got, she kept standing up and smiling like she was so proud of herself. I was sooooo proud of her! I also feel relieved that she's showing some progress with standing/walking on her own.

A sneaky photo I took of her standing! She's so cute!

We ended our Sunday by discovering that our strawberry plant had some strawberries turning red.

I didn't have much hope for this plant, but maybe we'll get a few tasty strawberries from it after all!

This morning we woke up exhausted, head-achy, back-achy and overall just feeling yucky. But I didn't want to waste what was forecasted to be a beautiful day. So we somehow got it together.

Justin stretched his back while Colleen practiced standing.

Then Colleen did some yoga. Here's her downward dog.

At the beach house we met up with family and Colleen and her cousin got to hang out again. 

Trying to break free!

Not a bad place to eat lunch!

After lunch, we let the babies get dirty in the sand. They had a lot of fun and I loved watching them play.

I couldn't get a good shot of Colleen's face ( she was concentrating really hard), but here's a cute one of our cousin Jen (Alex's mom) with the two kids.

It was a little too cold for bathing suits, so we just let them dirty up their clothes and hosed them down afterward.

Here they are pushing the stroller around while not wearing any clothes!

And then Colleen decided to sit in the dirty bucket everyone rinses their feet in. 

Overall it was a great day! I love making memories and am so thankful Colleen will have so many good ones!

Busy Sunday

Today was one of those days where we went full speed ahead and did so much that I'm not even sure how my eyes are still open. 

My day started at 6:30 when Colleen woke up and proceeded to wet through her diaper and all up her front. This resulted in an emergency bath. She LOVES the bath. She does not love getting out of the bath, so we had quite the hissy fit and a fussy girl for the next few hours. Breakfast and a morning nap fixed that.

Usually, Colleen naps for 1.5-2 hours in the morning. Today it was about 30 minutes. I had all of these plans and a list of things to do, but only got through 1 item. I made my lunch for the week. It's pasta, kalamata olives and tomatoes.

I used to get this from a small Italian cafe in Boston when I worked there. I've been meaning to recreate it for a while, but just kept forgetting. I've been looking for meals I can make for the week and that are fairly healthy and possibly vegan. I ate some for lunch today and it was delicious!

While I made my pasta and Colleen mini-napped, Justin and his dad went to the dump and finally got rid of our old shower doors and a bunch of other junk. It cost him $12 because the dump charges per pound. But the shower doors had been sitting on our deck for a few weeks now, so I probably would have paid $100 to see them go.

With Colleen waking earlier than usual, I decided we might as well try and hit up the farmer's market before lunch. I LOVE downtown Newburyport and am so excited to live here. We've just begun exploring our new town, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to explore a little more.

Here she is all ready for the farmer's market. I parked downtown and only had a short walk. When I started to approach the tents I was so excited. There were a lot of tents and live music! I immediately had dreams of zucchini, carrots, strawberries!

Then I started walking around and quickly found that it was more craft fair than farmer's market. There wasexactly 1 stall selling vegetables. But it was mostly just potatoes and I'm well stocked with those, so I left empty handed. I'm not giving up hope on this farmer's market. I just think it's too early in the season. I'm going to try again next month and see if there are better offerings then.

It was beautiful weather out, so I decided to go for a quick stroll along the boardwalk area.

Notice Colleen's feet. She's too much!

Beautiful! This boardwalk area is one of my favorite new places I've discovered.

I headed home to feed Colleen lunch. While I fed her, Justin cut the grass. Our lawn is kind of terrible and needs a lot of help. Mowing made some areas look better, and some worse. We will definitely need to invest some time and money down the road to make it the lush green space I envision.

The best moment of the day happened after lunch. We decided to let Colleen take the new grass for a test run.

Here's Grampy helping Colleen take a few steps. She actually walked quite a bit (as long as she could hold onto one of us with a death grip). This makes me soooo happy and excited! She's almost 14 months and I was starting to get worried I'd have to call early intervention. But lately she's been showing more interest in walking, so I'm just going to let her go at her own pace and see how she progresses.

Grampy watched Colleen so Justin and I could make a quick run to Hone Depot. That quick run turned into a $400 shopping excursion. It's very rare that Justin and I can go shopping without a toddler being a crazy maniac in the front of the shopping cart, so we really took advantage of it and bought everything we were planning to buy this summer. 

Some of our bounty. That's a compost bin on the right. Huzzah!

When we got home, Grampy & Colleen were on the verge of passing out. C's 30 minute nap wasn't enough to get her through the day, so I put her down for an afternoon nap and she slept for 2 hours! Afternoon naps have become a rare thing  lately, so we took full advantage of this one.

So while Grampy, Clementine and Colleen napped, Justin and I seeded the dirt patch in front of our driveway. I want to wait to post a photo so I can do a true 'before/after', but it looks so different! Removing the bushes has really opened up our yard. We've had many (and I mean MANY) neighbors compliment the changes we've made. Can't wait for some grass to grow in and show it off.

Colleen was still napping, so I helped Justin clear the deck so he could power wash it. Here's a little 'before' to show how gross it was:

Yuck. There are no 'after' shots because it was starting to get dark out, but it looks a million times better. 

Someone woke from her nap and was really interested in what Dada was doing.

The rest of the night has been low-key. We ate dinner, put Colleen to bed and now I'm relaxing and watching the 'Amazing Race' finale. 

We only have one more day with Grampy. I think Colleen is going to miss him.

They're best buddies. I think Colleen loves him because he puts up with her antics. He thinks she's perfect and I can only imagine that someday when she wants something and I say 'no', she'll just call Grampy and ask for it.

One more thing. I definitely think Colleen is going through a growth spurt. She has been eating and drinking A LOT! We've struggled so much the past few weeks with getting her to drink enough milk and today she drank over 25 ounces! I'm so thankful for this. It's nice to have a little break from the constant milk struggle.