Life keeps rollin' on.....goodbye October

My longest hiatus yet from the blogging world. It makes me sad. The title of my post is a hint of a big milestone reached, but I will let Hallie show and tell down below! First things first....I really would like an Easy Button for my birthday. You can find them at Staples and I need it by tomorrow morning. Thanks. If only there was a reset button on our bodies to give us a huge boost of energy to recover from a long week. We made it through our first whole week of daycare and work. Thanks to a lot of help from Grammy and Nanny, we also made it through a VERY busy weekend with our sanity intact. I'm not sure that Bailey and Spencer would agree...but we will come back to that. I think I left off last time with our Halloween prep. Well, it continued on. Running here and there to get last minutes details for our costumes. My first trip to a thrift store revealed many options to finish off Riley's costume. My major dissappointment of the week: only finding time to work out three days this week left me feeling yucky. Major freak-out moment of the week: the night Hallie knocked a bottle of Vitamin D drops into her eyes, nose, and mouth. After an hour of staring at her and trying to make sure she wasn't going blind, Riley finally put her to bed so that I would stop obsessing over it. She woke up with eye sight intact thank goodness. Don't worry, I did research and Vitamin D is harmless when taken by eye instead of mouth. Lol! Man, that was scary and Hallie cried for about 30 good minutes after we flushed her eyes out several times. Baby trauma team to the rescue! We took a break on Thursday night to have a little fun at the Jason Aldean concert. Since Thursday is Nanny's day in Mustang she was our babysitter for the evening. Luckily Riley got off early that afternoon and we met Bailey and Spencer at the concert. The three of them were not trusting my tickets I had printed from home (which I always do). I guess they are accustomed to holding a real ticket in hand but low and behold, I'm not as big of an idiot as they thought I guess. What a great show!! Thompson Square, Luke Bryan, and of course Jason really know how to entertain a crowd!

And as always, we were sitting next to the token drunk idiot flailing his arms about, stumbling around, and spilling beer on everyone near him. It was easy to tolerate for the first hour as we decided to imitate him...but after two hours Riley had to start swatting his hand away. I still think he was too drunk to realize anyone was even touching him...

Drunk guy

The next morning was a little bit rough waking up as we are pretty accustomed to our 9:30 bedtime. We are still playing catch up on sleep with no success but I'm pretty sure that's just parenthood so I better adjust quick. Up until Wednesday Hallie had been sleeping like a pro. We were still waking her up in the morning after about 9 hours of sleep....and then I think the growth spurt started. She is still sleeping great but I she was spoiling momma with those long nights. When that monitor starts lighting up, my heart just sinks and then the countdown to the alarm ringing begins. It must have been a 3 month growth spurt, but it passed quickly because she is back on track now.

Halloween is the culprit for this busy week. Busy, but VERY FUN! I think this is probably the most fun Halloween I can remember. Well, the Spice Girls costumes from '97 may give 2010 a run for it's money though. Wednesday I got the pleasure of leaving work at two o'clock and going to pick my baby up early. Tired momma and baby definitely took advantage of our relaxation time. The estrogen level in the house shot through the roof that day as my domestic side shined through. This means I pulled out the sewing machine. Mission: make a yellow brick road costume. Backing up a few months: once I heard that my coworkers wanted to do the Wizard of Oz theme for Halloween this year, I was less than enthusiastic. I really do despise that movie. I think it stems from sleepovers where we would pop that movie in and try to watch in the background of that scene where the lady is supposedly hanging herself from a tree. Enough to creep me out even though I never did see the lady. I was originally supposed to the Glenda the good witch. Pink, frilly dress? No thank you. I did try to find one with no luck so I came up with another option. Somehow, someway I ended up with a functional costume 30 minutes later. Proud of my accomplishment, Hallie and I kicked back and watched a chick flick.

Costume in the making

Finished product

We had our annual family Halloween party at work on Friday. I spent all day saying "no, I'm not a bumblebee." Maybe people thought I was a honeycomb? My coworkers really went all out on their costumes...check it out!

Follow the yellow brick road

"We're off to see the wizard...."

The whole cast and rehab crew

Dorothy in the nado

Nanny brought my little piglet up to work so she could eat as we are rationing milk these days. Hallie was not the happiest baby in the world as I assume she would have kept eating for hours but it was time for me to get back to work. I loved seeing her in the middle of the day...it made the afternoon fly by. Nanny left with a screaming Hallie (who I hear quickly fell asleep after a minute of driving) and they headed to the mall for some shopping.

Work was over and it was time for costume #2. It was somewhat difficult to transform so quickly that evening from being an innocent stack of bricks to a misbehaving Jersey Shore guidette. Riley had to problem transitioning from oil supply salesman to his character as he had been practicing all week. He watched The Hangover last week to get into character. I, on the other hand, watch Jersey Shore every week and went to get a spray tan to get into character. My days of tanorexia are long gone. Even a spray tan was not something I wanted to do. First of all, I was afraid of those nasty orange splotchy marks left behind and second I didn't want to look like a pumpkin. The fact that they make you watch a five minute video prior to tanning made me nervous enough. I have to strike specific poses or my tan won't look good??? Then I got nervous about the poses and my mind started wandering to that episode of Friends where Ross's spray tan ends badly. "I'm an 8!!!?" Never will spray tan again, but I needed one to be "Snookified." 

I got home from work Friday just as Nanny and Hallie were getting home from their shopping trip. Nanny continued to spoil us that evening by making stew for dinner and watching Hallie while I did some chores and washed the scariness off my face. We said goodbye to Nanny and told her "thank you" about a million times. Hallie and I had a bit of time alone to relax before dad got home from work. And relax Hallie did. I put her down for what I thought would be a tiny nap in her crib, but I think she thought it was bedtime so we had to wake her up after a two hour nap. Our third babysitter for the week arrived that night. Grammy came to town to babysit while we went to a Halloween party.  She entertained Hallie while we transformed into this.....

Alan from The Hangover

"You guys ready to let the dogs out?"

Snooki

It's another Snooki!

Riley warned me that Jersey Shore would be popular

Minute to Win It

One of our favorite lines from The Hangover: "Hey, there's Skittles in there!"

So I filled Riley's satchel accordingly

The Halloween party was a blast! It was hosted by Riley's coworker Brian and his wife Chandi. From the scavenger hunt around Mustang to the "Minute to Win it" game, it was a great night. I like Mustang even better when I get to meet other people who are from here...sometimes I feel like we only know our neighbors and people at church. We met a couple with their own Hallie Grace. Freaky coincidence! And best of all, Riley won Best Male Costume! His prize: a 12 pack of beer. Lol. Finally home and very ready for some sleep, just as I layed my head down on the pillow, I heard my little piglet rustling in her pen searching for some scraps to eat. I just thought it was bedtime. So we stayed up til about 2:30 eating. Ugh. The morning came way too early, but knowing that Grammy was across the house to help out made things so much better. Grammy and I spent most of the morning cleaning up a baby with an upset tummy. I guess she doesn't like stew, cupcakes, or scrambled eggs because that's what I had eaten in the previous 12 hours. Hallie's bad mood continued through a good majority of the day. But of course she had her precious moments that shined through. Later we realized it might have been a small diaper rash that was bothering her all day. My poor baby. And here is a picture of my other poor baby...I torture her every year on Halloween......

No surprise to anyone that Hallie was wearing a ridiculous outfit. It was Saturday morning and you know what that means......

G-man, Bailey and Spencer visited too. Mission: find clothes to wear for family pictures in two weeks. G-man opted out of the shopping and chose a nap and football at the house. Hey, I would have chosen that option too if given the opportunity. Riley worked on his ol' '65 all afternoon while the rest of us went shopping. This is the part where I think Bailey and Spencer realized they were going to wait awhile to get married and have kids. Like I mentioned, she was a little bit difficult yesterday.....

Grammy and I were ex-to-the-hausted by the time we got back to our house. It could have been the 5 person convoy around the mall, or it may have been our "almost running out of gas" scare. I won't go into detail, but I will say that it's not a good thing when your "miles to empty" screen only shows an asterisk instead of an actual number. I think we may have missed our dinner reservation had Spencer not casually mentioned something about getting gas. Oops! We did make it to dinner on time and found Lisa, David, Dara and her boyfriend Justin waiting on us at Musashi's! Mission: to celebrate my birthday early since it falls on a nasty Tuesday. We had a great dinner and a fun time as always when we get together.....

Homemade truffles made by my lovely mother

Party of 3

27 candles!

I love these guys!

( Hallie is really enjoying this photo)

We pulled up to the house last night and realized that we had left our porch light on all evening. That means trick-or-treaters rang our door bell a thousand times and therefore Emmi went nuts a thousand times. Riley rushed out to buy some candy and returned to only two kiddos. I guess it was too late! So who wants all of this candy now? I definitely don't need it. We started The Biggest Loser competition this past Monday at work. I started out very strong but have been bombarded with holiday candy, party food, cake, pie and bread. Not complaining, because I do love sweets, but I am definitely going to have to do a lot better this week!

I honestly have no idea how we would have made it through the week without Nanny and Grammy helping out so much....Hallie is very lucky to have some loving grandparents! Thank you X a million!

Hallie's Corner

Somewhere in the non-stopness of this past week, I turned 3 months old! And of course that meant I had to put on a pretty bow and pose for my mom. But I didn't have to smile though...

Along with being the big 3 months old comes some big expectations developmentally. Well I had to live up to these and being the rockstar that I am, I have some big news. I did something pretty awesome this morning but I'm going to keep you in suspense...just keep reading. This baby is tired. I must be on my way to being a teenager quickly because I'm already sleeping like one. My bedtime is about 9 o'clock and I mom and dad have to make me get out of my warm bed in the morning. Well, I guess warm was the wrong word to describe my bed. My room is freezing!! My little hands are like icicles by morning. Mom and dad are trying to find a good temperature to keep me warm. Mom wanted to put gloves on me but I reminded her that I love to suck my thumb before I go to bed so that won't work. I met the rest of my daycare friends this past week...Maci, Kendall, and Elijah. They like to try and entertain me during the day when I get fussy...which is quite often somedays. Miss Mindy gives mom an update when she picks me up everyday and I cross my fingers that she won't tell mom how I really act. ;)

Nanny came on Thursday morning and I talked her into visiting Miss Mindy to get my carseat base from daycare. I just had to go visit my friends. But instead of being excited, they all looked at me as if they were thinking "oh no, it's that loud baby again! She's not supposed to be here today!" Once I get my hunger under control maybe I will fit in better. I surprised Nanny when I told her I had been doing Zumba on my own during the days when she is not here. My own form of Zumba...it involves lots of kicking. Nanny and I made dinner early  for mom and dad because they had a concert to go to. I pretended like it didn't bother me, but deep down inside I missed the heck out of them that day. Friday it was baby's day out with Nanny. Nanny surprised me by taking me for lunch at my mom's work. Good thing because I was starving! I am not sure what kind of place my mom works at, but everyone was dressed in very scary outfits. It took me awhile to warm up to my mom even. I was dressed in character too...a piglet. Very fitting for my appetite.

Bob meeting the lil nugget

"You aren't my mommy!"

"Oh, that is you."

As you all probably know, I add something to my wardrobe daily. Well I added my most fabulous piece last night. I can thank my cousin Dara and my great aunt Lisa for these...

And it even doubles as a bottle insulator

So anyways, I've just been blabbing on and I know everyone is sitting on the edge of their computer chair waiting for the big news. Without further ado, here's the feature presentation (don't mind the 3 "dud" videos below the first one, they were my unsuccessful attempts to upload the video and now I can't get rid of them)....

I don't know how, but it just happened. I heard mom tell dad "I think today is the day she is going to roll." So I knew I they had big expectations. Mom and Aunt Bailey had been staring at me yesterday like watching a pot of water waiting for it to boil. I just wasn't ready yesterday. Much too tired to roll. But today was the big day. I held my big head up high and used it as momentum I guess. Mom and dad were of course in my face with the camera waiting for the first big roll. Back to tummy rolling seems so much harder so we might try that again in a few days. I think I surprised my audience this morning since I hate tummy time so much. It's a lot more fun when you can escape on your own.....bahahaha!!

Gearing up for Halloween...

Halloween is running through our veins. Hallie has been taking every opportunity to show off her Halloween duds. I'd say she made a pretty cute bumble bee. Thanks Aunt B!

Is he 3 months old too?? We're the same size?

This scarecrow looks comfy

This bumble bee buzzed herself to sleep

Riley is also taking every opportunity to look Halloweeny.....

And of course he wanted the baby to experience the biblical wig as well...

But I think she looked more like a rockstar baby on drugs. We were laughing so hard we were crying! The Fanning Halloween costumes are almost complete...just waiting on the arrival of one more peice. This stuff is getting expensive!

Sunday night we had big plans to go to the annual PT pumpkin carving party. We found out last minute that my friends Julie's son had a cough and we decided not to expose Hallie to it so Riley stayed home with her while I went to the party. I missed them so much being around all the other kiddos last night! I brought home the saddest looking pumpkin. But Riley insisted we display it on the porch. I am too embarrassed to even put a picture of it on here. Here's a glimpe into our pumpkin fun.....

Big Boy Kingston

The Milk Monster

Before I get started let me entertain everyone with our weekly "dad dressed the baby" picture. Here is this week's....

So proud of his styling effort

The decision process

Impressive, huh? Hallie doesn't seem to be enjoying her clothes so much. I still can't figure out if he really thought that outfit matched or not. I think she will have to grow into those pants. I guess we can give dad props for adding a hair accessory to the ensemble. ;) Well, in Hallie's case a "head accessory" considering she is lacking in the hair department.

Well, we've got one week down, only 924 to go. That is exactly 18 years worth of work weeks minus 12 weeks (Hallie's age). Good thing I won't be the sole source of food for Hallie girl that long because I could barely keep up with her appetite at day 3 of working momma status. Riley and Nanny tell me that worrying about it isn't going to help any so I'm trying that suggestion out. If I can keep enough milk coming for 4 more weeks, we will be good to go because we will introduce cereal then. Woohoo!! Real food for my girl!! On the other hand, you can take one look at this chunky monkey and realize that she may not need "real food."

So I told everyone about babysitter #1. Now it's time to talk about babysitter #2. Or should we call her "Nannysitter?" Thursday morning involved a lot less hussle and a lil more sleeping in. Nanny arrived early Thursday morning...good thing she is used to getting up when the rest of the world is sleeping because that must have been a long morning drive. First things came first. Riley gave her a tutorial for operating the DVD player which involves 3 remotes and takes almost more time that it's worth. I got a text midmorning from Nanny telling me about their morning activities. It sounds like Hallie's old morning routine with a little pizzazz added in. Zumba that is. Hallie watched as Nanny did her Zumba workout...and she should feel like a lucky baby as others aren't allowed to watch Nanny get her Zumba groove on. Not even Papa Bill. ;) This was followed by watching Ellen, taking a stroll around the neighborhood, and then having Bible time out on the back porch. She took two short naps and got a good report card at the end of the day. Nanny told me to run errands if needed so I made a few stops on the way home. This involved talking myself out of coming home with a $60 pumpkin. My reasons for deciding NO on this massive pumpkin included a) Riley's reaction and b) it probably wouldn't have fit in my car. Aunt Katie stopped by for a visit to see her favorite girl. Nanny cooked dinner for all of us....which is something that will be welcomed come Thursday nights when Riley and I will probably be dead on our feet.

Riley and I are thinking that we can thank the Zumba workout for Hallie's 10 hours of sleep on Thursday night. HALLELUJAH!!!!! Riley and I woke up worried when our alarms were sounding before the baby had sounded. This was hands down the best night of sleep we have received in three months. Well, probably can add on a couple months of pregnancy to that total as I was not sleeping much then either thanks to excessive bathroom trips and nightmares. We had to wake Hallie up. My how the tables have turned. And she followed it up with another 10 hour sleeping sesh Friday night. It must be the Zumba..it seems to be the only common denominator. Thanks Nanny! Whatever you are doing is working! I caught a picture of the two ladies before Nanny left for Stillwater on Friday...

With all of the recent sleep happening, I didn't even mind waking up with her at 6 on a Saturday morning. We found it to be a great time to help purge some of the 100 shows I needed to catch up on from this week. I have a confession: I miss TV. A lot.  Each favorite show is like opening a little present all wrapped pretty and waiting for you to enjoy. So we enjoyed quite a few "presents" before Riley woke up. Lazy is the best way to describe Saturday. Thanks rain for raining on our plans.

To all of you working momma's out there....I have one question.....how do you do it? Lol! Maintain everything, that is. The first week went surprisingly well as far as keeping up with normal chores and activities. I actually found time to work out everyday this week besides Thursday. Hallie has ditched the car seat carrier and now has a great view for our strolls.

I'm ridin' like a big girl...the carrier was soooo last month."

I was also worried about the dogs transitioning back into "not going to the bathroom all day" mode. I think they were becoming majorly spoiled by me being home everyday, all day. As long as I take Emmi for a walk every night, she refrains from most of her bad behaviors....

Frozen puggle...."maybe if I don't move, mom won't notice I stole the baby's monkey....

Hallie still seems to be transitioning to the new changes, but it responding quite well. She has become pretty independent over the past couple days.....

"Duh Dad. I know how to use the remote. I saw you teaching Nanny."

Yesterday was quite a sad day for football fans in Oklahoma. Riley decided against going to homecoming in Stillwater even though I tried to convince him to go and have fun. He said he would rather not drive and sit at home with his girls. Well, I can't argue with that. Riley and I actually watched the entire game together. I think the last time that happened we were actually at the OSU when we first started dating and he could convince me to go with him to games on the weekends when I went to see him at college. The things we do for love. ;) I think those days are over, as Riley has stated that he will NEVER, EVER step foot on the OU campus for a game with me. He lucked out on one occasion when we had tickets to a game a few years ago and he had a last minute military obligation and I took my dad instead. But yesterday we sat down and watched the game together....and at halftime, I think he was ready for me to find a hobby. I don't know if it was my constant talking or me singing a very modified version of "Baby Got Back" to Hallie to make her laugh. It's ok, Ross and Rachel on Friends did it. And it works. She was lovin' it!

Hallie and I left dad at home and headed to Auntie Laura's house in Edmond for the big game. For once this season, I was actually starting to get my football mojo back and felt some fire in me. Well, it didn't last long as entertaining a baby during a game means I saw about 2 plays per drive. Girl's night was a success even if my formerly #1 team didn't perform. Girl's night for us = pizza and football. That's what real Oklahoma girls do. Hallie was a trooper through the whole game despite us trying to put her to sleep for a couple hours. She must be a true fan because she watched til the end and showed some passion....

"C'mon Bobby, get your boys in line!"

"They get pizza and all I get is milk?? What's up with that?"

"Julia, I'm going to scream if we sit down again so you might as well just hold me like this all night"

Her face looks mad here, but trust me, she was anything but mad while talking to Sara

"Mom, I'm watchin' the game, lay off the pictures!"

Hallie with Auntie Laura

"It's sooo past my bedtime Melissa"