So Close

So Close...to someone's 1st Birthday this Saturday- CRAZY! 

Quick weekend update: 

It obviously flew by- we had a bunch of errands to run for G's birthday party this weekend and made a couple trips to the pool. Last week, G received his first birthday gift from his grandma Pacelli! 

We had to laugh when he dunked his head in the water below!

 I bought Dan golf clubs for our anniversary - which meant that it was just G and I Saturday morning. Love. Just us, hanging out together. 

This child will find anything to stand on. yes. That is my laptop.

The kid cracks me up. 

You may have noticed that I stopped by blog challenge. The goal was to blog everyday for the month of july - but I realized that I was over-doing it a little with both a blog AND book challenge. I decided to pick one, and the book challenge won. Blogging is a "fun" activity/baby book for G. And it's not something that really needs to be done everyday. On the other hand, reading is something I should do everyday. 

That being said..YES, I finished my book challenge. In one of my previous posts, I said that I was going to give myself another goal. This challenge will get me through to the end of the year. 20 books by the end of December. For this challenge, I will blog roughly once a month to tell you my status and how I'm doing. 

Not sure If I'm going to blog before the party - I'll be sure to post tons of pictures afterwards! 

Oh, Ernie

While playing with Grayson tonight, he happened to pick up his Ernie. While playing with Ernie (which is really just sitting him on his train track and wondering why he doesn't move like the trains...) I thought it would be fun to take a look back at G and Ernie, when they first met..:)

Anniversaries and Baseball games

Since it WAS our 5 year Anniversary, Dan and I thought it would be good to do something away from the baby. Luckily, we were smart enough to plan something close. As the time drew near, it was very obvious we never would have felt comfortable leaving Grayson more then a night. 

We decided to stay in a nice hotel in downtown Cincinnati.  It was truly the perfect one night get-away. If anything went wrong, we were about 40 mins from home. We had a delicious dinner at the Palace restaurant, and made sure to make great use of all the hotel amenities. 

So we didn't ask anyone to take a picture of us - it just wasn't the place to ask. But we obviously HAD to take a pic of us at 5 years!

Ok, a little about my dresss. I really really liked it. I actually have a wedding to go to in September and thought that it might be a great dress to wear (except looking at the pictures, it's a little heavy on the white) ANYWAY...It was a tad tight. TAD. Yea, something that's a tad tight before dinner, happens to be REALLY tight during and after dinner. Ha. I thought I was really full after dinner and took the dress off and got a second wind. 

I will not be wearing the dress to the wedding. How would I dance in that thing?!

Grayson did pretty well sleeping over Grandma and Pepere's. He definitely knows where his bed is, and gives a hard time when he's not home, but Pepere hung out with G in the bedroom until he went to sleep, and I'm sure that made Grayson feel much more comfortable. 

Dan and I joked that Gray wouldn't want to come home after all the fun he was probably having at Grandma and Pepere's! Now that we've gotten our "1st Night Away", out of the way, I think we'll be a little more comfortable leaving Grayson for another weekend. Nothing huge. baby steps people. 

Dan received free tickets to a the Reds/Cardinals game Sunday afternoon. Since we'd been wanting to take G to a game, it was the perfect opportunity to test it out. He lasted 3 innings. hehe. 

It was 95 out, and we happened to have 7th row tickets. So we were directly under the sun. Poor grayson was sooo hot. Luckily, there were a ton of open seats in the top deck that were shaded. Off we went to the top deck where he was much happier. Albeit a little cranky because he hadn't really napped before the game had started. We would've been surprised if he lasted much longer then 3 innings. Grayson doesn't sit still very well..he wants to walk/jump/play. 

Cape Day!

It was a great weekend, and I can't believe that I'm now looking towards our next big weekend - G's 1st Birthday. It definitely has come too quick!

Oh, and I finished my 4th book. I'm so happy that I'll be able to complete this challenge. I'm going to keep it up, and will post a new book challenge when I've finished reading the 5th book (which will hopefully be this week) 

5 Years

Happy 5 years to me and my guy. 

When I think about it, 5 years sounds SO long to me. I guess since we're still pretty young, it's always going to sound kind of odd when we tell people how long we've been married. At the same time, getting married young afforded us the opportunity to really enjoy our 20's - 5 years that allowed us to:

Party Recklessly with good friends :)

Enjoy numerous vacations just the two of us AND with friends, including trips to:

Hawaii, South Carolina, Gatlinburg, Chicago, San Francisco, Florida, Louisville, and Vermont

Met some personal goals that included:
Running a Marathon (Dan)
Visiting Paris (me)

And Finally embarking on the greatest adventure of our lives to date:

Bringing our little boy into this world

and becoming a family

Yep - Happiest.Girl.Ever.

Hat head

He can certainly rock a hat 

6 days old

about 8 weeks

just under 3 months

3.5 months

about 6 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

9 months

Too bad he won't keep a hat on his head anymore...he looks so cute in them!

Wordless Wednesday

STRONG Baby

I completely forgot that I used to do "STRONG Baby" with Grayson.

It feels like soooo long ago that I was playing with him like this. It's just so crazy. 

Here he is, my strong baby - at 3 months old

P.S - I cracked up at the end of the video..how quickly we forget things...lol

105

It was 105 today. 105

There was a heat warning and it literally felt like you couldn't breath, the humidity was so thick. 

I got home from work, took 5 minutes to eat, and then quickly dressed both Gray and I in our swim suits and spent an hour and half at the pool. It.was.glorious. 

Randomness:

Grayson is transitioning to one nap a day. Sometimes he takes one, sometimes two...it just depends. He's fallen asleep ON US a couple times the past week, and even fell asleep on the living room floor today. Ha. It's so funny. 

I was having a not so cool friday, and went to pick G up from daycare - when I got him home, he was still sleeping in my arms as I took him out of his car seat. I couldn't believe it, that never happens anymore. So, I did what any mom would do. I layed on the couch with him until he woke up. I will never pass up an opportunity for that cuddle time. It completely made my day.

I finished my third book this weekend. On to book 4!

Oh, and a quick favorite pic.

G at 3.5 months

Good Days

Ahh, what a weekend!

It was SO beautiful these past couple of days. We got to enjoy the pool on several occasions and it was well worth it. I'm so happy we built in a community that has a pool literally a couple hundred feet from the house. It makes for quick easy trips, like the one friday night, where we tossed our suits on and jumped in for 15 minutes. A quick in and out and we were completely refreshed.

Grayson is a little hesitant of the water, but thoroughly enjoys "jumping" in. If you sit him on the side of the pool and countdown from 3, on 3 - he jumps into your arms!

We quickly enjoyed our community pool friday afternoon - but on Saturday and Sunday, we met up with Grandma at her pool (which is 1 mile down the rd from us). Her community pool has a larger kiddie pool, so we checked that out for a bit, and then moved to the larger pool since that's where we want G to become more comfortable. 

Saturday evening we met up with our friends for a cookout. G played with his bestie, Z (Zach). Both G and Z are in the process of learning each other's names.."G"...and "Z"...hehe. I think Z has said G a couple times:)

I'm so bummed the weekend's already over. It definitely flies by so much quicker with a little one. This evening we got to eat dinner together on the patio, something we are going to try to do more often....if I can get home in time. That's another post all in itself!

So here are the pics from the weekend!

G and Grandma

I think I was trying to point for him to look at the camera, which he is OBVIOUSLY not doing. 

it's so hard playing in the pool

Slam Dunk!

Ha. There was a kitty on the other side of the fence both boys wanted to "catch"

Umm...so everyone's kid rides in a carriage like this, no?

He refuses to sit nice in any kind of carriage..it's ridiculous.

Wahhhhhh!

A couple of our favorite cry/screaming pictures...he sure does have a big mouth!

Love it. 

Doll Baby

These were the pictures that sparked the Blog challenge. Forgotten photos...

I was randomly searching through newborn pictures of Grayson when I stumbled upon a folder of ones I never remember seeing. Probably because he was 5 days old here and I was a little busy:) 

He was definitely a Doll Baby (a term I actually never heard of until G was born! and then I heard it all the time) 

(click on the pics to make larger..it's worth it)

Newborn Photo's

At 6 days old, we had G's Newborn pictures taken - He screamed the whole time, and I was convinced that we weren't going to get any good pictures. Of course I was wrong. 

I remember crying just watching them being taken. It was so beautiful to watch him all balled up. MY baby. MY precious little boy. I was so in love. Still am. 

He still keeps his mouth open when he's sleeps..matter of fact, he keeps his mouth open a lot. Just like his Momma. 

First Moments

These pictures are actually snapshots of a video that we took after Grayson was born. (roughly 1 hr after) I would've uploaded the video, but some things are meant to be private:)


I love watching this video- It's so funny to see how cautious I (or we) were holding our brand new baby, and I love that we were able to capture him in his earliest moments. 

I can hardly remember him being that "little". I say "little" because looking at the pictures of me holding him, he doesn't look that little at all. He actually looks kind of big - Not that he was a small baby or anything, but sheesh, he took up half my body and he was a newborn! I never noticed that..

Grayson Ender Bouchard- 8lbs 1oz, 21 inches

Momma Love

Preg Re-Cap

I decided to start with a re-cap of my pregnancy. My list of loves and hates during those 9 months. 

Here goes!

Here were some of my worst moments: 

1. I cried- All.the.time - I don't think I've ever been so annoyed with myself. The crying was constant and over really really REALLY stupid things. 

2. I over- thought everything. If someone said something to me, I would immediately think about the negative aspect of the statement...even if there was no negative, I for sure made one. 

For example: "Nicole, you look so cute today" 

What I hear in my head: "Nicole, you finally put yourself together, when usually you look like a slob". 

Not kidding, those thoughts went through my head. I laugh as I type this out because it's SO ridiculous

3. I always thought there "was something wrong" with the baby. 

• The doctors stopped telling me Grayson's heart rate because I would become pale when it was 5 beats different then the last visit. They began to just say "It's perfect"...
• I was told to stop reading things on the internet because I was causing my own fears
•  I actually asked the doctor if she thought a full term baby really was "in there". Poor Dan. I kept asking the doctor "Are you SURE he's growing alright?" 

Little did I know there was an 8lb kid inside me.

4. I was a little harsh. I can joke now about it, but I was really testy.

5. I didn't sleep. At all. And most people would say "You think you don't sleep now, wait until the baby's here" Yep, I still got more sleep with a newborn. 

6. Cankles. Oh, the cankles

7. Grayson would stretch his little body inside me, and I remember laughing because it was  funny, but sooo uncomfortable. Till this day, I don't know how I managed to not get a stretch mark.

8. The constant comments/advice from anyone who wanted to tell you their opinion. 

It sounds like I hated my pregnancy, and to be honest, I really didn't care for it. I never felt "myself" physically or emotionally - and there's nothing worse to me then not being able to physically do something I want to do. But it wasn't ALL dislike....

The wonderful moments:

1. The first time we heard G's heartbeat - I was only 6 weeks pregnant, and because I wasn't getting regular periods, they did an internal ultrasound and we not only got to see the heartbeat, but HEAR it. 

2. 17 week Gender Ultra-Sound. I will never forget going to this appt, and finding out that we were having a little boy. We knew it was a boy from the second the tech popped his little body up onto the screen, and when she said "you're having a little boy", I burst into tears..because he was already our perfect little boy. 

3. Feeling those first kicks - and then all the rolls and flips after that

4. G responding to Dan reading to him in the womb. We started this very early on - about 12 wks pregnant because it gave us something to do as a family before G was born. And Grayson absolutely recognized Dan's voice just minutes after he was born. It was beautiful. 

5. My water breaking and going into labor

I love how when I see other pregnant women, I kind of wish I were pregnant again too. It's like I forgot all the sleepless nights I had. I'm curious if the second pregnancy will be different. Maybe I'll be so busy with G that I won't feel the time DRAG on. There was such a feeling of anticipation, that I literally counted down the days until he was born. I was SO READY to be a mom - we had waited 4 years to start our family, so there was nothing else for us to do but wait. 

At this point we're not in a rush to start trying again, we want to enjoy G for a bit more before adding another one to the mix. 

A quick re-cap in pictures:

23 weeks

36 weeks

38 weeks 5 days...2 days before I gave birth, and my favorite pregnancy pic.

So there it is. My pregnancy in one post.