Time to start shopping for a new diaper bag!

... Because I officially need a diaper bag for two children! :)

Natalie Elizabeth arrived at 6:26pm on Friday November 18th, and we are both doing great! Although I don't know that it will be her "permanent" nickname, an appropriate name for her right now is Peanut - because she was a tiny thing (relatively, compared to her 8lb, 6oz & 21 inch older sister) at 6lbs, 11oz & 19 inches!

We're hoping to be home later today. I opted to stay the extra day to not have to rush through the tons of appointments that you have to do before you can leave all in one day - but of course the downside to that is that I was up early today since I'm feeling good, am now sitting here in full makeup & hair done, and will spend the rest of my day just sitting around waiting for people to pop in... wondering when we will be able to leave!

(Tip that I learned this morning: You know you're in good enough health to leave the hospital, when you take your hair straightener into the bathroom to plug it in... only to realize, duh. There are no plug-ins in this bathroom because you're in a hospital - and if you're feeling well enough to primp, it's probably time to go home.)

For the mommy blogging crowd out there (but keeping it G-rated for those more interested in beauty & handbags than mommyhood, ha ha!) - delivery went exceptionally well, in my opinion. Instead of having to be induced as planned for Friday morning at 9am, I ended up starting to have contractions on Thursday night and started going into labor on my own! (Which after my previous induction, is more exciting than it sounds.) I, of course, am a wuss and not a huge fan of being in pain - so I opted for the epidural mid-day on Thursday and by dinner time she was ready to arrive! She came really quickly after I was ready to push and either due to her small size/sheer luck/or just knowing what I was doing this time around - I was surprised at how great I felt afterwards. Even with minimal sleep for two days, I felt energized and way more perky than last time around!

So now the real adventure begins... mommyhood times two. Reality will set in once I get home, Cupcake will realize that cute little "squawk-y cat" that she visited yesterday isn't going anywhere... and that will be our new norm. Toys will be nabbed, fights will ensue, temper tantrums will be thrown - but all in all, I'm thinking it could be fun. I will be sure to keep you posted. ;)

Auntie Deb showing Cupcake her new sister

Ugh... moving!

So here's what is going on in my life right now... moving!!

And let me tell you, when you have a 15 month old, 2 cats, and you're pregnant - it's not for sissies.

The hubby got a new job in Illinois, so we are making the move from Michigan next week. It's taken about a month for things to fall into place for the move, but it seems like now that things have gotten started... they are going in hyper speed!

Our house here in Michigan was listed on the market and received an offer that we accepted less than a week later, our closing date on the sale of our house is in less than a month. I"m thankful that it happened that quickly, because driving two cats and a toddler in the car to be out of the house for showings was starting to get to me - and that was with only a few days of having to do it! After having an offer that we placed on a house to buy in Illinois fall through after the property we were looking to buy failed the radon test, we had to scramble to find some place to live - especially considering our house here in Michigan had "sold" at that point, and we no longer had time to wait around to find something! As luck would have it, we found a fabulous house to rent (since we no longer had the time to close on a property) and it had the same specifications as houses we were looking to buy - 4 bedroom, 2+ bath, & 3 car garage (a MUST for hubby now, apparently...), BUT the kicker is... it is a house that the builders built as a model/office show house and never filled. So we are going to be living in a BRAND NEW house for the first time! Kind of a stroke of luck there, so we'll see how we like it!

So other than just trying to keep up with whether we are going to have some place to live or are not going to have some place to live on that particular day... my main focus lately has been getting holiday gear for the GIRLS (that's right, girls!! I had to order doubles of bows for the first time ever on this last order, very surreal!!) and stocking up on holiday bows. I'll be sure to share pictures of all of the adorable holiday bows I found and also pictures of their new rooms after we move.

I'm trying to keep my shopping to a minium at this point, since everything I buy will have to be moved by the movers or I stand a chance of missing in the mail at this point if I have to order it... so I've attempted to put a few week hold on ordering anything that has to be shipped. That shouldn't be too hard... right? RIGHT?!?!? ;)

Still no nick name for the new baby, but I have a feeling that will come along after she arrives... for now it's just Cupcake and the new baby. Speaking of those two though, I have to share the adorable wall letters that I ordered from Cute Kid Creations - which as you know is one of my favorite stores to get room decor for kids! She did a fabulous job on them, and I can't wait to put these up in the girls' new rooms!

Cupcake's wall letters, cupcake themed - of course...

And the new baby's wall letters - her room is being done in jungle animal theme...

I'll be sure to update about our move as I can and I'm really hoping this craziness lessens at some point. I feel like I haven't even been able to focus on being pregnant AT ALL this time around! This pregnancy has been so different from my pregnancy with Cupcake!

Britax B-Ready Double Stroller Review

The first item we purchased with "two kids" in mind has been the Britax B-Ready Stroller, which can be used as a single or double stroller and has multiple configurations that it works in. Cupcake's convertible car seat happens to be a Britax, and it was our first product that we had tried from the brand. Once we purchased her Britax Marathon 70 and LOVED it (for the safety, as well as aesthetic reasons), we knew that all new car seats that we purchased from here on out would be the Britax car seats.

With that in mind, once we found out we were expecting again - we realized not only were we going to have to find a double stroller to accomodate an infant and a toddler - but we were going to have to find a stroller that accommodated a Britax infant car seat, if we didn't end up using the Graco infant car seat that we already owned.

So we did actually look into a number of brands, and did comparisons - and also considered that we might not be able to use a Britax infant car seat when we first started out. After looking at them all throughly online and a few in-store... the Chicco Together Tandem stroller (I have the Chicco Cortina and LOVE it, btw), Baby Jogger City Select, even the Sit 'n' Stand strollers and some Graco double stroller models that Babies'R'Us had on the floor... I knew it was going to be the Britax B-Ready. I was pleasantly surprised when my husband also agreed!

He suggested we go over to Buy Buy Baby to see one in person, and go ahead and pick it up while the "get a free item" sale was going on, if we liked it. Once we got to the store and tried it out, it was a YES. The demo model at the store had the second toddler seat attachment, and Cupcake sat in it no problem. She was happy to peak at the world from the sides of the seat - and was particularly entertained by the zipper on the back of the top toddler seat.

Since Britax was doing a giveaway of an infant carseat, second toddler seat, or bassinet attachments with the purchase of the B-Ready - we had to decide what our free item was going to be. We had a Graco carseat that we used with Cupcake and could have used it again... but we decided to go ahead and get the infant car seat as our free item, and we will purchase the second toddler seat (to fit on the lower level) at a later time.

So this is what it looks like!

We got it in red, because it was one of the few stock colors that Buy Buy Baby had in stock. One of the things that we really loved, was that you have the option of putting the infant seat on the lower level or upper level. We purchased the infant lower level car seat adapter so that the infant seat could be used with the regular toddler seat in the upper level position.

Regular toddler B-Ready seat attached, with infant car seat adapter on lower level. Infant rear facing.

Regular toddler B-Ready seat attached, with infant car seat adapter on lower level. Infant forward facing.

Every time you click one of the pieces into the configuration you want the stroller in, it makes a "click" noise to let you know it's locked and is easy enough that I would be comfortable changing the configurations myself - if I was on the go out on my own during the day.

Here is a list of some of the configurations you can use on Britax's website:

http://www.britaxusa.com/strollers/b-ready-configurations

I've been using the B-Ready as a single stroller for the past week since we made our purchase, and I can honestly say that I love it! It's easy to maneuver, and easy to get in and out of the back of my car. (One of the biggest considerations for a double stroller for us, was making sure it would fit in the back of a Honda CR-V!) It's footprint isn't much larger than a regular single stroller (even when being used as a double stroller), and I really like that. In fact it became one of the biggest selling points about the B-Ready as to why I liked it so much.

We don't have second toddler seat yet, since it will be awhile before we need it... but I will be sure to update once we purchase the second toddler seat on how I like using the different configurations and what it seems like our most used ones are.

All in all, I think is was a solid purchase and definitely the best stroller purchase for us! We needed a double stroller that didn't have a huge footprint, wasn't so heavy that a pregnant lady (or otherwise wimpy when lifting lady) couldn't get it out of the car, and was easily maneuverable in a variety of locations (i.e. the grocery store, mall, Target, theme parks, etc.)... and we found that in the B-Ready. I can't wait to try it out with two little munchkins!

(This review was done independently and the reviewer did not receive any compensation from companies mentioned to do the review.)

Nameity Name Names...

Hmmm... how to approach this subject.

Names are kind of a touchy subject in our family. They didn't used to be, but Cupcake's current "legal name" is not actually the name she started out with. We changed it two weeks after she was born. (And no, we didn't actually name her Cupcake, ha ha!) I never thought when I was pregnant the first time around that something like that would ever happen, but it did and it's just become one of those odd facts about us.

I read a few things on the Internet here and there while I was pregnant, about people changing their child's name a few weeks, a month, a few months after their child was born... but I didn't think that would ever happen to US? I mean surely you would just look at this little being and instantly know what they were supposed to be called, right?? Wrong. Most definitely wrong.

With Cupcake, even though we had names we had tossed around the entire time - I decided that we would just "wait until we saw her" to name her, which I now think was probably the absolute wrong thing to do. We should have just announced a name while I was pregnant, stuck with the name, and if we would have decided to change the name once we saw her, so be it. Then we would have been "those quirky people that called their baby sometime different the entire time she was in the womb"... not "those awkward people that had to order a second set of birth announcements and occasionally still have to correct people on what their daughter's name is almost one year later".

Hmmm... potatoe, pa-tat-toe. I suppose. The unfortunate part is that I really don't think we ever captured the spark that is my daughter with EITHER of the names that we chose for her - but I've decided to let sleeping fishes lie... or whatever that phrase is.

So this time around, we have a plan. Well, I have a plan. We have names leftover from the last pregnancy, and that is that. These are what this new baby will be called, end of story. No more deliberation needed. (Unless of course we change our minds after we see him or her, LOL...)

Little Bean baby #2  will be either a Natalie Elizabeth or Nathaniel Richard (Nate), and hopefully this time around we can avoid a lot of extra, unnecessary paper work and not second guess ourselves. We shall see... and regardless, a rose by any other name is supposed to smell just as sweet, right?