Little Girl Space

Couldn't give an update on P's new room without showing you what we have been up to in A's space too.  There has pretty much been a PBK explosion in our house and I hope A likes it.

Little girls room before we decided to jazz it up.  No worries, the cabinets were on and there was a shower curtain, I just forgot to take a picture before the mess started.

And the after...

We painted the cabinets, added molding to the mirror, put up a new light fixture, painted the walls and of course new towels for the girls.  It's funny how when you take a photo and look back at it you instantly want to change things.  So after looking at these I went in and edited a few things.

Notice the octopus - she loves it!  When she went in to the potty the first time it was on the floor she came out yelling because she was so excited.

On to the big girl room...the only thing missing is a pesky little sister to steal toys and a new pictures from GG.

Pulling everything out that had just been put away.

Yep, another octopus

This was in A's nursery and has now moved to the new room.  A's GG made it for her and it is fantastic.

No closet in this room, so we are using an armoire.  No, those aren't all of her hair bows, just the ones we could easily find.  Next to the armoire is A's travel stick with a lot of the vacations she has been on.

My favorite part of the room - a hibiscus vine.  I saw something similar in a PBK catalog so we tortured Ya-Ya again and had her balancing on the bed trying to recreate it.

nursery update

We didn't go crazy and completely change the nursery for Penelope, but we did make a few updates.  New curtains, sheets, bed skirt, stenciling on the walls, flower chandelier and a few other things here and there.  The only thing missing is a new beautiful picture by GG.

My poor mom thought that she was coming over for a quick hour job until she realized I was looking for the wall paper look.

Should have taken a pic of the new sheets,  they are super cute flower sheets that match the rug.

The new pic by GG is going to go right above the chair.

I was in a hurry when I took these, so you can't see that the curtains actually have polka dots.

The pink caterpillar from A stayed.

The Work Situation

I've been promising to update everyone on my work situation, but I manage to keep not doing it, so here you go.
A year ago the bank I worked at for 5 years was acquired by TD Bank.  Not too much changed, the acquisition was slow moving and then in the new year it started to pick up the pace.  A few months later I was informed that my position was no longer needed in this location and I had a few options.  I could go to the retail side (no way), consider moving north to Jersey, NY, PA, etc (no way) or I could take a severance package (yep).  I had somewhere around a 75 day working notice and my last day would be June 17th. 
First reactions were anger and eagerness to find a new job.  Considering the pregnancy this didn't make a whole lot of sense, but I was determined.  Within a few weeks I had multiple interviews, calls and one offer - obviously none of them were quite right or I wouldn't be writing this.  After a lot of persuading from Grant I stopped the active job search and came to terms with the fact that this was going to be my one chance to stay home with the girls.  I would have my severance, insurance and unemployment for a few months and it would be a nice excuse to try out this whole stay at home mom business that many of my friends were now doing. 
Of course as soon as I get my thoughts into place about staying home, I received a call from a medical supply distributor for an interview.  OK, sure - why not?  Well 4 interviews later and I was told that I was top 3 of the candidates and that they would be choosing 2 to go to New York for a final interview with corporate.  How kind of the male interviewing me not to notice that under my swing jacket was a 8 month prego belly and that I would need to go out on maternity leave at the same time he was looking to retire.  Oddly enough I wasn't chosen for the New York interview, ha.
So I start my count down, I'm not at one week of work left and than a month and a half of Adelaide and Mommy time until Penelope got here.  Phone rings again - this time it isn't for an interview, it is a call asking me to stay on for another month at TD Bank.  So now, I am really confused on what to do.  At this point I have paid zero attention to another that would occur after June 17th, my to do list is a mile long because I was waiting until I got out of work.  Benefits are that I would get two more pay checks and my insurance would last another month.  The bad was that I had already told daycare that A would be leaving, I was frustrated with the work I was going to be doing and quite frankly I was ready for my Adelaide time.
What did I do - I have had a hard time posting on the blog because I've been working!  Yes, I decided it made sense to stay on a little longer and since then I've been spending my last paychecks on prizes for myself - new Pb rugs for the house, buying all of the last minute baby gear, new clothes for A and of course tucking some aside for the big trip to Greece next year (more on that later). 
That is the work update and I can officially say I have 3 weeks of work left and then who knows how long I will have off.  At the earliest I would like to go back to work late this year or early next year.  I also have some friends who are consultants and are interested in me doing some work on the side for them, but we will see how the schedule looks once I have two little girls in the house. 

Atlanta

Why would you take off early on a Friday and head to Atlanta for a quick weekend?  Well a surprise party and big fish of course!  We originally planned on just leaving really early on Saturday morning and making this a quick trip, but the more we thought about putting A in the car for 5.5 hours each way it made more sense to actually enjoy our time in Atlanta and not be rushed.  So we jumped in the car on Friday night and off to the Marriott Marquis we went. 

Fortunately the wild child from Friday night when we first got to the hotel slept in on Saturday morning.  At one point Grant and I debated waking her up because she never sleeps that late.  No worries - sanity kicked in and we just sat there in silence and waited.  Not too long afterwards every one was up, dressed and A was strapped into her stroller for a quick stop at Starbucks for breakfast and then on a stroll to the GA aquarium. 

If you haven't been to the aquarium yet, I highly suggest it.  We had A all excited to see the "big fish" and when we first got there she was over the moon with excitement.  Then it happened - TERROR!!!  I don't know what triggered it, but the poor child was absolutely terrified of everything that we saw.  So no, there are no cute pics of her trying to touch a fish, in fact there are practically no solo pics of here because she jumped around in absolute terror and would cry.  The good thing is I don't see a large Sea World bill in our future.

The best part of the trip for her was sitting in Daddy's lap watching the dolphins jump.  Eventually we had to move on because the dolphins had a show to do. 

Do you see that scared face in there behind the penguins?

No way was my belly crawling in there, that was Daddy's job.

An example of her not getting anywhere near the fish or the glass, she was literally crawling up me to get away from all of the windows.

The one family photo from the trip.

Notice that they are holding hands - this is as far away as she got from one of us if there were fish in sight.

Just don't drop me in the stingray pool Mom, I will never forget it!

Now on to the real reason for our trip to Atlanta - Matt Blacky's 30th birthday party.  We had very little time between the aquarium and the party which of course meant that we were late.  The good thing was that no, we did not ruin the surprise because we weren't the only ones who couldn't tell time. 
Paige (Blacky's g/f) did such a good job of pulling everything together and managing to get Blacky where he was supposed to be without ruining the surprise.  After Blacky got there you could tell that it didn't all sink in instantly what was going on because as he made his way around the table saying hi to everyone he just kept saying, "dude, what are you doing here"?  I'm going to take it as a good comment.

Check out the surprise on his face.

Should have gotten a better picture, but these cupcakes came from Knoxville and they were fantastic!

A was getting Matt ready for his new arrival later this year.  He wasn't too shocked when she threw up later either - apparently too much cupcake was consumed that day.

Of course not everyone on the invite list could make it, but we had people from AL, FL, GA and TN there.

A loves her Uncle Blacky

No, she wasn't trying to get closer to me it was all about the pink shirt.

Our view of ATL from our hotel room.

Egg hunt canceled due to sprinkle

We don't always have a typical Easter with egg hunts and big church dresses.  Each year we seem to end  up doing something a little different and this year was no exception.  So after we had A find her basket which was outside of the front door and I tried to get out of my prego funk we jumped into the car and off to Winter Park we went.

Canny (candy) Mommy - look!

Yay-I'm going to Auntie K and Uncle Andy's house

lots of time spent in Ya-Ya's new car this weekend.

After the 2.5 hour drive we finally arrived and why was everyone acting so odd?  We start getting out of the car and here comes Kari and Jeff and as I'm trying to get out of the car and grab all of our stuff.  Including the swim bag, snack bag, diaper bag, toy bag and the list goes on and on and on.  As I'm trying to get everything out everyone keeps rushing me.  All of sudden I am told just to go inside and we will get everything else.  I assumed that everyone was being nice because I was feeling sick that weekend.  It all got a little more confusing when there was a sign on the door and I know they don't usually have something like that up...

I read the sign, but still wasn't getting it until I walked into the living room and it was all becoming clearer: balloons, people, cupcakes, food, and presents.  Oh wow - this is for us!  You see the shock was enormous because 1. I never expected it and 2. Kari doesn't do this kind of thing for me.  You are talking about a person who can not keep a secret!  Between Grant and Kari I know way too much and way too much.

I don't care about those silly baby clothes-where is my canny?

Little did I know that my sister had been facebook stalking my friends and I, because she sent out messages to who knows how many people letting them know about the sprinkle and people took time to send gifts to the house.  I am so lucky to have such caring friends.

So many presents we had to take shifts.

A, my card shark-Jeff owed her a quarter afterwards.

Daddy Grant's turn to open.

Check it out, Auntie K and Uncle Andy got me new blocks for Easter.

Yes, that is Kari in a kitchen-had to take a photo

yummy

after clean up

horrible pic of me, but a funny story - A was so tired from not napping that when we went to the potty she asked to sit in my lap and immediately fell asleep.  SO there I sat stuck on the floor and trying to whisper yell for help so that I didn't wake the beast.  That is a shower curtain behind me.

Had a nap, now lets play balloons.

Our growing family.

Thank you Auntie K and Uncle Andy

On a last note - the one problem with a surprise party is that no one tells you to do your hair or wear make-up.  Here I was ready to put my bathing suit on (scary, I know) not have my photo taken at a surprise party.