Welcome to the Family

It's taken about a month but our cats are finally ready to say,

 "Welcome to the family, Olive!!!"  

Making Plans

The diaper changing pad is Olive's happy place.  Could it be because she has the perfect angle on her baby calendar and is already making some big plans?  A girl after her mother's own heart??  That's what I tell myself anyway.  

#movingishard

My makeshift workstation has been invaded.  We are working at a snails pace this afternoon.  Good thing I am a night owl.  Oh and it's 103 degrees outside... 

What's Going on Right Now

Things are WILD at my house right now...

I have a 4 week old baby.  We are sleeping but are happily exhausted.  We are getting used to this new concept of being on call 24/7 as new parents.  We have a nine pounder at our house now!  

I'm visiting all of my doctor's one last time 

so my days are filled with appointments & errands.

I'm packing up my classroom with the help of friends.

I'm living in a jungle of boxes at home 

since our big, cross-country move is 6 days away.

My OCD self is not a fan of living in chaos so I'm beyond excited to get moved and settled into our new place.

My cats think we've remodeled and turned the place into a kitty jungle gym.  Poor Oliver accidentally got shut in a cabinet yesterday... we heard a banging sound and found him trying to open the cabinet door under the kitchen sink... whoops!  Being a nosey cat has its downfalls.

I'm making lists and my head is swirling with all the things we have left to do.

My hubby is working his tail off to try and wrap up things at school so he'll be ready to leave and work on his dissertation from Arkansas.

I'm spending every waking moment like this...

or packing like crazy while the little darling naps.

 No complaints from me, really, because I am loving these cuddly times with Olive.

We are remembering to eat most of the time and our meals are oh so random since we are avoiding buying groceries and trying to clean out the pantry.

Luckily, my mother in law flew into town on Monday and has come to save the dayyyyyy!  She's been a packing fool for days now and is enforcing my no heavy lifting ban since I just had a baby.  I have a tendency to overdo things so it's probably good that she's here to do that for me.  My dad gets in town on Sunday night, moving truck gets picked up Monday morning, classroom gets loaded shortly after, movers arrive at our place mid-morning, load the truck, finish packing, cleaning, etc.  Celebrate the cat's birthdays on July 1st.  Leave town on Tuesday, July 2nd.  Eeeeeeekkk!  A lot of things need to happen in the next 6 days.

So consider yourself warned that my blogging will be sporadic at best.  I'll check in when I can but it's just not realistic for me to keep up my usual two a day routine during this CRAZY time :)  I know you'll understand and I promise to be back in action soon.  Follow me on Instagram @ Polkadottyplace to see what I'm up to during our big move.

Road Trip Highlights

As  I mentioned before, we had our first road trip as a family of three last weekend!  We had a great time and are excited to go on more trips together.  The best parts of our trip were:

Pit stopping in Beaver, UT for a little refueling.  

Happy 1st Father's Day!!

 Baby's first hotel stay.  

 Enjoying the sunny weather of Vegas.

 It was a little surreal introducing our baby to some of our favorite spots around town.

 Olive Kate and I hanging out at the Kate Spade store.

It might be a while before we are back in Vegas so we were glad to get in one more trip.

1st Father's Day

We had a great, first Father's Day at our house.

 Olive wanted her dad to know that she's already a big NOTRE DAME fan :)

 Early morning snuggles.

 He calls us "his girls" and we are lucky to call him ours.

Dad's Are Fun

Dad's conduct themselves differently than moms.

It's been so fun watching these two interact.

Kevin's teaching her to sing, snuggle, high five and to sit up.

We are loving parenthood.

Road Tripping with a Newborn

It may sound a bit crazy but it is possible to go on a road trip with a NEWBORN!  We decided to take a little (6 hour) drive down to Las Vegas last weekend.  I wanted to do something fun for Kevin's first Father's Day and we're going to be making a cross-country drive in less than two weeks so we thought we should do a trial run.  We stayed in a nice hotel OFF the strip and avoided anything wild or scandalous.  We ate meals off the strip at quiet places and in our room.  We went to the outlet malls and read at Starbucks... a very family friendly trip I'd say! 

We drove as long as the baby wanted to and stuck to her diaper/feeding schedule.  She snoozed during the whole drive and we stopped about every 3 hours.  We found a shady spot to park, rested a bit, took care of the necessities and then got back on the road.  Everyone was happy with this arrangement.  We also mapped out our drive and directions to the hotel in advance so we knew exactly where to go. 

Here's what worked best for us:

We packed our portable bassinet.  It was the perfect snoozing spot for day and night.

We ended up putting the bassinet in the middle of the big bed so that it was easily accessible and there would be no chance of her falling out of bed.

 We ate dinner IN our room instead of being out and about late at night.

We brought along our stroller so we didn't have to carry the car seat everywhere.  Our car seat has little chimey toys and I always have a paci clipped to the car seat so we're never traveling without a paci.

 We brought along TONS of wipes, diapers, breast pump, extra pacis, lotions, baby creams, mittens, nail files, bottles, formula, milk storage containers, tiny formula containers, disposable nipples and bottle cooler container.

As far as clothes go, I brought a few bibs for each day, several swaddle blankets, sleep sacks and a few outfits for each day.  We also pack socks.  I over packed in this department but I didn't want her to have an accident or a messy explosion and have to buy an outfit.

I wasn't sure what the room temperature would be so I made sure to pack several blankets.

I was recently gifted this Thirty-One bag and it was perfect for the trip!!  It has outside pockets and is a great size for almost anything.  I packed everything in vertically so that I could easily grab what I needed without having to dig through the whole bag.  I also filled the outside pockets with the baby hygiene items.

We used the laundry bag from the hotel to hold all of the dirty baby items.  It helped us to keep them separate and then when it was time to go we just put this inside of her bag.  No confusing of the clean and dirty items :)

Don't forget to bring the baby.

Traveling is hard work says Olive :)

Looking forward to our next trip together.