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To the Zoo

The baby and I went to the zoo today. Prior to this, if someone asked me about taking an almost-six-week-old to the zoo...I'd reply that it's a stupid idea.

But when my sister-in-law called me this morning to see if I wanted to join her and her two kids (almost three years and almost one year), I jumped on board. I really went to hang out with them, and it just happens that my baby goes everywhere I go. Seriously. I went swimming at my in-laws' the other day and it felt so odd to leave her inside with my mother-in-law for a whopping twenty minutes. :) How am I gonna survive going back to work??!!

Anyways, the weather was quite nice, and I enjoyed watching my niece play and look at the animals.

It will be so fun when my girl is older and we can do fun stuff together (like my sister and her son's Themed Thursdays!). And when she has siblings and they can be best of friends.

However, it's also so lovely that she's so tiny and precious and I love her and could snuggle with just her all day.

Maybe she shouldn't grow up.

When does a SAHM's workday start?

I'm starting my work shift a little late today. :) I mean, I know stay-at-home moms are always on duty, but I feel like I should devote some amount of time to checking things off my to-do list.

This morning I posted a status on my facebook:

on the agenda for today: price our donations for the School of Saint Mary's yard sale, pack for our trip to visit Mary's grandparents and great-grandparents, clean the hall bathroom, address thank you notes to mail Monday, and research diaper sprayers - surely I can find something that'll work that's less than 45 bucks!

Then I promptly went back to sleep. I can't decide if getting too much sleep is making me tired, or if taking care of a newborn is catching up to me. Last night I got into bed a little after midnight. I didn't get up for the day until close to eleven. The baby and I woke up at two, four, six, and eight. Roughly. Each time she went back to sleep quickly after nursing, so that was nice. After the last feeding she was pretty ready to be up for the day (and I say that loosely as she still sleeps a ton!), and I was not. She wasn't happy in the co-sleeper and even though I've fallen asleep with her in my arms in bed, I don't like to. Luckily around 9:15, Mr Oh heard us, and volunteered to move to the recliner with the babe. What a dear.

Anyways, after getting out of bed for the day, I showered, made lunch, ate lunch, and....that's about it. Oh, I also took a mini-nap.

Now it's almost six and time to start crackin' on my list of things to-do!

Should I Merge the Blogs?

I'm considering morphing all my blogs into one.

Currently, I have three. Wait, does my Xanga still count? ;) Or my old, old Xanga with the posts that I privatized? Haha!

1. The Oh House (formerly known as Two Ohs and a Dog, but now Four Ohs and a Dog live here, and it seems like a lot of work and confusion to update the number of Ohs and/or Dogs as life changes). I started this blog because I wanted a house. I was going to record all the things I wanted in that house, to do to that house, to buy for that house. Basically, I was probably just gonna copy links and ideas from ApartmentTherapy.com. And maybe make some mood boards. I thought it was for dreaming. Then we got pretty impatient, and very cramped, and we bought a house a lot quicker than we originally thought.
   
2. The Food Connoissorges. I came up with the name and concept before we were even married. I thought it would be really fun to experiment in the kitchen and write reviews of restaurants. And it is, we just didn't do it much. I'll probably never be a foodie, but I still would like to expand my horizons in the culinary world.
3. My personal finance blog. This one I won't post the name or URL, because, well it's personal. I love reading personal finance blogs. It's the area that I'd most like to gain knowledge. When I first started (back when we were saving for our house) it was a fantastic place for me to post budgets. Oh, budgets, how I love you.
   

If I committed to just one blog, I feel like maybe I'd actually commit to it, you know? I've recently started blogging almost daily, but before it was much more sporadic. I'd like to post regularly, so that I have a record of what's going on.

Which brings me to what would I blog about?

Well, it makes the most sense to me to keep The Oh House going. The title really encompasses a lot more than just home design. I could still post about that kind of stuff, but also throw in any cooking or baking I might like to share, and a little about personal finance. Of course, I wouldn't be super specific about finances, because even though my blog name is Mrs Oh, the few people who read this know who I am.

Which then brings me to, should I stay semi-anonymous? Like I said, people know who I am. But if strangers came across my blog, do I care if they know my first name? Do I care if they see pictures of my kid? Do I care if they know what city I live in? I'm really not sure.

I was about to type "If I stick with this blog, should I keep it on Blogger, or move it to Wordpress, or figure out how to put it on my own domain?"...but I just realized, I am sticking with this blog. I might "re-start" it, but The Oh House wins!

Stuff

We have too much stuff. That's not really surprising, right? I think most people would agree that they have too much stuff if they really thought about it.

Luckily, our parish school is having a yard sale and is requesting donations to be dropped off next weekend. This means we have a deadline and a perfect place to send our stuff!

Stuff that I'd like to get rid of:

-Clothes (currently I share a closet with the baby and a dresser with the husband and we've gotta pare it down)
-Shoes (maybe some other large-footed woman out there will find happiness in my castaways)
-Bags/purses (once I get a new purse, I use it until I get another, I never really go back)
-Empty Photo Albums (I think I put about five in the box)
-Books and DVDs? (still thinking about these...)
and anything else that we won't miss


It was my goal today to go through all of our clothes, but I didn't even really start. I did however, wash four loads of laundry, finish dusting the Expedit bookshelf, help Mr. Oh organize our new kitchen and utilize our new cabinets, and started destroying the guest room closet in an attempt to clean it out.

Speaking of the guest room...I currently like two things about it:

1) A collage of Fresh Ink greeting cards that Mr Oh and I gave to each other during our dating years. (Sorry about the flash on the glass...I have no idea how to turn the flash off on our DSLR.)

2) The bedding.

Hopefully by the end of the week, I'll like a whole lot more of the room and give a full tour.

Series of Baby Photos

I have decided to document our little girl's growth with series of photos.

The first series is her "by the weeks". Since she was born on a Friday, we take her photo each Friday. To keep a consistency with the theme, we put her on a giraffe playmat. Her outfit will change, and the actual location of the playmat may change . We normally take the photo in our entryway because of the natural light, but, for example, on her second Friday we ended up being stuck in the hospital while they started her on some heart medication.


This photo is when she was one week old. We used it for her birth announcement. What a cutie! My plan is to make a photo book after she turns one with just these weekly photos in it.

A second series of photos we started today, is our baby girl "by the months". I love our bedspread and thought it would make a great backdrop for each shot, especially if she was in a plain white onesie. After the 12th photo, I'll make it into a photo collage to frame. Here is our precious little one today, at one month!

And since we'd hate for this fun to end when she turns one, the final series will be "by the years". We haven't decided what will be the consistent prop in the photo, but it has to be something that will be easy, portable, and last for a very long time. We'll probably end up using a stuffed animal. Giraffes are our favorite. She has a giraffe driving a strawberry car that we bought at IKEA when we were pregnant. I like it because it's small and the strawberry has significance to a nickname. We also have a five-foot tall giraffe in the nursery that would be neat to use, but what if we end up being on vacation for her birthday? We wouldn't want to lug it around, and I hope to be as accurate as possible with the timing of the photos. I guess we have another 11 months to decide!

I got the idea for these series from two of my favorite bloggers: John and Sherry at Young House Love. Here's their post on how they take weekly photos of their darling girl.