Baby Bargains!

Finally, a rap song on the radio that I can relate to!  Despite the language (which is not "your granddad's" language), Thrift Shop by Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis is my new favorite song.  It's all about the thrill of finding a bargain at the thrift shop and refusing to spend $50 for a Gucci t-shirt.  I couldn't agree more, especially when it comes to baby clothes!

While I was pregnant with Corrie, I was a garage sale hunting machine!  I scoured Craigslist, my Garage Sale Rover app, and local classifieds for anyone selling baby items.  On Saturdays I'd wake up and be out the door by 7 to see what treasures I could score.

Seriously, y'all, the great thing about getting baby items secondhand is that babies grow so fast that they barely have time to ruin the clothes or do much damage to the gear.  That, and your baby is likely to only wear that outfit 3 or 4 times or use that swing for the next 3 months, so you shouldn't spend a small fortune amassing things that will become obsolete so soon.  Some of my favorite finds were a Bjorn Active baby carrier for $20, a Boppy pillow with a minky cover for $20 still in the packaging, a booster seat high chair for $10, a Cloud B Sleep Sheep for $5, and a portable baby swing for $25!  Had I bought all those items at their retail prices, I would have spent over $275, but instead I got them all for $80!

One Saturday morning I had a particularly lucrative hunt.  Shaun was out golfing, so I spent several hours at garage sales.  The loot?

22 onesies

6 sleep-n-plays

6 pants

5 dresses

4 shirts

3 shorts

3 skirts

1 jacket

1 beach cover-up

1 hat

1 pair of socks

1 musical crib mobile toy

4 books

1 swim floatie raft

15 bottles with lids

And my total price tag for all of my finds?

$18

Yup, I love garage sales!

And Baby Makes 3!

So I know it's been over a year since I sat down to blog, but in the hiatus I've since acquired 2 new additions to my life that have encouraged me to blog again. Number 1 being an oh-so-cute baby girl, and Number 2 being an iPhone with a Blogger app, which allows me to blog during 3am feedings. So here goes another shot at this blog... Hopefully it becomes an easy way to keep our loved ones updated on Corianne and our adventures as parents!

To catch everyone up, we found out we were pregnant around Thanksgiving last year and told our family the big news as we drove from Florida to California. Shaun started his new assignment at Los Angeles Air Force Base in January, and because I knew I could only work for 6 months, I nannied part time as we anxiously went to doctor appointments awaiting our baby! We found out it was a girl on Valentines Day, but had to wait until July 17th to meet her! That evening we welcomed Corianne Gayle into our family and have been growing in love with her ever since!

I still can't get over the fact that she's over 5 months old already; I'm sure she'll be starting school and driving a car before I can blink, so I'm trying to savor every kiss and cuddle I can get!

Thunderstorms

There are few things I love more than waking up to a thunderstorm and having nowhere to be.

I woke up this morning in just such a scenario and took my own precious time laying in bed and listening to the rain hit my window. But what good is a storm without snuggling up in a blanket with a book and a steaming mug? So I came downstairs and, after opening all of our blinds, made some hot tea and grabbed my book.

Florida, hands-down, has the best thunderstorms I've ever witnessed. There are the peaceful morning storms that roll in off the water, like this morning, and then there are the powerful, wild ones that wake you in your sleep and leave you with pre-Edison technology. The rain comes in torrents, the thunder shakes the sky, and the lightning streaks through the clouds.

We had a thunderstorm a couple months ago that took our power out a couple of times. The rain was literally coming sideways. We stepped out on our screened-in porch to watch at one point, and in the blink of an eye, the wind shifted. We could barely make the two steps inside before we were soaked clear through our clothes! We took a little video of it from our front door:

Note that in the video, it is not 10 pm, rather 5:30 pm, and our door has a awning that stretches a good four feet from the door!

Fall Fun!

This is a small hodge-podge of various events and fun we've had so far this fall. Though they may not be interesting enough for their own post, I figured I could save some time and put them all in one post, especially since I've been finding the time this week to blog while Shaun's TDY. :)


First, we'll start with the end of July. Though not technically fall, I'm still adding these. Shaun was TDY for 3 weeks at a pretend deployment training called Technical Warrior. While he was gone, he had thought (mistakenly) that growing a mustache would be a good use of his time. When I picked him up from the airport, this was the man I found at the curb...

Such a scraggly looking man! We took pictures to prove to his future self to never grow a mustache again and he then promptly went to the bathroom sink, razor in hand.

Driving home from church one afternoon, we had to stop for a turtle in the road. Shaun decided to be a good citizen and get out to help the little guy cross the road. :)

We see lots of wildlife on base -- from deer on a daily basis, to the occasional turtle or turkey, to the rare black bear. I was driving home from work around 5pm one night and had to stop as a large black bear ran in front of my car!

I love my husband to pieces. Even his nerdy side. And one weekend, that side shone brightly as ever in our impromptu adventure to Tallahassee. Why did we go, you ask? Well, the movie Avatar was being re-released in theaters with never-before-seen scenes, and the closest IMAX theater to us is in our state capital.

So we made the two-and-a-half hour drive to go see it on opening weekend. Don't worry, we made a full day trip out of it. Shaun made some delicious smoothies for us to enjoy on our car ride and we went to eat at Qdoba (which we don't have in Panama City either). We also spent the afternoon at the Governor's Square Mall and came home with some deeply discounted goodies, thanks to the Old Navy coupon provided by Kelli! :)

Inside the movie at the start of the credits.

Wearing our super-cool 3D glasses!