Junie Lately

Exciting news: we found someone to marry us! Our dear, dear, dear doula, Becky Leonard, offered her husband. He's performed five ceremonies, he does non-religious stuff, he's wickedly funny and smart and he'll look great in pictures too! I am so utterly excited to have Norm there in a such a great way on our big day. We keep joking that the Leonard's must be intimately involved in every Kellogg/Losey life altering event! Babies, weddings, who knows what else! Such a relief!

In other news, my baby darling June Elizabeth is almost 12 weeks old. How on earth did that happen? I swear the last 3 months have flown by. October feels like it didn't even happen. June is amazing. I have to tell you, after being a nanny for so many years and encountering all types of children, I am that much more grateful to have such a happy baby. She is so good. She's technically sleeping through the night. At this age 5 hours straight is considered sleeping through and she'll go anywhere from 5-7 hours.

Just for fun, here's our day-to-day routine (if I'm not working):

745am: Wake up! Junie will fuss a little until I wake up and get her into our bed and cuddle. I change her diaper, we talk and sing and she laughs. She's a super happy morning baby. 

845-9am: Nap! She usually falls back asleep after our play time in the morning. It's usually a little cat nap lasting anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or so.

9:30am: Eat! The little chunker is drinking 5oz bottles, usually downing between 30-35oz a day. I'm almost worried that she's eating TOO much!

10-1230pm: Play time! She's usually really awake and happy during the late morning. She loves to swing in her swing, be outside with the big kids my mom watches or lay on her play mat. This is also a great time for me to run errands and get out of the house with her.

1pm: Eat! Another 5oz!

1:30pm: Nap! Usually she'll take a longer nap in the early afternoon. Sometimes she'll sleep up to 3 hours!

3pm: More play. I like to hold her and we'll play with her new favorite toy - a giraffe. When we met Santa* on Saturday he gave her a Baby Einsteins play set that includes this super cute giraffe rattle that she absolutely loves. (Sometimes she'll take another cat nap in here somewhere too.)

5pm: Eat! Again, 5oz.

530-6pm: Daddy usually comes home and holds her for a while and they talk and play. We like to give her a bath around this time too. Not every day though, she has very dry skin and it seems to aggravate it if we bathe her too often.

7pm: No matter what time she ate last - she has to eat around 7pm or else she sounds like she's dying of starvation. And I wonder how she weighs 13 pounds...

7-8pm: Sleepy bed time. We used to let her fall asleep downstairs in her swing with us but we've started putting her directly in her cradle when she starts to get tired so that way she knows her bed is for sleep. It's been working wonderfully and she's asleep within minutes.

1030-11pm: We wake her up to feed her another 5oz. She would probably sleep until 2am if we didn't wake her up but I worked to cut out that 2am feeding so now we do a dream feed. Dream feeding is basically feeding them when they're still asleep. We pick her up, change her diaper, feed her and put her right back in bed. She rarely even wakes up. And if she does, we swaddle her and she's back to sleep by the time we get back in bed. I know not every "expert" recommends a dream feed but it works wonderfully for us. 

430-530am: Wake up and eat another 5oz. I've been trying to cut out/push back this feeding because I know she could probably sleep longer. So I've been trying to do it the same way I cut out the 2am feeding. She'll wake up a little bit, kind of start to fuss and I give her her binky and make sure she's covered. If she isn't absolutely starving she'll go right back to sleep, if she is truly hungry, I'll feed her. I've gotten her to sleep until 530 and one morning even 615. So I know it can be done.

630-7am: Daddy usually get her out of bed and talks with her and changes her before he goes to work. It's their special time, just like June and I have our special morning routine. If she ate at 430, she'll usually eat again around this time. 

745am: START AGAIN!

My giggly elf. She does give Mommy and Daddy silent nights, if you exclude her weird grunting, snoring and heavy breathing.

*Santa is my grandpa - a real beard Santa! He works throughout Orange County and Riverside County and everyone loves him! It's so great. I LOVE the pictures we got of June meeting her Great Papa as Santa for the first time, even if she does look like a Jabba the Hut baby.

So there's our lives in a nutshell for the moment. The wedding is two weeks from today and I'm trying not to stress. I'm sure it will be beautiful and wonderful!

Babies, Weddings and Co-Habitation - oh my!

Have I mentioned that my wedding is 3 weeks away? Oh, it is.

It will be small, intimate and fun.

Am I ready?

NO.

I don't know about most brides but for some reason I am such a slacker bride. Maybe it's the brand new baby, maybe it's the seemingly short timeline, or maybe I'm just excited to get it done. (I mean that last one in a totally, "I'm so excited to finally be Mrs. Kellogg!" way, not like, "ugh, just get it over with already.")

We have pretty much everything done. My dress is in final alterations. My shoes are ordered. Catering, flowers, pictures, DJ, venues, etc. all done. Which is kind of impressive considering we started planning about 8 weeks ago! 

Why so rushed?! 

When we first found out we were pregnant we thought we should get married right away. Poor choice. Planning while finishing up my last quarter of college, still interning and also puking 24/7 was not in the cards. When it came down to it we didn't want to rush something just because we were having a baby. We loved each other enough to be in a stable, committed relationship for three and a half years so why get married so fast? We put it on the back burner and decided that next September would be perfect. It would mark our 5 year anniversary, 3 years of living together and June's 1st birthday. Perfect, right?

June was born, Thomas couldn't stand the thought of us not being all legally Kelloggs. He wanted to get married FAST. So here we are. December 23, 2011 I will become Mrs. Kellogg. One hitch...no one will perform our ceremony.

We technically don't have anyone to marry us. I'm going to try my best not to get political here but this has caused some major issues for us. Why won't any of the pastors we've asked marry us? Because we live together. So far it even hasn't been the baby, it's that we LIVE together. We have a baby, the jig is up. I'm a little more than peeved with the situation. Here we are, trying to do the "right"* thing and we can't. Are we supposed to live apart and somehow raise a baby together? Not sure exactly how that would work out.

I have hope though that we have finally found someone that will perform the ceremony. If I had known 8 weeks ago that we would have this much trouble I would have asked someone to get their license to marry us and avoid the offensive responses. 

I can truly say though that I am more excited every day that I get to celebrate my love with those closest to the both of us. And wear a pretty dress and awesome shoes.

Here's my dress!

(That's funny because this is awful and would make my ass look HUGE(er)!)

*I say "right" because I don't think that having the same last name makes us any more of a family than we already are. We love each other, we are committed to each other and we have a lifelong bond - a piece of paper doesn't get to define us. I'm marrying Thomas because I love him. Not because I have to. Rant over.