There' s No Place Like Home.

As many of you know, we are currently residing in an itsy-bitsy little tiny one bedroom apartment. It is approximately 550 sq feet. Perfect for the young newly weds we were when we moved in last September. Not so perfect for the parents we are now. There is just not enough room for the 3 of us. Our lease is up September 30th. So for the last month we've been out apartment hunting every chance we get. We've toured more places then I can remember. We go on craigslist often, searching for 2 bedrooms (or larger) that are in our price range.

After touring about 10 places we decided that among those 10 there was one that we could handle living in. We planned on going back to this one place that we could handle and turning in applications. The night before this was planned I once again got on CL in hopes of finding something better. I did.

There was an add for a 2 bedroom 1.5 bathroom TOWNHOME for only $875 a month. 1200 sq feet! It just so happened to be in the area of town that we wanted to stay in. So we decided to visit this place before heading over to the apartments we had settled on. I called that night and left a message. Matt called the next morning and made an appointment to tour the townhouse. We were the first appointment of the day. Got there at 10:30 am. The outside was not impressive. The paint on the sign was peeling. The next door neighbors had boxes and a stroller on our shared porch. I was NOT impressed.

However, as soon as I walked through the door I fell in love. You walk in onto a landing. You can either go up, or down. There are only about 5 steps going down into the living room/dining room. Once in the living room you can turn back to the stairs and notice a closet under the "UP" stairs. Also known as "The Harry Potter closet." And it is large enough, that even someone a little over 6 feet can lay down comfortably. There are two sliding glass doors that lead out onto a patio that is walled so no one can see in. It's the perfect little patio for a BBQ and patio table/chairs. The kitchen as almost triple the counter space we currently have. It has a full size oven, dishwasher and full size fridge. All things that we have not had the pleasure of using for the last year. Off the kitchen is the laundry room with full size washer/dryer and the half bathroom.

Now lets go up stairs. As you reach the top a hallway takes you to the two bed rooms. Peggie's is the first door on the left. It has two closets. One has shelves that go all the way to the ceiling. The other has one shelf and place to hang up clothes. There is also a sliding glass door that leads out on to a rather large deck.

If you go through the door at the end of the hall you'll find the master bedroom. You'll find yet another sliding glass door (Leading to the same deck mentioned above...is big!) This room is large enough for our queen sized bed and a full sized crib. We also have two closets There is one shelf that goes through both closets and then a wall from the shelf to the floor that separates the two sides. Both sides have individual clothes racks. (I won't have to shove his hangers aside to get to my clothes!!) We also have our own private entrance to the bathroom. (Which can also be reached from the hall)

I was not the only one who fell in love with this place. After viewing the up stairs we went back to the kitchen and Matt asked if we could fill out applications then and there. The two ladies giving us the tour reviewed our apps and said that everything looked good and that we can basically call it ours! Right now we are only waiting on the reviews from our current and previous places of residence. We'll know Monday for sure if we got the place. I'm not worried. We'll be moving the 9th of September, giving us plenty of time to move and get settled. And to get back to the old place to do a nice good deep clean.

And speaking of the 9th...It's our one year anniversary. And it's also the day we plan on signing the papers and making our marriage legal. =) It's going to be one heck of a busy day! We'll have our car, mom's van and a friends truck, so we'll be able to get everything moved that day. (We don't have that much stuff) The moving will happen in the morning. Later that day is when we'll sign the marriage license and legally become Husband and Wife. We'll then go out to dinner and celebrate. No unpacking, that can be done later. We'll just make sure that our bed and Elliott's bed is set up so we have a place to sleep.

I am so very excited!! (If you couldn't tell)  I went online and googled "floor plan designer" and found a free 7 day trial of a really cool program, and I made a floor plan of our new place from memory. I showed it to both Matt and Holly, they agreed that the floor plan is perfect. (Not exactly to scale, but it will at least show you what it looks like.)

First Level ^

Second Level ^

And here is a picture of Elliott. Just because I love showing her off. =)

Keeping Tabbs...

Thanks to my amazing friend Emily, we now have a new name! Yay! I guess I could wait for more suggestions, but...well I won't. =)

I'm sure you are all smart enough to understand why the name "Keeping Tabbs" is so perfect, so I'm not going to explain it.

So, on to other more important news. My mother has given us 100 dollars to make everything legal. I've done all the research and we will be going to the court house Next week to get the license. Once that is in our possession and the waiting period is other (3 days after the license is issued) then we will be going to the court house again with Holly and one of Matt's guy friends, as witnesses, and we will be signing the papers. Although that will be our our "legal wedding" we will not be celebrating that day. To us, we have been married since September 9, 2009. That is our wedding day. The day we go in front of the judge to legalize it is just a technicalities, that day wont be remembered.

Need New Name Now!

I love alliteration. =) But anyway, I think I want to rename this blog. Yes most of my post will inevitably be about my honeymoon baby. But every now and then I feel like writing about Matt, or Holly and Gabriel or me, and I would feel weird writing about all that if the name of my blog is "My Honeymoon Baby". Now I know what you are thinking..."This lady is a freak! Who cares what the name of her blog is. It's not in the rule books that you can only write about what the name says the blog is going to be about." (if that made any sense..) But if you know me at all then you know that I like things a certain way and they will be that way if I want them to be. Problem: I can't for the life of me come up with a nice, catchy title. I seem to have lossed my creative bone, and can't think of anything that would fit with all that I want to write about. Everything I've come up with sounds weird and stupid.

Oh! How about "The Life of a Portland Mommy" I just came up with it...we can try it out for a little while and see what we think. Maybe that's too long. Anybody got any good ideas?

Ok...on to other things.

Elliott has slept 6-8 hour stretchs for the last 4 nights! Yay! I do believe they would classify that as "sleeping through the night" Although, she goes to sleep usually about 9 (sometimes 8, sometimes 10, but mostly 9) so that mean she's waking up any where from 3 to 5. So it deffinatly does not feel like she is sleeping through the night. And I don't go to sleep until about an hour, sometimes 2, after she's asleep. And with the whole breastfeeding thing, I'm awake an hour before she wakes, because I've soaked the sheets or I feel like I'm going to explode. (Usually both) Thankfully I know that it wont stay like this. My milk production will even out and fit it's self to Elliott's schedule.

I'm soooo glad Holly and Gabriel are here. If they weren't I would be all alone alll day long! And I know I would be deep into depression with out them. Yes right now things are a little cramped, with 3 grown ups and 2 children in a tiny one bedroom apartment. But we get out almost daily. We've found a couple of parks with in walking distance, and there is a little "fountain park" (don't know what else to call it) that we can play in on hot days. I think I've got some pictures I'll show you. It's like a little court yard or somthing with a fountain that was built to play in. It's got picnic tables and chairs and a little cafe. It's a little farther than walking distance but it's only one stop on the train so it's still rather close.

See!! It's nice, huh?

6 Weeks

I'm not very good and staying on top of this am I? Well can you blame me? Elliott is 6 weeks old today, and quite the handful. But I love it!

She's been pretty cranky the last few days, but she's always graced us with her smile. Such a beautiful smile. =)

Every few nights she'll sleep for a good 6 hours and than 4 hours. But she's still mostly in a 4-3-3 or a 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2- (it seems like it never ends!) But we're doing good. She's finally fitting in the 0-3 month outfits! Which is awesome because we have some really cute ones that I love putting her in. I'm just sad we don't have any head bands to put on her so everyone knows she's a girl if she's in something neutral colored.

((I know this is a week late, since she will actually be 7 weeks tomorrow, but I did write this last week, I just never got to finish it and well now here we are a week later. I'll make a new post with more in it later))

3 weeks old

Well, these last 3 weeks have been pretty eventful. Elliott is now over 8lbs 6oz. And I am only 10 lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight. Which makes me pretty happy! Unfortunatly I still wont be in a bakini any time soon. For only gaining 40 lbs I sure gained a lot of stretch marks. Not so happy about those.

For the first time in 3 weeks I am all alone with my daughter. Dad was going to come up and stay a few days with us, but ended up having to leave shortly after he got here, and he took Holly and Gabe with him. Tomorrow will be interesting. I havn't quite got use to doing everything one handed yet. We'll see how much actually gets done.

Elliott is amazing. She gets at least one 4-hour stretch of sleep at night, then wakes up every 2 hours. So that's not too bad. Well now she's awake so I have to go. =)

The Birth of My Child

I don't have much of a birth story, but I'll tell you what I do have.


Elliott decided that she was going to be breech and nothing we did would change that. And trust me we tried everything! I didn't consent to the c-section until my 39th week. Matt and I decided at that time that we thought it would be safer for our little one to come on a schedule, rather than in an emergancy since it was very apparent that she was not going to flip. and my doctor didn't feel comfortable trying to deliver her naturally while breech. And I trust my doctor. We scheduled the c-section for her due date, June 9th.

We got to the hospital at 6 am on June 9th. They hooked me up to everything and monitered baby for quite some time while I just laid there. Rather boring actually =). They took me back to the OR at about 8:20 (20 minutes late, but that wasn't as late as we expected.) After they got the spinal and the cathetor in,l Matt was allowed in. I watched the whole thing in a reflection in the light. =) I mentioned I could see what was happening and they asked if I wanted them to move the light. I didn't. I quite enjoyed the show oddly enough. lol I couldn't see detail very well, but it gave me something to do and look at rather then just lie there feeling to them tugging me around. Matt was there by my head the whole time. Once they transfered me to a gurney, they put Elliott in my arms and rolled me back to my room. Elliott was only seperated from me for a bath (Matt went with her), at night for a few hours, and when I took a shower. We weren't sepereated for anything else, I was quite happy about this. =)

Elliott Morgan Tabbert was born at 9 am. 7 lbs 14 oz. 20 inches long. As soon as the doc sewed me up she leaned over the curtain and informed me that I would be a perfect candidate for a VBAC if I were to have another child. =)

37 weeks-Breech

A couple of weeks ago we found out Elliott was breech (head up, butt down...not the way she's supposed to be) Well, as of today she is still breech. And doctors will not allow a vaginal delivery of a breech baby. Especially since this is my first child, to many things could go wrong. Elliott still has time to flip, but as we get closer to my due date she gets bigger and it's less likely for her to turn. I am not consenting to a c-section until the last possible moment. When I go into labor, if she is still breech...well then I have no choice.


But between now and labor time I am doing what I can to encourage little Ellie to flip. There's the yoga position- the downward dog....which is on my knees, with my shoulders and head on the floor, my butt up in the air. There's taking a warm bath with a bag of frozen pees on the top of my belly (like anyone, babys will try and get away from the cold and go towards the warm.) I will be making an appointment with an acupuncturist tomorrow for a "moxibustion" treatment. My dr. recommended it. It's painless, and is supposed to be pretty affective.


I really really really hope Elliott decides to flip. I don't want a c-section. I feel like we talked about "what if she's breech" to much early on in the pregnancy and we jinxed it...sigh...whatever.




37 week update:
Total weight gain/loss: somewhere between 25-30 lbs.




Maternity clothes? oh yes...and I've recently started raiding Matt's clothes.




Stretch marks? sigh...yes






Sleep: I think I get some between bathroom breaks, but can't be to sure.






Movement: Of course. She likes to take an hour or more at night just before bedtime to practice ballet.






Food cravings: none really, I just eat whats there.






Gender: Girl!






Labor Signs: I've been having some Braxton Hicks...but nothing painful yet.






Belly Button in or out? niether...it's just flat.






What I miss: sleeping on my belly, or just sleeping at all...yeah I definatly miss that






What I am looking forward to: June, I want to see her already.






Weekly Wisdom: i'm too tired to share wisdom.






Milestones: Labor! I reach full term tomorrow, so the only milestone left is labor and delivery!!