Let there be light!

I'm a sucker for chandeliers. Love them! There are so many different varieties and they really add a touch of elegance to any space. They also don't have to be expensive. There's all types to fit your style and Craigslist or consignment shops are a great resource as well. Our last house in Texas had 3 chandeliers but mainly because they went with the Victorian feel of the house. I wasn't sure what lighting we were going to go with in this new house at first. Originally H wanted to install track lighting in 2 of the bedrooms, but that idea got nixed and we ended up returning the lights. Home Depot was having a sale and we had some store credit, so we put it towards lighting and bought two chandeliers. I guess we are going with a chandelier in all 3 bedrooms and the breakfast, formal dining room, and living room. Here is our lighting so far that we've installed.

Breakfast room

Crystal & chrome chandelier {Home Depot}

Serena's room

Antique white mini chandelier {Home Depot}

Layla & Mariam's room

Laurel rustic white chandelier {Home Depot}

Formal dining & living room

This chandelier came in the house, but it's probably not staying in the dining room. I plan on spray painting it white and putting it in the master bedroom. The living room light is currently not installed as you can see by the hole in the ceiling. We found a light, H installed it, and then we took it down 2 days later because we just weren't feeling it. Finding a chandelier for the living room has been hard. I want it to be just right because it's one of the first things you see as soon as you walk in the house. Here are a few I'm loving:

Cheyenne 9-light chandelier {Joss & Main}

Pennington chandelier {Joss & Main}

Claiborne 6 light chandelier {Bellacor}

Hyde Park Chandelier {Wayfair}

Happy Easter!

I know I've been super quiet around these parts, but you know how it is when you move into a new home. So much to do! I still have boxes to unpack and a mountain of projects to go through. Hoping to get back to blogging this week. :)

Settling in...

Today is the first Monday at the new house where it's just Mariam and Ava with me. H is back at work after a 2 week vacation and Layla and Serena are at school now. The house is nice and quiet at the moment and it's nice. I'm loving it here! My stress level has gone down considerably in these last two weeks. We also had friends come in from Houston and stay for 3 days and it was fun. Gave us a much needed break. We ate out a lot, went to Palm Beach, took the kids to the zoo, saw some sights. 

Today I plan on unpacking the rest of the girls clothes, tackling a few boxes in my room and working on my business. I've got to plan my calendar and get some sewing done. We still have a lot to do in the house and we've got a mountain full of boxes in the Florida room. Slowly but surely...

Just some phone pics I've taken in the last 2 weeks. I need to find the cord for my camera. 

Have a great Monday.

New baby...new year...new house

Friday we closed on our new home in Boca! Beautiful quiet neighborhood, spacious and about 4 miles from the beach. Doing some renovations first and moving in 9 days! There's still a lot to be done. We have to finish taking out the baseboards, paint the interior, add wainscoting in the living room/dining room, lay the floors, pack up our condo and move in all by the 29th. Eeek! My brother arrives tomorrow night to help H, and my dad should be here on Thursday so we'll have more help. Hopefully it all gets done. We are cutting it so close but we hit the ground running as soon as we got the keys and it's been a lot of fun so far!

Have a great week!

😊

Ava 5 months!

Weight

At her doctor's appointment last week she weighed 13.5 lbs. She's such a little chunks the munk's and I love it! Her squishy little thighs are exactly how Layla's were when she was a baby. I can't stop squeezing them! 

Health

Ava has been healthy from the start but I knew it would happen eventually with 3 other sisters who seem to constantly have a cold that cycles between them now that 2 of them are in school. She seems to have gotten a cold Tuesday morning. She was stuffy and feverish and sounded hoarse when she cried. I suspected croup after doing some research but I'm not 100% sure. I got her fever down with tylenol and it stayed away after that first day. The hoarsness also sounds much better. I debated with H about taking her to the doctor but since she improved on the second day we decided to just watch her closely and see if the symptoms improved. So far so good.

Sleep

Terrible! Still terrible. There are some early early hours of the morning where you might find me crying over it. It's truly exhausting and frustrating. There isn't much H can do. She doesn't want to be soothed by him in the night because she expects to nurse. I don't even ask him anymore to take shifts. A couple times he has slept in the living room so her and I can co-sleep comfortably but I end up just nursing her several times in the bed like I always do.

Clothes

She is in 6-9 month clothing and some 12 month. I can't believe how big she is now! It's going by too fast. 

Diet

Still breastfeeding like a champ. We plan on starting her on solids at 6 months. 

Crying

She's been better. Still likes to be held constantly though so I'll alternate with my arms, the moby wrap or the bjorn.

Milestones

Well her hair is still growing like crazy and it's gotten even curlier. I always have people stopping me to talk about her hair. The biggest milestone this month is she is cutting her first tooth! Aww my baby. She's not afraid to use it either let me tell ya. The first day it cut which was on Monday she was already trying to bite me. Ouch!

If only I can have this...

 

When I was a little girl, I used to say; "God. If I can have this I'll never ask for another thing in the world." When I was in my early twenties I used to say; "God. If you can just let me have this, I'll be so happy. This is all I need to be happy." A specific event was dating my soon to be husband years ago. He was perfect for me. He was who I needed to spend the rest of my life with. I remember saying to myself. "God. If we get married, that's all I'll need to be happy." Of course that was silly because of course I wanted children with my husband as well. What I hadn't forseen was that there would be difficulties in conceiving a child together and then a miscarriage along the way. I remember when and where I was when the words came out again. I was on my way to work and I was feeling particularly sorry for myself having not been pregnant yet. 

"God. If I can just get pregnant and deliver this baby safely, that's all I'll need to be happy. It's all I that I want."

Fast forward to the present moment. I am sitting here 4 children later. My husband is at work. The baby who is feeling under the weather sleeps in my room. I'm tense. I only got a few hours of sleep last night and I know she's going to stir and cry any moment--as she always does the minute I get comfortable and take a few minutes for myself.

I'm reminded of the things I once asked God now more than ever. I suppose I'm trying to hold myself accountable to it. I'm struggling this week. With my role as a good mother, with my role as a business owner. With my role as myself. Myself. Ha! I don't even know where myself is anymore. Buried somewhere under the mountain of laundry or pile of toys maybe. I sound pathetic. It all sounds so cliche. Overworked mother of 4 carrying on about having lost herself. We come a dime a dozen don't we? Nobody is feeling sorry for me. I know I did this to myself. It is everything I wanted after all. Well I didn't plan on 4. Years ago I never dreamed I'd have my own little business. The children were supposed to be happy little sleepers and not give me a hard time every single day. I suppose that was the plan. I regret nothing. However that doesn't diminish the fact that I'm tired right now. I haven't slept good in months. The past few weeks worse than ever. What is reality exactly? Are my feelings those of just being "tired", is it post partum hormones? Is it more? Is it tired, post partum, and more? Self awareness is good. I take comfort in knowing that I can recognize when I'm feeling out of sorts. That I can rationalize with myself that it is because of one thing or another which explains my moods. I have everything I could want right now. My husband. A beautiful family with him. We are about to close on our new home in 2 days. I want to jump up for joy. I'm so happy. Yet I am frustrated at the same time. Frustrated because I have less time than ever to do anything for myself or even work on the business. Frustrated because I cannot give every child the attention they deserve. Somewhere over the years along with my family, my need for perfection has grown and grown as well. I need everything to be perfect and when it's not it frustrates me. Before I sat down to blog and after I put the baby down. I went to put on my makeup and fix my hair because I knew it was my only chance and H and I have a final walk through on the house later today with our realtor. I am a tired mother of 4, one which is a new baby and it's perfectly acceptable for me to walk around looking a bit desheveled and my hair up in a bun with no makeup, but I wouldn't be comfortable. I can't let people have a negative image of me. I can do it all. I will do it all. Perfectionism remember? It is exhausting at times. As I type this. I want to delete it. So many times I'll type stuff out on Facebook or message boards only to delete it. A need to vent, a moment to complain, but I don't. I know I'll regret it the moment I do it.

I feel like I've gone in an opposite direction of what I originally started writing about, but it does tie all together when you think of it. I need to relax. I need to breathe. I need to let go and let God. I cannot control everything that happens in my life. 

A date with my memi

I've been trying to come in here and blog all week, but it's been one hell of a week. Mainly the kind where you aren't getting any sleep and can hardly speak in coherent sentences. Ava was having the worst sleeping patterns in the history of all my babies. She got her first cold and I spent most of the week only getting 3-4 hours of sleep for 5 nights straight. It wasn't even 3 hours straight. Oh no. That was 3 hours broken up. It was really really hard. You can currently understand my writing because thankfully she broke the streak Friday night and appears to be back to just waking up 3 times a night. Due to a now lowered immune system from lack of sleep and the cold that was circulating amongst the girls, yours truly now has a cold. Great. 

I didn't start writing just to complain, so on to the topic at hand. Mariam. I'm trying my best to start giving the girls more one on one time. A few weeks ago I took #3 Mariam to Morikami Gardens here in Boca. Ava came too, but she pretty much slept the whole time in here stroller. It was nice but Mariam's main concern when we got there was wondering where the snacks are. I came ill prepared this time so we settled on some Japanese fruit chews from the gift shop. There is a cafe on the premises but the line was insanely long and we did already have lunch. The weather was beautiful that day and all in all we had a pretty good time.

Have a great week. I'm off to catch some zzz'ss