finally a new blog post!

So as you can probably tell by my lack of posts the past week, we're in our house!! We've been busy unpacking, cleaning and organizing, so I haven't had time to blog. Grandma Susan (aka "Granny" or "Grandma Schroeder" as we like to say here to make her mad) has been here for 4.5 days and has been the best help! She's spent lots of qt with Charlotte so mommy can get crap done here at the house and daddy can work. She even scrubbed (and I mean scrubbed, on our hands & knees, sore for 2 days, scrubbed) the entryway tile and got on the ladder for some big-time dusting (she didn't realize we'd put her to work beyond babysitting) - THANKS GRANDMA!!

I have been taking photos, but haven't uploaded many yet. And I know I've promised a video house tour and that IS still coming, hopefully in the next day or so, so stay tuned for more to come from the Millays in Texas!

Here's a few photo-appetizers for today...theme: Charlotte happy in her new house and she's becoming mobile!

Thoughts for this week:

Charlotte's getting her first tooth! We felt it last Thursday and it's still not completely up, but you can really see it now! She's still loving food and loves shopping.

I've made some friends: been on 3 playdates and one MNO (mommies night out)!

We closed on our house on Wednesday - yay! I'm excited and cannot wait until Sunday! It's a complete tease...I have a key to our new house, but am not allowed to use it until 12:01 Sunday morning urgh!
"Sunday...la la la...I'm gonna sing a song about how I love Sunday...la la la..."

Top 10 things we'll really miss about this hotel:
10. it's huge
9. it's really clean
8. random lady trying to get into our room at 3:30am with her little girl saying "mommy, we're 9-1-4 not 9-1-3"
7. rough, small towels that smell like a burnt-up dryer
6. the kitchen: the 3 cups, 3 spoons, 3 plates and smoke alarm going off every time I cook something on the 1985 stove/oven
5. the people upstairs who must stomp around at midnight and slam doors constantly
4. the crazy lady who eats raw, yes completely raw burgers at the Wednesday dinner (I go for the free beer)
3. the 10 TV channels, including syfy, logo & 24-7 direct tv commercial
2. the relaxing nightly walks through the parking lot
1. the bugs in our room - yes, bugs

video house tour coming soon...

Time to Eat!

So Charlotte is now eating! We started with bananas at about 5 months and then rice cereal a couple of weeks later. I waited until the move to feed her anything more. Now that we're here, I decided to experiment with making baby food. Hey - it's a good thing to do to pass the time and makes me feel good when I'm able to cook in this hotel "kitchen." I guess I've done an OK job so far because she's liked all she's been given.

Here's what I've made so far:

Bananas and avacado: She LOVES both so far and both are super easy to mash in a baggie and then mix into cereal with some milk

I tried to mash a peach, but I think it was kinda sour & not pureed enough cuz that didn't go so well

I pureed a pear in my food mill which she loved, I also let her suck on a pear (see photo)

I baked a sweet potato (which made a burnt mess in the oven but that's what these hotel people get for not providing a baking sheet), pureed with a littel milk in my food mill, and froze in individual baggies and she's been eating that all week, she loves it!

I used the Ziplock micro steam bags for peas & carrots (my steamer is in storage along with the rest of our life). Then used my food mill to puree, added a little milk and froze in ice cube trays (see photo - very pretty!)

Baby Mum Mums - basically rice and air crackers that dissolve easily. Thanks Jen, for recommending!

...Voila! Easy, cheap, homemade, healthy baby food!!

So she's liked everything we've given her so far! We'll see how carrots go this week and I'll probably bake some apples too.

July 4th Photos!

July 4 events

So no big Millay 4th party for us this year or Ft Thomas parade, but we did find some fun things here to do. Friday (the 3rd) we headed to Addison (suburb of Dallas) for KaboomTown and on the 4th we went up to Frisco for their festival.

In Addison, they were flying WWI & WWII planes overhead, a band playing, kids swimming, food and other festival stuff. We headed back to our car to watch the fireworks because we weren't sure how Charlotte would do. Well, we ended up having the best-front-row-seat-in-the-house and Charlotte LOVED the fireworks.

(sorry, I didn't buy a red, white & blue outfit for Charlotte but she looked cute anyway)

temporary home

I know you all want to see...here goes:

The Big Drive - photos

Thanks Joe for making the trek with us!!! We seriously can't imagine what it would have been like without you. Thanks too for snapping some picts along the way to chronicle the trip :)

We made it in 16 hours (I originally thought it was 15, but forgot about the damn central time crap - can you tell that I love central time?). We had 4 stops (Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock & Sulfur Springs) of about 30-40 minutes each...enough time for gas, food, bathroom & stretching, Charlotte diaper changes, feedings and bumbo sitting, and Cali pee, sniffing and dinner. Charlotte was a trooper...only 2 really fussy times when she was fighting sleep and probably sick of being in her car sear. She did really good, better than we imagined and Doug told her if she was bigger he would buy her a giant ice cream cone for being so good.

Unfortunately I did not take a photo of our cars which were crazy packed, barely enough room for anyone! Here's some pictures, courtesy of Joe:

First stop in Nashville:

Lunch for all in Memphis:

Last stop! Micky D's dinner picnic:

Arrived 9:06pm (central) & Charlotte finally asleep (could she have any more toys in her seat?):

Texas - day 3 of hotel life

Let me tell you how exciting & interesting it is living in a hotel! You know you're all jealous of our "luxury living" Doug said it's 550 sq. ft. but I'm not so sure. So what do you do all day when you have not much space, it's 103 outside, you don't want to spend money, and you have a suddenly high-maintenance 6-month old?? You start a blog so all the people at home can be entertained by you...
What have we done so far?

• Actually seen & walked through our house (should close on the 15th - yeah, we'll have plenty to do then)
• Visited the storage unit where all of our worldly posessions are piled 12 ft high in a 20'x15' space - it's crazy, I'll post a photo later
• Wasted time at Target, Kohl's, Whole Foods
• Opened a checking account - the sad, but true highlight of my day
• Walked Cali 50 times

Man, I'm so tired from all this doing nothing...It's 9:24, time for bed. More photos coming soon!