carter's tagless labels

I have known about this issue for a while now and haven't really followed up on it. In a nutshell, Carter's Fall 2007 line of clothing is associated with causing rashes from the tagless labels. They are issuing full MSRP refunds for any clothing sent back. They even send you postage paid envelopes to send your stuff back in.

Did Meredith ever get a rash from it? I honestly don't know. She have very bad eczema for the first year of her life and we were constantly battling rashes all over her body. Could any future children of mine get rashes? Maybe. If I were to donate or sell her clothes in the future, could any other children be affected by it? Maybe.

I decided to get out all her clothes this weekend to find out exactly what we had that has these types of labels. I found 7 pant/shirt outfits, 1 fleece outfit, 4 pairs of PJs, 1 shirt, and 1 onesie. I really loved some of this stuff - there were several outfits that were my favorites. But, I'm going to send it back. We got really good use out of our stuff and I'm sad to see it go.

I like Carters - we just may have to put much of the refund back into their store.

Meredith loves clothes - she can entertain herself for an hour just picking up articles of clothing and sticking her arms through all the holes. Look how tiny that green outfit is. She wore this when she was a newborn. Here's a flashback all the way back to three or four days old when whe was wearing it.

Here's another itty bitty sleeper she used to wear. Was she really that small?

And this is totally random but it's cute. We ended the day on a good note last night in the bathtub.

Last but not least, do you ever wonder what our house looks like at the end of the day?

very expensive headphones

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Well folks, I made it back from Las Vegas all in one piece! I only donated $12 to the local economy and even managed to have a little bit of fun. I had the pleasure of meeting up with a couple girls from high school while I was there because it just so happened we found out on Facebook we were all going to be there at the same time. Who would have thought? The week was long and I came home with an absolutely fabulous gift. I received a pair of Bose QC3 Noise Cancelling headphones. Wow. These things retail for around $350. Seriously, does anyone pay that much for a pair of headphones? Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining! They really are great and the sound is amazing. I'm just not used to getting such nice gifts when I travel.




Meredith has another ear infection so I am going on day three of 1/2 days at work since she can't go to daycare. I'm frustrated at our pediatrician's office. I called after day 2 of a fever and after going over the symptoms, they told me to wait it out for five days unless her fever got to 105. Grrrr. Yesterday evening, I got a rectal reading of 104.1 and I decided I just wasn't going to wait anymore to get her checked out. I called the pediatrician's office again and they were all booked for the evening and was told to wait it out again. Grrrr. We decided to take her up the street to a 24-hour urgent care clinic. After 2.5 hours, we walked out of there with a diagnosis of an ear infection. Hmmmmph! That's what I though all along - mom knows best. And to think her pediatrician's office wanted to wait five days of her suffering with that.




Her molars are really bothering her too. She walks around with her hand in her mouth whimpering and crying all the time. They are taking so long to come through. I don't think it has come down any further than it was a couple weeks ago.


She always surprises me with something cute when I come home from a trip. This time she had learned how to moo like a cow. Cute, cute, cute! She also calls me Mama all the time now which I love! She has known the word mama for a long time now but it used to be really random.



The floors are all done and I think it turned out great. We just need to put the trim back up and add the thresholds where the floor meets the carpet. Last but not least, we need to add a little touch up paint.





I bought Meredith some of those letters that you put on the refrigerator but she just likes to eat them or throw them on the floor. Here she is in action.

And here is the end result. Daddy has retired the letters after only a day.

18 months old

Where has time gone and where did my baby go? I can not believe she is 18 months old today. I like every stage more and more the older she gets - just when I think she can't be any cuter, she will babble the word Mama, mama, mama (to the point that her dad gets jealous). I love my big girl so much that world just can't describe it. Or she'll come running across the room at daycare and gives me a huge bear hug when I go to pick her up from daycare. I love it!



The last few weeks seem to have been a turning point in her vocabulary. It seems she's adding words on a daily basis almost. Let me try to count the words she knows- mama, dada, Tabitha, duck, uh - oh, more, another, star...I know there's more but I just can't think of them right now.



She loves to take her clothes and wrap them around her back and neck like a cape. She can entertain herself for a half hour just swapping out clothes to hang from her neck. We've retired all her clothes that have zippers. She won't keep clothes with zippers on. I'm just dreading the day when she will figure out how to take her diaper off.



She is obsessed with Elmo. She watches Elmo all the time and has learned how to switch the changer in the DVD player and press play when she wants to watch a different Elmo video. She did that twice this past weekend.



We've taken away the high chair and made it into a booster seat now that we have non-carpeted floors in our dining room so she eats like a big girl now at the big table.



She is cutting her two uppper 1-year molars right now (finally!). They are just starting to poke through the gums and she has been drooling non-stop. To the point where her shirts are soaked and I have to change her. I'm about ready to go pull out some of her cloth bibs we put on her as an infant because it's so out of hand. I hope those suckers come through fast. But she still has the bottom ones to go and I don't think they are quite ready to make an appearance just yet. Her teething pattern has followed my teething pattern recorded in my baby book to the month on every tooth she has so far.

For those of you who are interested, we're not done with our floors but we're making a lot of progress. If I weren't traveling all the time, maybe they would be finished by now. With that said, off to Las Vegas I go on Friday for a whole week.


And before I go, here are a couple cute pictures from this weekend.

greg's birthday

Friday was Greg's 33rd birthday. To celebrate, we met uncle Scott and cousin Lois at PF Chang's for lunch on Saturday. Have I ever mentioned to anyone how much I love PF Chang's? I was really saddened when I was pregnant and the thought of Asian food made me want to gag...it took a good number of months after Meredith was born for me to want Asian food again but boy am I glad that aversion didn't last.

Meredith has really mastered eating with utensils in the last month or so.

Her skills are pretty impressive.

new floors

After coming to the conclusion that we will be stuck in our house for 5 more years (Greg says less than that but I'll believe it when I see it) we decided that it was time to put in some new floors in the kitchen and dining room. Yes, our house is only 5 years old but it has carpet in the dining room. Who builds a house with carpet in the dining room? That's one of the most stupid things I've ever heard of. Meredith has been eating in the kitchen for the last year and it's high time she learned how to eat a a table like a civilized person. Okay, as civilized as a 18 month-old can be. At least we won't have to worry about what she decides to randomly toss on the floor.

After much debate, we decided to do Pergo. Our budget definitely didn't allow for solid wood, I don't really care too much for engineered wood, and the Pergo looks nice and is really sturdy so we decided to go with that. I'm not willing to make a really huge investment into this house and I know the Pergo will look a lot nicer than the floors did before so hopefully that will help our house sell down the road.

These two pictures above are after the carpet in the dining room was ripped out. We haven't gotten to the kitchen floor yet.

The two picture above are what the floor looked like today. We're making progress but I think it's going to take another weekend of work to complete it in the kitchen. It's coming along. Many thanks to Greg for a great job so far!

the great imposter

I was looking through some of the entries from the Regis and Kelly's beautiful baby contest and came across this picture. I almost did a double take. Is this what my child is going to look like in a few months? I will be quite disappointed if this child wins the contest and Meredith is left high and dry.


**Disclaimer** The child pictured above is not my child.


Anyway, on to the rest of the weekend. Meredith's new obsession is Elmo. She wants to watch Elmo ALL.THE.TIME. I bought her a set of Elmo's World DVD's on Ebay and we watched a lot of Elmo this weekend. We know whe wants to watch Elmo when she plants her little butt in her chair and grunts at the TV. All the pictures in this post are taken with my fabulous new lens, BTW.
Here she is assuming her position on the chair.

Did I mention that Tabitha has a new found interest in Elmo too? This picture completely sums up the life of a toddler.

And if you haven't gotten enough Elmo yet, cap it off with Elmo Live.

We did find a little 'off' time to read with Daddy...

And got a little rowdy on the Bounce and Spin Zebra!

I found time during Meredith's nap (she is a marathon napper - averages 2-3 hours) to make a trip to Goodwill because it's been AGES since I've been over there. For $27 I came back with some stuff for me and for Meredith.

I got Meredith some 2T clothes. That's actually a 3T sleeper that I hope fits her next winter.

I got myself some clothes too!

In case you want to know, that's a pair of Ann Taylor Loft Jeans, a pair of (I think they are brand new) Express Editor capris or gauchos or whatever you want to call them (it's always a great day at Goodwill if I can score myself a pair of Editors), and a Banana Repuplic sweater vest.

another amazon purchase

Yes, Jeff Bezos, I have made yet another purchase on Amazon. I've been wanting a new lens for my camera for a long time now so I decided that it was time to upgrade from my kit lens. I am now the proud owner of this lens. It's the Tamron AF28-75mm F/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF). This lens is huge compared to the kit that I'm used to! I feel like I should be a serious photographer even though I couldn't take a good picture if my life depended on it. I'm hoping this will enhance my mad photo taking skillz...

I am in a picture taking rut right now. It's the middle of winter and it's dark when I go to work and it's dark when I come home and you just can't take good pictures under those conditions. This lens is going to let in more light so hopefully I can take some better indoor shots and I can't wait to see what the bokeh looks like. I am really looking forward to the weekend when I can practice taking some pictues with it, so stay tuned.

itsy bitsy pigtails

I'm off to Milwaukee this coming week so I thought I'd show you all a monumental picture before I leave. Meredith doesn't have much hair. There is some there but it's so light that you can't see it. It has finally gotten long enough that I can put two little pigtails in. Yes, they look kind of silly but I have been waiting SO long for some hair to grow.

Off to Kid's Hair we go now.

What happens when your child drinks too much tequila?

They pass out with their maracas! Apparently Meredith is feeling like she's still in Mexico. I'm a couple weeks late adding this to the blog but it's too cute to not share. Thanks for the Christmas gift Scott!

my latest bargain

I think most of my readers know that I love to shop at thrift stores, consignment shops, etc. for both myself and Meredith. It's actually a hobby of mine and it's a thrill to find a great bargain. In fact, today I'm wearing a very cute sweater from The Limited that I got at Goodwill for $3. Ironically I have it paired up with a $99 pair of Seven for All Mankind jeans. That totally defeats the purpose having expensive jeans and all, but I justify it because I used the money I made on Ebay when I sold my wedding gown so it's all good, right?



On Tuesday, one of my co-workers (actually, I'll call her my friend) and I went to a thrift store that was new to me called Unique and it's located over by the Burnsville mall. It's very organized compared to Goodwill but I think the prices are slightly higher. Anyway I came across this:
It's the Radio Flyer Classic Red Dual Deck Tricycle. It retails at Toys R Us for around $70. It was in great condition and I bought it for $19.95. I was so proud of myself. It's going to be a while before Meredith is old enough to use it but I'm just giddy with excitement about it!

a very long vacation - part 2

When we got off the ship, Rich and Mary picked us up in Tampa and drove us to The Villages. This was our new home away from home for the next five days. Meredith wasted no time hamming it up with Grandma Carlson.



She was dishing out the kisses!



We went over to David and Elaine's (Greg's aunt & uncle) house and Meredith loved Elaine's teddy bear.

This one is just a random cute picture.

And of course, a nice family picture.

One of her gifts from Mom and Dad was Elmo Live. I think she really likes it. She still gets big grins whenever Elmo 'talks' to her.

This is such a cute picture of Meredith snuggling with her Daddy.

David and Elaine came over for Christmas dinner - everything was fabulous. Thanks Rich and Mary!

Once the gifts were opened, the lanai became Meredith's own playroom.

This picture is worth a mention because Rich and Mary have the best neighbors down in The Villages. They all loved Meredith and welcomed her with wide open arms. They were giving her things right and left and this lovely singing reindeer came from the neighbor who likes QVC.

Finally, I snapped a picture of Meredith on the plane as we were heading home. We were fortunate enough to have some empty seats on the plane and it was just us in our row. She seemed to be behaving so well at first. Just know that this picture was taken pre-meltdown. It wasn't pretty and she refused to sleep. Of course she fell asleep right away in her stroller as we were waiting for our luggage.

a very long vacation! part 1

We will call this part 1 of the very long vacation. Part 2 will be in the next blog entry. Watch for it in the next couple of days.

Greg and I have been looking forward to this vacation since we booked it last February. We took a 7-day Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Legend with the whole Schwake family. We took off on Saturday, December 13 and flew down to Tampa. Both Greg and I were mildly sick in the days leading up to our departure. Greg had a sinus infection and I even stopped at Minute Clinic the day we left to make sure I didn't have strep throat. Meredith had her 15-month well baby check-up two days earlier so all looked good with her. The day before we left, she developed really bad diarrhea. I was terrified to bring her on the plane because she was going through eight poopy diapers before we even left for the airport. How the heck do you change a diarrhea blowout(s) on the plane?!? All was well though - her diarrhea miraculously stopped long enough for us to get to Tampa! Then it started up again and didn't go away for the next two days. We ended up making an emergency trip to Publix to buy more diapers!

The vacation was great overall but it wasn't relaxing at all - even though I had a lot of help! It was somewhat difficult having such a small child on the ship and our activities on and off the ship were extremely limited. I have yet to decided whether cruising is for me or not. I am experiencing prolonged 'land sickness' which is when your body doesn't adjust to being on land. It's been almost two weeks now since I've been off the ship and my world just won't quit rocking. I'm dizzy a lot, the walls move, and I have a lot of trouble keeping my balance. I can't stand up straight as it feels like there is a force pushing me in another direction. I am a bit sick and my ears are messed up so I'm **hoping** that when I get over this illness, I will be better. I have read online that this can continue for months and years in some people but they say it's rare.

We had perfect weather. It was sunny and hot each and every day!

That is our ship on the left, docked at Cozumel. The ship was gorgeous - state of the art!

There must have been six other ships docked the day we were there.

Here is another picture of the ship - taken from one of the pool decks.

This is Meredith, Aunt Jennifer and Grandpa Schwake at the buffet.

Meredith got her $300 worth of food, that's for sure. If there was one easy thing about being on a ship with a toddler, eating would be it! Finding food for her never posed a problem no matter what time of day it was.

This is one of the towel animals we found in our room after dinner.

Here is another. It's a walrus and we loved this one because we call Meredith a walrus sometimes when she has double snot trails coming out of her nose.

Meredith didn't have much room in our stateroom but she did play a little. She loves her phones nowdays. "Hello, Hello - can you hear me?"

"Wah! No one wants to talk to me!"

My absolute favorite picture from the trip!

Stop #1 - Grand Cayman Island

This was the view from our balcony.

Do you like the picturesque cranes in the background?

We took a boat out to Stingray City Sandbar. It's a sandbar where the water is about waist deep and the stingrays come to feed there.

This was taken from our boat. As you can see, the waters are vey shallow and they swim right up to you!

That's me in the middle of this picture holding on to a stingray! I even kissed it. You can see another one in the bottome right corner of the picture. It's the dark spot. They just swim right up to you and brush your legs.

Stop #2 - Cozumel

I really liked Cozumel and wish I had some more time there. We took a cab to Chankanaab Park. It's kind of an eco-park with a great beach area, nature preserve, and they also do the dolphin discovery there.

There were all sorts of shops on the pier but I didn't get much of a chance to shop because we had to get Meredith back on the ship for a late lunch and nap.

This is Meredith, Uncle Chris, Grandma Schwake and Aunt Jennifer looking over the dolphin dicovery area.

Meredith took a nose dive on the concrete and gave herself one heck of a fat lip!

This is the lagoon at the park.

The view of the ocean from the lagoon.

We relaxed at the beach for a while.






These creatures were everywhere around the lagoon. This particular one was hissing as people walked by.



Meredith got sleepy as we were heading back to the ship and fell asleep on uncle Chris.




Stop #3 - Belize City


Belize didn't offer too many baby friendly activities so our choices here were very limited. The rest of the family went on trips to visit ancient Mayan ruins but they were long trips that required lots of walking and we just couldn't do that with the kiddo. So, we opted to do a beach day. We spent the day on Bannister Island relaxing. I really wanted to see the ruins and am disappointed that I had to miss out on that.






It was a little foggy the morning we docked in Belize but here is a rainbow I saw from our balcony. You can barely see it, but that is the mainland and Belize City in the background. Because of all the reefs, the cruise ships have to dock about five miles offshore and be tendered in. Those are tender boats coming to take people to shore.



Here we are at Bannister Island!

Meredth was kind of afraid to walk in the sand.

Sorry to subject you to this picture of me, but I really like this picture. Meredith wouldn't walk in the sand unless she was holding my hand. And she's not a hand holder.



She loved this swing.





And last but not least, she fell asleep - yet again.



Stop #4 - Isla Roatan (Bay Islands, Honduras)
I think this was my favorite stop. It was beautiful and was not commercial at all! We took an excursion on one of those boats where you sit about 5 feet below the water and you can look out at the reefs.

This was the view from our balcony. It's a little dark - it was about 8:00 a.m.




Another view from our balcony. If it were a little later in the day, you would be able to see all the reefs that go right to the shore. Don't ask me how they get the ship so close to shore.



Meredith loves fish so she enjoyed looking out the window.



This is the view you see from the windows.




After the boat ride, we stopped at a popular dive village called West End.



Another picture in West End.

We walked around for a bit and visited some shops. If you think the potholes are bad in Minnesota, think again. We drove through biggest potholes I've ever seen - on a bus!

On the way back, we stopped at this cameo factory which is the last one left in the Americas. They had some beautiful handcrafted jewelry made of pearls, shells, and coral. I **almost** bought something but then decided not to. I'm kicking myself now. It was a turquoise blue necklace with matching earrings made of some sort of shell.

Meredith, of course, fell asleep at the cameo factory.

But then came to life once we went outside to get back on the bus.

And finally, one last view of the ship from the cameo factory.