Baby Shower for Rachel

Two weeks before Rachel and Chad had their baby girl, my sisters and I threw together this baby shower!  It was really fun and fairly low stress.  I had a lot of time to prepare and put decorations together, Mal made some excellent sugar cookies, and Alaina did an awesome job with decorations and invitations. We had a "build your own fruit pizza bar" and also served some salad and lemon bars (direct request from mom to-be)

This is a gorgeous print that our Aunt Erin (Black) made for Rachel's nursery.  I'm sure it will look so good in this baby's pink and green themed nursery.

Small family photo to end it all.

Update on the me

Don't mind the ramblings.

I had a chat fest with my favorite computer savvy friend, Greg. I have been sort of interested in doing some of my own graphic design/publishing stuff for a while now and he helped me look over a couple different options for getting started. I hope you'll see some better looking stuff on this blog (or a new blog) soon, but if this doesn't pan out(like most of my wacky ideas), my apologies. Just letting you know that I'm excited to learn something new.

Also, stay at home motherhood has inspired me to be a little more crafty. Now before you get all worried, I'm still staying away from crafts that have brought me to tears in the past (I'm looking at you, crocheting and knitting) and sticking to relatively tame things like felt ornaments and picture frames, but I am excited to see myself getting better at crafting and creating. I have a mirror from DI that I will be refurbishing that I hope to post pictures of, as well as a cute Valentines day craft.

 My parents gave Josh and I a Wii for Christmas.  I got a Wii fit (for very cheap) and play it most days of the week.  I love it SO. MUCH.  I know it's cheesy and it doesn't replace real exercise, but it's really really nice to be able to stay at home and play some games while Henry takes a nap, and do the small step program for 30 minutes during Ellen or The Revolution.  And Josh and I have friendly competitions on Saturday and Sundays during Henry's nap time.  I love it.

Last for today, The Revolution (on ABC) is my favorite new TV show.  It's the one hour a day that Henry and I sit in front of the TV and play games while I watch my health and wellness show and occasionally cry because something is minutely emotional.  I recommend checking it out if you're free from 1-2pm on weekdays.

Happy weekend!  So happy Josh doesn't work again until Tuesday.  Life is good.

Happy New Year 2012!

Alright, I just switched to the new Blogger interface? It's horrible. Which means, I'll probably love it in a couple months but it is hard and uncomfortable right now. I spent 6+ years on the old way of publishing, okay? I'm allowed to be weirded out by this. And now I understand the older generation's distaste for cell phones.
I made four New Years Resolutions that Josh and I discussed and if I actually spend a whole year doing my best to reach them, we're buying a Dyson vacuum for Christmas. Ready to read them? OK.

1. Make 1 loaf of bread (or one bread product like rolls) every week for a year. 52 loaves total.
2. Say morning and evening prayers daily. This is one I've had on my list probably every year since 2005 because I have never been a good morning pray-er. This year is the year, guys.
3. Be at my happy goal weight by my birthday 2012. This one I find to be fairly reasonable since Baby D is due in May and I'm not planning on gaining more than 30 lbs for this pregnancy, but heaven forbid I gain 70 this one will be a piece of work.
4. Track my exercise and fruit/vegetable intake for 52 weeks/the whole year. I am using the "Healthy Living Guidelines" handout that I created for job/internship at Y Be Fit. It's below so you can look at it and print it off if you want. Of course, I still have edits I want to make on it but this isn't a blog about my handout so I'll save that for another day. Just know, I'm tracking on this thing for a year, and I'm four weeks down.

So far I have done fairly well on all my goals. Like I said, I've tracked every week so far and I've made 3 loaves of bread, so I am behind 1 (or 2 if we count this week) and have to catch up this weekend. The goal weight by birthday is something I can't really work on right now (pregnant...can't lose weight) so I'm focusing on staying active and not gaining weight like crazy cause that worked fairly well with Henry. The prayers thing is always tricky because HOW do I get myself to remember when Henry wakes me up most mornings and my day simply begins? But don't worry, I'm trying, and I plan on getting this DOWN before Christmas. Good luck to everyone with New Years Resolutions! And to those who have none, I hope you have some goals anyway because it's good to have a goal.

6 months

I sure love this kid and his loungewear.

It's been too long, old friend.

Here are my two bits of, "She's seriously writing about this?!" for your viewing pleasure today.

1. I hope that someday Hugh Hefner gets diagnosed with some sort of mental disorder to explain why he is so crazy. Otherwise, he is truly a disgusting man.

2. I hope even more that Prince Harry (name actually is Henry) and Pippa get married. Even though he just denied rumors that they're dating. A girl can hope.

The end.

And I'm Proud to be an American

visited 32 states (64%)


Thank you, Andrea, for this awesome link. I am surprised I've been to so many of the states! It makes me feel like maybe I know America a little bit better than I though. Can you tell I've driven to New York? Also, I think our adventure next summer will be to visit the south. I want to hear tons and tons of Southern accents and accurately judge the most obese countries of the good 'ol USA. And see if everything really is fried in the south.

On the same sort of note except MUCH cooler, I am proud to report that I know all 50 STATES (definitely said countries in my first post. how embarassing). In alphabetical order. Yes, it took me about 15 years too long, but I never learned the country song in elementary school! It's not my fault my Arizona teachers were derelict in their duties of song teaching. I learned an Americana soldier patriotism song in kindergarten in Massachusetts

"...All at attention, stand like soldiers true. Hands on our hearts, pledge allegiance, too. We all love the flag, the red white and blue."

But I never learned the states song. Josh's job on the drive out here was to teach it to me. The first day went well. We got all the way through Nevadaaaaaaaaa then I was overwhelmed by the States that came rapid fire. Pause until day 2. THEN I LEARNED IT ALL. And I couldn't get the song out of my head for days. And now I can't see all the States in order without singing it. I am so blessed. Now I will sing it for you.

AaaaalaaaaaBAMA, alaska, arizona, arkansas, california, colorado, connecticut. Delaware, florida, georgia___hawaii, idaho, illinois, INdianuh. Iowaaa, kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, MAINE. Maryland, massachusetts, michigian! Minnesota, mississippi, missouri, montana. NebraSKA, nevaaaaaaadaaaaaaa. New hampshire, new jersey, new mexico___new york. North carolina, north dakota, OH-HI-OH. OKLA homa, oregon, pennsylvania. Rhode island, south carolina, south dakota, Tennessee, texAAAS. Utah, vermoooont, virginiaa, washington. West virginia, wisconsin, WYOOOOOOOOMING.

Oh man I bet that was annoying to read. It was fun to write, though. And that is straight from the brain so if I got some states out of order then I apologize because Josh taught me wrong.

So now, did anybody else miss out on learning the States' song? Because I didn't think that was a thing until Josh knew it and so did Gabbe, so then it wasn't just Alaina and Natalie who knew it. Discuss.

October 15, 2007

I blogged this little list

Reasons why I was a mom this weekend:
1. I made chocolate chip meringue cookies this weekend.
2. I did dishes five times.
3. I made some chocolate fudge type of dessert.
4. Made gourmet chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn.
5. Invited my friends over for a hearty meal on Sunday evening.
6. Did all the dishes from said meal.
7. Vacuumed and mopped the house.
8. 409ed counters everywhere.
9. Bought a pillow at DI with intentions to re-cover it.
10. Re-covered said pillow.

Reason why I am not a mom right now:
1. I made this bragging list.

Nearly four years later I feel like maybe I used to accomplish more in a day than I do now. Yikes. Here's my list of
Reasons why I am a mom right now:

1. I woke up at 6:30 this morning and didn't even complain about it.
2. I changed a diaper on the changing table I own in my house
3. I wrote 700 words of an essay because my son was happy enough to play for 30 minutes this morning
4. It's 9:07 and I'm awake, blogging, and writing an essay (more the blogging than essaying)

Reasons why I am not a mom right now:

1. It's 9:09 in the morning and I have already showered for the day.
2. I am not blogging about my son

Though I absolutely love being a mom, it's not quite as glamorous as I think I once imagined it was. Who has time to make gourmet chicken when there is school to do, babies and husbands to love, laundry to fold, and bodies to get back into shape?

Cheers.

Let's Re-visit

I was just reading my posts about Tom Cruise and remembering that some time ago, something awesome happened with him again and I didn't blog about it. I'm so sorry. All I remember is that it was epic and I kept thinking I'd blog about it and I never did. I'll try and remember and blog about it. So sad.

Also, let's revisit the cat nip. Doesn't everyone get sleepy when it's raining?