It's a date

Every year my husband's work puts on a company dinner in the fall.
The food is always delish and we both look forward to the dinner. The music has gotten better over the last couple of years and is easier to dance to now than the first couple of years. Plus it's a good excuse for my hubby and I to get dressed up a little for each other and enjoy a guilt free evening out.
Hubby's parents are going to watch the kids for us tonight for a few hours and we'll go enjoy each other's company.

This year I do have to confess I'm a little nervous as my husband's boss' boss is going to be there.
I always put more pressure on myself than is really needed I'm sure but I have always wanted to conduct myself at the dinners in a manner that would never do anything to hurt my husband's reputation or jeopardize his job. Tonight should be fun though. And I'll be sure to post pictures tomorrow of me and the hubs. Have a wonderful Saturday!

Think, dream, create.

Lately I've felt like I've just been in survival mode.
With having two littles of my own and then adding two more little ones I've just simply been doing what I need to do to get by,
But I've really felt a large void in my life.

I need to create.

I've always enjoyed doing crafts and things with my hands since I was young.
As a young girl I could lay on the floor and color for hours on end.
As I grew older I got into paper crafts and beading.
In my teens my great-grandmother taught me how to crochet and I learned to knit because of a special little girl I babysat.

While I still love to do all of those things, I rarely find the time to do most of them.
As a wife and mom I, like so many others, put aside the things that I find joy and pleasure in to meet everyone else's needs first.
But in the last week I've found I have a yearning to do some of those things again.
So I've decided I'm going to find or rather make the time for myself.

I know it won't be easy as I love my family and it is so easy to put everyone else (Read I'm a total people pleaser).
But I also know that by me taking time for myself to think, dream, create, and finding joy and pleasure in doing something with my hands again will also benefit my family. So really I'm doing it for them right? ;)

I've also been saying for, oh who knows how long, that I want to open an Etsy Shop. 
My goal is to get it up and running by the end of this year. Guess I should probably get going on it huh?

What do you do that is simply something you enjoy and do for yourself?
What do you do to keep yourself from feeling guilty taking "me time?"

{Wordless Wednesday} A walk in the park.

Confessions and Reminiscing

So I have a slight confession to make.

Dowe and I have been married for almost 4 years now and I just last night for the first time ever made mashed potatoes!

Yes, you read that right. It's the first time I have ever made them.

You see my husband makes KILLER mashed potatoes and so I've always been too afraid to even attempt them as I knew they just wouldn't compare. No joke…his are like a dance party is going on with my taste buds. (Even though they never taste exactly the same as he doesn't measure anything and then teases me for doing the exact same thing...just saying.)

Although mine were good, they still were nowhere near as amazing as my hubby’s.
There are just some things that he does better than I do and the same thing goes the other way.
It’s part of what makes us work so well together.

But there is one thing I am so thankful to know…..
No matter what we have each other’s backs.

This morning as I woke up, hearing our two boys chatter in the next room as I lay there in my husband’s arms I got thinking about our life.

I started to remember how we started dating 6 years ago after being through so much together before that as best friends.

Then I thought of our engagement 5 years ago (a story that I promise to type up soon.) and laughed at remembering how I honestly had no clue yet almost found out about it accidently.

Then I began thinking about these last few years together being married.
The time has flown by. In August we will have been married for 4 years and our lives have changed more than I had ever expected in such a short period of time.  But though this life is crazy and going by far too quickly I love it more than I could have ever imagined.

We haven’t always had it easy.
We fought like crazy while we were dating.
Got through a rough first few months married with us both working a lot and frequently on opposite shifts adding in to that I was crazy pregnant hormonal and Dowe was also a full time student.
Times spent wondering how we were going to pay our bills and if it would be better for me to go find a job on an opposite shift from my husband so one of us could stay home with the kids.

And you know what?
If I had the chance to go back and do it all over again I would.
I would still date him.
I would still say yes to him.
I would still marry him.
I would still have a family with him.
I am still looking forward to growing old together.

He still makes me smile every day. He still makes me shake my head at his silly antics.
He still makes me blush and calls me out on it making me blush that much more.
He still makes my heart skip and beat.
He still makes me feel loved and special.
I’m so beyond grateful that he chose me.

I am still looking forward to spending the rest of my life with him 

no matter how long or short that may be.

So in the spirit of reminiscing I decided to share with you all the song that we danced to on our wedding day.

Detox Day One (and) Two.

Before I go into how the first two of four intense days of Detox are going I have to let you all in on a little secret... (shh don't tell anyone....) Dowe is doing the detox with me! Now I will tell you he is not doing as extreme of a detox as I am but he is doing a daily morning hot lemon water with me. :)

I began the detox Tuesday morning with a nice hot steaming mug of Lemon water!

YUM!

I then made lunch for the boys and something else for me. The Boys had a Chicken Alfredo and I make my own white sauce for it. One of my favorite things ever...(Why do I do these things to myself!)
I decided to allow myself to have some plain cooked chicken on my salad so I didn't feel like I was completely cutting myself off from everything else. However, I was very surprised when the Alfredo wasn't even appetizing to me. I also made a side of coleslaw planning for that to be a big part of my lunch. I was pretty sure Monkey wouldn't like it (he didn't) and Dowe doesn't normally like coleslaw but LOVED this!

I shredded some purple cabbage, carrots, broccoli stems, and one zucchini....a little white vinegar, a little sugar (guilty!), and some salad dressing and it was amazing. (Sorry can't give an exact recipe cause I don't measure anything....Dowe hates that about my cooking as nothing is ever EXACTLY the same again.)
I also ate a salad and some snow peas for lunch.

Due to having to take our car to get the oil changed which required me to take Dowe to work my lunch was cut short. So I quick threw the rest of my salad into a plastic container, grabbed a kiwi, knife, and a small thing of yogurt along with some plain, whole, raw Almonds. The above mentioned were eaten over the rest of the afternoon.
At my moms later in the evening I had two ears of corn and a little more chicken.

Now I must confess to you all that I had an Almond Joy Ice Cream with my mom and Monkey at the local FAVORITE. (Something I have only had once from there this summer as its an hour and a half drive from where we live.) Normally I would have gotten a medium but I only had a small and allowed myself to fully enjoy this treat! :) And I also had two more cups of Hot Lemon Water.


Day Two! (with pictures!!!)
I'm sorry that Day One didn't have hardly any pictures! I really need to get better about that.
I did better today though I promise! :)

First thing Hot Lemon Water. :)
Then...Breakfast....

Oh My YUM!!!!

Vanilla Yogurt, Fresh Strawberries, and Sesame Seed covered Almonds.

Lunch:

ohh the veggies!

Don't judge here but the only way I will eat raw broccoli and cauliflower is with SOME kind of dip. So I made my own Dill Dip. Sour cream and dried dill weed =Instant dill dip :) 

Also that bowl of stuff is the left over coleslaw from yesterday. 

For snacks I munched on some snow peas and almonds. 

Tonight I must confess I was feeling rather hungry and so I decided to have two ham and cheese roll ups with mustard and horseradish sauce. :) 

I am currently also working on drinking my Third cup of HLW for today. 

How am I feeling you ask? Well I am already feeling so much better! I feel less bloated and a little more energy. I was up in the middle of the night with a screaming baby so I can't yet comment on the less tired part. But I really am noticing a difference already in how my body feels. Here's to hoping I can continue at this pace for the next two days! :)

That's it! In the morning I am off to buy some Lemons!!!

Back a few blog posts ago I told you all how I want to:

• Take  better care of myself so I can take better care of my boys.
• Look mad hot for my husband for our anniversary trip. This means being able to wear whatever Pre-Baby stuff I have that he would want to see me in for our little get away sometime this summer. (Possibly including a 2-Piece Swim Suit....GASP!)

Well I have been doing this on and off I guess. No where near as consistent as I want to be in taking care of myself. And I never did get around to doing much in the way of exercising other than the walks monkey and I take. Those count though right?...I get a good sweat on ;) haha. Anyways...not the point.

The point is that over the last few weeks I have noticed I have been overly tired, bloated, having issues with acne again (sorry TMI here), and just over all feeling blah!

Jami over at Call Me Blessed posted that she is doing a detox. I decided that is exactly what I need to do to get all of the toxins out of my system and get myself feeling better again!

I am not doing anything overly crazy or big but I am going to buy lemons!

My mom for a long time would drink a glass of hot lemon water first thing in the morning and I didn't quite understand why.  Until just before my wedding (Two years ago!) I realized I had randomly put on a few pounds out of nowhere and was feeling rather stressed out. My mom told me that it was probably just from all of the stress and so we did a Hot lemon water detox together for a couple of weeks before my wedding. It  was AMAZING. Within a couple of days I felt SO much better. 

Well here I am...2 years later...Getting ready and excited for the hubs and my first trip away without the baby. First time alone away from our home together since getting married!... And I feel yucky. :(

So for the next few days I am planning to do a Hot Lemon Water Detox and a Get Raw Diet. I will be attempting to eat only RAW fruits, Veggies, and Nuts for the next 3-4 days to get myself feeling over all better about me. :) 

Along with some MASSIVE amounts of Chaos Cleaning! 

I don't want to come home from the vacation feeling horrible about how the house looks. 

I don't want to waste the precious time I have alone with hubs worrying/thinking about how icky things look at home.

I want to just relax and enjoy my vacation time when it finally gets here. So I am off to go clean more tonight before Dowe gets home and get ready to go to my mom's tomorrow to help her get the house a little more "baby ready" as she is taking Monkey when we go. :)

Mommy Needs Coffee!!!

My dear sweet husband loves me to bits and pieces but he HATES that I drink coffee.


I can't help it! I just really really love a good cup of coffee.
And some days....Mommy just needs coffee!


I haven't been drinking it as frequently lately as I had been simply because 1) I am saddly out of good creamer 2) I am running really low on filters and 3) I know how much my husband really doesn't like it. (Notice number three is in third place ;) ...I love you babe!)


Well today I REALLY wanted a good cup of coffee...but when I buy coffee I buy the whole beans.
I do this cause then I can stick them in the freezer (as I am the only one who drinks coffee) and then they stay fresher longer. Only problem with that is I typically want to sit and enjoy my cup of coffee when baby monkey is napping and the bean grinder is SUPER loud and ends up waking him up without fail...every time. ugh.


I tried my hardest to just have a cup of tea and though the tea tasted good (tea a friend brought home from Africa for me :) yum!) it just didn't cut it. Mommy Needs Coffee!






So in desperation of needing coffee and making sure that Monkey continued to nap... I did this!

I took the B&D coffee grinder into the mudroom, closed the door, and ground up the beans!!!
Now with baby still napping and coffee by my side I'm ready to work! Catch ya later blogging world! :)

Random updateish post....

Well its been pretty chaotic around here lately if you couldn't tell by my lack of posts over the last week.


However, it has been full of exciting, fun, and wonderful moments. Totally worth the chaos.
I have been cleaning up a storm! The house is FINALLY really starting to shape up again. (a lot of thanks goes to my husband who has been helping me out tons and tons.) I was reminded once again on Sunday about how "God is not a God of disorder" and that I need to get my life back in order and living a God Honoring life. 
Not that I'm doing anything crazy bad but I feel like I don't honor God as much as I should with how I take care of my house and my boys. He has given me a roof over my head, a hard working husband with a decent job, made it possible for me to stay home with my son, and this beautiful little boy to take care of. 


The new schedule is going really well and I must tell you that I really am loving it! I never thought that just having a little bit of guaranteed alone time in the evenings between the time Monkey goes to bed and the time Dowe gets home would be so good for me! I'm really finding it makes me a better wife and mother. I find myself spending more and more time with my boys and less time feeling like I'm losing myself. I think I may have found the cure to my identity crisis and found myself again. 


Dowe and I are planning Monkey's first birthday party. I still can not believe that on Friday he's going to be a year. We're having a Fish themed party as our son LOVES fish. Dowe and I got Monkey a 10 gallon fish tank for his birthday. It is in his bedroom and has been quite therapeutic for him. He has started taking better naps again in the afternoons and sleeping better at night since its been in his room. 
We're hosting his party at our church this Sunday and I'm really excited for it. I honestly use to think that throwing a first birthday party was silly and unnecessary, however, it is on Dowe's side of the family, almost a right of passage. And now I'm honestly so thankful that we are throwing one. I honestly believe its helping me be excited and happy that Monkey is turning one instead of sad and depressed that a whole year has gone by so quickly. Don't worry...I will post pictures after the party. :)


Monday was Memorial Day. We went to my sister in-law's for the day. It was WONDERFUL. 
My husband is one of eight kids and so getting all of us together is a lot of times just...crazy. There are 6 kids ages 3 and under with another on the way (Second oldest sister in-law is expecting around August), and when we all get together there is a grand total of 19 people. And that is just the immediate family! So as much as we all LOVE getting all of us together, it is difficult to get good quality time with anyone really. Having just the seven of us together was really nice. My sister in-law cut my hair (THANK YOU!!!), we played games together, sat and chatted, and just all around got to enjoy each other's company. We went to a parade in town which was a blast. Just an all around WONDERFUL day with them. We have wanted to get together all winter and it finally happened thanks to the men having the holiday off.




Monkey and I have been spending a lot of time outside. He really doesn't care for the feel of the grass so he stays put for the most part on the blanket I lay out and just plays with the few toys I take out with us. Its been nice as I've been able to spend time reading while he's playing. More often than not, I lay on the blanket with him and become "jungle-gym-mommy" as he climbs over me.  We have lots of fun though. It really makes me wish Dowe was home during the afternoon/evening time that we go out though as he loves being outside too and its really relaxing. But I am so thankful for his job and how hard he works for us. 


Also a few little fun things about my Monkey as of lately...
Monkey took his first steps on Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :) :) :) (Can you say Excited Mommy?!)
I am mostly excited about when it happened because Dowe was home and was able to see it with me! Monkey is still pretty chicken about letting go and just walking but he is getting more and more brave and doing it more without being coaxed. :)


(*** Disclaimer: I will be talking about our experience with breastfeeding in the next section so if you don't want to know then skip the next paragraph and we'll catch up again real quick at the end. :)   ***)






 Also for those of you who don't know, I have been breastfeeding Monkey for the past year. We had a little bit of a rough start and a bumpy patch in the middle but over all have had a great experience with breastfeeding. I was very determined from the beginning to nourish our baby that way and had a fantastic support system. (I couldn't have done it without the 1000000% support of my husband and both of our families being supportive as well as my mom giving me tips, ideas, and encouragement.) However, our time with breastfeeding is coming to an end. I have always said that I was alright with nursing up till 2 years of age but then that was my cut off point. Monkey has begun to ween himself and I am ok with it. More than anything I wanted to make it past the 6 month mark as I knew how important that was nutritionally for him. Then we went through a really horrible time with baby food back in January and had to go back to strictly just nursing. When we went to reintroduce baby food Monkey refused to eat it. Finally when he got enough teeth in to bite things we started regular foods with him. He is now down to nursing 3-4 times a day. It is slightly sad in a way as this means my baby is growing up but nice and exciting at the same time. It will mean it'll be easier for Dowe and I to go away for our anniversary in a couple of months and I am greatly looking forward to being out of these nursing bras and back into regular ones. (ahhh to feel like a woman! haha) Plus it does mean that it gives me more freedom of being away for more than 2ish hours and not having to worry about getting back at a certain time for the next feeding. I will miss that bonding time to a certain extent but I am also thankful that he is doing this on his own and that I am not forcing him to stop.  My little boy is getting so big! :)










Well I think thats enough of a random update....I probably should get a couple of things done before Dowe gets home (which will be really soon!) Hope you all had a good Wednesday!




TOOTLES! :)

Domestic Diva FAIL

Well all in one day I went from being Domestic Diva to Domestic Disaster!!!

Please don't laugh at me too much as I honestly share with you my domestic fiasco with you.

I had planned on getting up on time today (Dowe and I have been sleeping in a little the last few days.)  so that way I could shower, feed Monkey, then go do grocery shopping. I hadn't been shopping in a while and I wanted to know I had time to do everything I needed and wanted to do while I was gone. Well that didn't go so well. I've been having horrible nightmares again and last night was no different. This one was so bad I will not even tell Dowe about it. Blah. 

So instead of getting up I took comfort in my husband's arms. (Thank you sweetie!)

When I finally got up, showered, dressed, fed Monkey, and headed out the door I had less than 2 hours. So I drove across town, got cash from the ATM and made my first stop. Old Navy. 

Dangerous place for me as I use to work there. So its easy to get chatting with the people that still work there that I know as well as the fact that there was a 50% off clearance sale going on! The whole reason I went in there was to exchange a few things of Monkey's that I wanted to get in a bigger size for him. (crossing my fingers that we can get two summers out of these clothes...)

So I did what all I needed to do there without too much of a problem and without taking toooo much time.  Then to Walmart where I needed to get two things for Monkey's birthday aquarium, thread for husband's pants so I can finish hemming them, and shampoo for me. 

I grabbed the stuff for monkey and checked out totally forgetting the other two items...Dowe called me about the thread thankfully and I went back in to get it but still forgot the shampoo. :(  I then went to  get groceries and ran back home. I did pretty good with all of the groceries but I got back home with only around 15 minutes to make lunch, have Dowe eat, and leave for work on time. I planned on making taco salads which wouldn't take any longer than the meat to cook and throw everything together. Dowe worked on unloading the groceries while I started cooking. Monkey desperately wanted mommy so I threw him in the Mei Tai Carrier and away we went executing my plan for lunch. I had the ground beef cooking, Monkey was trying to watch daddy walk in and out of the house unloading groceries, and I was working on cutting up a tomato when *SLICE!!!* I cut my thumb wide open! UGH! I was using a serrated  knife and I wasn't using a cutting board. Then to top it off the juices from the tomato burned inside my cut. Dowe got monkey off my back and dealt with him while I tried to get the bleeding to stop. He then got me all bandaged up and asked if I was going to need stitches (still no real verdict on that but I don't THINK I will need any) and ended up leaving late for work. Blah! 

Then Monkey didn't nap well at all and was fussy pretty much all day long. Thankfully he loves being in the Mei Tai and was happy to be in there more than not today. We walked to the park and played for a while. He's now in bed and I have to go make dinner...oh yeah...another fail on my part tonight...Because of the sliced thumb I didn't have time to make dinner to send with hubby for at work so I'm off to make some dinner now. ugh.... ready for this day to be over with and to just go lay down in bed.

Tootles Blogspot World.

New Beginnings.

Tomorrow starts a whole world of new beginnings for my little family.


New Job for hubby! YAY! Yes, My love got the job! He is now Supervisor and starts in the morning with training. We're so super excited. I cannot tell you how honestly excited I was to be washing his work uniforms for the last time this weekend so we can turn them in tomorrow! (In fact I even stayed up a little later tonight just to finish drying and folding the ones to turn in so they will ALL leave the house at the same time tomorrow!) Yes he will have a uniform still but as silly as this is I like the new style/colors he gets with this promotion. Plus they wont be as hard to clean now. :)


New (more normal) Schedule for us. Both of my boys (Hubby and Monkey) were asleep in bed at 10pm. Seeing as Dowe is training on First Shift for a week or two before going back to second we have decided to try to get on a better schedule starting tonight/tomorrow.  I especially am looking forward to this and am interested to see how it goes.


New Budget. As I have said before we are taking the FPU class at our church and with Dowe's new job we have to redo our budget and I'm actually looking forward to it this time! :)


New Ministry outreach with my church. I am going to be the coordinator of a meals ministry for families who have just had a baby, lost a loved one, or are having serious health issues. 


New Goals. I have a whole list of new goals, some starting tomorrow and some starting in a few weeks when Dowe goes back to his shift. So here they are.....

• Get rid of things we do not need/want anymore. Yes this has been part of my Chaos Cleaning To Do's but with Dowe's new job we are seriously considering the fact that we will hopefully actually be able to get a place of our own fairly soon instead of renting much longer. I do not want to move things we do not need/want. 
• Read more books.    I am a book lover. Have been since I was little. However, since I have had Monkey I have not really had much time to read. I am hoping that I will be able to put him to bed at 10pm, and then spend that time from 10pm till around 11:30pm when Dowe will get home from work reading.
• Do More Crafts!    I am also a craft crazy! I love to crochet, knit, scrapbook, sew, even cut pictures out of magazines and do collages. You name it I probably like it or would at least try it! (Can also use time after baby goes to bed for this.)
• Be More Consistent with my alone time with God.  Though I have been doing better as of lately than I have ever been before, I still am not doing it every day like I need to. Something always seems to come up. :( I am hoping that I can get up a little before Monkey in the mornings, have breakfast and do my devotions.
• Spend more time out doors. As the weather is slowly but surely getting nicer I want to be out doors more.  Cleaning up the yard, cleaning out the flower bed, going for nice long walks with my boys, cooking out, whatever! I just want to get out there and get some fresh air! (this one really isn't too difficult to do but still.)
• Be more consistently doing Elimination Communication with Monkey. For more information on this look up the book "The Diaper Free Baby"
• Take  better care of myself so I can take better care of my boys.
• Look mad hot for my husband for our anniversary trip. This means being able to wear whatever Pre-Baby stuff I have that he would want to see me in for our little get away sometime this summer. (Possibly including a 2-Piece Swim Suit....GASP!)

Those are all of the ones I can think of right now but if I come up with any more I will let you know. :)
But for now I need to get myself to bed so I can also get on this new exciting schedule! :)
Good night world.

Reasons for blogging

I have decided to blog again. I use to have a blog on a different website and due to several different reasons I needed to create a new blog and start fresh. But before I begin to blog I feel I need to share the reasons I am going to begin blogging again. So here they are,
My Reasons for Blogging:

1) There are things I am trying to work on in my life to better myself and my family's life and I am thinking this may help keep me accountable. 

2) I am a young wife. I have several other friends who are also young wives and there is a lot of transitioning that goes along with becoming someone's help-mate, counterpart, love, spouse, other half. And though I do not have this whole thing down pat yet I'm thinking it would be nice to be able to share in my struggles as a wife with other soon-to-be wives/recently wives. 

3) I am a young mom and I know there are several other young moms out there that may possibly be feeling the same things I am. And though I do not want this blog to become a place to just gripe and complain (as I LOVE being a mommy!) but there are those days where you didn't get dressed till it was almost time to go to bed, only fed your family a quick little not much to talk about meal, and you just feel like pulling your hair out! I want to be able to share in the joys, tears, fears, and privilege of motherhood. 

4) I am still a woman. This is one of those things that is sometimes hard to remember as a wife and mother that I am still a woman. I am finding more and more as a stay-at-home/work-from-home mom and wife that I NEED some sort of outlet that is mine. I am hoping that maybe this will give that to me? I know I will probably be blogging a lot about my boys (husband and son) but I also want to be able to give myself that time. 

5) Accountability. I know I somewhat touched on this already but now to tell a little bit more about what this means for me. I am thinking of taking on some Challenges. And though I do not know what all of what they will include I do know that if there is a slight chance that someone will be reading my blog and "checking up" on me that will help me to be more consistent with completing my goals. 


So here it goes...my first blog towards becoming a better me. A better Woman, Wife, and Mother.