Friday Confessions

It's Friday again, which means confessing time -  it always feel good to confess!

I confess...I know I'm pregnant by all of the Food pictures and recipes I pin on pinterest lately.  Everything just looks and sounds so yummy!

I confess...I have a problem.  I have this mindless thing I do, I tap my fingers or toes in an arch shape and will count in 3's or 5's.  I never count above 100, and will just automatically start back over at 1.  I never realize I'm doing it until after I've cycled through to 100 once or twice.  The Hubs' will look over at me sometimes and see I'm tapping something and will just start counting aloud, making me realize that I'm doing it.  I haven't always done this, it's just come to light in the past couple years.  It's one of my many quirks.

I confess...this week has quickly gone down hill and feels like the week that won't end.  My wonderful amazing Gramma - has been battling cancer for almost 5 years.  She was admitted in the hospital Saturday because she's been in severe pain.  The news has come back from her tests this week and it isn't good, the cancer has spread extensively throughout her.  She's getting a stent put in one of her kidney's today, to alleviate some pain she's in.  Hospice has been called and is delivering a medical bed and other things to her house this weekend.  She just wants to go home.

I confess...It's extremely hard to be going through all of this.  She and I share a birthday.  When my parents split she became my little sister and I's 2nd home.  It's been so great to see her sing the same songs and say the same nursery rhymes to my girls' as she did with me growing up.

I confess...the night I found out the news I was crying and Emma asked me what was wrong.  I told her that Gramma was sick and wasn't going to get better.  Emma asked me if it was because she didn't take her medicine.  It brought a good chuckle out of me and I explained to her that no medicine could be taken, that she was sick on the inside.

I confess...The Hubs and I have decided regardless what we are having, only 3 1/2 more days until we find out, we will be using my Gramma's middle name Lee.

I confess...I'm so glad to have an amazing extended family who is all there for each other during this time and I have the bestest friends who are here for me during this time.

I confess...Miss A  knows exactly what I need and has been showering me with extra hugs and kisses the past couple days.

I confess...I didn't plan on getting all of this out today, but am glad, as I feel a little better.

Happy 15 Months Miss Avalynn

 

Baby Girl,

Yesterday, you officially passed 15 months.  Have decided through your 2nd year to do these letters to you every 3 months, as you are still changing a lot.  We have your check-up in a couple weeks, so I don’t have your 15 month stats.  You are wearing a mix of sized clothes, as some brands run big, so half your wardrobe is 18 months the other is 24 months or 2T, as I’ve noticed some stores have stopped having things marked 24 months.  Your feet have grown since your birthday, and are now in a size 6.  You love shoes and carry yours around most of the day.

At 14 1/2 months you started walking more than crawling and you love to just GO now, especially when out in public.  We’ve been lucky to actually have a few sunny days lately, a break with all the rain, and you love being in your swing, drawing with sidewalk chalk, or playing under the play set in the tanbark/dirt.  Yesterday, you attempted to go up the climbing wall, and you made it no problems with a spotter.

You say Hi and Buh-Bye very clearly.  Otherwise you show pretty much no interest in words or using them.  Like everything else with you, you like to do things when you want.  :o)

Daddy has started to call you our own little sour patch kid, like the current sour patch candy commercials.  You are quite strong willed and often like to flail your arms or legs at one of us, mostly your sister, and then next thing you attack with a big ole’ hug and kisses.  Your loving's are the cutest thing around, you wrap your arms around our necks and pull us in tight.  You seem to know already you are funny as you have us cracking up several times a day with your expressions and things you do. 

And your “spirit” has been showing through more and more with these fun tantrums.  I was way too spoiled with your older sister who never had that “spirit” in her.  You will force your weight down to sit if we try to get you to walk somewhere else, or stand there yelling off your hand stamping your feet.  I really must video tape these some time. 

Your relationship with your sister has really grown over the past couple months.  You tend to follow her and love playing, aka – taking away from her, whatever she is playing with.  One of your favorite things to play with lately are baby dolls, you love holding them, kissing them, and feeding them their bottles.  And your love of climbing onto things hasn’t stopped, you’ve now moved to the dining room chairs, a rocker we have, and as always the couch which you also consider your own running mat, that you’ll run and then dive into the cushions.  And nothing is safe on the counters, tables, bookshelves, when placed on the edge, especially drinks.  You love to grab your sisters juice boxes whenever she forgets to push it far enough back and take some sips before one of us can take it away from you. 

As the warmer months are coming I look forward to seeing how you enjoy the pool and other fun outdoors things that will be taking up our days. 

Love,
the Mama

Easter Egg Brownie Pops

Last Easter-y post, I promise!  Kim from Sand & Sisal shared a little how-to on making these egg brownie pops, similar to Bakerella’s cake pop phenomenon that seems to be the new craze.  So, I convinced the Hubs to help me with these, although there was definitely some grumbling throughout the process.  I just followed Kim’s step by step instructions, overall I think ours turned out pretty great, and were a hit and have been told they are yummy, just sweet/very rich. 

While we waited for these to freeze for the 15 minutes, the Hubs and I enjoyed snacking on the yummy outside pcs of the brownie, since they got too hard that I wasn’t able to use them.  Now for the finished product.

Here’s my tips:
- Buy the colored chocolate.  I bought white only thinking I could add in food coloring, bad bad idea.  As soon as I added it, it turned the chocolate thick, so I went to reheat and it burned and turned curdly – YUCK!
- There was no setting these up to harden, the chocolate just kept dripping off.  So, one of us would shake it and the other would sprinkle the sprinkles on it while the chocolate was still wet.
- Do not dip it in the sprinkles, it tends to mess up the 1st coat of chocolate.
Perhaps you can bookmark these and make them next year or as balls for another holiday, am sure they will be a BIG hit!

Happy Easter

It’s only 9pm but already feels much later.  We had a very lovely day (hitting up into the mid 80’s) around here enjoying our Easter morning together and spending the rest of the day visiting with our families.  Great food and company, the girls’ got spoiled with Easter goodies from Grand & Great-Grandparents, Aunts etc.  Plus, like anything all holidays are more fun with little ones.  It was so great to see Miss A’s excitement over everything as last year she was only 2 months old. 

I have to share that the table and chairs stack together into Rapunzel’s tower.  It’s a big hit with both girls’.  And I was so excited on my find on this, back in January, Target was having their 75% off sale and I scored this for only $13! 

I hope all who celebrate, had a wonderful day with loved ones, enjoyed good food, and had some Easter candy to end the day.

Easter Egg Fun

It’s a tradition in our home ever since Emma was 1 years old that we would dye Easter eggs every year.  We tend to mix up the kits we get.  This year we opted for the dunking the egg completely and being able to paint with cotton swabs.  We even had Avalynn do her own egg, she loved doing it, but kept wanting to eat the cotton swab or touch her skin or clothes.  So, she didn’t do as much as I’m sure she would have preferred, but she’s officially done her 1st one! Now for some pics:

After looking at the pictures, I was reminded of a funny story.  I had decided to write each girls’ first initial on an egg.  The Hubs looks at me and asks if I was going to write the rest of the letters.  Um, last I checked we only had two kids, E = Emma & A = Avalynn.  Finally, after going around in circles talking this over, it comes to light he thought I was spelling out Easter.  Perhaps, you had to be there, but it still makes me chuckle thinking back over our conversation. 

Have you done any egg dye’ing with your little one’s yet?

The following is

the randomness that is my brain this week.  I’ve been determined to bust out the camera and just take photos this week, especially after I realized on the the 13th, that I totally forgot what day was the 12th, so I could do 12 on 12.  Hopefully next month.  And after seeing Kellie’s guest post over at Little Miss Momma today describing 10 steps for taking your camera off of Auto I had tons of fun playing around. Here’s some of what I shot this week

 

Growing some Basil from my recent Favorite Things Swap.

Playing around with focusing on E’s hands, with the background blurry.  She was laying on our ottoman most of the afternoon during “quiet” time like this.

Again focusing on Miss A’s adorable baby feet while we were out swinging today – such a beautiful day.

I’ve been freaking out because I haven’t really felt the baby move in the past week, yes I know I’m early, but once you start feeling movement it’s hard to not worry when you don’t for a week.  I feel like I did something mean and definitely laid down on our living room floor (hardwoods) to see if the little bean would make some movements telling me to get up and right away I started feeling the bean.  I now feel like I can stop freaking out so much right now.

The Hubs got his definite day schedule this week starting 2 weeks from now, which meant I had to re-schedule the BIG u/s date, which will now be on May 3rd.  These next couple weeks can’t go by fast enough.

The Hubs is back home this week, but with his long hours it basically feels like last week when he was on travel, minus the 30 mins or less he gets to see the girls and he’s here in the evenings for some company.  But now, both of us are tired and have been going to bed around 9pm, sometimes earlier for me.

I know I talk about Pinterest A LOT, but seriously, am in love, plus tons of blogs this week have been chatting it up!  Have you jumped on the Pinterest wagon yet?

As I was blog hopping today I came across Kathleen at Grosgrain’s video tutorial on doing a fish tail braid.  After watching it I completely made Emma sit on my lap so I could try it out, am in love with this super cute & easy hair style.  Here’s a picture of how it turned out

Spring bulbs are definitely blooming around these parts, so I decided to cut some fresh flowers and stick them in the living room.  They are definitely bringing the spring smell into the house.

Have you heard of Baby Lifestyles?  They contacted me today wanting to share this pinwheel mobile I made for over Miss A’s crib.  This is very exciting and I will share the post once I get the final information from their Editor.

Now, to prepare for our very filled weekend of Easter-y stuff, family outings, errands, extended family birthday celebrations, and packing up the Hubs for another week of travel starting Monday.  Hope you all have a great weekend!

Pier 1 - Springtime Ideas

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Pier 1 for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.



Pier 1 is one of the stores I love to pop in and see what's new for the seasons, especially to check out what kinds of patterns they are using and the pops of colors.  I love that so many of their pieces can be used inside/outside, whichever way you need it to fit your needs.



Now for some of my favorite's that I am loving from their "Summer" collection.  My first picks being both of these chairs, am LOVING them!  I can definitely see these out on our front porch or up in the girls room.

Pier 1 has some great patterns, am loving the left one as this is more along the colors in my home.  And the right one just screams summer to me, they would look great on either of the chairs I picked above.

Now for some decor items - I see these stools all over bloggy land as side tables and the colors of these are just so fun.  How cute would some of those oil lights be when sitting around the backyard on a late summer night.

One of the best things about spring/summer are the BBQ's and gatherings you have with friends and families, definitely check out all of the wonderful things Pier 1 have for entertaining.

If you are in the New York area then you should definitely check out Pier 1 Tweetups, which will be April 20th at 71 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10003, held 5:00pm - 8:00pm.

Friday Confessions

I confess...I wish that Toaster Strudels came with more than 6 in a pack, that's enough for 3 breakfasts, and I'm loving the apple ones right now, the perfect amount of warm gooey sweetness.

I confess...this week has felt pretty long without the Hubs.

I confess...one of the things I'm most looking fwd to with him back is so he can carry Miss A, my little 28lb chunky monkey gets heavy carrying up and down all of our stairs.

I confess...he will be back in approx. 8 hours or so and I can NOT wait!

I confess...Miss A is quite stubborn on this whole walking thing, for the past two weekends she's taken a couple steps, but zilch-o walking during the week.  Then finally yesterday she actually walked around 75% of the day.  I hope she continues today.

I confess...I've been craving adult conversation like crazy by the end of this week and I apologize to all who had to deal with my gabbing.

I confess...I'm seriously addicted to Pinterest.  If you are not on it yet please join, and if you are/once you are please add me so we can share what we pin.  It's FREE!  If you want access right away, message me your email addy and I'll send you an invite, otherwise you just have to wait a couple days to get "approved".

I confess...I keep finding so many adorable baby things to make, can't wait to find out the gender so I can get to it already!

Mamarazzi’s Favorites Things Swap

Mamarazzi has hosted another fantastic swap, called Favorites Things, and I got paired up with the lovely Myya from Myya Says.  This is the first swap I have done where I actually feel like I’ve come away with a friend.  Thanks for the great pairing Mamarazzi!  To see what goodies I sent Myya, click on her blog link above.
Now for what my package had – which was seriously bulging!  Here’s everything wrapped.

The letter she typed up explaining all of her choices.  And I have to say that there’s one thing not pictured in the breakdown pictures, the Cadbury Chocolate Mini Eggs, I perhaps tried them right away and forgot to include them, oops!

Got a nice big mug, GC to Starbucks (thanks for the suggestions Myya in your note, as I never go there), Vanilla Chai Latte mix (plan on making this tomorrow morning), a Basil herb kit (can’t wait to use this when cooking!), McCormick Recipe Inspirations (have been wanting to try one of these) and some bulbs (I love Gladiolus and plant some every year!).

Some things for ME: A very yummy Baked Apple candle, Avon lipgloss & MAC lipstick, some vanilla hand sanitzer (seriously, love the size of this!), very pretty pink nail polish that I can’t wait to try and one of the pedi-egg things, but don’t remember the actual name of it.

Sticky note pad with a great purple pen (one of my favorite colors), a pack of cute blank cards, and I had mentioned how I like to read “smutty” novels as I call them, they are my light/fluff reads.

And she sent my kiddo’s some goodies.  Have been wanting to get some sandwich cutter’s (can’t wait to use it for lunch this week), some cute Bunny rings with bubbles inside, sidewalk chalk, fun animal stickers, and this adorable outfit for our Bun in the Oven.  And forgot to also put in the picture, as the oldest was already busy using it, some Crayola Window Markers, she’s been having a blast with them!

Seriously, I got SO spoiled and LOVE everything!  Thank you again Myya!!!

Tired but Refreshed

This weekend was one of those great weekends, the days seem extra long, we got tons accomplished around the house, plus visited with our families and a baby shower.

Household Accomplished:
- Re-organized our linen closet.
- The Hubs and his Dad picked up a wooden swing for the yard plus other garden things from my Gramma’s.  Lower level is cleaned up – am very ready for warmer weather now!
-  Cleaned the whole house.  Cleaning days have now been switched from Mondays to Sundays since I babysit on Mondays.
- 4 loads of laundry, washed and folded, will put away before bed, minus the girls’ which will be first thing tomorrow.

Errands:
- Grocery store/Gas Station
- Post Office, by the look of the line, you’d have thought it was Christmastime
- Dinner out at Friendly’s – yay for the Happy Ending sundae’s!
- Target

Fun Times with Friends & Family:
- Had the in-laws over for a visit and lunch as a thank you for letting us use their truck for moving stuff.
- Visited the Hubs grandparents.
- My Besties baby shower this afternoon and catching up with a bunch of awesome ladies I used to work with.

Awesome Things that Occurred:
- Today am 15 weeks and have felt the baby move several times!  And usually a couple minutes each time, love feeling his/her movements.
- Hubs and I are relaxing in the living room, and all of a sudden Miss A comes walking out from behind the recliner and then continued to walk around for another 5-10 minutes!  Little stinker took 10 steps last Saturday and hasn’t really since then.

 

And finally, just want to share a photo before & after  from the shower. First up is the AFTER, once I did some cropping. Scroll further down for the BEFORE.

 

Now, what the hell is she looking at behind us?  I’m completely curious and it cracks me up every time I look at this un-cropped version.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!!!

Friday Confessions

I confess…this has been the ultimate slowest week, Monday I thought was Tuesday, Tuesday I thought was Monday, and the rest of the week has just felt never ending.

I confess…pregnancy headaches are the worse!

I confess…I had my 14 week check-up on Wednesday.  Everything looks great, HB was in the 160’s.  Plus I had to do my early glucose test, if I don’t hear anything from the Dr’s by today then I passed which means I’ll have to take it again later.  I hope I passed.

I confess…I’m still in disbelief that this pregnancy is viable.  I’ve never had back to back successful pregnancies.  I keep waiting for something to wrong as it just seems to good to be true.

I confess…just for kicks and giggles I picked up the IntelliGender test on clearance at Target this week.  It says BOY!  Will be fun to see what the u/s says next month!

I confess…I’m so sick and tired of hearing about jealous extended family members and it all being put on my Gramma, who is not doing well, dealing with physical problems daily and having to downsize her home etc.

I confess…this is the last thing she should be concerned with.  She needs to concentrate on getting through day-to-day things and enjoying her family instead of petty jealousies. 

I confess…this weekend is my Besties baby shower and I can’t wait to give her, her diaper cake! 

I confess…next week the Hubs is on travel for his new job and I’m a little nervous about being by myself alone.  I’m used to him working long hours, but he at least always comes home and sleeps with me.  I do not like not sleeping with him.