Home Sweet Home

I’m so happy to be home. Don’t get me wrong, I love me a vacation, but there is nothing like coming home. Except that I came home after a flight full of HGTV and I now have a list of stuff I want to update in my house.

Snippet of list:

Upstairs carpet (Hubbs says we can do this before 2012 is over – yippee!!)

Paint kitchen (Hubbs says no. He won’t let me paint anything but giant chunks of wall because I can’t stay inside the lines). Boo.

New tile on fireplace – why not?

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Random decorating touches – dining room wall of plates, make-up area

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Besides all that fun, our trip was great. I wish the weather was a bit better, but 75 degrees in January isn’t something I can complain about! We had fun as a family and it was so nice to have Trevor’s parents there to help with JB.

Jackson got to go into the pool a few times and he is obsessed! He had the best time ever – all smiles!

We have a new addition to the family. Meet Quinn – Momma’s new baby, courtesy of Kate Spade:

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Love it!!

Boom. And My Day Gets Better…

You know that feeling you get when someone who you look up to notices you? It’s like when the popular older girls complimented your purse or your outfit – excitement and a feeling of specialness.

I feel that way today because Ashley over at Mommy…A Work in Progress tagged me in her blog post. What a sweetie she is :)

Here are the questions she asked me to answer:

 

1.) How do you take your coffee?

I love a tall nonfat vanilla latte with extra foam from Starbucks. Yummy!

2.) Favorite weekend activity?

Taking a walk with my boys, going to a yoga class, and sleeping in. Maybe some waffles too :)

3.) Most treasured memory from childhood?

This is a tough one – probably spending time with my grandma. I had the best time just going shopping with her and hanging out.

4.) Do you have any nicknames?

Lots, but not many that I love to be called. My childhood nickname was Taby, and unfortunately several family members still call me that. Another is Tabs, which is better, but I still don’t love it.

5.) What is your bedtime?

I’d like to say 10pm, but sadly it’s more like 11:30. No wonder I’m so tired in the mornings!

6.) Favorite pizza toppings?

Veggies!! I love all veggies on a pizza. Second place would have to be BBQ chicken.

 

Okay, so here’s the deal. I got tagged by Ashley, so now I am tagging a few more bloggers:

Jenn @ Mommie Couture

Kristine @ The Foley Fam…Unedited

Meghan @ Struggling Cyster

 

 

Here are my questions for you:

1. Favorite TV show?

2. Guilty pleasure(s)?

3. What is your most embarrassing moment?

4. If you are a mommy, what has been the hardest part? And more importantly, the best part?

5. Favorite dessert?

6. Your dream date:

, Tabitha

Palm Springs

Ahhh... Here we are in fabulous Palm Springs taking in the great weather.

Jack did pretty great on the plane and he is adjusting as well as can be expected here. I'm so happy that we have a separate living area from our bedroom - makes ALL the difference with him.

Highlight of the trip (and my celebrity spottings) - seeing President Bill Clinton today at the PGA tournament. We were about 10 feet away from him! Someone made a joke about the presidency and he said, "If I were president right now I'd be making some changes". :) Trevor and I were in celebrity heaven.

And I've already been to In N Out burger once - two or three more trips to come!!

Hope everyone is having a lovely Sunday evening!

7 Deadly Sins–Link-Up

 

I came across a new blog today – Whispering Sweet Nothings. I loved it immediately and decided to join in on Shane’s link-up party. Who can resist a good survey? It brings me back to high school and early college when MySpace was just getting big and these were all the rage. I would spend hours filling them out hoping it would make people understand me. And maybe land the boy of my dreams… who, it turns out, didn’t even have a MySpace page. Go figure!

Anyhoo… Happy Friday friends! Here are some randoms about me:

pride

seven great things in your life.

1. My husband.

2. My baby boy.

3. My awesome friends.

4. I’m going on vacation to a nice, sunny warm spot :)

5. I’m healthy and so is my family.

6. I got a 3.8 last semester.

7. I have a great relationship with my mom nowadays.

envy

seven things you lack and covet

1. More girl time.

2. Patience.

3. Height.

4. Local Mommy friends.

5. Energy.

6. Curly Hair – random!
7. Sleep.

wrath

seven things that make you angry

1. Bad drivers.

2. People who spend their lives posting about politics on Facebook.

3. Constant complainers.

4. Re-runs of my favorite shows when they should be new episodes.

5. Dance moms (real ones, not the show).

6. My car falling apart.

7.  Solicitors.

sloth

seven things that you neglect to do.

1. Reply to e-mails.

2. Take out the trash.

3. Go to bed on time.

4. Call friends.

5.  Fold laundry.

6. Put myself in the other person’s shoes (working on it!).

7. Pick up my shoes.

greed

seven worldly material desires.

1. New car.

2. iPad.

3. Kate Spade diaper bag.

4. Christian Louboutins. Any of them.

5. A vacation to Hawaii.

6. New carpet on the second floor.

7.  New master bathroom.

gluttony

seven guilty pleasures.

1. Real Housewives of Anywhere.

2. Lazy Sundays.

3. Taylor Swift.

4. York Peppermint Patties.

5. Facebook.

6. French fries.

7. Spray Tans.

lust

seven things you love about love

1. Cuddles.

2. Inside jokes.

3. Pretending to hate being tickled.

4. Knowing someone will love me for my perfections and my flaws.

5. Parenting together.

6. Making….babies, and such.

7. Being partners.

There you have it – go check out:

Jackson–11 Months Young

JB – We will be on vacation when you turn 11 months on the 24th, so I am posting this a little early.
You are incredible! Every day you pick up something new and it’s so amazing to watch all of your development. This week you have started sticking your tongue out at me when you want to be a little cheeky. It’s adorable. You have also started playing peek-a-boo by holding up a blanket in front of yourself (or in your case, covering your whole head) and raising it up and down. You think this is hilarious, and so does Momma.
You are getting closer and closer to walking each day and you have almost fully recovered from your black eye of last Saturday! You are a little hesitant to stand alone for more than 5 seconds, and I think once you are more confident you will be zooming around the house!
You have also started copying Momma when she does certain things – you like to repeat sounds, hand movements, and you cough when I cough (and then laugh about it). You also help Momma with daily chores like folding laundry and dusting. I hope that continues as you get older!!
Here you are – almost 11 months since you were born!

Momma and Daddy love you more and more every day!

Swimsuit Ready -

I keep thinking it’s Friday today. I’ve caught myself four or five times looking at Friday on the calendar and planning out my day. I think I am just really excited to go on vacation. I am packing and trying on clothes and such, trying to figure out what to bring and what looks good on my post-baby body.

Which brings me to my question of the day – is any woman ever truly bikini-ready in their own opinion?? Does anyone feel 100% confident when they put on a two-piece that isn’t a tankini or some sort of skirty ensemble? Regardless of weight, size or shape I have yet to talk to one of my girlfriends that doesn’t cringe even just a little when they know a bikini-clad is coming up soon. Now that I’ve birthed a child, I am less confident than ever. I have a little extra skin/belly pooch, way bigger thighs, and that stupid line that you get while preggo still hasn’t left my tummy.

I am going through this terrible feeling right now of not wanting to go to the pool. I don’t know why I am dreading this so much because I have been doing really well on my diet and on exercise, but I can’t shake the feeling. For some reason it is easier for me to put on a tiny dance uniform and go shake my thang in front of people than it is for me to sit by a pool with my family without being ridiculously self-conscious.

I tried to fix my angst with a tankini, but that didn’t really work. I felt better about my tummy, but not my legs or thighs or muffin top or booty. So to fix that I ordered a skirted bottom (like a mini-skirt) form Victoria’s Secret – I just knew it would solve ALL my swimsuit problems. I mean, look at the photo below. How could I not order it when I was promised to look exactly like the model??

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WRONG. All wrong. It was weird… and long and it looked like too much of a skirt to be a bathing suit and not enough of a skirt to wear out posed as real clothing.

So instead, I am off to Palm Springs with my old array of bathing suits – all the ones that just never seem to fit right. Here’s hoping I get over myself and realize there are way bigger things to worry about – such as world hunger, if the last Twilight movie will be good, and that darned ozone layer that I spent elementary school fearing.

Who knows? Maybe I will take a photo and post it when I get back. Stranger things have happened.

Superbowl/Play-off Party

 

The Superbowl is coming up and it’s one of my favorite foodie parties because the only thing I love more than bite-sized food is fried food and this occasion is the perfect mix of both!

I searched Pinterest for some cool Superbowl food ideas. Enjoy!

 

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Linking Up to Follow Me Wednesday!

When My Son Almost Lost an Eye

Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic. Still, that’s how I felt when I saw him after the fall.
Here’s the background – Jackson is almost 11 months old and he is hell-bent on walking soon. Great goal, except he wobbles like a drunken sailor on the high seas. And he has no idea that he can’t actually walk yet. Oh, and did I mention that he has absolutely no fear?
So this past weekend he decided to transfer from his baby gate to the fireplace (about 10 inches). This is something he has been doing for months, but now he has lost the ability to judge the space correctly and he just sort of collapses. The first time he did this I was sitting maybe two feet from him and he slammed his chin into the fireplace. Bloody mouth, screaming, the whole deal. I kept my composure while I soothed him (and thankfully, no stiches needed) and then promptly broke into tears as soon as he went to sleep.
Fast forward to day 2 – I was gone to coach practice and when I came home I heard the story from my husband, who had convinced himself I would never leave JB alone with him again. He fell again on the fireplace, but this time hit his eye and nose and got some cuts right above his eye. Thank goodness I wasn’t here to witness this, because I would have had a small stroke.
Following this episode, JB then decides to do the same thing on our coffee table – cutting his mouth again and shoving his almost new tooth back up in his mouth. What a crappy Saturday for this child.
So now we have no coffee table, ottomans shoved around the fireplace, and two freaked out parents who are terrified to let this child even look like he might wobble.
Please tell me this is normal and that all babies look like they got in a bar fight over some milk and the closest seat to a showing of the new Baby Einstein, because if not, we are officially the world’s crappiest parents.
Here he is in all his beat-up glory:

A World of What-Ifs

This past week I came down with a virus and had a terrible cough that kept me up half the night. I took nearly everything I could think of to get sleep and nothing seemed to help. I went the traditional NyQuil way for a few nights and experienced my usual cough medicine crazy parallel universe dreams.

I had several dreams this week that were like the Friends episode where all the characters were living the life they could have had mixed with the ghosts of Christmas Past. Rachel was a crazy housewife, Monica never lost the weight from her childhood, and Phoebe was a stressed out business woman.  And I had dreams that involved all three in my own life – so weird.

First, I had a dream that I stuck with the whole corporate marketing thing and it took me to live in NYC where I worked constantly and made lots of cash, but had almost no social life to speak of. I was fulfilled in my professional life, but I had no strong personal relationships. Funny moment in the dream was when I went to work with my hair in curlers (WTH, I don’t even wear curlers in real life) because I was so overworked and tired. It was a little extreme, but it made me think of what-if I had pushed harder when I graduated and dedicated my life to a career.

The second night I had a dream that I married a previous boyfriend. This would have ended in catastrophe in real life, and it certainly did in dream world. The dream was so awful and vivid and I was going through the divorce process. The kicker is that I hired my real husband (who has never had anything to do with a divorce case) to be my attorney. And then we fell madly in love like Harry and Charlotte from SATC, but with less Judaism and body hair.

Then I had the third dream – which was that I never lost my baby weight. Not only had I not lost it, I just looked like I was 9 months pregnant all the time. People kept coming up and touching my belly and congratulating me on my unborn child that didn’t exist. What kind of crazy is this?!

Now that I am feeling better, I can laugh at all of these dreams and remember that I am so happy that my life didn’t work out the way I had planned it to (minus the infinite pregnancy).

Resolutions and Reminders

So here we are – new year, new goals. Last January I was so incredibly pregnant and getting very ready to be over that stage in my life. I have to admit that I miss it sometimes, especially when I have a baby that refuses to stay still for even a minute. He was a big kicker and mover, so I should have seen this coming!

I have a few resolutions for this year, but nothing unattainable. Instead of thinking of super crazy goals, I decided to make a list of how I wanted to feel and what I wanted to improve on.

 

Here they are:

Healthy – I want to live a healthier lifestyle. My body went through the ringer during the holidays and it is still not back to normal. I’ve lost 2 of the 3 pounds I gained, but I still feel a little bogged down. Not to get all gross and too personal, but the food and junk has made a poo baby in my tummy that doesn’t want to leave. My goal is to get back to eating more natural foods and less processed junk. And less sugar. That’s the hardest because I love live for treats. I would like to tone up this year and I am counting down the weeks (7 yikes!!) until I go to Vegas with Trevor and friends. I want to rock the two-piece without the constant thought to suck in or wear a cover-up.

Organized – I live for lists. Unfortunately, I have to realize that not all items get checked off anymore. My goal is to set up a schedule that is easy to follow and doesn’t make me crazy. I am also going to be pre-planning meals in a more efficient way. I want to maximize the use of food I buy and waste less of it.

Social – I often complain that I get lonely sometimes being the only young mom I know, but I don’t go to any events with other moms because I am too busy with work or going to the gym or cleaning, etc. I have no excuse because I belong to a few mom’s groups and I am constantly getting invited to events. I am going to commit myself to one mom’s group event per week the next few months to see if I can make any new friends.

I know this is a few weeks late, but I have been focusing on my resolutions and have had less time to blog :) What are your resolutions and how have you been doing keeping up with them? Any advice on how to make sure I keep mine??

Checked Out

Since I have been on a break from my regular job for a few weeks, my entire life has changed. I’ve not only checked out from that responsibility, but from most others in my life (including this blog). I think I have needed a bit of a mental check-out for the past few weeks with the craziness of the holidays and the new year starting and all the stress that I’ve been accumulating on my shoulders.

I have made resolutions for this year – some big, some small. I will have a separate post about those babies.

In the meantime, I now have a 10 1/2 month old who is inches away from walking and is teething again this week. Jackson is now about 20 pounds or so, and has recently had a big growth spurt in length (but not in weight – skinny mini). He is wearing 12 month sized clothing and size 3 shoes. He eats like a little champ and experienced cheese for the first time this week! He was spoiled rotten at Christmas and is loving all of his new toys – but mostly his VTech Sit-to-Stand Walker. There is a little telephone that comes with it and he has started to put it to his ear and talk! Taking after Momma for sure!!

Here’s to my little man – we are really closing in on the 1-year mark and Momma is starting to think about birthday plans for you!