10 Months

Once again, I am a little late on the monthly posts.  I feel like we have entered a time warp the last two weeks because I am pretty sure that it was July 1st like yesterday.  I keep going back and forth on whether this post should be a family update post or just a Parker update since it will be a year (A WHOLE FREAKING YEAR PEOPLE) next month.  I have been trying to do quarterly family updates but I missed it at nine months so here goes.

Parker:

Man this kid is big!  Every day I look at him and am just astonished at how big he is compared to when we brought him home.  He started daycare in June and had a hard time adjusting for the first few weeks.  He would cry, not inconsolably just sad, when he was dropped off and when he was picked up.  Then in the first two weeks he got sick, was exposed to hand-foot-mouth, then they thought he had pink eye and then the rest of us got sick.  In his first month at daycare, I blew through six months of sick time.  Three weeks into all the sickness, he still has a lingering cough and another runny nose.  Poor kid.  He’s got five teeth now, two on top, three on bottom and a molar coming in the back.  He says dada, mama, dog, almost says kitty, and generally tries to talk all day long, definitely Mike’s kid.  He has his own version of a meow that he does whenever he sees Mr. Kitty, and he and the animals have become partners in crime recently.  They patiently hide under his high-chair and he thinks he subtly passes drops them food with a big smile on his face as if we can’t see his hands.  He’s standing on his own for good amounts of time, walking across the furniture and desperately trying to build up the confidence to take a step unassisted.  He’ll stand up and you can see it on his face that he is trying to figure out how to get across the room; he’ll start to move forward a little and then plop down.  We are transitioning him off of bottles to sippy cups and slowly adding an ounce of milk at a time to his formula, though he eats dinner with us for the most part so the number of bottles he has a day has gone down quite a bit.  He loves music; that may actually be an understatement, he is completely fascinated with music of all kinds, he loves to sing along and dance and loves to try to whistle along with Daddy.  He often bee-lines for the bookshelf with the speakers on it and will look back at me waiting for the music to play as he gets ready to dance.  He’s gotten over his anxieties from starting daycare and is back to his independent self, though he does love an audience.  He still generally prefers Mommy and Daddy to strangers, where he had no real preference before, but happily waves and high-fives anyone with a smile.  Overall, he is a very happy baby with a big personality and a resilient sense of curiosity that keeps him busy.

 

Mike: 

Mike has gone back to work with his Dad and is enjoying a daily sense of accomplishment that he was starting to lack staying home with Parker.  He loved the time they were able to spend together, but is definitely happy to have a more defined purpose each day.  He is still doing pools for now, but is hoping to give them back to his Dad soon.

Hailey:

Hailey is out on summer break and has been quite a busy girl with day trips and camp outs and all sorts of outings every week.  Monday night after I picked her up from her mom’s house, we were at Dennis and Gloria’s and she gave Mike a hug and it hit me how big she has gotten in the last few months. She has lost that baby face and toddler body and is started to become a young lady.  Luckily for us, she is still content with a family walk to the park or a quick card game and hasn’t fully been taken in with the pre-teen-itis just yet.  Hopefully we can squeeze another year in before she’s over family time.

Me:

I am enjoying my job; I’ve been busy but not stressed.  It’s been great to get a different perspective of the campus and a new sense of business as usual and my boss does a great job of allowing me to be involved at a different level than before.  I haven’t been able to keep up with my photography as much the last two months with sick kiddos and new routines, but I am hoping to take advantage of the long summer days and great sunny outdoors for some family photo shoots soon.  I’ve been keeping up with the photo-a-days and have a photo dump coming soon.  We have been eating really healthy lately, doing most of our shopping at the farmers market and eating fresh every day.  For the most part during the week, we are sticking with a vegetarian diet and only adding meat on special occasions or when we are really craving it.  With the smoker, we got into a ‘all-meat, all the time’ diet, and not to sound bougie but Mike and I were both a little over it.  Now when we smoke something, we appreciate it more instead of critiquing how it was better or worse last time around.  I am 10 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight and have lost a total of 8 inches between my arms, waist, hips and legs.  My goal is to lose another 10-15lbs to get me to my ‘when we first met’ weight and I am very confident that I will get there sooner than later.  Although, then I’ll get pregnant again and have to do it all over.  I am well under way with planning Parker’s 1^st birthday party and will have some party planning updates soon.

Father's Day Photo Dump

Father's day was really nice this year, Mike just wanted a relaxing day.  Hailey and I walked over to get donuts in the morning and brought him breakfast and coffee in bed.  We hung out for a bit and then walked to the park and spent a couple hour just hanging out and kicking a soccer ball then headed home.  He smoked an amazing au jus injected sirloin and we made sandwiches and a salad that were out of this world (recipe to come later this week).  So here is a quick photo dump of the weekend.

Hailey was so tuckered out after soccer that she fell asleep with Mr. Kitty

Soccer Star

I’ve mentioned it a few times now that I am coaching Hailey’s soccer team.  I’m not going to lie, in the beginning I really hated it, mainly because I just didn’t know what I was doing.  Just because you’ve played soccer, doesn’t mean you can automatically coach soccer, especially if you haven’t played in years.  The hardest part for me was really finding a way to be assertive and commanding with the kids – the boys in particular – which for anyone that knows me should find that statement ironic as I am usually pretty quick to take control and be assertive in situations.  It was difficult too that Hailey liked the idea of soccer, she played at school all the time, but has never really put out a lot of effort when it comes to sports.  When she played softball, it was really half-assed on everyone’s part except Mike and Dennis who always made an effort to go out in the yard and throw a ball with her.  But as parents, we were just as bad about getting her to practice every week as she was about putting in 110% when she was there or at games.  So walking into the soccer season, she was really excited about getting to play on a real team, but lacked the skill set – having never played before – and lacked the passion for the sport that really drives you to give it your all.  

Over the past three months, I have come to really enjoy coaching.  We do not always win – we actually just won our first game last Saturday and tomorrow is our last game of the season – but that isn’t the most important part.  It has been so amazing to watch these kids grow and learn how to work together as a team.  The most amazing part though has been watching Hailey blossom.  From the first game where she flinched every time a ball came near her and slowed down when an opponent came running at her to the last series of games where she is fearless and determined to be the best.  She moves with a quickness she never had before.  She plays with a passion that is inspiring and reminds me of when I first started playing and fell in love with the game.  I look back and can remember the game where everything clicked for her; right before the game I pulled her aside and was telling her that she needed to be more aggressive, that she couldn’t be afraid of the ball or the other team, that as a defender it was her job to put herself in between the opponent and the goal and do whatever she needed to get the ball out of there.  She was pumped up and ready to go.  The ball came towards her and she connected perfectly and sent that ball driving hard down the field.  The look on her face of shear pride in her accomplish beaming across the field made us all smile.  From that game on she has really stepped it up and gives 110% every game.  She hustles to be the first to the ball, she is always where she needs to be and is aggressive in both defending and attacking and is playing amazingly well.  

She wants to play again next season and I am going to coach again.  I am definitely looking forward to an all-girl team and a more traditional season and so is she.  She is also looking forward to many years of playing soccer; a few games ago she was telling me how she wants to play soccer in college now.  My boss’s daughters are soccer players too and I mentioned it to him.  He quickly made the offer for her to come out watch his girls play on their club teams and said that she can be the ball girl for the university’s women’s team next season and she is so excited.  My hope is that she continues to have this passion and continues to play as well as she has this season.

Hopefully tomorrow’s game is another great one!

What happened in May?

May was a really busy month for us: I hyper-extended my knee, had my first ‘real’ mother’s day, had lots of soccer games, checked out a bunch of day cares, enrolled Parker in day care, got ready for Mike to go back to work, worked with Hailey on her Golden Gate bridge project, went to evening events for work, weddings and baby showers, worked in our yard, changed my mind and finally planted those infamous bulbs, got the back room set up for a new renter, had a fun Memorial day barbeque, and lots of other less than exciting stuff.  Sadly, I wasn’t able to keep up with the photo challenge with so much going on, but this month I am back on track and am finally able to crawl out of the hole I’ve been living in and rejoin the blogging world.  Thank goodness!!! I have definitely missed it; I’ve missed writing and I’ve missed reading all the other amazing blogs out there that I usually follow.  

So I am going to start this month off with a 12 To-Do’s recap.  Half the year has almost completely flown by so hopefully half my list has too!

1: Finish fixing up the guest bedroom – DONE!!! And we have a renter who moved in at the end of last month.  Yay for us!!

2: Paint and set up the outside living room – In April, I said this was about 15% finished.  This month I’d say we’ve taken a step backwards since we had to clear out our furniture in the guest bedroom so the renter could move in and we have acquired a few other hand-me-down pieces of furniture since, so its kind of unorganized out there right now and we definitely haven’t painted or put in carpet.  With the extra income from Mike working now, hopefully we can get this done by the fall.

3: Finally plant the stupid hyacinth and narcissus bulbs that have been in the cabinet for over a year in the front yard – mostly done!  I still have a bunch more because each bag had like 50+ bulbs in it, but I got one whole planter finished!  I have really gotten into gardening recently, and have surprisingly enjoyed it so much.

4: Paint something worth putting up in our house – I put it up in a Pin It – Do It post, and yes, I have finally painted something worth putting up in our house, using a mixed media style (collage and acrylic), I painted the lemon picture.  I turned out great.  We aren’t actually going to put it up because the teal that I used doesn’t quite match our dining room like I hoped and I think I’d like a slightly bigger one for us, so I am actually going to sell this one on Etsy, just haven’t gotten around to putting it up yet.

5: Take a refresher course on photography and work at taking better pictures – I didn’t take any Photo a  Day pictures this month, but I did continue to take family photos.  I have been reading a lot of great tutorials on using lighting and on editing techniques as well.  I really need to get Lightroom so that I can really have full capabilities for editing, but right now PicMonkey and the basic edits in Picasa are working just fine.

6: Find a really awesome new hiking spot (maybe even one that is less than a 45 minute drive away) – Not yet, but maybe for Father’s day.

7: Wean myself off the snooze button – The snooze button is still my kryptonite.  After I hurt my knee, we really stopped working out.  I have been waking up extra early this week to do at least the Abs dvd, and because I have been really trying to be on time to work on a more regular basis.  But still the snooze button seduces me every time.

8: Create a photo collage wall for our living room – Mike and I talked about this one, and we’ve decided we want to do something a little more interesting than a photo collage in the typical way.  I have been searching on Pinterest for some good ideas but haven’t found anything that really strikes me just yet.  

9: Go on a vacation – So tentatively we are planning to go to Solvang with my parents again in October.  Hopefully it works out.

10: Start saving money for our eventual move out of California – hahahahahahahahahahaha…no.

11: Find my voice for my blog – Seeing as I essentially took a month off, I’d say this one has taken a step back.  My goal for this month is to have at least two substantive posts and one photo post a week.  Let’s see how things go.

12: Get pregnant again :) - not yet but hopefully soon!

Apparently, I’ve got a lot of work to do in the next 6 months…

Pin It Do It Friday - Chalkboard wine glasses

It's been a while since I had a Pin it Do It post, but last weekend I made these chalkboard wine glasses with the help of the awesome tutorial at Just Short of Crazy for my MIL's birthday.

Here's the picture and link to my pin


It turned out to be a pretty time consuming projects (about 3-4 hours total).  The tutorial gives great tips on how to minimize drip spots and directions on how to do the whole thing if you want to try it and need more details. 

Basically, you need wine glasses, chalkboard paint (I used the Martha Stewart kind because I wanted a cute color, but they used the Rustoleum kind you can get at home depot, which if you just want black, is really a better value since you get way more paint for the same price), a sponge brush, painters tape, a container for the paint and tons of wax paper (I actually used aluminum foil, but you get the idea) and a good amount of space to lay them all out. 

Then you tape off the wine glass stems, dip them in the paint, tap all the extra off and set upright for 30 minutes to let the paint settle. Then you lift each glass and use the sponge brush to wipe the bottom rim of any extra paint and set aside upright again on a clean spot.  I did this three times for each glass.  Then I let them sit for about two hours upright, and flipped them upside down to dry overnight. 

24 hours later, I peeled the tape and conditioned the chalkboard paint with chalk, which means I rubbed chalk all over the paint.  It gives it a better surface for writing. 

And voila.