The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Once again, it's been ages since a blog post. This one won't be very long, just a recap of our Christmas season. This year was really exciting with RJ. He loved everything about Christmas!

We added Bebe the Elf to our holiday traditions. I wasn't sure if RJ would "get it", but he really enjoyed looking for him every morning. Bebe was a good elf and only showed up in silly places. He was not a mischievous elf!

Bebe the elf

Bebe left RJ a note. "Hi, RJ! Be a good boy!"

We did the traditional Christmas things like go to  parties and parade, see Santa and make a gingerbread house.

Rob and I at his work Christmas party.

Rob and RJ at the Trumann Christmas parade.

Making salt dough ornaments.

SANTA!!!

Our gingerbread house. The candy didn't stay on for long!

Christmas morning was so much fun this year! RJ had a great time opening his  presents and we had an even better time watching him. After presents and breakfast at home, we went to my grandpaent's house and did it all over again.

Ready for the Christmas action!

Trying out his roller skates.

I hope everyone had as wonderful of a Christmas as we did! Love to you all!

My Sunshine

Has it really been over a month since a blog post? Where does the time go? We haven't really been doing anything exciting. Just busy with day to day life. We have finally got settled in our new house. There are still a few boxes to unpack, but it's all coming together.

I missed a few months of our handprint art. Now that we have internet at home and I can use my computer, I hope to get caught up. Here is our August page. It is by far my favorite.

You are my sunshine



We made this one by painting the palm of RJ's hand yellow and fingers orange then stamping in several times until we made a circle. I actually did that on a separate piece of blue scrapbook paper and cut around the sunshine design. I then glued that to the second sheet of scrapbook paper and added the wording. I again cut the letters using my cricut and the type candy cartridge. I love, love, love how it turned out!

Vacation

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Our family spent last week on the vacation. We drove down to Ft. Morgan, Alabama and enjoyed the beaches there. We also got to spend some time with our great friends, Chris and Jacenta. RJ wasn't too crazy about the sand and ocean at first, but by the end of the week he was loving it. Here are some of the pics.


Checking out the beach when we arrived.



Rob and RJ with the Father's Day card RJ made.

Ready to explore!

RJ trying to destroy a random sandcastle.

Ft. Morgan

Climbing the stairs at Ft. Morgan

Ft. Morgan

Love my family!

My favorite souvenir.

How does your garden grow

We finally got our garden planted! We probably didn't do everything right, but this year is a learning curve. Hopefully by next spring, we'll actually know what we are doing. We planted lots of veggie seeds and a few melons. I hope they grow into yummy goodness. Now we have to figure out how to keep them watered. It is so hot here already (in the high 90's) in early June. Rob is working on getting a sprinkler with a timer. We'll be on vacation next week and would hate for the whole thing to dry up. Here are. Few pics...

Home Sweet Home

A lot has happened since my last post. We finally got moved into our new house! We are finally getting settled in. We are still kinda living out of boxes, but it's all starting to come together. RJ loves having so much yard to play in. He has become quite skilled at driving his big wheel truck through all the mud puddles! 

I'll post more details about the house as we work on things and get them the way we want. But here's a picture of our little piece of the country. We're working on the garden this weekend, so hopefully I'll have pictures of it soon. 

Our family lost one of our fur babies yesterday. I never thought I would be so upset about the death of a dog. But Hoss was very special to me and we will all miss him a lot. I hope he is chasing tennis balls in doggy heaven!

Maybe I'll share more about Hoss when I've bad a little more time to process it all.  

Stressed mess

The last few weeks around here have been super stressful. We are buying a new house! While this is very exciting, I could really do without the moving part. We had to be out of the old house last week and won't be able to close on the new one until the beginning of next week. All of our belonging have been put into storage and the whole family (including the two dogs) is staying with our amazing friend,Chris, who opened his home to us. We are so thankful for that! I'm pretty sure having a two year old around has made him never want kids!
On top of the normal stress of moving, my sweet Aunt Pat passed away last week. She had been sick with cancer for several years. I know she is finally resting and free of pain, but it still sucks to lose someone you love. RJ and I made the trip back to my hometown for her funeral. Of course, RJ had to get sick with a fever while we were out of town. But he was such a good boy for the car ride.
Needless to say, I am ready for things to settle down. Hopefully we will close on our new house Monday and be able to get moved in as soon as possible. We all need the stability of a place to call home, especially RJ. The new place has lots of land which will be great for him and the dogs. I'm already planning a garden and hoping it isn't too late to have vegetables for the summer. I'm ready to get back to eating healthy and losing weight. I sure haven't been able to focus on that lately!

zoo art

Last weekend the weather in Memphis was gorgeous (this past weekend, not so much!). We took advantage of it and went to the zoo. RJ had a wonderful time. I think his favorite thing was seeing the elephants. He kept saying "Yoo hoo, ell-yee-font, where are you?".  We bought a family membership, so we plan to go back often.

Feeding the giraffe!

Finally found the elephants!

Since April is almost over, I need to share the calender art for the month and it goes along perfectly with our trip to the zoo.

The zebra was stamped in white directly on to the tan paper. The elephant and lion were stamped onto white paper and then cut out and glued to the tan paper. I used a small paint brush to add the mane and feet to the lion and a small circle foam brush for the head. All of the other details were drawn in with a black marker. This is one of my favorite pages! Hope you like it!

Spring plague

Our family has been struck by the spring plague! We had planned a trip to Ohio for this past weekend, but decided stayed home because RJ had been running a fever and had tons of snot that matched the tons of pollen that is EVERYWHERE. It's a good thing we stayed home. By Thursday, Rob was sick with the same junk. Thankfully, I never got too sick and I think my guys are on the mend.

I bought some new tennis shoes and I've started running! Okay. I probably shouldn't call it running. I started the C25K program and have done the first day of week 1. Having allergies and upper respiratory crap is probably not the best thing for someone who want to start running. I was able to do the first three running segments. By the forth, I was about to die!  I finished by walking until I saw Rob on his way home and I caught a ride with him for the last little bit. Can you say lazy?!? I should have done the second day of week one last night. But instead I had a strawberry margarita at our local Mexican place. Tonight, I will run(ish) and put these new kicks to some good use!

(no) weight loss wednesday 3.27.13

Here's how my losing weight usually goes: lose a little for a few weeks then stall (or be up a little) for a few weeks then lose a little more. This week and last week have been the stall weeks. I'm actually up about a pound. I didn't take a picture of the scales with a higher number because that just sucks. I understand that it's the overall downward trend and not one (or two) week's results that matter. But it's still frustrating to eat right and make good choices and not lose at all.



This picture from Tumbler seems appropriate.

 
Since the weather is getting a little nicer, I think I want to give running a try again. I tried the couch-to-5K program before. But my fat ass is too out of shape to even do the first week. I've read other blogs about getting started running and I think I just have to do it, start slow and for short distances and build up as I can. We'll see...

Yesterday RJ was a sickie so I stayed home with him. I am so not cut out to be a stay at home mom!  What do those ladies do to keep their kids entertained all day??? I think it was worse because RJ was only semi-sick. He had a high fever the night before and was cranky as hell yesterday. Of course it was on Rob's shift day so I got to enjoy that quality time all by myself.  Is it bad that I was ready to come back to work today??? I really do love my kid and I'm glad he's feeling better, but I was ready to pull my hair out! Here's the little sweetheart with his new tractor kit that kept him occupied for 30 minutes or so. And yes, I know that's for older kids. But it's not like I left him alone to eat the paint. I was right there while he tasted it.

Easter art

I can't believe Easter will be next weekend! I really need to get busy with Easter baskets, treats and finding RJ an Easter outfit. Last night I asked if he wanted to see the Easter bunny and he freaked out in a good way. I guess I need to make that happen soon.

RJ's Easter Art

Here is the March page from out handprint calender. I think it is adorable! The prints are pretty self explanatory. The bunny is his hand painted white with fingers spread Star Trek style. I went back and added pink for the ears and nose and added the details with a sharpie. The flower is just the ball of his foot and toes in bright pink with a stem and leaves painted on later. The chick is his hand (minus the thumb) in yellow with detais added with markers. Hope you like it!

lucky charm

It had been a while since RJ and I made an art project. So this week we worked on this little lucky charm:

St. Patrick's Day handprint art

I think it would have looked more like a clover if his fingers had been closed. But you can tell what it is supposed to be and RJ had fun making it. I added his initials and the year for a cute little detail.

me and my buddy (he so needs a haircut!)

mouska birthday party- success!

The Birthday Boy!

We had RJ's birthday party last weekend. It was so much fun! This was the first party we've had with little kids coming instead of just family. Our house is small, so it was kinda cramped, but we had a great time! I love how all of the DIY projects turned out. Some of them were a lot of work, but totally worth it!

We served "hot diggity dogs" with chips and dip. I warmed the hot dogs in the crock pot and also had chili, cheese and the fixin's. Here's RJ helping get things set up.

Hot Diggity Dogs

I made cupcakes with Mickey Mouse cupcake toppers (using the Cricut). I also made the super cute Mickey Mouse cupcake stand. I basically used this tutorial http://www.annies-eats.com/2010/08/19/how-to-make-a-cupcake-tower/ and made the Mickey out of styrofoam balls. I LOVE the way it turned out!

Mickey Mouse Cupcake Stand

 

I also made Mickey Mouse oreo pops. They turned out so cute, but were so much work!

Mickey Mouse Oreo Pops

 

A picture of me with the birthday boy. We were both worn out by then. You can see a bit of the "Happy Birthday" banner I made, again using the Cricut. And a picture of just the banner.

 

Mickey Birthday Banner

 

 



 





 

 

 

 



meeska, mooska, mouska birthday party!

I can't believe RJ will be two years old this week! The time has gone by way too fast. We are going to celebrate with a Mickey Mouse themed birthday party this weekend. Mickey Mouse and the gang seem to as popular as ever. Every kid I know loves the show and RJ is no exception. I've been working on making his party special with some handmade details. I found so many ideas on Pinterest. I had to limit what I would make, would I would buy and what I would just wish I could have!

The invitations were something I could definitely make myself. Here is what I ended up with:

 

I used my cricut and the Mickey and Friends cartridge to cut the shape of Mickey's head in black and red. I used the shadow function to make the yellow piece. The red head was cut into a semi-circle and attached just around the edge to make a pocket. I downloaded a Mickey font and a Disney font for the actual invitation part. It was printed on white card stock and cut using a circle shape from the Classic Font cartridge and the center cut feature. I had to play around with it and use some trial and error to get the size right. For the finishing touch, I hot glued buttons on the red pocket. I love the way they turned out! I think using the Mickey and Disney fonts made it perfect. If you don't have a cricut, the basic shapes would be easy to make (but the cricut sure does help!). Hope you like them! 

little fingers and little toes

For Christmas this past year, RJ and I made calenders for all of the grandparents and a few other special friends. All of the pages were made of artwork using RJ's handprints and footprints. We had so much fun making it! The people who received the calenders as a gift loved them. Since I'm such a slow blogger, you get to see January and February today.

Let it snow!

Our art time usually meant getting the handprints or footprints I needed for that page. Later on, I went back and added the details. For the January "Let it Snow!" page, I painted RJ's hand with white paint and got a nice handprint in the middle of a page of blue scrapbook paper. I added white paint at the bottom using a round sponge brush to fill in the snow. The details on the snowmen were added with a marker and little bits of scrapbook paper. The letters were cut on my cricut and the snowflakes were done with a paper punch. I love how it turned out!

I love you!

The February page had to be about Valentines Day! I started out by getting red footprints in the shape of a heart. The footprints didn't really look like a heart, but cutting a heart around them helped. Again the letters were cut out using the cricut. "From the bottom of my heart to the tips of my toes, I love you!" Sweetest Valentine I've ever seen!

Happy New Year!!

I can't believe 2012 has come and gone. Rob and I spent the last night of the year having dinner with some great friends at The Melting Pot. The food was amazing and the company was even better. Even though RJ was spending the night with Grandma, we came home early. Since Rob had to work today, we didn't want to be out too late.  We managed to stay up long enough to watch the countdown in Times Square before crashing.

My resolution for 2012 was to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. For the first time ever, I actually accomplished a  resolution! I reached that weight loss goal in mid November. However, cheating over the holidays has put a few pounds back on. I spent today doing the prep work to get back to low carbing. For me that means a trip to the grocery store, boiling eggs, cooking a breakfast casserole and baking chicken to have for lunch this week. Unfortunately, I never got around to cooking the chicken. For 2013, I want to continue to lose weight. I would LOVE to make it to ONEderland. That's about 20 more pounds. I know I can do it if I stay disciplined and focus on the goal.

RJ and I did squeeze in a little craft time today. After watching the birds looking for food in our front yard, we made a simple bird feeder. We strung fruit loops on a piece of yarn and tied that into a loop. I was very impressed with RJ's fine motor skills. He actually got most of the cereal pieces on the string when he was trying. But with his three for me, one for the birds approach, I was the one who did most of the work. I tied it to a branch in on the tree. I hope the birds will be able to reach it and that they like fruit loops. RJ sure does!