The Comeback Kid

I feel like I need to go to blogging bootcamp, I need a drill sergeant to get me to post on a regular basis! Or at least more than once a year. My biggest obstacle has been coming up with ideas for posts, I over analyze it way too much. Then the other day I had a spark of inspiration. I started thinking about some of the things I am most interested in and realized they all began with the letter "f". I get excited about alliteration, I mean, alliteration is absolutely alluring and amazing and awesome and.... ok you get it. So are you ready to hear what I will now attempt to blog about?! Are you?! Here goes...

Faith

Family

Food

Fitness

Fashion (Specifically frugal fashion. There's that alliteration again!)

So now each time I want to write a blog post, I can draw inspiration from these areas. And who knows, maybe I'll surprise myself once in a while and throw in a post on a different subject. I know, I'm a wild one. I don't claim to be an expert on much of anything, maybe an expert at not being an expert. So while I hope my posts have helpful information at times, mostly I hope it serves as a way to record memories, moments, and makes someone laugh. TTFN!

Over the River and Through the Woods

Happy 2013! I haven't posted since last year, woah! Well I hope the holidays went well for everyone, we had a great time! Todd, Asher and I went to Utah for a couple of weeks and had a blast! My parents and Todd's mom were the only ones that had ever seen Asher so I was so excited for everyone to meet him. He was a little charmer and everyone loved him (sorry, bragging momma).

I believe I can flyyyyy.....

I flew out by myself a week early because Todd had to take some tests still, and I was a little nervous to fly alone with Asher. I had never flown with him before (outside of my belly, much easier that way btw) and I wasn't sure if he was going to scream on the flights or what. Well turns out he was a champ and did so well! I had heard from a million (why no I never exaggerate) people to make sure they are nursing, or sucking on a bottle or pacifier during take off and landing so they don't get upset with the pressure changes. So on the first flight I decided just to nurse him to be safe, and I was fortunate (no I'm never sarcastic either) enough to sit by some single college dude and when I asked him if he cared if I nursed my baby shrugged his shoulders and made some awkward mumbled response. Really who's going to say "No way, don't feed your child!" Anyway it was nice and uncomfortable during that time, me feeding Asher and him pulling on my nursing cover, kicking the kid next to me, me apologizing lamely, and realizing 5 minutes later there was a breeze on my back and I was not completely covered from behind. You're welcome everyone behind me. You got a glimpse of my love handles. Oh well, harmless. Anyway, I digress (for some reason I love that statement. I digress again. Bonus for using it twice!) P.S. every time I fly and listen to the safety shpeel I think of this most excellent video. I mean EVERY time I fly. I hope after you watch it you think of it too.

Our break was great. We spent much time with family,

Morning yoga with Pa

 Had an awesome Christmas,

"I'll barf on you too if you don't let me go back to bed. And Merry Christmas"

 Rode the ferris wheel at Scheels (where my brother tried to photo bomb us and nearly wet his pants because he thought he was going to fall out of his seat. Ba ha)

had tons of fun meeting new cousins,

ate tons of food,

 

First time eating solids! Success!

And tried to have an ugly sweater party but about 5 people showed up. All at different times. So we had about 2 people there at a time. Nice and rockin'. Overall it was a great trip and each time it's a little harder to leave family, but we love living in Iowa right now. It's a great time for us and we will miss it when we move away.

This is a rambling post but at least it's a little update on us and our break, until next time! I've decided I shouldn't write blog posts unless I have an idea in mind. If I don't I just ramble and there are digressions everywhere you turn!

Latest Pinterest Success

Ah, Pinterest, you are my best friend and the bane of my existence. I feel inspired by so many cute crafts and delicious recipes, then immediately after I feel ashamed and discouraged because I could never come up with so many uses for a mason jar. Seriously, I thought they were great for putting jam in. So I find small victories when I try something I pinned and it turns out as promised! (how often does that happen??) My latest exciting discover is baking eggs in a muffin tin!

Seriously, a genius idea. They make for a tasty breakfast and since they're already cooked it's super easy to prepare!

yum.

Basically just grease the muffin tin, crack an egg in each spot, and add salt/pepper to each egg, or any other desired ingredients. I did cheese on a couple, you could also stick in some spinach, whatever gets your mouth a droolin'! Then bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. I mashed mine and put it on toast, but they are also the perfect size for an english muffin. The eggs store great in the fridge for about 5 days. I've done this twice now and both Todd and I have enjoyed it. Thanks Pinterest!

Now, how about some cute baby pictures? :)

Rah, rah, rah rah rah!

happy guy

goofy face

being cool with Daddy

Happy Halloween!

Watch out for neck-eating vests. They'll strike when you least expect.

Being a baby is hard work!

Enjoying some conference talks

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Late as Usual

Well most everyone knows by now... Baby Asher came!

"Well hello there."

Ha ha this is what he should have looked like according to one of those baby morph websites. You know you've all done this before. Don't as me why he looks........well, like that. After seeing this and laughing so hard I cried, I started to wonder if he would really look like that. After all, the internet is always right, right? But I'm sorry to disappoint you that, because he actually looks like this....

Ok so we think he's pretty darn cute! And I'm sorry this post is 2 months late, but let's face it, who reads this blog anyway?! :)

Asher made his grand entrance into the world Friday, July 27th, 2012, at 7:09 pm, after being induced because the stinker was a week late! He had to be evicted from his place of residence, on account of there being no more room!! (I just realized he probably got this habit of being late from me. Oops.)

You're time's up, baby.

I'm just trying to catch up on things so I won't go into great detail about the whole process, but it went very well! I was on cervadil through the night on Thursday night, then Friday morning around 7 they broke my water and started Pitosin. I got an epidural(blessed be the inventor of them!) a few hours later, then was ready to push around 6 pm. I was fortunate to only push for an hour and out he came!

"Put me baaaack!"

Craziest and most amazing feeling ever!! Words cannot describe the experience of having a baby. I'm still in awe every single day of how this perfect little person grew inside of me and how blessed I feel for how smoothly everything went and continues to go.

First family picture!

Welcome to the world, Asher! Sorry you got stuck with such crazy parents. We are crazy.... about you!

Just Some Rambling

I'm back again! I'm really on a roll... Well we found out what we're having...................it's a baby!!!! Ha ha just kidding, well it is a baby, but it is a baby boy! Yay!! We are really excited, I have already started to make a couple of clothing purchases, and thanks to the idea from a friend, I made a couple of ties for the little man, with more to come!

I got the tutorial for the regular tie here, and to bow tie here. They were both really easy!

And how sweet with the paisley bow tie look on the little guy? Ha ha I fully intend to make him some little suspenders too... Oh and for the back of the bow tie I didn't do the fancy back that the tutorial said to with the size adjuster thing, I just did a plain strip and sewed a snap on the back. If you want to be able to adjust the size, I'd just make it a bit longer and do a couple sets of snaps so you can adjust it that way.

Anywho, I have enjoyed crafting lately, I'm still very amateur but I like doing little projects like these things. Maybe someday I can get into the mass production of crafting and open an Etsy shop! Oh the possibilities! Ha ha I just think all the time about how grateful I am for opportunities, and how if we are passionate about something or want to explore something new, we can! Granted time, life circumstances, or money can limit us sometimes, but really there are so many fascinating things in the world to discover and experience, and we can experience so many of them if we want to! I just feel blessed that I was born in the circumstances and time I was so I can have a lot of diverse experiences. That seems like a weird thing to be grateful for, and sometimes having so many options in life is overwhelming and I wish I only had to choose between A and B, but for the most part I'm just grateful.

My goodness, I just don't know what to write about on these blogs, I could ramble on about nothing for forever! Ha ha well maybe I'll just make this entry a shorty and feel satisfied that I wrote another post in less than one year. So farewell for now, I should probably stick to writing posts when I have something specific I'd like to write about so I don't feel like I could write about everything and nothing at the same time! (On a crazy side note, anyone ever see Mystery Science Theater 3000? Classic stuff. I reminded myself of a line from my favorite one, go to 10:40, or just watch the whole thing, you can thank me later.) :)

We're Still Here!

Ok this has gotten a little out of control... I thought it had been like 6 months, maaaaaybe 8 since I had last written a blog post, but over one year?! I am clearly not cut out for this blogging stuff. I think I put pressure on myself and think I can only post something if I have an awesome story, great pictures, or something terrific to actually post about. And let's be honest, who is really reading this blog anyway? I guess it's partly (wholly) due to my lack of blogging, but that ends today, today I say! If nothing else, this will just become a journal for me to write down stuff I don't feel like posting on Facebook every day, yet things I don't want to forget. Plus sometimes I come up with witty captions or titles in my head, and we don't want those to go to waste now, do we?

Well not posting anything for a year is a little overwhelming, there are heaps of things that have happened that one post would become a novel to catch up, so let's just start with today, and other events from the past year will trickle in on subsequent posts. Sounds good to me! So starting with the most important event that is happening in our lives right now............................. I'm pregnant!! Yes indeed, I'm 19 weeks along and we find out in a week if it's a lady or a gentleman! Todd and I are really excited. Your next question is probably something about pictures, and yes I have been taking the obligatory weekly profile of the (supposed to be) growing belly, but I don't have very many yet. How can this be, you ask, if I am already almost halfway through the pregnancy? Well, allow me to show you rather than tell you:

16 weeks

17 weeks

18 weeks (ok clearly I'm trying too hard on this one, sticking out the belly and all)

Does anyone else feel like I'm just changing outfits or something? Not so much progress yet, but I promise it's in there! So there you have it, little Peanut is in the oven, and life is good!

In other news, Todd has been doing great in school, hooray! He works really hard and studies more than seems humanly possible, but he does really well at making time to hang out with this crazy lady. We really like where we live, and love our branch of fellow students and young couples/families. I am working at the YMCA (It's fun to stay at the...)* part-time, and also dabble in some jewelry making for a lady here that owns her own business. It keeps me busy, but not too busy, which is just perfect. I have really been getting into cooking more, and I love trying new recipes. Todd is nice enough to be my guinea pig, and thankfully I have only had one or two dishes bomb! I am also in the middle of taking a cake-decorating class, I have aspiring hopes of being like Buddy the Cake Boss and dominating the cake world! Not really, but I've had fun so far doing it, at least I can make neat cakes for my kids! Allow me to introduce my first masterpiece:

Tadaaaaa!

I know, I know, it should be put in a museum, or sold for millions. I've actually gotten calls from Brad Pitt and Victoria Beckham wanting one for their kids' birthday parties, but I'm taking this one step at a time. (Totally kidding by the way, if you look at it sideways you might mistake it for a dancing pineapple...)

Well my friends (I say that like I actually think more than one person will read this), I have rambled on far too long, but it feels good to update this thing! I won't get my hopes up, but I think it's safe to say it won't be another year before I post something again. :)

Ciao!

*Ok so I just watched this for the first time tonight, there are so many great things about this video! The cinematography! The easy to learn dance moves/hand clapping! The outfits! The handlebar mustache! If I wore an Indian costume to work one day how many people do you think would get it?

Has it really been 3 months??

Man, keeping up with a blog takes work! And I don't know about the rest of you blog-ites, but I have trouble coming up with a topic for a blog! I feel like our lives right now are really routine. I go to school and work. Todd goes to school and work. We come home and eat dinner. Then it's a choice of going to the gym, watching undercover boss, or a third, alternating option like watching Todd play men's league hockey or hanging out with friends or playing nintendo ds (I've almost finished Professor Layton fyi, and it's only taken like 18 hours! Not consecutively thank goodness). We are just both really excited to be done with school in April, and begin our next phase of life, more school! When I sit and write about our life right now, it sounds pretty boring! But we do manage to have fun and laugh together, and sometimes at each other. Which reminds me of a good story....

This darn dry winter makes my fingers sometimes get little cracks on the tips, and if I don't cover them up they take forever to go away. And putting band-aids on the ends of my fingers every day is not only annoying, but it makes my fingers look like lobster pincers.

So yesterday I had had it, and I decided to go to the store and get some super glue to put on the little crack. I figure if they do it at the doctor's office, so could I! So I drove to Reams, made my $1.16 purchase, and sat in the parking lot in my car to complete the procedure. I was meeting up with my mom and sister to take my niece and nephew out to play, so I thought I'd glue my finger up real quick and be on my merry way. I opened the package most carefully, because who wants to get super glue everywhere? (cue foreboding music) I read the instructions carefully, which directed me to simply twist the cap on all the way to pierce the little foil thing across the opening of the tube. Easy enough, right? I get a solid grip on the lid, hold the tube in the other, and begin to twist. I start to feel the pressure on the tube, and prepare for it to pierce. The next 5 seconds went in slow motion but I had no reaction time. The foil on the tube broke, and glue squirted out like, I don't know, something that squirts out really fast in no time. My right hand was immediately covered in superglue, my left hand had scattered spots of it, and a couple of drops got on my seat. I immediately felt claustrophobic as I watched my right middle finger slowly become encased in a layer of suffocating liquid. I decided to drive home to try to get the glue off before I met up with my family, and realized the ring I was wearing on my right hand was now sealed to my finger. That made me feel more claustrophobic and anxious so I began to yell as I held my hand in the air, driving home one-handed so I wouldn't have a bigger problem of being glued to my steering wheel. I made it home and ran inside, and read on the glue packaging how to remove super glue from skin. I was directed to soak my slowly dying hand in nail polish remover and I would be able to peel the glue off. So after 20 minutes of alternating between soaking and scrubbing my hands with salt (another tip from ehow.com) I got my ring off and maybe peeled of 1/100 of the glue on my hands. Thankfully, it finally started coming off, slowly, and today I am pleased to report there are only a few specks that remain on my hands.

Want to know how supportive Todd was through the whole thing? He was at school so I sent him a text explaining what happened, and he responded, "Don't you know you're not supposed to use superglue on cuts? Now you're going to get an infection!" Oh and we're keeping a budget for this month just to see how we spend our money, so he told me to make sure I wrote down what I spent on the chart on fridge. Thanks for the sympathy Todd, thanks. Next time something bad happens to you, I'll lecture you on the negative impact you're having on the ozone layer or something.