New Design and Keeping Happy

I've livened up my blog page a little bit. It's happier and not so baby poop yellow - I see enough of that as it is! :) I hope you enjoy all the extra "stuff." It's the second overcast day in a row after 5 days off of work and I must confess it's testing my mood and motivation. Things that are I am focusing on that make me happy...looking forward to the next several weeks of holiday activities - Christmas parties, Gingerbread house making, seeing Christmas lights, coordinating a Toys for Tots donation at work, enjoying the lights on the outside of my house and loving the decorations on the inside, a fire in the fire place, Mia's personalized stocking that I was so excited to order last year, Christmas music and the lights on our mini tree. I opted out of setting up our big tree this year with Ms. Curious running around. Even more exciting about having another tree is that she can put that tree in her room during the holidays. I know I would have loved that as a little kid! Other things that make me happy include buying a new camera...pause and side note, I sat on mine Saturday during Mia's Christmas card photo shoot in her playroom and broke it...it was not intentional, although I will admit I am SUPER excited about having a new fancy camera that will take pictures when I press the button instead of seconds after. As any parent of a young child would know that makes picture taking a bit of an issue...continue...my daughter, my husband, my parents and sisters, my nieces, my brother-in-laws, my cousins, my aunts and uncles and in-laws (most of them anyway), wine and chocolate...I could go on forever and that is A REALLY GOOD THING. I can't complain. I have a wonderful life and I think the classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer movie is on tonight! Yippee!!Happy Tuesday Everyone and Happy December tomorrow!

Well....it's been a while! Jumbley Joo...

I fully admit that it has been almost six months since my last post, but I've been busy and that's my excuse. Therefore this is my Jumbley Joo of a post. So much has happened since May (really...May), including Mia turning 1 and having quite a celebration at her 1st Birthday Party!

This week marks Thanksgiving and I cannot believe how quickly this year has gone by. I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately as I've watched Mia grow and grow and grow more and more and more every single day. She even has a few words in her vocabulary already and is walking like a champ! This time last year I was a brand new Mommy and no idea what I had gotten myself into. I was like a lost little puppy. Last night I even popped in the delivery DVD for the first time. It was interesting to watch and place myself back in that moment in time. I am so thankful that we captured it. Here I am one year later and I feel like we are headed in the right direction. We have a great routine and a wonderful family that has been helping us out by watching Mia, so she doesn't have to go into daycare. I've tackled (most days) what it takes to work full time and be a mom. It's difficult and there are days where I wish I could stay home with Mia, but at the end of the day I am thankful that I am able to find the balance to provide for our family as well.

Our Thanksgiving is a little different this year as there will be some missing pieces to our puzzle. My sister and her husband will be in Key West and Mark's mom, dad, sister, BIL and nieces will all be elsewhere. It's unfortunate, but life is busy and we just can't accomodate everyone's schedule. Mark and I have really been struggling with our relationship with his mom lately and it's really taken a hit and effected our entire family. I will save the details, but hope that things get better and that we can create a healthy relationship that will be a benefit to Mia in the future. I'm trying to keep focus on what is best for our family and most importantly Mia. This is the time of year to reflect on what we are thankful for and my family is definitely a large part of that list. I've developed a strong relationship with Mark's cousin (my cousin now too) and I really appreciate that extra support in my life. I've taken for granted what wonderful and open relationship I have with both of my parents and how supportive, understanding (and often opinionated) my sisters are. I could not imagine not having that as a part of my life. I would not be the same person I am today.

Above all, I am finally getting some consecutive days off of work that I have not had since Memorial Day and it is much, much, much needed. I need some rest, down time and no alarms. Getting to work everyday at 7:30 takes it's toll. I am thrilled that I get in early and have time to myself before the days chaos ensues and that I can leave at 4:00 and feel like I have some time with Mia in the evenings during the work week, but this time of year is tough. The chill in the air and the sun going down earlier is rough on the soul.

This weekend will include a few projects that hubby and I have been putting off for some time, but will also be including holiday decorations. Yay! I am in full holiday mode, especially now that 102.5 is playing Christmas music 24-7!

As I close this tangent of a post, I will leave you with a little something, but before I do, be sure you take a moment to reflect on what you are thankful for. After all, this is what this time of year is for. Happy Thanksgiving!

Wordless Wednesday

Stole this idea for Wordless Wednesday from a friend who is an excellent blogger and a phenomenal writer. She truly has a gift.

http://www.minivansarehot.com. You should check out her blog.

My First Mother's Day

What a great weekend! Mark came home from work on Saturday with flowers and candy for me. He is so wonderful and knew exactly what to do to bring a smile to my face. I've kind of been a little down in the dumps lately, which is really not very normal for me. I'm by no means perfect (:)), but I try really hard to be positive as much as I can. Our lives have become so busy and with Mark's work schedule, our weekends are practically non-existent, so I've been struggling a lot with our lack of family time together. Life is going so quickly and it's getting to the point that we don't really feel like we have a break or anything to look forward to, as a family, since our weekends, and only time together during the week, have been depleted to only one day. I'm trying to accept what this is and pray that it is only temporary. It's amazing how much I took weekends for granted prior to this. I enjoy the day, just Mia and I, but I miss having Mark on Saturdays. I feel incomplete without him. We try to squeeze so much into our Sundays, that we have no down time together, it's is just chore, after chore, after chore it feels like sometimes. And by the end of the day Sunday, we are both exhausted and can't believe another weekend is gone and work week is upon us.

Saturdays are really busy days for me between the baby and all the errands and house cleaning that I try to get done before Mark gets home, so he knew I would be pretty spent by the time he got home. He knew exactly what I needed. A night of relaxation and time at home with my family!!!

So we spent the night on the couch, relaxing, carb and sugar loading while eating Cecil Whittaker's, watching baseball and the beginning of SNL (we are quite the party animals these days, we seldom make it through all of SNL before falling asleep...I know, pathetic!). Betty White was fun and of course, Kristen Wiig is always a good laugh.

Sunday was a day of beautiful weather and time with family! After a nice long, hot shower and about an extra hour of sleep, Mark gave me a beautiful card from he and Mia. It was very sweet and thoughtful and will make a beautiful addition to Mia's scrapbook. Mark cooked me pancakes and hash browns for breakfast and then we headed to Laumeier Sculpture Park for the annual Art Fair to meet up with my family. We had a great time looking at all of the things we could not afford, although Mark bought me a beautiful necklace with a glass pendant! Later that afternoon, we met up with his family for an early dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and then heading to his parents' for cake!! :)

It was a great weekend. Now we are back to Monday and another work week!

6 months

Wow! That was fast! Yesterday Mia turned 6 months old. I'm going to blink and she is going to be diving into her cake on her 1st birthday.

Weekend Craziness and Other Random Thoughts

Does anyone else feel like there is never enough time in the weekend? Each week I feel like this becomes more and more true! Seriously! Every Monday I think, what happened to the weekend and why doesn't the work week go that quickly?? :) A lot of my busy scheduling is of my own doing, but what can I say I like to spend time with family and friends. Between that and my motherly and wifely duties that keep me plenty busy, I just feel like the weekends are gone in a flash. Mark and I were discussing this in length last night. Where did the lazy Sundays go, when we had nothing planned and all the time in the world? I want just one of those days again soon! I cannot remember the last weekend day that we had nothing going on. I need to find the pause button! May I also mention that I am running a 5K in just a few weeks and I haven't ran (unless you count up and down the stairs at home) anywhere in almost three weeks. Pathetic! I've really fallen off the wagon the past few weeks. Once I got the green light from my OB to work out again I went at it and was feeling really good. We did the St. Patty's Day 5 mile race downtown and I felt awesome. Our schedule has become so crazy lately that there is no time to go to the gym unless I want to put Mia in the box they call child care at my gym. Mark just can't get home early enough for both of us to get to the gym. How do you work full time, take care of a baby and workout on a regular basis?? I never wanted to be the person that used the phrase, "There are just not enough hours in the day," but I am using it because there are not enough of them. If I would just win the freakin' lottery I could hire someone to bust my a**!! Until then, I need to reset my goals and get back out there. I cannot workout like I used to. I can't go to the gym for an hour anymore, so I need to do what I can. It's better than nothing! It's up to me and as much as I wish I could pass the buck onto someone else, I'm the only person that can make me get back to my routine. Plus I have to be in a swimsuit in 4 weeks - eeeeekkkksssss!!!! I'm not complainin,' I'm just sayin!'

From Baby to Carrots

I'm so disappointed in myself that I have yet to write one single post for 2010. So this is called catch-up!

Wow - what a whirlwind the past 4 months have been. We have been so busy, but I am loving every minute of it (mostly).

My maternity leave ended and I returned to work on January 18, so our life has been super crazy since then. With two full-time working parents time certainly does fly more than I ever thought it would. We are in our rhythm, but it's tough. I hate having to be away from her more than I am with her, but bills don't pay themselves so to work we must go. We have some positive opportunities that we are diving into this year, so I am optimistic that our schedules will become a little less chaotic by the end of the year.

Motherhood is amazing and I really am enjoying it. I never thought I would love a human being as much as I love that little girl, but she is transforming each and every week into a bigger and brighter energy that has brought so much joy to our lives.

I feel like just yesterday I was giving birth to her and now all of a sudden she is eating carrots.