When husbands away!

Husband had to go on a work trip last week which is something I dread every time it happens. Thankfully this was a short 3.5 day trip as opposed to his 12 day trips! I tear up just thinking about the 12 days trips. Husband being gone means several times a year I revert back to my childish ways like becoming afraid of the little noises in my house! Now, mind you, before I got married I lived alone and loved it. Phil is just so strong and manly that I never worry about someone breaking into our house until he's gone. Why is it that when your husband goes away there are more spiders to kill, gun shots heard (aka: fireworks, but hello, they do sound like gun shots!) and kid meltdowns than normal!?!

As much as I hate it when Phil is gone I know someone has to work to put coffee on the table, I mean food. Now usually I spend the time either at my house or I load up the car and head to my parents. This time I changed it up. My bestie Katie just happened to be home alone with her two kiddos this weekend too so I loaded up the car and had a sleep over at her casa. Our kids are almost the same ages so they played beautifully with each other and Katie and I spent the day catching up and sipping coffee. You know you can only get a sip in at a time when you have an almost 2 year old and a 6 week old! Memories were definitely made with this crazy bunch.

 

 

 

DIY Nursery

Have you ever sat down to Pinterest and planned the most gorgeous room then realized that you couldn't even afford the lightbulb in that room? Welcome to my world! Planning on what to do for Wendy’s side of the nursery was frustrating at first because I had a very, very limited budget to work with. However, having a small budget forced me to be creative!

I’m not big on theme nurseries especially since Owen and Wendy are sharing a room so I decided I wanted to go with fun and colorful patterns for Wendy’s side instead.  Husband and I always do house projects together which can be frustrating and ridiculously fun at the same time. I’m always in awe of how he can see a project completely differently than me, and come up with creative ideas that mesh well with my own ideas. So ladies, let your hubby’s be involved if they want to! The projects we decided to do for the nursery were: paint an accent wall grey, hand paint feathers on the wall, create a budget friendly wall design with fabrics, and figure out how to not spend $400 on Wendy’s baby bedding! Why is baby bedding more expensive than redecorating my entire master bedroom!?

Husband and I spent a day painting the wall grey and hand painting the feathers onto the wall. Then we went to Hobby Lobby and picked out some colorful fabrics we liked and multiple embroidery hoops (aka: cheap wooden sewing circles), then some plain wooden letters. We cut the fabrics to the size of the hoops, painted the wooden letters, used thumb tacks to put them up and we were done! Then we found a $100 quilt from Cost Plus World Market that we loved the pattern of (and is thin so the material breathes easily for the bumper) and decided to use that for the baby bedding! I can barely sew a button on pants so I called in reinforcements, my mom. She cut the quilt up and made the bumper, a quilt, AND burp cloths!! Plus there is still a ton of material left over! I couldn’t be happier with it. 

 

 

Owen turns 1!

This weekend we celebrated Owen’s 1st birthday! His party was airplane themed so, of course, I stole most of the party decor ideas from pinterest. Who thinks of their own ideas anymore!? #TooMuchEffort. Owen slept for the first half of his party because he wanted to make a grand entrance. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Then he showed off his flight suit and tore right into his cake. Well, at first he was confused at why he had a giant thing on his highchair since he usually is given bite sized pieces. When he realized it was a tower of sugary goodness he did not hesitate to dig right in. We oo’d and awe’d, took a million pictures, then devoured the dessert table. I’d say Owen had a blast and is so thankful to everyone who came to celebrate. 

The smash cake, cupcakes, and cake pops were made by the amazing I Hart Cupcakes (hartcupcakes@gmail.com)!

Playdates

If anyone has ever been a stay-at-home parent you know how necessary it is to have a grown up conversation at some point during the day. Not that I don’t fully enjoy talking to Owen all day, and hearing him say “da-da” back. Trust me, hearing my little handsome boy baby-babble melts my heart every time. Thankfully, I have a really, REALLY good friend, Katie, who has a baby just about Owen’s age. Fiona might be the prettiest little girl baby on the planet too. We get together as often as we can and just sip coffee, talk, and adore our littles playing with each other. This girl keeps me sane.

Now that our littles are starting to interact a bit more I’m more than entertained. Owen usually likes to grab at Fiona’s face, hands, or whatever he can reach and talk loudly at her. Fiona likes to quickly grab whatever toy might be between them and just grin at Owen. They always smile at each other and then are quickly distracted by whatever is happening around them. Which being easily distracted is a little bit like Katie and I. Sleep deprivation has that affect on mamas. Am I right?!

Here is a few different playdates with Fiona over the past few months.

 

 

 

Easter in the Park

This weekend Owen experienced his first time on a park swing, and his first Easter Egg Hunt! As you will be able to tell by the pictures, he was very unsure about the swing set. His face read, “Not impressed parents.” I’m sure those swings will win him over eventually. 

The Easter Egg Hunt was hosted by our church and it was a blast! They had the babies go first, so that they didn’t get trampled by the older kids. Genius if you ask me. I might have had to tackle a kid if they accidentally stepped on Owen. Maternal instincts can be a tad bit strong, and slightly ghetto. Anyways, Phil took Owen on the Easter Egg Hunt and Owen chose the perfect blue egg. One egg was plenty for my little guy. He spent the rest of the event trying to eat the egg whole. He meaning Owen, not Phil incase you were confused. 

Driving Distractions

Now I am not innocent from casually glancing down at my phone while driving. However, I’m usually at a red light when I do so. Now that I have a sweet baby in the car I am a lot more safety conscience. 

Husband and I witnessed a new kind of distracted while on the freeway the other day. A guy was in an older car, that to me appeared to be manual transmission, which as I can recall takes two hands and feet to drive. This guy may have been either extremely talented or not the brightest crayon in the box because he was talking on his phone with one hand… and smoking a cigarette with the other hand… now I’m no mathematician but when 2 out of 2 hands are off the wheel some thing doesn't exactly add up. Husband and I laughed about it, of course, but we also kept a very close eye on that car. Safety first people. Safety first.

First 30th Birthday Celebration

That's right, I had more than one birthday celebration. Apparently when you turn 30 you get to have multiple birthday celebrations. I may or may not have planned multiple parties for myself, so I could eat unscrupulous amounts of cake and not be judged. Is that bad? I didn't think so.

Aren't birthdays more fun when your whole family is there? My brother and sis in law live about 6 hours from us, so we don't always get to have them with us during birthday celebrations. However, they were here to celebrate my 30th! My family celebrations are generally spent drinking coffee, talking, laughing, eating, laughing some more, drinking more coffee, and eating cake. It's a brilliant combo if you ask me.