Lately.....

Lately>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Went to a Benefit this weekend, Tourney for Tommy, and pretty much followed/chased Noah around the entire time.

Still living at my parents, but getting excited for our return home soon. We miss daddy and living apart is just dumb. After tomorrow all we have to do it mudd/tape and paint. Then clean and we will be on our way home!

Im nervous about getting Noah back into his crib. It took me 9 months to get him sleeping in there and for the past month he has been sleeping in a bed with me. I don't know if I can go through that again so Im praying for an easy transition for the little guy, and me!

Searching for the perfect dress for my brother and rachael's wedding. She is letting us pick our own dresses but it's proving to be a lot more difficult than I thought. She is going for a slight vintage style. Something blush pink and that will pair well with pearls. I have found plenty of cute dresses but big butt over here doesn't need her junk hanging out. Do they make dresses that cover your butt anymore? seriously..... (omg im getting old)

Stressing over nutrition. Today I read that beans, legumes and grains are bad for you. Like, what? I'm not one to believe anything I read but this specific research had a lot of sorces and many people agreeing with her. Im stressing because how in the hell are we supposed to know what is right!? I mean God gave us beans and grains naturally right? But our body isn't made to digest them? I don't know and I get so stressed because trying to feed my family the best food for them is so important to me and hearing stuff like that just makes me crazy.

Tonight I made Kale chips for dinner. That's all.

Im getting so excited to not only get home, but to re-decorate my house. Holyyy yesssssssss

My little man is just the greatest thing in life. I can not thank God for him enough. And he is just so crazy smart and funny, its too much!

Thankful for my husband. He is such an amazingly hard working man. He works four different jobs for us and never complains. This past week he has worked three of the jobs on top of fixing the house. Daddy of the year.

Thats all, dude, im tired.

XO Steph

Remember this...

 

 

 

first elevator ride//sleeping on aunt louey//bananas to the face//"i dunno!"//just chillin//little man big bed

{Things that this mommy wants to remember forever 14 months}

We took Noah to play in the snow for the first time this weekend. He loved every second of it. So much that every day since then he brings me his snow boots, knocks on the door and signs “more” over and over again.

His new favorite thing is getting ice with daddy. He carries the ice bucket down the hall with a huge smile and giggles all the way. And oh, that adorable little toddler run.

He loves to pick up heavy things. Anything that looks challenging he will pick it up and carry it around. He even makes little grunting noises and oh my it’s too cute.

He claps for himself after he does anything good.

Dance parties are his favorite. He will point to papas stereo and wait for someone to pick him up so he can push the power button, and when the music starts, so does Noah. He continues to add new moves to his little dance dictionary daily. So far he gets down really low and with bent knees he swings his little arms back and forth with a huge smile on his face. And is newest is stomping his feet while moving in a circle. Aunt Louey started him on these. Love

We have a little tyke slide that my parents brought into their house last week and taught him how to slide down. Since then he has been going up and down the slide non stop all by himself.

He knows the way around the hotel already. He walks right to the elevator and waits for me to let him push the button. And when the doors open he knows exactly where to go.

His animal book is his FAVORITE ever. He will sit there forever turning the pages and belting out animal noises. He can recognize the animals and knows their sound so its pretty impressive. So far he knows Tiger, Lion, bear, monkey, dog, cat, sheep, horse, turtle etc…

Blueberries….its all about the blueberries. The other night we were sitting on the bed with a cup of blueberries and when Noah finished he slid off the bed, ran to the fridge and signed for “more.” I gave him another cup and a ran with a huge smile back to the bed. He did this four times until I told him it was time for bed. When he woke up the next morning and sat up and the first thing he did was sign for “more.” That kid and his blueberries..

Everything is "Uutt OOooooo"

The other night I was trying to get Noah to sleep but he still wanted to play with everyone. Well he made his way off the bed and straight to my brothers room. He knocked on the door screaming, "Bucc" (uncle Buck) as a desperate attempt to be saved from bedtime. When he didn't answer he quickly moved down to Aunt Loueys room and pounded on the door until she opened. Ha!

He loves pickles, beans, any kind of berries, oranges, and avacado.

He can sign for nurse, more, please, and he can say thank you.
 



Hotel Life....

Hotel life……It’s not too bad. We have a king size bed that fits us two adults on each side and a perpendicular baby in between. It’s soft and warm and in the morning the sun comes through the big hotel window and brightens up this little room. There’s nothing like the glow of natural light. So we can’t complain too much.

At this point we are still waiting for the plumber to fix the initial problem. Then the special cleaning crew will come in a rip apart the damaged areas and make sure our house is safe and clean to live in again. After that the insurance adjustor will come and inspect the house and let us know what the damage is worth. From there we will get a contractor to rebuild what is torn out.

This weekend was pretty low key but we had a pretty good time. Friday I called in at work to take care of our situation. We packed up bag of clothes and necessities at home and moved into our hotel room. Saturday we had a fire banquet for one of Brandon’s departments. Love seeing my man in uniform. And Sunday we took Noah out to play in the snow for the first time ever and that little boy absolutely loved it. I love seeing him so happy and giggly. That was my topper this weekend :)

Running and I

Running and I have had a strange relationship. I used to love it. I was the wierdo who would actually run in gym class. My teamates would get mad at me during practice because I would lap them during our warm up. Fastforeward a few years out of hs and I pretty much stopped running. I would get into a mode where I would run everyday and then stop a few weeks later. I've always wanted to get that excitement back that came with it when I was younger but I think I've gotten over the fact that it's just not going to happen again. Don't get me wrong I still enjoy it. I just know that I will never be one of those crazy awesome people up at 4:30 for their 800 mile jog. Last year I knew I wanted to get the ball rolling again, especially after having a baby. My goal was to sign up for a few 5k's and then I would obviously have to start running regularly to train right? Ha!

My sister and I signed up for the Hot Chocolate 5k about 3 months in advance. Set up a whole routine and planned out how we would train. A weeks before the race we had ran two miles. As in one mile monday and one mile wednesday. Ha-ha. We are awesome. However, I had so much fun at the race. Was it horrible? Yes. Did I feel like I was going to pass out and die? Yep. BUT, I am one of those annoying competative people, I can't even help it. Im pretty sure if my femur popped out I still wouldn't let anyone see me walk. So I did it without stopping at all. And hey, I was pretty proud of myself considering I hadn't worked out regularly since I had my son about 10 months prior.

A few weeks later we decided to do yet another 5K. So we planned all our wonderful runs and never did them and went into the second race with even less training, since we are just that cool. This time my husband joined us and I don't think he has ran/run? willingly in a few years. Aren't we all just so ambitious? Or crazy.... But we finished and had a lot of fun. I beat my time from the first race and was much too excited about it.

My goal this year it too get more comfortable with running again. I don't want to dread it beacuse I know I can't handle it. I want to be able to run 3 miles with ease and enjoy it as well.

Hot Chocolate 5k 11/4/2012
34min 36sec

Turkey Day 5k 11/22/2012
33min 50sec

Today..

Today was pretty sweet. B and I have tried hard to be easy going and accept the obstacles we have been given. I think we have done pretty well so far. Earlier this week was a last straw kind of deal. It's been so long since we have been able to "get ahead" wth life in general. Our house has been a construction zone since before Noah was born. Never enough money to finish and it seemed like one thing after another kept setting us farther and farther from completion. I have tried extra hard to believe that God had his hand in this all along and today I felt like he finally revealed something to us. On tuesday our sewage backed up into our home, lovely ;)  It was icing on the cake. Both of our cars had no heat, I need all new tires, our house has no heat and we need a complete electrical re-wire something or other. We have been using these plug in box heaters which have given my comed bill a whole new meaning. So needless to say, we were not happy. So we barracaded ourselves to the front of the house and dealt with the smell. After my husband went to work it started raining and I soon found our laundry room drenched with water from a pretty little leak in our celing. I stood there laughing as I looked at the bathroom floor warped and pulling off the ground, the hallway carpet drenched in sewage water and my laundry room floor creating its own pond.

The nect day I called to put a claim into our insurance. I had read a few things online saying that most cases like this were not covered unless you had a specific sewage coverage on your policy but I decided that it couldn't hurt to try. I tried to hide the worry of what the hell we were going to do! We are going to need a plumber, new carpet , new floorig and who knows what else with who knows what money.

Well, we got a call from my insurance agent today. Tomorrow we will be put up in a hotel for the weekend. We have a plumber coming to fix the problem, and then a clean up crew will come to tear up the carpet and flooring as well as clean up and air our our house. They will replace our flooring and our carpet and anything they think could have been damaged by the water.

My husband told me this on my way home from work today and I cried. Joy. Thank you God.

Resolutions.....Goals.....?

A bit late......story of my life ;) I want to get these goals of mine down on paper or digital internet paper in this case. Anything to hold me accountable and something that I can refrence because I have no memory to speak of. I know that not all of these will get done but I'd like to entertain the idea of it. There is a lot im going to put down but Im just feeling all sorts of motivated at the moment. Tomorrow I may regret this. But anyhow, these are the things I would like to get done/work on/or accomplish this year.

• Simplify/Organize our home
• More Date Nights
• Establish a consistant fitness routine
• Run 2 5k's
• Juice more
• Work on my photography
• Get out of Debt
• Take a Vacation
• Eat as a family at the table
• Put God first
• Get back to Church
• Establish a weekly homemade pizza night
• Make a quilt for our bed
• Build a kitchen table
• Finish all our current renovations

A long list but Im fairly confident in it. I've already started on some of these so that's pretty sweet in my book!

A letter to myself...........

Dear Stephanie,

Things are getting better for you and your family. Without a doubt, you have been blessed beyond words. This past year has been a rough one but at the same time it has been a year of life lessons and growth. I want to document this so that in the future you have a reminder of all the blessing God has given you despite all the trials. At this point you feel like everything bad in this world has happened to you and your the only one with problems. Well snap out of it because you are not. This past year you have had many financial problems, a job loss, car problems, house problems, and all at the same time as having a baby. It felt like once three things went wrong, then six more problems came your way. After a while nothing surprised you. At the end of the year, all within a week after Christmas you had three deaths in your famillies. It is so easy to get discouraged with all of this. But have a stopped to think of things in a different light? Have you tried looking at what you have and what you have gained? You have learned so much this past year. And guess what? You still have your beautiful, loving and amazing family. You still have your house and your car and food. Each and every month God made sure that you have had just enough for your family, sometimes down to the penny and sometimes more. So you don't have everything you Want and everything that others have. That isn't what matters. Your loved ones have since gone to a greater place and you should find peace in that. Recently B has gotten a new job with a better pay. It may not be enough for you to stay at home yet but trust that God will work things out for you in His time. Stop. slow down. Enjoy your days. Do not wish them away. Love lots and smile, because what you have is what God intended and it is beautiful.

Love,
Stephanie