It's ok Thursday

It's ok that I've been pretty lazy lately. (my husband is on vacation and home with us this week and I'd rather spend time with him)

It's ok that my daughter and I had spaghetti for breakfast yesterday.

It's ok that my husband and I are eating like crap this week because for the next few months we have to eat really good so he'll be able to race in April.

It's ok that I wore my comfy boots with my christmas dress because my dressy shoes don't fit anymore for some reason.

It's ok that we want to spend 600-1000$ to buy a tread climber. We both need it.

It's ok that we probably won't do anything for New Years Eve, even though I really want to.
 

Wordless Wednesday

Sooo busy!

I was so sick last week and busy making Christmas cookies that I didn't type up any posts to schedule for this week. My husband took the 12-23/1-2 off work so I probably won't get to post to much in the next week. I got a free minute right now because he's working on our Blazer so we can sell it! *Finally*

I got the ring that I bought with my 50$ credit to Lisa Leonard Designs! It's beautiful. I had them put my husbands name, my daughters name and baby feet in memory of my angel baby.

We had a pretty busy Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. But Christmas day ended nicely. Lots of relaxing. I got a Kindle touch and have been reading A LOT since Christmas Eve. I've missed reading.

I'm really hoping I get a date night with the hubby sometime this week! It's time, a little overdue too.

Guest Post from my BFF

Photograph by http://photographsbyanjuli.com/blog/

Hey guys, thanks for checking out my best friends blog and taking the time to read my guest post!
I'm so happy that Jenn asked me to guest post! Well... wait, that's not true. I'm lying. Technically jenn never 'asked' me to guest post. I sorta gave her a friendly guilt trip and forced her to let me post.
Muahahaha! Thanks jenn! :)
Either way, I'm super excited to be here!
Ok, so here's the deal. My name is nicole and I blog over at spaceandreasons. I'm 24. I live in san diego. I work with animals. I'm engaged to a very handsome  guy and we can't wait to become husband and wife. Hooray for planning a wedding, right? Wrong! I hate to admit it but, I'm a stressed bride. And I'm not having too much fun.
We thought we had it all planned out. Once we set a date and picked a venue we thought it was smooth sailing! Eh, not so much...

Our original plan was to have a priest marry us at the inlaws property. Gorgeous oak trees, an old workshop, rusty farm equipment, etc. It sounded like the perfect place for our rustic wedding.

Unfortunately, the priest isn't able to marry us. And then the venue fell through. And then 3 other venues we were looking at fell through. Awesome, just awesome.

So here we are... photographer is paid, caterer is all set, dj is working on our song list... but we have no place to get married!!
We have one last place to check out this weekend. An organic lavender farm just up the road. Our fingers are crossed it works out!!
If not... well, I have no I idea.
So here's where Jenn's blogging friends come in!
Did you plan your wedding? Or did you enlist a friend/coordinator to help?
What elements were the easiest/hardest to plan?
What projects did you try yourself.and which did you leave to the professionals?
Did you go over/under your budget?
What's one thing you wish someone had told you when you were planning your big day?
Did you follow through with all your planning or did you just say 'forget it, let's elope!!'
I'd love to hear other peoples thoughts on wedding planning.
Any advice or tips you want to pass on would be helpful!
Thanks for checking out jenns blog.. don't forget to swing by my blog and browse around.

Darla and Jack (read more about them and their adoptions on my blog)

My baby is 3!!!

One week and 3 years ago I was put on bedrest at 34 weeks because I was dilated to 3cm and partially effaced. I still had a lot of Christmas shopping to get done and we were having the first bad snow/ice storm in years. I decided to make the best of it and relax since I knew once "Filbert" (that was what my best friend Nicki and I used to call her before we knew the gender) I wasn't going to be getting much rest. So I sat on the couch wrapping presents, watching Days of Our Lives and other crappy day time tv.

On December 22 I took this picture..

I had no idea it'd be my last belly pic with this baby. About 4 hours (around 8:30 pm) after this picture I started having contractions. So my mom said maybe we should go to the hospital, we were supposed to be going to the hospital in the next big city but with all the snow and ice there was no way we'd make it there safely so I got to go to the hospital I wanted to deliver at anyway. The hospital is Silverton Hospital and they have one of the best birthing centers in the US.

When we got there there were no birthing suites available and they wanted to check me to make sure it wasn't false labor so they took me into a triage room and checked me. I was 5 cm dilated and when the nurse checked me she accidentally broke my water. Because of there being no suites available I was in the triage room from 8:45 till about 5am.

I labored from 5am-9am by walking around the room, taking a bath in the jacuzzi tub and squatting. Around 9 I asked for an epidural, waited half an hour for the doctor to come give it to me. He spent 20 minutes stabbing my back and couldn't get it in right so I gave up and told him not to bother trying anymore.

At 10am I was ready to push. I pushed for around an hour and 20 minutes or so. Lyla Cynthia was born at 11:23am on December 23, 2008 6lbs 14oz and 21". She was so beautiful!

I didn't get to see her long because I started having complications (hemorrhaging, uterus not contracting down.. very unpleasant stuff) and she was having breathing problems and really jaundiced. She spent 6 hours in the nursery under an oxygen helmet thing. I wasn't allowed to get up because of all the stuff that had happened to me. That was probably the hardest 6 hours of my life.

I had to stay in the hospital an extra day because my blood pressure kept spiking and they wanted to keep an eye on Lyla. We went home at 4pm on Christmas day. A week later they checked her levels of jaundice and they were still pretty high so we had to get her a biliblanket.

She spent a lot of time on that thing.

 Even though she was so early other than the jaundice and breathing problems in the beginning she was perfect. Never behind on anything and always off the charts for statistics.

At 3 years old she is 34lbs and 40 inches. According to a height predictor, at age 18 Lyla will be 5'9"!

Here's a few of my favorite pics of her..

She always made this scrunchie face when she stretched.

We had a princess party so she wore her dress from our wedding!
Party post coming soon.

Happy Birthday Princess!!
Mommy loves you more than anything in the whole world. You're my princess, my pride and joy, my snuggle bunny. I'm so thankful to be your mommy.

Embrace the Camera

Today we were playing on the kitchen floor with Lyla's new strawberry shortcake grocery cart and her play food so I decided to grab the camera and take some pics.

Christmas Questions

I'm writing this post between baking stuff! I saw this list on a lot of blogs lately so I thought I'd do it. I know, I'm a follower!

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate!
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrap them and when Lyla is a little older it will be in special paper that she never sees until Christmas morning.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White
4. Do you hang mistletoe? We meant to get some this year but forgot..
5. When do you put your decorations up? The weekend after Thanksgiving, although I tried to convince him to do it a little earlier!
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Turkey, cranberry sauce and cherry pie.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? Giving my grandparents a bunch of boxes of food because my mom knew my grandma would go broke giving us the best Christmas.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I really don't remember.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? yep, Christmas jammies!
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? White lights, special ornaments from my mother in law, ornaments that I make every year. and randoms that Adam has had since he moved out of his parents house.
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? LOVE it and wish for it!
12. Can you ice skate? I have never tried!
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I don't have a "favorite" I love them all.
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Spending time with family and friends- just being with those I love.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? My mom's almond roca
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Watching National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, decorating cookies, helping my mom make candy.
17. What tops your tree? A star
18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? Giving, especially to my daughter, nephew and nieces.
19. Candy canes: yuck or yummy? Yummy! I love the flavored ones too.
20. Favorite Christmas show? Elf, National Lampoons, A Very Brady Christmas
21. Saddest Christmas song? Is there sad ones?!
22. What is your favorite Christmas song? Oh Holy Night, Silent Night, Let it Snow, White Christmas... There's lots!

What I'm up to!

I'm a little excited about a christmas present that I'm making for my hubby. I bought him a few small things but decided to also make him something. "It's the thought that counts" and this took a lot of thought to put together. I did this..

Source: http://diyiyd.blogspot.com/

"I love you because you know all the words to Ain't Nuthin But a G Thang"

  I'm also planning to make a bunch of cookies and candy for him to take to work and share with his friends/coworkers!

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season!

 Hello Blogging Friends!

Now I don't know about you but...

 I have always thrilled in everything Christmas:

The sight of red and green colors around town made my smile light up. 

The smell of the crisp winter air made me breathe deeper (no seriously, I'm asthmatic. LoL)

The sound of Joy to the World being sang out made me sing even louder!

In my house I was the "Cindy Lou Who" of the bunch when it came to decorations, I wanted to be surrounded by Christmas in my home and I would get so giddy when it got closer and beg to pull out the decorations somehow forgetting that putting these decorations up would take two seconds...

We had a nativity which I loved, and a stuffed animal-like Christmas tree.

The End.

So, I as a wee child started the tradition of making a Christmas countdown chain. I painstakingly cut out strips of paper (with kid scissors!) and tape and put together our glorious chain! (not proud AT ALL! HA!)

Now this is a tradition that I carried on to my family, I literally made this chain on my own til I was 23, then my oldest Jack-Jack started helping, then Roo, then Magoo. Now we all make this chain the day after Christmas and darnit we love it!

We have tweeked the idea a bit. For the top of the countdown chain I had each child draw a picture of what Christmas means to them, and put them together for a collage.

Here is this years:

 *Jack-Jack drew a pic of Jesus on the cross and "Thank You Jesus", Roo drew herself and I next to a Christmas tree, and Magoo drew himself opening a present.*

  

This is a nice way to reflect each year on how we grow in our thoughts. :0)

We also bake goodies:

Go to a lights show at a local park:

Give kisses under the mistletoe:

and act all around silly and giddy that Christmas is here!!

Thanks for reading my guest post!

Hope you all have a VERY Merry Christmas!!

~Rainbow Bekah 

Guest Post- It's the Middle that Counts

Hello I Wanna Feel that Fire readers!

I'm Amber and I blog over at It's the Middle that Counts.

It's just a little slice of the Internet that I call my own.  A place where I chronicle my adventures with my military hubby and our little monkey, aka Nicholas, born April 9, 2011.

I love crafts of all kinds, baking, being outdoors, spending lazy Sunday afternoons with my two favorite boys and listening to my baby laugh.  I hope you'll come on over, have a cup of coffee, relax and stay a while.  Let me know you're stopping by, I love visitors!

Speaking of visiting, I was so excited when Jenn first asked me to guest post over here about my Christmas traditions, both past and present.  I thought about my favorite traditions for days and I wasn't ever sure that I could pick a single favorite Christmas memory.

I LOVE Christmas!

But after taking my little one to see Santa for the first time a few days ago, I found my perfect memory.

Every year, while my sister and I were growing up, my mother would take us to the city park.  Each year they would string hundreds of lights throughout the park and open it for the public to drive through and see.  At the very end of the park you could stop and visit with Santa and his elves.

Now, as a parent myself, I know that it had to be dark, freezing and the wait had to be excruciating as there were always tons of kids waiting to see Santa.  That didn't stop her though.  Every single year as the temperature dipped into the teens and the snow fell, she took us to see Santa in the park.

Hopefully these are the traditions I can continue with Nicholas.  With this being his first Christmas, we don't really have many family Christmas traditions to speak of.  (Our first 2 Christmases as a family included moving cross country and being pregnant.)

This year I would love to start some traditions that Nicholas will remember as fondly when he is an adult as I do of my childhood traditions.  Specifically I hope he remembers the time we spend together and how much we love him.  I hope that when he is a parent, he will look back on his childhood and tell his children all about how we stood in the snow in the freezing cold weather just so he could see Santa.

I won!

I've been meaning to talk about the awesome giveaway that I won! I never win anything. I'm so excited about it. I won a 50$ credit towards anything at Lisa Leonard Designs from Danielle at Changing Lanes. There are soooo many cute things in the shop. It was so hard for me to decide what to pick but I finally put in my order today and I should get it soon I hope. So if you haven't yet definitely check out Lisa's shop and Danielle's blog.

It's ok..

It's ok that I asked Santa/Baby Jesus for a baby for Christmas (and maybe one for my sister).

It's ok that I just fed my daughter a peanut butter and "jewwy" sandwich for breakfast. That's all she wanted and it got her to eat.

It's ok that I had chocolate for breakfast.

It's ok that some days I don't do anything around the house until 2 hours before my husband gets home. I don't get much sleep.


It's ok that I love cheesy Days of Our Lives. I've been watching it since I was 5.


It's ok that I want to have something that will remind me of my angel baby, even if I don't like to talk about "him"

It's ok that I hope it snows the whole time my husband is on vacation so we have to spend all the time together.

It's ok that I drink coffee and sometimes a rockstar too just to clean my house. Again, I don't get much sleep.

Naughty List

Dear Santa,

I'm sure I totally belong on the naughty list. Let me list the reasons why..

1. I've been so tired that I haven't made Lyla a proper breakfast all week.. Saturday she had a big home cooked breakfast.. Sunday she had pizza. The rest of this week she's had dry cereal. Not that I haven't tried to get her to at least eat it with milk.
2. I've bribed her with candy every day this week so she'll get dressed. But then she forgets about the candy and I never give it to her.
3. I've bought more presents for her that I haven't told my husband about because I want her to have a big christmas.
4. I may have accidently said "I'm going to kick your ass" in front of her (could've been my mom though) and now Lyla has said it a few times.

So yeah.. I'm not going to win the mommy of the year award.. But that's ok, my kid is pretty freakin happy and doesn't throw crazy tantrums like I see some kids doing. But Santa, please don't bring me coal for my stocking. All I want it to get pregnant.

Linking up with Ange today @ Names Won't Be Changed..

New awesomesauce bed!

Lyla's bed was Adam's bed from when he was younger.. Which made it like 20 years old! It was pretty icky and uncomfortable. So we started looking around on craigslist for a new mattress and found the PERFECT (race car) bed! We showed it to her and asked if she liked it and she was so excited about it. So we called them and they would give it to us for 150$ (they wanted it for 175$). So off we went at 6:30pm to drive an hour to pick it up.

The bed was handmade from wood and painted yellow. We decided that we wanted to make it a little more girly so we stopped at Home Depot to get some paint. In her room the walls are lavender, her sheets are pink, her ceiling fan and table legs are watermelon pink. So we picked a purple that was just a shade darker than her walls. Went home and brought the frame for the bed inside to put together and painted. We were up until 11:30 painting it!

We got the bed all set up last night and she LOVES it. We're really hoping that she'll start sleeping in her bed all night. She's getting a little big to sleep in a queen sized bed with Adam and I. 

(Bad quality, Iphone pic)

Iphone pic also