Mother's Day

 

My mom came down on Saturday to spend the weekend with us. I picked her up from the train station on Saturday morning and grabbed some breakfast from Whole Foods and sat out on the patio and did some catching up. I had booked us a couples massage in the afternoon  and I know that sounds funny but it was so much nicer to be in the room together!

We spent the rest of the day shopping around for my sister's little bambino, eating lunch, and relaxing. Saturday night we cooked dinner and waited for Nick to come home from Napa. {He went up Friday night to take his mom on a date on Saturday.}

We hosted Mother's Day brunch at our house. It was so much fun to have both of my favorite mama's together. Nick's parents and sister came over to have brunch and spend the day relaxing outside.

I put together some of our favorite breakfast dishes; crescent roll sausage & egg casserole, candied bacon {omg yum!}, granola and yogurt fruit parfaits and of course many mimosas. I major failed at taking photos all weekend.

We said goodbye to my mom last night at the train station and she headed back home. We had such a fun weekend and loved having my mom here to visit.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Summer Plans

Life is about to get pretty exciting around here. We are officially booked for the summer. This is something that drives Nick completely insane, even though every single weekend we are doing something fun.

May is going to be an especially fun month.

First on the agenda - Mother's Day! My mama is coming down on Friday and we are going to spend the weekend spa'ing, shopping, and eating. I feel like it has been so long since I've seen her and I can't wait to soak her up. We're hosting brunch at our house on Sunday for the whole family. I've got to get menu planning!

Next? Disneyland! One big 'ol check off my 30 x 30 list and I couldn't be more excited. This trip was a surprise from Nick's parents and I almost peed myself when they told us. I haven't been to Disney since I was 7 years old and I barely remember anything. I can't wait.

In the last weeks of May my dad and step-mom will be coming down to visit and that same weekend we have my cousin's wedding. The weekend after that I will be fulfilling my Maid of Honor duties at my friend Jeanette's wedding in Sacramento.

We have five weddings on the books for this summer.  The two in a row in May, one in July, one in September and one in October. I am so excited to watch so many of the people we love get married and all of them are happening in such cool places!

Other fun stuff in the works are our usual weekends in Napa, Nick's birthday, a bachelorette party in NOLA, a trip to Portland, and... the most exciting of all? Meeting my brand new niece or nephew in July! That's right, my big sister is havin' a little babe. I am over the moon and can't even believe that in only a few short months he or she will be here! I FaceTimed with my sister this morning and got to see her belly. It's hard living so far away from each other. I haven't seen her in person since January and she has changed so much! I won't be seeing her again until after the baby comes and I'm a little bummed that I won't ever get to rub her belly this time around. Regardless, this is just the most exciting, wonderful time.

We spent the weekend cleaning house and Nick worked in the yard getting everything ready for my parents to visit. The house seriously needed some TLC after April, which was a crazy, and not so nice month. It feels so good to start the month with pretty, clean, house so many fun things to do.

Happy May!

Baby Fever - Part 2

When we originally decided to start our family I had no idea what to expect. I guess part of me thought that as soon as we started trying that it would just happen right away. I even wrote this post to commemorate the occasion. The other part of me had this nagging feeling, fear that it wasn't going to happen easily. I think that's pretty natural really. Some of my friends have said that they have had similar fears.

Anyway...here we are, one year, a whole lot of trying, temperature charting, and a few bottles of prenatal vitamins later. We are officially not part of the 80% of couples who are able to get pregnant within the first year.

I had my first appointment with by doctor to discuss our next step. I came out of the appointment with a follow up on the calendar and a stack of referrals for blood work, an ultra sound, and some other tests.

I didn't look through the pile of papers until I got home. I looked down and right smack in the middle of my referral for my ultra sound she had written infertility in huge black doctor scroll right across the page. Reading that word on something that belonged to me made me want to pass out.

Four long weeks later Nick and I met with my doctor together to go over our test results and formulate a game plan. The results? I'm not ovulating. At all. My progesterone levels are low and nothing is happening in there. Everything else looks fine as far as she can tell and this should be an easy fix.

We are ready to start our first round of Clomid and praying for a positive test sometime soon.

Will you help us pray?

Why We Work

I knew right away that Nick and I would have something special. I just felt it. It was different from any of the past relationships that I had been in. I had been in love before but there was always something missing. When I first got to know Nick I knew that I had found it. That something missing.

It's not like our relationship is perfect. Far from it. We definitely don't always see eye to eye and we are both extremely stubborn and that can be difficult. But the reality is, we just get each other.

We share everything. I mean everything. He doesn't always like that part of the deal. I'm always stealing his shirts to sleep in. They just fit perfectly, and no, I can't go buy my own because that's not the same. We share our goals, our plans, and a vision for the future of our family. We share many of the same values and beliefs. We share a need to constantly be moving forward. Growing, learning, building.

We balance each other out. I tend to have a pretty relaxed attitude about things. I can generally keep pretty calm, especially when he gets worked up or frustrated about something. Some might call it lackadaisical, I like to call it going with the flow. Nick is more regimented and disciplined. Each of these qualities are good for the other one. He keeps me in check, and I tell him when he needs to calm the F down.

We like being together. I mean.. it can't get more basic than that. The person that you marry should probably someone that you generally like being around... all. the. time. I look forward to weekends the most when I know that it's just going to be the two of us. Even if it's a weekend full of projects, cleaning, and errand running. Those are the best weekends. And that's real life.

We've only been married a year and half or so, so I'm not going to even pretend like I know anything about what makes a marriage last. But I do know what I need out of a relationship in order to be successful in it. In general we are good at communicating with each other. That aspect can always be improved upon though. We agreed early on to try our best to never let issues fester.  I struggle with this one because I don't like to nag. And I don't really like to be told what to do either so I'm a work in progress on this one.

We never ever say unkind things to each other out of anger. This is a big one. I truly believe that if you say something hurtful on purpose, you can't ever take that hurt back. You can apologize and you can move past it but it's hard to forget about it. There are some things you just can't take back. ever.

If we start to bicker, especially if it's about something stupid {it's always about something stupid} we will both go off and do something on our own. I'm not talking leave the house, I'm talking go into the other room and fold laundry or watch TV and leave each other alone for a little bit. That's all it takes. Neither of us are "escalators" and thank God for that.

We love each other. This doesn't need an explanation. We just do.


I'm a day late, but I'm linking up with The Daily Tay for this fun little love fest.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Grading my 2014 Goals

I wrote this post at the beginning of January and completely forgot to post it. Now that we are a month into the new year let's see where I stand with the goals I set for myself when I was feeling inspired and ambitious.

 

I've never been one for new years resolutions. I've always avoided the gym for the first couple months of the year. I refuse to be lumped into the mass of people that only work out because of their new year resolution and just end up taking up machines at the gym so they can slowly walk and watch tv at the same time. Major pet peeve.

 

- Try to cut out processed meats. Specifically deli meats. My plan is to start cooking a whole chicken once every week or two to cut up/shred for lunch meat on salads and sandwiches. This is going to take some extra planning and preparation on my part but I think we will be both be better off for it. Adios sodium. This is actually happening.. or has happened at least two times so far this last month. So far I am a big fan of having fresh chicken in my fridge to snack on and for salads and pitas at lunch. Nick takes a big Tupperware full with him to work to put on his sandwiches. So far, so good.

 

- Start working out together at least a couple times a week. I love the idea of doing regular work outs with my hubs. It's hard not to fall into a routine of eating dinner and then sitting on the couch to watch a few shows. But, I want to at least do this a few days a week. Once it warms up again I also want to start playing tennis at least once a week at the tennis courts in our community. This has happened once twice. I made him to a Jillian Michaels video with me and it absolutely kicked both our butts. We like different work out music so I'm not sure if this is going to turn into a habit. I am listening to my girl B Spears Work Bitch on repeat, and he prefers 80's throw backs that just don't pump be up. Sorry husband.

- Find our permanent church and attend services on some kind of regular basis. We always go on Easter & Christmas no matter what but right now I feel like that's just not enough. I want to invest myself into my church home and really start building a relationship with a church family. We have a couple that we want to try out before we make the move from the church that Nick grew up in. I'm excited about this one! Also, a check mark on my 30 by 30. So far no movement on this one but we did talk about it the other night. I'm going to put a date on the calendar just to make sure we make it once before Easter. One step closer...

Okay so maybe I haven't been doing all that well but nothing has completely fallen off yet so I don't feel that bad.





Friday Brain Dump

I haven't had much to write about lately. Not much to share, or anything particularly special to say. Usually our weekends are packed full of trips and we hardly ever get a chance to be home two weekends in a row, much less an entire month of weekends in a row! It has been nice and I feel relaxed. February is going to be a whole lot of the same and I'm looking forward to it.

January has felt like an extremely long month and I'm ready for it to be over. I had a wonderful birthday week. Like, maybe one of the best birthdays that I've had in a really long time. My cute friend Jeanette and her hubby-to-be came to visit for my birthday party and brought their new baby Ludo. Teddy was beside himself with glee to have another furry baby to play with and Cubby tried to beat him up. Cubby is 10 pounds... Ludo is a full sized German Shepherd. Someone has a big ego in our house, and for once it's not me! ha!

We finally started some projects and it feels like our house has been turned upside down. I got excited and started painting our room last week... we were shocked and disappointed to find that the gray we had very carefully chosen turned lavender once it got on the walls. A purple room wasn't going to fly with this husband of mine and I had to spend two days at the paint counter at Dunn Edwards. Luckily my job comes with a hefty industry discount, otherwise my misadventures in painting over the weekend might have completely drained our bank accounts. We ended up with the perfect shade of gray and we are both happy as can be. {By the way... is it gray, or is it grey? wtf}

The master bedroom still isn't finished but we are slowly getting closer and I can't wait to share some photos once we are completely done. I have seriously been waiting for this forever.

Since our bedroom was already torn to pieces we decided... why not rip up the kitchen too? We've been waiting for almost 4 years to redo the kitchen and finally pulled the trigger. We met with the crew we were hiring on Friday and picked out our granite the next day. I'm calling this whole venture Operation Grown Up Kitchen. I am so excited for everything to be done but we are only about half way there. You can find me up to my elbows in grout and tile dust for the next couple weeks.

Ok so I have some other random thoughts I want to talk about for a minute.

• I don't know why I even give the tiniest little shit about this... but I was seriously pissed when they revealed the identities of Daft Punk yesterday on GMA. Someone followed them through the airport and took a picture when the TSA made them take their Darth Vader helmets off. I'm not even any kind of fan of this band at all, and I'm laughing at myself for even writing this right now. But really?
• The two minute standing ovation for Cory Remsburg during the State of the Union this week made me cry like a little baby. Every little thing has been making me cry lately but that was seriously touching. I've been avoiding watching the new Budweiser commercial all week because I know what's-a-comin.
• Our family plays a little Bachelor/Bachelorette game similar to fantasy football. My #1 pick was Nikki and I'm already starting to regret it. It's still early to say but I don't think she's going to win after all. I love Chelsie. I think she is so cute and goofy, and is it just me or does she look a little bit like Kristen Bell? She's somewhere in my line up too but I don't think she'll win. My vote is for Andi at this point, even though she's not going to win me any money.
• I've pretty much gained 10 pounds since our wedding, officially making me the heaviest that I've ever been. I always played sports and inadvertently kept weight off my whole life until now. Turns out sitting at a desk for 8ish hours a day doesn't do great things for your core. I've been trying to work out, but all of our projects going on it's been hard to get into a real routine. Operation Grown Up Kitchen is about to turn into Operation Holy Moly.

Happy happy Friday!!

Five on Friday

Happy Friday, indeed! The first full work week after the holidays is always the hardest. My schedule between mid December and New Years went a little like this.. work a day here.. take a few days off... work a half day.. enjoy the weekend... work one or two days.. take a few days off. Amazing. That is my idea of a good time. 

I'm linking up with April, Christina, & Co  today for my favorite post of all, on my favorite day of all!

::One::
I do love getting back to our normal routine. It feels good to get reorganized and check some long pending items off of my To Do list. Also, I got my new planner and that just makes me happy. I have confessed before that I am a calendarholic. It's almost absurd how many calendars I use. I use iCal on my phone, a planner, an Outlook calendar in my work email, a desk calendar, and a white board calendar on our fridge. I don't know why I feel like all of these are necessary but I do. Yes, I keep all of the same dates, appointments, meal plants, meetings, etc. on all of the calendars.

::Two::
My sweet mama got me a pretty pink Fitbit for my birthday and I am loving it! I got the Zip that just clips right onto my bra, or pants, or whatever, and I have completely forgotten that I even have it on. I've been logging my meals, calories, and water intake and checking my phone like a fiend for updates on how many steps I've taken so far. I almost met the 10,000 steps per day goal on Wednesday without even getting a workout in!

::Three::
We finally got a new fridge! If you would have told my college self how exciting new appliances are I would have laughed at you. I guess this means we are real grown ups now. We got a pretty new Kenmore this week and I am seriously in love. We are retiring our old fridge, formerly Nick's parents old fridge, to his sister. Adios old rusty!  This is the first step for our kitchen renovation that we have in the works. Up next, we are replacing our old blue counters with pretty new granite, refinishing our cabinets and putting in new wood floors throughout the house.

::Four::
It's almost my birthday! I love Christmas & Thanksgiving, but my birthday is definitely my favorite holiday of all. And yes, I do consider it a holiday. Nick asked what I wanted for my birthday and I told him, a real birthday party! A party with cupcakes and pretty pink drinks and streamers and birthday hats and fun napkins. I am super excited to spend my favorite day with all of my favorite friends.

::Five:: 

Back to my calendars. Nick and I have been talking about being intentional with our calendar this year. It seems like almost every month last year we were booked solid every weekend. This left no time for spontaneous dates or for stuff with friends that wasn't planned ahead of time.With all of the projects we have coming up I am really looking forward to spending so much time at home.

Happy HAPPY Friday!