New Blog

I am trying out a new blog!  So, head on over there!!

http://theheartandseoullife.blogspot.com

Using Pinterest

For those of you on Pinterest, how many memes or ecards have you seen or pinned yourself that say, "if only I used the pins I pinned..." or something to that point?

Well, after hours of being on Pinterest and seeing pretty much the same things, I decided that I either have to incorporate my pins into my life or just stop and just continue pinning the funny things. So here is my attempt at using the "Body/Fitness" board that I for some reason thought was a smart idea to make.

First workout: 

Pretty good! I'm actually doing this twice tonight.

Second choice: Cheer Athletic Abs Workout

Yeah, I'm feeling this one.  Especially after the last one which makes sense since that's where I'm weakest on my abdomen.  Yikes!

Third choice: Jello Arm workout

Yeah, that didn't happen.  Made it through 9 tricep dips.  We'll work on this one.

And night one of Pinterest workouts is over.  Now to dance around the house a little :)

Play Ball...or just stop raining

As many of you know, I am a St. Louis Cardinals fan living in Kansas City.  While I am not the most avid baseball watcher and I really have no idea what the team looks like at the minute, I will continue to root for them whenever they are in town or in the playoffs.  This is why I was so excited when the Royals announced that one of the "Nurses Day at the 'K'" games was going to be a Cards vs. Royals game.  Woo hoo!!  Sam was even interested in going so we signed up for tickets.

As I am writing this, cookies are baking in the oven for tailgating with my coworkers/friends and the rain is coming down while the thunder rolls.  WHAT?!  Oh, don't be surprised.  This the FOURTH Royals game we have had tickets for since moving here and this is the FOURTH game that has had rain associated with it to some degree.  Yeah....it's kind of like our luck with food at weddings.  If you sit with us, be prepared to be served last and get the last bits.

I sure hope it stops raining because I was so excited to go to this game.  If we don't go, then please stop by and help yourself to some cookies.  We have quite a few in our house that I would like to not eat.

Zoo trip

Remember how last year we had these awesome friends who "gifted" us a Friends of the Zoo (FOTZ) membership and because of that it essentially cost us $17 or something like that?  Well, it was a great decision.  We've been at least 8 times this year and that includes this summer when we were at camp.  While it's not the St. Louis Zoo, it is a great place to walk around and be outside.  

We met some friends today and it was a gorgeous day.  Well, pretty cold, but still enjoyable.  Today was the day the animals were given pumpkins to "smash" or do as they will.  We missed the official smashes, but I was still able to get a really neat picture of a lioness chomping into a pumpkin.  It was almost as if she was saying, "I know that I am not usually a pumpkin eater, but just for you guys, I guess I'll do something with this."  Thank you, Miss Lioness.

Yikes!! That is intimidating

Oh hey there!

That's right, I'm back!  I must have a little time to spare or am trying to avoid something.  OR I have some "BRILLIANT' blog post ideas that I want to share.  Why is the brilliant in the quotation marks, you may ask.  Well, probably because they are only "brilliant" to me and I'm pretty sure they are not original ideas.  And, probably because they're really not that interesting after all.

Anywho, I'm still going to post.  Maybe even everyday for the next few days because I have some good material (in my humble and probably incorrect opinion).

Since Halloween was just two days ago, this will be the subject of this post.  Now, I admit whole heartedly that I used to hate Halloween with a passion.  Well, maybe not a passion but I didn't like it.  Okay, I dressed up when I was younger, but it was never such a great holiday that I was sad when I got "too old" to trick or treat.  Then for quite a few years in a row, I had a bad luck streak on Halloween so it just went down the drain in my opinion.

When Sam and I got married, he was determined to make me at least not HATE Halloween.  He'd take me out to eat or just keep saying, "See! This isn't so bad."  I knew that when I had kids, I would have to probably buck up and try to appear happy about it so they would enjoy the fun of dressing up.

And it's true.  I knew what I was going to dress "Russell" (unborn Sawyer's name if you didn't know that) up as from June on.  I was so excited and made sure that I had it finished before he was born.  It only made/makes sense to camp people, but it's genius.

This Sawyer being "Camp Sam" complete with frisbee and bandana around the leg (two weeks old)

This year, I knew that I still had some freedom to choose Sawyer's costume because he doesn't have much preference on anything other than loving bananas and grapes.  I am very proud of this costume and only had to spend about $7 because everything else was laying around the house.

 I give you Donatello.  

 All I had to buy was yellow fabric for the size 3-6 onesie he wore (yes, he was wearing that in February and it still kind of fits), the green pants that were on sale at Babies R Us, and the brown fabric for the belt.  Woo hoo!  And yes, that is a bike helmet for a shell.

So, yes, I don't hate Halloween now and we had a lot of fun trick or treating and seeing our friends.

If I was a better a blogger...

If I was (were?) a better blogger, I'd update this thing everyday or at least twice a week (maybe).

If I was/were a better blogger I'd have a theme to my blog instead of "whatever comes across my mind."

If I were (was?) a better blogger I'd have code names for my little family to protect their privacy.

If I were/was a better blogger, I wouldn't word vomit out everything that was swimming around in my head.  Instead I'd have a nice little article on what craft I did or what I was thinking that was grammatically correct and edited.

But I'm not.  Oops...  Oh well...  (If I were/was/whatever the word is a better blogger, I wouldn't use '...' so much)

Instead, my baby who used to take three 1hour naps, now takes one 30minute nap so he needs to be entertained.  I forsake my dirty dishes to read the Hunger Games books for the second time. And I let my dirty laundry sit while I play Fruit Ninja on the iPad. And I don't blog.

Eh, life goes on.  To the 5 people who actually read my blog, thank you.  I hope to be better at updating this thing as I try to stick to my theme of everything and anything :). The baby is growing up so fast that I do want to remember everything (at least most things) and we all know that his baby book is going to be very patchy - I mean, look at my ability to blog on a regular basis.

So with that, I leave you with a picture or two (duh!):

 Yes, he is in his bumbo on a table, but we never left him alone..

Happy boy at the zoo when Nana and Pops visited

Thoughts from a wedding

So, my good friend Alana got married Saturday to a great guy named Matthew.  As her wedding day got closer, I thought back to the weeks leading up to our wedding and the weeks after.  I sat across the table from her mom at her bachelorette party dinner and at one point she asked me, "So, how has being a mom changed you?"

That's an interesting question to me because it reminds me of the questions, "So....how's married life? or "How are you adjusting to being married?"  I remember answering the questioners with "fine" or "great." But seriously, my answer to both questions seems to be the same.  

In both situations, the transition (at least for me) was so natural.  Now don't get me wrong.  Both situations were difficult in their own ways and I'm not saying I'm a marriage or a parenting expert, but for me, everything seemed to flow into normalcy, I guess.  I don't know if I'll be able to convey my thoughts correctly, but in both situations, I felt like I was at the point of no return so I had to make some delicious lemonade with every lemon that was thrown my way (oh man....is that the best I could do?).  Point of no return? you ask.  Yes, in a way.  I guess I could have not married Sam, but at the same time, that was definitely not going to happen.  Sam was/is who God created to complete me (ugh, maybe I should just stop) and there was no choice in that one.  In the same way, once Sawyer was conceived there was no going back.  Well, I think I actually had less of a choice with him (in my opinion).  So I had/have to make the best of every challenge that came/is to come with my marriage and my baby.

It's funny though, in both situations, I feel like I can't remember a time when I didn't have either of them.  I mean, I obviously do and definitely miss sleeping after work until 2pm without having to feed a baby, but you get what I mean (I hope).  Yes, I am one of those mushy mommies who say that life is just so complete now that I have my baby.  Well, my life was complete when it was just me and Sam (and Chaco) but it is now complete-er (?), more complete (yes, that one).  It seems like Sam and I have been together for forever and that Sawyer has been around for forever but it's only been almost 7 years (total) and 5 months, respectively.  It hasn't been that long.  And what's more, every once in a while, I'll think about my life and say, "Oh my gosh....this is my life from now on.  No turning back."  It's hard to grasp sometimes.  

I am ending this post like the last one though.  I wouldn't trade any of it for the world.  I am so thankful for the life God has given me.