Happy Mother's Day! 18 Months....gone

I wish I could be a blogger I really do, but I honestly have no idea how to make time in my life being a full time mom and a full time employee! My family time is precious to me therefore I let go of other things I would like to do. I would like to record our lives to look back on and remember. Unfortunately, I was not blessed with the memory gene. In fact there are often times a sibling will tell me something we did as a kid and I honestly don't remember. It sucks! I seriously need to learn to train my memory. Anyway, periodically updating this blog is so I can look back in a couple years and remember our lives as our son grows up!

Now don't ask me where 18 months went. I honestly can't answer that question. It has been a whirlwind of sleepless nights, weekend travels, and spending time with the most amazing husband and sweetest, cutest, funny little boy. We are so blessed to have a little man who is so easy going, laid back, and fun. He definitely got his daddy's personality. He is the cutest thing! I know I am biased but we also get stopped all the time so people can tell us how cute our son is. When that happens, I am the most proud mommy ever. I would love to get him in to modeling because I think he is adorable and has the personality for it, but I am terrified of scams. If anyone knows of a legit company or has the hook-up please please please let me know! Our 18 month old is now 35inches tall (95th percentile) and 28 lbs 10 oz (81st percentile) Needless to say he has remained tall and slowed on his weight. He LOVES basketball (really any ball he can throw through the hoop) and Elmo! He has a strong arm for his age...we're grooming him early. He loves macaroni and cheese, cheerios,and bananas. He will eat some other fruits and still likes puréed fruits the best. He rarely eats vegetables, but we're working on it. We really are the luckiest parents!!!

I am currently looking for a new job. I love what I do and I love love love my coworkers (I seriously have the best coworkers EVER) but my commute sucks. I am trying to find a school counseling job in our local school district or a neighboring school district. I really want to have a 10/11 month contract and have part of the summer off to spend with my baby boy. Hopefully I can find something I like. I'm so fortunate to have such a loving and supportive husband. He has an amazing job that he loves that he has been at for more than10 years. I really count our blessings every day.

On that note it is time for bed. Happy Mother's Day to all the amazing women out there especially my mom, my sister, my grandmas, my aunts, my cousins, my mother-in-law, and my-sister-in-law. You all have made impacts on the way I parent and I only hope I can be as great a mommy as all of you. I love you all!

limefish studio: Two Year Blogiversary Custom Painting Giveway

This studio belongs to my roommate from college's little sister! Check out her stuff :) limefish studio: Two Year Blogiversary Custom Painting Giveway: Last year around this time I announced that my little blog (entitled dm designs at the time) had turned one, and I was thrilled that my...

We Survived 1 Year (and a birthday party)!

Happy 1st Birthday to our sweet baby boy! How can he already be 1? On 10/25 I kept thinking about my experience the year before. Time does make you forget how much labor hurts. I remember being in excruciating pain but I can't remember how it actually felt. All I remember is how much I loved him the moment he arrived. It made me forget the pain. Cameron has changed my life so much. I have less time for cleaning and laundry because I spend so much time with him. I seriously don't remember how our lives were before he arrived. Cameron has changed so much in 1 year. He's talking, repeating things we say, and walking. He went from straight dark hair to no hair to curly dirty blonde hair. He is such a happy, smiley baby! We are the luckiest parents!! I love watching him explore and discover new things :)

For his birthday party, we had a blue cupcake theme. I wanted to make some dipped oreos for the party, but they wouldn't stay on the stick. Luckily I randomly found cupcake cookie cutters at Walmart. I ended up baking cupcake shaped sugar cookies with sticks in them. I then decorated them with candy melts. They turned out really cute! Then for the cupcakes we made blue velvet cupcakes. I was really pleased with the way they came out. They were messy to make but turned into a beautiful moist blue cupcake. For Cameron's cake we made a larger cupcake. It turned out sooooo cute! Thank you to my mother-in-law and husband for helping me get the cupcakes baked and the house decorated and thank you to my mommy for decorating all the cupcake. My sister and brother-in-law were a big help too. The night before the party we made caramel apples for the goodie bags. They turned out so good :) The other thing we did was photo banners. We hung one across the fireplace mantle and the other three across doorways. The morning of Rod and I had to pick up the pictures for the photo banners...nothing like waiting until the last minute. The banners looked AMAZING once we were done. Everything looked so nice when people arrived :D A big THANK YOU goes to my daddy for cooking all the food. I am so lucky to have such an amazing family on both sides that helped me prepare and execute the party. Cameron is such a lucky boy to have so many family members and mommy and daddy's friends come to his 1st Birthday.

It is amazing how quickly the year flew by. There are definitely things I wish I had done differently but in the end we all survived and Cameron is a happy, healthy 25lb 4oz (80th percentile), 31 3/4in (95th percentile) little boy! Thank you to everyone who helped us in raising this sweet little boy!!!

Planning for A First Birthday

I don't know why, but I feel extreme pressure planning my son's 1st Birthday. Right now is one of my busiest times of year at work because I'm balance teaching and grading with working in the high school and attending night events. Because of all this I have very little free time. I decided to go to the party store a couple of weeks ago to pick up invitations. The store didn't have many 1st Birthday choices, but I found one that I liked ok. So instead of what I was originally thinking which was fall themed, I went with blue cupcake themed. It works because the bib my mom bought Cameron is a blue cupcake. I just wish I had gone on Etsy first to find way cuter invitations. I hate doing super generic things, but it seems to be my fall back when I have no time :( I know Cameron won't remember his first birthday, I just want to make sure everything isn't generic. So in order to have a homemade touch I have spent time on Pinterest searching for some cute ideas. I am going to make a few photo banners using pictures we took over the year. I also want Rod to make a chalkboard we can write on for pictures, but if we don't get to that I'm going to buy a whiteboard that is black.  I am also going to try and make blue velvet cupcakes. Since I wanted to do a fall theme originally and we really don't have many kids coming, I am also planning on making fancy caramel apples for our guests to take home. I hope all these things come together. It is important to me to have homemade touches! I want to make birthdays original and special :)

10 Months!

How has 10 months gone by? My sweet baby boy is seriously 10 months old. He has 8 teeth (the first two popped through at 6 months), is crawling like crazy and standing up at everything. He so desperately wants to walk but he isn't confident yet. Yesterday he was home with his daddy and let go of everything and took two steps. He'll probably be off and running in the next couple months. He weighs 23lbs 1oz (80th percentile), 30 1/4 inches (94th percentile) and head circumference of 18 1/2 (75th percentile). Since his life began, he has been on 3 plane trips. The first one was when he was 10 weeks old and we went to visit family in CA. The second trip we took to St. Louis to watch Cameron's Aunt Desiree (my twin) graduate with her Masters degree. Our third trip was a two week trip to CA. Our outgoing flight was canceled but we were rescheduled that night. Unfortunately it was Rod and my 5 year wedding anniversary so we had to cancel our CA dinner date plans to celebrate. Although we were disappointed, it may have worked in our favor since Cameron slept the whole plane trip and Rod and I got to watch a 3 hour sunset. We enjoyed spending time with family and having more people to chase after our little speedy gonzales. Our flight home wasn't horrible and we were lucky to have the row to ourselves.

Now it's back to a busy work schedule! Fall is the busiest time at my work. Fortunately my husband is amazing and our daycare provider is awesome. I wish I had more time at home, but I enjoy quality time in the evenings and weekends with my little family. I'm looking forward to the fall weather and taking long family walks exploring new areas. Pumpkin patches, corn mazes, chilly weather, beautiful fall colors, fallen leaves and spending weekends making memories :)

This Fall enjoy making memories with your family!

Bragging!

WE HAVE THE BEST BABY EVER!!! He is always so happy :) He smiles, laughs, coos, giggles, and is just easy going. It is so amazing to watch my little boy light up when he sees his daddy. He will normally go to bed on his own or with a bit of rocking. He goes to almost anyone and enjoys playing on the floor with people and animals. He loves to eat fruits and vegetables. I seriously believe we are the luckiest people alive. Cameron keeps us busy, our house dirtier, our wallet a little smaller, but he is so worth it. I seriously don't remember our lives without him and I can't imagine him not being here. I am one proud mommy and although I'm not ready for him to grow up, I love watching him experience new things, copy what we are doing, and explore the world!!!

Life's Craziness

Apparently when you have a baby, work full time, and are trying to loose weight you have no time to write in a blog (or I have no time!) I'm impressed with the mothers who can do it all. I wish someone could teach me the tricks.

I have finally made my decision to stay full time. As much as I want to be home with my baby, I think I need to work full time while I look for a job closer to home. I already know that a full time job closer to home would be a huge cut in pay. For this reason, I think it is best for me to stay full time right now. I am in the process of updating my resume so I can submit it to school districts for next year. I know I need to get this done ASAP because school districts are hiring now. I'm not sure why I'm procrastinating this so much. I had planned on working on it one day last week but our kitty had other plans.

Last week I took Thursday and Friday off to re-energize myself. I planned on spending Thursday working on my resume, doing laundry, putting clothes away, and just basic housekeeping stuff. Unfortunately when I got home from dropping Cameron off at daycare, I noticed our male cat, Vaughn, was not doing well. He didn't walk down the stairs very well and when he got to the bottom of the stairs he teetered and almost fell over. I called the vet (after calling Rod) and went over for a walk-in appointment. He only weighed 5 pounds :(....poor kitty!!! They ran blood and found that he was severely dehydrated and the start of renal failure. He was hospitalized all day Thursday and all day Friday. They gave him fluids and antibiotics and sent him home on prescription food. We go back in 3 weeks and if his kidney levels haven't gotten better and he hasn't gained weight we will have to have the difficult decision :'( I know he's old, like 15 or 16, but I'm not ready to lose him.

Cameron is getting so big. We went to church on Easter and there was a 10 month old there that was the same size as Cameron. I love my little man! I can't believe it has been 5 1/2 months. He's growing up way to fast. He knows how to roll from his front to his back. He reaches out for toys and likes to put everything in his mouth. He especially likes to pull mommy's hair. He loves his doggies and kitties. He laughs and smiles at them and he is the happiest baby I know. We definitely got lucky!!! He is just the cutest baby...of course I'm biased. I just hope his hair comes back soon. He had a head full of hair until 4 months. Then his hair started to fall out as we treated his cradle cap. I can't wait for him to have his beautiful hair back :) We're still mostly happy with his daycare. Sometimes I feel that they feed him too much and his diaper definitely doesn't get changed as often as we change it at home but other than that we're pretty happy. They definitely love him and the other kids seem to enjoy playing with him. Today our provider asked me to sign him up for a free tummy time class that she would like to take him to on Tuesdays. I like that she is doing things that I would like to do with him if I was home.

Although I am overwhelmed with everything that needs to get done, I am loving life. I have the absolute most amazing husband in the world. He does all the cleaning around the house, takes care of the animals, will help with anything I need and is the best father in the world. Cameron adores his father. He lights up when he sees him and gives this big grin and it melts my heart. I am seriously the luckiest person alive!!!