My New Toy

I finally got my home gym in the mail! I mentioned before about ordering it with my points I earned at work for doing extra shifts. Well we got it in on Friday but with our busy weekend, Nick couldn't put it together until today.

It looks neat and we are pretty excited about using it and getting fit together! It came with several big cards (they are on the stand on the top of the machine) that each have a group of exercises for different parts of the body. Each exercise has a visual, and there are resistance bands that go from 5lbs up to 37lbs.

In other news, today was Brad's one year checkup at the pediatrician. Everything went well and the doctor is very happy with his growth. He was glad to hear that Brad is off of the bottle already, and said we should get rid of the paci next. I split his shots up again so he had 3 today and will get 2 or 3 more in a few months. They didn't draw blood today thankfully--they said they can do it next time. He weighs 23lbs 4oz, and is 30in long. He cried for just a few minutes after the shots, then he got some Tylenol and some cuddling and was all better. He hung out with me at my mom's house this evening while I did laundry and chatted.

That's it for now! Tomorrow evening is our big Twilight trilogy night at the theater downtown with my friends Sara and Meredith. The first one starts at 7pm and the last one starts at midnight. It is going to be a long night, but lots of fun!

My Little Boy Turned 1!

I hope my baby had the best first birthday ever! I worked very hard to plan and coordinate everything, plus hand make his outfit and all of the food. We had a great time today, and all together including kids there was about 30 people at the party! And now that he is one year old, I am going to start doing the "stats" every 6 months instead of every month.


At one year old you:

• are drinking plain whole milk now, but still demand it be warm!
• are done with bottles and only have sippy cups now
• still have 8 teeth but seem to be getting more soon
• went through a cranky/picky stage recently but are getting over it
• sleep 12-13 hours at night
• are back to taking two 2hr naps a day
• are in a big-boy carseat now and facing forward!
• still crawl and cruise everywhere, no walking/standing on your own yet
• are very good at eating chunky solids and finger foods
• absolutely love strawberries and bananas. Seriously.
• say "mama", "dada", and "baba"
• are in size 4 diaper
• are in 12 month clothes
• love to be in the pool, but usually like to be held and not in the floatie
• love to crawl up to the kitties and pat them
• give big open mouth kisses

^The big cake was a homemade carrot cake. See the "B"?

^I reserved some of the carrot cake and made Brad his own little star-shaped cake to eat!

^The menu was carrot cake, lemon cream cheese cupcakes, hummus and wheat crackers, veggie tray, fruit tray, pinwheels, BBQ smokies, chips, and M&M cookies. We had orange punch with red star-shaped ice cubes to drink, and there were apple juice boxes for the kiddoes.

^Sister-in-law Teri, my dad and my mom

^Sara holding a friend's baby, and my mom

^Mother-in-law Penny and sister-in-law Sarah

^Coworker Tammi and family

^Coworker Adriene and family

^Meredith and family

^My brother Shane and my hubby

^Chowing down on his cake! He took a bit to check it out, then figure out how to pick it up, then he slowly chewed on one of the edges. He eventually finished the whole thing!

^After the cake and presents, most of us changed into swimsuits and went outside to beat the heat!

I hope everyone had a good time--I've never planned a child's birthday party before! Now for thank you cards....

Reminiscing...

One year ago today was the day that I had waited to come for so long. When I finally did get pregnant, June 22 was the magical day that I dreamed about for the entire 9 months. I couldn't wait to see little baby's face and be able to start a life as a mother.

When June 22, 2009 got here, I had his whole nursery ready and waiting for him to come home to it. Most of the things in it where hand made or designed by me. I was very excited, but his daddy was very nervous and scared because he didn't know what to expect!

But June 22 was also a day of exasperation because it was my due date, yet I was NOT going into labor yet!!! It felt like it was never going to happen, and I was disappointed because I ended up getting induced. But the little guy was almost 9lbs when he came out, so I wonder how big he would have gotten it went naturally? Scary...

Yes I'm not gonna lie, I miss being pregnant. Always having him with me, feeling him kick and move around. Being able to show off to everyone that I am FINALLY going to be a momma. Letting strangers do favors for me....people at work not asking me to help bathe their patient....HA!

But I am so thankful that he is here and healthy, and we are a very happy family that has been blessed by God for all that we have. We have struggled through the hard times, and are on our way up the hill towards the good times. Nick and I have trouble with friends but we always have each other and our little boy. I can't wait to see him grow!

Big Plans and Purchases!

Here I am at work, like a good little nurse....shopping! Don't worry--my patients are pleasantly sedated and breathing adequately :) But I digress. The big plans I am referring to is a)a home gym, and b)new flooring!

As for the home gym, this is the story behind that. My work recently started a reward program as a sort of incentive to work extra shifts. With each extra shift we work, we earn points that we can "buy" things with. They have all different sorts of things for all different point values, everything from jewelry, golf clubs, vacuums, furniture, and appliances to plane tickets, exercise equipment, generators, and hotel vouchers. So after much deliberation, Nick and I decided that we (I) wanted to get something that could BOTH use and that would not just get put away and forgotten about. I had two different types of home gyms to choose from, one was simpler and easier to store. The other was larger, more advanced, and more points. I decided to go with the simpler one because we don't need 214lbs of resistance to build muscles! Here is a pic of the one we are going to get within a week:

I am pretty excited about it! The 25lb dumbells that Nick was borrowing had to be returned, so now we will have something we can both use to get into better shape! We have plenty of room in our bedroom to set it up and then we can just fold it up and put it away when we are done.

The next big plan/purchase is new flooring for our living room. Some crazy person (probably a man!) put WHITE carpet throughout my house. Well the upstairs carpet is not so bad because not everybody walks around up there. But downstairs...that's another story. We have dirt tracks in front of the doors, spill stains, and chunks of carpet cut out. Yeah. So I informed Nick that we are going to replace it this year, and it will NOT be with more carpet. Wood laminate is the best option for us in the long run so that we do not have to worry about keeping it spotless before we sell the house in a couple of years.

Our downstairs area that will need laminate is just under 600ft, the rest is either tile or hardwood. And it is basically just a big L so it should be pretty easy--right?? I'm just going to jump right into it head first like I like to do, and won't look back until it's done. Now my ingenious way to pay for it--cashing in my PTO!

Since returning from maternity leave in September, I have earned over 100 hours of PTO (vacation time). I don't plan on taking any of it in the near future because I am only required to work 24hrs/week and can make my schedule around whatever plans I have. Soooo I added it up and if I cash in 100hrs of PTO I would get 90% of my hourly pay for it. And that right there will be enough to buy all of the flooring, with possibly some left over! Perfect, I know. I faxed the needed paperwork to my HR so I (in theory) should be seeing the money within a few weeks. Yay!

Tons O' Pics From Lake Texoma

We just got home today from our 3 night stay at a lake house by Lake Texoma. We went with some of my family and we all had a great time! It was nice to just get away from the house for a bit and be able to sit around chatting and relaxing. The drive was only about 2 1/2 hours away. I have a lot of pictures posted, so enjoy looking!

^This is when we were passing over the lake to get to the Texas side.

^The living room.

^Big dining table where we ate all of our meals.

^Massive kitchen where we cooked all of our meals. Each night a different couple was in charge of the dinner, and we all pitched in for breakfasts.

^This was our bedroom. We moved the loveseat over and put Bradley's portable crib beside it. He did pretty well as far as sleeping, but was a very cranky baby most of the time we were gone!! I think he is just teething bad. He also has a little cough, and got a bit of a sunburn. And our bedroom was right next to the kitchen, so all of the early risers banging around in there woke us up bright and early around 6:30am every morning!!

^This is pretty much where we hung out the whole time! There were two grills, a smoker, and a chiminea (which we did not use of course because it was almost 100° every day).

^We arrived Sunday late afternoon, and my night to cook dinner was Sunday night. So I whipped up some bacon-wrapped stuffed chicken breasts with a baked potato and salad to go with it! It was just delicious.

^The house was only about 50ft from the waterfront, so we enjoyed walking down a trail and being able to sit and enjoy the sounds of the water and outdoor life.

^Mumsy reflecting....

^Little boy loved to chew on these coasters and carry them around in his mouth...whatever keeps him happy!!

On Monday, I arranged to rent a pontoon boat for a few hours in the afternoon down the road from our house at Big Mineral Marina. After the boat guy gave Nick a quick tutorial, we loaded up our floaties and ice chests and hit the lake! Little B even had his own life jacket!

^We spent most of the time anchored down and swimming in the water. In some places it was almost 50ft deep! The current was pretty strong so we tied the rafts to the boat so we didn't have to keep swimming back.

^The boat didn't go very fast, but we enjoyed just feeling the sunny breeze and working on our tans.

^Brad liked looking at the back of the boat and watching the waves.

^Nick doesn't like to swim in really deep water, so he was the "captain" of the boat. He really enjoyed it, and got to show Brad how to drive a boat.

^When we got back, I gave little B a bath in the sink. Isn't he cute?? Did I mention he was Mr. Crankypants the whole time? Hm.

Tuesday we didn't have anything planned, so we all went down to a rocky beach area and enjoyed just floating, swimming, and sitting in chairs soaking up the sun.

Monday night was mom's night for dinner, so she roasted two chickens all day in the crockpot and served steamed carrots/potatoes with it. Yum! Our last night there, Tuesday, was my brother Eric's night to cook. He grilled marinated chicken and steak while his wife Teri cooked bell peppers/onions, guacamole, and homemade salsa for fajitas!! Very good.

All in all, we had a good time but were happy to be home! We were running out of food and toilet paper so it was time! On our way back we detoured in Elmore City so that we could say HI to Nick's family and give his dad a Father's Day card. We made it home today before noon and little boy took an almost FOUR hour nap! He was a tired boy.

Since we were gone so long, I didn't have any baby food ready for him. So I put broccoli, mixed veggies, potato wedges, and fish sticks in the oven and roasted him up a bunch of food. I divided it into meal-size containers and froze most of it for later on. He is set for awhile! Nick gave him some of it all tonight for his dinner and said he loved it! Hopefully he moves on from this cranky spell. Part of it must be teething because I think he is finally cutting his 9th tooth on the top left side. We'll see!

Hubby's first Father's Day is Sunday so check back for the yummy dinner I am going to make him and my dad!