Happy Valentine's Day

In Korea, the 14th of every month is celebrated and this month, women give chocolate to the man in their life. I do have a man in my life but I didn't get him any dark sweets.

 Instead, I gave him heart shaped cookies!

 We started off food week a day late but in the sweetest style. Baking!

J did like 45% of the work, I swear. Keeping me entertained in the kitchen is a very important job.

For Valentine's last year, my cousin brought Jett his first little Valentine and my first as a new mom.

 I think these will be great for us to share with her this year.

 Happy Valentine's!

Home Sweet Farm Tour

Sunday was the farm tour I mentioned before.

I got home at 8AM and so, of course, we overslept. I meant to be up by 10 but my eyes didn't pop open till after 11:45AM. After a trip to the ATM and the gas station, we were finally on the way there. It was our first little road trip that wasn't aimed at visiting family out of town and it was great.

We got to the farm right on time, like right, exactly on time at 2PM and the family that owns it was super sweet introducing themselves to every person, big and small, in the crowd. They were expecting over 40 families.

To make a long story short, we walked around looking at their berries, their new irrigation system, the cows, the horses, the chickens. I loved it. 

I didn't get very many pictures. The toddler in J started wanting to walk and not be held. At. All. A short, walking kid plus a large-ish crowd equals not happening without me down there trying  to keep him close so of course my chicken photo looked like this:

 

The trip confirmed a few things for me:

* I really want to do something like this. Own a lot of land, a few animals, some chickens, vegetables, fruits and just live. I'd like to be able to provide the basics (or well have land that provides the basics). They keep everything small and make enough money to not have to do much else, it seems.  I don't own enough land right now but I've always wanted to. I started thinking about my 5 year plan and I definitely see moving, more land, more animals, more vegetables in my life in a few years.

* I still want chickens.

*Real, basic foods can be interesting. Purple carrots, blue potatoes. I didn't grow up thinking basic food was interesting in any way or that it was more than just to eat. With J being a big eater from his first bite, I'm seeing it all differently.

* TX weather really, truly can’t make up its mind. It looked warm out the car window but was freezing and it starting hailing out of nowhere.

* We should travel more. J did very well in the car for the near two hour drive. I loved it too. Packing up the car, the planning, getting out on the road. So exciting. I'm thinking we need to we will do more of that soon.

So at the end of the tour, we got a nice bag of veggies to take home. Purple carrots, cauliflower, Daikon radish, lettuce, cabbage. What else?

Jett liked the carrots most but I think that was cause it was the main thing he could hold.

We got eggs as well. I overheard someone say to look out for double yolks too. They get them sometimes.

I have a few recipes that I'm going to try this week with the veggies.

They are mini-frittatas found on pinterest, ham and cheese quiche that I need to remember how to make, lettuce and chicken wraps from Epicurious, cole slaw that I'm going to attempt to make since J liked it (I never have but I tried it and its okay). I have to figure out what else to make but I'll start with those. I hope they turn out tasty!

02/10/11 vs 02/10/12

                                                                  Birthday boy:

2/10/11

 

 

 

2/10/12

 

 

                                                                       Bed time:

He slept in the basket quite a bit 2/10/11

toddler bed 2/10/12

                                                            
                                                                          Cake:

2/10/11

2/10/12

 

 

                                                           What I was doing at 8AM:

Contraction/pressure wave log 2/10/11 (before I turned on contraction master!)

Filling the room and hanging around balloons 2/10/12

                                                   
                                                                        Diaper duty:

Preemie sized 2/10/11 to big boy booty sized 2/10/12

                                                                 
                                                                           Clothes:

first real outfit (taken the day he could no longer fit it - sentimental me)

2/10/12 complete with cupcake frosting stains

                                           

Big changes, of course. It will be interesting to see the differences next year too.

Birthday Boy!

I also like to call this 'There's An App For That'

With my camera upstairs, a full memory card, an Instagram app and a birthday weekend, this is what I ended up with.

Babe's birthday 2012 and our Saturday

Birthday Bedhead

Woke him up to balloons in the play/living room

His cousins brought him a birthday toy

Newest nickname: DJ Jetty Fresh

Cupcake! He loved it.

Inside a cupcake. They were all different designs.

At bedtime, we chatted about the day he was born. How completely unready I was, how fast he was and contractions in the car on the highway. I told him about his nurses and how great they were to us. How he used to like sleeping on my chest and did for the longest time but now he's too big and busy for that.

He listened, I think, lol! 

 His birthday party is next weekend. I'm excited!

Today:

My mom gave him her old PSP. He's watching Toy Story II. Grinning the whole time.

              We took a walk/fell down the driveway. He's getting better and better and faster and faster! 

I hope the video works even though i hate my super annoying voice!

Playtime at the park. He giggled so much!

 Happy birth day, honey. I hope your weekend has so far been as sweet and special as mine has been.

 Love you, my Jetty

29 Days Revisited

I spent the last week doing the organization and cleaning part of my 29 in 29.
Nearly everything J and I own has been washed, my garage is getting to be where I want it. There's lots to be done and though I'm going to continue working on everything, this week I'm moving on.

Crafts.

Simple crafts. Decorating for Valentines, making a craft for his cousins (who gave him one for his first Valentines Day last year!) making the items for J's birthday party, possibly decorating the living room with my camera collection like this:

Stuff like that. That's this week.

Next week I think I'm going to devote to food.

On Sunday we have a small road trip and farm tour that I'm super excited about. Included with the tour is a share of vegetables so those will be incorporated into the meals for that week if I can make them last long enough. I'm also going to hopefully start our herb garden and finally use the bread machine too that week.

The last few days of the month are still a mystery to me but I may use those to do little things for myself since it is my birthday month too. Hmm.

Today though, my mind is blown because its his birthday month. Birthday week actually.

I remember this time last year. I think I was going to bed, mind reeling from the news of my induction coming up in a matter of days. How do you go from one month/week thinking everything is cool to planning to be in an emergency situation? From that to now. All things have passed, he's here, his heart didn't stop (decelerated but didn't stop) I never made it to the induction but I made it to mamahood. Now look at us almost a year later. Wow.

My babe is curled up, nursing himself to sleep right now. He spent the last hour playing, walking, crawling, laughing. All the little things I had imagined back before he was born but failed to make as sweet as reality.
I'm sure at this pace and with these plans I'm going to love all 29 days just as much as I love Feb 10th, J's birthday.

29 in 29 Days

Today I played around with a craft from Pinterest. Of course its not meant for brick but that's what I used it for.

The 'paint'

Birthday Boy!! A little over a week till his birthday!

Meh. It was okay. We're going to play around with it more tomorrow.

As if I need something more to do, I've decided to use this month, my favorite month, our birthday month, as a new challenge month.

Last month was based on finances.I needed to jumpstart my budget so I did a NoSpend challenge. I did pretty well in the end by only spending $1.50 on non-essentials during the whole month. Instead of my spending being the main focus this month, I'll use all 29 days of February to do 29 different things. Crafts, goals, activities, meals. A mix of them, one day at a time.

I haven't figured out what each day will be (doing that now) but so far I'm ahead of the game!

I know that I want to include using my bread machine since I'm not even sure how that works. I need to organize my garage, get my home binder done, make a few nice dishes from scratch, set a few dates to get my butt out and running, start my herb garden. With Valentines coming up, I want to decorate the house and with his birthday, I have the food and favors to make so I may count those as well. 

I'm excited. Tomorrow should be fun. Hopefully I wont be in over my head.

Updates:

I got up and out yesterday. It rained but I took J to the mall and we walked a good bit in there. I'm not doing as well getting up bright and early though. Going to work on that a little more.

As for sleeping, J is being a little super star!
I can now nurse him to sleep and put him into his bed no problem and have him sleep all night. Before he would scream and have a tantrum the minute he was put into his crib or if I left his sight. There are days here and there that he'll wake up but for the most part when I get home, he's still in his bed which helps me to just get in mine.

He's getting to be such a big boy. I wrote out a post on having a toddler but that will wait till tomorrow so this post doesn't end up being too long.

Disciplined

I am not but I think I could be getting there.

My tennis shoes.

I got them years ago for 5 or so bucks. Maybe 10. They are comfortably worn, dirty, and one is getting holes. I would love to say its from all the physical activity I get into on a daily basis. That I get up and run a mile or two after I tie these babies on but really, they are just old.

More times than not, these shoes wore worn to chase after someone else's toddler, or to walk a festival, or to walk my laboring butt to the hospital. Not so much running though I will cut myself some slack and say that I did do a bit of walking while TTC and before this winter made me hibernate.

That was it and that was then.

On my drive home last night this morning, I was reminded of my current lack of discipline by this group of white shirt wearing, 5AM power-walking ladies. And their tiny dog.

In the area where I work, I need two hands at least to count the amount of people out walking before 5:30AM. That and some night vision goggles. They pop up out nowhere sometimes. Some of them I'm beginning to recognize, learn their schedule and what they prefer to wear. These ladies prefer white tees (easy for me, a driver, to see) and tennis shoes.

They are so disciplined. Every single morning, up and walking. Out and doing. Going and going.

 I have but one excuse besides needing to be disciplined and today I kinda flipped that on its head.

I am not a morning person (did anyone else just say duh?) and I work at night (again with the duh) so that makes for a not awake till after noon person. Today I tried. For coupons, I tried.

I got home for 5AM, in the bed for 5:30AM. J was up and in bed with me right around 6AM (went back to sleep, thank God!) and the alarm was set for 8AM. Today we were headed to our first meeting with a local group of couponing ladies. We made it, we had fun and now at 8PM, I'm still awake and not feeling too worn out or tired but fully aware of the need for an earlier sleep time.

Know what that means?

I'm awesome.

Ok, no, it means that its not the morning time that's holding me back. It's me (don't say duh this time). It also means that if I can keep myself on this morning schedule AND strap on my tennis shoes, then maybe, maybe I can actually talk myself into loading J into his stroller and taking a run with our mom friends all early and stuff.

Maybe then J and I can get enough sleep time together if we're in bed early enough in the day.

Maybe then I can get myself some new tennis shoes and actually wear them out in the way they should be worn. Running and walking purposefully.

Today I wore my favorite shoes (besides my house shoes which aren't as bad they sound):

 











Tomorrow, the tennis shoes are coming out for a reason!
Disciplined, here I come. They say a new habit takes how long to form? Well there you go. That's how long I'll try it for. Fingers crossed for no fail. Day one of Hello Morning is a success!