January Update

Things are a little crazy in our house right now! I'm so excited to be teaching my first college class for the Spring semester (which starts next week, BTW), but since it's my first time teaching EVER I have so much reading and preparing to do, along with staying on top of all of my freelance writing deadlines and bringing home some cash from bartending. Brian is also super busy at work and finishing up projects at home, so between the two of us we could use a personal assistant to keep it all straight!

I am definitely not complaining, though. Teaching has always been a dream of mine and I am thrilled that I've been given this opportunity. My class is going to be Monday and Wednesday mornings, and I'll be doing my office hours 30 minutes before class starts. I've been told not many students stop by the office for help (darn college kids), so I'm kind of looking forward to having 30 minutes of quiet to myself to catch up on emails and plan my day. Kyle's grandma Suzie will be watching him at our house while I teach, and then Kyle will have a cousin play date at his auntie's house every Tuesday so I can stay on top of my grading and writing. My manager at the bar agreed to let me go down to two days/week instead of three, so that will help free up my weekdays to write and have some fun time with Kyle, too. It will be a busy semester, but I think it's going to work out great and I really can't wait.

In other news, we spent three hours at Ikea last Saturday (cue toddler and mommy meltdowns galore) picking out some stuff for my new office at home! We have a four bedroom house, and for the past few years one of the bedrooms has been our "room of doom" - AKA stuff was thrown in there and the door remained closed. I'm so excited that we took the time to clean it out and turn it into a functional space where I can (hopefully) be productive at home! We cleaned off the bookcase and desk and then bought a cute red cabinet for some of Kyle's toys and also got him a new easel with some chalk (Kyle helped Brian put it all together with his own hammer and tools, so cute). We wanted to get him this little table and chairs too, but of course they're sold out at the moment. My plan is to rotate the toys that are in here and put some sort of new, easy and fun little project in those white cabinets each week so when we go in there to work he's excited to check out what's inside and he can keep himself occupied for a bit while I work at the desk. I've been pinning some ideas and I'm excited to try them out! 

I hope with a reduced bar schedule, organized time to work and a new surge of motivation I'll be able to stay on track, kick butt at my work, plan healthy meals, keep a clean house and still enjoy time yogurt dates with the fam, time with my boy, QT with the hubs and maybe even an episode of The Bach and some decent sleep. A girl can dream, right? 

Welcome 2015

Happy New Year! I think 2015 is going to be amazing, and I can't wait to get started. We'll be celebrating Kyle's 2nd birthday next month and it's just about time to start planning his party. I haven't decided on exactly what the theme will be, but I'm looking forward to having all of his little friends over for some fun. 

Even though I'm not great at keeping resolutions, I think the new year is a great excuse to take a look at your life and make some improvements! Here's what I'm thinking about & working on for 2015:

• Stop procrastinating! I do a lot of work from home, and there's nothing worse than when I have to stay up until 3 a.m. after a long day to meet a deadline, and then wake up early with Kyle. My new routine will be to do a little work every night, even if the deadline is days away. I know it will be worth it because there's nothing worse than a zombie mommy. And I really need to be on my A game this year because I will have even more on my plate when I start teaching a class at the end of January!
• Start a mommy journal. I wish I would have done this sooner, but better late than never, right? I want to buy a beautiful journal and take a little time now and then to handwrite some thoughts and memories about raising Kyle. Maybe I'll give it to him when he grows up, or maybe I'll just keep it to myself. But there are so many tiny moments happening every day that burst my heart open and I need a place to keep them.
• Read more. I am ashamed to admit that I did not read any books in 2014. Not one single book! This is not acceptable. I love to read and need to make more time for it. This can be really hard when I'm trying to cram what seems to be too many tasks into the small windows of free time I have. When Kyle is asleep during the day I typically clean, do laundry, do work or sometimes just sit still for a minute. Then when Kyle goes to sleep at night I try and spend time with Brian, finish cleaning and finish my work. Sounds like a lot of cleaning but are the dishes ever done? NO! However, I do have some down time and if I make it a priority I know I can do it! Any book recommendations?
• Don't overreact. I think I'm usually pretty good at keeping my cool, but there are times when I have no excuse and I overreact like a crazy person. For example: just seconds after the picture above was taken by Brian, Kyle turned around and threw that hat into the duck pond. I actually cursed at Kyle and could not get over it for at least an hour. Over a stupid hat! I had my reasons, but none of them were valid. I need to learn to let those kinds of things go - every time. It's just not worth it.

Those are my big ones. I also need to lose a few pounds, exercise more, wash my hair more, make more of an effort to include family in my everyday life... the list goes on and on. But for now I'll focus on these few things and try to remember to enjoy the little things every day.

22 months

At 22 months, Kyle no longer walks anywhere - he runs or skips as fast as he can. He is all over the place and touches everything in his sight. Today at the store, in the 1.5 minutes it took me to pay for groceries, he pulled down the car air freshener and a bag of plastic bags off the shelf. The checker said "that's what boys do, mom!" and I guess he's right! He loves to explore outside and inside drawers, play with his cars and choo choos, throw balls, do play doh, watch Curious George, eat peanut butter off the spoon, and pull boxes of cookies off the counter and stuff them in his mouth (ok, that just happened once but it was hilarious).  

Kyle is really trying to put sentences together! So far they're just 2 or sometimes 3 words, but in the past few weeks his vocabulary has really grown. He loves to say "shoes on" or "shoes off," "out back," "bath time," "ready... go!" "watch show" "silly Penny" ... his little voice is so sweet. His favorite saying is still "up up up up up up" any time I'm sitting or relaxing somewhere because he just wants me to be UP holding him up or walking around doing whatever he's doing. Until this morning actually it sounded more like "uh uh uh uh" and then out of the blue today he said "uP" and enunciated the P!

He loves going on adventures with his mom & dad. He gets really excited when we all get ready to go somewhere. He makes sure dad is wearing his hat, gets his hat out of the closet, brings me my shoes and chooses a toy from his toy box to take in the car with him and gets cozy in his car seat with his blanket. He loves car rides and is such a good boy when we run millions of errands together every week. The ladies at the bank love him because he knows how to swipe my ATM card correctly, and everyone gives him so much attention because he's just so sweet and handsome with his red mop ;)

My favorite time of day is the morning, even though I'm never ready to get out of bed. Kyle will wake up, come in our room, climb in bed with me and get under the blanket. He'll snuggle with me every day - sometimes just a minute if he is excited to start his day, but sometimes for up to 30 minutes if he's feeling sleepy still. Sometimes he'll actually fall back asleep on me, and those days are so special since we've never been co-sleepers and I get to hug my boy as I catch a few more zzz's. Then we'll get up, get his milk, make coffee and watch a show before breakfast. An easy routine but I feel so happy and spoiled every morning being lazy with my boy before our day gets going. 

Kyle is really, really funny. He loves to tease us and make us laugh. He LOVES to be chased and "hides" by running away and dropping on the floor and crawling up into a ball. He loves his sister Penny - no one can make him laugh like she does. Except maybe cousin Jacob, who makes him belly laugh just by shaking his head silly. He knows how to push his boundaries and do things he knows he shouldn't be doing, but is also a great listener and such a good boy when we go places. He's been refusing to give us kisses and wipes ours off for a couple of months now because he thinks it's so hilarious. It is pretty funny, but I really can't wait until he's over that joke so I can get kisses from my boy again! 

Just two more months until we have a 2 year old! The thought of that is just crazy to me. I can't talk about it too much because I'm known to cry at the drop of a hat just thinking about my boy growing up. I'm going to miss these days when I can still rock him to sleep and he likes to hold my hand on the couch and do anything in his power (i.e. climb on my head while I'm working on the computer, climb up my legs when I'm standing or lay on my chest) just to be close to me. Great I'm crying now. Love my boy so much and this phase has been so much fun.

Knott's Merry Farm

Kyle and I had so much fun at Knott's last week with our friends. He's tall enough now to go on the airplane ride ALL BY HIMSELF (a very stressful 1.5 minutes for mommy). He loved it so much, but I was super nervous. We went on all the Camp Snoopy rides a few times and then stayed for the tree lighting show, which he watched from my shoulders - a first for us! He loved it. It's so cute to watch him interact with his friends. His favorite is holding hands and walking by himself... such a big boy. 

xmas jammies

 Can't. handle. this. picture. 

Bed head! Big boy pose! Jammies! Stop it.
Kyle has entered the dreaded phase of "point a camera at me and I refuse to smile or look cute," but our photographer worked her magic, and I am eternally grateful for that sweet smile.