Happy New Year!!!!

If I could describe this last year in just one word????
HECTIC

Its that time of year, time for us to all sit and jot down our goals for the new year! You could offer me all the money in the world to tell you where my ripped off piece of notebook paper is from last year or even to tell you what was on it and I just couldn't tell you, isn't that sad?! It probably says more than I'd like to think about!

I was listening to the radio yesterday on a very long drive back home to Vegas and a female DJ really said something that has sort of jump started me onto this whole fresh chance for new goals thing. People were calling in with some of the craziest goals or resolutions, I mean ludicrous....someone called in and said their resolution was to paint their house an obnoxious color to irritate their neighbor. See what I mean?! Anyways, she said how she found that when she was younger she would sit down and write out all these crazy lists and how in one year she would list around 10-15 things. Loose 20 pounds, get a new job, be a better friend, buy some pricey item she wanted, etc. The thing is she found that the more materialistic her list the more likely she forgot about it within a week or so. So she started trying to make resolutions that would change or work on her inner self such as "Be Happy." She felt that everything else would come naturally and it was easier for her to stick to just one goal.

This sort of stayed with me and I was mulling over how I could turn the hundreds of hectic aspects of my last year into just one inner changing goal for the New Year....

If you know me, and I mean like really know me, have spent time listening to me babble on for too long then you know I am actually a pretty impulsive person. I latch on to ideas and activities nearly as quickly as I detach. All in all as I get older I move more from seeing this as a quirky and sometimes cute quality about myself and more as a really huge problem of being "inconsistent." I am so easily distracted and I often fuel this trait in myself more than any outside influence by my own impulsive phases of attachment. Isn't awful to realize something about yourself that isn't so great?! I mean you could put a pretty bow on it and call it being a day dreamer but still it remains that factually every single thing I could ever want to improve in my life this next year could be done so by me being more consistent and less distracted.

With any goal you've got to set a plan, remember that DJ is I was talking about earlier, she wrote on her bedroom wall "Be Happy" and read it everyday to help stay on track....well the thing is a simple two word mantra probably wont do it for an inconsistent daydreamer like me. I really struggled with this one not because it wasn't instantly clear to me the things that would help my newfound "Be consistent in 2015" goal but more a hesitation that I might be setting myself up for failure.

I've decided on a three part plan of action for my new goal and new year. The first....
Delete my Facebook......for the record having just moved somewhere where I know NO ONE, this one sort of scares me. Alas, its a distraction...a huge one. I'll still keep my Instagram account, I use it far less and mostly for picture updates of one very cute little boy but I have promised myself a dozen times to stay off Facebook but never do and so deleting it really is the only way I'll be consistent on this one. Its such a time consuming cycle and realistically I hardly post and spend all my time just scrolling down a newsfeed and gain little but loss of time in the end.
The second....Is much less drastic and still relates to social media. 1 blog post per week. I always say I'm going to be consistent with my blog and for awhile I was...likely because of the circumstances but I think it will be good for me to consistently sort of remind myself once a week Hey whatever your writing about your being consistent and doing something you've wanted to do for awhile.
The third and final thing......Sleep more....that one seems so silly to say out loud.  Oh hey your goal is to loose 20 pounds, that's cool, mine is to sleep? As a new mom it is stupid easy to get in the habit of staying up late for various reasons and ironically usually not because of the baby. Don't get me wrong I have certainly had a couple of nights of Liam bouncing off the walls too late at night but usually my late nights get filled with doing things like cleaning, or catching up on some me time. Not that those things aren't important but I have found that usually trying to take advantage of every last minute of the day just leads to me being tired and sluggish the next day and having fallen into that pattern for weeks at a time has lead to some of my most inconsistent lazy and shamefully wasted days of the year which then leads to some of the most hectic once I snap out of it!

Well there she is a big picture goal and an action plan to achieve her. I want to be clear in saying that I don't expect myself to be some militant schedule freak but I would really like to help eliminate some distractions and focus on freeing up those times to help really sort through the rest of my ever so changing hectic life. ;)

Viva Las Vegas!!!!

We are {moving}......I mean really moving, like far. Okay, I know a ton of people who live further but it feels a million miles away, We are moving to Las Vegas!

That's right, I am literally in the process of packing up our home {okay, technically I'm literally in the process of taking a blogging break while packing up our home} I am a consortment of all types of emotions. I am so proud of my husband for getting a promotion he so deserved, I'm excited for growth, I'm terrified for growth, I'm {HEARTBROKEN} that my mom will no longer be 4 minutes from me at any time of the day, I'm hopeful, I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm curious for adventure, I'm every emotion under the sun and mostly I am just stressed.

On the ever bright side, I think Liam is having the time of his little life with it all, seriously! Like any new toddler he loves special emphasis on {LOVES} opening drawers and getting into cabinets. I've spent a lot of time first going through and organizing all of our drawers and cabinets before packing so that I wouldn't be in a hysterical rage as to why our kitchen drawer has so many bathroom items in them and our bathroom drawers have so many office supplies and skittles wrappers while trying to pack {if your wondering if those things were really in those drawers....I'm pleading the fifth.} Yeah, he digs going through cabinets, he even helps {put everything into the wrong boxes}, We sold our bed set so the mattress is currently on the floor......apparently this is the coolest thing since apple juice to happen to our little man since he literally can not look {even peripherally} at our bed down the hall without running into our room and {literally} belly flopping on it.

 I. die. every. single. time.

I'm packing and cleaning and planning and replanning and it is all pretty darn overwhelming. We have so little time to figure out so much and it is {BEYOND} hard. Its hard to pack up Liams room and pray that whomever rents our home from us doesn't ask me to paint his room and on that note, its hard to let someone rent our home, what if it doesn't work out and I want to come back like you know the following Thursday and now I've agreed to let someone live here, it's hard to pack up my home and not know where the boxes are going because I don't have a new home for us picked out yet because I'm too scared to buy a second home right now without knowing the area at all and too picky to rent, seriously, Bryan doesn't even have to roll his eyes anymore you can just tell he has mentally done so every time I point out that a house has white walls {but you have to think of those things! I can paint my walls any color I please right now but when renting you cant and there isn't a doubt in my mind that Liam will definitely be that toddler that makes a white walls worst enemy}, it's hard to have to accept change and leave all of our family and friends, it's just {really} hard.

Its temporary 2 years or less and then they will be opening the location we'd ultimately like to be at, its likely going to be okay, Bryan will be a rock star in his new role its with no doubt and I will probably find, meet and befriend other moms who are normal moms and not part time showgirls and exotic dancers {not that I'm judging} I know that my friends and family are actually probably more likely to take a weekend trip to Vegas than many other places and it is probably going to be kind of cool to live in the capitol of buffets.

I will {DEFINITELY} be using my blog to document our adventures in tackling {Sin City}, I hope you'll all read along.

Sensory Say What?!

I was going to write this in the morning but I better do it now because my morning is likely going to be consumed with Bryan wanting to know why there is glitter on his computer and in the sink and on his wife and...every where for that matter!

Today was day 1 of Facebook Detox or Rehab or whatever were calling it. I cheated twice...but it kind of wasn't my fault I should've probably deleted items I was selling off there before I decided to go MIA so I logged on twice today and responded to messages but I am deleting everything else tonight and plan to not go on at all tomorrow!

Liam has been pushing himself backwards for a few weeks now in the walker but yesterday and today especially he took those glorious FORWARD steps to walking! I never knew I was such a crybaby until I had Liam, it seems like I'm always crying, good or bad ._. I put Liam in his walker while I was making myself lunch mind you from my stove to my sliding door is 10 steps for me probably 7-8 in the walker. I turned around and he was all the way over at the sliding door trying with his mightiest to think himself through that door...his walker is shaped like a car so it was basically the funniest thing Ive ever seen!.....which made me cry ._. (ignore my dirty door)

I also had time to finally get to a project I have been wanting to do FOREVER! I made sensory bottles for Liam. I am so stoked you have no idea how much I am holding back from running to his room and waking him up to play with them right now!

It was SUPER easy but I think in the future if I make any more and I'm sure I will as Im already eyeballing them and thinking of more things to put in them I wont be playing with glitter! Ack that garbage is such a mess and seriously reminds me of how happy I am that Liam is a boy and glitter thankfully wont be needed very much around the house!!!

Basically I saved my VOSS water bottles and bought a couple extra not because I normally drink this kind of water but because the labels are easy to peel, the openings are large enough to easily fit trinkets through and the lids are great plus they are pretty SNAZZY in the visual department!

Next I drank!

Next I took a bathroom break (joking)......sort of.

Next I made a huge mess on Bryans desk with lots of goodies that I found at the Dollar Tree!

Next I stuffed, a few didn't come out like I envisioned and this is partly due to the fact that I put a limit on this project of $10 to start with and just kind of ran out of things with what I bought to get the desired effect. If these become Liams new favorite pass times I will definitely up the budget and go all out but until then I was pretty satisfied with the end results and variety of weights, colors, liquids and such to start with.

Ok I'm off to clean up glitter, but seriously what cleans glitter easily....oh and it probably doesn't help that I also spilled some baby oil on top of said glitter......can it be morning yet?!

Facebook Rehab

I have for a while now been asking myself, how can I be better? I think everyone should always strive to be better tomorrow than they are today. I wanted something BIG that would make an impact quickly and not over time simply because it is easy to give up on things that require you to preserver to see results and while thats probably something I should work on as well, for now Id like to coddle my sweet motivation to better myself.  I decided the number one thing that would impact me in every aspect, better mom, better wife, better friend, better person, better blogger is to get off Facebook. Im not a 100% against social media, I think it can be very healthy and I also think its 100% healthy to get out how you feel, what your thinking and updates in your life. It makes you feel like your life and the things you do in it mean something to be able to share it with others and since we don't live in an age where Ill be inviting anyone over for tea time in my non-existent parlor any time soon, it is understandable that we have become addicted to these sites. Thats really a problem in itself though.

My preteen niece was visiting this week and Im telling you it was an eye opener to see how bad its gotten. I challenged her to explain her relationships with each person on her friends list. She didn't know 50% of them and only talked to about 25% of them in person which being school aged she is still in an environment where she sees them somewhat daily without much effort. Yet when I started doing the same analysis of relationships on my own social media sites I found that I had sent a quick message or comment a few dozen times in the past few months to someone whom I consider one of my closest friends but I literally cannot remember the last time we really spoke on the phone or in person for that matter!

It doesn't stop there though, Im ashamed to admit that the first thing I did this morning was grab my phone and started browsing Facebook. I could've went out and started my husbands coffee or even kissed him good morning. I could've got a bottle ready for Liam or even went and read to him as he woke up. I could've responded to my dads text from last night or called my mom to thank her again for watching Liam, ordering Bryan dinner and caring for me while I was sick yesterday......but I didn't do any of those things....but I can tell you that one of my friends missed her alarm clock this morning, someone is tired of their boring day thats barely started, and that another person I know only from high school is "off again" in their "off again/on again" relationship. All so many small things but all things that add up to improve my life and the relationships in it!

On a typical day I probably browse Facebook a few dozen times and I'm over the missed opportunities. I also really love to blog about Liam and our family happenings but often find its easier to post a quick picture with a little quibble about Liam crawling than to sit and really type out a beautiful memory and the end of the night. I also heard recently that 80% of people use their phone while watching TV, which I laughed at.....while watching TV and using my phone.

I cannot obviously just quit Facebook, I actually do use it for promoting my book business and making connections in that way. I also belong to a few groups that only exist through Facebook that have been a wonderful resource for me as a new mom. Plus lets just come out and say it if I cold turkey delete my Facebook I will fail and I will miss out on friend connections because not everyone has the same desire to cut out social media in their life. So to make it more realistic and attainable I have decided to log off on my computer, tablet and phone and only browse or interact on the weekends. I work on the weekends and spend a lot of the time away from both Liam and Bryan and so I feel that it would be the best time to use small breaks to "catch up" or send out whatever messages I need to. I would love to one day completely cut it out and only blog but for now I want to be able to just focus and devote my Monday through Friday to Liam, Bryan, My Family and Friends and bettering all those relationships which will in turn help me to better myself. After a month of this hopefully Ill be able to just walk away. :)

My Half A Year Old

Welp, Liam is 6 Months!!!!!

I knew this would come and just like that here it is!

Another thing I knew would come and I've heard lots of people talk about is when your little sweet babe will start to miss his parent as they leave the room or out the door off to work.....I just didn't think it would be Bryan first or so early.

Every time Bryan would walk in and out of the bedroom this morning as Liam and I lazily laid in bed watching him get ready I couldn't help but notice Liam's facial expression go from Extremely happy to emotionless to pout until he walked back in. Then when it was time for Bryan to leave for work and Liam and I to get our booties out of Mommy and Dads bed to get ready for his baby signing class I noticed some thing...oh yeah it was that my child was screaming and crying with real big fat tears. I initially thought he was cranky and secondary thought it was due to us cutting back on his morning bottle......but alas after I checked every little need this sweet boy could possibly need fulfilled it became very evident he just missed his Daddy, which was later confirmed by my mom whom babysits Liam on a regular basis on the weekend that when Bryan drops him off the past two weekends Liam is happy but when he leaves he is so upset.....Am I Jealous, nah....(EXTREMELY, YES, IT HURTS, STAB ME IN THE HEART WHY DON"T YOU) not really.

(Daddy's Little Man)

It's okay when it comes right down to him being in pain no matter what Liams arms automatically reach out for me and I secretly refuse to teach him "Dada" and only "Mama", so theres that and wine to soothe my pride ;)

Liams favorite foods are peaches and pears, seriously Ill be feeding him regular old bananas and ya know just typical night at The Beavers but give him some peaches and this baby will jump up and boogie to The Brady Bunch Song! 

He is days away from crawling, for now he pretty much looks like he was in a battle and has lost the feeling in his legs suddenly and trying to get from point A to point B and suddenly cant decide if maybe he wants to stand up instead of crawl there. It's awkward to watch and I don't really know what to make of it other than my kid is going to make it a point to do everything completely different than what the "norm" is

Thats the other weird one, he likes to stand.....6 months and he would stand all day if you would let him. Obviously he holds on to the couch or more typically our hands hold him but he loves it and he certainly likes to shake what his Mama gave him while doing so! I wish I had a picture but I am frankly too nervous to worry about busting out my camera when he does this so next time Bryan is home Ill have to have him help me snap a pic because it seriously is the cutest little thing ever!

After a few weeks of him being unable to use his stomach muscles at all without throwing up it finally looks as of today in fact that my child CAN sit. I was getting seriously concerned with this one and still have my reservations but he went 20 minutes without throwing a Gerd related fit or falling over while sitting so I firmly believe he will be a pro by the end of the month as we start getting his tummy issues under control.

He is a little er Eccentric with his musical selections Im not sure he knows what he likes I just turn through the stations until he stops crying if that means I am bumping Mariachi music then so be it. Actually on our way back from San Diego I swear it was the most soothing classical selections I almost fell asleep ON THE ROAD!!!! I had to change the station eventually because every time I got in my car I would get tricked into "Ahh, this is so nic...zzzzzz." 

He loves to blow raspberries, he does not like to be tickled and physically strains and tries to not laugh if I try. He LOVES to pull hair so much I thought about buying him a wig to play with but thought passed quickly for obvious reasons.....he has severe GERD which makes for some interesting tantrums and some even more lovely smiles after, he likes to be held too much is super quirky and LOVES more than anything Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He loves crowds and staying up past his bedtime. He loves the park swing and he loves people who wear glasses (score 1 for Mama!) Careful though because he has no problem whipping those glasses off before you even see him! (<----Get It? Im funny ;D)

Dear 0-5 months we hardly knew ya, you were fun, awful, insightful, funny, crazy, sleep depriving, wonderful and we are moving onto bigger and better ;)

Super Mom Dun Da Daahhh....

Before having Liam I had these incredible and completely admirable envisions of how my days would be spent. Baby Tumbling Classes, Baby Swimming classes, Baby Sign Language Classes, The most incredible playroom, An amazing dinner on the table every night promptly at 6. He would bounce in his bouncer while I baked all kinds of delicious treats. I would craft all these amazing little pinterest worthy projects after he was peacefully asleep and I of course would have time to do something with my hair and makeup every one of these days. And then I actually had Liam.

Being super mom just DOES NOT happen overnight. I went through a really tough time accepting this and can distinctly remember my too sweet husband putting up with a crazy hormonal me crying about why it just hadn't kicked in yet and just when the hell the "Perfect Mom Stork" was going to have time to take a trip to my door front?!

I am no where near being a Super Mom yet and am every day complete awe of my friends that I strongly feel just HAVE IT. I know a beautiful and amazing woman who has 5 equally beautiful little girls and I am seriously telling you she is so super mom that it will make your head spin! Yes, Sara I am talking about your Stellar Mommy Abilities!

Im still trying to figure out how to transition into this person I so desperately seek to be, I am always the first to nag a person and tell them that you cant improve yourself if your not willing to challenge yourself and yet Ive spent a lot of time being a hypocrite sitting around nagging about how I just can't find time to get it all done. One day I sat down and wrote everything I wanted to get accomplished that day. I filled up TWO pages and quit before even trying feeling overwhelmed. So I have been trying to challenge myself this week to step outside of my comfort zone. I have really found comfort in waiting until Bryan is off and running to the store and NEVER taking Liam anywhere if I don't have to which also makes my day twice as hard I've recently learned. I would cave into letting Liam watch Tv and not read to him if he cried at me. I was becoming so upset with how far I drifted from my dreams so I started taking him to the park EVERY day unless it rains and to Sign language classes on Wednesdays and am hoping to start a baby tumbling class soon as well and oh my goodness this baby sleeps so hard after getting back from being tired which seriously starts making that list look a lot more attainable. I read to him even if he cried and I find he doesn't ever cry anymore if I read to him and I go through a series of stretches and exercises before letting him watch any tv.


I also SUPER TOTALLY CANT EVEN EXPLAIN HOW SERIOUSLY MUCH LIKE REALLY want to cut myself off of social media. Every day I pray for the strength to just delete it and never look back. I don't know why I hold on to it so much. I feel like I would be such a better mom, wife, daughter, friend if I just cut that out of my life and focused on really personalizing my relationships. Its so difficult when social media has become such a huge source of communication between friends. For example I belong to a couple of mommy groups that I literally just feel so sad to think about not being a part of anymore as I have met some really great people through them. Ah one day, one thing at a time.

Why Walmart Just Couldn't Sell Me The Perfect Gift for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is upon us and there are a handful of corporate bigwigs sleeping easy tonight whom most likely have plans of lavishing their loved ones with rooms full of rose petals and dinner at the hottest restaurant which of course will include the very best wine because in their real life they can afford it and we here in the lower realm of the world settle with a $5 Hallmark card, dinner at a chain restaurant and the $8 bottle of Moscato that was on sale (Don't judge on how we do fancy!)

I struggled with Valentine's this year because frankly without a "real job that includes a paycheck at the end of the week" I felt immense pressure to secretly save and come up with an amazing gift to show Bryan just "How Much" I love him. I have been pacing back and forth and endlessly google searching "Best V-Day Gift Ever....on a budget" needless to say nothing I could find was suitable and finally I woke up and slapped my head and thought to myself "Your an Idiot!"

There is no material object out there (except maybe like a Castle or an Island or Aston Martin...joking!) that could put a value on our relationship. The mere fact that I have even been buzzing around flapping on about it has made me feel slightly embarrassed. When did I become someone who feels even for a second that a material object means I love you this much?!?!

It is so easy to fall in Love, it really is I have done it a few times in my life to prove it and that is why we are such suckers for Corporate Americas version of Valentines day. Falling is easy, the hard part is what comes after the fizzle and ya-ya or rah-rah or what have you. After the late night conversations, after the 200 text messages a day fizzle down to a single picture message of "Does the baby's poop look odd to you?, after the gifts and flowers and romantic gestures that are just because its Tuesday, after the long obnoxious gazing and you get the gist! If anything falling in love is nothing more than a minor obsession of ourselves, of feeling wanted and important and it is 100% blinding sometimes and I truly believe it is 100% of the reason we often end up with others that we have nothing in common with and this can be the most amazing part of a long term relationship or it can be the most detrimental after we remove the beer googles (I was going to change that to Love Goggles but Beer Goggles is really just funnier and makes me laugh, so there). For this reason we should really be putting the celebration and value into our relationship with the person and not us as individuals.

This is not the first relationship I have been in that I am very opposite of the other. However, without respect for not just each other but for our relationship to work though, above, under and around those differences, failure is inevitable. Bryan and I have a very special relationship and marriage because we work very hard on the actual relationship itself. I learned in a very special time of my life and earlier than most my age that to make my relationship with this man really amazing that I have to care for "the marriage" as much as I do the man because Love really will only carry you so far. Bryan and I with a lot of luck have easily managed to grasp this concept early in our marriage. If we are upset, it is not always an answer of what will make me or him happy but what is better for our marriage? We are not perfect by any means and it sometimes takes us as individuals a bit of time to come to this conclusion but it has made our relationship in such a short amount of time capable of flourishing into something that takes years and years for others to achieve.

We are not perfect as individuals, we are both selfish, sinners, hard headed, foolish and wrong. Some days he does 10 things in the morning that make me welcome his exit to work but because I know he will do 20 more things that I adore that day I instantly miss him as though he's been gone fore 3 years at war the second he pulls out of the driveway. He does things Im not fond of and Im certain I do things he doesn't like. We have had the best days and we have had the worst days, we have each had financial highs and we have each been top ramen for a week broke, we have had tears and we have had smiles so big it makes your cheeks sore, we have gone to bed giggling and we have gone to bed silent. Our marriage is not perfect but is strong, it grows every day and it has provided us both gratification every day no matter how upset we may ever get. We are 100% respectful of each other and most would probably laugh at our "idea" of fighting which usually goes something like "Well your a butt head and you should feel pretty embarrassed about it, so there" and then he pulls my pigtails and we call it a night! but because we both believe in our marriage first and our feelings second it has given us a different perspective and allowed us to Love bigger and better than either of us could've imagined even after the rah-rah of initially meeting. We have the best relationship I could ask for that is just challenging enough and I am so grateful and that is something to celebrate and what I will definitely be focused on tomorrow!