Weekend Getaway makes for a Busy Week

Im excited for this coming this weekend. We are going to my cousin J's baby shower. Im really excited for her! She is having a baby boy and its her and her husband's first. Her and I are really close, we are only a day apart and we got married within 3 months of each other. Her shower is in West Va where the rest of our family(Dads side) lives. They have not met Princess yet which makes it even more exciting. We are leaving friday after husband gets off work and will come home sometime Sunday afternoon. My Sis3 and her daughter are riding with us. My Sis2, her daughters, Mom and Dad are also going but driving seperate. Thankfully we all have family to stay with so free room and board. We, my mom and sisters, got my cousin her bedding as a joint gift. All of this makes for a very busy week. I am one of those people who likes to come home to a clean house. So, by tomorrow evening I want the whole house to be clean because we arent sure what time we will be leaving friday. We also need to be packed because Im packing the car before my husband get home, so he can come home change and us get on the road fast. Today I have already done 6 loads of laundry(washed, dried, folded, and put away) to make sure everything is clean that we could possibly need. I also need to check the weather so that princess has warm enough clothes. This is the second weekend trip we have taken with princess so I really hope I dont forget anything and that she does well. It is also a trip through the mountains so I hope she does alright with that as well. Busy Busy week. I need to make a list. Well just wanted to blog about my excitement.

8 months

Today, Princess is 8 months old!!!! YAY!!!! On top of that in 8 months my husband and I will be married for 5 years! It seems like I planned it but God gave her to me at the PERFECT time! God really does work in mysterious ways. He has truly blessed me in many ways. I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful baby girl and amazing friends! 

Weight Control

One of my very best friends and I had a conversation last night. We are both trying to lose weight, both us have had babies within just over a year. Its such a struggle for me because I was one of the skinny girls in high school and the little time I went to college. I ate a little better than I do and I was definately more active. I started putting on the weight after I got married.
Me on my wedding day:

Me now:

I do not feel good about myself at all. I am not open about it at all either. This is my first time ever ever admitting other to my husband or one best friend that I am stating how I hate what I see when I look in the mirror. Recently my husband has been calling me a "Fat a$$" and I hate that so much, I wanna look good for him. But the biggest main reason I wanna lose a few pounds and live healthier is:

I want to do it for princess!! I want her to never be embarrased by my apperance.

Information Overload

I have been researching, reasearching, and more researching convertible car seats for princess for days and finally I am so overloaded that I think I am more confused than I was originally. Its such a important, big decision. I am looking early tho, so I could take a break for at least a week but when I start something I like to get it done and then move to the next project. I will probably overloaded myself more. I open to any and all suggestions at this point. I put up all my info including cars we own, her size, what she is in now, and how she likes to look out the window on to boards and have got barely any responds or suggestions. Ugh. Well on to do more of the same.

1 monthly goal, 1 weekly goal

For my goals Im planning on using this color and font so it differs from my everyday blog.

First lets talk about my monthly goal. I am a BabyWise mom, for those of you who don't know what that is, it is a series book about raising your child/ren. How to sleep train, schedules, eat time, play time, everything. This book covers all the basics. Princess has done wonderful with it since she was born. At 6 weeks I had her sleep 9 hours every night and then at 3 months I had her sleeping 12 hours a night. It was/is fabulous! The sleep was covered in the first book and I read it before I had her and right after I had her as a refresh. The second book, which started at 5 months, I have still not finished and I brought it when she was 3 1/2 months. I don't like it because I know there are things that I should be using right now and I am not. (Also I know I will be needing to get the 3rd book shortly as it starts at 12 months). So this brings me to my goal.
My Monthly Goal  ~ Read BabyWise two by the end of the month.

Now my weekly goal. I have not been constistant with my baby sign language. I really would like to be so Princess can sign to us her needs and we will understand. I am doing 3 signs at a time and decided to start with meal time signs. So I am starting with eat, more, and all done once she gets those I will move on too 3 more. Bet you can guess my weekly goal.
My Weekly Goal  ~ Be constistant with baby sign language.

Here There and Everywhere

Princess has been excatly that, here, there, and everywhere. I feel like I am constantly chasing her. She is crawling and pulling up on everything. She just got really good at crawling less than a month ago and Christmas Day she pulled up and stood by herself for the first time. Now, I am pulling her down from standing on the TV stand and encoraging her when she is using the couch to start at one side and come to the other. Its exciting and scary all at the same time. We have already had tumbles and I know there will be many more but it gets me everytime. If this is how it is, when she is crawling, I know will be running around like a mad woman when she learns to walk, but you know what, I would not trade it for the world. I so love watching her grow. I love watching how excitied she gets when she learns something new. It amazing how fast the change, learn, and grow. Days like this, although tiring, I am very thankful I can stay home and be the one chasing her.

A picture of Princess standing:

On a side note, its Snowing today and it has put me in a fanastic mood.

New Year New Schedule

As I have already stated, I am a stay at home mom, so my weekly schedule goes off of my husbands schedule. Well as of Jan 1, he has a new schedule so I am now trying to adjust my schedule. He used to work a rotating schedule of Mon-Fri one week and Tues-Sat the next. Now he is working a rotating schedule of Mon-Sat one week and Tues-Fri the next. On the old schedule he had a three day weekend every other week, so we would use that weekend to go grocery shopping and other errands together mainly because we live 45 minutes for town so it was easier. Now I am trying to go the grocery store on his Mon-Sat week on Tuesday by myself with princess and its not easy. I have to make sure its not during a naptime and that I can go and be back before she needs her next feeding too. I am doing this to make it easier on my husband, to limit the junk food that comes into the house, and so we can have a little more quality family time. I will still have us all going shopping for gifts and such together tho as that is fun shopping. I'm also tryin to make myself a rotating 4 day cleaning schedule so that I make sure to get the house cleaning done every week when my husband is working. I am also trying to make meal plans every two weeks so that I am not buy extra things (unless on an awesome sale and I know we will use) to try to help the grocery bill stay down and to see if I can make a budget for our food that I can stick to. On top of all this I decided to make weekly/monthly goals for myself rather than one big new years resolution because there are so many things I want to change and accomplish with having our princess in our lives. We also decided that we would like to pay off some debt so that we can sell our house and buy a new (or new to us) home closer to town in a few years instead of our original plan to build on our property we live on now. I am helping the debt by not purchasing anything unneeded or purchasing things clearanced that I know we will need later.  Its a new year with a lot of new changes in our lives and I really hope we get it figure out quickly. I will post all of my schedules and plans when I get them figured out. My ulitamate goal for myself and my family is that we lives healthier lives and that we get to a point of our only debt be our house.