Random Life Update

All of my August goals are going great except the blogging one! Life is a little crazy lately and sometimes I can't gather my thoughts together enough for a blog post. Or I have one planned that's say, sharing pictures of my house and I have piles of stuff everywhere lol. I have been walking an insane amount though! I usually go for a walk in the morning and usually at least another one in the afternoon.

We have made some baby gear changes that I'm excited about. These are things you get excited about as a  mom. I have a running stroller that I've never really used because I kept it at my parents. I decided to bring it home and have been using it for walks and I love it! However I then had two full size strollers in my 800 square foot apartment which was not great. I decided to keep the running stroller and sold my "every day" britax one to buy an umbrella stroller. I got this one which I LOVE. Seriously the cutest stroller (and passenger) ever!

I finally solved my car seat puzzle and I'm so happy about it. Not everyone understands (especially people with more than one child, which I totally get) but I really liked having Arianna in the middle of the backseat vs behind the passenger or me. The other two seats are still usable and it just makes me feel like she's that much safer. My goal was to try to find a new bigger carseat that would fit rear facing in our car for another year at least before turning her around and I found it! I took it to a certified car seat technician and she showed me out to install it. I really did not feel confident in doing it on my own and it's very easy to make mistakes installing car seats. She said the one I chose fits great and has a nice tight install so I'm very happy about that. And just like that my little baby is in a big girl carseat.

We're making some changes in our house that I'll be sharing this week. I'm loving making the apartment our home but I'm not loving how hard it is to keep it clean (or how easy it is to clutter it up, I should say) but it's getting better. You know when you're getting rid of stuff it makes a huge mess but it's so much nicer when it all finally leaves? We're in that stage.

On Friday morning I'm going on my first weekend trip without Arianna. She's staying home with her Dad and I know she'll be fine but I'm a little worried about how I will feel without her! Thankfully I'll be busy with my friends and having a great time, I'm sure!

I have a really good little list of recipes that I love making but I'm always looking to add new ones to the list. Especially since the healthy favourites list is quite a short one and I end up making them over and over again. I came across this Brussel Sprouts Carbonara recipe on Skinnytaste and I'm dying to try it. I've pretty much given up on pasta unless it has tons of flavour but this one looks amazing!

More posts this week, I promise!

Weekend Fun and Not So Fun

Friday was our anniversary, which we are putting off celebrating until this weekend. We had Hilary's birthday celebration on Friday night. I was in charge of bringing a birthday dessert/cake and I had the brilliant idea of checking Pinterest for other people's brilliant ideas and decided on a Krispy Kreme cake! Hilary and Leigh have been going to Krispy Kreme's for years and years before I came along so it was perfect. I even made him go get them in her honor! :-P

I think it was a hit!

These two.

Saturday morning was a chill morning around here. Leigh and I usually swap on weekends, I get up, feed the baby, hang out with her till about 7 or so, go back to bed, get up feed her again and put her down for her nap and then we'll relax or sometimes both nap again.

She wandered into her room and two seconds later I found her like that. :-S

Lately I've been throwing on a movie for my own entertainment while Arianna plays, which of course I'm only half watching because I can't take my eyes off her. (See Above Photo) I put on We Bought A Zoo which took me all day to finish watching but it was so good! How did I not watch it for that long?!

In the afternoon, we went out to Lunch Doctor, who has the best sandwiches pretty much ever in my opinion. Then we headed down to Osprey Days in Pitt Meadows, which was just closing up but thankfully the ice cream shop was open. I was just saying to Leigh the other day that I wanted REAL ice cream that you get out of a bucket with a scoop, and what do you know, they had my all time favourite ice cream flavour: Raspberry Cheesecake!

The rest of the weekend was more of the same just relaxing around the house.

The hitch of the weekend, or the "not so fun" is the temporary setback of Arianna's sleep. She's doing SO much crawling, cruising along furniture, standing up every 5 seconds, including in her crib, and just exploring her little world that she is not as interested in sleep. Once asleep, she's fine and stays asleep for her normalish amount of time, still sleeping through the night. It was a bit of a battle to get her to sleep over the weekend but thankfully it's definitely improving as she settles into her new busy life!

I just can't, with the ponytail.

Or this.

Taking selfies with my little crazy muffin.

So what did we learn from this post? My weekends are boring. Haha. I know I need to plan more fun stuff but sometimes I just don't even know where to start and what's good to do with a young baby. If anyone has any fun ideas, please share! Next weekend I've decided to have more fun. That's my weekend goal ;-)

Now I'm off to find out who A is on Pretty Little Liars!!!

Have Courage & Be Kind

I was debating even posting this because I don't think these things should be done for recognition but then I realized there's another reason to post it. Inspiration for someone else to do something.

Have you ever been out somewhere and something happens and you think "I should do ____ and help this person." ? You know that voice that pops into your head but sometimes it's scary or you don't quite move quick enough.

Today that voice urged me to do something, and in the grand scheme of things it's NOT a big thing. I spent $5 and used about two seconds of my time but it was so worth it.

I had a bit of a quiet day today, which is rare. I decided to do a little wandering in between Arianna's naps. I checked out the kids consignment store in Pitt Meadows and then I decided to pop over to the book store which is just behind that mall. It was quite busy in there, and I felt like a bit of an ass with my giant stroller. I turned around and a sweet little girl (I'm guessing somewhere in the 6-8 range but I actually have no idea) was nervously trying to get around me so I got out of the way quickly. She picked out her books in the kids section and I heard her mom talking about how she's such an avid little reader and she can read two books a day. The girl told her mom all she wanted for Christmas was books. The store has a credit option so if you bring it books you can get credits for new books.
Instantly a little thought popped into my head "You have $5 in your purse, give it to the owner and put it on that girl's credit for next time."
Once they left, I did exactly that. The store owner seemed so delighted and I told her about how when I was younger, the local bookstore had a stamp card for every $5 you spent. I think it was 10 stamps and you got $5 free. Each Baby Sitter's Club book was $5 so it was all very exciting. I LOVED when my parents took me to the bookstore and I could pick out my books. It made me so happy.
Arguable I may have spent a little TOO much time reading and could have used a little more social time haha, but in reality reading made me who I am today.

Anyways, enough about that. My point is that if that voice pops into your head to help a little old lady out with her groceries or pay for someone's meal, just do it! It honestly has made me so happy all day to picture how excited that girl must be to go pick out her next books. And more importantly, she maybe will think that people in the world are kind.

It's one of my new goals to do more kind things. Imagine if everyone left their house in the morning thinking of something they can do for someone else. I want to do a whole kindness day where I do as many kind things as possible for an entire day! How much fun would that be?

Arianna {9 Months}

9 months seems like a really big deal. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I was pregnant for 9 months...haha jk. It was definitely 10. It's 3/4 of a way to a year. Maybe it's because all of a sudden she's doing anything and everything and seems like much more of a kid than a baby. Arianna and I were doing a little shopping on the weekend and I came across these bracelets for babies/kids and I decided it was a perfect excuse to get her very first piece of jewelry. I just love how it looks on her!

* 19ish lbs
* I can't measure her accurately, she's too squirmy
* I had this post all ready to go and this morning I put her down for her 9am nap and she was not having it. I was watching her on the monitor and suddenly she disappeared. Go into her room and to see her standing in her crib. We are screwed.
*I am still nursing and I'm so happy I made it this far.  I think I will probably make it to my goal of a year but we shall see. She still gets one bottle of formula before bedtime.
*Still in size 3 diapers for another pound or two, I think
*6-12 month clothing, 12 month pjs (not sure why but these fit great)
*I may or may not have a little fall wardrobe going for her already due to buying stuff on clearance last year and a few good sales. Even though I'm enjoying summer, part of me cannot wait to see her in her little little fall wardrobe, especially since she's likely to be walking soon. There's something so adorable about little tots walking around!
*Seriously a little monkey. She's all over everything. She pulls herself up on everything possible. The couch, our bed, her crib, her toys, any chairs in our house, the tub.
*She's very strong. She's already cruising along furniture and has no problem standing holding on to something very lightly.
*I taught her how to high five which makes me happy every time we do it.
*I'm also teaching her how to sign, clap and wave hello.
*She turns pages in books at bedtime
*She has been napping and sleeping amazingly. 2 naps a day and an early bedtime keeps her happy and healthy, although we did have one bad night where she woke up quite a few times due to being sick. In that instance she got extra cuddles and I stayed in the room for a few minutes until she fell asleep and slipped out.
*STILL NO TEETH!
*This girl loooooooooves her food. Bananas, Avocado and Blueberries are her fave. I also gave her Annie's Organic Mac & Cheese for dinner last night which was a hit until she demanded more avocado and blueberries
*I get her up in the morning, feed her and let her play a little bit while Leigh sleeps in a bit longer before he has to get up for work. Lately she crawls over to the bedroom door and bangs on it saying Dadda until he wakes up. It's adorable.
*Her face lights up when she sees people she knows. Especially Leigh and I and her grandparents. So far she has very little reservations when it comes to strangers talking to her, probably because we run into so many different people in our apartment elevator ect.
*She went through a short phase of hating the car, but that's over now thanks to a kiddie song CD my mom bought her. I always wondered why people played kid music instead of regular music, I figured kids must like regular music exactly the same. Ummm nope. If she has her music on, we won't hear a peep other than her babbling along with the music.
*She still really loves the ergo and I'm dreading the day when she doesn't like it anymore or gets too heavy. I love that snuggle time with her. The other day she really needed a little cat nap because it was a long stretch from her last nap till bedtime but she just wouldn't fall asleep. Because she was all snuggly in the ergo she was so happy even without the nap.

Every month seems to be more fun than the last. Don't get me wrong, every month comes with new challenges too. Armed with sleep, we can handle anything. It's so much fun watching her grow up!

August Goals

It's the first day of August! Let's not talk about how it was just Christmas and our precious baby girl was just a teeny newborn. I had a total case of the July blues and after reading a few other blogs I realized this is totally a thing. I used to make goals every single month and I haven't probably since Arianna was born. It's a fresh new month and I'm feeling refreshed!

1. only stevia in my coffee (and milk)
Ever since finishing whole30 I slowly crept back into my sweet coffee habit. It's hard to control the amount of sugar and it's just not good. Stevia it is. I'm armed with packets and liquid stevia in my purse.

2. blog three times a week
I have so many half written blog posts in my drafts, it's ridiculous. My favourite blogs are ones that I can count on posting a few times a week so that's what I'm going to do. Facebook is boring and sad, Instagram makes me want all the food and purses and shoes and baby clothes so I'm renewing my blog love this month.

3. walk every morning
With it being so freaking hot out, I hadn't been walking until a few weeks ago. Not every day, but I started walking early in the mornings as Leigh was leaving for work. I walk away from the house for 15-20 minutes and then turn around and go back. It has really helped my energy and mood levels so I want to keep it up. It also keeps Arianna calm and busy until her nap and obviously Layla loves it.

4. do 5 fun summer activities
I'm notorious for big plans and not doing them. I'm going to attempt to take advantage of the last full month of summer (still got 7.5 weeks left, people!) and do some fun summery stuff. Like making sangria and reading by the pool, perhaps.

5. Clear out wardrobe for fall. I'm kind of obsessed with this whole capsule wardrobe idea. Have you heard of it? You pick a set number of items (I think 37 but you can choose any number) and pack the rest of your stuff away for the entire season. And don't shop! After having a look through my fall clothes I have to say. I hate all my clothes. I have nothing to wear. Seriously! I have some really great jeans and a couple sweaters and I have no idea what else I'm going to wear. Part of it is of course having to do with having a baby, top-wise nothing fits the same anymore. I don't have to dress up for work. Workout clothes are what I wear to work and they don't count for capsule wardrobes I will be posting about this as I figure out what goes in a Non-Frumpy Active Mama wardrobe.

6.Find out who A is.
This is a joke. Kind of. Obviously it can't be a goal because I have no control, but we are supposed to finally find out soon. So it's on the list.Anyone else addicted to this show? Aside from the people I talked into watching it on Netflix. :-P