The Lincoln's Life

Insta Friday 2/17

2012-02-17T16:45:00.000-08:00

It's Friday again!! I love that it means the weekend starts tomorrow and I get two full days with my husband home!

Here's a little peek into our week:

From top to bottom; left to right:

1. Our idea of a fun filled Friday night. Crosswords.

2. Sneaking in some snuggles with Max on Sat. morning

3. While Bennett played with Daddy

4. Greasy food at our bowling date

5. Max and his super cool shades.

6. Ben gets loved on by my sister who was visiting from Texas.

7. Out for V-day. It was a family affair.

8. Yummm, daddy's hand.

9. Cutie pie.

10. Mango margarita. It was the best margarita I've ever had.

11. Playing with magnets.

12. This is what I looked like at 11 a.m. this morning. STILL in PJs.

13. Maxton bear.

14. At 1 I had cleaned up some and was looking better.

15. Ben!! Smile!

I hope you had a great week!

Linking up with Life Rearranged for some Insta goodness!

Project 365 - Day 44, 45, 46, 47 & 48

2012-02-17T14:55:00.000-08:00

Ready, set, GO!!

5 ~~days~~ pictures of Maxton:

5 ~~days~~ pictures of Bennett:

5 Instagram pictures:

And one of Gracie:

Okay, okay - I definitely didn't do pictures every day this week. But, I got 5 good ones of each of the kids AND 5 instagram photos. Please, get off my back. I have two children. This is all I can give.

I might be feeling a tad guilty. I don't even want to promise to do better because, clearly, that's not working out for me. I guess I'll just do what I can and hope you all can forgive the lack of following the true 365 rules and settle for multiple pictures on the same day sometimes.

Thanks for forgiving me my imperfections.

Little Mr. B is 5 Months (plus some)

2012-02-15T21:21:00.000-08:00

At this point he's almost 6 months, but I'm going to do my best to back up and remember what my little guy was doing in his 5th month of life (it all changes so quickly, yes?!)

Ben had his first taste of solids this month. We put pears in a mesh feeder and he, quite frankly, acted repulsed by them. I eventually got the hint and just pureed them up and he liked them much better. He's just not a fan of the texture of the mesh feeder.

We think he weighs a little over 20 pounds and he's in 6 month+ clothing. He's still hanging in a size 3 diaper, but should move up to 4s soon.

This month was BRUTAL for sleep. We could put him to sleep fairly easily at that point, but he was waking every 45 minutes - 1 hour all through the night. He basically stayed in our bed the entire night and we have to have a little heater running for white noise. We need to buy a white noise machine. Oh! And, he's still swaddled every night. Some changes were made towards the beginning of his 6th month in regards to sleep habits and I'll let you know how they're going in the 6 month post in 2 weeks (hint: we're still effing exhausted).

Bennett isn't quite sitting up yet, but can be unassisted for a little over 30 seconds. He's not yet stable enough to leave there, though. We practice sitting every day. He rolls with ease from his tummy to his back and has begun trying to tuck his legs under himself in an effort to launch himself forward. He's going to be on the move sooner than I'm ready for. I love his spunky nature.

His smile. Oh, his smile. It still melts me and sends this rush of love. I laugh every time STILL. It's been months of this and I have a feeling he'll be on the podium graduating college and he'll flash me a smile and I'll laugh out loud because his inner energy is so contagious. He's the perfect little man and we love him so very much.

February Date Night!

2012-02-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

In December, Ritchie and I sat and made a list of 12 dates that we wanted to go on this year. One for each month. We strived to make them fairly unique, things we don't do very often (or ever!). We assigned a month to each one and vowed to make good on them each month.

January was a coffee date and we did go on it, but waited until the 2nd to last day of the month and didn't document it at all. So, I'm starting to keep track of it with our February date, which was bowling.

There's a bowling alley right across the street from our house so we walked there on Saturday. It was a gorgeous day and we held hands the whole way over, talking about how much we really like where we live and how grateful we were to be out sans children.

There was a 40 minute wait for a lane, so we went and got some greasy grub and played a round of pool.

Funny side story: Years ago around Christmas time I looked in our bank account and noticed a $60 charge to Skip Pavones. I totally accused Ritchie (without even bothering to look it up online - duh) of going to a strip club. Ha! I thought something called Skip Pavones must be a strip club. (In case you don't know Ritchie, he's totally not that guy, and I don't know why I got really weird about it, but I was totally convinced). When he finally looked it up to show me what it was we were able to have a pretty good laugh about it. Turns out I had bought my dad a bowling bag for Christmas from good ole' Skip Pavones. Whoops.

I'm really lucky he puts up with me. Let's just say I'm a handful.

Anyway, so we started the game off right with a strike for me and spare for him!

Neither of us had bowled in years so this was impressive!

I thought bowling shoes were colorful and cute in an adorably hideous way? These are just plain ugly.

We had SO much fun together!

I'm loving that we're carving out some time together each month. My good mommy friend, Lisa said to me once that someday your children will leave you (you hope - sort of) and you're left with your husband. That has really stuck with me and it's a constant reminder to keep our love alive and make him my number one. Another thing I'm reminded of is my high school psychology teacher asking us who we thought was the most important person in his life. We all guessed his children and he said, "No. It's my wife." That always stuck with me, too.

My children are amazing, beautiful little souls who I love more than I could imagine. But, I chose to spend my life and build my family with Ritchie and I am realizing that the best thing I can do for my children, my husband and myself is invest time and effort into our marriage. Witnessing a healthy, loving marriage might be one of the best gifts I can give to my children. Living one is definitely the best gift Ritchie and I can give to each other.

Happy Valentine's Day.

The Third Decade Part 2 (Or... Our Love Story - Part 2)

2012-02-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Monday! This is my last decade post! I become much less detailed as the 3rd decade closes because I was blogging for a large portion of it. But, you might learn some new things about me :)

When we last left off Ritchie and I had just gotten engaged. We immediately began planning our wedding for a year and a half away. Haha! We had a long engagement because we wanted to time the wedding around my brother's high school graduation so that family would be able to fly out for both events.

The day after we got engaged - I'm showcasing the ring everywhere I go!

6 months later I graduated from college. We had graduation parties and wonderful celebrations. This was an amazing time in life for me. Great friends, I had a teaching job lined up for the Fall at a private school, I was engaged and planning my dream wedding - life was so, so good.

At my graduation

With Shannon and Rachel

Ritchie and I moved out of my mom's house that summer after I graduated and rented an apartment in Los Gatos. That was awesome. I loved living in Los Gatos. We would walk downtown at night and get dinner or just soak in the ambiance of downtown. While the location was fantastic, the apartment was not. It was upstairs with no heat and we basically died a slow death that summer.

With Shannon and Rachel for Shannon's bachelorette party

My girls helping me find my dress

Life went on though and we continued to plan our big day. We decided to do a fancy dance and my dad and his wife Mary choreographed it for us. We began having weekly dance lessons with them in their family room. Those lessons began a tradition that still stands almost 6 years later of getting together weekly. We don't dance anymore, but we do dinners or other various activities. I love that and am so thankful that stemmed from those dance lessons.

Dancing in the unfinished living room

My dad "coaching" us. He was strict.

The dip :)

I was coaching a high school dance team at the time and really enjoying that as well. It was a great group of girls and they performed mostly at football and basketball games. I was super busy with work and the dance team and wedding planning. That whole year flew by. Before I knew it we were rapidly approaching the wedding date.

With Rebecca at my shower

Bachelorette party fun

More fun

And more fun

As we neared summer, Ritchie and I started dreading spending the hot days and nights in our apartment. At the same time we happened to come across a couple who was moving out of a great Willow Glen apartment. We just love to be near little downtowns. So, about 2 weeks before our wedding we moved into a new apartment.

I had also grown really unhappy in my job. The school I was at wasn't allowing the personal growth I was hoping for in a teaching position. There was zero room for creativity and self expression for the students and that also frustrated me. Luckily a close coworker of mine had found a job at a new school and she introduced me to the director there and I was in. I would be teaching 2nd grade at a new school in the Fall.

Before we knew it, it was June and time for our BIG day! It was hot and there were many little bumps along the day, but none of that mattered one bit. I was insanely happy. I smiled more that day than I ever have before. I could gush for ever about our wedding, but for now I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Signing our license at the rehearsal

With my maid of honor and bridesmaid

Rebecca was my maid of honor

All of my grandparents made it to my wedding. I was so happy to have them there.

Heading to the church!

During the ceremony

Heading to the reception!

Stopping for some pictures with daddy

Cake - yummy

We honeymooned on a cruise that left out of Galveston, TX and stopped in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Mexico. The cruise was honestly just okay. We loved stopping in Mexico and being together, but I think we would have done a single location if we could have done it all over again.

A private dinner on the cruise

Coming back, we returned to our routine. Ritchie was still with Apple and loving it. I adored my new school. It had everything I could have dreamed about for teaching. I quickly made friends with a coworker who, over time, has become one of my very best friends, Kim. You probably recognize the name? She and I are still very close today.

Having some "fun" at a school function

On a road trip through Oregon and Washington

Us playing games. We may be sort of competitive. Maybe.

A trip to Tahoe. We always have fun with the Gillettes!

Towards the end of the school year Kim and I enrolled in National University to study together and get our Master's degrees. It was much more pleasant to go through the program with Kimberly rather than on my own and within a year we both had attained our goal of earning our Master's. At this time I was teaching 4th grade and really loving it. We were still living in the apartment in Willow Glen, but had begun house hunting.

Our first married Thanksgiving we hosted in our apartment.

We rather quickly found a town home right around the corner from my mom that fit our needs perfectly. It was expensive and such a stretch for us to get in, but what in California isn't? So, we took the leap and bought our first home.

Us in the house.

And the renovations began immediately. See... we had bought a hole, basically. It needed a lot of work. And, work we did. Sweat equity I believe they call it?

There was a very 70s orange mini bar *shudder*

We settled in and quickly decided to start trying for a baby. A few months passed and still no second line on that pregnancy test. I started to use ovulation sticks and pay better attention to my cycles but they were LOOONG. I'm talking 60 + days. It was so hard to track! Within 6 months it became clear that getting pregnant on our own wasn't going to be easy.

We did get a dog in the meantime - Gracie.

We saw a doctor and had a few preliminary things done. I had blood work done and she looked at my charts. She proceeded to tell us that we would never be able to conceive naturally. That was a really hard time for us. I cried a lot. I didn't want to give up, but I did start looking into starting adoption proceedings. Luckily, I had another doctor tell me that it was as simple as going on a medication called clomid. We tried two round of that before I finally got what I had waited nine LOOONG months for. 2 pretty pink lines.

When that second line appeared, I screamed and got all shaky. I think I went into shock a bit. But, I was thrilled. Kimberly was 3 months pregnant at the time and 5 months later my friend Kirstie got pregnant so I got to experience pregnancy (all 3 of us with boys!) with two of my best girlfriends.

Kim and me at her baby shower.

Max's pregnancy was not easy. In the beginning they thought I would miscarry because my hormone levels were low, then they could never find the heartbeat when we went in. We got a lot of ultrasounds, which I was perfectly fine with. I ended up with gestational diabetes and being induced. My birth with Max was long and laborious (ha) but the end result was this gorgeous little man whom we've fallen more and more in love with as each day passes.

I was supposed to go back to work when he was 3 months old. But, I spent the first 3 months of his life crying and trying to figure out how to stay home. In January, with the support of the principal at my school and Ritchie I decided to take a big risk and become a stay at home mom.

We struggled through that first year on one income and blew through our savings making ends meet. Ritchie got a new, higher paying job the following year, but things were still tight. We had had to use credit cards to get by and didn't have a way of paying them off completely so we now had credit card monthly payments to make in addition to our extremely high mortgage payment and HOA. We began to think about our options of short selling our home and renting, but wanted to avoid that at all costs, so we continued to ride it out.

I sold Stella & Dot for awhile to try and help earn money, but it wasn't for me. When my heart's not in something I don't' do well with it and I certainly wasn't meant to sell anything. We basically just couldn't escape the reality that if I wanted to be a stay at home mom, something had to give.

With Maxton on his first birthday

In the meantime, we started trying for baby #2. We had a couple of months with no luck and decided to STOP trying because we were approaching the time frame that would have been Max's birthday and 1. I didn't want kids to share a b-day - I wanted them to each have their own month and day, and 2. I had zero desire to be super pregnant in summer again. I did that once and to repeat? No, thanks.

Yeah... that was the month I got pregnant. So much for not being able to get pregnant on our own, huh? So, we were due in August with baby boy #2.

It was then that Ritchie got moved to yet another position at Apple. He had graduated college after so much hard work and it was paying off. He got a job as a software engineer. This was a huge help financially and we were able to make our minimum obligations each month. The problem remained though that we had nothing in savings and had racked up credit card debt again. So, while we could make our payments now we couldn't get ahead. Our house had also fallen victim to the declining market and was now worth well below what we payed for it. After much (almost 2 years worth) consideration we decided to put our house on the market as a short sale.

Bennett was born soon after we placed our house on the market. We had hired a midwife to do a home birth with Ben and that had all gone beautifully. It made selling our home even harder though. This was not only the home that we brought Maxton home to, but it was where we had birthed Bennett. It was where he met Max and spent the first few months of his life.

Meeting Bennett

The first picture of our whole little family

Life soon got very busy with two small boys and a house for sale. Luckily, we quickly got an offer and the bank approved the amount. Things were moving forward! We began looking for rental houses and got very lucky when Ritchie's cousin told us she was renting her house out. It was a lovely little two bedroom house in a great neighborhood. We sorted out all of the details and prepared to move in 3 short weeks! Life got even busier...

With Max on his 2nd birthday

We moved in on November 1st and soon found out that the couple who had put the offer in on our house backed out. So, we still have our house on the market, but happily reside in our rental house. It's not the outcome we were hoping for when we bought our home and put all of our hard work into it, but that's life and we've learned so much about home ownership. Mostly we've learned that it's not for us right now. We're working on building a future for ourselves that will eventually involve buying again, but not for quite awhile.

So, here we are. Building this life together. And, here I am. 30. Happily married to someone I love more than I could have ever imagined all those years ago when we decided to get married. Fulfilling my life long dream of being a stay at home mom, hard as that is some days. Always working to better myself, conquer fears, live dreams and be an example of good in the world for my boys.

I don't know what my future holds, but I can't wait to find out.

Project 365 - Day 42 & 43

2012-02-12T22:11:00.000-08:00

Day 42:

Maxton - Playing with trains on a little outing to Barnes and Noble

Bennett - Chillin' in the chair

Instagram - Ritchie and I played some pool on our date - more on that later this week!

Day 43:

Bennett - He's "this close" to army crawling. We're so screwed.

Maxton - These are seriously the only kind of pictures I can get of Max these days. He's always on the go. But, that's how it should be, right?

Instgram - I got a mani today! Red for vday :)

I hope you all had a happy weekend!

Project 365 - Day 41

2012-02-10T21:20:00.000-08:00

Back on the bandwagon, people! Be prepared for daily pictures of my kids, once again.

Maxton - A mommy and Max moment

Bennett - He's been chowing on the solids and loving every last bite.

Instagram - Potty training candy - I might be cheating on my calorie counting a bit with those. Like, I count all my calories daily except the ones that came from that jar. Whoops.

The Third Decade Part 1 (Or... Our Love Story - Part 1)

2012-02-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

It's the week before Valentine's Day and therefore the perfect opportunity to share my third decade because it's basically my love story with Ritchie. Since I took a brief hiatus from writing these to celebrate my turning 30, take a trip, and reorganize our life upon returning home, I'm trying to remember where I left off...

I believe I was single (I hear those snarky remarks... pipe down!) for the first time in a long time. Before I can go any further I need to back up a bit and tell you that my great friend, Kirstie (we're still besties - love her!) had put me in touch with the manager at the Black Angus near my house. She worked at the Milpitas one and knew that manager. Anyway, I landed the job and began working there in the fall. I was 20 - a few months away from being 21. It was shortly after I started there that things ended with this guy I had been seeing and I committed myself to being single for awhile.

Okay - so I'm working at Black Angus and finishing my last semester at San Jose City College before starting San Jose State in the Spring. I have a blast working at Black Angus. While not the classiest of places to work, my coworkers were so much fun and we were always goofing off or hanging out. There was a particular coworker who had somewhat pathetically asked me out by inviting me to have lunch while he worked at the place where he served lunch (he worked BA at night and Pasta Pomadoro for lunches). I turned him down because I was 20 and I thought he must be at least 35 with all that facial hair and I wasn't interested in dating someone who, at 35, held down 2 restaurant jobs and that is all he did. I wanted someone with initiative and ambition.

Do you all get where I'm headed with this??

That guy, was Ritchie.

So... how did we get from, "Dude, you're old with no ambition" to "I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you"? I mean, it's a far leap. Surprisingly, it took a grand total of about 2 months. Here's how it went down.

He asked me out (see above). I told him "Yes! I'd love to come hang at PP while you serve lunch! I'll bring some single girlfriends for you!" I was kind, but set the tone that I wasn't interested.

Fast forward a few weeks maybe? Time is hazy when you're in college and partying a bit too hard perhaps? Anyway, I'm single. After a week of that I think, brilliantly, "being single means I can DATE!" How fun is that? No commitment! No drama! Just fun out with cute guys. I asked one of my friend coworkers who she thought I could get to go out with me just to have some fun with from BA. She said she knew Ritchie had always liked me. I told her that he had asked me out already and I had turned him down because, what was he, like 35?! She about fell over with laughter because it turns out he was 19. Younger than me?! And with all that facial hair?! HAWT.

Suddenly I was seeing Ritchie in a new, fun light. He was young! He didn't have his shit figured out - that's normal! I could TOTALLY have some fun with this one. So, I started aggressively flirting, making it known that I was withdrawing my prior rejection. He took the bait and asked me to come to a party at his house on Thanksgiving. I did and that was when everything pretty much started. We spent that entire night talking and holding hands. Very innocent. The next few nights we "dated" as in went out on a few dates before basically deciding that we would be exclusive. So much for being single, huh?

Very early on in our relationship. Look how young we look!

Anyway, at this point we were still very casual. We liked each other and spent countless hours when we should have been sleeping awake and talking to each other. I learned all about his family and history. But, one thing still bothered me. He didn't have many grand plans. It wasn't that he wasn't ambitious, but he was a bit lost. There was a lot of family history that had led him to this place of unknown. He just didn't know what he wanted out of life. I still assumed this would be a brief relationship, but I liked him SO very much. I just didn't want to get caught up with someone who didn't share my life dreams.

Fast forward maybe 3 weeks? Yes. We spent our first Christmas apart as he went to visit some of his father's family in Seattle. He returned home on New Year's Eve and I got him from the airport. From that night on, everything was different. Suddenly, he knew. He knew what he wanted and how to get it. It was like that trip had produced this unstoppable force within him. We talked all that night about his goals and dreams and they could have been coming right out of my mouth. I didn't know why the sudden turn around for him, but I didn't doubt it or question it once. Ritchie is the kind of man that when he says something you KNOW he means it. He's not good at faking emotions and if he ever lies it eventually comes out because he just has to be authentic. So, I trusted this and knew that moving forward he would make these things happen.

At a concert

Now, nobody understands what happened that night. We still don't really understand it. But, suddenly we just knew we would be together. We talked about it and it was just crystal clear to us. So, shortly after midnight, right as the year 2003 began we "got engaged". I say that in quotes because there was no proposal or ring or anything traditional. We just decided then and there that we would get married.

Now, we had been casually dating for a grand total of maybe 4 weeks at this point. This sudden realization felt right and perfect for us, but the rest of the world had its doubts. Well, to be truthful, I don't think we even told people we were engaged. I think we decided to move in together and THEN tell people we were engaged. Ahh... the mind of a 19 and 20 year old while still dealing with their parents. So, we moved in together right away and surprisingly all of our parents were really accepting of that. My dad told me, "that's fine, but label all of your stuff and NO more announcements for a long, long time" I agreed and thought, "Crap! How am I going to keep that promise?" My mom was really worried that I would play house and not finish college, but didn't try to stop us. She knew that I had to choose my own path at this point.

On a trip to Michigan to visit my grandma

We apartment hopped at first and settled into a place that was a bit more than we could afford on a server income. Plus, I was in school full time so I couldn't work during the day like he could AND he wanted to start college so wouldn't be able to work like he was. He felt trapped by this lease and had zero money to pay bills. We both ended up quitting our jobs in the hopes to find something that would be higher paying. We dabbled in the idea of getting our realtor licenses and Ritchie even sold something door to door for a week or two.

Fate stepped in and Ritchie was offered a contract position in the shipping and receiving department at Apple Computer. The pay was good, much better than anything we could have hoped for at the time and he could attend evening classes at a community college. But, we were so far behind our rent and bills at that point that we had to get out of the apartment and move in with my mom. Ritchie's mom's house was full with his other siblings and I'm so thankful that my mom saw Ritchie's potential and allowed him to live there with us. He payed her a small monthly rent and we were allowed to use two of the back bedrooms for all of our stuff.

This is when we were living with my mom. Please note how freaking skinny I was. I would like to go back in time and appreciate how I looked because I'm pretty certain I thought I was some sort of cow then. (From "Wear Sunscreen" - "You are NOT as fat as you imagine" SO TRUE)

Let me back up a moment because I left out something important. Everyone did find out that we were engaged and it did NOT go well. We had planned on getting married that summer but with my parents' reaction we decided to wait until I graduated college to move forward with wedding plans. Ritchie had gotten me a ring and we called it a promise ring to keep everyone happy. We were disappointed that everyone didn't rejoice in our love the way we did, but ultimately understood that from the outside looking in it seemed ludicrous. We were fine to wait and just carried on with our relationship.

So... we're living at my mom's, I'm going to San Jose State, and Ritchie is working at Apple and attending some classes in the evening. I'm going to take a little break from our relationship to talk about some friends that I had during this time.

At SJSU I changed majors three times before settling into Child and Adolescent Development (CHAD) and in that department I met two amazing girlfriends! Shannon, Rachel and I had several classes together and we began to always sit together, then walk together, then meet up before or after for lunches or coffee. I used to hang with Rachel at her apartment pool and we used to all go out with our husbands in tow to play bocce or have dinner. I loved those girls (still do!) and they aided very much in my survival at SJSU.

Shannie and Rach!

We designed those sweatshirts. We're super cool.

Shannon and me

I also began to spend a lot of time with my friend Rebecca, who you might remember from the second decade. We had met at the pool where I was a lifeguard two + years ago. She and I started hanging out regularly both in the hopes of soon planning weddings together.

Rach and Rebecca and me

Things remained status quo for quite awhile. I had odd jobs nannying and babysitting here and there and Ritchie was doing wonderfully in Apple. He had been promoted from a contractor to a full time employee. Classes were going okay for him, but he decided to begin online school so he could work at his own pace.

In my senior year of college, on our 2 year dating anniversary, Ritchie took me to see "A White Christmas" in San Francisco after a fancy dinner in Los Gatos. It was a magical night and we had been talking for some time about making our engagement "official" and really planning our wedding because I would be graduating in 6 months. Ritchie had really wanted to do things "right" and surprise me with a proposal and ring (that was different from my promise ring). I waited ALL night for that proposal. Finally, as we got home I gave up. I figured it was too cliche for him to propose on our anniversary and so, disappointed, I went and changed into my pajamas (even though I had planned the perfect getting engaged outfit - whatever). When I came back into the living room in my PJs, Ritchie was waiting on one knee out by the Christmas tree. He had put the ring on an ornament that belonged to us from our first Christmas together. I honestly can't even tell you what he said because I was so excited but it was very sweet and lovely.

The night we got engaged

Some smooching

I'm going to leave off there. We'll start Part 2 as a newly betrothed couple :)

Insta Friday 2/10

2012-02-09T20:53:00.000-08:00

From top to bottom; left to right:

1. I found this one lovely morning. Max likes to sleep with books and he had torn his beloved airplane book to smithereens.

2. Max is always asking to "do a project wif mommy" and by that he means be given access to candy and frosting and ice cream cones.

3. Ben. Chunker. Drooler. Love.

4. I got a fresh cut and color last weekend. NOTHING feels better than being salon ready all day.

5. Except maybe a dip in the hot tub in February. Our weather has been amazing!

6. Max hanging with Grandma and Grandpa.

7. Lemons. Make lemonade. Oh wait, too much sugar.

8. I watched New Girl on Hulu. Love me some Zooey Deschanel.

9. Almond butter.... *drool*

10. Tried some hairspray guaranteed to hold curls. It made me look like a lion and an hour later my hair was pretty flat. FAIL.

11. Cute new CA map for the boys' room.

12. Ben likes to eat my face.

13. Bennett reached out and grabbed Max's arm. And I fell into a puddle on the floor. I cannot wait to see their relationship develop.

14. Max likes to watch this man play the guitar on You Tube. He wouldn't even watch Flash Mobs with me. Rude.

15. Potty training!

16. Healthy meals are the new norm around here and it feels damn good.

Linking up with Jeanette over at Life Rearranged! It's always fun to see what everyone does with their instagrams! Join us!

Project 365 - 8 days worth and a whole lotta random

2012-02-09T20:22:00.000-08:00

So, I completely fell off the P365 bandwagon this past week, eh?

I'm getting back on tomorrow. Today I'll catch you up with what's been going on here with 8 days (the number of which I'm behind) worth of photos of the boys. No, I didn't take pictures everyday. But, I did take pictures MOST days and the rest I'm just filling in the blanks.

P.S. They still look fuzzy to me on here. WTH?! Does anyone know how to fix this?

Maxton - 8 photos.

Poor kid lacks attention these days as his brother is high maintenance. Like, as soon as I set Ben down he wails. Instantly. I haven't figured out the best way to entertain them both so, for now, Max looks like this far too much.

Except when we escape the house for a play date with friends! Then, he's jumping on things and it becomes obvious that we neglect other parts of him, too. Like making sure his pants fit. Whoops.

Always suspicious, this one.

Both boys are happiest outdoors and THANK THE FREAKING LORD it has been warm and sunny most days AND we have a glorious large front yard in which to play.

We're in the throws of potty training. Off and on. He HATES underwear, though. Like, LOATHES it. He cries when I even talk about it. He got chocolate for putting these on just so I could take a picture of him. I never said I was above bribery.

And, oh, the potty training stories I could tell. I think that should be its own post, because it's just too much to share here. I'll work on that, okay? You will laugh, I promise.

A favorite lately has been play dough. He likes to make animal cut outs with his cookie cutters and spaghetti with the... press? I think that's what I'd call it. Anyway, good times here with the play dough.

This is him rifling through the play dough box. He is SUCH a serious kid. I love that about him. He's so much like his daddy.

This last one is another one just like daddy (or, as my good friend Kim pointed out, just like daddy AND mommy) because we are a family that likes our laptops. I guess that's what happens when Daddy works for Apple computer. Oh, and it's sort of cheating because it's Instagram.

Bennett - 8 Days

Bumbo and playmat time seems to work momentarily.

He's been mastering grabbing things. Like, my heart. Awww...

Check out the drool. His other skill. Grabbing and drooling. And NOT sleeping. Those are Ben's favorites.

However, bath time has become enjoyable for all once again! Ben HATED bath with a passion for awhile there but he's slowly warmed to it and now he'll happily splash and play. And, if you're in the tub without him? Forget it, he's begging you to join.

And, he's super cute so we let him.

See?? How could you not love that face?!

Ahhh... he sleeps. We borrowed this contraption from a friend of a friend in the hopes that it would bring some sleep relief to us. It sort of has. More on Ben and his sleep later in his (late - ugh!) 5 month update.

Peeks! This is what mommy's car pictures look like. 1/2 of a cute lil' face.

Instagram - 8 Days

Grandma and Max playing

A Saturday Project

Oranges fresh off the tree

Just a little reality. This is what I look like. Daily. Smudged make-up (well, this was Monday and so it was weekend make-up. By Thursday (?) I've washed my face enough that I have no make-up at all on), messy hair, shoddy wardrobe choices. Ah, the life of a stay at home mom. It's glamorous, I tell ya.

Have you tried Almond Butter? Because, if not you should. And, you should try it in private because you might have a tiny orgasmn (did I just say that?!)

Ritchie later informed me that I had placed the heart on Modesto instead of San Jose. So, apparently we heart Modesto.

Hand holding. Love it.

Our dinner tonight. 300 Calories. YUM.

So, I vow from here on out to (try my best to) post daily P365s. It's too hard to fall behind if I don't make it routine.

Tomorrow morning the first 3rd decade post will go up!! Hurray!

Project 365 - Day 29, 30, 31 & 32

2012-02-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

I just realized that I'm going to have to do ACTUAL math in order to keep this up because we're out of January. Boo. Math was never a strong suit.

Ah well - forging on.

Day 29:

Max - He's been enjoying the bouncer we brought in for Ben.

Ben - Just a lil' floor time for my favorite baby.

Instagram - FOOD PORN! We made homemade donuts and holy hell. I'm dieting right now (well, really I'm just going to eat better forever - yes. Tis' true) BUT I'm allowing one cheat day a week and believe you me these will be making an appearance time and time again. They're my new favorite donut and that's saying A LOT because I love me some donuts. I like them even better than Krispy Kreme.

Okay, I've officially talked WAY more about the homemade donuts than I did my own children.

Day 30:

Bennett - Oh, the bubbles. I love the constant stream of bubbly goodness that this boy produces.

Maxton - Watching a helicopter with such delight. I'm thinking the 3rd b-day (I know, I know - it's 8 months away) should be airplane/helicopter themed.

Instagram - What a difference from the previous day's breakfast, huh? This is my new life. It's good for me. And that makes me happy.

But, I still love those donuts.

Day 31:

Max - Playing outside. It's January and the kid's in short sleeves. California, baby!

Bennett - I didn't take a pic of Ben that day, so I doubled up today. Here he his, laying in the sun.

Instagram - More food for you. Yummy dinner that was inspired by Pacific Catch. SO delicious and good for you!

Day 32:

Ben - Playing in the exersaucer. OMG, I think he's freaking adorable here.

Max - I didn't take one today so I'm borrowing for another day. Playing with daddy.

Instagram - I love being attacked by my nursing baby.

Happy Wednesday!

Okay, I just previewed this and realized all the photos look fuzzy. That's weird because on my computer (not in blogger) they look great! Crisp and in focus. So... I promise I'm not taking ugly butt fuzzy photos and trying to pass them off on you, okay? I'll try to remedy this issue, but not tonight. I'm taking the lazy route on this one.

Project 365 - Day 26, 27 & 28 + a little Gracie love

2012-01-29T15:26:00.000-08:00

Have you all caught on to the fact that I'm basically doing this every few days now? Every day blogging is quite a commitment! But, I'm loving taking daily photos of the boys. I did miss the 26th, but took a photo of both of them that I'm using to make up for that day. Even if the camera doesn't come out a day or two here or there, I'm thoroughly enjoying making an effort to capture the day-to-day around here and know I'll cherish each of these photos.

Day 26:

Max and Ben - Maxton was interrupting our 5 month photo shoot with Ben and Ben clearly enjoyed the interruption. I love how much these two are interacting these days. It makes my heart happy.

Instagram - I've been slacking with the Instagram photos, too. But, here is our new bedding! We also painted the bedroom a beautiful blue. I love how it's all coming together. We're really settling in to our new place and it's feeling more and more like home.

Day 27:

Bennett - Doing what he does best. Tummy time and drooling.

Maxton - Swinging at the park. I'm pretty happy with this shot and it took a LOT of work to get it ;)

Instagram - Just a little Ben. He was a REALLY bad sleeper the previous night and so I texted Ritchie this photo to try and have them make-up. Ritchie quickly forgave Ben and all was right in the world. How can you stay mad at such a cute face?

Day 28:

Maxton - Eating a donut. Homemade donut. YUM.

Bennett - Boys in Osh Kosh = LOVE.

Instagram - A bit o' food porn coming atchya! This is the kind of food porn you'll be seeing regularly around these parts as my diet starts TOMORROW. (No, seriously. I know I said that last week, but it SERIOUSLY starts tomorrow).

Stay tuned for day 29, which is TODAY! How is it almost February?!

Oh... I almost forgot...

Our poor pup, Gracie never gets included in these things. Here she is - snuggling up with Grandma. Maybe I'll try to take one photo a month of her or something. We'll see.

Project 365 - Day 24 & 25

2012-01-25T21:50:00.000-08:00

Hello, hello! Here are my photos for days 24 and 25:

Day 24:

Bennett - Hanging out with daddy.

Max - Adventures in potty training. He likes to take a peek at what's happening in there while he's doing it. *sigh*

Instagram - Swingin' - he always asks me to "do a big one, push!" haha! Love him.

Day 25:

Max - Snacking on the couch. It's clearly something he takes very seriously.

Ben - Self portrait of us snuggling with him in the Ergo.

Instagram - Ritchie put our new bookshelf together tonight! This was very exciting for me as I've been wanting this bookshelf for a LONG time.

Photo Challenge - Feet

2012-01-24T14:45:00.000-08:00

I'm linking up with Chelsey at Paper Mama for a photo challenge this week!

The challenge was feet! Super convenient because I JUST took a picture of Max's sweet feet that I happen to love!

Feel free to join the party if you have any pictures (or want to take any) of your babe's feet!

Project 365 - Day 21, 22 & 23

2012-01-23T20:35:00.000-08:00

Confession: I took no pictures on Saturday. Whoops. I painted our bedroom. Then we had dinner with friends. We got home late and rushed to get the boys to sleep so pictures took a back burner that day. I made up for it by taking 2 rounds of photos today though. Even if I skip a day there WILL be 365 pictures of the boys.

So... how shall I do this? I guess I'll just show you 2 pictures for today and skip the 21st day.

Day 21:

Instagram - We were running late to dinner AND both boys were melting down. So, I took pictures of myself looking concerned rather than do anything productive. FTW.

Day 22:

Maxton - Out to breakfast. Don't be fooled. He wasn't behaving himself one little bit ;)

Bennett - We put the toy on his car seat finally. Can you tell he likes it?

Instagram - Ben catches a glimpse of the exciting Niners Game.

Day 23:

Max - Playing outside earlier.

Max - Stealing my In-N-Out shake. I tried to tell him it was broccoli. He believed me but was wiling to try it anyway. After taking a sip he exclaimed, "It's a chocolate shake!" I guess I was busted.

Bennett - Basking in the sunlight on our bed this afternoon.

Bennett - Drooling in the sunlight on our bed this afternoon. :)

Instagram - Morning rainbow on my way back from dropping Max off at preschool.

2 Years and 3 Months

2012-01-20T20:50:00.000-08:00

I need to write all of these things about Max before I forget them. Everyday is something new with this one and so much is changing so quickly that I want it burned in my brain how he is right now. The problem is that I'm not sleeping and the days are a blur and I know it will all be forgotten if I don't get it out. Please excuse the random stream of consciousness style while I just get it documented.

Max is still cautious. Oh, so careful. He doesn't like to branch out far from us and has to warm to people slowly, especially other children. Once you're in, he's a dedicated fan for life, but the process can be lengthy.

His favorite color right now is purple. Everything purple he gets really excited about. Purple balls, purple airplanes, purple items in books, purple, purple, purple. I think it's pretty darling that he has an obvious favorite color right now.

The eating situation with Max is horrendous. He's always hanging out in the pantry and asking for food, but doesn't want anything that's offered unless it's ice cream or cake or chocolate covered anything. He'll eat fruit and certain crackers but chicken or veggies is absolutely out of the question. We're working on it.

His thing right now is to put the cars DVD on the floor and run in circles near it. This usually takes place in the living room, but if I go to the kitchen to prep a meal he brings the DVD and places it in front of the fridge and runs in the kitchen. I don't know why that DVD has to be there while he runs in circles, but we're guessing that he's pretending to be lightening McQueen since we hear the occasional "Ka-Chow!" from him.

Cars is his FAVORITE.

Stories are another favorite activity for him but only if he reads them himself. He loves to memorize the books and "sit on my lap mommy" (this means him sitting on our laps) and read them to us.

Still obsessed with airplanes and helicopters. He also loves getting "coffee donuts" for breakfast (Starbucks) and the drive thru one we go to is near the airport so it's dually exciting for him.

He's also loving the cleaning supplies like vacuums and brooms. He get's SO excited about the adult sized ones, but has toy ones that he likes to clean with also.

He's a complete parrot and repeats everything we say. We've let a few "crap"s and other naughty words fly and he's said them. Whoops!

He also says "okay" all the time. Example:

Me: Max, would you like a snack?
Max: OKAY!

Max: Wanna show me something, okay?

Max: Give it to me the milk, okay?

Ahh... two year old sentences might be my favorite.

He also says "I'm so excited" like this:

Max: So excited the blue vacuum!! (while my friend Kim gave him the big blue vacuum to push around)

He still is the sweetest kid I think I've ever met. He's sensitive and smart and loving. He's great for snuggles. As far as two year olds go, I think we have it pretty easy with this one. I cannot wait to watch him grow more.

Ritchieisms Volume 4

2012-01-20T20:21:00.000-08:00

Me: When the boys want to do something, I want to make sure never to tell them they can't.

Ritchie: I'm going to need that put into context.

Me: Like, if Max wasn't very good at Math but wanted to major in it in college we wouldn't say "math isn't really your strength.. maybe you should consider something different"

Ritchie: Oh, no - I would never say that.

Me: Okay, good. I just want to encourage them and remain positive.

Ritchie: I would tell him that Math was a dumb major. Is that allowed?

This is what happens when Ritchie gets ahold of the camera.

Ritchie: You should start a thing on your blog.... "show your butt, Friday."

So, ladies.. what do you think? Show your butt, anyone?

Project 365 - Day 20

2012-01-20T20:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not loving today's photos, but that's probably because I put next to no effort in today. Whoops!! It was a busy day that was over before I knew it so at 5 minutes till bedtime I took a few snapshots just so I wouldn't skip a day.

Max - being silly while changing to his PJs.

Ben - Being silly while changing into his PJs.

Instagram - Bennett rolling away while I'm trying to dress him earlier. He's getting more and more challenging to dress!

4 Months Old

2012-01-20T14:30:00.000-08:00

Well... this is all just going way too fast for me.

Ben at 4 months old. What can I even say about that?

He is FINALLY laughing out loud. But he makes you really work for it.

He was 17 pounds and 10 ounces and 26 1/4 inches long, which just happens to be EXACTLY what his big brother was at 4 months. Silly boys wanting to be the same...

He's working on sitting up, but still falling over regularly. He's drooling like crazy. He's rolling from front to back and back to front.

He is NOT sleeping through the night. I have become a human pacifier. He wants to cuddle and nurse all night long and I know I'm SUPPOSED to say how that's okay because this time will pass and I want to just enjoy every milk cow moment, but honestly? Mama just wants some mother effing sleep. That's all. Just SLEEP kid. I smell Ferber coming.

He smells it, too. He thinks it stinks. Me, too kid - but it's good for us.

Oh, yah and we stinking LOVE him to pieces! We can tell he's got some spunk with his zero to 60 ways and we love that about him. We can't wait to see more and more of that personality come out. His smile still just KILLS me dead with its sincerity and we think he's just the sweetest little guy. Max tells him he's funny all the time, like they have a secret language going on that only they understand. Apparently, he's quite the hoot and Max is going to be very entertained by him.

Love you, Mr. B bear!! Thanks so much for being in our family.

Insta Friday 1/20

2012-01-19T20:58:00.000-08:00

From left to right; top to bottom:

1. We're finally getting organized around here and putting commitments on a calendar!
2. Me with those boys of mine on the flight!
3. A sleeping baby boy.
4. Cheesecake! Nuff' said.
5. Little miss Kira's baby legs.
6. Coveting new baby clothes for my guys.
7. Ben strikes back.
8. A delicious dinner out!
9. Max happy with peanut butter on a spoon. His request.
10. SNOW!!
11. SOPHIE!
12. HUSBAND! (haha - Okay, I know it's getting old)
13. Tea and tummy time.
14. My new watch. Happy birthday to me.
15. BURGERS (I had to do that - those burgers deserve to be shouted about)
16. Ahh, Ben.

Linking up with Jeannette over at Life Rearranged!

Project 365 - Day 18 & 19

2012-01-19T20:39:00.000-08:00

I did take pictures yesterday, but I took a little break from blogging last night for a little QT with Ritchie.

Day 18:

Ben - We enjoyed some outside time practicing his sitting (er...leaning?) skills. That little bugger is almost 5 months, I can't believe it.

Max - Inside. At night. Yuckin' it up all over the place here, but he's still cute so it's okay.

Instagram - My favorite mug ever (I believe it's already made an appearance here?) and little B enjoying some "tee time" as Max calls it.

Day 19:

Max - Sitting outside. I love his shoes :)

Ben - Enjoying his bouncer outside for a bit. Look at those lips!!

Instagram - Pining away at cute little boy clothes. Who said dressing boys isn't as fun as dressing girls? I would have to disagree...

Conquer the Fear

2012-01-17T22:49:00.000-08:00

Well, I did it! I conquered my fear of flying. It was amazing. It's so cheesy, but I really feel like I can do anything now! Like, facing this was the key that unlocked this whole world of possibility for my family and me.

Max watching the planes before we left. This kid was in heaven!

I was SUPER nervous the few days leading up to the flight and then once I was at the airport I felt like I couldn't even feel my legs. I barely ate breakfast and I felt sick to my stomach. The whole way down the isle to our seats I was taking deep breaths and trying to convince myself that this was something I could do. When we got to our seats and settled in I was immediately calm. For whatever reason the fear vanished right then and there. I was excited, even. I knew I would do it and I knew that was the end of that fear. It was liberating. There were some definite moments here and there where I had to close my eyes and focus on breathing but overall it was just peaceful and freeing.

On the flight.

The boys were SO good. Ben slept the whole time in Ritchie's arms and Max stayed in his seat willingly. It wasn't that way on the way back, but it certainly made for a wonderful trip there.

Mid flight. See?? No problem!

And THEN we got to party it up with our amazing friends in Washington!

Ben and Kira meet. Instant friendship was formed :)

Cute lil' Quinn.

Max and Quinn eating dinner. These two are an interesting combo with almost opposite personalities, which actually made them get along really well!

Quinn being all sweet after his nap one day.

Oh, and meeting Kira...

We got our sweet baby girl fix and now we're hooked. Ritchie needs a daughter. We LOVE our boys but he and Kira had an instant kinship and it was beyond darling. She is pure sweetness and we can't wait to watch her grow.

The second day we were there it snowed. Now, I don't live where it snows, so maybe it would lose it's magic after some years of living there, but I don't see how. Snow is just... breathtaking. I love it. I love how it crunches under cute boots, how it clings to little button noses, how it drapes over homes and cars and trees. And watching Max experience the snow? Pure magic.

My fabulous friend, Kim. Love her!

Do you get the picture? We. Freaking. Love. Snow. Okay?

Ben slept through it all. While somewhat bummed, part of me what just glad he was finally freaking sleeping. But, that's a whole other blog post.

After the snow - hot chocolate!

The next day we took the kids snow tubing. While, Max enjoyed the snow, he did not enjoy flinging himself down it on a huge, inflatable tube.

Ahh, my sweet, sensitive boy.

Quinn, on the other hand, loved it!

Kim and I hung with the babies and watched. I went down once and then met up with everyone at the lodge for more hot cocoa!

Overall, it was an awesome day trip.

The trip was just so, so, SO wonderful. I love the Gillettes as if they were our own family and I'm relieved that we get to spend more time with then now that I can get there by plane. Look out, Gillettes!! We may wear out our welcome ;)

Project 365 - Day 17

2012-01-17T22:12:00.000-08:00

Yikes! I'm getting into the bad habit of waiting until night time to take some photos. However, I've decided to let go a bit. I'm 17 days in and haven't skipped once. I'm not going to have AMAZING photos 365 days of the year. Just documenting their lives each day is a major accomplishment and if I improve my photography or editing along the way that's a bonus in my mind. It feels good to let myself off the hook a bit.

Ben - His first stab at solids! This was a pear shoved into a mesh feeder. He rather enjoyed it, but Max insisted on helping feed him, so I'm not sure how much he actually got in there :)

Max - We worked on potty training today so he was naked on bottom all morning. I told him if he peed in the potty he would get chocolate. He seemed to like that idea, but peed on the floor instead. Whoops. Potty training fail.

Instagram - Since returning home from our trip we hadn't shopped yet so he had peanut butter on a spoon for breakfast. He was pretty happy about it.

Project 365 - Day 16

2012-01-16T21:35:00.000-08:00

Yay! I pulled it out at the last second. Bath and bedtime photos coming up!

Ben- Playing with daddy and Max before jammies.

Max - In the tub with his monsters on the ledge. He loves his new bath time monsters!

Instagram - Once the kids go to bed, it's ME time. Tonight it was cheesecake and some life planning with Ritchie. One of the "life plans" was to quit eating crap like cheesecake.

Project 365 - Day 12, 13, 14 & 15

2012-01-16T17:35:00.000-08:00

I have some catching up to do - but I DID make an effort to get pictures with the kids and with Instagram every day while on vacation. The crap part is I have yet to do any today. Whoops!! I'll catch this up and have to bust out the camera tonight!

Day 12:

Max - Watching airplanes before our trip to WA.

Ben - Lounging around on the Gillette's pretty rug :)

Instagram - The boys bonded on the plane with some Cars action.

Day 13:

Bennett - Laughing at the hilarious Quinn.

Maxton - Doing a very political looking wave at Country Village.

Instagram - Haha. This was the only pic I got on the phone that day. Ben was making me feel a bit crazy.

Day 14:

Ben - Trying on Max's rain boots.

Max - His first time seeing snow. He loved it and it was magic.

Instagram - I cannot get enough Babylegs. These are Miss Kira's. She is the sweetest!

Day 15:

Maxton - While he loved the snow, he did not love tubing in it.

Bennett - His first romp in the snow (he was asleep the day before and missed it!)

Instagram - On our car ride home. The snow makes it EASY to take amazing photos because everything instantly becomes beautiful.

I have to find a way to get motivated to keep going today despite being exhausted and wishing there was still snow around. Good ol' San Jose is just plain sunny. What a funny thing to complain about! Ha!

Liebster Blog Award

2012-01-16T14:23:00.000-08:00

A BIG thanks to Melodee at Polkadot Notebook for giving me the Liebster Blog Award!

I feel so honored that she is enjoying this little ol' blog so much!

This award is given to bloggers with less than 200 followers, in the hopes that it will bring many new friends/followers.
Leibster is German and means 'dearest' or 'beloved but it can also mean 'favorite'. The idea of the Leibster award is to bring attention to blogs with less than 200 followers. So, in the spirit of good fun I am passing this award on to five other bloggers. Please stop by and visit them.

The Rules are:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

2. Reveal your five picks for the award and let them know.

3. Post the award on your blog.

4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the blogshare-other bloggers.

5. Finally and the best rule of all..........have fun and spread the love!

The five blogs that I'm spreading the award to are:

1. Texas Lovebirds

2. Polkadot Notebook

3. Momma B & Baby Boy

4. Bonzo, Chooch and Me

5. Whimsy Lane

Be sure to check them out! And, thanks Melodee! I'm honored :)

Saying Goodbye to my Twenties

2012-01-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

Today, I bid my twenties farewell. I'm welcoming my thirties with open arms and am excited about this decade to come. It's gonna be a good one, I can feel it.

For now, I want to tell you about today. And... tomorrow.

But, first, today.

Today was so... peaceful. And with two kids ages two and under that's saying a lot. Max was in preschool this morning so it was just Ben and me to run a few errands and meet Ritchie for lunch at my favorite burger joint - The Counter.

Ritchie enjoying his burger.

There were pictures where Ben was, you know, actually looking at the camera, but I had a double chin in all of them. And, on my birthday, I win. I get to look good in photos.

The three of us today for lunch. Ben never gets this! It was a special treat for us all.

After lunch, we went to get Max and played outside a little bit. I practiced using my remote with the camera for a self portrait of me in all my 30 year glory.

That's the best I could get. As in, it's in focus at least. Yeah... I need some practice with the remote :)

There were two painful hours after nap while we waited for Ritchie to come home where both boys were totally cranky. But, we survived. We always do.

Ritchie and I dropped the boys off with my (brave) dad and headed out to dinner ALONE. Sweet Jesus, nothing is better than that right now. We went to our favorite little Italian place - Al Castello.

And Ritchie got me the watch I've had my eye on for months now.

It was a lovely evening and I'm so thankful that my dad watched the boys. I guess Ben screamed the entire time so I'm VERY grateful that he was willing to suffer so we could have an uninterrupted meal on my birthday.

We came home, put the boys to bed and finished packing for our big trip tomorrow. We leave in the morning to go to Washington to visit one of my best friends and finally meet her baby girl who is Ben's age. She also has a son Max's age so it's sure to be a fun-filled, rowdy weekend.

The reason for this trip is two-fold, however. One is of course to visit our friends and enjoy our time with them. But, the other is to have me face a fear that I've dealt with for 4 years now. The fear of flying.

I'm not sure why this fear came about, but it did, and suddenly. We ended up NOT going on a very anticipated trip to New York City because I couldn't even get to my seat on the plane without a major panic attack.

I've since forgiven myself and realized that this is a common fear so I don't suffer alone. But, the reality remains that I want to travel. I want to go t Europe someday. I want to take my kids of a tour of the East Coast. I want to take that NYC trip. I want to visit my friend in Washington without making a 14 hour drive. So, this means I WANT to conquer this fear and I could think of no better time than my 30th birthday. It's a milestone one and it's TIME. It's time to rid myself of this anxiety.

Wish me luck. I'll let you all know how it went. I'm taking a 5 day hiatus from blogging to enjoy my trip, but I will continue to take pictures of the boys every day and post one big post of 5 days worth of photos upon my return.

Happy weekending!

Project 365 - Day 11

2012-01-11T14:11:00.000-08:00

Today I'm playing with a 50m 1.4 lens (instead of my trusty 1.8) and let me tell you - I'm LOVING every minute of it. I may as well kiss the $400 goodbye now, because this lens will soon be mine.

Onward.

Bennett - Special trip out to lunch with just mommy and daddy today!

Maxton - Well, you see, he's 2. So, this is what he looks like about 85% of the time. Just keeping' it real today.

Instagram - Mmm.. burgers... fries....

Ritchieisms Volume 3

2012-01-10T22:27:00.000-08:00

Me: Am I going to be disappointed tomorrow on my birthday?
Ritchie: It's like I tell many women... if you adjust your expectations you'll never be disappointed.
Me: So, basically... yes.
Ritchie: I think you should not get your hopes up and look at my track record.
Me: I'm going to blog about you.
Ritchie: You should. I'm sure there are 27 other women (the number of followers I have) who will totally understand what you're going through.

He sounds like an ass, but really I was laughing the entire time. Happy birthday to me (tomorrow!)

Project 365 - Day 10

2012-01-10T20:52:00.000-08:00

Somebody today brought up that Project 365 is actually 366 this year because of leap year! She wanted to know what that meant... would participants skip a day or just make it 366 days?

I'm not sure yet.... it might be the perfect "out" if I miss a day, but if I'm on a roll, why skip a day? I guess I'll let you know at the end of the year. But, I'm going to call it P365 still because 366 doesn't sound as catchy to me. It's the important things, you know.

Bennett - Sporting his Apple shirt. Represent.

Max - Tippy toes while washing his hands. This makes me smile.

Instagram - Brothers. Outside. One of them half naked. In January. Sometimes I really like where I live.

The Second Decade Part 3

2012-01-10T15:08:00.000-08:00

And so I began college. I didn't know it then, but I was about to enter THE BEST 5 years of my life. College was so much freaking fun. Okay, but let me start at the beginning because I only have 2 years left in this decade. Those first two years of college were FULL of fun and of course (because it was me) some awesome boy drama. Good times.

Let's start with the day I got dropped off at college. I think just my dad took me? I can't remember honestly. All I really remember of that day was standing in line to take my ID picture and meeting my roommate for the first time. She was from southern California and was small, cute and spunky. We had spoken on the phone and were so excited to be there. She had her boyfriend from home move up with her and he was renting a garage apartment closer to downtown Monterey. But, I was thrilled that she still wanted to hang out and form a friendship. The last thing I remember about my very FIRST night of college was that my roommate and I were sitting there talking and unpacking and all of the sudden we heard a pounding on the window (we were on the first floor). We looked but didn't see anything so we went outside. There was BARF all over our window and it was clear that it had come from upstairs. So, we went upstairs to see what was going on and to demand that they clean off our window! The door was propped open and we went right in after announcing ourselves. We found a very drunk, NAKED guy draped over his toilet. Welcome to college, folks. We left immediately and the next day he and his roommate came down to clean our window and apologize. I ended up spending lots of time with the drunk naked boy because I later dated his roommate. But we'll get there a bit later...

Me and my roommate

You see, when we left off, I still had the jerk boyfriend from home. That's right. I kept him around despite moving an hour away for college. He wasn't going to college (or maybe he tried community college for a semester?). Anyway I remember driving home to see him in the first week and also having to use a pay phone to call him while I waited for my phone to be set up in my dorm room. Ahh... the time before cell phones. Anyway, he's still in the picture. I go home regularly to see him and he doesn't come to visit all that often, that's all on him... for now.

My dad got married in September right after I started college and this was with my cousin at the rehearsal.

Classes started and I had a class called Art History (I think?). Anyway, I met a girl in that class who quickly became my amazingly wonderful best friend. We were, like, instantly inseparable. We ate all meals together and got ourselves into some serious credit card debt with shopping trips. We watched TV together at night and studied together when we absolutely had to. It was just carefree, easy and fun. We never had any drama. We had a larger group of friends, but it was the two of us that were definitely closest.

That's me and my bestest!

Somewhere in the mix, I began having serious trouble with mah man. We had always had troubles but I just started to be fed up of them. Plus, the super cute guy (the roommate and best friend of the infamous barfer?) upstairs was showing some definite interest in me and I wanted to pursue him. I was still too nervous to be without someone. It took me a long time to realize that I didn't need a boyfriend. I guess I could go into the physiological reasons I believe this to be the case, but it doesn't matter. I figured it out eventually. But not then. Not at 19. So, in the Spring of my Freshman year of college I got rid of the jerk and started dating the upstairs neighbor. That was fun and really added to my college experience because it kept me around to actually experience it. I stayed on campus more and attended parties and really had the whole college life thing going.

In the Spring my friends and I went to Disneyland. That was the most fun I had ever had in my life! It was just non-stop laughter the entire time. We would also have surprise birthday parties and holiday gift exchanges. One friend and I took a trip to San Luis Obispo to visit a guy I went to high school with and attended a fraternity party (my first and last). It was just overall great times with friends. It was so... free. I literally didn't have a care in the world.

At Disneyland. We ran into Matt from the Real World New Orleans and we were ELATED.

I worked at Starbucks for about 3 weeks. Waking up at 3 am does not suit me.

Classes kept me busy, but weren't overly challenging except my english class where my AMAZING teacher pushed me to actually be better. She and I developed a wonderful relationship and would get together outside of class for coffee or lunch and talk about so many things. She was a mentor of sorts and I so enjoyed our time together. My other classes were honestly ridiculously easy and I even got an A in a class that I never ONCE attended (Wake-Up Workout. Yeah, that SO wasn't going to happen. But, hey - I'll take the A? Still don't know how I managed that one).

I also started teaching dance at a local Junior High's after school program. I loved every minute of it and eventually held little auditions and started up a small team there. They were all super cute, wonderful girls and I always looked forward to being with them. I liked knowing that I might have been having a small impact on their junior high years, which as we remember, we tough for me. Maybe I was able to help one of them get some enjoyment out of middle school.

This is me with my dance team girls.

It was close to summer and the upstairs neighbor boy and I were still having a great time together. We'd attend parties and spend time together on a daily basis. It was very interesting to be dating someone that lived right above you. I inevitably saw him every day because my best friend lived right across the hall, but I don't remember him begin the focus so much. I more remember my time with my friends. However, I DO remember that a few weeks before summer vacation my boyfriend took me to the Otter Cafe (haha - the semi-nicer-than-the-cafeteria eating spot). There was live entertainment that evening and he grabbed the microphone and serenaded me (um... can't even remember what song is was because of what happened next). He even brought over a rose to me in his teeth and everything. And JUST when I was thinking how sweet he was, he sat down and got all serious with me and reminded me that I couldn't possibly expect him to remain faithful to me while we were apart that summer. Ugh. Needless to say, I left without looking back. Well... okay I did look back later - but I made him suffer a bit first.

So, I went home for summer break without a boyfriend (but we did agree to remain friends) and with no home friends from high school. I went to Sacramento a lot because my best friend from college lived there. We had amazing fun that summer going to concerts and doing more shopping and doing a lot of driving around while listening to music. I really couldn't have asked for a better friend and I always felt SO lucky to have her.

Eating SUSHI! One of our favs.

When I wasn't visiting Sacramento, I was working at a pool teaching swim lessons and life guarding. That's where I met two very close friends of mine. Kirstie and Rebecca have been in my life for 10-11 years and through distance and time apart I've remained such great friends with both of them!

I only could find a picture with one of them from those days. This is Kirstie - still one of my best friends!

I'm not sure how to explain the complexity of the whole boy/dating situation in my life that summer. The details are also fuzzy to me but at any given point I was either single, or with my ex boyfriend from high school (the jerk) or the ex boyfriend from college with a brief encounter with a third guy who left to go to the army. I guess I should just say, it was a fun summer full of drama. But I did end up back with my ex boyfriend from high school and started the Fall going back to Monterey but still with him. Although this time I set some boundaries and expectations. One of them was that he was to come visit me more and I would leave campus a lot less. I just had way too much fun with my friends not to be with them.

So, I started my Sophomore year of college living in a dorm with my best friend. Our large group of friends had dwindled down to just 3 of us (mostly due to people transferring to different schools) and we spent a ton of time together. My boyfriend would pop in and out and I remained friendly with the upstairs neighbor guy, too. I wasn't thrilled in my relationship by any means, but still couldn't bear the thought of having no one.

My trio.

I'm not sure why this happened but in November I had a total freak out. I started to play out my future and saw myself moving from dorm to apartment with my friends and then getting a job after graduation and then marriage and all that jazz and basically I realized that if I kept at this pace I would never live with my mommy ever again. SO LAME, right? But, I freaked about it and decided I needed to move home. I told myself that I wanted to change majors and that Monterey State didn't have my major (which was true) and so I needed to live at home and go to San Jose State. So, in January, I packed up with promises to visit my friends regularly and moved back home.

My mom and me. We are so close still.

I wasn't accepted to SJSU right away because Monterey's system is much different that SJSU's was at the time. I needed one year of community college first to finish off my general ed courses. So, I started at San Jose City College. I took general ed, but also took some drama courses and was in a few performances (including the making of a movie!). It was there that I met yet another young man. He gave me the boost I needed to break up with my boyfriend once and for all. Of course, that relationship didn't last very long. He was fun and nice and all, but a tad on the overly emotional side. Being the emotional soul that I am, I seriously can't be with a drama king. Plus, I hadn't been really single since... um, 14? And now I'm 20. That's a long time to not be single. Who was I? So, I decided to stop this relationship business and get down to getting to know me. I broke it off and was determined to remain single for awhile.

A picture from one of the shows I was in.

There's where we'll leave off. I probably won't get the last decade to you all before I turn 30 (because that's TOMORROW!) but it will be worth it because it's basically my love story with Ritchie - and that is a good one :)

Project 365 - Day 9

2012-01-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

Well I almost didn't get to post today (gasp!) because of a power outage. Luckily PG&E got their act together in time :)

Max - Eating cake with some very rosy cheeks. He's OBSESSED with cake, so this photo was really more to capture a memory of the time my boy wanted nothing but cake.

Ben - Mr. Smiles.

Instagram - My dear friend gave me this mug today and I'm already a tad obsessed with it. Thanks, Rebecca!! I love it!

Project 365 - Day 8

2012-01-08T22:06:00.000-08:00

Day 8! A difficult day for me. I've been feeling uninspired. Just like we've been trapped indoors, bad lighting, blah blah. Excuses, excuses. I'm going to get us outdoors and set some fun photo stuff up this week. Plus, traveling this week will give me some new inspiration, I'm hoping!

Bennett - I love his hat! Dig This Chick made it - LOVE HER! We have several of her pieces for the boys and they're among my favs.

Maxton - I love this photo. It's most likely far from perfect in the photo "rules" sense, but just look closely. He's on his tip toes giving his dad the ol' one-eye to make sure he's not helping him to push the monstrosity that is our double stroller. I just love all of it. It's SO Max, right now - at two. Yet another reason I'm doing this!

Instagram - I only took 1 today! So, here it is :) Max having a meltdown at breakfast this morning. But, hey! Look at that lighting - haha!

Tomorrow is Monday and this is my birthday week!! I've only got 2 days left of my twenties. Madness!

Project 365 - Day 7

2012-01-07T20:45:00.000-08:00

A solid week and I haven't missed a day! Don't worry - I'm not getting cocky yet, I know there's still 51 weeks left of this project. But, a week solid is a great start, I'd say!

Ben - Snuggling with daddy.

Max - Testing out his new hat for a certain cold place we'll soon be visiting :)

Instagram - Cupcakes!

Project 365 - Day 6

2012-01-06T20:30:00.000-08:00

Today was all backwards because I got a photo I really love of Max and NOTHING of Ben. So, I cheated (sort of?) and did one of Ben with his big brother in it with him. Still counts, I think!

Max - We had a great time playing with blocks this morning!

Ben - and big brother playing

Instagram - More block fun!

Thanks for reading! Anybody have anything fun planned this weekend?

Insta Friday 1/6

2012-01-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't done one of these in a month! Oh well... here are the goodies from this week!

From left to right: top to bottom:

1. Boys playing at the park
2. New glasses!
3. Some gorgeous sunlight streaming into the car.
4. Ben and his momma
5. Max playing soccer
6. Bumbo fun
7. Max playing with trains
8. Me and my man
9. Baby jeans - so cute!
10. Cutie little B in some tummy time
11. Don't see those around very often!
12. Gracie girl
13. Ben and mommy goof off
14. Max and mommy goof off
15. Diet coke - drink of champions
16. Loving the glasses some more :)

Hope you all had a great week! I'm linking up with Jeaneatte over at Life Rearranged!

Project 365 - Day 5

2012-01-05T20:47:00.000-08:00

This is getting SO much harder! Well, let me say that Ben is easy peasy to photograph. He doesn't move much...yet. Max, on the other hand is SO SO hard! He's on the run or telling me "No camera, mommy!" while I chase him around desperate to capture SOMETHING. Ugh. I did the very best I could today given the circumstances.

Max - eating chips. I had to keep telling him to BACK UP. Hopefully the edit masks some of the craptasticness that is this photo. Or... does it make it worse?

Ben - Ahh... my shining photo star. Give him a few months and he'll be impossible, too.

Instagram - Love me a double chin.

Project 365 - Day 4

2012-01-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

Today was a challenge because I worked with zero natural light. It's good to challenge yourself, right? These were quick snaps and edits, too so I know there's LOTS of room for improvement (as always)

Mr. B waiting for his shots at the Dr's office.

It was after 7pm before I remembered to take a picture of Max today and he was being far less than inspiring so here is his shirt. Target, baby!

This was needed today. Actually, who am I kidding? It's needed everyday. Hooked up to my veins.

The Second Decade Part 2

2012-01-04T20:55:00.000-08:00

As I head towards my 30th birthday I've decided to look back and recall the major events of each decade of my life. I've chosen to break the second decade into 3 parts, as each part is significant and vastly different. You can read about the first decade here and the second decade part one here.

Honestly, now that I sit down to write about high school I just don't know where to begin. The combination of simplicity and complexity that is high school sort of overwhelms me. It's SO simple. Yet, there was SO much about high school that I could go into. Hmm... we'll see where this post takes me.

Freshman Year:

So I left off being madly in love (again) at my eighth grade graduation dance. The summer going into high school just solidified my budding romance with who I now refer to as my high school love. Freshman year is a blur to me. It was ALL about him. I played basketball on the JV team (although I was really terrible). I ultimately decided to go out for Cheerleading and made the Varsity team even though I was going to be a sophomore. I was on Varsity with several other sophomore friends and this is basically all I remember about my freshman year.

Cutting the tree down existed even then!

Sophomore year:

Same boyfriend. I'm a cheerleader and loving it! I've made friends with a few girls from the dance team and so I have much more of a social life outside of my boyfriend this year.

Let me interject here and take note that I almost never mention my parents or home during these years. The reason for that is that the natural shift in influence from home to school peers had taken place and I was very absorbed in my boyfriend/friend relationships and therefore that's what I remember most. I will add that home life had improved much over the past two years since the 8th grade. My grades in high school were decent, with the exception of math. I never put my full effort into school (I have always been more of a social butterfly than a studious person) but I got by just fine. My relationship with my parents was good. They liked my boyfriend and he was included in ALL household activities. They also approved of my friends and my activity choices. My brother and I weren't that close because the six year age gap made this time for our relationship challenging as we shared a room and I was 16 and he was 10 - which means he annoyed the crap out of me and showed my bra to his friends.

Okay, home life - check!

Back to the good stuff. My sophomore year was really fun. I loved my core group of friends. We spent a ton of time together doing regular things. Shopping, football games (duh, we were cheerleaders), sleepovers and school dances all involved all of us together all the time. I LOVED it. And I loved being involved in cheerleading. Ultimately there was a lot of drama revolving around the cheer team (when isn't there?) and so I decided to try out for Dance team in the spring. I had a good girlfriend who was on the team and so that was a smooth transition as well. I kept my group of cheerleading friends (who now no longer did cheer either - although I honestly can't tell you why. I don't remember the drama... something about not having a coach?) and I still had the same boyfriend. We definitely had lots of drama. I couldn't even begin to tell you over what though. High school stuff I guess. I know I was VERY jealous of a certain mutual friend that we had and (because of my previous relationship with the guy who used drugs) I forbid drinking and drug use of any kind. But, we were in high school and he would want to experiment (mostly with drinking) time and again so he would lie to me about it and we would talk all night crying and break up only to decide two days later that we simply couldn't live without each other. This happened several times, but we were STILL going strong two years in.

Studying hard :) Note the extremely old computer

Cheer camp

My good cheerleading friends

My sweet 16 party was a boy/girl party! Haha! It was daylight and my dad was there the whole time and it was lame (but fun!!) I just wanted to do the classic "have a boy/girl party on my sweet 16"

Junior year:

I'm now on the dance team which was a huge time commitment. I loved every minute of being on dance team. My coach was my idol. I loved the friends I had. I lived for competitions and practice. It was seriously my life. I had my other friends still from cheerleading, but we eventually ended up drifting apart slightly because I spent most of my time with the people in dance team or my boyfriend. Junior year definitely had some drama.

I have very few regrets in my life, but one of the few I have is something I did in my junior year of high school. My boyfriend had a close friend who was dating a close friend of mine. Now, this is a LONG freaking story with far too many details to share with you all in one blog, but basically I kissed my boyfriend's friend (a few times). That's all that happened but it spiraled an insane turn of events that still make me sick to think about. My boyfriend found out, but decided with us that it was best not to tell anyone - including this guy's girlfriend (one of my closest friends). He felt too guilty to keep their relationship going though and broke it off. So, now I have my boyfriend (who's not sure he wants to be with me and has lost his best friend) and this other guy (who I would have broken up with my boyfriend in a heartbeat for, but he totally regrets what happened and really wants nothing to do with me) and my friend, who is clueless and coming to me over her heartbreak. From her boyfriend breaking up with her. Because of me. Ugh. It was a complete mess. To make matters worse she seriously was the nicest, most sincere person I had ever met. She was nothing to me but a true friend and I hurt her very badly and covered it up. She did eventually find out and I still haven't spoken with her since. To this day I would like to apologize and maybe it doesn't mean anything to her anymore, but she didn't deserve that from me or anyone.

Okay, so there's the bulk of the Junior year drama. My relationship was steadily unraveling and we were grasping at the threads, trying to keep it together. He cheated on me (I think it was that year? I'm pretty sure it was before I even cheated on him. We were, like SUPER together). The point is, we kept trying to make something work that just didn't.

It was a fantastic year otherwise because I went to Florida with my dance team and had a blast at Junior Prom and just enjoyed all of the typical high school shenanigans.

I'm not even sure where to begin on the kind of fun that was had on the Drill team. Maybe this picture can start to explain... Yes, it does say "This would be so much better if I were naked Spur". We were the Golden Spurs and that was my nickname.

Clearly my bro and I wanted to take pictures with my dad.

More dance team fun.

Florida Disneyworld!

Junior Prom

A group of dance team friends at the prom

I've always enjoyed eating.

Winter Formal my Junior year

Senior Year:

I remember starting senior year in a really good place. Still with the boyfriend (despite the never ending problems at this point) and still had great friends. I was still on the dance team and really enjoying that.

I want to say that the shit hit the fan in October? I can't honestly remember, but it was before winter formal. Also, before Spirit Week... does anyone remember what month that happens in? Because, yes. That's when my senior year took a dump. All over me.

My boyfriend (seemingly out of nowhere because things had actually been going fine!) broke up with me. This wasn't the same get-back-together-in-two-days sort of deal we had been doing for 3 years. This was serious. We had been recently talking about moving in together and going to San Jose State and we were about 5 minutes away from marriage when all of this went down. I remember I had already applied to SJSU and now needed to quickly apply to other schools because the new goal was to NOT go where he would be. I was completely devastated. I think we had 3 classes together or something (out of 5 - ugh, torture) and I worked in the guidance counselor's office and she helped me to miss most of them for a good week or two. I couldn't stop crying. I have a vivid memory of my mother bringing me soup and spoon feeding me because I hadn't eaten in two or three days. My heart was completely broken. And, he seemed fine. Just so glad to be rid of me. I know there was animosity from my cheating on him and him wanting to be more like others and party and drink without me nagging him about it. But, later I did learn that he had found someone else and had moved on prior to even breaking it off, so I think that's what made the breakup really stick.

In any case. It's October and I'm single and also lost a huge network of friends that I learned were basically just friends with me because I was dating him. Awesome. Oh, and my friend found out that I had kissed her boyfriend the previous year and hated me. Which meant the other friends I had that were mutual were pretty much gone, too. I clung tight to my dance team friends and they pretty much saved my life until that spring.

But, back up a sec. Because before I can tell you that story I have to tell you that I got a new boyfriend QUICKLY after my other relationship ended. I was SO used to being involved at that point that I didn't know how to be without a boyfriend. I was four months shy of 18 and hadn't been single since I was 14. I didn't even know who I was without someone else. So, what does any level headed 17 year old girl do in that situation? Why, she finds herself a new man, and quickly that's what. Oh, and to top it all off she makes sure he is a HUGE a-hole. Yup, that sounds about right.

So, I'm with a-hole and it's spring. We've been dating since October-ish and are going strong. I'm in L.O.V.E. BIG TIME. This guy was a definite a-hole, but drop dead gorgeous as well. I seriously couldn't resist him. Plus, I didn't want to be single again (God, forbid!) so I stuck it out and made him my world. Now, remember the fabulous dance team friends I mentioned? Well one in particular had been a very good friend of mine since freshman year. We had had many fights and were somewhat off again on again but during this year were definitely great friends. Anyway, my a-hole made some remark to her about her boyfriend that was racist (the kind of thing that this guy found hilarious and I did not. I'm so not proud to have been with someone like this and do not believe that racist comments are acceptable at ANY time. Just thought I should make that VERY clear before I continue) and I didn't believe her (although now, I totally know it was true). I was angry that she would hold me accountable for something my boyfriend said (since I hadn't said it and had no control over what he said) and she was angry with me for not being mad at him for saying it. At least this is how I remember it going down. Anyway, words were exchanged and in the middle of a dance team practice she ended up jumping on my back as an attack. I wasn't injured, but I was PISSED. I tried to get her removed from Prom, but I had slapped my ex boyfriend for dating a dance team mate a few days prior (see? the whole year was just awful!) and had gotten off easy for that so my request was dismissed.

So, now I have a few acquaintances left and this boyfriend. Who is, remember, a total a-hole. We went to prom and not only did, like, 3 other people have my exact dress but my lovely boyfriend ignored me to play poker all night long. Oh, and to top off that glorious event some chick I didn't even know tried to kiss my boyfriend on the bus ride home (we all had to take a bus because the Prom was on a boat in San Francisco - which also made it winning because there was no escaping the damn thing).

So, there you have it. I graduated high school with no close friends and a winner of a boyfriend. I didn't participate in ANY of the graduation celebrations (grad night, senior trip - none of it!) and cried during graduation. I remember my mom saying how sweet it was that I was emotional about graduating when I was really crying because my jerk boyfriend had done something to upset me. I can't even remember what but I knew I wanted to walk away from High School and never look back.

A few weeks prior to the end of school (after all of this went down) I walked into my guidance counselor's office with the names of the 3 colleges I had been accepted to and asked if any of them had ZERO students from my HS attending. Luckily, one of them did. And, that is how I decided to go to Cal State University of Monterey Bay.

To be continued...

This girl and I had some fun times together

Senior lawn!

Winter Formal Senior year

The Dance Team crew on formal night

Prom (ugh, night from Hell!)

Graduation

I have one week before my 30th birthday so I need to hurry and get through the next couple of posts!! Be on the lookout for posting madness!

Project 365 - Day 3

2012-01-03T22:42:00.000-08:00

Yay! I actually managed to take photos today! And edit them! Although I'm 3 days in and already DYING to learn more about editing. I did discover that I can get some pretty awesome lighting in my house if I open the shutters all the way. These are just some around the house pics. There will be PLENTY of these during the week and most of the winter.

Ben - Bumbo time with his baby legs. I love me some baby legs.

Max - Trying to squeeze his cute butt into the bumbo

Instagram - Gracie sun bathing.

Project 365 - Day 2

2012-01-02T14:52:00.000-08:00

Look at me, all on top of things. Haha - Ritchie is still home so that might have a lil' something to do with it. We'll see how this goes once it's just me at home with the two ~~monsters~~ boys.

Today we went to Rancho San Antonio which made for some beautiful photography conditions. Plus, it was super fun. There is a hill where people fly huge remote airplanes and Max was in heaven. He LOVES airplanes and helicopters and anything that flies. We're already pricing out the big ones to see how much money we're going to have to spend on this stuff as he gets older and more capable of handling the larger ones.

Day 2:

Bennett - Gazing at the airplanes.

Maxton - Itching to get his hands on the planes on the ground. "Wanna hold it?" He asks. No, buddy - but someday!

Instagram - Don't see these around all that often!

And that concludes day 2.

Project 365 - 2012

2012-01-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

I'm going to take on something BIG this year. I've always longed to be better about taking pictures of the boys; be more savvy with the camera and editing. I hear time and time again that the single best way to do this is to just TAKE MORE PICTURES. Take them everyday. Play around with your editing program - really get to know it. So, this year is THE year. I'm doing project 365 by my own rules. My subjects will be my family. My children mostly. I am committing to take at least one photo of both Max and Ben each day. I'm also going to edit that photo unless it happens to be so fan-freaking-tastic straight off the camera that it doesn't need editing. I can't imagine a better time in our lives to do this. The boys are growing and changing each and every day. It makes me giddy to think that in one year I'll look back and be able to witness a daily development in each of my boys. So, as if that's not big enough a challenge (and joy) in and of itself, I'm also going to commit to one instagram photo. I'm going this for two reasons. 1. I'm obsessed. LOVE me some instagram. And, 2. This broadens the scope a bit for me. If I love a coffee cup, I can photograph it and include it in my project - it doesn't have to be a photo of the boys.

So here it is! Day 1.

Max - playing in his jammies.

Ben - THIS is why I'm doing this. I see beauty so much in the everyday and want to get better at capturing it. This was a precious nugget of a moment between Ben and his daddy this morning. So SO glad I got this.

Instagram - Ben's jeans label. Nothing cuter than baby jeans. NOTHING. Well, except maybe the babies that wear them.

And, dudes - keep me accountable for this, mkay? I REALLY want to do this so if you could join me or pitch a fit when I skip a day or gush over your favorites to keep me going it would be really awesome.

Thanks for reading!

Christmas Time - Lincoln Style

2011-12-31T15:14:00.000-08:00

I panicked the weeks up to Christmas that we would all endure the same flu that we had last year and Christmas would, once again, be ruined. We were all sick again, but this time just with a head cold. So, the magic was able to unfold without pause. And we just got to be in it, simply soaking it up.

Christmas eve was our annual crab feast with all of my family present. We cover the table and just dump crab in the middle and go for it with our hands. It's messy and sticky and glorious!

After dinner the boys got in their Christmas jammies and some serious cuteness was found under our tree.

On Christmas morning Max awoke and said, "Merry Christmas!" and ran out to see what Santa had brought. Seeing this holiday through the eyes of a two year old is pretty amazing.

The big hits this year were a broom and vacuum. Our boy likes to clean.

Later that morning we went to my dad's to do more presents and Christmas dinner. We celebrated with my mom the following night. How lucky the boys are (and us!) to have 3 separate celebrations!

Hope yours was a merry one! So sorry for the extra huge photos. I forgot to resize and now it's just too much work ;) Next time, I'll do better, kay?

Christmas Quiz

2011-12-20T19:48:00.000-08:00

I just saw this Quiz over at Marigold Road and thought I'd share my answers and put it out there for anyone wanting to do it! Get us in the holiday spirit!

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Definitely hot chocolate!
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? He wraps them, unless they're too big or awkward then he gets a bit lazy.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? No lights. Bah, humbug!
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nope.
5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually the weekend after Thanksgiving.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? We do a big crab meal on Christmas eve and that's my fav.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? Sharing a room with my brother (or making him sleep in my room if we didn't share one) and forcing him up with me to go look at all the presents in the morning at about 4 am.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I think 9? I was one of those kids whose parents had to sit me down and tell me because I refused to give it up. But, my brother was 6 years younger so I got to help keep the secret alive for him.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? No. One year we'll start the whole jammies on Christmas eve tradition, but not yet.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? We have bell garland, white lights and ornaments.
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Well, I love the idea of it! But I'm sure if I lived in it I would dread it.
12. Can you ice skate? Probably?
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I have a favorite from each year. But my favorite of all time was probably my diamond earrings from my husband.
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? The joy of seeing the magic through my children's eyes.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? oh man. Apple pie? Cookies? No, no - I take those back. FUDGE. Oh. YES. Fudge. I think I just gained five pounds thinking about it right now.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? It's a tie between cutting down the tree and the crab feast with my entire family on Christmas eve.
17. What tops your tree? This year - nothing! We have an angel though.
18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? Definitely giving. I try to be creative or at least put a decent amount of thought into gifts for others and I'm so rewarded with their appreciation of that.
19. Candy canes: Yuck or Yummy? Oh YUM.
20. Favorite Christmas show? A Christmas Story. Hands down.
21. Saddest Christmas song? Is there a sad one?
22. What is your favorite Christmas song? Baby, It's Cold Outside

Your turn!!

The Second Decade Part 1

2011-12-15T21:36:00.000-08:00

Motherhood: There's Two of Them

2011-12-13T21:51:00.000-08:00

It's 6 O'Clock. Ritchie's leaving work now but it takes him 30 more minutes to get home. The fridge is open and I just caught Max taking eggs out of the carton and exclaiming how cold they are. Ben stares up at me from the carrier giving warning whimpers. He's got approximately 2 minutes until total meltdown mode. I'm making sure to get this all down fast before it flees my mind. (I had to stop at this point and pick up again around 8:30 - after bedtime). Oh, and I'm going to get all heavy on you at the end so be forewarned.

Here was how my day went today - a mere glimpse into my life with two children.

6:00 a.m. - Ritchie gets up to leave for work. The mere act of him moving around the room wakes Ben enough that I get him out of the bassinet and bring him into bed with me. He proceeds to kick and squirm and grunt and fuss until, finally, my nursing/holding/rocking/shushing settles him back into slumber at around 6:59.

7:00 a.m. - Max starts to cry. I go into his room to tell him it's still time to sleep (7:30 a.m. is the unspoken rule around here and we try very hard to keep our kids quietly in a sleep like state until then). He quiets down.

7:15 - Max starts to cry again. I ignore him until 7:30.

7:30 - I "baby proof" the bed so that should Ben roll around he won't roll off and move all of the covers to the foot of the bed, as far from his head as humanly possible. I go to Max's room and bring him into the twin bed and try to get him to snuggle with me. He doesn't want to. For 30 minutes we go back and forth with me trying to get him to lay down and him trying to "wanna show me" something in a ploy to get me up.

8:00 a.m. - Ben starts crying. I give in. Clearly there will be no more sleep this morning.

8:15 or so - Max requests cereal and milk for breakfast. I give it to him. He says, "no" and shoves it at me. I tell him he needs to eat his cereal and milk. He turns the bowl upside down on his tray and glares defiantly at me. I resist the urge to scream and (as calmly as I can muster) I remove the tray and tell him breakfast is over. He cries. Then Ben cries.

8:30 - I manage to calm Ben enough to start my own breakfast. I decide on Dutch Babies since it has eggs, but you put sugar on top. Protein AND sugar? Awesome. Plus, maybe I can get Max to eat some.

9:00 a.m. - Dutch baby complete. Max picks off all of the sugar and refuses to eat any of the rest of it. So far the food score today is Max:2, Mommy:0.

9:15 - Rapidly begin cleaning and dressing everyone in the house because we have a play date at 10:00.

10:00 - Play date is running late. I am wearing Ben in the carrier because if I don't, he cries. Max is obsessing about the vacuum, broom and cereal and milk simultaneously. I'm on the phone with my best friend ever trying not to lose my mind (our daily chats might be the only thing that keep me going sometimes).

10:30 - Play date arrives. Max cries hysterically and demands that I carry him. I'm already wearing Ben and I'm not supposed to lift over 25 pounds anyway (Max is 30+ at this point). I repeatedly tell him I cannot carry him to which he repeatedly cries and throws a fit. Max then begins launching toys at the play date Mom. Then he screams into pillows. Then he gets the broom 3 times even though I've told him he can't have it. I am mortified because obviously I have zero control over this child. I give him tylenol because he MUST be teething. Yes, that's it, teething. This behavior can't be permanent, right? It will pass once the teeth come in.

11:30 - Our play mates leave. They say they need to be home by noon for nap, but I have a sneaking suspicion that she fears her child will learn my ~~monster's~~ son's atrocious behavior and immediately turn into the devil.

12:00 - 2:00 - I do my best to feed all three of us and give Ben some play time on the floor, which he basically refuses. I had about 24 pretzels and a few chunks of cheese for lunch and 2 diet cokes. Yes, it was a 2 diet coke day. Oh, and I had 4 cookies.

2:00 - I tell Max it's nap time. He immediately starts to cry. I try to talk him out of this and soothe him and be all compassionate and stuff, but eventually I just put him in his bed and walk away, closing the door behind me. There's no reasoning with him and he needs to just nap already. Plus, Ben's crying and needs to nap, too.

2:05 - BOTH boys sleeping!!! Victory. I make soup on the stove and open my laptop and turn on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills which has been saved from last night on my DVR (what? you other moms clean and such during nap?? Hogwash!)

2:10 - Ben wakes. My soup sits and gets cold while I nurse Ben and then put him in the carrier and try to get him to sleep. I don't get to eat my soup, but the Housewives stay on. Priorities, people.

2:30 - 5:00 - Okay, so Max DID take an insanely long nap today. This is not the norm as of late. Usually Max is up by 3:30. So in that respect today was heavenly. However, Ben required constant wearing during nap time today and he wouldn't allow me to sit. So I stood and rocked and swayed and watched TV for the ENTIRE nap. 3. EFFING. Hours.

5:00 - Max cries when he wakes. Awesome. This means he's in a wonderful mood. I put Ben down (silence for once from that kid!) and carry Max around for a good 10 minutes so he doesn't have a total meltdown. I finally get him happily eating 3 cuties (those little oranges? Max will eat them ALL day). Ben starts to cry.

5:15 - I've nursed Ben and he is happily playing in his Mat. Max is watching Cars and playing with his toys. This is IT! My one moment to be free. I hop in the shower. It's at this time that Max decides that he MUST have a drink of both milk and water at the same time and he simply cannot wait until I get out of the shower. So, he stands at the shower crying and asking for milk and water. Ben starts to cry somewhere in the mix.

5:30 - It's around this time that I completely give up for the day. I put my hair into a wet, unbrushed top knot, pull on the same clothes I was wearing and strap Ben on. He's still not happy, but at least I can get Max his damn milk and water and walk around bouncing aimlessly trying to soothe Ben. I decide to do what any normal 2011 mom would do. I get my iPhone and begin documenting the current shitty situation on instagram so I can attempt to find some humor by captioning the disaster with witty remarks.

Here is how I looked this morning.

Here is how I looked after my shower. I mean, really? How is this an improvement?

Bennett and I have a showdown in the bathroom about him not wanting to let me get ready for the day. You know, at 5 PM!!

Max finally gets his damn milk and water. I liked to get a laugh out of a double fisting joke in my head until it occurred to me that if I had the opportunity to double fist anything at that exact moment, I would have.

Thank you, instagram. You at least gave me 5 minutes of some good, technological fun.

6:00 - Ritchie calls on his way home and like the good wife that I am I begin to bitch and whine about how hard being a stay at home mom is. It's all very dramatic in typical Jamie fashion.

The rest of the night was better because my mood drastically improved when Ritchie arrived home. Max began to sing Jingle Bells with the hand motions that I've been working on with him for a month now in hopes he'd have it down by Christmas. Score one for mommy. We get burgers because I haven't had time to grocery shop and there's nothing worthy of cooking for dinner in the house. Max is being charming and Ben takes periodic breaks from screaming his head off in the car.

We got them both to bed half an hour late, although Ritchie is still with Ben trying to get him to sleep because he woke after I put him in his bassinet after holding him to sleep for 45 minutes.

Seriously? How do people with more than 2 children do this? How do people with TWINS or TRIPLETS do this? How do single parents do it? I must be the biggest whiner known to man because I can't hang much longer. I adore both my boys and love them more than I thought I could ever love anything or anyone. There's never a question of love. But, I am fresh out of patience. I feel isolated and exhausted and pushed to my personal limit. I've even begun to question whether or not I have some postpartum depression with how I've been feeling. I'm just not enjoying being home right now. I hate that I feel that way, but it's true.

So, tell me. Does it REALLY get better? Am I alone in these feelings or are they normal? How do you do it? Tips, advice and love needed tonight. Because mommas need love, too.

Oh, and no promises (because you all saw how my day went today) but I'm going to REALLY try to get my second decade post up tomorrow.

Insta Friday 12/2

2011-12-01T18:12:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know I'm a day early, but our internet is being taken from us tonight for 3-5 business days (oh, the torture - I'm not sure I'll survive) so I'm getting ahead of the game. I'll try to link up to Life Rearranged before we lose the internet tonight, but we'll see if I make it in time...

Here's this week in Insta Gram captures:

Blogger gift exchange item!! It's a lovely yellow hat and it makes me smile.

Cutting down the tree with Papa!

A little pose with Mimi.

My favorite Christmas ornament. We write down all the significant happenings for the year. I love looking back at each year as we decorate.

Ben will rarely fall asleep on us like this, so we like to treasure it when it does happen.

I WANT this SO badly!!

Max took some ornaments for a stroller ride.

We did some crayon art! Thank you to Meg over at Whatever (an awesome blog you should check out!) for the great idea!

Max has rediscovered the Bumbo. Move over, Ben!

Each year we get a Charlie Brown tree - it's tradition. This year, it's more of a bush, but whatever.

Hey!! It looks like fall around here!

Ben took his first stroller ride sans carseat. He looks WAY to big in there for my liking.

Aww...

I hope you all had a wonderful week! I, personally, am very happy to have this week over! We have date night on Saturday (just bringing the wee one out while Max goes to his preschool for pizza and Christmas movies!) and it's our 9 year dating anniversary. Hopefully, as a gift, our children let us sleep some.

Ritchieisms Volume 2

2011-12-01T17:49:00.000-08:00

Heard round our house lately:

(As Max plays with the pumping equipment)
Ritchie: "Max, boobies are made for feeding milk to babies. Unless they aren't lactating. Then, they're just for fun."

Me: "Oh, crap! I missed the end of that movie I was watching!"
Ritchie: "The Christmas one?"
Me: "Yeah, I wanted to see how it ended."
Ritchie: "Oh, everything turns out okay."

(After returning home from the store with instructions to get some very specific ice cream and returning home with two entirely different ones because the store didn't have either of them)
Ritchie: Which one of these sub-par ice creams would you like?

(While discussing Santa and how we would explain it to our children.)
Me: We'll say Santa represents magic and hope and generosity and that one day they'll be able to pass on belief in all of those principles to their children.
Ritchie: But, Santa represents Coke.

(While looking at stock photo captions and laughing)
Richie: If I were a girl, I would totally pin this.

2 and 3 Months

2011-11-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

I never got around to doing one of these for the 2nd month mark because we were moving and I lost my chalk. I just got around to buying more so here is the 3 month one along with Ben's info for the past 2 months.

2 Month Stats:
Weight: 15 pounds (98%)
Height: 24 inches (98%)

3 Month Stats:
Weight: 16 pounds

He's finally slowing down in the weight department, thank goodness! I thought he'd hit 30 pounds by 6 months at the rate he was going. Here are some specifics on my (still not so) little man:

Food:
Breastfeeding every 2-3 hours during the day and anywhere from every 2 to every 4-6 hours at night. It varies night by night.

Sleep:
He goes to sleep around 7 and wakes around 12 to eat. From there, it varies. He could be up every 2 hours or he could do two 4 hour stretches or two 3 hours and then a 2 hour one. All I know is, it never feels like enough sleep.

Clothing:
He wears 6-9 month clothing. At three months old.

Poor little guy got really sick for Thanksgiving. He had his first bad cough with major congestion and from there got pink eye as well. He's finally on the mend it seems. Max was never this sick - probably because he didn't have a big brother to share his germs with him. Oh well, hopefully Ben's immune system will benefit from being exposed to everything Max brings in.

What else can I say about Ben? He's a pretty happy baby and loves to smile at anyone who will give him some attention. He likes to play in his play mat for 10-15 minutes at a time, but then wants to be held again. He loves being worn in the ergo to sleep and is still being swaddled at night. He is taking a pacifier more and more these days. He's started rolling from his tummy to his back and now 7/10 times in tummy time he just rolls right out of it. He seemingly never stops moving - always kicking and flapping his arms. He LOVES to watch Max play. We've yet to get a good belly laugh from him, but he get plenty of happy squeals. He smells. He almost never poops, but his farts rival every single person's in this family. And being that Ritchie is in this family, that says a lot.

Here are a few of my favorite pics from the past 2 months:

At exactly 2 months

What a life!

Tummy time master! This was before he was rolling.

This melts me.

Enjoying the sunshine outside while big brother plays.

Happy boy!

3 months exactly

The first decade

2011-11-26T21:26:00.000-08:00

My mom and dad about a month before I was born

I was born in 1982 to Cindy and Rocky (yes, that's his birth given name). Their story (as I know it to be, anyway) is interesting. Both were in the Air Force and just friends when my mom was stationed to jump out of airplanes in Korea. Apparently, my dad offered to marry her as that was one of the ways out of her going. They married quickly with an agreement to divorce after some length of time. Well, I guess the plan went awry because, here I am. Nobody has ever confirmed this with me, but I assume that they decided to give the marriage a real go since now they had a child together.

Within the first month of my life

I was born on January 11, which is also my mom's birthday. Best birthday gift EVER! We were living in Plattsburgh, New York at the time. We lived there for a few years before my parents found work in California and moved us across the country. I believe I was three when we moved here. We started our stay in San Jose in a little rental home.

Approximately a year old

Ready for the snow, I assume?

Enjoying a cone around the age of 2 1/2 maybe? These are all guesses

My earliest memories begin around the age of 4, when we were living in Sunnyvale in a rented duplex. That duplex, I remember, was awesome. It had a finished attic that was huge and my parents had a ping pong table. We would hang out and play ping-pong, just the three of us, for hours. We used to barbecue in the backyard and wash our car in the front yard. I remember my love of the holidays began in this house as I was old enough to savor the season. My parents both have always made the holidays special with decorating, baking and traditions. My recollection of Christmas was a feeling of magic and I actually thought I saw Santa in that house one year.

I was a Disney lover from a very early age. I carry that attribute still today.

This is classic "my mom and me" - always goofing around together. Now, we just goof around at the mall. She is one of my best friends.

Is there a child that doesn't have a picture just like this?

Mom and I celebrating my 4th birthday (her 28th??)

From an early age I wanted to wear makeup and have my hair curly - I've always been ALL GIRL. .

I tried my hand at modeling. Here's a portfolio shot. Apparently I could have been HUGE, but my parent's didn't want to move to LA. Whatever, mom and dad.

I had several surgeries as a young child for my ears.

I've always been very much a daddy's girl. Still am.

I had a close group of friends as a child. Here they are celebrating my 5th birthday with me.

Eventually, my parents bought a townhouse in Santa Clara. I was around 6. It was also around this time that they told me I was going to get a brother or sister. I had been asking for a sibling for a long time. Probably since I could talk and understand what a sibling was. Well, this is only partially true. I had been asking for a SISTER for a long time. When I found out I was having a brother, I totally packed a suitcase and threatened to run away. I didn't though because my parents convinced me that I would love having a brother because I wouldn't have to share my barbies. They lied, by the way. My brother totally played with my barbies.

Bringing Andrew home from the hospital.

I was meant to be a mother, yes?

Holidays were always so much fun.

I think I was a punk rocker for 3 years straight. Please, note the scrunchie around the leg. SO punk rock, am I right?

Hey! We still like to do that!

So, we're living in Santa Clara and now I have this brother (Andrew). I'm 6. How did I get halfway through a decade already? In any case, these years were good from what I remember. I struggled with the whole sibling transition, but ultimately loved having someone to dress up and boss around. We were fortunate in what we had. We had a home and I never wanted for anything. As the years went on it became obvious that although my existence was a happy one, my parents' marriage was not.

The first day of first grade.

3rd grade, I think? I was TOTALLY into New Kid's on the Block. First love was Joey Macintire. He was the youngest so I figured I had a real shot.

I'll never forget the day I was sat down and told that they would be separating. I knew what that meant. I also knew it was coming. I had been hearing the late night arguments. They had sent me away for two weeks that summer to stay with my cousins in Tennessee while they sorted out the hairy details. But, the knowledge didn't make the hurt any less. I ran around the room screaming and crying. I felt helpless and lonely. I didn't want divorced parents. I was nine when they separated. The split actually began with them alternating living in the house and my brother and I stayed in the same place. After some time my mom moved permanently back in and my dad rented a house on the other side of town. My mom began seeing someone with a daughter close to my age. We would plot ways to get our parents back together. As much as we loved the idea of maybe becoming sisters, we desperately wanted our parents back with their original mates. I remember that year being very difficult. Many tears. It was also the first time I saw my father cry. He was packing to move out and stood there by the fridge, put his box down, and just cried. I remember my mother hugged him. That's one of my more painful memories.

I'm going to stop there as the divorce actually ended my first decade and moved us into the second with a fresh start as a split family (it all ends up okay, just so you know).

The second decade is actually the most painful and challenging for me (something for you all to look forward to?) Stay tuned...

Insta Friday 11/25

2011-11-25T19:56:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe it's already Friday again! Too soon, Ritchie will be going back to work and we'll resume our day-as-usual routine. But, the return to every day life after Thanksgiving is a bit different because it brings with it something special. There's magic in our hearts as we delve into the holiday season. There will be crafting, baking and the usual wintery traditions that occupy our time these next few weeks. I love this time of year, but love it even more as Max gets older and now that we have Ben to share in them as well. Brothers. I can't wait until they're waking us up at 4 a.m. to sneak a peek at the tree. I can just picture them on their tippy toes on chairs in the kitchen cutting dough into festive shapes they'll later slather with colorful frostings. Joy, I tell you.

On to this week's pics!

Ben and his mommy

Mr. Lincoln and me

Caught a glimpse of my morning view. It's a lovely one, although not sure if I should show hairy man-nipple on the blog. Acceptable? No?

Ben's morning ray of sunshine smile.

Last Sunday we acquired everything we would need for Thanksgiving (including our turkey!) from our local Farmer's Market. Yum!

We've been taking evening walks all bundled up as a family. It's cold outside, but my heart is warm. Having an occasion to wear scarves, jackets and hats helps :)

One morning, while Max was in preschool, Ritchie and I snuck out for a quiet breakfast with Bennett. It was blissful!

Peeks!

Kelle Hampton gets me all excited about her shadow pics. Here's my first one!

Making the cranberry fig compote to prepare for the big day. So delicious.

Join me and link up over at Life Rearranged!

Thankful

2011-11-23T20:45:00.000-08:00

The cranberry fig compote is chilling in the fridge.
The herb rolls are cooling on the counter.
The turkey is settled in the brine.
The pine cone turkey place holders are complete.
We found the table runner!
Max is in the bathtub as bedtime creeps near.
Ben is kicking away and cooing happily next to me.
The house is clean and warm and smells of... home.
Michael Buble croons Christmas carols over pandora.

My heart is thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. I hope you have much to be thankful for as this holiday season commences.

More to come...

Insta Friday

2011-11-18T19:02:00.000-08:00

I'm linking up with Jeannette over at "Life Rearranged" for a little Insta Friday fun.

I've been meaning to join in for a few weeks, but with the move (more to come on that) I seem to have misplaced the cord that connects my phone to my laptop. Anyway, Ritchie finally brought me a new one from work and now all is right with the world again.

So, I'm doing two weeks worth of Insta Friday for your viewing pleasure:

Snuggling with a cutie pie during nap time.

I've had these onion goggles for a long time. Like, years. I finally used them and... they're fantastic!!

We had a photo shoot for the boys with a wonderful local photographer. Here's Ben's getup. What a star.

Super man visits one day. Lucky us ;)

I got my fabulous new day planner in the mail! Erin Condren is wonderful and I'm thoroughly enjoying my planner!

We have this amazing tree in our new front yard (yes, yes.. .I promise I'll blog about our move soon).

Someone liked the cookies we made.

Working on some bottled breastmilk with Ben.

Sleepy little love nugget.

Max and I are all ready for the Farmer's Market.

Lovely little car rider.

Max loves to try to pump. He finds it hilarious and fascinating.

Date night!! Our first night out to a fancy schmancy Apple party since Ben was born. I love one on one time with this man.

Farmer's Market fresh.

Don't worry. The coffee had already been emptied from this cup. It was pretend.

Helping Monday morning. Whatever was in that cup made me very, very happy.

Again with the cutie pie!

Hanging photos on our walls finally!!

Again with the front yard tree!

Momma got a new scarf.

My blogger gift exchange gifts all ready to be mailed out! (I'll be posting on this as well - SO MUCH STINKING FUN!)

Why, hello, Fall.

Babies in overalls make me happy.

That's it for this Insta Friday!

I vlogged...

2011-11-17T22:14:00.000-08:00

And the lighting was horrible. And, sometimes I have a double chin. Yikes. It's painful to see yourself on video sometimes. But, it was an interesting experience! Tell me what you think!

Here are the words and questions, should you feel compelled to do your own accent vlog! I seriously saw none from California so let's try to get more west coast accents out there, okay?

aunt, route, wash, oil, theater, iron, salmon, caramel, fire, water, sure, data, ruin, crayon, toilet, New Orleans, pecan, both, again, probably, spitting image, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, syrup, pajamas, caught

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on someone's house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it rolls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a large group of people?
What do you call a spider that has an oval shaped body with extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption you carry groceries in at the supermarket?
What do you call it when it rains while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change to TV channel with?

Contact Me

2011-11-16T14:09:00.000-08:00

You can contact me with any questions or comments you may have here:

lincoln.jamie@gmail.com

Feel free to leave comments and ask questions there as well. Be sure to check back as I often respond in the comments section!

Frequently Asked Questions

2011-11-16T14:07:00.003-08:00

Coming soon!

Feel free to ask away... you know you want to!

All About Me

2011-11-16T14:07:00.001-08:00

Hello! This is me:

My name is Jamie. I am married to a wonderful man.

He loves me.

See?

Told ya.

Together, we've created two beautiful boys.

Maxton

And Bennett

Max is two and Ben is two months old.

Together we're the Lincolns. This is a blog about our life. I write it from my perspective as a wife, mother, homemaker, crafter, baker/sometimes cook, friend and sister.

Follow along our wonderful journey!

30 Things I Have Done

2011-11-10T16:40:00.001-08:00

I already told you about some things I haven't done yet (or hope to never do) so I thought it was time to reflect on some of the things I have done in these (almost) 30 years. As with the things I haven't done - I am proud of many of the things I've done and not as proud of others.

I have...

1. Been in love
2. Gotten married
3. Become a mother
4. Given birth naturally and at home
5. Sustained two lives on my breast milk alone
(okay - I got all of the no brainers out of the way. Now this is going to get tricky)
6. Read all of the Twilight books... twice
7. Practically memorized the FRIENDS series
8. Cheated on a boyfriend
9. Been out of the country
10. Owned a home
11. Been on a cruise
12. Been to both Disneyland and Disneyworld
13. Seen Paul McCartney in concert
14. Been in over 5 plays (I can't even remember how many I've actually been in...)
15. Sang karaoke
16. Auditioned for a movie and a commercial
17. Had tubes in my ears 3 times
18. Swam with dolphins
19. Swam with sting rays
20. Met 2 people from The Real World
21. Crocheted a hat, scarf and blanket
22. Had a beach campfire
23. Swam in the ocean
24. Slept out under the stars
25. Collected unemployment
26. Gotten my belly button pierced
27. Lived in New York (upstate)
28. Played basketball on a team (I kept that bench so damn cozy)
29. Lost a friend
30. Soothed a crying baby to sleep

Man, this makes me want to write a true bucket list! There's SO many things I'd love to do that aren't on this list.

Tell me, what have you done and what would you like to do?

30 Things I've Never Done

2011-10-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

Posting my first post as I recall the past 3 decades that is my life. This post should be EASY. There is SO much I've never done. There's a ton I'd love to do, and a ton I'd die happily never having done.

So.. here goes. I've never:

1. Been to Europe
2. Gotten a tattoo
3. Skydived
4. Had stitches
5. Broken a bone
6. Sold something I've made
7. Seen a shooting star
8. Owned a bird
9. Driven cross country
10. Successfully juggled
11. Ridden a zip line
12. Run in an organized run/race
13. Danced a solo dance in public (but my living room has seen quite the show on a few occasions)
14. Lived more than 1 hour away from my parents
15. Watched a sun rise on purpose (like, got myself out of bed to go see the sun rise)
16. Been to New York City
17. Seen Gone With the Wind. Or Casablanca for that matter.
18. Donated blood
19. Seen Mt. Rushmore
20. Had major surgery
21. Had a hangover (though I have been drunk, so I suppose I'll just consider myself lucky)
22. Had a cup of black coffee
23. Had a daughter
24. Ridden in a horse drawn carriage
25. Entered a pie eating (or baking) contest
26. Seen Garth Brooks perform live
27. Parasailed
28. Read a book by Jane Austen (although I do believe I was supposed to in either High School or College. Totally didn't though)
29. Had a garden
30. Had hair extensions

Woo - there is a lot out there that I would love to do! Also, many things I'm grateful for never having experienced. Next up... 30 things I HAVE done!

Closing out on the 30th year.

2011-10-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

I have a little over 2 months until I turn 30.

I've been doing some self reflection as this big birthday approaches and I thought it would be fun to write down some things about me. What I know to be true about myself right now, after almost 30 years. I'm going to do this in a series. First I'll tell you 30 things I've never done. Then, 30 things I HAVE done. Next, I'll do three posts, each one covering a decade of my life - hopefully including pictures from each one.

How exciting does this sound to you all?! Haha!! I just realized how much I would be posting about myself and how I was thinking how interesting that would be. Then I realized that maybe you all don't want to know every little thing about me. Ah, well. It's all part of my reflecting about where these past 30 years have gotten me. So.. stay tuned and enjoy getting to know me a little better!

Max in Bloom

2011-10-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

I didn't go into Max's new skills or his growth and development in his two year old post. He's really taken off this past month and I couldn't be prouder. He knows letters and colors and animals. He says everyone's name now and has mastered "I love you" and "thank you" which were VERY important to me and happened to take the longest to teach him. Basically he's become a parrot and repeats everything we say. I've included a few of my favorite videos of him talking. He surprises us every day with the things he says and does.

I feel like I am seeing more and more the person that Max will be. He's always had phases of things, but as he matures I'm seeing what I would think of as "permanent traits". We'll see if I'm right about that in time, I suppose. He strikes me as very sensitive. He's super in tune with his surroundings and I'll catch him watching me or others and really listening to them. He's the kind of kid that will take a minor fall on the way to the car and then 10 minutes later while we're driving recall that fall and start crying. I'll finally get out of him that he's upset that "I fall down" and I'll have to remember that he fell 10 minutes ago and remind him that he wasn't hurt and is okay now.

He is a people pleaser and a helper. This will come in handy I hope when it comes to discipline. He often disciplines himself before he ever even does anything "bad" (I hate that. Kids aren't bad, but I lack a better word). For example, he'll put his hand up full of smashed sandwich and prepare to throw it across the room and then think about it and say, "No, Max!" and change his mind. It kind of cracks me up and makes me feel bad all at the same time. Like, I obviously say, "No, Max!" way too often if this is his go to phrase. But, I'm also rather pleased that he doesn't actually throw the food. He fetches diapers for me and then throws them away and is ALWAYS ready to help with any task I ask of him. He is happiest with an audience of people clapping for his every accomplishment. I love this about him.

In the past, Max has showed little interest in any one thing. He would sort of play with whatever and not take to anything too heavily (except his beloved binky). Now, he has his "heboca" (helicopter). This little remote controlled helicopter that my mom got him for his birthday. It's broken, thanks to Max repeatedly throwing it on the ground and off of our balcony. Anyway, this helicopter has to be within his grasp at all times. In the car, during naps, at bedtime, in the bath - everywhere! It's a permanent fixture now and I think it's pretty adorable that he has a toy that he's attached to. I do not think it's adorable when he says, "fly!" and throws it at my head.

Our world keeps changing as Max evolves and keeps us on our toes. He's so loving and sweet and we feel more in love with him each day.

Bennett is 1 Month

2011-10-06T21:39:00.001-07:00

I cannot believe our sweet new boy has already been in the family for one month! He has already brought so much joy and has made us feel like he's always been a part of this family. To say that I love this kid would be the understatement of the year. We bonded pretty quickly and I just couldn't imagine life without him right here with us.

He's proven to be a really good nurser. He's HUGE. He gained roughly a pound a week this month and is already in 3 month (+) clothing. He doesn't sleep as well as he eats. This is mostly because he wants to eat more :)

I'm a bit late on the update here and technically he didn't smile until a little after he turned one month old, but let me just tell you something; this boy's smile makes me laugh every single time. There's just JOY pouring out of him. His eyes crinkle, his nose scrunches all up and he kicks his feet and coos all while giving you this enormous, gummy grin that is impossible not to swoon over. This little one will know how to wrap me around his finger. He already has me there.

Bennett Andrew
One Month:

Height: 23 inches
Weight: 12 pounds 8 ounces (!)

We love you, Ben! You bring magic and wonder to our family with your presence. Now, sleep longer at night, okay??

Days 9 and 10 - AKA Real Foods While You Feel Like You're DYING From Mastitis

2011-10-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

So, the challenge has technically ended. I should be celebrating a victorious 10 days of eating real foods. I wanted this post to be about how I was going to incorporate all I learned in the real food challenge into my daily life and which goodies I've chosen to allow back in in moderation.

But, we didn't make it the 10 days. We made it 5 full days before the day of eating out. Then came the day of MASTITIS. Ugh. It should really be a four letter word. While I've had it MUCH better than some I know who come down with this, it has still been no picnic. I've also had to go it alone during the day while Ritchie works and mastitis, two kids AND real food just doesn't mesh.

Let's just say there was Starbucks. TWICE.

I'm not going to write down what I ate. When I was home I grabbed a real food item like crackers and cheese or a sandwich. I was too down and out to make any decent dinners and Ritchie gets home too late to cook so we ate dinner from Whole Foods (my OB refers to Whole Foods as Whole Paycheck which I think is kind of hilarious - like IN a sentence she'll say, dead serious, "Oh, you can pick up some echinacea from Whole Paycheck" - I love her).

So, our challenge ends on a sad note. That said we WILL continue eating well. I REALLY want to add Diet Coke back in, but I haven't had a craving for it since I had it on Sunday, so maybe I don't "need" it in my life on a daily basis the way I used to have it. I would also like to incorporate Starbucks once a week at least until January. To ask me to forgo peppermint mochas and cranberry bliss bars during the holiday season should be illegal. Like, with jail time involved. Also, during the holidays I enjoy baking. I will strive to limit the baking so that we don't ALWAYS have some sugary treat around, but I'm gonna be needing to bake come November.

I WILL NOT keep Halloween candy in the house and all meals at home (which at this point is over 90% - a HUGE improvement from life before Ben- two kids will do that to you) will be mostly, if not ALL natural food. We'll continue to buy the products with less than 5 ingredients and that are made with all real food.

I have definitely reaped the benefit I sought out with this challenge as I've been as regular as can be since day one now. I also lost 4 pounds in the process - which was not the goal but it never hurts.

Thanks for reading! I know there were a few people following along and I hope I didn't disappoint.

Day 7 and 8 - AKA The Real Food for 5 Day Challenge?

2011-10-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

Ugh. I decided to bundle together these two miserable days and I'm going to do it quickly and just know I DO feel guilty.

Day 7

We went out on day 7 for ALL THREE MEALS. Yikes. Here was the outcome.

Breakfast: Whole wheat toast, swiss, avocado and mushroom omelet with hash browns

Lunch: Pizza (I know, I know) and a greek salad with (oh, boy) diet coke (which I thought was INSANELY delicious - sorry)

Dinner: Chicken and a spinach salad with veggies and no dressing

So, two out of three that followed the basic rules. Not bad I guess. I blame lunch on Gilroy. We had Togos, In-n-out and pizza to choose from. We only chose pizza because we weren't sure what the kids would eat from the other two.

Day 8

Today. It was great until I got sick at 5pm out of nowhere. Chills, body aches, sore throat and tongue (what the heck?). So my making dinner was out of the question.

Breakfast: Banana and almonds

Snack: Triscuit like cracker and peanut butter

Lunch: Chicken with apple and cheese

Snack: Energy bites

Dinner: Peanut butter and jelly (rule broken with the jelly only) and tomato soup (Progresso - rules broken all over the place)

I needed comfort food and Ritchie was cooking up something quick after Max went to bed for me since I was soaking my sore body while they ate dinner. Ugh.

So, this is quickly becoming a 5 day challenge since that's how many days I made it without breaking rules. I'll still finish, but if I'm sick like this tomorrow I make no promises. Healthy food isn't the easiest to prepare. But I WILL try and do everything in my power to stick with this.

By the way, I don't care how bad Diet Coke is for you, I'm adding one a day back in starting Thursday - day 11.

Max's 2 year book

2011-10-03T08:44:00.001-07:00

The link to Max's 2 year book didn't work, so I thought I'd try this for your viewing pleasure.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly photo books offer a variety of layouts and cover options to choose from.

Day 6

2011-10-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

Today is the day that I broke the pledge (hangs head in shame). I do feel like I had a legitimate reason though and I'll explain after I tell you what I ate today. I'm not going to even try to separate it into meal categories because it was all so random. Here is the order though:

Hard boiled egg
oatmeal
energy bites (must have had at least 6 of these throughout the day)
crackers (ak-mak)
cheese
cut raw veggies
left over chicken nuggets from last night
chocolate ice cream bar (about 3 bites before Max had such a tremendous meltdown that I just surrendered it to him)
Chipotle steak bowl (with white rice)
Maybe 3 sips of Ginger Ale
and orange

*sigh* So, notice I was doing just fine until the latter part of the day. I didn't have a real meals today - but rather just sort of snacked all day. Then, around 3, I napped and woke and went grocery shopping with my family. I hadn't eaten enough, I had nursed a lot, I probably hadn't had enough water and I am SEVERELY sleep deprived (despite the nap). Anyway, I think that combo of things in what led to my nearly passing out in the grocery store. I just all the sudden got so lightheaded that I couldn't stand anymore and had to grab Ritchie for support. Then, of course, I panicked which made me feel even worse. Ritchie picked out some ice cream bars (shooting for easy, some protein and some sugar) and I took a few bites on the way to go get Chipotle (high protein and quick - there was no way I was waiting until I got home, unloaded groceries and cooked dinner). I got the rice to make sure to have some carbs as well as proteins. I was still feeling a tad off after dinner so I had a few sips of some ginger ale we had around to get a burst of sugar in me. I must have had low blood sugar because that is what finally made me feel more normal. Ugh. So... I need to up the calories throughout the day and make sure to not go long periods of time without eating, drink more water and TRY to sleep more (Ben, are you reading this?!)

The semi good news is that the Chipotle tasted insanely salty to me and the ginger ale was grossly sweet. I think I'm losing my taste for unhealthy foods! Yay! That said, I'm bummed I didn't make it the full 10 days. I will definitely continue on (we're eating out tomorrow so that will be a challenge!) for the rest of the challenge and make the best of it. I do feel like today was an extreme circumstance and I hope to not "have" to break any of the challenge rules again. 4 more days!

Day 5- AKA Partaking in Fall pleasures with real food

2011-09-30T20:56:00.001-07:00

Half way done! Woo-hoo!! Although I say that like it's something we'll drop after the 10 days. We discussed tonight how much we've been enjoying this! Yes, the first few days were hard (for me) but now we're both feeling great and really figuring out how to incorporate our favorite dishes by using real food to make them.

Breakfast: Shredded wheat biscuits with milk

Lunch: Whole wheat pita with hummus and veggies

Snack: 2 energy bites

Dinner: Chicken nuggets (Yes! They were actually really good! Homemade, of course.) green beans and baked sweet potato fries (Thanks, Daphne!)

Dessert: Baked apples

Dinner was SUCH a success with the wee one tonight. He LOVED those sweet potato fries despite my poor job at baking them. I WILL perfect them though because it will be worth it. He also really liked the chicken nuggets.

Here's the verdict on the apples - they're okay. Not great. The oats that I added in lieu of the brown sugar really made it a bit dry for my liking. I'll continue to work on it. For now, NO RECIPE FOR YOU (please tell me that you used the Seinfeld soup Nazi voice for that).

Besides the baked apples, Max and I made whole wheat pumpkin bread. It was sweetened with honey and I JUST tried it along with Ritchie to test it out. Um, not so good. It's definitely not sweet enough and was a tad salty. I know I need to retrain my overly sweet taste buds, but I do think this particular recipe is lacking. So, I guess to sum up, Fall pleasures are definitely lacking for me in the real food department. I can keep working on it, or I can decide (after the 10 days) to just partake in non real food Fall pleasures in moderation. Or I can do a little of both ;)

5 days left!!

Day 4 - AKA Real food with real kids

2011-09-30T15:49:00.001-07:00

A little late on getting day 4 to you. I was having a monumentally bad day. Being a stay at home mom of two kids ages two and under is HARD. Anyway - we powered through and I even managed to have dinner on the table by 7pm. How very June Cleaver of me.

Breakfast: Whole wheat french toast with 100& pure maple syrup and honeydew melon

Snack: Some bar thing (might have broken the rules - we were out and it was all I had in my bag - both the kid and I were starved!) It actually had mostly natural ingredients. I was so hungry I didn't care.

Lunch: Mozzarella and tomato salad with whole wheat pita topped with melted cheese

Snack: Ak-Mak crackers (so yummy!) with cheese and strawberries

Dinner: Salmon, green beans and mashed red potatoes

Dessert: No bake energy bites

More than 1 of you (okay only 2 of you - that's still more than 1) asked for the recipe for the "powerballs" I was talking about. I called them the wrong thing, but they ARE yummy so there you are! Enjoy! Please use all natural ingredients (including UNsweetened coconut) and dark chocolate chips, mkay?

No breaking the rules now.

I just wanted to touch a bit on how this real food dealy is working out with my two year old. I wish I could say that he miraculously no longer walks around asking for cookies, but that is just not the case. In fact, I think the poor lad is feeling rather deprived because he repeatedly asks for Elmo cake and pizza (which is what we had for his birthday last Saturday) no matter what we place in front of him. I will say that I'm not all crazy -lady- who- packs- her- child- an- all- natural- lunch- for- daycare so two days a week he has breakfast and lunch that is not all natural. I don't care that much. At home, ONCE I busted out the goldfish crackers because Max refused every other snack and was crying and I was feeling very guilty about how little time I spend one on one with him now that Ben is here. The goldfish totally didn't cure him (or me) of this but it made him stop crying and he ate something. So, I caved. But, just ONCE! All the other times he's with us he eats what we're eating. So every meal that I post he is eating. He LOVES the energy bites so that's a great little treat for him and he's been doing really well at eating everything we've put in front of him. I'm proud to have accomplished that much with my cookie lover (wonder where he gets that?!)

I'm testing out a JAMIE ORIGINAL (I've NEVER done this before - I always follow a recipe) recipe for baked apples in the crock pot tonight that I'm hoping turn out wonderfully! If they do, I'll be sure to share the love! I'll hopefully post tonight.

P.S. I'm feeling really good about this now and have even lost an additional 2.5 pounds. That's 4.5 pounds total in 4 days. Not too shabby. Oh, and my 1 month old is 11 pounds and 11 ounces so maybe I just shouldn't worry about losing weight affecting my milk - he seems to be eating just fine ;)

Day 3

2011-09-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to report that I'm feeling SO much better today about this challenge than I did the first two days! Today I felt pumped up to stay on track and make it work! I CAN find yummy substitutes for desserts and satiate my sweet tooth while eating real foods and avoiding sugar. Go me! haha!

Okay - here's the breakdown:

Breakfast: shredded wheat biscuits and banana with milk

Snack: wheat crackers and peanut butter

Lunch: Mozzarella, basil and tomato salad with oil and vinegar and whole wheat pita with hummus

Snack: Greek yogurt with homemade berry sauce

Dinner: Lentil soup with grilled cheese

Snack: Bite sized energy balls (I'm sticking with the philosophy that some dark chocolate is okay)

The bite sized energy balls may challenge the rules a tad, though I can't figure out if they do or not. The ingredients appear to be natural (no high fructose corn syrup, etc) and there was less than 5 ingredients so I think it follows the rules? But the rule maker talks a lot about missing chocolate so I feel like it's not allowed in any form? But then she uses a homemade chocolate sauce? Are you tired of me talking in all questions?

So there you have it! A better attitude. Good night!

Day 2 - AKA Calorie counting and eating real foods IS not the same thing

2011-09-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I conquered day 2 of the 10 Days of Real Food Challenge. Here's what I ate:

Breakfast: plain yogurt with banana, peach and sweetened with honey and cinnamon

Snack: Shredded wheat biscuit with milk and prunes (for the regularity, you know)

Lunch: Whole wheat pitta with hummus and veggies

Snack: peanut butter with triscuit-like wheat crackers (the salt from the cracker totally made the peanut butter edible!)

Dinner - Big spinach salad with lots of veggies, cheese and sunflower seeds and two hard boiled eggs

I ate a lot more yesterday because from one day of this challenge I lost 1.5 pounds. That would be GREAT but I'm nursing and want to make sure to keep my calories up enough.

Which totally brings me to my next point. Calorie counting and this real food business is not one and the same. Eating real foods is MUCH more restrictive. Easier in one respect since I don't have to tally up points or add calories on my iphone, but much more challenging because there is zero room for indulgence.

Like last night. I really wanted something sweet that stayed within the rules. I researched online a bit and NOTHING fit the bill! Like, I can never have dessert if I eat like this?! I wanted to make these no bake power ball things (I refuse to add a link - if I can't eat them neither can you. Talk to me in 7 days. I'll be much less crabby) that had oats, peanut butter, unsweetened coconut, flax seed, etc... but I couldn't make them because they contained chocolate chips. No sugar, and some actual GOOD ingredients PLUS they're sweet. They sounded great! But those damn chocolate chips make the rules broken. And who wants a healthy power ball thing that's supposed to be sweet WITHOUT the chocolate chips?! I mean, seriously.

So.. day two has come and gone. I've done breakfast on day three following the rules despite my overwhelming desire for a salted caramel mocha from Starbucks.

Just keepin' it real. I'm not loving this.

Day 1

2011-09-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

Day one of the ten day challenge.

I ate:

Breakfast: Whole wheat toast (with less than 5 ingredients, all that I recognized) with peanut butter (whole foods has this grinder that just takes peanuts and grinds them down into peanut butter - no Jif here! Although I'm very sad because I love my sugary peanut butter. This ground up real peanut crap is garbage. Just sayin') and a banana and milk.

Lunch: Whole wheat pita (Farmer's Market and really delicious!! I think like maybe 4 ingredients?) with hummus (again, FM and very fresh whole ingredients) and lots of veggies. Peppers, cucumber, mushrooms, spinach and tomato. YUM.

Snack: Triscuit type cracker from whole foods (only made with whole wheat and salt) with cheese and strawberries.

Dinner: Chicken, broccoli and quinoa. (um... boring).

I MAY see about some popcorn for a snack tonight.

I'm already wondering if I would reap the regularity benefits (okay, and all the other health benefits) if I went back to Jif, and was able to add in some yummy stuff. Like M&Ms. Or the occasional cookie. I mean, if I eat healthy for ALL of my meals can't I have the crap just as a nighttime treat without doing too much damage?

So there. There are my true feelings about day 1. Damn you day 1. Lunch - you rocked. Snack - you were okay. The rest of you sucked though.

10 Day Real Food Challenge

2011-09-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

Another food challenge for the Lincolns!

We've signed up over at the 100 Days of Real Food Challenge blog for their 10 days of real food challenge.

It starts today. The rules are basically to eat whole, real foods. No white flower or sugar. Nothing artificial. Nothing we can't pronounce and nothing packaged can have more than 5 (real) ingredients. The challenge also encourages you to buy meats, eggs and all produce from your local growers at the Farmer's Market.

We went shopping yesterday. We bought produce, eggs, hummus and pita from the Farmer's Market. At whole foods we bought everything else. It's very true that eating healthy is more expensive. And since this is day one and I've only had breakfast I cannot yet attest to how worth it the extra cost is. We'll see. One day at a time. I will admit to you that we spent $130 for Mon-Wed of this week. We decided with so much fresh food we shouldn't try to plan for an entire week because things will go bad before we can use them. The plan is to have one of us do an additional shop on Wednesday night for Thurs - Sat's meals and then we'll shop each Sunday (farmer's market day).

We're definitely committed to the full 10 days and we'll see how we feel after that. I've run into an issue with my healing from birth that basically requires that I'm extremely (ahem) regular - if you know what I mean. Ritchie's been having some issues in this area as well (what a lovely topic for blogging this fine Monday morning!) so we really want (and/or need!) to change our eating habits to help keep things in that area on track. I'm all for moderation and tend not to like a philosophy that doesn't allow any room for treats or rule breaking because I think that sets you up to fail. However, 10 days I can do. We'll just see where to go from there.

And, of course I'll be blogging daily about it! I'll post what I eat and how I feel and maybe even a daily check in on my regularity issue (I kid, I won't do that). Follow along and feel free to join in on the challenge as well! I'd love to hear your experiences and if you have any wonderful recipes using only real foods I'd love them!!

Max is TWO!

2011-09-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

My first baby turned two yesterday. I made it through the day without crying (about him turning two anyway) so I consider the day a success! Anyway on to the day's festivities!

Ritchie and I stayed up WAY past our bedtime to decorate the downstairs and set up the kitchen set we got him. He was so excited to come downstairs and see balloons and streamers.

He was the most excited about the balloons, but he also warmed up to the kitchen pretty quickly. He loves to open and close all the cabinets and now he's hiding all sorts of things in there!

Soon after we were ready for our family to arrive and help us celebrate.

We did a loose Sesame Street theme with an emphasis on Elmo since that's Max's favorite. We had an Elmo cake and his favorite food, pizza! Afterwards we did presents. Max was so lucky to have family and friends spoil him rotten!

The most popular gifts were anything having to do with helicopters. This kid is a fanatic and hasn't stopped playing with his helicopter gifts since getting them.

There was a moment in present opening that we took a break and all threw balloons up in the air and tossed them around. Max was thrilled with this. It was a highlight of the party watching him light up!

Especially since for most of the day the poor kid looked like this:

Sweet boy was not feeling so great. He's got the usual symptoms, stuffy nose, cough and those sad, sick eyes. Poor Max. He was able to pull through it and really enjoy his party, though! He's such a trooper!

Cake was after presents and Max TOTALLY got the whole blowing out of the candle this year! That was fun to see!

Max has amazed us more this year than we thought possible. Each night before bed Ritchie and I talk about Max and all of his new developments. There's not an evening that goes by that we don't express our great fortune at having Max for our son. He's a true joy and we couldn't be prouder.

I'm not so good with the words right now. Lack of sleep will do that to you (newborn plus sick child equals zero sleep). But you can read all about how much I love my big boy in his two year book that I finally finished and ordered tonight!

Link to album, then click 'Preview'.

Hopefully that link works. Enjoy!

Right Now...

2011-09-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm...

watching: Parenthood Season 2

eating: A drumstick. Vanilla.

drinking: Water

wearing: Jeggings and a blue shirt with an elephant on it.

avoiding: Cleaning the house.

The cleaners come tomorrow but there's the pre-clean routine and

with a 3 week old and a 2 year old there's PLENTY to pre-clean.

feeling: Blessed about my kids, stressed about money and health and more than exhausted.

missing: my close friends from far away. And sleep.

thankful: For my children. I don't know what I did to deserve those two.

weather: Better than the sweltering 90+ day we had. Maybe 60s?

praying: For a certain health issue to resolve quickly.

needing: Sleep. Am I repeating myself too much?

thinking: I don't know how the hell this cleaning will get accomplished tonight.

dreaming: of Max's birthday on Saturday. I'm so excited!

loving: Pinterest. Ritchie. My family. My boys. Fall clothing.

Not at all in that order.

What I Wore Wednesday - The First One AND One Week postpartum Edition

2011-09-07T19:58:00.000-07:00

I've never done a What I Wore Wednesday (WIWW) before. I'm a WIWW virgin. I've been reading them and I LOVE seeing all of the fashion, especially now that we're headed toward my favorite season to dress for! Fall is around the corner and I've been DYING to unleash some of the new fall treasures from my closet. I bought them while I was pregnant and couldn't wear them, but that was okay because they were for fall anyway, and it was still summer. So, I've waited not so patiently to bring out these outfits! Now, I'm one week postpartum and finally ready to try to wear some of these gems!

Okay, so let me just say that 1 week postpartum I am NOT fitting into any pre pregnancy jeans and am refusing to wear maternity jeans anymore. Therefore, leggings are my new best friend! I have one pair so on my first shopping trip I'll definitely be stocking up on more!

I thought that cute cropped top would be looser and hide some of the postpartum pooch that I adore so much (sense the tone) but it didn't do much for me, looking back. Oh well. Live and learn.

The boots are my favorite part of this outfit and will be in future WWIW most likely every week. I've been wanting boots for SO long and finally feel justified in wearing them now that it's September.

And now comes the part where I tell you where I got all of the various pieces of this outfit. Here's also where I have to let you in on an unfortunate secret that I have. I have an addiction. An, expensive addiction.

I'm Jamie, and I'm addicted to Nordstrom.

Hi, Jamie.

(Hangs head in shame).

Shirt - Nordstrom BP

Layering Tank - Nordstrom

Leggings - Nordstrom

Boots - Nordstrom

And.... are we sensing a theme yet? Yeesh. I'm secretly hoping WWIW will help me to shop elsewhere if for no other reason than to not be too predictable. Also, I'm hoping that it will help me pull myself together at least once a week. A two year old and a newborn... we'll see what happens. But WIWW gives me a good goal, anyway. Hope you enjoyed!

Bennett Andrew's Birth Story

2011-09-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

“There is a secret in our culture and it is not that birth is painful but that women are strong” - Laura Stavoe Harm

Just a little warning that I am not going to hold anything back in terms of details which makes this post a. long and b. what some may see a graphic. Also, I was completely naked for the birth and for about 3 hours after so I put in the most modest pictures I could get, but there's still a lot of skin. I hope I didn't slip in a nip or some bush, but if I did I honestly don't care that much. There. Consider yourself warned.

I'm not even sure where to begin with Bennett's birth story as it honestly seemed to be so segmented. I don't even really know how long to say I labored for. I suppose it begins around 2:30 am on August 28. I awoke to a contraction and some cramping not unlike I'd been having off and on for that past week. After about an hour on the toilet and cramping I turned on the light in the bathroom to check the toilet paper when I wiped and there was red blood. I was ecstatic! That was my "this is it" moment of labor. I knew it was immanent. That was around 3:30 am. I decided to start timing contractions. They were sporadic, but in the neighborhood of 5-10 min apart and around a minute long. I called my midwife at 4:30 am to give her a heads up. We debated on whether she should come to me at this point but I was managing them fine and the last two had been further apart so I told her I'd keep her posted. Another hour passed in which the contractions diminished to more like 15 min apart. They were still strong and sometimes over a minute, but they were drifting further and further apart. By 8 in the morning I had had a solid hour without one, then I had one and went another whole hour without one. I was frustrated and confused. Was this labor? My midwife couldn't answer that for me but told me to go about my day and try to rest when I could. It would either go away or pick up one way or the other.

We decided around 10:30 or so to walk over to my mom's. I figured a walk might help contractions pick up and the distraction of being around people would be good for my sanity. While at my mom's I started noticing the contractions again, but a bit more regularly. I also noticed that Ben was moving a ton. I started to get concerned about his being so active so I texted the midwife just to check in about it. She told me she would be in my area and would like to just check in on us, but thought that the baby was really just settling into position and once he got there labor would really pick up. So we left my mom's to meet the midwife. On the walk home I had 3 contractions (my mom lives maybe 10 walking minutes away). One we got home I started trying to eat some lunch (this was about 12 noon) but the contractions were getting stronger and closer together. I was still breathing through them just fine and able to talk and joke and be totally normal in between them. My midwife arrived and Ritchie started setting up the pool and ran to pick up some food for all of us. My mom came and took Max to the park and told us she'd check in in an hour for his nap to see what to do.

Here's where time start to become hazy. I know I was checked around 1 pm and I was 4 cm but definitely "in labor" according to my midwife. I remember feeling very defeated by that. I thought "Well, it looks like I have a long day ahead of me". I pulled myself together and put myself back into the right head space for labor. I dealt with the contractions one at a time. I decided I would want to get into the tub soon and I needed to do the hibicleanse because I was Group B positive. That had to be done in the shower so Ritchie and I headed upstairs. I do remember Diana (my midwife) telling me to have my mom keep Max out of the house because I was in a great space for labor and she was afraid Max would distract me too much. Once up in the shower is where everything really picked up. I had a few contractions in the shower and the water felt wonderful during them. After maybe 4 contractions up there (I haven't a clue at this point the space or time of contractions - I was just rolling with it, but I know I could no longer be cheerful in between them and I had gone from deep breathing through them to long, low moaning and deep, steady hip swaying) I decided I would feel best in the tub so Ritchie helped me downstairs. I didn't even want to get dressed, I just wanted to get downstairs and into that tub, but it felt like I was having a contraction with every step I tried to take. Once in the hallway I saw that my doula (also a Diana!) had arrived. She immediately held me through the moaning and the rocking and told me what an amazing job I was doing. She kept guiding the noises lower and lower if I started to get whiney. I just wanted to get in the tub, but the water was pretty cold so Ritchie was trying to set it up. This annoyed me. I didn't really care whether it was cold or not, I just wanted IN it. I told my doula that it was at this point that I requested the epidural with Max. I remember the look on her face and also noticed my midwife was now in scrubs and frantically setting up for the birth. I also remember someone (no idea who) saying that Lisa (the second midwife) might not make it on time. I remember thinking that they were all crazy. I had JUST been checked and was a 4. Why were they all acting like this kid was coming out soon?

I started to panic a bit as the contractions came crashing through me one after the other. I had several in a row with no break and started to worry that, since I still had so long to go, that I couldn't do this. I got in the tub and told my doula that I was scared and worried. I told her that I hadn't even gone through transition yet and it was already so painful so how would I ever make it through? It was at this point that both the midwife and the doula started telling me that the baby would be here really soon and they think I already went through transition before I entered the tub. Somewhere in all of this talking (haha - I'm chatty even in labor) I had a few contractions that had my legs shaking and I felt Ben's head plummet down the vaginal canal and I was screaming, "Pressure! I'm going to split in half! I'm going to throw up! I don't want to throw up!" and then when my midwife tried to check me I screamed, "Don't touch me! Please, don't touch me!"

I want to say I was in the tub for 5 minutes or so when I felt a pop and realized my water broke. I told my midwife. She told me I needed to stand up straight so she could hear the baby's heart. She hadn't checked and was getting very antsy about it. I kept telling her no. No way was I getting up from where I was. She insisted and Ritchie and my doula lifted me up and held me there while she listened. Ben sounded perfect, thank goodness. I sunk back in the water to another intense contraction. This time my midwife ignored my pleas not to be checked and checked me anyway. Then she told me I needed to get out of the water right away so she could check me. I wanted to know why. She said, "Either I'm feeling a water bag, or that might not be the baby's head coming down and I need to do an internal exam with you out of the water right away." I'm pretty sure I told her no, but everyone told me to pull it together and do it for Ben. So, somehow I got out of the water and threw myself onto the couch on all fours. The couch was completely covered in various protectants. Anyway, my midwife checked me and it turns out my water had broke, but the baby was coming so quickly that his head hadn't had time to mold so what she had felt were simply folds of skin on the top of his head. I was told everything was fantastic and I needed to decide where I was going to have this baby. I want to remind you that I was checked at 1 and at this point it wasn't even 2 pm yet. I had no idea what time it was, but I knew it hadn't been long so I was stunned. Have the baby? Like now? Yes, they all assured me. He was coming. I decided I didn't want to move and that I would have him right there on my hands and knees on the couch. I wasn't moving! I did a few pushes there and the second midwife walked through the door around then. For those of you who haven't been to my house, the couch is the first thing you see when you walk through our front door and my ass was facing the front door, up high in the air. I specifically remember thinking that she must love to walk in and see that first thing! I enjoy that I can make jokes in my head while in the hardest part of labor.

So, I'm ass up and pushing and it occurs to me that my couch really isn't deep enough for me to get my legs open wide enough to birth a baby. So I flopped over onto right side and threw my left leg up in the air. I pushed there. The pushing was painful, but felt really great compared to some of the last few contractions I had had. I could feel him moving down and making progress. I could feel myself stretching. I got the epidural around 9cm with Max so all of these sensations were new to me. I actually enjoyed them. I remember saying that it hurt like hell, but it felt so amazing all at once. It wasn't long before my midwife told me that with the next contraction or two I would feel that ring of fire people talk about and it would burn and sting and I would want to pull away from it, but that I just needed to push through it. I did feel that, but right as Ben was crowning I got a charlie horse leg cramp. It hurt like hell - way more than the crowning did and I kept screaming, "My leg! My leg! I have a leg cramp!". Haha! So I guess the one thing I can tell people about the pain of natural child birth and crowing and the ring of fire is that a charlie horse leg cramp honestly hurts worse.

The most amazing part was (even through the leg cramp) I could feel his head, then each shoulder and then his abdomen pop out of me. And then one final tiny push for his butt and legs. I brought him up to my chest immediately and our love affair began. Well, it began AFTER Ritchie finally rubbed my calf and got rid of that damn cramp. He was born at 2:31 pm. Just 12 hours after feeling the very first contraction of that day. Just three hours after my contractions became regular Just one hour and thirty minutes after I was told I was 4 cm. How long would I say my labor is? I would say I have no idea, but it felt REALLY insanely fast.

That's my midwife, Diana. I love her!

My midwife and the second midwife, Lisa admiring us loving our baby.

After the birth there was a tad bit of drama with the placenta. It didn't want to come out. Well, it wanted to come halfway out. So the midwife had to hold it there to keep it from ripping out and causing bleeding. They were waiting for some contractions to come and get it out, but they weren't happening so they tried herbs. That didn't work. Finally, after an hour they gave me a shot of pitocin. That worked. Within 5 minutes it was completely out. It was actually all quite scary because if it hadn't come out very soon I would have been in an ambulance to the hospital to have them get it out. I really didn't want that and so I'm very grateful it came out quickly after the pitocin shot. I did tear slightly and needed a few stitches. We also had to weigh and measure the baby and get the house a bit cleaned up. I wanted all of that to happen before Max came home to meet his brother.

Max was really curious about the baby for all of 20 seconds before running off to play. He's handled the transition like a pro and seems to really love the baby. He pats him gently and asks about him, but otherwise just goes about his day being the happy, loving boy he is. My love for Max has grown ten-fold watching him become a brother. I just know these two will be best friends. They have seemingly similar temperaments and I honestly don't know how anyone couldn't get along well with Max anyway. He's made me so proud through all of this.

He's such a champ. Still loves his momma despite her bringing in this new cub.

As we've moved through the last 5 days I've fallen madly and deeply in love with Bennett. With both births I have not felt that instant love right as the baby is born. I feel awe at the process and relieved that they are healthy and all went well. But I fall in love with my babies over time. I felt guilty about this with Max, but have learned to embrace our journey and how it all plays out. With Max it took a little longer. I left his birth feeling a bit wounded. I was really focused on my recovery and nursing was so painful that I resented having to nurse him. I loved him, but it was very challenging for me to feel strong maternal love for him other than keep him safe and feed him because that was all I had the energy for. With Ben (and I believe strongly that this has everything to do with how I birthed him) it came much easier. Nursing is just as painful, but I enjoy it now. My recovery has been smooth and easy. I've been able to really connect with him because of the support I received in the first few days post pardum. My midwife has been a huge support and I've always felt safe and confident with her. We've been in constant contact since the birth and yet we're still at home where we can rest and recover without interruption. After having done it both ways I couldn't imagine ever choosing a hospital birth again. Bennett's birth has healed me. I walk away from this experience feeling empowered. I DID IT. I had a natural child birth. I trusted by body. I didn't need an iv, an epidural, pitocin to make my contractions longer, stronger or closer together. My body did it all on its own. This was what I needed to feel complete in my journey to motherhood. I'm so grateful for my experience now with Maxton because it led us to make this choice. And, this? Home birth? Well, home birth was the best decision I could have made. Earlier I was talking to Ritchie and told him that I still couldn't really believe that we had done a home birth. I said, "We're bad ass." It's so true. We're totally bad ass.

Bennett Andrew Lincoln

August 28, 2011

2:31 pm

8 pounds 8 ounces

21 inches long

What 41 Weeks Pregnant Looks Like

2011-08-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

It looks HUGE. It feels uncomfortable and slower than molasses. I'm trying very hard to hang in there, but each day I feel more and more like a ticking time bomb.

There are several things that I'm grateful for during this time, so let's start there. I'm SO happy that I'm able to still walk. I've been walking about 2 and 1/4 mile each morning to try to get some contractions going. It feels fantastic to still be able to be so active this late in the game. I was even passing people on the trail this morning! And, no - they weren't senior citizens, thank you very much. I am also savoring this time with just Ritchie and Max. Ritchie is officially home from work and I've never needed his help more. The three of us hang out all day and we try to make each afternoon something fun for Max just in case it's the last afternoon with our little family of three. And, lastly, as hard as it is being pregnant right now and feeling so very "when the HELL is he going to come out?!" I'm very relieved that I'm working with a midwife. Someone who knows that my baby is perfect in there and is just waiting for the right time for him to make his entrance into this world. I loved (and I mean LOVED) by OB from Max's pregnancy and leaving her to pursue a home birth was a difficult decision, but I would have surely been induced by now. I cannot wait for that "this is it!" moment of labor starting and knowing that my little boy chose his own birthday. There is something so sacred in that for me and that fact alone keeps me going every day.

So, other than feeling like I might split in two at any given moment, I guess I'm just finding some peace in life right now. Sure, I get anxious. Yes, I want him to come now and if labor started right as I hit "publish post" I'd feel like the happiest woman on Earth. But, overall, I've reached a pretty great place in this pregnancy. It really can't be too much longer and I'm SO excited to uncover his story. We can't wait to welcome you to the world, Bennett. To the world and to our family. We're ready for you, baby - whenever you're ready!

Bennett's Labor Blessing

2011-08-07T20:28:00.000-07:00

Today I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful group of women come together to give me strength and words of support and wisdom as I embark on these last few weeks of pregnancy and the intention of a home birth and, therefore, drug free labor and delivery. It was so much more than I could have even expected as these women put true thought behind the words and beads (which I will wear on a bracelet from now until Bennett's labor and during it) that they presented to me today. I know I will draw strength and courage from seeing these beads and remembering the words spoken and written for me today. It was truly special. I think every woman giving birth should have a labor blessing. It's heartwarming.

Here are some of the details!

Food!! We munched on beef and chicken skewers, caprese salad and veggies with hummus. YUM! Of course there were cupcakes from Icing On The Cake. Holy moly, that place is good! Every occasion we need baked goods for (including our wedding cake!) we go to them. They're amazing.

There was a henna artist who came to do a belly tattoo on me and a little something for other guests, too!

I love it!

Rebecca, a dear friend for 11 years now and maid of honor in my wedding, getting her Henna done! She's also having a little boy in September. It's been so fun sharing this journey with her!

Gemma gets hers done!

Lisa's (teeny tiny adorable!!) foot tattoo!

Both Lisa and my feet done!

This was the henna artist. She was not only talented, but also super sweet. We really enjoyed having her!

Rebecca presenting her bead.

Rusti and her bead.

Gemma with hers.

Stephanie with hers!

My mom was so good about making sure to get pictures of everyone with me, but wasn't in many of the shots! Here are a few more from this special day.

Thank you to everyone who came and made it so special.

In other exciting news, my best friend, Kimberly had her second baby, a little girl (her son is 3 months older than Max) early this morning! I got the news right when I woke and I couldn't be more excited for her and her growing family. I will always remember Kira's birthday because I woke up learning about her arrival and had my labor blessing that day!

We also celebrated my dad's birthday (his was the 4th) this evening at our house. Cake, presents, Max as entertainment - it was great! Haha! So much to celebrate today! It was a day filled with love and support and good news all around. I love days like that!

Nesting, Nesting, 1...2...3...

2011-07-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

Today it began.

We've cleaned.

We've washed itty bitty clothes, some new, some that took us down memory lane of when our first baby boy was just that, a baby.

We've cleared space in the living room and put up the swing.

We've prepped the home birth supplies.

We've bought the big brother books and have been having the conversations.

We've set up the bassinet right next to our bed.

We've bought the teeniest newborn diapers.

We're 37 weeks tomorrow.

We're officially waiting on Baby B.