Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts

Thursday, January 1, 2015

hello, 2015!

I've been thinking about my resolutions for the year. I'm sure they will evolve a bit throughout the year, but here are some things I want to work on in 2015:

+ stop yelling, and use more positive parenting techniques with the chilluns
+ use nap time to do at least one thing that qualifies as "me time"
+ read at least 5 books (This used to be nothing for me, I'd read like a billion books a year. But ever since having kids I've been pretty terrible at reading. Oops.)
+ take action on improving recycling in my city (since I slacked in 2014)
+ go on more "dates" with my main man
+ enroll Henry in swimming lessons
+ wake up every morning and decide to have a good and positive attitude
+ PLAY MORE!

On the resolution front, I like to make these yearly goals to have some direction and something to work for in my daily life. I feel like the past two years I have gained something from actively working on resolutions. But I also like this timely reminder from the Alison show:


I AM awesome, and I'm going to make sure I don't forget it ;) Happy New Year, lovers!

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Flashback: Thanksgiving VIDEO!

Our vacation, captured and pieced together beautifully by Dave:


Flashback: Thanksgiving vacation

Thanksgiving was awesome. Our dear friends Emily and Dave came out to visit us from Ohio!! We hadn't seen them for a year, which felt like an eternity. Obviously they just need to come live in our house so we never have to be separated again ;) This post is definitely the short version of everything. I lost a lot of my pictures from my phone recently, so these are all pictures pulled from Instagram (and some stolen from Emily!).

To start our vacation, Josh and I drove up north so we could party at Josh's parents' house. Once again, I got out of cooking Thanksgiving dinner (woot woot!)!! Emily and Dave drove from the airport to meet us so we could all enjoy a lovely meal together.A big thanks to Mimi and Bear for hosting us all! :)

Road trippin up north!

Mary is so nice and cooked the entire meal for us. Josh had to help ...prepare... the turkey. And it was hilarious.

"Just grab it right there, and pull!!"

After all the fun/festivities/fabulous meal, we hung out for a bit and then made the journey back home. That night we played games and caught up. George played some video games too ;)

Thumbs are tasty
Our vacation consisted a lot of hanging out, eating food, and holding babies. With some park-playing, football watching, and more eating thrown in there. We had so much fun with Emily and Dave, and we were SO HAPPY they could come visit. Dave played videographer the whole time, and made the best video ever made in the history of ever. I'm trying to upload it to youtube, so we'll see if that works out... Because it sums up our entire vacation perfectly.

I swear George actually liked him... haha
Henry's favorite part of Aunty Em and Uncle Davey's visit was probably watching videos of their dog Finn on their phones. "Doggy? Doggy?" And asking them for snacks, obvi.

Aunty Em!
George's favorite part was all the snuggles and extra attention he got. Such a spoiled baby!

sleepy time!
We love having such amazing people in our lives who are so sweet and loving to our kids. We're very lucky to have such wonderful friends :) Also while they were here, Emily was nice enough to take family pictures for us. I will have them up in my next post!! She's the bestesttttttt! 

kisses!!!!

Everyone was sad when Emily and Dave had to leave. I may have cried a little bit. And I did not want to ever let go of Emily. Speaking of Emily, she tried to stuff Henry in her suitcase. We told her to return him when he was potty trained.

"I'LL NEVER LET YOU GOOOOO!!!"
Like I said, this is a very condensed version of a fabulous vacation. To sum it all up? IT WAS SO FUN!!! We have missed these crazy kids so much, and it was almost surreal that they were actually here! Thank you Emily and Dave for making the trip, and making our Thanksgiving break absolutely amazing. We love you and miss you. Now please come live in our compound. Thanks ;)

Friday, February 28, 2014

Flashback: Sesame Street Live

When I saw that 'Sesame Street Live - Elmo Makes Music' was coming to our city, I knew Henry would really enjoy it. He's never been to any kind of show or movie, so I was a little nervous. But Elmo was involved, so I had hope!! The show was on November 13th, and I was almost foolish enough to try and bring both kids by myself. Then I smartened up and asked a friend if she could watch George, and thankfully she was able to. That made it so I was able to just focus on Henry having a blast!

Ready to go!
In the theater. "What is this magic?!"
The show was actually really cute and fun. They periodically had the monsters come out in the audience and wave to the kids and interact. I was a little miffed because the row in front of us was empty, but the monsters couldn't come down it because someone put their car seat in the way. Way to ruin our fun, stranger!! Sorry, I digress...  At one point a random monster (pictured below) managed to make their way close enough to us to give Henry a high five. While I think Henry was a bit taken off guard, he thought it was pretty cool. I didn't really get a picture of that moment, but you can imagine it ;)

Henry got to high five this beautiful monster. [Also see lovely fun-blocking family two rows in front of us...grr]
At first I had Henry set up in the chair next to me. But that got a bit distracting, as it was one of those movie-theater style chairs that was trying to eat him. I ended up sitting him in my lap--where he stayed for almost the entire time (over an hour!). Impressive, I know.

Happiness.
There were a lot of different musical numbers, most of which were about making music. One or two might have been about finding lost instruments or something. [Insert joke about Sesame Street beating a dead horse by making music about making music, which adults find monotonous but children find amazing].

Henry was literally ENTHRALLED the entire time, which actually made it really fun for both of us. It's an awesome feeling to see your child be so happy, and to be able to share that moment with them :) Even if it's over seeing Elmo and the rest of the Sesame Street gang dancing and singing in real life.

Captivated. Maybe there was some sort of subliminal brainwashing going on.

singing & dancing

I think Elmo came out near us maybe once or twice. But like I mentioned, the car seat family...

Rockin robin birds with Big Bird
I will say something about this production... they definitely know how to make money. They have it down to a science. More like an art form, really. For example: they have an intermission, and the second those stage lights start dimming, people come out with giant bunches of helium Elmo balloons. Cue kids yelling saying "Elmo! Balloon! Oooh!" and cue parents thinking *Aww, maybe I'll be nice and get a balloon for my kid, that would be cute*. So the balloon guy comes closer and you overhear someone ask how much the balloons are. Cue balloon guy saying "ten dollars", and then cue frazzled parents attempting to steer their balloon-craving children away, resulting in heartache and tantrums. In public. You can all see where this is heading... Cha-ching!

We went out in the lobby during intermission to see what else they were selling. Everything was outrageously priced, so instead of purchasing anything I just took pictures of Henry and Elmo in front of the merch booth ;)  

"What's up, Elmo?"
After intermission, Henry started to get a bit more antsy. He stayed in my lap for about ten more minutes, and then stood up in front of his chair for the rest of the time (about 15 minutes). All the dancing and singing [combined with my ample supply of Goldfish] kept him from wandering away. ;)

They did cool black light stuff where only shoes lit up on stage
It ended up being a really fun experience, and it was completely worth the money, time, and child-geared acting. Henry was completely in awe of the whole show, and if they come back to our city next year I'm sure we will be going again! :)

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Flashback: George's baby blessing

On November 3rd, George got blessed at church. It was not only a special occasion because of his blessing, but also because our friends and family came to visit. My parents drove up from Arizona, Josh's parents and sisters family drove down from up north, and our BFFs Jeff and Darci also drove down. It was a party! On Sunday our friends Ryan and Natalie also came to the blessing. The weekend was definitely a whirlwind, but we all had such a great time. There's not much better than being surrounded by your favorite people ♥

snuggling with Grandma
My mom made George's blessing outfit, and it had that cute vintage feel that I love. He was a major stud :)

always a happy camper

family picture! complete with Henry's shiner

with Mimi and Bear

with Grandma and Grandpa

the funniest face ever
We had a wonderful day and a fun-filled weekend. We're so grateful for all the sweet people in our lives who give so much love to our boys.  Thank you to our friends and family for being a part of our special day :) To our friends who couldn't make it because we now live super far away (sorry), we missed you! ♥

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

moving on...


Jules, from this lovely blog, posted the above picture on her Instagram the other day. And I loved it so much, I had to steal it. It was another confirmation of what I've been working towards lately...


One of my friends posted this on her Facebook page a few weeks ago and it was what I needed to hear that day. When I read this, the things that resonated with me were title, position, and income. Again, another confirmation of what I needed to do...

I've also found a few good quotes in some books I've read lately (maybe I'll find them and use them for a future post...) that all kind of relate to taking control of your own happiness. And doing what you want to do in your life. And guess what? I'm not happy working at home in my current position. The hours were too long, I was forced to ignore my child all day in order to accomplish my high work load, and I was constantly stressed out. While I'm grateful for this time I've had working at home, because it has helped me sort out my priorities more, I've had enough.

Now that we've paid off all our student loans/medical bills, we are blessed to be in the position where I don't need to work if I don't want to. And I don't want to anymore. I want to stay at home and play with my son. I want to be able to go out to the playground with Henry and be carefree and FUN. I also want to have time (and energy) to pursue my other interests. I haven't even done anything with my sewing machine since we moved. I've barely even read a book. These past few months I have just become more and more stressed, and it has been a complete revelation to realize I don't need to put myself (and my family) through this anymore.

So last week I put in my two weeks notice. It was freeing. It was like a weight lifted from my shoulders. I am more excited for the future and for all the opportunities I will have because of this. And I am happy. Happy with my decision, happy with my life, happy with my family, just plain HAPPY. And it's awesome. I am so grateful that I have made this choice, and for a supporting husband, family, and friends who have helped me so much. Cheers to happiness ♥ It's definitely something worth fighting for.