5 on Friday

What better way to ease myself back into blogging than to link up with for 5 on Friday with
Darci, April, Christina and Natasha for Five on Friday!

Puppy-

I’ve been pretty MIA because we decided to add to our family.  We got out Lab/German Pointer/Hound/Australian Shephard mixed puppy about a month ago.  Her name is Anna (can you tell what movie my kids are OBSESSED with?).  She’s the cutest thing and she’s doing really awesome with training.  She was certainly the missing link. Not to mention, she’s better behaved (and a better sleeper) than her human siblings.  Win for me!

Long Island-
We got in to my in-laws house late last night.  It’s always great spending time with family.  We’re here to run in Alec’s Run, which is a memorial race for my husband’s cousin that raises money to create awareness for the need for backup camera in large vehicles. Which I am so happy to say, has finally made it through legislation and will be standard on vehicles starting in .  My husband’s aunt and uncle have been so vocal and instrumental in making this happen, so it’s very amazing to see all of their hard work and long hours spent on this cause come to fruition. 

Dad’s Birthday-

Although my dad stopped celebrating his birthday about 10 years ago, today he turns 70!  I’m so sad that we’re missing it, but we celebrated with him the other night.  I couldn’t have picked a better dad and truly am so blessed to have him in our life! 

Healthy-
Everyone says it, but I’m getting healthy!  I think I finally have it down.  I’ve been running to train for Alec’s run and have been going to the gym 5 days a week for about an hour to and hour and a half.   Most recently, I bought the 21 days fix and am super excited to start it on Monday.  I plan on doing weekly recaps of my progess, how I’m feeling and favorite recipes.  My hardest part about getting in shape isn’t necessarily the working out, it’s the food.  I LOVE food.

Working from home- 
I decided I was missing something.   I’ve decided to take the plunge and add some side ventures to my life.  I’m studying up on photography and editing and when my course is over, I plan on starting up a small photography business.  I’m also starting up as a fitness coach and am going in for my personal training exam in a month!   I love that I can stay home with my kids still and contribute to our family.   It's also a great stepping stone because I plan on going back to school to be come a registered dietitian when my kids start school. 

I hope everyone has a super amazing weekend!

5 On Friday

Long time no see!  We’ve had quite the eventful past couple of weeks.  First the kids were hit with ear and sinus infections and then we all got hit with Norovirus. Worst thing EVER! If you get hit with it, Bleach and Lysol are the only things that will kill it. I've done a lot of research! 

I decided to ease my way back in and I’m linking up with Darci, April, Christina and Natasha for Five on Friday!

1.)  My new IPHONE.

Somehow, Jordan lost my Galaxy s3. We tore our house apart more than once looking for it and it still hasn't turned up anywhere.  After almost a week of no phone (which made me so nervous with Olivia's severe food allergies), I got a new one.   I really liked the Galaxy and I loved my phone plan.  I've had a T-Mobile employee line for over 5 years (My husband used to own 6 stores). We haven't owned one in a couple of years, but my line was still active.  You can't beat $26 a month for unlimited everything.  We couldn't afford another $600 cell phone and I didn't want to give instagram!  It was only a matter of time before they caught up with us, so I signed up with AT&T and got an Iphone5s.  I really like it so far!  I just miss my unlimited data and my $26 phone bill.  At least my husband still has his, for now. 


2.) Shin Splints are also the worst thing EVER!

I was doing C25k until we got sick and I took a 2.5 week hiatus from the gym.  I’ve been going every day since last Saturday and started up on Week 1 again.  It’s been going really great, but as I figured I have the wrong shoes.   I have extremely high arches and I underpronate (supinate), and my shoes do not make me feel great after a run!  I have shin splints like you wouldn’t believe and after my interval workout on the treadmill last night, it is killing me to walk .  Anyone have any suggestions for shin splints?  I bought some new sneakers that were highly recommended for my type of feet/gait, so I’m hoping they help! I want to keep running.

3.) Stitch Fix

I got my 3rd Stitch Fix this month.  I think they are getting better and better as time goes on. I liked everything out of this fix, except one item.  I only kept one thing though. This awesome Elephant blouse.  I love the cut of it and how it fits.  I also think that even if I lose weight, it will still look good a little loose.  I want more of them, but from what I’ve been reading Hawthorne 41 is their brand and you can’t find it in stores.

4.) Terrible Three’s

Not to scare any mom’s that haven’t hit three yet, but three is AWFUL! I thought Jordan was bad at two, he’s even worse at three.  The tantrums, the screaming are 10 million times worse than 2 was.  Yesterday, he spent 30 minutes straight screaming because I wanted to change his poopy pull up.  He screamed in the car because we passed the airport and I said it wasn’t time to pick up Grandma yet. He has also become the destroyer of all things.  I can’t even go to the bathroom without something getting ruined.  Our house constantly looks like a tornado went through!  The other day, I took eggs out to hard boil them.  I went to go keep Olivia from climbing something and turned back around to him smashing the eggs one by one on the floor.  He smashed 10 of them. I had just mopped. Ugh, I hope for my sanity that this goes away soon.

5.) Olivia is not a baby anymore!

She is officially 100% a toddler.  She talks up a storm, her baby laugh is gone, and she doesn’t look like a baby anymore.  Girlfriend loves the Gym childwatch!  We were waiting our turn yesterday and someone opened the door to the childwatch and she ran in and the other day when I went to pick her up, she saw me through the windows and said “No No No” while shaking her head and finger at me.   I guess she didn’t want to go home.

Olivia: 18 months.

I should have started this blog a long time ago.  I’m awful at baby books, but I’d love a way to keep track of the way that my kids have grown, so I’m going to start doing some posts on them at certain “milestone” ages.

As you can tell by the title, Olivia turned 18 months old in January! I cannot believe how fast it’s going (I know, I know, everyone says that.).  It’s amazing how much she has blossomed/grown up these past 6 months! She truly isn’t a baby anymore, she is a full blown toddler!

STATS: At her well baby visit last week, Olivia was 33.5 inches tall (85-90th percentile) and 23 pounds (24-30th percentile). She’s mostly wearing 12-18 month clothes, but they’re loose on her.  I’m having to buy 18-24 month things (and 18 month from Carters) because she’s too tall for the other clothes. Only they fall off of her! Any suggestions for a tall skinny baby?  She’s still wearing size 5 shoes (which my husband loves).

LOVES: 

• To Eat.  Girlfriend will try just about anything!
• Cats. She’s a crazy cat lady. She wakes up meowing.
• Little Mermaid.
• Minions.
• To Read.
• Her bows and her shoes.  For a while, she hated them. Now she cries if you don’t put them on fast enough.
• Water. To Drink, to take a tubby, to swim. The cats water bowl is a favorite toy of hers.

MILESTONES:

• She’s 100% off the bottle and on a straight sippy cup! She’s been off the bottle since 11 months but was using a soft spout (Nuk ACTIVE cup), so it was kind of like a bottle, the nipple was just a little different shape.  We lost it last week and she’s just been using the Playtex hard spout ones and has been doing great.
• She’s talking up a storm.  She easily knows 20-30 words and it amazes me that she has new words every day.
• She has all of her teeth except her 2nd set of molars! She’s actually had them for a while now.

DISLIKES:

• When daddy leaves for work.
• Not getting her way (like most toddlers)
• Her brother not sharing.
• The car.
• Being trapped in the stroller.

SLEEPING:

Surprisingly going so much better.  She’s been trying to put herself to sleep and unless she’s sick, she’s been sleeping through the night. I’ve been able to lie her in bed at nap time and she’ll fall asleep occasionally. That’s more than I can say for her almost 3.5 year old brother.

HEALTH:
She’s just like her brother. Chronic runny nose. It comes with the territory of allergies though.  I just have to be better at remembering to give her the zyrtec that the allergist prescribed.  She’s still having random bouts of hives but no anaphylatic reactions since her one to the almond milk months ago.  She’s still allergic to all nuts and eggs (she can have them baked into things but not on their own).

February Goals

I’m a list maker. If you look around my house there are a ton of lists everywhere! 
I thought that I would start sharing my monthly goals here on the blog to help hold myself accountable. So here are my February Goals and some sneak peaks of things that I’ve been working on.

• Gym 4 days a week – Pretty self explanatory.  I plan on trying to get into the gym 4 days a week and then working out at home 2 days a week and having an active rest day.
• Take at least 1 new class at the gym this month-  I’d like to take some classes, but don’t know which to pick so I thought that if I started taking a new classes every month, I might find one that I’ll fall in love with.
• Finish the kids room-  I want to get the kids room finished.  It’ll be nice to finally have one room in our house completed.
• Only use cloth diapers -  We’ve fallen into the trap that I think a lot of families do at one point or another in their cloth diapering journey.  We’ve been using disposables since before Christmas and it’s getting expensive especially when we have enough cloth here to diaper a small army of babies.
• Self Care- Do one thing for only me a week. Whether it’s finally using my massage I got for Christmas two years ago, or taking a bath or getting my nails done.  I’m hoping to get better at this self care thing.
• No Un-Necessary Spending – Self explanatory. This mama needs to stay out of Target and it’s dollar bins.
• Have a Girls Night-  I’m hoping to go out and have a girls night.  I think my sister in law and I might go to the Polar Bites benefiting our zoo in a couple of weeks.
• Be consistent with a “schedule”  for the kids- I oon’t mean a strict schedule, but my kids do so much better when they have a bit of a routine and I think it’ll help our life out a lot.  Plus it will be easier now that we’re really starting our home preschool with Jordan. He needs something to keep him mentally stimulated as he’s very bright for his age.

Those are my goals for the month.  Come back next month for my new goals and to see how I did with these ones!

Here’s some of the projects I’ve been working lately!

Do you set goals for yourself? Do you stick to them?

5 on Friday.

Happy Friday!
I’m linking up with Darci, Christina, April & Natasha for best link-up of the week....

1.) Modern Girls Guide to Bible Study
I’ve mentioned before that I’m doing an online bible study led by my friend Brittany from Happy is A Choice.  We started on Monday and I’m really love it!  It’s a great easy read and I love Jen Hatmaker’s sense of humor and the way that she makes things very relatable and easy to understand.  I cannot wait to see what else this study has in store for me!

2.) Sick Babies.
My kids have been sick for almost 2 weeks now!  They haven’t slept since last Thursday.  This mama is tired.  We went to the pediatrician on Tuesday and Jordan has a virus and Olivia both an ear infection and a sinus infection.  They’ve both been very clingy.  I’ve been dying to get back into the gym.  I’ve been trying to fit in workouts at home, but it’s not the same.

3.) Meal Planning/Meal Prep
I’ve been trying to be better about meal planning and prepping meals ahead of time. Our food budget has been pretty out of control and I know that meal planning will totally cut it down!  I’m hoping to really put in 110% this week and stick to it.  The cost savings would be great and I know that it will help us on the quest to lose weight.  I'm also planning on sticking to my Tone It Up nutrition plan about 90% of the time!

4.) Bravo
Does anyone else love Bravo (or trashy TV in general?).  They always put out shows that just suck me in.  I obviously love Toned Up with my girls Katrina and Karena from Tone It Up.  I just love getting the glimpse into their lives. They are exactly how I imagined them.  I also love Shahs of Sunset and Vanderpump Rules.  I cannot wait for the finale of Pump Rules! I’d die to have Stassi’s wardrobe/hair (or just to look like her).

5.) Five Year Anniversary.
Typically when you get married, you don’t really celebrate your dating anniversary anymore, but yesterday marks the day that Tj and I started dating 5 years ago!  We didn’t really do anything. We babysat our niece last night so her parents could go to the Jay-Z concert, but I came home to a completely cleaned house. We’re talking mopped, counters cleaned, the whole nine yards.  He bribed his friends with wine to help him.  I’ll admit it was a DISASTER as with the sickness that has been in our house, I have had no energy to clean! 

We were babies here!  This was about 2.5 months after we started dating.  We were at the big St. Patty's day parade here in buffalo!

A Photo An Hour.

 Last week, Steph from Southern Mess had a fun post called A Photo An Hour.  She decided to host a link up with Meg. O from Meg O. on the Go to have everyone else join in on the fun.

My day can be pretty hectic/boring, but I thought this sounded really fun.  Some photos were taken with my camera and some with my phone.

I woke up before the kids. It's a miracle. I spent some time drinking the green juice I made last night (Kale, Kiwi, Pineapple, Mint) and a coffee.  I sat down with my devotional and my bible study book to get some uninterrupted time in.

The kids are up, so I made them some breakfast.

I attempt to put on makeup and get dressed

I have to unlock Olivia from the bathroom because Jordan locked her in while I ran to the basement to grab some clothes. How he managed to lock her in while he was out of the bathroom, I have no idea. The skeleton key wouldn’t work so I had to take apart the door.

My makeup is finally done and I’m dressed, which means I put on a clean tee and clean leggings.

I’m going stir crazy because I haven’t been to the gym in a week because the kids have been sick so I try and get in a workout. It was a success.  I loved the Love Your Body HIIT workout workout from Tone It Up.  (My booty is still sore this morning!)

I make some lunch for everyone, homemade mini pizzas.

I attempt to put little munchkins down for a nap. I was not successful.

Jordan’s doing the usual, destroying the playroom. He’s pretending his safari truck is a lobster and yes, he is wearing his rash guard and swimsuit.  He said he wanted to wear it so we could go to Long Island on a long long drive to go see Grandpa and Grandma and go in their pool.

I attempt to clean up my office/sewing/guest room so we can put the new bed in.  (I wasn’t that successful  and I swear it really isn't "that" bad, the pictures make it look a lot worse.)

I start doing some meal prep.  I’m making spaghetti squash for dinner and I decided to try out the oven method for hardboiled eggs.  It turned out pretty good.

Jordan passed out right before 6, so Olivia and I are having fun playing in the kitchen while we wait for Tj to get home.

 Olivia gets a bath and then goes to bed. Somehow her brother is still sleeping (and slept until 8 am this morning!)

Sparkly shoes can make any bad day better.  I'm also a million times more productive when I wear these around the house. 

 I find Wickett curled up in his new favorite spot, the kitchen sink.

I decided to take an Epsom Salt bath and go to bed!

This was a really great idea.  I'll have to remember this so I can do another one!

2014 Goals

I’m a little late on the blogger bandwagon of sharing my goals for the year. Better late than never.

I try not to overload myself too much but I always like having goals to strive towards.  I try and break them down into categories.  Here are my goals and a few cute picture of my kids.

Personal:

Be present more: In this day and age with all of the technology, I want to be more present with my kids and my husband and spend less time with technology when I am around them.

Faith: I want us to be more active in our church.  My son goes to Sunday School every week, but us actually making it to church is hit or miss.  I also want to start doing some bible studies. I’m a part of one right now that starts tomorrow. I’m pretty excited for it.

Self Care:  I’ve already touched on this subject last week.  I want to take care of myself better, so that I can be better equipped to take care of those around me.  So far this goal is working out well.  I have been trying to care out time for myself here and there.  I got my hair cut (for the first time in 9 months), I have taken a few bubble baths and put on my favorite masks. I also want to improve my health.

Run a Half Marathon:  This is pretty self explanatory.  My goal is to run one half marathon this year.  I wanted to try and run the Buffalo Half Marathon at the end of May, but if that one doesn’t pan out. I plan on running in the Mighty Niagara Half that’s up by Niagara Falls.

Blogging:

• I want to increase my followers to 100.
• I want to be consistent with posts 4-5 days a week..
• Plan ahead- I don’t want to be writing posts last minute.  I’d like to write them and stock pile them up to be published so I don’t feel so rushed and flustered.
• I would love to be in a place to accept sponsorships/ad space.

Professionally:

• Open Etsy Shop- This is been a goal of mine for a while now.  This year I am going to make it happen!
• Take Photography and editing classes.
• Open a Photography business- I would love to be able to do family pictures, events, newborns and maternity shots.  Not necessarily to make a ton of money, but to be able to do something I have a passion for and to be able to support my hobby.

 So what are some of your goals?  

#GetFitAndFab

Going along with my post from last week., I’ve been trying really hard to take care of myself and my body.

So far, this week has gone really well.  I made it to the gym 3x.  I planned to go everyday, except Sunday, but my kids got sick and I didn’t want to infect the entire daycare.  When I go to the gym, I’ve been trying to get my cardio in, which includes my C25k that I’ve started to prepare for my 1/2 marathon. I’ve also been doing some of the workouts from Tone It Up.  This week, I also plan on starting up some Barre workouts online from Barre3.

I’ve been doing much better on nutrition too! We’ve been juicing and I made up some quick and easy Burrito bowl lunches for us to just grab and go.

The juice I made had apples, pears, kiwi, celery, carrots and a couple of strawberries.  It was delicious.

I also took some time to myself.  I did an at home micro dermabrasion kit and put on one of my favorite Lush face masks (Mask of Magnaminty) while I took a long bubble bath.

This coming week, I plan on taking  new yoga class, working on my cardio and getting 100+ ounces of water daily. If I complete all my goals this week, I’m going to treat myself to a new piece of workout clothes.

I’m linking up with Brittany from Happy is A Choice and Sam from Life Style Love.