In like a lion.....

I can't even believe that tomorrow is March! Where does the time go?

Nothing really new to report here.
I did capture a fabulous picture of Josh the other day.
I am not sure why he was sleeping Joey's room, but he definitely stood out!



On the 19th we celebrated my parents 38th wedding anniversary by going out to dinner. My dad ordered the Flintstones Ribs and boy were we ever shocked! Nice Bib.

Joey got to be one of the boys that night. Josh had to work and typically Joey is better behaved at restaurants when Josh is around but he did well sitting with Uncle Cody and Grandpa.


My Mom and I got the roomier side of the booth!



Joey has been quite the au natural boy lately. The other day I caught him right after his bath looking out the big window in our living room overlooking the main street.

This one was one of the more modest shots I was able to get of him. It kind of looks like he is "holding up" binoculars. I then had to explain to him the finer points of modesty.


Yesterday Joey insisted that he go get his Leo figurine from Little Einsteins that he left in my car. He put my shoes on and was attempting escape but his efforts were futile. This kid just does not believe in pants!


I went to a baby shower yesterday for an old childhood friend of mine. I hadn't seen Lauren since high school but it was so good to catch up. We reminisced a lot and even remembered our plans to move to Santa Cruz and work at the local McDonald's. We were such silly kids.

It did turn out though that she had moved to Santa Cruz after high school and I had worked at McDonald's as a teenager so we both fulfilled parts of our plans. The shower was a blast and I even got to make her a super cute diaper cake.

Lent

I love Lent. It's a good reminder that we too can be renewed in our faith and in our convictions. It's also a good time to reflect on our priorities (or lack their of) and be able to self assess the changes we need to make in our lives to be more like Jesus.

Josh, Joey and I went to the Ash Wednesday Mass today. Josh and I can both agree that the Gospel of Matthew is one of our favorite gospels and today was no exception. The Gospel, in a gist, talked about that we should make the celebration of our faith a private matter. We shouldn't show off to others how much we pray, fast, or give charity too. By doing so we are bragging and condoning self righteousness. The things we do in our hearts, like any charity work, should be done because its the right thing to do, not because we want to look good in the eyes of others. The only person we need to "look good" in front of is Christ when he face him on judgment day.

Part of the season of Lent means digging deep within our selves to eliminate the temptations we face in everyday life. Jesus spent those 40 days in the desert willfully declining every single temptation the devil put in front of him because he loved us so much. During Lent its time to show Jesus how much we love him back and how strong we can be to resist temptation.

I hope to make this Lent better then any years prior. I hope to teach Joey more about Jesus and find more room in our hearts not only for Jesus but for others as well.

A new venture

I started something that scares the bejeezus out of me and makes me super nervous.

After a lot of thought and contemplating I started a Mom blog. I knew that I loved to blog and that I had something to say. After narrowing down a couple of options I decided on a blog entitled, Mom of the Year.

It is basically my experience of being a Mom to Joey and talking about the the lighter side of mommyhood. It includes the ins and outs of raising children and also following the notion that every mom aspires to be "Mom of the Year". Of course it's a humorous approach and I talk frequently about "my not so great mommy moments" but I feel like it might be a good outlet for me to contribute to the blog world. At times its candid and revealing which is why I am nervous about the whole thing, but I would kick myself if I didn't start something I really wanted to do. So here it goes!

The link is
Mom of the Year Please come check it out and become a follower if you would like. Down the road I would like to host giveaways and such I hope that you will follow me in this new adventure!

Decorating

First off I have to say, please check out Just A Girl's Blog. Her design ideas are amazing and one day I want to be able to have a beautiful home to decorate and use her design tips. She truly is brilliant and creative!

Decorating an apartment doesn't seem to go together in one sentence.
Since we have moved in in December I have found it difficult to put things where they mesh well with everything else. This doesn't surprise me, it took me over year to make our last house feel like a home and decorate to a point that it looked cozy. I want to decorate my apartment but am afraid to. One of the hardest parts of moving in the first place was leaving behind the permanent decor in our old house, but I always know that I will have my own place to decorate again.
For now, I am grateful that our apartment management really is all about making our new place feel cozy and comfortable. Before we moved in they painted accent walls for us. We opted to leave the accent walls in the living room and our master bedroom the current color (mocha brown and hunter green). I would never choose to paint my master bedroom hunter green so I opted for the "when in Rome" approach.
When it came to Joey's room, Josh's only stipulation was that he got to pick the color. Since I was the final deciding factor on choosing to call The Metropolitan our home, he wanted to pick the color. This, understandably so, made me nervous. I had plans for a Mickey Mouse themed bedroom and felt only a primary color would suffice. But Josh pleasantly surprised me!
Joey's room was quite simple to decorate without really having to commit any permanence to the decor. I picked up some vinyl decals from Costco that set me back $15 and they are easily removed; although they are a one time use decor. I still need to sew up Joey's comforter which really is the matching bed sheet and some flannel material in circle shapes. I also need to extend the curtains a bit. The windows in his room are surprisingly long!

All in all I am pleased with his room. The design goal was to be a fun kids room but not to commercially or busy. It was also important for me to have a simple and in expensive design that would be OK to change in two years time.

I don't feel like these pictures do the room any justice and I also realize there is so much more I can do, but with being on a limited budget I think I did an OK job!

Decisions

There are times when I want to be brutally honest and completely raw. I want to bare my soul and impact others. I want to contribute to this thing we called life.
But I can't figure out where to start. I love blogging and I love getting lost in the blogosphere. I have come across the most amazing blogs written that have spanned family, faith, decorating, frugality and everything in between. I want to find a niche in the blogosphere. I think I have something to say and I want to find the way to say it. I have been searching within myself trying to find a creative outlet and I hope I find it soon.

It's Elementary my dear!

As a child my brother, sister and I were fortunate enough to live right down the street from our Elementary School- Chambers Primary. We could go down our cul-de-sac and through the short path to play on the most awesome playground castle (Well when we were young it was pretty hard core). I have many fond memories of that playground including Mr. Holmes, our dear recess Duty, who used to push us on the swings, extreme games of hide and seek which included hiding underneath the structures and up in the pitches, and hanging off of the tire swing and coming home with nasty knee wounds only to try to explain to my Mom that I didn't get it by dangling off the tire swing while it was in fast motion. I even remember when the community came together to rebuild the playground when a fire, during Fourth of July, burned it to the ground.

Since I enjoyed it so much as a child and lately I have been going over to my parents house almost every other day I started taking Joey to the playground. He loves it so much and his eyes get big every time we go. When we get out of the car to go to Grandma and Grandpa's he attempts to make a big dash down the street to the park, but of course this Mom is always quicker. =)

Going to Chambers the other day and walking around the outside of the school with my Mom and Joey brought back a lot of memories. I remembered where each one of my classrooms were and even with fondness remember the dreaded portables that are still there. On this particular trip I captured some great pictures of Joey having the time of his life. At one point I tried to show him how awesome the teeter totter was but he wanted nothing to do with it, so of course my mom and I tried it out. It's way easier when you are younger...let me tell you! =)





See that blue house in the background? One of my best childhood friends lived in that house and I spent many a days over there having all sorts of fun!

I took this one while on the swings, Joey ran right up to me while I was up in the air and I almost barreled him over.


Crawling out of one of the many hiding places

Birthday Plans

Can you believe Joey is almost 3?!?!?!

The plans are to have a low key celebration.
I've rented out the Grand Residence Center at my Apartment for....
April 11 starting at 1PM.
Add Joey's birthday on to your calendars and invitations will follow!

I am thinking Mickey Mouse Themed!

Seriously?

I can't believe I am even posting this story!
To preempt it, have you ever heard of failblog.org? My friend Shelley wrote about it on facebook the other day I have been hooked ever since? It's basically a blog with lots of pictures and videos of things that are ironic and are an absolutely hilarious epic fail of a mess. My story is neither ironic or an epic fail but it could have turned into one very easily.
On Saturday I noticed a charge for $40.47 on my account from Fred Meyer for the previous day. I remembered going there to pick up Josh's $10 prescription which was right there in the transaction history. What I couldn't figure out was the random $40.47 charge. I waited until today to call my bank to talk with them about the charge. They transferred me to the fraud department and told me that basically it would be a $50 fee to investigate the charge b/c it was a pin based transaction which means someone got my card and pin. I told them it was ridiculous to charge me a fee for something I didn't do. I then said I would call Fred Meyer myself. I called the store and was told to call corporate b/c they could look up the transaction. While waiting on hold through this whole ordeal I quickly hang up the phone.
I suddenly remembered that I had just filled up my gas tank on Friday at none other place but..........Fred Meyer.

What a failure! Although not an epic fail,that would have occurred had I actually gotten through to corporate only to have them tell me it was a gas charge. Boy did I feel stupid. =)

Now go check out failblog.org and maybe it will make you forget how much of a dork I actually am!

Things Joey sleeps with.

Let's be honest Joey is cute, adorable, mischievous and loud...at times. But this kid (in my opinion) is funny ALL the TIME and I think others can even vouch for that as well. Recently I created a facebook album entitled "Things Joey sleeps with." Because this blog should endure years and years of use and I may grow up and grow out of facebook I decided my best bet was to post pictures here as well.
Joey is notorious for sleeping with toys or anything that interest him. When we put him to bed at night our policy is that he is allowed to keep the light on and play with toys in his bed. When we first started doing this the kid would stay up 2-3 hours past his bedtime rallying along, but now he stays up for maybe 30 minutes until he falls asleep. After a few hours pass I always go in to check on him and start the removal process. Joey is an active mover in his sleep. He thrashes around his bed so I have a nightly chore of removing all the toys or anything else he drags into bed him. After a couple of nights doing this in our new apartment I started to notice that it wasn't just a couple of things he would sleep with, but a lot of things, like the entire bed would be filled with toys. So naturally I broke out the camera and began track the trends. Do enjoy!







This next one has to be my favorite as I literally freaked out when I went in to his room and didn't see him initially. Can you see the little feet poking out?

March for Life

In January Joey, my MIL and I went down the the Olympia Capitol Grounds and participated in the March for Life. This was my first time attending such an event and one of my first times being "Politically Active." I have a pretty strong political stance but choose not to share it as much b/c politics and relationships seldom work well. =) However I find no problem in standing up for the right of life. As a mom to a young one I find life is precious and purposeful. I believe that the most basic right in any human being is life and life begins at conception.

The Rally felt incredibly awesome and inspiring for me. Over 6000 people were in attendance!

Yikes!

It's been awhile since I last blogged. Time sure seems to sneak up on me!
Things are going well here. We seem to have resolved Josh's heart business. He has to be on pills (beta blockers) for the rest of his life and has other meds to lower his heart rate when he feels it starting to pick up. Work is going well for Josh. He is still a workaholic, but I couldn't be happier with a husband who works extremely hard for our family.
We've started to really concentrate on savings and are making quarterly savings goals so that we can save up enough for a down payment on another home. I've even really tightened down on couponing and our food budget. I keep a detailed excel spread sheet of my out of pocket expense and my savings percentage. This month so far I average a 76% savings rate. Last month (January) my savings rate was 50% and I hardly couponed at all.
But even with savings comes a bit of fun. Josh and I have a 5 day Vegas trip planned for May. My sister is flying in from Tennessee for 3 weeks and will be trading off with my Mom watching Joey. We considered taking Joey to Disney Land this year but b/c he will only be 3 we felt that waiting one year would be our best bet.
Joey doesn't know it yet that Holly is coming but he will be so excited. He misses her so much and today while we were pulling into Costco he started hysterically crying for Holly. I don't know why Costco triggered his memory of her but it took a bit to calm him down. At least for the meantime we can Skype with Holly from across the country.
Joey continues to keep me on my toes. He can be so naughty and yet, 5 minutes later, be so polite and kindhearted. The mood swings are hard to deal with at times but I guess that comes with having an almost 3 year old. The terrible twos do end when they turn three right? =)
It's hard to believe that I am already starting to research preschool! Being a stay at home mom means Joey doesn't get to be around a lot of kids therefore social interaction with other children is limited. (hint hint to my friends: start having babies asap!) We tend to visit a lot of parks, McDonald's play lands, and the Fred Meyer Play Lands for other kids for Joey to play with, but even then the kids more parallel play, which is completely normal for almost 3 year olds. My hope with Preschool is that Joey will develop more social skills in a preschool setting so that he can be fully prepared for kindergarten.
As for me I am constantly wishing for more time! I find myself always always cleaning the apartment. You would think a smaller space would be easier to maintain, but I find it more difficult. It seems like most of my days are running errands, cleaning and playing with Joey. I haven't found (or made) any time to do scrapbooking or sewing, and I need to get on that asap! I have, however, started playing more volleyball. I was invited to play on a competitive club team in addition to the Wednesday night league I play on. We are undefeated for our Wed. League and we finished 2nd in our first Power League Series tournament, which is a great start. The end goal is to make it to Nationals in Arizona in May, which would be be totally awesome. The cool thing about this adult league is that there are ladies in their mid thirties still playing competitive volleyball and let me tell you they can get down and play! I never realized there were these types of leagues to participate in and I can only hope that 10 years from now when I am in my mid-thirties that I can still play like that!