Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day this year turned out fun!  Scott requested for the night off of work so we could go on a date.  We received a gift card to Outback Steakhouse from Scott's parents for Christmas and figured valentine's day was a perfect time to use it.  We originally thought to go to dinner and then a movie when my mom got to our house to baby-sit Kylie.  Scott decided he wanted to go out to eat with Kylie and then we could go to a movie alone.  It's a good thing we went out to eat early because when we got there, we overheard the front desk saying that about a half hour later there would be hour waits for dinner.  We had both never been to Outback before and just thought the food was okay. 

After dinner we went home, waited for my mom to show up and then went to go see The Lego Movie.  Yes, it's a kids movie, but it was actually pretty entertaining and funny!  We both enjoyed it and had a good time.  I had wanted to get frozen yogurt for dessert since I had a buy one, get one free coupon, but there were plenty of desserts at home.  Scott bought me some delicious cupcakes and we made chocolate covered strawberries.  Yum!

For Scott's present, I put together the puzzle he made for me when he proposed.  I modge podged the back and then went to D.I. to find a frame.  I don't know exactly where I'm going to put the picture, but I'm glad it's out instead of in a bag hidden somewhere.  I like that I'll always have a reminder of the day he proposed.

I know some people don't like Valentine's day because you should show your love every day, not just one day out of the year.  Or that there are always high expectations of gifts and plans.  I never really hated the holiday, even when I was single.  Sure, I would get a little bummed if I didn't have a date or get flowers, but I never felt unloved.  I think it's a fun holiday to do a few extra special things and it will be fun to see what traditions we decide to do for it.

Grandparent Valentine's

It's going to take some getting used to in remembering to do things for the grandparents.  The idea to do something for valentine's day was last minute, but I'm glad I did something and that they turned out cute.  I got the idea for the bookmark here.  Getting Kylie's footprints was a challenge as Kylie likes to move.  I didn't even try with her hands as she would always close her fists.  The only struggle with the bookmarks was the ribbon.  It kept tearing the paper, so I had to hot glue the ribbon on.

The photo shoot in her valentine's outfit was a little bit of a struggle as well.  It was hard to get Kylie to just sit as she would lean over to try to grab the closest thing to her or just fall on her stomach.  I forget that she's not so little anymore and trying to get her to sit still is something that's not so easy anymore.  She kept eating my props so that's why half of the pictures are of her eating.  The other bookmark is just of Kylie in a super cute outfit.  The boots are adorable, but still too big for her feet, so they fall off pretty quickly.  I was just going to do one bookmark, but since there are too many cute pictures of her, I decided to do two!  I had an extra bookmark so I sent one to Aunt Kathy.  I hope she and all the grandparents like them!

High Five for Friday

1. So, that was an interesting Superbowl! The Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks played against each other.  It should have been a good game, but the score ended up being Seahawks 43 and Broncos 8.  I was disappointed that it wasn't an exciting game, but it was a good excuse to have everyone over for dinner!  My family is trying to get back to doing dinners every month and we were hosting the dinner in February.  The Superbowl was February 2nd, so perfect time to have dinner.  I told everyone to bring an appetizer type food and we had plenty to eat!  I made these barbeque ranch chicken cups and football cupcakes.  We ate, talked, played games and I looked up some Superbowl trivia beforehand.  We actually recorded the game and watched it after Andrew and Rebecca left since they decided as a family not to watch it.  It was fun!

2. Scott & I headed over to Brita's the other day to talk and give her something I picked up for her.  While talking, the girls decided to play with my hair and gave it a great make over! :)

3. I painted my toes the other day and was thinking about when I could paint Kylie's toes.  I asked the mommy group on Facebook and a lot of them had done it just a couple weeks after birth.  So, I felt fine about doing it, especially because she doesn't really suck on her toes.  I love how adorable it looks!

4. Kylie is on the verge of getting ready to crawl!  She can get up on her knees, but then she'll just shake back and forth.  She gets frustrated pretty quickly that she's not moving.  Time to start investing in some baby gates for the stairs!

5. Kylie still loves to eat baby food and sometimes gets a little too excited while eating.  As a result, it gets all over her face!

Conversation Heart Tree

My other craft project for January was this conversation heart tree for my Valentine's decorations.  I saw the idea here.  It was super easy to put together and I love easy crafts.  Ones that don't take a lot of time, but still look good.  I think it would probably look better if it was a little taller, but styrofoam trees are super expensive! I looked at Wal-Mart and they didn't have any so I went to Michael's and the one I bought was like $5 and the tallest one was $12.  It just seemed a little much to spend on a piece of styrofoam.  I bought the candy hearts at the dollar store as I didn't want to spend a lot of money of my two crafts for the month.  I think it turned out cute!

Apparently this is code for I love you.

Headband Holder

All of Kylie's headbands were sitting in a basket before and it was fine, but a little difficult sorting through looking for the one that I wanted.  I saw this idea where they took an oatmeal container and turned it into a headband holder.  I didn't take the paper off the container or use fabric.  I modge podged some leftover scrapbook paper I had onto the container.  I also had some extra accessories from Kylie's block letters and put ribbon on and a flower on top.  I think it turned out way cute and I can stick the headbands that didn't fit on the inside!  Once Kylie gets some hair and starts wearing clips, I'll have to make something to organize those as well.

January Goals

I made some goals at the beginning of the year.  I was ambitious and I made a lot of goals.  I wasn't sure at first if I was going to keep up with a lot of them, but I've done well so far. 

I was reading some blogs and how sometimes it can be helpful to pick a "word of the year".  Having a specific word of the year can help you focus on a specific thing in your life you want to work on.  While making up my goals, I decided to do that and I picked the word progress.  I just really want to progress in a lot of areas of my life and following my goals will help me do just that.

I made 4 different categories of goals: monthly, weekly, daily and marriage.  See, I told you I made a lot! 

Monthly Goals:
               -a house project
               -work on Kylie's baby book
               -date night
               -go see one of Scott's soccer games
               -a craft project  

Weekly Goals:

                -Family activity out of house one day a week

                -Stick to menu plan at least 4 days a week

                -Stick to cleaning schedule 4 days a week

                -Take one day to make a week’s worth of baby food

                -Keep calendar updated

                -Make a new dessert every Sunday

                -Look at Mint.com every Sunday

Daily Goals:

                -Read at least one scripture a day

                -Say prayers every night

                -Exercise at least 30 minutes

                -Do the chores on the cleaning schedule

                -Read Kylie a story 

Marriage Goals:

                -Date night once a month

                -Go to temple once every 3 months

For the monthly goals, we completed date night where we actually had two this month.  One was going to see the ice castles and the other was a root beer float date.  Rebecca and Andrew gave us this date jar for Christmas that has ideas for dates wrapped around a few dollars to do the date.

I also completed two craft projects and going to see one of Scott's soccer games.  For weekly goals, I completed sticking to my menu plan (for 6 days this week!), making baby food for Kylie and keeping the calendar updated.  I want our family activities out of the house to not be the same as date night, so we didn't do any other activities.  Of course, Scott worked 5 days the first week I was done with school so there wasn't a lot of time to go out.  I hope to start sticking to my cleaning schedule starting this next week and I have so many desserts that I have on pinterest to start trying.  Daily goals are pretty bad right now.  I do have a plan to start exercising now that I bought a new sports bra and I just have to get into the hang of having a night time routine for me and for Kylie. She has a standard bedtime, I just need to get on doing the routine before bedtime.  We did complete the marriage goal of date night once a month, which overlaps with the monthly goal as well.

I think I'm doing well progressing with things. I also think I'm going to keep a record of what I accomplished each month.  Helps me keep accountable and remembering the goals I made.  Now, to start planning the goals for February!

Being a Stay-at-home Mom so Far

I've been a stay at home mom for two weeks now and I am loving it!  I am glad that I went ahead and made the decision to quit.  I think I've gotten a lot accomplished in the last two weeks than I would in probably two months if I was still working.  Of course the main reason for staying home is to take care of Kylie.  I didn't want to miss out on anything and I love being able to play, feed and just be with her all day now.  I did notice while I was working that things at home were being ignored.  I wasn't cooking much anymore, so we ate out quite a bit for reasons that I didn't prep for the meal early enough or I was too tired to cook.  I also had a hard time keeping up on cleaning the house.  Also, any projects that I wanted to do kept getting put to the back burner because all my time when I got off work went to taking care of Kylie.  It was hard to split my time up between responsibilities of home and responsibilities of mom.

I just never really felt accomplished in anything at work or home.  It is amazing how more relaxed I am being home now.  I know that being a stay at home mom is not easy, but having the stress of work taken off my shoulders makes it so much easier.  I still struggle to figure out a routine and make good use of my time, but things are so much better.

For example, last night was the first night we went out to eat in 2 weeks! Which is quite an accomplishment considering how much Scott likes fast food and how often we were doing it before.  While working, it was hard to keep up on my meal plans, but this week I stayed true to my meal plan for 6 days!  Some of the meals took some effort, like making home-made fries and biscuits from scratch.  I am actually starting to enjoy cooking again!  Yes, I taught cooking at school, but since that was my job it made it hard to want to do it at home.  I love being able to try different recipes and try my hand at making things from scratch where I would normally just buy already made.  I might even try certain weeks where I only make recipes from pinterest or from a certain cookbook.

This is a banana and peanut butter sandwich covered in chocolate and frozen. Pretty delicious!

Speaking of food, I am also enjoying making Kylie's baby food from scratch as well!  I think it saves us money in the end, although I am not opposed to buying baby food in a jar.  So far, Kylie has already tried bananas, squash (the only one from a jar), avocados, sweet potato, zucchini and apple.  We just have peas and pears left to try until 7 months when she can start her next set of foods.

When it comes to cleaning, I struggle.  I've always struggled with cleaning, this isn't a new thing since having a baby.  I made up this cleaning schedule, but I haven't exactly followed it yet so I hope to start following it soon.  Scott says that it doesn't bother him when the house is a little dirty and I shouldn't worry so much over keeping things clean, but I truly do like a clean house so when I do clean it's because I want to, not because I have to.

I've also been able to get a few projects accomplished and I'll do a separate post on those.  I think the goals that I set for this year will actually get accomplished!  I do have to remember to not get down if I don't get to something that I plan to do.  My first priority is taking care of Kylie and if that takes away from extra projects and cleaning for the day, then so be it.  I have days where I'm more productive than others.  I like that there is flexibility right now.  Some days, I will do things during Kylie's naps and then other days I'll nap with her or just watch t.v. while she's sleeping.

This e-card is too funny!

I just have to keep reminding myself that I don't need to be the mom I envision myself to be right now.  Again, it's only been two weeks! The transition between working mom and stay at home mom will take some time.  I think I am taking steps in the right direction though and I am happy with what I have done so far.  I am also just happy in general. :)

Kylie is growing fast and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to enjoy every day with her.