Pre-Emma Mommy/Daddy Weekend

This last weekend the hubby and I decided that we were going to take the whole weekend and dedicate it to us, relaxing and getting everything ready for our little girls arrival. For the most part everything was done with regards to her, but we still needed to get a few items and just have us time. So that's what we did.

Saturday we awoke bright and early and made our way to get a mani/pedi for me (a mother's day gift that I needed to cash in) and D got himself a pedi. Clean up those toes and sit in the massage chair. As a diabetic it's a good idea for him to get his feet checked out every so often too! After two hours and a Starbucks tea later, we left feeling refreshed and relaxed. I had such cute toes too! Pink for our little one's arrival of course.

After that we went to the mall to make some exchanges, I got my wedding ring checked and cleaned and while we killed sometime before meeting up with D's dad and grandfather for lunch we went into the Sleep Number store and found out our numbers. I also fell in love with the climate controlled bed and totally want one now! We had a nice lunch at Islands and then went to get our car washed.

Selfie shot at the carwash.

Once done there we headed over to Babies R Us to take advantage of a 20% off sale they were having on the pack n plays. We spent a solid 30 minutes trying to decide which one to get, and ultimately made a decision. We got some needed items for the diaper bag, but we still need to return to get an additional car seat base, because I completely blanked, and I need to figure out what I need for my breast pump. Sigh. We went home to drop off the stuff and discovered our baby book had arrived! We peeked through it and am so excited to start writing in it!

Then we made the trek into Burbank, because we had free movie passes, to see Neighbors. It's with Seth Rogan and Zac Effron. Honestly I thought it was pretty good, considering I am not big on comedic movies (they all seem to have the same jokes) and it was just nice to laugh and have some alone time with my love. Also the big bucket of popcorn, that we ate about a third of, didn't hurt either. Haha. We made our way back home and my lower back just really started to hurt. Once home it got progressively worse, a constant ache in my sciatica. I went upstairs to lie on a heating pad and proceeded to Google "low back pain in the third trimester." This brought up mixed reviews about whether or not it was labor or just back pain so of course I get to thinking that it's labor. I tell Darin that I'm not feeling contractions, but that this could be the start of it. He tells me to stay put, but that he's going to finish our hospital bags. Hehe. We packed everything that could be packed and within two hours of the heating pad my back felt 100% better. It's also nice to know that the bags are packed and ready to go.....who else sang "I'm leaving on a jet plane" after that? The whole incident got me a little scared that we weren't ready and left me feeling uneasy. I need to start mentally preparing myself that this can happen at ANY time.

Sunday. We actually slept in! Well sort of. I lied in bed from 7:30 to about 8:30 and asked D if he wanted french toast for breakfast. He of course said yes and I made it with this amazing cinnamon bread that we had in the house. It was yummo! Then I preceded to take some photos so I can schedule some blog posts coming up! Afterwards we went into full get ready for Emma mode. We put together her swing, bouncer and set up the pack n play in the guest room for a downstairs changing/napping station. Then we did a full scrub down of our bedroom and bathroom and put a waterproof mattress pad on the bed, just in case. We then relaxed for a bit and watched Pitch Perfect for the first time, super cute, and then D washed the other car and I blogged a bit. We ended our evening with a nice long walk with the puppero. 

It was a full and busy weekend but we both feel so much better about having everything ready to go. We can just relax and mentally prepare for her to come. I'm going to finish reading "The Happiest Baby on the Block" and also start writing in her baby book! We also need to assemble her diaper bag. Still things to do, but mostly just relaxing! Whew!

Overload on Shower Gifts!

Hi guys......I am surprised I am even alive after this weekend. Seriously I spent almost my entire weekend at a sewing machine! I went a little crazy with baby shower gift making! But let me back up a little. We also went to a Halloween party.

Friday night......after waiting until the very last second possible to pick up the supplies for our Superhero Gender Bender Halloween party, I went home to make our costumes. Basically....men went as a masculine versions of a female superhero and vice versa. Darin went as Poison Ivy (I know she's a villian.....I don't even care) and I went as Tony Starke (Iron Man in normal clothes.) I bought nylons, fake ivy and some sick on eyebrows to make D sleeves of ivy and ivy brows. I mixed up some hair gel with food coloring and dyed his hair red. It was completely awesome. Unfortunately he lost an eyebrow on the way to the party, but improvised and made it a mustache.....I.DIED!

I only had enough creativity this Halloween for one costume so I just threw on my business suit and put a mini disc around my neck. Everyone thought I was Pepper Potts instead....whatevs!

 

Saturday was spent at my sewing machine and listening to Grey's Anatomy reruns. But I managed to get a million (ok like 10) things made for the baby shower! I am so excited to write a post on what she's getting! I made my first official solo messenger bag (diaper bag!) Super excited! I hope she loves everything! I seriously want to keep it all!

Sunday we drove up to see my folks for the afternoon. The pup decided that she was going to be so comfortable lying on a bolt of fabric for the hour and a half trip! Super silly.

She had a blast playing with my parents dog Gracie, running around the sectional about a thousand times. She seemed slightly sore when we left. D and my dad watched football all afternoon and mom and I hung out in her new craft room putting the snaps on the bag.....snafu-ed by the fact that the snaps I bought were not heavy duty so they popped off! >/ Now I have to go buy more "heavy-duty" snaps to finish it before the shower!

Other than all that it was a relaxing weekend. I hope you all had a great one! Hopefully I can get some good photogs of these gifts and do some tutorials as well! Stay tuned for that!

Free Fabric Haul Weekend

Last week(end) was CRAZY! So much stuff happened at home and at work that I am completely wrecked on this Columbus Day. When that alarm went off this morning I was very hazy....I needed my Fizz drink badly today. Lets recap shall we.

Monday, my mom and grandparents made their way out to our apartment to deliver our new-to-us recliners. My parents have had these recliners (that don't look like ugly recliners) for years and we have been eying them. Well our prayers were answered and we are now the proud owners of two comfy leather recliners.....now I need to redecorate because our couch doesn't match. I see a new slipcover in our future. The hubs reluctantly vacates it to go to bed every night.

Think he needs new sneakers? Look at those worn soles!

On Wednesday we had our first rain storm of the season and I was so happy.....except that I had a photoshoot for work, and the lighting was awful. However we got back to the office and we had a female peacock just hanging out in our parking lot all afternoon. It was really fun.

Our feathered friend

Beautiful sunset

Friday we took our old wing chairs over to my dear friends house and we had a fun evening of Cards Against Humanity.....I was winning at the beginning but ended up losing! Bummer.

Saturday was the day I had been waiting for. My mom, grandma, Aunt and I made our way out to Camarillo to our dear friends home to check out her haul of free fabric. She got well over $8K in upholstery, felt, fake fur and quilting fabric, all free! We thought that we could go through it all in about an hour, but after 4 hours we were just finishing up and exhausted.

I managed to find some throw pillow fabric, denim, possibly fabric to make a new duvet cover, and some things for baby crafts!!! I managed to make one of the gifts for an upcoming shower Saturday evening and didn't end up getting home until well after 1AM. We had such fun and everyone got some new swag to create with! I will give you a sneak peak of the craft, but your not going to be happy with it.....it's a serious teaser!

Above is my serious fabric haul. There is over 20 yards of fabric in that stack!!! Everything below the pink is going to turn into pillows, duvets and draperies......eventually.

Baby Craft Fabrics Teaser

Sewing it together......can you guess what it is?

Sunday, as you can imagine was a lazy day. I got donuts and we watched Man Woman Wild on Netflix all day, also we both passed out in the living room....completely missing lunch. I remembered that I needed to make some items for the hubbs pregnant boss so that will be my task for this evening. Whipping up some quick gifts for her and her son! I.AM.TIRED.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

I thought we'd be farther along......

I have been feeling a little down the past couple of days. I realized on Friday why that was. On this day last year, the hubby and I found out that we would be expanding our family. We were both so excited and could wait to start planning everything. Our excitement was short lived, as we lost the baby. We thought that since it happened once that it would be very easy to fall pregnant again. Well, that has not been the case. 10 months after the go ahead, here we are with not even a blimp. It's disheartening to say the least. People keep telling us that it will happen when its supposed to, or that we are trying too hard. Honestly, if we had known it would take this long, we probably wouldn't have waited at all. I know that we should be patient, but I have talked about this in the past and we are waiting for our time. We hope that our time will come soon, as we are trying to do everything in our power. Until then, we try to continue to live our lives and continue to love one another.

So, to update you on the more recent events, lets talk about the weekend. Friday we had our once a month visit with our dear friends and had a nice relaxing evening playing Cards Against Humanity, its like Apples to Apples for adults. Earlier that day, I was treated to the most amazing sandwich at a local restaurant in Pasadena called The Raymond. If your ever in the area, make a reservation and hit it up. I can't wait until they have their pumpkin ravioli back on the menu. We had been reveling in the cooler weather until that day and spent every evening on our porch last week just relaxing.

Saturday we headed down to Ikea to pick up a new dresser, and some other storage items for Fall cleaning. It's time to get rid of the old and get organized again! Then we headed out to my grandmothers house to have a faux Thanksgiving. We had turkey and all the fixings with lots of family. It was a great afternoon.

Brimmes Chest of Drawers from Ikea

Sunday, D's sister, brother-in-law and us took D's parents out to lunch for his dad's birthday. Good conversation all around. Then we headed home to do some assembly. It took the boys 2 hours to put together the dresser while I move furniture around and cleaned out the old dresser. Then D and I had dinner and watched a movie. It was a fairly busy weekend, but not really uneventful. Hopefully I can get an after photo when I get the closet re-organized. No I didn't take a before, but I can take a midway to show you what we did, and still need to do.

Also, last week the hubs and I decided to have a little date night at the shooting range. It's still so much fun to do target practice, however I do need to get out more. My aim isn't nearly as good as it once was. Were just testing things out to see if there's any shopping to be done. It was a fun night just the two of us!

Hope everyone in blogland had a great weekend!

In case you didn't know.....paintballs do actually hurt

This weekend was such a blast, but I hardly have any photo's to show for it. Isn't that always the case? We had did some new and adventurous things. Last week I opened my email and had an Amazon Locale deal for half price paintball. We have been wanting to go, so D text his brother to see if he wanted to join. He said absolutely and we bought the tickets and treated him to the day in honor of his birthday.

So.....we should have thought this through a little better....paint balling requires that you wear jeans and long sleeves. Its August in SoCal and it's about 100 degrees during the hot point in the day. Add on a face mask, chest protectors and running around in the dirt for three hours, and we were thoroughly sweaty by the end! At one point we were forced to be on separate teams because we were against a couple of kids and it was an unfair advantage. He managed to hit me right in the kneecap. Paintballs HURT. AND we were using the balls that "hurt 60% less!" My butt! I don't even want to know what the larger paint balls feel like. We played 8 rounds and the boys were out of paint. I gave my leftover paint to some kids and we made our way out. It was a great bonding experience for the three of us and we are planning to go again!

I did learn that I would not fair well in warfare. When we got home I counted 8 welts on my body. 4 on my legs, two on my hip, one on my arm and one on my shoulder. They are SUPER attractive looking, and am the only one with visible proof that we had this adventure.

On his was home from a Notary, D's car decided to die. I was hoping that it was just the heat affecting his engine, but after 10 minutes of sitting he called to let me know that AAA was on the way and I was needed to come pick him up from the car repair. Afterwards we went to have dinner with his folks and watched reruns of Moonshiners.....I love laughing at those people. It's hilarious!

Sunday we awoke bright and early to get ready to go out on Pyramid Lake. We had a great day cruising, sunbathing and D did a little kneeboarding also. We went and had some yummy carne asada tacos and just enjoyed time with friends and family.

It always makes me sad for the weekend to end when its so fun and then it ends. I am glad to add another fun thing to our bucket list!!!! I hope your weekend was fun!

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Red, White and Blueberry - Holiday Weekend Recap

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend, and those of you that had a four day, or more, weekend let me just say that I was super jealous! Here's a recap of what went down this weekend.

Thursday (Independence Day):
We didn't really do very much during the day. I edited the new blog layout that you see before you and it went live. We had some relaxing us time, but didn't lay out by the pool because it was a zoo. I played with my new hair tools and got ready to meet with D's family at the club for a buffet and some yummy Sangria. Close friends also joined, and they are the ONLY reason I have pictures from the holiday! Thanks Amanda! We ate yummy food, listened to music and people watched (also enjoyed the weather) while chatting. We made it home before fireworks so that pup would not panic! Then we watched Independence Day and passed out for work. Side note: I lost a bet with the hubs....I didn't remember owning ID and since I never bet I was sure I would win....well needless to say he found the dvd and I have to pay up!

The ladies

The hubs and fam

Friends!

Friday:
We both had to work! We were oh so jealous of all you people that got to go and play!

Saturday:
D had to work AGAIN! So I slept in a bit and puttered around the house. Then I went and did a little shopping with my birthday cash. I got a couple new shirts and hope to go get a couple more things later on. There was some really great stuff! I went and surprised D and took him to lunch. Then went home to prep for our dear friends joint 30th bday party, I used my new styling wand for the first time and I love it! At the party we snuggled with all the babies, laughed and told many stories. I ended up getting caught in the midst of a water fight. We had some vodka infused watermelon and D tried blueberry moonshine with lemonade. (the store bought kind, still needing to try the real stuff!) I took a sip and realized how strong it was...it was yummy to me though. Apparently those blueberries pack quite a punch, so be warned! Then after most everyone had left both set of A's and us went inside and discussed our dreams of leaving this state....where we would go, and joked about building a compound. D would be the financial adviser, we would have enough teachers to get the kids completely through to college, I would design all the houses and we would have our own private security with Mr. A (the 2nd.) Sounds like a perfect plan to me! Where to go....Massachusetts? Georgia? Texas? The Carolina's? Let's make a decision! At 11pm we made our way out the door, saying good night to everyone and all the kiddos.

First time with the styling wand! I love it!

Sunday:
I got up early and went to the store to get all the fixin's for my family pasta sauce. I haven't made it in almost a year and was craving some carbs big time. I mixed all that together and got it on the stove before 10am. I put some laundry in and did some light cleaning while D went shopping with his dad for some new suits. Once he got home we conked out under the a.c. for a bit and the got ready for our neighbors to join in on the yumminess. We conversed and had some good laughter and hit the hay relatively early. This heat is totally zonking my energy.....or is it the 35 days and counting of no caffeine? I think its a mixture of both!

Yup, that's scratch sauce and meatballs!

Hope you all had a great holiday and made some wonderful memories along the way!

Pops, Pups, Pillows and Pageants....otherwise known as the Weekend Update.

You guys, I have been REALLY slacking on my weekend photo taking! Coupled in with the fact that I am on day 7 of my no soda regime and I spilled my water all over myself while driving this morning, it's really been a Monday already. But I'm still here for the weekend update!!!!

Thursday - I know not the weekend, but it close enough. I went and picked up some more sewing machine needles. I started another baby shower project last Sunday, but broke my last machine needle and I couldn't finish it. So I finished that project and I also fixed a pair of shorts that had holes in them.....tutorials to come later!

Friday was a low key night with BBQ for dinner and relaxing for the Saturday to come.

Saturday the hubby helped to move his sister from one apartment to another. I spent the most of the morning and early afternoon with my Mom #3. We chatted, went to Michael's and spent almost two hours roaming the aisles for crafty projects and had lunch. We moseyed over to the new apartment to see what it looked like then D and I made our way back home to get ready for dinner with my parents for Father's Day, but not before taking a couple of photos of our fur baby. We went to The Yard House, and while the food and company was great....the service was horrible! I neglected to get any photo's at dinner.....sad face.

Sunday I awoke relatively early and caught up on my blogs/vlogs until the hubby got up. Then we made breakfast and attacked our kitchen and pantry. We needed to clean our dishwasher, damn hardwater, and seriously overhaul our pantry because it was driving me crazy! We then headed out to the patio where D swept all the lovely mess from our surrounding trees and I cleaned his grill. Pupster hung out on the balcony all day until it was time to head over to D's folks for Father's Day dinner, but not before we made a pitstop to Best Buy to look at some electronics and then to Michael's to select some fabric and to buy foam for a project for our outside patio! We cannot find any chair cushions that we like....so I am making those bad boys myself!

After dinner we went home to relax, flicked on the t.v. to see that the Miss USA pageant was on. I clicked on the channel to see if we had missed the swimsuit competition, which we had but the evening gown competition just started. I went to click away, thinking the hubbs wasn't interested, but he told me to leave it. I am not going to start in on the interviews and Miss Utah. If you haven't seen it, just go to YouTube, but I am going to give a huge raised eyebrow to Miss Conneticut/(now the current) Miss USA 2013 evening gown. Um yea....the bodice was gorgeous, but she had this sheet looking piece of white cloth hanging off the bottom and it made her lower half look less than flattering! For these women who spend months getting into bikini shape; why would we put a baggy, saggy mess right at her lower abdomen making her look frumpy? That's just my opinion. She answered her interview question wonderfully and took home the crown with grace! Congrats! Pick a better dress for Miss Universe....please!

Source

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Linking up with Sami!

Powerhouse, Books and a lot of Excitement!

HEYO! Wow, I didn't really do much social stuff this weekend because we were up north vising family! But I'm back with the weekend recap!

Thursday/Friday - This sight is not unusual in SoCal, however it is really early in the year to start fire season. We have had 3 wild fires in the past 2 weeks all in our little area. This one, they are calling the Powerhouse fire and it has burned over 20K acres. It's going to be a long and dry summer so we are gearing up to see more smoke! Friday, we threw everything in a couple of bags and hit the road (D already brought pup to the Laws house) and made the 3 hour drive up....despite the MANY construction zones and white knuckling areas.

Once we arrived our Goddaughter took no time in getting us situated in her routine.....meaning your going to chase her around the house for an hour, then D got to "read" her 20+ books while trying to keep his attention to conversation and the movie. Finally at 2AM little miss was so tired that she cried herself to sleep. Poor thing didn't want to miss any excitement!

Saturday - We awoke, played and ate breakfast. Then we got ready to head out to the Zoo. It was in the triple digits so we pounded back the water and wandered around looking at all the animals. I liked the Sea Lion exhibit and the Poison Dart frogs! They are so colorful and teeny! Why do they have to be poisonous! Also, little miss didn't want to walk but Uncle D nor Daddy was good enough....she wanted me! Awe.....until the third hour when my shoulders and back were screaming! I'm not used to carrying 40 pounds for three hours, but it was totally worth it!

After the zoo, we had ice cream and made lots of messes! After that we prepped for dinner until we got a phone call from my cousin. She (mom) had gone to a b-day party and on her way home the car overheated and broke down 45 minutes from home. We rallied together and D and I baby sat while my cousin drove to rescue her. On their way home, poor things got pulled over and at least did not get a ticket! Whew! We enjoyed our evening with little miss watching movies, reading books, and cuddling. I could have lived without the Barney movie though.

Sunday we were exhausted from the heat and excitement so we relaxed most of the morning. My cousin was enlisted to make a scrapbook page for an Eagle Scout function (his dad is the scout master) so we all helped by putting in some ideas and at the end he actually had fun. Scrapbooking is fun once you get an idea down, but honestly who asks a dozen teenager/adult men to make scrapbook pages?!!? I want to see how the other pages turned out!! After that we packed up, got our huggies and was on our way home.

It was a wonderful weekend and we were both so happy to see our family. It always makes me feel better to be around loved ones!!!