November Thankfulness, Day One

I have one of those sticky window decals that has always been in a window since I bought it a few years ago around this time of year. It says "Give Thanks". My family gives me a hard time about it, but I like to say that we should give thanks all year round!

 

As a way to remind myself of my blessings that may get lost in the day-to-day, and to hopefully get me in this blogging habit, I'll be participating in the Days of Thankfulness! I know I didn't do a post on this yesterday, but hey, at least I posted something. To kick it off...

 

I am thankful for Andrew.

 

Us!

I know we may bicker back and forth and do things that aggravate and annoy each other, but I wouldn't be the person I am today without him. Through dating long distance for two years, he became my best friend. We managed to survive (effortlessly) a roadtrip from San Diego to Cleveland, OH. He knew my life story the first night we met and if something happened, good or bad, he was always one of the first people I told.

 

The first time Andrew came to visit me.. And the first time we saw each other since we had met 5 months earlier.

My mom says that she knew he was the one I was meant to be with when he drove to the Baltimore Airport from Cleveland in the middle of the night in the fog and snow. My flight had been diverted from Chicago to Baltimore midair. I wasn't panicked because I knew that Andrew knew as soon as I did since he checked flight statuses all the time. He tried to get me on the first flight to Ohio as soon as he could, but of course that flight was at the gate we were trying to pull into. He didn't want me to spend the night in the airport alone, so he told his parents he had to go get me and, without any questioning from them, he did. I drove back to Cleveland, and as it turns out, the roadtrip wasn't any faster than air travel. By the time we got to the airport to pick up my suitcase, the flight that I would have been on had just deplaned. But I didn't have to spend the night in an airport! And this is just the first of many stories that come to mind when I think of Andrew and what he does for me.

 

California Adventure letters at Disneyland! Talk about foreshadowing!

He helped me through the trials of college, prepare for interviews, and was continuously a good example of how to be a good person and how to be a good business person. He would offer advice (sometimes unsolicited) about different work challenges and college group project challenges. And he was always there to bounce ideas off of and give me constructive criticism to make me better with whatever it was. He is my biggest cheerleader for whatever it is I create and I can only hope I show him that I am there supporting him all the time. I'm thankful that he also cooks, because I know I would probably starve or weigh 100 more pounds if it wasn't for him!

 

Our engagement!

I honestly cannot put into words how much I love him or what it is I love the most. If I could describe him in one word it would probably be passionate. Everything that he does he does it with 100% heart. He'll do everything in his power to turn my bad days good. He tries to get home early from work to see and play with Owen. He'll do ANYTHING for his friends and even more for his family. He loves what he does for a living and it is so nice to see him happy with work. He is 100% truthful, whether you like it or not.



Purdue football... Boiler Up!



I'm thankful that God made him for me and allowed us to have Owen. I am thankful that despite our differences we always talk things through and take on our new challenge as parents, home owners, and business people as a team. It is with our differences that balances us out and makes us work and I am so so thankful that I get to go through the rest of my life (and beyond) with this loving, loyal, passionate man beside me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trick-Or-Treat!

Happy First Day of November, everyone!

 

Seriously, November already? It feels like yesterday I was at someone's lake house in the grueling heat! Well, at least the heat part is still accurate. Seriously, Southern California weather, get the memo already! I know that some people who may read this (crickets, crickets) may be a bit jealous of that fact, but I've always been a girl in love with autumn. And boots and scarves and cardigans.

 

I figured I'd recap our Halloween fun! This is our second Halloween as a family of three and the end of all of our "first" holidays. It's bittersweet, but I'm glad we started off with a few established traditions, if only a year old. :)

 

Last year we had chili, so of course we had to have it again this year! We ate it while passing out candy to the millions of children in the neighborhood. This year my mom made it at her house and we brought that over along with some pumpkin and butterscotch cookie dough to bake in the oven at my house later. Of course this happened to be the day of catastrophies. When my mom was taking the chili out of the backseat, the box it was in gave way about half of what we made (for 8 people) dumped in the garage, on my car, and on my mom. She managed to bruise her toe quite impressively in the process, but I didn't even know that until she got home that night! Such a champ. :)

 

So, there was the chili disaster, but luckily still enough time to make more since we got to my house earlier enough. The next thing was that my oven decided to stop working. We have a double oven, which has proven quite convenient, especially when 12 girls come over expecting to use it. However, this past week it's been on the fritz. It'll beep a few times, turn off, and a few minutes later turn back on. I should probably look up the error code to see what's really wrong with it, but since it was turning back on I wasn't too concerned. Well, as I was preheating the oven for the cookies and for the mac and cheese that Michelle was bringing, it did it. Three times. Luckily we got it going to finish cooking the mac and cheese, but we didn't get to finish baking the cookies, which is always sad, especially since they were so yummy!

 

Oh, and Michelle somehow managed to set her hair on fire. That's my best friend, for ya, ladies and gentlemen!

 

Vampires with our baby bat last year!

 

Last year I made this awesome DIY photobooth from PVC pipe and a white sheet. I cut out bats, ghosts, and pumpkins and just taped them to the sheet for a fun backdrop. Since everything was done already, we busted it out this year! By this time last year we had only been in the house a month. Our front door is to the side of our house, so I thought it would be fun to camp out in the driveway and have the backdrop behind us. And if any trick-or-treaters wanted to take pictures in front of it, cool! (No one did, sad day.)

 

This year was more of the same! We had our favorite couples over: my mom and dad; our favorite family of three, Michelle, Ryan, and bestfriend James; and our favorite practically married couple, Annie and Scot! To kick it up a notch, the boys brought the firepit to the front side yard (I guess there is one perk of the tree being gone) and we camped out and ate the traditional chili (hooray)! We took pictures in front of the photobooth, which I desperately need to expand in all directions if we don't have something to sit on. And we went trick-or-treating!!

 

Waiting for the candy!

It was kind of weird going with babies who obviously don't eat candy. I just had a little felt bat bag from the Target dollar section, so I wasn't expecting much. We went around to show him off to the neighbors on our street and that was it, so I feel less bad. However in future years I'm sure we'll do something like the Switch Witch that Michelle was telling me about or sending it to troops overseas, since we kinda sorta maybe like military people. :)

 



Daddies with their boys!

Andrew knows the neighbors a lot better than I do because that's just the type of person he is. Plus he golfs with some of the guys about once a month. I finally got to meet a few more, aside from the two that I knew who were always busy with their kids' activities. It was nice to know that in an emergency situation I could at least know who's house to go to! :)

 

Lion tamer, little lion, and the ring leader!

On our trick-or-treat walk I noticed a few of the neighbors sitting outside this year... I was proud that we might have started a trend since we were the only ones to do it last year! It's just a lot more interactive that way, in my opinion. I know my dad loves to be the candy gatekeeper (never the hander-outer) and make the kids get more into the Halloween spirit. Annie and Scot were the candy dispensers, which was a perfect job! Now, let's see if anyone bonfires next year...

 

On to some pictures!

Owen with the clowns! Granddaddy and Gramsie matched our circus theme.

I just really like this picture of the two of them.

Walking around with Uncle Scot

Excited to go to bed




He's really signing "all done" in the above picture, but it looks like he's clapping so whatever! I finished his lion costume yesterday, of course, with enough time to spare for him to wear to visit my dad at his work. Every year the kids come in and they have an office pumpkin carving contest and fun in general. Every year we're like an hour late, as usual. But this time it's because Owen was napping!

 

Roar!

I had planned on building a pattern for the costume off of some pajamas, but I remembered that we had just bought him a jumper/onesie/thingy from Carter's that was fleecey. So I hand stitched the fabric and yarn to the fleece at the seems and around the zipper. It was daunting, which is probably why it took me so long.
 

Families of Three! Superheros and circus folk.

All-in-all Owen was pretty good. He's been a bit crabby lately because of his teeth (I found two more coming in), so he wasn't much for pictures. He looooved walking around door-to-door though, with us holding his hands, and playing with the candy in his bat bag. Luckily he's only attempted eating the candy, wrapper and all, a handful of times, but has been good to take it out when I tell him not to do that. I've been debating letting him try a 3 Musketeers or a Reese's but I really don't think I want to open those doors yet...
 

Quite the candy collection!

One of the best toys!

Bestfriend pre-lunch snack.

Ryan, Michelle, and James spent the night with us (yay)! After the boys went down we tried to find Hocus Pocus on TV since I had never seen it, but for whatever reason it wasn't on anywhere! It was awful. And I didn't really feel like driving to a RedBox to try and find it or pay $3 for it. It came on earlier tonight, so I'll probably watch it on Monday. So instead of that we ended up watching The People Under the Stairs. This is 1993 film at its best, folks. I'm totally kidding. It was one of those "I can't stop watching, but I know I'm wasting 2 hours of my life" movies. Of course Andrew was out before we even settled on a movie. Michelle managed to survive that, but tuned out when we started watching Jeepers Creepers 2. Can't say I blame her for that. Ryan and I called it a night after about an hour of it.

I'm always so happy when we have sleep overs at the house (hint, hint) because we always have the best breakfasts the next morning! We've been really into waffles when this happens, so we had waffles, eggs, and the best bacon ever. Luckily both boys were in bed, so we got to fully enjoy breakfast without needing to tear up waffles or making sure no one throws their plate overboard.

While the boys were napping, Michelle and I took advantage and headed over to Target to try and score some Halloween discounts, which we did! Of course both of them were up when we got home (sorry, Daddies!) so we got ready to head out to lunch before they left for home. It was such a fun way to end the Halloween festivities and bring in November!

And sorry this is super lengthy... I know no one probably cares about all of these details, but I do and it's my blog! I really started this as a way to remember things anyways and I'm a fairly detail-oriented person, so you're just gonna have to deal with it. I'm sure I'll get better about it eventually. :) Until then...

Updates?

Oh my goodness. There's so much to be updated now!

September and October were already shaping up to be busy months for us before summer even started. I think we had about half of the weekends planned already, but now all except 1 are busy busy busy!

I want to share about my first experience at a bridal show! It happened at the end of July, but it was so much fun helping out one of my friends and getting to interact with future brides. As some of you may know, I do design wedding paper products on the side. It is one thing I love to do and helping Danielle out with her shows gives me a chance to develop new designs and grow! (It's always easier to design for other people/events rather than for myself!)

I need/want to share our Cincinnati trip since it was a blast, an actual vacation, an airplane trip with a one year old, and fun times with Andrew's family.

The weekend following our return, we spent the night with my best friend and her family, I went to a bridal shower, the three of us went to a one year old's birthday party, and THEN we went to Disneyland!

Andrew was out of town this past week, from early Wednesday to Sunday morning. So Owen and I "roughed" it for a few days without him. We survived :)

And this past weekend one of our good family friend's daughters got married this past weekend and everything was absolutely GORGEOUS! And I helped out with the paper, so that made it even more special to me :) And I took about 200 pictures and video, so I'll have to upload that to the facebook sometime soon...

Plus we got to see the family pictures we took the day before our Cincinnati trip today! Gah, I love 8twenty8 Studios so so much. They did our engagement pictures, wedding pictures, newborn pictures, 6 month pictures, and now Owen's 1 year pictures. Needless to say, you become best friends with a photographer who was just starting out when you met and is now ROCKING it with weddings! :)

My bestfriend and her family came down on Monday and ended up spending the night and having breakfast with us on Tuesday! Andrew hung out with Owen and I (after not seeing us for awhile) and we got to go to the zoo! I love having "weekends" during the week. :)

Owen's First Birthday: Disneyland!

 To start this post, I just want to say that I have THE BEST friends ever. It's one thing to have family go with you to Disneyland... They're blood-related, so there's a hint of obligation to do anything you want for a birthday. It's another thing to have 6 friends spend a whole Sunday with you and your family at Disneyland. Especially when all of those people were celebrating almost all day with you the day before. And I warned them that we would probably be lame and just ride the rides in Fantasyland and wait in character lines. They stayed with us the whole time! (And we weren't that lame. We didn't ride a single Fantasyland ride!)

Anyways. I love my family, too! And I'm so thankful that Mike (Grampa) and Aunt Robyn were able to join us out in sunny So Cal too! (You were missed, Gramma!!!!!)

Also, this is a very long post... I'm hoping it's a bit helpful for anyone planning a trip to the parks with a baby! Of course, every baby is different, duh, but maybe our experience will help you prepare for your trip!

And now I fully understand how a family can spend 3 days and still not do everything! We had park hopper tickets, so we were able to go back and forth between the two parks (Disneyland and California Adventure). CA Adventure has changed a ton since I was last there, almost two years ago! There are about 50% more rides and cute shops... You could spend just a day over there. Plus we found out that the Disney Junior characters, like Jake and Doc McStuffins, hang out over there. Next time!

I had set up breakfast at the Plaza Inn so that we could kick off our day with some character time! Owen absolutely loved them and their noses! The characters were super friendly, went around to almost all the tables, and were great at interacting with kids... And putting up with babies hitting their noses and grabbing the autograph book when they were signing.

And we met our favorite gal, Minnie! Along with Rafiki, Chip and Dale (our new favorites), Fairy Godmother, Tigger, Eeyore, and Max. The only one we missed was Captain Hook, since he came by and probably thought he saw us since there were a lot of people sat in our area. And one of the Cinderella mice had just started her rounds when we were leaving, too. All in all, totally worth it to get some good food and see Owen with the characters! And to thank everyone for coming out with us!

My brother has an app (I'll have to ask which one) that tells the wait times for the most popular rides. After brunch, he pulled that up and Space Mountain (one my favorites) was just a 20 minute wait! Now, the app was a little off, and was for almost every ride, but it was still a helpful reference around both parks.

During the day, we were able to use the Baby Pass, which is like the Switch Rider pass. They're offered on the popular rides and can be used in conjunction with Fast Passes. Basically your whole group goes and waits in either the Fast Pass line (if they have them) or the regular line for the ride like usual. Then they ask one of the cast members working the ride for the Baby Pass. The cast member has to see the stroller and then gives your group a lanyard with a card saying that you can get the Baby Pass. Your group continues through the line and then they exchange the lanyard for the actual Baby Pass with the last cast member for the ride. You know, the one that asks how many people are in your party. They ride the ride, trade you your Baby Pass for the baby, and you get to go through the exit! You basically walk right on the ride! And it's so nice because the other two people waiting with the baby can do other things like shop or get Fast Passes for the other rides!

We were able to ride Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear (Owen friendly), Indiana Jones (twice, since it broke down with us on it!), Pirates of the Caribbean (Owen fell asleep on this one!), Woody's Round Up (Owen friendly, but I forgot how much it jerks you around), California Screaming, Soaring over California, and Tower of Terror.

While in line, we met Mr. and Mrs. B from The Bees Times Three. I guess Mrs. B noticed our t-shirts (kinda hard to miss when there are 15 of us wearing the same thing!) and Mr. B asked for a picture on her behalf. So cute and definitely something Andrew would do for me, too! Let me know if you need any help, Mrs. B! :)

Owen did take a nap during our lunch time for about an hour and a half or so. I couldn't believe he lasted that long without napping... He woke up at 6:30am so we could leave, didn't sleep in the car, and was going until he passed out around 1/1:30pm. He didn't nap again until we were in the shopping phase, around 10:15pm. 

We ate over by Soaring over California, since Pizza Port was oddly closed when we tried to get lunch over there). After our time in California Adventure, we hiked back over to Disneyland to try and get into Toon Town before it closed (due to fireworks preparation). Luckily we had an hour there and more than enough time to meet Mickey! Robyn was also excited to go and explore Toon Town, so I'm glad we got there for her sake too!

By the time we worked our way back to the front of the park, the fireworks show was in full swing. We went ahead and exited with everyone and everyone went their separate ways back home around 9:30pm. My mom and I had talked about them or Mike and Robyn taking Owen back to our house so that he could get to bed and we could be kids and ride rides longer. Since we hadn't shopped yet and Andrew and I really wanted to take Owen shopping, we decided to be those parents and keep their baby out late. He loved the store, claimed a Chip and Dale stuffed animal set as soon as we walked in, and met got to meet Mickey & Minnie again!

We didn't get home until about 1:00am... But Owen was sleeping for about 2 and a half hours by that point! It was such a great trip and Owen was a champ through it all! Granted, it did take about a week to adjust after a weekend of so much fun and so little naps :)