Valentine's Day Toddler Shirts

Have you guys had the hardest time finding cute Valentine's day shirts this year? Olivia has a "heart you" shirt from Gap from last year that I got on sale. Most of them are a little cheesy this year.

These are my favorite for toddler boys and girls.

Five on Friday

Happy Friday! This Friday is closer to January being over - totally not our month. I have high hopes for February. Bring on the Superbowl, heart shaped things, and one more month before we can start thinking about warmer weather. 

1. You know how, when you have a toddler, things can go from wonderful to disaster in .04 seconds and there's nothing you can do about it?

Like Sunday morning, when Olivia slept in until NINE and I thought it was going to be a great day and I woke up with pink eye? 

Or Monday when Olivia took Dan's phone, put it to her ear and goes "blah. blah. blah." We laughed out loud. Instead of babbling like she normally does, it was almost as if she was making fun of us: "blah. blah. blah." She puts the other hand on her hip with attitude. Starts strutting across the kitchen. We are dying laughing. "Blah. Blah. Blah." Chucks Dan's phone in the dog's water bowl.

2. Speaking of the dog, Olivia always wants to walk Koda. The problem is she isn't the most reliable walker. She'll drop the leash at the hint of something shiny and Koda runs away at the hint of something moving. Dan came up with a great solution.

3. I keep catching her in the liquor cabinet. I thought I had at least 16 more years until this. She prefers the mini bottles. 

4. Wednesdays I stay at work all day. They are hands down, my least favorite day. I miss Olivia so much and barely get to see her. At least, when I'm stuck in horrible traffic - I get to watch the sun set over the lake. 

5. I can't even describe to you how much this little girl loves her daddy. You can just see it in her eyes!

Olivia's Valentines

I really wanted to get Olivia's class some T Swift valentines, because I know Olivia would have totally picked those out. But I'm not sure her class would get it, and they might find us a little weird.

As a parent of a 15 month old, no one wants candy, unless you can get it without your child seeing it and binge eat it during their nap. Since Olivia's art skills are much to be desired, handmade wasn't in the cards. I wanted to do something practical like the bubbles for Christmas -- without spending much money.

Target dollar spot bath sprinkle cups. The kind with the holes in the bottom that 'rain.' Plus, Target dollar spot gift tags. I did large chocolate bars for her four teachers. So for 10 kids and 4 teachers, I spent $15. 

Shh. Don't tell her friends yet.

Five on Friday

These are my favorite because I don't have to follow any one subject and I can ramble. I love to ramble.

1. Coloring in the lines isn't even close to something we will work on with Olivia, we need to start with 'staying on the paper.' She tends to color with crayons all over the place. Especially behind her. So I bought a disposable plastic table cloth for her to color on. We spread it out, dump the crayons and no longer panic about our floors or tables. Since her attention span is .01 seconds, we fold it back up and bring it out next time.

Anyone else still wearing their Christmas jammies?

2. Olivia has figured out the camera. She likes to sit in front of it to have her picture taken. Then come see the picture of 'baby Olivia' on the screen. Since Ms. Impatient doesn't wait  two seconds for the phone to actually take the picture before getting up to see 'baby Olivia' - this is how our pictures look these days. Thanks chicka.

This is her accessorizing her PJs. I have no control.

3. After the 'tights as pants' incident of 2014, I pick out Olivia's clothes for Dan to dress her in the morning. I pick out the whole week at once. Apparently Olivia pulled the pile down and Dan couldn't figure out how the outfits went back together. So this was what she was wearing the other day to daycare.

I walked in and the lady said "ohhh, you aren't going to like her outfit today." Bhahaha. They know me too well. 

4. These pictures were taken a few months apart, but I'm just getting around to downloading them. Olivia with a picture of me as a baby:

And Olivia with a picture of Dan as a baby:

What do yall think? I'm thinking she's starting to look more and more like Dan. But when I compare baby pictures, I might win here.

5. Last weekend we had a fire in our fire pit and some champagne. In our sweat pants. It was magical.  

When Olivia heard about the fire pit, she decided to BYOB.

No joke though, she took these out of the cooler, loaded them up in her chair and pushed them out toward the fire pit. 

No fire pit is complete with out smores. And a little smores plate theif!

If we don't get abolished by winter storm lola - we'll do it again this weekend.

I went to the store to buy eggs and milk just in case all those crazy people who stock up on eggs and milk made a mad rush on Harris Teeter and they were out. Those crazy people ... 

Happy Friday. Finallllllly.

Growth Chart Pinterest Fail and Lessons Learned

You know those super cute growth charts that I'm sure you could buy on Etsy? Buy them. 

It totally looks fine. But here's what happened. I spray painted the board white because I thought our landing was a little dark. Forgot about the board. Left it in the pouring rain all night. Ran over it in my car on the way to work. 

Spent a month debating whether to spend $8 on a new board, or salvage my current one.

Sand down the board. Repaint. Run out of paint. Run to Lowes. Look for number stencils, but can't find any. Finish painting.

Pinterest tells me to do a long line of painters tape down the length of the board (pictured below) so each of the lines stop at the same point (each of the foot lines, the half foot lines, etc. you keep moving the tape forward). Great. 

Then pinterest tells me to put two pieces of painters tape close together. Paint the line black. Remove the tape. I do this and the black has seeped under the tape and looks awful. Pinterest also told me to paint it white first, so the paint that seeps is white, and then paint it black. So now I have to wait for the the paint to dry twice. I only taped up some lines at a time. Because the tape was bigger than an inch, I couldn't do all the lines at once - they were too close together. So things were taped in phases. Paint had to dry in phases. This is fun.

I'm 95% finished with the lines and then I realize that a friggin ruler and a Sharpie would have worked better than hours of watching paint dry. Really, pinterest? Really?

(I taped off where the numbers would go, hence the squares. But one long line of tape, the tape measure to get the right spots, plus that ruler at the bottom to get the lines straight. Move the tape in as you want smaller lines. It would have taken me five minutes. WHY??)

So then I paint the number 2. Realize that I can't go up or I'm going to smear the 2. So I go to the top, paint 5. Then 3. Crap. In the 4 spot. So I sand over the 3. Spray the white over it. Wait for it to dry. Accidentally spray the 5 and the 2. Repaint the 5 and the 2. Paint the 4 (finally). And the 3. 

Not worth it. 

Also, I kinda wish I had made the board longer and had the 6 at the top.

But, none the less. We have a growth chart to measure our children on. One month and 92 hours of painting later. 

If you make one - get 5.5 feet of board to have the six, use the sharpie and the ruler. And don't leave your board in the rain and run over it. People should pin this. Why is it never the easy way?

Remember those coasters I made? There's one million pins of incredibly complicated ways of making coasters out of tile. Aint nobody got time for that.

Blog Vision

I think it might be the new year upon us - but I've been thinking about this a lot lately. You don't start a company without a vision. You don't embark on a new adventure without a vision. Why would I spend a few hours a week on this blog without a full vision of what I want it to be? 

Maybe this is exposing too much. Many people start a blog to make money, to get free products, and maybe even fame and fortune. But they never put their 'vision' or their business plan out there.

But I think writing out what I want this blog to be, helps me stick to it. Whether I click the 'publish' button or not, this will be a record of my plan (for 2015 at least) for this blog.

1. Number one. First and foremost, this is to update friends and family on our life and Olivia. We have friends and family spread all over the world, that want more than anything to see pictures and know what is going on in her life. If I don't post for a couple of days, I can guarantee my mother in law will text asking for new pictures of Olivia. :)

2. I want people to laugh. Not in a stand up comedy kind of way - but a 'we've all been there, and we aren't alone' kind of way. No one is perfect. No life is perfect. That's really the only thing we know about life. That we can't control it. And sometimes it will suck. So maybe, seeing others going through a not perfect life - and the funny things that can happen - and the funny things that toddlers can say or do - maybe it'll make someone who is going through some real crap, smile. At least for a minute.

3. I want people to see the positive things in life. We get very focused on what isn't going well - and should spend more time on what is. Did you eat mac and cheese for dinner? That sounds AWESOME. Do you have friends? Family? A dog? Do you have an apartment that you love or a new shirt that makes your boobs look great? Let's focus on that. Life has some pretty cool stuff - why worry about the crap?

4. I want people to learn. Not that I have much of anything to teach. But sometimes I find some cool stuff on the internet. And I learn. And you can save some time of surfing the internet if I just link to it. This is and has been a goal - but I realize I really don't spend much time on this. I would like to post more recipes, crafts, time saving tips, etc. I'm going to work toward that. 

5. Lastly, I want those who do not have children to see how wonderful it is. Maybe it is the fact that Dan and I work for fortune 50 companies and are living the 'corporate America' life - but kids just don't have a positive connotation to them. It's much cooler to talk about them as though they were a box that had to be checked, yet something that gets in the way of your joy in life and success in your career. It's uncool to want them. It's uncool to try for them. It's uncool to have them early. I want to rid the nation of that. I love my daughter more than anything. I was born to be a mom. I'm very successful in my career, but I wouldn't think for a second about giving it up if it ever got in the way of her happiness. I want people to be a little less scared of diving into having children. It's the best thing that I've ever done.

I love this little space of the internet. And as I continue to do this, I'm building more relationships with wonderful people. Both who share very similar values and sentiments, as well as those who are completely different from me. 

I get offered to sponsor quite a few products, but only choose ones that I absolutely love. I want to ensure that I continue to stick to the five points above, throughout 2015. I hope you'll stick with me.

Just You Wait

You know the 'just you wait'ers? The people who, no matter what you are doing right now, tell you that there's always something worse lying ahead?

If you are one of those people, I apologize. I'm going to talk about how obnoxious you are. 

They say these things because they know. They've been there. You haven't. So you don't.

Just wait until you get married and are tied down to only one person, then you'll be miserable.

You're married and it's fun now, but just you wait until you have kids. Then your lives are over.

You think the first trimester is bad? Wait until the third when you are huge - then you'll really be complaining.

You think you are tired now? Wait until the baby is here. You don't even know the meaning of tired.

You are ready for the baby to be here? Ha. Just you wait until labor. You'll wish that baby could stay in forever. 

You think having a newborn is hard? Wait until they start crawling - then your life is over.

They crawl fast huh? Well nothing compares to walking. You'll wish they never learned to walk.

You think toddlers are bad? Wait until you have teenagers!

Just you wait. Your life is going to get worse. I know these things.

Why do people do it? Is it cool to have this doomsday approach to life? Are they better because they are more miserable? I don't care what you are going through, the last helpful thing someone can say is 'it's only downhill from here.'

And the worst part, is people start to believe it. I am hearing more and more people make caveats that tells me that the 'just you wait'ers are sitting in the back of their mind. "I'm tired! BUT I know it's only going to get worse so I should get used to it." 

Is it so hard to say something like, "wow what a wonderful time in your life."? Or "the best is really yet to come." ?

I want to be like "suck it, 'just you wait'ers" - my life has only gotten better and better.

Being married to my best friend is awesome.

But having Olivia topped that.

I never felt better the entire pregnancy than those last few weeks. The day I went into labor was the best I felt the entire time.

Labor? Best day of my life. A breeze. I'd have a million babies to go through that day a million times.

I was more tired pregnant than with a newborn - you just don't sleep that well pregnant!

Olivia became so much more happy once she could crawl. She could finally get to the toys she wanted.

Once she walked, man did she get easier. Less lugging her around, more carefully watching her sweet steps. And a whole new world of games - chase, pushing things around, playing on cement.

We don't have a teenager yet (although she's working on it) but I'm choosing to believe that they are wrong on this one too.