Weekend Recap

Gotta say this weekend was AWESOME! It was just the Mr., Me and Baby Fox and it was a great weekend. Trying to really enjoy these last 8 weeks with just Baby Fox. I can't believe I'm down to single digits left. I guess we better start getting her room ready, I've cleaned out some of it, but can't decide where to put stuff. She really doesn't need the whole closet to herself right? I can take up some of it still.

Mr. is in physical therapy, because he's old, no because he did something to his back which then made his hips hurt, see old. Anyway, he's supposed to do these stretches twice a day, Baby Fox wanted to help him.

We like to think of our decor as Daycare Chic

Saturday we decided to keep it low key and we packed up one backpack worth of stuff and headed to the beach for some playtime and lunch. We didn't have the stuff to make our own lunch so we decided we were just going to stop by at a restaurant that we normally go to overlooking the ocean. Turns out that they changed their menu, don't you hate when that happens?

At this point I realize that I have forgotten a change of clothes at home so we took off his shorts so at least he would have something dry. Kids in diapers are okay right? 

First sand castle, which promptly got stomped on

We didn't even have a beach blanket, Mr and I both just sat on our shoes. When I said low key beach day, I really meant it. 

We watched the sailboat for a while.

We finally got hungry and headed for some lunch. The patio at this place is a first come first serve place. So if you see a table you need to stand by it like a hawk. While walking over to the restaurant, I saw this table open up in the corner, I yelled at Mr. take Baby Fox, I see a table, and I ran to get the table. People were there looking, but since this table was off on it's own no one could see it was available unless you were on the outside on the sidewalk, score for us!

Sunday we went to swim lessons, I didn't get any photos, but I did get this video of Mr and Baby Fox playing before lessons.

Yep that's right, Baby Fox got out to kiss baby sister and got back in the pool. 

Sunday night we went to a concert in the park. I had no idea it was going to be so big, we had to park quite a bit away, but it was totally fun and worth it.

We met up with some friend who have a 5 month old, Baby Fox played peek-a-boo with him which baby thought was the funniest thing ever. I love baby giggles.

Concert started, it was the Pacific Symphony, so good! Baby Fox got tired of it after about 40 minutes, but he loved every second of it.

Baby Fox did NOT want to sit still for a picture, but we made him anyway.

All in all it was a fantastic family weekend! Trying to wrap our heads around that this is the last 8 weeks of just us three, we're going to make the most of these last few weeks. So far this is a great start!

Linking up with Sami and Faith, Sarah and Megan

Construction Themed Party

As promised here are the details to Baby Fox's 1/2 birthday construction themed birthday party.

When I picked the construction theme for Baby Fox's party, it didn't dawn on me how hard it was going to be to find things to fit the theme. I searched Party City, nothing, which meant I was going to have to make stuff and scour the internet. I found some cute things on Etsy, but they were printables, which is great, but I didn't really want to use that much ink from my printer. But on Amazon you can buy some signs, but I knew I wanted a lot, so I wanted a cheaper option. So I decided to make all of my own signs.

I made all the signs using my Cricut, if you don't have one, go get one now! It saved me money on this party big time! I'm going to go ahead and assume this baby is going to save me some more down the road.
I bought some silk type ribbon to string up the banner, and some painters tape to stick it to the wall.

 Sticking with our taco theme, the two orange signs say "Taco Construction" and "Nacho Building"

I bought some caution tape from Home Depot for $6. The orange sign says "Mouths Loading"

 

Yes we alternated the orange and yellow napkins by hand, it didn't come that way.

Close up of the "tools". If anyone wants the Word document I made to make the "tools" tags, shoot me an email, I'll send it to you.

Being 31 weeks pregnant we decided to go easy with the food and get tacos from a local place. We got pork carnitas, chicken and beans, a can of nacho cheese and chips so people could make supreme nachos or tacos, totally easy, I highly reccomend it. 

I took this picture before the guacamole and sour cream were put in the bowls

The signs are held up by wrapping  few small square boxes with a slit in them. I also figured that not all kids were going to like tacos, so we did have hotdogs available for the kids, along with that gorgeous fruit display. All the fruit was gone by the end of the party. 

 
*Tip - Party City sells those black tongs and spoons for very little. Go get them, they're washable and you can take them to the next potluck and not have to worry about getting them back.

I forgot to take a picture of where we put the part favors.

I had two different favors. I bought these construction duckies, for the smaller kids coming, and I bought the little dinosaur toys from the $1 bin at Target, even though it was $3 for 4.

For the older kids I bought this poster with the below tag attached. And then I bought some crayons from Big Lots and put them in it's own little bag with a Thank You tag. Those little construction pictures on the bottom, I got from this free printable. I actually used Photoshop Elements to put everything together, but the pictures came from that printable.

I bought some clear plastic bags from Micheal's for $2 ish  (using my 40% off coupon), then made these tags and stapled the goodies inside. Looked like I bought it like that, but nope, I made them.

Let's move onto the drink table. I unfortunately don't have any close ups. But the "Birthday Zone" tape was bought off of amazon. I bought that little orange bucket with the Gold Fish at Hobby Lobby for $3. I bought a bigger orange oval bucket that was holding the thank you toys in it for $6 at Hobby Lobby.

The wheel barrel holding the Capri Sun was bought from Big Lots for $5. There was ice/water in there, but you can't really see it in this picture.

Some of the signs I made I ended up buying some wood stakes at Home Depot (I think it was 12 for $6).

 Since it was a swim party, I made signs that said "Caution Kids Swimming" and "No Life Guard on Duty"

There was more signs I made that were out front, but I completely forgot to take pictures. I made a sign that was about 12 x 20 that had an arrow and said "Party in Progress" and 12x12 "Kids Zone"

And no party would be complete without cake right?

I decided since it was a half birthday I would make half of a birthday cake and then with the left over cake batter I made some cupcakes so there would be enough for everyone. I wanted to try and get the dump truck to look like it was dumping out cupcakes, but it didn't workout.

A friend bought some construction candles from a bakery shop. I used crushed up Oreo's for the "dirt".

*Tip - Put Oreos in baggie, use rolling pin to roll the heck out of the suckers. You basically have to keep rolling until all of the cream in the cookie gets absorbed into the cookie. I used a sandwich baggie, but I should have used a bigger one, made it harder to really get things combined.

And all of this made many happy and full guests.

And a very happy 1/2 Birthday boy!

Now you have all the ingredients for a great construction themed birthday party! Hope you have as much fun planning as I did!

A True Test

All of my friends have been playing Candy Crush. I finally decided to give in and try the game out. Turns out it's quite addicting my friends, if you haven't played yet, go get it, it won't disappoint. It started out with me downloading it to pass time at my 3 hour glucose test.

That night when I got home, Mr. wanted to play too, so we started playing together. As in, we were both looking at the screen and both doing the moves we see whenever we see a move. There has been more then one occasion where one of us messes up and then it takes another day or so to pass the level. When something like that happens, we just shrug and say, that sucks and we move on trying to pass the level. This really tests our patience and having to remember that it is just a game and we play so that we have something to do together just before bed. Mostly I think it's our personalities, we are not super competitive people, so that helps. But it shows that we are using this as a way to share something together and to wind down after a long day of work.

I hope everyone reading has something they can do to wind down before bed and to relax with their significant other without causing too much tension.

Is playing Candy Crush with your significant other something you think you could do without causing WWIII?

Whatever Wednesday - I Spend Too Much Time...

I spend too much time stalking people. Sounds creepy right? Let me explain, as all stalkers say...I have an explaination.

Okay I don't, bottom line, I'm nosy, super nosy. If I find a blog that I like I feel the need to read every post about them, and then if they mention something interesting, I hunt down another post about whatever was interesting to me.

I read too many blogs and am continually finding new ones to read. I love reading about how people live what they did in a particular situation, and reading love stories. I'm a sucker, I am.

Hi my name is Sarah and I spend too much time reading about other people's lives via their blogs.

Linking up with Shay and Alissa for Whatever Wednesday - random topics about random things, just the way I like it.

Weekend Recap

Guess what? I finally found some time to download pictures from this weekend. Yep this girl still doesn't have a phone with a good camera/internet on it. So I'm still stuck in the dark ages taking pictures with a camera and plugging that thing in at the end of the night and waiting for the pictures to load...blah. One day...one day, unfortunately I still have a year left on my current old school phone. Darn. Anyone want to give me a cool phone?

So this weekend was all about Baby Fox. We decided to throw him a 1/2 birthday, we didn't really do anything for him for his actual birthday back on Christmas day and didn't throw him a party because it's December, and people are mostly Christmas shopping on the weekends. My cousin her two kids and my sister came on Thursday to help set up on Friday and spend the weekend.

 Friday we spent getting ready for the party, three kids and trying to set up made for a really crazy day. But the kids had fun and we got everything done, eventually, and that's all that matters. Baby Fox absolutely adores his older cousin, M and wants to be just like him, he constantly refers to him as "my buddy M". M had his tube through the back of his shirt like a sword, but Baby Fox couldn't do that, so he tried putting it in the front. M decided to make him feel better and put the sword through the front too.

 Boys will be boys, Baby Fox learning how to wrestle...this reminds me of my brother and cousins back in the day and our parents yelling at them to calm down and stop wrestling!

No day would be complete without everyone running in circles.

Ugh, blurry pictures, but you can tell he's having fun.

After a day of decorating and running around, everyone was pretty tired, so we got ready for bed and watched Dumbo.

Saturday was party day! Will post detailed pictures later, but everyone had a blast and the pool was full of happy kids and parents.

Sunday we were supposed to go to Legoland, but Mr.'s back was still hurting and I needed to rest so my cousin and Dad took the three kids to Legoland. Baby Fox had a blast!

I think I need a weekend from my weekend, seriously! Is it Friday yet?

Linking up with Sami and Faith, Sarah and Megan

Marriage is a Lifetime Lesson 6 - 100% Equal

In case you're new here, I've been doing a marriage series about what makes our marriage work. You can find other posts here. Go check them out.

Today I'm going to talk about what you give and take in a marriage. I know a lot of people who think it should be 50/50...but Mr. and I believe that you should be 100/100 percent. You should give everything you have into your marriage. Keeping track is only going to lead to disagreements and fights. Like, I did the dishes last night, it's your turn, or I went to the store and made dinner, now it's time for you to do something. For us this also include finances - but that's a whole other post. We have one bank account and neither of us has our own separate account.

There are going to be times in your marriage that it will feel like you are doing all the chores around the house, but stop and think why. Is it because your spouse is working 80 hour work weeks, while you're on a 40 hour work week? Just think how nice it is for them to come home to a clean house and nice meal after a long work day. If the only reason you can come up with, is that your spouse is being lazy, then by all means, call them out on it.

If you're only going to give 50 percent of yourself, then expect to get 50 percent back. Just because 50+50 equals100 doesn't make it a whole in a relationship. Who wants to waste energy thinking about how to make everything fair? That to me is a waste of time, time that can be spent doing something together and enjoying each other instead of trying to make things fair. Relationships take work and if you're willing to give it 100 percent effort, then expect great returns and a happy marriage. At least that's what we've learned in the 10 years we've been together.

What are your thoughts?

Whatever Wednesday - Biggest Heartbreak

Wow, Shay and Alissa really took it up a notch today. Okay maybe it was Alissa...but whatever. I've thought and thought about the topic since it arrived in my inbox on Monday. One thing really stood out in my mind, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk about it. It's not something that I normally tell people, mostly it just makes for an awkward few minutes. But I thought, it's been almost almost 14 years, and I haven't cried about it in about 3 years, so here it goes.

This is about to get really personal, so if you don't want to know personal stuff about me, then stop reading.

Now where to start? I guess from the beginning. It all started with a hug. He had graduated already, and I was in the school admin office, for what reason I'm not sure. We had been working together for a few months and never really talked to each other, but when he saw me he smiled and gave me the biggest hug. That hug changed my life forever. We dated the rest of the school year and into freshman year of college. My parents of course were concerned we were too serious at such a young age. They told me that I need to see less of him during the summer before my sophomore year. This it turns out, while I hated them and thought they were ridiculous became a blessing. School started back up and we started talking again. We went on a couple of dates, things were picking back up where we left them 2.5 months ago. Wow this is harder then I thought it would be. Then one day I get The Phone Call from my best friend from high school. It was super early in the morning so I let it go to voicemail, who calls at 6:30am? She calls again, and again, leaving messages every time. I finally get up, I don't recall what time, maybe 8:30? I listen to her messages, the first one she's been crying, telling me to call her. The second time, she's a little more calm, and the third time, she's not crying. I figure her mom and her got into another fight, and by the third message she seemed okay, so I figured they had worked it out. I casually call her back. She bursts into tears and just spits it out, she tells me he, the one I thought I had forever with, the one that I had given space to for my parents so that when we got back together we knew that we had to be together, had died in a car accident the night before.

You know when you see those TV shows when people get really bad news and they scream and yell NOOO and drop to their knees? I always thought, that doesn't really happen in real life, but it does and it did to me. My 3 roommates knew something had happened to him, they all came running.

Life that year was a blur, it was like I was living outside of my body, watching me perform normal everyday activities, but not actually living them. I was getting school work back I didn't even remember doing, taking tests and getting them back that I didn't remember taking.  Slowly the fog began to lift and by Junior year I was back to a new normal.

School was hard, I had worked so hard to get to where I was, and I begin wondering why? Why do I put so much effort into school when it can all be taken away just like that? I got a new outlook on life, have more fun, enjoy my friends more and be a little more carefree, totally cliche of my to say, but life is short, and if you don't live each day like it's your last, then what's the point? I made more of an effort to foster my friendships with friends, and to say yes when they were going out, instead of studying 24/7 (an engineering degree can do that to a person). I didn't have to have the best GPA, I was okay with average. I was going to take advantage of living with my 3 best friends and being young and being in college. And that's exactly what I did. I have no regrets from those years in college.

Turns out my parents summer ban on boyfriend was a blessing. I wasn't talking to him everyday, seeing him everyday, so it wasn't as huge of a hit after the accident. For a long while I  just kept thinking, it's still summer, I'll talk to him next week, or I thought it was a cruel joke and that he would come waltzing around the corner at any moment. He never did. He will always have a piece of my heart, and will forever be a part of who I was and who I have become.