Blogger Fail

At some point during 2012 I realized I missed blogging.  I missed the look back it gives, and the perspective.  I miss knowing my girls will have the chance to read it one day and smile (or have any myriad of facial expressions) when they think back on things we've shared.  As a result, I started blogging again.

I did really well for a while.

Ok, fine.  I did ok for a while. In total I managed to eek out 25 posts for the year.  Considering I didn't start until August that's not too bad, right?

Then December rolled around, and well, things got a little crazy.  We experienced our first Christmas rush with our business. We announced we were pregnant.  And we started packing our apartment for the upcoming move.  Add in the ridiculous morning all day sickness I was facing and blogging fell to the end of the line.  Even if I had time, I just didn't feel like it.

When we rang in the new year I made myself promise I would do better.  FAIL!  I managed to post twice in January and once in July.  I had big dreams of capturing our new home, my pregnancy, and I'm sure some other number of things I was going to accomplish.  While those things were potentially accomplished, I was too busy doing them to write about them.

On one hand, I am thankful that I was busy living my life and not just writing about it, but I want to find a balance here as well.

We are now halfway through the first month of 2014 and I'm going to try again.  After all, I can't change 2013, but I can make my mark on 2014 as it has yet to be written.

With that in mind, my goal for this year is to post on a weekly(ish) basis and to have a mix of family moments, recipes, and business updates along the way.  Hopefully I won't be writing this same post a year from now. :)

Time Flies!

Honestly, where does it go?  I hopped over to my blog today to look back at a couple of things and couldn't believe how long it has been since I've written.  Sad, just sad.  So much has changed since the last time I was on here...for starters, I am staring down my due date!  Literally, it is 3 weeks from tomorrow and I can't wait for our sweet baby to be here.

We've chosen to be surprised with the gender of our child, so anticipation is just about to drive us all wild!  But either way, in just a few weeks we will have a new sweet bundle of joy and will all be acclimating to life with a baby.  Here are a few of our favorite pictures from our recent maternity session with our good friend Stefanie.  She and her husband own SBChilds Photography, and have done an incredible job of capturing this exciting time for us.  I can't wait for them to do our newborn pictures in just a few weeks!

Hmm...seems like I had a few other things to share, but they escape me at the moment.  Some on purpose as I'm not quite ready to share, and others because well, I'm pregnant and my mind doesn't hold things long!  Happy 4th of July all!

More recipes

Today my guest post at The Grain Mill Wagon is all about my whole wheat bread, and how simple and delicious it is.  Seriously, I just pulled a loaf out of the oven and it smells simple divine!  I hope you'll give this recipe a shot, and let me know what you think!  More posts coming soon...not exactly sure how you define soon, but for me it's something like sometime in the next month or so. :)  Seriously though, I'm working on getting some pictures up from the holidays sometime this week.

Guest Post

Hey guys, I know I've been MIA for a while, but I promise all of that is going to change.  In the meantime, I'm guest posting today at The Grain Mill Wagon check out my post on biscuits and take a look at all the other great things you can make with freshly ground wheat while you're there!  See you soon!

Pumpkins

Now that Halloween is over and Alexa has acquiesced to allow me to cook a pumpkin instead of just carve it, I am looking forward to pumpkin baking.  We still have a few weeks left in November so it must at least be acceptable until the month is over right?  One of my dear friend generously gave me her pumpkins when she was done with them, as the carved pumpkins at our house were long gone due to mold.  Pinterest had some great idea for keeping mold away, but they also meant ruining them for cooking so I opted out on those as well.

We began the roasting process last night...it is going to take a good while as I mentioned, they are large pumpkins and my oven will only hold about 1/2 pumpkin per session.  I know my hubby, who loves all things pumpkin, will be more than thrilled to taste all the dishes I come up with.

Stay tuned...

1000 words

I wanted to do a quick post to share these pictures of Alexa.  Mainly because I can't believe how grown up she seems.  Goodness, where did my chubby cheeked, pudgy belly, roly-poly thighs girl go?  It doesn't make ANY sense, but here we are with a sophisticated, well dressed, beautiful girl on our hands.  I am so proud of who she is becoming and I wouldn't trade her for the world.  Just look at that sweet smile, I have a feeling we are headed for trouble when she is old enough to date...a VERY LONG TIME from now!  

Just one small comment on the straight hair.  First, Alexa prefers her hair straight, and for a long time I have refused to comply with her requests for straight hair...her step-mom Lori has straightened it on occasion as did a friend of ours, but I have held my ground.  Then when she came home from her friend's house on Sunday with straight hair I promised if she got up early Monday I would straighten it for her so she could wear it to school that way.  Second, her hair is SOOO curly that each of these pictures are taken moments after I straightened it, and should you see her any more than 15 minutes later you would understand what I'm talking about, so it requires us to re-straighten it each and every morning.  On Monday I made sure she knew that I wasn't going to do this on a daily basis, but her hair is much less messy when it is straight, so we've been 5 days with straight hair now with no signs of stopping.  Fine that's more than one small comment, but just thought I'd throw it in for good measure.  I do love her curly hair, but it is a beast to deal with, so for now, straight it is.

Am I being chased?

When asked about running, this is my typical response...for a long time this was the only reason I found running acceptable.  After all, who would run for fun?  There are many other torturous activities that I would much rather partake in before I don running shoes and step outside.  I ran track in high school, but I really think it was out of boredom more than anything, and even then it wasn't fun.

Last week during dinner and coffee with the girls somehow the subject of running was broached, and I immediately shared my thoughts on running.  I don't.  Have you seen the picture on someone's car like 26.2 (marathon) or 13.1 (half-marathon)...mine was always likely to be 0.0 (if running, call the cops I'm being chased).  NO. DESIRE.  They all discussed how one race or another would be so fun, a mud run, a color run, and how much fun it would be to run as a group.  My resolve was firm.  I do not run.

Then the strangest thing happened.  I'm not sure if I fell and bumped my head, or what, but Friday CJ and I started discussing a run Saturday morning.  As previously stated I am NOT a morning person.  So the fact that I would even consider rising early on a Saturday let alone run is cause enough for a CT scan.  We made a date to run Saturday, 3 participants, and then it began to happen.  Friday night CJ realized she didn't have the necessary shoes to run so she dropped out and then Saturday when I arrived at the agreed upon location my other running buddy wasn't there.  I had a choice, I could go home and snuggle back in beside Adam, or I could suck it up and run.

I chose RUN!  And run I did, for the majority of 2.5 miles.

I must say, I felt rather accomplished when I got home, especially when you consider it was 36 degrees on Saturday at 8am.  I guess the endorphins  were a little too strong because later that day I convinced Adam to get up at 8am the following day for another run.  Even with the extra hour of sleep, neither of us were excited when the alarm went off, but we got up anyway.  It was 30 degrees that morning, and I'm fairly certain each car that passed us was thinking exactly what I used to think when I passed those poor unfortunate souls on icy mornings, "what are those idiots doing? It's 30 degrees outside!"  Oh well, run we did.

3 miles later we were back in our apartment and that sense of accomplishment came flooding back.  Is it possible?  Am I becoming a runner?  We should probably give it a week or 2 before making any rash decisions, but the possibility is there.  I might be signing up for some fun and interesting runs after all!