Tales of the Trees

What I'm Loving Right Now.....

2012-01-25T15:06:00.000-08:00

Here is what I'm loving right now.....

1. This "week at a glance printable" from Kelsey's blog. Seriously it is SO perfect. I know I will be using this every week. I've placed it on the front of our fridge (and for the record I have NEVER hung anything on there but this deserves the front spot....maybe I will get creative and make some kind of bulletin board off of Pinterest to put it on. Probably not.)

2. The pile of toys in the corner of our living room. Even though Eli would rather play with our DVD's than the million of toys. I still love seeing (and hearing) them over there.

3. My mini devotional for moms. I read it every morning to Eli while we eat breakfast and then again before I go to sleep.

4. Big Sexy Hair Powder Play

5. Eli in a hoodie

6. My "I love you because" printable from Sarah's blog. It is so fun to write on and see what Luke writes on it! Although it is awkward when you're in a fight. One time I was tempted to write "Can't think of a reason today!!!" Which ironically enough is one of the reasons why Luke does love me (thank goodness somebody does).

7. Seeing Eli's chart from his babysitter and how it ALWAYS comes back with "happy" and "playful" circled and sometimes even "excited"

8. Every morning when Luke gets Eli out of bed and brings him back to me in bed and Eli plays in our bed laughing and screaming.

9. My ghetto scripture memory book. I didn't want to make a whole new scripture memory book this year, so I ghetto-fied my book from last year by crossing out the 1 in 2011 and writing a 2 with my pen. I'm so prim and proper.

10. Girl Scout cookie season!!!!

Project 365 - Weeks 1, 2 and 3

2012-01-24T19:18:00.000-08:00

For the past two years I have attempted Project 365 (taking a picture for every day of the year) but somewhere around May I quit.

This is my attempt at making it through a full year. My goal is to complete this project. I'm thinking I will do it this year!

I wasn't going to blog all my pictures but then I went back and looked at my Project 365's from previous years and decided it was important for me to have them on the blog.

So now I'm catching up on the past three weeks:

Sunday January 1stWe went to church as usual and then went to Katie's house to watch the NY Giants vs Dallas Cowboys game. Lots of fun!

Monday January 2ndThis was our last full day in our Christmas break. We just hung out at home and I did a bit of redecorating and we hung up some pictures.

Tuesday January 3rdI honestly forgot a picture this day and this is the only picture I have. My legs are awful and look like a 10 year old boy's legs. It is gross.

Wednesday January 4thI usually only work till noon on Wednesday but occasionally if I need to pick up extra hours I will work all day. This particular Wednesday I worked all day. Once we got home for the evening my sweet Eli fell asleep on me like this. I didn't even care about messing up his bedtime I just let him sleep away on me. Such a sweet moment.

Thursday January 5thEli's new trick!

Friday January 6th
Eli loves his scooter that he got for Christmas. I couldn't get him to look at me because he was too busy watching Barney. He loves that purple dinosaur.

Saturday January 7th This is Scout. Eli got him for Christmas and loves him so much. He talks and says Eli's name, favorite color and favorite food.

Sunday January 8thChurch and then hanging out at home watching football. Love our family time.

Monday January 9thWe spent some time face-timing with my family. Eli LOVES my youngest sister. I think she may be his favorite person in the whole family.

Tuesday January 10th Girl's night!! I went out with some of my favorite girls for some pizza and chatting. It was perfect!

Wednesday January 11thJust a day playing at home!

Thursday January 12th Every morning while I'm getting ready Eli loves to play with my mirror. He loves to look at himself! On this day we were headed to the mall to pick up some stuff and meet a friend for lunch.

Friday January 13th
I have no recollection of this day but I'm sure it was a normal, fun day.

Saturday January 14th My family came to visit us and spent the day with us. We had a great time and the boys got to play together.

Sunday January 15thCheering on the NY Giants! (and playing with mom's Scentsy)

Monday January 16th My cuddle-bug.

Tuesday January 17thThis boy LOVES music. He got this guitar for Christmas and he picks it up and holds it like a guitar and plays it. He is our musical prodigy :-)

Wednesday January 18thLuke watched concerts on TV a lot and Eli will stand at the TV and just watch and listen. I'm serious he LOVES music!

Thursday January 19thI had a Scentsy meeting Thursday night and then afterwards I stopped by the hospital to get a breathing test. Ya know just a normal night (everything was normal with my breathing, says the boy who cried wolf)

Friday January 20thJust a day of running errands with my side-kick. Cutest side-kick ever!

Saturday January 21stBelieve it or not Eli had been SCREAMING at me 2 minutes prior to this picture. Getting this boy dressed is hard work. But he also likes to cheese it up for the camera.

A GIANT non-problem

2012-01-23T18:18:00.000-08:00

This post could be classified as the biggest "NON-PROBLEM" ever. But I feel the need to share.

What is a non-problem you ask? Something that you know isn't really a problem, but for whatever reason when that problem is plaguing you it seems huge. Even though it is beyond, BEYOND minuscule.

I've mentioned before that Luke is a NY Giants fan by choice, I'm a fan by marriage, and Eli is a fan by force.

We are your modern football family.

There came a point in our marriage when I realized that Luke SERIOUSLY enjoyed it when I would take interest in his passions.

Imagine that? Sometimes I forget marriage is give and take, I tend to think in the forms of take-take.

Part of me is joking. The other part is your typical first born child.

So there are times that I sit down and "enjoy" the game with Luke. Now granted, I have my laptop propped in my lap, phone hand and possibly headphones on my ears, but hey I'M ENJOYING THE DANG GAME.

I will periodically look up and give a cheer or yell, "WHAT?!? WE WERE ROBBED" for effect. It has worked so far.

It took about two days after we found out we were pregnant, that Luke quit freaking out and went looking on the grand ole Internet for some NY Giants goodies for our new baby.

This was obviously in our pre-baby days, and sadly we had no idea what all a baby entailed and that the baby actually has a mind that works and chooses what type of pacifier and bottle he prefers.

So sadly, the cute NY Giants pacifier and bottle that Luke specifically chose for our baby Tree sat in a corner collecting dust because they were never touched. Eli had his preferences and these items did not meet Sir Eli's desires.

While constantly racking my brain for what to get Luke for Christmas this year I decided there would be nothing more appropriate than family NY Giants gear.

The best kind of presents for people you love are those that involve also getting yourself a little something, right?

I scoured the Internet and found some new Giants shirts for Luke, a shirt for me and the cutest little red spirited shirt for Eli.

On Christmas morning Luke was so excited that his family was going to represent the team he has loved since the age of eight.

We wore our shirts proudly for the first game of 2012. We were the picture perfect NY Giants family that Luke had always imagined.

It was like a scene straight from a Norman Rockwell painting.

I gave myself an appropriate pat on the back for my many successes.

Great Christmas presents? Check.

Christmas presents that involve a present for me? Check.

A husband proud of his football-loving family? Check.

My happy thoughts came to a screeching halt when Luke casually mentioned that Eli and I were now required to wear these same outfits every single game day.

Does this man not remember his son's closet? Doesn't he know this baby boy has plenty of clothes to wear, that mind you, he QUICKLY out grows and we only have a limited amount of wearing time available? The last thing that he needs to do is wear the same shirt over and over and over.

See....I told you....a NON-PROBLEM.

The first Sunday I kindly obliged. I'm not a celebrity...and heck if Duchess of Cambridge Kate can repeat outfits then so can Megan and Eli.

The next Sunday I went through an internal battle of what to do. Wear the shirts for the 3rd Sunday in a row? Or take our chances that the Giants could surely win a game without us wearing the same ole same ole outfit.

So I took our chances. But I made sure Eli and I had on appropriate colored clothing.It made sense in my mind. Me with my BLUE scarf and Eli in his BLUE overalls with RED shirt underneath.

When we arrived at church that morning I was met with disappointment from Luke. Clearly it did not make sense in his mind.

Forget my past of fake cheering and sacrificing my hard-earned money for some silly football shirts. ONE DAY of not wearing them and I was in the football wife dog house.

The next weekend I was again met with an internal debate.....here we are one game away from the Super Bowl. Do I take the chance that we are going to win and not wear our shirts saving them for Super Bowl Sunday......or do I assume we are going to lose and wear them knowing this is our last chance this year and Eil's last chance to wear his shirt before he outgrows it. Such hard decisions.

::::Can we please have a moment of silence for the fact that I just referred to an NFL team that I have no connection to as WE..........thank you::::

I eventually decided that Eli could wear his shirt (with his super cool vest that reminds me of Back to the Future) and I would wear my red scarf in support. Win. Win.

Apparently my team loyalty comes through scarves of many colors.

Well, the Giants won their game and are headed to the Super Bowl.

So come Sunday February 5th our family will be decked out in our Giants clothes. I had no idea just how much wear and tear those shirts would get when I picked them out one December evening.

I plan to stock up on many NY Giants shirts this year.If I'm going to have to wear a shirt every game day maybe I can at least alternate between two different shirts.

Eli is 10 Months Old!

2012-01-22T18:43:00.000-08:00

Eli's monthly pictures with his number sticker have become increasingly harder.

Which means they have also become more fun.....even if it is because he is getting a bit mischievous. I love the idea of having a wild, active, mischievous little boy.

Remind me I said that in a couple of years.

This past Saturday morning after Eli's bath I remembered I had remembered I had never taken his ten month pictures. It got lost in the post-holiday madness so I decided that it was the perfect time.

I have mentioned before that our laid back, sweet baby has become more and more rowdy. He throws fits when he doesn't get his way, he is very particular about who touches him and who doesn't and he is LOUD. Like screams at the top of his lungs all the time.

He is seriously so fun, but I have a feeling when he starts walking (running?) I am going to be one worn out momma!

Back to the pictures:

At first Eli was all about being the center of attention (not like he ever isn't the center of attention) but you can tell his hands are already on the sticker ready to rip it off:

Got it off!

Victory!
Seeing my desperate attempts to get a good picture with the "10" sticker on Eli (HELLO birthday party!!!) Luke decided to put the sticker back on Eli and hold his hands so I could get a picture (which really makes no sense because I do not want a man who just woke up in my precious baby's 10 month picture but it was the thought that counts).

Please note Eli's face below. He did not want to be touched. He wanted his sticker in his hands. He was full on SCREAMING in this picture.

So dad let go of him.....and he's happy again!

So then Luke decided to put him on his lap to achieve the perfect picture....again it's the thought that counts:

I'm pretty sure Eli hated his life at this moment

And then happy again!

So, I give you Eli's 10 month picture:

Life is definitely fun, exciting, and hysterical around here!

My other "job"

2012-01-20T19:30:00.000-08:00

Almost two years ago I signed up to become a Scentsy consultant.

I was given a warmer and some wonderful scents as a housewarming gift, but I had no idea just how much I would fall in love with the company throughout those next two years.

Not only has being a Scentsy consultant been such a blessing in our lives monetarily, being a part of a company that has the right values in mind is what has kept me moving forward. I love the relationships that I have made and am continuing to make. I love the vision put before us and I love being apart of something that is record-breaking.

Yesterday Scentsy made three big, no, HUGE announcements and I am so excited to share them.

I'll start with my personal favorite that I am SO EXCITED about.

Layers, is a new Scentsy product line featuring personal AND laundry products featuring some of your favorite Scentsy scents! I have always wanted Scentsy lotions, shower gels, and so much more and now I can have it!

The laundry products include, Washer Whiffs and a Dryer Disk that you can toss into your laundry to create a wonderful Scentsy experience with your clothes! I cannot wait to try this!

Scentsy is also introducing a product extension line:

Sincerely Scent is an online greeting card store with SCENTED cards. How awesome is that? Customers can choose cards for any occasion, personalize them, and choose the scent. Then Scentsy will MAIL the cards to the intended recipient. That means no hassle for the customer! Love it!

Lastly, Scentsy is launching an entire new brand in May. Introducing Velata......

Velata is a new brand featuring 14 fondue warmers and four chocolate flavors! Simply melt the chocolate, and enjoy with your favorite "dip-ins" (my personal favorite dip-in are marshmallows).

I can't wait to try this chocolate and to have my first Velata party!

I am really SO excited about this next year with Scentsy. I am not a "sales" person by any means but Scentsy has become such a huge part of my life I love sharing what it is all about and how great my Scentsy experience has been. And since so many of my readers have become customers I wanted to fill you all in on all the exciting happenings with Scentsy!

Plus I'm just pretty darn pumped about these products and wanted to share!

If you have any questions about any of the products, or perhaps you've thought about getting involved with Scentsy but never really took the step forward. Let me know and I would be happy to answer any questions you have!

Now is the perfect time! www.megantree.scentsy.us

A Stage

2012-01-18T19:26:00.000-08:00

I was afraid it would happen.

I was warned it would happen.

I thought we had avoided it. We got through month six - the month where is supossebly hits its peak.

And then during month nine it started. It was a normal Sunday and I dropped Eli off in the nursery like I always do.

But this Sunday was different, instead of a happy baby playing with his toys oblivious to the fact that I was leaving, I was met with a crying baby, crawling towards me like I was leaving him for all of eternity.

And my heart broke into a million pieces.

Are you ready for a little bit of authenticity? Before I had Eli I was slightly annoyed with the moms that would not "toughen up" their kids by leaving them crying in the room.

I would think "you ARE coming back" "they WILL survive" "just leave them".

This is not the first, nor will it be the last time I've eaten the words that pre-child Megan thought and said.

Oh how that girl kinda gets on my nerves now.

The AUDACITY she had thinking that she, for one second, knew what it was like to be in those shoes

So on that fateful Sunday I scooped up Eli and took him to service with me, vowing that it would be the only time this would happen. Next time I would be tougher. I would not make myself a hypocrite with my former words and I would stand true to them. This was my time!

I was also relieved that he contniued to go to his babysitter's home with ease. I would drop him off and he would smile at the sight of his babysitter, ready for a day of playing with the "big" kids and getting undivided attention.

And then it happened.

One fateful Monday morning as I dropped him off he cried tears that are forever etched on my heart?

Do I sound dramatic? I'M A MOTHER. I AM DRAMATIC.

I might have teared up in the car...but soon after arriving at work I received a text from the babysitter informing me that she had a happy baby on her hands. He was doing his usual bossing the older kids around.

It made me feel better but a piece of my heart still hurt thinking back on the morning tears.

And sadly, this week beginning with Sunday morning at church the tears came again. And I began to reap the consequences of the words I thought before. I did not "toughen up" that Sunday but instead took him into service with me.

What can I say? I'm a hypocrite.

It has been hard for me to leave Eli when he is crying. On Sundays I can scoop him up but Monday through Wednesday I have a timeline to stick to and there is no time to scoop him up and take him with me. It makes me so sad.

I know this is just a stage, and that two seconds after I leave he is just fine (I have proof, I went back once after 30 seconds and he was perfectly fine playing with his friends) but it is so, so hard.

This morning as I left him crying I let my mind wander during my ten minute drive to work, and by the time I arrived in the campus parking lot I pictured him in counseling one day explaining why he has insecurities because his mom would leave him crying.

Maybe I'm the one who needs counseling. Now.

I'm never one to wish away any stage of Eli's life. I even have some issues talking about him growing up, however this is one stage I'm ready to tell goodbye.

Until then I will probably continue to be a hypocrite in the area of pre-child Megan's thoughts and post Megan's thoughts.

I'm fine with it. She had NO idea what she was talking about.

Not Like Me

2012-01-17T19:35:00.000-08:00

My college years are marked as the years that I really started to grow close to God.

I began to draw near to him and therefore my heart started to change. I wanted to know Him more, I wanted to be like Him, I was chasing after Him.

As I drew closer to God I started to get a desire on my heart to minister to other women and girls. I wanted to be around ladies who were like me and to use what God had taught me to minister to them.

I continued to move forward in life, not really pursuing that desire, but assuming God would just drop those opportunities into my life.

Throughout the years, God never dropped those opportunities in my life and I let that desire fizzle. It seemed like it no longer applied in my life. Just a silly thought that I had in college.

Over time I became involved in a church in my college town only to eventually get hurt in some friendships at that church. Which then led me to leave that church. I did not walk away from church completely, but I walked away from that church with hurt feelings and the beginning signs of bitterness. Dangerous.

I also "realized" that the desire I had to minister to other women was something I concocted myself. I was not worthy enough to minister to other women. This is the lie that was fed to me (not through any person but through the enemy) and I believed it fully.

Years later I married Luke and we continued our roles at our church where we had attended for several years prior to getting married. I had long since abandoned the idea of ministering to others. Years of codling bitterness, and believing lies had led me to a place where the voice of God was fuzzy and distant.

And to be honest I didn't feel that I ever had the opportunity to minister to women. You see when I first had the thoughts of reaching out to others I had a picture of the people I would be talking with.

We all looked alike, and thought alike. They were basically little replicas of me in every way.

Looking around my church, at the place where I thought I would connect with people I saw many women, men and teenagers who looked nothing like me. NOTHING like I had pictured.

If I was to show you pictures of these people you would see they are not like me.

Some are not the same color as me.

Some are not in the same economic status as me.

Some do not have the same educational status that I have.

Some have seen more hurt from this world then I could even imagine.

They do not wear the same clothes I wear.

They do not get their hair highlighted every other month because heaven forbid their true roots start showing, nor do they go buy a new outfit for every small event they attend, because repeating an outfit would just be a travesty.

At first, because it was natural to me I became bitter with the fact that God placed me in a situation where I had very little in common with most around me. This is not what I had pictured. This was simply not fair.

But throughout time my heart began to grow a little at at a time, and I realized that this was in fact what He always had in mind.

He did not intend for me to stay in my comfort zone, nursing my prideful self as I connected with other women about our favorite purses, our stores of choice when shopping and our similar desires in life.

No the people that I am around are not like me in those ways. But they are like me in the way that we are both sinners, we both have a longing in our hearts to be rescued from this world. To know Somebody who is greater than ourselves and saves us from ourselves.

I soon realized that He wanted me to grow, to get out of my comfort zone and see His people. Not the people that I want to see but the people that need to be seen. The hurt, the lost, the people that I don't relate to at all. The people who need a Savior. A Savior that I know and can show to them.

I will admit it has taken me a lot of time to humble myself enough to see what God is teaching me. Sometimes God can be trying to teach us something but we put up enough blinders and earplugs that we completely miss out on his teachings - and believe me I put up enough blinders and earplugs that I had to do a lot of shedding to finally see and hear what God intended for me.

I've realized, that though it may not seem like it at the time, our lives are always better when we listen to Him.

I learned that waiting for God to "drop" opportunities in my lap to minister to others is completely ridiculous. I am surrounded by opportunities every single day. It's how I choose to use these opportunities that is up to me.

And I'm still learning. God is teaching me so much through this particular area of my life. I can only imagine what else I have to learn. One thing I know is that it may not always be comfortable but it will be amazing.

2011 in review

2012-01-16T12:33:00.000-08:00

Now that we are halfway through the first month of 2012 I decided it would be a good time to review what we did in 2011.

2011 was an amazing year for obvious reasons. We gave birth to our first child Eli, and our lives were forever changed. For the better. It has been such a wonderful year filled with the normal day to day "mundane" tasks, all the way to the excitement of adding Eli to our family and working through the ups and downs that come with that big change. It has been an exciting year.

But lets start at the beginning of 2011:

2011 started off with a bang.....literally. While eight months pregnant I got into a scary wreck on the highway. Praise God everything was fine with me and Baby Tree.

In preparation for Baby Tree we had four very amazing showers given in our honor. We were so thankful for all the hard work that was put into the showers as well as everybody who attended and gifted baby Eli.

And then in March we received the sweetest gift of all. Oh how everyday I am thankful for this gift.

The next three months are sort of a blur. I was in what I gently refer to as Postpartum Hell. It as a lovely place. But I also spent those 3 months watching the sweetest baby grow before my eyes. I am so thankful for 12 weeks of maternity leave. I cherished every second of those 12 weeks.

I started to feel more like myself around June....just in time to go back to work. I was sad to leave my former full time job that I had for four years, but I was extremely thrilled and thankful to be able to move into a part-time position. Time with my baby is so important!

In July we took our very first "family vacation" to Branson, MO. We had such a good time and Eli was so good on the road.

Luke started a new job as a middle school teacher. This was something that completely came out of left field but everything lined up perfectly and it just seemed like God was leading us in that direction. We still firmly believe this is what Luke is supposed to be doing right now.

(Visiting dad at school)

Luke and I both turned 27
We also celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary.

We watched Eli grow leaps and bounds
We survived one of the coldest winters with record snowfall and one of the hottest summers with record heat.

My Scentsy team more than doubled this year and I moved up two levels in the company. I am so thankful for my "job" with Scentsy and what it adds to my life. I hope to continue to grow with this company.

What an amazing year it has been! We are so thankful for all of God's provisions this year and want to continue to move forward growing in our relationships with Him. I am excited about the "mundane" day to day tasks that the next year holds. Our lives are no where near perfect but they are filled with perfect moments. I am so thankful.

Changing it up; Canvas Style

2012-01-15T20:53:00.000-08:00

Every year when I take down the Christmas decorations I have this crazy urge to redecorate everything in my house.

I'm not sure what it is about taking down my decorations that causes this but it happens every single year without fail.

I wish we could rearrange the furniture in our living room but we have one of those living rooms that can only go one way. Believe me I learned this the hard way when I was in my 3rd trimester and LARGE and decided our furniture needed to be moved RIGHT THAT MINUTE and tried to rearrange it by myself. Luke walked in and flipped out on me. Apparently its not advised that pregnant women push heavy furniture. I didn't care I NEEDED A NEW LAYOUT.

After about an hour or two of pushing and standing back to look we decided that the furniture only looks good one way. Bummer.

So this year instead of moving our furniture only to move it back to its original place, I took to our walls. I decorated when we moved into our house in March of 2010 and everything has stayed the same since then. It was definitely time for an update.

I mentioned in December that I had become CANVAS CRAZY and ordered several through good deals I found on the internet. I've had several people ask me where I got them. I got them from Easy Canvas Prints they have the best deals and the quality is amazing.

I had originally planned to group all my canvases together on a wall in our living room, but ultimately I didn't like how it looked so I decided to use them throughout the house to change it up a bit.

I'm sure you will be tempted to pin every picture but you must know that every pic was taken with my iPhone so they are SUPER AWESOME quality. Proceed if you must. (I sure hope you sense my sarcasm?)

First I added this table (that I got at Hobby Lobby) in our entry way. I've always wanted an entry way table and the start of a new year seemed like the perfect time to add one! And then of course the sweet canvas from Eli's 3 month photo shoot. I mean HOW SWEET IS THAT BABY?

That canvas is a 16x20

Next is our dining room. I've wanted to change it up in there for awhile but I didn't know what to do. So I decided to do a smorgasbord of "stuff" if you will. Lots of various things are now on this wall including the canvas of Eli on the bottom left corner:

That canvas is an 11x14

And last but not least one of our family pics from Eli's 6 month pics and also the picture I used on our Christmas cards. I hung this in the hallway and replaced our engagement picture. I moved that to our bedroom. It just seemed more appropriate that way.

That canvas is an 18x24

I've taken a bit of a "time out" 'from ordering canvases. I know I will want to order some from Eli's 1st birthday pics so I'm just holding out (and saving money) for those.

I love changing things up around the house, it feels so refreshing!

Random Thoughts

2012-01-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

1. I hate that I haven't been blogging much lately. Sometimes I feel like it and sometimes I don't.

2. I don't think I've talked about this on my blog but I have completely given up Diet Coke. I have a blog post started about it but I need to finish it. This was a huge accomplishment for me!

3. I have my Macbook back and working again! I am so happy. However after not having it for a week I realize just how much I can get done if I'm not sitting on this contraption all the time.

4. I finally started reading The Hunger Games. I am liking it so far. It is hard for me to get into books like this one, but I'm enjoying it so far.

5. Today I got a letter from my hair stylist saying that she is quitting her profession as a hair stylist. I sort of freaked out and wondered HOW SHE COULD DO THIS TO ME?!?! I'm not dramatic. Or selfish.

6. Today I was at the mall in a new store called Lush. A store worked came up to me and before I knew it she was washing rubbing my hands and then threw them in some bucket of ice cold water and all I could think about was how dirty were her hands and how many other gross hands had been in that bucket? It was disgusting.

7. If you have a little girl check out this Etsy shop! Stacy makes hair bows and then uses the money she earns to send Haitian slave girls to school. Pretty stinking awesome.

8. Every year around this time I get all giddy about all the spring outfits in the stores and bathing suits on the racks. It makes me think of buying fun spring outfits for a cruise or trip to the beach. Then I remembered that I am not going anywhere anytime soon and I am never getting in a bathing suit again. Debbie Downer.

9. I have so many blog posts to do. None that will be very entertaining but more for 'upkeep" around these parts. Recaps, goals, yada yada.

10. Because of all the diaper changes, I have been washing my hands this year more so than any other year. My hands ACHE with pain because of how dried out and cracked they are.

11. I'm sort of excited for the Miss America pageant this Saturday. I have big plans for Luke and I to watch it together.......we'll see how well this goes over.

12. I went beyond 10 random facts and I feel very rebellious.

13. Which reminds me I also have a post about Birth Order in the works. I have always been very into birth order but lately as my First Born tendencies have been coming out like crazy I've been obsessed with it. Plus I realized that Eli is the first born so it makes me even more interested in it.

14. If you love Valentine's Day check out the super cute Valentines warmer on my Scentsy website www.megantree.scentsy.us

15. I'm ready for snow.

What We've Been Up To

2012-01-08T19:56:00.000-08:00

About once a month I decide that I want to blog every single day.

And then I usually go a week or so without blogging after that.

It is a weird and annoying cycle that continues in my life and I am trying to break it.

Obviously a couple of weeks ago I decided to blog everyday, and then blogged once a week. I didn't mean to go so long without blogging, but in true Megan fashion I have to say "It wasn't my fault!!!"

My Macbook has been out of commission this week and that is where I do all of my life from. Yes I said life. It has really been weird figuring out how to function without my macbook. Believe it or not I've been a bit more productive.

And word to the wise; do not under any circumstances let your baby, toddler, or child chew and/or suck on your charger to your computer. This will indeed cause it to malfunction.

Lesson learned.

Although I have to say it took a whole day of Luke trying to figure out what was wrong with my computer before I admitted to him that Eli had used my charger as a chew toy mere moments before it quit working. He was not amused.

I still, in fact, have lots of posts that I want to blog, but I have to be in my groove. Groove= I NEED MY LAPTOP.

So for now I will just do a recap of what we have been up to. Because when my grandkids read my blog on some fancy schmancy new Apple product that they just HAD TO HAVE they will in fact know what we were up to the first weeks of 2012. And I will smile down on them from heaven.

Actually I don't know why I have to be in heaven in this scenario I could be sitting right next to them telling them about the good ole days when we actually had to cook our food and gas was only $4 a gallon.

Anyways, our recap:

Last week we went to my friend Katie's house to watch the Giants vs. Cowboys game. I think I've mentioned it on here before that Luke is a HUGE NY Giants fan. He has been since he was eight years old (because thats normal for an eight year old to like a team that is thousands of miles away from their own state).

So that means I am a fan by marriage and Eli is a fan by birth. I guess Eli can choose one day to not be a fan (and break his father's heart) but I signed a contract and made a vow. Giants till death.

Last week the Passion conference was webcast live on the internet (I'm not sure webcast is the correct word but I like the sound of it). Eli and I sat down and watched it one night. This boy LOVES music.

We have had some crazy unseasonably warm weather here (I think most of the nation has) so on Friday we took advantage of it. Eli and I went on a walk and then we hung out on the porch. He crawled around and explored and I tried to keep him from falling off the porch.

One day while unloading the dishes I looked over to find this. I always wanted a house cleaner! Now I need to teach him to use a vacuum.

Last week when we wore our new Giants shirts the team won. So Luke suggested that we all wear our shirts again because it "worked" last time. I will never understand boys and their absurd sports "logic" but because I made a promise to love him through crazy I put Eli and I in the same exact outfits we wore one week ago.

The Megan from high school who wrote down every outfit she wore so that she didn't repeat an outfit in a month just died inside. And for the record not repeating an outfit in a month did in fact NOT make me cool. But I tried.

And, yes Eli loves to pull my hair. I've gotten to the point where my skull is numb and it no longer hurts. And yes I added a scarf to change it up a little. Watch out, this might become a fashion blog soon.

Today we went to church, came home, ate lunch and relaxed and watched the Giants game. Eli took a nap and woke up the crankiest baby E.V.E.R. I think it has something to do with his top tooth coming in. He only wanted me and wouldn't leave my side, but he was still fussy. So I cuddled him close and then climbed into our favorite blue chair with Luke. We all sat together in a chair definitely not big enough for 2 1/2 people and watched some football game. I love my family.

So that is a tiny recap of what the Tree's have been up to. Tomorrow begins our first FULL week back to work since the middle of December and I have to say I am ready for a bit of routine.

And I hope to blog more than once this week! I will NOT make it my goal to blog everyday, only bad things come from that.

Photo book and the History channel

2012-01-03T20:11:00.001-08:00

I'm so behind on my blog!

Usually by this point in the year I've posted a recap of the last year, goals for the new year, books I read the last year and an update on my previous goals.

Basically I was awesome in past years and this year not so much.

We spent a lot of our holiday time traveling and due to the fact that I am getting old it pretty much exhausted me. I had lots of plans to organize and clean around my house, but it never got done.

You see, during the Christmas season I decided to hold a 1st birthday for Eli in March. I had gone back and forth back and forth back and forth about this but decided once and for all (with the help of Luke) that I was indeed going to hold a 1st birthday for my baby boy. So the planning began in my head.

And somewhere in that planning I decided that I wanted to complete the book that I started of Eli's first year so that it would be at the party for people to look through.

So I sat down to re-start the book and got completely addicted. I am having so much fun putting together the book and looking at all the pictures of Eli from the past several months.

Sidenote: MY BABY IS GROWING TOO FAST.

Sidenote complete.

Plus it is a good distraction from the dumb shows my husband has started watching on the History channel. Has anybody noticed how the History channel (I use the word history lightly) has become all about the end of the world and aliens?!?! And Big Foot. I mean WHAT is that about?

So every night I work on Eli's book and Luke flips back and forth between football and a show about how the Nazi's were really aliens. Please, try not to be too jealous of our life. We are a wild pair.

But then one night, sometime between working on Eli's book and blocking out the creepy man's voice from the History channel I realized that I will want Eli's first birthday IN the first year book so finishing it before his birthday is not an option.

However, despite the fact that it does not need to be completed by March I'm still heavily engrossed in putting together the book.

So I still plan on recapping our last year on my blog (I know you're on the edge of your seat) and setting my goals (please calm down I promise I will get to it).

But I will not be recapping books I read in 2011 because I only read two. Unless you count furiously flipping through every book about babies trying to figure out if I'm doing things right reading. Which I don't. I call that FREAKING OUT.

Not as much as I freak out when I've been a good wife, sitting and watching the scary shows on the History channel only to look one and realize that my sweet, sweet, annoying, husband is ASLEEP. And then I wonder HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN ASLEEP? It causes more frustration in me than it really should.

Basically I just wrote this post because it bothered me that I hadn't blogged in 2012 but I also didn't have time to recap our last year and I still need to think through my goals for the next year.

I blame the aliens.

Mom or Dad?

2011-12-29T20:07:00.000-08:00

The whole time I was pregnant we joked round about how Eli would come out looking exactly like Luke. It only seemed obvious that Luke's dark features would take over and we would have a brown eyed, dark haired baby. And it seemed that it was confirmed when the ultrasound tech claimed to have seen a baby in my womb with a head full of hair.

So imagine our shock and amusement when that baby came out with blue eyes and light (almost blonde) hair. When Eli was first born everybody said he looked just like me, but as time has gone on more people say they think he looks like Luke.

When I was home for Christmas I got a picture of Luke as a baby so I thought it would be fun to do a picture comparison. I tried to get pictures of us from around the same age.

Here is Eli:

Then Luke:

Then Me:

What do you think?

Christmas 2011

2011-12-28T19:23:00.000-08:00

Here before you is the longest Christmas recap ever. This is more for our memory-keeping than anything.

Whew. Christmas 2011 is over. It came fast and furious and passed by us in a flash.

We spent a lot of our holiday week traveling, which was a bit tiring but was worth it to spend time with our families, while also getting some time for our little family to have our alone time.

We spent the first week of last week with my family. We hung out, shopped, ate out, watched movies and just relaxed.

Luke and I were also able to sneak out and have a date night. We haven't had one in a LONG time so it was nice and much needed. We went to my favorite restaurant which had an hour wait but it was fine with use cause we were in no rush. It was a great time.

We spent Christmas eve with Luke's family and exchanged gifts with them. Eli had so much fun opening all of his gifts!

Here he is clapping in anticipation of opening his gifts! Well not really he didn't have a clue what was going on but he knew everybody was staring at him so clapping seemed appropriate.

Playing with his new musical toys:

Christmas Eve night we drove back to our home so that we could spend Chrsitmas morning together as a family - and also because we had church that morning.

I didn't think Christmas morning would be a ton of fun this year since Eli is so young but OMIGOSH it was SO fun. Luke woke up before me and went and turned all our Christmas tree lights on and turned Christmas music on and then got Eli and they woke me up together. I loved it.

We had such a good time and I was brought to tears many times thinking of how thankful I am for my little family.

Eli got a scooter from Santa and he LOVED it:

He looks like such a big boy! Tear.

Here he is in front of the tree with his new DVD. Sleepy eyes:

He also got a NY Giants shirt which was a present to both he and dad. I'm sure dad liked it more than Eli:

This picture is a bit blurry but it shows how much fun he was having. I am so in love with my little guy.

Our Christmas morning was pretty rushed because we had to head up to church. Usually Luke goes early but we all went early to stay together as a family for Christmas morning. Eli just sat mesmerized while the musicians rehearsed. We definitely think we have a musician on our hands.

Church was wonderful and just perfect for the morning. Luke led the church in Christmas carols and Eli slept in my lap. It was perfect.

After church we hit the road AGAIN and spent Christmas day with my family.

The only picture I got during the day with my baby and he isn't even looking:

We exchanged gifts that night.

Cute cousins in matching PJ's. This picture makes us laugh cause they look miserable - they weren't!

Happy boy in front of his presents:

It was a great week but we were definitely ready to get back home and get back to our normal schedule. Luke and I both have a few days off before we go back to work. I am hoping to get a lot of cleaning and organizing done in the next few days!

Merry Christmas 2011!

Santa and a Christmas Program!

2011-12-18T16:22:00.000-08:00

Phew! We had a busy, but fun weekend.

Our weekend kicked off on Friday night when we went to the mall to visit Santa. I thought if we got there early we could beat the rush, but right when we got there Santa went to "check on the toys" so we had to wait around for an hour for him to get back.

As we were standing in line, Santa walked up with his familiar white beard but something was missing; HIS SANTA SUIT. It seems this Santa wears a bit of a different outfit, this is his "workshop" outfit.

I guess I expressed my disgust out loud because Luke asked if I wanted to go somewhere else, but that seemed petty. So I've resorted to just complaining about it after the fact.

Waiting in line:

And the big Meet:

I felt bad complaining about our Santa because he was awfully sweet.

Eli started to fuss a little, but didn't really cry. However he was glad to get off that man's lap!

Here he is afterwards, he was exhausted from the trauma of the Santa (without his Santa suit) meet and greet.

The next morning we woke up early and headed to the church for our kid's christmas program rehearsal. I didn't know Eli was going to be in it, but he ended up having a small part as a baby star in a wagon. He was the best baby star ever. Here he is rehearsing his part:

We had to get Luke's oil changed that day and it ended up take MUCH LONGER than we thought it would. Eli was a trooper but when he started melting down we took some pics. He loves to look at pictures and videos of himself.

We spent the rest of the day at home just hanging together.

Sunday was the Christmas Program. Eli played his part wonderfully, and the other kids looked so cute and sounded great! I had to pull the wagon that Eli and two other babies were in so we didn't get any pics (Luke was of course on stage). I'm hoping somebody else in the church got one.

Here he is "backstage" in the wagon with two of his friends.

I really wanted to get a picture of all of us together today but Luke was running around like usual and I didn't want to interrupt him, so I snapped some pics of Eli at home in front of his tree in his room (complete with remnants of his lunch on his outfit)

It was such a wonderful weekend. I know I say it every weekend, but I am truly thankful for Luke and Eli. It has been so fun sharing the Christmas season with our new baby. We are having a blast!

Staff Dinner

2011-12-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

**Oreck Giveaway Winner announced Here**

Every year our church staff goes out to eat in December for a little Christmas get together.

It is amazing to me that this was the 7th year for Luke and I to partake in the staff Christmas dinner. Longer than we've been married. We've had a lot of fun times at those dinners!

My grandparents drove up tonight to take care of Eli while we went out to eat. We are beyond thankful for all of our family that thinks of it as a privilege to be able to take care of Eli for us. Anytime we need a babysitter we have a line of family members ready to come take care of him, regardless of the travel (we don't live in the same town as any family). Such a blessing. And as I've said before I love that Eli is able to have a relationship with my grandparents. They have been such a big part of my life and I know they love being able to spend time with their great-grandbaby!

I had my grandma take a picture of Luke and I and as you can see at the bottom of the picture Eli didn't understand why we were taking a picture without him. He sat at our feet, so we of course scooped him up for the picture.

We went to a local steakhouse and I ate so much I made myself sick. It has been a long time since I've eaten in an actual sit down restaurant. Oh the things that take a back seat once the baby comes and the money goes away! ;-)

All the girls, such a fun group.
I think this might have been my most favorite staff dinner yet. Maybe it's because I am deprived from eating out so I was bound to have a good time no matter what.

We are so thankful for our church family.

Oreck Giveaway Winner

2011-12-15T19:28:00.000-08:00

I love how everybody was so enthusiastic about the Oreck Grab-it & Steam-it! I wish everybody could win!

But alas, there can only be one winner!

And it is......

Malissa, please email me at MeganTree84{at}gmail{dot}com and I will give you all the details!

2011 Christmas Card

2011-12-14T04:30:00.000-08:00

Today I am linking up with Faith's Christmas Card Carousel.

I love both giving and receiving Christmas cards.

It is so fun to look in the mailbox and walk away with a handful of Christmas cards. I love to see the creativity that people use each year for their card.

This year we used Tiny Prints and I LOVE their cards. They are such good quality and sturdy.

Which is obviously important when people throw them in the trash at the end of the year :-)

I actually save all of my cards because I like to look at them from year to year....but I know the majority of people do not do that.

I also frame our Christmas card each year, so all of our previous Christmas cards are lined up no our fireplace hearth. I think it will be so neat to look back on these throughout the years.

Yes, I have an unhealthy obsession with Christmas cards.

Just in case you are curious, our previous cards:

And the 2011 Tree Christmas Card:

I used our pictures from Eli's 6 month photo shoot. And I of course had to include some pictures of the cute little guy by himself. He is too cute for just one picture!

If you would like to share your card be sure to link up on Faith's blog!

What Needs to be Done

2011-12-12T18:35:00.000-08:00

When I was pregnant with Eli, Luke and I found this quaint breakfast cafe down the street from our house.

The food was delicious and the atmosphere was inviting and warm. While Luke and I devoured our banana pancakes complete with butter and syrup, eggs and hash browns, I imagined frequenting this joint often.

I could picture me coming in there during my maternity leave, brand new baby in tow, putting him next to me in his seat where he slept like a perfect, peaceful angel, and I enjoyed coffee and pancakes while I read the latest book.

Dear, sweet, adorable, poor, naive Megan.

I had absolutely no idea what I was about to get into. There would be no out to eat adventures with my brand new baby. There would be no banana pancakes, and there would be no reading the latest books.

AND, if by some crazy miracle I was able to nurse my baby multiple times, get myself ready, get him ready, nurse him again, and actually get out the door in time to eat breakfast I wouldn't want to eat all that food because I felt so unlike myself and didn't want to put any unhealthy foods into my body.

Also, in the above paragraph when I said "getting ready" that simply meant me sweeping my unwashed hair back in a ponytail, hiding it underneath a hat. Putting on my maternity sweats because they are all that felt comfortable and a zip up hoodie for easy access for nursing.

Every time I pass that restaurant I think about my "dream" and I laugh to myself. That first month or so after Eli was born feels like a blur. A long, crazy, nursing, crying, nursing, crying, nursing, crying blur.

I remember Luke saying to me once during that first month he didn't know how I was functioning. I was getting no sleep at night or during the day and a baby was at my every beck and call. I simply told him, "I'm just doing what needs to be done."

As mothers, when that sweet, needy baby is born mother-nature takes over and our bodies do what needs to be done. I had NO IDEA what went into taking care of a baby prior to March 9th 2011 but somehow I did it all. I learned and I grew. And I did it.

And that is how it has been each and every step of the way. I don't know what I'm doing, but I figure it out and I just go with the flow. And I do what needs to be done, while looking to my God to lead me and guide me and TEACH ME. Please for the love teach me.

I like to tell my friends who are new mothers that those first few days (weeks?) are all about learning each other. Yes that baby grew in you, kicked you, squeezed your bladder, and had multiple hiccups inside of you, but now you get to learn each other. It is an amazing and memorable yet exhausting process.

My morning routine has become my latest "doing what needs to be done" episode. Eli has decided that 6:00 is the time he would like to wake up. I have fought him on this but he won. So as I get ready in the morning I am also trying to wrangle Eli. Which I'm ok with because it gives me more time in the day with him, but it is also challenging.

Especially as he has discovered the toilet and likes to suck on it.

Disgusting. Nasty and disgusting.

So right now my mornings consist or curling 3 or 4 strands of hair, grabbing Eli from his freakishly strong grip on the toilet, running him as far away from the toilet but still within my sight, setting him down, running back to the curling iron and curling 3 or 4 strands before he makes it to the toilet and starts sucking on it again. Scoop him up, run him away, run back, curl hair, pry him away, again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Last year I couldn't even get myself up and out of bed and ready for work by the time 8:00 rolled around and now I get myself ready, while distracting my baby who is sometimes crawling up my leg while I'm curling my hair and applying makeup. I then feed him, get him ready (usually we have 2 diaper changes), get everything together, drop him off at the babysitter's and get to work.

I don't say all of this because I think I'm a superwoman. All of that is FAR from a superwoman, but it is proof that you can do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.

In any situation, not just with a new baby - although it is extremely important to remember when you have a new baby. But you might be facing a situation that seems impossible. Remember, you can do what needs to be done. See it as a moment, don't try and look at the entire picture. Look at what is right in front of you. You can do what needs to be done right now.

I am thankful for all that God has taught me through becoming a mother. And all the ways that He has helped me.

I think I need to take Eli to that breakfast place soon. That small cafe now serves as a reminder that I need to keep my eyes in front of me and remember I can do what needs to be done. In that moment.

I do all things through Christ who strengthens me - Philippians 4:13

Eli is 9 Months!

2011-12-11T14:45:00.000-08:00

Eli, oh my sweet baby boy Eli. How is it that he is NINE months old already?!?!?! Why does time go so fast??

I can't believe that Eli has now been with us the same amount of time (give or take a few days) that he grew in my belly. That is so crazy to me.

Lately Luke and I have been talking about how having a baby makes every "cliche" come true.

You feel so corny saying that you don't know what life was like before the baby came, or you never knew you could love somebody so much or you have no idea how your heart doesn't explode with all the love it is holding....but it is all so so true. Doesn't make it any less corny though.

I have been going through my blog and reading entries that I wrote when I was pregnant. I am so thankful that I kept a blog while pregnant, so many funny and interesting memories in there. If you are pregnant or plan to be soon I highly suggest you journal the entire journey!

Eli, you are nine months old! Here is what you have been up to:

- You are into EVERYTHING. I don't get much done during the day because you need an eye on you every second. If I turn my back you have this way of darting off very quickly and getting into something that you aren't supposed to be in

- You put everything into your mouth. We have to watch you so closely

- You have started eating puffs and dried yogurt. You love them. You are still doing very well eating your baby food.

- You are still sleeping well, although sometimes it is hard to get you to nap. You have gotten into the habit of waking up at 2am. I am trying to break you of this.

- You loving going to the babysitter's house and you get excited

- You have started acting shy around strangers. You will put your head down to your shoulder and give a little half smile. It is adorable

- You are scared of dogs - we are working with you on this

- You are SO fun. Always smiling and laughing. Most nights we get sad when it is time for you to go to bed. We want you to stay up and play with us!

- You love your daddy and get so excited when he walks in the door from work

- You love music and you love to dance. You go into worship service at church on Sunday mornings and you immediately recognize dad on stage. You just watch him mesmerized the entire time.

- You pull yourself up on everything and are taking a few steps while holding on to the furniture.

- You already don't like to be held and want down to crawl on the floor if we are holding you

And now a little video, Luke and I have been clapping a lot around Eli thinking that he will picked it up soon. He usually just thought we were clapping for him and would just laugh and laugh. One afternoon randomly Eli started clapping so I filmed it to send to Luke at work.

Ignore my crazy voice and shaky camera. I had to stand the camera up so I could clap.

Oh the things you do to get your kids to do "tricks!"

Junk Food

2011-12-08T19:24:00.000-08:00

What is it about this time of the year that makes me want to eat and eat?

Last year I had the "excuse" that I was pregnant so that is why I was eating a lot.

But in reality I just eat A LOT during this time of the year.

During most months of the year I can walk past a bag of mini Reeses cups and not even bat an eye.

But when December rolls around and I pass by that same bag I act as if I need a Reeses cup in order to save my life, or those around me.

And don't even get me started on the Smore's pop tarts. I know they have nothing to do with Christmas but for some reason they have been calling my name this month.

When I was pregnant I ate two smore's pop tarts everyday.

Then I whined and cried and COULDN'T UNDERSTAND why I was gaining so much weight.

Now I understand. BECAUSE OF THE INSANE AMOUNT OF FOOD YOU ARE EATING YOU CRAZY PREGGO.

42 pounds later and one tiny six pound baby later (you do the math) I vowed to never eat smore's pop tarts again.

Yet here I am enjoying the gooey deliciousness that happens when the marshmallow and chocolate cream mix together beneath that graham cracker crust with a hard shell on top.

But I vow to never eat two a day for more than two consecutive days. I think I can handle that.

Sadly we don't have any Christmas parties to go to this year, so I feel like I'm making up for the calories that I would normally consume at parties.

I will be consuming them at home. By myself. Eating poptarts on the couch while talking to people I don't know on the internet.

Hmm. Maybe there is a reason we weren't invited to any Christmas parties. I'm obviously TOO COOL for parties.

I've also decided that the Reeses mini cups in the shape of Christmas bells do not have a good chocolate to peanut butter ratio. They have too much chocolate.

And now that I've successfully talked about JUNK FOOD for an entire post I think I will go to bed now.

While visions of Reeses cups bounce through my head.

Christmas to Me

2011-12-07T18:18:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas so much, I love everything that comes with it. I love the hustle and the bustle of the season. I love the festive food, looking at lights, receiving Christmas cards, sending Christmas cards, listening to the same songs eight millions times, shopping for presents for others, receiving gifts that others spent the time to pick out and even all the corny Christmas movies.

I love trying to figure out gifts for others and watching their reactions as they open - while I am hoping and praying that they truly like it (only time will tell).

But lately....or maybe it's just the fact that I've gotten older, I feel like the joy has been taken out of the season. So many people, in an effort to steer clear of materialism, end up making others feel guilty for their involvement and enjoyment in the holiday.

And then there is the crazy and ridiculous argument of Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays.

As a Christ follower I don't understand all the fuss about saying Happy Holidays.

I say Merry Christmas and will always say Merry Christmas - but if someone says "Happy Holidays" to me what purpose will it be to chastise them for their choice of verbiage? Would that reflect Christ?

Do I want everyone to know the loving, forgiving, grace that comes through a relationship with Christ? Yes.

Do I think telling someone not to say happy holidays to me will help in this purpose? Heck no.

All year long as a Christ follower I should be focused on those in need, on Jesus (the reason for the season as we say), those who are hurting and those who are lonely. If I am truly living the Word out, that should be my focus throughout the year, but for some reason these particular situations are amplified during Christmas and I feel that sometimes we are made to feel guilty for buying into materialism during this season - yet the other eleven months of the year materialism is accepted.

I want to teach Eli the Christmas story, but I want it to be something that we focus on all year round - not just something that is pounded into his brain for 25 days.

But I also want to enjoy the holiday season when it is here. Make traditions, even if some of them seem "materialistic". I want to set up the nativity scene with him walking through the story step by step (I understand this might be a false dream I have in my head, as I am raising a boy and he will probably be shooting at me with an imaginary gun while I try and teach him the story), but I want us, as a family to take it ALL in.

And I want to teach him to love others throughout the year, not just during this season. I want us to give to others all year, be around those who are different than us, and reach out to those who are lonely.

This post is more for myself than others. So many times I have felt guilty about getting excited about a season that seems"materialistic" when in reality I should feel worry about being materialistic all year round - not just at Christmas.

So I'm going into the season excited about it all, traditions, food, movies, and sharing with others the Love that truly is the reason for the season (as corny as that saying is, it is true).

Sick and Canvas

2011-12-06T17:24:00.000-08:00

Well, Eli has his first little sickness. He has croup. :-( Poor baby boy. He sounded bad Monday when he woke up but I just thought it was a cold or he was just congested, but the babysitter called me around 10:00 to let me know that he was getting worse. So I quickly made a Dr appointment, went and picked him up and took him home and just held him. Sure enough he had croup.

We had a 9 month appointment scheduled for next week so the dr just combined the appointments (praise the Lord only 1 co-pay). Eli is 21 lbs and 27 inches long. I love our pediatrician so much and I'm so thankful that friends recommended him to me. However I've realized I always have this weird thing where I fall in love with my doctors. Not in a romantic, creepy way, but in a s/he-saved-my-life-I-love-him kind of way. Even if they didn't save my life. I might need to look into that a bit, I'm sure there is some sort of name for that disorder. I bet WebMD will tell me.

I'm happy to say that I have all of our Christmas shopping done and I did it ALL online. I am also proud to say that we were able to pay for all of our Christmas using money I have made through Scentsy. Such a blessing.

I can totally see how people get addicted to online shopping. It is the funnest thing to come home and have tons of packages waiting for you! Even if they aren't FOR you it is still fun to have them there on the porch. Everytime I'm home and I hear the package THUD on the porch and then the delivery man ring the door bell I yell YAY! It might become a bit like Pavlov's dog and Eli might spend the rest of his life yelling YAY! whenever he hears a door bell ring.

Also, something else I've become addicted to is canvas buying.

I am a crazy woman it comes to photography and getting photo sessions scheduled for the appropriate events in life - but when it comes to actually getting those pictures printed out and hung on our walls I am awful.

But lately I've found all these amazing deals on canvas prints so I've been taking care of all those pictures I needed to get printed.

I started with some of Eli's 6 month photos:
Then I got our family picture made into a canvas - - but it's the same picture I used for our Christmas card so I don't want to show it just yet.

Then I got one of Eli's 3 month pics made into a canvas:
All of these were purchased through Easy Canvas Prints. They have amazing deals and the quality has been SO great. One picture I sent wasn't high enough resolution and they personally emailed back and forth with me several times until we got the picture to the correct quality.

Confession: The whole time I thought I was emailing back and forth with a man named "Art" and then on the last email I realized I was emailing with the "Art Department" duh.

They are having a really good deal going on right now, an 18x24 for only $34.99, which is the same good deal I used for our family picture.

I really want to take advantage of this good deal but I can't decide if I want to use a newborn pic of Eli or one of our wedding pictures....

The only problem with the newborn pic is I don't have the rights to it (hence the watermark in the top corner) so I would have to purchase the rights and then buy the canvas. Hm....

But then I also don't want to be a person who has way too many pictures in their house. Which I've never met a person like that I'm just saying....I don't want to be that person. But I would like to have a wedding canvas print for our bedroom. Decisions, decisions.

Well that's all the randomness I have for tonight. Don't forget to enter in the Oreck giveaway if you haven't done so already!

Oreck Grab-it & Steam-it Giveaway

2011-12-05T17:02:00.000-08:00

Friends! I am SO excited about this giveaway!

One person reading this blog is going to win your very own Oreck Grab-it & Steam-It Steam Mop!

Since having Eli last March I've noticed that cleaning my house has taken a back seat in my life.

Well....it's not like it was at the tip top of the list before Eli but now it's sort of at the tip bottom. Bit bottom? It's at the bottom.

So when Oreck contacted me and asked if they could send me a Grab-it & Steam-it to review because it would make my cleaning life easier, I was like HECK YES you can!!!

And let me tell you, the people at Oreck did not lie. It really has made my cleaning process easier. It has completely eliminated a step for me when it comes to my hard surfaces in our house, and we have a lot of hard surfaces! Between our tiled kitchen and bathrooms and our hardwood in our dining room and entryway, there is always a floor that needs to be cleaned.

And always a mama that keeps procrastinating.

So you might be wondering, how does the Grab-it and Steam-it eliminate an entire step? Well it is a turbo broom and steam mop all wrapped up in ONE lightweight, cleaning machine!
Instead of spending time sweeping and sweeping, cleaning up your piles of what you swept, and then taking the time to mop the floor that you just swept only to find particles that you missed and are now in your mop water and it's all gross and dirty and you are just smearing particles of debris everywhere- you can sweep AND steam in one easy step.

For those of you who don't like to read a lot of text I have included a Vlog for your viewing pleasure.

How can you win your very own Grab-it & Steam-it? Here's how.....

Mandatory Entry:

Visit Oreck.com and tell me one thing you learned about the Oreck Grab-it & Steam-it

Want to increase your chances to win?? You can do any and ALL of the following:

(important: please leave a separate comment for each additional entry)

Follow @oreck on Twitter
Like Oreck on Facebook
Sign up for Oreck's email list by clicking "Sign up for email" in the top navigation bar and enter your email address
Tweet about the giveaway and mention @oreck and @megantree

Important Details and Rules: This giveaway is open to US RESIDENTS ONLY. You must be 18 years and older to enter.
No duplicate comments. There will be one winner of the Oreck Grab-it & Steam-it. This giveaway will run from December 5, 2011 until December 12, 2011. Winner will have 72 hours to get back to me otherwise a new winner will be selected. Please leave a way for me to notify you. Winner will be determined via drawing on random.org. Odds of winning will be dependent upon total number of entries.
Disclosure – I was given the Oreck Grab-it & Steam-it to review and keep. All opinions stated in this post are entirely my own opinion. Oreck is providing the Grab-it & Steam-it for the winning entrant.

Stella & Dot Winner!!

2011-12-04T19:19:00.001-08:00

Time to announce the winner of the Stella & Dot giveaway hosted by Lauren!

If you aren't the winner but you are still interested in the products (as you should be because they are amazing) you can visit her website HERE.

Congratulations to number 50 Jodie!

I am extremely jealous of you for winning that gorgeous necklace! Wear it proudly!
Oh and also email me at MeganTree84{at}gmail{dot}com so I can get you in touch with Lauren.

I have another giveaway coming up this week that I am really excited about! If you are looking for a way to make cleaning your house easier you need to stay tuned! This product is SO great.

I said I would do the giveaway on Monday but I am going to film a vlog for it and that just ain't happening tonight. Also, Harry Potter is on TV right now. Oh and I am in my pajamas.

I'm thinking it will be up Wednesday!

Saturday Fun

2011-12-03T19:26:00.000-08:00

I looked at my calendar this morning and realized that it had been seven weeks since we have had a weekend at home with no plans.

It was overdue and much needed.

Of course with an eight month old baby in tow, a weekend no longer entails sleeping in. My 6:00am wake up call doesn't seem so wonderful in the wee hours of the morning, but at the end of the day I love that I was able to get up early and get so much done. Plus Eli is so happy in the morning it's hard to not be happy along with him.

Luke and I have been looking forward to this weekend knowing that we had no plans. Our only plan was to stay in and be lazy and just hang out as a family.

We got an extra bonus because we had a thunderstorm almost the entire day. We both love a good thunderstorm.

A cold day, at home, in my pj's, with my two favorite guys while a thunderstorm brews outside? Yes please!

The day started off with an amazing breakfast that Luke made for us. Pancakes, bacon, eggs and juice. Yum yum. He also picked this up for me at the store the other day:Yum, yum, yum. It gave my coffee that perfect Christmas-kick.

We played around in the living room for awhile, eating and watching soccer. Yes we watch soccer every Saturday morning. It has become Luke's new favorite thing for us to do as a family. This little guy could careless about the soccer game but it's still fun to watch it together. After being lazy for awhile I decided to get productive and do things I've been needing to do for awhile. Eli's closet has needed to be updated for a long time. So many clothes were in there that were out of season or no longer fit him. So I cleaned it out, washed the next size of clothes (12 months) and got it all organized.

His closet also serves as my Scentsy inventory closet so I was able to get all of that organized. I LOVE feeling productive. His closet is all put together and is so much better than the chaos it was before.

In the middle of the day all 3 of us managed to squeeze in a nap.

Also, Harry Potter was on ABC Family all day, while it poured rain outside. It was a GREAT day.

We ended the day by going to a friend's house for a birthday party and to watch football. Food, Football and friends = fun fun fun.

It's simple days like these that I sit back and thank God for the little things he has given me. I love the life that Luke and I have built (and are still building) together.

I love being busy and having lots of places to go and people to see, but every so often it is nice to calm down and just spend a day at home. It was much needed!

GIVEAWAY NEWS: The Stella and Dot giveaway will end tomorrow and I will draw for a winner. If you haven't entered do it HERE.

Thursday Thoughts

2011-12-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

Time for random thoughts.

1. Several people made good points on yesterday's post. If it hadn't already happened, Friends definitely jumped the shark when they had Rachel kiss Joey. I seriously can't watch those episodes where they "try" and become a couple. It is weird and unnatural.

2. On days when Eli and I stay home all day I do not wear makeup, I consider this a money saving tactic.

3. On days when I do wear makeup I try and wash my face as early in the evening as possible. I hate *hate* washing my face at night, but I also cannot sleep with a face full of makeup. The inner mind dialogues between washing my face vs. not washing it are stressful.

4. I'm currently dreading washing my face. I'm already struggling with the great debate of whether I can fall asleep with makeup on. The answer is no.

5. I am so thankful that a year and a half ago I decided to sign up for Scentsy. There were a couple of times after Eli was born that I thought about quitting, but I'm so glad I didn't. I am loving this journey that I am on with Scentsy. Can't wait to see what the future holds!

6. I think 3 Musketeers is my favorite candybar. So good.

7. I didn't eat enough Cheesey potato's over Thanksgiving. I need more.

8. I can't wait to share our Christmas cards on here! They turned out super cute (mainly because of our teeny tiny Eli addition this year). (actually he isn't teeny tiny, he's a pretty big chunk, but I still like to call him my teeny tiny). I will be linking up once again for Faith's Christmas Card Carousel on December 14th!

9. The other day I had the grand idea to make a Christmas bucket list of things for the Tree family to do during the month of December. I thought my idea was so great. Then I saw like 2 million Christmas bucket lists on the Internet. So I'm thinking my "grand idea" was something I had previously seen and then it implanted itself in my subconscious and I thought I came up with the idea myself but I didn't. Anyways, I don't want to do it now cause I don't like to be a follower.

10. Which means I will say I won't want to do it for about a week and then I will cave and do it. But I refuse to read any other bucket lists cause I want mine to be all my original thoughts. I'm weird.

Jumping the Shark

2011-11-30T18:32:00.000-08:00

I have a feeling this post is about to reveal the unhealthy relationship I have with TV.

But this subject has been on my mind lately and I want to discuss it.

That sentence made it sound like this is about to be a serious post. It is nowhere near a serious post. Perhaps a sad post because I watch too much television, but serious? No.

Have you heard of the phenomenon called jumping the shark? It refers to a television series. When a TV show jumps the shark it means that it did something entirely stupid and the show is beyond recovery and viewership begins to decline.

That was my own scientific definition, perhaps I should be a television critic or something.

The term "jump the shark" originated from a Happy Days episode in which "the Fonz" literally jumped over a shark while skiing, which was unrealistic and dumb.

Do you think I'm (more of) a nerd yet?

ANYWAYS, all of that to say, lately I've been thinking about my favorite TV shows and their moments of "jumping the shark".

And I just heard a few people out there say "wow she needs more to think about".

But the reason I've started thinking about this is because I've been watching Friends reruns over and over and there is such a clear difference between the early seasons which were laugh out loud till you cry funny and the later seasons when it got a little, shall we say....lame.

So as I sit in bed watching Friends and eating crackers I try and figure out when it lost it's steam - the moment that it jumped the shark. The only conclusion I can come up with is when Rachel got pregnant. It seems like it started to go downhill after that. What do you think?

Of course there may be some people who think it never jumped the shark.

Shows that I think never jumped the shark?

Dawson's Creek
Friday Night Lights
Reba (yes I went there)
The Wonder Years
Boy Meets World
LOST

I'm sure I could think of more if I sat and thought about it, but I have more important things to think about. (sarcasm intended)

I've also thought about my favorite shows and the moment that I feel they jumped the shark

- Desperate Housewives - I think it occurred when they did the time jump and moved to the future. That was cool at first but then it got weird

- Grey's Anatomy - I've gone back and forth about this one a lot. I think it either happened when Meredith fell in the water and almost drowned and then saw all those dead people, OR when Izzie started seeing her dead fiancé Denny. What is with the dead people Grey's? THIS ISN'T SCIENCE FICTION.

- Mad About You - when they got pregnant

- Beverly Hills 90210 - When Brenda left (yes it went on for many more years after that, this is just my own biased opinion)

Now I'm wondering.....What do you think? Do you agree/disagree? I'm willing to bet there are some people that think that Friends never jumped the shark.

And I know some people think that Lost jumped the shark even though I disagree WHOLEHEARTEDLY.

I get passionate about Lost. And Friday Night Lights.

Well this whole post might be proof that I get passionate about television all together.

So I want to know your thoughts on this matter.

Clearly we have big fish to fry here.

**Reminder** If you haven't entered the Stella and Dot giveaway do so HERE

Stella & Dot Giveaway

2011-11-29T19:07:00.000-08:00

I've never done giveaways on my blog before. I really had no reason for not doing them other than I just didn't want to mess with them. Which seems a bit silly.

But recently I've been asked to do a couple of giveaways that I am SO excited about and I think will really benefit people for the holiday season.

My first giveaway is today and then I have another big giveaway on Monday so stay tuned!!

I'm so excited about today's giveaway from Stella & Dot hosted by my blog friend Lauren! I LOVE Stella and Dot. I had a party a few years ago and I absolutely love the pieces I got through the party. In fact my stackable rings that I ordered from that party served as my wedding ring when I was pregnant and large and in charge and my normal ring wouldn't fit.

In Lauren's words her description of Stella and Dot:

The Stella & Dot line includes bold, stylish and beautiful boutique style jewelry and accessories at an affordable price. The jewelry is vintage inspired and celebrity coveted and has been seen in InStyle, Real Simple, Lucky, Vogue, O Magazine and more!

You can find everything from statement pieces that dress you up for the evening to casual wear for the afternoon outing to everyday classics for the office. Stella & Dot has something for everyone and is the perfect place to shop for those you love!

Lauren is graciously giving away this beautiful necklace:

I am really jealous of the person who wins this giveaway....this necklace is amazing!

Bib necklaces are all the rage right now as well as statement pearl pieces. I could see this dressed down with jeans and a great black top, or dressed up with a dress like the model is wearing. One lucky reader will win this awesome necklace!

To enter: Visit Lauren's website www.stelladot.com/laurentrain and come back and comment on which piece you would most like to purchase. It's that simple!

And if for some reason you see a piece you just can't live without or something that would make a great Christmas gift there is an open party under MeganTree.

Good luck!

Enjoying Inconvenience

2011-11-28T20:12:00.000-08:00

Luke and I have noticed a pattern that has developed lately. For some reason every single Monday night I say I don't feel good and go to sleep early.

I blame it on the fact that I only work Monday through Wednesday afternoon so I have four nights where I allow myself to stay up as late as I want even though I have the same sweet wake up call around 6:15-6:30 every single morning.

So by the time Monday night rolls around after a full day's work I am usually wiped. My week of wild shenanigans has caught up to me.

Wild shenanigans equals watching Friends while laying in bed eating crackers.

Today was no exception. After driving home from work and picking up dinner (shame shame I did not cook tonight) it was time to bathe Eli, feed him his dinner, and get in some family play time (while we watched football commentary of course) before Eli went to bed.

Soon after he went to bed I got busy with my to do list. I had several emails to return, lots of housework to be done, Scentsy business to take care of and a dinner to eat.

Part of my "me" time involved doing laundry. I can usually sneak into Eli's room and put his laundry away without him even stirring. Tonight I was softly placing his pajamas in his top drawer when I looked over at his crib and realized he was sitting straight up staring directly at me.

It might have been the freakiest thing that has happened to me in a long time.

I tried to sneak out, thinking maybe he wasn't fully awake, or perhaps he was sit-sleeping? Or maybe he would think it was all a dream and drift back to sleep.

But of course it didn't happen, he started screaming. I'm sure he was confused as all get out. I was just in his room, he probably thought I was coming to get him.

I let him cry for a bit but there was no doubt that he was not going back to sleep, so I went back in there scooped him up and started rocking him.

Immediately I started thinking of all the things I needed to be doing. This was using up the precious little time I have each evening to take care of 1200 things before my head hits the pillow.

And then I stopped my thoughts dead in their tracks. Was I seriously getting grumpy about spending more time with my baby? I was holding a sweet baby who in that moment only wanted to be comforted by me. How could I even for a second not savor every minute of this?

Yes at the moment it seemed like an inconvenience but I decided to use the moment. In the hustle and bustle of everything I rarely have moments of being still and quiet. I just took it in. Rocking my baby, using the quiet time to pray, thanking God for so much, and seeking his guidance in so much.

Pretty soon Eli was asleep but I stayed there, just rocking him, listening to the rhythm of his breathing and taking in his sweet, clean baby smells.

I started to think about how this seemed like an inconvenience but was really a blessing in disguise to spend some quiet time. And then I remembered that this time last year we were preparing for what seemed like a little inconvenience.

When we got pregnant we were 2 years into our "5 year plan". Oh how I thank God everyday that he knows what is best for us. At the moment nothing made sense. We did not feel ready for a baby in any sense of the form. Yet we were. We sought Him and He prepared us.

How thankful I am.

God uses inconvenience everyday.

Tonight I am extremely thankful for the opportunity to rock my baby back to sleep. He is growing everyday and sadly he won't always let me rock him. And I don't want to be like that creepy mom from that one book that crawls in her son's room and rocks him when he is asleep and is a grown man. I'm not that crazy. Yet.

And sure enough, after I was done rocking Eli and he was back to sleep everything that seemed so pressing before was still waiting for me and didn't seem so pressing anymore.

Now it's time to go to bed. My pressing matters can wait. I was able to enjoy some unscheduled time with my baby and my God tonight and that was worth every lost "scheduled" moment.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-27T18:24:00.000-08:00

There is something about holidays that makes me forget to take out my camera and get some great pictures.

I have about 2000 pictures of Eli with dried baby food all over his face wearing a dirty onesie and mismatched pants.

But take a day where he is looking all cute in his holiday outfit and Luke and I are dressed and look nice and we are surrounded by family, and I completely forget to take out my camera.

But don't worry I do have my trusty phone pictures.

Our Thanksgiving week started off with these beautiful flowers that Luke brought me home, just to say he was thankful for me. I'm beyond thankful for that man. Flowers or no flowers.
Thursday I dressed Eli in one of his adorable Thanksgiving shirts from Lulu McGee and we watched the Thanksgiving parade.
He slept through most of it, while I enjoyed the awful lip syncing (has it always been that bad?) and the floats that seem to be less and less each year.

We then hit the road and spent the next few days with family. Just how we like it. Kind of stressful at times but enjoyable almost all of the time.

Friday we went to a football game, Luke thinks it is important that Eli watch football his whole life. I think it doesn't matter if he watches football at EIGHT MONTHS OLD, however its important to Luke (and he brought me flowers this week) so I held in my opinion - which I might add is almost impossible for me to do and took Eli to the football game.

I'm sure he soaked in all the football and is currently running plays through his head as he sleeps.

Can you sense the sarcasm?

I might be a little bitter though because I had a bit of a traumatizing experience. I brought our Baby Bjorn and thought it would be perfect to use at the football game. It was already fitted to my body because I use it a lot during the day, so I told Luke I would just carry Eli in it even though it would be easier for Luke to do it.

That was before I realized we had parked about 2 miles away. Give or take a mile or two.

BUT IT WAS FAR.

I had a 21 pound baby strapped to my front-side trekking through a university campus. I serously felt like a contestant on the Biggest Loser.

If you aren't familiar with the Biggest Loser they strap giant sand bags to the contestants and make them walk across the desert while the people carrying said sand bags look and act like they could pass out at any moment.

Which is obviously JUST LIKE carrying a giant baby in a Baby Bjorn.

Here we are. If I look like I feel like I'm dying its because I DID. I was pretty convinced one of my ribs was cracked. I think it healed on it's own though because it feels fine now.I did learn one thing from this experience. I could never be a contestant on The Amazing Race.

So that was our Thanksgiving. Oh and we ate a lot. I will never get sick of Thanksgiving food. We brought home lots of leftover and I am still eating and enjoying them. Luke is done with it all.

Such a wonderful week. And such a great time to reflect on everything I am thankful for. One thing I'm not thankful for? The Baby Bjorn. I would like to burn it.

Random Thoughts

2011-11-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

Time for a random post.

1. I have found so many great deals on the internet lately, I have done almost all my Christmas shopping online. I love it.

2. I had to blow up a lot of balloons at work this week. I'm not sure if I've ever shared this but I am afraid of balloons. Those things are terrifying. They could pop in your face without any warning at all. I also hate opening cans of biscuits or anything that POPS. It's too much for me to handle.

3. As much as I don't want Eli to grow up fast, I'm excited about him being old enough to do the Elf on a Shelf tradition. I have already tried to think of places to put that Elf, I have some good ideas!

4. Last week I made a recipe that I found on Pinterest for the first time. It was Salsa Chicken. It was really good and something I will add to our rotation.

5. Lately, Luke has started talking about how he really wants to put a deck on our back porch so for his Christmas present his dad came and built one for us. I am in love with it! It turned out so great! It will be so nice to have when the weather gets warmer. He did a really great job!

6. I absolutely love that Friends comes on Nick at Nite now. Yes it makes me feel old but I could watch this show 24 hours a day and be just fine. It never gets old. I especially love watching the episodes from the early years.

7. Our Christmas tree is up and so far Eli doesn't care at all. We even put a tree in his room and he doesn't bother it at all. I thought he would try and pull the trees down but he shows no interest.

8. I plan on going shopping on Black Friday. I think it is so fun. I'm one of those weird people that enjoys the hustle and bustle of that day. People can be crazy, yes, but it's fun to sit back and watch the crazies.

9. I am loving Luke being on a teacher's schedule. It is so nice that he has the built in school breaks. I know he enjoys it also.

10. I am really craving pigs in the blanket. I think I will make those tomorrow. They will make a great pre-thanksgiving meal.

Eli is 8 Months!

2011-11-21T19:54:00.000-08:00

I am so behind on Eli's 8 month post.

I tried taking pictures the other day and it is getting harder the older he gets. Don't get me wrong it is getting so FUN the older he gets. I spend the whole time cracking up. He is moving, moving, moving and never wants to sit still.

Here are some pictures from our monthly photo session. He fell off the chair twice and I caught him in mid air. Just some of my stellar mom moves.

Eli is in size 3 diapers and wears 6-12 month clothes.

He is a big eater and is extremely active.

He crawls everywhere and is into everything.

He is still a great sleeper at night. He goes to bed around 7:30 and wakes up around 6:00 or 6:30.

He "talks" all the time. Well yells at us. If we do something he doesn't like he definitely lets us have it with his voice.

He is the happiest most laid back baby. EVERYBODY comments on how laid back and "chill" he is. I like to say he gets this from me, when we all know it is straight from Luke.

Eli's favorite thing has always been watching his dad play the guitar, and I've figured out when he is fussy it is the best thing to get him happy again. He loves to "play" it.

I got a video of him doing it last week:

The Other Side

2011-11-20T19:01:00.000-08:00

Well I survived the stomach bug of 2011 also known as hell.

There were a few moments where I actually thought I wasn't going to survive and it was time for me to go over my last will and testaments. Or is it testament? Not to be confused with Testamints the christian mint complete with a scripture with each mint.

Then I remembered I don't have anything worth anything so there is no need for a will or testament. However after my bout with the stomach virus I could have used a Testamint.

Since it is November, the month of thankfulness, I need to take this moment to say that I am thankful for my husband and his willingness to live out the fruits of the spirit in his life. God bless him for practicing, peace, love, faithfulness, self control, joy, and peace when I was convinced I would not survive the stomach bug.

It was rough but luckily I got better just in time to go see Breaking Dawn with two dear friends.

We are familiar with the quality of the films in the Twilight franchise so we knew what to expect going into the movie.

It met every expectation we had and we left discussing scenes that were not supposed to be funny that were hilarious and our thoughts on corny and sometimes uncomfortable moments in the movie.

And we all agreed we would be in line together for the next movie on opening night (well not at midnight but the next night, so I guess 2nd opening night). It's just how we roll.

We are all busy gals and live in different towns so we will gladly take a girl's night sitting on a theater floor for several hours in line just to see a vampire, werewolf and one annoying girl.

I wasn't kidding about sitting on the theater floor:

Also I'm glad I was better before the weekend because we spent Saturday eating Thanksgiving food with my family and I am NOT HAPPY if I don't get to eat Thanksgiving food.

Cheesy potatos? Please and thank you.

Eli's CeCe (my mom) got Eli and his cousin matching outfits for the day. I have to say they looked awfully cute:

It was such a fun day with family. The weather was beautiful and we just hung outside the whole time (when we weren't eating).

We even had a sister photoshoot:

I'm the oldest sister I never stop bossing and "fixing". I'm not sure what I was doing here but it was probably bossing or "fixing" something:

What a fun weekend!

So glad I beat the stomach bug 2011 just in time to enjoy it all. And a special big thanks to these boys for taking extra good care of me!

The Job that Never Ends

2011-11-15T18:47:00.000-08:00

When Luke and I first got married everybody told us how your selfishness has to go out the door after you get married and how we would now learn what it means to truly sacrifice yourself for someone else.

While I agree with that, I don't think it is ANYTHING compared to the sacrifice that comes from having a baby.

Forget the words I, Me, Myself, you won't use them very often anymore. And with a good reason.

If you aren't careful your life can become totally wrapped up in that little lovebug. When you look at your child you are met with a love that you never knew you had. A love that you can't even really comprehend. And with something so big, also comes the responsibility.

No longer is your time your own, no longer can your spouse give you all their attention, no longer do you get to get to decide when you sleep and when you wake up. For awhile you are at the beck and call of your tiny baby. Your world.

And that means even when you are sick, your life is still not your own. You still have a tiny person to tend to, making sure they are fed, played with and protected.

Currently I am sick. I woke up not feeling well but was convinced it was due to a new medication I started and took late at night with no food on my stomach. But late in the day when I still felt bad I realized it was not the medicine. And then I was down for the count.

I was able to leave work and come home to get some rest, but there was one job waiting for me that never ends, regardless of my health status; mommy.

Luke had several plans scheduled for tonight that he needed to fulfill (we are big sticklers with following through with our commitments as much as humanly possible) so we decided I could tough it out at home with Eli even though I felt like death.

First I tried explaining to Eli that mommy was sick and he needed to fend for himself for the night. He just leaned his head back and laughed his new laugh that can make any sick mommy smile until her cheeks hurt.

I then tried to give Eli my all but it was hard, I eventually ended up laying down on the floor and let him crawl all over me.

Half of my hair was pulled out but it proved to be effective parenting while sick.

Parenting while sick. Something you don't think about when you are bouncing around with glee during the second trimester, when your hair is perfect and you are in the middle of planning the nursery to a perfect point and ensuring that you have the cutest going home outfit for your baby.

I'm sure there will be other days in the future when I am sick and I'm alone with Eli, but hopefully he will be at the age where I can turn on the TV and let him enjoy the mindless game of television watching. I kid I kid.

Luke got home just after Eli went to bed. He came bearing saltine cracker and orange juice, which at the time seemed appealing but don't seem to be sitting very well now.

Here's to hoping I feel better in the morning. I'm a whiny sick person. Almost as bad as a man.

I also get fiesty when I'm sick.

Tiny Prints Review

2011-11-14T18:09:00.000-08:00

If you've known me long you know it is no secret that I am a crazy woman about Christmas cards.

I've been that way my whole life. Even as a young girl I would get so excited about looking at all the Christmas cards and reading letters that some people chose to include with their cards.

There is just something so special about this age old practice. Plus in the day of emails, texts, tweets and facebook messages it is so fun to be swamped with snail mail for an entire month.

However choosing an actual card to use has always been hard. I fall in love with SO many Christmas cards, and this year seemed even more difficult because I have a super cute baby to put on the card so I need a super cute picture!

I immediately went to Tiny Prints to find a Christmas card because I always love all of their cards.

Their new holiday collection is amazing. Seriously, so many beautiful cards to choose from, I never knew how I would pick just one.

I first fell in love with this card, I mean HOW DARLING is this little girl? I thought Eli would look ADORABLE on it. And I love the simple word of "Believe", so powerful.

Still Believe

But I couldn't stop at just one so I continued to look around and of course kept falling in love. By the end of the night I had 18 Christmas cards in "My Saved Projects", ridiculous.

Some other cards I loved:

I've been in love with yellow on everything for awhile now so this one really stuck out to me

Filled with Joy

And another card that is a full bleed picture. I could see Eli looking so cute on this one also:

Joyful Highlights

And last but definitely not least is this beauty, how fun is this one?!?

Be Merry

If you are still looking for that perfect card I bet you will find it in the Tiny Prints holiday collection. Go check them out now!!

I am so excited to send our cards out this year and show off our fabulous card and our sweet Eli!

**I was given 50 free cards for this review, but all opinions are strictly my own. If I'm going to take the time to write a post about something it is going to be something that I flat out love**

Weekly Weekend Update - College Get Together

2011-11-13T19:01:00.001-08:00

This is one of the posts that I was talking about when I wrote this post. I want to blog family events for memory's sake, but I know it will be boring to everyone else.

And I promise I won't give that disclaimer before every post.

This weekend was one of the weekends that I look forward to all year. It was the weekend of our annual "college friends get together". It has become something that we do every year and I hope we continue it for many more years. And of course I have to blog about it every year. 2010, 2009 and 2008.

We usually get together in December but this year we decided to plan it in November. We spent the whole day laughing, talking, eating, laughing some more, attempting to do Cart Wheels in the backyard (these are becoming harder the older we get, we had to make sure we could still do them), playing with babies, eating and just plain having fun.

Every year the biggest challenge of the day is figuring out a good spot to stand for our group. We need to be able to prop the camera in a good place and someone needs to be the person who pushes the button and runs to the group. A daunting task.

The group picture:

And what was once the "girls" picture has now been renamed the "girls and kids" picture:

This time last year Jodi and I were in our 2nd trimester and 26 weeks preggo. Now we have two sweet babies, so naturally we decided to make sure that they wore matching shirts for the occasion.

We both ordered from Lulu McGee and were beyond impressed with the customer service and quality of the shirts. It's a story for another day.

Our little turkeys:

This picture seriously cracks us up. I had to call Jodi the second I saw it. Our favorite part is Eli's hand on Halle's leg and Halle's look on her face like "please help me" but don't they look so cute in their shirts??

Eli in his shirt:

Every year at the end of the day I wish that we could all get together more often but we are all spread out and all have lots of things going on that keep us busy. Plus getting together like this makes it that much more special!

I still vote that we have a summer get together....maybe even at the beach. That sounds nice!

The Worst Mom

2011-11-10T20:26:00.000-08:00

The other day Luke and I were in the car and I was telling him a story about Eli. I honestly can't even remember what the story was about or what had happened, which doesn't really matter at this point.

I ended the story by saying "which probably means I'm the worst mother in the world". Luke then asked me why I always referred to myself as the worst mom when in actuality I was a great mother.

I just shrugged his question off at that moment as another one of Luke's "annoying" questions, but it has weighed heavily on my mind and heart since that day.

Becoming a mother this year has been one of the most natural things I have ever done. Yes there were moments at first when I thought "WHAT HAVE WE DONE??" but for the most part becoming a mother was the easiest thing I have ever done.

I try not to let the little things stress me out, I try not to worry too much about if I'm doing the right thing or if Eli is doing what every other baby his age is doing. We are both individuals and our journey as mom and baby is our own, I do not want to compare.

But on that same note I always automatically assume I am a bad mom. It seems so contradictory to the above paragraph but somehow I have meshed the two together. I am confident yet insecure. I have peace yet I worry about how I am as a mom. I doubt myself yet I feel certain that I am doing what is best for my baby.

It seems like there is always one thing at the moment that I use to define whether I am a good mom or bad mom.

I remember the moment I realized that if I didn't get Eli clean nobody else (with the exception of Luke) would do it. I then started having anxiety attacks about getting his belly button clean.

Yes, you read that correctly his belly button. I mean, nobody wants a dirty belly button RIGHT?

I even asked the dr. what the best and most thorough way to clean a baby's belly button was, he thought it was hilarious. Why do dr.'s always think I'm funny? I'm serious.

So to answer to Luke's question, the answer is because I try and measure whether I'm a good mom or bad mom by how clean my child's belly button is.

Well maybe not just his belly button but I measure the good vs. bad mom debate by things that don't really matter. Yes it is important for Eli to have a clean belly button, but if I forget to clean it one day I am not automatically the worst mom ever. I allow the little things to define who I am as a mother instead of the big things that really matter. Such as my love for Eli and the guidance I am giving him.

So I have made it my goal to quit calling myself a bad mom. I have gotten into the habit of doing it a lot and I no longer want to say those words. They are unnecessary and as hard as it is for me to admit this they are not true.

I am a good mom.

Before becoming a mother I never could have imagined how much insecurity can plague a new mom. But I no longer want to let the lies rob me of believing that I am a good mom. Each time I have a "bad mom lie" come into my mind I have vowed to combat it with the truth. I am thankful for a husband that reminded me of this.

Now please excuse me, I'm off to google how to properly clean a belly button. Eli and I come from a long line of the deepest belly buttons ever. Both a blessing and a curse.

Baby Hands

2011-11-09T19:59:00.000-08:00

Usually by Wednesday afternoon our house is a pit.

Because I work Monday through Wednesday I reserve Thursday and Friday for cleaning. So that means I don't do any housework at the beginning of the week.

This may need to change soon because a messy home (and car) stresses me out internally. I think I need to come up with some sort of cleaning schedule to keep me on track so that I don't get so stressed out about it.

All of that to say, due to the fact that I had bunco at my house last night my house was already semi clean. So now I get to enjoy Wednesday through Friday with zero cleaning. Glory hallelujah!

Lately Eli has become very interested in his hands. He will just sit and stare at them for a minute or so. It is the cutest thing, I wish I knew what he was thinking.

Today I put him in his crib and he fussed for a minute (he always has trouble napping on Wednesday afternoons, it is strange) and then it was quiet. I looked at the video monitor assuming he was asleep only to find him staring intently at his hands:

Who needs sleep when you have hands to look at?!?!

Luke had his bible study tonight so it was just Eli and I hanging out at home. He was a bit fussy, I think maybe he is teething. I was trying to entertain him before bed while watching the CMA's, but instead of playing with his toys he was very enthralled in the awards show.

He sat and watched it until the commercial break, then played with his toys and then started watching again after the commercial break. It was hilarious.

So that was our day. Looking forward to another relaxing day tomorrow!

Thanks, Bunko and Scentsy

2011-11-08T20:09:00.000-08:00

1. Well there is no way I can start this post without first thanking each person that commented on my post yesterday. I feel like everyone that commented understood where I was coming from and what I was saying. I don't plan to end my blog anytime soon as I love doing it too much to end it. And the comments from yesterday helped to remind me why I blog.

Seriously, thank you to everybody who commented. Your words meant a lot to me. And it was nice to meet so many of you who commented for the first time! I'm sure I will go back and read those comments from time to time.

2. For the past month or so my friend Katie and I have been organizing a bunko group. Our group met for the first time tonight and it was a great success! I meant to take a picture but I got so caught up in all the dice rolling (and food eating) that I forgot to take one. I can't wait for our next Bunko party! And I am SO glad to finally have a bunko group to call my own!

3. It is November which means it is time to start Christmas shopping!! I've said it before but it is true - Scentsy makes the perfect gift for anyone!

This month I'm offering a special - everybody who places an order through my website will be entered into a drawing for a FREE plug in of their choice

So don't delay, get started on your Christmas shopping (or buying yourself something) today!

And if you've ever thought about joining Scentsy now is

the perfect time to join! I have consultants on my team from all over the US so let me know if you have any questions. I would love to answer them!

And again, thank you for the comments yesterday.

Transitioning

2011-11-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

This post is going to be a bit hard to put into words but I'm going to try my best to do it.

For the past couple of months now I have toyed around with the idea of shutting down my blog or just making it private.

When I first started my blog I wanted people to read it, I wanted to be known by other bloggers and wanted to get comments. I remember my first comment from a "stranger" in the blog world made me so excited I was close to jumping up and down yelling "SOMEBODY READS MY BLOG!!!!!!!!!!" I couldn't believe it.

Overtime, through the transitions of life, my blog turned into a place where I came to post stories of nonsense from our first days as a married couple. I don't even know what I would write about. Sometimes it was simply stories of us watching American Idol but somehow I made it into a post and people commented on it. Go figure.

My life has transitioned throughout the years and I have continued to blog and continued to tell the stories of our life. And somewhere along the line that same person who was so excited that people read her blog suddenly didn't care at all if anybody read that same blog.

Lately I have lost that desire to write. I feel like my blog has become a double edged sword.

So many people from my real life read my blog. Which at times is great. For example when I am sharing stories of Eli's growth and progress it's awesome that I have a place where I am able to communicate all of this information.

But on the same hand, I also like to come on here and journal about situations in my life or thoughts that are going on in my head, which is hard knowing that so many people in my life read this. I sometimes think, "why do they get to know the inner workings of my mind and I don't get to know theirs?" I make myself vulnerable to them, yet they have the option to stay closed off to me.

It's hard. But as my wise husband reminds me, I make the chioce to open myself up. Which is why I've thought long and hard about why I blog and if I really want to continue.

I've been thinking about it for awhile now and It has even prompted some other posts I've written recently here when I didn't yet have the "guts" to write out these actual words that I'm writing today.

As my life has transitioned I have found it hard for my blog to transition along with my life. I don't want to be stereotyped as a "mom blogger" yet I do want to blog stories about my baby and what he is doing.

I do want to come on my blog and write about boring details from our weekend simply for our own memory but then I think "I don't want people to think that I think they actually care about this". Which sounds SO WEIRD, but it goes through my mind.

I always strive to be an authentic person. I don't want to wear masks in my life. I want to be the same person on here that I am at church, that I am at work, that I am when I'm at home and that I am when with friends. And so far I think I've done a good job, but lately I've started over thinking it and it takes away the authenticity.

Plus, I've always been an open person and I've always found myself getting frustrated because so many times I share all that I am with people only to half a piece of them in return. It's just the price I pay for being such a loud mouth. :-)

I really have no idea if any of this makes sense, but these are thoughts that have been stirring around in my head. I will continue to blog and I will try to stop thinking about it so much.

Basically I'm just saying that I want this blog to be about my life, I don't want to try and come up with posts that I think others want to read just to keep readers, and I also don't want to censor what I say because I think people won't want to read it. I just want to be me and be authentic.

Weekly Weekend Update

2011-11-06T18:48:00.000-08:00

This time of the year is always so busy for us and this year has been no exception. I love being busy and having plans set, but I also love a good weekend at home with nothing to do and no place to go. I'm sure one will come along soon. In the meantime we will go, go, go like usual!

This past weekend Luke was in the wedding of his best friend Will.

Thursday morning we had the wedding rehearsal followed by a beautiful luncheon with yummy food. I'm a fan of anything that has yummy food.

Luke was busy with wedding events the whole weekend so I spent my time hanging out with my grandparents. I love that Eli gets to hang with his great-grandparents. They were so helpful to keep Eli for us while we went to various wedding festivities throughout the weekend.

The wedding was Saturday night and was so beautiful and was perfectly unique to the couple. I love a wedding that fits the couple to a T and doesn't feel stuffy or forced. And most importantly a wedding where you can feel that God is truly going to be the center of that marriage.

I love going to weddings because it always reminds me of the vows I made on my wedding day. It is so easy to get caught up in life and the day ins and outs and forget why you got married or what your purpose is as a couple, weddings like the one yesterday are a great reminder of all those things.

Here we are with the beautiful couple. It was a fun weekend!

Random ramblings

2011-11-03T18:35:00.000-07:00

1. A friend recently introduced me to the best snack ever. Cheez-it snack mix. I like to get the double cheese box. I'm ashamed to say I bought a box today at noon and it's almost gone. I will finish it tonight. It's that good.

2. I took the advic of many and started watching Revenge. Everyone was right it is good. I could see it being one of those shows that goes downhill quick though. But I like it.

3. Dang #2 was pretty negative. Or was it real? Have you ever heard a negative person say they are just a realist? The great debate...

4. What is the deal with all the "national day of's" lately? Every time I turn around its the national day of something; donuts, cereal, air your tire up day. It's weird. I'm guessing these days have always been around but now with the invention of social media we are made aware of them

5. Eli is full on crawling and has been for about a week now. He gets faster everyday. I'm really bad about recording his milestones. I need to get better about it.

6. I've really been craving a trip to Disney World lately. I love that place.

7. I'm a total nerd and I want the entire Harry Potter movie set for Christmas. Like its my #1 gift request. I'm an easy to please girl.

8. I've had a pile of clothes on my floor for about a month now that need to be hand washed. How long do you think it will be before I finally just throw them in the washing machine?

9. This post was typed from my phone. I can guarantee there are mistakes.

10. I want a date night with my husband and soon! I took those forgranted before we had a child.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Baby Feet

2011-11-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

Recently at work I was asked to help put together a baby shower for a fellow employee and his wife. I immediately looked to Pinterest to help me with ideas for the shower.

P.S. Every time I type Pinterest my computer changes it to interest. It is annoying.

During my search I came across a picture of some baby feet cookies and instantly knew that I wanted them.

Source: etsy.com via Megan on Pinterest

Partially because I thought they were cute and partially because I'm in love with baby feet these days. I tend to think that my sweet Eli has the cutest baby feet I've ever seen.

After seeing those cookies I knew I wanted to incorporate baby feet so I ordered some baby feet cookies and cupcakes.

I think they turned out perfect! And they were delicious!

We knew we wanted to put together a gift card tree for the expectant parents so I looked for gift card trees on pinterst. I'm not sure if I was just searching with the wrong words or what but there was nothing on pinterst. NADA.

So I went to Hobby Lobby and bought one of those cute pink trees and hung gift cards from it. Thank you Hobby Lobby for putting your Christmas products out in July, it served useful this year.

I think the tree turned out so cute and now the baby girl has her first Christmas tree!

I wanted something fun for people to do while eating but I also wanted to accomodate the people who do not like to play games so I printed out various baby word games and put them at each person's spot at the table. That way people could work quietly on their own, or loudly if they so chose. I'm usually in the loud group.

My favorite game was the "name the baby animals" game which seemed to be a favorite among the group also.

It was a fun time and I'm glad we were able to help the expectant parents. I'm still using gift cards from when Eli was born and I am so thankful for them each and every time I use one!

Tonight I had big plans to do laundry and tidy up around the house but somehow I found myself on the couch with this masterpiece:

It has been a good night.

Wreck Effects

2011-11-01T18:44:00.000-07:00

Back in January when I was pregnant with Eli I got in a car wreck while driving down the highway.

It was so scary but thankfully both Eli and I were just fine. My car on the other hand was not and was totaled. It was a bad wreck.

Since that date I have developed a sort of fear of driving.

I still drive, and most days I'm fine, but there are times where I can picture the wreck all over again in my mind and I suddenly become convinced that every single car on the road next to me has one goal and that is to crash into me.

The person that wrecked into me was behind me and came into my lane. So now if a car is next to me on the road - which by the way happens A LOT while driving I get sick thinking they are going to come into my lane.

It's very unfortunate because I have become the world's worst passenger seat driver ever. I have actually embarrassed myself while riding in the car with friends because they were simply driving down the road minding and their own business and I suddenly jumped out of my seat because I thought the car next to us, who was also going straight, was going to wreck into us.

When I have my spells where I freak out in the passenger seat Luke compares it to a cat trying to claw itself out of the car. I'm a delicate flower what can I say.

Has anybody else ever experienced this? How long does it last? I need it to go away!!

I think I have some sort of post traumatic stress disorder from my wreck and I am ready for it to go away. And so is Luke. And anybody else that I ride in the car with.

Moral of the story, don't ride in a car with me until I get this mess figured out. Unless you like riding around with cats trying to claw themselves out of cars.

Halloween 2011

2011-10-31T19:24:00.000-07:00

Today was Eli's very first Halloween and I went ahead and stuck with my decision to not get him a costume. In true Megan nature I started hyperventilating about that decision at about 7:00 this morning but by noon my anxiety was gone was gone. I had the necessary cowboy ingredients laying around just in case I decided to dress him up last minutes but alas I stuck with his super cute Halloween shirt that I ordered from Braylabee's.

This year for Halloween our church hosted a Trunk or Treat and it was so great. We had an awesome turn out from the neighborhood kids. Each car owner had to come up with a game for their trunk. Luke took his job seriously and came up with a toss-the-fake-pumpkin-in-a-bucket-game. It was a success. He also bought in his opinion "good candy" and not that "craptastic tootsie roll crap". Those were his words.

I think he has been teaching 7th grade for too long. He is now using words like craptastic.

It was a fun night and great first Halloween together for our family at Trunk or Treat.

Eli keeping watch over our candy:

Eli had a great time. I eventually put him in our K'tan wrap and he loved it. He would just flap his arms and squeal at the kids. It was so fun watching him.
I LOVE this time of the year and I'm so excited to now kick off the holiday season. I won't decorate for Christmas until the week before thanksgiving, but I do start to get into the Christmas spirit before that point. I love all that goes into the entire season, Thanksgiving included. It is just such a magical time full of tradition. Love it.

Happy Halloween!

Outfits and TV

2011-10-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

Outfits:

Thank you for all your kind words about our pictures!! You all are so sweet!

A couple of people asked about our clothing. My entire outfit was from Express. It's pretty much the only place I buy my clothes. I try and shop elsewhere and then I always end up going to Express. They always have amazing coupons and sales so I can get our stuff for super cheap (its about the only thing Luke wears also). And their jeans fit me the best, even on this post baby body.

Eli's outfit was from Old Navy and I was so excited to find it. Actually I didn't find it, I told twitter what I had in mind (a one piece sweater outfit) and my friend Jill was the first to send me this link to the Old Navy outfit. It is still there and is a great price. I actually got Eli's outfit first and then planned ours around it.

TV:

This summer I first saw a preview for a new TV show called Once Upon a Time.

I was immediately intrigued. I had NO idea what it was about but it looked good. It premiered this past Sunday so at 7:00 I sat down to watch it with no expectation. I realized it could easily go either way. And I have to say I LOVED it. I read in an article that ratings were the best for a TV show on ABC in nearly 3 years - but the verdict is still out from critics as to whether it will be picked up for a full season or not. I'm definitely excited to watch this show - as many episodes as it has. I'm hoping it stays just as good as the first episode was and gets picked up!

I've heard a lot about the show Revenge but I haven't checked it out yet.

I have to admit when I first saw the previews I thought it looked ridiculous but apparently I'm missing out on a great show. I can't decide if I want to catch up on episodes or wait until the end of the season and watch them all at once.

One thing that brings me great joy is finding a TV show that Luke and I both love. Clearly I'm easily "joyed" but it is so fun to find a show that we both look forward to watching. Our last show like this was Friday Night Lights, hands down the best show in the world. BEST.

I could actually sit down and watch the entire series again but Luke doesn't want to do that. So I've been trying to find a new show for us to love together. Luke is actually amused at how determined I am to find us a new show.

While Luke was on Fall Break last week we started watching Parenthood on Netflix Instant.

I so want to find a show that we both love and have maybe become a little obsessive about it. After each completed episode I would ask Luke"did you like it?" "how do you feel about it?" I never directly ask him IS THIS OUR NEW SHOW? But I desperately want to find one. Well desperate is a strong word but I would really really like to find us a show to watch. You know, in all our spare time.

Parenthood was good but doesn't have us hooked yet like Friday Night Lights did. It's hard to compete against PURE GOLD. All future shows in our lives sure have their work cut out for them.

What TV show is your favorite show right now? Did anybody else watch Once Upon a Time? I have high hopes!

Family Photo Session

2011-10-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

Last week I mentioned that we had our first family pictures done since Eli came on the scene. Eli was Mr. Serious that day and I was a bit worried that we wouldn't have any pictures of him showing his usual smiley and cheerful self, but our photographer is amazing and captured his personality perfectly. I love these pics and will treasure them forever.

Our photographer got SO MANY good shots but here are a few of my favs:

Thursday Thoughts

2011-10-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

This is all I've got today.......

1. Luke is on Fall Break today and tomorrow. Eli and I are loving having him home with us. Luke let me sleep in this morning and took care of Eli since he decided to wake up at 5:00. It was so nice.

2. I am LOVING this cooler weather. It makes me want to buy new boots. I can wait till Christmas though. I will put them on my list.

3. One of my best friend's from college who moved to Houston a couple of years ago is in town and is coming to hang out with us today. She hasn't seen Eli since he was 2 months old so naturally I'm so excited for her to see him. They will have so much fun together!

4. A blog/twitter friend is hosting an Online party through my Scentsy page. If you need any Scentsy this month you should order from her party. All online orders will be put in a drawing for a free plug in of your choice! Click on Amanda's Party to place an order!

5. My hair has faded so much since I got it darkened. I knew this would happen because it always does, but I thought I wouldn't care. But I do and I want to go get it colored dark again, BUT the point of getting it darkened was so I wouldn't spend money getting it colored. Ironic?

6. The other day I was going to the grocery store and I called Luke to see what he wanted, he said some kind of chips, I said what about Cheeto Puffs and he said THAT'S TOTALLY WHAT I WAS THINKING. We are clearly soul mates.

7. We are soul mates only when we aren't hanging curtains. When hanging curtains we pretty much despise each other. We hung some in our living room the other day and it was scary. Then after we hung them I stood back looked at them and admitted I wasn't sure if I liked them. Then it got really scary. I have come to love our curtains. Believe me. They are the prettiest curtains ever.

8. Well I usually try to come up with 10 random things but my friend is here now and I would rather hang out with her!

9. So this will be my last random thought

10. For today

Weekly Weekend Update

2011-10-17T18:04:00.000-07:00

Fall is here and with it comes busy weekends! We have full weekend for the next couple of weeks and this past weekend was no exception!

Friday I spent all day cleaning. I had a Scentsy open house at my home on Sunday so I wanted to get our space as clean as possible. There were many times while scrubbing toilets and dusting base boards that I wished I had a house cleaner, but I just feel guilty spending the money on one when I can clean myself. Maybe one day I will change my mind.

That night Luke and I had our date-night-in. I never showered from my day 'o' cleaning and we spent the evening watching episodes of The Wonder Years on Netflix. Proof that a date-night-in does not necessarily mean romantic.

Saturday we woke up bright and early for our family pictures. My goal was to get a good picture for our Christmas card. I scheduled our photos to be taken at 8:30 because that is what time I did Eli's 3 month pics and it worked great. Lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice. This time it was a disaster. Eli did not want to smile AT ALL. Oh wait yes he did, IN BETWEEN PICTURES. When the camera was pointed at him he was all serious. So our Christmas card will be a very stoic picture this year.

I started to get stressed and then I realized I was getting stressed over PICTURES. So dumb. If I'm going to waste energy and brain cells getting stressed I want it to be over something better than pictures. So I chose not to get stressed. But I almost let it in for a second.

After our pictures we met up with Luke's parents who came to visit us for the day and went to a local pumpkin patch. Last year Luke and I went to this same pumpkin patch and talked about how we would have our baby with us next year! Awww.

My love on the hay ride. Also, please note his face, You will see this exact expression again on our 2011 Christmas card.

The Trees:

Our Eli cowboy:

It was such a fun and beautiful day!

Sunday I hosted an open house for Scentsy at my house. You never know how those kind of things will turn out, but this one ended up being great. Lots of people came, yay!

The setup:

So that was our weekend! I love that fall is here! Now I'm ready for it to get cold!

Eli is 7 Months!

2011-10-13T21:09:00.001-07:00

Another month! Eli is now 7 months old!
This month has been so fun! Eli is getting more and more active and his little personality is coming out a little more everyday. What fun it is to watch his sweet self develop.

- You are a full time thumb sucker now. You don't ever want a pacifier, however if one is around you will pick it up and suck on it, but when you are wanting to go to sleep your thumb is all you need.

- You are going to be crawling pretty soon. You get on all fours and just rock and rock. You are scooting so fast and everywhere.
- Your babysitter told me you like to hang out with the big kids. You don't ever want to be separated from them and you like to stand at the train table with them.

- You are so observant and you LOVE to stare at people. It's almost a little embarrassing.

- You have always loved your daddy but this month you have started to really fall in love with him. When he gets home you are all smiles and want to be right by his side.
- You like to eat. A lot. You still have not had any aversions to any food. If it's food you will eat it.

- You are so good at playing independently. You love your toys and will sit and play and play. Then you are sure to let me know when you are done, usually by screaming.

- You have two bottom teeth and they are so cute. You didn't have any teething problems and we didn't even know you were teething until we noticed them coming in. You just had a couple of days of lots of dirty diapers but you never got fussy.
- You are sitting up on your own and you have been for almost a month now. You prefer scooting across the floor but you will sit up and play with your toys.

- You are in size 3 diapers and 6-9 or 6-12 months clothes. Although I can fit you into some 3-6 month clothes which is crazy.

- The doctor called you "long and lean".

- EVERYTHING you touch goes straight to your mouth as evidenced in these photos. I am constantly checking the floor to make sure that you can't get to anything too small.

- We put your swing in the attic this past week :-( You officially outgrew it. You love your exersaucer and bouncer.

I can't believe how fast you are growing! We love you so much!

And a short video:

Eli LOVES any sort of technology. He will play with his toys all day long but if he spots any sort of phone, computer, or remote control he will hightail it to that object as fast as he can.

Below is a short video of him trying to get to my macbook. Notice at the beginning he is on all fours trying to crawl and then he face plants it and tries to get to the computer as fast as he can before I put it up where he can't reach it.

When he reaches the computer he hits the space bar thus ending the video. He is a smart boy.

Watch and Balance

2011-10-12T19:53:00.000-07:00

I will admit that I'm not the best at answering questions left to me through comments on my blog.

I try and respond to questions I get through comments by clicking "reply" on the comment, but if you don't have your blog set up to go to your email then I can't email you.

And if you don't have an email but you do have a blog I feel weird going to your blog and leaving a response to your question in your comments, it just seems so random. Maybe I'm weird (yes, yes I am)

My friend Lindsay did the most perfect post about how to setup your email account so that people can email you through your comment. If you haven't done this yet, DO IT!

Read it here.

That will help me with responding to questions that are left in the comments sections.

I don't get that many questions, but I do want to get better at responding to them. Here are two questions I've received recently:

Lauren asked me where the oversized watch I'm wearing in this picture is from.

That watch is a Fossil watch and is one of my new favorite accessories to wear. I love it so much.

Jill asked: How many hours do I work? And how do I balance family/work?

I work 20 hours a week. I feel like I have talked a lot recently about balancing family and work and I will probably talk about it for the rest of my life. Balancing family and work is very hard, but is doable. I honestly never thought it would be doable and never thought I would be able to leave my baby, but the fact that I do it 20 hours a week and enjoy working is a testament to the fact that I am able to do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

I probably will never feel like I have everything balanced but something that has helped me is ROUTINE ROUTINE ROUTINE.

I work till 5:00 two days a week - Monday and Tuesday. So before the week begins I make sure that I have dinner either figured out or most times I have it ready to go for those nights. Whether it is a crock pot meal, or a casserole in the freezer or fridge where it can be popped into the oven easily, dinner is ready. I don't want to spend time in the evening figuring out dinner.

Also before the week begins I make sure our house is tidied up. Very rarely do I have time to do a good deep clean, but I make sure it is picked up. When my house is crazy messy I feel like it makes my life more chaotic.

Most nights I try and lay everything out that we need for the morning (my purse, our lunches, etc) so then it is ready to go, and then in the morning we do the same exact routine (on Mon, Tues, and Wed), and that helps things also. I make sure I am about of bed by 6:15 even if Luke has to drag me out by my feet.

One thing that helps me keep everything balanced is just committing it all to the Lord. It is impossible to do all these things without His help, so I know He helps me through it all.

I have weeks where I feel on top of my game and like I'm super woman and then I have other weeks where I feel like I'm the most disorganized person ever and I am a failure to my husband and son. But I don't entertain those thoughts for too long. I just pick up and start over.

And lastly, I make sure and try everything. I don't want to miss out on something because I felt like I couldn't handle it. I set boundaries for my life but I also try everything so that I can get a feel for it in my life and figure out if it is something I can balance or something I need to say no to. I tried going to a bible study on Monday nights for a little bit but then I realized it was just too hard to be away from Eli for that night after I was away from him all day, there was another study on Sunday nights that I was able to join so now I do that.

Balancing work/family/church/scentsy/friends/blogging/household chore/etc can be hard. There are times where I feel like I have too much on my plate, but I know that this is just a season. I want to live life and not sit back and complain about how busy I am. I enjoy every single one of those aspects of my life (minus the house cleaning, I hate that and will gladly give it up) so it's just figuring out how to mash them all together in a way that honors the Lord and my family. I'm trying everyday!

I feel like I always have thoughts and future posts stirring around in my head about this topic so I'm sure I will have more to say about it soon.

If you have any other questions for me feel free to ask!

A Journal of Faith

2011-10-11T20:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight I've spent some time reading old posts on my blog.

Yes, I'm the same girl who complains that there isn't enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done, but then I will take a precious hour and sit in front of the computer and read stories of nonsense from the last four years of my life.

Sometimes I can't believe that I'm still occupying this teeny tiny corner of the internet writing random stories about nothing.

But it's my nothing and I love every single bit of it. From the story of Luke dropping his keys down the gutter prior to us even being married all the way to adjusting to life with a newborn and learning our new normal, I love going back and reading them all.

I also love going back through my blog because I think it helps puts life into focus. It is so funny for me to go back and read stories about wedding planning chaos, or my desire to be out of our apartment and into a home or even stories as recent as breastfeeding stories and being so sick of it even though I had only done it for a short amount of time.

Going back and reading these stories I see just how short seasons of life are. I wanted out of our apartment so badly and I now look back on those two extremely short years with fondness. What fun we had in that apartment. We had hardly any responsibility, a lot of extra money, and a small quaint space to grow together as a couple and learn what marriage was all about.

I remember a few short months ago being so worried that I was the only person in the world who still had a three month old sleeping in their room and how "embarrassing" that was and I couldn't tell anybody because WHAT WOULD THEY THINK? I remember thinking I needed to get Eli in his own room ASAP because if I didn't he would be 20 years old and still sleeping in our room and then THAT would be really embarrassing

Now, three months later that baby is sleeping all night in his own room. I worried and fretted about absolutely nothing. Imagine that.

This time last year we were faced with an unexpected situation, and I wrote this post. Now a year later I see how God took that situation and not only made good from it but he made it WONDERFUL. Beauty from ashes. I see how He was protecting us and leading us.

And that is one reason that I am so glad that I kept this blog. I have story after story on here of God's faithfulness. God's provision. God's timing.

It's almost comical to go back through and read stories of details that I was anxious about and see how God worked it out.

This is an area of my life I have always struggled with; worry, fear, anxiety. So many times they consume me. Right now I have areas of my life where worry is trying to consume me. But I've started to think maybe that is one reason why I created this blog, I not only have a record of my life and funny memories that I would have otherwise forgotten, but I also have evidence of God's hand in my life - should I ever doubt it.

Things don't always go how I think they should, or even how I plan it, but I want to continue to put my trust in the One who does know how they should go. All the while continuing to journal the ways he is working in my life. Sometimes I cringe when I think of how I open my life and emotions for others to read but I also think that God is using those emotions, even if it's for nothing more than to teach my future self! :-)

A well known verse but one that has been on my heart and mind so much lately:

"For I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength" Phillippians 4:13

Random Musing

2011-10-10T20:40:00.000-07:00

I usually save my list of random musings for later in the week when my brain is mush and I have nothing to really talk about - but sadly it's all I've got today. I've been looking for my brain lately and I haven't been able to find it. I lost it during pregnancy.

Random thoughts floating around in my head:

1. This Saturday we have our first set of professional pictures as a family of three. These pictures will then be used for our Christmas card. Eli's outfit is set and planned (of course) but I have NO idea what Luke and I are wearing. I have bought approximately 150 outfits for myself trying to narrow it down. I will take back the outfits that I don't wear which will be a pain driving these outfits all over town, but right now it seems worth it. My goal is to figure out what I'm going to wear tomorrow so I can then focus on Luke. We better cherish these pictures FOREVER.

2. I really need a new pair of jeans but jeans shopping since having a baby is NOT fun. I never had a problem with jean shopping pre-baby. Now I hate it. Today a store employee made me try on a pair of jeans I promised her wouldn't fit (it was the only size the store had) she swore they would. I KNEW they wouldn't - these hips don't lie sister. Once it was obvious that the jeans weren't going to fit I wanted to throw them at her. But I didn't. WWJD. Also, what kind of store only carries ONE JEAN SIZE? Jeans are not ONE SIZE FITS ALL. Sorry, I'm done now.

3. Our poor little Eli is sick. He has a runny nose and a pitiful cough. It is either a cold or allergies but I am hoping it goes away quick. It is so sad to hear his little cough. And trying to clean his nose is equivalent to trying to catch a running squirrel. HARD and IMPOSSIBLE.

4. We went to the fair with my family this past weekend and I didn't take one picture. I didn't take my camera because I didn't want to carry it around and planned to use Luke's phone for pictures, but then I just never thought about it again. We had a lot of fun though. I love my family's fair trip every year.

5. A couple of people asked me if they could order Scentsy from me even if they don't live in the same state as me. The answer is yes! The order will be shipped directly to you. I have customers (and people on my team) who live all over the US, so shop away!

6. I've always had a freakishly small head. Beneath that head of hair Luke also has a small head. Now it seems that Eli has a small noggin. His head is in the 10th percentile. We are a small headed family. Small heads = big brains.

7. I am seriously so excited about taking Eli to the pumpkin patch this year.

8. I'm trying to decide what to give up in my life so that I can put that money towards a house cleaner to come and clean our house. And yes I know I sound RIDICULOUS and PATHETIC with that statement. I mean I only have one child and I only work part-time surely I could find time to clean? Probably but it would be so nice to have somebody come every couple of weeks and deep clean and then I could take care of everything else. I'm sure I could go without food for a day or so if it meant I could pay somebody to clean my house. Or makeup, I can give up makeup. I hear the natural look is in right now.

9. I think I have the oldest iPhone in existence. I might donate it to a museum. But I'm saving money for a house cleaner so I can't donate it just yet.

10. In college one of my best friends and I decided to form a bunco group. Yes it is usually a game reserved for "older" (I use that term loosely) women, but we loved the game and wanted to play so form a group we did. We had an amazing time until everybody graduated and moved away. So rude. Since the day that group dissolved my heart has longed for a Bunco team. But my heart has found happiness because my friend Katie and I decided to form a group of our own. Be watching for a super fun post about our awesome bunco group soon.

11. Last week I bought Eli an inflatable bath tub. When it was time to give him a bath I simply blew up the bath tub. That day when Luke got home from work he asked if I wanted him to blow up the bath tub, I told him I had already blown it up. To which he replied "Wow, I can't believe you blew it up with your one little lung". Hm.. I actually have two lungs. So, that's kinda weird that my husband thinks I only have one lung? I did have a lung collapse, but I assure you I still have two normal working lungs. A collapse does not mean it disappeared. However I'm now seeing I can use this to my advantage. Please imagine this scenario with me:

Luke: Babe, can you help me mow the lawn? (he has never asked me to mow the lawn but it could happen one day)

Me: Aw, I totally would but my one lung is giving me the fits today so I can't, sorry!

Noted and tucked away for future use.

Happy Monday! (now Tuesday)

Moments like these

2011-10-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

Most days my house is a mess.

My floors need to be vacuumed and the tile needs mopping.

There are days when Luke and I have our silly fights over "nothing" Days when we are just "off".

My toenails are in a scary need of a pedicure but it's not in the budget this month.

Sometimes clothes sit on our bedroom floor for days before they are hung up and today while walking through my house I noticed a cobweb on a mirror.

I constantly feel behind and wonder if I will ever be on top of my emails, returned phone calls, lunch dates and everything else life entails.

Our yard will never win "yard of the month" in our neighborhood.

I don't have designer clothes or fancy shoes.

Sometimes our trash is overflowing and we play the balancing act of how much trash can we stack before it tumbles?

My car needs to be washed in the worst way.

Last week I accidentally left a load of towels in our washer for three days. THREE.

I don't eat as many vegetables as I should and we always have a packet of Oreos in our pantry.

I usually go entirely too long between hair colorings and it is evident through my hair "regrowth".

Our lives aren't perfect. They aren't even close to perfect.

But they are full of perfect moments

Like these

And that is all I need.

Scentsy and Me!

2011-10-05T09:48:00.001-07:00

I've mentioned brifly before on the ole blog that I am a consutlant for Scentsy Wickless Candles.

This is a journey I began May of last year and feel very fortunate that I am able to be apart of such an awesome company. I have been apart of it for a short time but it has honestly been such a blessing during that time. I could go on and on about the great things that have come out of me being apart of Scentsy but today I want to talk about the products. That might be another post for another time. :-)

Recently I had a blog reader who is now a Scentsy customer suggest that I do a blog post all about Scentsy and what my favorite scents are, because she was needing help choosing one.

I thought this was a great idea. There is no way I could possibly talk about all the great products that Scentsy offers in one blog post, so today I will just touch on a couple of my favorite scents and warmers.

First of all if you don't know what Scentsy is you are really missing out! Scentsy Wickless Candles are ceramic warmers that are a safe alternative to a candle. With the warmers there is no flame, there is no smoke and no lead - so that means no worries for you! They are safe around kids, pets and safe to use in your home, classroom, office or anywhere!

I have one in every room in our house and Luke uses one in his classroom at school. We also have them in my office at work and the daycare that Eli goes to uses them also! They are seriously great for EVERYWHERE.

One thing I love to do is help people figure out what their favorite scent is. I love when a customer receives a scent bar and texts me or emails me to tell me just how much they love it.

Three of my favorite scents right now are

Coconut Lemongrass - a very clean scent. I keep this in my laundry room and bathrooms.

Source: megantree.scentsy.us via Megan on Pinterest

My Dear Watson is a nice, strong scent. Luke uses this in his classroom. It is listed as a "man" scent but it is definitely a favorite among both genders.

Source: megantree.scentsy.us via Megan on Pinterest

Christmas Cottage - this has a bit of a cinnamon vibe and is PERFECT for the holidays. I left this warming all December last year because I loved it so much and didn't want to change it out

Source: megantree.scentsy.us via Megan on Pinterest

Now that you are familiar with a couple of scents, you might be wondering how it works? Well you break off a couple of cubes of wax from each bar (those things pictured above) and put it in a Scentsy warmer. Then a low-watt light bulb melts the wax to produce the smell.

Some warmers I love:

My very favorite one right now is Jane. It is GORGEOUS all lit up.

Source: megantree.scentsy.us via Megan on Pinterest

And this will go perfect with my Santa decorations for Christmas

Source: megantree.scentsy.us via Megan on Pinterest

Is that not adorable or what?

And if you are a person who loves your counter and dresser space you might want a warmer that plugs directly into the wall:

Source: megantree.scentsy.us via Megan on Pinterest

As you can see Scentsy has something for everyone. You might want to add Scentsy to your list of things to get people for Christmas, o even add it to your own list for Christmas!

So if you ever have any questions about Scentsy, whether it be needing help choosing a scent, picking the perfect warmer for your desired location or looking into it as a business opportunity please let me know!!

And if you already love Scentsy tell me what your favorite scent is! I always like to hear what everybody loves.

I hope my Scentsy post wasn't too boring. I can't talk about tomato soup everyday. I'm sorry it's just not possible.

The Perfect Tomato Soup

2011-10-04T09:54:00.000-07:00

The summer after my freshman year of college I was living back at home with my family and had big plans to spend my time lounging in my pajamas, while watching reruns of Dawson's Creek, and hanging with friends. My plans didn't have to occur in that order, just as long as I used as little of of my brain as humanly possible.

It seemed like the best plan I could imagine, but sadly, my plans of doing absolutely nothing never came into fruition.

You see, I had to get a job that summer. I'm not sure how it came about that I needed to get a job. It might have been a conversation with my parents that went like this:

Me: I need some money for clothes, please.

Dad: Get a job.

Me: *tears*

If I wanted clothes and other necessities that a 19 year old required it was time that I found myself a little ole job.

So I did what any smart 19 year old does. I went to the place where my best friend worked and applied for a job there. Because she was so sweet and charming it was only obvious that any friend of hers would be sweet and charming also so I was hired on the spot. Easiest interview ever.

I wish I had stories from that summer of working side by side with my best friend but sadly she quit the day after I got hired. And moved to Florida. I'm really not bitter about it anymore. Only if I think about it or talk about it does bitterness rise up in me. But that's another story for another day.

So here I was, working in a ritzy glitzy country club all by my lonesome self. I had never been in a country club before, and now I was working in one. Which let's be honest if I HAD been in a country club I wouldn't need to work in one so that previous sentence makes no sense. Country club attendees do not become country club employees. Life just don't work like that.

I used incorrect grammar on purpose. I feel like it gives more ground to the whole country club attendee vs. employee stance.

Anyways, I spent my summer serving country club patrons in many different forms. I was a waitress, I worked the pool window, I would drive a beverage and snack cart around the golf course while men whistled me down so they could have their chocolate and beer fix and I also worked in a little hut in the middle of the golf course known as the Half Way House. Worst name for a hut on a country club golf course EVER.

Basically it was a plush life. Every once in awhile somebody would hold their wedding reception at the country club and the waitresses would fight over who got to cut the cake because in case you didn't know the cake cutter equals the knife licker. True and gross story. We would fight over who got to lick the icing off the knife. Don't you wish I would have been your cake cutter?

Plush life.

Now, you may be wondering why in the world I'm telling this story? Well it's because my time at the country club was one that really was fun. I made friends, I learned how to waitress and I learned how to make a pretty mean grey goose tonic. Important things in life. Everybody remembers where they were when they made their first mix drink.

But it wasn't my bartending skills that changed me forever.

No, it was the tomato soup that I ate while working at this country club that forever changed who I am.

The chef of this country club would make the most divine tomato soup. It was like MANNA in the form of tomato soup. It was the perfect consistency of tomatoes and basil with a touch of cheese and other herbs. Actually I have no clue what was in this soup but all I know is that it was PERFECT. Pure tomato perfectness.

I would long for the days when I would come to work and the special of the day was: Chef's Secret Tomato Soup and then I would spend my time in the back sneaking sips of this glorious soup.

For the record I'm pretty sure it was against the rules to eat while on duty. And if the fact that I gained 10 pounds that summer doesn't show you that I broke this rule a lot, then maybe the fact that I only worked there that one summer will be proof that I broke the "no eating while on work hours" rule a lot.

But when it came to this soup I couldn't help myself. RULES WERE MADE TO BE BROKEN. I needed that soup.

Also, I have no idea what we called the soup but the above title of Chef's Secret Tomato Soup sounds more dramatic so that is forever how it will be known in my head.

Like any true summer romance does, my time at the country club came to an end and it was time to pack up and head back to school.

Although there was no romance and my love interest in this tale is a tomato soup.

Plush life I tell you.

I think about that soup often and wonder if that chef still makes it. I have NEVER found another tomato soup that even comes close to touching the realm of how good this soup was.

I have made it my goal to find the perfect tomato soup. I have searched high and low and sadly I'm still searching.

That fateful summer I didn't lounge in my pajamas and I never watched Dawson's Creek reruns but I did experience the best tomato soup ever. And that was worth it.

Halloween Party Pooper

2011-10-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

I have expressed my love for Fall and Halloween on my blog many times.

Every year Luke and I think up these grand plans to have a Halloween party and then every year October comes and goes and we are left with nothing but unfulfilled plans.

We will watch old reruns of shows like Home Improvement or the ultra classy Roseanne and stare with jealous at our TV's as they play out these elaborate Halloween parties complete with full costumes, spooky decorations and themed food.

They make it look so easy - like putting together a stellar party just comes together with ease. But I know this is not the case, and when I begin to put together ideas for a party I'm overwhelmed with all the details. Not to mention the fact that I have terrible party anxiety and I'm worried that nobody would show up.

I have missed out on many parties for the fear of nobody showing up. It is sad.

All of that to say that we love Halloween, we have nothing against it and we look forward to setting up Halloween traditions in our family in the future.

HOWEVER,

I have no plans to dress Eli up in costume this year, his first Halloween. I was perfectly content with this decision until some people acted like I was a fool for my lack of costume plans for Eli.

Is it completely lame/boring that I don't plan on dressing Eli up in a Halloween costume?

Here is my reasoning:

The child goes to sleep at 7:00. Is it even dark at 7:00? He won't even remember it so it's not like I am going to cause my him all these years of pain and sorrow because he didn't dress up his first year.

Instead of spending money on a costume (which isn't cheap) to dress him up for some pictures I would rather spend money on a cute outfit that he will wear more than once.

Does that make sense?

I have yet to hear a story about a child that was scarred for life because they didn't dress up their first year. But there is a first time for everything.

I am the worlds most indecisive person so there is a strong chance I could change my mind between now and October 31st but as of right now Eli will not be dressing up this year.

I might just go buy a cute outfit for him from Gap or Gymboree and dress him up in that and take pictures of him and call him "the cute kid with a cheap mom". It would be appropriate.

Sunday Life

2011-10-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I did a post about a day in our life. It was an accurate portrayal of our days on Monday and Tuesdays but our lives are very different on the other days of the week.

So now I wanted to do a day in our life post about what our Sundays are like. Our Sundays are always the same and pretty much the most predictable day of our week.

Sunday morning Luke wakes up bright and early and heads out the door for church before Eli and I are usually even awake.

Eli wakes up around his usual time of 7:00 and then we start our normal morning routine. I feed him breakfast and work on my bible study. Double tasking at it's finest.
Then we play a little and then I get ready for church while Eli takes his morning nap.

Around 9:30 or 10:00 we leave for church.

Luke and I have gone to the same church and he has been employed there during our entire relationship. It's crazy to think that we have been there for 8 years! The church family has changed quite a bit since we first started going there but it is like our family. I don't know what life would be like without our church family. We have been around these people as a young dating couple, newly married couple and now a growing family.

Every other Sunday I work in the nursery. Today I was in service. Here is Luke doing his thang during church. This is totally grainy because I snuck it during church from Luke's phone. All in the name of the blog!Usually after church we will go eat with friends or lately to save money we've just gone home. Today we had a meeting after church so we ate lunch at the meeting.

Our Sunday afternoons are usually very low-key. Luke and Eli take a nap at some point and I work on Scentsy stuff, meal plan, play with Eli, clean, and do general stuff around the house.

Today Luke graded papers in the floor while Eli scooted around and I worked on stuff at the kitchen table. Around 6:00 I kiss my boys bye and head back up to the church for my bible study. I've been doing a Kay Arthur Precept bible study and I love it so much. I'm digging dipper into scripture than I ever have before. I think so many times we want to try and make the scripture "fluffy" and fit it to our lifestyle, but that's not what God's word is about and I'm really growing so much through this study.

After bible study I go to the grocery store to get our groceries for the week. I try to get in and out as fast (and as cheap) as possible.When I get home from bible study Eli is asleep in bed and Luke is usually watching some football game while working on school or music stuff. I then get everything around the house ready for the week, watch a little bit of TV, get everything ready for an easy grab in the morning (lunch, Eli's food, purse, etc) and then get dinner ready (usually in the crock pot). Monday and Tuesday are my only days that I work till 5:00 so I try and have those two dinner's prepared ahead of time so I don't have to spend precious time in the evening cooking.

Tomorrow's meal ready to go:
Then we get in bed around 11:00 and try and wind down and get ready for the rat race of the week to begin!

Weekend Fun!

2011-10-01T18:53:00.000-07:00

We have had such a fun weekend! I love each season in its own time but I especially love Fall. There is something so magical about the feeling of crisp, cool air, enjoying a coffee in the morning, going to the pumpkin patch, baking warm goodies all with the expectation that the Christmas season is just around the corner. I just love it!

I was excited Friday afternoon because it started to feel like it was getting a little cooler outside, and I am very ready for cooler weather! And I was also excited because we had family plans to go to a football game. I've said it before I'm not a huge football fan but I do enjoy the occasional game once in a while, especially if it involves my two cute boys.

Because the temperature was around 72 degrees I bundled up Eli and I in extra warm clothes and along with Luke who was in a short sleeve shirt we headed out to a football game.

We thought it was homecoming for the school district that Luke teaches for so we thought it would be fun to go to their homecoming football game. When we got there we discovered that it was just your regular ole run of the mill game. Which was just fine and dandy, but not near as special as a homecoming game would have been. Ahem Mr. Tree.

We enjoyed the first half of the non-homecoming game but by halftime we decided it was time to head home. Eli was getting harder and harder to wrestle in my lap.

Eli at the football game being held by me, not a 90 year old woman as you might think judging from those hands. Geez someone get the woman some lotion quick.

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to head to Luke and I's alma mater for homecoming! I seriously love homecoming - it goes back to loving fall and all that jazz.

Eli and I were in the homecoming parade so we had to be up at the school early in the morning. Here we are gearing up for our part in the parade. We took our role seriously

I wasn't thinking and forgot Eli's stroller in my car which was far, far away. My plan was to sit on a bus and hold him during the parade but then he started pulling his wild crocodile rolling moves so I knew sitting was not going to work, so I decided to get out and walk the parade while holding him. Which was working but then a spot opened up in a wagon so I basically threw Eli in as fast as I could.

It was perfect and he seemed very content during the parade. Usually this boy is all smiles but today he was VERY serious. I think he didn't really know what to think about it all. He wasn't upset or mad just very, very serious. I made sure to stay right by his side the whole time.

Luke stayed on the sidewalk and watched us in the parade. I wanted him to take pictures but during the middle of the parade I realized that I was holding the camera while walking in the parade. So we have some nice action shots.

After the parade we ventured over to the tailgate party and had fun visiting with friends, eating grilled foods and playing games.

It was such a fun day and I'm so glad that Luke and I are still apart of the traditions of the University where we met and fell in love. It holds such special memories.

Boy's Clothes

2011-09-30T05:31:00.000-07:00

Before I was a mom to Eli I would hear people talk about how the ratio of baby boy's clothes compared to baby girl's clothes was bad bad bad.

I didn't really pay much attention to it because:
A. I didn't have a baby
B. I wasn't planning on having a baby soon

And also, because when I looked around in stores it seemed like there was plenty of boy clothes. People need to stop their complaining is what I thought.

I'm sure you are well aware of where this story is headed. It's not that there aren't boy's clothes out there, that's that for some reason, all the designers of baby boys clothes got together and decided that no article of boy's clothing shall remain without some sort of text, design, or innuendo towards a sport game or phrase.

I just don't get it. Why can girls have regular plain clothes and boys can have a very cute striped shirt, but it is gratified with unnecessary words?

That's not to be said that I don't like any clothes with writing on them or that there aren't cute boy's clothes. You just have to search harder.

Some of my favorite outfits of Eli's have come from Gap, Old Navy, Gymboree and TJ Maxx.

Two of my very favorite outfits of Eli's have come from She She Made. When we found out we were having a boy I instantly knew I would want cute NY Giants outfit. Luke is a HUGE (obsessed) NY Giants fan and while I wanted Eli to have traditional sports gear I also wanted him to have nice-looking sports gear.

I had an idea in mind and I emailed Ashley at She She Made and she put together something right away. She sent me a picture of it before she sent it and it really was JUST like I had pictured in my mind. I love it so much and even better Luke loves it and wants Eli to wear it every game day but it's still a little big so he has to wait a little bit longer.

I also got this little outfit from She She Made because I'm a sucker for anything with Eli's name on it.

(Eli has his knees bent in this picture, the outfit does fit him and does not cause him to look like a hobbit)

If you have a boy where do you get his clothes? I'm really not a picky girl just want some plain, cute outfits!

And if you are looking for some outfits try the places I named above!

Eli is 6 months!

2011-09-29T06:45:00.000-07:00

Eli is 6 months - half a year old!!!

What in the world?? Where is time going??

Is it possible for every month to be my favorite? I always think "OH! THIS is my favorite month" and then the very next month proves me wrong"
Eli you were between size 2 and 3 diapers this month. Really you should fully be in a size 3 but I've been trying to use the rest of the 2's.

You can wear some 3-6 months clothes and also 6-9 months. I have some 6-12 month clothes I'm ready for you to wear but they are still too big.
You are 17.9 lbs and inches long. You had your 6 month appointment this month and got your 6 month shots.

You are just the happiest, happiest baby ever. I even asked the dr if it was ok that you hardly ever cry and only laugh and giggle and smile. He assured me that we were just very lucky to get such a good baby.

You are a scooting machine! You still won't sit up on your own but you will scoot all the way across the floor on your belly and elbows.
You are such a talker. You love to talk to your dad and me and we love to listen to you. In the morning you have start blabbering VERY loudly while we get you ready for the day. It makes us laugh a lot.

You suck your thumb, but usually only if you are sleepy.

When you go to sleep you like to have something to hang onto. Whether it be a little blanket, burp cloth or a pacifier (while you suck your thumb) you want something to hang onto.

You are very content to play in the floor, or in your exersaucer. But when you are done YOU ARE DONE and you want picked up immediately.

You have started having separation anxiety from mom. Not a lot, and not when you are dropped off at your babysitter's house 3 days a week (thank goodness) but sometimes if I leave the and you are alone you will fuss until I come back. You also do this if other people are holding you and I walk out you semi-cry/fuss for mom.

You are a good little sleeper. You take good naps during the day and you sleep great at night.

You usually go to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 and wake up around 7:00.You love to eat. You take a 6 oz bottle 4 times a day and have solid food 3 times a day. You act indiferent about all food. You don't overly like or dislike anything.

When you get really worked up when crying you say "mamamamamama" it has no correlation to me whatsoever but I still like the sounds of it! :-)

Everything you get your hands on goes straight to your mouth. We have to really watch you.

These past 6 months have flown by! You have brought so much joy and love to our lives, we are so thankful for what you have brought to our family!

Date Night

2011-09-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

Whoa. When I last posted on September 12th I had intentions of posting the next day and then the next and then the next.

But obviously that didn't happen.

Life just got busy - nothing out of the ordinary and the blog took a back seat. Which I HATE it when it when that happens. But it did. Time to pick up and move on.

I don't even really have an update of what we have been up to. Because we haven't really been up to much except trying to keep the house clean and laundry done only to get behind the SECOND it's all completed.

I still need to do Eil's 6 month post. I took the pictures I just need to type everything up.

Friday night Luke and I ordered Mexican food for our usual "Friday night date-in". We had to wait about an hour for our food so we of course decided to go to Target and walk around to kill the time. Well I decided to do this and Luke had no choice.

While we were there I saw this cute orange vest and thought it looked just like the vest that Michael J Fox wears in Back to the Future (one of my all time favorite movies) so I put it on Eli and made Luke take a picture.

Luke thought it was embarrassing that we went into Target, put clothes on our baby, took pics, hung back up the clothes and then left. I thought he needed to get over it. I will do anything for a cute pic of my baby. My sweet Marty McFly baby.

Saturday Luke and I went on an actual date night. Like out to eat and then to a movie. It was a lot of fun. We saw Lion King because it is another one of my all time favorite movies (maybe I should do a post of my all time favorite movies since I have so many). It was just as magical in theater 3d as I thought it would be.

To be honest going on these "dates" is kind of hard for me. I feel SO bad leaving Eli. I'm already away from him for 20 hours a week while I'm at work so is it really necessary to leave him for 3-5 more hours on the weekend? Luke and I were NEVER big date people before Eli came. We never went on dates while dating and very rarely went on them after we got married. Our first date in 2003 was at 10:00 in the McDonalds drive through while Luke played me music such as The Beatles and Bob Dylan to see if I could recognize the songs. Clearly the charmer he was.

But this year we not only had the addition of a new child (which changes E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G) but we also had job changes, money changes, responsibility changes, and more. It has been a lot do deal with and changes that could either cause discord in our marriage or bring us closer together.

Throughout all the changes I can see how important taking time away for just the two of us is. Saturday during our dinner on our date I asked Luke why it was so important for us to go on dates. It may seem like a weird question but we are 100% honest with each other and I can ask him anything. I know it's important, but like I said it's hard for me to leave Eli so I wanted to hear what his reasoning for our dates were. He explained to me why he felt like it was so important for us to get away just the two of us. And I understood his reasons completely. It was good just to ask and hear his explanation and then I understood it better.

Our goal is one date night a month. Which isn't too much time away from Eli and is an awesome investment in our marriage. Plus I don't want my life to completely revolve around my children and be known as the "crazy mom". Time away from my kid(s) alone is JUST FINE. Say it again. Just fine. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I didn't really mean to get on a tangent about date nights but it's just kinda what came out. Call it the Cirlce of Life if you will.

That was me just trying to pull this post together because it has been so random. I plan to return to my normal blogging schedule. Hakuna Matata.

Sunday Seven on Monday

2011-09-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

I had originally intended to write this post on Sunday - considering it is "Sunday Seven" but yesterday's post was heavy on my heart and I needed to type it out. The comments were so sweet and I appreciate them all.

I'm excited to do this post because I found something that has helped me get a bit more organized and maybe it can help you.

I have found that some weeks I am at the top of my game and I'm feeling good. All the laundry is done and put away, the house is completely clean, not only are dinners planned for the week but their ingredients are grouped together ready to be grabbed at a moments notice.

When I'm in the middle of one of those "on" weeks I can't imagine life any other way, and feel like I'm pretty much the most amazing woman on the earth. There is nothing better than feeling organized and on top of your game.

Then I have weeks like this one. If you could see my house you would see three loads of laundry on my sofa waiting to be folded, a living room full of blankets and toys, a kitchen that desperately needs some TLC, a bedroom floor with piles of sorted clothes waiting to be thrown in the washer and an empty menu waiting to be filled with meals for this week.

I definitely do not feel like the most amazing woman on earth during weeks like this one.

My home organization notebook has helped me leaps and bounds in certain areas. It honestly has. Which thrills me because it had the potential to be one of those things that I made, got all excited about, blogged about like it would revolutionize my life, and then tucked it away never to look at it again.

But I have used many of its features and feel more organized in my life. But, as always, there are still areas in my life I need to become more organized in.

Well, last week I visited my friend Allison's blog and she wrote a post about the Sunday Seven.

Basically, it is taking important areas of your life, and setting short term goals to accomplish in that week.

This is perfect for me because I'm a "small picture" kind of gal. If I have a HUGE task in front of me, it is hard for me to do it, my mind starts to wander, I lose focus and all of a sudden I'm off in left field not even remembering what my original task was.

This usually happens when I begin to clean my closet.

So last week I challenged myself to write out my Sunday Seven and stick to them for the week. I found a pretty notecard in my desk, used my favorite pen, inked down my Sunday seven and then posted them on desk where I would see them everyday

My Sunday Seven last week along with how I did in each area:

1. Faith - Goal: Spend at least 15 minutes in "quiet time" with God everyday. I achieved this 5 out of the 7 days. Honestly it should be something that I do everyday, but it has been put on the back burner lately. I am working on it.

2. Family - Goal: Two nights unplugged from the computer and phone. Lately I've realized (or I've been told by Luke) that I spend a lot of time on my phone and computer doing things that aren't that important. I am happy to say that I did have 2 nights where I used the phone and computer a lot less.

3. Relationships - Goal: Send 5 handwritten notes to friends and or family. This is a big fat fail. And I'm so mad. I was most excited about this one but then never did it And I have no excuse. I could have found time to do this if I really wanted to do it. I need to make it a goal again.

4. Work - Goal: Complete my to do list at my office job and organize all my home party supplies for my Scentsy job. Check and Check. Yay!

5. Health and Wellness - Goal: Five times this week either jog, walk or do the shred. Realistically I would LOVE to jog every single day. But now that I have Eli it is so hard to find time to do it. I guess I could wake up at 5:30 and do it before Luke leaves for work, but right now that is not appealing, so I have to do what I can, even if its putting Eli in his stroller and walking around the neighborhood. I really need to get me one of those fancy schmancy jogging strollers. Anyways, I did 4 out of 5 on this one. Pretty good.

6. Finances - Goal: No frivolous purchases (i.e. clothes, shoes, scarves, jewelry, non-necessities) I completed this with flying colors. Woo hoo!

7. Downtime - Goal: READ I LOVE to read but find that I never do it because I fall into bed completely exhausted at the end of the day. I did not do this once this week. :-( Hoping to do it next week.

So those seven were my Sunday Seven. I am LOVING this and I'm excited about achieving my goals for next week. I hope I get a little better at it each week.

If you need to become a bit more organized in your life and your feeling a bit discouraged (like I was) try this! I think I'm going to update my Sunday Seven on here every Sunday at least for a little bit to keep myself accountable.

What would your seven weekly goals be?

Love.

2011-09-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

Every morning when Eli wakes up either Luke or I will go and get him and then bring him back to our bed.

Call this "forming a bad habit" all you want, but I LOVE this time. Those few moments in the morning are so special. And if I've learned anything these past six months it is that time FLIES by and I want to cherish every minute of this baby. Whether I'm doing what the books say is right or not.

This morning Eli woke up a bit later than usual so when I brought him to our bed Luke was already up and about to head out the door for church.

I settled into my normal Sunday routine of feeding Eli in bed while watching some gloriously lame movie on TV. You never know what movie you will find on Sunday mornings, but I always end up watching it, no matter what movie it is.

As I turned on the TV this morning to watch my movie I was quickly reminded that it was in fact September 11th. Somewhere between drifting off to sleep, and being woken up abruptly by a crying baby, the date had slipped my mind. But it all came flooding back in an instant. Ten years ago today our nation was changed.

I sat in bed with Eli, watching the news coverage and remembering everything about that day. And because I'm human, my mind started to think about myself, and what I was doing that day and how much my own life had changed these past ten years.

Ten years ago I was a senior in high school watching the news coverage unfold on TV. I remember sitting in speech class watching the towers fall. To be honest, I didn't understand everything. I knew to be scared, and I knew that thousands of families lives were changed forever, and I knew that pure evil was behind this, but as a senior in high school the true extent of it all didn't really get to me.

Fast forward to present day. I'm now a 27, watching the events unfold once again. But this time I'm sitting in bed, with my six month old baby. Today it hit me in a way it never has before.

ABC rebroadcast scenes from their Good Morning America from that September morning and I watched the scenes all over again. I have seen these images dozens of times, but today it was different. There next to me was my sleeping baby. A precious, innocent child that is going to grow up in this world.

I sat there, with my hand over my mouth watching the images as if it was my first time to see them. I looked over at my sleeping baby and immediately wondered what kind of world would he grow up in? In that moment it was easy to let fear, questions and uneasiness flood my heart.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot shield him from hurt, I cannot protect him from pain.

Many times after we first brought Eli home from the hospital, as I would gently kiss his cheeks and rub his head and watch his sleeping body gently move up and down with his every breath I would look at Luke and say "I only want him to know love, I don't want him to know ANYTHING BUT love"

I was completely serious, as any mother would be, but every time I would say it, Luke would laugh a bit and tell me, just like I already knew, it was impossible for Eli to only know love. He lives in a fallen world.

My desire is for Eli to only know love, but unfortunately he will see much outside the realm of love, and there is nothing I can do about it.

The only thing I can do, along with Luke, is teach Eli the love of Christ. Teach him HOW to love others. Teach him what it is like to show love in the face of unkindness, unfairness, disappointment and hurt.

This world can be scary, and there are many questions and many things that are out of our control, but we know Who we put our hope in. We can't always protect Eli, but we can direct him to the greatest Protector.

So as I sit here ten years later watching the shocking images unfold once again, I am changed. I do not want to sit and fear the world that we live in. I do not want to question the future.

Instead I will use the time I have to lead my son to the Truth I know, and teach him the Love we have been shown, and pray that he continues to spread that love in our world, no matter what it may be like.

Accent Vlog

2011-09-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

Last week my friend Katie asked me if I was going to do the accent vlog.

I said "no". But I did go on to say "which means I will probably do one next week".

So here we are. Time for my accent vlog.

Some notes:

1. I'm not sure why, at the beginning, I say that "Eli is home with me." As opposed to most nights when he is out clubbing? I got tongue tied and nervous cause the camera was on and that was the sentence that came out. It makes no sense.

2. Sometimes I do this sing songy voice when speaking like I did when I said Eli and profusely at the end. I'm sure this drives those close to me crazy.

3. I never know where I'm supposed to look when doing a vlog - hence the crazy eyes.

4. I mumble.

5. I do realize it is Crayon and now Crown. Bad habits are hard to break.

6. My baby is cute.

My Life in Binders

2011-09-06T19:47:00.000-07:00

This is a recap to the disaster that is known as my vlog.

I mean seriously. WHY was the sound SO off? And WHY do I keep talking about it?

Mysteries of life.

In my vlog I think I mentioned that I have a serious obsession with binders.

I said *think* because I refuse to watch it again.

But this blog post is about some of my binders that help me in my life.

I am a binder girl. Here is a pic of some of my binders I put together while at my old job:

Like I said, I love me some binders.

I don't only make binders for work but I also have several binders that I incorporate into daily life.

I have a recipe binder that I wrote about here.

I also have a prayer journal that I use. I think I've written about it before but I can't find that post.

This is great and serves multiple purposes. You can use it to take to church or your bible study and take notes in, and then you have your notes right with you to review when you sit down for your devotional time with God.

I don't use my prayer journal as much as I once did, as I've been doing more concentrated bible studies that come with homework that I use during my devotional time, but I come back to this journal from time to time.

My tabs are:

Praise

Confession

Journal

Requests

Luke

I think they are all pretty self explanatory. I just move through each tab. First praising God and thanking him, the second tab is a confession of sins, third is journal where I spend time talking to God (I'm a writer, obviously, and it helps me sometimes to write my prayers out) and lastly requests to bring before the Lord. I also added a Luke tab. I did this after I read "Power of a Praying Wife" which I think every wife should read. Ladies, we really should be praying for our men!!

Also, as promised here are the links to the printables I used for my home organization binder:

Monthly Calendar

Weekly Chore Calendar

Meal Planner

Pantry Inventory

Shopping List

Sheets I use for Prayer

So those are my binders! As always let me know if you have any questions about anything!!

Also, there is still time to enter the Scentsy giveaway over at Blue Eyed Bride.

Labor Day Weekend

2011-09-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

Ahhh. Aren't three day weekends so nice? I love when they don't fly by and actually feel like three long days which is how this weekend felt. It was wonderful!

Friday night we went to eat with some friends. We went to a burger restaurant so naturally I got chicken tacos. I don't know WHY I do this but I always get opposite of what you should get at a restaurant. For example, if you go to a breakfast place you should get breakfast food, not a steak. So if I go to a burger place I should get a burger not tacos! This is similar to my Seasonal Food internal battle.

Eli went with us and we had so much fun with him. I'm so glad that he is such a good baby and easy to take with us. I'm sure as he gets more active it will get more difficult but right now he is so easy!

Saturday was kind of a "nothing" day but I love those days. We all woke up with Eli around 7 and then all fell back to sleep with Eli for his morning nap around 8:30. It's weird to me that he naps so soon after waking up but he always falls asleep at that time like clockwork! We played with Eli during the day. Here he is laughing at his dad. He looooooves his daddio.
Saturday night Luke went to a football game with his parents and I stayed home with Eli. I enjoy a football game here in there but I wanted to just stay home with Eli on Saturday. We had a fun night. He ate his dinner and sucked his thumb in between each feeding which created a giant mess. But he's so cute, I don't even care.
Sunday my parents came for a couple of hours to visit us. AKA see Eli.

Monday I got my hair trimmed and colored. I usually go dark around this time of the year. I knew I wanted to go dark with my hair but I didn't want it all one color. I wanted a couple of different tones.

I took this picture from Pinterest to show my hair stylist (I told you, I'm obsessed)

Source: google.com via Megan on Pinterest

And this is how it turned out, I love it. (my spacing is off. love/hate blogger)

Monday night we gave Eli peas for the first time. He didn't even bat an eye. He didn't make a face or act like it was any different than what he has been eating. The boy just likes food. Plain and simple.
So that was our Labor Day weekend.

Also, I've received several emails and tweets from people who are interested in trying Scentsy. Well today is your lucky day! Head over Blue Eyed Bride's blog, she is hosting a Scentsy giveaway for me and one winner will receive a full size warmer and a scent bar of their choice. So be sure and enter the giveaway!