Pictures of *THE* House!

I know that it's not official until we have the keys but I am giddy about the thought of this house being our very first home! Soooooo....I wanted to share some pictures that I snapped yesterday when we were having the home inspection done. The first two are from the MLS listing because I forgot to take pictures of the front but the rest are from me. :)

Front of the house:


Side of the house/garage:


Living Room from the front door:


Shot from front of living room looking up to the loft:


Dining Room:


Kitchen:




Hallway:


Master Bedroom:


Master Bath:




Sophi's Room:



Sophi's Bathroom:




Loft:


Sandra's Room (upstairs):



Sandra's Bathroom:


Backyard view from workshop:


Housing for firewood behind the workshop:


Sandbox!!!:


Daddy and Sophi on the porch with the workshop in the background:



I forgot to take a picture of the shower in the upstairs bathroom but it is newly remodeled and similar to the one in the master bedroom downstairs. Anyway, you get the gist of it! We are SOOOOO excited!! The inspection went very well yesterday. The inspector only found a few minor things that need repair. Next will be the appraisal and the WDO (Wood Destroying Organisms) inspection. We have asked the sellers to push our close date back to October 7th, instead of the 6th, so that we can skip having to pay the interest for the month of October and our first mortgage payment won't be until December! At the rate we got and the price, our mortgage payment is estimated to be almost $100 less than what we pay for rent! Yaaaaayy!!!

Monkey the Heavy Breather
On a not-so exciting note, the Monkey has come down with her very first cold. She woke up yesterday morning really congested and by yesterday afternoon, I was pumping Tylenol in her because she had a 100.8 degree fever. I know that's not really that high but it still freaks me out. She was not a very happy camper yesterday and she surely has made the aspirator her very worst enemy! I feel so bad for her because she can't breathe well through her nose and is practically panting to breathe. When she tries to nurse it's even worse. She'll try to eat as much as she can and then beaks latch and pulls back really quick and pants to catch her breath. Poor Monkey. She was highly fussy this morning and it took me almost an hour to get her to settle down and take a nap but since she's been awake, she seems much happier but is definitely still a heavy breather. Funny thing about all of this is, she actually helps me get the snot out by blowing her nose! When I come at her with the aspirator she sticks her tongue out with her mouth closed and blows, you know, "Pppplllffffpppp" and it in turn, causes the air to push out of her nose too. She cracks me up. Anyway, no fever so far today so we are hoping that she is back to her normal silly Monkey self very soon!

Adventures in Solids!

Since we are trying so many new foods now, I thought it would be kind of neat to start a weekly about the new foods that the Monkey is trying and how she reacts to it, along with pictures (of course!). Plus, this is a good motivator to make sure that I am on here more often and keeping this thing up to date. It's been a couple of weeks since I blogged last about solids so we have all kinds of new things to add today!! We'll start with apples.

Apples
This was our first grainy textured food and the Monkey was not too sure about it at first. She spit it back out several times before figuring out how to maneuver it in her mouth and get it down. The first time we tried them, she had them on their own but after that, I figured out that she really quite enjoyed them mixed with oatmeal. So we stuck with that for the few days that we were on apples. Here is the Monkey's apple face. At first she was like "Blech!"

Then she was "Oh wait! This is yummy!"


Prunes
I forgot to mention above that, the reason we tried the apples was because the Monkey hadn't pooped in several days and I was hoping that the apples would get her going. They didn't. It had been a week since she had done anything and I was freaking out. I was about a day away from buying suppositories to help her out. Thank God I didn't have to do that and Thank God for PRUNES!! I ran to the store on our way to meet Daddy at the base and picked up a bottle of prune juice and some Organic prune baby food. This will be one thing that I will not be making myself. I just feel like it's entirely too time consuming of a process. Anyway, we got to the food court at the Exchange, put Monkey in the highchair (after thoroughly wiping it off, blech!) and cracked open the prunes. I tried them first to see what they would taste like and really, they weren't bad. Just tasted like burnt raisins. The Monkey...she loved them! Couldn't get enough. We were shoveling those prunes in her mouth and when she was done, she was fussing because she wanted more. Monkey tore those prunes up!! Here's prune face:


Oh and, for the record, prunes work. Monkey pooped....and pooped...and pooped. I'm glad she was finally able to get some relief, though. It's sad seeing her hurt.

Sweet Potatoes
I like to believe that the Monkey and sweet potatoes had love at first bite. These were a giant win. The Monkey opened her mouth wider for sweet potatoes than anything we've tried so far and why not? They are sweet and silky and yummy! She ate them so fast. I mean, record time. The Monkey is getting so much better at eating already. I am so impressed by how quickly she learns and adapts. Babies are so amazing. Here's the Monkey begging Daddy for a bite of sweet potatoes:


Mum Mums
A Mum Mum is a teething biscuit for babies. It is a flavored rice husk that dissolves to mush in their mouth to avoid a choking hazard and it's kind of textured for chewing on. We got the vegetable flavored ones for the Monkey to see how she would do feeding herself since she has been practicing her hand to mouth motion for quite some time now. The Monkey really does well with these! She gets so excited when she sees me bring them out and I will usually give her one after her dinner or for a mid-day snack. Right now, she spits out more than she eats but either way, she really enjoys them and she hasn't choked yet, so we'll keep giving them to her. Here are a couple of Mum Mum shots:



Plums
We started plums a couple of days ago. So far, these have definitely not been a favorite. They are a little tart and they have sort of a grainy texture like the apples so I wonder if this is going to be a trend. I did find that if I mix some of her rice cereal in with the plums, she chows them down. On an off note, I found out that plums freeze really well and like bananas, they get a nice creamy texture to them when they are pureed and frozen. I'll have to keep this in mind for a smoothie idea! :) Here's the Monkey making a sour plum face:


We have also been practicing with the sippy cup after meals. The cups that we got are rubberized all around so they are kind of soft. The Monkey hasn't quite figured out how to drink yet and instead of sucking on the tip, she chomps. I thought that maybe if I keep the cup in the refrigerator that it would help. Did it? Noooo...now she thinks it's one giant teething ring and just flips it all over the place and chomps on it. It's pretty fun to watch. I'm not worried about the sippy cup. She'll get it when she's ready. :)


House stuff
I know that I promised house pics today but when I got the pictures off of Mitch's phone last night, I realized that they weren't that great. We will be at the house this afternoon for the home inspection and I'm going to take a lot more pictures and will certainly post them once I do. :)

Time to go get that Monkey!

Life in the fast lane

In the last couple of weeks, the Monkey has been learning a lot of new things. Everything seems to be happening so fast now! At the beginning of the month, she wasn't even sitting yet and now she sits like a champ, she is learning more sounds, eating more foods and growing like a weed! I find myself taking more and more pictures of her these days because everything happens so fast and I don't want to miss any of the little phases that she goes through. Yesterday alone, I snapped 45 pictures of her. She really has become quite the camera hog, too. If she sees it or hears it snap a picture, she immediately turns on the charm. Since I've been taking so many shots of her, I want to start one day a week to just share some pictures with everyone. I got the idea from a friend and fellow blogger over at The Olivers. She does a Wordless Wednesday and I love the idea so much that I have decided to use it, also. I hope that you look forward to our Wednesdays now as much as I do! :)

Monkey Speaks
Mitch has been having a tough time at work lately. The days just seem to get longer and the people he works with seem to become more lazy and ignorant. So, when he comes home, he looks to his ladies to cheer him up. He usually comes in and gets changed out of his uniform and then takes the Monkey for a little while because she's pretty good at cheering her Daddy up. Anyway, he came home one day last week (I want to say it was Thursday) and was carrying her around and talking with her and what comes out but "DADA DADA DADA!"!!!! We both about jumped out of our skin and our eyes and smiles got huge. We looked at each other with something like this "Did you...did she...was that....DADA?!?" It was awesome. I know that I've always been easily excited but I love how, as a parent, that it is perfectly acceptable to get excited over the small things. She has also figured out how to make Indian noises. You know the ones where baby goes "Ahhhhhhhhhhh" and you pat your fingers over their mouth to make Indian noises? She cracks up when I do that and now she has figured out that if she takes a toy and makes the "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh" sound while moving said toy over her mouth, that she sounds like an Indian. She cracks me up!

Getting ready to be a Monkey on the move
We were hanging out on our bed one day last week and letting the Monkey get a little tummy time, which she actually quite enjoys these days (this is a feat itself!), Mitch and I were talking and we look over and we see Monkey up on all fours and looking down like "Whoa, how did I do that??" Again, we had a big celebration and I had to take a picture:

Since then, she has been up on all fours a lot more. She struggles sometimes with getting the knees up under her but once she gets there, she gets the most proud look on her little face! I've also found that if I pull the rabbit in front of the dog trick, and put something in front of her that she *really* wants(like Mommy's cell phone), she'll even rock front and back and then crash land forward. I have a feeling that very soon, our little Monkey is going to be on the move and all over the place. Time to start babyproofing? I think so!

Monkey in the Tub
We decided on Saturday that it was time to try Monkey out in the big girl bath tub. By the way that she's been growing lately, she's just getting too big for her baby tub. She wants to play and splash and since she is sitting up so well now on her own, we thought we would give it a shot. It was a HUGE success! We put foam letters and some other toys in with her and the Monkey had a ball! She loves to splash around and she's figured out that the foam letters stick to the tub and then she can attack them and knock them all off. It's awesome. She's awesome. Yep. Here are some pictures of Monkey's first big girl bath:

Getting ready:


Bath Inspector Liesel:


Baby Booty!!


Yeah, Mom!! This is awesome!!


Mama Liesel helping out with bath time:


S is for Sophi:



Moving Home
In the last month or so, Mitch and I have been looking at houses in hopes of finding the perfect house to call our home. We were shown many houses that were all a disappointment of some sorts. On Friday, we set an appointment with our Realtor to go look at a handful more on Sunday after church. Mitch and I just kept saying that we were going to find our dream home on Sunday. We had 5 houses to see and one by one, we were let down. We learned very quickly that just because the pictures on the MLS listing are appealing, this does not mean that the house actually looks that way. Anyway, the 5th house we looked at was one that Mitch had emailed to me a few days prior. It was one that I was really interested in seeing but it was a tiny bit out of our price range so I had to use some persuasion to get him to give the "ok" to see it. Our Realtor had been telling us all along that when we see "the one" that we would just know, it would be a feeling. I didn't believe her. I was wrong. We pulled up to the house and before even getting out of the car, I had a feeling. That feeling just got stronger as we walked around the corner and up to the front door. I had decided that this was the house that we would call our home before I had even seen the entire house. I got goosebumps (or as Mitch calls them, chicken skin) and a little teary. It was a very strange and overwhelming but awesome feeling. Anyway, we went back to the office and put an offer in on the house. They countered a little but it was still a deal we couldn't pass on so we signed the contract on Monday and are moving forward with our HOME buying process!! Our close date is set for October 6th and I can't wait to spend Sophi's first holiday season in our very own home! At this point, I would post some pictures but they are on Mitch's phone. I know, boo. I plugged his phone in to get the pictures off a couple of nights ago but I got so hung up in looking at the pictures that he has of Monkey, that I totally forgot to get the pictures of the house. Oops!! I promise I will get them tonight and post them by tomorrow.

Well, that about wraps it up for today. It's 6:45 and the Monkey should be waking any minute now. Time to get our day underway! I'll leave you with a couple of my favorites from this week:

Adventures into Solids!

So, I mentioned this before but, we started solids the 27th of last month. It may be silly but this has been a pretty big deal in our house! It has been a ton of fun making different foods and introducing new tastes to the monkey. Her reaction has varied from each new food and it's neat getting to see the funny faces and figuring out whether she likes what she is tasting or not. So I thought, why not take pictures of her eating each new food and document it? After all, who doesn't love a baby with mushed food all over their face?

Our initial plan was to wait until she was 6 months old to start solids. She was doing well on milk alone and wouldn't need solids until 6 months. But then, we started getting the stare down any time we were eating and then she was leaning in close to our food and finally, we were out to dinner one night with friends and that little monkey kept trying to grab at my plate! So, we gave in 5 days early. The original plan was to skip the rice cereal since we did wait until she was (almost) 6 months old but her pediatrician strongly recommended it for at least a few days to help get her started. So we started with rice cereal.

My first thought was that this stuff looks, well....gross. I thought for sure that the monkey would hate it. Did she hate it? Nope! She loved it! It was a total success with her! Daddy decided that he couldn't feed her rice cereal because it made his stomach crawl too much. Guess that's why God gives mommy's strong stomachs! Here is the monkey with rice cereal face:


After a few days of rice cereal, we decided to try oatmeal. The oatmeal definitely does not look as terrible as the rice did but it definitely could have used some raisins, butter and cinnamon to spice it up a little. ;) I mixed it up and monkey almost came over the highchair tray to get it! She loved it! I don't think we're going to have a problem with her being a picky eater! I can't wait to start mixing some fruits in once we start introducing more foods.


On her 6 month half birthday, we decided to try some carrots. While the monkey loved the carrots, she ended up getting a little bit of a rash on her chest and belly that evening. In the defense of the carrots, that was a rough day for us. The a/c went out in the house and it was 88 degrees in here before it got fixed. The rash that the monkey had looked a lot like a heat rash but I wasn't sure and I didn't want to chance it and keep giving her carrots. So, we'll come back to carrots at another time. In the meantime, here is the monkey with her carrot face:


Up next was bananas! What monkey doesn't love bananas, right?? Our monkey!! She hated them. Gave me a face like "What the heck is this junk??" and spit them right back out. Every single time. Of course, this is the one food that I don't have a picture of. I think maybe the banana just wasn't quite ripe enough and didn't mush up good enough for her. So that day, we just set the banana to the side and ate a bowl of oatmeal. :)

Yesterday, I gave her something that I've been anticipating giving her for some time now. One of my very favorite things. AVOCADO!! And she LOOOOOVED it!! I am SO excited! Of course, our child has expensive food taste already. LoL! She ate half of an avocado yesterday and did great with the exception of a little gas but nothing that she couldn't get out. Between her and Mitch, I feel like I live in a gas chamber! Here is the monkey playing with her food yesterday:


I'm not sure what we will try next. So far, I have made zucchini, butternut squash, carrots, sweet potato, and apples. Today I am going to puree' plums and pears and maybe some peas. So we have lots of stuff to choose from. We'll be on avocado for a couple more days and then move on. Maybe we'll try a fruit next and see what the monkey thinks!

6 month test pictures
So, I'm no professional and the pictures I take are just with my phone camera but I want to do a mini photo shoot with the monkey for her half birthday. I know that she has already been 6 months for a week now but, hey, she'll be 6 months for another few weeks so I have some time. I did lay a sheet on the ground a couple of days ago and take a couple of shots just for giggles, and giggles was certainly what I got! This child cracks me up! Here are a couple of my favorites(please don't mind all of the junk in the background, we are in the process of rearranging):

Hi Mama! I love my new skirty!


Oh the drama!


Now, if I could just get my belly off of the ground...


Happy girl!

I miss this.

I have come to this blog so many times over the last 6 months and started to post Sophi's birth story but I always get distracted. Life seems to just get in the way. I have decided though, that catching up completely will take too much work and I will never get back to my blog. I miss this. I have come to realize that I actually need it. Writing these words, whether anyone reads them or not, is therapeutic for me. I am active on a couple of message boards but I'm not good with sharing my feelings somewhere that expects a response. I think I would rather just write (and then read) my own feelings and if anyone else reads them, that's great. I hope that I can make someone laugh or relate or maybe sometimes even cry with me. I love this blog. It is a piece of who I am and I have felt like something is amiss and so now, I'm going to take the time to get back to writing. Even if it means sitting here in the dark, 3 cups of coffee in, at 5:30 in the morning. I'm going to get back.

So, I do want to catch up on a little since Sophi was still in my belly when I wrote last. I'll start by saying please be happy that I didn't blog the first few months of her life. Plenty of you would probably decide that I am the worst mother in the world and would turn me off completely. Pregnancy was so blissful for me and having my sweet amazing baby here was supposed to be, too, right?? Wrong. I had what some would consider a relatively easy labor. I went completely natural. My labor was quick (active labor was only about 4 1/2 hours. I pushed for what felt like a lifetime (but was only actually about 10 minutes) and at 1:15am on February 4th, 2011, I gave birth to an absolutely beautiful baby girl. She was 19 inches long and weighed a tiny 6lbs, 7.8oz. Most everyone has already seen her picture but just for giggles, here it is again:


And here is our first family picture


Yeah, it's ok to say it, we made one pretty baby! I may be just a tinge biased. ;) I'm trying really hard to not make this too long since the girl will surely be awake within the hour so I'll say that the first 8 weeks were pretty much a blur. Sophi was an extremely gassy newborn who didn't like to be put down. She got colic, she got reflux, I battled (and am still battling) a low milk supply and worst of all, in the midst of our already chaotic life, I was struck down with a nasty bout of postpartum depression. I want to talk about this for a minute because this is a subject that has become very close to my heart.

Postpartum depression (we'll say PPD for short) is very real. Scary real. I felt so alone. I had terrible thoughts. I thought about how nice it would be if she would just not wake up, I thought about putting a pillow over her face to quiet her, I thought things like "what if I just let her head slip down into the bath water". This isn't me. It's not who I am but it was the disease that had taken over my mind. Of course I would NEVER do these things to my child and I was terrified of myself for thinking these things. I wish that more women would talk about PPD so that women like me wouldn't feel so alone going through it. I am an open book and there have been several occasions where I have told another mom these things and the reaction that I get is so appalling. I've been glared at like I am such an evil person and a terrible mother for allowing myself to think these things. Sure, like I really wanted these thoughts going through my head, right. I finally went to the doctor and asked for some help. Moms, future moms, friends who think that you might some day be a mom, PLEASE take my advice and get help as soon as you can if you even think that you MIGHT be battling PPD. There is help out there and you are not alone going through this. I wish like crazy that I would not have waited to reach out.

Ok now, back to everything else. I figured out (again should have done this sooner) that a few trips to our family chiropractor was exactly what Sophi needed for her colic/reflux issues. Turns out that when some babies are coming through the birth canal, some of the nerves get tangled up in the spine and can cause these issues. Who knew, right?! So without having to switch to formula and without having to put rice cereal in my 8 weeks old baby's milk, Dr. Chad fixed her right up!

I'm sure that there is a lot to tell. We have done some fun things. We were part of The Great Cloth Diaper Change Event, which was a lot of fun. We made the front page of the metro section in the paper the next day. Sophi's picture was on the news for Earth day. Took her to see the Easter bunny (that did not go so well). When she hit 3 months old she decided that she was no longer going to sleep in the room with me and made a very successful move to her crib. And then, almost a month later, came our big day. It was finally time for her Daddy to come home.

Mitch arrived home on May 29th, 2011. It was such an amazing day. The happiest day of our lives, for sure. You can see the video of our special day here. It was nothing short of an amazing day. Even more than we expected. We thought for sure that when Mitch took Sophi that she would start screaming her head off, since that was what she did when ANYONE but mommy held her. But she didn't. It's like she knew right away that he was Daddy. She stared at him and reached up and touched his face. She made sweet baby cooing noises at him and smiled the sweetest smiles. My heart was filled with joy that day. Everything that was missing was back and I was finally whole again. Here are a couple of my favorite shots from that day:
Meeting Daddy for the first time

At last, we're complete


Watch our Homecoming Video Here


Sophi's big sister, Sandra, came down to visit us last month. We were a little nervous at first about how Sandra would take to having a baby sister but we were so wrong in being nervous. Things went great! Sandra is SUCH an amazing big sister. She was so helpful and had such a good time taking care of her baby sister. She fed her bottles, picked out outfits and showed Sophi how to do all kinds of neat stuff. Sophi clearly was fascinated by her big sister and stared at her constantly anytime they were near each other. It was perfect. Here is a picture of Daddy with his girls:


The girl turned 6 months old on the 4th of this month. We started her on solids on the 27th of last month. She actually loved her cereal. We only did rice cereal for 4 days and then moved on to oatmeal, which she totally digs. Unfortunately, our first trial with actual food has not gone so well. On her six month half birthday I gave her carrots and while she loved them, I think that she is having a reaction from them. Her little belly has some red bumps and I have to assume that it's the carrots that caused this so we are scaling back for now and will just do oatmeal for a few days until the rash goes away and then try something new. I am making all of her food which is extremely tedious but it's a fun experience so far. I made butternut squash which I admittedly, had never tried before. It is delicious!! I've already found recipes for including it in with our dishes. It's amazing how naturally flavorful some vegetables are without seasoning! Who knew, right? ;) Here is a picture of her cereal face:


We have the girl's 6 month check up on the 15th. I am eager to see if she has put on a sufficient amount of weight. We've been having some problems with that. At her 4 month check up she was in the 42nd percentile for height and only the 5th for weight. Her pedi had us come back in at 5 months for a weight check and she was 5th, borderline 4th. She is hitting all of her milestones though and the pedi did not seem concerned. I think she's starting to chunk up a little now though, so hopefully we have a good report!

I need more coffee...

Ok. :) Some days I think that a coffee IV is completely necessary.

So I've been trying my hand at being crafty. I want to be the mom who makes all of the little dresses and Halloween costumes and blankets and what not for my daughter. While I'm certainly not up to the level of making dresses yet (actually, I can't say that b/c I haven't tried), I am learning how to use my sewing machine. I make bibs and pacifier leashes, some other various baby items that I can't disclose yet b/c they are a gift for a friend. I have sewn buttons on pants and sewn a bag to store my clothes pins in. This may not sound like much but believe me, I didn't know how to wind a bobbin or thread my machine a couple of months ago. I wish that I had more time to spend on the machine but I do not have baby who self entertains for very long. Anyway, I like it. It makes me happy, like writing does. It takes my mind to another place for a short time and gives me a mini mommy vacation. :)

So I should probably wrap this thing up now. The princess should be waking soon and I'll kiss her a thousand times and thank her for sleeping long enough for mommy to finish writing. She is the happiest baby in the morning and it warms my heart to see her amazing little smile. If you got through this, thank you. And be warned, this is not the last you've seen of me! hehe

My Goals for 2011

So I have decided not to make any specific New Year's resolution because, let's face it, not very often do resolutions get carried through on. Instead, I want to make a list of goals for this year. I'll start now and probably add more as I go along.

*Make sure that I am spending daily time with God. I need to learn to stick with my devotion time and instead of trying to solve all of my own problems, go to Him. He's the only one who can really make things better in me from the inside out.

*Continue working toward becoming the Proverbs 31 woman The Proverbs 31 woman is the ultimate woman in my opinion. A lot of my 2011 goals will be set around this.

*Be the best wife that I can be for my husband. Mitch is an amazing man, the absolute most amazing man that I know actually. I spent my life praying for a man who would be the complete opposite of my father and I was so blessed the day that Mitch entered my life. He is so loving, passionate, helpful, he's a great listener, an amazing provider, a loving father and of course he's incredibly good looking!! I could not ask for more than what I have with him, in a partner. So, I want to make sure that this year, I am the absolute best wife that I can be for him.

*Be the best mother that I can be for our daughter. Sophi will be here very soon. I am a whirlwind of emotions. Happy, excited, nervous, scared and some other stuff too. I know that being a mommy is what I was meant to be but I am so scared that I will mess something up. I guess my real goal is to know that, every mother messes up sometimes and that as long as I am the best that I can be for her, then I will be #1 Mommy in her book!

*Be more eco-friendly in 2011. I've already started down this road somewhat but I'd like to expand my eco-friendly horizons this year. We will be using cloth diapers for Sophi, have switched out some of the household cleaners for more "green" options, started recycling but I need to educate myself more on it. So we need to recycle more, swap out more cleaning items for "green" options and start using reusable grocery bags. If anyone has other ideas, I'm very open to learning. :)

*Spend more time outside. This is an easy one, really. I just need to stop being such an inside person and get out more. I know that the dogs would love it if I got out with them for 30 minutes a day and threw the ball around or took them for a walk.

*Start walking the dogs again. I know that this totally plays off of the last goal of spending more time outside but our dogs seem kind of depressed since I haven't been walking them the last few months. I have not had a lot of energy to get out and play with them and I feel like a terrible pet owner but growing this baby has really taken it out of me. Now that we are one month away from due date though, I think it's time to start walking again. It will be good for the dogs to get some good exercise before the baby comes and it will be good to get me in shape for labor. So, I'll start walking this month and will continue until Sophi makes her arrival and then once we are cleared, we will all walk together.

*Get back into shape after Sophi gets here. I miss working out so bad. I miss my morning runs and sweating it out with Tony Horton in the living room. I miss feeling strong and being able to feel like I look really good. So, after the doc clears me to work out again, I am going to hit it as often as I can. Besides, Mitch is over in Qatar getting all buff and working out for 2 hours a day. I can't have him come home looking all Rambo and not be looking good myself!

*Stop being so judgmental and opinionated. It seems that pregnancy has really brought out the Judgey McJudgerson in me and even though no one has been blunt enough to tell me, I'm tired of hearing myself. So I need to realize that people are different and that no one on this Earth, especially me, is perfect.

*Get my life organized. While I like to think that I am a pretty clean person, organization is not my specialty! Mitch has always been here to keep me organized. If I need space for something anywhere, he can move things around and organize and find space where I never would be able to. He is my Tetris master and the one who always finds room in the refrigerator for a gallon of milk when it seems impossible to me. With him overseas, I need to learn how to get myself organized so that he doesn't come home to a giant mess of a house! This is why I am taking the 21 Day Challenge over at A Bowl Full of Lemons. Today was Day One, organize your junk drawer. I will take and post pics tomorrow of our drawer. Mitchy will be so proud!! :)

*Learn how to sew. I have always wished that I was crafty like some of the girls that I know but have never really seen myself as a knitter or a crocheter. So I've done some research and I think that I would like to invest in a sewing machine & a Sewing for Dummies book and give it a shot! I want to be able to make blankets and dresses and Halloween costumes and cloth diaper stuff and BABYLEGS!!! We were at Target tonight and they have all of these super cute knee socks for $2.00 that I could turn into baby leg warmers so easily if I had a sewing machine and babylegs.com sells them for $10-12 a pair. That's just crazy!

So these are the things that I can think of for now. It's a lot but none of it really seems out of reach so I'm just going to stick to it and do the best that I can. Happy 2011 Everyone!!