Egg - Action Selfie Cam

More over Snapchat filters- Egg - Action Selfie Cam is taking over. At least for me anyways. Egg has dozens upon dozens of different filters, that are wayyyy better than any of the ones that Snapchat has. Don't get me wrong, some of the ones on Snapchat are neat (there's like two of them) but these Egg ones are SO CUTE! Not just cute, but so fun! The majority of them have sounds and animations (which don't post well on here so here are a few linkies: [one] [two]).

This is one of my all time favorite selfies. The hair and the huge round glasses are just darling!

There's not just cute filters, there's also scary, weird, and just plain silly ones. There's basically something for everyone on it. The app hooks up to LINE, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for quick and easy sharing on social media. I really have to restrain myself from spamming too many pics of me to Twitter and IG, haha! Do you have a favorite selfie app for your phone? Which are your favorite filters? ♥

Too precious!

How I'm Coping With My Toddler Weaning Himself Off Of Naps

It's hard to believe Dean will be two years old in March. My little baby is no longer a baby but a full-blown little man who runs around all day, playing, dancing, talking, and has even started to sing a little bit. He has a strong will of what he wants to do, when he's going to do it, who he's going to do it with, and where it is going to happen. Is that common for toddlers?

My parents often talk about how "busy" he is. He is always doing something. If he's not playing trucks, he's playing trains, blocks, ball, sweeping, vacuuming, reading books, telling stories to his stuffed animals, running around, eating, or any number of other things... that are not sleeping. Over the last few months he has weaned himself almost completely off naps. For some reason I pictured him napping once a day for another year or so. I'm not quite ready for this change.

Nap time was the time I set aside for myself to work out and catch up on a few things that were easiest to do when Dean isn't around. For the last year I was able to do Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred dvd two to three times a week. I'm not trying to get shredded, no no no, but I want to build a bit of muscle and loose that stubborn tummy of mine. Now that Dean has stopped napping I'm finding it hard to work that 20 minutes elsewhere into my day. I would do it while he's awake but his love for playing with weights is not helpful to my workout routine.

Luckily the lack of naps don't effect him much. He's not often cranky. I think it's because he gets about 10-12 hours of sleep a night. (The last few nights it's been 14 hours, which leads me to think there's a growth spurt in the future.) There is a point everyday in the afternoon where he does slow down and he'll zone out watching an episode of Thomas the Train or Daniel Tiger, and then he's back up and running again. I figure as long as he doesn't get nasty there's no need to have him nap. That being said, I've now lost the time I used for certain things.

The day I took these pictures we went to two parks in hopes I could wear him out enough to take a nap. We left the second park more energized than when we arrived, I'm sure of it! I was so bummed that day because I had put off a few things that week and was just waiting for him to nap so I could get them done. That day I learned I can't rely on nap time any more and I need to start figuring out a way to get stuff done (especially working out). Laundry, which is difficult because he is the Destroyer of Piles, I now either pile up on the bed and do it before bed with Aaron's help, or I'll put the baby gate up in the hallway and sit on the floor on one side and do it while he's playing toys on the other. Crafting I push back until he's in bed for the night.

Over the last few weeks I've been showing signs of Postpartum Distress, which are making this transition more difficult than I'd like. Things as simple as me showering, getting ready in the morning, and running errands are now incredibly stressful. My body deals with these high levels of anxiety by detaching myself from the situation and slowing me down, almost paralyzing me. Aaron and I are working together to get me through this, and his support has been wonderful. He helps me fold laundry or plays with Dean when he gets home from work so I can have "me" time or do whatever I needed to do without a toddler underfoot.

One good thing to come out of Dean's lack of naps is he wants to cuddle with me in the morning. He has never been a cuddler, but for some reason he wants to sit on my lap in the morning while he watches his morning episode of "Thomas and Friends" of "Daniel Tiger". I don't care how starving I am in the morning, I will sit there with him leaning against me as long as he sits there. Yesterday he even put his arm across my body while he was sitting with me. I teared up because he just doesn't do that. I guess I can handle getting less work done if that means I can cuddle with my baby. I gotta stop calling him my "baby". He's not a baby anymore. But he will forever be my baby so I can't help it.

Do you mama's have any advice or ideas on how to get things done with a little one running around. How do you keep them from getting into your work? What are your best tricks?

Shared Toddler and Mama Meals - Eggs and Toast Breakfast

Scrambled eggs has become my go-to for a quick and hearty breakfast. Pop some bread in the toaster, chop up whatever greens that are on hand to mix in, pour a glass of almond milk or Green Machine and it's a super balanced meal.

Spinach is what I put in my eggs most of the time, but this morning we didn't have any so I used green onions. As a little extra somethin'-somethin' for me, I added a little Kewpie Mayonnaise and habanaro salt on top of my eggs. On my toast I added butter, a tiny bit of peanut butter, then some jelly. In all honesty, I could probably eat three pieces of toast each morning, haha!

Dean doesn't really care what I add to the eggs as long as he has ketchup stars and "may-mays", which is normal mayo, not mama's Kewpie Mayo (there's no way I'm sharing that with anyone). Every meal I put a different number of stars on his plate which we count together before he digs in. The stars are made by a mini condiment bottle I snagged at Daiso.

Toast is something Dean hasn't been really big on, so I decided to cut his up and add a dollop of jelly for him to use as dip. This little trick worked and he ate his entire piece.

Avacados are a staple around here also, but since I haven't been able to find any good ones at the store, I served Dean some cottage cheese. This isn't something I typically buy since I have a dairy allergy, but since Dean eats it really well at my parent's house I figured I should get him some.

Scrambled Eggs and Toast
ingredients:
3 eggs
1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
2 green onions
pepper
ground flax seed
chia seed
habanero sald (for my portion)
2 slices of bread
butter
peanut butter
jelly

to make:
Mix eggs, cheese, onion, pepper, and seeds together in a bowl. In a small pan add a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, when the oil is hot add the egg mixture and cook until scrambled.

Add bread to toaster and toast. I enjoy my toast brown and crispy. Add toppings to one piece and cut the second piece into toddler bite size pieces.

Plate everything, add toppings (habanero salt, ketchup stars, mayo, and jelly). and enjoy. Oh and don't forget to count the stars!

What sorts of foods do you like sharing?

Fabulous 2015

This year is coming to a close, and man oh man, am I excited it's over. Before I ring the new year in I want to do a quick little post about my Word of the Year: FABULOUS.

My little family is growing fabulously. Look at those two guys~ so cute!!

I made awesome new friends from the store~ some of which I spend a good amount of time outside the store, made friends with a new neighbor who has kids around Dean's age, dropped a fair amount of baby weight, and have pretty much perfected my morning routine (6-8 mins on hair and maybe 10 mins on makeup, depending on if the eyeliner is behaving).  We got a van which I love.  It has 16 cupholders, which is rediculous and awesome.  It also has remite controlled doors which are so incredibly handy with the little guy.

Not much has happened around the blog lately but maybe that'll change next year.  Until next time~~ HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS! ♪（ｖ＾＿＾）ｖ♥

Happy 18 Months My Little Mr. Man

Can we just stop a second and talk about how old my little baby is? I call him "Baby" out of habit, but he's hardly a baby anymore. When did this happen?

Why did it happen?!

The last time I posted a big slew of baby photos was a little over a ago. That's crazy! I guess things happen so fast and it's so easy to post things on Instagram that I hadn't really thought about it.

This precious little guy is just so awesome. He has started to string words together, solve problems, understand what it means when I give the "the look", and has attempted to say "love you" back at us when we say it to him. This is just a FEW of the things that has changed, a few of the ways he has grown since that last post.

He is nothing short of incredible.

What's In My Bag?

Purses have always been a weakness for me. Chunky handbags, chic clutches, sleek cross body bags... I love them all. Over the course of the last decade or so I have collected so many different purses. Some gals collected shoes, I collected bags. One type of bag that I kept coming back was the cross body. I love having my hands and arms free, and not having to worry about my stuff.

I've always been on the look out for the perfect purse. Currently I have the perfect clutch, tote bag, mini travel purse, and special occasion purse. The special occasion purse is actually the perfect purse ever made, but since having Dean I've been hard on it and I don't want to ruin it, so it's now the special occasion purse instead of my every day purse. The purse I am using right now is one I found on a whim at Target a week ago. It was in the clearance section with no price tag on it, and it was the only one. So of course I grabbed it and bought it. And I love it. It's big enough for my essentials and little more but not too big it gets in my way getting in and out of the car, and carrying Dean around.

My essentials:
1| Kate Spade planner. 2| diary. 3| binky wipes.
4| mini pouch- anti nausea wrist bands, military coin from my Dad's Green Beret unit,
and good luck charm form my Mom, a little key that says "compassion".
5| my favorite lip gloss and lip balm. 6| coffee cup cozy. 7| tissues. 8| wallet.
Funny little story about this military coin. My sisters and I all received one on the day my dad retired from the Army. I was a senior in high school at the time. After the ceremony my dad told me to walk over to where a bunch of the "younger" guys in my dad's unit were chatting (and by younger, I mean younger than my dad- I'm sure the youngest was in his 30's), and drop my coin on to the floor by all of them. Me being me and totally niave, I did just that and I looked up at them and smiled big like I was in on something cool, not knowing I really was a butt of a (playful) joke. All the guys looked shocked and slightly embarrassed, looked from me to my Dad and just started laughing. Hard. Quickly I realized this wasn't just a cute thing I did. I had essentially just told them they were all buying me drinks. It's a thing in the Army, I guess, that in a group of people whoever drops their coin last buys drinks. So I had initiated something that I wasn't even able to do and with all the dudes who worked under my dad. Hahaha, I was so embarrassed at the time but I look back on it fondly now. It really was funny!

1| Sailor Moon keychains. 2| Sailor Moon pocket watch.
Anyways, that's all that's currently in my purse. I have a feeling pretty soon here I'll be dropping the diaper bag and adding a few of Dean's necessities in there as well.

Do you have have anything special you carry around in your purse?

2015 Planner Details

Last July I decided I needed to finally get organized. Adding the baby on top of owning a business (and on top of me being a space cadet) made me realize just how much I needed something to keep all my bills, appointments, work schedules, and everything in between in one place where I would remember it. So I bought myself a little planner from Office Depot. A few months into using, I knew I was going to stick with it so I invested in a Kate Spade zipper planner.

This was a small fortune ($120 on Ebay), is my first "designer" item, and it was worth every penny. I l o v e it. One reason I chose to invest in this one was because the one I was using was getting pretty loved from being lugged around in my purse. The corners were starting to bend and the pages inside were getting banged up a bit. The Kate Spade has zips around so everything is safe and sound inside. At a glace, on the left I have a gift card I need to send to my sister, two cute little cards that make me happy (and I haven't decided what to do with yet), a business card for my store, and a copy paper clips.

On the right hand side is a little tab I made that says "AaronlovesSarah", pictures, and a big note card of happiness. The pictures are from my IG account and had printed at Office Depot for a whopping total of 29 cents. The pages for the pictures I found at Craft Warehouse for $4 and had to cut and re-hole punch to fit on the rings.

The calendar part of the planner I'm using is a week on two page format calendar I bought of Etsy and had printed at Office Depot. It turns out the Office Depot Copy Center is pretty amazing. You can just email them what you want to have printed out and then they'll print it, cut it, hole punch it, basically whatever you need. If you are a small business and apart of the Chamber of Commerce you get a small business discount. What would have cost me $35 ended up costing me $14 after the discount. So yay for small businesses!

I really liked the "life mapping" color coding system so I continued with that. This allows me to see anything major at a glance without having to even open up my planner. Pink is anything having to do with Me, Aaron, or Dean. Orange is family related. Yellow is work related. Green is bills. Blue is general fun things. Purple is friend related.

After my calendar I have a few small sections for various things like Dean's sleeping and food log, store related notes and ideas, and then a section for the fantasy wrestling league that I'm apart of. As I'm writing this, I realized I don't have a section for the blog, oops! I'll have to fix that asap.

There are tons of different ways to set up an organizer but this works for me. I've found that my planner is most effective when I keep it out someplace visible. That way the moment I think of anything I need to add or check on it's right there for me. In addition to keeping work schedules and bill dates in my planner, I use it to keep track of what workouts I'm doing, small grocery lists, and projects I'd like to work on.

What do you do to stay organized? Do you use a planner? Your phone? Post-it notes?

One Last Time

Tomorrow my baby boy turns four months old! How crazy is that?! Oh man, it's hard to fathom just how much has happened since he was born. The time has flown by and dragged on slowly at the same time. Life has been constantly changing.

One big change for us is that I've decided to stop nursing. It was a pretty big deal to me (tears were involved) but I've decided it's just what is best for us. Dean is used to a bottle since he's babysat while Aaron and I are at work. Nursing is a very special thing for me, and I'm sad to see that part of my bonding time with my baby go. I'll still have bonding time feeding him bottles, but it's different. Very different. I honestly didn't think nursing would be such a big deal to me. I am mostly going to miss the view:




This face. It makes my heart melt. I never want to forget this time I had with my baby.



♥♥♥

Getting Organized

I don't know about you but I always seem to be busy.  Either busy with work or busy with the baby.  Always busy.  My mind can hardly keep things straight and I often find myself surprised what day it is.

With business at the store booming and Dean becoming more active, I need to get a grip on things.  After doing a ton  research as to how I want to get organized, I landed on a Filofax style planner.  I got the idea initially from Skye at Even Artichockes Have Hearts.

This is a Day-Timer brand organizer I picked up at Office Depot for $18.99.  Filofax brand planners average about $40-$60 so I went cheap just in case I didn't/couldn't stay with it.  Since I am sticking with it, and enjoying it a lot, I wanted to share with you what I've done so far.

In the left hand pockets I have some random notes I need to keep with me.  The left side is some pens for color coding and some flags from Target's Dollar Spot.

This is my "dashboard" with a pocket I made with lyrics to one of our all time favorite songs "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" by of Montreal.

I found this neat little savings plan online~ each week for a week you set a side a little bit of money- first week is $1, second week is $2, third week $3, and so on for 52 weeks and by the end of the year you have something like $1800 saved up.  That's pretty impressive and easy.

I found this printable online and colored it with markers I found at Target.  Behind it are to-do lists with various themes for me to use as I need them.

The month on two pages.  I used the pink pen for bills and yellow for personal things.  I'll be adding work events in black ink later.

This was a hard picture to take because of the different layers.  It's the week on two pages with a to-do list in the middle. The clear bookmark has a cute binder clip with a bow on it.

After the calendar sections I made mi i sections for other important things I'd like to keep track of: Dean, knitting projectd and ideas, blog ideas, the store, bento ideas, and our wrestling fantasy league.

In the very back is a notepad for everything else.

So far I have used my planner every day for the past few weeks and I keep addig things and tweaking the setup as I figure out what works for me.  Getting this set up and going has been a lot of fun, which is helping me stick with it.  I can see how people get REALLY into decorating, organizing, and styling their planners.

There are lots of different types, sizes, styles, and brands of planners.  Filofax, Midori, Kate Spade, Day-Timer, Franklin Covey.  Since I'm clicking with the set up I have so far, I'm saving up for a Kate Spade one that zips closed.  It's pretty expensive ($130-ish on Ebay) but the corners of some of my pages are getting bent so I'd like the protection the zipper provides.  Also, I've never owned a designer brand item and I REALLY like this.

What do you do to keep yourself organized?  Do you use a planner?  Do you keep on your important info on your phone?  Do you have a favorite organizing tip or trick?  Let me know! <3