New Fun

For over a year now we have walked by a taekwondo place on our way to our favorite sushi place. Gibbie would longingly gaze into the window watching the kids and adults jump around. She had talked about dance class once or twice so we decided to give her a choice. Martial arts or dance but not both. Today was her first taekwondo class.

She was one of three new students but she was the only one that was intensely listening to the instructor. She's never listened to me so well!

Our first class was free to see if she would actually like doing it as much as she liked watching it. She definitely did and we ended up with a one year contract and a kick ass uniform:

She's happy and I'm hoping that these classes will help her with her recent attitude problems. Maybe having something that is all hers (not having to share with her sister) will help her feel important again.

Lately she's been extremely emotional. Every time she gets into trouble she breaks down crying. Every time I tell her to speak up because I can't hear her she gets mad and won't repeat herself. I don't know if it has to do with not being the baby anymore or if there's something more but I really need to find away to get her back to normal.

Easter Weekend Look Back

How was your Easter weekend? Ours was half busy and half relaxing.

I started out Saturday morning with going to the salon. My current look of mousy brown hair pulled into a ponytail was getting a bit drab and outdated so I decided it was time for just a tiny change. Here's my before picture:

Saturday afternoon was a time for dying some eggs! I think we usually do it earlier than the night before Easter but life has been busy this year. Check out Gibbie's look of determination:

She was just so into it and had a ton of fun as usual.

Squish was a bit annoyed that she doesn't have the mobility to help out. I think her face says it all:

Sunday morning was wild! I managed to get two kids, a husband, and myself looking good to get to church by 9am! I wanted to be super cheesy and have the girls in matching dresses. I couldn't find exact matches but these dresses were definitely close enough:

After church we had a little time to relax before heading to the family gathering at my brother-in-law's house. Gibbie had a solo Easter egg hunt in their backyard and then I got kisses:

Over all it was a good day. Both girls were completely worn out and passed out before we even got out of my brother-in-law's neighborhood.

Oh and here's my not so subtle change I made to my hair:

I'm also back on social media as of yesterday morning. It's funny how I found it hard to give up at first but now that I'm back I'm already bored with it.

I hope you all had a blessed Easter and have a fantastic week!

Friday Link Party

This is a perfectly good breakfast for an adult, right?

Ok, I hope it's obvious that this isn't a normal breakfast for me but I can't resist a good carrot cake with some coffee. It's a seriously amazing combination and it only happens on the rare occasion that we have cake. I have promised that this will be my last slice of my birthday cake. The rest will be disposed of today... maybe.

Have some links:

Amazing photos from the 19th century by Charles Marville. Sort of a before and after of some awesome spots across Paris.

I love books, I love libraries, and now I love librarians. Naughty, naughty, librarians.

I've never really thought about how other languages would interpret animal sounds. Bark, bzz, meow, quack.

Some of these seem insanely hard to do but I think I'll give a few a try. Which would you want to try?

I was allergic to avocados and now I'm magically not. I'm dying to try all of these recipes now!

Part depressing, part inspiring, fully beautiful.

Surely they love honesty from the parents.

Have a great weekend!

Thankful Thursday

*For Gibbie's school. She absolutely loves it there and has grown so much. Her speech has gotten so much better and she can now write her name. We've decided to keep her in pre-k one more year so she'll get to go to the same school next year as well. Her birthday is the day before the cut off date for kindergarten so we'd rather she be the oldest in her class instead of the youngest.

*Squish sleeping through the night! Every now and then we'll have an odd night of her wanting to eat at 3am but for the most part she sleeps from about 7:30pm to about 7am. I'm not sure how we total lucky but it's amazing and I love it. 

*Crochet. I've fallen in love with crochet in the past few months. It's so calming and a lot of fun for me. Right now I'm in the middle of a blanket and a rug. Here's a picture of me holding Squish while crocheting a rug:

Wordless Wednesday- So You Say It's My Birthday Edition

Hello April 2015

April 2015 Goals

1. Lose five pounds

2. Work out three days a week. 

3. Finish one book that I'm in the middle of. 

4. Start using Gibbie's chore and consequence chart regularly again. 

5. Do one thing just for me once a week.

This is my first time posting using the blogger app so we'll see how it goes! 

What I've Been Up To

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been MIA for a few months. I've been extremely busy making a human being! Introducing, Squish:

Squish is actually over three months old now and I've just been slacking on sharing these photos with the six people who read my blog. She was born just before Christmas which lead to the best Christmas of my life. Gibbie looks a lot like the hubs. Squish is a mystery. Sometimes she looks like me and other times she's just her own person. Some people say she looks like Gibbie did when she was a baby but I don't see it.

Gibbie is the best big sister. She helps calm Squish down when she cries (which is a lot) and will run and grab bibs and shake bottles when needed. She even asked to change a diaper a few days ago. Now that Squish is on the right formula things are awesome. It was a rough first few weeks because she cried all the time. It turned out she was having some reflux issues but life is good now. She does still like the sound of her own voice but it's nowhere near as bad as it was in the beginning.

One last thing. I went to Weight Watchers today and as terrified as I was to step up on the scale I did it and I'm at least glad I'm not back to my original weight!

I joined Weight Watchers the day after my 30th birthday. Tomorrow I will turn 32 and I'm nowhere near where I want to be. Of course, having a baby does give me a tiny excuse but now it's time to work.I hate work but I am much happier when I'm working out and eating right. I just need to remind my brain of that when it wants me to binge on Girl Scout cookies (freaking devils) and fried awesomeness.