Currently

Laughing at…Toby waving his arms back and forth really fast when he’s done eating.  And sometimes he’ll shout out “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa” when doing it.

Amused by…Toby’s new fascination with stealing things from the fridge and running away with them.  For instance, yesterday he thought it was hilarious to take the milk jug out and run off with it.  And today he managed to snatch a container of hummus and sneak away into the living room.  By the time I realized he grabbed something, he figured out how to take off the lid and smeared globs of hummus on the floor.  I was freaking out and laughing my ass off at the same time.  And he was SO mad at me when I took the hummus back and made him wash off his hands.

Struggling with…change.  Hubby has a new job which means longer commute which means lot of adjusting for me and Toby.  And the solution is not me going back to work, like oh so many people have suggested. 

Loving…fall is on its way!  I remember last year feeling very sad with summer ending and how I wasn’t ready for the seasonal change.  But this year I am all about autumn – bring on the pumpkin goodness!

Grateful for…my Scentsy business is really taking off and I’m pretty proud of my hard work :)  Being my own boss has pushed me to branch out and be creative in all aspects of the business.

Working on…getting Toby to say more words.  I’ve given up on him ever saying Mama but I will take anything else at this point as he’s just not very consistent with saying things.

Wishing…we were back in Maine still on vacation.  This year’s week away at the beach was so different compared to last year, but in a good way!  It was a lot of fun watching Toby “jump” in the waves for the first time, splash in the wet sand puddles, scoop up sand in his toys, and chase after dogs on their after-dinner night walks on the beach.  He couldn’t get enough of the ocean – one day we had to pull him out since his feet were blue and he threw a fit the whole way back up to our spot on the beach.  I think he would have gone completely under the water if we let him!

Maine 2012 – First Family Vacation

Things have been quiet around here since we just got back from our first family vacation!  We rented a house in York Beach, Maine last summer for a week in late August and wanted to continue the tradition for this summer.  We had decent weather (there were a couple rainy and cloudy days that I think were remnants of Hurricane Isaac), but at least it wasn’t overly hot since our rental house didn’t have air conditioners.  We spent a lot more time at the house this summer since Toby was with us, but we were able to get out each day and do something new.  Both sets of grandparents were able to come up so we had extra sets of hands to help out, which was nice :)  Let’s just say I quickly realized that vacationing with a kid is not really a “vacation” anymore. 

Getting ready for this trip was exhausting – just trying to remember all the stuff Toby would need was crazy!  I basically went through what we do the entire day, starting with his morning routine, and made a list of things we needed to bring.  I’ll do a separate post with my lists I updated from last summer.  My organization paid off, though, since we didn’t forget anything and we adjusted pretty well in the rental house.  I was also really anxious about wondering how I would feed Toby the whole week.  I think people forget that even if I’m bottle feeding him, I still have to pump to keep my supply up (or to keep me from getting too engorged).  That means I had to make sure we came back to the house after 4 hours or so, or I would bring my pump with us and plan to pump in the car.  I managed to keep up my supply, but it will be much easier next summer when he’s drinking regular milk all the time! 

Toby did really well the whole week – he was so good during the day and was fussy only a couple evenings.   He played a lot and also really started interacting with us more this past week.  He was “talking” (cooing) and smiling all the time.  If you continue talking to him, he loves making noises back at you.  He also hit some milestones this past week, which was exciting.  He started grabbing his toys on his activity mat and infant seat and is oh so close to rolling over.  He pulls his legs up all the way to his chest and moves to one side, but just can’t roll over completely yet.  He also started sticking his tongue out ALL the time and is always trying to lick his onesie or shirt.  He sucks on his fist a lot, too, but he was doing that before we got to Maine. 

I was worried he wouldn’t sleep well in the pack n’ play, but he adjusted quickly.  The first couple nights he woke up a couple hours earlier than he normally does at 1AM to eat, and he got up again 4 hours later at 5ish instead of normally getting up around 7ish.  The third and fourth nights he managed to stay asleep until 2:30ish, so that wasn’t so bad.  And then one night he slept from 8:45PM – 4:15AM, which I think is the longest stretch he’s ever done.  Hubby and I woke up at 3:30AM that night wondering if he was okay because we hadn’t heard him cry yet!  He did really well with naps in the pack n’ play, too – he averaged about 45 minutes each time we put him down.  The only thing that worried me was that he moved like crazy in it, even with the swaddle done tightly.  I would lay him the long way on the mattress and sometimes when I came back to get him when he woke up, he turned himself 90 degrees so he was laying the short way.  And one time he managed to scoot all the way to side of the crib, smooshing his face against it, so I went in to move him and that woke him up completely from his nap.  Even though the side of the pack n’ play is mesh, I still felt like I needed to move him.  All in all, it went much better than I anticipated!

Enough talk, here’s some pictures to recap our week:

We walked down to the beach a couple times and then did an actual beach day towards the end of the week.  We visited the Nubble Lighthouse (I want to do a family picture there each year now), went to the zoo in York for the first time, took a road trip up to Freeport to shop at L.L. Bean and other stores, and of course had to hit up the Kittery Outlets to purchase some fall and winter clothes for Toby.  We also had lots of ice cream from Brown’s and the Scoop Deck in Wells.  Time to start counting calories for real again if I want to fit into my jeans before it gets cool out!

Beach Day

A couple weeks ago my sister and I were doing a Target run with Toby and on the way back home, I decided to try to find the local town beach since Toby was still passed out in his car seat.  I had read about the beach in the online town paper back in May and figured it may be a good place to visit this summer with the baby.  It ended up being very close to our old apartment, which made me mad that we never knew about it before hand!  Anyways, Hubby and I took Toby there last Sunday for a few hours in the early afternoon.  It was a great excuse to finally dress Toby up in one of his swim outfits, hats, and sunglasses:

 

For it being a lake beach, it really was not bad at all.  There’s a good amount of beach space and sand, and over to one side, there’s also a lot of picnic tables in the shade.  It’s a great kids’ beach, because the water is very shallow and you aren’t allowed to swim out past the buoy line, which is only about 5 feet deep.  We were able to snag a spot under a large tree since its branches came up over the edge of the beach. We still put our beach tent up, even though we were basically out of the sun.  Toby was awake when we got there and we could tell he loved being outside like he always does.  The slight breeze and warm air kept him calm for awhile until he got hungry, so I gave him a bottle to ensure he stayed quiet :)  Hubby went into the lake to try out the water and it was surprisingly warm so later on I went in, too.  Toby took a good nap for about an hour or so until it started to get really windy and the beach tent was about to blow away.  Unfortunately I think the noise of us trying to fix everything woke him up.  We decided at that point it was time to leave since the fussies were starting.  Overall I didn’t feel like we had to pack that much more stuff than we normally do, so it was a good practice trip for Maine next month.  Not too bad for our first beach trip! 

DIY Paint Chip Art

When I saw this guest post on Tatertots & Jello a few months ago, I instantly fell in love.  I adored the scalloped look and and I thought it was genius using paint chips – hello, they’re free!!!

Image and inspiration source

I wanted to put this new piece of art in our downstairs bathroom as it has a beach cottage theme and I thought this would perfectly fit into that vibe.  This was probably one of the easiest projects – all you do is punch out a bunch of paint chip circles with a scrapbook puncher, and then glue them to a piece of cardstock that’s the same size of your frame opening.  I used normal scrapbooking glue, which was good, because it didn’t stick right away and I had some time to move the circles slightly if they needed adjusted. 

The paint chips I got were from Lowe’s – they were all a light blue/teal hue.

And here it is finished:

    

I love it!  I’m very happy with my decision in using different colored paint chips to have a gradual color change from light to dark.  The art goes awesome with our beach theme in the bathroom.  Totally reminds me of waves in a very abstract way :)

Sharing at Tatertots & Jello, I Heart Naptime, The Shabby Nest, Someday Crafts, Be Different, Act Normal 

Vacation Recap – Maine 2011

We were lucky enough to take a week off at the end of August and rent a beach house in York Beach, Maine.  It was so relaxing and much needed.  Since we went the week that school starts, it was a little cheaper to rent the house and it wasn’t as crowded as it normally is at the beach.  I would love it if we could continue to go away this week every year as it’s a nice way to celebrate the ending of summer.

We started off the week right with some delicious burritos, tacos, and margaritas at Guac-N-Roll.  I tried a cucumber margarita…not my fav flavor there but still tasty.

A lot of the time was spent at the beach since our cottage was only a mile away.  I bought a beach “hut” for hubby since he’s not a fan of the sun and the beach was much more enjoyable for everyone this summer :)

We did some shopping at the outlets in Freeport and then also in Kittery on our way back home.  Shopping during Labor Day weekend means lots of good sales.

We toured the Allagash Brewery in Portland, which was definitely the best tour I’ve ever been on.  They let you taste the beers first, but I think it may be because their beers have a higher alcohol content and they want you to walk around a little before driving :)  This tour was serious since we had to rock the safety goggles, but it was well worth it because you actually see the bottling process close up. 

We stopped by the Portland Head Light, which we had never visited before.  It was so pretty here – the views are just amazing.  The weather was perfect this day, as you can tell by the gorgeous blue sky below:

   

Our cottage was only a short walk away from Brown’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream, so of course we went there a few times.  At least we walked to get there and back ;)

Mini Golf in Old Orchard Beach at Pirate’s Cove was a must after we met up with some friends for a nice dinner.

We ate a TON of salt water taffy.  The ones from the Goldenrod are the best.

I had some very tasty lobster mac & cheese for dinner one night in Portsmouth, NH.

We spent a night in Ogonquit with our parents who came to visit us for a few days.  Marginal Way and Perkins Cove are beautiful and I highly recommend stopping there when visiting southern Maine.

    

Our last night in Maine we headed up the coast to Kennebunkport to check out some of the shops – the sun was setting just as we were about to leave.

On the way back to York, we made a pit stop in Wells and found a great ice cream shop called Scoop Deck with an overwhelming amount of flavors to choose from.  I went with the Candy Bar explosion.

 

And then we ended the week with stopping in Portsmouth again on the way home for a late lunch at Redhook Brewery.  Can’t go wrong with a beer sampler.

Oh little cottage, you were the perfect home away from home for a week.  Hopefully we will be back next summer :)

Beach Rental House Packing List (Printable)

To celebrate the end of summer last year, we went away for Labor Day weekend to one of our favorite towns in Maine - York Beach.  We decided for this year to spend an entire week at the beach and realized it would be more cost-effective to rent a house instead of staying at a hotel for 7 nights. 

Since I’m OCD with being organized and I love lists (wayyyyy too much), I started making a serious packing list for our beach rental.  I began with doing a Google search for some ideas since we have never rented a house before, but the search really didn’t come up with much.  I only found a couple links that were somewhat useful from some discussion boards:  http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/114311.page and http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/313529

Luckily we just visited some friends at their lake house in NH last weekend, so we were able to see what was included in that house and get a better idea of things we should consider packing.  Their house was very well stocked, but it did take some time to find basic cooking utensils, so I think it may be easiest to pack a box of our own kitchen things and bring it along.  It also seems like it may be hit or miss with how new the pots and pans are, so I decided we should at least bring our flat frying pan for making pancakes.  

Here is the list I came up with – I decided it was easiest to break it into sections.  It quickly went from one page to two as I started adding beach and bathroom items, but I don’t think there’s much I missed.  I did add extra lines to handwrite items on in case I think of something later on or the day before we leave.

  

Beach Rental House Packing List Aug 2011

Feel free to download the list for your own personal use – just click on the link above the list and it will bring you to the site where you can print or save to your computer.  Hopefully this will help someone else before the summer ends :)

Or right-click the pictures below to save to your computer:

Sharing at: I Heart Naptime, Someday Crafts, Tatertots & Jello, Be Different…Act Normal

A Maine Wedding: Beach-Themed Bridal Shower

Before I start the actual wedding re-caps, I did want to do a couple posts on the pre-wedding events.  Last March, my bridesmaids hosted a beautiful and intimate well-planned shower for me.  It was a beach theme, which was very fitting, since everyone knows I love anything blue, tropical and involving flip-flops :)  About 30 women attended my shower and I was so glad they could all make it.  The party wasn’t too large so I was able to spend time with everyone.

The girls bought invitations at AC Moore and then switched out the ribbon in the packages for a navy blue ribbon.   There was a beach quote on the top with some clip-art starfish.

 

Amazing candy buffet!  They did such a great job putting it together.  I had hinted to my sister that I always wanted some sort of candy or dessert bar and they totally delivered.  Everything was in tones of blue and white and had a beach-theme.  Some of the candy included jellybeans, chocolate covered pretzels, lollipops, blue licorice, and chocolate seashell and flip-flop molds.  They also included favor bags on the table so everyone could take some home.  And there’s a sneak peek of my cake on the right!

The favors on all the tables were white chocolate lollipops in the shape of a flip-flop.

On a few of the tables there were  beautiful hydrangea centerpieces in cute little ceramic pails they found at Kohl’s.  They also found a lot of other beach-themed serving ware at Kohl’s and I got to take all of it home after the shower.

 

They made an adorable guestbook using a pair of flip-flops, lots of scrapbook paper and wedding-themed stickers.  This is such a unique idea and it’s proudly sitting in my craft room now.

Another view of the guestbook.  Right above it is my box of recipes – they asked each guest to bring their favorite recipe so I could start my own cookbook.

Awesome spread of food – seriously, there was so much!  Lots of sandwiches, finger foods, and overall goodness :)

My amazing cake!  Two huge flip flops covered in fondant on top of a brown sugar “sand” base.  On the right sandal, there is a little band that says “Sole Mates”.  LOVE! 

The dress I wore was purchased from Ann Taylor last spring.

 

My bridal shower was such a good day.  I look back at these photos and admire the cake and candy buffet all over again.  I felt so much love from the people closest to me, and I really appreciated all the gifts they gave.  Everyone could tell how much work and time my girls spent on planning the shower and putting together all the little details – I could not have asked for more! 

All photos courtesy of Bridesmaid J