Happy FeelingguiltyfromallthecandyiatefromtheEasterbunny Day

I forgot how awesome eating bags of chocolate feels for a whole weekend... and I also forgot how squishy I feel come the Monday after. Oh well, Easter only comes once a year!  

.....................

photos by Gwen Hawkins

death sleep

Approximately one hour ago at a laundromat near me:

Latino Man: bebe?
Me: Yep... Baby.
Latino Man: Is your bebe dead?
Me: Uh... nope, she's just sleeping.

I quickly empty everything from the dryer and in to the basket. As I'm leaving:

Latino Man: Take care of your bebe.
Me: Oh, I do!
Latino Man: Feed her and stuff.

.............. huh??? I guess I should be more aware that my child's sleeping looks deathly and malnourishing to some people?

love

Can you see it? Yeah, right there... can you see my heart spewing out love everywhere?

Because it is.

I don't think I could love something more.

Evelyn Rae turns 3 months this coming week. I don't know if I can swallow that.

It's already going by too quickly.

Maybe I'm ready for baby #2?

now you have another reason to visit the Nation's capitol

To visit US come August!

Yeppers, we're moving to DC for Jared to attend graduate school at George Mason. 

We are soooo excited! Can you tell? We actually honeymooned in that fair city.

Yes, we chose to spend our honeymoon in DC during December when it was below 30 rather than vaca on some tropical island. That's how much we dig it.

Maybe one day we will be able to own a beautiful house like that one up there.

I love east coast homes.

Don't you think Evelyn will make a beautiful southern belle?!

the breastfeeding diet

So last post, Lauren commented that I should give ya'll some weight loss tips [I think she was joking when she wrote it, but I do have some things to say about it]. Lest ye be deceived, I am nowhere close to where I was pre-pregnancy. Sure, I can fit in to skinny jeans but they are elastic and will stretch over my now jello tummy. Fitted jeans and I have yet to be reacquainted. With that being said, I have been making efforts to become slim and trim. For the past 4 weeks I have: run 3 miles daily, done light weights, measured my food and wrote down everything that went in to my mouth. I worked for a nutritionist before I had Ev, so I felt pretty on track. So when I wasn't losing the weight and I called my boss to ask why, he said I would lose the weight faster if I stopped working out and ate more fat. Come again? Yeah, I guess when you're breastfeeding your body hoards fat and because I was trying to burn that fat off with Cardio, my body worked extra hard to keep that squish on. So pretty much all my efforts were in vain.  I actually created more fat. So here's a weight loss tip for all women:

1. grow yourself a mini you

2. BREASTFEED & BREASTFEED that darling creation

I hear it works like a charm. Sucks the unwanted stuff right off. I'm still waiting for mine to kick in, or rather I'm waiting for my baby to eat more, that skinny little thing! How much easier my job would be if she would nurse longer than 10 min. Now i'm stuck limiting my sweets. So I took one of my favorite desserts, Strawberry Pie, and did my own little swip-swap. Cream cheese = greek yogurt, pie crust = 1/2 graham cracker. The taste is divine, I must say. I do the same with bananas for a banana cream pie.

bueno weekendo

Some weekends are bleh. But some are really good. I would categorize this weekend as pretty good. Things that made this weekend wonderful:

: sleeping in until 8am every morning :

: beautiful sunshine :

: driving 40 minutes to Pasadena to look at a potential car buy, only to have the salesman call when we were half way there to say the car had sold, but probably was a good thing in the end :

: not eating too many fatty sinful things :

: eating chips and salsa at Don Antonio's - handmade chips and salsa are always my perogative :

: writing thank you notes :

: Ev starting bed time at 8pm :

: watching Tangled :

: buying a new swim suit, this one to be exact :

: witnessing the scale go down one number at a time :

: getting my monthly $10 off coupon to World Market :

: getting graduate school advice from the 3 smartest men we know :

: being about 98% sure where we're going in 2 months and possibly getting instate tuition in a year 

: realizing my brother has already been on his mission for 6 months :

: finding this outfit on Kendi Everyday :

: listening to Amos Lee on Pandora all day long :

: scheduling our first family photo shoot in 2 weeks and coordinating our outfits :

: wasting Saturday afternoon away at the Los Angeles Arboreteum, with a picnic bag in tow :

FamFare Friday + Winner

I love spring. I love that Easter is coming up. It's always such a fun time for my family. Every Easter we go on a picnic and afterward all us kids go on a walk with my dad while Mom stays back to "clean up." Without fail, the Easter Bunny always finds us and leaves little presents and candy for when we return. Want to hear something sad? I never believed in the Easter Bunny. In fact, I never believed in any of the cheerful holiday iconic characters. I was sure to tell my mom that one day when I was 7 and she and I were in a biff. "The Bunny isn't real, and neither is Santa Claus!"  Yeah, like what we were arguing about had anything to do with the Easter Bunny, but I was sure to let her know that I didn't believe in any nonsense, and with that came the price of ruining it for my younger sister who was listening near by. I know, I'm the worst big sister ever, ruining such a surprise.

I'll tell you what other surprise I'm about to give away...

The WINNER!

Congratulations RYAN! 

Email me your info and I'll happily send your little gift your way!

Thank you all for your feedback! I love all the suggestions and my confidence has definitely been boosted. I'll keep you up to date on the shop! Happy Weekend!

to conk out or not to conk out? that is the question

She's had an exhausting day, but would you be able to tell? No, you wouldn't.  Let's see, first she slept in until 8:30, played until 11, went to work with Mom from 11:30-3 where she put on a show for the clientele with her smiles and coos. She's just getting around to her first nap right now. That 15 minute eyeshut on the ride home doesn't count. Despite my persuasive gestures earlier on with my rocking and nursing to bring on a hopeful sleepyhead, she was determined to stay awake the whole day. My pre-pregnancy self would have been appalled at how this day went, where she didn't get her naps in right after feeding. "Eat Awake Sleep" they say, but she kept kicking strong. 

***CORRECTION - STILL NOT NAPPING***

I just went in to her room to find this:

Yeah. Looks pretty rejuvenated after 10 minutes. This girl is dynamite. 

Before having Evelyn, I was determined to be the stern mom and put her on a schedule. I'm all about discipline and I was gonna start from the get-go with BabyWise. 

Well, let's just say that my approach has changed. I now understand that every day is different. 

I feed her every 3 hours and whatever happens in between that time happens. If she's awake, cool! If she goes to sleep, awesome. Doesn't matter really. I still get a majority of the things done that I need to regardless if she's asleep or not. And the truth is, I like having her around me. She seems to sleep from 10:30pm -7:30am with only one feeding regardless of how much she slept during the day, so I'm 100% happy with that! Now that I possess wisdom,  my enlightened perspective would be plan your day around the feeding times and make the kid roll with the punches in between. And in return your baby may give you some surprises along the way... like mine did right now with her floodgate orange diaper. Nice one.

**********

A big shout out to our "new" readers! I'm so grateful for your feedback. And congrats to all of you who just had a baby or are expecting - FISTPUMP! It's the bombdiggity!

following the leader, the leader, the leader

I've heard through the grape vine that this blog has more readers than I thought. And that people actually like what they see and keep coming back for second helpings. I'm flattered. In March '09 when I created this blog, the idea of having "followers" creeped me out, so I took that little feature off. Who would've guessed 2 years later that I would regret not letting people subscribe to my life? So guess what? That beauty is back on. Now, I'm not trying to be presumptuous by any means, but I know we're raking in more than 20 readers folks. They say go big or go home, and I'm going big here, putting my precious pride and vulnerability on the line and saying let's take that little cyberspace friendship we have going on to next level, whatda ya say? Shall we? Spread the love and follow.

Meh, still don't see why you should? What, my adorable baby isn't reason enough? 

Fine, I'll toss in a 

GIVEAWAY

How bout that? I've been honing in on my baby designer skills. Dressing a babe is so much fun, but sometimes I can't find what I'm looking for out there on the market. I know there are thousands of other moms who love sequinced jeans, winnie the pooh stitched jackets and pajamas that say "daddy's little girl," but I don't fall in to that category. So I made some things for Ev and I liked how they turned out... so much so that I've contemplated Etsy.

Etsy has always intimidated me. The creativity of people on there is out of this world, and I'm afraid my skills aren't all that original.  I can't muster up the courage to do it. I thought i'd take a chance on le blog first to entice some bait and then cast the line out into Etsy if the response is favorable. Here are some prototypes.

What do you think?
Would you buy this gear for your baby, neice, nephew, sister, mother, friend, grandmother, or dog? 

How much would you pay for it?
{I can stencil on to any shirt size, doesn't have to be a onesie. And I have a gagillion more possible stencils}

So how bout it? To enter:

1) you must become a follower

2) leave a comment answering the questions above regarding price and feedback.

GIVEAWAY ENDS

FRIDAY, APRIL 8TH

Wow, I've never done a giveaway before. All of the sudden I feel much more powerful.

For any of you who do have an etsy shop, do you have any words of advice? What have you had the most success selling? Or those who peruse etsy like me - what do you find yourself being drawn to?

Thanks in advance for a) following b) feedback 3) making me feel cool. You rock!

Famfare Friday

It's perfectly sunny out today, which made me do a happy dance inside. I've always been a pretty good dancer. My sister and I made great performers. 

I think our favorite soundtrack was "Saturday's Warrior."

With General Conference coming up this weekend, my mind is taken back to the good ol' days before cable and internet and viewing the broadcast was only available via Stake Center. I think I'm going to take our kids to the Stake Center to make them behave. I would look forward to family picnics in between sessions and using the other 4 hours to hone in on my drawing skills. But of course, I mostly looked forward to hearing from the "opossums" [translation: my brother couldn't say apostle].