It's 5 o clock in the morning...

Welcome back pregnancy insomnia. After a week of dealing with a sick one year old who woke up 5 times a night, all I wanted was sleep. Apparently my body decided otherwise though. :(
So instead I'll update on our little gummy bear! We went to the doctor on Thursday and we got to hear the heartbeat. It was a solid 160 and the dr said it sounded like baby was already doing somersaults! I can't wait to start feeling those wonderful little kicks and somersaults. <3
I also recently started a new "diet". It's more that we were sick of the way we felt and decided to try to weed out the bad stuff. So for breakfast I have a bagel with low fat cream cheese and a cheese stick, lunch is 2 sandwiches, and dinner is a small mason jar salad. We are also BIG coke drinkers so we are trying to cut down on that and opt for sweet tea some days and more water throughout the day. And it's working! Even though I'm 13 weeks pregnant I lost 4 pounds this month! I feel a little better than I have in awhile and I feel a little better about my body. I'm so excited to keep going from here :)
I also started looking around yesterday for some new learning activities for the princess and I ran into a ton of great blogs about Tot School. So this weekend we will be setting up a little classroom for the princess and starting on some fun, daily learning activities. I'm super excited and hopefully this will keep me more on track with making sure she is actually learning something instead of just cuddling up to watch tv all day ;)
Well I think I'm going to try to get back to sleep. See you guys soon!

What does a stay at home mom do all day??

As a newbie mom I'm always looking for things to do with my 1 year old that are fun, age appropriate, and educational. Sometimes we fall into a rut where I'll just let her play with her usual toys but on our creative days we have a lot of fun together! So if you're stuck in a rut like I often get, here's our top 10 of activities we enjoy. :)

Top 10 Activities for children ages 9 months - 1 year

Dance Party

Shaving cream ( we put shaving cream on the wood floors and have a blast drawing in it)

Playing in her water table - (We are also getting ready to try different things other than water, such as corn starch, flour, and jello!)

Lego's- I build and she takes them apart :)

Drop In- I used an old coffee can and cut a slit in the lid so that she could drop in lids from her fruit pouches. She really enjoys this simple game!

Bubbles are always a hit
Coloring- I bought a simple scrapbook with the paper already in it and she colors with colored pencils or fat crayons
Cooking!- My little girl loves the kitchen! She loves to stir things so whenever I get the chance we are baking together. Yes its messy, but it's absolutely worth it! We also have a cabinet just for her in our kitchen and she gets to play with her own bowls and spoons and such while mommy does dishes.
Fabric Scrap Bin- I'm sure we all know how hard it is to fold laundry with a toddler in the house! You're folding while they unfold..well I made a little bin of my fabric scraps and let her play with them while I fold laundry. She's practicing folding while I'm actually getting something done!

Baby Obstacle Course- I sometimes set up a little obstacle course for the princess, it was really great when she was learning to crawl and stand up. I used diaper boxes, pillows,she would even try to crawl under our coffee table. It was fun for her and I had fun crawling around being silly with her :)

So..what are some of your favorite things to do with your toddlers?

Shh...I have a secret..

Wanna know???

Did you guess it?? Yes,we're expecting baby #2 in November!!

The Big 22!

Yesterday was my birthday. 22 years old! I had a wonderful birthday. My sweet fiancé took me to a local bakery to get red velvet brownies, then we grilled some burgers and hot dogs and spent the day eating and playing video games with my sister,her boyfriend, Ben, and my sweet baby girl. them I went to work at our church nursery and and went to get FroYo with my whole family. It was a great low key birthday. But what really made it perfect was that Ben took the day off for my birthday. I was talking to one of the women at our church and she said to Ben, "I think every man should take off for his wife's birthday" and I definitely agree. As a new mom I feel like I kinda gave up birthdays. At least the old birthday where I would get tons of presents and the entire day was about me. My daughters birthday is 13 days before mine so we didn't have much left to spend on presents for me and I just wanted a nice relaxing day with my family. But I felt so very special because Ben chose to stop and spend the day with me. It may not always be practical or even possible for him to but I enjoyed the day.

The Princess is 1!!

We had a sock monkey party with a few close friends and family and it was a blast!! But since a picture is worth a thousand words... here it is!

The food table :)

We made a picture board to showcase her first year

The guest book and favor table

Banana pudding was a huge hit!

Smash Cupcake :)

She loved the ballons on the ceiling!

                                                  I think the party was a success ;)

Pinterest Yummies!

So I am completely obsessed with Pinterest for everything. But what I love most is the amazing recipes! So I thought I'd share a few of my absolute favorites so far.

Pumpkin filled Crescent Rolls..mmm! White Chicken Enchiladas!

These were so good I didn't get to take a picture before they were completely gone!

This Buffalo Chicken Ring is SO good!

Crockpot Salsa Chicken...a great dinner for busy people!

Just life...

I had a really hard time adjusting to being a stay at home mom. It wasn't what I imagined it would be and it's not easy to stay home all the time without any adult interaction. The last few months have been more of a challenge than I thought they would be and I had gotten slightly depressed. Now this isn't to say that I don't love being home with my daughter. I do. It's the best decision I've ever made and I wouldn't give it up for anything!
So saying that,I have this friend who I've been friends with for over 10 years. She was my best friend for years and I love her dearly. She is amazing. However, she sees life a lot differently than I do now. In high school we were both bitter, believing love was a lie,people can't change, questioning the existence of God...but I changed. I met Ben and I saw how much a person can change when they do it for love, and I realized that love is out there. The first time I heard my sweet baby girls heart beat, well how can you doubt the existence of God after that? I can't. My friend has changed too..she found a wonderful man who treats her like a queen. But she has still remained bitter about life. In my depressed state, reading her Facebook posts were making me even more depressed so I simply deleted her. I wanted to be surrounded by positivity. How else could I be happy? Now I heard from her mom that she's getting married in a few months. I reached out to her after getting an invite from her mom to tell her how happy I am for her. I just wanted her to know that I want the best for her no matter what. Now my invite has been rescinded and I feel lost. How do you lose a best friend over Facebook?