Birthday solution and stickers!

When Maggie was born one of hubby's biking friends gifted her money to start a college fund. After some searching around, we decided on this fund and have been happily watching it grow since.

And speaking of birthdays and kids, children's birthday parties have started taking over our lives.  That with our friends and family in town, it really does take over certain months of the year. My thought this year was to pay it back a little and make it easier on myself with the gifting. I kinda need that as I prepare our home for another lovely bundle of joy.

I love giving the perfect gift, but this year I'm looking for ways to not only not buy junk people don't need but to also pass on the love that our dear friend bestowed upon Maggie. So far, two of Maggie's little friends have recieved college fund money...soon to be four by the end of this month. I know it's not the most fun for kids, but parents I think appreciate it (I know I do!) and throwing in a packet of stickers puts all the fun back in it for the kids :-)

With being on a pretty strict budget, saving has become even more important because we have little ones to think about for the future and there is less to spread around so I often get creative with the use of money and how we spend it and I think there is a lot of fun in that! Hopefully this saving and scrimping as well as giving rubs off on our kids - it's a useful skill and makes you realize that you don't need a ton to live well.

One last note...Maggie recently got mail to join a sticker club. We sent stickers to one boy and six letters to her friends. Supposedly you get 36 pieces of mail back with stickers and so far, we've gotten close to 10! I don't think Maggie fully understands mail or why she is getting stickers, but it's cute to watch her open the envelope and find her treasure. Good job to all the moms out there following through!

Green smoothies

I needed to find a way to incorporate some green supplement powder that I'm taking for pregnancy into my daily routine, plus add more protein and iron to my diet in this last trimester. Green breakfast smoothies have been the answer and I'm loving them (and so is everyone else...it's quite the trend right now). I use what's on hand but have stocked up on fresh spinach. So, the spinach (a good handful) and supplements always go in, but then I add fruit (apples, banana, frozen mango, blueberries), fruit juice or some sort of milk (coconut milk so far), and yogurt but sometimes I leave that out. You wouldn't guess because of the color but it's so yummy and easy to drink. The baby loves it (starts kicking right after I drink it) and Maggie loves it - she gets a green mustache and today she said after blending that it looks like a frog :-) She's also getting pretty good at using the hand blender. Love my little helper!

A good laugh

I'm finding this blog hilarious and right down my humor alley. All woman and especially pregnant ladies should take some time to puruse this, we all need a good laugh at the end of the day!

2012

Our holidays were wonderful, not too rushed or crazy, and we were invited last minute by a family to their cabin near Yosemite for New Years. The weather here has been cold but with no rain for a long time and New Year's weekend it was hot outside in the sun...pretty strange. Maggie had fun running around with other toddlers at the cabin and we finished the weekend by taking down decorations and enjoying time at home.

Now that we're in the New Year, I'm simply excited for what's to come. So many of my friends are having babies this year-some their 1sts, some their 2nds, and some their 3rds. Maggie is just a delight and I think she is really going to enjoy having a sibling around the house. She is totally fine on her own but this little guy will be quite the welcomed distraction for her (I hope).

I really enjoyed my schedule too over the holidays, working a few days less. It gave me a lot of time to enjoy being home taking care of my family and myself. A great plus that happened around Thanksgiving-time was that I joined a mom's group specific to my area and it's a great fit for Maggie and I. I've looked for something new in the parenting arena since Maggie was born but nothing fit that well until this. Before joining the group, I connected with a local mom that I've seen at storytime for the past couple years who has three boys (5, 2, and 5 months) and she's been such a wealth of knowledge and has provided welcomed friendship. She is excited for us to be having a boy and Maggie loves play dates with her older two boys. It's really nice to meet other moms living similar situations just streets away.

Maggie was recently allergy-tested (finally) since we've had her off dairy products for a year and I'd been wondering if that was really the issue. Not so suprisingly, her results came back normal except for a mild reaction to pet dander and outdoor/environmental allergies. So, the good news is we've incorporated dairy back into her diet and she is very happy to be eating daddy's cheese and cow's milk. It's nice to not have to worry about it now, it took quite a bit of effort to eliminate it from her diet.


Enjoying "dairy" frosting!



Happy New Year!

Christmas goodness

Last night as Maggie was being put to bed, after putting out milk, cookies, and carrots for Santa and his reindeer (which she let out a giggle for), she tiredly and calmly went to bed and asked me if I thought Santa would wake her up with his "Ho ho ho" and also told me to shut her door because she didn't want Santa coming in. I thought maybe she'd wake up in the middle of the night, but nope, she's still sound asleep and so is daddy.

We did an advent calendar filled with a note for each day and each day had some sort of goody - coins for her piggy bank, Christmas stickers, or a piece of candy (gold coin, tootsie roll, chocolate-covered sunflower seeds). I kept it simple and used up things from around the house, no shopping required. She caught on about a week or two in and the last couple weeks she's been asking first thing in the morning to open her calendar. The calendar reminds me how fast our little girl is growing up and my pregnancy is even more of a reminder that these precious days with just our little Maggie are limited. She's the highlight of our lives and I love her girliness, we have a lot of fun together. I'm trying to get my mind ready for a boy and how that is all going to go down, but it's hard to visualize until it happens. I pray that despite the bumps, he will make his way into our family smoothly and that we all fall madly in love with him. I also pray that I do not disappear off the face of this earth, I think that would deeply depress me. I had a kind friend call me up a few days ago just to simply tell me that she would love to provide whatever help I need pre- or post- birth and for the rest of our lives for that matter! It was a refreshing call to recieve. I really appreciate when people go outside themselves and show their love in this way.

As I write this early Christmas morning, I am happy to say that this season was more fun for me in many ways. The gift giving was minimal but well thought out and creative; our daughter is almost 3 this Christmas and totally gets it (we didn't just build up Santa, I also put out a Mexican creche (nativity scene) which we think was given to us from a good friend from Mexico City and taught Maggie about baby Jesus :-); and I got to visit with many friends over the past couple weeks that I either haven't seen in a long time/ spent time with or they are from out of town.

Merry Christmas my family and friends!



Something with the camera screwed up my bump - it actually looks like a little torpedo poking out from my stomach!



Christmas Eve

Funny Happenings during the Holidays

This has been an exhausting but fun-filled time of year for us. Exhausting part isn't really due to the holidays (although the added activities that come with the holidays make things busier) but it's taken the past couple months to get Maggie's new bed dialed in as well as come up with a sleep plan that works for our family. It's been a process getting her to stay in her bed with having to use the bathroom or want in our bed, which we were not being very consistent about. But just this week things are working well and we've got a good little sleeper. Part of the fun of switching her room around for me has been finding deals. When I scored her colorful ladybug bedding for less than $10 from a consignment shop and then found matching ladybug sheets at Target, it made my day. I have to say that the coupons this season have been amazing. Online purchasing is amazing and so are family gift exchanges. It's the first time we've done it and I love that I just have to get one gift for my secret family member, cutting 9 gifts down to 1. It has helped keep things low-key and has put more focus back on enjoying other aspects of the giving season.

Upon finding out that a boy will be making his way into our family, we've started dissembling our last spare bedroom. The plus to this is we know what we need for his arrival, which isn't much, but it also means finiding more storage in our room and making everything fit. Our house seemed so big when we bought it pre-kids!

Maggie has become quite the goof and she can be sneaky too, like when I'm trying to hide her advent calendar with goodies in it and then fall asleep briefly...she sneaks it out, wakes me up playfully, and proceeds to shake it and find all the hidden candy. I'm also the type of person that doesn't really hold much back with the truth of things and with having kids, I think this is a fine way to go, but it can also get you in trouble (a.k.a. embarass you) sometimes. We've had a few of those moments lately after our quiet teaching moments. Things having to do with how babies are born, girl and boy parts, and babies nursing. The momentary shock is worth all the laughter that follows.

Maggie and I sent off her 1st letter to Santa this year and she and I brainstormed on what she wanted to ask for. She is still a little young in this department, but we came up with a good list. Maggie stated more than once that she is thankful for pigs around Thanksgiving which had us cracking up. She is infatuated with pigs, I wonder how long it will last. Her clothes preferences seem to change weekly. Anyways, pig toys made it onto the list and my sister is delivering in that area. We've got some of the other stuff covered and are keeping it simple.