The First Baby Shower

We had our first baby shower this past weekend! This one was in my hometown with my side of the family (and Cory's mom and grandma as well!) and my very much missed friends. I started the day getting breakfast downtown my BFF then heading to get my hair done curtesy of my sister-in-law and Douglas J. Aveda Institute. After a morning of pampering I was whisked away to my mom's to finish getting ready while the rest of the shower was being set up. Setup is generally the most stressful part of any event, but it seems everyone made it out okay.

The shower was excellent. My mom, sister and sister-in-law turned the house into baby shower heaven.

The menu:

• Roasted veggie and orzo salad


• Lots of fresh veggies and dip


• Mini Pigs'n a blanket


• Sliders


• Mac'n Cheese Cups


• Cotton candy cupcakes


• Vanilla bean cupcakes


• Vanilla cake with strawberry filling


• Donut holes


• Chocolate dipped rice krispy treats


• Homemade butter pecan ice cream


• Pickles :)


• And a variety of candy to make up a lovely candy bar

All delicious like all of our family gatherings.

It was so nice to see everyone that I rarely get to see since moving south. I'm a very blessed girl to have the family and friends that I do and I can't thank you all enough for coming to the shower!

Below you'll find some pictures of the big event!

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Planning to Plan

I've made one small step in getting organized this week. I used to do fairly well in the meal planning category, but since we moved away from the city and into a more rural area, I let that slide into a weekly meal plan consisting of very unhealthy fast food choices. As for keeping the house clean, it was a lot easier to do when we were in our starter home. Now we're in a very old, large home that needs a lot of love... and often.

There are four categories that I really want to hone in on when it comes to 'getting organized.'

• Home/ Household duties
  -Keeping it clean


• Meal Planning
  -Steering clear of the yuck and excessive spending


• Business
  -Photography goals/contacts/to-do's


• Blogging/crafting
  -Yeah... that. More on that another time.

I know a lot of this is going to change over the next few months after Colette arrives,  but I think it will be good for me to break out into a routine now. Then I can easily work my way back into it once I figure out how to work a baby and stay awake for long enough to think a coherent thought.

My first step was to invest in a day planner. This isn't new to me. I've had a day planner every year since I was a freshman in high school. I usually bounce around on brands but a few years ago I came across dot.mine Day Planners and loved them. However, as of this year, they are no longer making printed copies. *sobs* They're only doing digital versions. One of the things I liked the most were the covers; they always had a classy metallic version and were very consistent... (basically they look good on a bookshelf when they're full).

So now that I'm back to looking for a planner, I thought, "Hey, why not make my own!?" So what I'm doing now is taking pages and tips from others and crafting them into a super planner just for the Taylor household. I've started with information from Life as a Mom. It has a lot of what I want in it as far as meal planning and household duties. Not to mention they also have a blog section. I actually purchased the $12 package and I will be going through it, making notes and revising the information to fit my personal needs. Then once I put the red pen away, I'll put it all into inDesign and make it all purrty-like and send it away for printing. With any luck it will be something I can just tweak for future years and have reprinted. I'll keep you updated on how that turns out.

It will probably take me a couple of weeks to get that done so in the mean time I want to get back into meal planning. I'm trying out a salad plan this week for lunches and dinner sides that's going fairly well. I'll get more into the actual meals starting next week. I got the salad plan from *where else* Pinterest.

http://pinterest.com/pin/67202219412710533/

I also made my own ranch dressing which is pretty tasty, maybe a little garlicky. But you can find the recipe for that below. You can use fat-free mayo/sour cream for a lighter version, but it was quick to make and much better than a store bought version.

http://pinterest.com/pin/67202219412710541/

With Pinterest these days, how can anyone every run out of ideas for pretty much anything. Thanks Pinterest.

Here's a peak at the salad bar I created for the week.

[caption id="attachment_456" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Mm. Salad.[/caption]

This is for cooking as well. Carrots, peppers, tomatoes will all be used for other dishes.

That's all for now folks!

Food and Fitness

I love food and I loathe fitness. If you know me personally, then you probably know that's not a secret. Now that have to be more conscious of my actions, I can't say I've done a really terrible job.

• I don't eat more than I used to at this point. I feel really terrible if I get hungry and I can't eat right away, but I can't say I eat more. I still don't have any real cravings, and still do have some of the food aversions I mentioned in an earlier post.

• I've cut caffeine out (except that one tall decaf iced latte, that one glass of Sunkist, and some chocolate here and there) almost completely. I still have a sprite or cherry 7-up every now and then, but I drink mainly water. (*pats self on back*)

• I eat a lot less fast food now, mainly because I really have no interest in it. I'll eat it if it really comes down to it, but I would rather eat an egg sandwich or something small from home.

And that's really it as far as food is concerned. It's pretty normal thus far which is why I haven't really gained a lot of weight thankfully. I'm currently 15 weeks and 5 days and I've gain about 2-3 pounds. Hopefully I can continue that healthy weight-gaining trend and not be a complete cow in my third trimester. The thought of a 10+ pound baby scares both me and my body.

As for fitness, I haven't totally delved into it yet. I went from playing roller derby 3 times a week to super sedentary in my first trimester because of the nausea and fatigue, and now I'm ready to get into some sort of routine that will keep me healthy, not to mention it'll be easier to go back to roller derby if I decided to do that after baby Taylor is born. I miss skating quite a bit, but know that's just not the safest form of exercise for me right now.

[caption id="attachment_361" align="aligncenter" width="560"] I'm on the left with the fancy hair and bow. What a group of sexy ladies, right?![/caption]

 

So for the last week I've been looking into short prenatal workouts on the internet. I think my favorite ones so far are from FitSugar. They have short, 10 minutes workouts that target specific areas and are geared for pregnant women. I've done the legs, arms, and Heidi Klum workout without getting too hot or winded and I definitely didn't feel like I was straining myself. I do, however, feel the burn and the strengthening happening. I like that they're short so I can fit them in whenever, and that they actually go along with you in the workout instead of just telling you a few moves you can do. There's a few more videos other than the ones I mentioned above, but that's about it. Oh, I also tried the yoga stretching which was nice, but I think I might try to find something a little different for that aspect because I don't like the music and I'd probably want a little more than 10 minutes in a yoga workout. I need more than 10 minutes to be zen.

My goal is to do one 10 minute workout plus one yoga workout everyday, resting on the weekends. Of course I say resting, but what I really mean is preparing for baby which is enough of a workout for anyone, pregnant or not.

 

In other news, my new desk came in today, so we'll get that set up tonight. And EPB is coming out tomorrow to supply the den with another internet line. That officially means we can clean out the nursery over the weekend! Hooray! OOO AND I ordered a shirt that will be here next week that I'll be wearing in my next 16 weeks pic. You should be really excited. I know I am.

Checking things off the list.

Ahhh. So nice. It was definitely a busy holiday weekend. With so much on the to-do list, my family (Mom, Brother, Sister-in-law) called Friday night and asked if we needed help. They made the 2 hour trek down to the house for the weekend. I cannot express how thankful Cory and I are for all the help they gave us this weekend. We were able to check off all but one thing from the weekend's to do list, but got a whole lot of other things accomplished as well.

The garage is clean. WHOA. Definitely not something I could really help with, but I tried to do as much as I could. We got a 20yd dumpster and it's almost completely filled with junk. When the rest of the furniture is moved out it'll be so nice. You can ACTUALLY fit 2 cars in here now.

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The burn pile is GONE.

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During the reclaiming of the grounds there were a number of wonderful things discovered. Those things include a PEACH TREE, BLUEBERRIES, and a PEAR TREE! I'm so excited about all of these things. I'm not sure we'll really get anything out of them this year, but now that I know they're there I can take much better care of them later.

Other things that were accomplished:

• Laundry

• The new couches were organizes and the big TV was moved to the 'new' living space.

• Swept out the sun porch

• Called our power company to come out and place a new internet line in the living room where the offices will be.

• Trash was all picked up and thrown out

The only thing we didn't get to that was on the list for the weekend was moving everything out of the current office/nursery. However, it would be pointless to do this before we have our internet cable moved because its current location doesn't provide very good access in the other room across the house. Not to mention my new desk won't be in until later this week as well.

Outside of all the work, we were able to spend a little downtime too. Sunday morning we went to the local farmers market (BBQ Fest this week!) and got lots of goodies (new plants for the garden, boiled peanuts, donuts, local soda, fresh salsa, delicious BBQ... just to name a few), and we had an excellent lasagne dinner Sunday evening.  After the crew left, Cory and I rested a little then headed over to his mom's house for some burgers and hot dogs. I may or may not have eaten two burgers.

This will probably be the most successful weekend we have for a while. Cory and I have another weekend at home this week, so hopefully the nursery will be cleaned out and ready for paint by next week.

We're now accepting applications for landscaping around the front (Lori Ann....) and furniture movers for what's left over in the garage.

The Refrigerator Abyss/Problems from the Pantry

I work from home so everything I eat throughout the day comes from the things I can find around the house.

Since this whole pregnancy-thing started, I've had quite a few scruples with the fridge. Once it goes in.... it absolutely never comes out. This was generally true before of things we'd bring home from restaurants, but now it has extended to just about everything. Even things I just bring home from the store just sit in there. It's a complete waste any way you look at it and it makes me a sad panda.

I've also lost my desire to make food. I think this partially extends from my inability to cope with food in the fridge.

Now that I'm at 12 weeks, my ability to handle hunger has changed. Any time I start to feel hungry throughout the day I have to eat something in a pretty short time frame to keep from getting sick. This is becoming more of a nuisance since I'm having such a difficult time with keeping food around the house. If you have any ideas about what I can keep around the house (out of the fridge)... and doesn't require cooking or mixing, I'm all ears. Just keep in mind I'm trying to keep the salt and sugar at a minimum!