Thursday, January 16, 2014

Hot Vanilla

Tonight I'm linking up with Andrea and Erika for a Favorite Things Party!  It's where you share your favorite things under $10.  I've got three favorites right now and they all have to do with hot drinks!

First favorite:  HOT VANILLA.  Oh my goodness this is my latest be-my-own-barista creation and I feel that my lifetime love of fancy drinks has come to its highest moment of fruition.  It's simply scalded milk with the following ingredients added: a splash of vanilla syrup (2 tsp) and vanilla extract (1 tsp) (we get our vanilla extract from Mexico and it's amazing) and a dollop of honey (1 tsp). 


Mmmm.  It is delicious, sweet, light, creamy, and comforting!


But if you're in the mood for hot chocolate, it must be this- my second favorite thing for today.  I don't know that I can be your friend unless it's this.  My mother raised me right - on Williams Sonoma hot chocolate.  It's simply a matter of values.


And lastly, it's not under $10 anymore, but it was when my MIL got it for me on sale - a milk frother!  This is a must have for any fancy drink!  I can't wait until mine arrives!



See you back tomorrow for Jo's five month pictures!


Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Top 2 Tuesday: Randoms

1. Yesterday the local high school track team made a stop at our playground and Jonah was FASCINATED.  He listened intently to every word the coach said and his jaw dropped when the boys started running again.


2.  I am loving my part time schedule.  Who would have thunk?!  Stay tuned tomorrow for a special "Day in the Life" edition to celebrate Jonah's 5 month birthday!

Happy Tuesday!

A Day in the Life at 20 Weeks

Jonah is 20 weeks old today.  Wow.  I think this is the last time I'll calculate his age by weeks instead of the calendar, mainly because his next vaccine (flu) has to be calculated by calendar and not weeks.  Also, it will help stave off his half birthday a little longer!!

Weight: 19 # even (he was 7#11oz at birth)

Length: he's squirmy so this is an estimate ... 26.5 inches (20" at birth)

Clothing size: 18-24 mos.  But he can also rock a 2T.  I can't keep up with this kid.

Hair: still fabulous.  We trimmed it above his ears to avoid the look my husband so lovingly referred to as "homeless."

Mobility: Rolling over if you get him positioned for it.  Grabbing feet, but because of his belly they can't make it to his mouth.  Supported sitter.  Driving.  Reaching and grabbing intentionally.  Can sit up from a slanted seating position.  During tummy time he also can scoot himself around with his head in the same spot - like the hand of a clock.  I think he's taking the term 'tummy time' too literally.

Sleeping:  usually from 8:00pm to 7:00am.  He wakes up once or twice a week for a 3:00am feeding.  

Eating: Still nursing.  He also eats 2.5-5 oz of solid foods and 2-4 oz of formula per day.  So far he's had blueberries, pears, apples, sweet potatoes, squash, and bananas.  The bananas were not a parent favorite.  It's true you are what you eat because they made him bananas.

Shay did a blog post about a day in the life for her and it was so fun to peer into someone else's world, so I thought I'd do the same.  It will be fun to do these periodically and see how our daily routine changes.  Here is a day in the life of Jonah, Mommy, and Daddy (Papa).  This was a typical weekday!  Enjoy!


6:00 am - Say good morning and bye to Howard. Start laundry.

If I bookend each day with laundry I can stay on top of it.  (Which means we can see some of the floor in our closets instead of none.)

6:30 - Work

I like to get caught up on my grading, lesson planning, and anything else that needs to be done for teaching my 2 French classes.

7:00 Jonah's awake! He starts talking when he's awake and ready to be picked up.


He's always so smiley and cute in the morning as he starts to stir

Diaper change #1


Jonah has breakfast in bed while I munch on a granola bar and read my Bible


I'm doing a read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan with friends at church.


7:30 Text Papa to say good morning 


Mom finishes her school thoughts and Jonah checks to make sure the car has gas and is ready for the day


8:00 time to change for our jog!

Waiting on Mom to change

Mirror time (for Jonah)


Jonah's turn to change!  Diaper #2


Window time - we always have a little ceremony for opening the window in Jonah's room and talking about the weather and our plans for the day.  



Plan B on the jog.  Jonah fell asleep.


8:40 - After cuddling sleeping Jo and getting this far in writing this post, my arm starts shaking from holding an almost 20 pound sack of potatoes, so I decide to try a transfer to the swing and a Jillian Michaels workout in the living room.

Success!



NOT.  That lasted 3 jumping jacks.  Jog it is!


My go-to Pandora station for runs

Sunny skies sweepin' the clouds away!

Swing in the park

Then it's back home for an impromptu rhyming song about Mommy's protein shake (I should send the lyrics to Florence and the Machine.)



Now it's time for Jonah's protein shake.  And I turned on some Dave Ramsey.



10:30 - Mommy's gotta shower!

Afterwards Jonah fell asleep and took a 20 min nap in the crib- woohoo!  Perfect - I could finish getting ready.




I've missed logging several diaper changes.  I lost count.

12:00 - Playtime with mommy and another protein shake

12:30 - Jonah's turn!  Time to nurse.

Our sitter is here!  She is so wonderful and nurturing.  I call her Mary Poppins!  

It makes it a little easier to leave knowing I get to go see this guy at school!  Howard and I teach right across from each other :-)


But we don't teach the same thing.  I teach French and he teaches this foreign language:


And here was Jonah while Mama and Papa were teaching:

There was some crying too, but I didn't take pics of that.  He's still adjusting to me working part time.

An hour and a half of teaching later, I'm out the door and headed back to my chubby preciousness!  I love my schedule - 1.5 hours four afternoons a week.  It's been perfect.

Jonah, Howard, and myself are always starving after school.  Even though it's early (4:00), we all like our big meal of the day at that time so it's a mad rush to get everyone fed.  


By 5:00 we've all had our turn to eat (I look forward to when we can sit at the table and eat all at the same time) and Jonah is conked out in my arms.

An hour later Jonah is up and it's time for solids!

Sweet potatoes and apples!

Except this is what happens first when it's served by two teachers:


Poor kid.

Now it's bath time!  (For Jonah, not Howard...just in case the picture of him playing with bathtime toys was confusing).

Afterward we do pjs, nurse, bottle, and read from this awesome book (seriously it's amazing.  Howard and I both teared up the first times we started reading it to Jo.)


A lot of spit up and a few pajama changes later, our little chubby lovey is finally down for the night.

Time for laundry and dishes, boring stuff like bills and insurance, and then at 9:00 Mama gets a shower, sweet treat and bed herself at 10:00!  


That's our typical day right now.  Glamorous, huh?  I think so. :-)

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Blogs!

I've been meaning to share with y'all for awhile now about the blogs I read and have been cooking up this post for you.  Some of you who are new to this blogging world may think I'm crazy when I say how much I love reading blogs, but let me explain.

When I was working on my grad degree online through Abilene Christian University I would often get asked the question, "So don't you feel disconnected?  Do you miss the classroom experience?" And I could whole heartedly reply with a resounding, "NO!" because I found that I grew to know and became far more connected to my classmates than I ever would have in real life!  A huge part of that I believe was the time spent together.  Because class was all online, we could log in when convenient and I'm pretty sure we all put in more hours doing that than we would have meeting outside of class to work on projects in person.

The other component to the closeness and familiarity I think can be attributed to the fact that we weren't spending most of our time as we would in a classroom, sitting and listening to a lecture.  The majority of our time spent logged on to class was interactive, and it was a lot of time.  I also think people are simply more prone to share with you from behind a computer screen than with a stranger in person.

I really ended up loving that click and mortar experience and it opened my eyes to the misconceptions promulgated by older generations about the impersonal aspects of online interactions.  It doesn't make in-person encounters any less genuine.  I simply learned that online situations can also be genuine as well.

So when my graduate school experience ended, I found myself online looking for new ways to interact (as well as share and document) and somehow discovered the world of bloggers.  I have been so pleasantly surprised with what I've found, and with whom I've connected. 

I stopped Facebooking a few years ago (even though I'm old enough to have been on it when it first started, was only used by college kids, and was called "The Facebook") and I find that I enjoy blogging so much more than Facebook.  I think it's the fact that when people blog, there's an editing aspect involved.  What they want to say is often planned (many serious bloggers even have editorial calendars - they're effectively running one-woman online magazines!) and when they say it it's typically focused and rich with content.  I just prefer that over reading what everyone had for lunch.  Sorry, Facebook.  You lose.  

So, all that to say, here are some (just some!) of my favorite blogs.  Most are mommy style blogs, which I love for the autobiography aspect (and believe it or not the friendship aspect as well) but a couple here are money, fashion, food, or living well type of blogs which I've also thoroughly enjoyed.  I hope you do too! 

By the way, if you get into blogging check into the Bloglovin' app on your iPhone.  It's free and pulls together all the blogs you subscribe to in one nice feed. 

Andrew and Shay

Shay Shull lives in McKinney, TX and is Sean from The Bachelor's sister.   She is a Christ-centered, strong, driven mommy and her blog always makes me feel like I'm at a slumber party with an awesome friend!  Shay was so encouraging to me as a new mom! 

Big Mama

Melanie Shankle lives in San Antonio, TX and is the author of Sparkly Green Earrings (a MUST read).  I'm so excited for her new book coming out in February (perfect Valentine's gift to tell your guy to give to you!) and love her hilarious blog about daily (real) life.

Boo Mama

Sophie Hudson lives in Birmingham, Alabama and is the author of A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet (another must read).  She and Melanie (above) are much coveted speakers at Christian women's events.  They also have a podcast that cracks me up.

Confessions of a Pioneer Woman

This is Ree Drummond's (The Pioneer Woman) blog.  I love seeing her Oklahoma ranch and reading about her always-from-scratch home cooking.  (Because reading about it is as close as I get to making it.)

Fed & Fit

This very professional blog is done by a San Antonio gal named Cassandra.  It's about the Paleo lifestyle.  Also something I only get as far as reading about...

Get Rich Slowly

This is an excellent blog about personal finance, one of my passions (albeit weird).  Founded by a Portland, OR guy named J.D. Roth, this site has garnered much attention and followers and is consistently sound in its advice.

Kelly's Korner

Kelly Stamps records her family's goings on at her blog, but moreover she shares about Christ.  She writes for a magazine in her hometown in northwest Arkansas and has garnered a large following on her blog.  I recently learned that 9 couples have met and married because of an online dating event she held on her blog!!  Crazy!


Letters to Aubrey

This blog is written by my dear friend Krystal in San Antonio.  Krystal and I met through the church small group she and her husband Kyle led 6 years ago.  She was there for me in big ways when we lost Elijah, so she can't get rid of me now!  Krystal blogs about daily life with her precious daughter Aubrey and the sweet baby they are expecting through adoption.

McAnally Family

Andrea is friends with Shay Shull and I love seeing pics of her precious kids and darling always decorated for the holidays house.  Andrea teaches at a private Christian school so I feel we are of kindred spirit.  I love both her mommy and teacher tips.

More Than Money

Written by J.D. Roth, this is an off-shoot site of Get Rich Slowly.  It's incredibly profound.  I find that 'incredibly profound' is hard to come by these days, so you should definitely check this blog out.

Pinterest Told Me To

I have never been into shopping for clothes (seriously, I really do hate it), but when I found myself with a whole new body and no more borrowed maternity wear (and no time to go to the mall), Shaeffer's blog came to the rescue.  I feel like I can keep up with what's in style because of my new personal shopper, Shaeffer!

Rage Against the Minivan

Kristen Howerton is an opinionated columnist and blogs about relevant cultural issues.  She's passionate about advocating for the little guy, whoever that may be at the moment in our society.  Her posts always leave me thinking.


Let me warn you, if you start it's hard to stop!  And these are just your gateway blogs.  Start reading, and you'll find yourself linking over to even more.  But blog wisely and you'll be the better for it.

Another warning:  don't blog and drive. You might forget about the driving part.



Did I miss a good blog?  What are you reading online?  Leave your thoughts and reading recommendations in the comments section below!