Favorites List 2010

In general, I'm not all about "stuff". I've become a little green in my old age (haha) and have adopted the recycle/repurpose/reinvent motto that has become so popular. I try to be conservative with my purchases and if I see something I can't live without, I usually try to either create it myself (which doesn't always work out) or find it second-hand. Now, don't get me wrong, I have my fair share of designer jeans and Coach bags-- there are things even this thrifty girl won't compromise on. So in the spirit of "sometimes you just need cool stuff", here are a few of my favorite things from the past year. If you're really interested (and I don't know why you would be), here is the list from 2009. Now then, my 2010 Favorites List!

Etsy (Specifically: Jewelry on Etsy)

More specifically: Stella Jade, Fancybelle Boutique, and Simple Serendipity. Sarah, of Stella Jade, is a blog friend of mine who actually lives half a country away and is one of the sweetest people I know (but don't really know). She saw a book on my wish list on my blog's side bar and offered to send me her copy when she was done-- then she ended up buying me a copy from Amazon. So thoughtful! Her jewelry is super cute and SUPER affordable and more than once I've ordered gifts and *almost* kept them for myself.

Hand stamped jewelry has been really popular for a while and I've wanted a necklace every since I was pregnant with Mason. After losing the baby in October I finally ordered a simple disc from Fancybelle Boutique with my favorite verse, Jeremiah 29:11, and one birthstone for Mason and one for the other baby on it. I wear it every day and is the (second) most meaningful piece of jewelry I own. Love.

Finally, Simple Serendipity just has some fun pieces that are WAY cheap. You can totally justify buying several items because they are so cute and inexpensive.

The moral of the story? Shop Etsy. Support handmade and small business. Maybe make a friend or two along the way.

Gap's Real Straight denim

These are the skinny jeans for those of us who have resisted the skinny jean craze because we think you have to be skinny to wear skinny jeans. (Can I fit the word "skinny" in there one more time? Skinny skinny skinny.) Ain't No Mom Jeans suggested the Gap Real Straight jean and I pretty much bought them immediately. Side note: If you don't already read ANMJ, you're missing out. Unless you have fashion sense (unlike me), then you could probably be a contributor for ANMJ. Or start your own fashion blog (Heidi).

Shutterfly
Besides the free photo storage, Shutterfly is constantly offering me free stuff. My 2010 Christmas cards were free, thanks to a blog promo. Then, for sharing my Christmas card on this blog, they gave me $25 to spend on other Shutterfly stuff. I've gotten free photo books (which made awesome grandparent gifts last year) and you can always find promos going on. Thanks, Shutterfly.

Bikram Yoga
Hot yoga. As in, yoga done in an extremely HOT room. Like over 100 degrees. It's sweaty. It's intense. It's an hour and a half class at the studio I go to. Bikram yoga is very challenging but so amazingly cleansing-- physically and mentally. You can burn up to 800 calories per class and I swear you sweat out every single toxin in your body. I think everyone should try it. (Full disclosure: I have no sense of smell, so a bunch of sweaty people in close proximity in a non-ventilated room does not bother me. Just sayin'. Consider that.)

Trader Joe's Well Red Organic Wine
There had to be something TJ's in my list, since that is where I can be found twice a week. Matt recently warned a friend of his who was rummaging through our refrigerator that, "Everything in there is healthy and from Trader Joe's". Anyway, the Well Red is about $6 a bottle and is sulfite-free. I'm totally a sucker for clever-- and the name "Well Red" appeals to my nerdy appreciation for vocabulary and a play on words. Aside from that, it's the perfect wine for a mild, it's-been-a-long day glass at the end of the night. Add to that a packet of their dark chocolate peppermints and O.M.G. Heaven.

So there you go. I hope you found something new or will commit to trying something new in the next year. Now, do tell: What are a few of your favorite things?

Mason's take on Christmas decor

"Santa, get up."

You know, it's one of those inflatable lawn characters. Deflated. Mason was pretty concerned about Santa's well being on our front lawn. So funny.

Saturday Smile

Freeze!

When I wasn't looking, Mason peeled off his church bag tag and stuck it over his mouth last weekend. In an effort to snap a picture before he took it off, I told him to put his hands up.

I almost made this a "You caption" post, but the look on his face suggested it would be a good idea to explain. I wasn't holding my child hostage. At least in this photo...

Hide and Seek

I've got to say, that is the cutest thing I think I've ever found under the bed.

Thanksgiving

Mason spent Thanksgiving with Tage and his family. I spent the holiday at my Aunt Stacey's with my mom and brothers.

Grandma Shepard with all of her grandkids.

Hope you had a nice holiday too! Now to tackle that Christmas list...

2010 Christmas Card

Modern Family Holiday Card

Get custom holiday cards online at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

A little more professional looking than my DIY version last year, don't you think?

Apparently I'm starting a tradition of including a Christmas picture of Mason with drool on his shirt. 2 years in a row now.

Making its way to a mailbox near you in the next couple of weeks!

Our newest baby!

Everyone's baby is "our" baby in my incredible group of friends.

Meet Anna Mary, born November 19, 6 lb. 7 oz.

Nothing short of perfect, if you ask me.

Congratulations L. Shanna and family!

Happy Friday!

This is the description of tomorrow night.

Pictures to come next week.

Hope you have a great weekend!

(Image from HERE)

Parenting Lessons Learned the Hard Way #4

Mason is gradually getting out of the habit of following me around everywhere and is becoming a bit more independent. I try to leave the room and let him play on his own as much as possible.

Yesterday morning before leaving for work I sneaked back into bed for a few minutes while he played in his bedroom.

Five minutes later, this...

 was filled with this...

Mason had walked into the office, which is adjacent to his bedroom, and started throwing everything in sight into the fish tank.

Parenting Lesson Learned the Hard Way: Always keep a lid on your fish tank, or keep the door to the spare bedroom closed.

Saturday Smile

A few pictures from the harvest festival "photo booth" last weekend...

Say 'hoo'!

I am totally my mom in this picture.

"Look this way! Sit there! Don't move! Smile! Let me fix your mask!"

And my favorite one. Me and my little owl.

Halloween

My little owl!

Mason's costume this year was made entirely of things we already owned-- a brown t-shirt and an abundance of felt. (Is there anything you can't do with felt?)

It probably took me an hour and a half to make the whole costume. Cutting out the felt feathers was the most time consuming part. I sewed them onto Mase's shirt and cut out some shapes for the mask. The best part was, he didn't really even know he was wearing a costume-- and even though the elastic on the mask was a little snug, he still wanted to wear it. What a trooper!

We didn't actually go trick-or-treating this year. Our neighborhood church hosted a harvest festival with carnival games. As you can see, they let Mase cheat a little bit. Maybe it was okay since we weren't playing for candy...

He looks like such a big boy in that bounce house!

Here it is: PROOF that I don't always deprive my poor child of sugar. (Insert sarcasm and eye-rolling here.)

Rookie parent mistake: Giving your toddler sticky candy while in the car because you think the fact that it's on a stick will deter him from touching the sticky candy part.

Weekend in pictures

Happy Birthday Jenna!

The princess even had her very own castle (the boys are storming the gates here).

The kids got to dress up in their Halloween costumes. Can you guess what Mason is?

The birthday girl opening gifts, with help from dad.

Church on Sunday and dodging enormous rain drops completed the weekend!

21 months

"I see you!"

Little guy on a big playground

"You have a flower on your nose, honey."

 "See it!"

Oh how Mason is growing.

21 months today? Really? As in, 3 months away for being a TWO year old???

It can't be.

Mason's first: ER visit

I picked Mason up from Tage's on Saturday around 4:30PM and found him sitting on the couch watching TV-- something this toddler isn't likely to be found doing for more than 30 seconds. He had slept 12 hours straight on Friday night and shortly after waking up, took a 3 hour nap. I got him home and took his temperature and found it to be 105 degrees... so the next call was to the advice nurse, who had the on-call doctor call me back and tell me I needed to take Mase to the emergency room.

Off we went at 6PM.

Tage met us there with a spoon, since I had brought some chicken and rice but nothing to feed him with, and he ran out to get diapers because Mason peed through the one I had just put on him an hour earlier. Despite the hour and a half wait, Mason was in pretty good spirits and even ran back and forth down the hallways of the ER for a while.

The ER doctor gave Mase some Motrin, took his temperature once more (104 that time), decided that no blood work needed to be done, and sent us on our way at 8PM. We spent Sunday at home resting and continuing the ibuprofen every 6 hours and Mason seems to be feeling better.

So much for our big plan to take Mason to Apple Hill on Sunday... hopefully we'll get another chance to do that soon! And hopefully that first ER visit will also be the last for a very long time...

Saturday Smile

If you want to impress dinner guests

Make THIS soup,

serve it with THIS fish,

(I made it with tilapia and omitted the shallots/onions)

and add THIS quinoa salad.

The whole meal took half an hour, start to finish, and everyone raved about it. Seriously. And they all went back for seconds.

The girls of Edina

Labor Day weekend I got to take a mini-vacation to visit with friends in Edina, Minnesota. Two full days in a suburb of Minneapolis and one of those was spent at the Minnesota State Fair. Here we are taking the bus to the fair, because the fair is enormous and if you drive there and park you have to walk all day to get there. At least that's what I'm told.

The Minnesota State Fair is also so enormous that you can't walk the entire thing (especially not with pregnant ladies in your group). The sky-ride thing was awesome.

We all know the only reason you go to the fair is the food though. Check out Heidi's thorough recap of all things fried HERE. (And all the shopping!)

Best part of the trip, these moments...

The whole reason for the Edina getaway-- L. Shanna's baby shower. Kim and L.'s sister-in-law put together a gorgeous and elegant celebration of Chewy. You can read their recaps HERE and HERE and L.'s HERE.

Obviously, I am the last to post pictures and thoughts of the weekend, but it was such a good time with some of the most important women in my life. I am the luckiest woman in the entire world.

The newest "C"

I finally got my hands on this baby!

Cole was excited to meet me too...

Mason, however, was a little confused by this small, wiggly person who was taking his place in my lap

Camden and Mase, the "big" kids

Heather looked beautiful, of course. She makes everything look easy, even parenting four children.

I love you guys and am so excited to watch Cole grow!

Change is...

I am pretty good with change, especially when it is a change for the better. My Facebook status has been officially "single" for a while now but the actual being single part happened before that. It felt like long before that. Tage and I were not married and after splitting up and him moving out, life feels pretty much exactly like it did when we were together-- at least as far as he and I are concerned. Mason took about 3 days to adjust to "Daddy house" and "Mommy house" and seems to be doing just fine too.

Did I ever imagine I'd be doing the single mom thing? Um, no. Does it suck to have to think about the logistics of seperate holidays and shared weekends? Definitey. Do I want what's best for my son? Absolutely. Which is why I know this was the right decision. I want Mason to grow up with parents who are happy and love each other, who model a friendship and mutual respect and who enjoy being around each other. I want him to grow up in a household knowing what a healthy relationship and a strong marriage looks like and I want him to have parents who can openly pray with him and demonstrate and teach him about God's love and forgiveness.

That being said, the past several weeks have been all about getting organized, focusing all my time and energy on Mason when I have him, and replacing furniture in our empty little house. Not much to blog about, unless you are interested in pictures of the holes in the wall and the bare rooms we were left with. Despite the emptiness of our physical surroundings, our lives still feel very full. Mason and I are enjoying our time together and I am doing the best I can to make the most of every minute. That's the way we should all live, right?

As one of my best friends reminded me, "An empty house means more room to hit balls".

And hey, it's an excuse to start a few repurposing and refinishing projects. I'll catch up with the blogging again, thanks for everyone's support, encouragement and prayers. God is so good.