- want - need - wear - read - 2

I'm back again for my version of a Friday post! I explained my thought process last week. Here goes!

want.

I'd love a maid. I know it's kind of my job to clean the house but sometimes it just feels like that's all I do! Has anyone figured out the secret to cleaning and your house actually staying clean for more than one day? 

need. 

To get started on Beau's Canadian citizenship paperwork. Mark is Canadian and for $100 and some paperwork, Beau can become a dual citizen. We think that would be pretty cool for him and might have some benefits, but I just need to get started on it! I'm kind of scared it's going to take forever. Blah!

wear.

please pardon my mess

I wore this crazy outfit on Wednesday. I really like this plaid shirt I got at Gap but it fits really odd...kind of boxy. I still kept it but now I'm struggling with what to wear it with. I've seen people mix leopard and plaid and I DO like it, I just wasn't sure my method was the best looking. Anyway, I liked it well enough in the morning to wear it the rest of the day. I'm pretty sure everyone I came into contact with thought I was a lunatic, though. 

read. 

I needed to cook some chicken last night and as always, I turned to Pinterest for a quick recipe. I was wanting something crispy to go with my mac and cheese (a staple around here) and I ended up liking how easy and not too messy this fried chicken recipe was. I added a packet of Ranch dressing mix and it was nicely seasoned and really tasty!

Happy Friday!

sale alert!

Sale alert! Mom alert!

Y'all know I'm all about good deals so I had to share this one that I just got during Beau's (super long and awesome) morning nap.

Target is having their baby sale. At their last baby sale, I bought over 1000 diapers for about $0.08 each. I don't think this one is quite as good (the last one offered a $40 gift card if you spend $140 or something like that) but I'm just about through all of the sizes I bought last time and we needed more size 3 diapers. 

I bought 3 packs of the Up & Up diapers (I've heard they are great and they are the cheapest Target has) for $24.99. There are 160 diapers in each pack. When you buy 3 participating items, you get a $20 gift card.

I stacked that discount with my 5% red card discount, plus I ordered online so I added 2% cash back with Ebates. This way they will be delivered to my door (for free!) and save me the hassle and the temptation of going to the store. Mom win!

Confession - I wasn't thinking and I should have used one of my 15% off registry discounts, but oh well. I'm sure that will come in handy another time.

This way, I got each diaper for $0.10 each. Like I said, not as good as last time but way better than full price! This is cheaper than Amazon Mom, by the way!

So get shopping!!!

new around here

If you've been reading for awhile (or know me personally), you should know that I'm ALWAYS changing things around here. It's in my nature!

Most recently, I had a pretty good reason to change things up - new pictures! Of course, these new pictures include our new addition, so I was extra antsy to get them up.



I switched out two photos in frames we already had (dead center and top right) and added two new frames and pictures. I love this gallery wall, it's one of my favorite things in the house!



I love this side of the wall a lot. From top left: part of a gift that Mark made and gave me for our two year anniversary, a bridal portrait, another part of Mark's gift, a sign I made at a friend's bachelorette party, our wedding invitation, and me with my sweet baby boy. Lots of love in this space!



I found this mirror frame on major clearance at Target and I love the refined feeling it brings to this little table. Check your end caps, there might be some left! I also picked up this wild mint and verbena candle (mostly bought in order to use the jar when I'm finished burning it!) but it smells nice too.



Last but not least, Beau finally got a photo of our family in his room! I LOVE this photo (even though my face isn't showing - we all know who I am anyway) and I'm pretty dang obsessed with this frame too. I just wish this shelf was a tiny bit lower because it's a bit tight. I'll add that to my honey-do list.

Here are the frames I'm using and loving:


I also love the "BE MINE" banner I snagged at Target a couple of years ago. They don't have it anymore but they have some other great things in the dollar spot like this so check it out!

i miss being pregnant.

There, I said it. 

I've been trying to branch out on the blog and talk about things OTHER than babies, but I just had to write this down. I was reading old posts from when I was pregnant and the memories came flooding back and OH how I miss pregnancy. I really do.

Pregnancy wasn't too hard on me. I talked about it a LOT and I over analyzed every single little thing (as I tend to do), but it wasn't bad. The first trimester was meh, the second was great, and the third was torture towards the end, but I didn't hate it. I despised the back pain, the loss of appetite, the severe pelvic pain and just having to WAIT until Beau was born, but otherwise it treated me well.

I miss the kicks.

I miss the mystery and excitement of what was coming next.

I miss the daydreaming of who our baby would be.

I miss the attention, the sweet glances and kind words.

I miss a round belly that peaked around 30 weeks. 

I miss comfortable dresses and clothes and being able to get away with them.

I miss the research of ALL things pregnancy/labor simultaneously scaring me and exciting me.

I miss my HAIR.

I miss the hormones that made me feel like never before.

I miss the laziness that I could claim at any moment.

I miss the movements that just he and I shared.

I miss the hiccups.

I miss the guessing on what body part was poking me at any given time. 

I miss the wonder of life and knowing that my body was doing amazing things.

I LOVE Beau. Words cannot express it. I LOVE being a mom. Every day is better than the last and I am SO, SO, SO glad he is outside of me (because I don't miss the having to be patient for 40 weeks). But every now and then my stomach will gurgle and I'll place my hand there and for a split-second it will remind me of him when he was tiny and warm and safe and cozy in me. It was beautiful and it was wonderful. I miss it. 

On a lighter note, y'all can start placing your bets on how fast we'll get pregnant again but I'm still saying I want them 3+ years apart. I'm going to need help with another newborn!

a day at the museum

One major perk of staying home with Beau is getting to meet up with my family quite often. My mom doesn't work anymore so I see her about once or twice a week, even though she lives about 50 miles away. 

On Friday, she had a doctor's appointment in the 'big city' of Dallas so we made plans to meet downtown afterward. 

I did a little research and dubbed the day a 'cultural exploration' of Dallas, and that's about what it was. We had plans to check out Pecan Lodge but were apprehensive since it is known for a constant line out the door. As expected, the line was pretty long once we got there so we just walked down the street to Uncle Uber's, a delish sandwich shop in Deep Ellum. 

My mom and I both got the Roast Beef sandwich and it was SO good. REALLY, really good...so much so that I'll probably have to go back again soon to have another one. 

From there, we headed to the arts district to check out the Dallas Museum of Art. I'd been through it quickly a few years ago but hadn't been back since they started offering free admission, so we thought it would be fun to take a look at.

The museum is HUGE and we only made it through about 2/3 of what we wanted to see during our 3 hour tour there. 

This area showcased some modern furniture. Since I just 'retired' from the furniture industry, it was fun to take a look at and recognize pieces and names.

This is mom saying "That's 80's?" Yes, mom. #duh

We took a quick break while the tiniest member of the group had his second lunch and looked out over downtown. 

We saw Van Gogh, Cassat, Monet, Renoir, and many, many other GREAT pieces of art. I always forget how much I love cultural outings like these until I find myself in them. We both declared it a great day!

- want - need - wear - read -

Today I'm trying something new. I find it hard to come up with random things to talk about in the Five on Friday posts that I used to do (although I love reading them - it seems like everyone is more creative in their content than I am!) but I do like the conversation it creates and the opportunity something like that gives to just casually chat about the goings-on of life. 

Today's post is kind of a mash-up of the common "currently" posts that go around every once in awhile and a Christmas tradition I've recently heard, which I'll call "want, need, wear, read". The idea there is that instead of the materialism and excess that Christmas can bring, you limit the gifts for your children with that mantra and they get a well-rounded yet small number of gifts. I thought this was a good approach to a Friday post so I'm trying it out today! Here goes:

want.

I'm currently wishing it were summer. I feel like I was slighted a bit last summer since I was 7-9 months pregnant (I know - my own doing) and I didn't get to fully enjoy all the summer activities I usually love. Our winter in Texas so far has been mild, but I'm dreaming of warmer weather still.

need.

I NEED to figure out how to get Beau to be consistent with his sleeping. I know he's only four months and all, but he is pretty good about sleep except that it's never consistent. He'll do a 10 hour stretch one night, then is up at 3am to eat the next night. I've started attempting a pretty routine bedtime for him around 9pm but I never know how long he's going to last. He has never kept me up all night (knock on wood) but is it too much to ask for more consistency? 

wear.

I've bought two of these shirts in the last month and I'm dying for it to get cooler outside so I can wear them more often. They are pretty lightweight and semi-sheer with a HIGH slit up each side, which makes them pretty darn perfect for nursing. I always wear a tank under my shirts anyway so this shirt is perfect. Plus they're 50% off! I have the black and the forest green and I just bought the ivory while writing this post!

My body has changed so much and jeans just aren't quite right. I can fit into my old jeans but I'm just not happy with them - the demands of how you move change a lot after you have a kid to hoist up, put down, carry around, and so on. These jeans almost feel like sweatpants. They are almost in the jegging category but have just enough structure and coverage to be considered jeans. They stretch in the right places but they don't fall down all day (hallelujah!). At this price, I'm super happy with them!

I joke that I'm slowly collecting Converse in all colors for Beau. So far he has white and black and I really like these hipster-esque brown pair. I have to decide if I want to splurge on them or not, but they are so cute!

read.

Reading has been pretty sparse around here lately, but I guess lately I've been reading up on baby-led weaning! Woohoo, right?! A big topic these days is about when Beau is starting solids. I've decided to wait to start until 6 months for multiple reasons...but I am pretty sure I'm going to do the baby-led weaning approach. It seems like it will be easy and natural and as excited as I am to see his reaction to foods, it can wait! I've been reading up on it a bit (via Pinterest, of course) as that's about all the reading I have time for these days!

...

So there's that! Feel free to chime in with any baby-led weaning advice or warnings or anything else! And happy Friday, friends!

that #sahm life

Life for me has changed quite a bit over the last several months. I was in school for 18 years of my life. I got my first job when I was 16 and worked every year after that. I started my career the summer after college and I worked for more than five years after that. Now, I'm a stay at home mom! I always dreamed of being a stay at home mom and I have to say, it's a lot like what I thought it would be, but it's a lot different as well.

Being a stay at home mom is a big talking point in the mommy wars. It's usually looked at as being easy or not a REAL job. I'm not here to argue that, as I have my own opinions on the subject, but I am going to jot down some of my thoughts on my new life.

Pros:

-managing my own time

-getting to spend time with Beau all day long and developing a close bond

-running errands during working hours (not having to deal with crowds or worry about taking time off work to get things done)

-taking my time when doing errands, chores, etc. rather than rushing through them

-developing a creative side on Etsy and here on the blog

-seeing family and friends that are available during working hours

-taking a lot of the burden off of Mark when it comes to managing the house

Cons:

-doing all the dirty work even when I don't want to (like doctor visits, waking up with Beau at odd hours, grocery store visits, etc)

-staying within a smaller budget now that we're on one income

-cabin fever

-disconnect from 'adult life' 

-weekends just feel like weekdays with an extra person to clean up after

...........

I feel like I have it pretty good. Even my con list is a little stretched. So far, I really like my new 'job' and I'm so happy that Mark and I agreed that it was the best choice for us. 

I do want to do a 'day in the life' post sometime but I'm not sure I have the focus to document an entire day, so I'm just choosing some snippets to show a few things that we do during the week. 

The days vary a bit. I typically see my mom and/or my sister twice a week (I go there one day, they come here one day). I'm also trying to get in the habit of going to my church's ladies class which meets on Tuesday morning. Some days have big outings, others are just a quick trip to Target. I've also discovered WalMart Grocery Pickup which is a lifesaver and I'm actually pretty excited about cutting an hour of grocery shopping out of my life every two weeks or so. Other days, I try to stay home most of the day except maybe for one little errand and I'm starting to really like those days. I think Beau has gotten accustomed to the days we stay at home and they are usually our best days!

Here's how Wednesday went down:

7:30am - up with Beau (fed and then cat-napped)

9:15 - up again, changed and play

10:30 - fed Beau and put him down for a nap. picked up around the house, got dressed, started the dishwasher and a load of laundry

11:30 - Beau is up. Changed him and loaded up to go to lunch and Target

1pm - back from Target and time for Beau to eat and play

2:05 - Beau is down for a nap, I iron some of Mark's clothes and dust the house

2:45 - Beau wakes up. He plays while I pack away the clothes that he has outgrown. Then I vacuum the house, make the bed, and finish the laundry.

(sometimes I have to be in constant eyesight)

4:30 - Beau eats, we play and straighten up the rest of the house

6:30 - Beau snacks and takes another nap, I pay bills and tend to other paperwork

7:05 - Mark gets home (late) and helps out, Beau wakes up.

Super exciting, huh?

Things are definitely different and it's taken me a while to get into a groove, but I'm pretty excited about this new gig and our lives going forward! 

from drab to...not so drab

Come on in! Or should I say out?

Our porch needed an overhaul. That's the short story.

The long story goes something like this: Diana has big dreams of selling her first home and making enough money to move to a bigger, nicer home. Diana reads up on how to prepare your house before selling, sees curb appeal and first impression as one of the top things to do, and sets in motion redecorating the porch that has been ignored for too long.

Key words here are 'big dreams' so don't read into anything. We aren't even close to listing our home OR buying a new one and we don't know when that will happen. I am just a dreamer with too much time on my hands (except not literally, of course) and I took it as a good excuse to do some sprucing. 

I started out with a new rug. I browsed large outdoor rugs for hours but I knew in my heart that I wanted black and white stripes. Stripes are my love language and I was pretty sure I wanted to stay neutral since our house was already working with mostly neutrals. 

As an afterthought, I threw down my circular sisal rug that I found at Crate and Barrel for $15 about 4 years ago (that used to be somewhere else...remember these days?)

Next up was the chair. I had bought a teal chair from Target a couple years ago that sat here before but I just wasn't loving it. 

It was clashing with the brick and didn't work with what was in my head so I sold it to a neighbor and picked up this chair at Ikea the same day. The neutral worked for me and it was $20 cheaper than the black, so I snagged it. I have a can of black spray paint if the mood strikes. 

I pulled the pillows from inside and left our Home Sweet Home canvas up where it was.

While I was at Ikea, I was looking for a variety of pots, not really knowing what to do. I found these hanging planters and instantly knew they would go perfect with our scalloped entryway. I'm having a REALLY hard time growing anything on our porch (more on that later) so I picked up some faux plants and called it a day. 

The "B" sign was a housewarming gift and I've loved changing it out for the seasons. I tied on a greenery garland from Joann and added a leopard bow (another love language of mine) and it might be my favorite part of the porch.

That's just part one; the easy stuff. I still have a list of some more intensive items that I want to check off like:

-paint the floor (it was already painted blue but the majority of it has chipped away. I'm thinking grey?)

-re-paint the front door

-add natural bead board or wood to the ceiling; something like this

-replace the light (possibly)

-add pots/plants/decor on the ground to fill in the corner where the chair sits

That last point is the one I'm dreading the most. We've been here for two and a half years and I don't have a single surviving plant from our porch. Our house faces north and the porch is enclosed, as you can see, and everything just withers away. I've pinned some articles here about some shade-loving plants but I don't know...should I just go faux? I'm waiting to do this one until it's warmer, and the rest of the projects are waiting until my husband feels like helping me out (so don't hold your breath).

Still, I'm loving my quick little porch update!

things that surprised me about motherhood

I could write a 10 part series on pregnancy, labor, and motherhood (in fact - it's my favorite subject); but today I just jotted down a few of the things that stand out to me after being on this train for over a year now. Here are some of the things that surprised me about motherhood:

- you are stared at, oogled, and approached WAY more as a pregnant woman than as a mom with a cute baby. I still don't get this. The most random people would come up to me (especially at Target) and comment on or ask about my ever-enlarging stomach. People would stare as if they didn't understand procreation. Seriously, are there people out there that have never seen a pregnant woman? I fully expected the masses to come stare into my stroller once Beau was here (because obviously he's the cutest thing ever and everyone thinks so) but I've only had a handful of comments since he's been born. 

- your hair falls out. I had heard this and I thought it was just one of those things that only happens to some women and not me. A couple of months post-partum with no significant hair loss and I was all, "I got this". Cue the massive amounts of hair falling out at 3 months post-partum on the dot. And I mean massive. If I run my hand through my hair, I finish with a fistful of hair. I clean out my brushes on a daily basis and come up with a small animal-sized amount of hair. It's a running joke about where Mark finds my hair throughout his day. I'm starting to notice how thin my hair looks at the front and it's downright scary. I'm hoping this ends, and soon!

my face is in denial that I just lost 2 pounds of hair in the shower...

- your energy level is depleted. Just when I thought I was healing well and adjusting to life, I would go to Target for an hour and be downright exhausted at the end. I surprised myself at how stinkin' tired I would get doing ordinary things (like a grocery run) all the way up to 2 months after Beau was born. I'm still not 100% but I'm leaps and bounds past where I was. 

- everyone is different when it comes to pregnancy and labor. I feel like most women hate the first trimester the most but for me the third trimester was by far the worst. Some women have morning sickness, some get their punishment through indigestion. Some women labor in one hour, some take 24 or more. When my nurses were prepping me for 'practice' pushing, they told me that the average time a mother pushes is between 1-3 hours. I laughed to myself and thought it wouldn't take near that since my sister had both of her children within 30 minutes of pushing. The joke was on me, I realized, after the two hour mark of pushing...

the third trimester: when clothes attack

- the frequency of which you talk about poop increases tenfold. Poop is an everyday talking point and I'm always caught off guard with how normal it feels to bring it up in regular conversation. 

- you are surprised with how not a big deal spit up, poop, drool, pee, and snot is anymore. I used to hate being near my sister and her kids when they spit up because the smell just lingered and it was the grossest thing EVER. These days, I don't hesitate to put my hand out to catch fresh spit up or change a diaper as soon as it's soiled. It's weird. Don't get me wrong - it's still totally gross - it just isn't that big of a deal when it is your kid. 

- they grow SO fast. Everyone says it but it's TRUE, people. I can barely remember Beau when he was any smaller, much less the measly 9lbs 7oz he was when he was born. He is rocketing through clothes and shoes and swaddles and everything else. He is only four months old, but to me he seems so much older and bigger and different than he was when he was born. I'm prematurely mourning my baby growing up when technically, he's still a baby. Once they smile around the one month mark, the rest of it moves at lightning speed. Cherish it, mamas.