Saturday Hike

On Saturday morning I took Everly on her first hike! She did awesome. She was awake and squealing the entire time. I wore her in the baby bjorn (Thanks to Justin's Aunt Debbie for that!) the entire time and she did great. We went with my sister and her puppy Herbie---who got more attention than my adorable baby. It was a good workout for me and a lot of stimulation for her so it was a win-win! Here are a few pics from the morning...

View of North Phoenix from North Montain

Yes..she wears a bow while she hikes!

Herbalicious taking a water break

Krystyn and Herbie

Me and the princess

New Discoveries

Just this past week it seems that Everly has evolved so much! First of all, she has discovered her voice. Over a month ago we first heard her squeak, but this past week she has really perfected it. She has this high pitched bird squeak and she just lays around making this noise all of the time now. We will wake up to it on the baby monitor sometimes. It is sooo funny and she is so happy doing it! Here is a video of her from earlier this week...make sure you have your sound on!




Everly has also discovered her dogs this past week. Until just the other day she never really paid any attention to them, but now she is reaching for them. It is so cute. They are mostly good, but sometimes they lick a little too much. Here is a cute pic of her petting Roi the beagle. (Notice skinny Minnie on her dog beg off to the side...what a honey badger!)

Kitty Love Friday

Oscar is such a sneaky little cat. He is constantly trying to get fed twice. As soon as you walk up the stairs or get out of bed in the morning he sprints down the hallway to his food bowl waiting for you to fill it. Most of the time there is still food in there...but apparently that is not good enough for him! The other day he completely acted like Justin had not fed him so I filled it up just to find out a few minutes later that he had already eaten. Here is a pic of him waiting as I write this, despite the fact that there is food in his dish!

Happy Friday!

4 month Update!

Yesterday Everly turned 4 months old! She is still 100% breastfed, despite the fact that last month I went back to work full time. I won't know her exact weight until we take her in for her checkup this week, but she is still pretty tiny! She still fits in 0-3, and 3 month clothes and wears size 1 diapers. This past month we got to hear her giggle/laugh for the first time. It was so cute and it is so fun to see her personality developing. She is becoming more and more talkative and we love it. For the most part she is still doing really good at sleeping through the night and her and Justin have a really good nighttime routine. Everly loves watching TV. She watches Disney Channel and Yo Gabba Gabba! She still loves bath time and swim class. This past month Justin has been handing her to me at the end of my shower and she loves that as well! She loves feeling the water running over her. We are working on giving her more and more tummy time each day and she does really well...when she is in a good mood. She very quickly can turn from happy to screaming, but it is usually because she is hungry or tired. She often fights her tiredness during the day and we have to work hard to rock her to sleep but it is getting better. And when she is hungry she does not like to wait...but hey, neither do I. She loves her cousin Cameron and spending time with him every Friday! She is becoming more interactive with her toys and is grabbing at almost everything. Last night she even pulled on Grandma's hair! We can't wait to see how much she develops in the next month!

Kitty Love Friday

 Kitty apparently needs his diaper changed! Happy Friday!

Self Photo Challenge

I love it when a blog I read directs me to another fun blog. It's kind of like meeting a new friend! I discovered Chelsey's blog The Paper Mama through Lacy's recent post on Living on Love.  Chelsey is doing a photo challenge right now and giving away a credit to her amazing Etsy Shop for a custom family portrait (I want one so bad!) and the challenge seemed really fun so I decided to join! Enjoy!

Obsessing over…
Coffee...I love coffee all day long every day. Is it a surprise that I worked at Starbucks in college?

Working on…
Balancing my life as a working mother. I have been back to work for a month now and I still have a lot to figure out but I have an amazing support system!

Thinking about…
Drinking a beer while watching the super bowl this weekend. I have been sooooo good this week I deserve it!

Anticipating…
Our trip to St. Simon's Island, GA in June. It will be our first family trip and I am so excited to see my aunt and uncle and introduce them to our little princess!

Listening to…
Death Cab! My fav and so excited for our awesome seats at their show when they come in May :)

Eating…
3 egg whites with a little bit of bell peppers, tomatoes and cheddar cheese for breakfast every morning. It has been going pretty good and has got to be a lot better for me than the bagel and cream cheese I was eating!

Wishing…
I would win the powerball! Seriously, wouldn't that be awesome!

Fitness Challenge Update and a Recipe

So since this week I have started my fitness challenge which you can read about over here on my friend's blog. So far it is going pretty good but it definitely does take a lot of planning. On Sunday we made all of our breakfast for the week ahead of time and planned for all of our lunches, dinners, and snacks. Tonight we are making a meal that we have been making for over a year now that we found on one of our favorite sites, The Kitchn which is a branch of the awesome site Apartment Therapy. The recipe is for Turkey Chili with Kale and I love it for a few different reasons. First of all, it is easy! I am not a great cook, but I can make this and it has a lot of flavor. Second, it is healthy! We don't have to change anything about this meal to make it fit into the nutrition guidelines we are trying to stick to with the fitness challenge. Third, it makes great leftovers! Some food just doesn't reheat well, but this does, which makes planning for lunch the day after making it very easy. I am looking forward to this yummy meal tonight and if it sounds good to you, you can get the recipe here!

Also, the ranking on Top Baby Blogs were reset yesterday :( Please help us out by clicking below to vote and then clicking on the owl in the new window! Thanks!

Kitty Love Friday

So I took this picture last week for this photo a day challenge I am doing over on instagram. The day's challenge was to take a picture of a reflection so I snapped this pic of me and Everly looking into a big mirror that we have hanging in our stairwell. I didn't even notice until Justin pointed it out to me later that our kitty Oscar snuck into the picture at the top of the staircase! What a cutie! Happy Friday!

Fitness Challenge

So post-pregnancy, I really have not done anything to become pro-active in losing the baby weight. I have started soccer back up once a week and I have gone on a few jogs and walks and played tennis a couple of times but I am ready to seriously start working hard. I want to start feeling better, and I know that losing weight will help that. Luckily, I have a pretty awesome friend who is an amazing personal trainer. She is running a fitness challenge that starts 1 week from today and ends April 8th and Justin and I are both going to do it. You can check out the details of the challenge and join yourself, here!  I know it is going to be tough, but I like to win stuff so I am hoping that the opportunity to win some money will motivate me to take this challenge seriously. Also, Justin and I are doing the Pat's Run April 21st so this will help us get ready for that. It will be my 4th time doing the Pat Tillman Run and I would really like to not embarass myself! I am going to miss bread and icecream but I think I am really going to enjoy fitting into clothes comfortably again! This is a pic from the summer Justin and I started dating. We both looked so skinny and young!

Kitty Love Friday

Kitty bib..haha. This guy has been so energetic lately. I don't know what has gotten into him. He got these little goldfish toys for Christmas and we will be down stairs and we can hear him sprinting around upstairs chasing these goldfish around. It sounds like thunder! I know the goldfish have a little catnip in them. but jeez! It's weird, sometimes he gets really excited over catnip and other times he doesn't care. Whatever it is, he loves those goldfish. Thanks Mom for the great present! Happy Friday!

Living on Love Challenge

One of the blogs I read is doing a monthly challenge where there will be a new challenge each month and I thought it would be fun to do. The January challenge is to enjoy a FREE family outing. Well, it is not hard for us to get out this time of year because we have really easy winters so this was pretty easy for us. Plus, we are pretty active so there was a lot to choose from. We have gotten back into playing tennis since my sister moved back to Arizona so I thought I would share that for the challenge. Last monday night we headed over to the park and played a little tennis. It is a great workout and baby Everly was really great the whole time. She was just laying in her stroller entertaining herself. Here are a few pics from the evening...

Future tennis player?

Yes...we wear shorts in January!

Herbie the ball boy

My sis Krystn

Krystyn's fiance Tony

My little sis Katy

Action shot!

I am already looking forward to next month's challenge!