Musings of a mommy on this thing called guilt…

Sooooo… tomorrow afternoon I’m heading out for my girls weekend! I am so excited about spending the weekend with two of my very close, sweet friends, Iva and Sally!! I haven’t seen Sally since our visit to Georgia last summer and we are soooooooooo excited about seeing her!

But…. why is it SO hard as a mom to feel ok with leaving? I know this weekend will be so good for all of us (especially for Ava and her daddy – b/c Ava is a major mommy’s girl and it will be good for her to spend some quality time with daddy). However, it’s like since becoming a mom, I’m programmed with guilt whenever I’m away from her doing something for me. Silly, I know. I totally believe that I need this time away. And I know I will have an absolute blast because I’m going to be with two amazing women. But for tonight, before I leave, I’m fighting the tears knowing I’ll miss this sweet little girl. I spent extra time loving on and holding her at bedtime this week to get in my Ava fix. I know that going away like this will make me a better mommy and wife because I’m getting a few days to be totally selfish and focus on me instead of someone else. I think the reason I’m having a hard time with this trip is because this will be the longest I’ve been away from her. But, I know she’s in great hands (she’s got an amazing dad!) and they will have fun on their daddy/daughter weekend!

Zach, thank you for being such a wonderful daddy and so supportive of me and my need to have some time for myself (and with my friends)! I’m so blessed and so thankful to have you as my husband!

Great weekend!!!

This was one of those weekends that didn’t just scream by and I loved it!!!!! When I got home Friday, we took care of a few things and then went and grabbed dinner at our favorite Mexican place! Ava loves it too! (I think it’s so cute what the humidity does to her hair!)We headed home and tidied up a little. Thankfully we were neat this week and didn’t have much to do in the way of cleaning – woohoo! After Ava went to sleep we watched New Moon.

We woke up to rain Saturday morning! I love “sleeping in” to dark skies and ran (hey, I’ll take 7:00 – it’s later than I get up during the week!)! After a short break in the rain, Zach thought he’d try to run and do the grocery shopping. I attacked another beast – our closet!! A few weeks ago I started going through the house doing some spring cleaning (kinda). I did lots of cleaning and purging – and kept putting off our closet! I figured it’d be bad. It actually didn’t take all that long and I’m sooooooo glad I did it, b/c it looks so great and now I don’t have it looming over me!!!! After all of that we just ran some errands and relaxed the rest of the day.

Ava woke up this morning and as I walked out of her room (at 6:58 b/c I glanced at the clock), Zach says “I wonder if we should try and make it to Mass at 8:00?” We made it and I’m glad we did. Afterwards we had breakfast with my grandparents, took care of a few things I needed to do, and then exchanged some stuff at Wal-Mart, all before 11:00! Right before nap time I wanted to try on Ava’s flower girl dress and shoes for my cousin’s wedding in 4 weeks:Lexie, I hope we have better luck on your wedding day!! However, I can totally see this going down….

Zach had to go to a function for his school tonight so Ava and I spent the afternoon/evening by ourselves. We made a quick trip to Target and then came home and made dinner. After dinner we always head straight for the bath and as always she enjoyed playing in there. Doing what she loves to do – brushing her teeth. She’d do it all day if we let her. She randomly goes to the bathroom and gets her toothbrush out and “brushes”… crazy kid. And my freshly clean little girl – love her!!!!!!! I hope everyone has had as great a weekend as we did!!! And here’s to a great week!!!

Oh, and don’t forget to enter my giveaway to win Pampered Chef products here!!!!!

Something new & exciting!!! AND A GIVEAWAY!!!!!!

I have recently started something new and am so excited to be sharing about this! A couple of weeks ago, I became an Independent Consultant for Pampered Chef!!! I really enjoy cooking and was in need of some new kitchen utensils when someone at work hosted a catalog party. I was in awe at the interest people seemed to have in the products so I began looking into selling. I met with a local director a couple of times and after discussing with Zach and a lot of prayer, we decided I should go for it!!

Not only do the parties I do help me, they help the host(ess)! I submitted my first party over the weekend and the hostess received almost $300 in products for slightly under $100!! This is a great way to restock your kitchen! If you have an interest in a party, there are two main types:

• Cooking Party – I will come to your house with my products and do a cooking demo to show off the products! If you don’t live close, just ask. Schedule willing, I don’t mind traveling for shows!
• Catalog Party – It’s pretty much how it sounds – pass around a catalog and let people order! The great thing about this is that to do this show, you can be anywhere! The products are shipped to the host (unless the purchaser requests otherwise) so there is no difficulty in getting the products! This is SO easy, you guys! You pass around a book or have people look at my website and the products sell themselves - and YOU reap the benefits!
  

There is also a wedding registry and if a bride decides to register with PC, she can also have a wedding shower! Guests can not only purchase the bride items, but the bride can receive free items as well!

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me! Also, you may visit my website to browse products and get some great recipe ideas and other information!!!

Sarah’s Pampered Chef Site (if you’d like to place an order off the site, please use the information there to contact me)

And now – onto the giveaway!!!!!!!! I’m going to give away some of the most useful PC products I’ve used! Whether you cook every meal or just once in a while, these tools are great! Y'all this is over $30 worth of products!!!!

So, how do you win? Do the following!

• 1 Entry – Leave a Comment
• 1 Entry – Become a follower (or tell me you already are)
• 3 Entries – Write a blog about the giveaway and leave a link
• 5 Entries – Book a party with me for any time in the next 6 months!!! (You can also get these entries if you’ve already booked a party with me!)

Please leave a separate entry for each of these items! This giveaway will end Sunday, May 2!!

***You don’t have to have a blog to enter. Simply click to leave a comment and choose the anonymous option. Please make sure to leave a way to contact you if you don’t have a blog I can get to. US residents only please.

I’m so excited to share these products with the winner! Good luck!!!

Celebrating Zach’s birthday!!!

Today is Zach’s birthday!!! For four months, we share the same number, but he is quick to remind me that even though we are the same age, I am still older. I think he relishes the fact that I am older than he is! :)

We’ve had a great weekend celebrating! I love when birthdays are on or around the weekend b/c it feels like we get to celebrate a lot! Last night we hired a baby sitter and went to dinner alone!!! Let me just say – money well spent! ha! We went to a new(ish) Japanese steakhouse in town. We’ve gone once before and it was so-so. I went back for lunch for a work meeting and it was really good, so Zach wanted to try it again. It was awesome last night! The cook was so entertaining and we had a blast! We went and rented a movie and then we did something so incredibly exciting. We – wait for it – went to Wal-Mart! haha! Fun, right? It was nice getting to grocery shop together without rushing b/c we were racing against a time bomb! It was a nice relaxing evening!

Here’s Ava taking our gifts to her Daddy:

And helping him open them:

I wanted to do something special for Zach so I cooked a big lunch. My parents came over to eat and celebrate with us. We had steaks, grilled corn on the cob, Crash hot potatoes, salad, and rolls. I also made him a cake!! (And yes, I know – I’m no professional – but it was made with love and I still have red food coloring on my hands to prove it!!!)

Happy birthday, Zach! I hope you know how much you are loved today and every day!

And just because I don’t want to forget – this weekend at church Ava was a little restless. She’s been a lot better the past few weeks so I was hoping we’d turned a corner. Anyway, it was almost over and I whispered to “It’s almost over. Are you ready to go bye-bye?” And she looked at me and then screamed out “Bye-byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye!” Slightly embarrassing, but seriously funny! Love that kid!

Hope everyone has a great week!!!

Who I am

My brother has been in town the past couple of days and asked if we’d like to take Ava on a boat ride. It was a gorgeous day again yesterday so after work we went to meet him. Ava got to use the life jacket he got her!She wasn’t so sure about going fast, but she did enjoy driving! I do believe her absolute favorite part of the excursion was throwing rocks into the water after we got back to shore!

Riding in the boat was a good way to unwind after a kind of rotten day. I was informed of some things that have been said about me behind my back – things that were hurtful to hear because they were untrue. I know I’m not perfect. I’ve never claimed to be and never will be. But I do strive to be a good person. I try to treat people the way I would like to be treated. I feel like my character was totally trashed and it really hurt my feelings. However, after mulling it over I decided it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I know the truth. It also doesn’t matter because God too knows the truth. Yes, I hate that this happened but I can’t change it. I can however change my reactions to it. And instead of being angry, I’m praying for the person who felt the need to do this.

I’m sick of being concerned with what other people might think of me. As long as I am living in a way that Jesus is proud of, and as long as my family is happy with me, that’s all that matters. People are always going to talk about others. This isn’t the first time someone has talked badly about me and I’m sure it won’t be the last. People who truly know me know my heart and know that I am a good person. I am who I am – and my desire is to please my Lord and my family. If I’m doing that, then I don’t have to worry. So there ya have it – it’s going to take a lot more than false gossip to break me!

Phew! Feels good to unload all of that! Now then – I’m off to watch my last episode of Ugly Betty ever! That show met its end way too soon! Tomorrow’s Friday and this weekend we get to celebrate my sweet hubby’s birthday – life is good!!!!

Our Weekend – in iphone pics

The weather for the past week has been absolutely beautiful! We spent as much time outside this weekend playing!

This child loves to play outside, especially with her ball! (only non iphone pic)

We also spent a little time this weekend working inside. I moved out all of Ava’s clothes that don’t fit anymore (sadness!!) This goober saw her old Bumbo seat and wanted to sit in it – then got mad when she couldn’t get out. We did some inside work too on some laundry! I sure hope that Ava always loves to do laundry as much as she does now!!!! I also finally got to let Ava do something I’ve been wanting to let her try for a while!!! We have a grocery store just a couple minutes from our house where we go when we need just a couple of things or in an emergency! I’ve noticed they have mini shopping carts and I never seem to have Ava with me when I go. We had to get a couple of things for dinner last night on our way home so she finally got to go shopping and she had an absolute ball!!!! She was a bit of a mad woman and was driving very erratically and fast! Stay clear if you ever see her coming with a shopping cart!

Yes… I know we live a wildly exciting life! :) And I wouldn’t change one minute of it for anything!!

Melt my heart!!!

A couple of weeks ago we had 18 month pictures of Ava taken by our talented friends Jon and Emily of Beaty Photography! The pictures speak for themselves! Thanks again you two! :)     

Happy Easter 2010!!!

What a beautiful Easter Sunday! The sun shone (for part of the day). Church was great. It was just a great day all around!

We started out with seeing what the Easter Bunny brought Ava! She got a new puzzle and some Mickey Mouse books to help with colors, shapes, numbers and some other things!

While she was drinking her milk she realized the Easter Bunny had left some eggs for her to find (& she didn’t even care that they were all empty – haha!)! She was so excited over it all she had to do a little dance!!!

We also hunted some eggs outside but she wasn’t so into that. It’s been wet from rain and she was so excited to be out there, she just wanted to run around!

We got all dressed for church and couldn’t get a decent picture of the kid! This was the best she would give us!

We also didn’t get any great family shots either, but this one’s not bad.

We went to a gorgeous Mass to celebrate. The service and music were both beautiful! We skipped the egg hunt afterwards – Ava wasn’t in such a hot mood and we knew we’d be having one later so we opted to get her down for a nap before lunch. She took a good nap and woke up in a great mood and played. We had lunch with my gigantic family – I think there were 40 people there, including my grandparents and aunt and uncle from Illinois! We not only celebrated Easter today but my dad’s birthday as well!

After lunch we headed over to another aunt & uncle’s house for a massive Easter egg hunt! Ava made out like a bandit and came home with $18 – I have a feeling she’s not going to let the Easter bunny get by with empty eggs for too many years (hey, in the EB’s defense – she didn’t need candy b/c she got a ton at school!).

Ava got bored with the eggs after a while when she found the swing set! Look at what the humidity did to her hair – it was super curly

I hope you all had a wonderful day celebrating our Lord’s resurrection!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

That’s a sigh of contentment! I’m lucky enough to work for a company that believes Good Friday is just as important as Christmas and gives us the day off for religious reasons and to spend extra time with our families! And I’m super excited about having tomorrow off!

We went to church tonight for the Holy Thursday service. Ava was slightly cranky as it was around her dinner time. We tried to hold her over with some snacks. We had dinner afterwards and then came home. Ava got super goofy when we got home and instead of getting her bath, she wanted to play on the couch.

This one makes me laugh!!! They’ve been playing outside so much at school lately and with the temperatures being warmer this week, her little cheeks and arms are getting a little color to them. So cute!

I had a first this week! I had my first blogging “blind date”! ha! We joked that was what it felt like at least! This is Sarah from Life {Sweet} Life!! (the lady who took the picture didn’t let us know that the sun was blocking my face and made me look like a ghost!) Sarah lives about 25 minutes from me and was so sweet to come and have lunch with me this week! She was so genuinely nice from the moment she sat down – it felt like we’d been friends for years! We talked nonstop for over an hour and could have gone much longer if I hadn’t had to get back to work!  Sarah and her hubby are getting ready to have a miracle baby boy – her story is amazing and is truly a testament of how nothing is too great for God! Thanks again for meeting me, Sarah – it was such a blast!

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3