My boys in plaid

Well, what can I say? My boys look fabulous in plaid, and they proved it once again running around Disneyland yesterday in their button-ups. There was lots of hand-holding, line-waiting, and balloon-watching for the little man, and Chad was right there behind him! The only down side to the day was the insane amount of people at Disneyland in conjunction with Carter not wanting to sit in his stroller. It stressed me out to have him roaming around, even though I had a death grip on his hand. After we realized that Pirates of the Caribbean was a for sure no-go, we decided to take off in pursuit of a less stressful venue: our apartment! But before we reached that point, here are a few pictures of our fabulous little outing:

My little bug :)

On the carousel! One of our favorites :)

:)

My plaid wearing twosome :)

Stylin' . . .

My good lookin' family

We went to Disneyland yesterday, and although I took many a'picture, I wanted to share this one in particular:

Oh, how I love Sundays with my family :)

Upholstering, baby!

Okay, so I'm not the most creative person when it comes to around-the-house projects, but I have to say that I am pretty darn proud of my recent upholstery project. Almost a year ago Chad and I bought this fabulous kitchen table with four hideously upholstered chairs along with it. In order to take care of the God-awful print that was originally on the chairs, we used my mother-in-laws nice, expensive, beige-ish cloth she had used for her couches. Although I loved the richness of the fabric, it was time for a splash of color and a fun print! (Yes, I watch HGTV religiously, therefore I am well-versed in the proper terminology of fabric description!) So, here's what they looked like before:

See them way back there? I never got a full-on picture of just the chairs, so here is the best shot I can find!

Well, here they are now:

I wanted something with a distinct, red pattern to match my red wall! I love them!

Here's the set all together (try to ignore the messy table top!). What would make me super happy would be to refinish the wood to a more espresso-like tone, but I need to have the space to take on such a large project! Anyway, the reason I love the set so much is because when you pull the table apart to open the leaf up, there's this intricate iron design which allows for the table to slide apart easily. Upon watching shows like Pawn Stars (another obsession of mine!), I gathered that this type of construction is at least 100 years old. How about that? Buy a table off Craigslist for $40, and bring home a masterpiece!  

A'cleanin' and a'cleanin'

So today, as I was making Carter a grilled cheese sandwich, I took a good, hard look at the filthy cabinets in our kitchen. There were water stains, long-ago dried ice-tea stains, dirt, grime, everything! It was absolutely disgusting, and I can not believe it took me so long to notice. So after Carter ate his sandwich like a good boy, I pulled out the old cleaning products and got to scrubbin.' Shortly after I began, my trusty friend Whitney called so we chatted as I cleaned, and before I knew it, my cabinets were a-gleamin.' Then I got to thinking: how many other random surfaces are in this apartment that I have never thought to clean? There are baseboards, tops of fans, tops of blinds, window sills, bathroom trash bins (I don't know about you, but I discovered today that I should be washing those every so often!), and the list goes on and on.

My question is: who thinks of these things to clean on a weekly basis?! It's insanity! How on Earth do people keep immaculately clean houses? Unless your kids have major dust allergies, what sort of person would even remember to clean all of it? What if you have a guest room in your house? When the heck would you make time to clean that room? What if that room had a ceiling fan in it? Are you going to clean it regularly?! That would never even occur to me because chances are, I wouldn't be spending much time in a guest room to begin with!

What about people who still have popcorn ceilings? Are there cobwebs that form in between those weird peaks? When, and more importantly, how, would you clean that?! I started on my blinds today, and after two swipes, I gave up because it was too difficult to hold them all still! That in itself will take me one full nap session! Anyway, I'm scared for the day we upgrade to a home with (dare I say?), more than two bedrooms!

I'll take some pictures with my boredom please

In response to this devastating boredom, (a little too dramatic?), I decided to entertain myself by shuffling through a few of the millions of photos Chad and I accumulated throughout the dating days. Enjoy!

Chadly at one of the Greek Week's looking pretty dang intimidating with that football!

After Chad finished on the field I snuck in for a much needed photo of the two of us in all of our themed-GW-outfit glory!

Us at one of our last formals :)

Well, this one was taken right after we got married but I had to sneak it in here :) Yes, these are majorly out of order.

Chad and our buddy Bamma sandwiching me at our friend's graduation party.

Although this is the world's most awkward photo, take a look at those outfits! We were Mr. and Miss. Duck Tape! We constructed those entire outfits out of tape! It was amazing!

A little bit blurry, but here we were at the fraternity house after playing in our softball league :) Needless to say, I was the best on the team ;)

Us at a formal once again.

The night we met! (We were set up on a blind date - I guess it worked out nicely!)

Chad at a party without me, but check out that marvelous tattoo!

Us at my sorority's Gala. This is one of my all-time favorite pictures :)

At the river!

Us being hams at Sea World :)

Still at Sea World!

Vegas with friends!

Here we are at an ugly sweater party!

Oh, we had a blast back in the day! Now we have our precious little pumpkin to make us laugh and keep us on our toes! What a great way to relieve some boredom :)

A couple of caged animals

I'm one of those people who thoroughly enjoys a little cold weather, but right now I'm going insane! Chad and I are a couple of caged animals, to say the least, and it's getting out of control. Any and all scenarios which sound appealing to me involves spending some serious cash, and I don't want to do that. This weather has boxed us in! Why, oh why, has California fashioned every single leisurely activity around sunny weather? We already did a spin around the Mission Viejo mall, and we are still unsatisfied! Thank goodness Carter is here to distract us or else we would be forced to resort to less dignified time-fillers: lookin' at life through the bottom of a bottle. 

No, that's a joke, but if you don't see another blog post for the next couple weeks, it may be due to a boredom induced coma.

In good company

As what always seems to happen with bad days (yesterday), the next day (Wednesday), was significantly better. After teaching three classes in the morning at the fabulous Purebarre, Chad, the little man and I headed off to the store to buy all the fixin's for a humongous enchilada fiesta for a few of Chad's fraternity brothers. Except for a run-in with them last Saturday night, we had not had quality time with the guys in Lord knows how long, so Chad invited them over for dinner. Since the old days of sleeping until noon is behind us all, they all arrived after their 8 hour work day fully dressed to the nines. Man, oh man, how times have changed. There we were, sitting like civilized adults, eating a dinner we had prepared, in our little family dwelling (aka our fabulous apartment)! It was great! We talked about work, the good old days of fraternity house madness, our dual bachelor/bachelorette party in Vegas, and all the while we were politely sipping on a few beers! Who knew you could tame fraternity boys?! Anyway, it made me very grateful to be in such good company, and happy for our now grown-up friends.

I wanted to upload some pictures of the wild college days, but for some reason my computer won't download them to my blog! Photos to come :)

This is me, pulling my hair out

Do you want to know the first words out of my mouth this morning? "What an a**hole." Yep, I looked right at Chad, who was sitting on the edge of the bed ready to go to work, and without emotion I just said it. The reason for this calm outburst of anger? Some a**hole was outside beeping his stupid horn for about two minutes straight. He then continued to beep it off and on for another couple of seconds, at which point I almost opened my window and screamed, "If you wake up my sleeping baby, I will murder you!"

Little did I know, that ridiculous honking man was setting the tone for the rest of my day. Well, the morning was fine, and lunch was fabulous since we met Chadly at good old Johnny Rebbs, but everything post-lunch was horrendous. Here is how it went:

- On the twenty minute drive home from Orange (where Chad works), Carter fell asleep. Anything car related right before nap time is never a good idea because it significantly shortens crib time. I put him down for a nap anyway, just to have him play in his crib for what seemed like forever. Finally he fell asleep, but he only slept for 40 minutes. Ugh.
- Since Carter has been having a hard time eating lately, I decided that today was the day I was going to conquer this ongoing battle with food. So, after his nap, we basically sat and stared at each other for 45 minutes while I was waiting for him to eat one measly hot dog, and he was waiting for me to let up on him. Well, letting up was not what I had set out to do, so dagnabbit, I never flinched! Finally he started feeding himself the hot dog pieces, but then started stuffing them in his mouth. We went from one end of the spectrum to the other in about 2 seconds. I was nervous he was going to choke so I started pulling them out of his mouth, which made him laugh and made me want to throw myself out of our second story kitchen window.
- After our torturous kitchen showdown, it was time to go grocery shopping. He usually loves the store, so I figured it would give me some sort of a break from the insanity. Oh no, not today! He was whining the ENTIRE time, and for some reason he did not want my right hand to grab onto the cart. So, with him constantly trying to uncurl my fingers, we rushed through the super market. After reaching the car, I realized I had forgotten the eggs. Great.
- Finally we made it home unscathed. I thought I was out of the woods, but no. Waiting for me was a bed-full of folded laundry (thank goodness it was folded), ready to be put away. One quick look at the clock told me that it was almost bath/bed time! Woohooo for this blessed time change! With that in mind, I hopped-to on the laundry, and continued on through the night to nirvana: bedtime. Hallelujah!

Now I'm just sitting here reflecting on my monster of a day, and thanking the good Lord I came out alive. Every once in awhile I guess you just got to have those types of days to appreciate the calm ones! Whew!

Lent!

So it's that time of year once again: Lent! We Catholics are supposed to give up something we are semi-dependent upon for forty days and forty nights. For many years in a row I was giving up Diet Coke, but as my tastes have changed in the last few years, things have gotten interesting.

For example, in 2009 I made the horrendous decision to give up chocolate. Why was this horrendous? Two reasons: a) it's Girl Scout cookie season during Lent, and b) I was PREGGO! What was I thinking?? I was tortured every. single. day. The night before Easter I literally stayed up all the way until 12:00 am to ravenously consume a humongous chocolate pinwheel Chad bought me and half a box of Thin Mints! It was insane! Anyway, Lent circa 2010 must not have been too exciting/miserable because I can't even remember what I gave up.

This year, however, I have gotten creative! I decided to give up the TV when Carter is awake. The only time I'm allowed to turn on the old tube is during his naps and bedtime. I really don't watch too much TV while he's awake anyway, but I figured putting this restriction on myself would really set me straight. Oh my gosh, let me tell you, it has been harder than I thought. I think just having the option to turn it on makes the day go by faster. Thursday was one of the longest days I've ever experienced. I found myself counting down the minutes until nap time. Bedtime seemed incredibly far off once he woke up from his nap. It was insane! Hopefully it will get easier! Wish me luck!

Paparazzi, please.

Okay, this is a weird thought, but every once in awhile I wish there was some random person around to take pictures of us just going through our daily life. Why a random person, you may ask? Well because every time a picture needs to be taken, someone who should be a fixture within the picture has to step out and man the camera. It's a bummer when you want to capture a moment and the mood changes because someone has to say, "someone get a camera!"

Anyway, I've had paparazzi-focused thoughts for a few days now. There are a few reasons for this: a) Carter has been running up to me and giving me massive bear hugs, b) he's been slowly walking towards me holding an over sized book that he wants me to read him, and c) he's just been an all around teddy bear of a toddler lately. Yesterday he had a fever (which sounds worse than it was; I just put him in the bath after his nap and that seemed to do the trick), but in the aftermath of him not feeling so hot, he just laid on my stomach for the last two hours before Chad came home. It was so precious! I wanted to take a picture SO BAD, but the only thing I could do in order to not break the perfection of it all was to just grab my stupid camera phone and snap a super loud photo! The sound of the phone made him freak out a little bit, which made me think our relaxing moment was done for, but he instantly chilled out again. That would have been a perfect time for some random person to just be hovering around us snapping a million silent (!) pictures!

So, because I obviously won't be having paparazzi follow me anytime soon, here are a few pictures we have paid people to snap for us (Sacred Hearts Photography - they are amazing)! Enjoy!

Carter was just 6 weeks old :)

Oh, those Duggars

One of my favorite parts of Carter's naps is the one hour I allot myself to catch up on any DVR recordings not fancied by Chad. One of these shows just so happens to be 19 Kids and Counting. It's one of those shows I always forget about until I see it pop up as the most recent recording. Anyway, whenever I tell Chad about my random love for this show, he always gives me a funky look and I can see the words don't get any ideas run through his head. Even though the premise of having 19 kids is absolutely outlandish to me, a mom really can learn a thing or two from Mama Duggar. She is like a gold mine of parenting tips! My favorite of them all:

"I tell my kids to look at me in the eye whenever I'm speaking to them because if I don't have their eyes, I don't have their hearts." 

How about that, eh? It makes perfect sense, and as my little guy gets older, and we eventually add more munchkins to the Cisneros clan, I plan to implement that sentiment as best as I can. Another genius parenting law she follows: repetition, repetition, repetition. If one of her kids says something rude or inappropriate, she has them say the correct statement ten times. The kids always feel quite silly while doing this and get a kick out of it, but it works! Mama Duggar knows what's going on.