1 year ago exactly

One year ago, right this very minute, Chad and I were bouncing around our apartment, excited as all heck to have been given the go-ahead from the doctor to bring our little Kota Bear into the world the next day. Not only was this a sign that I could deliver at the hospital I wanted to (Chad's company had changed all of the benefits for 2012, so if I hadn't gone into labor by the 31st, we were looking at delivering somewhere completely unfamiliar), but it meant the end to a not-so-fun pregnancy. We were BEYOND ready to move on, become a family of four, and to just BE.

I remember being super excited while packing for the hospital. Chad, I'm not even kidding, was in the living room rearranging our DVD's AGAIN! It was so hilarious, there were multiple bouts of man-nesting from my love last December! When we finally calmed down for the night, I remember not having one ounce of trepidation about the next day, I was ready to go.

Fast forward to the hospital after my way-too-long-for-a-second-baby labor, we were informed that good ole' St. Jude's had gotten rid of their nursery since the last time we were there, which was only a short two years prior. Hmm. So she was in the room with us, which was fine of course, except for the fact that she didn't sleep. At all. The entire night. Not one minute. No, instead of sleep, she cried. I even tried sleeping with her in the hospital bed (something I'm deathly afraid of), which was nice for her for about 20 minutes, but showed me absolutely no shut eye.

Fast forward three months later. Carter had gotten over his feeling of wanting nothing to do with her (which I was totally fine with while it lasted - at least he wasn't hostile!), and the two of them had turned into great pals. He made her laugh, she made him laugh, and Chad made us all laugh. It was all a bunch of happiness, unless I tried to put her down on the floor with her brother. If that was attempted, even for a second, a scream so piercing that even a deaf person would be traumatized would issue from my princess's mouth. So we never put her down, because it just was not worth it. Not worth it at all, my friend. Oh and that cry of death? It was heard nightly, at least 3 times. Caffeine really was my only saving grace.

Fast forward to Kota's 9 month mark. At this point, we were all used to the screams, especially the really loud ones in the car - my favorite. I was also used to me feeling super edgy due to an increased lack of sleep from her new demanding feeding needs (I was still nursing). But having been eating big people food for the last 3-4 months, Little Missy proved that she is the ONLY Cisneros child who will willingly eat broccoli, carrots and protein that varies from chicken smothered in cheese. Yes, she has proven to be the culinary adventurous child! Also the bath babe, the big-brother-lover babe and the I-finally-KNOW-I-have-Daddy-wrapped-around-my-finger babe. At nine months, she was a doll with her new-found personality, something I had just figured the screams were apart of.

Fast forward to now, the night before her first birthday. The screams are still there (and, if you can believe it, even more ear-piercing), but you know what? That's Kota! That's who she is, and I love her for her sassy personality. She has stretched me as a parent, showing me that I can do it - we can do it. I know that sounds so cheesy, but it's the truth. I love her for showing me that listening to my motherly instincts will be the best for all of us, that perpetuating a bond which means little to no "non-holding" time is okay. I love her for giving Chad and I a run for our money, for loving me so much it (apparently) hurts (the screams!). I love her for turning me toward prayer than any other time in my life, which has made the most significant difference for all of us. She came into our family knowing what she wants, and you know what? I can't wait to see where that determination leads us. It has been a wild, happy, toothy-grinned ride, and I couldn't be happier to be on it with my C's.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY GIRL! MOMMY LOVES YOU!

And so does Daddy and Carter!

The ole' honeymoon: Notre Dame

Instead of doing what I should be doing (checking off my outrageously long to-do list), I'm going to backtrack a few years and write about the awesomeness that was seeing Notre Dame on our honeymoon! Yes, I was poking through my archives and came across my previous honeymoon posts (an increasingly favorite pastime of mine. Narcissism at it's finest!), so naturally I needed to continue documenting.

Anyway, it was outrageously amazing! After this night in Paris, I literally thought I would die during our experience at the Louvre, which I just realized I never wrote about (story to come!). I mean, we're talking on-the-verge-of-puking-while-looking-at-the-Mona-Lisa central. I was quite upset at myself for feeling so in beautiful France, so something needed to be done (well, my body was actually demanding that something needed to be done). After a final arms-up-in-the-air out of frustration, Chad and I decided to call it quits on the Louvre in the Egyptian room and started to head towards the exit, not without a quick trip to the ole' restroom where I...well...let's just say I felt a lot better after leaving that teensy-tiny "toilette."

After basically being reborn via a public restroom, I was sort of bummed to be leaving the insanity of the museum, but some fresh air was needed, so off we went to higher ground to figure out what the heck we were going to do with the rest of our day! Then, after walking aimlessly, we ended up in front of this gargantuan building where we filled out post cards to all of our family members. When we looked up, we realized that we were right across the street from Notre Dame, which was awesome because that's what we had wanted to do later on in the day! So after a few pictures of ourselves crossing over the Seine with my long lost smile, we entered the square!

 Me and my man, post-hangover, happy that we had a second chance at the day!

 Basically I died the whole time we were there, but this time from awe instead of the aftermath of too much champagne! The detail! The ceilings blew me away! It was crazy! The stained glass windows alone deserved a round of applause. 

 There it is. Our stamp on the grand Notre Dame. "We pray for the children around the world." I couldn't think of anything better! I felt under pressure, like everyone was wondering what I was going to write! Anyway, I came up with the most generic of all messages, but hey! What can you do? At least I really mean it!

 Y'all, this was the supreme place for a Catholic gal like myself! I even lit one of those candles! Hey-o!

 A miniature of how it was back in the good old days, I'm sure. 

 The art! The sheer size of it all! It was nuts.

And then we decided to walk across the square to the crypte!

 This was the city back when civilization was at it's rawest. Well, not rawest, there was a hospital in the city and stairs that led up to a once-there kitchen, but you know what I mean!

 Who knew that something so amazing was right underneath the square of Notre Dame! It was just another thing that surprised me during our time in Europe!

Notre Dame was almost as awesome as our visit to the Palais de Versaille, followed my night of consumption like I had mentioned and preceded our later trip to Brugge! Anyway, horrendous photo quality, but what can ya do? They required all flashes to be turned off! I loved our honeymoon so much! I need to write about the rest of it soon or else I'm going to start forgetting, which can't happen. 

Now... back to that to-do list!

Oh Christmas card, oh Christmas card!

Isn't it glorious?!

I just loved our card this year! Definitely my favorite so far. You know, I'm still mad at myself for not sending one out the first year we were married. What the heck was I thinking? I mean, I know I was on the verge of giving birth and all that, but come on! Anyway, LOVED 2012's. :)

I got it from HERE!

I also got Carter's 3rd birthday party invitations from there (custom made - woohoo!) and Kota's first birthday party invites! 

So, I bought a franchise!

Yes! I'm so excited to finally be writing about this most thrilling and pressure-filled time in our lives! It's something that I've been working on for the past few months (since the end of August, to be exact), so to finally be chatting about it out in the open is both refreshing and quite overdue!

And because I really want to write about this but can never seem to find the time (as we speak I should be doing things for the GRAND OPENING!), I'm going to number it out:

1. I seriously NEEDED something to do with myself in the form of employment (or project-ment), and after a fabulous run-in with the people who own Stroller Strides of North Orange County and a few wonderful classes later, I decided that this is what I needed to make happen. Luckily Chad and I were moving out of Yorba Linda - where I initially fell in love with the company - which allowed me to explore my options in ownership for myself!

2. Originally, Chad and I were going to focus on the Inland Empire, as that's where we were going to move. When we found our current condo last second, Chad - hear that, lova?! I'm giving you the credit! - realized that there was an area which lacked the wonderful thing that is Stroller Strides, so we decided to redraft the contract and go for the Orange County location. 

3. I officially signed my contract with the franchisor on September 28! It was a glorious day, especially because 2 weeks later I knew I would be taking off to San Diego for 4 days (my first time away from the Little Miss!), to complete training and attend the national conference. Man, oh man, did I ever get lucky when it came to timing! Not only was I able to talk with TONS of other women who had been in business for years, but I made the final decision not to start my own until after the new year (it was either going to be IMMEDIATELY after conference so as not to run into the holiday season, or two-and-a-half months later, in January).

4. Now here I am, a little less than 2 weeks away from the Grand Opening of my first location - if you're local, it will be at FOOTHILL RANCH COMMUNITY PARK at 9:00, class will BEGIN at 9:15! - running all over town promoting, flyer-ing, chatting, meeting, wining and dining the mommy-folk of the area! It has been SUCH a perfect solution to everything I had been feeling over the last few months and I truly cannot WAIT to get started!

Anyway, it really is amazing what will come your way if you just pray on it! All those months of feeling horrendous due to do a lack of knowing what I was going to be doing . . . - ugh! More on the ole' divine intervention to come in regards to Stroller Strides to come!

AND IF YOU'RE INTERESTED, here is a little information:

Here is the website:

Stroller Strides of Foothill Ranch

Here is the Facebook link, which you should totally LIKE if you LOVE it:

Stroller Strides of Foothill Ranch is awesome

(But seriously, only if you really want to! I know how it is to have "liked" everything on the face of the earth, even when it has no relevance to my life!)

The GRAND OPENING is on Wednesday, January 2nd at 9:00, class will start at 9:15 at Foothill Ranch Community Park

There will be FABULOUS deals, prizes, raffles, fun things for the kids and OF COURSE a wonderful, FREE class!

If you are local and have ANY questions, feel free to email me on the address linked to this profile, or at 

nicolecisneros@strollerstrides.net

Anyhoo! I'm glad I finally got that out on the blog table! It feels good! 

Focus? What's that?!

I can't focus on what I'm trying to do to save my life, so I decided to stop trying! It may or may not have something to do with the fact that before I even ate one morsel of food this morning, I consumed half a cup of a tall iced white chocolate mocha from Starbucks. If I try to do wild things like that (read: anything that varies from my everyday schedule), I go all whacky. Anyway, who cares about being productive, right? What's more important is writing down a few of the happy thoughts zooming through my scattered mind right now!

1. One of my favorite things in life is to scroll through a very full, newly refreshed Instagram feed. It really has become a sort of "sayonara" to the kids when my mind is on overload, leaving me rejuvenated and ready to take on the next task of the day.

2. It's December 21st and I have not wrapped one present. NOT EVEN ONE. Worse, I haven't done one shred of shopping for my two bambinos. Here's the deal: one, we did all of our shopping for the extended families online, only receiving it this morning, and two, I'm not even going to put any presents out until after the babes are asleep on Christmas Eve. Even though I know they're super pretty to look at, I don't want to have to deal with Kota accidentally ripping one apart or anything. Also, we have basically holed up every possible present-hiding-area in this condo here, so storage would not be so good. Anyway! Mama Paplia said she will watch the kids tonight while Chad and I go out and shop till we drop, so it's all good!

3. It's beyond me that Carter's 3rd birthday is on Sunday. What the heck, man? Insane, I tell ya... But here's what really gets me: I can't believe that he's still 2. I feel like he actually lives up to the expectations I have placed on him (good expectations, not demanding ones), perpetuated mainly by us having Kota. The minute she came home from the hospital, I started thinking of him as so much older, so I sort of started to treat him that way in the manners/toy-clean-up/attitude department. Sometimes whenever I tell him to ask if he can be excused from the dinner table and to take his plate up to the counter, I sit back and think, "Holy moly, I just told my two year old to take his plate into the kitchen. Crazy!"

4. My thoughts on Carter's maturing can only be trumped by my thoughts on Kota's growing up! Little miss will be 1 on the 31st! Here's the thing with her: she's still so itsy bitsy, it's tough for me to think of her as being a toddler, but that's what she's going to be! She's so mature in the food-eating/mama-dada-baba-saying/I-love-to-splash-in-the-bath/picture-book-loving/playing-with-big-brother realm that sometimes I can't believe she's not older, but then I'll cuddle her up for her nightly bottle and think of how perfectly she still fits in my arms. It's so precious! I also totally understand how people call their youngest "the baby" for the rest of their lives. I don't think I will EVER stop calling her "Baby" unless we have another one!

Anyway, I think I've cured myself of my lack-o-focus! I'll soon write about what I'm not allowing myself to focus on soon! Woooohooo!

Hmm.. What?

If politics were a concert that was put on last month, my husband and I probably would have shelled out just enough money to score some really sweet lawn seats. Not even the last row of the actual assigned seats, and certainly no where near the VIP, front row area. Of course we care about our great nation and our leaders in office, and both of us voted during our last election (and if you didn't, shame on you!), so we are abreast on the issues, but you just won't catch us getting all shaky with frustration over someone else's political views.

Anyway, by writing this post it sort of negates my whole point (that bringing up politics in the face of some awful tragedy a mere 20 minutes after it happened is weird), but alas, I'm a'typin. So here's the deal: it made me sad that after the tragedy which occurred this last weekend in CT (prayers, prayers, prayers, prayers, prayers), the social networks were convoluted with political statements. 

Now, I get it, I get it. In fact, I too, a member of the political party who supports the second amendment, thought that something should be done. But the intensity of it all... It just seemed slightly out of place in the face of something so horrendous.

In a million, quadrillion, bazillion years, I hope to never, ever have to endure the hurt any one of those parents have (are) endured (ing), but can you imagine people arguing over something as trivial as "who's responsible" right after finding out such awful news? I'm sure none of them really care about whatever the heck we "people of the internet" are talking about after the tragedy, but really, how discomforting that would be if they actually did care? To find division and arguing?

Anyway, it sort of reminds of when Hurricane Katrina hit and the second sentence out of lots of people's mouths (but within the same breath), was how mad they were that whoever was responsible for putting up enough sand bags to prevent the damage didn't put up enough, therefore didn't do their job. I mean, come on. How ridiculous!! I know this is different because we aren't looking in hindsight at something, we're thinking about the future and the safety of children, but both sentiments (the sand bag/who-done-it issue and gun control situation) should be saved for a different conversation, not within the same breath as the aforementioned tragedies.

Anyway, I also am aware that both horrible situations gives ammunition to arguments because it's proof of problems, but that's what I wish for us as a people on the internets. 

(And am I allowed to say within the same breath - hypocritical, maybe - that I'm also happy that we are allowed to say exactly what we want on the internet and not be persecuted? America is still my homegirl!)  

These people make my heart very happy. :)

Can you believe that our big guy is almost 3 years old?

3 YEARS OLD!

Outrageous, I say, outrageous.

We had his third birthday party on Sunday, and even though 8 out of Carter's 10 little buddies turned out to be sick - no joke - it was such a nice day of close friends and family. We (thankfully) had wonderful weather, great conversation and, most importantly, see that awesome streamer back drop? Oh yeah, it stayed up the entire time. Give it up, man, give it up for great last minute taping skills done by THIS lady! It was a mad dash to completing all the details (read: Chad going psycho in the kitchen while I haphazardly sprinted from the park to our condo to grab decorations, dress the kids, etc., etc., etc. for a good hours straight before 11:00 rolled around), but it all turned out in the end!

The BIG dude had a great time and once again, we left the day feeling blessed and cheerful.

Yay for December babies!

Sleep? Who needs that?

I'm one of those people who completely falls apart if I don't sleep for a MINIMUM of 8 hours. It's the truth! In fact, speaking of falling apart, if I don't get enough sleep, eat enough protein, exercise for enough minutes, drink enough coffee, get enough "me" time in and/or take enough "driving down the coast" joy rides, I morph into the creature from the black lagoon. I'm just an externally sensitive soul, what can I say?! Anyway, Chadly is literally the complete opposite. The dude doesn't have to eat breakfast until 3:00 in the afternoon (something that perturbs me, for some weird reason), and can run off of 3 hours of sleep, just to give a few examples.

Anyway, here is a nice story from the other night, a night almost free of sleep, the result of which being a horrible next-day:

Around 4:00 am or so, I woke up with this horrid headache, which has never ever happened to me, despite the outrageous amount of migraines, etc. I've dealt with. Anyway, I rolled over, grabbed a drink of water and tried to go back to sleep. Instead of drifting off into slumber, though, my mouth was super dry about 15 seconds later. So I took another drink. And another. And another. And another. And then I got up to cut the middle man out: I went straight for the sink. Again, and again, and again.

It was so weird! After about a half hour of this madness, I concluded that I'm an extremely dehydrated individual who should probably be more conscious about her liquid intake (read: less coffee, more water). Anyway, after I FINALLY felt that my insatiable thirst had been satisfied, I laid back down for some shut eye. 

Well, wouldn't you know it? The ole' hubby decided to sleep face down with his arms up over his head like a hooligan, resulting in what I'm pretty sure were two dead arms. TWO DEAD ARMS. In HIS sleep, he rolled over, lugging his arms to MY side of the bed! I tried to push them over, but they wouldn't budge! Then I tried to wake him up, which was a lost cause. 

Finally he came to, and tried unsuccessfully to relinquish control of his limbs, but apparently got over it, going back to sleep. Alright. So after some repositioning of the ole' hubster, I finally got a few feet of my own space, sans Chadly's dead arms . . . an hour and a half after I had woken up for my initial drink of water. The good news was that my headache was gone, but the trade off was Monday's psychotic state of mind. It was great. So awesome.

Thank goodness I woke up today feeling motivated and a heck of a lot better than Monday. Don't you hate days like ones where you got no sleep the night before? I sure as heck could do without them.  

Wednesday's forgetfulness

Today I'm as forgetful as forgetful comes. No joke. I keep thinking it's Tuesday, so it's one of those type situations. Here are a few of the major things run a'slack in this house so far, and it's only the early afternoon!

1. Upon waking up this morning, I totally forgot that we were taking our family holiday pictures, even though I was prepping until 11:30 last night! I just laid there relaxing for a good 15 minutes, then realized that if I didn't hop-to, we were all going to be hungry grouches because breakfast would have had to have been skipped - which, if you know me, should NEVER happen.

2. I started having our milk delivered (reasonable price with no hassle? Um, yes please.) during the wee hours of Wednesday mornings. This particular morning I completely forgot about the lonesome jug waiting for me on my doorstep until about a half hour ago, when I found the note our awesome neighbor left informing me that he had my milk in his fridge so it wouldn't go bad. We love Mike around here!

3. I completely forgot that I should have sent in a piece last night to the wonderful website I write for! What?! That's a whole new level of forgetfulness entirely, one that is not okay! Thankfully I've since corrected my horrible mistake. What is happening to me?!

4. So during our glorious family photo shoot this morning, I had the bambinos take their 1-year-old and 3-year-old pictures individually in different outfits than what we used for the Christmas card picture. Welp, in regards to Kota's outfit, I forgot something. Something kind of important - like her ONESIE! Yes! Just left it right there on the floor in our bedroom. Anyway, I was lucky because, surprisingly, her outfit worked without that all-important undergarment, but really, what the hell? (In all seriousness though, I think the photos will look cuter without it . . . thank goodness I've found a fair amount of pinterest pictures with baby girls wearing nothing but a good ole' fashion tutu!)

So yay for forgetting EVERYTHING today! Let's hope this trend doesn't continue into the rest of the week, for goodness sakes!

A night for the ages

Here's a fun fact: Chad and I wanted to skin ourselves alive and jump out of a second story window this last Sunday.

Yes, yes we did. We had THE wildest, most unexpectedly fun night on Saturday. In fact you couldn't even classify the outing as one of the "night" variety, it truly was a "wee hours of the morning" type of event. Here's how it went on the night that our parenting duties ceased to exist . . .

One of Chadly's friends from work was having a going-away party up in LA at what we thought was going to be a club (which made me nervous! A club? What does one wear to a club when they are going to be surrounded by their husband's work friends?! Jeans? A dress? WHAT?!), which luckily turned out to just be a bar. So we made the 45 minute drive up the 5 freeway, exited Fairfax (FAIRFAX!), drove another twenty minutes and finally arrived, only to find all of the familiar Wells Fargo people standing outside due to overcrowding. Welp, they sure as heck were right about that. We took one step inside to say sayonara to his pal and were immediately bamboozled by young bar goers. I mean, I've literally never been in a more crowded place in my life. It was outrageous.

While all of this was taking place, we had in the back of our minds that our friend was celebrating his birthday in none other than Newport Beach, a good million miles away from where we were. However, after surveying the current situation at the nice hour of 10:45 pm, we decided to forget about LA, throw our inhibitions to the wind and jam down to Newport!

So! We only arrived in bar-town at the decent time of 11:50 pm. Totally normal. We immediately jumped in line to get into the madness that was Rudy's where our circle of awesome friends were hoot-hollerin' it up, and had a little out-of-body experience: There we were, two bambinos down, possibly more to go, waiting in line to go into this raucous bar with people who were either our age or younger! It was outrageous in an awesome, weird sort of way!

Anyway, we made it in and found our people who were, in that moment, the most wonderful portrait of amazingness THIS lady has ever seen. They were EXACTLY what the doctor ordered: our crowd! Chad and I were immediately showered in those wild things called "beers" and talking a thousand miles a minute about what the heck everyone has been up to over the last few months! We all discovered that virtually no one has met Kota and that Carter will be more of a junior groomsmen by the time the men of the group hit up Harry Winston, which had me laughing like a hyena!

Anyway, we . . . stayed until . . . the bar . . . closed! Yes! It was 2:00 am when we left and then guess what we did. GUESS! We piled into a cab with a humongous crew and got dropped off at our friends' apartment! What?! Yes! That's what happened! Chad and I spent the night out! Isn't that outrageous?!

Now in regular world, this would signify bed time, but oh, no! Conveniently there was a good ole' fashion bottle of almond champagne waiting to be opened. So, naturally, we continued the merry making, advice giving in the form of "now wait, let me get this straight. You have work tomorrow morning? And you're still awake? What?! What planet are we on?", and more catching up.

Finally, I took a quick glance at the clock and realized it was 4:20 in the morning! IN THE GOSH DARN MORNING! At that point I put the kabosh on the still-lively conversation I was having in the interest of getting some shut eye.

Waking up can be likened to the Grimm Reaper paying me a visit.

But here's the thing: It was so much fun, I wouldn't have traded in that hellish, multi-hour-long hangover for anything! It was a night not of alcoholism run rampant, although it would have appeared that way, but of reconnecting. It left me feeling lucky beyond all doubt to have met such a great group of people, supportive to no end.

Anyway, cheers to Grandma's who offer to babysit, driving all over Southern California, consuming more liquid in one night than in the previous 4 years, chatting with our Fullerton wonderfuls and then wanting to gauge our eyeballs out for all hours bathed in sunlight! Woohoo!

A dead-end of sorts

I feel like a major weirdo for thinking this deeply about my blog, but since this thing is here to collect all thoughts categorized under the heading of "weirdo," here's the deal:

1. I think I've hit a sort of dead-end when it comes to inspiration on this blog. Every time I sit down to write a post, I get this sick feeling like the people who followed me once for the reasons of a giveaway or follow-fest would never want to read it. It's quite the restricting sensation, let me tell you.

2. When I created this blog, I had no clue that there was an actual world of bloggers out there. Who knew, right?! So it became a sort of "let me get to know what this thing is all about" type deal, not a "let me write what's on my mind" thing.

3. Here's the thing though: I don't want to put this blog on death row just yet! I love it here! But I do think it's time to write under a new "name" type thing, one that defines us C's more accurately (more of a we've come of age and this is who we are now type deal...?).

See, I told you I'm a big weirdo! Who thinks this much about their leisurely, nap-time activity? Apparently I do. I want to keep writing as a creative, fun outlet for myself, and if Three's 4 Me has transformed to mean the opposite, then steps must be taken, my friend, steps must be taken.

Anyway, I will be switching blogs very soon, but will of course keep this baby around for my own enjoyment. At the end of the day, I just want people to read who are genuinely interested in what's going on in our lives, and maybe not for the reason that I was offering a free giveaway at one point (even though if that's how you found me, I love you for it!). Are you catching what I'm throwing atchya?

So cheers to "finding yourself" within your creative avenue!

(...And by the way, I still feel like a bit of a freak for taking myself so seriously, but you know what? It's what's on my mind, so what can I say?!)

A few of the favorites

I don't know what's going on, but my computer isn't letting me upload any new pictures! It's saying that I'm at 100% capacity, whatever that means. Anyway, until I figure it out, here are a few favorites from the bloggular over the last few years :)

Wine tasting in Paris with the hubs. :)

After I got my Canon, I was really obsessed with taking all of these artsy-like pictures and guess what? I actually like them! So even though I'm a far cry from the editing master I hope to become, here is one of them!

...and another.

The first baby girl onesie I ever purchased. :) It hung up in our room for a good three months!

Little man having a moment last year when we were decorating our tree in the good ole' apartment. I was pregnant with Kota here!

A product of nesting in 2011...

...which appeared in Carter's old room right before we brought home girly-girl.

And this preciousness :)

Anyway, love these pictures. :) 

Yay!

And so...

It's sad to me that I haven't blogged in so gosh darn long. Truly! And the only reason I'm writing this post is because I decided to check up on the ole' site to poke around a little bit and got lost in my archives. I've just been sitting here, reading all about the days when Carter was taking two naps per day, when Chad turned 23 and that wonderful night Kota was born. 

This blog, my friend, is a keeper of our young family life. I used to sit down every day to document whatever the heck was on my mind, the result of which being a diary of sorts. The posts I've been sorting through bring me back to silly days and lovely feelings. 

The real reason I've faded out was because I got weirdly wrapped up into my stats. It became depressing! Every single morning I would check to see how many unique visits I got, what pictures people were clicking on, etc. etc. etc. Did I have any emails from people who were interested in working together? If there wasn't, why not?! Hmm... It looks like my main blog peeps didn't like my last post as much as the one before, I wonder why? - were a few of the usual thoughts. Anyway, in no way do I have a monstrously large following or anything, but for a small amount of time I wanted to build, build, build - so I forgot about how much I enjoyed just sitting here and talking (to myself) about how awesome my family was.

So there it is! Of course there are other reasons why I haven't been blogging, the main reason being that if I'm going to take the time to sit down and write, it has to be for one of the websites I'm working with, therefore leaving me with no me time. However, busyness is never going to go away, in fact it will only increase, so I don't want that to be the reason why I can't remember what sort of outfits I dressed my darling 11-month-old little missy in. I hope that I will write again consistently just for the love of it instead of for the "gain," you know what I mean sista? 

Anyway! Cheers to documenting young family life and to remembering what it was like to write about the everyday - and not feeling bad that the everyday can be considered boring to other people! Yay!

(Reposted, super old pictures from my pal Jenanae - I think fall of 2010?)

Everywhere

Alright, my mind is all over the place! One second I'm content, the next I'm bored. Deep cleaning the kitchen sounded nice but then sounded horrendous. Swiffering ran through my mind, but nah. Anyway, here are my thoughts:

1. Carter is on the stairs and he's supposed to be in bed, but tonight I'm just going to let it go. I'll just let him think I don't know he's there, playing with his cars and saying, "Boom! Crash!" It sounds cute, so hey! What can you do?

2. Speaking of bed times and the fact that Carter isn't actually in bed asleep, every once in awhile I'll think, So really, what is this whole "strict" thing all about, anyway? Why can't I just let them do whatever they want, like watch 19 Kids and Counting with me? Why do you actually have to enforce rules to raise model citizens? Can't we all just stay up until midnight together and eat s'mores? It would be fun and oh-so easy! Surely that would require much less will power and strength than "getting down to business!" But then I'll remember that I'm not hanging out with purse-sized chihuahuas, I'm raising my kids! Kids that need to know boundaries in order to learn respect, etc., etc., etc. Anyway, I'm not saying it's a bad thing to bend the rules every now and again because we've definitely done that (EXAMPLE: Chad watching the Avengers with Carter until 11:30 when I was down in San Diego for a few days), it's just one of those random let me question the universe and why I do what I do type things.

3. Speaking of me spending a few nights in San Diego, therefore placing Chad on two-child-daddy-duty for the longest stretch he's ever gone, here's a nice little fact: he let Carter go COMMANDO for almost 4 days! Yes! When I was reunited with my crew I saw that Chad was putting Carter's pajama pants on sans underwear so I asked, "Woah, what's going on here? Aren't you forgetting his underwear?" To which he answered, "Oh no, babe, it's totally fine, he doesn't need underwear." He doesn't NEED underwear! What the heck?! It was one of those unbelievable holy moly daddy has been alone with the kids for the past few days moments!

4. I started buying organic milk and I have to say, it's tasty. Like milk shake tasty. In fact, I'm going to go relieve Carter of those evil peanut-bearing candies he raked up last night with a big ole' glass of the good stuff. Until tomorrow (hopefully)!

Update week: workin' 9-5

My men, last year

For a little bit longer than the past almost-three years, I've had a plan when it came to what I was going to do with myself regarding "work." It goes way back to when I was pregnant with Carter: finish my undergrad, secure a low commitment, easy-to-figure-out-babysitting occupation, have another baby, then figure out just what the deal was in the "real" work world. Would I be working 9-5? Kickin' butt and taking names? I had no idea! It was all a big mystery, but something I was excited to tackle once the time arrived.

Well, three out of the four steps had been taken as of a few months ago, leaving only the whole work thing on the To-Do list. Kota was about six months old when I started to seriously think about my financial contribution to the family/house buying/Cisneros-legitsky cause, and to tell you the truth, I was quite thrilled to begin my very own pencil-skirt-and-heels job search! There were so many options! Did I want to get started in PR? What about banking? Or possibly marketing?!

Little did I know, though, that my fun little search was the beginning of a torturous labyrinth of second-guessing myself and mind-changing. It all became a torrent of


Should I go to work full time, or shouldn't I? If I don't, is that the right thing to do for the kids, or isn't it? Zillions of moms work a whopping 5 days per week, so am I just being a big weirdo for feeling any trepidation about it? Let's say I do go to work, what shall I do in regards to employment? WHAT SHALL I DO?!

I mean, it went on and on . . . for months. For a few days I would be stoked about entering the workforce, ready and willing to drop the babies off at a daycare, completely fine with the whole thing. After about 72 hours of psyching myself up though, I couldn't keep ignoring the fact that I felt like my mind was shouting words into my consciousness like, "JUST DO IT! YOU'RE GOING TO BE FINE! THE KIDS WILL BE FINE! STOP THINKING ABOUT IT AND JUST GO!" just so that way I wouldn't be able to hear the, "okay, woah, are you really going to be okay dropping the babies off for so many hours per day?", more true-to-myself thoughts.

Once I would finally recognize the more tame sentiments, I would think things like, "alright, clearly you are just one of those women who has no grit." It was awful, torturous even! I felt like I had a responsibility to help provide for my family (and the awesome vacations I envisioned for us), but couldn't put my thoughts into actions! I was a talker, not a doer. Chad one time told me that he liked how I was a dreamer - EXACTLY what I didn't want to be! What the heck? Dreamers are folks who look into the distance and say things like, "hmm, I wonder what it had been like if the South had won the Civil War. . . . Hmmm, that would be interesting, wouldn't it? . . ."

NO! When I was a young whippersnapper, I had always envisioned myself as some corporate badass. Now that vision sounds horrendous, as priorities have shifted drastically - EXCEPT FOR THE PART ABOUT ME BEING A BADASS!

Then one day, tired of my wishy-washy ways, I sat down to really figure out what was going on with our lives. I compared and contrasted various day care costs, my possible yearly earnings, how early in the morning I would have to leave to drop the kids off, on which days Chad could pick them up/which day he could take off so that way the kids wouldn't be with a babysitter 100% of the time, along with the emotional stress (yes, I calculated this - I have no idea how, but it was like an actual calculation). When Chad got home from work that night, I showed him what was up and asked him what he thought. After taking a look at the cold hard facts, we decided to forget about me working for The Man. It just wasn't worth it, especially the emotional stress.

From that point on, I stopped freaking out about my status as an unemployed human being, mainly because I felt bad complaining about it. I mean, it wasn't as if I was doing the most important thing on earth or anything: raising our family! I just needed to get a grip and relax - allow my I-need-a-project-at-all-times self chill out. You know, take some time to smell the roses. So that's what I did and out of nowhere, a few opportunities popped up in none other realm than what I love to do: WRITING!

I couldn't believe it! I'm now working with a company called The Parent Tree and another one called Healthy Living Healthy Life. It has been glorious and I can't wait to see what other doors these relationships will open for me.

BUT the BIG KAHUNA of working motherhood has just been put into motion, making my awesome writing gigs more of a "for the love of" type thing! More information on this will come next time in update week! Woohooo!

Update week: Our move!

Okay, so not to be one of those people who says "it's been way too long since I've blogged last" and nobody had any clue that you were gone, but it's been way too long since I've blogged last! Holy moly, it's been AGES. Anyway, some major things have been happening around these parts, so I'm just going to do one, big fat week of updates since the things that have been going on have been pretty significant.

So update #1: our move and living situation! Man, oh man, where do I begin when it comes to the saga of where we have been taking up residence over the past few months . . . To say the least, it's been nuts. Here are the cliff notes:

1. March - April: We were in the last few months of our lease in Irvine, and were looking to buy a condo next. With those intentions, we decided that it would be better to just crash at the in-law's house so as not to jump into another lease. Well, once we hit the pavement and really started looking at what our glorious pre-approval allowed us, we decided to take a step back and reevaluate our options. Now I'm relieved that we didn't try to plow ahead to make it happen because we would have outgrown those places in about 30 seconds.

2. May - mid-September: So yes, the in-law's. Although I feel very blessed to have such gracious people in my life ready and willing to open up their home for our little family, it was quite the trying experience. In hindsight though, living there really put the nail in the coffin when it came to us buying. Since we occupied two rooms in the Cisneros home, it showed us that where ever we lived next, we had to have three bedrooms. It became a non-negotiable. I thought we would be able to manage with a two bedroom place with two kids, but turns out, we couldn't. So that was a positive . . .

3. Beginning of September: Despite the obvious financial awesomeness that living in Yorba Linda provided us, we decided to put the kabosh on the whole thing and move on, mainly because Kota was still in our room and I felt like there was no way I could put the two of them in the same room, what with her waking up every few hours, AND keep my sanity at the same time (picture this: no talking, no TV watching and walking on tip-toes for 8 whole months in your own bedroom! Far too long!). So we decided to take the plunge and start looking outside of the OC for some affordable, spacious inside-and-out properties in good ole' Corona. Yeah, it was going to be weird, but hey! We would have a yard, a minimum of 4 bedrooms and space for us to breathe. It was going to be awesome according to us, not so much according to both sides of our families. Anyway, we went a'lookin' to absolutely no avail. It was horrible. Talk about stress.

4. Mid-September: While I was on a walk wallowing in the misery which had become plain ole' normal at that point, my parent's realtor three-way called me with my mom on the line to talk about a listing he had in Lake Forest (right up the street from my parents' fabulous city of Mission Viejo), and that he could make it happen in one week. ONE WEEK! So I immediately packed the kids in the car at 7:30 pm, drove from Yorba Linda to Lake Forest to meet my mom and Gus, drove back, told Chad about it once he got home from class at 10:00, called Gus at 10:30 and WABAM! We had a new home which met all of our criteria!

5. September 14th: MOVE IN DAY! I swear I heard the choir of angels all day long!

Anyway, I'll tell you what: when you're feeling outrageously low because your peace of mind has been compromised thanks to a lack of sleep and tight living quarters, pray on it and try not to become desperate! Toward the end of our Corona search I was commiserating with my dad about the current state of the four of us, and he told me,
"Honey, I know it's tough, but don't become desperate. When you get into that state of mind, you make rash decisions." 

After hearing those words of wisdom I really did relax, and shortly after I revised my prayer message from "Okay, we REALLY need to figure out our living situation, so could you help a gal out?" to "Wherever you see us, lead me there," it all fell into step. Glorious, I tell you, glorious!