Times are a-changin . . .

I think I can officially say that my little man has rounded the corner into some devious activity. Carter, light of my life, angel-pie-face that he is, has taken to throwing minor fits and has discovered the fun in banging objects against mirrors, floors, and any other surface you can think of around the apartment. You may be thinking that he is just a baby and can be expected to do things such as this, but just one week ago these ideas would never have entered his little head! I blame it on us teaching him how to whip his wash cloth in the bath to make the water spray everywhere. He now has a vendetta against anything breakable!

I realize these fits may be partially my fault. When I was pregnant I swore that I would never be that mom who would hold their baby so often it would debilitate me from running to the store. Well, I tried to put him down as often as possible but I just had to hold him! So now I need to work backwards and try to get him okay with me putting him down. The weird thing is he has never thrown a fit about anything! Once he is playing on his own, all is well, but the initial set-down has become pretty rough. My poor baby!

I love . . . .

Days like today!

What a great day it has been. First Chad got Carter out of bed and let me sleep for a good 2.5 seconds longer. He brought the little man in and I woke up to a big, toothy smile! Then Chadly took off for his last final for the semester before work, and we played around. Good old Grandpa Frank came over and we talked for a good hour and a half or so while Carter rumbled and tumbled around us, then when Papacito took off, I put the little man down for a two hour nap (woohoo!). Once I was happily sitting on the couch amongst the mess which was my living room, I crept on the Face and scoped out everyones blogs :) When he woke up we went on a walk, then took a trip to the grocery store, then I headed over to Purebarre to sub two classes! I came home to pizza and chicken wings waiting for me! Chad gave the little man a bottle and now we are sitting here watching Brew Masters! Great day!

Other things I love:

-stockings hanging from my garland!
-Christmas tree lights!

Just a few Holiday odds and ends :)

Well, let me just say, my camera just broke, so I can't post any pictures of anything I ever talk about! It's such a bummer and I'm really sorry everyone has to just read about everything instead of seeing it! It's no bueno, but anyways......

My little humble abode is almost done being decked with Christmas cheer! Here is what we have done so far in preparation for the best holiday of the year!

1. I hung a lighted garland over our fireplace since we don't have a mantle. I stuck little ornaments on a few of the branches for some extra oomph! Then I hung out three matching stockings on it all! I'm looking at it right now and I love it <3

2. We got our tree! We are a little shmooshed in our living room because we got a 6 foot douglas fir and it dominates haha. Now our furniture is rearranged, so it's a little tight in here. Chadly finished stringing the lights while I was at work, and we have yet to hang the ornaments, but it's quite lovely :)

3. I made a cute wreath compliments of thepleatedpoppy :) Love that lady! Here is a picture of her version, but I used a green crazy wreath and put up gold ornaments:

4. Finally, I plan on doing this for our little dinner party, also compliments of thepleatedpoppy :

Hopefully Gina and I will get our acts together and make some Christmas pillows, which is what we planned for, but who knows haha! Anyway, loving this time of year with my little family :) I hope everyone is having an equally amazing holiday season!

Happily Disconnected

This last weekend the little man and I packed up on Friday afternoon and headed out to the desert to spend some quality time with the Cisneros family. Chad had to work both Saturday and Sunday (bummer) and he had a monstrous amount of school work to complete before finals really set in, so in the spirit of giving him some time alone we spent two nights in Palm Springs at the time share! The Cisneros's have been spending a week every December out there for the past 20 years, so it was quite special that now the third generation (Carter!) gets to experience P-Springs like his Dad did when he was a little one :)

When I hit the windmills, Maggie (my sister-in-law) texted me saying I should come by the new toffee shop before I settled in with Grandpa C. So I hopped off the free way at Bob Hope and made my merry way to the old Coco's that Brandini Toffee now calls home. (Brandini Toffee was started by Chad's niece when her and her friend were trying to pay their way to Italy for a class trip. I believe they were 14 or 15 at the time, so the fact that the company has blown up into what it is today is just amazing. They are now sophomores in college!). After getting blown away at how large their operation has become in the past few years, I put poor Carter back in the car and headed to our weekend hideaway.

There everyone got their Carter fix, and I got to exercise and read which is quite a luxury! All in all, it was a great weekend where I was happily disconnected from my laptop (even though I did miss blogging). Now it's time to get our tree decorated and enjoy ourselves :)

An update on my style revolution

It's been a couple weeks since I decided to throw my lazy dressing habits out the window and I decided it's time to give an update on how that's been holding up. So far, since I wrote about trying to dress better, I've only not worn make-up twice and those two days were the only days in which I decided to throw on sweats instead of jeans! I have to say that's a HUMONGOUS improvement from where I was coming from in the clothing department! It really does make you feel better about the day when you force yourself out of your sloth-like ways and apply some mascara.

When I was living in the sorority house, if someone was having a bad day, one of my wise sisters would always put her arm around Bad-Day-Betty and tell her to go do her make-up because life will look a lot better with some mascara. Back in the day I thought that sounded like a hassle, but it really is the truth! Anyway, that's my update on my dressing revolution!

Carter's first birthday partay!

The 5th of December brought us lots of happiness as it was the day we chose to celebrate our little one's first birthday! We held the party at Chad's parent's house in Yorba Linda and invited both sides of the family. We had a great turn out which meant LOTS of great presents for Carter! Chad and I started marinating carne asada a couple of days before the big day, so the food was fabulous and my man was having a good time at the grill! Here's how the day unfolded:

We woke up with the little man around 7:30ish and I cleaned the house so that way we could come home to calmness instead of chaos while Chadly ran to the store for a few last minute things. Around 10:00ish we headed over to the Cisneros home and put the little man down for a quick nap before the madness got going. I started decorating while Chad and his dad got everything out of the car. We went with a sports theme with an emphasis on the CHARGERS! Chad was so excited he was going nuts! Thank goodness G-Funk (my sister!) came over around 11:30ish with the balloons to help me decorate (she has a way better eye for decorating than I do). Before I knew it it was 12:45 (15 minutes before the partay was set to begin) and Carter was still asleep! I ran upstairs to wake him up and change him into his birthday outfit and headed downstairs to join the first few guests who were arriving! He was such a great baby the entire day! I thought for sure that we would see some tears at some point, but he was awesome! Chad started cooking around 1:45 so we ate around 2:30 (many thanks to my mama, my MIL and her bff Jean - without them who knows how the sides would have turned out!). Speaking of sides we went with a ME-HE-CANO theme with rice and beans and a few other fabulous dishes! Right after we ate it was the big moment when Carter was supposed to dig into the cake! I totally thought he would go nuts, but he was super resistant and didn't even crack a smile! Chad had to push his hands into the cake and even that made him mad! So we wrapped up the digging-into-the-cake session quickly and moved on to opening presents! He sure did sweep in a heck of a lot of new toys because I'm sitting amongst all the boxes right now in my living room! Grandma and Grandpa Paplia gave him a cool ride-along Thomas the Train and Grandma and Grandpa Cisneros gave him a huge lion rug! He loved every single present. Needless to say, the day was a great success!

Now it's on to the next dinner party at our humble abode! I have to say that I'm pretty dang excited that I'm throwing my second dinner partay within the same holiday season! The first one was for the Cisneros crowd, but this one is for a combo of the Cisneros's and the Paplia's! It's going to be the night before Carter's actual birthday (December 23rd), and it will just a be a little celebration of what we were all doing a year ago! I'm excited and I just love throwing these parties! They're a lot of work but a heck of a lot of fun!

Carter's Almost 1!

Along with the most exciting season of the year (HAPPY DECEMBER EVERYONE!), it's my perfect little bundle of joy's birthday time! He will officially be 1 years old on December 23, but we are having his birthday party on the 5th in order to accomodate all family members! I'm so excited for this coming Sunday I can hardly contain myself! It's going to be a great day filled with people we love and who love us :)

It's funny because it was on this day last year (December 2nd) that I worked my last day at Ricca Donna Salon in Brea. I loved working there! It was a great atmosphere and what was even more awesome was that my hair stylist was only 2 weeks behind me in her pregnancy, and another stylist was 3 months behind us! So we were always talking about baby issues such as whether or not to get the H1N1 shot (hahaha oh, we were debating for weeks!), our plans for going into labor early, and just about everything else you can think of when you're expecting your first baby! My due date was December 11th, so I figured I was giving myself just enough time to finish up the school semester and sit on my lilly pad awaiting a contraction or two.

Little did I know that I would NOT go into labor on my own despite my best efforts. I walked probably 50 miles between December 2nd and December 11th, at which point I was exhausted and cranky because I was humongous and I wasn't even experiencing the smallest cramp! It was also terrible because that's when Chad and I lived in Yorba Linda and in order to visit my family in Mission Viejo I ran the risk of going into labor too far away from the hospital! I know now that those fears were a little off base, but with your first bambino you can never be too cautious!

Another thing that put me in a bad mood was when Chad and I went to my doctor's appointment on December 11th only to find out that I had not dilated 1 centimeter! After that appointment Chad had to go to work and I was left alone to sulk. On our next doctors appointment (I was a week overdue), good old Dr. B informed us that I still had not dilated, and that I was welcome to come on in to the hospital that night at 7:00 to start the induction process. We were so excited, but I all of a sudden got super nervous. So that night we went to dinner with Mama Paplia and Vince (my little brother), and off we headed to the hospital (which is when I burst into tears because I was so anxious). The next morning the doctor broke my water and we started the pitocin at 8:00 am and I delivered after a super easy labor at 9:12 pm. He was 8 lbs. 7 oz.s and 21 inches long! His foot was so big it wouldn't even fit in the little spot allotted for the foot print! His head was also the most perfect shape I had ever seen on a new born baby! It was a great day and man, did I hit the hay after the delivery when he was safe in the nursery!

The next day was Christmas Eve, and that night after all the visitors left we watched the Disneyland fireworks from our hospital room and had california burritos from Rigobertos (which I found out later I was not supposed to eat because it was incompatible with nursing! Oops!). On Christmas Day I will never forget the drive home from St. Jude's! It was hilarious! Chad was driving about 12 miles per hour the entire way down Yorba Linda Blvd., where my mom and the Cisneros's awaited our arrival! It was a fabulous couple of days! And now my little man is 1 years old! Where the heck did the time go??