Life as a New Mom

These past 8 weeks have blown by incredibly fast, as I mentioned in my post below. It's hard to remember what life was life before Owen graced us with his presence. It's even harder to think I've only been a mommy for 8 weeks (plus 40 weeks, if we're counting pregnancy). I was looking at my bump pictures the other day and I couldn't believe how big I was!

I'll be honest with you guys, when we first brought Owen home, I never thought I would sleep again and while I enjoyed life with my new baby boy, it was so rough getting used to life with a newborn. That, on top of recovering from giving birth and dealing with all the insane hormones (or lack thereof) that my body was trying to adjust from was so hard. I was so thankful that Tyler was able to get a week off of work to help me regain some strength but unfortunately, he had to go back to work the first day that we were able to take Owen home and I had no idea what to expect and that first night was so tough to push through. I thought it would never get better...

Even though that was only seven weeks ago, I wish I could go back and tell myself that it is all going to be okay, so I'll tell you guys, as some of you will be new moms soon: life will get easier, taking care of a baby will get easier, it just takes some time to get into a schedule, and don't be afraid to cry and let it out. Cry.. and cry some more! I don't think I've ever cried as much as I did those first couple weeks after Owen was born.

Now that it's been 8 weeks since Owen's birth, we have gotten our routine down. While Owen still runs the show over here, life is easier and I'm much more adjusted to the lack of sleep. My days are filled with many lattes (my espresso machine is a life-saver), feedings, diaper changes, diaper washes.. (hooray for hand-washing cloth diapers everyday... we really need a washer & dryer), google searches (if you have kids, you completely understand), and lots of cuddles. It's amazing when I find time to make dinner for me and Tyler (yay for bacon-wrapped meat loaf tonight!)

Espresso is good for the soul... and sleep-deprived moms

Even though I have a lot on my plate, I still find myself craving to work and craft. There are so many things I keep adding to my to-DIY list (I have even been looking at 1st birthday party ideas.. I'm getting a little ahead of myself) and I can't wait till I have an opportunity to do some of them. Some crafts I hope to do sooner than later are: baby leggings, making a tablecloth for our dinner table, and hopefully getting around to getting our photo gallery up. We moved into our new apartment in the middle of November and still really haven't gotten around to doing any home decor (we still really need an ottoman and end tables). By the time we have it all situated, our lease will be up!

I wish I had unlimited space & money for fabric alone..

Being a new mom has been such stress and fun and I wouldn't have it any other way (okay.. maybe I wish Tyler could work from home) and while there are days when the house isn't in the condition I would like it to be, it's still filled with the people I love the most and if I spend more time cuddling with my son rather than cleaning a few dishes, who cares? I am going to enjoy every moment I can as a new mommy with my adorable family..

Little Owen enjoying his first fire!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2013 Everyone!

I hope everyone had a great time enjoying the holidays!
Tyler and I were able to spend a large chunk of time at home and I couldn't be more grateful. It's so nice being able to spend time with your family especially around the holidays.

As some of you may know,
Tyler and I will be getting married on May 11th, 2013!
Seriously though... that's just about 4 months away. I cannot even believe it! 

And with that being said, I will be graduating college just a week before Tyler and I are getting married. I could not be more excited for 2013!
It is truly going to be a wonderful year.

Since time is sort of wrapping up on our engagement (4 months is going to FLY by) we have started finishing up more stuff for our wedding.

One major check of the list that we did just this week was
we ordered our bridal party's flowers! (YAY/*sigh of relief)

I also surprised Tyler on Christmas and ordered him his wedding band! He picked it out a couple months ago, not knowing that I was going to surprise him on Christmas! :)

We also ordered our cake topper and

other small items that I cannot wait to see.

For the most part, we only have smaller things left to do

which is nice since I'll most likely be bogged down with school these next 4 months.

Last but definitely not least, WE FINISHED OUR INVITATIONS.
Ah, I'm so excited to check that off the list.
Now we just have to get them all printed out and sent on their way.

I hope you all are enjoying 2013 so far!

PS: One thing that we are having trouble with STILL is our honeymoon. So wish us luck while we make that decision hopefully within the month! :)

Happy Holidays!!!!

Hello everyone!
Tyler and I have been busy celebrating the holidays with each other & our families... and then there was also work & school that are always in the way of a good time. Here are some pictures to catch you up on all the fun and excitement that we have been having.
*Oh and in just 8 short days, we will be getting married in just 5 MONTHS!!

 

Phew! That was a lot of pictures and quick look through our excitement.
Even in the midst of all that we were able to do some planning for the wedding.
We made some adorable yarn letters, we are in the final steps of the invitation planning,
we got bridesmaids & grooms/men outfits, and the list keeps going...
...now if we could only figure out where we want to honeymoon!

I hope everyone is enjoying this holiday season!
I know that we have TONS to be thankful for and couldn't be more happier for the things that we have and the people we get to share those things with!

<3

Wedding Registry Excitement!

Hello friends and family, I hope you are all enjoying the week so far!
As for me and Tyler, we are extremely busy with work and school
however, this weekend we were able to finally finish registering for our wedding!

Doesn't he look like Michael C. Hall as Dexter in this picture..?
Maybe it's the creepy face and knife, I don't know.... ;]

Of course I'm scanning cupcake tins....

We registered at of course, Target. And Bed, Bath, & Beyond. 

You can view both of our registries here:
 Target Registry & Bed, Bath, and Beyond Registry.

I think registering has been Tyler's favorite part of all this wedding planning so far. Not just picking out gifts for our loved ones to get us,
but walking around and getting ideas of what our future home will be like.
It's so exciting, and I think it's safe to say that registering has been one of my favorite parts as well.

Other than registering, Tyler and I have been enjoying cool weather by baking, cooking and glorious cups of espresso. Here are a few pictures to leave you with.

Oh, the places we'll (want to) go.

$2000/per person for airfare to Australia.

$1200/per person for airfare to New Zealand.

$900/per person for airfare to Sweden or Ireland.

$400/per person for airfare to Hawaii.

Finding a place far away from home to honeymoon inexpensively: impossible. 

So... Tyler and I have been talking about all the places that we would love to go on a honeymoon. We have both decided that we wanted to go somewhere far from home (which is proving to be an expensive task).

Ahhhhh...

I mean... Who DOESN'T want to go to Ireland?

We have actually talked about moving to Sweden & even attempted learning the language. Haha.

We want to be able to go somewhere that we know we will never be able to get the chance to after we are married and settled down. We have so many ideas but they are all so expensive! It's such a let down. I just need to keep telling myself that I will honestly have a blast no matter where I go with my future hubby. 

I honestly wouldn't even care if we didn't have a honeymoon. But, there's that part of me that really wants a lavish vacation that we can remember for the rest of our lives. Ahhhh... 

If anyone has any suggestions to where we should go or what we should do, we would love to hear them! We are open to anything, really.

<3

Insider Edition

If you want to get an insight of our relationship,
here are three things that allow us to enjoy life just a little bit more. :)

1. Written By A Kid - Ep. 1: Scary Smash

They turn kid's funny stories into actual little movies. As their slogan goes "we make videos based on what they say", it's seriously the cutest & funniest thing.

2. Coffee, coffee, and more coffee (specifically iced)

 Okay, so there's some hot coffee in there too, but if you want to learn how to cold brew your coffee then click here for the details! Warning: it does take 8-12 hours to go through the complete process but it's definitely worth the time.

3. Ticket To Ride

We recently started getting into board games and can't get enough of this one. Each player draws a couple routes that they try to complete by the end of the game using their train pieces. For every completed route you get points added to your total, but for every incomplete route you have, you get points subtracted from your total. It sounds simple, but chaos ensues as every player starts to get an idea of what route you're trying to complete and tries to block you off. If you want to get a better understanding of how it's played, click here. Thanks TableTop!

I hope you're hungry!

So as Michelle has recently started her senior year at college it felt like the wedding planning would start to slow down quite a bit, but we're still making a bit of progress! We recently finalized the menu for the reception... 

and it's BBQ!

Look at those baby pies!

I mean, seriously.... how amazing does all that look? We're drooling.. 

It took us a while to come up with what type of food we even wanted to begin with since we eventually decided against our first idea. And we know BBQ is typically a messy type of food so we're keeping the finger-foods to a minimum (because we don't want it to look like the end of a wing-eating competition by the end of the night).

As of right now here is what our menu looks like:

• Tri-tip (as a sandwich or by itself)
• Pulled pork (as a sandwich or by itself)
• Mixed-greens salad
• Corn on the cob
• Baked beans
• Potato salad

I'm sure we might add some more to the menu if we come up with anything, it's just so hard finding what works best for the occasion. If anybody has any ideas of something we could add to the menu, let us know in the comments.

Finally getting started

After much delay and thought going in to exactly what we want to have for everybody to feast their eyes on at the wedding, we finally got down and dirty and put our hands to work!

We started off our crafting binge last night with the process of cutting down some fabric to the proper size. It seemed like such a simple process for what we were planning to make (and it was really), but man, using a pair of scissors for any extended period of time starts to take it's toll on your hands! After much hand crampage (for lack of a better term), we finally had the finished product on our hands; some amazing mason jar votives (there will eventually be candles in these)!

I'd say these turned out great!

Tonight we hesitantly got started with DIY project #2, while still feeling the effects of those scissors from the night before. This was another very simple decoration, just somewhat time consuming getting all of the fabric ripped down to the strips that we needed. After lots of sweating while sitting out in the front yard getting everything cut down to size, we were both happy to get back in under the air conditioning to start putting everything together finally.

The backdrop

While you wait...

If you want to get a feel for what type of wedding this is going to be you can look at both our Pinterest's and Instagram. We update those daily. 

Michelle: Instagram/Pinterest
Tyler: Instagram/Pinterest

:)