Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!! I'm early on a post for once, Yay! Our evening thus far hasn't been too exciting, which sums up life with a little one. We went to dinner at Chili's (which I haven't been to in almost a year) and came home put on our pjs and are enjoying the Chick-fil-a Bowl. What a crazy game. I have too admit that enjoying the low key evening. 

Here's the only good shot I we managed this year of us celebrating. 

I was trying to find photos of 2003 NYE, my senior year in college. But alas I couldn't and I don't have my scrapbook from that year with me in CA. As far as I can remember we probably celebrated at Thornridge as we had the previous 2 years. I'm sure there were dance parties, lots of food, pictures and memories made. I just can't remember. I guess that means I'm getting old. 

Wherever you are and whatever you're doing have a safe and happy new year. See you in 2014. 

What we've been up to lately

First off I can't believe it's almost Christmas. I don't know where the past few weeks have gone, but here's a quick update on what we've been up to lately. 

We hosted a Christmas party for our small group. The kids definitely outnumbered the adults, but everyone had a great time. I can't believe that I didn't take any pictures. 

Charlotte went to her first friend birthday party two weeks ago at Chuck E Cheese. She wasn't as afraid of Chuck as she was the first time they met. It was fun hanging out with our friends from church outside of our normal activities. We have another birthday party this weekend.

Grandma came to town last week and we will be sad when she leaves tomorrow. Charlotte has loved having her around and is going to miss her when she leaves. David and I have also enjoyed having her here. 

On Friday night we went to David's work party at the House of Blues. It was the first time we had been out by ourselves since May. We had a great time. We even went out afterwards and stayed out until after 1 pm. Woo-Hoo for us. On Saturday we went to see Catching Fire at the deluxe theaters. The movie experience was great, the food not so much. 

I've been trying out a few Pinterest projects without success. I need to be more careful when pinning things. Half the templates I've tried using don't exist anymore. FRUSTRATING. So no new Pinterest projects right now.

We are trying to decide if we will be home around Christmas this year. Right now, we aren't planning to come home, but we did find flights home so we are deciding what to do. 

And that about sums it up.

Pinterest Weekend Edition: Wood Projects

I've had these pins pinned forever. I waited until we moved and waited some more to start them. I wish I had taken a few more photos of the process, but with a 1 year old I'm lucky to get anything accomplished. These projects took me weeks to complete, but are really easy.

First up a place to organize and display my running accomplishments. I thought about cutting my race bibs and making coasters with them, but I knew the coaster thing wouldn't last long and in the end I would probably be disappointed cutting them. When I found this idea I knew it was perfect for me. And it was easy to complete. Here's the quick DIY tutorial without pics. 

Materials:

Piece of wood cut to size. 

1small can of Wood Stain (was enough for this project and the project below)

C hooks (2 for bibs and several for medals)

Paint or Sharpie for words. I used sticky vinyl and my cricut machine. 

Stain wood to desired shade. Draw letters on wood. Screw in C hooks and add bibs and medals. Viola your done. 

The next one is one of those growth rulers. I loved tracking my growth growing up. Since we move pretty regularly I thought this was the perfect solution for our needs. I'm still figuring out how we can track her growth in a creative way. Stay Tuned. 

Materials:

Piece of wood

Stain (I used the same one for metal organizer. It only took one small can)

Paint or Sharpie for words. I used sticky vinyl and my cricut machine. 

What have you been up to? I have one, maybe two more Christmas Pinterest projects I'm working on this month. 

Whatever Weekend Edition

A big Congrats to first the Lady Tigers for clinching the SEC Volleyball title and giving MIZZOU it's first SEC title. Another cheer goes up for the Football team for defeating Ole Miss and bringing the record to 10-1. Here's hoping for another victory this weekend over Texas A&M. We are hosting a watch party with some friends from our small group who are A&M fans. I hope we are still friends after this weekend. ;). Either way we have had an incredible season, but will most likely not make a BCS bowl. Flash back to 2007 when we lost to Oklahoma in the Big12 Championship game and Kansas took our spot with one less loss. Still bitter.

I finished The Longest Ride last week. It was a typical Nicholas Sparks book, with a Jodi Piccoult twist. I did enjoy it, but it wasn't my favorite. I have a few other books in my queue such as Divergent and Becoming Myself. It takes me so much longer to read these days.

I have my first 5K race in two weeks for Girls On the Run. I signed up as a running buddy and I'm running with a 10 year old from my team. We did a practice run last week and almost all of the girls completed the 5K. My partner is by far the fastest on the team. I can't decide if she is super fast or if I'm super slow. Anyway I'm looking forward to the race and watching all the girls complete the run.

I've got a few Pinterest posts coming soon. Stay Tuned.

Visitors

Last weekend two of my besties from college came for a visit. While the weather wasn't great, we still managed to have a great time. I do feel like the biggest failure for not having a birthday banner, balloons and cake for Carrie's birthday. FRIEND.FAIL. She was gracious about it, but I think a little disappointed. I blame it on Charlotte. ;) I hopefully redeemed myself by grabbing McDonalds breakfast, even though they didn't have the bagel meal. Really McDonalds, really? After taking it easy we headed out to the beach. I had planned on taking them to Coronado, but we changed our plans and headed to La Jolla to see the seals. Another bummer, there weren't many seals. Seriously, I'm 0-2 at this point. Luckily we were able to put our feet in the water at the Children's Pool. Brrr.. it was cold but beautiful. I've never gotten in the water here. Charlotte had a blast, until she was over it. 

Eww my hands are dirty, clean them mommy.

After lunch and dessert we headed home for a quick nap and got ready for dinner. Since we moved we haven't found yummy restaurants in our area, so I was fresh out of ideas for dinner. We ended up at a pizza and beer place. My pizza was good, along with the spinach artichoke dinner, but not everyone loved the pizza.

The next day we headed out to the zoo. Not only was it sprinkling, but also cold. We had the zoo pretty much to ourselves, and say most of the park.

Riding the Skyfari. 

Riding the Skyfari the other way. 

Seriously beautiful. How have I not noticed you before?

We enjoyed an evening in on Friday and reminisced out the college days. Sometimes, I want to go back and do it all again. 

Saturday we once again took it easy.  We ended the the evening with dinner and a melting down 1 year old. She really did good, but was pushed to her limit. 

Saturday we ventured out to a new brunch place. I would definitely go back with our next visitors. I forced them to snap this photo at the airport. 

We had so much fun hosting you guys!! We miss you. 

Etsy Store is Now Live!!!

After 3 years of talking about starting my Etsy Store, I've finally done it! Check out my store on the Etsy website. Look up SaucyRoxann to find my store.

I am really excited to finally launch. I have so much fun making these bows and headbands for Charlotte and for other girls. Headbands make great gifts too for the upcoming holidays.

I am adding more items daily. Here are a few pictures of the Headbands and hair bows currently for sale.

Medium Flower Hair Clip

Large Flower Hair Clip

Large Flower Headband

Two Medium Flower Headband

Mini Triple Flower Headband

Fuchsia Sweet Briar Headband

15 Months

15 Months

You have grown up so much in the last month! You have truly turned into a little girl. I am so excited to watch you experience the upcoming holidays!!

Height: 29.5 inches long; 16.9th percentile*

Weight: 18 lbs. .5 oz.; 10.5th percentile*

Head Size: 17.99 inches; 50th percentile*

Foods: You are eating a lot of the same things as before. You tried candy for the first time. Thanks Halloween. 

Words: all done with sign, bubbles, out, side for outside, go go go, bath, down, elp for help, beep, bite, hot and nana for banana, meow for cat

Mommy's Milestones: You have learned so many new words this month. Almost every time I say a word directly to you, you try and repeat. You have 7 teeth! You have mastered the stairs and slide at the park and like doing it by yourself. You can also whistle and like to blow on your food when I say HOT.

Halloween Recap

I have been looking forward to this Halloween for almost a year now since that's when I purchased C's costume. I think stuffed owls are adorable and knew C would too. Well at least she came around to loving it. We first tried on her costume several weeks before Halloween and she wanted nothing to do with it. Mommy FAIL. From that point on we practiced trick-or-treating. Almost every morning leading up to Halloween C would follow me into the bathroom and close the door where the "throne" is located. Thinking this was the perfect opportunity to practice knocking and saying trick-or-treat I would knock on the door, after she shut it, open it and say trick-or-treat. What I received in return was a few giggles and the door being promptly shut in my face. Repeat. I have to say, I do think this helped as we went trick-or-treating and it was very cute.

After our annual Pumpkin Patch trips, you can read about those here and here, we needed to decorate our pumpkin. This year I figured paint was the easiest and most fun for C. She thoroughly enjoyed it!

Can I eat this?

Artist hard at work

I think she had almost as much paint on herself as the pumpkin.

In preparation for Halloween we went to two other trick-or-treating events. One at a shopping center, C was not in a good mood that day, and daddy's work.

Getting ready to the office trick-or-treatin party. 

And now onto Halloween. C didn't actually say trick-or-treat when we were out, but we got her say it several times before we left. It sounded more like tick o teat but still cute. We met up with friends and trick-or-treated around their neighborhood with their 2 year old and newborn. The girls were troopers and came back with lots of candy. The girls only had a piece or two of candy but were bouncing off the stairs later that night. They spent about an hour going up and down the stairs and laughing. I guess I can say she mastered going up the stairs that night.

The Owl and Cinderella. 

November Pin-spired

It's time for another edition of Pinspired. I'm linking up with Shay, Mel and Shaeffer for this month's edition of outfit inspirations. Make sure you check out their blogs and the other bloggers participating.

Summer is finally winding down here in SoCal and I'm excited to break out the sweaters, boots, cardigans and heavier scarfs. I've been waiting for the temperatures to cool off to wear the following fall color combos. I heart fall, even if it began two months late.

Outfits #1-4 - Plum and Mustard

Mustard is one of those colors IMO that looks great with navy, plum, burgundy and army green. All of which I will be sporting in the months to come. Thanks Pinterest for the inspiration.

Inspiration Photo

My re-creations

Outfit #5 - Gold and Army Green

I have been in love with the army green color for a few months and was surprised to find that I actually owned several pieces in this color. Even though it is EVERYWHERE now I'm still digging it. And I have a slight obsession with gold right now.

                     

           Inspiration Photo

Outfit #6 - Burgundy and Coral

What better way to transition into fall than by wearing a bright color with a darker color, especially when it's 80 degrees outside. 

                Inspiration Photo

Check out my other outfit inspiration from my Fashionista Pinterest Board. See my other Pin-spired posts here - September, July, June, May, April, March.

Whatever Wednesday

In honor of breast cancer awareness month I'm encouraging all the women out there to treat themselves to a breast exam, bra-fitting and new bra. Last week as I was reading one of the blogs I follow I was introduced to a new bra brand at a reasonable price. As a mom whose body changed over the last 18 months I was in desperate need of a new bra. I've only been fitted at VS and was told by my doctor to head over to Nordstrom for a proper bra fitting. Before purchasing said bra (available online only for the price) I decided I should be fitted since I knew my size changed.

After browsing the bras and finding the brand that was on sale I asked for a bra fitting and mentioned that I was only browsing and would probably purchase the sale bra online. The girl who helped me spent about an hour with me and gave me 30+ options from a number of labels. She also fitted me and you guessed it, I was a different size than what I had been wearing. She also talked to me about fit and how your bra should lay/look. Seriously I think I've been wearing the wrong band size for ages. Who knew that when your band rides up in the back it's a sign that it's too big. I always thought it meant that the bra was worn out and adjusted the shoulder straps to compensate. It worked for awhile. I left with the names/styles of 6-7 different bras I love and vowed to purchase from her if I decided to take the plunge. As nice as these bras were I was shocked by the prices $58-75. I realize that if it's a good bra it's worth the price. I went home and compared the one I had seen online with the ones I tried on and clicked purchase. The bra came in the mail today and I love it. I'm thinking about ordering another one, especially since it was 50% off.

One another note, two of my teams are playing at the same time this Saturday - STL Cardinals and the Missouri Tigers. This is fourth time in the past 10 years the Cardinals have played in the World Series. This weekend also marks the 102nd MIZZOU Homecoming festivities. My team is 7-0 for the first time since 2010. Who knew we would have this kind of year? I really wish we could be there for the game and for my niece's 2nd birthday. Happy Birthday Harper!!!

Am I the only one who can't get back into running? I have been struggling to get motivated to run since I left my running group months ago. I thought when we moved it would be easy to do, but it's worse. We have so many hills in our neighborhood that I can't make it up one hill without stopping. I want to run a 1/2 marathon next spring and I need to get back into shape pronto. I've been feeling like a blob.

Pumpkin Patch Take 2

We took daddy with us to the pumpkin patch over the weekend. He was a trooper, since the the place was packed and it was hot. Charlotte didn't enjoy the trip as much this time so were only there for a short time. Here are a few pictures from our adventures.

Here's a picture of C's first Halloween. She looks so much older this year. 

14 Months

14 Months

Height: 28.3 inches long; 13.5th percentile*

Weight: 16 lbs. 10.5 oz.; 7.7th percentile*

Head Size: 17.9 inches; 58th percentile*

Foods: Humus, pretzels, eggs and enchiladas
Words: bye-bye, hi, ma ma, da da, woof-woof for dog, up, baby

Mommy's Milestones: You point at things you want, you have 6 teeth (finally), you are pretending to like books more and you enjoy trying to dress yourself. Oh, You LOVE the iPAD.