Random superlatives of 2010

Proudest Family Moment: A tie between S finishing medic school and Bean finally taking her first steps just days before Christmas.



Best exercise routine started and quickly abandoned: Dancing with the Stars Cardio Workout.

Hardest thing I didn't expect: Realizing that moving to my dream house wasn't exactly as dreamy as I had imagined it would be.



Favorite song that I am slightly embarrassed to admit I love: Teenage Dream by Katy Perry.



Best Food I had at a restaurant I can't remember the name of: A tiny "catch-of-the-day" cafe behind a fish and tackle shop in San Diego. The halibut and scallops were beyond definition. And I don't even really like seafood all that much.



Favorite Book I read that I expected I would like: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins



Favorite Book I read that I was not expecting to like as much as I did: Digging to America by Anne Tyler



Worst Book I read that had me give up reading altogether (for a few months only...): The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett



Worst Cooking disaster: A tie between the hard-as-rock sugar cookies I made for Valentine's Day and dumping all of my cupcakes into a chocolatey-frosted mass at the bottom of my cupcake-carrier.



Number one "can't live without it" toy in our house right now: The Fisher Price Ride-On firetruck my parents got Bean for her birthday.



Favorite vacation memory: Zonking out at the La Quinta with Bean on the king-sized bed after a rough day at Arches National Park. Best nap I've ever taken. Period.

Best self-portrait taken:

Best movie with the worst ending: Inception

Proudest domestic moment: freezing enough pumpkin to feed a small army (one of my Grandma's favorite expressions.)

Proudest Emily moment: becoming more self-aware, confirming my values and beliefs, and making it through year one as a mommy.

Year in Review

I started a photo-journal project called "12 on the 12th" last January and just completed it this month. It is probably self-explanatory, but I took 12 photos at random each 12th of the month and will later compile them into an album. I was looking through these pictures and thought I would share a few of my favorite here.

It is easy to see a theme going on...

January: Bean just waking up in the morning. We used to swaddle her up so tight. Now she greets us every morning standing on her tiptoes!

February: The morning routine. Cereal. Meds. Formula. Every morning. I'd be lying if I said I missed those days!

March: She put the sock in her own mouth. Her cuteness overrides my "un-" and therefore persuades me to post this picture. P.S. We had just finished a session of major scrapbooking!

April: I LOVE RAIN!! I could go for days like these the majority of the year!

May: The 12th must have been close to Mother's Day. S bought me these beautiful flowers. I am a lucky girl. He buys me beautiful flowers a lot...

June: My sweet garden. I've missed this retreat a lot more than I thought I would. It's so beautiful in the early summertime.

July: Bean would happily sit for a long time and just read her books. Though the days of sitting in one place are gone, she is still happy spending the majority of her day reading.

August: Irony. The most success I have ever had growing tomatoes occurred within the month that we moved. I hoped the new owners loved garden-grown tomatoes as much as we did and wouldn't let them go to waste. I also believe this is the last picture I will ever have of our first garden.

September: Ahh... San Diego. The weather was near perfect as we took all of these kids to the beach for the first time in their lives. San Diego sounds pretty awesome right now.

October: Many 12ths fell on days that I worked. When you spend as much time working with people, as I do these gals, they really do become your second family. And they were very patient every time my camera showed up on the 12th.

November: I can't exactly remember the circumstances, but I do remember having to do our grocery shopping on a work day after picking up Bean from my parents. I probably got a few strange looks walking around a grocery store at 10 p.m. with my sweet girl in her p.j.'s. (As I remember, she was an angel the whole time!)



December: One of Bean's favorite things to do at G'ma and G'pa H.'s is to read through all of the newspaper ads. This year she helped us pick out all of her presents. Very convenient.



This was a fun project and, while a few times the 12th slid into the 13th (...and one time I forgot altogether--happily we were on vacation so I took lots of pictures anyway!), I am surprised I actually followed through with something that was a whole-year commitment! Will I do it again? Probably not, once is good enough for me. Should you try it? Absolutely! It's fun to see how random pictures can so adequately describe one's life!

Christmas is Magical again.

Wishing all of you out there in the blogosphere a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

~

Emily, S, and Bean

*sigh*

The week before Christmas has arrived. My to-do list (which should be getting shorter, not longer) hangs over my head and I'm stuck at work until Wednesday so there really isn't much I can do about it. And then we had a really crappy night at work on Friday. And then I hit a really bad car accident on my way home--which left me with no alternative but to slowly work my way through traffic. I got home three hours late that night. Thinking the worst was behind me, I went to bed.

Wrong.

I woke up horribly ill two hours later and spent the remainder of my night...well, I won't go into details...

I should have seen it coming. I tend to think that I am capable to do anything and everything that I want to do and I think little of the effect it has on my body. I think my body was in need of a miserable 24 hours if for no other reason than to get me right where I needed to be--flat on my back in bed.

S had to go into work that morning. I called into work telling them I wouldn't be there. My incredible sister and nieces came to my rescue as they took Bean for the better part of the day allowing me the most wonderful and needed gift of rest. I laid in bed thinking of all of the plans I had made for the upcoming week. And I no longer cared. All I wanted to do was sleep and get better.

Thankfully it was a fast moving bug/food poisoning incident (I still have no clue what caused this and probably won't unless Bean or S get sick as well) and I am currently feeling 100% better than I did this time yesterday.

But one thing hasn't changed and that is that I realized it simply isn't important if not all of the gifts are "cover of a magazine"-worthily-wrapped. I probably won't get all of my cards mailed this year but instead will focus on getting them to the ones who will care the most--my family (who also won't care if they don't get them until after Christmas.) Those sugar cookies aren't going to get baked. But then I'm pretty sure snowflake and snowmen cookies are still welcome in January so I'll just do it then. Things are okay as they are and I am most excited to spend time with my family this upcoming weekend. And they won't care a bit that I haven't had time to bring homemade gingerbread to the party.

So, albeit a harsh way to remind me to slow down, getting sick really couldn't have come at a better time.

And I was able to spend a few hours resting this morning while Bean brought me a dozen of her favorite books. We snuggled together on the couch by the Christmas Tree. It was Awesome.

Looking through pictures...

...will somebody please tell me how we went from this


to this




to this?

And so quickly?!

there must be some secret to making time slow down a little...

Since my last post...

...we've

celebrated Thanksgiving,


made our annual trip to the Festival of Trees with my mom,

(Bean's favorite tree, obviously. Good thing she was securely strapped into her stroller or she would have been up the tree!)



(And my favorite Gingerbread House. Some people amaze me!)


tried to avoid the frightful weather,

(But these are really so beautiful, right?!)


had a playdate,


and been Christmas crafting.


And to celebrate all of this Christmas crafting I have finally decided to start a new blog. It has been in the *mental works* for some time (I've even had the URL reserved for a few months after a major AHA moment at work) but being motivated enough to finally get it out there didn't occur until just a few days ago. I have always wanted to post the little crafts I've done, recipes I've tried, all that fun stuff, but overall haven't wanted to do it on this blog. So since I have absolutely nothing else going on in my life (bold type=heavy on the sarcasm) I decided what the heck?!

As to the title: I believe I have mentioned before that I work a 7 on/7 off job which gives me the privilege of being a stay-at-home mom--every other week. Hence the title, "My Week Off." If you want to follow it, awesome! If not, that's totally okay, too. But after the 1st post I can already tell I'm going to have a lot of fun doing it so I guess that's a good enough reason for me to keep going!