Resolutions Old and New

I was reading a little blurb in the paper while on vacation last week about new years resolutions and how their success rate is typically around 8%. Pretty crazy huh? I know I have probably failed at new years resolutions more than I've succeeded but I still love them and I think the new year is a great time to take stock and make goals for the year ahead. I decided to take a look at last years list of goals and see how I did, here are the results:

1. Get caught up on all my doctors appointments that I have been putting off forever (such as dentist and eye doctor). Here's to a healthier 2013!Check! I passed this one with flying colors, go me!

2. Learn how to make my own broth from scratch. I've been wanting to try this and seriously can't believe it's taken me this long.Check again, I make my own broth pretty regularly now.

3. Bake regularly, at least once a week. I enjoy it and it's cheaper and better for me than store bought bread.I probably didn't do this once a week exactly but I came close. I have enjoyed baking and eating more home made bread all year long. 

4. Try new sewing projects and really improve my sewing skills.Definitely did this one too, looking forward to continuing the journey next year. 

5. Cut waaayyy back on sugar.I think i failed pretty badly at this one, Eric disagrees and says he has noticed me eating less sugar. He's not around when I do those day time Starbucks runs though ;-)

6. Walk a few miles at least 2 times a week. Eric, Echo and I have been walking to the grocery store fairly regularly. Not only is it good exercise but it's also good family bonding time.Eh, we did well at this for a while but when bad weather hits we tend to slack off, maybe we can do better next year. 

7. Read more and watch less TV. I've started this already. It makes feel better mentally :-)Definitely did this! Our tv broke this year and we didn't even notice for like a month. That's how little we watch tv now. I'm pretty happy about this. 

8. Eat more local meat and produce.Yep, our weekly farmers market visits help with this.

9. Learn to cut my own hair.I tried this once and pretty much decided it wasn't worth the effort (it's really hard to see the back of your own head). I still cut Eric's hair from time to time though.

10. Start trying for kid number two. This one is so much fun, I can't wait for her to have a little brother or sister :-)Haha, yes got this one covered. Can't wait to meet our new little someone in 2014!

Overall I think i did pretty well on last years list. Here is my list of goals for next year.

1. Cut back on sugar, again. I need to keep working at this until it sticks, it is my major downfall when it comes to eating right.

2. Cut back on red meat. We are trying to do more chicken and fish this year as a family for our overall health. 

3. Continue baking regularly and try new bread recipes. Eric got me some amazing bread cookbooks for Christmas and I can't wait to try out all the yummy recipes. Home made bread is just beyond compare. Baking is quickly becoming a passion for me, looking forward to perfecting my art even more in the year ahead.

4. Eat more veggies. We have already increased the amount of vegetables we eat a lot in the past year. Trying to up it even more. 

5. Take more walks. We need to get back in the habit of doing this. Hopefully it will stop being so rainy at some point.

6. Continue my sewing education. This is something I really enjoy and want to improve at. Plus I will have a new little baby to sew things for :-)

7. Play outside with Echo every day (weather permitting). We usually do this anyway, Echo loves to get out in nature. I think it is so important for both of us to get some fresh air and sunshine on a daily basis.

8. Get off facebook (mostly). This is something that I have tried to do many times and is so hard for me. I am a really nosy person by nature and I hate not knowing what is going on with people. However, I really do believe that people who aren't on facebook are happier and that it is good for my mental health to stay away. I don't think I can get off completely because so many people use it for planning events and communicating with me but I'd like to get down to checking maybe once a week or just when I have notifications. 

9. Try to take time to really appreciate Echo every day. She is at such a magical, wonderful age and she changes so quickly. I need to be very conscious to take time every day to notice and enjoy how special and wonderful she is. We get so busy that it's easy to overlook the everyday magic that happens all the time around here. I want to savor every minute because I will never get these days back with her. 

10. Lastly, I want to try to keep my sanity while having a toddler and baby at the same time, wish me luck ;-P

How I Handle My Morning Sickness

ginger ale is a life saver

We just got back from our Christmas vacation in Rhode Island and had an amazing time! I caught a head cold but other than that the trip went off without a hitch and Echo was a champ for her first time on a plane. I am currently going through my photos and will have lots of images and stories to tell soon but in the mean time here is a post on dealing with morning sickness the second time around (aka, while simultaneously dealing with a toddler).

One of my big fears when I found out I was pregnant again was how on earth I would deal with being sick while I was getting up all night with my sleep challenged toddler. Thankfully the morning sickness hasn't been nearly as bad this time around but I have been feeling vaguely queasy on and off for weeks now. Here are my top foods for beating morning sickness.

1. Ginger Ale. When I was pregnant the first time I often used crackers to help settle my stomach. The problem with this now is that I am mostly sick in the middle of the night when I have to get up with Echo and coax her back to sleep. If I go in to her room crunching on crackers it will all be over, she'll be awake and wanting to share my crackers and I'll never get her back down. Ginger ale is a nice quiet way to ease my symptoms without disturbing my little one.

2. Lemon Drops. Same deal as with the ginger ale, these are quiet and and I can discreetly suck on one when I need it. They are also great to take with me when I'm out and about for a quick nausea fix.

3. Pretzels. These are a no go at night because they are too crunchy, however nothing beats nausea better in my experience. I fist learned the pretzel trick when I was scuba diving and got extremely sea sick. The pretzels help so much! They are bland and salty at the same time and for some reason they stop nausea in in it's tracks.

4. Apples. I like to have one right when I get up in the morning or for an afternoon snack. They are a good source of fiber and a nice sweet treat too!

5. Yogurt. This is another one I like to have first thing in the morning, it's incredibly soothing on the stomach. I use plain yogurt (our home made stuff) and some home made granola on top.

More Christmas Happenings

Last night we went to see the Holiday Lights at the Botanical Gardens here in Atlanta. They do an amazing job and it was very beautiful and festive, the perfect thing to put us in the Christmas spirit. I am going to end up with so many Photos from December that I decided to go ahead and post these so that my once a month picture post doesn't get insanely long.

Out of focus because someone else took this picture :-(

Today we took echo to see Santa in Marietta Square. She was not a fan of Santa this year (last year she loved him). Oh well, better luck next time.

She had fun playing in the square though and checking out the big Christmas tree :-)

New Sofa

So just when we finished rearranging our living with our old couch and chair we were fortunate enough to luck in to getting a new sectional sofa! I've wanted a sectional sofa for years but didn't want to pay for a new one. Lucky for us some friends of the family were moving to Seattle and offered us their old one that they didn't want to move.

This isn't a great picture of the sofa but i thought it was a cute on with all 3 cats lined up in a row (they love this sofa!). Echo is sick in this picture and I spent all day snuggling her on the sofa, it was a comfy place to hang out for both of us :-)

Christmas Cheer and a Recipe for Spiced Cider

Echo helping decorate the tree

This past weekend we had our (semi) annual Christmas party and it was a great success! As usual I didn't take a enough pictures but here are a couple of our tree and then a few shots from the party.

The finished tree

We opted for a smaller tree we could put up on a table top this year to keep Echo from pulling it over or otherwise making mischief with it. The result was still pretty satisfying, almost as good as having a big tree.

I had been looking forward to this party for months, it's such a great chance to catch up with friends and see people that I don't see enough of. There were lots of babies in attendance this year which made it even more fun. I can see how much better it's going to get when they are old enough to play charades with us and participate in the white elephant. Having kids around at Christmas makes it so much more magical.

We played apples to apples (which I haven't done in ages) as well as our other standard party games and had a great time eating and drinking hot cider while we relaxed by the fire. Echo wanted to help play cards with us and was in to everyone's hands.

I wish i had gotten pictures of our food and drink spread which was pretty fantastic this year but I got busy hosting and forgot. This year I made my own spiced cider and wanted to record the recipe for posterity. Here's how I did it.

ingredients
2 bottles of plain apple juice
1 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs molasses
3 cinnamon sticks
2 tsp whole allspice
2 tsp whole cloves
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 orange rind

All you have to do to make this yummy spiced cider is put it in the crock pot on low for 6 hours and enjoy hot! I also had some cold the next day and it was delicious as well.

Thanks so much to my party guests for coming, it is always such a pleasure to catch up with everyone and get to celebrate the season with some of my favorite people!

November Photos

I am already getting pretty behind in my blogging and I can tell it's only going to get worse as December continues, what a busy month! Echo has been sick which put everything on hold and I have been busy cleaning and planning for our Christmas party. Here are some of our photos from November, a little late but better late than never :-)

Echo looks so cute in hats! 

We went back to Gibbs Gardens to see the fall foliage 

 Playing on the playground in the cold weather

And last but not least Pallookaville for Logan's Birthday!

First Ultrasound Images

So as anyone who is friends with me on facebook now knows, we are pregnant again! We are so very excited, our goal was to get pregnant before the end of the year and the timing worked out perfectly. The funny thing is we had been trying for a couple of months with no luck but when we finally got burned out and stopped trying to time everything just right the pregnancy happened. I guess it's true that you just need to relax and go with the flow when it comes to these things. We had our first ultrasound yesterday and here are the pictures.

I drew the red arrow so you can see where the baby is. Yep, it's that little blob in the black space. Doesn't look like much yet huh? They said it is measuring at 5 weeks 5 days and we have an updated due date of August 1st. They were able to see the heart beat and said it likely just started since I am so early in the pregnancy.

Being pregnant the second time around is weird. It's strange to say but I keep kind of forgetting about it. I think it's because I'm so busy with Echo that I don't have time to think about it. After our appointment yesterday it certainly seems more real though! No I just have to find a way to stand the wait until we can find out if we are having a boy or a girl :-D