A 'First' Mother's Day

All day, I kept getting, "It's your first Mother's Day."

And while it was according to the holiday, I kept thinking about how it's my 235th day as a mother.

While it was a wonderful day of feeling loved and appreciated (and loving on my own momma and mother-in-law), it is even more wonderful being a mother every day.

I feel so blessed to have the privilidge of raising Jack.

Ever since I was a little girl, all I wanted was to be a mother.

I feel like I'm doing exactly what I was meant to do.

And, I love it.

Yes, there are days that are difficult and challenging, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Here are some pitures of our Mother's Day Weekend.

On Satruday, we headed to the beach for some family time since we would be with our own mother's on Sunday. (These pics were super bright, so I put a filter on them to try and tone them down).

 

Jack was very intrigued with the sand, but wasn't so sure exactly how he felt about it.

 

I woke up to these on Sunday.

My favorite.

After church,we headed to Jason's parents for a Mother's Day brunch with his family.

His grandparents came down for the Sacramento area, so it was great to celebrate with them as well.

My sister hosted our family and her husband's family that evening for a bbq.

My mom and Jack.

The kids went swimming since we had such warm weather this weekend.

Jack enjoyed watching them.

Until he got splashed...

Great weekend.

Feeling so blessed to have so much family close by to celebrate with.

Hope all you mommas had a great day of feeling cherished for all you do and that you cherish all the days you have with your kiddos.

Cousin Lovin'

Living close to family is such a blessing.

We are pretty spoiled in that we all live about 5 minutes away from each other.

I love that we can all get together for every holiday, including the little ones like Mother's/Father's Day, 4th of July, and birthdays.

I love that my parents can be a part of their grand-kids lives and that my mom can watch Jack while I work.

I love that I can watch my nieces and nephews grow-up.

Specifically, though, I love that my sisters and my kids will know each other well.

 

We were never really close to our cousins growing up, as most of them lived a few hours away.

We always had fun when we got together a few times a year, but there is nothing like being a part of each others daily lives.

Jason grew up side by side with one of his cousins, and they are such close friends to this day.

I want that for my kids, too.

I'm so excited for Jack (and his future siblings) to grow up with his (their)  cousins.

I love that they currently see each other at least three times a week while my mom watches all of them when my sister and I are at work.

My nieces love Jack so much, and it is adorable to watch them interact with him.

Even though they see him all the time, they still get so excited to play with him.

I snapped these pictures of Kate and Jack playing the other day.

Seriously, so cute.

She was tickling him and calling him "Jack-y" as she always does.

Claire loves, loves, loves Jack.

I dropped off Jack about an hour later than usual yesterday, and when I walked in she came running up saying, "What took you so long! I've been waiting for Jack."

And the brother cousins are starting to figure out who each other are.

I pray that they remain close friends as they grow older.

Not everyone gets a cousin who is six weeks apart.

So thankful to capture these pictures on just a normal day.

On Going Vegetarian

Two weeks ago, Jason and I got this great horrible idea to stop eating meat for 30 days.
I know...crazy!

A lot of people we know are vegetarian/vegan, and some have just recently made this change, so they've been talking about it a lot. 
They all say how great they feel from not eating meat and are happy with their change.

I must say, we were somewhat critical of this diet, saying it wasn't for us.

Two weeks ago we were driving to see Jason's grandparents and were talking about vegetarian and vegan diets...if we would be able to ever make the change...what it would look like if we did it...the pros, the cons, etc.

And, we decided that we should give it a shot.
Don't knock something till you've tried it, right?

If you know Jason at all, this decision is even more shocking.
The man lives off of protein, specifically meat protein.
He eats two chicken breasts for lunch every day...and a dinner without some sort of meat...how dare I?

I only eat meat at dinner, so the rest of my meals wouldn't be affected. 
How hard could it be?

We set out to start our meatless diet that Monday (we knew there was NO way we could go vegan and survive).
In order to really try to give our body a chance to adapt, we decided to do it for 30 days.
Yes, no meat for 30 days.

Try 9 days.
We lasted 9 days.
Caved in at dinner last night. (I was making Pioneer Woman's Chicken Spaghetti for my friend who just had a baby. Who can resist that? Clearly, not us).

People, how do they do it?

I seriously could hardly find any dinner meals that looked appetizing. 
And, I felt like I was reading a foreign language.
Did not know what so many of the ingredients were in vegetarian meals.
Just didn't feel motivated to learn a whole new way of cooking.

So, we ate salad one night, made veggie pizza, had breakfast for dinner, black bean burgers, cucumber/avocado/tomato sandwiches with cream cheese...
I seriously can't even remember what else we ate.
Blocked it out.

We would both be starving 2 hours after dinner.
Had a bowl of cereal before I went to bed every night.
(I'm sure we could have found some more protein rich veggies like kale to throw in the mix...but who wants that?)
I'm sure if you do it right, you can be more successful.
But we just weren't motivated.
We like our meat too much.

And, we were both exhausted.
Again, if we gave our bodies more of a change to adapt, that probably would have gone away...

But, as they say, "Ain't nobody got time for that."

I totally agree with moderation, so maybe Jason should cut back a bit...
But we just can't cut it out completely.

So, meat it is!

Jack: 7 Months Old

I have a love/hate relationship with these posts.
I love writing about Jack's updates each month and looking back on the month and seeing how he has changed.

But, I cringe every time I have to write out the next month number.

7 Months!

I think I will cry when I write 12 months because in my mind he won't be a baby anymore.

Let's not jump the gun, though. 

Still got a baby here.
  Jack, as always, continues to grow and change in leaps and bounds!

As of 6 months and a few days, he has been sitting up like a pro.

He is still perfecting his crawling form, but can get up on his knees and hands and take a stride or two.

Then he falls back down on his belly and army crawls to where he wants to go.

About two weeks ago, he also started pulling himself up to sit (from a laying down position).

And, our little man has some teeth now!

I didn't even know they were coming in until my mom pointed it out to me. (Mommy fail - but the kid has the smallest mouth ever so it's hard to ever see them).

So, we've got the bottom two teeth.
After a rough first two weeks of starting solids, Jack is now an eating machine!

Loves his food! 

Greens are not his favorites, but he loves fruits (apples, pears, & bananas), sweet potatoes, and squash.

Pretty sure our food bill is going to be ridiculous feeding this boy and his dad! 

(The main reason why I'm praying our next is a girl...we can't afford the food budget of another boy).
 

Here are Jack's Facts at 7 Months:

Height: 27.5 in (55th percentile)

Head Circumference: 17.75 in (65th percentile)

Clothing Size: 6 & 9 Month

Diaper Size: 3

Eating: 2 solid meals a day (lunch and dinner); Nursing every 3-4 hours

Sleeping: 11-13 hours at night (still waking after 7-9 hours to nurse). Typically goes down around 6 and wakes up around 6 or 7.

Firsts: 2 front teeth; pulling up to a sitting position; standing (with the support of something)

Likes: Bath time; moving around

Dislikes: Loud noises; the vacuum; change (just like his mama)
 

And, here is a comparison of Jack at different month stages.

Crazy to see how different he looks at each month (and definitely glad he cutened up a bit since that first mouth...yikes!)

College Mini-Reunion

This past weekend I had a college mini-reunion (as we called it) with some of my besties from college at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA.

Oh, the college days.

Weren't they the best?!

We did lots of reminiscing. 

I think the friendships you make and have during college have to be some of the sweetest.

I mean, isn't college about just hanging out with people all the time?

(Maybe not ALL the time for me because I was a big dork and studied a lot, but still)

For four years, you get to live with your friends.

The bonds I formed with my college friends are for a life-time and can't be compared with any friendships I've formed since college.

I had the amazing blessing of meeting great girls my freshman year. 

My dorm roommate who I was paired with ended up being the one I shared a room with for the rest of college.

We were both in each others weddings.

We still hangout often and our husbands are great friends, too.

The girls that lived on each side of us in the dorm, along with a few across the hall, would all come to be my housemates for the next three years.

We lived in this AWESOME Victorian for the three years after the dorms. 

There were seven of us that lived in the main house and two in the side unit.

The five of us that lived upstairs lived there all three years, while the bottom room and side unit changed every year.

Five of our best friends lived a few houses down on the same street.

So fun!

So the five of us from the top floor of my house and the five girls who lived down the street have all kept in touch since we graduated college seven years ago.

We did our first formal reunion this weekend (normally we see each other in smaller groups or at weddings or showers).

It's so special how you can always just pick up right where you left off...even if we have been living in different towns for the past seven years.

My roommate from college lives right by wine country, so she hosted us for the weekend.

We started off with lunch at the local general store.

Then we headed to three different wineries and had so much fun wine tasting.

{Thankful for Taylor for all the pics, who has and always will be our group photographer...and historian to help us remember all the good times we've had}

These amazing views didn't hurt, either.

At two of the three wineries, the people we asked to take our picture had a lot of fun with their job.

The first girl wanted us to act like we just saw a bear. And then act surprised. Here is our surprised shot.

At the second winery, the guy wanted us to do our best 'blue steel'.

We went with it.

And nothing is more fun than some comparison pics from a wine tasting trip our last year of college.

We had a relaxing evening in, watching a video slideshow of pictures from our college years that Taylor (group photographer/historian) had given each of us when we graduated. 

So fun to laugh at ourselves and reminisce over all the memories we've shared.

Can't wait for our next reunion!

Jack's 6 Month Photo Shoot & A Comparison

I wanted some updated 'professional' looking pics of Jack, since we only have newborn ones and he looks nothing like that anymore.

So thankful for my sister Mel who is the best and took these AWESOME pics of Jack the other weekend.

I am a little obsessed with them and look at them over and over.

These are my favorites out of about 50 that I initially liked

Still can't pic the 1 or 2 that I want to frame.

So, here we are.

Photo overload of Jack at six months old.

And, I thought it would be fun to do a comparison picture of me, Jason, and Jack at 6 months.

Everyone seems to have a strong opinion of who they think Jack looks like. Some say definitely me, while others say definitely Jason.

Who do you think Jack looks like?