Oh how I love mornings like this....

I have so much to do today, this Saturday morning, but I got up before everyone else and started laundry. Shortly after the kids and hubby got up and we hurriedly got Eden and Wayne ready for their upward basketball game. On a side note, Edison and I no longer go to those games because my son is a LOUD butt! :) But as I rushed them off I fixed Edison his morning bowl of whole wheat baby cereal with organic applesauce, his favorite. My mom usually feeds him this because we have to drop him off so early, so me being able to do this is such a treat. After he gobbles it down, he is always still in eating mode so I give him a "snack". Today he got organic apple juice with water and yogurt bites. I turned on NickJr for him to peak at and sat down for a second before starting another load of laundry. As I look over at Edison in his high chair carefully choosing his next bite and then sipping on his juice, I thought to myself, "Wow, he is a big boy. My son is growing up!" I remember just mere months ago how he would wake up and I would rock him as he drank his morning bottle with rice cereal. And now, I feed him his breakfast and he feeds himself part of it. I all of a sudden felt this overwhelming feeling of love for him and how I am so proud of him but, why? I cant quite figure out why so much pride is being felt right now but realize.. this is what being a parent is. This feeling right here. I love this. and I love being a parent more than God could have ever prepared me for. As you hear in many different ways, it truly does feel like your heart is living outside of your chest. And it just keeps beating and beating.. and growing and growing.

Ohh, I have to go... my heart is crying :)

Resolutions-2012

I have set several new years resolutions/goals for myself and feel documenting that will make me more motivated to stick with it! So.. In no particular order, here they are:

1. Get in shape - I have a little weight to loose but most of all I need to loose the flab and get some muscles in its place. I have a lot of toning to do from the baby still. So far, I haven't done so well, but I hope to get started soon.

2. Eat healthier/organic - I feel the things you eat directly affect your energy, health, and so many other things we can't comprehend. So, it is really important for me to eat less processed foods and more things that are fresh and organic. I also plan to start our spring garden when it gets warmer because there is nothing better than a home grown, vine ripe tomato from your own garden! :)

3. Become more organized - Having this organized and all in its place is an ongoing goal for me. I feel that it not only saves you time, but allows you to do more productive things with your time. I feel I am half way there with this. I just need to get more storage options and have the time to start space by space.

4. Document our life more - This is a hard one for me. But, I now have all of the resources to do so and am working hard at it. When Eden was little I didn't have a video camera and that really makes me deeply upset that I do not have ANY footage of her when she was born till about 2 years ago. But, all I can do it learn from that and make it such a priority to have our lives documented by video and pictures and blogging so that we and generations to come and go back and see how wonderful our sweet little life was!

5. Last but not least.. More time to myself - This is a hard one but a must! I realized earlier that I haven't really gotten to sit down to a meal and ENJOY what I eat rather than scarf it down before Edison starts crying or getting into something in about 6 months. I used to keep my nails and toenails manicured and painted but now I am lucky to if they are cut. Also, sadly... I really need to get more up-to-date on fashion because most of my clothes are WAY out of style and sadly again, do not fit. SO, I need to clean our my closet and slowly replace those items with new, more mom-like trendy things. That makes me excited. :)

I know these things are all easily done but with Wayne and I working so much its hard to get anything done when we are off because we just want to spend time with the kids. Or its so much easier to just do the convenient thing than take the time and cook or put things in their proper place. I am excited about 2012 and excited of the things God has in store for my family and I and the things he has to show and teach me.

Awesome Give-a-way!

If you know me, you know I love jewelry! Well.. a friend of mine is doing a give-a-way for a beautiful bracelet and if you click the title above it will take you to the video of how to enter and WIN! :)

Edison's 1st Birthday Party Planning: Cake

I have started doing lots and lots of thinking and planning for Edison's 1st birthday party! I have picked a theme: Elephant Fun. I have decided on the patterns for the party supplies: (Picture)

I have picked a date: March 10,2012 @ 2:00 p.m.

But as I started to try to plan his cake and a lot of red flags were thrown up for me. I haven't given Edison sugar really, at all yet. He mostly eats really healthy fruits and veggies but I sometimes sneak him a bite of something I am eating. So.. why would I all of a sudden jam him full of sugar on his first birthday with all the cake he can eat??? No! I started researching healthy/natural options for his birthday cake and found some really great options! Here are a few links below:

http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/tipFirstBDay.htm
http://mamanatural.com/healthy-cupcakes-that-kids-love/

We plan on trying to do this just for Edison's cake and have regular cake for us! :)

Christmas Memories

Now that I have my own kids I often find myself reflecting on my past 28 Christmas'! I do have to say, I have wonderful past Christmas memories. My mom and family has always done the little things that we often overlook or take for granted to make our Christmas special. We always have wonderful treats that my mom and late mamaw would make.. such as ritz crackers with peanut butter middles and covered in chocolate.. or fudge.. or divinity.. or white chocolate covered pretzels. We are a weird family(I LOVE YALL) but we don't like to have turkey and dressing again for Christmas after just having it for Thanksgiving. So... we always do a theme or just have random homemade things. This year we are having GUMBO! Ohh yes baby! I think about all of the wonderful little yummies that people would bring that have passed away and could kick myself for not asking them how they made it. Such as my mamaws pea salad or my Aunt Deb's bacon wrapped jalapenos. I can always try to re-create them, but its never the same.

Some of my favorite Christmas memories are those involving my parents trickery! I remember one year getting a basketball goal(yes, I used to be slightly athletic, lol). My parents had it set up outside and when we went out, it was there waiting for me! How did they hide that? Or when we were littler, we would always go across the big field(which now as an adult living on the same property, I now see that what I once saw as a "big" field, not being so far and Big) to my Mamaws for Christmas Eve to eat and open gifts. And, while we were over there once SANTA CAME EARLY! My cousin had gone outside and saw reindeer poop(which was just regular dog poppy, lol) and we just knew that he had already came to our house. SO, we ran back across the big field, and sure enough.. he had came! HOW DID I NOT NOTICE MY PARENTS LEAVE AND GO DO THAT? They were good! Or one year(this will show my age), I wanted a pager.. yes.. a pager for Christmas. I never thought I would actually get one. So on Christmas Eve we were all opening gifts and all of a sudden our tree started beeping. And it beeped, and beeped, and no one could figure out what it was. Until I realized DUH Alana, go see. So I peeked into the center of the tree and saw my brand new little green pager! I couldn't believe that my parents had gotten me the newest piece of technology, that was so not like them. I loved it, but how the heck did they put that into the tree without me seeing? And going back and watching that Christmas video, I saw my dad in the kitchen using the house phone to call the pager to page it. How cute and sweet!

I guess the moral of my blogging today is that even though as a parent it sometimes seems pointless to do the little things and often we just tend to overlook them and focus on the bigger picture! But... at Christmas time I am going to make an ongoing effort to focus more on the little things and try my best to instill those small memories in my children so that one day... Maybe Eden and Edison will reflect and remember those and make them appreciate Christmas and all its glory!

Holiday Crafts: Week 1

Source: thehighheeledhostess.com via Rachel on Pinterest

My Mom and I will be attempting to make these Turkey Shirts for Eden and Edison. I love love love this idea and can't wait to have them done. We will be doing ours a little different though... We are using buttons for the eyes and a fabric piece for the beak. Also, for the legs we are going to use rick-rack and for the red thing under a turkeys beak, we will use a red ribbon looped! :) Edison's will be boy colors and Edens will be girl colors mixed in with fall colors too. I think we have most of the materials already and will be using a lot of remnants and ribbons we have left over from other projects. I will post a how-to blog and vlog about this as soon as we are finished! I am so excited to get started!

The power of a Song

I think the first time I realized the true power of a song to provoke emotion was when I was about 4 months pregnant with Edison and I was driving home from the grocery store. I was listening to the radio, as usual, and a song came on about death of a young girl.. I can't remember the name.. but I had heard it several times with out really listening. I started to listen to the words and then think about my own child and just putting myself into that song... the tears started flowing. Not just crying, full blown boo hooo'ing while driving down the road.. Mascara was everywhere. I, to this day, will not listen to that song. If it comes on, I always change it. Another example of this was about 4 months ago Eden and I were driving home from somewhere rather late at night and a Rascal Flatts song came on "I wont let go" and I was singing away.. I LOVE that song and I hear Eden in the back start crying. I turned the song down and asked her what was wrong and she told me that that song made her feel sad. I asked why and she said because of the words and it made me think about you Mommy.. OHH MY.. I started crying. That touched me that she felt what I felt when I heard that song and she understood her feelings. It was really touching to me. Well, today I was driving to work, fresh face of make-up... very halloween themed I might add due to my pumpkin shirt I was wearing... and a Carrie Underwood song, "Temporary Home" came on. I had again, heard that song tons of times and just sang my heart out with not physically evoking emotion... until today. I started singing and started to think of the words of the song and how it was so very true. This is our temporary home and if I can make it through this life thinking that way and knowing what I can do to serve my God, that everything will be ok. And here they came... TEAR CITY! I often cry when singing songs about my God... frankly.. I often cry a lot for lots of reasons but hey.. thats me! :) But after crying for a good two minutes singing this song.. i just couldn't stop singing of listening.. I realized the person next to me at the MLK red light was staring at me. HA, oh well.. what could I do? I drove on and looking into my mirror... A HOT MESS! And I again start to think really let those words go to my heart and I felt myself getting emotional again and had to stop. I just realized that you really know that you have a wonderful song when it can do that to you. When it can make you put yourself into the song and think of you in those words. Or is can make you cry or smile or laugh at its words. Music is powerful, even to my 8 year old! :)
BTW, I repaired my makeup and no one even knew I cried at work.. whew! :)

So behind...

I, which I am aware that this is not normal, worry everyday about getting up to date with our pictures. I take a lot of pictures(when my camera isn't lost) and try to make sure that I have pictures for each month of Edison and Eden's lives. Also, I like to have family pictures taken yearly and frame that and hang in our home. We had those pictures taken in April, and I still do not have that done. THAT DRIVES ME CRAZY! Also, I decided with Edison I would make photo books for him on Shutterfly! I think I will do a pregnancy one and a Edison's birth to 6 month one. Now, the hard part of this all is finding the time. I need to transfer pictures from our old computer onto the new computer and that task alone seems super daunting. I also want to take some fall/winter pictures this year and use one of those for our Christmas card. I always do those super easily by just picking a picture and going onto Walgreens.com and picking a photo card and having walgreens print them and go pick them up. SUPER EASY. I just need to get those pictures taken... AHH! Again, I have no time. I don't want to get really behind on this and I feel pictures are so important. I think I am blogging about this to remind myself frequently to do it. Alana... GET YOUR BOOTY IN GEAR... :)

The Power of Breakfast

I am a firm believer that eating a healthy breakfast can shape your day. I try each morning to get Eden to eat something healthy and filling.. Such as: whole wheat waffles with honey, any kind of oatmeal, grits, cereal, toast with nutella and peanut butter, yogurt and fruit, or even biscuits with turkey sausage. It really is important to me that she gets to school full and can focus on learning and not about her tummy growling.

I myself need to work on eating breakfast more often. I often find myself eating some yogurt and a peach, or granola bar and a banana. And, more often that not.. just coffee! I can really tell the difference in my work performance when I actually eat something and am not constantly looking at the clock waiting for lunch time or searching for a snack.

Also, Saturday mornings are always hard for us. Wayne always gets home late from a game and we all just want to sleep late but, that usually never ever happens. And once we are all up, we are grouches. But, all I have to do is open the turkey bacon and put it in the pan and my children's and husbands mood totally changes. Bacon is magic, lol! I usually make eggs or my husband will make is AMAZING french toast to go with our magic bacon. Having this wonderfully yummy start to our day really does get us going. Even though on Saturdays we are always just a little slower at doing things, we always have such a better day when we have some yummy in our tummy to start. :)

My "Clumsy" Sunday's

For the past several years my husband has deemed our Sunday's as, "My Clumsy Sunday's"! The reasoning behind that is if something is going to happen to me, if I am going to drop something, if I am going to break something, if I am going to hurt myself.... IT HAPPENS ON SUNDAY! AHHH!