14 day challenge!

Most of you know that my sister is a Camp Gladiator trainer (shout out to CG and Carrie!), but she also started selling AdvoCare recently. Around the same time, one of my friends from high school revealed her new amazeballs body thanks to AdvoCare and I was quickly on board.

We have family pictures in exactly 2 weeks, and I need something to help amplify what I'm doing already (running, etc). Since I'm still breastfeeding, I can't do their famous 24-day challenge, so instead- I'm replacing coffee with spark (1x/day) and replacing one meal (dinner) with a meal replacement shake. I'm also rededicating myself to running, abs and weights 3x/week.

I'm super excited and motivated, so hopefully I get some good results! Once I stop breastfeeding, I'll do the 24-day challenge to hopefully kick start a healthier lifestyle.

I took a spark this morning instead of my typical Tervis of coffee, and I feel awesome! It gave me more energy and focus without the yucky bloated feeling coffee leaves you with. I also went for a run with Jacob, did lunges and crunches.

Yay!

Happy 7th birthday, Maverick!

Happiest birthday to the sweetest dog on the planet. I know it sounds stupid, but Maverick is my bestdogfriend and original baby and I'd honestly be so lonely without him and his snuggles and kisses. Love him to pieces!

We took him to the dog park this afternoon- one of his favorite things to do (aka sniff other dogs' butts and wieners), then made pasta for dinner- another one of his favorites (because he's Italian, obvi).

It was Jacob's first trip to the dog park. He just pointed at all the "das" and tried to escape from his stroller. Love our little family so so so much!!

Jacob's schedule - 10.5 months

One of the things I wish I would've included in my monthly updates is Jacob's current schedule.  I'm so A-type, that I literally rack my brain daily trying to outline (and stick to) his schedule. Honestly, it usually ends in an epic fail, and I've learned to accept that, but it gives me something to do! Ha!

Anyways, here's his current schedule/routine, as best as I can outline it...

7:00am - wake up, nurse, diaper change

8:00am - breakfast - he's completely over baby food now, so this usually consists of fruit, yogurt, waffles or oatmeal

8:30am - play time, or if the weather is nice we go for a run or play outside

10:30am - nap time (for at least an hour) - if we have a play date or need to run errands, I will shower, do my hair and makeup and prepare/pack his lunch. If not, this is my time to tidy up, start laundry, clean, etc.

11:30am - wake up, nurse, diaper change, get dressed for the day

12:30pm - lunch - this includes deli meat, turkey dogs, cheese sticks, fruit, veggies, etc.

3pm - nap time (for at least an hour) - Ellen time for mama! Yay! If its a rerun or he goes to down earlier, I will catch up on DVR or blog.

4pm - wake up, nurse, diaper change

4:30pm - daddy comes home! Party!

5:30pm - start preparing dinner

6pm - dinner - I try to feed Jacob part of what we eat, but will also supplement with items listed for lunch above

6:30pm - bath time, PJs, nurse

7:15pm - bed time

7:30pm - I try to do weights with my resistence bands atleast twice a week. Realistically though, I'm dragging my ass into the shower, pouring a giant glass of wine, plopping down on the couch and watching trash TV until bed time.  Ahhh...the life of a mom.

1st birthday party planning!

I cannot even believe I'm talking about this.  How is my baby almost ONE?

I've decided on a nautical theme. I almost did his nursery in this theme, so I knew it was going in this direction for awhile.  I'm thinking sailboats, anchors, red and navy stripes and LOTS of customization.

sources to individual images can be found here

We're having the party over lunch time, so we'll be serving burgers and hot dogs, chips, dips, cupcakes and beer...I mean...lemonade.

I've decided to make the cupcakes and smash cake myself, which means I've been making "practice" cakes nearly every week for the past month.  It started with a box cake and icing, and has now forced me to open the fancy mixer we got for our wedding (that's never been opened) to make buttercream frosting.  Really?

Recipe - sloppy joe squares

I make this at least once a week. It's easy, hearty and tastes like heaven.

Ingredients
1 package crescent rolls
1 lb ground beef or turkey
1 packet of sloppy joe seasoning
1 6oz can tomato paste
Shredded cheddar cheese

Directions
1) brown beef/turkey
2) make sloppy joe mixture according to sloppy joe seasoning packet, and simmer
3) preheat oven to 375°
4) grease 8x8 pan, lay half of the crescent rolls on the bottom

5) spoon sloppy joe mixture into pan, on top of crescent rolls

6) sprinkle cheddar cheese over sloppy joe mixture

7) lay remaining half of the crescent rolls on top of cheese

8) bake for approximately 15 minutes, or until golden brown

9) enjoy!

Bluebonnets!

There's something about bluebonnets in Texas that just make ya feel good. They signify so much more than spring, at least to me. They signify all that is great about Texas and why I'm so proud to be a Texan. They're one of the main things I was so excited about when we found out we were pregnant- taking pictures in the bluebonnets is a tradition not to be messed with. Anyways, here are ours...

Sleep training...again...

The one thing parents with babies who are bad enough sleepers to require sleep training don't tell you is- you'll do it more than once.

I know a handful of moms who had great sleepers until the 12-month sleep regression, who did a few weeks of CIO and now have their great sleepers back. And I have one friend who did weeks of CIO with her daughter around 7-8 months, and she's been a great sleeper ever since. But most moms I know battle sleep for a long time. We're on our third or fourth bout of sleep training. Awesome.

Like I mentioned in my 9-month update, my pediatrician told us that Jacob doesn't need to eat at night and that we have her permission to CIO. Inevitably, though, he gets sick, starts teething or starts a Wonder Week, and I'm a push over, so I nurse him or rock him. And then he gets used to it. And...you know the rest...

So here we are, on our fourth stint of sleep training. I have to admit though, it's getting easier. I don't get the queasy feeling anymore when he's screaming hysterically in his room. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing?

Anyways, if you we're putting Jacob's sleep on a line graph, imagine a roller coaster. Months on the horizontal axis and bad to good on the vertical axis. We're at 10.5 months and about 2cm from the bottom. Rock bottom. Ouch. Jacob is back to requiring us to rock him to sleep before putting him down. Sigh.

Jacob's 1st Trip to the Zoo

What a fun day we had today!! We drove over to Fort Worth (where Josh's dad lives) and went to the FW zoo with him. We all had so much fun! Jacob mostly enjoyed people watching, but I think he was impressed by some of the animals, primarily the white tiger that was 1 foot away from him (behind plexiglass) and the flamingos.

After the zoo we went to grab some BBQ at the Woodshed Smokehouse down by TCU and the zoo. The food was great there- wouldn't really consider it BBQ, too fancy, but it was delish! It's more of a drankin' place, IMO.

Jacob had a total blast at both places and was zonked out in 5 minutes when we got him in the car. Hehe, so cute! We will definitely go back sometime before it gets too hot!

Here's some pictures of the day...

Recipe - ramen noodle stir fry

I got this from Jenna over at The Three Little Birdies, and I have to admit- I was a bit skeptical at first. I mean don't get me wrong, I love ramen and I love stir fry, but together? Gahh was I wrong! So delicious and so easy! It was a perfect fix for my Chinese food craving today! I changed a few small things, so here's my recipe.

Ingredients
2 Bags Oriental Ramen Noodle
1 pound ground turkey
2 1/4 cups water
1 can sliced water chestnuts
1 bag Chinese blend vegetables
Lawry's season salt

Directions
1) Brown the ground turkey and season with Lawry's season salt. Drain and return back to the pan.
2) While still on the heat, add remaining ingredients. (Tip: make sure to separate the 2 layers of noodles from each bag of ramen, so you have 4 "blocks" of noodles on top)
3) Bring the water to a boil for a few minutes. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer until the noodles are soft.
4) Once the noodles are cooked, stir and enjoy!

Just plain cute!

We had a play date at the mall on Friday (which is where I think we picked up a virus and subsequent croup- yuck!!!) and I took this adorable picture of Jacob. He had so much fun playing in the play area with all his pals. He's such a sweet and handsome little boy. Love him to pieces!

Jacob - 10 months

Hi, I'm Kate.  I've been gone for awhile, in a dark cave somewhere... But I'm finally back! I feel like we really turned a corner in the past month.  Jacob is such a joy to be around, and is really starting to show his mellow, funny and curious personality.  I finally feel myself again, which is much in part to actually getting decent sleep and breaks during the day (thank God!).

Age: 10 months
Height: (we don't go back to the pediatrician until his 1 year visit)
Weight: (we don't go back to the pediatrician until his 1 year visit) 
Milestones: Jacob is a crawling machine! He's so curious and gets into everything. He pulls up on any and everything, too. My favorite is when he pulls up on the window sill in the kitchen to look outside- too cute! He occasionally stands on his own for brief periods of time, but once he realizes what he's doing, he drops down to crawling. 
Sleep: He's definitely improved in this department over the past month. I still nurse him once at night (usually around 4-5am), but he sleeps 7pm-7am otherwise. His napping has improved significantly as well. He's taking two 1-hour naps these days, typically around 10 and 2. Occasionally he wakes up at the 30 minute mark, but I just leave him in there and he eventually falls back to sleep. This has taken a lot of work in my part- I have been letting him cry a lot at nap time, and it finally seems to be paying off! Thank God! I'm really hoping to cut out the night nursing session in the upcoming month, but we will see! :) 
Eating: He dropped a daytime nursing session this month, so we nurse 4x/day and once at night. He also eats 3 meals and one snack. We introduced meat within the past month and he LOVES it! If I cook a healthy meal, I'll give him small pieces of our meat, but otherwise I just give him meat sticks. They're just like Vienna sausages, but made by Gerber for babies. He likes the chicken and turkey best. We've also started doing more table foods- like mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, full bites of banana, rice, perogies, etc.  
Clothes size: 18 months - 2T
Diaper size: Size 4. We recently switched from Pampers Cruisers to Huggies Movers Slip Ons and I can't decide if I like them better. They're certainly easy to whip on when he's crawling all about (they're basically like pull ups), but I think they're giving him a bit of diaper rash.We'll see. 
Best Moment: We celebrated Josh's 32nd birthday and March Madness together as a family- so much fun!!
Worst Moment: I honestly can't think of a bad moment. He's been such a fun baby lately! With him crawling and pulling up, he's falling a lot, so that's kinda scary. 
Favorite toy: He doesn't really like toys anymore. He'd rather get into the Tupperware or pots/pans. I generally let him play with whatever he wants, but am slowly establishing boundaries (i.e. my vases).
Teeth: We finally have teeth! Just as I suspected, he was teething. It honestly wasn't that bad though! (knock on wood) He cut his bottom 2 teeth on Josh's birthday, actually! It's so cute to see his smile with toofers! You can see the teeth in one of the below pictures.
Looking forward to: warmer weather and fun in the sun! We've been going to a lot of play dates outside lately and it's so fun! Especially now that he can crawl around in the grass. Loves! I've also started planning for his birthday party- EEK!