Santa left his hat!

Fred to the rescue!

Santa

I saw this thing on facebook the other day that I thought was a really neat idea. It was an article urging parents who participate in Santa giving gifts to only let Santa give small or inexpensive items. The idea is that if the Santa in your household is giving iPads to the children, how does that make the other children (less fortunate children) at school feel when Santa didn't give them an ipad? Is Santa showing favoritism to the other child?

I have honestly never thought of it that way before but it makes a lot of sense.

Ethan got a balloon reindeer and was investigating it while this picture was taken. My work's Christmas party was pretty entertaining to him.

chocoholic

Hi, my name is Malorie and I'm a chocoholic. I've stumbled upon this blog called Chocolate Covered Katie and her stuff is fantastic! She typically has a healthier version of desserts while still giving in to the chocolate cravings. One of my favorites is the chocolate cake in a mug. Just enough for one or two people and for when you need a quick chocolate fix.

Just popping in!

Hi!!

You may have forgotten about this little blog, but I haven't! I don't typically find myself in front of a keyboard where I can type, but I am constantly thinking of things to write about.

My little boy has now officially been outside in the real world the same amount of time he was inside my belly cookin! So crazy to think about.

He is now walking, has 6 teeth with lots more on the way considering he's been a droolfest lately and is also crawling. He decided it was a good idea to learn both crawling AND walking in the same week. His favorite game is walking from daddy to mommy back to daddy back to mommy...

That's all for now! Hopefully I can write again on a schedule. See ya soon!

-Malorie

Hoppy Easter!

Listen to your elders

When they say "everything changes after you have a baby," this is the truth. After a baby, you are automatically put into that club, the "had a baby" club. I always noticed it with my coworkers, how different I was because I didn't have a kid. We had a fur baby (our cat Fred), but of course that's not quite the same as birthing a baby. 

Everything changes. Everything. The way you think. Suddenly you're thinking about all sorts of protection for your child. How you need to make sure that by the time they're crawling and walking, you better have soft corners on all the furniture. You better learn to keep bad things out of reach because you know anything they can get their hands on will be going into their mouth.

Of course, we're not at that stage yet where he's putting things in his mouth, or even crawling. He wants to crawl, but right now he's just working on getting his neck strong enough to hold his head up. We've been giving him tummy time, and he kicks his legs and moves his arms like he's swimming. He'll lift his head for a minute but then it's back down and he's eating the blanket. 

6 weeks old. So hard to believe. Hard to believe that 2 months ago, my stomach was an extra 40 inches outwards, I had a growing person inside, and now, NOW this little bundle of joy is here in our world, we can hold him anytime, we can see his precious face and kiss his little hands. 

And I keep reflecting back on our days of labor. Yes, I said days. This post isn't going to be a birth story, so don't worry, no gruesome details just yet, hehe. But a little bit about how we were hoping for a home birth. I'm not sure if I made this clear in my other blog posts about us having a home birth: we are not against hospitals, we feel they are great in the case of an emergency. We are not against anyone having their baby in a hospital if that is where they feel most comfortable. We only hoped for a healthy home birth, which in today's day and age is just as medically advanced as having a baby in the hospital (as long as everything is normal). 

Unfortunately, things never go as planned during labor. Thankfully we had many options and backup plans and were ready for anything. We ended up getting transferred to the hospital after 40 hours of labor and delivering a healthy baby boy after 48 hours total. God had our backs (as He always does) and wrapped his arms around us as we feared the worst.

Ethan teaches Ben a thing or two.

And here we are, 6 weeks later, with a crying, hungry, poopy, and sometimes smiling baby. He's starting to sleep more during the night (hooray!), starting to smile more when we talk to him, trying to talk though finding it difficult to get sounds out, is confused about the raspberry sound (you know when you put your lips together to give someone a raspberry on their tummy and it makes that funny noise...yeah he doesn't know whether to be scared or to like that sound).

<3 <3  I love that smile.  <3 <3

livin la vida loca

oh em gee. it's been such a long time since ive had a blog post. this will be full of gramatical errors and typos since i am only using one hand to type. you know why?? becauuse im holding my SON in my other hand!!

yep, since the last time ive blogged, ive joined the parent bandwagon and had a baby boy!

ben & i have been quoting this commercial for 9 months...does anyone else remember it? one of my favorite commercials ever...

he is a month old today. and the sweetest cutest kid ever. i know thats what every parent says about their kids. becoming a parent is such a crazy rush of emotions: excited, scared, ecstatic. and he's all ours. and then theres the love of seeing your spouse get just as excited to cuddle or hold or take care of the little one. 

hes awake now so until next time...

39 weeks

This pregnancy has been great (as opposed to the horror stories I've heard of other pregnancies). The morning sickness went away by the 2nd trimester (which for me, the morning sickness really only consisted of nausea, no throwing up). And for the most part, since then the rest of it has been really nice too. I've mostly kept my energy up (maybe partly because I have to, working full-time at a job where I'm on my feet all day and running back and forth). I'm getting at an uncomfortable point in the pregnancy though. About ready for him to make his debut. He will be getting an eviction notice in 2 weeks if he's not out by then though.

I have been taking weekly pregnancy silhouette pictures, just have been really bad at posting them every week. I will be working on a collage to see the progress each week and will post that in the coming weeks. Only 2 more days of work and then I'm on maternity leave!

Shop online much?

If you're a frequent online shopper (this is definitely helpful during holiday months!), you should sign up for Ebates.com! You get cash back just for shopping at your favorite stores! Ebates.com is a rebate/online coupon site. Once you sign up (free to sign up), you find the store you want to shop at, Ebates will open up a shopping trip for you so that when you purchase something from that store, Ebates will calculate how much you get back from what you spent. You get a different percentage depending on what store you shop from, and during peak times like holidays, a lot of stores double the percentage you get back.

If you don't go through the ebates website when you start shopping, you won't get anything back. It does really work though! I've already got money on my account from the holiday shopping! They pay quarterly, and if you haven't done much shopping to get a certain amount in your account, that money will rollover into the next quarter.

If you decide to try it, please click this link: Ebates.com