Almost a Year!

It's been almost a year since my last blog post! And do you know what's happened since then?! Of course you do because if you didn't know me then you wouldn't be here! We had a baby in March! She is precious! With the new addition to our family, we gained a monster in the form of my sweet little two year old son. He is precious too. However, lately, the monster has been showing itself, and we really miss our sweet boy. He is defining "terrible twos" for us. I've heard that the age of three isn't any better but I can still hope!

For Easter, my husband and I got really ambitious in our Easter dishes to bring to families houses. We live a couple hours away from family and try really hard to make it to family events. So this is what we made this Easter:

Ben made the little chicks (deviled eggs) and also carved the watermelon as a bunny and filled it with fruit salad. I made carrot patch brownies. 

It was a lot of fun and I have no idea how we managed it with a newborn and a monster but somehow we did. 

Bee on a sunflower

Cuteness of the Day

Also.... this happened today

#futureNBAstar
#MySonLovesBasketball
#IKnowHashtagsDontWorkOnBlogs

Vent about internet

We have had Verizon fios for internet (which recently got bought out by Frontier Communications) since 2007, about 9 years. Every time we have moved and had to hook up our new apartment or house with verizon fios, the customer service got a little worse each time. But in the end, even though it felt like pulling teeth to get someone to come out and hook up the internet service, we have really only ever needed them in those times that we moved locations. Therefore it didn't seem too bad all in all, and we have always liked the actual internet service.

When we moved into our current home, they installed the internet router in one of the bedrooms (not the master). I thought it was weird at the time and when questioning the installation guy he gave me some weird answer that I figured I didn't understand because i'm not "techie" enough or whatever. That bedroom kinda became the "catch-all" room that we never used. But....when Ethan came along it became his bedroom. So now he's got this router and a bunch of cords in the corner of his room.

We called Verizon fios (well, what is now Frontier) to come move the router from his bedroom to the master bedroom. We tried going through the steps ourselves that they say online, but it didn't work. Ben was on the phone trying to get someone to come out for HOURS. Then they gave us a date and a crappy time frame of "we'll be there between 8 am and 5 pm". Ya know, for another family, that would mean a lost day of work to be home all day while waiting for someone in that ridiculous time frame. Luckily with a stay-at-home parent it only means losing out on going to the park or toddler time or going to the store. Anyway, they were a No call/No show.

Can you believe a company as big as they are giving out such a ridiculous time frame and then not even following up with their customer of 8-9 years?!?!  We gave them the benefit of the doubt and made one more appointment. They gave us a date and time frame of 8-10 am.  Again....no call/no show.

Ben called their competitor in the area, Bright House. Bright House said they would come by that very same day between 2-4 pm to hook up our internet in the room we wanted and would waive any installation fees. Do you know when the Verizon/Frontier guy called? At 2 pm!! Ben told him, "you're too late!" He told the frontier guy, "you never called that you couldn't make the 8-10 appointment. I've already called bright house and they're on their way right now". And you know what??

Bright House had finished the job before I even made it home around 4:30 that day!! So far haven't had any issues with Bright House as far as internet speed goes. And our bill will be cheaper too! I can't believe that verizon/frontier has such horrible customer service and won't help out their long-time customers with special deals or rates yet they spend so much in advertising to new customers.

Dear Verizon/Frontier:
If we ever choose to go back to you, I hope you have figured out that it pays to also help out your current customers once in a while. I hope you have listened to the hundreds of other people going through the same thing we have and have improved your customer service. However as of right now, your company really STINKS!

What is it? continued....

Remember the post I had with you guys guessing what that black and white picture was? Here's a refresher:

Here's a color picture of the same object:

Now do you know what it is??

it's a green bell pepper!

Happy Sunday!

Happy Sunday y'all!
So many things to be grateful for. Whether or not you're happy with how things are going in your life, whether or not you're happy or sad or worried right now, no matter what's going on, take a minute to stop and appreciate something.
Sometimes I get so frustrated or worried that I'm not a good parent or {insert any emotion here}. But then I stop and take a minute to look at our precious creation or realize how blessed we are to have a nice house and food on the table or in the fridge or pantry. All the other stuff is just petty.

Itsa me, Malorie

Hola friends. Ben and I have joined the smartphone world. I like having a small device I can take nice or semi-nice pictures to send right away to family and friends. I like being able to check email real quick while still watching Ethan and not needing to be right in front of the computer. I like this phone company I found called republic wireless and having a phone bill of $25 per month for two phones. And so far we've had good service. We had Verizon for years and lately were still getting dropped calls. Republic wireless uses sprint towers and we get the same amount of dropped calls that we had with Verizon. Of course there are pros and cons but for what we need it for it works out just fine. Woohoo!

ONE YEAR OLD!

From this:
(taken Feb 1, 2015)

to this:
(taken Feb 9, 2016)


That sweeeeet 8 pound 10 oz boy has grown into a wonderful, {mostly} happy, 26 pound walking toddler! 

He has changed my world so much and yet I can't imagine a life without him. 

One year ago

What is this?

What do you think this is? 
Go!

P.S. I do know the answer...

Cribtonite is his kryptonite

Ethan's kryptonite is his crib. We had a couple getaways around Sept/Oct, around the time he was teething pretty bad also, and we are just now recovering from it. We don't like the cry-it-out method. We have tried that method before and he would cry for more than an hour, hardly letting up. Now, though, we put him in the crib at night and of course he still looks at me like "why would you do this to me?!?" as if I'm the worst mom, and he cries but it hasn't been lasting very long before he's asleep. The first night took 30 minutes. The second night took about that long, maybe a little less. Last night took 10 minutes!


A couple things have changed since the first cry-it-out session. One is I put a small strand of white (Christmas) lights behind his door. It gives enough light for him to look around without being scared but it's not too bright that he can't sleep.


Anyway, exciting things! 2016 is going to be great! To look back on the last year, my mind is just blown. So many changes. I'm not even sure I remember who I was pre-baby. lol. Just kidding, I'm mostly the same. Just realize now that the things I thought were "important" then are actually not. I used to think I didn't have time for things (probably realistically just being lazy) and now I know I really don't have time for things. I laugh at this because I know in the next few years I will look back and realize all the time I have now (that I don't think I have) will be a lot compared to in a few years when again I will think I don't have the time for something. does that even make sense?


I gotta go. Until next time!...

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