Goals

2013 is just three days away and I am so excited! It is going to be a big year for the Linares family. We are moving to our third duty station. Sam will be taking on a special duty assignment as a Marine Corps Drill Instructor, Soren will turn one and Enolah will start her first sport (either soccer, dance or gymnastics...leaving the choice up to her). I never make "resolutions" but I was feeling ambitious this year and instead decided to jot down some goals, with a fun kick.

My goals for 2013:

- read 13 books
- try 13 new recipes
- do 13 crafts for me
- run 13 miles (this will be a stretch)!
- watch 13 classic movies

...and on a more serious note I want to be a better more informed mom and continue to do good.

Happy New Year, may 2013 be everything want it to be.

Oh my quilt.

Here's the story about my new, most favorite, completed craft project. Several months back we upgraded to a king size bed. After browsing for quilt sets online I realized I was going to have to do some bargain shopping. King bedding is rather pricey! Why a quilt specifically you ask? Well, I've learned through trial and error that I'm rather particular about bedding. I don't like that after a couple washes the stuffing in a comforter disperses or that the inner on a duvet always falls to the bottom and quilts,well, are just awesome.

So I started googling DIY quilts and found this tutorial. Made it, lived with it for a few weeks, decided I didn't like it and started over. Then I found this. I was so excited, I bought more fabric that day, 6 weeks ago.

Here's how I saved money making a king size quilt which by the way needs 10-12 yards of fabric, not including the backing or binding. I bought a Waverly sheet set from Ross for $16. I was able to use the flat sheet for backing and the pillow cases and fitted sheet for the bulk of my fabric. Then I found a promo code for fabric.com on retail me not and stacked coupons at Joann's for the rest of the fabric.

I measured 10x10 squares to make it go faster, didn't fuss about lining up the seems or all the wrinkles while I was quilting used this tutorial for the binding and I'm so in love! Now I can pack up my sewing machine that has been living on my dining table for the last month and start going to bed at a reasonable hour, until my next project of course.

Obsession.

noun

1.

the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc.

I have an obsession with obsessing. Sometimes the level at which I obsess over things overwhelms me, stresses me out, makes me excited or down right giddy. I've decided to compile a short list of my current obsessions. Some day when I'm old and live a simple, calm and peaceful life I'll look back at this and probably miss my younger, crazy, obsessed self.

1. Sam coming home.
2. Enolah (in general)
3. Soren (growing too fast)
4. My quilt
5. The design of our master bedroom
6. Moving to South Carolina
7. Where we will live in South Carolina
8. Making new friends in South Carolina
9. Being a full time stay at home mom again
10. My goals for 2013
11. Cloth diapers
13. Finishing all my half done projects
14. My orchid
15. Blogging (more)

It's a lot. Sure, I tell myself I need to sit back, take a breather, relax and let things be. I try, but secretly (well not anymore) I love to obsess over anything and everything. Call me crazy, most do.

Life, according to Enolah

Enolah Yolie is my two year and 6 month (yesterday) old toddler and this is life, according to her. Check out the first edition of this series here.

Here's the latest:

- Enolah answers to her name but refers to herself as Yolie. This has been the case for almost a month. 

- Baby pictures of her aren't her brother anymore they are baby Yolie.

- She starting to be more aware of herself, I guess you could put it. She tells me that "she's hungry" and after eating announces that she has "filled her belly" and "it's not ouchie anymore."

- Her memory is getting too good for me to bribe her to do things with phrases like, "when you wake up maybe we'll go bowling" because she wakes up (as she did yesterday) searching for her "bowling shoes." 

- She's totally into to taking awesome self portraits of herself and leaving them as presents on my cell phone, the iPod touch we've given her to use (yea, we're those parents) and our regular camera. 

- The five days we spent with Sam for Thanksgiving have renewed her obsession with him. Her answer to solve ANY issue is, "don't worry Daddy will help us"

 Me: Oh no, your brother is sad.

 E: Don't worry Daddy will help us.

 M: Ugh, It's raining outside!

 E: Don't worry Daddy will help us.

 M: Ouch, I hurt my foot.

 E: Don't worry Daddy will help us.

 M: Your shirt is stuck on your head

 E: Don't worry Daddy will help us.

 M: The kitchen is a mess!

 E: Don't worry Daddy will help us. 

And lastly, Christmas. She totally understood the whole Halloween bit, thank you nick and disney jr., but still hasn't grasped this holiday. We don't have any decorations up yet but several of the people in our neighborhood do and she's starting to see stuff about it on tv. I've caught her wandering the house on several occasions searching for "Christmas" she tells me she "can't find Christmas." Hopefully after some of the activities I have planned for her she'll understand a bit more! I'll have to deal with this though before we can decorate, thanks Sam! 

Those are our trees, high in the rafters!

Giving Thanks

So Thanksgiving 2011 Sam and I ran a 5k and had Cornish hens from the crock pot. I thought that was an awesome Thanksgiving, until this year. We drove down the Charlotte, NC and spent the holiday with his Aunt and Uncle. We were so lucky that Sam was given 4 days off from school and that we would get to spend those days with him after 8 weeks away. 

We had such an awesome time visiting with family, who I just met in March and Sam has only seen sparingly throughout his life. They are such wonderful people and we are very excited to be just 4 hours away from them for the next three years.

Enoah didn't have quite the response I was hoping for when she saw her Daddy for the first time but after a few hours she was back in full on Daddy's girl mode, attached to his hip and I was chop liver once again.

Here are a few pictures from our Thanksgiving vacation. 

Soren the ladies man.

Soren and his great grandpa.

Looking at this cool art feature in our uncle's work building. 

Finally being a sweet boy to Daddy.

Loves her brother. 

goofy girl. 

My tiniest obsession.

I don't blog much about my tiniest obsession, sweet baby Soren. Mostly because he's not that exciting yet, just tiny, chubby and cute! Currently he sleeps in a pack and play that is sidecar to our bed. I'm excited to set up the third bedroom as his room once we move to South Carolina in January though. Whether or not I'll actually put him to sleep there is still up in the air.

Here are some ideas I have for his future room. He'll be in it for three years so no nursery nonsense. Instead I went with a color scheme of greys, blues and lime greens.

January can not come soon enough because my mind is overflowing with ideas. Today I just couldn't take it anymore and made just one thing. I got the idea browsing one of my favorite blogs, see the full tut here, and felt like this process would be perfect for that phrase floating around everywhere, "Boy, a noise with dirt on it." 

I used scrapbook letter stickers because that's what I had on hand.

I also cleaned up the letter with a white paint pen.

So many of his outfits have this same color scheme. I see a future art project once he outgrows them!

Top 5 reasons I love living in base.

This is our first time living in base housing. We've always lived off base to be closer to stores and restaurants, you know the things that childless couples do! Not to mention pocket that extra BAH (that's the money we're allotted for housing for all you non military folk). When we first moved to Quantico we lived in a cute little townhouse off base right near the downtown of a neighboring city, Fredericksburg. I think Enolah was two or three months old when I told Sam we had to move on base. He has always had the mindset that when he gets of work he doesn't want to still be by work (or something like that). But working 30 mins from work is fine and dandy when you can stay up late spending time together and it's just the two of you. Living so far away Sam was missing out on time with Enolah awake and I was missing out on getting a break.

So without further ado my top 5 reasons I love living on base:

1. Being so close (walking distance) to other military mom friends and their kids!
2. Having such a large home.
3. All of the amenities, gym, grocery and convenience stores, pool, parks, etc.
4. The safety.
5. All of the free activities provided for kids around base.

I think so many people are quick to complain about living on base because they dwell on the bad and do not appreciate all the good! After 7 years of living on my own in apartments in various towns, believe me we got it good here!

Today we thoroughly enjoyed one of the daily activities they have available to the kids here. Story time at the base library.

Walking to storytime past "her daddy's."

Being a good girl and listening to the story.

Today the band played along with the story!

A little boy who slept through the noise.

Snack time.

So pooped she fell asleep mid pretzel. 

A day of firsts.

Or more of an evening of firsts. This morning was like any other day but Enolah had 3:30 date with her friend to the movies. Her very first movie! She's never even sat through a movie at home so I was glad to hear she not only sat threw but enjoyed watching Finding Nemo in 3D.

We had dinner at our neighbors house (an almost daily occurrence these days) and Soren decided to finally get his almost 14 pound body to roll over. Of course I missed it the first time around helping Enolah potty but he performed an encore just for Mommy.

Walking to the theater.

Super excited.

She didn't think she needed these "sunglasses"

Around here these days.

Happy Veteran's Day to my mister and all who have served. Your sacrifice is forever appreciated.

What's going on around here these days. Well the kids are keeping me very busy. Soren is spending hours at a time awake now which has been fun. My days consist of play with the kids, clean, work, craft and repeat. The nonstop pattern is making the days with Sam away fly by. Speaking of crafting I've been on a quest. A quilting and crocheting quest. Blankets for the baby and our bed. More on that later when I make significant enough progress to post about! Until then enjoy some pictures of my two monsters.

Late afternoon stroll.

Morning snuggles.

Finally, no more little potty!

Life, according to Enolah.

I'm sure all of us who have kids see them doing something new or funny and are quick to text Dad, said family member or post a status about it right? I know I am. Well the thing is, Enolah is always doing something new or funny that I want to remember to either share with her or use to embarrass her later in life. I hope to use this series of posts to document those moments for myself and to share with our family who do not get to spend time with her.

Enolah is my two year and 5 month old toddler and this is life, according to her.

In her hurricane gear with her daddy mission cup.

1. Carnivals are too scary.
2- in reference to the broccoli she's having for dinner: "It's a tree, it's a tree mommy" "where?" "in my mouth."
3- Super is the best descriptive word in existence. Suitable for phrases such as, super tiny, super hiding, super silly, super bouncing, super silly, super mad, super happy, etc.
4- The eagle, globe and anchor emblem is "Daddy's mission"
5- shirts are not necessary when the urge to dance strikes. "I want to dance mommy, take my shirt off"

First ever cotton candy at the scary carnival.

All hallows eve.

Yesterday we celebrated Halloween and while this was Enolah's third Halloween it was the first one where she really understood costumes, being spooky and the whole trick or treating bit.

We spent the morning at a base event for kids where she got to color, play games and trick or treat around the offices. She dressed up as a pirate. I told her she'd get to go again at night time and for that she decided to be a butterfly. She's a girl who knows what she wants! It was 50 degrees so baby Soren spent the night snuggled in the carrier.

Here are some pictures from the day.

Learning a bunch with buttons.

Enolah is at such a fun age right now, well most of the time she's fun and often times she's quite a challenge. Any who her little brain is a sponge. I have noticed several people who homeschool start activities around this age (2 and a half). We're not planning to homeschool but I still wanted to do a couple learning activities with her each week. This morning I was feeling inspired and googled "homeschool activities for toddlers" to get an idea of what you could do at this age and noticed a lot of age appropriate activities included colors, shapes, sorting or a mixture of the three. Usually with premade purchased kits. Well I don't have any of these kits but again I was feeling inspired so I rummaged through my craft room and the kitchen and devised two fun activities with buttons!

What you'll need:

- a bag or several different colored buttons
- an old egg carton
- a camera
- a color printer.

Sorting by colors- I took an egg crate and put one of each color button in a space. Then I gave her a bowl full of all the buttons and told her to put the yellow with yellow, green with green and so on. You get it.

Intense concentration.

She's got the idea and doing great!

Shape stencils: Next I took the buttons and arranged them into different shapes on a white piece of paper. I took a picture of each shape, uploaded them to my computer and printed them out. Again I gave her the of buttons and said to make the same shape. An orange triangle, blue square, etc. 

Something to note, when you go to print them out print a test one to check for scale. I made the blue square too big and she said the buttons "didn't fit" so she found a color button that did and ended up making a yellow square.

Again with the concentration. 

There you have it. A fun learning activity for your toddler. You probably have these items laying around too! I plan on making this next, after a trip to the craft store unless I can find some spare wood laying around in the garage. 

It's always a good day when you get new shoes.

Life for the three of us has been challenging but today was a fabulous day! I'd like to hit replay on today for the next 8 weeks. Why today was so awesome:

1. We all slept in until 8 or later.
2. Enolah ate all of her breakfast.
3. We had a dance party in the kitchen.
4. We got out of the house, spur of the moment and the baby didn't scream in the car.
5. I got new shoes.
6. I got the second of our mismatch side tables.
7. The kids napped for 3+ hours each.
8. Bought fabric for a new quilt.
9. Enolah is one step closer to being fully potty learned.
10. She ate all her dinner, including vegetables without me hounding her.
11. No toddler tantrums.
12. We got to talk to daddy.

To replace my old flats that were ruined by dog poop!

Now I'm enjoying a glass of wine, watching the Giants beat the Tigers, reading my new fave blog and looking forward to more days like today.

Dear Daddy

Dear Daddy,

Enolah says she misses you very much. In fact she says it all the time, especially at night, and that she loves you very much. Her ability to express emotion is getting really good! Her imagination is really growing too. Yesterday she gathered a few random items and said we needed to go on a mission. So off we went to roam the neighborhood, not quite sure what the goal of the mission was but I learned something new about her. I asked what her name was several times and it's not Enolah, Nola, Nolie or Baby. She says her name is Yoyo. Yep, I'm Mommy, you're Daddy, Soren is baby brother and she's Yoyo.

It doesn't seem like Soren has gotten much bigger in a week. I'm sure you'd disagree if you saw him though. He's still being a very good boy for me and we even survived a two hour car trip without a peep. I'm not holding my breath that that will last though. I'm pretty sure he's aware of Enolah and likes her. When ever she comes to talk to or love on him he always smiles. It's such a sweet sight to see.

I'm doing my best to keep up with the chores, the kids and work without loosing my sanity. I have caught the decorating bug again. It's probably a good idea you're not here during it or you'd have a lot of furniture moving and rehanging of items to do.

We miss you so much, see you in 9 Wednesdays.

Look what she found. 

And looking as goofy as you do in them!