Monday, May 31, 2010

Animal Attack!

This past Saturday, we went to the Fort Worth Zoo! It was our first time to go see the animals. We went last June for Beastro, which is a food/drink event at the Zoo but we didn't get to see any animals because it was at night. So it was both Toots and our first time to visit. It was a hot day but there was a lot of shade and exhibits with cool air conditioning so we had a greatttt time! It was definitely more for Tim and I than Toots at this point, but it was still fun :)

Toots brought along his animal friends, Faith Newman and Lion, for a tour of the zoo.

What? I'm a gangster baby. I can't help it.


Toots was SO interested in everything going on around him! So interested in fact, he completed passed out from all the excitement ;)

Cute penguin

Tiger....grrrrrrrrrrrr

The elephants spraying eachother
Pretty giraffe
Orangutan...I thought this picture was funny because it looks like he is spying on the other monkeys.
I'm going to go to bed now but I have two more posts I'm going to do tomorrow, so come back for some more fun!

Born Again

Since I haven't blogged in awhile, I thought I would do a few separate posts about what's been going on. On May 23, Toots got baptized at our church. The priest kept talking about being born-again when you are baptized, hence the post title.

Both of our families came in town for the event. Tim's mom, brother, sister-in-law, and neices and my mom, stepdad, dad, stepmom, brother and sisters, Nanny and Papa and Toots new godparents, our friends Pete and Michelle. We had lunch at our new house afterwards, which made for some REALLY quick moving in since we didn't get the house until Thursday before the Sunday event. It turned out great, though, and we were so happy to have everyone there to celebrate with us.

I HATE these pictures of me, but I'm not the point of them, so I'm posting them anyway. You can't see Toots' outfit as much as I wanted in the picture below, but it was a really cute Feltman Brothers white romper with white shoes and socks. That's the bishop and some of the other babies that got baptized in the picture with us.

Here's us with Pete and Michelle and Colt at our house afterwards. I know I've talked about it several times, but just to remind y'all, Colt was born 5 days before Toots so Michelle and I were pregnant together. Pete and I started law school together and then he went to Iraq for a year, so he's still in school. We hope, hope, hope (cross our fingers!) that Pete will get a job in the DFW area so we can hang out lots more :)


I still haven't taken any pictures of the house with our stuff in it because we haven't hung anything on the walls, yet. We will do that by this weekend, though, so I'll post some pictures this weekend or next week.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Bottle Top Wisdom

Last week, I was unpacking a storage bin that I put old yearbooks from elementary and high school in as well as some other mementos from junior high/high school. In it, I found a bottle top from some kind of root beer I tried in high school (don't ask why I remember that, but I do). The inside of the top said "Your fantasy will come true." That's why I had kept it, because I thought it was such a good message or fortune and felt that if I kept it, maybe it would come true.

When I looked at the top as I was unpacking the bin, I thought about the message on it and I realized, my fantasy has already come true. My life is everything I could've ever hoped it would be. I'm married to my best friend, a man who I could not have dreamed I would have and who makes me smile and laugh everyday. I have an amazing family and friends. I have a home, a degree in something that I truly love, and, most importantly to me, I am a mom to the most wonderful creation that could exist. I get to be with him everyday and experience everything as he is experiencing it for the first time. He is perfect. Essentially, my life is perfect.

I don't want to jinx myself, but things are great. Sure, I have days when I am sad, days when things go wrong and I feel unhappy. But the overall story of my life is wonderful. I am lucky and so blessed by God to call this my life.

I'm really glad I kept that bottle cap in the hopes that my fantasy would come true. Because it did and it does, everyday.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Skinny Tuesday/Wednesday

I haven't done a Skinny Tuesday post in a couple weeks. I changed my weigh-in day at Weight Watchers to Tuesdays so I will be weighing in the day I do the posts.


I went last week for the first time in a couple weeks. I lost 1.2 poounds. I know that doesn't sound good because it was a few weeks since I went, but I had gained 3 pounds when I came back from visiting my grandmother over Mother's Day weekend, so it was really like a loss of 4.2 pounds to me.

This week, I lost 1 pound, down to 142. I am happy about that as well because with moving and Toot's baptism this weekend, I didn't exactly do well watching what I was eating. That gives me 7 weeks to lose 8 pounds to meet my goal of being at my pre-pregnancy weight of 134 by my birthday. I don't know if that will happen but I am going to try very hard.

I haven't been going to Stroller Strides hardly at all in the past three weeks. I haven't been this week yet at all and I only went once or twice a week the two weeks before this. I've been so busy getting ready to move and moving that I feel like I haven't had time to go but I have to make it a priority if I am going to meet my goal. I will be trying to go tomorrow and Friday for this week and I'm also going to take Toots on a walk this afternoon to get a little bit of exercise.

Sorry I haven't done a weekly post yet. Like I said, with moving and the baptism, things have been crazy! I will try to do one tonight! Hope y'all had a great weekend and are having a good week :)

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

And The Winner Is....


Comment number 18 was Lacey's comment! Here's what she said:

I have a plug-in warmer with several fall scents, which I love!! But, I'm kind of tired of my house smelling like Thanksgiving so I would LOVE to have the Nature's Haven warmer with any one of the tropical scents!

Thank y'all so much for entering the giveaway! Don't forget, if you found something you can't live without on Lara's website, you can contact her directly within the next TWO weeks and get 10% off your order! You can't get that if you just order from her site, you have to e-mail or call her. Her website, again, is www.LNBROWN.scentsy.us and her e-mail address is lnadams@hotmail.com and her phone number is 214-668-3989. Go get yourself a great product and a great discount!

If you have a business that you would like to spread the word about, I'd be happy to do a giveaway for you :) E-mail me at throneofthornes@gmail.com and we'll figure out what you'd like me to do. I think I might host my own giveaway after we get settled in the house of some of my favorite things. I've seen that before on other blogs and it looked like a lot of fun.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! We're moving tomorrow so I won't be around the rest of the week. I'll post on Monday. Thanks, again, for entering the giveaway and good luck on the next one!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Yayyyyy

We're finally closing on the house tomorrow! I'm very busy and was terrible at taking pictures this week, so I'll post later this week hopefully.

In the meantime, GO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY (two posts down)!!! You still have a really good chance of winning and there's only two days left to enter!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Mish Mash

This past Thursday, we went to east Texas to visit my grandparents for my Nanny's birthday and Mother's Day. We had a great time and Toots seemed to really enjoy everyone. Tim came by on Friday on his way to Beaumont to see his mom and then came back on Saturday night so he could be with us on Mother's Day. My mom came on Friday night and spent the rest of the weekend. We also went by my other grandparent's house (who live across the street from Nanny and Papa) on Sunday so Toots got to see them for the first time since he was about a month old as well. It was a great weekend :)

Toots got me a cute card and a new charm for my Pandora bracelet for Mother's Day. It's very pretty with light green jewels. I'm also getting a new vaccuum but Tim said Toots was NOT going to buy me a vaccuum for Mother's Day!

This week, we are supposed to be closing on the house. We had our final walk through today in anticipation of closing tomorrow afternoon but got a call late this afternoon that Bank of America's computer system went down so they couldn't get the last document they needed to send to the title company so we don't get to close tomorrow. I was/am pissed! But, as of right now at least, we should still be able to close on Thursday and still move in on Sunday. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that it all works out so we can move this weekend. I really want to be in and settled for Toot's baptism next weekend.

Toots has started a new thing where he has a shrill scream when he gets mad/upset about something. It's actually pretty funny but I think it could get annoying if he does it too much! I read that they will start doing that around this age because they are finding their voice and listening to the different sounds they can make. He is talking A LOT lately as well and making lots of new sounds. He's also sitting up better and can sort of sit up by himself with his hands between his legs, leaning over. He LOVES playing in his play yard and hitting all the toys. We try to rotate them out so he sees and plays with different ones. Right now there is a butterfly on top of a flower (it's a Lamaze toy) that vibrates when you pull it and the petals of the flower make crunchy noises. He isn't strong enough to pull it down to vibrate (it's actually pretty hard!) but he loves crunching the flowers and pulling on the rings on the bottom of it. He also still loves the bells we have on it and likes making them jingle. We also just started using the jumper (picture below). He doesn't jump, but he likes turning around and around in it and seems to enjoy being in it.

I guess that's about all. Again, please keep your fingers crossed for us on the house closing. Also, don't forget to enter the Giveaway I'm having (click the word "Giveaway" to be taken directly to the post). I mean, come on people, it's FREE stuff! What's better than that?!

Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day and has a wonderful week!

The beautiful flowers Tim brought me for our anniversary this past Monday. Aren't they gorgeous?!
Cutie patootie in his new outfit


Again in the new outfit. I think he looks like he's shy here haha. You can't see it, but under the alligator it says "Mr. Cool"

Toots with his great grandparents, Nanny and Papa. I know he is freaking out but I thought the picture was cute anyway.

Laughing with his Nanny. This went on for several minutes. He was getting a big kick out of her!

His awesome outfit from his BFF, Colt. It has a tank on the shirt and says "Major Hunk." Notice the adorable camo shorts!

Very impressed with the Japanese Gardens we visited last week with the playgroup...

First time in the jumper. Mom, whyyyy are you always taking pictures of me? Jeez!

Monday, May 10, 2010

Giveaway!

I'm having my first blog giveaway! Yay!

Lara contacted me this past week about a new side business she is starting. She is selling Scentsy products. If you don't know what Scentsy is, it's a really cool company. They have warmers that you melt different scents in, like a candle, but instead they use a low-watt bulb to melt the scents so it is a safe, smoke-free way to make your space smell great - wherever you are!

Lara is a mom, like me, so I was excited to have the opportunity to help her get her business out there. For this giveaway, she is giving a warmer and two scents to whoever wins. But WAIT, that's not all! She is also giving a 10% discount to anyone who contacts her by phone or e-mail for the next two weeks! You will have to contact her using the contact information on her website, because you can't get the discount unless you contact her.

I know you want to win some yummy/smell good scents and a cool warmer, so here's how to do it:

To enter, you have to go to Lara's website (www.LNBROWN.scentsy.us) and look at the products and leave a comment here telling me either a product you would love to have or a scent that you like. Don't forget to leave your e-mail address so we can get in contact with you if you win.

For additional entries, you can:

1. Blog about this giveaway on your own blog. Leave me a comment with a link to your blog.

2. Tweet about this giveaway on your twitter account. Leave me a comment with your twitter name so I can see the tweet.

3. Follow my blog or let me know that you already follow it. Of course, leave a comment for this, too.

That's a total of FOUR possible entries to the giveaway. Don't forget you have to tell me something from Lara's website as your first entry and then you can do the other three as additional entries if you want to up your chances of winning. If you do more than one entry, be sure to leave each one as a separate comment.

You have until next Wednesday, May 19th, to enter. On Wednesday night at 9:00 PM, I'll put all the entries into Random.org random number generator and whichever number it pops out, the person who left that number comment will be the winner.

This is an easy way to get some FREE stuff and get yourself a great discount on anything you want to purchase! Leave me some comments and good luck!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Skinny Tuesday


I didn't do a Skinny Tuesday post last week because I didn't go to Weight Watchers because on the day I was supposed to weigh-in, my scale was saying I gained weight and I don't like to go when I know I've gained. It doesn't motivate me to do better to go and have gained when I already know I'm going to gain. I did go this past week, though, and I lost 2.6 pounds! That pretty much made up for not going the week before since I usually lose around 1 pound a week. That brought me to 144.2, which meant I met my goal of wanting to get to 145 for our anniversary - yay!

I didn't go to Stroller Strides two days last week because I don't go on Thursdays since I go weigh-in at that time and I didn't go Friday because we were getting ready to go out of town and I was trying to get everything cleaned up and packed. I also didn't get to go yesterday because we were at Toot's 4 month appointment. I'm going out of town Thursday so I will only end up getting to go twice this week, which of course isn't as good as I like to do, but it doesn't seem there is much I can do about it when I am so busy. I just have to do a good job of watching what I eat whenever I don't get to workout as much.

Getting to 144.2 put me 10 pounds away from pre-pregnancy weight (134) and 12 pounds away from getting back to my Lifetime weight at Weight Watchers (132). I have set a new goal of being at my pre-pregnancy weight by my birthday, which is about 10 weeks away. Since I have been losing about 1 pound per week, I hope to be able to achieve that goal. I will have to keep up with watching what I eat and exercising as much as possible.

Hope you had a great week on your journey as well!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Four Months

Toots will be four months old on Thursday! We had his four month appointment on Monday and he was 26" long (apparently he didn't grow in a month, which makes me think I either measured wrong at 3 months or he's about to have a growth spurt) which is the 90th percentile, he's 16 pounds 13 ounces which is the 85th percentile and his head is 16 inches - I'm not sure which percentile that is but the doctor said his head growth has slowed down, but he said he definitely doesn't have a small head :) He's doing great overall. As I mentioned before, he hates loud noises and starts crying whenever he hears them. The doctor said that is normal and some kids are just like that. We should try to get him around louder noises so he gets used to them but they should be in an outside setting so it's not quite so drastic to him.

Let's see what else...He's talking a lot and starting to make all different noises. He loves to look at himself in the mirror and talk to himself. He laughs a lot more now but always gets the hiccups when he laughs, which ends up leading to crying. He still loves his baths at night. He mostly only cries now when he's hungry, needs a diaper change, or is tired (or if there's a loud noise!) so it's usually pretty easy to fix the problem and get him to stop crying. He smiles at people a lot. He wears 6-9 month or 6-12 month clothes - my big boy! He also wears a size two or three shoe.

I already moved him from the infant carrier to the convertible carseat because he was getting SO hot in the infant seat and would cry when he was in it because he was so hot. He's been much happier since we moved him to the convertible seat. The only problem with it is that he still can't sit up unassisted (like, he wouldn't be able to sit up in a grocery cart, he would tip to the side) so I have to either keep the infant carrier in the car for when we go to the grocery store or I have to use the sling or front carrier to put him in. But, I'm sure he'll get good at sitting up soon and we won't have any problems anymore. He holds his head up great and sits fine with assistance, just not on his own yet. He still hates tummy time but we still try to do it everyday and I'm going to try to do it a couple times a day. We started using the jumper yesterday, with the doctor's approval. He doesn't jump in it yet but he turns himself around and around and he seems to really like it.

That's about all I can think of! Hope y'all are having a good week! Happy early Mother's Day to all you moms :)

Precariously snoozing on the couch...I was by him the whole time so there was no danger :)


Gangsta baby!



My little Aggie coach!

Rockin' the coach's attire

Happy boy - he was laughing at the noises I was making

Daddy and Toots, looking very serious

Two Years

Two years ago right now I was taking pictures with my family and bridesmaids before the wedding. Two years ago today, in one and a half hours, I was in the process of marrying my best friend and the love of my life. That day is tied with the day I had Toots for the best day of my life, maybe a very close second to the day I had him. We were just saying today how we couldn't believe how much has changed in two years. We definitely didn't expect to have a baby right now but it's the greatest thing that could've happened to us. I love him more everyday and am so happy and lucky to get to spend the rest of my life with him. Here's a few pictures from that day...







And here's us celebrating our anniversary this past weekend in Waco. If only I was as tan as I was two years ago!

Happy Anniversary, Tim!