Sweet and Tart

Weekend Snapshots

sweetandtart — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:55:59 +0000

We had a fantastic long weekend. W had four days off, so we were very spoiled by having him home. I think LC is quickly turning into a daddy’s girl. She has such fun playing with him, and she just chatters away when she’s around him. She’s also started crawling from the living room into his office when he’s in there working.

Friday I made pancakes for breakfast and Miss LC got to eat her very own pancake. She LOVED it! I can’t wait to make them again to watch her gobble it up.

Yummy yummy yummy!

We’ve had nice warm weather for January, so we took advantage of the sun and went to check out a park near our house. This park was pretty great–it has a big dog park and some really nice play structures that LC will enjoy when she’s older, but the feature I was most excited about were the swings! (Is it just me or is it getting harder to find playgrounds with swings?). We took Duncan for a frolic in the dog park and then headed over to give LC her first push in the swing. Seeing her smile and hearing her giggle was so good for my heart that we went back on Sunday!

Yesterday I was most excited about tackling our bedroom. I’ve been working on deep cleaning and purging in preparation for our upcoming move this spring. It feels so much more peaceful and calming to walk into a clean bedroom.

In other exciting (hah!) news, I have cooked dinner every single night this month. I was already cooking most nights, but I have really been doing better about meal planning and shopping, and I hope that this will help us save some money to meet some of our financial goals more quickly. Most of my recipes this month have come from Real Simple and Cooking Light magazines and I may post a rundowns of some of our favorites toward the end of the month. Some nights I really don’t feel like cooking, but it has definitely helped me to have a plan so that I’m not scrambling to make a meal out of thin air at 6 pm.

So, here’s to a 4-day work week! I’m ready for the weekend NOW.

Stroller Review: Joovy Zoom 360 (vs. BOB Revolution)

sweetandtart — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:17:02 +0000

I wanted a jogging stroller. I wanted a BOB. I did not want to spend ~~$400~~ $450 on a jogging stroller, because to be honest, I wasn’t sure how often I would use it. It’s scorching hot eight months out of the year and our neighborhood is chock full of steep hills. I also have a teeeeensy issue with starting something and not sticking with it.

So. After a few weeks (months?) of late-night Google searches and reading of Amazon reviews, we bit the bullet and bought the Joovy Zoom 360. We’ve now owned it for five months, and I can now succinctly say that I love it and I’m glad we got it over the BOB.

A few key points:

I find the Joovy to be just as stylish as the BOB.
Baby seems very comfortable, and the seat is easy to adjust.
In the Amazon reviews I read, some people complained that the handle bar was a little too high. I’m 5’6″ and I have not found this to be an issue.
My sister owns a BOB and my mom takes it on long (~7 miles) runs several times a week. She tested my stroller over Christmas and said she prefers the parent console on the Joovy (and it comes included with the stroller! Bonus!).
The Joovy Zoom 360 is about 4 pounds heavier than the BOB Revolution. My mom noticed this difference, but she said it wasn’t a big deal. I personally do not find the stroller to be too heavy.
The sun canopy is awesome, which was a key selling point for me.
We had a flat tire after we got it (not the fault of Joovy; we have these crazy burrs with giant thorns out here in the desert), and it was very easy to take to a bike shop and get new inner tubes. Haven’t had a problem since.

Ready for a run with Grandma!

I use this stroller for walks and runs. I don’t take it in the car as a mall stroller and I don’t travel with it. I think it would be a bit large for that. I also think that if you, say, want to train for a half marathon with your baby as a friend of mine does, then the lighter weight of the BOB might make a difference to you. But I think for the average mom doing short-to-medium runs, the Joovy Zoom 360 is a fantastic value.

If you have any questions about my experience with this stroller, let me know and I’ll be happy to update the post with my answers.

*Suffice it to say, this was not a sponsored post (Is it necessary to say this every time you give your opinion about something?). We paid for our stroller out of our own pockets.

Merry Christmas!

sweetandtart — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 04:27:48 +0000

Merry Christmas, everyone!

We had a fantastic day at home with just our little family, and tomorrow my parents fly out to spend the remainder of 2011 with us. Santa was very good to us, and I feel like a very lucky girl.

Christmas is so much fun with a baby in the house. Nine months is a great age for a first Christmas. LC is so much more interactive now than she was just a couple of months ago. We were successful in not going overboard with presents for her, since she really doesn’t need that many toys. She did have a lot of fun exploring the ones she got. I have to say, the Fisher Price Learning Home was worth every penny (*hint* I was able to find it MUCH cheaper than the $124 it’s currently listed for).

Overall, I’m very happy with the way 2011 turned out. I think I was the happiest this year that I’ve been in awhile, but I still have a lot of learning to do in terms of letting go and letting things roll off my back. I’d like to be able to relax a lot more than I’m currently able (which is not often).

In spite of that, I really have everything I could ask for. So here’s to hoping that 2012 brings even more peace and contentment.

Ready for the Christmas Eve service

Santa Paws visited Duncan.

One of my favorite gifts!

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

sweetandtart — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:43:54 +0000

We’re in the holiday spirit here in the B household! We had a nice low-key Thanksgiving at home for the first time since W and I have been together. We spent our first Thanksgiving as an engaged couple in Korea. For our first Thanksgiving as a married couple we drove 13 hours to visit W’s grandparents and the next year we saw the Lions play (my first pro football game!) and last year W was deployed so Duncan and I were here alone. So, even though we couldn’t be with our families this year, I was really looking forward to just being home and eating turkey at my own table.

I restrained myself from making ALL the sides I’d normally love, but we had a delicious meal nonetheless. We feasted on:

Bourbon-Molasses Glazed Turkey
Maple Pecan Sweet Potatoes
Sauteed Carrots with Sage
Apple Cornbread Stuffing
Crescent Rolls (from a can, y’all)
Pumpkin Crunch Cake

We got most of the Christmas decorations up this weekend and I finally finished my Advent wreath last night (only a day late!) after multiple trips to Michaels/Hobby Lobby. We have a faux tree this year for several reasons, but I REALLY miss having a real tree. Growing up we’d always drive to a tree farm and cut down our own tree. I’d really like to do that with LC when we actually live somewhere where trees grow I also loved driving around to look at lights after the Christmas Eve service and having our special Christmas Eve “party” where everyone got to pick their favorite appetizer and we’d eat the appetizers and Christmas cookies and fudge for dinner.

Now that we have a baby I’m really looking forward to creating our own family traditions. What are some of your favorite Christmas/holiday traditions?

November Randoms, pt.1

sweetandtart — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:22:41 +0000

1. W got me an iPad for our anniversary and I was sort of annoyed because: 1. It’s too expensive, 2. I don’t really need one (I have a laptop, a Kindle, and now an iPhone) and 3. I specifically told him I wanted family photos done as my gift and so I felt like he just ignored me ( which, yeah, he sort of did. BUT, I have used it a lot and really enjoy it so far. Look at me blogging on it! Wheee!

2. So I still really wanted to have pics done, but the budget was blown on that. Fortunately, I found a photog that does mini-sessions for a good price. I don’t need 5000 photos of our family from one session, just a couple to frame, so this should be perfect for that. Tomorrow is the day!

3. I keep hitting the “n” key on the iPad instead of the space bar. Does that happen to you?

4. I’ve been all about pumpkin this week: pumpkin granola and pumpkin muffins. Also, Dorie Greenspan’s Spinach and Bacon Quiche with homemade pâte brisée. A bit time consuming, but totally worth it.

5. I want to be Dorie Greenspan when I grow up.

6. There is an Army ball coming up in a couple of weeks. Suggestions as to where I could get an inexpensive formal dress? Also I think we’re going to leave LC at one of the post daycare centers while we go. I’m completely anxious about this even though it’s only for a few hours and Hubs and I clearly need some adult time (last time we went out alone together? June 9th. Haha.) Anyone have any advice on how to get your baby to take a bottle? More on this later.

7. I just can’t believe how fast our girl is growing. She LOVES books, much to our delight, and she rarely stops moving. Her favorite thing lately is to crawl from the living room to underneath the jumperoo in the kitchen and then just crawl in circles. I love this age so much. Tonight in the bath I dropped her duckie from up high so it splashed and she thought it was hilarious…she just grinned and laughed and splashed. My heart is full!

That’s all for now…here are a couple from her 7 month shoot.

Soooo big!

Happy Halloween!

sweetandtart — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 01:41:51 +0000

We celebrated Halloween a little early this year by driving out to La Union, NM for the Howl-O-Wine Dog Festival. We had absolutely gorgeous weather–in the mid 70s and both babies were very well behaved. We went on a one-mile walk through the vineyard and then there were dog costume and trick contests. They also had food and wine, but sadly no vino for this BF-ing mama whose baby refuses to take a bottle. We didn’t participate in the contests but Duncan and LC did get a chance to show off their costumes a day early. LC has been all about moving for months with her nonstop rolling and crawling, but now she is finally getting better at sitting for long periods of time. Hooray! It’s hard to believe that this time last year I was just about 18 weeks pregnant and W was in Afghanistan. How time flies!

My two Gryffindor wizards-in-training!

I’ll have to take some more pictures tomorrow that show the back of her costume–the diaper cover has a cute ruffle bum. Etsy FTW! Tomorrow we plan to stay home and hand out candy. I’ll be glad when it’s gone so I can stop snacking on it. Off to eat some pizza and watch The Good Wife on Netflix. Happy Halloween Eve!

Three

sweetandtart — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:13:07 +0000

Two moves, a deployment, and a baby later, here we are. I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else.

Here’s to many, many more years ahead.

Traveling with baby at 6 months

sweetandtart — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 03:41:48 +0000

There is more that I will add to this topic later, but I just want to quickly type a little now.

Yesterday I traveled about 2000 miles from our house to my mom’s so that I can stand up as a bridesmaid in my best friend’s wedding this coming weekend. My friend B asked me to be a bridesmaid while I was pregnant, and I talked it over with my husband and we both thought that there would be no reason why I couldn’t accept.

And then as we got closer to the wedding, there was one snag: he wouldn’t be able to make the trip with me, and due to his work/classesand my breastfeeding, I also had to bring Miss LC. By myself. Cue freaking out and hair pulling.

Yesterday we traveled for about 12 hours, including times to and from the airport, and a 3.5 hour layover in Chicago. And friends, I am here to tell you: YOU CAN DO IT. It’s not guaranteed to go well, but it can.

My number one piece of advice for traveling alone with an infant? Have a plan and make things as easy as possible for yourself.

I flew alone with LC in July but she was barely four months old then, and now she’s nearly seven months and crawling and wriggling and much harder to entertain so I was very nervous.

Baby and daddy playing at the airport. Escort pass FTW!

This time, I’m so glad I:

cancelled the cheap flight that required a 3-hr drive to my parents’ house after
dressed nicely to fly
brought the snap ‘n go AND the ergo
took the diaper bag as my carry-on and packed LIGHT (well, as light as possible, and my checked suitcase was still overweight. FAIL.)
accepted help whenever it was offered to me
smiled a lot and used my super cute baby to win the hearts of my fellow passengers

More detail on how it all went down (and how I was so lucky that LC cooperated so well, even past her bedtime) soon!

Oct Photo Challenge, Days 3-6

sweetandtart — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 04:24:05 +0000

Quick roundup of days 3-6:

Clouds: It’s always sunny here. A quick Google search gives varying numbers, but what I’ve heard most often quoted is that we have sun about 300 days a year here in EP. So it was a rare day that it was so overcast. Sadly, though, no rain.

Something green: A picture of the lantana in my “garden.” Lantana grows EVERYWHERE here; good thing it’s so pretty!

From a high angle: I meant to take the camera on our morning walk and get a view from the top of the hill looking down into New Mexico, but I forgot it at home So I ended up taking a picture looking down onto our coffee table, which currently serves as my desk.

From a low angle: How have I made it this far without baby pictures?? I got down on the floor to snap some pics of my sweet girl.

October Photo Challenge

sweetandtart — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 04:02:27 +0000

So, I got a little bit of a late start on the photo challenge that’s going on over at Our Wired Lives. My first couple of photos aren’t great, but hopefully I will prioritize this a bit more because I actually would like to learn how to use the manual settings on my camera.

Day 1: Self-portrait. Whoops, got too late and I had to take this in the bathroom with the crappy lighting. Also, taking a picture in the bedroom revealed just how messy it is in there!

Day 2: What I wore. Uninspired outfit thrown on when I realized I could actually make it to church for the first time in, oh, longer than I’d care to admit.

This month is really busy for me, but in a great way, so I hope I can make the most of this challenge!