family Archives | with a Side of Sneakers

Denial

Fun

My four year old has ~~three~~ two more days of preschool before summer strikes.

I still haven’t registered him for PreK. Registration was in February.

He’s not signed up for any summer activities.

My 5 month old still doesn’t nap.

My four year old definitely doesn’t nap.

I work from home.

My husband works out of state almost weekly.

I’m in severe denial.

About my babies growing up.

About how I’m going to maintain my work load with no summer help.

About only having two more days of preschool. Did I mention that already?

Is it still denial when I’m actually completely aware? Hyperaware. That it’s time to make some decisions and stop putting them off.

Time to pick a preK.

Time to admit that my youngest may never nap well. That I probably need childcare for him too.

Time to publish the giant backlog of posts I have because I never have “enough time” {<– ha} to put the finishing touches on them.

Or maybe I’ll just blissfully keep my head buried in the proverbial sand and try my hardest to keep my babies my babies just a little bit longer.

Yeah, that last one I think.

Because we all know babies don’t keep.

More is Better {+ $500 Giveaway!}

Holidays

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Cottonelle.

I can think of a lot of things I’d like to have more of. Cookies. Dollar bills. Gluten-dairy-soy free foods. Time. Sunshine. Energy.

I say most of those things as I joke, but I’m not so un-serious about the time part. Time with my family to be specifically. Actually being a family, not doing 394 different things all at the same time. To spend the holidays soaking up the season, cherishing the twinkling Christmas lights and the smell of evergreen. Savoring each moment as my son experience’s the first Christmas where he’s aware something special is happening. To have my husband not traveling for work, missing bedtime stories and bath times. Wrapping presents for weeks. Burning frosted cranberry candles when it sun sets too early. A glass of wine at 5 when the kiddo’s asleep, sitting down to … nothing.

To revel in the moment of having nothing to do {what’s that?}. Not worry about cleaning up after a hurricane of a meal with toddler three times a day. Forget about the bills that need to be paid and paperwork I need to. Toss aside the research I need to do for an article and instead curl up with a good novel, drinking hot apple cider while the husband watches football.

Instead I’d like to spend that time watching my son’s face light up as he finds his stuffed elf hiding in a new place each morning. Laughing in awe as he counts all the snowmen on the Christmas tree and finds each ornament as we call them out. Big bird! Football! Rocking horse! Heart! Train! {He finds them all. I’m thinking about rearranging them and seeing what happens.}

Spending more moments watching him jump on my bed or in his crib and telling me what sounds all the different animals make. {Most of them roar, of course.}

If I had 25% more time to cram into the holiday season, it’d be right here in my living room, living for the moment. Having 25% more of whatever you desire this holiday season makes an impact. Be it time, money, peppermint bark, or toilet paper, more is better.

So in case what you desire more of this holiday season is in fact toilet paper {or money}, you’re in luck. Here’s a giveaway for a chance to win $500 from American Express DAILY between Dec 9 – 20h. And since more is better, the winner also gets $500 for a charity of their choice. Now that’s what the holidays are about.

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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Cottonelle.

Cheers to Nothing

Fun

This weekend I did something completely out of the ordinary. It was flabbergasting. Life changing.

I didn’t work.

Ok, I’m being fairly dramatic- it wasn’t quite life changing, but it was refreshing, rejuvenating, and relaxing.

That’s not to say I sat on my bum all weekend- I just didn’t do work work. In fact, I didn’t even open my computer.

I just enjoyed the weekend for what it was. If I worked a “regular” job, I wouldn’t also spend the weekends working, so just once, I decided to pretend I worked normal hours and didn’t try to cram work into every spare moment I could find.

It.felt.so.good. For the first time in months I feel like I actually had a weekend. {Of course, that also means I really felt Monday morning roll around.}

I simply just enjoyed the weekend for what it was. I did things I felt like doing, not things I had to do.

I got my hair cut. This is significant. {It will never look like this again.}

I cleaned. {Yes, cleaned.}

I made pancakes.

I worked on long overdue nursery projects.

I cracked open a book. {Ok, it was a work-related book, but still one I wanted to read.}

I sat on the porch for an uninterrupted 15 minutes and did absolutely nothing but enjoy the cool fall air; my final farewell to summer.

Ironically none of us are feeling so hot, so we actually enjoyed time as a family instead of being all over the place trying to get things done.

We {by “we” I mean husband} built a bike rack. Yes, the one that caused this to happen the first time around.

We watched football. {ok, I didn’t watch- I was being a busy body.}

We went to a 1^st birthday party that puts all Pinterest parties to shame.

We went to bed early and woke up early. I enjoyed every minute of every short baby nap. Even 20 minute naps feel longer when you’re not trying to fit in a week’s worth of work.

Here’s to stopping to savor the moments and not always getting things done.

More weekend pictures on tiny sneakers. 😉

Father’s Day Feastin

Holidays, Other

The husband’s first father’s Day was packed full if the best things in life: family & food.

We started the day with a neighborhood walk with Mimi {my mom} who was visiting for the weekend while the dads slept in a bit.

Then we showered daddy in homemade father’s day gifts:

Matching daddy-baby tie shirts!

After my parents left {enter giant pouty faces here} the husband and I took our little man to the park to check out the baby swings. Success! He loved the swing! But parenting 101 fail: we didn’t bring a hat or sunglasses or sunscreen, so our adventure didn’t last long.

After our park trip we moved on the next adventure of the day: letting the non-cool husband cook dinner. The inlaws brought the makings for a Greek salad. We kept things separate to accommodate various food preferences {read: me being picky. I hate almost everything about Greek cuisine}.

The husband contributed his piece de resistance: grilled kabobs. He marinated some chicken and veggies in Italian dressing, paprika, pepper, and Old Bay. {Everything gets Old Bay when he cooks.}

Along with the chicken we had red onions, green peppers, mushrooms, potatoes, and tomatoes. {Again separate so we could all be choosy. The perfect meal for a picky audience.}

Then came my contribution: dessert. 🙂

I made Phoebe’s grandma’s secret cookie recipe {a la Nestle Tollhouse}, with only 2 changes: 75% cacao dark chocolate and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

I’ve made these hundreds of times but instead of coming out like nice chewy cookie bars per usual, they came out soft & cake like instead.

Food science experts! What happened?! Did I cream the butter & sugar too long? Did I beat the eggs too much? Bake it funny? I’m used to strange results when I make a thousand substitutions, but not when I stick to the recipe.

Anyway, the cookies were still delicious. Dark chocolate is the way to go.

We finished up our celebrations with a sleeping baby {momentarily} and split one of the most satisfying beers to ever cross my lips: Epic Brewing Copper Cone Pale Ale from Salt Lake City. Although the bottle coat more than the wine I drink so we probably won’t be indulging in it again anytime soon. {Note: I drink really cheap wine so this isn’t as extravagant as it sounds.}