Isaiah & Sharee's Wedding

02.12.2011- Isaiah & Sharee made a commitment to spending their lives together.  Their wedding was beautiful and everything turned out perfect. They got engaged about 3 weeks ago so their wasn't a lot of time to plan the wedding, but it turned out perfect.  A couple of our clients, Steve & Rhyll Croshaw, were kind enough to let them use their family lodge for the event.  The lodge is amazing so they didn't need to do a whole lot.  It was amazing how everything came together so quickly and so well.  My mom supplied most of the decorations, which were things she purchased for mine and Zac's wedding, and Leesa and her kids did pretty much all of the work from set up to take down.  A lot of people have horror stories about how awful their step-moms and step-siblings are, but that couldn't be further from the truth with Zac's family.  They really are so awesome!  We were really bad at taking pictures so I'll have to post some when I get a chance to steal them from other people.  This is the only family picture we got.

This picture of Zion and my sister Heather has to be one of the cutest ever!  I love his big cheesy grin!  His first tooth broke through today and I'm so sad.  I'm going to miss his gummy smile.  I LOVE IT!

It was a long day for Zion but he was a little trooper.  Zac got home from work at 12 and we went right up to start frosting the 1000 mini cupcakes and 4 gallons of frosting I had made.  We planned on going home after the ceremony and family lunch to give Zion a nap, but it didn't end up working out.  We tried to get him to take a nap but it was to loud and too much action was happening for our curious little monkey.  Finally, around 9 pm Zion was so exhausted he fell asleep while Grandpa Gary was walking him around.  He didn't ever get fussy or anything.  Around 11 pm we had everything cleaned up and were able to get him home to bed.  Needless to say he slept pretty much all day Sunday.  All the action was exhausting for a 7 month old.

Super Bowl Sunday

Zac was so excited to watch the Super Bowl with Zion.  It was a cozy pajama day at our house, so Zac dressed Zion in one of his little football onesies.  He also made him use his "Packers colored bink", and keep a tight hold on his little football during the game.  I loved seeing Zac so excited to be spending "man time" with his little buddy. (Sorry for the terrible picture quality..... they were taken with my phone)

I enjoyed having time to finish making the cupcakes for Isaiah's wedding this Saturday (a total of 1,000 that are now frozen and just need to be thawed and frosted the day of the wedding), cooking yummy bbq chicken and homemade mac & cheese for our splurging "game day food", and making tons of these cute little flowers to go on head bands, little clips and safety pins to add to clothes/ bags/ whatever.

Chill days at home with my two favorite boys are the best!!  Even if we have to have football on.

Sewing projects

Zac got me a sewing machine for my birthday.  I've been wanting to learn to sew for a long time.  I took the required 1/4 year sewing class in 8th grade, but other than that I have never sewn a thing.  I figured it would be a fun little hobby, but mostly I just want to be able to design and make my own things.  For the past month and a half it has sat in the closet, but this past week I finally pulled it out.  My first project was this little minky tag blanket.  Zion loves soft stuff.  He digs his head in and rubs it against anything he can find that is soft.... including the velvet booths at Happy Sumo.  He also loves playing with tags so I made this little minky tag blanket for him to play with.

Today I made this cute giraffe blanket for Zion.  I'm really happy with how it turned out.  I didn't have a pattern or anything, and the cream material was pretty stretchy and hard to keep straight, but I think it turned out pretty good.

Zion has had a little cold for the past couple weeks so I've been keeping the humidifier running in his bedroom.  I have it sitting on his nightstand, but the moisture is so bad for the wood that I have to keep something under it.  I've been using a folded blanket but it drives me nuts every time I go in there.  I wanted something that matched and looked like it was supposed to be a part of his room.  I found a really long table runner that matched the rugs in his room perfect. 

 

So I cut it into strips and pieced it back together leaving frayed edges to match the frayed-ness of his rugs.  It looks so much better than the folded blanket! (And no, that is not where I keep the rug, I just put it there so you could see it next to the little table cover)

I have had so much fun sewing these three little projects this week, and I am so excited to do more.  I have a ton of project ideas bouncing around in my head.... thank goodness for nap time so I can work on them!

1/2 a year already!

Can you believe it.... my little man is already half a year old.  Actually more than that because I'm almost a month behind.  He turned 6 months old on January 9th.  Here he is waiting for Dr. Penrod to come check him out.

Zion grew a ton between his 4 & 6 month check ups.  He gained over 4 pounds and is up to 16 lbs 8 oz (30th %) and is 26 inches long (33rd %).  I cannot believe how much he has grown, but then again he loves food so I really shouldn't be surprised.  He has been eating solids 4 times a day for quite a while now, and snacks on graham crackers, and I'm still nursing him 4-5 times a day.  I think his favorite thing, so far is my homemade tomato basil soup.  But he really love my butternut squash & carrot soup and also my split pea & ham soup.

He is still sleeping great at night and I absolutely love checking on him in the morning and seeing where he has rolled.  He makes good use of his entire crib while he sleeps.

He still loves absolutely loves his jumper which I am super grateful for.  We take it down to the gym with us when we go work out and he'll jump and laugh the whole time he watches us.  This is a picture of him jumping while we were busy getting the base trim hung in our new gym.

Zion loves going on dates with mommy and daddy.  I still have a really hard time leaving him.  I think it's partly because I leave him in the morning to go to work for a few hours, so I don't want to feel neglectful and leave him when we go on dates.  I don't think Zion minds.  I think he's pretty happy to accompany mom and dad on their dates.  Here he is looking like a stud in his little tie.

And another date at Malawi's.  This is one of our new favorites. 

Happy Sumo is his favorite.... he loves to chew on the empty edamame pods with just a tiny bit of soy sauce on them.  Ok, maybe it's not his favorite, but it's mine and Zac's.  While we were pregnant with Zion, we would go to Happy Sumo after every doctor appointment to celebrate our little Zion monster.  Now it's so fun to go and take him with us!

I love it that Zion will still let us cuddle him while he naps.  Most of the time he naps in his crib, but every now and then we get home from work and it's nap time and we just want to cuddle with our little buddy while he sleeps.  Isn't this the cutest?

Other fun things about Zion-
*He loves to wrestle with his daddy
*He gets really quiet and holds perfectly still when he hears mommy or daddy's voice from the other room, and then when we walk in, he laughs and screams and gets so excited to see us
*He started taking baths in the regular tub a few weeks ago and loves being able to spread out, kick and splash so much
*He loves his sippy cup and holding it by himself- I don't love the mess it makes
*He still falls asleep in his carseat whenever we drive for more than 10 mins
*He loves to play peek a boo
*He has been sitting up by himself really good since he was about 5.5 months and it makes him look so old
*He loves to be on his tummy now to sleep and play with toys
*He hasn't figured out how to get up on all fours and crawl, but he can pretty much get anywhere/anything he wants by rolling around
*He has a crush on his Aunt Ninny and flirts with her so much we all start laughing

And the not so fun-
*Zion has developed a pretty bad case of stranger anxiety.  Aside from me, Zac and Aunt Ninny, he cries when people hold him.  If he still has a visual on one of us he does ok, but if we aren't in the room he gets so upset.  I hope this stage doesn't last very long!

All in a day

Once again, I've been a really bad blogger.  Life is just crazy these days.  Trying to balance owning a business with being a good mom and a decent house keeper... I just need a few more hours in each day.  I have so much to catch up on, including Zion's 6 month check up, but that will have to wait for another day.  Right now I'm too lazy to go get my camera and load pictures, and all I really want is to watch the Bachelor and go to bed.  Like I said, life is crazy!  Here's a glimpse of what my day looked like today and what most of my days are like-

*Up at 4 am to be to the gym to train for a few hours starting at 5 am (Zion stayed home with Cyd aka Nanny Ninny)
*Home to give Zion a bath and get him ready to run LOTS of errands
*Made all the beds, picked up the house, did loads of laundry, did the dishes
*A trip to the grocery store
*Back to the gym to pay bills and take care of stuff in the office
*Talked to Granny Houtz on the phone to find time to help her with my cousin's graduation quilt
*Ran to Home Depot to get paint for the base boards my dad is working on for the gym
*Dropped the paint off to my dad
*Made homemade tomato basil soup
*Did the dishes again
*Gave Zion a quick sink bath because he was covered in soup, but he loved it so it was worth it
*Ran to the fabric store (Zion stayed home with daddy and took a nap)
*Made Cyd an oven roasted turkey & pesto sandwich to go with her soup
*Ran back to the gym to do my P90X workout with Zac (and of course Zion got a leg workout in jumping in his little jumperoo)
*Baked 150 cupcakes (I volunteered to make all the cupcakes for Zac's brother's wedding in a few weeks so I'm getting a start on them now and throwing them in the freezer until the big day)
*Made a protein shake for dinner because I was so sick of cooking, Zac had leftover soup
*Gave Zion another bath because Zac tried spiking his hair with Pomade and it was nasty!
*Went tanning & to the grocery store again (Zion stayed with daddy)
*Did the dishes for the third time & continued doing laundry
*And now I'm sitting on my butt watching the Bachelor and writing this quick blog

And as a side note, I'm still a nursing mom so I found time to nurse Zion several times throughout the day.  Did I mention I'm tired?  Before I take all the credit, shout-out to Zac, for being such an amazing husband and dad and helping me with everything all the time.  The benefit of owning our own business is that we set our own hours so Mon, Weds, Fri and Saturday Zac is home by noon at the latest, and I only work weekdays until 10am.  Tuesday's and Thursday's are kind of crazy for Zac at the gym.... 5am - 11am and then back at 3pm-9pm, but it's worth it to have him home so early the other days.  I love having him home and I really appreciate how much he help me.  Well that's my life- all in a day.  Goodnight!

CHRISTMAS 2010

Christmas was the best ever!  I can't believe that last year I was exactly 10 weeks pregnant on Christmas day.  We woke up early and did the "IntelliGender" test and it said we were having a boy.  We were so excited, but that was nothing compared to the joy and excitement we experienced this year having our little boy here with us.  We started our celebration on Christmas Eve with the annual Christmas party at the cabin.  Sledding, gift exchange, yummy food, grandma's turtles, grandpa's ornaments and a nativity made it such a great day.  I love Christmas Eve at the cabin and I'm thankful for what a fun tradition it has been my entire life.  Later that afternoon we went to Gary and Leesa's house for a Christmas party with Zac's family.  We started a new tradition this year called the "Namaste Christmas Gift Exchange".  We all drew names and rather than buying a present we gave gifts of service and talent.  I think it was such a fun idea and it made us put a lot more thought into what we were giving.  The highlight of the night was definitely the Dance Central on the Xbox Kinect.  SO MUCH FUN!!!  We ended the night at my parents house for a slumber party.  My mom gave us all new jammies and we spent time drinking hot chocolate, snacking on cheese and crackers, wrapping presents and lots and lots of talking.  Santa found us and Christmas morning we woke up around 7:30 to open presents.  Zion was spoiled, of course, and me and Zac made out pretty dang good, too!  Zion's favorite gift was his jumperoo.  He jumped and laughed and jumped and laughed all day long.  He was so dang funny.  After a breakfast of Shirley's cinnamon rolls, eggs, sausage, and banana pancakes with buttermilk syrup, we stopped by Gary and Leesa's for a minute.  Then we went back to my parents house and spent the rest of the day playing with Zion's toys and watching movies with my family.  This really was the best Christmas ever.  Even though people always say kids make everything better, I never really understood, but now I do and I couldn't agree more!  Zion, thanks for making this the best Christmas ever.  I love you little buddy!

Here's our little family Christmas morning at Nana and Papa Houtz's house

In front of the Christmas stash

Zion loved the wrapping paper

SPOILED little guy!  At home in his jumperoo with his mountain of toys.  He got some really cute clothes too, but they were already in the laundry when I took this picture.

Catch up Nov-Dec

I have been such a horrible blogger, so I'm going to do a couple posts to try to catch up.

We split Thanksgiving... the first half of the day we spent at my parent's house with all of the extended Houtz family, and the second half of the day we spent at Gary & Leesa's with Zac's brothers and all of Leesa's kids and their families.  It was a great day!

Thanksgiving night the "Elf on the Shelf" brought special Christmas jammies to get Zion in the Christmas spirit.  He loved them and the Elf!

Zion has really been packing on the pounds.  He had acid reflux so bad when he was a newborn, but now that he is eating baby food his milk stays down.  He has gained 3-4ish pounds since his 4 month check up.  He LOVES food.  So far there is nothing he hasn't liked, even my homemade split pea and ham soup.  I pretty much make all of his baby food.  I just throw whatever fruit or veggies we are eating in my VitaMix and then freeze it in little snack size Ziplocks.  He absolutely loves clementines.  When he sees me peeling one he gets all excited.  I bite the end off and then let him gum it a little and suck the juice out and he goes crazy!  It's adorable.  The next picture is of Zion eating his bananas at CPK.

I turned 24 this month and had the best birthday ever!  My family spoiled me with gifts and then we all went to Happy Sumo for some delicious sushi and then to my parent's house for my mom's amazing homemade key lime pie!  YUMMY!  Here are some family pictures we took walking around Riverwoods after sushi.

Zion got to play baby Jesus in the Larsen family Christmas nativity.  I think he did a pretty good job!

I think that quickly raps up the last month.  Christmas post to come!!