Things I'm ♥ing

I absolutely love this time of year. Why? Here are a few reasons:

1. Watching my monster wear long sleeve shirts and socks before bed is THE cutest


2. Having her fall asleep (on my arm) curled up next to me


3. Waking up to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on a cold & rainy morning

4. Caramel apples. Vance cuts the apples into small, bite-sized pieces and I just dunk them in the caramel dip-- I've eaten about an apple a day this past week, which should be considered healthy-- but I've also finished an entire "caramel dip" container as well, so that equals to over 1,000 calories. Eek.


5. Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses, mmmmmmmm!


6. Just finished reading Mini Shopaholic. I love the Shopaholic series and I was really excited to see this come out ... it was okay, but it kept me entertained for a day or so! I'm on the hunt for a new book now... thinking of Giuliana & Bill's book, but I realize a lot of the celebrity books out there are just 'fluff' and not really worth reading-- anyone read it yet?

Happy early halloween everyone! And is it just me, or is everyone going through a blogger lull? It seems a bit slow recently.. I think I need new blogs to read!

the weekend ... I'm not 21 anymore!

I had a long weekend. I'm pretty exhausted from it, to be completely honest. It started off with dinner at 'our place' with the girls. We ate delicious pasta as we usually do, and they came over to our house to hang out and drink some wine and visit Brooke.

Little lady was hiding on the side of this picture, onlooking..

Not sure why my camera is doing this AGAIN...

The following day was my sister-in-laws bridal shower. It was a great shower, and she got a lot of great stuff!

My mom helped out a bunch watching Brooke as Nicky opened her presents and played games...

Here are the 3 of us

"Blue" Velvet Cupcakes (her wedding colors are blue, black and silver)


Favors

Later that night I went out for the first time in a long time. I met up with Nicky and her friends at a night club and proceeded to get ridiculously smashed. Spent the night throwing up out the window of a friend's car on the freeway... came home and spent the morning throwing up in the toilet. Thankfully the hubby took care of me, put me to bed and surrounded the bed with towels and a trashcan, which definitely came in handy. :( Here's one picture from the night. (Vaguely remember taking this)

Had to wake up at 6am the next morning for our garage sale ... I am NOT 21 anymore and my body was definitely trying to let me know that.

Yuck. :(

this week + weekend plans

It's almost Halloween ... and Brooke has three costumes that she may or may not wear. The problem is that she only likes to wear her costumes for about 5 minutes, and then she's trying to pull it off. Sassy, right? The Minnie Mouse costume that I thought she would LOVE lasted less than five minutes, so I returned that and purchased this baby:

I almost died at how cute it was! It's a top contender, along with the 'raffe' and one other costume. I may have to pay a visit to the Disney store to get a bigger size...

Yesterday Vance was off and put Brooke down for her nap. When I walked into her room to check on her, this is how I found her sleeping:

Last night was a restless, hot night (so humid) and so I turned on "Ants Marching" by DMB and we danced & jumped around the living room until we were sweaty and tired. (the girl is going to grow up with AMAZING music taste-- listening to DMB, Queen, Journey, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tim McGraw, Zac Brown Band, Ben Harper, No Doubt, etc, etc [Maybe when she's older we can introduce Senses Fail, Saves the Day and the like]). When it was around 9pm, we switched it up to some "Crash Into Me," "Kissing You," & Florence + the Machine and laid down to read some books.

And then it was time for Brooke to crash out, and for some T-shirt tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime! So sad that the Jersey Shore and Teen Mom are done, but I am really enjoying Cutthroat on Wednesday nights. It's so sad watching TJ Lavin on the show, knowing he's currently in a coma. :(

This weekend will be busy, but oh-so-much fun! Tonight is dinner with the girls, my sister-in-law's bridal shower is tomorrow and so is her bachelorette party. Then on Sunday is our garage sale! Hope all ya'll have an amazing weekend!

VOMIT

My little girl is sick. Again. A week and a half ago I took Brooke in to the doctor to check her for a cold she came down with -- and was totally and completely surprised to find out that she had her FIRST ear infection in her right ear.

Then yesterday she woke up sick, sick, sick. :( She threw up once yesterday all over me. No fun. Then this morning she woke up and threw up twice. We went to the doctor's office and found out that she now has TWO ear infections in both ears.

How is this even possible?! Last week I had taken her to the doctor who confirmed that the ear infection was cleared up. Fast forward one week later and she has TWO ear infections?! Something smells fiiiiiishy. I also don't understand how a little child goes for one year and five months with no ear infections and, bam! is hit by three ear infections within 3 weeks.

Oh well. All mommy's know that a sick baby = an unhappy mommy. All a sick baby wants is to be "up, up, up" and wants to be cuddled, cared for, carried. Poor little girl.

Here is the little one being carried by her daddy while I was at tutoring last night:

Even Barney couldn't cheer her up!

Then she realized that Vance was taking her picture and here's what she did:

Taken a few days prior: Brooke and her 'annies'

Monkey business

Halloween is right around the corner-- seriously?! Last year Our Miss Brooke was the World's Largest Ladybug to go along with the family circus theme. This year the theme is Hollywood movies-- dress up as a character from your favorite movie. Well, Vance and I bought the Bmonster an adorable costume of one of her FAVORITE characters ... and she doesn't like it.

Instead, she loves this giraffe costume that Vance's aunty bought her just for fun:

Checking her reflection out in the stove

The giraffe costume is hanging on her door and she will run & point at it and say, "raffe!"

We'll see what she actually ends up donning on Halloween. Perhaps both?

Here is my little monkey right before going to sleep. That's me in the background, reading ... I finally finished the Millenium trilogy! Go me ... now I'm a little bummed because I have nothing to read.

Also, we've decided to purge our life of all of the unnecessary ... stuff we've been holding onto. We're finally having a garage sale and selling some amazing things, if I say so myself. A lot of Brooke's clothes have only been worn once or twice (some still have tags attached) and we're pricing them at about .25-$2.00. Ridiculously cheap! We also plan to sell her Bumbo, some toys and a loveseat that is virtually unused... (it sits in our back reading room). I'm excited :)

Almost 17

My little girl is one day shy of 17 months, but I figure I'd better post some pictures before I forget it. Since she turned one, those 'month-days' that were oh-so-important before seem to slip my mind. Not that they aren't important or anything.

I'm thinking of copying Cait and revamping my blog once I hit 100 followers. I never understood - and still don't understand - the obsession with how many 'followers' you have (seriously, are we in high school!? Are we trying to compete for popularity?) but I am a fanatic about nice, even numbers and 100 just seems like a good number to start with. It might take a year, or 3 days, who knows. It may never happen...

Also, I never dreamed when I started this blog that more than 2 or 3 people would even care to read what's going on in our life. I remember being really excited when I hit 11 followers-- I was still trying to grasp what a 'follower' was-- and now we're over ninety! Very much appreciated that people will stop & take time out of their day to read my mumblings and musings.

Anyway, here is the Bmonster, yesterday. These pictures are taken with Vance's auntie's point & shoot, which is clearly infinitely ten times better than the one we own.

Tag you're it

I was 'tagged' by Cait, so I'm playing along. Thanks again!

1) Which season is your favorite?
In the mainland, it's definitely autumn. I love, love, love the changing colors, the weather as it starts to cool, the return of pumpkin spice, pumpkin crunch ... sigh. I basically love everything about autumn. I may even name a future daughter Autumn just because I love it so much, ha.


2) What is your dream car?
I don't really have a dream car. . . I'm not really a car person.

3) What is the last book you read?
Great question. I have been getting lost with Miss Lisbeth Salander! I'm on the 3rd book right now and while these puppies take a long time to trudge through, I always finish them and say "totally worth it." We'll see if I feel the same about the last one.

4)What is your favorite weekend activity?
Hm, just like to hang out on the weekends. My sister-in-law and my mom were on fall break this past week so Brooke, Vance and I had a bunch of people to hang out with.

5) If you could only save 1 pair of shoes from your closet, which ones would you choose?
Sad to say... but I'd probably save my slippers. I'm not really a shoe girl either. . . but I do wear flip-flops every day.


6) What do you do for a living?
Currently I'm staying at home with Brooke, but I tutor a little girl just to make some extra money and to get out of the house. Here's where I actually need your help ... I've applied to a job that I reeeeeeealllllly want. Typically I never tell anyone when I've applied to jobs, but this one I want. Badly. If you could just think happy thoughts for me.. or pray, if you're religious. I won't hear about the job for another month or so and if I do get an interview, I'll need even MORE prayers!


7) What is your best memory from high school or college?
Not sure. Senior year in high school was pretty fabulous. I went bat-shit crazy fighting with a boyfriend back then and did things I never thought I'd do, but you live & learn. College was an experience I'd never trade either though.

8) What was your first job?
I worked at Wet Seal and I hated it, but I loved the discount. It was during the summer of my junior year and since I didn't go to summer school my parents made me work... yikes.

---------------------------------------------

Okay, now I'd like to tag some of my real life friends who actually have blogs, but a few of them have set their blogs to 'private' and I think that means they wouldn't want to be tagged in things like this, right?

So I will tag my newest followers:
Lee La La
Just Shy of a "Y"
Nesting with Niall

Waking Up Is Wonderful

Well, for Brooke it is anyway. Here's a video capturing the monster moments after waking up. She can now piece together small 2-word things, like "mommy, up!?" and "hi annie [auntie]," but you'd never know it from this clip.

Oh, and there's a small part where she tries to look at the phone when I ask her, "where's the panda?" -- she's trying to look for the panda on the phone. Crazy.

26

I turned 26 on Oct. 6... I wish I could say that it was an AMAZING day filled with presents and laughter and craziness ... but it wasn't. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice day. The hubs woke up and actually went out to buy me coffee and breafast (a real treat!). He had also bought me 2 cards-- one from him and one from the Bmonster. My parents came over for pasta (my fave) dinner and that was it. Sweet & simple.

I am now the proud owner of this puppy:

Here's another view:

It is still a little swollen and red, so it should look a little more natural in a few days. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to get-- I wanted to get something for myself ... almost got Brooke's birthday in French, but I may save that for somewhere else. It's always something I wanted to do ... to symbolize moving on from the skeletons in my closet ... I guess we all have 'em, right? Anyway...

My girls & I did our monthly dinner thing last night:

Doesn't it look so romantic?! Ha ha...

And they came over to visit the Bmonster after dinner


Of course we snuck in a few family photos...

Poor little girl...

And a little better one

The last of it...

On our second to last day we drove from Folsom, CA to Apple Hill in Placerville. It was a long drive, but once we reached there, it was well worth it. Here we are arriving at Apple Hill.

There was a hay maze for little kids, which Brooke loved meandering around.

And a pumpkin patch

And lots & lots of animals to feed! The sheep was easily my favorite animal there, and I LOVED the names of the animals. The 3 sheep were Lola, Lisa and Scout. The cows? Gertrude and Matilda. And over the chicken coup? Tom and Lucille. How charming :)

Little Bmonster did not enjoy Halloween picture taking

Caramel apples?! YES PLEASE! So delicious ... We then stopped over at a small brewery called Jack Russell Brewing Co. so Vance could have a brewski...

Then we drove over to a winery so I could enjoy some wine!


Isn't the sign on the bottom left the funniest thing?!

We spent our last day in Folsom with my aunt and uncle so we would be closer to Sacramento. Our flight left early in the morning... here we are, sad to be at the airport...

And that was it! I cannot wait for our next trip, I'm already plotting and planning in my head where we should go next...

SACRAMENTO

On this particular day, we drove from Chico to Sacramento. Unfortunately the Bmonster wasn't ready to take her nap on our long drive so we stopped for some food at Red Robin in Yuba City. Here she is, and believe me, she was a real monster at this point-- tired and fussy but not willing to take a nap.

We drove for what felt like FOREVER. The drive from Chico to Sacramento is not a long one, but we headed to Placerville first to stay at a B&B. On the way there, Vance and I got into a huge fight about nothing (just as most fights are typically about) and in a huff, we ditched the B&B and headed to a hotel in Sacramento called Le Rivage. The view was GORGEOUS. Our room had a view of the Sacramento River and I can't even put into words how beautiful it was!

We spent most of the day hanging around the hotel ... just relaxing after the long drive

Here we are soaking in the view

We even ordered room service! My first time! Mac & cheese on a room service cart seems so much more classy...

Then we actually left our beautiful hotel room to head to a small casino in Sacramento so Vance could get a few hands of blackjack in. (He won $80, ha!) And then Cheesecake Factory takeout, yummm.


Next post: Apple Hill!