It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Move over Christmas.... you're cool and all, but Fall takes the cake in my book. What could be more exciting then the crispness in the air after a hot summer, the return of swoon-worthy boots, pumpkin spice lattes and anything pumpkin for that matter?! I'm sure I have all you Christmas obsessed folks thinking of coming over to the dark side :) However my baby is a December baby so I will say, that does tip the scale in your favor for that reason alone.
We took Farrah to a pumpkin patch a couple weeks ago. She loved it! Not because of the pumpkins or anything, but because of 2 things... the animals on the farm, and the hayride to go pick pumpkins. She could have cared less about the music show they put on for the kids, which I was fine with because quite frankly listening to a creepy hillbilly sing barn songs isn't really my scene anyways. Instead this is what she did...

... stare at animals. She loved it. But I wasn't the least bit surprised considering her lifelong (almost 2 years now) obsession with all things animal. If you are one of my "real life" friends or family members, you've already been introduced to "Ra-Ra" and her purple wrist and ankle bands. If you are a "blog friend" you're probably wondering what the heck is on my kids legs and what she's carrying around. We get many stares these days. Mostly for her wrist and arm bracelets. I see people point and make comments, my recent favorite was at a party I heard a couple talking and then point to her purple bands then followed it up with "it looks like she's on house arrest." Yes moron my 2 year old is on house arrest. Being that I'm a parent of a toddler, my first thought would be, looks like that kid has taking a liking to some purple bands. That is it precisely. She's 2, she has new obsessions daily and this is her current one. Ra-Ra goes with her everywhere and her purple bands must be on her at all times. I think it makes her unique and gives her character. If she wants to wear rockstar bands all day, more power to you girl!

Best family photo we got all day

On the hayride over she put her little hand on daddy's lap and left it there the whole time. P.R.E.C.I.O.U.S.

One of her many DIVA faces

She got so mad when we had to get off the hayride to start picking pumpkins. This is her crying and pointing at the tractor as it drove away. Note to Grandma, Farrah wants a tractor for her birthday!

We quickly picked some pumpkins and got back on the hay ride as soon as possible.... Farrah wasn't diggin' the whole pumpkin part of the pumpkin patch.

Leave it to mommy to ruin Farrah's good time on the hayride. At least I was able to get this good picture with my happy girl.

We had a great time celebrating the gratest season of all. Halloween will be here soon. I'll leave you in suspense with what she's going to be for Halloween. Her Auntie Janett picked it out and is coming to visit from LA to see Farrah model her costume. Can't wait!

I've been waiting for this forever and a day

Ok well that may be a bit dramatic but I'm super excited! Me and the hubbs are going to Hawaii! I'm sure many of you are rolling your eyes behind your computer screens ... I can just picture it... "must be nice!" That's something I would probably say to someone who announces in a blog they're going on a nice trip. But hear me out.... we need this trip!
In college I did a lot traveling. I loved it. Loved exploring, learning.... yada yada. Now that I've been married for a few years and have been a parent for almost 2, I have no desire to go anywhere where I have to think. I want to go somewhere with a beach where I can lay around and do nothing besides work on my tan (or in my case attempt a slightly darker shade of pasty white) and drink girly beverages of the alcoholic variety. So Hawaii has been on my list of places I wanted to go with my wonderful husband to get away. I knew that logistically it would be difficult enough with one child, and that trying to get away for a trip like that with more than one child would be very difficult. So I've said for a long time that I didn't want to have any more kids until we could go to Hawaii. As time went on, I started to doubt we'd ever be able to go, let alone before another child comes into the picture.
Until my husband and his amazingness came to me one day with some good news. "I have some good news. We might be able to go to Hawaii." Those were his exact words. I believe my response was "Ummm... what?" You see I know Hawaii is synonymous with expensive. Because if we're going to go, we're going to do it right. None of this Motel 6in' it in Maui that's for sure. We've been working hard at paying down debt and we're making progress so any extra $ we have now needs to go to that, not to a Hawaii trip.
So do you remember my last post? In case not HERE it is. The one where I was blabbering about how much my husband has been working? Turns out the hard work and long hours he's been putting in have paid off. His boss came to him and thanked him for how much he's been working and said "I'm sure your wife probably isn't too happy with you right about now." Who me? ;) So he offered to give us his frequent flier miles to send us to LA to visit family. Very nice of him to do. So my husband jokingly says, "well the wife's been wanting to go to Hawaii.... how many miles you willing to part with?" And his boss said sure!!!! Can you believe that? So this is the day my husband came home and told me we "may" be going to Hawaii. The catch was, I knew the rest of the trip was going to be really expensive even without having to pay for the flights so we talked about working really hard until our trip to save. Fastforward a few days. The bosses wife who co-owns the company pulled Abe aside and said she was very excited for us and that she remembered I wanted to wait to have more kids until we could go to Hawaii. On a sidenote I don't remember ever telling her that... who tells the hubbs' bosses wife about their family planning? But apparently I must have. ... So they were excited for us to go and she said they would like to take care of our hotel while we're there as well! Oh my stars I was so excited!!!! Now we just have to come up with spending money. As if all that wasn't enough... a few days later they offered to pay for a rental car and a helicopter ride for the 2 of us while we're there. SHUT.YOUR.MOUTH! I literally had tears in my eyes each time Abe came home to tell me more good news.
We leave in 3 weeks! We'll be staying for a week in Maui. I feel like a school girl that just won Justin Beiber tickets or something. I'm excited to relax, not think about work or Dora the explorer, pets, or any of our other responsibilities (it's impossible for me to not think about my sweet girl :) and just spend time with my husband. I need this... we need this. So I hope that makes you feel better to know that we're not the types of people that just take trips all the time. Proof that hard work pays off. Maybe not when and how you want it to, but it always, ALWAYS pays off.
Be ready for picture overload when we get back. And don't get all anxious for a pregnancy announcement or anything since we're taking this trip. With time. We'll see. Right now all I can think about is Maui or bust!

I love love, but.....

Don't get me wrong, I love love. I love my husband more today than I did when we got married. Right now, however, I'm not a fan of wedding season. Not because I'm a cheapskate that doesn't want to buy all of my family and friends that are getting married this time of year an overpriced kitchen gadget they'll never use.... nope that's not it. I'm not a huge fan of wedding season because it means I get to see my husband about 5 hours a week. And when it comes to time with my husband, I admit I'm a little selfish. I know it could be much worse so please, no leaving nasty comments about how lucky I am... I know I'm lucky to have a husband that lives in the same house as me and isn't in the military on the otherside of the planet... I get that. However as I'm typing with a glass of pinot in my hand it's 9:30pm on a Sunday night and I'm not expecting him home until abot 3am. Oh and did I mention he left around 9am this morning? Yeah... typical during wedding season.

Such is the life of the wife of a DJ :) It's not just that he DJs a lot of weddings, but he also happens to be the problem solver in the office of the DJ company. So when he's not actually at a wedding, he's dealing with the 40+ events going on at once they sometimes have.

I have to say, as much as I juggle daily, when I think about all he does I honestly have no idea how he does it. I know he's lucky to work for a great company, and to even have a job at all, not to mention one he loves doing, but the sheer number of hours he works makes me tired just thinking about it.

So, honey, this post is for you! I love you, appreciate you, and can't wait until November when I might see you on a weekend (gasp!). (Not that you'll have time to even read this post ;)

Sweet baby face

For those of you that know my daughter, she has a tendency to be a little shy when she first meets someone new, or is in a new place. She gets clingy, standoffish, and sometimes will even cry if she is unsure of where she is and if she thinks I might be leaving. At first I panicked and thought I didn't want to have that clingy kid that always cried everytime she left her house. Which is part of the reason why I started her in daycare 1 day a week around 6 months ago.

This weekend we went to a birthday party for the daughter of Farrah's daycare provider. Even 6 months later, she still usually cries when we drop her off there. So when we arrived at their house, Farrah instantly went into panic mode and wouldn't let me put her down. I sat down on the couch and watched her look around with a look of confusion on her face. "Why am I here on a Saturday?" "Why are there SO many people here?" "How come mom is still here?" All things I can imagine running through her head. It took her a few minutes to calm down and then soon enough she slid off my lap and started playing with some toys. When we went outside she saw the water table and took off running towards it. She loves that thing. It was the first time in a while I was able to really think about "who" my child is. Sounds funny because in my eyes when I look at her, I still see this sweet baby face looking back at me, but there is a little person inside that tiny little body.

She may not be a social butterfly and I'm ok with that. I could continue taking her to daycare for another 6 months and she might still cry everytime I drop her off and I'm ok with that. Because when it comes down to it, she's happy. When I saw her playing in the water table and getting her face painted by the clown, I knew she was one of the happiest kids at that party.

Car pickup

So my Mary Kay car finally arrived. We had so much fun "partying" at the dealership for the pickup. I know Farrah's too young to understand what this means, but it meant so much to see her running around the dealership, sitting in the back seat of our new car and pretending to drive in the drivers seat. This is the moment I worked hard for and it has arrived.

There is something about being able to provide a need for your family that you couldn't have afforded without your efforts that brings a huge smile to my face. Now before I get crucified by the stay-at-home moms reading this, I in no way mean this as a knock on stay-at-home moms, or to start WWIII between working mom's and stay-at-home moms because, although I do work, I am essentially a stay-at-home mom so put down your pitchforks. I do believe that being at home taking care of a child and a home is a full time job. period. end of story. But if you knew my family and the current car situation we've had as well as some extra expenses we've incurred, you too would be posing for pictures in front of you car, you too would receive cards and balloons from excited friends and coworkers, you too would have a party at the dealership, and you too would blow up facebook with your car party pics.

I can honestly say that in that moment when I had finally achieved what I set out to do, and I provided a serious need for my family, I could not remember 1 person that told me "no" when I offered them a facial, 1 negative naysayer, and not 1 person that told me I couldn't do it. In fact, I think those people might be the first people who I pay a visit to in my new car. I'll pull in the driveway, lay on the horn until they come outside, wave and say "just wanted to say hi because I was in the area." and then speed off.

Ok so maybe I won't actually do that but thinking about it is satisfaction enough.

Farrah, sweet Farrah

Ok so maybe my last post was a bit dramatic. Ok maybe really dramatic. Such are the highs and lows of mommyhood. Basically as soon as I hit "Publish Post" on the last post Farrah has been a complete angel. Well maybe not complete angel but significantly more angelic. The ignoring of her meltdowns seems to finally be working. They are much less frequent recently. She's been waving bye bye and blowing kisses all the time. And for a while she was on a kissing strike and wouldn't give mommy a kiss no matter how much I pleaded and now the kid loves to kiss any and everything. Yesterday she kissed her high chair tray and the water coming out of the faucet in her bath... so I mean everything! I'll turn around sometimes and she's behind me kissing my legs. So sweet! I'm relishing in this sweetness because I don't know how long it will really last. I'm hoping forever but the chances of that are slim to none knowing how many phases this kid goest through.

On a side note, I turned 27 on Tuesday... Happy Birthday to me! 30 is approaching faster than I would like but that's a whole nother post. I realized recently (through a meltdown of my own to my poor unsuspecting husband) that I wasn't taking any time for me. I was feeling drained and felt like I had nothing left to give to Farrah and everyone else for that matter because I wasn't giving to myself. So on my birthday I went and got a massage, dropped off Farrah with my mom and went to lunch with my husband and then he took me dress shopping to by an evening gown for a big awards night for my work at a seminar in Dallas we're leaving for next week. One of the best days I've had in a long time because I never do anything like that for myself.

I realized the importance of giving to myself this week. A hard lesson to learn as a mommy but also so important to be a good mom and a good wife.

Long time no see

Over a month in fact. I have a good excuse. I am officially a Sales Director and free car driver with Mary Kay! Yay! This promotion means so much for my family and I worked hard to see to it that it got done. I'll now have a free car plus insurance paid, life and disability insurance, oh yeah and my income is about triple what it was before.... no exaggeration. So you can see why I've been away for a while making that happen.

Updates:

Farrah had her 18 month Dr's appt. Her weight was in the 85 percentile, her height in the 90th percentile and her head size is in the 95th percentile! Homegirl has a big head! The Dr didn't seem concerned about Farrah's lack of vocabulary so I guess I'll just be patient with her and hope figures out there are more words than mama, dada and cat.

I've heard from a lot of people that this age is such a fun age. And to be honest, for me, it's been the most challenging. There are fun parts to it, but for me, it's been the most challenging time in her relatively short life, by far.

I was always afraid of being "that mom" with the kid that throws tantrums. I was even more afraid that I would do all the "right things" and my kid would still be a brat. Thankfully, Farrah is no brat, but she definitely has the tantrum thing down to a science. I've tried completely ignoring it, and I've also tried getting down to her level and explaining to her that it's not ok to behave that way. But remember how I said she says the same 3 words and that's it? Yeah, makes it hard to have a conversation so I have no idea if she even comprehends what I'm saying. I'll have to get it on video one of these days but recently, she just started doing this short, loud grunt of a scream when she's not happy about something and she opens her mouth and her tongue hangs out when she does it. Usually she'll do it about 4 or 5 times and it takes everything I have not to bust out laughing because it's hilariously obnoxious.

So enough with the challenges of raising a toddler, how about some good stuff...

Farrah loves the water and I took her to a neighborhood park that has these water features that shoot out of the ground and she absolutely loved it. That's where these pictures came from. Swim lessons are on the horizon. Maybe in about a month or so. I can't possibly deprive my child of her favorite activity so I need to make sure she gets lessons.

Ahhh the highs and lows of raising a toddler. Definitely more highs, just have to remember to breathe when the lows come around.