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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Etsy

Oh how I love thee. If you have never gone to Etsy, you are seriously missing out. It has been my obsession for a little over a year now. I have made MANY purchases on this site and have LOVED every single one of them. If you are looking for a handmade unique gift, this is your playground. Here are some of my favorite sellers.

For cards I like Mommiesink. I purchased Emily's Birthday invitations and some gift tags from her more recently. I would have used her for our Christmas cards, if I didn't get them for free from Shutterfly. She was so easy to work with and her designs are unique and adorable. Her turnaround is also super quick.

I purchased one of Emily's Christmas gifts from Pamperedandposh. Dana was amazing. She went out of her way to special order me a lunchbox to match the backpack I liked for Emily's gift. It wasn't a product line she was currently carrying, but because she was so AWESOME, she ordered it for me, rush shipped it and sent it out with in a day of receiving her it herself, monogrammed with Emily's name, all before she went on vacation, just to make sure I was happy. She rocks I tell you. If you are looking for a custom lunch box or backpack for a child in your life, check her out. I will post pictures of the final product when it gets here.

I purchased a few Christmas gifts this year from JannyGirl. She is another seller that will go out of her way to help you and make sure you are happy. Even better her scarves are amazing. Her infinity scarf is to die for. I was so tempted to keep it for myself. :) They are super soft and have a simple girly touch.


Check out the adorable bracelet I bought our niece Olivia for her baptism. It is seriously the sweetest thing I have ever seen. I have been eyeing one for Emily too. :) This is from SophiesCloset.


Earlier this year I got a super cute Kindle cover from ElizabethDavidDesign. She makes I-pad covers and other e-reader covers too. It did take a couple weeks to get here because they are all custom made, but it was definitely worth it. I get tons of compliments on it.


I also purchased some of the decorations from Emily's playroom on Etsy. It is like the Ebay of handmade items. All the sellers I have purchased from have all been super helpful and friendly. I just figured I would share some of my great finds with you! These are just a few of the things I love!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Christmas card and family photos

We decided to do a combined photo shoot of Emily's first year pictures and photos for our holiday card. We found an awesome photographer on a recommendation from a friend and got the pictures back today. Here is our super cute card. Remember when I talked about getting 50 free cards from Shutterfly here, well I ordered them today. About a week too late. Oops. And of course I didn't pick a single one that I posted as an option, because our pictures turned out so cute, I couldn't just put one picture on there! They should get here on the 20th, so we are really cutting it close this year. Meh, it's the thought that counts, right?


Here is a slide show of all the pictures Kim Jackson took. If you are looking for an awesome photographer here locally, you should check her out. She came to our house and we had a great time with her. She was VERY easy to work with and offers digital packages. WHICH.I.LOVE!!! PS, there are 46 pictures, so grab some popcorn and settle in. :)And yes, I covered my babies naked booty, because I don't know what kind of creepers are out there. It's a really cute butt though, so if you really want to see it email me. :)

New Words

Emily now says Pizza when prompted thanks to Rich and Rebecca. She also started saying "Oh" when she falls. Sounds a lot like Homer Simpson says Doh. And she say Ow to everything. It cracks me up.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

More pictures

Taking pictures of Emily in a posed position these days, is like pulling teeth. Points to the right side bar---> That is seriously as good as it gets. She will however shoot you a smile now and then while she is busing playing around the house. Here are some pictures from her last set of monthly onsie pictures. I can't say I am sad that these are over. It became a pain at the end. Good thing I love this child. ;)
 

 

 

 
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Saturday, December 11, 2010

Thursday, December 9, 2010

One year stats

Emily had her one year check up today and I figured I would write up a quick blog before I forgot everything. She had to get 4 shots today. :( Poor little girl. She would have had more, but she needed her second dose of the flu vaccine, so the doctor pushed some off to give Emily a little break. She did pretty good. She was very happy that Daddy could come to the appointment and give her some snuggles afterward. No one can save the day like her Daddy. That being said this is what she is up too.

*She is completely off bottles. Every book I have read and most pedi's recommend ditching the bottle at a year. We actually did it a little early, and it was all Em's idea. She slowly just stopped drinking her bottle at night and drinking more milk out of a sippy at dinner, to the point where she would only drink an oz maybe and then she was crawling out of our arms to go to bed. It was never a problem weaning her off the bottle. Now we just lay her down and she is out for the night.

*She drinks 12-16oz of whole milk a day

*She no longer needs her paci for naps at daycare. At home though we are having trouble breaking it a bit. She sleeps forever with it at home, so we may delay taking it away for a bit since it is only at night.

*She weighs 19lbs and is 27 1/4 inches long. She is a little peanut. 10-20% for weight and 25% for height. The doctor is not concerned at all.

*She can sign more and please. And she now blows kisses. WHICH.I.LOVE. They are also teaching her thank you, all done, milk, and water at school and when she moves to the 1 year old room in January they learn even more. I think it is great that she is learning to communicate in so many different ways.

*She points at EVERYTHING.

*She says Dada, Daddy, Dog, Doggy, Mama, Mommy, ball, Jesse, baby, "EIEIEIEI" instead of EIEIO, hi and bye bye on occasion. Tonight she started yelling DOW!!and pointing to her Baby Einstein Old McDonald DVD case, which has cow on the cover. These are all words that she uses correctly. She also says Abby, but it really sounds like "babbyabbyabby" and Nonny (this is what my mom wants to be called,) she says it, but not to her yet.

*She runs everywhere

*Still sleeps great at night and is down to one nap a day, which is anywhere from 1 1/2 hours-3.

*Loves snuggling with a blanket and lamby.

*Blueberries and string cheese are still her favorite foods. She is not big on veggies, but we are working on hiding them in things she does like.

*She is learning to climb on things and also to cautiously climb down (i.e off the couch)

*Her attention span is getting a little longer and she will sit and listen to about half a book at a time without getting bored. She loves to carry her books around and point out all the dogs to us. Surprisingly she has a ton of books with dogs in them. Ha!

*She loves when people clap and loves being the center of attention.

She seems to change everyday before our eyes. She is so much fun to play with these days. We play hide and seek and chase. It can keep her laughing for hours!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

It's time for some cake!

Warning:This is a long video, but I think it's pretty cute. At least the beginning. I love the look on her face when everyone is singing to her. And the clapping is sheer sweetness. :)

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Happy Birthday Emily!

I finally got around to uploading some pictures from Emily's party. Here they are! Enjoy!



















The sweetest picture ever!It was really hard to narrow it down. I may just have to put a slide show of all the pictures. In the end, we had a really fun time. Emily loved having all her friends over, and I loved the craziness of kids everywhere. It was a perfect day, for a sweet angel!

Sunday, November 28, 2010

My baby is one...

I cannot believe how fast the year has gone. It seriously blows my mind. One year ago today, we welcomed Emily into our lives, and both Zig and I were forever changed. This tiny human came into our world, and our lives have never been the same. I would do it all again 10 times over, the sleepless nights, the tears (both hers and mine) the many hours I spent holding her and just looking into that sweet face, just to have a baby as amazing as Emily was. She was always such a good girl and we are blessed. And now she is a toddler. She walks, talks, throws tantrums, eats tons of solid food, and she keeps us laughing everyday.

To my Emily,
It is so hard to put into words how much you mean to me. I miss you every minute we are apart. I yearn for your sweet smile, and your arms that always welcome a snuggle from your mommy. You make me so happy. You make me laugh, and there are times when the sweetest things you do will actually make me cry. Thank you for being you. You are independent, you do things your own way, at your own pace. You are silly, and at times super serious. You have tons of friends, and you are the popular kid at school. You love your sleep, and you love blueberries. You are just the best baby. Your daddy and I love you so so much. This has been one amazing year and we look forward to many many many more watching you grow. I love you my little monkey.

Love,
Mommy

We had Emily's party today. It was great! There are any people in this world who love our little Emmy and it just warms my heart. I will post lots of pictures soon! And one last set of monthly pictures!! ::cries::

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Warm and fuzzy

This is how I feel everyday when I go pick Emily up from school. She is the last one to leave, 2 of the 4 days she is there. Since she is so mobile, she spends the last few minutes of her day playing with the big kids in the main room of school. As I punch in my code, I see her waiting in the room for me. Her teachers points to me, and she runs as fast as her little legs can take her across the room, arms open wide, smile on her face, into my arms and gives me the biggest hug ever. It gets me every time. In that moment, nothing else matters. Life is truely perfect. She misses me, almost as much as I miss her. I have to hold her while I gather her things too. She hates it if I put her down, and honestly, that is totally fine by me.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Down for the count

Emily has croup. On top of that her first molar just poked through yesterday. It has been a tough couple of days for her. But we are armed with a nebulizer, some predisone and amoxicillan, so we should be good to go very soon. She is feeling much better. Two days ago was a whole other story. We are very lucky that this is truly the first time Emily has ever been sick ::knock on wood::, but for a baby that goes to daycare, that is AWESOME! We hope to be back to a 100% in a few days. In the mean time, there is lots of snuggling going on in the Ziegler household. (And lots of birthday planning too. ::SQUEE::)

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Words...words...words

Emily is a chatter box these days. Of course her favorite words are still daddy and dog, she adds new ones everyday it seems. She FINALLY says mama and sometimes mommy. ::SQUEEEE!!:: Not always to me, but I take it however she wants to dish it. She is also trying REALLY hard to say Bodhi. She is so funny to watch and she learns something new everyday.

This weekend, thanks to her wonderful Daddy, she learned to get down the steps in our house. THANK YOU LORD! I had a heart attack every time she climbed them because she is super fast and before I knew it she was on the edge getting ready to climb back down. My mom and I had been working with her, but it finally sunk in when her dad stepped in. She is very cautious when she goes down them. She sits down about a foot an a half before the step, scoots on her booty to the edge and eases down. I love it.

She is also really into the Old McDonald Baby Einstein dvd. We really only try to let her watch tv on rare occasions, and we try to keep in educational, but until recently, she never really showed interested. And if there isn't music playing, she really doesn't watch. Anyway, she loves the Old McDonald one. She dances around and when the get to the animals, she calls every.single.animal a dog. It is so funny. Especially the horses. She gets really excited and says dog over and over.

She also learned to yell this weekend. AWFUL. Seriously. A whining, yelling baby is one of the worst sounds ever. She hated being in her car seat/stroller all weekend long. She wanted to run around everywhere, which is fine, but she REFUSED to wear shoes and socks, not fine. So she would just yell. In her defense, that darn molar is soo close to poking out. How many molars to babies have, because if the rest are any like this one, we are in trouble!

Saturday, November 13, 2010

It's the most WONDERFUL time of the year!!

I truly love Christmas. I actually love Christmas more than my birthday and those of you who know me, I celebrate my birthday all month long! I love the smell of the first fallen snow, a cup of warm tea, snuggling up by a warm fire and spending time with my family. I LOVE Christmas.

That being said, its time to start planning our Christmas cards. If you know me, you also know I am extremely indecisive. So I am starting early and this year I am truly impressed by the amazing selection Shutterfly is offering for holiday cards this year. They have many different size options, colors, designs, flat cards or folding. I loved spending the times scanning their selection and spent well over an hour narrowing downs the finalists. Here are some of the designs I have narrowed down to choose from!







In addition to cards, Shutterfly also has some great options for Christmas gifts. From wall calendars to personalized mugs, Shutterfly has a great assortment of personalized gifts for family and friends! Our family pictures are scheduled for 12/4, so that will be the ultimate deciding factor on what card we choose. I can also see some cute calendar ideas in the works! I can't wait to see how they turn out! You guys should definitely check out their website and if you are a blogger, you can get 50 free holiday cards yourself, just by blogging! Easy enough. Go here to find out how!

ALSO, speaking of Christmas, for those who don't know, I have been selling Scentsy for about a month and a half now. These make awesome Christmas gifts and I am running a couple specials this month through the 30th. 6 gifts and 6 stocking stuffers for $150 plus tax! You can't go wrong. If you are looking for a great gift, check out my website. If you see something you like, let me know and I can probably even get you free shipping (if you are local), if not shipping costs are very reasonable! Just throwing it out there! Click the picture below to get to my website. If you see something you like, I set up a "Christmas Order" party on my home page, and if you order from there, I should be able to get you free shipping. You can always call me or email me with any questions! Happy shopping!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

I will love you forever

On this night, 10 years ago, a 22 year old Zig asked an 18 year old me to be his girlfriend and to love him forever. If only I knew it would be the best 10 years of my life. Here is to many many more. I love you Sean Ziegler. You are my world and I will love you forever.

Ps. I am a blogging fool these days. I have had some time on my hands. ;)
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Family Photos

I wish I had a personal stylist. Seriously. I am awful at dressing myself. I am all over the place when it comes to fashion. We have Emily's first birthday/family pictures on 12/4 and I want to dress us in complementing outfits, but not be to matchy matchy. Here is are some options that I found while perusing online. I think I like the middle option of each one best. I found some slate gray slim leg pants at Ann Taylor loft that I may choose over a dark jean. Is grey the new black or what. They kind of pull eachother together no? Thoughts? Suggestions? Anyone want to be my shopping buddy?

 

 

 
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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Wordless Wednesday

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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Weighing in

It took me 11 months and 11 days to write this post. Yes, this is a "my body after baby post." Breastfeeding was a miracle worker for me. Seriously. For those who have been following my blog for a while, you know that my weight gain during my pregnancy was very minimal. No I didn't starve myself, nor did I worry how much I was gaining (I actually worried about how much I wasn't gaining). I was very sick for the first 3+ months which resulted in me losing weight, and my doctor putting me on Zofran in hopes of stopping any further loss. I wasn't the slimmest chicken in the coop pre-pregnancy though either. I was extremely lucky in that with in days of being discharged, I was back down to my pre-pregnancy weight and with in a week after that, I was down an additional 10 lbs. It was AWESOME, and really I was amazed at how quickly my body bounced back to its old self. While I was nursing Em, I could eat whatever I wanted; however, since I stopped breastfeeding in September, that all changed and I put on 10lbs. And it sucks. I hate to see pictures of myself, so I decided there is no better time than the present to get back on track. I did Weight Watchers a few years ago, and I did really well. I lost about 15 lbs. and kept it off for a while. It was easy to fall back into old habits though. Breakfast and lunch was a breeze, it was dinner that was hard.

Enter E-mealz. We have been doing E-meals for about 3 months now, and I think its awesome. We needed structure. There were many nights when we both got home from work and had no motivation to decide what to make for dinner, and even if we did have something in mind, there was a very slim chance that we had the ingredients we needed to make it. E-mealz is great. Weekly you print off a grocery list and menu (recipes included). It gives you all the resources you need to make dinner for 2 or for a whole family. They also choose ingredients that can be used for several meals, so there is little to no waste. I don't know how many times I purchased a tub of sour cream to only use 2 tbs. This solves that, and the menus are really good! We haven't really made anything that we didn't like. They base the menus off of weekly sales ads, so if you buy your groceries at say Wal-mart, you can get a menu each week that is based on what they have on sale. Pretty cool. In the past we have done the low fat for 2, but I was really excited to see that they had a points plan menu. SCORE! That totally solves my dinner point issue! So starting yesterday, we are getting back on track. I want to be a good example and teach Emily how to make healthy food choices. I also don't want her to be embarrassed by her overweight mom. I am determined to lose 15 pounds before my sister's wedding in April. Plenty of time for a healthy loss. Wish me luck! And seriously, if your family is having the same problem that mine had with dinner, check E-mealz out. Click the picture below and you can see what its all about.
SAVE TIME AND MONEY WITH E-MEALZ MEAL PLANS

Missing pictures...I think

I have no clue what happened. I started using picasa to upload my picutres because it is WAY faster, but I think I can only do 4 at a time. The blogger picture upload takes WAY.TOO.LONG to upload. Anyway, here is some sweetness for your Tuesday morning. :)

 

 

 

 
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