It's November! and i'm already behind

I cannot believe it's November 1st. This year has flown by and soon it will be over.

I'm behind on a couple things already.. Scarlett's 9 month post and the background on my Tastefully Simple constultantship (i just made up that word, yes!) I will be writing posts on each of these things tonight hopefully.

This week has been filled with work it seems, despite Hurricane Sandy making it's way through on Monday and Tuesday and closing lots of businesses. I guess that's the beauty (and curse) of being able to access email from home. I am also working tomorrow, which is something I don't normally do, so I can try to get a handle on my to-do list, which is endless.. literally.

This weekend we don't have much going on, which will be very nice considering the week we just had and the upcoming week we're going to have. I do enjoy being busy though and it makes things exciting for Scarlett (and Alex too) I hope.

Maybe we'll get around to carving the pumpkins we bought a couple weeks ago! ha!!!

I will leave you with a couple of images of Scarlett's halloween costume from my iphone. The headband wouldn't stay on during the day but she was distracted enough by other things in the evening to keep it on for a couple pictures!!

Have a happy Thursday and look out for a couple more posts coming soon! Possibly a video of Scarlett laughing while reading, if I can figure out how to upload it!

Is it really Tastefully Simple??

Recently, my work life has me wondering what I'd have to do to stay home with my babe. Honestly, i've kind of always brushed off these types of direct sell businesses and never really thought i could ever possibly sell this type of stuff. But I feel like this could be an easy way to make some extra cash and potentially in the future, stay at home while still working.

This seems like an awesome company. Who doesn't like food? Who doesn't like getting together with friends... to eat food??

I've never actually been to a Tastefully Simple party so that is most definitely step one, but I wanted to get some thoughts from you all on how you feel about these types of companies, if you enjoy buying from them, what could make you want to buy more, do you feel pressure to attend these get togethers and pressure to buy something?

I want to hear it all so please let me know in the comments section!

Fun at the Pumpkin Patch

Sunday we did the first festive thing of the fall season, we hit up the local pumpkin patch with some friends! We took a hayride out to the patch, Tayden got stung by a bee on her tiny cheek (and i almost cried bc it was scary/sad) but luckily she was okay and we continued on our outing taking lots of pictures and choosing pumpkins! I wish I could've brought back lots more pumpkins from the patch but I only have so many arms so we chose a small one that Scarlett loves and rolls around the living room. :)

I mean, how cute are these kiddos? :)

Scarlett :: 8 Months

Since Scarlett is 5 days away from 9 months..... I figured I should finally put the images in here and post it before it's too late and I get way behind. :)

Stats (approx)
Weight- 22 lbs
Height- 29"

Eats
This girl loves her food. She eats solids three times a day, sometimes with an extra snack somewhere in between. She still nurses about every three hours or so as well. We've been broadening her horizons when it comes to the solids by adding Quinoa, Yogurt, and Colby Jack Cheese to the mix. We still do puree's for breakfast and dinner (sometimes breakfast has fruit chunks) and finger food for lunch. She does very well with her fine motor skills to pinch and pick up the finger foods, as long as they aren't too slippery!

Sleep
Needless to say, I am still trying to do night weaning to get her to stop eating at night. We might just have to go cold turkey pretty soon. It's tough letting her cry in the middle of the night. She usually takes a decently long nap mid morning around 10/10:30 and a shorter afternoon nap. Sometimes she takes an evening cat nap, but she's been going to bed around 7 consistently as well, so usually she doesn't need the cat nap. I found her with her pacifier in the other morning so now I know she knows how to put that sucker back in (pun intended).

Activities
She's been practicing standing up, squatting, cruising furniture and balancing without touching anything. Spoiler alert: She took her first steps at 8 months and 1 day. She has done it once since then and it may have been a fluke but we're counting it! She basically doesn't sit still for very long. Always crawling all over the living room, into the kitchen, pulls herself up on everything she can. Loves to play with her diaper box. Climbs on top of it! Whew, it's going to be crazy when she starts to walk!

Other
She hasn't popped any teeth through yet but she is super close. Month 8 is going to be the month of the tooth, for sure! She went to a wedding this month and had a fun time. She doesn't much enjoy clapping but I think she's getting used to it. I tried to take some formal pictures of her and they turned out okay, not sure if i'm going to spring for professional ones or not, baby portraiture is tough. She sat on her first lawn mower this month, it belongs to our awesome neighbors, the Kahns. I'm sure she'll enjoy the mower more when she gets to take rides on it!

We love you, little one. You are the light of our lives, your smile fills us with happiness and our hearts are filled with love for you.

10 Things

I did have version numbers attached to this, but honestly, I don't do it often enough to keep that going. Sorry folks!

But here's 10 things we've had going/i've been thinking about recently!

10 :: I've been working like crazy. Working part time can be hard sometimes because of my workload at work. Things don't slow down just because I have two days off a week. Recently, I've been staying late to finish things. This can be very frustrating/sad because Scarlett goes to bed at 7:00 and one night a couple weeks ago I only got to spend about 45 minutes with her.

9 :: The holidays are coming so fast. I'm so excited! I could write a lot more but there are 8 more things to talk about.

8 :: Pumped that fall TV is back. Mostly for the following shows: Parks & Rec, Modern Family, Revenge, Once Upon a Time, Private Practice, New Girl, Grey's Anatomy.. and I can't think of any others. I did watch most of the pilots for the new shows that will be on. I watched all the "New Normal" episodes and I liked it until they did a whole political one. Keep it light, kids. Politics is not light. I thought they balanced it pretty well though, so that was a plus I guess.

7 :: We're trying to get Scarlett to practice walking and she's doing better at standing still on her own but I'm sure it's a huge learning process and learning to balance like that is probably really tough. Over the weekend she got to witness her buddy Jack walk all around and I think she actually learned something from that. She took a bunch of steps for Alex today unassisted!

6 :: Luckily, Scarlett doesn't have adverse effects when it comes to what's in my breastmilk because I am obsessed with the Hix family's Broccoli salad recipe. I will share it next time I make it.

5 :: I finally found some 12 mo footie pajamas that I have been looking for. I got them at Babies R Us, which feels like they never have sales. I also tried on some shoes for Scarlett but her feet aren't flat enough yet and she likes to curl her toes so I could barely get them on her to try to see if they were the right size.

4 :: This past Sunday we hit up a Pumpkin Patch with friends, it was awesome. Except that Tayden got stung by a bee in the face, it made me want to cry. I'll do a post on this though to show all the fun pictures!!

3 :: Last week felt like it was crazy busy. I am hoping for a more relaxing week this week. I really need to get some pictures of Scarlett printed. I also need to take her for some profesh photos to document this stage of her life since I haven't done that yet. If only it weren't so darn expensive!

2 :: Alex bought me some plants for my office a couple weeks ago. I killed the fern already. :( I forgot to open the blinds so it could get some sunlight over the weekend. Sorry fella!

1 :: I've started making some felt flower headbands from pinterest. They're turning out pretty nice, I must say! Makes me want to make one for everyone and their sister. They're just so darn easy to make! I know you can find tutorials pretty easily on Pinterest. But I might post a little blurb about it on here for the non-pinterest peeps (i would say mom, but she just got it! the app for the ipad is killer!).

That's all folks!

A Day in my Life

I'm over at The Domestic Wannabe today talking about a day in my life!

Check it out!!

Scarlett's Alphabet Book

I got a free 8x8, 20 page photobook coupon for being a member of Zulilly, so I figured I would share this on here since not everyone will see it in person. 

It was fun to make, kind of difficult to think of images for the letters but it turned out well. The inspiration was from Pinterest and also Amy, from A Good Life Blog.

Enjoy the following images. :)

X was basically impossible, so I took Alex's suggestion of using a word that contained the letter instead. I am so excited to see this in print!!