Weekend and Menu

This weekend was a full one! Friday Carter and I joined our friends Sara and Maddie and had dinner at Wegmans and made a quick stop at Target. Honestly the weather has just been awful here, and we all just needed to get OUT! The hubs met up with us for dinner, and it was a fun little trip. It was also Carter's first time riding in a cart outside of her car seat. I think she needs to grow a bit more before she fits well ;)

Saturday I grabbed groceries and prepped lunches and cookies while the hubs took the baby to visit his parents.

We ended up going to the auto show in Buffalo with them later that day, and ate out at Outback. Did you guys know that Outback has click through seating online now? It adds you to the wait list so you don't have to wait as long once you get to the restaurant. You can also now pay at the table! Maybe its just been that long since we were last there, but we were surprised.

Sunday we did church, I went to work, then we had small group. Busy but good day! The hubs sent me this photo of Carter eating:

She loves her food!

Here's what our menu looks like this week:

Sunday: Pizza at small group
Monday: Pork loin and cheesy potato fries
Tuesday: Pizza and roasted broccoli
Wednesday: Egg Mushroom Kielbasa bake
Thursday: leftovers
Friday: Leftovers or order in!

Small group is at our house this weekend, so I think we will do make your own tacos and maybe cornbread? And of course I will bake something... Maybe some of our favorite cookes?

Linking up with orgjunkie.com and Motivation Monday

My "Normal" Day

I see a lot of "A Day in the Life" posts on blogs, so I thought I would try one out! This was my day yesterday, which happens to be my day off. This looks quite different from days I work! I love having a day off during the week to get things done and play with Carter!

12:30am: Carter has scooted around in her crib and is against the rails. I get up and move her and go back to sleep
3am: Carter has moved again and has her head against the corner. She is sleep scooting!
6am: the hubs leaves for work and says goodbye
7am: My alarm goes off, and Carter is still sleeping. I decide to go back to bed for a bit until she wakes up
7:40am: Carter is still not awake, so I go in and wake her up and feed her. Sleepyhead this morning!

8am: Change and dress the baby, then get dressed myself. I try propping her on my bed with pillows, but she isn't having it

8:30am: Put Carter in her high chair with some toys so I can drink my coffee, pump, and get us packed up to run errands
9:15am: Carter loses interest in being in her high chair, and I have to hold her while I finish packaging up some yarn I sold and packing the diaper bag
9:45am: We finally leave to run errands, Carter falls asleep in the car. I grab one of the new Turkey sausage breakfast sandwiches from Tim Hortons
10:30am: I stop at Joanns for some things for work before heading to the mall to walk
10:45am: We get to the mall and Carter eats, we walk, I change her, we walk some more
11:45am: We head to Wegmans for some groceries we can't get at the supermarket near us, and run into my cousin! I actually tried wearing Carter in the Moby wrap instead of carrying in her carseat. It worked ok, but I think it will work better in a few more weeks when it isn't so cold!
12:30pm: We leave Wegmans and Carter falls asleep in the car
12:45pm: I realize I never ate lunch and I'm starving. I'm limited to somewhere with a Drive Thru, so I stop at Wendys. Not very healthy, but it was good!
1:30pm: We get home and I unload the car. Carter is still asleep so I leave her in her carseat and put away groceries
2pm: Carter wakes up and I feed her
2:30pm: I do chores around the house while Carter plays in her high chair and later her jumper
3:30pm: We load up into the car again to drop something off at the post office for the hubs
3:45pm: Carter is still awake so I head up to the Ford dealership to pay our bill and see my Dad. I push my luck, Carter falls asleep. Oh well!
4:15pm: We get back home and Carter is still sleeping, so I start writing this post.
4:45pm: Carter wakes up and I feed her. The hubs walks in from work just as I finish, and he plays with her while I start dinner. She is all about the FEET!

5:15pm: Simple dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, though I added in spinach to try and get more veggies!
5:45pm: I do chores around the house while the hubs takes Carter upstairs in the office to play in her bumbo while he works
6:15pm: Bumbo time is short lived, so I strap her to me with the Moby and we sing and dance around the house
6:45pm: Carter goes down for her last nap of the day. We are trying to transition her to three naps instead of four, but I don't think that will happen until Saturday when we introduce solids! I prep lunches for the next day, and finish cleaning the kitchen from dinner
7:30pm: It's a short nap! Carter is up and I feed her.
7:45pm: I give Carter her Amoxicillin. This kid LOVES to take medicine from the syringe.
8pm: The hubs and I trade off playing with Carter while watching TV- this is always an event because we try not to let Carter watch TV, so you really have to multitask!
9pm: no bath tonight, just pajamas, diaper change, and a bottle
9:30pm: We put Carter down for the night and after 5 minutes she is out!
9:45pm: I pump and set coffee for the morning
10pm: Get into bed and chat with the hubs, then fall asleep

Whew, written all out like that my day looks nuts! Work days are much less eventful, because a huge chunk would just say "work" ;)

Photo Issue fixed and some clothes!

I'm really happy to report that I think I have fixed the photo problem. The long and short of it is, when I would plug in my iPhone to download photos, iPhoto would tell me that some of all of my photos were in an unrecognizable format.  I tried a combination of things, but what finally worked for me was to get as many photos off that way as I could, then I emailed the rest to myself and cleaned off my camera roll. I uploaded the photos from yesterday/this morning a minute ago and they all worked without a hitch! 

Yesterday, the hubs took me shopping in Grove City. Ladies, I am about to blow your minds here because he told me that I had a minimum amount of money to spend and I needed to come away with at least three full outfits. The bonus? Instead of paying for the clothes with out debit cards (aka bank accounts/shared money) he was going to use his money he had saved up. We each get an "allowance" every week that we can spend on whatever we want or we can save it. He used his to buy me clothes! Yes, I have a keeper :)

The backstory: I don't really like shopping. This comes from a lot of different things that I wont go into here, but I basically avoid clothes shopping and have gotten by the past 6 or so years shopping online sales and running into stores for something if absolutely needed. Much of my closet either doesn't fit, is really too old or worn to be anything but paint clothes, or doesn't get worn because I don't feel comfortable in it. 

After yesterday, I practically doubled my wardrobe. We used a lot of coupons, took advantage of sales, and my husband is very generous :) Here is a shot of my haul:

Tops are on the right, bottoms on the left. Yeah, thats more clothes than I have bought in years!

I took photos of about 2/3 of the clothes I tried on yesterday, and I thought I would share some of them and talk about why I chose some things and not others. I'm not a fashion expert by ANY means, but sometimes I find it helpful when regular people show how things look on them and how they pick what works and what doesn't. I'll try to name the stores the clothes are from too!

These are jeans from Banana Republic. I hadn't shopped here before, because their clothes are usually out of my price range, but because it was an outlet store, the sale they were having, and my coupon, I was able to get some nice things! These are their bootcut fit, and I ended up having to go with a short- these are the regulars, and as you can see they are a bit long ;) I'm pear shaped, so bottoms are usually more of a problem for me, but these fit just a little snug, which is perfect since jeans tend to stretch just a bit when you were them.

Here is an example of pants that did not work:

These were a type of cropped dress pant that the hubs had handed me. I'm not a very short person (5ft 5) but I feel like these pants make me look shorter than I am. Also the fit isn't great- you can't tell from this photo, but the waist was gapping at the back. Overall, I did well at Banana Republic, and I will definitely be watching for sales in the future!

This next outfit is something that is out of my comfort zone.

For a long time I thought I couldn't pull off leggings. Since I'm bottom heavy I always thought that they wouldn't work. I have found that they key is to buy well fitting structured leggings. Really stretchy ones can become see through if you are more ample on the bottom like me :) These leggings are really think with stretch, so there is no chance of them becoming see through. I didn't end up getting this sweater- it was a really drapey fabric and I felt like it didn't do anything for me. This was also one of the stores we didn't have a coupon for (Ann Taylor) so I only got the leggings and a sweater that was on sale. What do you think about leggings? Yay or nay?

This outfit was also from Ann Taylor:

And it's a no. The top fit all wrong- it was too big at the top, and you can see how big the armhole is. If I moved you could see my bra- not ok! The pants came up too high on my waist- you can see the waistband giving me a tummy pouch through the shirt. This all went back on the rack.

Gap is one of my favorite stores. I found several nice things there! It is one of those stores that I can go into knowing that the stuff usually fits well.

This sweater is one of my favorites from the day.

I love stripes, so that was a bonus. I also like the sleeve length- I tend to shove my full length sleeves up, so this length is perfect for me. I think the sweater has just the right amount of drape and structure to be flattering, and I like the length of it. This was a pick by the hubs, and he got it spot on!

Here is an example of a bad top:

This didn't work for me for a few reasons- 1. It is too long. 2. the sleeves are too long, and they have the thumbholes at the bottom so it makes cuffing them awkward. 3. It is too tight around my hips. So this one went back on the rack for someone taller and thinner than me!

This is an amazingly soft sweater that I actually got in two colors, also from Gap:

Notice how I have the last two buttons undone? It's not because the sweater doesn't fit- I have found that on slightly longer sweaters this makes them a bit more hourglass friendly (also, I was lazy and didn't feel like buttoning and unbuttoning ALL the buttons!) If you have a button up cardigan try it sometime! 

That's it for this not-a-fashion-post. I hope you guys liked seeing what I tried on and maybe even found some ideas for new clothes for yourself! If you have any questions about clothes and brands I tend to buy, let me know! Us pear shaped people have to stick together ;)

You may have noticed...

that I missed blogging Monday and Wednesday. I'm having issues getting photos off of my phone and onto my computer, which means that any other means of getting photos into blog posts is going to be time consuming. Plus, we have had a really busy week, so the time consuming methods weren't going to cut it. I'm working on it, and I was able to get a few photos off this morning before work, so hopefully next week will be back to normal!

In other news, the hubs is taking me shopping tomorrow! We are driving to the Grove City outlets and he is handing me cash and telling me to spend it on new clothes. I don't talk about clothes or fashion here because A) I don't like shopping and B) I don't have a lot of fashion sense. However, the hubs seems to think I need new clothes ( I do) and thinks these clothes need to be more professional (maybe I can sneak in a pair of jeans?) so shopping we will go! I'm going to take photos with my phone in hopes that I will be able to share them with you :)

Have a great week/weekend!

eBags

If you have been following the blog for a little while you know I went back to school this fall. I only took two classes, to kind of ease my way back into things. One of the classes I took was Critical Reading, and our textbook weighed 4 pounds.

I was just using one of my spare tote bags to carry my books in, and this book made it awkward.

It was narrower and shorter than regular paper, but about 4 inches thick. Plus, with one textbook weighing 4 pounds, you can imagine by the time I added in the rest of my books, folders, and personal items my bag was getting pretty heavy on my shoulder.

This semester, I am going full time to graduate in May! While I'm excited to graduate, I realized I needed to rethink the bag situation. First I tried to look at my schedule and see if I could leave some books in may car and make trips back and forth. That seemed a little ridiculous to me, plus I didn't want to be walking all around campus between classes in the winter weather wasting time I could be doing homework. I looked around the house to see if I had any sturdier bags I could use, but unfortunately I came up empty.

One day I did a search for college backpacks and ebags.com popped up. I had heard of them before, but never shopped at their website. They seemed to have comparable prices to amazon, so I searched around and after a while I cam up with about 6 bags I could live with. I got the hubs opinion and eventually went with one of the more expensive bags, a Dakine Campus Pack.

Its been years since I owned a proper back pack, but I really like this one even if it is a little manly. The front small pocket is actually insulated, so I can pack my lunch in it and not have to carry a separate lunch container. The next pocket toward the back is an organizer for all the small stuff like electronics, pens and pencils, and whatever else I might have. The next one back is actually a fleece lined sunglasses pouch, which I'm not too sure about yet. I wear sunglasses, but I'm not sure how well they will hold up in the back pack. Lastly the large pocket against your back is roomy with a sleeve for my laptop.

The bonus? After it came in the mail, the hubs decided he liked it too. Since he will most likely be in school next fall, I told him he could use it :) So while this book bag was pricier than others, it looks like we will get a lot of use out of it.

If you haven't checked out ebags selection of book bags, purses, totes, and luggage I highly suggest you do. They have a rewards program that looks pretty useful too, so the next time I need a new bag I know where I will head first!

Not Like Me

If you know me at all you know I am frugal (aka CHEAP). You can probably tell that I don't live in a mansion or pull six figures, and honestly even if I did I still wouldn't like spending the money. However, the past week has necessitated a few purchases, and I thought I would share them today!

First up was some shoes for my friend wedding next week. The only specification she had was that they had to be silver. Our dresses are super cute, but they fall mid calf and not being super tall, I wanted something with a heel on it so I didn't look like Stubby McStubberson up there! After scoping on a couple of sites online I decided to go with these:

They aren't the most comfortable things in the world, but I'm wearing them around the house for the next week to try and break them in a bit. I got these putties for less than $20 including shipping! Score :)

Next up was a tote bag. I have had the same bright green tote bag for about 6 years now. Its nothing special- just  $5 I got at Old Navy that said "Green is the New Black." I used this bag for everything- knitting, school books, long trips, you name it this bag was perfect. Two weeks ago I noticed a small run/hole starting at the back and I new the day had come to partially retire the bag. It still works to carry light knitting projects, but I needed a new tote bag! I looked a few places and nothing caught my eye until I got an email from Cafe Press with a coupon. They were also running a sale, so I decided to splurge and buy myself a new bag!

I think this bag is hilarious, and its coming my way in about a week for less than $14 including shipping! They still have the coupon code on their home page, so if you are looking for a new bag (or shirt, mug, etc!) check it out.

I'm not sure I have mentioned this before, but I always use Ebates when I shop online. You get a percentage back of whatever you spend when you go through their site. Usually its only between 1-5% back, but it adds up, especially when I am buying textbooks for school. If I'm going to spend the money, I might as well get a little bit back, right? My account is set up to to deposit my money right into my Paypal account quarterly so there's no extra work for me. There's a link on the right hand side of my blog if you wanna check it out for yourself!