quick, easy and ORGANIC!

ever since i had my first son, i've attempted to "go organic" and avoid harsh toxins and chemicals as much as possible. it totally overwhelms me at times BUT i would say i'm about 60-70% green and it's a continual process. i especially became interested in going green since parker was diagnosed with an egg allergy. there are theories that food allergies are on the rise because of all the toxins, hormones, chemicals and pesticides in our world today. that's a VERY quick summary, but if you want to learn more, i encourage you to check out my good friend kristin's blog . she has a WEALTH of information on this stuff and there's just so much to learn.

anyways, being a super busy food allergy mom, i always find it challenging to make healthy quick meals for our family especially ones that don't contain egg until TODAY when i found THIS:

and this was just one of MANY at my super target where i do most of my shopping! i could be wrong, but i believe their whole line does not contain any egg which is just fabulous for me and our family!!!! so for lunch we heated two of these guys up and they were DELICIOUS. yes it's frozen food and fresh would be most ideal, but it is WAY better than my previous choices of quick food.

here's to a great healthy start for new years! tomorrow i'm hoping to have my 2010 goals posted for you all!

why do i always feel behind???

ok, so i don't know if it's just me and my OCD tendencies and the super high unrealistic expectations i put on myself, but why do i always feel like i am behind??? more importantly, why can't i just accept this is how things are, i will never be totally "caught up" EVER and just enjoy the process and purpose in what i do. i try to remind myself of this especially when doing those mundane tasks that are written on my to do list in permanent marker.
WARNING: this post is going to be all over the place since that's basically how i am these days!!!

i digress and probably not the first time during this post......so anyways, while i'd love to be able to blog EVERY single day, i need to be content with the fact that i'm even blogging at all. i just hope you continue to stick with me even though i haven't been posting as much as i would like........

which brings me to my 2010 goal planning as i've got specific goals for my blog. i have SO MANY ideas, projects and exciting things floating through my head right now that it just completely overwhelms me!!! maybe that's why i feel so anxious these days and am not sleeping well. and until i write them down, i will continue to feel this way. SO tomorrow, hubs is taking a day off from work and giving me an hour to run to starbucks SANS KIDS and work on my goals. i always love to do this, especially since i have an obsession with creating lists and organization!

and another warning, i'm trying to finish this post up as connor is crying in the background, so be prepared for more disorganized thougths from yours truly :-)

some pics i owe you of my parents and the kids from christmas....

my dad and brandon and the boys

my dad and connor

my mom making egg-free cookies with parker

parker eating the raw cookie dough...totally safe when they're egg free!!!!

it's always so helpful having family in town and i always get to tackle so many big projects with their help. last week i was able to get shelves put up in my laundry room, get my 3rd floor "junk" closet fairly cleaned out and organized, move my design "studio" and reorganize everything, clean out my side of the master bathroom (i got rid of an ENTIRE trash bag full of stuff!), put ceiling fans/lights on the 3rd floor and started organzing the closet in my upstairs guest room. not to mention that my parents vacuumend my entire house (including both staircases--a HUGE bonus!) and helped with laundry. thanks mom and dad--you're the best!

i feel like we accomplished SO MUCH, so i want to know, why do i still feel so far behind?????

Christmas!!!!!

merry christmas! we've had a busy few days, but i wanted to get these up!

first, here is our christmas card for this year. if you did not get a card from us this year, I AM SO SORRY! i grossly underestimated how many cards i would need by like 50!!!!! plus, i was SO late in getting these out, grrrr. so please accept my apology and i will do better next year!

i had a little fun with my baby that LOVES to get his picture taken in this adorable knit stocking hat i found at janie and jack. WARNING lots of pics!!!! plus i learned some new techniques on photoshop :-)

this probably my FAVE, i love his expression!

of course i had to try it out in b&w too

christmas eve at church outfits....unfortunately no good pics of parker :-(

attempt at family pic outside church

we had so much fun playing santa this year, leaving out cookies and carrots and a note! santa brought LOTS of gifts as you can see!

parker on christmas morning. bless his little heart, he got NO sleep and wasn't feeling so hot. (more about this later)

the boys in their christmas outfits i made them....parker's has a "p" on it--wish i could have gotten a better pic

connor loved the wrapping paper!

gifts from grandmama and gramps

not too bad for a first christmas!

parker got LOTS of thomas stuff....he LOVES thomas the train

the aftermath...........

me and my boyS....if you look closely you'll see nugget #1 :-)

look how THRILLED he looks in this pic HA!

so as you can see, we had a great christmas morning.....and then parker's fever spiked pretty high so we got to see exactly WHO works on christmas day. bless the staff at the ER for being there. parker had some sort of virus, possibly the flu so we didn't want to take any chance. he's been on tamiflu as a preventative and is doing great now so i'm glad we went. now we're hoping connor doesn't get it.

my parents came to town to spend christmas with us....i definitely have pics of them, but they must be on my other camera. i'll have to post those tomorrow as everyone is waiting for me to start a movie! hope you all had a great christmas and i'll post more tomorrow!

christmas decor and giveaway!

so i've been holding off on a mini tour of my house and decorations mainly because i just managed to get everything finalized friday night. why???? because we hosted the easystreet realty charlotte division's christmas party. i knew with a deadline in place, i'd have to have everything finished by then. so alas, a mini tour of our house, don't get too excited, there's so much more i want to do, but little by little right?

christmas tree in the family room.....

the mantle~the stockings got moved to a new location this year

they're in our kitchen on the railing

ribbon in kitchen displaying our christmas cards (good idea B!)

the brown and blue tree in the formal living room

i have wreaths on the door to the garage and door to the pantry

the best decoration of all, santa parker!

my turn to be santa

me and my sweet parker

so as i typed this, i just realized that i'm NOT done with decorating. i've still got my pink tree to finish (this is in my "design" room where i create all of my stuff for sassycakes, and i neglected to take a pic of the front of my house!

now onto the good stuff......a GIVEAWAY! yes, i will be doing a giveaway in several weeks and if you're anything like me and like cute stuff, then you don't want to miss it! i'm giving you plenty of heads up time, so be sure to check in regularly. ALSO, you will need to become a FOLLOWER of my blog if you want to be eligible to win. i have been getting regular traffic daily, so i know you are out there--there's no way they all the "hits" are from me HA! so reminder BECOME A FOLLOWER. the more followers i have, the better the giveaways will be!

all about parker at 31 months :-)

parker you are a BLAST to be around these days! sometimes you make us laugh so hard at the things you do and say! you of course think the world revolves around you like every two year old is supposed to and your emotions can change in a split second when you start to feel like it's not "all about you". nonetheless, we are loving every minute with you and are thankful for the parenting challenges at times simply because there are so many BIGGER challenges we could be facing!

some things about you this past month:

you still LOVE school and i love to see how excited you are to see me when i pic you up. this month you talked a lot about baby jesus and it was so sweet!

you also have REALLY gotten into singing--your current favorite it jingle bells! you love the part that shouts "hey!". you also like to do the motions to "The Wheels on the Bus" and sing E-I-E-I-O to "The Cow Song". I think I may have said that last month, but you're still loving it!

you had a blast going to cut down our christmas tree and also watching "The Polar Express" and eating ice cream.

you've gotten really good at counting (you've gone up to 17!) and you've started singing your ABCs although you get kind of shy about it.

when we were visiting grandmommy and grandpa over thanksgiving, you did several really funny things. the first, you pretended like you were on the phone and were talking VERY animated and loudly into the phone--you were very passionate about what you were saying. then we asked who you were talking to and you said santa claus HA!!!! i guess you were making sure he got your christmas list right HA! it was so funny! you also started saying (not singing) in a very funny monster-like voice "happy birthday (pause) to you!". not sure where you picked that up from, but it's funny nonetheless!

you love finding "Thomas" the elf every morning and love to play the game of finding him. every morning you say "c'mon mommy (or daddy)" and we have to follow you while you say "elf, where are dju (you)?" (even if you've already found him!) and then you go "oh dere dju are" (Oh there you are) and we have to play along!

another game you do with me every night is you get in your lion towel and growl and come and grab my leg. i then pretend i am scared of you until you throw your towel off and i "see" that you are parker and not the scary lion. you love this!

here are some cute pics of you from today:

i love you my sweet little boy and i love how you still let me hold you at times and still make me feel needed!

super cute randomness

two random things:

1) this super cute little nugget! holy cow i love him!!!

AND

2) this super cute taggie i made for a friend and had SO MUCH FUN making it! if i could only get the photos uploaded to my website.....(this has been an ongoing issue that i JUST don't have time to deal with right now! maybe when the grandparents are visiting and i can actually get some real to myself to focus on this!)

traditions

i've always been a fan of traditions and the christmas season always seems to be full of them! Now that we've got two little nuggets of our own, starting new traditions with my fam of four has been a priority.

last year we started our tradition of going to blowing rock and cutting down our christmas tree. we start the day with breakfast, grab starbucks with two pupms of pumpkin spice for the road, sing jingle bells in the car, pick out our tree, grab pizza from mellow mushroom for lunch and then head home! i wrote a long post about this last weekend...

another tradition we started this year is the elf on the shelf! it's so much fun and the story is really cute. parker loves to find the every morning!

this weekend, we watched "polar express" for the first time with parker. brandon and i always watch it during the christmas season and also "the holiday". parker loved "polar express" because it had a train which is his latest obsession!

snuggled all up in our jammies!

parker with his ice cream (aka "O-cream" as he calls it!) he doesn't get sweets much, so this truly was a special treat!

once the movie started, he forgot about his ice cream!

such a good movie with a great story!

snuggled up with daddy

another tradition is we ALWAYS go to church on christmas eve. i love going on christmas eve, there's something so special about it! and then at some point (usually a few days before chrismas) we go when my parents are in town and grab starbucks and head to McAdenville to see the famous christmas lights!

do you have any christmas traditions that are special for you? i'd love to know so leave me a comment!