Spring is On the Horizon!

Yes, there is still snow on the ground, yes today's "warm" was 38 degrees, but Spring is in the air!!! And in the last couple months Dean has been growing so fast! I love that time is moving and seasons are changing, but I'm starting to realize my little "newborn" is becoming a  little tiny boy! (sorry these are all sideways) 8/9months

 In fact, he is now sleeping in a crib. I know I know, you say "where was he sleeping before?" Well all you momma's don't be afraid to say, baby's can be tough, and maybe you don't do things "by the books"... for us, getting sleep and letting Dean sleep in a stationary swing was more important that putting him in a crib. (Who says they HAVE to sleep there anyways??? Well..everyone) lol BUT as of this week he is now in the crib. He wakes up and then sits himself up and cries for an hour (of course I go in and out checking on him) BUT I figure he's got to figure it out soon right??

Now baby sleep aside, The New Year started great, got to do something I've wanted to do a long time, do a PAINT Nite with Julie! It was fun and I love getting to spend time with my preggie friends :)

Speak of Preggie friends we threw a shower for 3 of our Pregnant friends "Boy's Club" babies. There are going to be tons of babies all around! The shower was at our house and it was a fun Children's book theme. 

Baby Pics of Everyone

Hungry Caterpillar Cupackes

In the new year we've also celebrated lots of birthdays. First Mark's birthday was in January. We celebrated with MN shaped cookies, Whiskey cupcakes and Whiskey of course.

 
 
 

Then came February and Valentine's day, and we celebrated like usual, no gifts but heart shaped pizza for Mark and baked goods for me :) Even Dean took part, eating Beet colored muffins. (The only way he'll eat veggies anymore is by baking them into muffins! We also bought some nice new plants for the house to start to bring a Spring atmosphere to our house!!

 We also got to celebrate birthdays with all the Aronsons and it was fun to watch the cousins play together! Dean is finally getting old enough that he interacts with people! In fact, when we leave daycare now, he cries. I guess I should be happy, but sometimes it still makes a mom feel sad :(

Vanilla cupcakes with Nutella frosting

Today he turned 9 months and he has decided that he is now big enough to pull himself up on everything we own. I'm afraid he's going to start walking early like his momma.... hope not!

Big boy taking bites out of a whole slice of bread

Really we are just happy that he is happy and healthy! (After having the stomach bug last week :( )

In other news, I am now working on complete fitness certification in a new modality. It's called Oula, and even though I LOVEEE Body Flow, I may love Oula as much or maybe a little bit more! It's a Dance party, , workout, to top 40's music, with fun, sexy, flirty, strong moves! Not only do you get an amazing workout, but you get a nice release and fell young and beautiful again! I'm loving teaching intro classes and I can't wait until we have full Oula classes! Right now I'm teaching 2 a week at Eagan YMCA, Wednesday and Saturdays, and I LOVE the me time, PLUS the other ladies who are bringing it to the twin cities with me are amazing too! Check out the website https://oulafitness.com/ for more!

One of the neatest things about Oula are the monthly affirmations.
January-Be Present

February- Be FIERCE
March- Be Inspired!
-This month I'm thinking about what I really love to do, why I do, and who inspires me to do it! Hope you all can do the same this month :)

Now of course extra fun pictures of my baby :)

 

Living a Healthy Life

I've always been on the moderately healthy side (impossible not to be if you know my "granola" parents. ) And I've found myself trying to find what healthy means to me. Even before becoming a mom, organics were important, I loved to exercise and yoga and mindfulness were important facets of my life. Now that Dean is here I find myself trying to dig deeper into health and figure out what healthy truly means.

Now I want to preface this by saying I don't have all the answers, and what works for me may not work for you. But thanks to my daily commute I have found lots of time to listen to health experts on podcasts. That along with Pinterest and the barrage of emails I get on health from my dad (thanks Jim G! :)) I've found quite a bit of useful information that I think others like me (especially moms) may appreciate!

Today I just want to share some of my favorite podcasts, these are experts in their field, and what I've noticed is they all tend to focus on similar information. After listening to them for the past 2 years, I've made 2 big life style changes 1. Less sugar/carbohydrates 2. No GMO's.  Sure we will delve more into these topics on another date but it's getting late and I have day 2 of an amazing fitness training-Oula dance tomorrow! So for now my favorite new blogs/podcasts

1. Jillian Michaels-an old fave. I recommend her old shows. They are better and less stories about ger life. A lot of information on diet, wellness and exercise .

2. The Wellness Mama- a neat podcast and blogger who integrates important health information with being a mom!
http://wellnessmama.com
3. Underground Wellness - sensing a theme? Each podcast he interviews and expert in the health field

4. The Dr. Axe Show- covers similar topics to 2/3 but from the perspective of a doctor .

That's what I've found for now. What are your favorite podcast/blogs and why!?

Baby's First Christmas

Well Deaner is growing, 7 months already!

 And boy has his (and our) lives been busy!

Lucky for us little guy finally started eating food (and taking a bottle!) Accordingly I've been making all sorts of baby food: squash, green beans, prunes, pears, peaches, applesauce, bananas, beets and more. He prefers sweets, I guess I had too many during pregnancy. To make the food my immersion blender has been my best friend. That was until it sent me to the Emergency room.... 4 stitches later, a few weeks later and I am not completely petrified when I use the blender, but I am very sure to UNPLUG IT before I stick my hands anywhere near the blades!

First Food Thanksgiving

Food Expert-Yummy beets!

Unfortunately a week later Mark and I found ourselves in the ER again.... this time because I had the flu. There was really nothing they could do, but we wanted to make sure that was all it was after a few days of high fevers, achy bones and inability to move. We wanted to be sure we would be able to travel the next day to NC, for Christmas break.

Rice Park

Exploring St. Paul at Christmas Time

So the next day we left for NC, Christmas Day. We arrived late and spent the evening alone at my brother's empty apartment. It was kind of special, our first Christmas a a family of 3, just us, TGI Fridays and Anchorman 2.

We had a great trip the rest of the time in NC. It was so fun for us to watch Henry and Dean starting to interact together *i.e. Henry stealing Dean's toys. But it must have been motivating because by the end of the trip Dean was crawling! It's an army crawl and it was slow at first, but he started crawling.

Jealous Cousins

Crawling

We also enjoyed time with Jimpa and Grame, going for walks and letting mommy and daddy sleep in! (It was during this time that Dean still didn't sleep.... yes past tense!) I also got to meet my sweet friend Andrea's newborn baby Davis. I can't believe we are now to this stage of our life.

After enjoying quite a few days of warm weather in NC, we headed back to MN and the cold finally came! Lucky for us though, it hasn't been that long of a spell and we're already back to the 30's again. Warm enough for us to go for walks with Deanie!

This week is a pretty special week because it will be Henry's 1st birthday, and Mark's birthday as well! I only work 4 days and I'm getting ready to go to a new fitness training for dance called Oula in a few weeks. With that and work and hanging out with friends doing Paint nights and planning Baby showers we are staying pretty busy. Mark and I are even hoping for a date night soon! We went to a Vikings game (thanks to our sweet friend Julie) and hopefully will start being able to get out more BECAUSE:
DEAN NOW SLEEPS MOST OF THE NIGHT!
Now don't congratulate us yet...
1. Yes I still feed him 1 time even though I've been told he doesn't need it, I don't believe it :)
2. Yes, he's still in the swing BUT it's off... he just likes the security of being locked in, and doesn't like the expansiveness of the crib.
3. He still stinks at naps.
4. Still wakes up at 6am.

But  I have to say I'm really starting to feel back to "my self" since he's been born. Mark and I are finding more time for ourselves, Dean is becoming more independent and I am more rested. It's definitely bittersweet in a way, seeing him grow, but lucky for me I have LOADS of friends having babies this year and I will get my newborn fix from them.

Cousin time

Now for tons of pictures :)