It's fun to pretend.

Something about Dallas Green's voice, just calms me. It brings me back to when I first started seeing my husband and it makes me so incredibly happy. Sometimes, there's certain smells or sights, that bring you back to a particular moment.. City and Colour does that for me. 

Be Happy (:

new things

I added some pages to the blog, to help you get to know me a little better.. you can find them on the right hand side under the about paragraph (: Q&A about me and a little story on how I met my husband.. if there's ever anything anyone wants to see or know about me or my family.. ideas are very welcome!

Jamberry!

I am SO excited to announce, that I am now a Jamberry Independent Consultant! :) What exactly IS Jamberry, you ask? AMAZING. No, seriously. I loved it so much and that's why I decided to become an independent consultant.

CHRISTINA, WHAT IS JAMBERRY?

Ok, so.. for $15 (this price could go up in the future) you get a sheet of 'Jams'.. ONE sheet of Jams gives you 2 full manicures and 2 full pedicures and most of the time left overs for accent nails. Seriously, $15 is great for all of that.. you pay more than that when you go get your nails done at a salon AND you have to tip. The other wonderful thing about Jams is, you can do 1 and go off and do something else.. come back, do 2 more.. get side tracked.. you could even shower! Can you do that with nail polish? nope! This is what really got me. I don't have time to do my nails. I am on call for a 2 year old named Dustin.. paint my nails and Dustin cries, say byebye polish! Where's that polish? Smudged and probably all over me and baby. AINT NOBODY GOT TIME FOR DAT! OH, did I mention, if you buy THREE nail wraps, you get 1 sheet for freeeeee! YEP, everyone likes free shit. (buy all the things)

CHRISTINA, HOW DO I PUT THEM ON?

It's easy, it takes most people 20-30 minutes to put them on.. I'll be honest, I got the metallic ones and they weren't as simple to put on, it took me about 45 minutes. Maybe I'm special. What you do is, clean your nails with rubbing alcohol, warm up the wrap that you're going to use on your nail (smaller is better).. you can buy their heater or you can use your blow dryer.. and you stick it on.. give it a real good rub and then trim the remainder of the nail wrap off of your nail, and then file it off in a downwards motion to get rid of the excess.. then use your blow dryer again to set it and rub it some more (lol). I know my description was uber helpful, but if you find yourself scratching your head thinking "wtf?" you can watch a video - How to apply Jamberry nail wraps. E-Z Pea-z lemon squeazy! (buy all the things)

CHRISTINA, WHICH ONES DO I CHOOSE?!

I have scoured the interwebz for my absolute favorite jams to share with you :)

^This one is my ABSOLUTE favorite, I'm waiting for this set to come in the mail :-D

OKAY OKAY YOU'VE CONVINCED ME, WHERE DO I BUY?

christinareid.jamberrynails.net<--- CLICK IT, dooo it... you know you want to!

Support Dustin's toy habit now, by buying Jamberry from his mom :)

I'll have samples available as soon as I get my kit! :) (buy all the things)

You have questions? I have answers.. leave your question in the comments below and I'll get back with you!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Dustin and myself! We hope you all had a safe Halloween! :)

Dear Dustin,

Thank you for pouring your apple juice into my coke today..
I was obviously interested in trying something new.
Next time, can you ask first?

Love, Mommy.

 

Little friends.

Some people come into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same.

Dustin & Layla my little peapods <3

Blog exclusive!

Haha, I like the way that sounds. Pictures I haven't put on facebook yet, but will go on after I send out our thank you cards in the mail. Today was a picture fiasco. I enlisted my mom's help to take pictures of Dustin in his tiger costume, holy hell, it was a shit-show. Not only do I have to deal with Dustin being completely not happy with me about putting him in a costume, but getting him to look at me AND smile to achieve picture success, NOT an easy task. But, I'm happy with the ones I got. My little dude is so handsome :) 

Click 'read more' below to see all the pictures! :) I tried some new filters on this set, opinions?

#conversationswithmy2yearold

2, you're going to kill me.

It's been awhile since I've posted.. I need to remind myself, to keep this updated. It'll be nice to go back to see Dustin's milestones and silly moments. 

Terrible Twos.. oh god, they are awful and they are REAL. He might be getting his bottom canines in, which might be why he's been an on again off again monster haha.. OR it might just be the terrible twos. My son is the busiest person, he's got so many thoughts going on in his head and his mouth is going just as fast. Like tonight, I took his crib down yesterday and built a "fence" around his toddler bed, so he can't escape.. Dustin doesn't have time to sleep, and if I let him he would play all night.. so anyway, I put him down to sleep and he's whining and jabbering, so I go into his room and he says "potty mommy! potty!" so I set him on his potty, he pees.. then continues to sit there (waiting for a poop) and pointing at everything in the room "Dustin's tent? Dustin's flag? Truck? Car? Fan? Potty! yay potty! fish? stars? Moon hiding? Yeah, moon hiding. Daddy? Daddy pooping? socks? Dustin's bed? yeah! merrily merrily merrily! (we sang row row row your boat tonight)" Yes, this was in a span of 2 minutes. Toddlers have wild brains. I think his brain goes at 100 miles a minute. Sometimes his outbursts are so sweet though, yesterday I came in to get him up in the morning and he shouts "Pretty Mommy!!!" and then gives me the sweetest hello :) 

Speaking of Potty Training everything is going awesome, Dustin is 2 years and 2 months and we started potty training him about a month ago, after day 2 he had 100% success with peeing in the potty.. poop on the other hand has been an entirely different fiasco. If he happens to have to poop while we're downstairs and he has undies on, he will run around frantically in the leaving room exclaiming "Poop! Poop!!!!!!!!!" very flustered.. running to the toilet.. then running away from the toilet.. and then back... until he finally gives in and goes... sometimes running away from the potty mid poop... we don't have a janitor so, I'm the lucky one who gets to clean up that prize. Then, sometimes after he poops he cries.. I don't know why he's so scared of pooping in the toilet.. put him in a diaper and bam.. poop. So, he usually holds it until bedtime. Slowly but surely, he will get there. :) I'm pretty proud of his progress already.  

Halloween is almost here! We bought 2 costumes for Dustin to see what we wanted him to be, we bought a dinosaur costume but trying to put that on him was unsuccessful, he screamed like we were killing him.. so that went back to the store. His tiger costume came today, he's still not pleased about wearing it, but it'll have to do. Hopefully I can get some pictures of him in it and I hope I can get him to wear it for at least a LITTLE trick or treating. 

Ok, I feel like my mind is drifting and I don't remember anything else I was going to write, so I'll leave some pictures :)

(click read more for picture update)

Life is good.

Beach!

Party!

We went to California to have a party for Dustin, here's a few pictures from the party [click read more] :)

Happy Birthday Dustin!

2 years ago today, I was in a hospital bed with a tiny little human that my husband and I created. I never knew my heart could hold so much love until I met my son. What they say is true, when you have a child it feels like your heart is walking around outside of your chest. I honestly, couldn't imagine not having him. There are times that I think to myself, if I didn't get pregnant the exact time that I did, we wouldn't have Dustin.. sure we'd have another baby and we'd love that baby just as much..but I wouldn't have Dustin. I feel thankful that my husband agreed that it was time for a baby the moment that he did.. I'm thankful that we got THIS baby. He gives me so much purpose in life and so many reasons to be happy. He's polite, he's sweet, he's good natured and loving.. I'm proud of the tiny person he is, and the tiny person he is becoming. When we're driving around and I look back at him in his car seat, and he waves and says "Hi Mommy!" and glances at Travis "Hi Daddy!" it warms my heart and I feel like it could burst. Something so simple.

 I also feel lucky to have Travis as my husband and my partner in parenting. He's a wonderful Daddy to our little guy. :)

So, here's to two years and many many more. Your Mommy loves you so so much baby.

Brown Sugar balsamic glazed chicken

AKA deliciousness, is that a word? That's not a word. I've been trying to make dinner every day by the time Travis is off work, I've been pretty successful and it saves money on groceries having a set dinner for each day. My absolute favorite is this awesome Brown sugary balsamic glazed goodness.. like honestly, it's amazeballs. (That's not a word either) Today, we tried it on subs and I made baked potatoes and it was pretty good. We usually have it as it's own dish with lots of extra sauce on top and a side of mashed potatoes. (We clearly love carbs in this house)

This recipe is SO yummy, I wanted to share it with you guys! 

 I put 2 chicken breasts in the slow cooker with a 1/4 cup of water and cook on low for 4 hours, sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper and flip it after 2 hours. An hour before the chicken breasts are done cooking you start glazing the chicken every 15 minutes until it's done. You probably want to start your glaze 15 minutes beforehand.

 Brown Sugar Balsamic glaze
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 Tablespoon soy sauce
1 Tablespoon Honey

 Combine all the ingredients in a small sauce pan whisk frequently until it thickens slightly, then remove from heat. Then you glaze your chicken with this yummy goodness every 15 minutes and then usually I take my chicken out and cut it up and dump more deliciousness on it! If you decide to make this for yourself, let me know how you like it! Happy eating ;)

Bath time!

It's an oldie, but look at those baby blues :D i'm so in love.

The cutest lion.

1.5 year wait? No biggie.

So, it's been about a year and a half since I last posted.. I'm not really sure what happened. I decided to make a few changes here and allow my husband access to post (i'm not sure if I'll regret this later ha). I need to keep a blog - with my forgetful mind, writing in a journal and reading it later makes so much sense. Right now, i'm dealing with a busy toddler who thinks putting his spit on every item in the living room is hilarious.. so I'm not sure how much time i'll actually get to post, but something is better than nothing. Right? Right!

This weekend, we will be driving down to L.A. to celebrate Dustin's 2nd birthday, I can't believe that he's already 2 years old. He's so independent it's insane. 4 years ago I didn't even think I was going to have kids, now I have a son who keeps me on my toes. I'm pretty lucky, even when he's terrible.. he's not that terrible. 

I think I basically stopped posting when things got a little crazily hectic for us. After we moved into our townhouse in vegas, I was working at Zappos and it was easily the most amazing job I've ever had and ever will have in my life. Our focus was for Travis to find a job making enough money so that I could stay home and raise our son. The idea of putting Dustin into daycare and giving someone else control to take care of my child 8 hours a day 5 days a week is terrifying. We knew our goal would be to do whatever it took to make sure that didn't happened. Unfortunately Zappos didn't pay enough and Travis wasn't able to find a good enough paying job for me to stay home.. in fact, he wasn't able to find a job at all. Depressing, right? Insanely depressing. We stayed in our perfect little townhouse for 6 months and around the end of July decided to move 8 hours away to northern nevada and live with my parents. Not ideal for any married couple with a small child. I hate Reno, it's an awful place and I don't know why it exists.. but the things we do for our children. He turned 1 while we were living there and it was the first time I was able to stay home with him, despite feeling like it was the worst decision we made, it gave me so much.. it gave me time that I couldn't get back.. I watched him learn to really talk and to walk.. walking is something I really really didn't want to miss out on. Travis found a job down there in less than a month, the pay wasn't ideal, but we weren't paying rent. Our focus was to get my car paid off, get more on our feet and then decide where we were going to plant our feet after we left the shit hole that I call Reno. Did I mention it's really cold there? Because it is and its awful. 

We lived there for what seemed like eternity and in reality it was less than a year. My parents decided to buy a condo where I grew up in the small town of Boulder City.. the wait was long and I was impatient, but after I think 3 months, we were packing our stuff for hopefully the very last long move and heading back to vegas. We still had the idea in mind for me to stay home, or for Travis to stay home. Travis ended up getting a contract job, the contract job likes him and promotes him within a month (pay wise) and then promotes him again and gives him a year contract job, making enough money for me to stay home AND for us to have a small amount of spending money. We rented our own house and things are good. We're hoping that after his year, he will have enough experience to apply to be a full time employee with his employer and things will finally fall into place and we can buy a house. We're not there yet, but we have our fingers crossed. I still don't want Dustin in daycare, not until he's old enough to tell us if someone is hurting him or treating him badly. I might be paranoid, but I love that little human and I'll do anything to protect him. 

So, there's our life as of now. Exciting, right? 

Ignore how odd my teeth look in this picture. I don't know why.