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.