The Post-Christmas Travel-Fest

I've mentioned a few times that we went out of town right after Christmas and were gone through New Year's Day. We went to visit my in-laws for a few days in Hometown, USA and then we make the trek across a few states to attend a wedding of some of our best friends (D was the best man). This was one of the first weddings that we have ever taken AJ to (the first was my cousin's wedding in September) and she was fairly well-behaved.

We knew that this wedding would be a fun one, not only because it took place on New Year's Eve, but also because we have a lot of mutual friends with the bride and groom, and both of our families were invited to the wedding as well. We saw old friends from when we were all stationed at Ft. Hood together. The Ft. Hood group was a crazy, fun group. We were all around the same age, none of us had kids yet and the guys were all freshly back from Iraq. We did lots of drinking and eating out, BBQing and nights at the comedy club in Austin. It was great to see everyone again and get to meet the kiddos! ;)

As for the wedding itself, AJ didn't last very long since the ceremony started at her usual dinner time. AJ and I, along with my friend Nickie's son (who just turned 2) and her hubby Mike spent the ceremony in the back room and then headed over to the reception site. AJ enjoyed "looking" at the sparkly ornaments on the HUGE Christmas tree during the cocktail hour. She also enjoyed walking around the reception hall carrying her purse. She basically thought the crowd was there to see her and she was loving it. It was hilarious.

Walking around with "Mimi" (my mom) and her purse.

The centerpieces that looked just like the ball in Times Square!

My brother and his girlfriend.

Looking at the sparkly ornaments with Grandpa (my FIL).

My sister and her boyfriend.

One of the highlights from the night was when we were sitting at the table eating our salads and we looked over at AJ, sitting quietly in her chair, spoon-feeding herself ranch dressing.

Me and my girl at dinner.

AJ with the bride and groom.

Somewhere between the salad course and the main course AJ completely lost her cool and I decided that it was time to head back to the hotel with my Aunt-In-Law (? D's Aunt) and put Miss AJ to bed. We hopped on the shuttle and I put AJ right to bed when we got back. I dropped off the monitor and room key with D's Aunt and caught the shuttle bus back to the reception with Nickie.

It was about that time that things got out of control, in a good way. It was a long night, so to shorten this post up a bit, the evening included lots of vodka tonics, red velvet cake, cigars, party hats, noise makers, vodka shots with new friends, silly pictures, inappropriate dance moves and so much more.

When I look back at the evening I consider myself lucky that I felt decent enough Sunday morning to successfully navigate a 1.5 hour car ride to the airport for a noon o'clock flight on New Year's Day with an almost 2 year old. What the eff was I thinking? Ha! In all reality, I'm glad I didn't worry about it and let myself have a fun night out with my hubby and friends. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I had felt worse on Sunday, though. Maybe its an omen for how the rest of 2012 will go. That would be nice.

New Years Eve Recap

Since I kind of left you all in the dark about our Post-Christmas/New Year's trip, I figured I should come back and let you all in on how we rang in 2012.

We left the 27th and flew to Hometown, USA to spend a few days with D's family for some Christmas celebrations. After spending a day and a half there, we all drove over to Ohio to get ready for a fancy, sparkly New Year's Eve wedding. We had lots of fun. Hubby's aunt volunteered to sit in the hotel with AJ while we partied and rang in the new year in style. I will say that I greeted 2012 in a much different way than I greeted 2011 last year.

Last year on New Year's Eve we were mostly homeless (in a good way), staying with my parents at their place in Florida, and were woken at midnight by fireworks. This year I was taking shots of vodka with 6 of my newest best friends, wearing 4-inch heels and a fancy dress.

Yes, things are a little different this year. I've settled into my life as a mom. We've settled into our lives here in our house. We've had lots of good times this year, but also some trying times as well. We're excited to see what 2012 has to hold for us and I'm excited to share it with all of you.

My 2012 Goals

I mentioned last night that I wanted to make myself a little list of goals or resolutions for this year and stick with them throughout the whole year. I am not normally a goal-setter, so this is a little out of the ordinary for me, but I think it will be fun to go back at the end of the year and look at how I do each month.

So, here are my goals for 2012.

1. Save money, reduce debt. We have a few credit cards that we're currently carrying balances on and I'd really like to reduce those (or pay them off completely). I also want to make sure that we have a nice cushion in our savings. We are scheduled to pay off a loan this summer, so I know we'll make a good dent in our debt in the second half of the year since we'll be able to use the money we have been paying towards the loan to pay extra on the credit card debt. As for the savings, well, our BAH is going up a few hundred this year, so I'm thinking we'll put the extra into savings each month. Should make it easy since we won't miss it. I'm actually really looking forward to this goal. It might be nice to have money for once. ;)

2. Lose weight. This one goes along with #3 and #5. I have gotten into the habit of eating too much, exercising too little, and using too much butter in my cooking, a la Pioneer Woman. Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of little butter on occasion, but I really need to get it reigned in. I'll feel better about myself, and maybe I'll fit back into some of those clothes I used to wear before AJ was born.

3. Eat healthier. Again, this coincides with #2, but since I do all of the cooking in our house and we rarely eat out, it has become apparent to me that I need to adjust my menu rotation. I think it will be a fairly simple change to make, namely cutting back on the comfort foods and upping the veggies and salads, but also limiting the amount we eat in a sitting. I've had success in the past with portion control and I think its something I need to start paying more attention to.

4. Be more patient. Its not that I forget that AJ is a child, but sometimes its just so frustrating! I have never been a particularly patient person (just ask my Ma). AJ has, in her short 22 months of existence, already taught me a lot about myself, and the biggest thing I see that needs to change is my patience level. I'm going to make a particular and concentrated effort to be very patient this year, not only with AJ, but also others. I tend to be anxious and high-strung, so this resolution should help me to relax and calm down a little as well.

5. Exercise more. I couldn't really exercise any less than I did in 2011. I ran a few times, but stopped as AJ got older. She is not really a fan of sitting in the stroller, so that really limited my running opportunities. I think that I can do better this year. I don't want to make excuses to not exercise, so I'm going to try and incorporate other methods of activity, maybe something like P90X or Insanity. If any of you have any suggestions, please let me know!

6. Maintain a positive attitude. I think this goal goes along with #4. Along with a lack of patience, I tend to expect the worst and project a negative attitude about just about anything. I want to be a good example for AJ and I don't want her to grow up to be cynical and negative all the time. I have a feeling this may be the most challenging of all my resolutions for 2012.

There you have it, folks! Hopefully by the end of this year I'll be richer, thinner, healthier, more patient and more positive. Sounds good to me!

What are your resolutions for this year?

Ummm

So I kind of up and left for a few days. We went out of town for some belated Christmas activities and then New Years fun. I tried to post a video of our Christmas morning before we left, but our Internet sucks, so it wouldn't upload. I didn't take my computer with me on our trip (which was just as well because I wouldn't have had time to post anyway) so that is why I've been MIA.

In the next few days I'll have a few posts coming your way with our recaps from Christmas, the days following that and how we spent our New Years Eve.

I have decided that I want to make myself a little list of "resolutions" or goals for 2012, which I don't normally do. Check back here tomorrow for my complete list. I think I may go through my list each month and do little updates so I can hold myself accountable.

Happy New Year, bloggy friends!

Dress (and other) Shopping Woes...

I officially received one of my first holiday gifts in the mail yesterday. My grandparents always send me money for Christmas and birthdays, and I told D that if I didn't get a Kindle for Christmas this year (hint, hint) I was going to save up my Christmas money and buy one for myself. I know, look at me!

Well, I got a card from my grandparents yesterday and now I'm in a very intense internal debate with myself. Do I go ahead and buy the Kindle (which I know I'm not getting, by the way) or do I wait on the Kindle and buy a dress to wear on New Years Eve to the formal wedding we're attending?

I'm leaning towards the dress at this point because I'm thinking I'll just buy the Kindle after Christmas, but I'm having lots and lots of trouble finding a dress that fits my criteria.

It has to:

A. Cost less than $150.

B. Be sparkly or fancy (don't worry, I got the go-ahead from the bride on this one).

C. Be impressive.

D. Be available in my size (or preferably in store, so I can try it on).

E. Look good great on me.

So I'm sure you can see where I'm running into problems. I've found plenty of to-die-for dresses online that I assume will look great on me, are sparkly, impressive and less than $150, but not available in my size, or they come in my size but cost $275. I just can't justify spending that kind of money, ya know?

Here are a few that I'm considering so you can get an idea of what I'm looking for, and then hopefully you can all look and find me one that will be perfect! (Hey, why do I have a blog if not to enlist my readers to do my dirty work?!)











I want to point out that these dresses are not in order of favorites, so let me know which ones you like and which you don't. I'm also interested if you think any are more New Year's Eve-ish than others (obviously the sparkly one is). Hubs will be wearing his blues, but that doesn't stop me from wearing a black dress! Also, if you have other suggestions, by all means, let me know!

So I've Been MIA...

I know I said that I was going to try and post more now that the move is on hold (underway?). We really have just been hanging around, lounging, playing, eating and enjoying spending lots of time with all of the extended family. We're getting all geared up to celebrate Christmas with D's family on Christmas Eve and we'll then pack up the car and drive to FL where we'll spend the next two weeks enjoying the warm weather and celebrating with my family for a while.

My brother, his girlfriend and sister and her boyfriend, along with my parents will all be in Florida with us for the first week, then we're on our own for a week until we drive to our new duty station and close on the house! Yay!

To say that we're excited to get to our new place and finally get to settle in somewhere that is 100% ours would be an understatement. We're so excited, but its also daunting because we've already spent so much money and we don't even live there yet! lol

In other news, AJ was baptized last weekend. We waited a really long time to do it (she is 9.5 months old), but we wanted to do it at home with the priest we know (he married us!). I'm really glad that we did wait! We were able to have all our families there to help celebrate with us! Pictures from the big day will come later (after I find my camera cable in the mountain of things that is our stuff).

I haven't really taken very many pictures so far this trip, but I'm going to try to get better! We're going shopping this afternoon with D's dad and then we'll be back to just hanging out again!

Anyway, I just wanted to check in with everyone and let y'all know that we're still around, just not too much is actually happening lately! I probably won't be online much until after New Years, so if I go MIA again, don't be surprised!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Holidays, everyone!