Catching Up

Hi Everyone! I figured I'd come and catch up a bit. As most of you know we will be stationed in Hawaii at the end of the year. We are so very excited about this! What an adventure. And, as all of you know, everyone is welcome to visit. We don't really have any detail besides we know that is where we'll end up. As soon as we get more details we'll let you all know. We don't have exact dates or anything and won't for a few months.

As far as the job hunt goes, well...not so much luck and that's OK. I've decided to stick with Pampered Chef for now which is actually going really well now that I've put some solid effort into it. It will be so nice to be able to enjoy the summer with Carson. We've already been able to get out to both the Minnesota Zoo and Como Zoo recently (Como twice) and to the park and just generally getting out and enjoying things. It's such a change from working 40 hours a week and having to try an cram in quality time.

I have my Turbo Kick certification on 5/16. I have already taken and passed two YMCA certification classes and the Red Cross CPR so I'm well on my way. It's very exciting. I'm thinking teaching exercise will be the greatest job in Hawaii. Seeing as how I won't have to work full time and it will be a great way to keep in shape while still being able to get out once in a while.

Carson is getting so big. It's amazing how his vocabulary is just growing and growing. He's getting excellent at stalling and manipulating but what 2 year old isn't an expert at those things? And on Monday he had his first complete embarrassing meltdown/temper tantrum at the mall. Complete with him laying face down on the floor and crying. It was a first and I'm sure not a last! At this point he's still easily distracted from the temper tantrum. If you ask him to help you with something generally he will get excited about that and switch focus from whatever he was crying about to helping you with something. It can be as simple as "Hey Carson, can you help me find X at the store?" and he'll perk right up and say "Yeah, Sure!" it's pretty cute.

My favorite "Carson-isms" right now:

If you ask him to do something he will say "Yeah, Sure!"

If he asks a question and you give him an answer he'll go "Oh, Right."

If he asks to do something and you say, "No, we're not going to do that right now" he'll go "Awwwwww" in the most cliche whiney voice and inflection possible. It's perfect and I have no idea where he picked it up.

He says "Hello" and talks to EVERYONE in stores, walking by on the sidewalk, at restaurants, everywhere. And usually he won't stop talking to them until they respond. It's funny

I'll leave you guys with a few recent pictures and videos and I'll be back soon!

Riding his bike in the driveway, I can't believe how much better he is this year compared to last year!

Not sure you need any caption for this one :)

Playing Soccer in the yard, makes me appreciate how much it's greened up since this picture!

From our last trip to Como, he was crabby and this was literally the only picture he would even look at me for. Ugh, I was hoping to get a picture of us in this spot. The cat building has the BEST lighting ever! I love it! Ah well, I'm sure there will be more zoo trips this summer!

Compare and Contrast

So as I mentioned before, I LOVE my new birthday gift. So now you all will be flooded with videos of Carson, I'm sure you're all extremely disappointed. Haha! :) Not too much new has been going on at our house. Still nothing on the job search. I can't believe how bad it is. It's just frustrating. I didn't go to any college which, until this point, has never been an issue. Now I'm finding I can't even submit an application for a job without a 2yr degree. UGH!

So for now I have been focusing on organizing Pampered Chef and seeing how I can make that successful for me. I have 2 shows in March which I'm looking forward to, my goal is to have 5 shows in March. We'll see if I can get there! I've temporarily made my kitchen table into a desk but the clutter/mess is starting to drive me nuts so it needs to be able to be put away daily. I think I almost have everything organized enough to make that happen!

My old company started the move into the new building today. I think that's the one thing I'm most upset about, I did a lot of work prepping to move and worked for 2 years in a really crappy building just waiting for the move. And I don't get to work in the new building. But I keep reminding myself that this is not my loss and that the company seriously does not care about it's employees. I am sure of this seeing as how the week after the layoffs in January the executives received some really nice bonuses. Some to the tune of $50,000.00!!!! If the cared at all, they would've taken pay cuts, cut bonuses etc. But no, they do not care and I do not want to work for a company like that.

Carson and I have been getting along great. The only time he wants nothing to do with me is bedtime. Usually Dave is home and Carson will fight me but allow Dave to do bedtime stuff (brush teeth, change clothes). If it's just me and him there is no fighting. Only if Dave is home. It makes me laugh.

We had a 24 flu bug come through the house Sunday/Monday/Tuesday. Dave had it Sunday/Monday I had it Monday/Tuesday. Either Carson brought it home (he threw up once on Friday but that was it) or he hasn't been affected by it. It was completely miserable and I'm so glad that if Carson did have it on Friday it wasn't to the extent that Dave and I had it. I didn't sleep at all on Monday night and Tuesday could hardly leave the couch with body aches and fatigue. I'm for sure glad to be done with that noise!!

Well I'll leave you with a few pictures of my new Flip! This will give you a good idea of exactly how small it is!! Also, I'll leave you with a great video of Carson doing animal sounds and being a bit silly!

Sweet Tooth

This is what happens when I'm not around...I sure as heck didn't teach Carson to eat whipped cream off of a spoon. LOL!

Dave opened the fridge to put something away and immediately Carson was saying 'I want, I want' he's really good at expressing when he wants something, we're just working on expressing WHAT he wants. So Dave picked him up and asked him to point to what he wanted. Immediately he pointed to the can of whipped cream. Dave indulged his sweet tooth! :) Pretty cute actually.

How is everyone enjoying the snow? Ugh, I'm so done with winter. I was very glad that Carson and I could just stay inside today. I was not about to drive anywhere. Luckily we have a snow-blow

er now and Dave didn't have to spend hours shoveling the driveway!

I received my new spring product samples from Pampered Chef, I must say my favorite new product has to be the pineapple wedger. Think of an apple correr/slicer but on a much larger scale. It cores and slices the pineapple and it works so fantastic! I think pineapple is yummy anyway and fresh pineapple is even better! I've gone through 2 pineapples this week. Right now my plan is to try and get my Pampered Chef business going strong since the job market does not seem to be going my way at the moment. I am planning to put in 2-3 hours a day on Pampered Chef and hopefully putting the time in will pay off!

Hope everyone has a safe (if slow) commute in the morning!

Did Everyone Enjoy the 4th?

We had a great 4th! We hope everyone else did too! Thursday night we got asked to go out with Dave's boss and girlfriend. We went downtown to the Steve Miller Band concert at the Target Center. We had a great time and even got our own suite for a while! It was a blast. We took a cab to a bar that my girlfriend was working at and closed the bar down. We don't do that terribly often so it was fun. My sister and my parents watched Carson overnight for us so that was wonderfully nice especially since going out was completely last minute.

We went to Melby's for the 4th...like every year. It is always so much fun. I was curious to see how Carson did in the pool. At first he was a bit scared. He even has issues getting his hair wet in the bath right now, but as soon as he figured out he could go up and down the stairs of the pool he was good and soon enough he was having a blast with Dave and I. He even jumped off the edge to one of us in the pool. I'm glad he did so well. We could not keep him out of the pool once he figured out how much he loved it!

We came home and crashed pretty much immediately. We had been up so late and so busy yesterday so we were all ready for bed right away. Today my sister is coming over to hang with us and tomorrow we're going over to my parent's house for lunch and to hang out in the afternoon and then Monday is my 1st Pampered Chef show ever. Cue the panic. My sister is coming over today and we're cooking the recipe again today just so I can be sure I'm comfortable with it. I'm sure it will be fine.

Well, here are some of my favorite pictures from yesterday. Enjoy!

Bad Blogger

I've been too busy to blog. I know, I know...I'm terrible but what can ya do? It's officially summer, we've been enjoying the weather and getting out and about as much as possible.

I bought roller blades a few weekends ago and the first time I put them on was like torture...today wasn't so bad. Carson and I went about a 1/2 mile after he ate dinner. He loves being pushed in the stroller while someone is pushing him with roller blades and to be honest it helps me keep my balance to have something to hang on to. We went around a few blocks before I felt like I might die and headed home. Haha.

I still am trying to book a Pampered Chef show in July. I have a few people who have given me the "well let me know if you start to get desperate" lol. Hopefully I won't have to rely on them. Regular work has been going good...except busy. I had a few weeks of sort of down time and that is out the window. Now, I'll leave work an all the sudden I'm starving and I'll realize that I haven't gotten up from my desk all day to either eat or pee. Haha, I guess it makes the days fly by.

I don't have any new pictures of Carson at the moment, but I should have a bunch from the 4th. We're going to the Melby's like usual and I'm really excited to see how Carson does with the pool. I guess at Daycare today he went in their pool and didn't love it but we'll see how it goes. For now, I'll leave you with a picture of my FAVORITE flower. It's blooming right now and will look awesome for a few weeks. I swear the months of it just looking like a strange green plant are totally worth how it looks when it's blooming. Reminds me of a tropical flower or something!

Does Anyone Wanna Help?

So...we've had a busy few weeks. Last Saturday my mom came over with some hostas and I spent most of the day planting. I also bought an awesome rose bush that's just beautiful that I planted as well. I'll have to take pictures of our new stuff. The hostas look a bit disheveled but they've been through a lot being chopped up and all. They may not ever look great this year but next year they will rock!

On Sunday we went to Dave's brother's graduation party. The weather was beautiful and the live right on a lake so it was a blast. I also picked up some roller blades this weekend. Dave and I went about 1/2 way around the block before I was done. Lol, it's been a few years since I've been on roller blades and it's so much harder than I remember!

So...in reference to my title, I've become a Pampered Chef consultant! I'm really excited about it! So if anyone wants to help a sista out, I need 4 shows booked in my 1st 30 days which ends on 7/28. There are lots of perks!! So anyone who's not coming to my mom's show on the 7th or just wants to have one because I rock...I'd really appreciate it! I promise I will try not to pimp myself out here too much but I've gotta at least bring it up every once in a while!!

Well, I've got some good new pictures to post as soon as I get them all on the computer. I will talk to you all soon!