Thursday, June 15, 2017

Sophia's Carnival Birthday Party

Hey guys! Sophia is now fifteen months old and I am barely getting around to sharing her carnival themed first birthday party. Typically, you hear parents are so stressed out during the planning stages and during the actual party and I must say I don't remember being stressed at all during the party. I enjoyed every second of it as my vision for Sophia's first party came to life. Some may say we went over board but can you really for a little princess? Haha. I'm sure you can but it was so worth it to us to have this beautiful memory of our babygirl turning one. If your interested, I will be sharing all the sources at the end of the post.

If you have been following along here long then you know I do monthly updates on Sophia (which I need to get one together for her fifteen month update), and I wanted to display those photos at her party to take everyone down memory lane of how much our sweet girl has grown in just a year.

The design of this cake was the starting point for my vision and I am so glad our cake lady brought it to life so perfectly (check the end of the post for her contact info).

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stormieariel

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Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Pregnancy

First Trimester | Baby Ramirez 2017

Posted by stormieariel

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.

My first trimester was more of the stereotypical which was the total opposite of my pregnancy with Sophia (read more here). This time around I had fatigue, heartburn, nausea, food aversions, sore nipples which made breastfeeding fun (read more about my breastfeeding experience with Sophia here). I even started to wear maternity pants immediately although I could have gotten by with regular pants for a little while longer but maternity ones are much more comfortable so I thought what the heck.

Emotions:

I guess I was so preoccupied with taking care of Sophia 24/7 and babysitting another baby for a few hours each day that I didn't really have time to think about fear as much as I did when I was pregnant with Sophia. Of course, fear still came but it was different fear than just potentially miscarrying but also financial situations and our living situation (one situation has been fixed but the other is still looming around our heads, adulting is hard sometimes). Mostly it was just hard to grasp that another baby was actually growing inside of me with the craziness of life and a toddler.

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stormieariel

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Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Home Life

Dream Lifestyle

Posted by stormieariel

As some of you may know, I have begun reading the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I have heard so many great things about this book and how it has truly helped others get rid of the clutter in their homes and become more organized.

Before moving into our current house, I was a very organized person. Everything had a place and there was an exact method to my cleaning process (my mom taught me well) but when you have other house guests that do not share those organizational and cleaning skills (my grandmother had her own way of doing things and Anthony caught on shortly after moving in together years ago), it becomes tiring to keep up with someone else's constant mess. It definitely has prepared me for a toddler who leaves cheerios in every nook and cranny however it also allows me to teach Sophia at an early age how to pick up after yourself and put it back once you finished playing with something (we have been doing this since she was born) especially since she is at the age of copying everything mommy is doing.

But what happens when things do not have a place to go? I have boxes in our garage from our move from FOUR years ago that I still have no idea where to put the contents in those boxes. I also have two boxes in my coat closet, one is my craft stuff and the other is my books and photo albums. We use to have shelves at our old house but this house we do not so there they all sit. I never had a proper space for my craft items so they have remained in bags or boxes even before the move but thinking of organizing it gives me a headache and I have been avoiding it all together.

So here I am on my journey of the magic of tidying up. There are two steps: declutter and find where to put what you keep. However, you have to declutter first. Easy. But before you begin to declutter, Marie asks you to ask yourself: what type of lifestyle do you dream.

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stormieariel