Olivia's 1st Valentine's Day

Needless to say life has been crazy lately, which is why our Valentine's Day post is over a week old. Each holiday has even more meaning now that we have our sweet daughter in our lives. I love this little girl so much it hurts sometimes and it is incredibly hard to leave her during the week while I work. Since Olivia had several Valentine's outfits to sport, we celebrated the holiday for an entire week! Olivia is growing fast and has rolled over a few times. It is the cutest thing to watch her try and roll herself from her back to her tummy and she gets her little arm stuck in the way. She is a persistent little girl and finally made the full roll over a few days ago! It hard for me to comprehend that she will be four months old in just a few short weeks... the time goes by way too fast.

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day with your loved ones. Be sure to hug the ones you love, kiss your kiddos, and tell the people you cherish you love them as often as you can!

Here are a few cute pictures of Olivia in her Valentine outfits... Enjoy!

this adorable 'auntie forever' onesie was a gift from Aunt Morgan

this sweet love bug outfit was a cute find from Gymboree

this heart striped shirt and red pants were an adorable combo from Carter's

Stuffed Peppers Recipes

My mom and step-dad visited us last weekend and we always find time for cooking when they are here. I have wanted to make stuffed bell peppers for awhile, but figured they would be too much work or wouldn't work out. We decided to try two different recipes for stuffed peppers so that we would have something to compare it to and also have leftovers! Here are the pictures and recipes of what we made... enjoy!

• Quinoa Stuffed Peppers - these are vegetarian and loaded with quinoa. The only thing missing for me was the meat :) and more cheese.

• Sante Fe Stuffed Peppers - we adapted this recipe to include brown rice instead of jasmine rice and used ground beef instead of ground turkey. These were by far my favorite of the two recipes and super cheesy! (this recipe is from my Recipe Board on Pinterest)

 Hope you try one or both of these recipes for your family soon!

3 Months Old

My sweet little one is 3 months old today and I can hardly believe how much she has changed in the past month. Olivia is growing fast and weighed in at 13 lbs 2 oz last week at her doctor appointment and is 23 3/4 inches long. She is eating a ton and sleeping much better at night. We have even had a few nights where she has slept in 7 hours stretches. Olivia loves tummy time and even rolled over for the first time last week. She loves snuggling with mommy during naps, playing with her glow worm and music play mat, and she makes the most adorable sounds and giggles. Here are a few pictures in her 3 month onesie, which I had to squeeze her into... and she barely fit! I love her face in the last picture... I am sure she is thinking 'what are you doing to me mommy?!'

To my little Olivia... I am so blessed to be your momma and you have completely changed our world. You are such a fun age right now and love to interact with us. I love seeing your face light up when I get home from work and I am trying to soak up every ounce of time I have with you. You are growing fast and changing so much, sometimes too fast for mommy. I love how little you still are and looking forward to all of the stages you are going to go through. I love you sugar and always will!

Tips and Tricks to Make Life Easier

I have been back to work for about 3 weeks and the transition has had its good moments and not so good moments. I could have never imagined how much I would miss Olivia during my work day. It has been good for me to get back into a routine and back to work, but it sure makes life a bit crazy. Over the past few months, I have found some great tips and tricks for myself and our family that sure make life easier.

Wunderlist is a great app for the iPhone that my husband and I share for our to do lists. It is so much easier to upload the 'honey do list' to this app and then Michael can check things off as he gets them done. The app also lets you keep your own personal to do list, which has come in handy for me.

PostalPix is a photo ordering app for the iPhone that allows you to order prints straight from your phone. It is super easy to pick photos from your camera phone and photo stream albums and then they are mailed directly to you for a great price. The ability to quickly order photo prints in a variety of sizes has been a great way to print photos without having to leave my house or buy an expensive photo printer.

Mint.com is an easy to use financial website that allows you to keep track of all of your accounts in one place. In our household we have several accounts including our mortgage, car loans, investments, retirement, and savings for Olivia. This app and website allows you to keep track of everything in one place. There are also features you can utilize such as creating a monthly budget, tracking your investments, setting financial goals, and finding ways to save money. This app has been great for Michael and I to use and helps keep us on financial track with little to no time and effort.

Other tips and tricks that we have implemented in our house over the past few months have included:

• cooking meals in double batches to allow for leftovers and food for lunches
• setting the timer for one hour and seeing how much cleaning and chores we can accomplish
• sorting the mail daily to avoid a buildup of paperwork
• tackle laundry every other day to avoid a massive pileup
• order birthday gifts online with free shipping codes
• clip coupons and meal plan around the weekly grocery ad
• and use every app possible on my iPhone to save me time, money, and energy!

Life is only going to get busier and feel crazier the older Olivia gets, but my hope is that we have plenty of time saving tricks in place so that we can spend as much time with her as possible. It is also important for me to feel less stressed and more focused on her, and these things are just a few ways to help me do that!

Scrap Fabric Wreath for the Nursery

A few months ago I found a great idea on Pinterest for a scrap fabric wreath that I knew would be perfect for Olivia's room. We had lots of extra fabric scraps from the beautiful quilt my mom made for Olivia and needed to use them up. This project was inexpensive (the fabric scraps were essentially free and the wreath frame was only about $5) and the wreath was fairly easy to make. It took me a couple of weeks to finish the project since I only had 20-30 minute intervals to work on it while Olivia napped. Here are a few pictures of the finished wreath...

I love how this wreath turned out and it looks adorable in the nursery hanging above Olivia's crib!