Work out Wednesdays

I am dedicating Wednesdays on my blog to working out.  There are all kinds of work out inspiration photos, instructional videos, and smart pieces of advice on the internet these days so I think I want to use this platform to talk about them and how they are helping me in my life and hopefully to inspire you to do the same.  I am really trying to get myself in shape and working out is a major factor in that.  I have a few problems with working out: 1) I hate it 2) I feel like I have better things to do 3) I get bored within the blink of an eye.

After I had Kate my body had completely transformed it's self.  I was pretty proud of the fact that I had only gained 30 pounds during pregnancy (because I already had some to lose) and actually got that off pretty quick.  Since the day I came home from the hospital I have lost a total of 51 pounds. sounds pretty good right? I have dropped all of my pregnancy weight and lost an extra 20 pounds.  I should be feeling awesome about myself right? Well guess what. I measure everything by pant size.  My pant size has not changed one bit from my pre pregnancy size. Thanks to pregnancy my weight, my body shifted so much that I lost weight in other areas like my arms, thighs, and butt, but my hips, stomach, and boobs have stayed exactly the same or gotten bigger! How frustrating is that?! Well it was all for the cause and I would do it 100 times again if I had to, but It made me realize that to get where I want to be regular exercise and toning is going to have to be a part of my life.  

I have recently started jogging/ walk-running intervals and felt like that was good enough, but I know that I get bored easily so I have started going to my trusty friend pinterest to find some fun things to do to switch it up! I want to share one of my new favorite things I have found.  

I have started doing this quick short work out during a quick 10 minute break at work a few times a day.  I love this because it is a small quick calorie burn that adds up.  If you can do this 3 times a day on top of your regular work out that is 300 calories extra burned. If you do this 5 times a week thats 1500 calories! How awesome is that?! I just recently started doing this but I will report back on how it's going and how I feel like it's helping.  I do know that i'm trying to do it when I'm wanting to snack and taking my mind off of food and onto burning calories! 

Let me know if you try it and how it's working for you! 

-K 

New Look, New Blogs

I hope everyone has been doing well and getting into the fall mood! I personally have been loving the weather recently!

As you can see we have a new look here at The life of Kate's Mom! I wanted to streamline and really make this blog about the story of our lives.  I hope you all like it! I'm sure as I get more sophisticated at blogger and html there will be new features at some point but for right now we are going simple. 

So along with the new look I have two more exciting announcements to make! I have taken on two more blogs that I can't wait for you to be a part of! I know what you are thinking, 'but Kylie, you don't even blog enough on this blog, what are you thinking?'.  That is a very good point and I have big plans to bring you new fun blog posts to this blog and the new blogs.  

The first one is a super fun blog for me and I have been wanting to start for a while now.  I have started a photography blog for all of our photo ventures.  I have recently been asked by multiple people to do some photography and shoots for them and I wanted a place to display all of our fun work! It is called Katherine H photography, after that sweet baby of mine, and I am so excited! I have a full time job so this is really just a fun fun hobby for me.  I hope to get that going soon and have some photos up for you all to see! 

The second blog is something I am SUPER excited about.  I am a big reader and I love the idea of a book club but lets be honest, who has time to get together with a bunch of people and talk about them? Not me. So one of my super hilarious best friends Jessica over at JessandJacy.com and I decided that we were going to start an online blogger book club.  The way this works is that every monday we will dedicate our blog to the book club.  We will pick 2-3 chapters of a book and write what we think about it.  Heres how you join, Write a blog on the same chapters we are on mondays and add our blog buttons to your blog and we will do the same that way we can easily go read each others!  Now let me just warn you/let you in on a little secret of mine.  I LOVE trashy romance novels.  I know I know, but your a MOM? Well most of you reading this blog are either in your 20's, a mom, or like me, both.  Don't lie to yourselves people, you like reading trashy romance books too.  Which is why i'm going to put this disclaimer out there for people before going to read or join our blogger book club.  Most of our books will be trashy romance novels.  Think fifty shades, Nora Robert's, Sylvia Day etc etc.  What this means is there is going to be some topics that people might be uncomfortable with, language for adults, and adult content. That's why I made a completely new blog just for this :)  The book club is cleverly named: The Monday Seductive... Not your momma's book club, and you can find the link here and the button to share on your blog at the bottom of this blog site! I really hope I can convince some of you to join us because it's going to be a fun time to unwind and take some time to yourself ;).  

Talk soon blogger world! 

-K

Quick and easy yummies

Today at the end of work we were all talking about what we were going to make for dinner tonight, I didn't think I had all of the ingredients for the meal I wanted to make but I suggested it to my friends at work (which both have two young boys) that they should try my mexican casserole sometime! I was craving it when we started talking about it so the first thing I did when I made it home was look in the cabinet to see if I had the ingredients that I needed. Turns out I did! I ended up making Jacob one of my favorite go to easy dinners.  I am trying to be good so I actually only had a bite of casserole and a "taco" salad instead which consisted of spinach leaves leftover smoked turkey salsa and a little bit of fat free cheese.  Definitely not as good as mexican casserole, but it served it's purpose of getting me my "mexican" fix. This recipe is super yummy and actually really pocket friendly! I told the girls I would share the recipe on my blog and on pinterest (which you can follow me here).  So here it is, my cheap fix mexican casserole!


To start the mexican casserole brown  ground beef with taco seasoning. I usually just do one pound because i'm just cooking for the two of us.  That leaves us with a pan that feeds us both for dinner and a lunch so it will easily feed a family of four at dinner time! It would be super easy to double or triple this recipe if you ware going to be feeding a crowd!

Next you spread one can on refried beans into the bottom of an 8x8 pan or just whatever small baking dish you have!  Then on top of the refried beans layer your taco meet.  Then sprinkle some cheese on top of the taco meet.  I really like to use the mexican blend shredded cheese :). For the last layer spread a box of mixed up corn bread batter (or use your own recipe if you are an overachiever) on the top! 

Bake the casserole according to the corn bread recipe and about 15-20 minutes later you have a super yummy dinner! 

I hope this quick and easy meal inspires you to try it yourself! It is super simple! 

Mexican Casserole

Ingredients:

1 can refried beans

1lb Ground Beef, Browned

1 packet Taco Seasoning

1-1/2 C. Shredded Mexican Blend Cheese

1 mixed recipe Cornbread Batter

In small baking dish layer the Refried beans, Taco Seasoned Ground beef, Shredded Cheese.  Poor Cornbread mix on top and spread evenly to cover entire casserole. Bake per the cornbread recipe.  Enjoy! 

-K

Leave of absence

I want to apologize right now for the lack of love I have given to my poor 'ol blog.  I don't know where the Summer has gone but It absolutely was one of the busier summers I can remember.  I have realized that between working, being a mom, trying to keep up with our house, and trying to have a social life that my blogging time was really limited.  I think my lack of love to my blog has really been caused by the fact that I have a 7 month old.  I really think that there is something to be said and a little *cheers* should be had for all moms before me that were prepared for the 4-8 month time frame.  I love that little girl but I would be lying if I said I was prepared for this part of her first year.

Before Kate was born I did my best to read all of the best books, online sites,  and talk to all the other mommies I knew to try and be prepared to have a child.  It was so fun to learn about what the first couple months would be like.  I was absolutely prepared for the fact that I wasn't going to be sleeping, how much she was going to be eating, what her first milestones should have been, how to burp a baby, how to have tummy time, etc, etc.  What I was NOT prepared for what how the months between her being a baby and a small toddler were going to be.

Let me make a list of things that I honestly was not prepared for: teething, helpless ness, laughter, food issues, play time, dirty house, learning how to tag team.

First and foremost I was not prepared for the fact that she gets so frustrated with herself.  That sweet little chubby faced girl gets so frustrated when she mentally knows exactly what she wants but she just can not physically do it herself.  Her gift of being very smart is also her demise because her body can not keep up.  I absolutely hate the feeling when I am watching her try to pick up a puff and she just can't quite get it.  She is determined so she tries and tries until she just can't any more.  Although it is frustrating for her, one of my favorite things about this stage of her life is celebrating those small things.  We cheer like OU just won the national championship when she can hold her bottle by herself or get a puff into her mouth by herself.  I root her on when she is trying to crawl, We all laugh and cheer when she does something by herself that she had not be able to do before.  She is such a smiley little babe so it is obvious when she is proud of herself.  I love that about her.

The second things I was not prepared for was teething.  Honestly it has not been that bad so far *knock on wood* she has really done so great.  She now has a whopping four teeth that she is so in love with. She scoots her tongue around them and clicks them with her fingers and thinks they are awesome.  Even though her teething was not nearly as bad as some other kids I've heard of, this was really the first time where she didn't feel good and I hated that feeling.  I hated that there really wasn't much I could do to make her feel better and that I just had to wait it out.  There is no good reason for it but I absolutely felt guilty that she hurt.  We ran into this feeling also on a flight home from a vacation we recently took.  She was such a great flier and did amazing on the flights there but on the first flight home she got behind on clearing her ears on the decent and started screaming and crying so hard because her poor little ears hurt.  It was awful.  I was crying, she was crying, people felt bad for us, and there was nothing I could get her to do to make her feel better.  Not prepared for that at all.

The third thing that I was not prepared for was the little things about this point in her life.  I guess I had some dream baby in my head that would be able to entertain herself for longer than 10 minutes at a time by this age, but that isn't the case quite yet.  She absolutely is getting better at playing by her herself but I was not prepared that Jacob and I would have to tag team to get dinner done or to get the house picked up.  I don't mind this time at all, actually she is so much fun right now that I really love it, but not being able to keep our house picked up and picking sleep over dusted shelves is something that we are having to get used to.

Although there are some things that I was not prepared for, there are a ton of things I was unprepared for that are happy surprises.  It surprises me everyday how much Jacob and I love her more and more.  She surprises us how much she grows and how fast she learns.  Her smile is the most contagious thing on this planet and I am so thankful that I get to see it every morning and every night.

Overall the past few months have been great.  She is a rolling fool that loves to wiggle and move.  She "talks" to herself all day long, and she LOVES to eat.  That last one is obvious because she is a healthy 21 pounds and 28 inches long and 96th percentile overall.  Her favorite foods at the moment are sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, mangos, pears, apples, and oatmeal.  She loves those fun little puffies and is actively trying to learn how to feed herself which is super funny and exciting.  She is starting to look more like a toddler than a baby and i'm not really sure how I feel about that.  I am looking forward to fall and the holiday season with her this year and I think she is going to be so cute.  I really need to keep up with my blog and have it updated so you all can keep up with how fun she is!

Sorry this post is mostly me rambling but I have big plans for the blog's future.  I've been dabbling in some photography so that will be something fun I will start posting, I have a lot of pinterest projects that I plan on sharing, and I also can not wait to share more stories about being Kate's mom.  I also have design plans for the blog so be looking for a new look soon!!

-K

Mothers Day!

My first mothers day was awesome.  My day was really a weekend full of fun!  It started out Friday when My mother in law sent me flowers.  Having flowers at work just makes any girls day better.  Then friday night I had a good time hanging out with my parents and just having a laid back night.   Saturday morning my mom and I had breakfast and then went to a make up / mini facial special at the Chanel counter in Dillards.  We had mini facials, our make up done, had punch and snacks! It was a fun time.  Late saturday night we had my cousins graduation party and that was a fun time too! Sunday, Mothers day, was a great day.  My mom and I had a whole brunch planned for that mid morning and I couldn't wait! I had found these super cute mothers day printables that I was super excited about and they turned out so cute!

We ended up having a lovely brunch with my parents, Jacob's mom, my grandma, and my aunt and uncles family! We stuffed ourselves and then were sleepy the rest of the afternoon.  That night we took Jacob's mom out to the Melting Pot.  We Love love love the melting pot! Yes I realize you are cooking your own food but the atmosphere and the fact the food is really good is so fun! Misti had never eaten fondue (I know right?) so we took her for her mothers day present! I have been bugging jacob about getting the Melting Pot cook book for some time now and when we walked up to the table they had one waiting for me! woo hoo! I get to make all those fun recipes at home now! watch out for invitations to a fondue party soon! hehe! Any ways it was a great day and I felt really special.  

My sister sent me a video on friday night that was made by johnson and johnson (Here it is) and it said all of the right things that a new mom needs to hear.  All you want to hear is that you are doing okay.  During these past 4 months taking care of Kate when I have never taken care of a baby before it is really easy to doubt yourself and think you are not doing things right. It's true I have not done everything right but I look back and see that I have at least done OK.  As jacob says "she's alive".  I hope that I can continue to do the best I can raising her.  If you see a new mom out there tell her exactly that... She's doing just fine.  I promise you It will make her day. 

I can not thank my Husband and my parents enough for being so great to me on sunday, and every day.  Love you guys!

-K

Fathers Day Printables!

Most of you all know that I love to plan parties and events.  I love love love parties.  We have a monthly birthday party and one of my favorite parts of my job is helping plan them.  I was helping some girls at the office plan the birthday party this month and I made the cutest pennant banner! The colors are a robyns egg blue, brown, and white.  I love these colors together and I realized I really really love these colors for Father's day! This is a big fathers day because it is Jacobs first! I am so excited to throw him a big Fathers day party this year and I decided to make the banner from the birthday party into my fathers day banner! I ended up makeing a banner, cupcake toppers, place cards, and signs! I thought you all might want to throw your own fathers day parties too so I thought I would share my printables!! I LOVED making these so hopefully for future parties and events I can create more and share them with you!

so here they are! FREE!


{Free Fathers Day Printables!}

I will update with pictures after we have the party! woo hoo!

-K

3 months

Our baby girl is 3 months and 3 weeks old.  It is amazing how fast it has gone, but then again it seems like she has been here forever.  I really can't remember what my life was like without her.  I guess every parent feels this way, it just seems weird that she hasn't been around for very long.

In the past three months we have watched her grow from a tiny 7 pound 9 oz little tiny thing to the 15 pound 4 oz cute little chunkster that she is now.  It has really been amazing to see her come into her little personality.  We have always known (well for 3.5 months) that she was a pretty laid back baby.  We are so lucky that she sleeps trough the night, she really only cries when she is hungry (which is often) and when she is tired.  She loves to smile and is starting to constantly laugh which is oh so funny.  She recently started "standing up", or maybe the better explanation would be that she is bering weight on her legs and when she is standing Jacob tells her "look at this baby standing up" and she just laughs and laughs.  She thinks that waking up is one of the funniest things.  I walk into her room and look at her while she is laying in her crib and she gets this big smile on her face, picks her legs up towards her face, then squeals and slams them down on the bed.  She could probably do this for a good 30 minutes if I let her just lay there :).

Kate is growing so fast and with her growing and becoming more alert there are going to be some fun and challenging things that are going to come.  One of the more fun things we are trying to teach her is sign language.  Our families are all really into learning the language and we can not wait to be able to teach her.  I think learning another language will be really great for her and sign can come in handy.  It will allow us to communicate with her before she can speak, but it will also let us communicate in quite places, or without yelling across a park or the house.  Who knows, it might come in handy some day.  We also get to start solid foods too here in the next few months.  I am going to make her baby food so that will be a fun little challenge.  She recently rolled over from her tummy to her back which was a fun thing to watch.  I was afraid she was never going to be able to do that because she just wasn't a fan of being on her tummy.  She is getting stronger and more used to tummy time now so watching her learn to roll over and eventually watching her learn to crawl will be fun, but we can wait on the crawling part for a while.

Jacob and I are just so lucky to have her.  We had a strong love and Marriage before she came along, but she absolutely makes it stronger.  I know what most of you are thinking, yea yea we were only married for four months before we got pregnant, but we have been together for 7 years now and living together 4 of those so I think that counts :).  She brings so much joy to our lives.

Here is a sneak peak of her three month photo shoot that happened to be a mommy and me shoot for mothers day! Thanks to the amazing Angel Porch at Art and Soul Photography for the amazing photos! She's the best!

-K