where the heck did January go?

Oh January, you have come and gone so quickly. I'm happy to say that in our little corner of the world we haven't strayed to far from our words for the year. I know that typically people have already abandoned their resolutions by this point, but we're still holding steady. GO TEAM!!

In other (yet semi-related) news, Mr. Awesome and I have signed up for this madness...

It's a race with all sorts of obstacles along the way, including but not limited to, jumping through fire and wading through mud. Even though it's not until this summer we are super excited and I'm even more excited to be doing it with my Mr. I'm thinkin' we need to dress-up, or at least make some awesome t-shirts!

We also welcomed a recent addition to the fam, and since I am particularly fond of naming inanimate objects I should reveal that her name is Reba...our new camera. Reba is lovely and kinda has a crush on Miss K (which I completely understand). Here are a couple from our first day out and about...

I feel that these pictures make two things very obvious:

1. Reba is a super sweet step-up from my old point and shoot

and

2. Miss K is wearing that hat until it falls apart!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend...HAPPY MONDAY!

what i do to fight the winter blues

One of my favorite things these days (besides the soundtrack to Glee) is picking out Miss K's clothes in the morning. All the bright colors organized by size, so sweet and two rows deep, is my newest favorite pick-me-up. It may have something to do with the fact that she looks adorable in just about everything regardless of whether it matches or not. And even though it takes all of two minutes before it's covered in drool she can still pull it off with that killer smile of hers.

confidence

I can currently hear Mr. Awesome and Miss K upstairs...they're singing, well the Mr. is singing and I'm sure Miss K is gumming it up. She's loving having her daddy home on a Monday, she's been cheesing at him all day. In just a little while they'll be heading off to the mall to do some running around and I'll be left alone with my thoughts!! I'll be sitting right here due to the fact that I have a battle to tend to. You see for almost two years now I have been working on a young adult novel called Swept. A year and a half ago I went to a writers conference and had interest from several agents and some great feedback and it lit a fire under me for all of a month before I was plagued with fear and insecurity:

"everyone and their mom wants to write a book"

"what makes your book any different"

"you'll never be able to finish it...let alone get it published"

"you don't have time for that...you have [a baby, a home, a husband, a dog, an unruly head of hair] to take care of"

"you should probably just check your email and Facebook twelve million times that would be much more productive"

So I have to ask, what is it in us that makes us afraid to succeed? To extend ourselves and take risks? I am so fearful and scared to death of failing that Mr. Awesome has slowly been trying to push me off the cliff, taking those risks for me. He's gone so far as to not allow me to work until I've given 110% in pursuing this dream of mine. So I sit here and look at pages and pages of notes, pictures I've gathered for inspiration, character descriptions and difficult plot points, chapter after chapter and I think: One of the words we picked for this year was CONFIDENCE!!

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (or creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise never have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have believed would have come his way." - W.H. Murray

I saw this quote on a friends website today and spoke to me in regards to my plans for the year. It inspired such confidence in me that I had to share it...but of course now I must get back to my book:)

Have a wonderful Monday!!

because we've definitely been lacking in the pictures department

first my laptop was out of commission due to an unfortunate passive aggressive moment on my part and then my camera went on hiatus (later to be found in the depths of my diaper bag) now that everything is back in working order here's some Miss K awesomeness...

it really is amazing how big they get and how quickly that happens...I've already had to say farewell to some of my favorite outfits when I realized that she couldn't straighten her legs (technically it was when Mr. Awesome who realized she couldn't straighten her legs because I felt she could straighten them just enough).

So because they grow so fast and because one of my personal words for 2011 is DOCUMENT I've made a plan to keep track of all these milestones in several ways...

1. 52 Week Project

over at Young House Love

I absolutely love this idea by John and Sherry and hope to have the perseverance to make it through the whole year! However, since I didn't start with her first week I'm going to just document every week of 2011 with a weekly photo. To make it even more awesome my bestie is doing the same thing so each of us will just be buying two yards of fabric a month (instead of four) and at the end of the year each of our girls will get a quilt and the grandparents will get an awesome coffee table book. Booyah!!

2. Month in Review

Fiskars

What can I say I love a good template and I am a frequent reader of Kelly Purkey's blog. Her clean, simple aesthetic really appeals to me so I'm super excited about this project as well. Since I can guarantee that I take at least ten pics a month this will serve as an easy way to document our year along the way. And while Miss Purkey does hers as a year in review, I hope to finish each two page layout at the end of each month.

3. 3 People 12 Times

over at Tara Whitney

Go check this project out!! Last February Tara decided that she loved getting pictures of all six of her family members together and so she made a plan to, once a month, make sure that they got a family portrait. The results are just awesome and she actually made it through the whole year. I chose this project because after looking through the last 5ish months of pictures I only have a couple pictures of my whole little family together. What a bummer! But not this year people...I'm all over this:)

HAPPY MONDAY!!

new year...new plot to take over the world!!

Just kidding.

(although I would like to have a lair...it wouldn't necessarily need to be evil)

In all seriousness though, for 2011 Mr. Awesome and I have decided on several words that we want to shape our year...

DISCIPLINE

because let's be honest, everyone could use a little more and we are no exception. We could definitely have a little more discipline when it comes to our budget. For example, living a block away from all those Thursday, Friday, Saturday night hot spots is absolutely no excuse to blow our eating out budget (x10). Also now that Miss K can do her comedy routines in the gym daycare I'll will no longer be able to claim her as my excuse for missing a workout.

CONFIDENCE

confidence or the lack of plays out in so many areas of my life it's crazy. I really hope to embrace and have confidence in the roles that God has put me, particularly as a wife and mother. I also know that having body confidence carries a huge weight too. Now that I have Miss K I want her to grow up with a mother who has a healthy body image, who isn't constantly picking herself apart or always aspiring to some unrealistic ideal. How I see myself has stopped me from really enjoying a lot of things in life, that is something I intend to change.

FOLLOW THROUGH

this is huge for me because I am an idea person, a heat of the moment person, an all systems go person but rarely a follow through person. There is evidence all around our house of half-finished projects, there is evidence all over this very computer of half-written plots and story treatments and there are notebooks upon notebooks of dreams and plans and designs of things I have wanted and still want but I haven't made the steps to get me there. This year some of those things (big and small) will be coming to fruition.

EXTRAORDINARY

because who doesn't want to be extraordinary!!

image via We Heart It