Life Lately.

I feel like life is passing me by at a million miles a minute lately and I've had no time to even sit down to think let alone blog. I really would like to get back in to sharing things (just doing this post made me realize just how much has happened since the last time I really blogged!). I happened to have a couple minutes of free time yesterday because Mason had a little dental procedure (see below), so I thought I'd do a little life catch up post.

Celebrating: Valentine's Day soon! But most recently, Hanukkah and Christmas!

Drinking: Follow the Sun from Karl Strauss. I met some of my Instagram turned real life friends at Disneyland back in December and we hit up the beer cart. I'm not usually a beer drinker (when given the option), but since everyone else was (peer pressure at it's finest lol), I decided to also. And what do you know? I found a new favorite beer! I don't like many, but this one was good. Unfortunately for me though, they ONLY sell it AT Disneyland and AT the Karl Strauss restaurants. So, when I happened to have a work lunch at Karl Strauss a couple weeks ago, I said good bye to my co-workers and picked up a growler of it for Seth and I!

Feeling: like an adult because I'm in love with our new washing machine and drier. Ha! Oh the joys of homeownership. But seriously, they are full size (non-stackable!) and work like a dream! I think my favorite function might be "wrinkle-release". Not that I use it often or anything... 

Losing: two teeth! A few days in to Thanksgiving break, I noticed that Mason had 2 adult teeth growing behind his bottom front 2 baby teeth. Cue the freaking out and adding up orthodontist cost in my mind for the future. Luckily for me (and my wallet), the first baby tooth became loose shortly thereafter and fell out the following week. The second tooth became loose slightly before Christmas and fell out on Christmas Eve! I sure hope the Tooth Fairy and Santa didn't have a run in on Christmas Eve. But just to be safe, we left out some extra cookies. 😉

Tooth #1

Tooth #2

Meeting: our neighbors! We met our upstairs neighbors and our across the way neighbors on almost the first day we moved in. One set was helping the other set unload a new couch that they bought and we happened to be coming home at the same time, so Seth offered to help unload. They were super nice and we were super grateful to have such wonderful neighbors. Then a few days later, my nieces were over riding bikes with Mason and we met a sweet family that lives around the corner. This sweet couple has 2 kids, slightly younger than Mason, a boy and a girl, and Mason and the boy hit it off immediately. They played rockets together, rode bikes together, and then the little boy insisted that we go to the park with them (we did!). I can't wait to see the boys' interactions as time goes on!

To say that we love our new house and neighborhood would be an understatement!

Mourning: the loss of Seth's Grandma. We lost our sweet Bubbe on New Year's Eve 2017. She was 98 years young. Even though I only knew her for a short period of time, I feel honored to have known her for the past 9 years. She got to see her grandson get married. She got to see her great grandson's birth. And she got to celebrate countless holidays and birthdays and other special occasions with us. She will be greatly missed.

Obsessed with: wearing sunglasses! I mean, I can't say that I hate it. Look how cute he is!

Recovering from: said dental procedure mentioned above. How is it that kids bounce back SO FAST? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm SUPER grateful, but man. If I had had the same thing that Mason had done, I'd probably still be down for the count today (and not back to normal a mere 3 hours after the procedure was done). So, what did he actually have done? Well call us bad parents, but Mason had 3 cavities (upped to 5 (eek!) on the day of the filling) that he needed filled and needed to be sedated for (he HATES the dentist with a passion and there's NO WAY he would have sat still to let them fill them without sedation). I mostly blame myself for not forcing him to brush better and not forcing him to use fluoride toothpaste sooner (he liked eating it (gross) so I was worried about him eating the fluoride, so we used the non-fluoride version for a little too long). When we went to the dentist for his regular cleaning back in June 2017, we discovered the first 3 cavities, but at that time, we didn't have dental insurance for him. The cost... you don't even want to know. So I put it off as long as possible, and we had it scheduled for January 8th, but then he got a cold, so we just had it done yesterday. THANK GOODNESS we had insurance for this because after all was said and done, all we needed to pay was $50 out of pocket to the dentist and the sedation fee (it's a lot). Let's just say, we will be brushing teeth A LOT better now and in to the future. There is no way I am paying that kind of money again for cavities to be filled in BABY TEETH. 

Riding: Mason's new bike and scooter. Mason got a new (big boy!) bike for Hanukkah and a new scooter for Christmas and now that we finally have an amazing outdoor area to ride them, he's been all about it! He asks to go outside to ride one or the other at least once a day and we try to get him outside as often as possible.

Thinking of: funny letter board quotes. Don't think I forgot about #letterfolkliz in all the chaos! 😉

Traveling to: Aulani and Kauai. Yep. Back in October/November. But really other than that, we haven't been going anywhere. I'd LOVE to recap our trip, but it would seriously be picture overload. If anyone's interested, let me know in the comments below. If not, I might just recap anyway if I have some free time. Aulani was AMAZING!

Trying: to get out of my meal rut. I swear with the crazy busy weeks and weekends we've been having, I just throw together a meal plan with whatever I can think of that is easy. Which, sadly, has been involving more pasta and frozen meals than I care to admit. I need to get back on the healthy meal planning train and get us back on track.

Unpacking: boxes! Still. We moved 4 days before Christmas and then it was one thing after another, weekend after weekend, and we FINALLY had a free-ish weekend this past weekend, so we're down to about 5 total boxes. Most of them are pictures that I'm still trying to figure out where I want hung, so these boxes might stick around for a while.

And that's life lately!