We're Moving!

Hi There!  The husband is threatening to unplug my computer any minute now.  What do I do with myself without my Macintosh?  Here's the thing: we're finally moving to our new house today and... uh... we won't have internet for a few days because, you know, to turn on internet at our new house they need to flip the switch.  I suspect the switch is perhaps located in the North Pole and the switch-flip guy is currently riding his dog sled across the thinning ice.  It's all very dangerous and time consuming business.  So, from now until we have internet at the new house, I urge you, my lovely readers, to follow our move on Intagram.  I'll be uploading pictures constantly this weekend!  My username is thestanfordwife.  Duh!  See you there and have a good weekend!  

Stressed Out

An extremely stressful week it has been.  Ya, I try to talk like Yoda when I get stressed out with the hopes that it will give me some positive energy.  Despite the stress, it has been a memorable day because someone tiny started walking today!  For the longest time, Ethan has been walking all around the house with one hand on a wall and sometimes a piece of furniture, but this afternoon he took his very first steps without holding onto anything!  He was able to take at least three steps before he falls and he kept doing it again and again.  Needless to say I was absolutely jubilant!

Thank you little pumpkin for making mama's day.  I love you too.

Prints for E's Bedroom

I am shopping for art/wall prints to put in E's bedroom.  Here are some of my favorites so far...

Link

Link

Link

More link

Link

And then I found this cute one for I'm not sure where yet...

Yet another link

But THIS goes in the laundry room if the hubby approves...

And finally... link

Anyway, I'm just grateful for Etsy tonight.  

Little T.

Jake has a pet name for Ethan that he calls him by whenever he's being naughty.  He calls him Little T, as in Little Trouble. In the beginning he started calling him Big T without fully understanding that he himself is the Big T and that his rightful heir should, therefore, be given the title Little T.  Little T is up to lots of no good during the day when he's home alone with mama, but what are you supposed to do with such a cute and curious T?  I usually smile, sometimes laugh, but always take a picture for Big T to see what he had missed out on that day and for myself to look back on so that I can charge the little for all the damages (both physically and mentally) he has caused when he turns 18.

Care Card 2012

Harken, all ye fellow Phoenix Metropolitan area citizens!  Have you ever heard of the Care Card?  I just found out about it today and I'm so excited to share!

The Care Card is an annual fundraiser organized by The Board of Visitors in the Phoenix Metro area.  This is their 13th year doing the Care Card program and this year's recipient of all the net proceeds from the Care Card sales price is UMOM New Day Centers which is the largest homeless shelter for families in Arizona.  How does the Care Card work?  After you've purchased the $50 Care Card you will receive a 20% discount at all participating retailers between the 19th and the 28th of October.  There are over 600 participating retailers this year and here are just some of the stores from the very long list of participants:

7 For All Mankind, Anthropologie, Bath & Body Works, California Pizza Kitchen, The Children's Place, Coach, The Container Store, Gap, Häagen Dazs, J.Crew, Jimmy Choo, Kate Spade New York, Madewell, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, Restoration Hardware, Sur La Table, Tory Burch, West Elm, and Williams-Sonoma

I don't know about you, but with a new house to fill and with the holidays sneaking up on me I know I could use a 20% discount at many of these stores.  What I love even more is that our community is all coming together for a good cause.  So what do you say?  Let's get together for a shopping trip :)

Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight

Not long after I posted my two cents on the Nook Simple Touch (old Nook) on this blog and proclaimed how much I love it, the hubby surprised me with an upgrade: the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight (new Nook).  I've been using it for two whole months now and I'm absolutely head-over-heals heart-throbbingly in love.

The new Nook possesses everything I love about the old Nook and more.  First and foremost, they changed the on/off button in the back and man it's a million times better!  Thank you Barnes and Noble because that old button was, simply put, total garbage and it was starting to drive me up the wall.  Next, I love the glow light.  It makes reading so much easier when everyone else is sleeping!  The battery life is still awesome.  I don't need to charge it any more often than the Nook Simple Touch.  What I usually do is to let it charge when I put new books on the device and the new Nook has been holding up just fine in between charges.

When I compared the two devices side by side, I did notice that the text on the old Nook looks a little darker and have more "pop", but the new Nook still looks awesome.  One thing I wish Barnes and Noble would do differently is the "software" on the device.  I wish that you could organize your bookshelf better by putting them in different "folders".  Maybe there is a way and I just don't know about it?

The bottom line is that I love my Nook with GlowLight and I would recommend it to any devoted book reader.

The Very Scary Two-Headed Ethan

Happy Almost Halloween!

Leftover Grocery Money Project

I'm going to keep it short tonight because it has been decided that it's chick-flick night.  The above picture was taken by the hubby when we went grocery shopping this weekend.  I wanted to share it on the blog so I thought I might as well share some of my thoughts on buying groceries as well.

My dad has always taught me that there are two parts in being financially successful in a family.  In our family, the first part rests solely on the husband's shoulder and that is to have a good income, which includes, first of all, investing in a good education that will enable you to find a good job in the future to provide for the family.  I think it's obvious that Jake has been doing an excellent job at that.  The second part is to spend that money wisely, and that is mainly my responsibility.

I personally don't think it the best strategy to go all Great Value if you know what I mean.  There is a certain amount of truth in the saying "you get what you pay for".  Sure you pay the least out of pocket by buying the cheapest things but sometimes with just a tiny bit of increase in price you get a substantial increase in quality and that's my goal: to increase our standard of living by spending the same amount of money.

Anyway, I know I'm talking nonsense but I've been learning lots of different ways to save us money on  our grocery bill and it has actually been really fun!  I've been able to save us more and more money from groceries and have decided to use the leftover money in our budget for little projects each month to improve our "standard of living", if you will.

This month, I am going to expand and restock our first aid kit.  My grandmother was staying with my parents a while ago.  She fell in the bathroom and got hurt pretty bad.  They ended up having to call an ambulance.  After that horrifying experience, my mom asked me if I have a well-stocked first aid kit.  I'm ashamed to admit that our first aid kit is pretty pathetic.  Its main occupancy is Mr. and Mrs. Bandaids and their various-sized children.  With a busy one-year-old in the house I feel it's time to upgrade it.  Here is a link to Red Cross with a list of recommended supplies that I find useful.

That was real short, wasn't it?  Gotta go now, talk tomorrow!

He Still Hates Grass

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you had a good weekend.  We went to the park this weekend.  It was a beautiful day with actual cool breezes and we decided to go out and absorb as much awesome weather as we could.  I decided to put Ethan on the grass at the park for a few photos and, don't let the above picture fool you, he still hasn't gotten over his distaste toward grass.  Because I feel like reminiscing, and also for the sake of our readers who weren't following our private blog before this blog existed, below is a picture of E touching grass for the first time.  He was five months old.  

And this is what the thirteen-month-old Ethan did when I first put him down:

I believe he was trying to minimize his contact with the grass.

Every square-inch matters!

And then I reminded him that he could stand up 

so that his legs wouldn't have to touch the grass.

I think he thought it a good idea because he immediately tried standing up.

But he refused to push himself up like he usually does

because ahh! there's grass shooting up from the ground!

So this is what it looks like 

when the thirteen-month-old Ethan tried to stand up without pushing onto the ground with his hands:

Uuup!

Uuuuuuuup!

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuup!

I was laughing so hard at this point I was sure everyone at the park was staring at me.

Here he's thinking please don't touch me, grass.

And here he is trying to stand up a second time:

Don't they say third time's a charm?

And I'm not even sure what caption I should put for this photo but he sure looks cute:

He then decided that something must be funny because mommy was laughing so hard.

At last he must have figured out that the sacrifice had to be made 

so he put his little hands on the ground and pushed himself up.

Yay!

I hope these pictures brought a smile to your face tonight :)

And have a very happy Tuesday tomorrow!

Jingle Bells for Dinner

When I'm up for something new and exciting and a little but exotic to make for dinner, I go to Trader Joe's.  This brussel sprouts stalk was laying in the produce section and was calling out to me when we were in the store.  I picked it up, held it vertically up-side-down and started singing Jingle Bells.  We followed the recipe on the tag that it came with (brush with 1/4 cup olive lil and 3/4 cup maple syrup, microwave for 4 minutes and then bake for 45 minutes) because I didn't think that very many options would come up if I google brussels sprouts stalk recipe.  I could be wrong though since one should never underestimate the power of the almighty search engine.  The brussels sprouts were good.  It's surprising how filling they are!

I hope you all have a great weekend!  The weather and temperature is so beautiful here in Phoenix.  We're thinking about venturing into some outdoorsy activities!