New year, new me

Things have been so different this past month. It's like Lilah has unlocked this new energy that hadn't been unocked until she turned 1. This girl is learning things SO fast these days! She is eating new things and exploring new parts of the house. I LOVE one year olds. Her personality is so funny and SASSY! I feel like everything has fallen into place and Lilah and I have an awesome schedule right now. Before we were kind of going with the swing of things and taking things day by day, but now we are both thriving off our little schedule. It's a little different every day but it works for us. 

(This is January 1, 2018 driving out of the dealership with my new MOMMY car. Thanks Lilah!)

Every day goes a little something like this. I wake up when Lilah wakes up. We both get up and have breakfast. After breakfast we get ready and go out and exercise. Most days it's just finding a hill to walk on or just simply go on a little jog. Other days Lilah and I meet up with friends and the kids play while the girls sweat. After our work out Lilah is usually ready for a nap so we'll come home so Lilah can get her morning nap in. While Lilah naps I usually make myself breakfast and get ready for the day. Lilah usually sleeps about an hour so, by the time she wakes up, i'm usually done eating and getting ready and sometimes I even have a couple of extra minutes to clean the kitchen or vacuum. After Lilah wakes up, she eats and we go out and run errands. If we don't have errands to run we usually go upstairs play. After she is all done playing we'll read a book or two. Two books is usually her max right now. After we play we will either go to the park or get our sunshine in the back yard. Lilah has been loving her lady bug walker lately. After that, we usually sit down and eat a snack together. Her favorite right now is cut up strawberries. I try to teach Lilah something new during the day. Right now we are working on signing the word 'Cheerios' and learning the word 'PIE', which means foot in spanish. After eating she's usually a mess and has breakfast and lunch smeared on her so we go and have bath time. Around 4pm Lilah is ready for another nap. This is ME time and I'll do pretty much whatever I feel like doing. Sometimes it's just sitting on the couch and watching a show without someone changing the channel on me (cough, cough Lilah). Once Lilah wakes up, I'll  feed her food while I make dinner. She likes to take this time to make a mess in the kitchen. Sometimes it's the only way to get dinner done. Once dinner is done we'll play until daddy gets home and we all have dinner together. Lilah usually goes to sleep at 9pm and wakes up around 8:30 am. Once I put her to sleep I try not to go to sleep too late because I know there'll be a chatty girl waiting for me in the morning excited to start her day. 

This is our little routine these days and I am loving it. I feel like the past year, Lilah was changing so much that as soon as we were finally getting to a certain schedule, she would change and her napping schedule would be different or she would wake up at a different time. Now that she is a little older I think we are both thriving off our little schedule that we have. I have felt that I am much less exhausted and I have energy to do things and not just sit around with my eyes half open while a little girl plays (mostly because she gets into everything now)

Since I am not as exhausted as I used to be, I have loved making fitness part of my every day. I want to be healthy for both Lilah and myself. I feel so much better inside and out now that I have found this new passion for exercise. I feel like i'm such a better mommy. It all started with my friend telling me about a Podcast that she does called Moms who Know. I immediately became addicted to listening to her and all of the mommy and life tips that her guests provided. She inspired me to live a healthier life both physically and mentally. I also found a new love for podcasts. I always want to be listening to them now. It has made me love driving in the car and cleaning my house. I'll take any excuse to listen to a podcast now. After listening to her nutrition and exercise shows, I decided I wanted this year to be a healthier year for my family and I. Some of the things I have been working on are...

-Eating less meat and animal products. This was after watching a documentary about how food is grown and processed in the united states. It was such an eye opener of how foods are loaded with hormones and chemicals and processed to be shipped from other states or even countries! Also the way they process meat in the united states is really gross. I realized we were eating animal products every single day and eating meat almost daily with our meals. I have made it a goal to cook more vegetarian-like meals for my family. If we do have meat with our meals, it's a lot less. 

-Eating more fruits and vegetables that are organic and locally grown. This was also something I decided to do while watching a documentary. I realized that sometimes I would buy an apple or two and put it in the back of the refrigerator only to forget all about it. Weeks later I would find it behind  something still intact. Made me question what kinds of preservatives were in that apple that it looked almost brand new weeks later. It is definitely convenient but also a little scary. 

-Eating non-processed and Non-GMO foods. This is mostly because I am responsible for Lilah's health. I feel a little bit of pressure knowing that how healthy she is depends on me. Our grocery bill is a little more expensive looking for non-gmo fresh groceries but it's definitely worth it to me. I'm always a little scared having worked in a kid's Oncology floor and seeing so many kids these days have cancer. I don't know if all the junk that is being put into our foods is responsible for all of the diseases out there lately but I figured it doesn't hurt to eat foods that have a little less chemicals. 

-Learning new things by reading, watching documentaries and listening to podcasts. I realized I was wasting too much time doing mindless things on my phone and decided that I wanted to learn more. (Specially now that I have a kid who is going to ask a lot of questions in a couple of years) Anytime I sit down to watch a show now it's usually a documentary. If i'm sitting down I mind as a well learn something. Also, I don't listen to the radio anymore. I also feel it's time wasted when I could learn about presidential impeachment, nutrition, or if landing on the moon was a big conspiracy, hehe!

-Being stronger and getting in shape, and not a round shape. I had realized the last couple of weeks that I was getting irritated so quickly at little things that didn't matter. I think because of work I tend to get anxiety and stress so easily and it's something that I was bottling up and taking it out on people around me. I listened to this podcast about some Chinese theory of elements. As I was listening to this, I realized I identified to the wood element which 'catches fire quickly' meaning I am quick to anger. As the girl was talking, she said one of the things you could do to be a balanced would element was to exercise. I decided I wanted to be the happiest person for Lilah and be more patient and fun for her. This is when I decided to take on a little fitness journey which would help me not only to be more balanced but also to be more healthy. I don't know if this whole Elements thing is true but I do know that I have felt a much greater sense of peace and balance in my life making exercise a priority. I see that in the days that I exercise, I am in a better mood and am overall a happier person. Now that I have made working out a routine, I love it and look forward to getting outside and going on walks with Lilah. Some days we even get to go work out with friends (I'll work out while Lilah has a play date) Other days Lilah and I go walk with a group of friends and enjoy exercise and a good chat. Those days are my favorite. 

( I haven't really lost weight but I'm trying not to focus on that. What keeps me going is looking forward to being outside and feeling stronger)

One of my favorite things are napping with Lilah. She's become a good little sleeper. I love it when I get her out of her crib in the morning and slip her into my bed. I close my eyes just enough so that I can still see her and I see her looking at me laying there quickly so mommy can sleep. After a while she'll drink her bottle and massage her ears and her eyes will slowly start to close. Before I know it we are both sleeping in a little longer in the mornings. Sometimes she sleeps for another hour and a half with me in bed. I love it! We both wake up so happy having snuggled a little extra. I don't mind the extra hours of sleep in the morning either. 

Wednesdays are my favorite days. I get to go meet with a group of friends at church and we do a bootcamp class while the kids play in nursery with a baby sitter. After bootcamp class, one of the girls does a Music Makers class. Here is Lilah in her jammies since I had no idea about this class. This was our first time going and Lilah did pretty alright (She has gotten so much better in the last couple of weeks) Since this was our first day, Lilah was just crawling around touching all of the kids, hehe. Although she's a little young I love her socializing and learning things like not touching kids and sharing toys. My friend Rachel does such a great job! This is the first month that we have gone and Lilah has even learned to sit in a chair for almost the entire reading time! Her favorite is the imaginative play the kids get to do at the end. 

This girl has learned so many new things this month. It's like being a one year old has opened the door to all kinds of new learning opportunities. This month Lilah has learned..

-Sign language

-How to hide

-She has gotten so good at getting around and loves to use furniture to walk around

-How to feed herself with a fork

-Eating fruits and veggies on her own

-Reading books and doing the motions along with me

-Holds a pencil and colors 

-Problem solving

-Playing games on my phone (she pops the balloons on the screen)

-Also, she used to cry for a little bit when I would put her down for a nap but now she just gets comfortable in her bed and goes right to sleep. 

She LOVES snoozing in the car. 

Here is Lilah on the go. She LOVES her walker. At the beginning of the month she would get stuck and run into things. Now, she has learned to turn and get behind it to push it back and unstuck herself. I mean this girl is a learning machine! 

Lilah's favorite is taking things out and making messes. Her favorite is taking the tupperware out. I sometimes take off the baby lock so that she can open the door and take all the tupperware out, it's the only way to get a little cleaning or cooking done. 

She is such a happy girl in the mornings. It's crazy how I have this like mom instict where I can almost FEEL that Lilah is going to wake up. I usually wake up right before she wakes up so I can go get her while she's still laying in her bed chit chatting with herself. 

Also, this is my favorite face, ever!

I love when I come home from work and Lilah is just waking up. Last week she was waking up as I was getting ready to get into bed so she got to come into bed with us and snuggle for a little bit while daddy woke up. Her baby breath and smells are just so delicious these days! 

She went from crawling around to learning to sit in a chair this month. I mean, I certainly don't expect her to be sitting and listening right now, but she was not even slightly interested in sitting a couple of weeks ago. 

Her favorite is imaginative play. I feel like she has changed so much this past month and gotten so much taller. She does so well playing with kids. I started taking her to the nursery at church about 2 weeks ago (Because hello Chatty-Cathy..err I mean Lilah) so she knows how to play with kids. It is hard being the smallest one and not knowing how to walk yet. Makes getting trampled a little easier. 

I'm not super ready for her to start walking because let's face it, this girl gets into enough stuff BUT it would be nice for her to be able to get around a little better. Mike takes Lilah to the library on Mondays and sometimes they have toddler bootcamp where the kids walk around and play. I think she will enjoy that when she starts walking. 

We've been learning our colors during bath time. It'll be a while until she can even talk but I guess it's good for you to talk to your kids when they're little. So, I'll just keep talking to myself for now :)

Lilah has been taking extra naps lately. I didn't realize this until we were at the park the other day and I finally realized that she needed a nap, another nap that is. 

Her face, haha! Shortly after this we went home and she took a 2 hour nap. Guess she's going through a little growth spurt or something. 

The other day after our walk we stopped by the park. I put Lilah down the slide and she screamed bloody murder. 

I tried to go down with her and held her tight but she was still not having it. I guess she's afraid of slides now. Maybe she feels like she's falling or something...who knows.

She did like watching the kids play

I didn't take a lot of picture this month. I've mostly been doing videos since Lilah is always on the go and all the pictures on my phone come out blurry anyways. I'll try to take more picture next month specially since I don't really know how to store all of those videos of Lilah other than her instagram account. 

I'm really looking forward to this year. It has already been such a great month. I'm almost scared that things are TOO good. I'm crazy I know. Atleast I hope I am because I am loving life right now!