New Products

I've been wanting to do a post about all the new awesome Scentsy products for awhile. With Eli's birthday party, getting ready to go out of today, and then going out of town I never had time to do it, but this morning when I woke up I decided, today is the day!

If you AREN'T familiar with Scentsy check out my website and look at the awesome products. I started selling Scentsy because I fell in love with the products and I still stand behind that love, in fact it has grown. I know I'm a little biased but I don't understand how anybody could not have Scentsy in their house. It just makes sense!

If you ARE familiar with Scentsy you know of their awesome scents and warmers, but now they have expanded their product line and have included shower gels, creams, body lotions, creams, body spray and more! Check it out here! These products are so great and bring some of your favorite Scentsy fragrances to a whole new level! My favorite right now is coconut lemongrass!


Also, I wanted to show you this adorable guy Wellington the Duck.
He is only $22.50 this month and that includes the scent pak that makes him smell so good! Or check out any of the other buddies. Eli is getting one in his Easter basket!

**I do have a special incentive for anybody who places an order before the end of the month (within in the next two days!!!!) I can't share on here what it is but email me at MeganTree84{at}gmail{dot}com for details.

And as always if you ever have Scentsy questions just email me! I can go on and on about how Scentsy has been such a blessing for our family. My team has grown a lot over the past year and it is so neat to see people plug into Scentsy and watch as their own business grows.

Don't miss out on these great products!!!

A New Relationship

A couple of months ago I received a letter in the mail that changed the course of my life for the time being.

It was a letter from my hair stylist telling me and Luke that she had decided to quit doing hair and was pursing another career.

I had many emotions going through my mind but most of all I felt like I had just gotten dumped by my long time serious boyfriend who had marriage potential.

How was I supposed to move forward from here?

I had invested so many years, time, hair colors, and my deepest secrets while sitting in that chair for hours upon hours. I was just supposed to accept that it was all over??

Throughout the next couple of days I went through the various levels of grief. At first I was in denial and kept thinking she would change her mind, then I was just angry.

Angry. Mad. How could she do this to me? How DARE she pursue her own desires and goals for life. WHAT ABOUT MY HAIR?!?!

And not only was I upset but Luke was equally upset. Well maybe not equally but have you seen the man's hair?? It took years to find someone who could tame that mane and NOW SHE ABANDONED US.

I mentioned that I haven't had my hair cut or colored since August and part of the reason is because I had no clue where to go. I was sort of frozen, I asked around and people were either too far away or too expensive. Plus I just wanted my old girl back.

It was too soon to go to anybody else, my heart was still healing.

But today for the first time since August I finally went and tried somebody new.

It was awkward at first as we got to know each other.

Plus I was totally sizing her up. Do you judge your hair stylist by their own hair? How unfair is that? But I totally do it. She had cute hair so she passed my test.

And by the end of a successful hair cut and color I told her "I'll see you next time" which was code for "I think this relationship is going to work"

I'm relieved that I finally found a hair stylist. And yes I have bigger problems than finding a hair stylist but this is my current focus. I get fixated on things and dwell on them forever. It's a healthy way to live.

So here's to hopefully many happy years with my new hair friend. My hair is ready.

Traveling

Several weeks ago I posted a desperate plea asking people to please give me traveling tips for traveling with a baby.

I was really nervous about boarding a flight with Eli. Flying makes me super nervous as it and then add an unpredictable baby boy and I thought I was going to lose my mind.

But surprise, surprise all went really well. I stayed up all night worrying for nothing.

And I literally stayed up all night worrying, I tossed and turned and got 1 hour of sleep the night before our flight. Awesome.

Because I have now traveled once with a toddler on an hour and 10 minute flight I consider myself an expert in this area and thought I would share some tips and tricks that worked for us.

Car Seat
One major thing I was worried about was whether to take a car seat or rent one. After doing some research I decided to take one, so before we left I purchased a J.L. Childress Ultimate Car Seat Bag from amazon to put our car seat in so that it would stay protected when we checked it.

This thing was AMAZING. I have to admit I thought it would look a bit silly wearing it as a back pack and because I'm so cool (ahem, vain) I decided Luke would be the only one who would wear this thing in the airport. But by the middle of the trip I was sporting that bad boy around the airport. I did feel like a turtle but it was light and fit perfectly on my back. I loved it!

I didn't get a pic of us in the airport with it on but here I am testing it out on a day when I was clearly looking HOTT.

Stroller
I knew I wanted to take a stroller and was planning on taking our travel system Chicco stroller but at the last minute I decided to ask a friend if I could use her Maclaren stroller. Praise the Lord I asked her because this thing was amazing. Now I can't imagine taking my big huge stroller through the airport. We just wheeled the stroller to our gate and checked it there. Then when we got off the plane it was setup and waiting for us. I was pretty impressed considering nobody in the entire travel party I was with could figure out how to open the stroller the whole trip. The flight package men must have a lot of experience with strollers.

Also, the stroller has to go through the secruity xray machine with your carry on bags, and it would have been a pain to try and get that big stroller up there. Now I want a Maclaren they are pretty awesome.

Airplane Entertainment
Eli loves the Ella's baby food so I made sure to bring lots of packs of those so he could suck on them. I brought four and he sucked them all down before the plane even took off. I was kicking myself wishing I would have brought him more. Next time we fly I will bring like 20 of these.Eli did pretty good for most of the trip. There were times he started screaming or fussing so I quickly showed him a snack and he sat content gobbling it up. Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you to stuff your child's mouth with food the entire trip because that probably isn't the best parenting thing to do, but I will tell you it worked for us.....

I also made sure to pack an extra outfit and lots of diapers and wipes in my carry on but luckily we didn't need them.

Overall it was very smooth and I realized that I stressed about nothing (per usual). Minus the flight home when we went through storms and I was pretty positive I was going to die at that moment. Have I mentioned I HATE flying?

That's all I can think of for now but if you have any questions let me know!

Oh, one more thing, Eli didn't have to take off his shows when we went through security. That was a big question I have (I obsess over small things), I'm not sure what the cut off age is but he didn't have to take his off.

A little catch up

I took a little "spring break" from blogging. So here is a bit of a catch up as to what we've been up to:

1. I'm still highly addicted to One Tree Hill and might need to seek therapy once I'm all caught up. Not looking up spoilers online has been the best self control I've ever exhibited. I'm going to miss the characters so much. Like a little too much.

2. I was pulled over by two cops in the span of two weeks. I'm now going to driving school. Wish me luck.

3. I'm finally getting my hair done this week for the first time since August. AUGUST. That is a record for me. My hair is now pretty much my natural color. All I can say is praise the Lord that ombre hair is in style. And if I continue to get speeding tickets I won't be able to get my hair done again until next August.

4. Last week Luke, Eli and I went to Colorado with Luke's family. It was a wonderful and relaxing time. Eli is such a good traveler. I will put together a post about traveling with a baby since I'm pretty much an expert now. Duh.

5. I finally took down most of the decorations from Eli's birthday party, but I have to admit some are still up. It was like the longest preparation for a birthday party ever, I can't take them all down just yet.

6. I became more and more addicted to Easter candy. I'm not proud of this. But I am candy satisfied.

7. I committed to blogging every single day and then failed and failed.

8. I committed to giving up Coke and I failed and failed.

9. I decided to quit committing to things.

10. I do have lots of things to blog about (nothing exciting) so I hope to be back to writing this week.

Our Little RockStar is One!!

I've mentioned before that Eli loves all things music. He has several guitars he plays (including his dad's real guitar) he sings along during worship on Sundays and when a good tune comes on he likes to boogie down.

So when I got the idea to do a "Rock Star" first birthday it seemed perfect.....and it was!

I don't want to bombard you with pictures, but I'm going to. Sorry :-)

Entrance:

For a "guest book" I had guests sign a guitar that Eli can keep. Everybody left a sweet message for him.

I didn't know what to do for party favors so I decided to just do a bunch of different "rock star" themed items and then people could pick and choose what they wanted:

The food table:

Other random party pics:

Details:
Eli's Shirt: SheSheMade
ALL print materials design: Kelsey

Me

After doing this post and getting lots of comments from current readers I realized I have a lot of new readers around here.

Many people mentioned that they didn't start reading until I was pregnant or after Eli was born, so I thought I would do a little "about me" post.

1. Luke is the only person I've dated and is also the only person I've kissed. I'm a one man woman.

2. I always thought and planned to be a full time stay at home mom but right now I enjoy my part-time working schedule. Who knows what the future holds, but right now this really works for us.

3. I do not like the dark. At all. Sometimes when I wake up at night out of habit I turn on the TV for light. Luke does not like this about me.

4. I pick all the seams out of my shirts, with my fingernails. I try and stop myself on nice shirts but sometimes it just happens. I've found myself picking the seams out of Eli's shirts. I may need a 12 step program for this.

5. I hate milk. The only way I'll even half way put it in my mouth is with cereal and I still pour it off my spoon before putting the spoon in my mouth.

6. Titanic is my favorite movie and you BETTER BELIEVE I will be in theaters in April to see it in 3D. Maybe more than once.

7. I always have trouble deciding if I want to go light or dark with my hair. It's one of the biggest dilemmas of my life. I currently can't decide what to do AGAIN. I've even blogged about it here.

8. I consider my relationship with Christ the most important, vital part of my life, however I struggle with having a consistent devotional time everyday.

9. Before having Eli I was convinced my two lung collapses were much more painful than contractions. I stand corrected. I stand corrected.

10. I am a total night owl. Some nights I stay up till 1:00 or 2:00 only to wake up around 6:00 or 6:30 with Eli and I'm not even tired throughout the day. I can get so much done between 10:00 and 1:00.

So that's a little about me. If you are new welcome to my life, you will get a WIDE assortment of nonsense on this blog!

I'm not even going to tell you how long I looked for a current picture of me alone, it doesn't exist, I'm always behind the camera, so I give you this one with my sweet bubba-boo from December, sans makeup. That's just how we roll around here.

Love.

Last Friday was Eil's first birthday. I wrote this post, and then in all the craziness of flu, birthday cancellation and birthday reinstating I forgot to post it.

I promise I'm not trying to drag Eil's birthday out forever.

So here is the post I wrote last week with intentions of posting it on Eli's birthday.

Longest intro into a post EVER:

How is it possible that it has already been a year?

But at the same time, how is it possible that Eli has only been in our lives for a year?

Hasn't my sweet Eli been a part of my life forever? When Luke and I decided to commit our lives together before God and our family wasn't Eli already there in some way?

It's hard to remember not knowing Eli. I have so many memories without him of course, but I feel like I always knew his face, his smile, his love.

But I didn't. In fact I had no idea what it felt like to love as a mother until he was born, and even then I didn't fully understand what it meant to love my own child. As I held him for the first time wondering what the heck happened to all that hair that I was sure was in there I began falling in love with him.

When that baby was placed in my arms a year ago I fell love, but I did not know how much that love would grow. Each day over these past 365 days that I have spent with Eli I have learned how my love grows. How it changes.

A love that grows when that first smile is witnessed.
A love that explodes when the first laugh is heard
A love that is unconditional when I'm so tired all I want to do was sleep but I now put someone else's needs before my own
A love that overflows when watching my child get so excited, squeling,when his father, my husband walks through the door
A love that rejoices when that dirty dipaer finally comes after days of no dirty diapers
A love that hurts when my baby is sick and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

I loved him the day he was born but I still had so much to learn about love.

Sometimes I can't believe I've been given this opportunity. Did I feel prepared to be a mother? no. Do I feel prepared for the challenges that being a mother will bring in the future? Heck. No.

But its a learning expereince, learning about him, learning about me, learning how to do this marriage thing admist this parenting thing, and learning what love is all about. I'm beginning to think I had no idea.

I've learned a lot this past year, but most of all I've learned about love. Loving Eli, loving Luke as now not only my husband but as my son's foather, and even loving myself and not being so hard on myself while trying to figure out what it means to be a mother.

I can't believe its already been 365 days since I first "met" Eli. Oh how I can't even imagine my life without him now.

The Party That Almost Wasn't

Today was Eli's birthday party and it was a great time. I get super uber weird in party planning situations which is exactly why I almost didn't even have a party, but I knew I would regret it if I didn't do it.

It was a fun time and so many friends and family came to celebrate Eli's first year of life!

But the party almost didn't happen.

All week Eli was sort of not acting like himself. Not enough to make me think he was sick, but enough to make me think he was teething. He acted more tired than usual and a tiny bit cranky but nothing horrible.

Fast forward to Wednesday. My best friend and her son drove up from another town to come help me get ready for the party. We decorated, prepared food and got almost everything ready. She noticed Eli was cranky but we both decided it was simply teething. He was getting three new teeth this week so it made sense.

That night when he went to bed I took his temp and he had a fever. Again, teething was the culprit in our minds.

The next morning Eli had his one year appointment. I mentioned all the symptoms to the doctor he thought it was maybe his ears, so we checked his ears and no infections. He then suggested we give him a flu swab to see if he had the flu. He thought he absolutely did not have it by how normal he was acting, and I thought there was NO WAY he had it but it was better to check.

And wouldn't you know. His flu test came back positive. Eli had the flu.

Here I was sitting in my fully decorated house, looking at all the food that was ready and watching my baby who was acting completely normal and knowing I needed to cancel the party. I was so upset. A little too upset. Kind of ridiculous now looking back. But I had put so much effort into making this day special for Eli and our guests and I was so sad to think about canceling it.

Plus I felt like the word mom EVER that my child had the flu and I had no idea. Zero.

Anyways, to make a really long and dramatic story short, Eli's last fever was onWednesday night and the nurse and doctor told me as long as he hasn't had a fever in 24 hours we were good to go. I continued to monitor him and he never got a fever again after Wednesday night.

So after LOTS of disinfecting our home and calls to invitees I moved the party to Sunday. Just to give Eli one more day between the flu and the party (even though he was perfectly normal by this point).

I'm fairly positive he had the flu all week and we caught it on one of the last days (if not the last day). Worst. Mom. Ever.

Friday afternoon we were back in party mode after 24 hours of thinking it was going to be canceled.

Sunday morning arrived, and we were ready to go. The last hting to do was to get the cupcakes and Eli's smash cake.

And then it happened. As Luke was carrying the amazing smash cake he dropped it in the parking lot.

Concrete.

Pavement.

Dirty. Nasty. Parking Lot.

For the first time in my life I was speechless. I had no words. It was like slow motion as I watched the cake fall and then watched my husband TRY AND PUT IT BACK TOGETHER.
My amazing cake-maker was able to whip something up for us just in time for the party. Luke was so thankful.

Forever our children will wonder why dad isn't allowed to touch their birthday cake. FOREVER.

So we ended up having our party a full day later and with a revised cake but it was amazing. We had over 31 people in our home, loving on Eli, visiting, and eating the goodies. We are blessed with family and friends that love our son.

I can't wait to show all the pictures from the party, here are some sneak peaks: Happy first birthday to our son Eli. Fastest year of our lives.