Cruz Lately

While we had the best time at our adult only resort, little man was always in my head.

When I saw the ocean, I thought about him running in it. 

The sand, I thought about him digging in it with his scoop and pail.

The jungle birds and lizards, I basically had to stop myself from calling him over to look at them.

Don't even get me started on our stroll through town with all the families. Those parents should just be happy I didn't try to pick up their kiddos and give them a long squeeze.

Vacation was great, don't get me wrong. But nothing compared to the happy and excited "mama!" that came out of his mouth the moment I saw him for the first time since being back and him running so hard into my arms that he almost knocked me over. Man, I missed him.

Back into the swing of things and I'm realizing how self-sufficient and older he seems. Words and full-blown sentences were just flying out of his mouth. This kiddo also has himself quite the attitude lately it seems. I want to be upset about it, but it's just too damn cute.

Last night as I was putting him to bed, he all but fought me not to sleep in his room.  He said, "mama I sleep wit you an daddy?" all puppy dog eyes. "No buddy you need to sleep in your room and we'll see you in the morning."

He replied, ever so seriously and basically yelling, "Yes! I said so!" 

And I held strong. Yes I did. Until he started crying big, huge, real tears. Normally I don't give in so easily but I wanted to cuddle with him. So into our bed he came.

He snuggled in, made himself comfortable and immediately said, "Mama rub my belly. See I leave my shirt up for you." And points to his belly, while moving my hand to it. Of course, I rubbed his little belly, bossy or not. 

After he fell asleep I put him in his room for the night and settled in myself. That is, until 4am when I heard him yelling for mama at the top of his lungs.

And I didn't even try to rock him, I wanted more cuddle time, plus let's be honest, I wanted to go back to sleep myself (as if that happened), by the time I got him back to sleep my 4:40am alarm sounded and it was out the door to the gym.

So now I've had my workout, sent a few work emails and I'm ready for work. And look at this guy, would ya? Sound asleep.  And he's going to be quite a bear when I have to wake him up for school here any moment. 

All I can say is that it's good to be back. I've missed this little bed hog.

Linking up with Ashley for "It's the little things."

Happy Wednesday!

#lasiswknd : Part Two, Friday

Nothing like a week later to continue recapping our LA sister's trip. If you missed it, day one is here. Now onto day two. I just know you've been waiting around for it! =)

We got up bright and early, partly because we were in bed at a decent time the night before (roadies and a three hour celeb tour will do that to a couple of old mamas), but also because we were itching to see more of LA.

Since Runyon Canyon is basically an LA must-see, we decided to hit it up Friday morning. And it was beautiful. But it's no joke. We were expecting a nice little stroll, but definitely got our workout on.

These stairs were killer...

But the views of the city were amazing...



Afterwards, we starting the first of our many Kardashian stalking sessions - checking out Dash. We have both been big fans of KUWTK's since the first episode. Yes, I know, it's pathetic, but it's true.

 

We did have fun checking out the store and posing in the fitting rooms. We just had to - we were in the first Dash store! Well kind of, the first was in Calabasas but was closed and moved to this Melrose location. (But, of course, all of you true Kardash fans know that.) =)

We also pretended shop, but lezz be honest, we weren't there to buy. We just wanted to be there. To check it out. To maybe catch a glimpse of them and their papparazzo. (Seriously, I'm making us sound a bit stalkerish, but hey it was our girl's trip and we can stalk who we want to. Am I right?)

We then headed to Malibu and I can tell you we were both in awe when we crossed under the tunnel and as we came out we were looking right out into the ocean. It was beautiful. We then stopped for lunch at Duke's - known for it's view overlooking the ocean as well as for it's fresh seafood.

And because we didn't have any plans that afternoon and we realized Calabasas was so close, we decided to head that way. We had to check out the section of town that we watch so much on KUWTK. Yep. We headed to try and spot the famous Kardashian fam. The only thing that would've made this road trip better would've been cocktails, but remember I was driving us all weekend and definitely wouldn't have risked it. 

Ok, this is where it gets interesting, while we were driving to Calabasas, Tessa had been googling Kris Jenner's house. And we found it. But Tommy, the guard, wouldn't let us past the gate. Even though we promised we were normal fans from Nebraska just wanting to take a peek. Although we might've at first pretended we were a real estate agent and a prospective buyer. Tommy wasn't buying it since we were in our Hyundai Sonata rental. We tried to convince him we needed to be let through the gate so we could turn around, but he wasn't buying that either and made us back up. Damn.

We then googled Kourtney's house, I mean they live just down the road and we had come all that way. Of course, her community was gated too and the line up at the gate was quite long, so we decided that there wasn't an easy way out if we got turned away (and who were we kidding, we would get turned away), so we left. On our way down the hill we saw a black Mercedes parked at one of those blue mailboxes and just as we were passing by we confirmed it was Ken Jeong - like THAT Ken Jeong from the Hangover movies. We wouldn't have believed it ourselves but then Tessa googled his address and it was in none other than Kourtney's gated community. Our first celeb spotting and it's the guy who plays the coke-snorting, small you-know-what man. Eh, it was something. =)  

We determined we weren't going to have any luck in Calabasas to we made our way back to LA and decided to walk Hollywood Blvd, which was just outside our hotel.

I had to take a pic with this guy or Cruz would just never forgive me.

 We saw Dolby Theatre. Which is where the Oscar's take place.

Grauman's Chinese Theater.

Capitol Records....

And the 2,500th Hollywood Star, fresh in the ground from the day prior. I still can't believe we missed J. Lo by mere hours!

My girl Jennifer Aniston's star. 

Dinner that night was Madeo, a hole in the wall Italian joint that we were told is where all the stars hang out. My friend Jill was there the prior year and had dinner next to Lorraine Bracco - who is famously known as the shrink on The Sopranos. Ok, so it's not Brad Pitt, but what do you expect, he is out schlepping his brood across the world. After a delicious dinner, we hopped over the restaurant's bar where we had the best time with the Italian bartenders and chatting up the owner, who had previously been asleep against the wall in the corner of the restaurant. Poor guy.

Many free drinks and shots of Limoncello later, we hit up Chateau Marmont. As we were walking through with the hostess, we asked if there was a section with seats, she must've sensed our Midwest sweetness (or lack of coolness, not sure which) and led us to a roped off VIP table with bottle service. And because we were two lone girls in a private section, there were random dudes approaching us, and our newly favorite hostess did a great job kicking them out of our area, so we could enjoy some cocktails and people watching by ourselves. Just before we imbibed a bit too much and needed to get back to the room to pass out. (Damn, it sure does suck getting old.)

 More of our trip to come later this week. This is one you will want to stick around for...I'm actually on the steps of Kim K's house and I didn't get arrested. Plus, we finally had Sprinkles cupcakes and they had a cupcake ATM. Nothing short of amazing!

#lasiswknd : Part One, Thursday

I can't believe it's been almost nine months since our epic sister's trip to LA (#lasiswknd) and I still haven't talked about it. Well, until now, that is.

I figured the week after the Oscars was better than any time, since we stayed right on Hollywood Blvd where the stars walked the red carpet on Sunday night.

As I mentioned here, Tessa and I had been meaning to get away on a girl's weekend, just the two of us for such a long time. But, of course, our schedules, kids, life, everything always got in the way and took precedence. Until we just made ourselves schedule a weekend away. And it was one of the best weekend's I've had. I love that girl.

And because it was such an amazing trip, I've got three posts scheduled to cover it. Yep. THREE.

 

If you don't like girl's weekends / traveling with your bestie / celebs / LA...then my posts for the next couple of days will not be for you.

 

At the airport, you guessed it, we housed some cocktails before our flight and then a couple more on the way to LA. Hey, it was vacation and we were without kiddos, so what do you expect?

 

 

But I had to sober up toward the tail end of the flight so I could be the driver. Me. Driving on the freeway. In LA. I'm lucky my sis is so trusting.

 

 

 

We headed to The Grove because we had mapped out that we were going to make it to a live taping of Extra...and see us some AC Slater. Turns out you should probably do your research prior and we would've realized Extra wasn't filming there on that particular day. {insert sad face}

 

 

What are two girls to do when their day's plans to meet all kinds of celebs were shot? Stock up on candy and go directly to the nearest patio for cocktails and an impromtu fashion show.

 

We said the candy was gifts for the kids. But I can tell you that candy didn't make it past the first night. Just sayin.

We headed to our hotel - the Loew's if you are looking for a great place to stay - where we got to see the Hollywood sign for the first time. See it in the pic below?! And while we were getting ready for the night, we found out that earlier that day Jennifer Lopez, yes J. Lo, received the 2,500th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Like mere steps from our hotel, mere minutes before we arrived in LA. (planning fail #2).

 

 

This guy made it better.

As we were taking in the sites and walking down Hollywood Blvd, we were approached for a deeply discounted Hollywood homes tour. 

"Can we bring cocktails," we asked. "Sure, I will pretend I don't know anything," the peddler replied.

We had 15 minutes before our ride left, so we high-tailed it to the liquor store across the street and loaded up - two large diet cokes and malibu for Tessa and a bottle of vodka and two big club sodas for me.

We weren't messing around.

The best part? Our ride was a conversion van with the roof cut off. And it.was.awesome.

 

The balcony from Pretty Woman.



 



Charlize Theron.

 

Justin Timberlake's house is just beyond that gate.

 

 

Gate to Tom Cruise's home.

 

If you look up to the top of the pic you can see part of Jennifer Aniston's home. You know I needed my pic with Jen's house. She's my girl.

 

 

 

We were on the tour for about three hours and by the end we were pretty toasted. I can't tell you what a great time it was. Getting a quick overview of LA and seeing the stars' homes, was my idea of the perfect first night.

Here's the deal. The driver could've been feeding us a piece of bullshit and all of the homes we saw may not belong to anyone he said...but I won't believe that. We were amongst the stars that night.

I know you are waited with bated breath for the next day of our trip. Don't worry. It's coming soon. =)

 



Dreams & Other Things

My friend Jill and I have been recently discussing dreams and what they mean.

I have a recurring dream where I'm in a basketball game and I have the ball, but I cannot dribble for the life of me (even though I was a fine dribbler back in the day) and shooting the ball? Out of the question. My arms won't move how I want them to, I keep losing the ball to the other team and I recall the feeling of embarrassment.

I've had this same dream for a couple years now and at random times. I can't figure out what it means.

It makes me think back to some of the crazy ass dreams I had when I was pregnant with Cruz. I heard preggo dreams were wild, but I never thought actually realized it until this dream.

At the time I was a month from having little man and have to admit it scared me a bit more about child birth...and mutant babies.


Speaking of scared, early Saturday morning Cruz woke up crying out for us around 4am.  Besides the fact that I was really enjoying my sleep at that very moment, I had worked late Friday night and was just plain tired, but of course dragged my butt out of bed and across the house.

He was legit crying, big tears coming out of his eyes, when I got to his room.

I picked him up and he sobbed, "mommy, dat guy under my crib keeps tickling my chest. Dere's a guy under my crib."

I stopped dead in my tracks. The hair on my arms was sticking straight up. Being a girl who has watched a plethora of scary movies in my lifetime, I started thinking the absolute worst.

"Cruzer, there is no guy under your bed," I said.

"But mama, dere is. Dere's a guy and he keeps tickling my chest."

I swallowed my fear (seriously I didn't really think there was a guy under his crib, but I was still freaked out), set him in the rocking chair and got on my knees to look under his bed. "Cruz there's only a baseball bat under there. Nothing else."

"But mama, batman is under my bed and kept tickling my chest."

Phew. Nothing at all. But it was enough to scare the pants off me for a mere minute. I still don't know what he was dreaming about, nor do I really want to, but I do know I sure was glad there wasn't a guy under there. =)



Joey Mac Designs

Don't forget about the Joey Mac Designs giveaway we've got going on...you only have until 10pm Monday night to get registered to win one item from her shop. Seriously I saw her post this new creation the other day. How amazing will this look for one of her customer's family pics? Click here to get signed up!

Now off to enjoy the Oscars and some Mai Thai with my boys. Couldn't ask for a better night.

As long as the wacko dreams leave us alone.

Five on Friday {February 28, 2014}

How is it already the last day of February?

This month - shit, this year - have just flown by. At times I want it to slow down, but then others - like this week - I want it to speed by because in a few short days we will be in Mexico. Living like carefree, kidless folk for a few days.

If you need me next week, I will be here.

And I cannot wait. Because if I have to hear the words "polar vortex" any longer, I might just cry.

But for now, it's Friday. And on Fridays I like to talk about five things.

{one}
I ordered this top from Style Lately the other day and I'm loving it. I've paired it with leggings and a cardi, but can't wait to wear it with maxis once it gets nicer. I mean, it will eventually get nicer, right? It just has to.

Style Lately // love top

{two}
I also picked up a new habit. Or I guess you could say picked up an old habit again. A new drive-thru Starbucks opened up on my route to work. It's right outside the one thats inside Target, but of course, I couldn't drag my ass out of the car to get a coffee before, so now it's just oh-so-convenient and I've been stopping in the mornings for a venti cappuccino. Mmmm..coffee.

They also have these asiago pretzel things. Not that I've had one or anything. A warm pretzel covered in asiago cheese? Who would want to eat that for breakfast? Not this girl No, not at all.

{three}
I know some of you joined me in the February Squat Challenge. Today is the last day and we can finally give our legs a little rest! I will admit I was hard core for the first 10 days and then I missed a couple here and there, but I've stayed somewhat on course since then. Today ends it at 250 squats - finished mine this morning and it felt good!

Although I'm pretty sure my back end doesn't look like hers....not sure what gives.

{four}
Thank you all so much for the feedback on my post last Friday about our my new home inspiration and our house hunt. Things are moving along crazy fast and I can't believe I'm going to be a new home owner sometime in the near future.

This week we had house photos taken for our listing, checked out three new homes, had a painter come to give a bid on the house, listed our house and had our three showings.

Makes me think about how much I will miss our place. It may not be much, but it's been little home for the past seven years. And our first home together.

Ok enough reminiscing. Let's be honest, I'm just so excited to get out of here and into a new place. Can I get an AMEN?

{five}
Please don't forget to check out my giveaway! The lovely Joey from Joey Mac Designs was kind enough to offer one item from her shop to one lucky winner and I can't even begin to talk about all of the cute stuff she makes. Like makes herself, with a sewing machine. Crafty people just impress the heck out of me. But get after it, you only have until a couple more days to register - check it out here! Plus, Yellow Mango Life readers get 20% off any order! Just visit her page - and to order send her a PM and the rest is easy peasy.  Good luck!

Have the BEST weekend!

Natasha // Darci // Christina // April