Jack Nolan...

Four Years Ago Today at 4:52pm, One Little Man Changed My Life Forever!  From the 6lbs15ozs and 19 inch long little burrito to my still Teeny Tiny 4 year old that has so much personality, an imagination I am envious of, a heart bigger than he is, a (maybe, slightly unhealthy) love of guns, knives and hunting, a natural athletic ability, with a face that will undoubtedly break many hearts! 

I love you Jack Nolan!  Happy Birthday! xoxo

Me & Jack This Morning!

Birthday Parties ONE - FOUR!

Jack's Birth Day versus his 4th Birthday!

Memorial Day was also celebrated yesterday with The Husband's family.  We make the rounds through SEK and hit up four different cemeteries along the way, then head to Grandpa and Grandma Spear's house for a BBQ lunch.

 

Oswego, KS - I love all the flags at this cemetery! #starsandstripes

Road Trippin'...

Jack was there, but rode with The Husband's parents... #hethinkstheyarecooler

Jack and Kash #cousins

Lastly, to round out the long weekend, we had our first "Oscar Incident"...let's hope it doesn't leave a scar! It won't, but you would have thought Jack's face was gashed open and spewing blood everywhere from Jack's reaction!  #dramaking #divo

 I hope y'all have a good week!!  #itsashortone #twss

xoxo

2012 - Year In Review...

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?  I became a runner, like for real! I trained for my first 5K ever and was hooked from there.  I ran in 3 - 5K's and then did one 4 mile run in December with my bestie Julie!

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

My 2012 resolutions were: 1. Deliver a happy, healthy baby girl, 2. Stop using horrible language in front of Jack, 3. Complete the Warrior Dash in May, 4. Enjoy my family, 5. Get back in shape.

1. Success, 2. Fail, 3. Success/Fail - I didn't make it to the Warrior Dash but I did start running consistently and competed in 4 races/runs in 2012, 4. Success - I guess, 5. In progress - I'm on the right patch, but I wouldn't say I'm back in shape where I'd want to be!

For 2013 I want to: 1. Keep Running - First Half Marathon in September with Molly! Then Route 66 Half in November!, 2. Complete ORB, 3. Keep finding myself as an individual - not just someone's wife and Mom.

 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

I had Norah 1/30/12, Cassie had Piper in October, Kayla had Tyler in March, I'm sure there were others.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Don't think so...horrible answer, but I don't...

5. What countries did you visit?

The Good Ole US of A

 

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012? 

A rockin' hot ass ORB body and more money!  What I'm self-centered and greedy... you know it's why you love me.

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

1/30/12 the day I had Norah Bean.

 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Running... I'm so lame.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Taking time for myself, losing myself in everyone else, being miserable for the sake of others - that shit ain't gonna happen this year!

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Not really, hip issues this fall and then on the very last day of the year on NYE I went and busted my ass in an epic dance floor fall and now my foot is F'd.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

New Car - GMC Terrain, baby!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? 

I don't know...this is about me, not someone else, right?

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

This is such a loaded question.  But I honestly have zero desire to do the petty, HS BS, jealous girl thing anymore - I'm just not interested.

14. Where did most of your money go?

The Children...damn them! 

 

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Not being pregnant anymore!  Getting my new car!  Running!  Meeting new friends!

16. What song will always remind you of 2012?

Taylor Swift - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, you couldn't go anywhere and not hear that song!

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?

Happier, Thinner, Richer...

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Girls Weekends/Runs Combo

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Sitting around being bored

20. How did you spend Christmas?
The norm - family and gifts

 

21. Did you fall in love in 2012?

I fell in love with this wonderful Blogger Mom + Hubby Jack Community and all the ladies I've met and become fast friends with!

22. What was your favorite TV program?

The Voice - Adam Levine and Blake Shelton, yes please!

 

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No, this is a dumb ass question.

 

24. What was the best book you read?

OMG - I got so into reading this year and it's all thanks to Mr. Christian Grey!  But my favorites were "Captive in the Dark" and "Seduced in the Dark" by C.J. Roberts

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Anything with a beat to run to.

26. What did you want and get?

A healthy baby girl, a new car, making new friends and reconnecting with some old ones!

27. What did you want and not get?

To win the lottery, this is another dumb one.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

OMG, we watch so many movies I don't even know, but I am obsessed with Pitch Perfect!  Lawless was also really good - primarily b/c of Tom Hardy. 

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 29 on Jan. 25th.  I don't think we did a whole lot seeing as though I was 5 days away from giving birth!  :-) 

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Husband/Kid-Free Vacation.  I'm horrible, I know!

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?

Fairly stylish, but I think I mastered the art of hiding under my clothing.  Also, a scarf can make any outfit cuter. 

32. What kept you sane?

Vanilla Vodka and Diet Dr Pepper and Running

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Duh...Channing Tatum! 

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

I don't really keep up with politics, oh shit gasp... but really I don't, however I'm sure I'm going to be pretty pissed when I get my check stub this Friday from work and it's a smaller $ amount b/c of some BS Obama tax or whatever. 

35. Who did you miss?

I always miss me some of my 4 best girls - Jenny, Chelsea, Chelse and Julie 

36. Who was the best new person you met?

This is a tie amongst a bunch of people - Holly, Molly, Nancy Clue, Mama L and Aly...since I actually met them in person!  But really all of you ladies are on my best new person/people list!  :-)

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012.

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

 

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

"You can go hard or you can go home!" - will.i.am

NYE Rewind...

I said on Monday that NYE is always a fail in my book, and to be honest for the first hour or so that we were out I thought 2012 would be no different! But then I read some of the responses on FB and My Home Girl (Instagram for those not in the know) and decided to make the most of it...so that's exactly what I did! Making the most of it = Drinking vodka like it was being outlawed, and in the end I had a fabulous night... minus the whole busting my ass on the dance floor and still not being able to walk today! Ouch!

 

Casual NYE Outfit - Black Dolman Top and Olivia Necklace from Hazel and Olive Boutique

NYE Makeup - MAC Eyelashes and Nude Lip

Two of my Fave Girls - Kayla and Amanda

The Backup Husband - Greg.  He is The Husband's BFF and so totally cute (also Amanda's BF)

DJ Nate Kirk on the microphone - he busted out a nice rendition of Bone Thugs

Fave Pic of the night!

Midnight Pic

Poppin' Bubbly

Makin' a Mess

New Year's Kiss for all my Ladies

Looking back on all my posts yesterday I realized I said "You know its a good night when..." like a million times!

So in the end NYE was great, good times with awesome friends and my new BFF Vodka because she never fails me and never leaves me with a hangover the next day!  Score!

Here's to 2013! xoxo

Holidays & In-Laws

I'm posting from BlogPress on my phone so I will apologize in advance for auto-corrected words that won't make any sense, misspelled words, missing words and the all around confusion that will likely result.

I need some feedback and opinions and who better to ask then my closest, almost 100 followers, blogging besties!?

Here's my conundrum... The sharing, or lack there of, of holidays with the in-laws. I've mentioned this before, The Husband's family is very selfish with holiday time... and this applies to all holidays, all year round.

A quick family rundown for me and The Husband...
My Family Low Down - My parents are divorced, have been since I was like 4 or 5. My Dad is remarried to the girl I thought was my babysitter because she is only 13 years my senior. My Mom never remarried and lives alone with her 3 cats. My only brother is engaged to his soon-to-be second wife, he has a 4 year old girl with his ex-wife and a 2 year old boy with his one night stand. Then there is me, the "normal" one.

The Husband's Family Low Down - His parents have been married for 30 years, no one is divorced anywhere within the immediate family. His Grandparents have been married 50 years. His brother is married with 1 kid. His 2 sisters were adopted in the last 6-7 years after The Husband and his brother graduated college and moved out of their parent's house. His Grandparents, Parents, all Aunts/Uncles, his Brother and all his cousins still live in the same town where he grew up. The Husband is the only person in the family that has moved away from his small 3,000 people hometown!

Couldn't be more different, huh? With all the divorces on my side it's hard to schedule things so that everyone can get together - between my mom working Saturdays, my brother arranging both his kids with both baby-Momma's and my Dad bowing down, scared shitless of my babysitter (his wife)... It's a shit storm to say the least. This is why I never really pressed the holiday time/sharing situation. But now that I have my own kids and my brother has kids I feel like the way we've been going about holidays the last 7 years is totally unfair, one-sided and fucked up!

Here is a summary, with examples, of how we spend each holiday:

Easter - We always spend Easter Sunday at his Grandparent's house and wait on the rolls. Then we work in my family the following weekend or even two weeks later.

Memorial Day Weekend - Spear Family Reunion Sat/Sun. On Sunday we visit like 5 different cemeteries all around Tulsa, OK - this is so much fun I almost stab my eyeballs out at cemetery #2 every year! Monday we again meet his whole family (all 23 people in his immediate family on his Dad's side) and spend 4 hours driving all over SEK to another 4-6 cemeteries, on this day I just take a flask with vanilla vodka, get drunk and roll my eyes...a lot! My family does nothing, like normal people.

4th of July - We spend all day at his Grandparent's house sitting outside in the 100+ degree heat. Have I ever mentioned I don't do sitting and sweating? IMO there is never a reason to sweat when you are simply sitting and not moving! Totally unacceptable in my world! Again, my family doesn't get together on Independence Day and read the Constitution or whatever old document that have us freedom was/is.

Halloween (no I'm not kidding) - His parent's have a Halloween party every.single.fucking.year. I get it, he has 2 younger sisters - however, said sisters are old enough (14 and 11) they don't want a Halloween party either!

Thanksgiving and Christmas are where my problem/aggravation lies/lays - do I have an English teacher flower? Which way is that supposed to go!? Lies/Lays?!?

Thanksgiving - Thanksgiving Day we are always at his Grandparent's house. There are always rolls and they are always late! We usually go back to C-Town to see my family like that following Saturday (keep in mind we have to do two-fors in C-Town... Dad and Mom separately). Then The Husband's mother seems to forget that we just had their Thanksgiving on Thursday, and she has another Thanksgiving on Sunday. Yes, I'm serious.

Christmas - This is where I get really annoyed... Christmas Eve, his grandparent's house for dinner and gifts (his family buys gifts for everyone, they don't like do kids only or draw names - needless to say The Husband uses his own money for all of that shit! I think it's ridiculous!). Now, get this shit... Christmas morning, bright and early...like 6am... We have to be back at his parent's house for Santa (we live about 35-40 minutes away from them) no I'm not shitting/teasing/fucking with you. His parents make his sisters wait on us to get there to do Santa and all their gifts. This drives me more bat-shit, I'm going to kill someone, crazy then waiting on the fucking rolls! Then we "hang out" at their house all.damn.day. When do we see my family you ask? Well, usually the weekend before or the weekend after Christmas.

So here are my questions...
1. Is your Holiday situation similar?
2. Do you share or rotate Holidays each year? Like switch off Thanksgiving and Christmas each year with each other's families...
3. Should I demand we share holidays? The major ones anyway...if yes, how should I approach this subject, without being called an even bigger Bitch then I already am, not that I really care though!
4. Give me your thoughts and ideas, PLEASE!!

xoxo Darci

Posted From My iPhone Using BlogPress!

Santa Picture Fail - A Link Up...

Happy Wednesday, Hookstars Friends!
(this is the holiday season after all - friends seems more appropriate, see I'm not a Bitch 24/7...)

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I'm super excited because I'm losing my Link Up Host V-Card today!  If only my Hot Box (Love You Nancy Clue) V-Card could have lasted half as long as my Link Up V-Card maybe I wouldn't have been called a slut in high school!  Oh well, no dwelling on to my "too adventurous, curious, but oh so fun, sorry you boyfriend likes me more than you, them Bitches were just jealous" past and how totally AWESOME it was... man, those really were the days!

Whoa, that quickly went a stray didn't it?!  Haha! 

Ok, today I'm talking about every Parent's favorite way to torture their kids annual nightmare... a visit to see the man, the myth - Kris Kringle, good 'ole Saint Nick, Fat Guy in the Red Suit, Father Christmas, Black Peter (for all you Moroccans, but seriously... Black Peter? that sounds more like something a guy with an awful STD gets...), or if you like the traditional Santa Clause or Santa for short!  We as parents know what we are getting into every year as Christmas nears... the screaming, the crying, the look of pure terror, scarring them for life and potentially turning our children into psychopathic, serial killers that will indeed murder us in our sleep in 20 years!  But every year we do it.  We get them dressed up and "pump" them up for weeks in advance - "Santa is so cool!  Santa is nice!  He's fat, all fat guys are nice! He will bring you gifts!  I'll buy you wwhhhhaaattteeevvveeerr you want if you just sit on the F'n guy's lap..."  Blah, Blah, Blah, all the while praying selfishly to ourselves that we end up with just ONE decent shot for this year's Christmas Card so that our Fat Momma Asses don't have to be on it AGAIN in the dreaded "Family Photo"... Am I right ladies, or am I right?  I know I'm right!

So, let's get to it... I'm going to present these to you in order from Least Funny Horrible to Most Hysterical Horrible!

Exhibit A - Jack's Very First Santa Encounter

Santa Stats

Year: 2010

Jack's Age: 18 Months

Location: Work Christmas Party

Santa Quality Rating: -3

Overall Experience: Boring

 

First, let me apologize for the shitty ass, cell phone quality picture!  I have to say, this Santa even gave me the creeps - he was early 20's, had obvious brown hair, weighted maybe a Buck-Fifty, and gave off the general "I'm going to eat your kids" vibe! Thus the reason for the Negative Three rating.  Needless to say, I couldn't really can't blame Jack for his "Get me the F out of here!" expression!  He also went catatonic, froze and was stiff as a board!  He never screamed, but there was absolutely no way in hell he was going to smile, ever!  All in all, not a horrible experience, boring at most.

 

Exhibit B - Jack's Third, Norah's First Santa Encounter



Santa Stats

Year: 2012

Jack's Age: 3.5 Years

Norah's Age: 9 Months

Location: Images by Stacey Photography Studio

Santa Quality Rating: 10! Motha' F'n 10!

Overall Experience: Fan-Freak'n-Tastic

 

I wish you could see more of the background, but this image is only on the ornament we got - it is what it is!  I love Stacey's Santa - he is the real deal, y'all!  This is the second year we've gone to Images by Stacey for our Santa pictures and we won't go anywhere else from now on!  Jack was quick to climb on Santa's lap and Norah didn't protest to me plopping her big, puffy, diapered bottom right down on his knee either...for the first 30 seconds!  It was about that time you could just see it click on her face..."there's my Momma, there's my Daddy...who the F is holding me?" She promptly turned around, saw Santa's beard, pulled it and started crying!  Me, being the fabulous mother that I am, laughed and told Stacey to keep taking pictures as Norah continued to get more and more upset!  My main man, Jack, thought it was hilarious as well!  Santa proved he is a true professional as he maintained his poise and looked oh so caring/lovingly at Norah!  The proof is in the picture and I love PROOF!  Also, after I grudgingly nabbed Norah off Santa's lap, Jack proceeded to tell him what he wanted for Christmas - a hunting 4-wheeler, a hunting shotgun, a hunting pisshole (pistol), a hunting holster and hunting clothes... seriously, he is The Husband's son. 

 

Exhibit C - Jack's Second Santa Encounter

Santa Stats

Year: 2011

Jack's Age: 2.5 Years

Location: Images by Stacey Photography Studio

Santa Quality Rating: 10!

Overall Experience: Traumatic (for Jack) and Awesome (for Momma)





This picture is the epitome of a Classic Santa Picture Fail!  Classic, I say!  The entire experience, from the moment we stepped through the door at the studio, I knew we were in for some Santa trouble!  As soon as Jack saw Santa, he tensed up and tightened his Kung-Fu grip on my leg! I eventually picked him up and walked slowly towards Kris (Kringle that is), talking to Jack the whole way - "You just have to sit on his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas!  I'll go get you a toy when we are done!  You want ice cream?"  Nothing worked and Jack was not going to be letting me put him down anytime soon, not as long as the Big Guy in Red was in the room.  Stacey asked if I wanted to just skip it... I replied with a quick, "Hell no!  You get ready, I'm just going to peel him off and put him on his lap and see what we get!"  Above is what we got and I love it!  I had literally just peeled my shirt out of Jack's right hand and Stacey snapped 2 shots and we got lucky!  Again, Stacey's Santa had an MVPS performance, smiling at the camera like a sleeping newborn was in his arms - not the screaming, bucking, kicking toddler that was my son!  Best part, as soon as Jack got off Santa's lap and we started to walk away he said, "Now, where's my Elmo?"

 

Now I leave you with our "good" - although boring - Santa Picture for 2012! 

Merry Christmas, Y'all!

xoxo